This is part 2 of my six month backpacking trip. I bought a second interrail pass and started from Utrecht.

Here is my Summary of Part 1

Photos from Part 2

route map
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Cringe moments:

• I was fined 50 euros on a French train because I forgot to activate my interrail ticket. It happened because you scan through the barriers using your sear reservation, not the ticket.
• I missed my expensive cruise in Norway because the departure time was after midnight, which obviously changed the date, but I never realised.
• When I went to the Arctic circle without winter boots (it hurts)
• The silent war I got in with the dormmate who kept closing the window after I opened it for fresh air in Belfast (this went on for 4 open/close cycles).
• I accidentally tried checking out of my hostel in Prague one day early. I had awkwardly go back into my room after saying goodbye to everyone already.
• When it sounded like the Polish dude in the bunk below me in Warsaw was just scratching his arm or something, but it just kept going on, if you know what I mean… yeah... please dont do that
• When I told the attractive server in Istanbul how good my food was with a big smile on my face (only to realise I had tonnes of dates stuck to my teeth)
• Missed connecting train in Paris from Bordeaux to Annecy. Had to pay another 70 euros for ticket despite having interrail pass
• Eating blueberry pierogies during lunch break on salt mine tour in Krakow and staining my teeth and lips blue for the next two hours.
• Breathing toxic diesel fumes for 2 hours on the old Portuguese train to Vigo
• Paying 10 pounds to have my clothes washed in Galway, and then shrunk in the dryer despite asking them not to be dried.
• Going out with a group of 14 people in Saint Sébastien and having the servers bring only one bill. We all had to stand at the bar for 20 mins while they go through every individual item manually.
• When the owner of a restaurant in Antalya tried to make me tip higher than the normal amount and started arguing with me
• Waltzing confidently onto the madrid métro at full speed and smashing my head on the horizontal hand bars (I’m 193 cm tall). I turned around and saw the transit police laughing at me.
• The hostel in Latvia had bedbugs, but thankfully didn’t follow me
• I enjoyed supermarket bread from Switzerland more than any bakery bread in Europe
• Getting traumatised by what I saw in the free public toilet in a Bordeaux park (I’m still recovering).
• Absolutely blowing it at karaoke in Riga (I really envy how extroverts can just own their terrible performances, but I will be cringing about that karaoke moment for decades)

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The Netherlands (3 months in Utrecht) While in the Netherlands, I visited nearly every corner of the country using a weekend OV chipkaart. In Amsterdam, I went out with a Dutch friend I met in my first stop (Lisbonne), and we went out to a comedy show and to a billiards bar (which she planned herself and said 'i know you like watching comedy and playing pool'.. oof ❤️I love it when someone is thoughtful like that, especially since it was six months after I told her those things I fell in love, but didn’t make a move.. she was quite a bit younger than me.
I also went to the beach in Den Haag a few times. One time while sitting there alone, I was approached by two Dutch girls who asked if I could watch their stuff. They then took off their pants, tops and their bras and ran into the water for a few minutes. I was trying to be respectful by not staring... but ngl I did look. I took home 4 little sea shells as a souvenir for each boobie I saw that night. They didn't seem to be interested in talking after they came back tho... so I don't think they were doing it to flirt with me. Or maybe I gave off too much of a 'I'm going to respect you by not looking' vibe, which they confused with lack of interest in them ? Because I basically lied down and ignored them while they were getting dressed out of respect. Any Dutch girls have some insight into this?
---🚂from utrecht to hamboug ---
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Hambourg (3 octobre)
Hambourg was an unexpectedly cool city. I have read that outside of Berlin, German cities can be bland. But that’s not true of Hambourg. It had my favourite buildings in all of Europe: the Speicherstadt. I sat on a bench looking up at these imposing red brick buildings and just imagined what they were like as factories in the early 1900s. I hung out with a German friend I made in Ljubljana, and we walked around the city and had some drinks at a speakeasy called Drip Bar. We then crossed the river this cool underground tunnel and took a waterbus back to the city centre. I stayed at Hostel Auf dem Stintfang, which was full of 14-year-olds when I was there. It also had pillows that felt like they were stuffed with 6 or 7 cotton balls. Good free breakfast with lots of vegan options tho.
---🚂to strasbourg ---
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Strasbourg (6 octobre)
Strasbourg cemented my opinion that France is my favourite European country. What a beautiful city. You can tell the quality of life here is very high. The architecture is a unique mixture of French and German, the cycling and transit infrastructure are great, and the street life is vibrant. I had matcha and a pastry on the terrasse of Origin Coffee Vegetal while people watching, and it somehow became a top 10 moment for me. That’s just how good France is, I guess. I stayed at Ciarus Hostel – not a very social hostel, but I didn’t mind because I had more than enough fun on my own in this amazing city. It might be because I can already speak French, France would be my choice if I moved to Europe.
---🚂to paris ---
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Paris (8 octobre)
Paris blew away my expectations. I’ve heard so many bad things about it, but it was so so good. It wasn’t dirty. It didn’t smell like piss. The métro was clean and fast. There were tonnes of cyclists. The architecture is classy af, and there are so many iconic sights. I stayed at The People Bercy hostel, which unexpectedly put me top floor of the 8-storey building, so I had great views. Normally the good views are reserved for private rooms. I bought a baguette from the nearby Boulangerie Marceaux and ate it on the hostel rooftop terrasse at sunset: it was the best baguette I’ve ever had, and this became another top 10 moment on my trip.
One afternoon while I was waiting to cross the street, I saw a Finnish guy wearing a blink 182 t-shirt and I complimented him. He told me the band was playing tonight, and that not only are the tickets not sold out, but they are affordable too. I was in shock… I had no idea they were playing, and fully expected them to be crazy expensive like they were in Montréal. I was able to buy amazing seats for only 33 euros! To top it all off, they played at Accor Arena, which was only a 10-minute walk from my hostel. It was destiny, I guess. I was able to check off a bucket list experience just by talking to a stranger in the streets. Thanks, Finnish guy 🇫🇮 . While everyone was waiting for the stage to be set up for Blink, I was standing there alone and just chilling when suddenly someone sticks a bag of popcorn in front of me. I look up and see this British couple smiling at me and asking if I want some. They were so friendly, and we ended up talking about our favourite albums from the band. They were in their late 30s and it was their anniversary, so even though I wanted to ask them to join me for a drink afterwards, I thought I might be interfering in their celebration so I didn't ask.
I also took a day trip to Mont St Michel, which is a place I’ve wanted to see forever. Seeing it in person was surreal, although I don’t think I would visit it again. It is great to take photos of from a distance, but the actual town itself is just meh. It’s also pretty impressive that I was able to make it all the way to the coast and back to my hostel in one day using trains. I even had a few hours to explore Rennes.
--- 🚂to London (only takes 2 hours!?)
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London (12 octobre)
I think I slightly preferred Paris over London. London was still great though, and it had a ‘cooler’ vibe than Paris for sure. As well, London is probably the best city in the world for vegan food options, so it gets some points for that too. I went to eat at Unity Diner, which is owned by a popular Youtuber (the fish and chips were 10/10). I was meant to meet an old childhood friend in London, as well as a solo travel friend I met in Bordeaux, but BOTH flaked on me! So I spent most of my time here alone. I rode on a double decker bus to the Battersea power station to take some pictures, and then went to a bar near Sloan square where a met a super flirty Argentinian girl 😏. The next day I went to check out the Greenwich Observatory, which had a great view of the skyline. The rugby world cup was on at the time, so I went to a pub alone to watch while talking to a friendly American girl who sat beside me (she wouldn’t stop talking about Seattle). An Aussie guy from my hostel recommended I go see the Barbican Estate (it was used as MI6 in James Bond), which made for some cool photos. I also visited Bath and Oxford on a single daytrip, which seems excessive, but I only wanted to see Oxford Uni there anyway.
The hostel (Urbanay Hostel) was very close to Hyde Park, so I spent a few afternoons chilling there eating Tesco meal deals. While there, I witnessed something straight out of a Mr Bean sketch: a park worker was driving to empty each bin, and while he was stopped, this unhinged jogger would yell at him for polluting the air with his mini truck. The worker would then pass by this same man on the way to the next bin, and the yelling would recommence. The worker was laughing about it with me while I was sat there. I felt bad so I offered him some prawn cocktail chips (he refused).
After checking out Buckingham Palace I sat on a lawn chair near Paul Mall, facing away from the sun. Suddenly, a man walks up and sticks a debit machine in my face and asks, ‘how will you be paying’? I was like ‘wtf? what do you mean?’, and he points to a sign behind me that says 5 pounds to sit in the chair for 1 hour. I guess even sitting down is expensive in London. I was on the phone with my sister at the time and she was dying laughing.
----🚂to Newcastle ---
I stopped in York for a day trip omw up to Newcastle. Definitely worth a visit for some photos. I also ate an amazing mushroom sandwich at Remedy Coffee Shop, and they served my tea in an edible cup (at least I hope it was edible).
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Newcastle (17 octobre)
For some reason I visited Newcastle instead of Manchester, where I could have chilled with the English girl I had an great time with in Venise (we kissed). I should have gone there instead. If it wasn’t for the Canadian girl I met in Newcastle, I really would have been bored here. We had more fun making fun of the city than actually being there. It did have wild nightlife though... there were a bunch of adults wearing diapers to clubs 😂. We walked around the city and went to an art museum, then sneaked into a university and ate some free snacks intended for students. The next day we went to Sunderland to enjoy a rainy, horrible day at the beach. Still enjoyed it though because I liked the Canadian girl. We went back to our hostel room and had it to ourselves, and I swear there was an opportunity to hook up while we were both sitting on the sofa in the room, or at least make out, but I never made a move (I was afraid someone would walk in). Big regrets!
---🚂to Edinbourg ---
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Edinburgh (20 octobre)
Edinburgh is as nice as you’ve heard it is. The architecture here is 💯, and all the hills make the city even more visually interesting. I stayed in Code Pod Hostel, which was the opposite of social. I tried saying hi to a group of girls in my dorm, but only one of them said 'hi' back, but with very low energy (and her friends started laughing after too). Even in the common room people avoided eye contact at all costs. The highlight for me in Edinburgh is a personal one: the lead singer of my favourite band, a Scottish indie group called Frightened Rabbit, ended his life off the Forth Road bridge in 2018. It was something he hinted about doing for over 10 years (the lyrics to one of his songs mentionned 'floating in the forth'). I took a bus out to the bridge and walked across it for an hour while listening to his songs and lyrics, looking at the water and the sunset. I will never forget that moment, for sure.
Other things I did:
-Wanted to climb up Arthur’s seat but took a shortcut that accidentally led to a different, slightly shorter peak. Im dumb
- ate Tesco meal deals for all three meals
-Went to the National Museum of Scotland (How is this place free? It’s amazing.)
-Took photos in Dean village and walked along the river to the National Galleries of Scotland.
- Visited Stirling and Aberdeen on two separate day trips (Neither were that special, but Inverness was off limits because of a sto
rm).
--- ⛴️ to Belfast, with daytrip in Glasgow. I spent a few hours in Glasgow because the ferry to Belfast didn’t depart until later. I walked around Kelvingrove park and reenacted the famous Limmy Jogging scene. There is also an amazing art shop called the Scottish Design Exchange which had some amazing souvenirs. I got a wooden coaster that says 'Numpty' on it for my brother---
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Belfast (24 octobre)
I almost had to pay 10 pounds for arriving late at the hostel (vagabonds hostel) because the ferry was delayed, but the owner waived it for me. This was a great hostel for making friends. I spent a lot of time with a German and an Indian girl. I might have missed another opportunity for romance when the German girl and I headed back alone to the hostel one night and she not-so-subtly asked me if I had a private room (I didn’t). Other activities:
- explored areas of the city with lots of Troubles-themed murals
- sneaked into an appartement building to try to get rooftop photos with the German girl (and almost got locked in... Note to self: you are not cool enough to be one of those rooftopping youtubers)
- went to the Ulster Museum and sketched our reflections to post on the wall
- Went out with a group from the hostel to play billiards at Lavery’s
- Did a bus tour to the Giants Causeway (we didn’t get nearly enough time here… basically had 25 minutes to see the rocks). But the Indian girl was a good photographer, so I got some great photos for my online dating profile that girls will love to swipe left on
Overall, Belfast was pretty average. It had some interesting history that was still visible today, but was overall quite a grey-feeling city. It’s one of those cities (along with Vienna) that are not particularly memorable from a tourist perspective, but they are probably great places to live. I would add my city of Montréal to that list too.
---🚂to galway ---
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Galway (28 octobre)
I heard lots of good things about Galway, but it was honestly not that nice? When I compare it to small towns in my favourite European country (France), it was not special. The urbanism is crap, the buildings are ugly, it is unpleasant to walk around (partly because of rude drivers), and the weather isn't helping. I really did enjoy my daytrip to the Cliffs of Moher though. Our bus arrived there at golden hour, and the cliffs just looked majestic. Too bad we only had 30 minutes to see them. The tour also included a stop at Inisheer Island where I cycled around and saw some cool views with the farms in the foreground. We were only 15 km away from the Father Ted house, but unfortunately never saw it. The Galway comedy festival was on at the time too, so I went to see Rich Hall.
I stayed at Snoozles hostel. It was nice, but it was mostly group travellers when I was there. In my experience, group travellers are less approachable and less likely to socialise with others.
---- 🚂to Dublin. Stopped in Limerick for a few hours ---
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Dublin (1 novembre)
I was only here for two days but managed to see a lot. I met up with the German friend I made in Belfast, and we went to the Guinness storehouse together. This time she was with one of her long-time german friends, who didn't seem to be too impressed with me. Despite having a good time with her in Belfast, this time there was quite a lot of awkwardness... her friend seemed like she was ready to roll her eyes at me any time I spoke. We later headed out to an Irish pub and watched some live music, which included an amazing cover of the cranberries. It was a cool experience for sure (but still awkward). I walked around Trinity College (really nice campus) and took a train down to Greystones to eat at The Happy Pear. For food, I another fried oyster mushroom burger (which I discovered are fucking delicious after I had one for the first time in Stirling Scotland).
I liked Dublin more than Galway, but it still wasn’t really my vibe. There was an Irish guy from Cork in my hostel room, and he suggested I go to Cork next time I am in Ireland (it is the best city in Ireland according to him). Another thing about this guy: I really envy how characterful irish people are when they speak. They seem to have an amazing grasp on language, and they use so many funny phrases and expressions that make them such a pleasure to listen to. The accent is just the cherry on top. I found myself wishing I could speak like he could.
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--- ✈️ to Tromso... The bus to the airport only cost 2.60 euros, which was way cheaper than most cities ---
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Tromso (3 novembre)
Probably my favourite hostel experience was at Osiris home hostel. It was just a normal Norwegian house turned into a hostel, so it felt very cosy and intimate. I made lots of good friends here (from China, Germany, Ireland, France, HK, India), and we did lots of activities together: went on an aurora borealis tour, got mulled wine from the smallest bar in the universe, went to museums, and just enjoyed chilling in the hostel. The Chinese girl and Hong Kong guy came with me to Storgata (a club that had an indoor mini putt course) and we had heaps of fun (I lost). The next night, after we went on the Aurora Borealis tour, I fell in love with the Chinese girl at the hostel while we were huddling together to warm up. Tromso is an interesting place to visit. It is in the arctic circle, so you get extremely short days during winter, and the surrounding scenery is beautiful.
--- ⛴️to Trondheim ---I’ve wanted to see the Norwegian fjords for a long time, so I finally decided to splash out on a cruise through the fjords. I do not have a driving licence, so it was the only practical way for me to see them. I appreciated that the ship used natural gas as a fuel (making them lower carbon), and that vegan meals were offered. However, I made a crazy expensive mistake by missing the boarding date (450 euros). It left Tromso after midnight (1h30), which obviously means it leaves the next day. So I had to pay for another ticket. Im a fucking dummkopf. Still, going on the cruise was the best decision I ever made. The scenery was beyond incredible… Even nicer than Switzerland. I was able to see a few remote towns while the boat was docked, and in some of them I saw more aurora borealis. 10/10 experience.
I told the server that I liked the bruschetta that they place on every table in the dining area... so this guy walks around and grabs three plates off of other peoples' tables and gives them to me... I just said 'Erik, with the hattrick!' haha I loved him. I also met a Norweigan guy who was fluent in French, so I was happy I could speak it after months of only speaking English (French is my second language, so I'm nervous it could disappear). He told me he did a working holiday in Australia, and I told him about how I was considering going there for a working holiday after I failed in the Netherlands. I told him I was a feeling a bit more apprehensive now though because I know that failure is an option, and there is a housing crisis in Australia as well. He said I should give it a shot or I will regret it. His words are still influencing me!
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Trondheim (10 novembre)
Trondheim was a surprise. It wasn’t on my radar at all - I just randomly chose to exit the boat cruise here. I ended up loving it because it reminded me of my university city in Canada. And like most parts of Norway, it was very picturesque. I went to art galleries, walked along the canals, went to a cool thrift store, and went to a bar with a Swedish guy. This city is just nice to walk around and take photos. I stayed at Trondheim Vandrerhjem hostel, where I met a Dutch guy who happened to have a room for rent in the Netherlands. I hoped would choose me as his roommate, but six weeks later he messaged me and said he chose someone else because my visa only lasted another 6 months 💔
--- 🚂to Stockholm --- 12h trip, but the winter wonderland scenery of Northern Sweden made it worthwhile.
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Stockholm (12 novembre)
I stayed in Skanstulls Hostel, which wasn’t very solo traveller friendly. Most of the people staying there were middle-aged working men. I spent a lot of time talking to one - he was a Swedish guy who stayed there because he couldn’t find an affordable appartement in the city. This guy also happened to be pretty influential on me... He was such a genuine guy and when he shook my hand goodbye and wished me luck in Australia, it felt like he truly meant it.
Stockholm was pretty, but I was there when the weather was cold and grey, so it wasn’t exactly vibrant. I loved seeing all the cool métro station architecture (look at my photos). I also got to see the two Swedish girls I met on a bench in Copenhague in June. We went to eat at Veganska Ölbaren (very interesting menu) and headed to the bar next door for some drinks. We were joined by the boyfriend of one of them, and for some reason we ended up talking about how F1 drivers' necks are fucking huge. Her boyfriend then made me search on my phone 'male hockey players' thighs and asses' because apparently they are also fucking huge. My algorithm has been fucked ever since. Thanks, Swedish girl's boyfriend.
I definitely want to return in the summer, as the Swedish girls told me it’s much better.
----ferry to Tallinn --- This was the coolest ferry I’ve ever seen. It had bars, a club, a restaurant, a grocery store, a cinema… everything. And there were lots of fun people going to the bar and club… and I had a private room. Soo… yeah 😏🇫🇮 ...
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Tallinn/Riga/Vilnius (16 - 28 novembre) I took a bus between each city.
If you’re from one of the Baltic countries, I’m sorry for combining all three here. Each is unique, I’m just getting tired of writing 😅.
I enjoyed all three Baltic cities, but I think Vilnius was the best. It felt like the most ‘complete’ city. The city centre wasn’t abandoned by locals, unlike Riga and Tallinn. I became friends with a Latvian guy in Riga, and he told me: Latvians do not like tourists, and they avoid the city centre. He also said Vilnius is nicer than Riga and Tallinn, especially in the summer. We talked about how Russians and Latvians get along in the country (he said he has Russian friends, but it’s rare for them to interact at school as they each learn in different languages). Tallinn had a very picturesque city centre, but its architecture was very uniform. Riga and Vilnius had more architectural diversity. I went to the Maritime Museum in Tallinn with a Japanese girl, and we both went into a real submarine for the first time (such a cool experience). I also went to a film festival in Tallinn with a Lithuanian girl. I tried being friendly by buying her a ticket, but it turns out she got free tickets to the event because she worked there. She then tried to sneak me into the festival afterparty, but they were strict about seeing our tickets, so I didn’t get in. In Riga, I met lots of cool people as well, and we all went out to multiple bars and did karaoke. I also watched the new Napoleon film in Riga (it sucked). Somewhat random, but Estonia had the most beautiful chocolate bar packaging I’ve ever seen.
The hostels I stayed in were: Munks Bunk (Tallinn), Cinnamon Sallys (Riga), Downtown Forest Hostel (Vilnius). Cinnamon Sallys was the best. Munks bunk was good for socialising at the hostel bar. Downtown forest hostel was OK… Seemed to be no tourists there, and all middle-aged men. They were friendly though, and I still talk to a friendly older Dutch guy I met here.
---🚌 to Warsaw ---
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Warsaw (28 novembre)
Safestay Hostel. The historic centre of Warsaw was pretty small and unremarkable, but the city is large so there are lots of other cool areas to explore. I went all the way to Siekierkowski bridge for a cool view of the skyline. I also went to a park that extends onto the rooftop of the university library (rooftop closed for winter 😡). I then walked to Park Łazienki, which was lightly dusted in snow which made for a great atmosphere (and moody photos). I went into a museum in that huge Stalinist building in the city centre too. I think locals either love or hate this building. I loved it tbh.
I was a bit anti-social in this hostel. There was definitely opportunities to make friends, but for some reason I didn't. I guess sometimes I'm just not in the mood. I wasn't rude to anyone though, I just kept to myself in the common room.
--- 🚌 to Krakow ---
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Krakow (2 decembre)
There was a huge snowstorm that made Krakow look like the inside of a snow globe. It was perfect timing for the Christmas market in old town. I don’t know if they are always so busy, but the market was honestly a little too busy to be enjoyable. At least they had mulled wine, the greatest beverage of all time to drink outside in the cold.
I stayed at Greg and Toms home hostel. The hostel was small so everyone sat together during the free meals and made friends. I went out every night here with people from 🇵🇹 🇦🇺 🇳🇿 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇨🇦 and 🇪🇸. We all did a walking tour together, had lunch, and went to bars. I booked a combined Auschwitz + Salt mine tour (and only paid 30 $CA) – Wow, what an experience. I got goosebumps while walking around Auschwitz, and we were the first group there so the atmosphere was intense. The salt mines were unexpectedly cool as well. Have you ever a professional painting carved into salt? Me either! Overall, Krakow definitely had a nicer city centre than Warsaw, although they were both fun and affordable to visit.
Pierogies.. I ate them many times.
----🚌 to Kosice ---
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Kosice (5 decembre)
Slovakia is so underrated. The mountainous scenery I saw on the bus ride from Krakow to Kosice was incredible. The mountains are so pointy. We also passed by the most amazing castle I have ever seen: Spišský hrad. Man that thing was beautiful to see covered in snow. I stayed in Hostel Vodna 1. It was nearly empty, apart from a Ukranian refugee. We tried to communicate a bit, but yeah… didn’t work 😅. This place also had a free laundry machine! Sweet jesus was that nice to see. It costs so much to wash your clothes in Europe.
I explored the city centre, ate a pretzel at the Christmas market, and took photos. While the city was not exactly cosmopolitan, I still have a soft spot for Slovakia because so many people say it’s not worth visiting. I bought a bunch of souvenirs for my slovakian brother-in-law.
--- Overnight train Kosice to Budapest --- I missed the connection in Szolnok Hungary by 10 minutes (delayed), so I had to pay another 50 $CA to reserve a seat for the next day, plus a last-minute hotel. No refund offered on the ticket either. On the bright side, I saw the coolest museum ever in Sozolnok: the aviation museum. It was FULL of old Soviet aircraft. If you have any interest in Soviet history, this place is a must-see.
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Budapest (8 decembre)
I visited the Romanian girl I met back in Budapest in June. She showed me around Bucarest from the perspective of someone who hates it there, which was actually refreshing 😂. She said ‘I specifically told you not to come to Bucarest in decembre because it sucks’ (she much prefers Cluj). We went to a cool little tea house (camera din fata) and ordered teas with funny names, then headed to a Christmas market (not the one next to the parliament building, she hated that one). We got some mullet wine and strolled around, then headed to the city centre for some pizza sold by weight. This was basically a date, and it was went great tbh (we bonded really well). We had even talked about liking each other after our time together back in Budapest, so there was a big endorphin rush after our date ended (I was buzzing). So yeah, that was my highlight here.
I stayed Nest boutique Hostel. It was only nice because it was new, although they didn’t even wait till it was fully finished renovations before opening. The toilets had no locks on them and people could walk right in (there was just a paper sign sitting on a stool next to the door that said ‘do not open’) 😅. Maybe that’s your kink tho idk.
---🚂to Sofia --- It was in this train station that I was shat on for the second time. A bird took a big diarrhoea right on my phone in my hand and up my arm. The toilet lady didn’t let me in for free to wash it off, so I just washed it on the train 🤢 (yes, I walked around with poo on my arm).
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Sofia (11 decembre)
I stayed at Hostel Mostel, which was the roughest hostel of the trip. The washrooms were nasty, with leaking toilets and constant dirty 💩 water all over the place. The kitchen was tiny and almost unusable if even one other person was there. I think at this point in my trip I was exhausted socially, so I kept to myself here and in Istanbul.
Sofia was a lot nicer than expected. You can tell by the infrastructure that they are not as wealthy as other western European countries, but it was still a beautiful city. Just watch where you’re stepping, because the footpaths are totally fucked (you WILL trip). I also didn’t know there were mountains surrounding the city! The métro and tram system was significantly better than those in most Canadian cities. Walking around the city centre in the evening is my favourite memory here. Sofia has a ‘rough + cool’ vibe to it, like a mini Berlin. One time when I was riding the tram, the driver stopped the tram in the middle of the road and ran to a takeaway restaurant to pick up her order 💀.
--- overnight 🚂to Istanbul --- one of the best train experiences ever. The train cabins were so nice.
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Istanbul (14-21 decembre)
I spent a whole week in Istanbul because it is immense. It must be one of the world’s greatest cities (not that I would know, I haven’t travelled enough). I took SO many good photos here. Everywhere you look there is a great photo, just like in Venise. I stayed in Yolo Hostel on the top floor, which had an amazing sunset view. I think the typical tourist attractions in Istanbul are overrated… it’s exploring the neighbourhoods and taking the ferries that is the best part. The grand bazzar was kinda awful. It seemed to be filled with only four types of shops: perfume, jewellery, carpets, and fake designer clothing. I kept my earphones in and had a big 'fuckity bye' look on my face, so the shop owners would leave me alone.. Only one time did someone try to direct me into the shop gently using his arm I karate chopped him
I headed up to Çamlıca Hill to watch the sunset. You can really get a grasp of Istanbul’s size from up there. It took almost 2 hours to get there from my hostel though. Istanbul really needs dedicated bus lanes. There are not that many vegan restaurants in Istanbul when considering its size, but every one that I went to was amazing. My favourite meal was the mushroom ravioli from Salve Café. . One thing I didn’t like about Istanbul was the air pollution. My lungs hurt after 7 days in the city.
---I bought tickets back to Canada after my appartement search in Netherlands failed. Skyscanner sent me on a weird trajectory back to Canada, through Antalya, London, and Faro. But the first leg was delayed, which meant I missed all the connecting flights. I found myself unexpectedly in Antalya for two days. This turned out to be great, because that place felt like paradise after experiencing cold winter weather in eastern Europe. There were palm trees, citrus trees, crystal blue water, and warm breezes. I never considered going there, but now I will definitely be going back. ---
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The End

And this was the end of my trip in Europe. I went from never seeing a single European country to seeing most of them in only 6 months! It was an amazing experience, and I am in the process of getting citizenship through descent of my grandparents (Dutch and Italian). I cant wait to live there somewhere and learn a new language JUST NOT HUNGARIAN
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link to photos

2024 EDIT, PLEASE NOTE: because these posts range from pretty old to very old, many of the views expressed here no longer reflect my current opinions.
It's real! I actually made this post after a couple of friggin' years since Chronicles came out! You may all register the appropriate level of surprise.
Man, at this point a ton of people here will never have seen one of these at all. So, uh... if you're new, this is a thread series I started after replaying most of the AA series a few years ago, in which I give a little (or decidedly more than little) blurb of my thoughts on each individual character in any given AA game. With this entry I've covered every single game aside from Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I dunno if I'll get to that one, it hasn't got a large list of characters with much depth to go on.
But that's off-topic - here's my list of past cast review posts:

• PW:AA
  
• JFA
  
• T&T
  
• AJ:AA
  
• DD
  
• SoJ
  
• AAI:ME
  
• AAI2
  
• TGAA1
  

... And let's dive into TGAA2.
RYUNOSUKE NARUHODO
It’s here in Resolve that our period-piece hero fully comes into his own as a confident young man committed to a career he knows will suit him well into the future.
I really like most aspects of Runo in Resolve. He’s still got a hilarious dynamic with Susato in which the two of them basically trade the roles of straight-man and eccentric weirdo back and forth scene by scene. He’s matured and gained plenty of confidence, and in particular he’s developed into a very specific something that I’ll get into more in a certain other character’s section of this post.
On the other hand, this game showcases more than Adventures did a negative trait Ryunosuke has in being way too easily-forgiving toward people. This manifests in more than one way, but the most significant is in regards to Prosecutor van Zieks. I criticized Rynosuke’s writing back in the Adventures post for how he basically just stands there in silence and neither says nor even really thinks anything significant in rebuke of the constant displays of virulent racism that Van Zieks throws at him, Susato, and Soseki. Here, if it’s possible, that problem has actually intensified.
See, there’s this one exchange in G2-4 that just... ugghhhh, just look – Van Zieks is talking about how he came to hate Japanese people following his brother’s apparent betrayal and murder by Genshin Asogi (which is a whole other mess of its own, get to it in Barok’s section below), and Ryunosuke says... this.

Ryunosuke:
... I can understand why, now I know the history.

This is just... look, people better-versed in this topic than I am have said it plenty already, but this is a really fucking horribly out-of-touch way to have a character respond to racism. I fully expect that some people reading this post will have an immediate inclination to try and defend the game’s depiction of anti-Japanese racism in the same stupid way as I’ve been seeing since Chronicles launched (meaning unironically suggesting that the writer just being Japanese means he’s automatically incapable of writing racism against Japanese people badly), and it’s such an exhaustingly trite response that I don’t particularly feel like dealing with it.
Aaaanyway, Runo’s a good boy and I think he’s the best-developed protagonist this series has had to date. His character growth is certainly the most cohesive of any of them. Him actually directly saying that he considers Susato, Sholmes, Iris, and Prof. Mikotoba his family is just... I love it. I assume Gina fits in there somewhere too.
SUSATO MIKOTOBA
I’m really disappointed by this game’s use of Susato. We get the fun Ryutaro episode to start, but it has very little relevance to the overall flow of the story, mostly just setting up a couple of lines of intrigue, and only right at the end.
Susato herself has almost nothing to do in the “main” stretch of the game’s timeline. The big mystery left unanswered with her at the end of Adventures was “how the hell does she know the title of Iris’s unpublished manuscript, and why is she being so secretive about it?” and it comes down to “she saw the document on her dad’s desk once and he said not to mention it”. The whole deal with her father falling ill and Susato having to return to Japan because of it? Ehh, it was a lie and he’s totally fine.
Even when the game clearly has plot points that set up for Susato to have some focus and attention, Resolve just doesn’t bother with them. Give you two examples:
1 - Susato’s response to Kazuma’s return and the attitude shift he’s undergone. Something TGAA generally puts a shockingly tiny amount of attention on is the fact that Susato and Kazuma are basically siblings. Following his father’s departure and his mother’s death, Kazuma was taken in and raised by Susato’s father, Prof. Mikotoba. It’s no wonder, therefore, that back in G1-2 Susato was so quick to accuse Ryunosuke when the guy who is essentially her older brother has been murdered.
So, what does Resolve do with Susato’s feelings on Kazuma’s return? ... Not a lot? Yeah, she gets a couple of dialogue exchanges about it and then her feelings are shunted right into the background and out of relevance.
2 - Susato’s understandably very conflicted relationship with her dad. Yujin was in Britain for the first six years of his daughter’s life, and has been awkwardly trying to make amends for that ever since while still being full-time occupied as a university professor. Susato has every reason to still resent her father, especially with how secretive he tends to be. Top that off with the fact that for a short time near the end of the game, she has good reason to think that Yujin might also be Iris’s father, which would mean that he pulled the same “have a daughter with some woman and then bail to another country” shit twice.
... They use this for a ten-second gag of her looking mad and then never touch it again. I just audibly sighed upon writing this sentence, so imagine that sound.
Susato just gets completely shoved out of relevance in this duology as soon as she leaves in G1-5, with only the stupid friggin’ cat-flap maker serving to even try to give her some kind of plot significance after that. If they ever decide to make a TGAA3 as a direct followup to Resolve, I want Susato as the protagonist.
REI MEMBAMI
“This trial has too many old men in it.”
“Oh? Do you have a suggestion for--”
“Add some gaaaaaaaaaayyyyy”
Rei doesn’t really have a lot going for her in the way of character depth or overall relevance, which is a shame. Like I said in Susato’s section, this game really shafts her in favour of focusing on the male leads instead, and it shouldn’t have done that. Here’s her best friend Rei, serving as yet another potential avenue for digging into Susato’s character, and if you didn’t know from the outside, you’d think she’s going to be really important. Kazuya Nuri sure likes her enough to keep drawing her in basically every ensemble shot of TGAA2’s characters. But in the actual game he created her for, nah – she’s barely present, and barely relevant even when she is there.
Anyway, she’s fun enough for her blatant crushing on “Ryutaro” both before and after she’s realized it’s really Susato in disguise.
But seriously, Rei – you’re a medical student, you have to know how poor a choice “let’s pull the knife out of the stab wound to ‘help’ the victim” is.
JEZAILLE BRETT
Dead, nobody’s crying about it. How often do you get an AA victim whose postmortem flashback screentime is pretty much all there to make you think “I’m sure glad they’re dead”?
RAITEN MENIMEMO
This guy is fun and charming enough to make up for a lot in this episode. Hard to particularly fault him for offing a professional assassin who treats him with openly racist contempt and derision. If only he didn’t go and frame Rei for it. It’s always somethin’.
Considering that his main role in the story is just to very violently tie off TGAA1’s loose end with Jezaille and then drop a very loud hint about the conspiracy you’ll spend the rest of the game uncovering, I think Raiten does a very good job of leaving an impression.
One little weird thing, though: his design and his age feel mismatched. This guy is 38. He doesn’t look any older than Ryunosuke and company, but he’s damn near forty. Now, if you look at his concept art, you can see that a whole lot of his early design sketches make those versions of him much visibly older. It can make you wonder if his age was decided on back when he clearly looked older, and never altered even when he got a much more youthful, energetic redesign.
SATORU HOSONAGA
A dedicated, capable man. A very silly, dedicated, capable man, wearing a man’s turtle.
I guess it feels a little weird that G1-1 and G1-2 made Hosonaga seem all geared up to be a main character before he promptly dropped off the map for the rest of that game. Here, he’s around for a few fun callback gags in G2-1, and then gets one flash of actual story relevance near the end of the game through his actions offscreen. Nice, but it really doesn’t provide much to say on him beyond what I said for Adventures.
TAKETSUCHI AUCHI
Still a charming Payne, and he has a couple of good gags. Not much else to get into.
SOSEKI NATSUME
I don’t know how much dispute I’ll get on this one, but by the time you get to G2-2, I find that TGAA is really going overboard on the use of Soseki as a character. All around I feel like G2-2 is a really unnecessary episode that didn’t need to be here, and the hours with the exact same version of Soseki you already defended in G1-4 don’t benefit him or the game at all. We covered all this ground already. We don't need to see it all again.
Seeing him all confident and successful in G2-1 is much more fun.
IRIS WILSON
So, when it comes to Iris my feelings are mostly unchanged from the previous game. She’s very funny, and it makes her endearing, but she still feels pretty out of place in this setting. Her mega-genius status still doesn’t feel particularly credible even by the obviously unrealistic standards of Ace Attorney, and unfortunately this game eases off of focusing on her relationship with Gina, which in Adventures was the part of her I considered the best. Still, she does get a small few very nice moments in here, most particularly in the ending when she reaffirms that no matter who her mysterious birth father is, Sholmes is her dad in every way that counts.
HERLOCK SHOLMES
Sholmes is top-notch in this game as both a comedy character and a force of actual plot progression. Never before has an AA character been able to provide so much excellent physical comedy. That’s true all across TGAA1 and 2 as they take extensive advantage of their 3D character models to do things the 2D games never could, and it’s especially common with Sholmes.
At a glance, you’d probably assume that this adaptation of the original Doyle character is a huge departure from the original, but having read the entire Sherlock Holmes canon, I can say he’s really not. Yeah, this Herlock Sholmes amps up the weirder aspects of the original character considerably, but those weirder aspects were there already. Original-stories Sherlock Holmes would climb on top of furniture and belly-crawl nose-down all over a carpet just to search for some trivial scrap of evidence in just the same kinds of bizarre investigative techniques we see our Sholmes doing.
Of course his humanity also shines through a lot in this game, building further on the “serious when he needs to be” attitude that he showed off in Adventures. Sholmes works in the background to try and steer events away from total catastrophe, and well... I guess we all already know where that can be good or bad for the story. The elephant in the room with this is the hologram trick at the end of the final trial. I’m not gonna defend it, but before I get to that...
The friendships that Sholmes displays throughout this game are great, but of course the best point is his relationship with Iris. Like I said in her section, these two have an adoptive father-daughter dynamic just as heartwarming as Phoenix and Trucy’s in AA4.
Now, the hologram - know what would’ve been cool? In the final trial, there’s that whole moment where Stronghart has not only admitted to deliberately staging murders over the course of ten years for the “good cause” of creating a crime-free London, but he’s proven to be such a good speaker that he actually gets the organized judiciary to agree that it was the right call. Now, could it be that this game has a whole-ass new game mechanic dedicated to convincing a panel of people to shift their opinion on something they’ve all agreed upon? Does this not seem like the perfect place to bring the Summation Examination gameplay element to a peak? Dunno, maybe I’m just nuts.
Ultimately I assume the trial’s conclusion coming down to a Sholmes Ex Machina like this was a budgetary necessity. You can already see right from the start of G2-4 that the game is really starting to struggle under the strain of budget limitations in how much it reuses assets from earlier in either game, and I don’t imagine this was much different. Still, doesn’t exactly make a satisfying final strike against Stronghart no matter how funny Sholmes doing it is.
JOHN GARRIDEB
Not a lot to say here. Nothing’s really changed with him, aside from how the usual AA continuity lockout between games makes him suddenly deeply averse to acknowledging his wife’s existence. Honestly he’s better off without.
OLIVE GREEN
What a good anti-villain she is. In fact, she’s pretty much exactly like Katherine Hall of Investigations 2 – their story circumstances are extremely similar, as are the actions they take in the present-day motivated by the wrongs done to them and someone they cared about in the past.
Olive is suicidally depressed and all around a wreck who feels there’s no point to her being alive besides making Shamspeare answer for the death of her fiancé, and wow, is it ever effective for G2-2’s enclosed character story. I might consider this episode overall really superfluous, but it explores some cool themes well. And for a little more on that note...
QUINBY ALTAMONT
Congratulations, Quinby, on being one of the only jurors to actually get a character entry to yourself. First I want to comment on “Quinby” just all around being a fantastic name. Did you know she doesn’t actually have a first name in the Japanese version? There she’s just “Mrs. Altamont”. Giving her a great pun to fit in with the gas company’s visual theme is a strong improvement.
But anyway, Quinby’s not exactly a deep, engaging character. “Stop stealing our fucking gas” is pretty much as far as she goes. Now, that’s not to say there’s no merit in here – another theme G2-2 explores is the socioeconomic class disparities of Victorian London. The major players of this episode give good perspectives into that theme, and it sort of makes me wish that Quinby had just a bit more screentime to dig further into that, probably outside of the trial. Ah well.
ADRON B. METERMANN
Back in G1-4, they gave Metermann as much quick setup as they gave to Shamspeare, but by comparison he practically doesn’t exist even here. Metermann is such a nothing character it’s hard for me to say much of anything besides how the fuck is this man 23 he looks like Popeye after a series of bee stings
DUNCAN ROSS
Dead, apparently a good, earnest fellow. Nothing more to be said. Well, okay – show of hands, how many people first saw the photo of him and assumed he would be Olive’s brother instead? He sure looks the part.
SELDEN
Shamspeare’s boyfriend from prison got one paragraph of flashback dialogue, I’m counting him. Look, he has a whole profile image that’s never actually shown properly in the game!
WAGAHAI
cat
WILLIAM SHAMSPEARE
Incredibly entertaining bad guy, but what a total bastard this guy is. Very much a case study in the “me me me” style of character morality, where clearly he views himself as morally okay in whatever he’s doing regardless of how his actions might impact other people. Sure, he doesn’t intend anyone to be killed, but he spares shockingly little time for the actual risk of it happening and then is much more concerned about himself when it does.
The game sure doesn’t waste his design – Shamspeare has the highest number of unique animations of any AA character ever.
THE JURY
This time I’ll actually talk about them. I... don’t like the jury mechanic very much. I’ve already talked a little in this post and the previous about how it feels to me like their presence removes a large chunk of the game’s ability to present deep, interesting witnesses. You don’t get many Adrian Andrews types when the courtroom has at minimum twice the normal number of people in it, and nearly every juror in this duology is a one-note gag character who has just one single joke to hammer in over and over.
Over and over the jurors alternate between two states – the first is them all talking way too much and accentuating the problem TGAA already has with characters excessively beating around the bush with points. The second state is them just vanishing completely for anywhere up to half an hour of game before they ever speak at all again. Conceptually the jury is a cool idea, and I like certain aspects of the Summation Examination, but on the whole I don’t think this mechanic was much of a hit, and I hope it doesn’t ever make its way into the mainline games.
ODIE ASMAN
Dead bastard, silly name. Next.
ALBERT HAREBRAYNE
I like him. It’s a pity that TGAA waits until just now, eight episodes out of the total ten to finally start establishing anything that really humanizes Barok van Zieks properly, but anyway, using an old college friend of his who insistently still sees him as the much happier and more well-adjusted person he used to be is a good touch.
Harebrayne is a pretty charming character all on his own, and there’s an especially hilarious moment where he independently argues himself out of a bad situation in the trial... only to immediately fuck up right afterward and pretty much undo his own effort to reduce suspicion on himself.
More on the whole deal with Van Zieks when I get to his section below.
BALTHAZAR LUNE AND GOTTS
Lune is just so damn jolly that I like him a lot in spite of his lack of importance. Gotts fortunately narrowly avoids having his attitude shift from funny to just plain irritating, and together these two have a hysterical witness stand dynamic.
All around, the first trial day of G2-3 is spectacularly good at setting you up to think you’re playing a “standard” irreverent AA mid-game case full of nonsense and silly characters before everything gets subverted. These two contribute a lot to that effect.
GINA LESTRADE
... Got shorted pretty badly in this game. Maybe it’s fair, honestly – she had an excellent character arc in the previous game, and so here she’s just established in a new life situation and ultimately doesn’t get developed much more. Regardless, I wish she didn’t just drop completely out of all relevance as soon as her last testimony bit in G2-4 is over.
Something that absolutely should’ve gotten more focus and attention is the fact that she somehow got from “has no reason whatsoever to put her trust in Gregson after he tried very hard to have her wrongly jailed to cover the government’s collective ass” to “treats Gregson as a trusted and admired mentor and father figure” in the space of just a few months. I like the idea of Gina having become so close with a “grown-up” after her whole deal in the previous game, and her friendships with the main character group are still good, but seriously – Gregson must have done one hell of a job apologizing and making up for his treatment of Gina back in G1-5 to get to this point, and we don’t get to see any of how it happened. Total waste.
TOBY
Adorable doggo, even when he’s mauling Ryunosuke. Bold of them to have a joke about that in the same game that establishes a serial killer who used his hunting dog to kill people.
ESMERALDA TUSSPELLS
Gorgeous, spooky lady, everyone knows that. She’s cool, I guess – there’s much more “plot device for intrigue” to her than there is complexity or depth.
Until I met her, I wouldn’t ever have guessed I’d see so many people online who would apparently be A-OK with having a lady pour boiling wax on them. Takes all kinds.
ENOCH DREBBER
First note, very weird choice of Sherlock Holmes character to borrow a name from. It’s hardly the first time TGAA used a Holmes character name for someone who has nothing in common with them, but this one especially feels strange because there’s another Holmes story with a character who would’ve been a very good fit – Victor Hatherley of The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb. An intelligent engineer who was nearly murdered by a man who commissioned some work from him, in an attack that led to him violently losing a thumb. Here we have this game’s version of Enoch Drebber, who is an intelligent engineer who suffered great personal damage as a result of his association with Asman, and who wears a mechanized hand enhancement. Seems to me he was perfectly set out to be named Victor Hatherley, rather than borrowing the name of the evil death cult Mormon from A Study in Scarlet.
Anyway, wow, excellent character. Drebber is a top-notch exploration of the same “he who fights monsters” theme that TGAA repeatedly returns to and which I mentioned with Graydon back in my Adventures post. He’s gotten so fixated on the idea of long-winded revenge on a horrible bastard who destroyed his reputation and chances in his career that he doesn’t even consider that his plan to manipulate Harebrayne will result in exactly the same thing happening to another promising young inventor.
I want to specially mention that Drebber’s “breakdown” is pitch-perfect for the place he’s in mentally when it arrives. He has all these excessively bizarre mannerisms to his other animations that of course you expect an explosively over-the-top breakdown. Instead he’s made to listen to Ryunosuke outlining exactly what terrible results his self-centred actions have risked or outright caused, and it all hits him so hard that all he can do is slump in utter shame. I think it’s a fantastic moment.
MARIA GOREY
So... exactly what makes her so incredibly popular? Like, she’s easily one of the most well-liked TGAA characters there is, when I’d bet she isn’t even in one collective hour of the game. Sure, I do think she gets a good character scene or two in that very limited time, but she’s barely present at all.
I don’t want to think it’s really just that she’s “cute goth girl”, because that would feel like a very disappointingly shallow reason for her to be so popular, but I don’t see many other options.
COURTNEY SITHE
Underused to a pretty severe degree. It almost feels like she had a much more prominent story role that was abruptly written out. I don’t find I can say that much about her because any avenue of interesting characterization she has gets cut off so fast as she’s given a last-minute reveal as the real culprit in G2-3 and rushed out the door.
PEPPINO DE ROSSI AND FABIEN DE ROUSSEAU
Both funny, both kinda dicks. These two are part of something I find very weird about G2-4, and on that note...
VENUS AND “SANDWICH”
I feel really conflicted about how G2-4 sets up a fantastic emotional gutpunch with Gina sobbing her way through telling you that Gregson has been murdered and then the trial being a complete farcical circus centred on the above two and these ridiculous weirdos. It’s a level of tonal clash I don’t usually find AA has problems with, but here it does come off as messy to me.
At least they’re funny. Venus must have stolen some of Espella’s concept art for her look.
DALEY VIGIL
A rare instance of a non-murderer TGAA witness I think actually manages to avoid just being there for depthless comedy. Vigil is a very good addition to this story, borrowing a Holmes twist wholesale but also being worked into the greater complexity of the conspiracy storyline as a victim of multiple other characters’ manipulations, all of which drive him into a very tragic place.
EVIE VIGIL
She seems nice, I guess? Obviously cares about her husband. She also has one line I refuse to read as anything but her saying Van Zieks and Harebrayne should date.
BARRY CAIDIN
I’m so sorry, all of you unused to the idea of trying to parse a Scottish accent, especially in plain text. This man must be incomprehensible.
Not a particularly good guy, but there’s a good sense that he has a lot of regrets tied up in his involvement in the conspiracy of the past.
TCHIKIN STROGENOV
original Russian do not steal
KLINT VAN ZIEKS
There’s not really a ton to go on with the totally posthumous character that is Klint, but I’ve seen some neat fan content digging into him and his association with the rest of the “ten years ago” traveling group. Once again, we have “he who fights monsters” all over this guy as he turns to murder to eliminate a noble with such wealth and influence that no efforts of the law could touch him. This decision inadvertently turning him into Stronghart's attack dog (haha) is a twist I think lands just fine.
GENSHIN ASOGI
Same as with Klint. I guess it feels a little strange how obsessed Kazuma is with the idea that there’s no possible way his father could ever have killed anyone when it’s like... Kazuma, you were like seven when your father left. You did not have a fully-formed understanding of the person he was, no matter how much you want to think you did.
BAROK VAN ZIEKS
I just don’t care about or like him. I still don’t find his “comedy” gimmick of doing over-the-top things while staying totally stone-faced funny beyond the first one or two times a “new” spin on it is used. It’s true that he’s considerably more reasonable about arguments on average in this game, at least.
That in itself presents kind of a problem in G2-2, though. That episode is supposed to be snapping back in time to the space between G1-4 and G1-5, and yet there Van Zieks acts drastically more fair and reasonable than in either of those two episodes, like they’re applying his end-of-G1-5 character development retroactively to the time before that episode happened. It’s both weird in G2-2 itself and makes G1-5 retroactively weird, as if he’s just rubber-banding back and forth between reasonable and total racist dick with no obvious continuous thread for it.
But speaking of Van Zieks’ racism, I have to get back to the earlier point raised with Ryunosuke. There’s something it’s important to hammer in here, so all of you in the back, pay attention; a person does not “become racist” just because someone of a different ethnicity from them did something to upset them. That's not real. It doesn't happen. A person who would make that leap was racist in the first place. Van Zieks has spent his whole career prosecuting white people from his own continent and you don’t see him concluding all Brits are lying criminal bastards.
Now, okay – very important that I note how he does acknowledge this. You remember that Ryunosuke line I quoted earlier? It comes right after Barok remarks that he knows it wasn’t rational for him to hate and blame all Japanese people for the actions of one he was betrayed by, but then, here we go again, the whole thing gets mucked up by the worst piece of dialogue in the entire duology, where Ryunosuke straight-up says “it’s understandable that you’d hate my entire race for that”. No, fuck off, Runo. Drop this gross, sanitized fantasy version of racism where it’s depicted exactly the same way as any past silly prosecutor gimmick like Franziska whipping people.
It’s frustrating and weird that it takes until the eighth episode out of ten in this subseries for us to ever see Van Zieks outside of the courtroom or cutscenes. Even more so because he pretty much instantly becomes much more engaging a character as soon as you visit his office for the first time and see him have to stand there and just react with bafflement to Ryunosuke’s level of weirdness outside of the courtroom setting. Seriously – you never see him outside of the active prosecutor role in Adventures, and while that does help to serve that game's whole intrigue surrounding him as “the Reaper”, it doesn’t do much to make him feel developed or particularly human.
So anyway, Van Zieks just doesn’t hit many positive notes for me, and I mostly find him boring.
TOBIAS GREGSON
I already talked about how weird it is to have the game brush right past whatever had to happen for Gregson to patch over the fragments of rubble that had to be his relationship with Gina to get to the point that she trusts and looks up to him so much here. Instead of going over that again, I’ll say that I really like the deeply morally-grey direction Gregson is taken in late-game here.
Rather than simply being a pretty average beleaguered police inspector, Gregson is a very tired shadow of his younger self, having spent years and years on end as just one cog in a bloody machine Stronghart has been running. He’s so exhausted with it all that for all of his disagreements with the actions of his superior, he just doesn’t care anymore. He knows he’s far too deep in on Stronghart’s conspiracy to have any way out of it anymore and recognizes that his part will all but certainly end in his death one way or the other. It’s only when Gina ends up as his apprentice that he finally has something to live for again, and all he wants is to ensure her security and prosperity, preferably far away from London.
He’s not a good man at all, but he’s found one last opportunity to do something worthwhile for someone else, even knowing he probably won’t survive to follow along.
KAZUMA ASOGI
So, I just don’t particularly like Kazuma here. Conceptually I do like some of the ideas this game explores with him, but out an overall level I kinda think he was better off staying dead.
Let’s look at those ideas I like conceptually; the first one is Ryunosuke and Susato both having to learn that they never really knew Kazuma as well as they thought they did. If you think about the timeline, it’s kind of funny how incredibly reverent of Kazuma Ryunosuke was prior to seeing him alive again. According to the Escapades skits, they knew each other for about half a year. They met and became friends just a few months before Kazuma’s trip to Britain at the start of TGAA1.
This aspect of Resolve’s story actually works even better when you consider that angle. Ryunosuke has idealized this vision of his best friend a huge amount, and so despite not actually knowing what Kazuma’s “mission” in Britain is at all, he’s determined to find some way to carry it out in Kazuma’s place. He couldn’t possibly entertain the idea that Kazuma’s mission, whatever it was, was not something fundamentally good. This makes it all very shocking for him when Kazuma turns up alive and Ryunosuke not only has to deal with his friend basically brushing off his efforts to reconnect, but also finding out some seriously dark stuff he never knew about Kazuma’s actions and motivations.
There’s also Susato’s reaction to this, but... well, we saw that in her section.
The second concept I like is how by the end of all of his character growth, Ryunosuke has in every way that matters become the person he previously thought Kazuma was. Ryunosuke is that shining heroic ideal of a lawyer standing in court to fight for the truth, however painful, in the aid of those who need his defence. As Kazuma is angrily trying to steer the final trial back to accusing Van Zieks again and again, Ryunosuke tells him right to his face that it’s not Kazuma he’s trying to help with this.
Of course, when I look further into the game’s use of Kazuma post-revival, I just don’t like him very much. He’s an abrasive jackass utterly obsessed with his own single interpretation of how the events of the Professor case went, too insistent that his father could never have been in the wrong to even entertain the idea of there being anyone to blame besides Van Zieks until he’s forced to. Plus, further on that, in the Professor case, Van Zieks was very clearly just the stooge placed on the prosecutor’s bench to oversee a rigged slam-dunk of a trial. It’s true that Barok very much wanted to handle the case, but he was in no way the one responsible for it, and any amount of reasonable examination of the events would tell Kazuma that if he could get his head out of his ass long enough. He makes irrational, unreasonable, and at times downright stupid arguments during the trial, and it doesn’t win him any points with me when all it’s doing is serving to repeatedly make and re-make the same point about how obsessed he is with demonizing Van Zieks specifically.
I don’t buy the ending’s attempt to portray Ryunosuke and Kazuma as “friends” with such an ironclad connection when the final two episodes have pretty much outlined that the two have never really understood each other on a deep level, and Kazuma has spent most of that time being a total jackass.
YUJIN MIKOTOBA
Seriously impressive that just two episodes could take Susato’s father from being a character I found dull as anything to being one of my top five favourite TGAA characters.
Yujin has no shortage of flaws, his years-long estrangement from his daughter being the biggest. He wants to make amends with Susato, and you can see that it’s a messy, difficult process for both of them.
Of course, as the real “Wilson”, he’s a clever, charming accompaniment to Sholmes with one hell of a theme music track.
SEISHIRO JIGOKU
I suppose he feels underused like Sithe? I like the narrative angle that Jigoku was a good guy before Stronghart’s conspiracy drew him in, and that in the present day he still mostly acts like a reasonable, fair judge. He just, y’know, happens to be gladly complicit in a murderous international conspiracy because he’s way too ambitious for his own good or anyone else’s. Ambition is what destroyed him.
MAEL STRONGHART
When you walk into Stronghart’s office and meet him for the first time, it’s not just predictable that he’ll be a villain. The most immediately predictable possible choice would be for him to not just be a villain, but the top, main villain of the whole duology.
... And that’s exactly what he is. There’s no twist to it. The most incredibly predictably evil bad guy is the evil bad guy. Well, maybe it is a twist after all that a face as friendly as this could be anything but an upstanding fellow.
So Stronghart... works as a villain. He’s fine. He serves his purpose alright. He’s just... not much to write home about. Perfectly average final antagonist and one who at least avoids being quite as bad about clearly having way too much power to believably lose as some other villains in the post-original-trilogy parts of the series.
His Damon Gant parallels are clear, and they all work alright. I just can’t say a lot about the guy. My last comment is that it’s really weird and kinda uncomfortable how he manages to talk the entire organized judiciary into agreeing with him that staging a whole bunch of murders over the course of a decade was actually a good idea to preserve peace in London, and then you never discredit him on it. He’s defeated by Sholmes exposing his conduct and actions to the Queen, and then no one ever talks about the implications of his impact on the legal system (or the impact his arrest will no doubt have) again for the rest of the ending. This is going to send decades’ worth of shockwaves and cause all manner of civil disruption and chaos, and they just drop it and forget about it immediately.
QUEEN VICTORIA
... Queen Victoria is a character in this game.
And that's that! I'm all done, following well over a year of putting off working on this damn thing. Hope you've enjoyed it!
... At this point I feel like I need to replay the whole series again and reevaluate a bunch of the contents of these posts.

This post details the history of Channel Awesome, home of the popular internet show The Nostalgia Critic, and how it turned from one of the biggest alternative media sites on the Internet to a wasteland relic of a bygone era after a document detailed the extensive list of grievances with the management.
Disclaimer: I asked the mods for their blessing in writing up this post as it's ambiguous whether or not it qualified and they said go for it so here we are.

The Odd Life of Douglas Walker

Doug Walker’s internet career started in 2007 when he started making videos as the Nostalgia Critic. In these videos he would tear apart bad movies from the 80s and 90s, making note of the impact of these films on him as a child and then detailing the plot with clips from the movie, intercut with jokes, sketches, overdubs, and memes. The punchlines would usually include the Critic screaming and ranting about perceived problems with the films.
The content aged about as well as you would expect from that description but the important thing to note is that he got very popular on YouTube, very quickly. The only problem was that his reviews violated the fair use agreements of the time. Doug thought that his reviews counted as fair use under the Satire/Parody Distinction of the fair use section of copyright and trademark law. His reasoning was that since he was making fun of the films he reviewed, it counted as satire. This premise was flawed since his reviews didn’t simply make fun of small sections of whatever film he was reviewing, but served as a substitute for watching the said film in its entirety, albeit with insignificant subsections dedicated to humor.
A lot of his videos were taken down so he started uploading his videos via Blip in 2008 on his brand-new website, ThatGuyWithTheGlasses. It was launched with the intention of becoming a media empire rivaling YouTube, with several dozen dedicated producers making content reviewing all artistic mediums of the time. There were producers reviewing video games, comic books, anime, music, and even porn. ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com shut down and rebranded itself as Channel Awesome in 2015 and will be referred to as such for the remainder of this post
The company was started in 2007 by Mike Michaud but only got big as soon as they recruited Doug Walker and launched the original website in 2008. It grew very popular very quickly (Nostalgia Critic alone received over 1 million views per month), and enabled each of the creators to make a living off the advertisement revenue and eventually it went on long enough for Channel Awesome to release special anniversary movies written by Doug and Rob Walker (his brother and co-writer) featuring all the most popular producers on the site. It was the most ambitious crossover in cinematic history until the release of Avengers: Infinity War.
The first special was Kickassia (2010). Channel Awesome’s team of reviewers (all in character) head to a Micro nation called the Republic of Molossia in Nevada to take it over. The Critic is announced as the new ruler of the renamed Kickassia but things go wrong as soon as the other producers realize that the Critic is a horrible leader and the team devolves into infighting. This goes on for 90 minutes until they give up and go home.
The second film was Suburban Knights (2011). Nostalgia Critic finds a map leading to the source of all magic but in order to access it, every creator must dress up in cosplay. This of course means that the two-and-a-half-hour-long movie is almost entirely comprised of the producers making references to fantasy media as characters from those fantasy media.
The third and final film was To Boldly Flee (2012). The plot is that the plot sucks. No, seriously. One of the Critic’s friends discovers a rip in space-time located on a moon of Jupiter called “the Plot Hole”, that has the effect of making the movie that they are currently starring in completely shit. I am not making this up.
The film mostly consists of an endless amount of subplots entirely lifted from sci-fi movies. Literal entire several-minute long scenes from Star Wars, Star Trek, Judge Dredd, the Matrix, Ghostbusters, Men in Black, and Robocop are performed by Channel Awesome producers shot for shot, line for line, word for word except they replace the names of the characters in the original films with the names of the producers, shove a few awkward jokes in, and change a couple of the concepts to be film-related. So instead of “I sense a disturbance in the Force” it’s “I sense a disturbance in the plot”.
There’s also a subplot where General Zod from Superman 2 and John Travolta’s character from Battlefield Earth attempt to use copyright law legislation passed by the United States Congress in order to prevent the Channel Awesome producers from reviewing their films by placing the Nostalgia Critic on house arrest as revenge for the Critic blowing up their planet by lighting a cigarette in their flammable atmosphere. If that sounds ridiculous, it’s because it is. If that sounds funny, it’s because you clearly haven’t watched it.
At the end of To Boldly Flee, the Nostalgia Critic enters the plot hole, wakes up in a house in Chicago where he runs into… Doug Walker?! The writer of To Boldly Flee? Is this a postmodern metanarrative twist or Walker sucking his own dick? Yes. Doug explains that he wrote the Nostalgia Critic’s entire character for his internet series until the Critic gained some degree of consciousness and possessed him to write To Boldly Flee in order to get to a point where he can make a decision to escape the film designed for him and take his place in the real world at the cost of letting his friends die to the plot hole. The Critic instead decides to sacrifice himself by becoming one with the plot hole and ascending to a higher level of being to save his friends. He dies.
This movie is three and a half hours long.
The films were received poorly by pretty much anyone who wasn’t already a fan of Channel Awesome and their producers. You can find several YouTube videos dedicated to chronicling exactly why they sucked. Criticism was directed towards the poor audio and video quality, the poor overacting, the poor shot composition, poor cinematography, poor action scenes, poor visual effects, poor lighting, poor directing, poor pacing, and the poor state of mind of the audience immediately after viewing these films. Every scene was written so that every single cast member (so like 20 different people) had at least one line in every scene, making the scenes go on for several times longer than they needed to. Doug also had a habit of writing his own characters in such a way that he makes other characters look stupid. He writes himself as the guy who will point out something going on in an obvious way and making the other characters look embarrassed or ashamed for being so dumb.
The main (read: only) praise directed towards the film was that it was kinda cool for fans to see all their favorite content creators in the same place, having fun. And that’s what mattered at the end of the day wasn’t it? It’s important that everyone enjoyed making these films (this is a narrative technique called foreshadowing).
At some point in 2012, Doug created a musical review of Moulin Rouge which consisted of Doug singing his criticisms of the film with several crossover guest stars from ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com. This was the point at which Doug realized that his passions lay not with simply reviewing old films from his childhood, but actively creating original content for his audience. Due to this realization, he retired the Nostalgia Critic with his supposedly final episode, a review of Scooby Doo (2002) being released on August 14, 2012.
So with the Nostalgia Critic dead what was Channel Awesome going to replace him with? Well, Doug replaced the Nostalgia Critic with a sketch comedy entitled “Demo Reel” with a whole-new cast. The show revolved around an incompetent group of filmmakers attempting to remake popular Hollywood films in the hopes that their talent would be recognized by higher-up producers. The show was filmed in a studio and was notable for being watched by pretty much no-one. It ended with 6 episodes being filmed and released.
ThatGuyWithTheGlasses decreased in popularity fairly quickly seeing as Nostalgia Critic was the most popular show. This forced Doug to revive the Nostalgia Critic both as a character and a show barely five months after his retirement/death on January 22, 2013. The finale of Demo Reel, using the same premise and cast, came in the form of a 30-minute short film entitled “The Review Must Go On”. It had an odd low-budget horror vibe with the plot being the Critic haunting Doug Walker until he agrees to let him and his show come back intercut with the usual Doug Walker humor. They do this by using the Plot Hole from To Boldly Flee to reveal that this whole time Demo Reel has served as a sort of purgatorial experience for Doug after he sacrificed himself at the end of To Boldly Flee.
So now the Nostalgia Critic was back, Channel Awesome was on the right path, right? Wrong. From 2014-2015 there was an exodus from Channel Awesome. Six producers abruptly exited the site for unknown reasons. They weren’t the first to leave (popular producers JewWario and Spoony had left in 2013 for personal reasons after big controversies) but the circumstances that lead to these producers leaving weren’t made public until April 2nd, 2018 when a google docs compiling the experiences of former employees of Channel Awesome was released, exposing the heads of the company for misogyny, misconduct, favoritism, bullying, poor management, and potentially criminal acts.

Not So Awesome

The Google Doc released on April the 2nd was 73 pages long and featured testimony from 21 former employees of the company, 2 of whom chose to remain anonymous due to the heavy subject matter of sexual assault. Given the extreme length and amount of allegations of the document it won’t be possible for me to detail every individual claim in full so I will be focusing on the ones that are relevant to the history of the channel that I’ve written about above or are corroborated by at least one other individual in the document or are particularly severe examples of mistreatment.
Here’s an obligatory statement emphasizing that these are allegations. No legal action has been taken against anyone affiliated with Channel Awesome since the expose came out, despite one producer saying “how [Channel Awesome] hasn’t been the target of a class action lawsuit is beyond me.”

Please Allow Me To Introduce Mike Michaud

Doug and Rob Walker we already know but the other important name in the doc is Mike Michaud the CEO of the company. These three will collectively be referred to as “Management” due to the fact that they are the ones calling the shots throughout all the decisions made and actions taken by the company.
So what do we need to know about Mike Michaud? Well the first thing is that he was regarded by most contributors to the doc as a bully. He was abusive to several producers, gaining notoriety for screaming at any woman who dared note a concern to him, and ignoring a man who did the same thing. At least three female employees were fired just for speaking up to him. On one occasion a woman who had an idea to speed up the DVD creation process for To Boldly Flee was left with him screaming “TWO WEEKS! TWO WEEKS!” at the top of his lungs without any explanation as to why it would take this long. Essentially, every poor practice implemented by Channel Awesome could be traced back to him, with several other complaints noting his unreliability, rudeness, and absence.
All communication through the company took place on a Skype group chat including all of the producers. Emails were not sent at all until much later in the company’s history. This was seemingly because the Michaud wanted to interact with their employees as little as possible, and could easily disappear for long periods of time due to this single form of communication. Employees were told only to contact Michaud during emergencies and either to direct all concerns either to Holly Brown (the sole Human Resources staff for Channel Awesome) who did the bulk of the work communicating with producers in the company or Rob Walker who, because of Michaud’s frequent abandonment of responsibility, was left filling in as an interim CEO despite not actually wanting to have that job. Michaud was referred to as a “silent CEO” due to his predisposition to not being involved with the company if possible.
You may be wondering why the Walkers put up with him if he was so notoriously bad. The answer is that eventually he was the only one of the three original CEOs left working on the site, he was the majority shareholder in Channel Awesome, and he owned the rights to the Intellectual Property of the Nostalgia Critic. Purely because of his position, and not because of any insight, expertise, or talent he could offer to the company, he became indispensable. He was Channel Awesome.

Boulevard of Broken Promises

Producers had been lured to the site through promises of promotion, giveaways, crossover episodes with fellow creators and, of course, exposure. All of these promises were frequently broken in one way or another.
The first problem was that there were only seven slots for video uploads every day. The first two were reserved for Doug, who was considered the main talent by the heads of the company, leaving other producers scrambling for the remaining spaces. With a mandated amount of videos to be uploaded monthly, producers faced termination if they failed to upload with the desired frequency. This rule, like all rules on the website, was infrequently and arbitrarily enforced. Sometimes an offending creator would get away with it. One producer hadn’t uploaded in several months but was kept around because of his perceived importance to the channel. Sometimes they were fired immediately after failure. Jon Burkhardt (ChaosD1) uploaded a video one day late due to being preoccupied with his wife’s medical emergency and was immediately unlisted from the website. He was later informed that he’d been fired over Skype.
The producers were initially forbidden from uploading their videos to Blip directly, forcing them to hand their videos over to Michaud who would upload them there himself. This resulted in several more problems.
Some videos would be mistitled in such a way that it didn’t reflect the sentiment of the video. This got to the point where the creator would receive angry comments from viewers who had read the title and assumed that a video entitled “A History of Animation” would actually talk about the history of animation when the video wasn’t about that at all. When someone brought this up to Michaud, he would begin shouting at them until they apologized.
Videos which were scheduled to be uploaded months in advance would regularly be replaced by other creators’ videos, usually one of the larger ones. There was a weekly shout-out to smaller producers who needed it but oftentimes larger channels who didn’t need them would be the subjects of said plugs. The heading of the revamped website listed “Most Popular Videos” on the top of the sidebar, almost entirely comprised of Nostalgia Critic videos with the occasional Lewis Lovhaug (Linkara). Some proposed shows by creators were shut down because of fears they would interfere with the Nostalgia Critic production despite the fact that most NC videos were produced at Doug Walker’s house and required little-to-no studio time.
This reflected the perceived bias towards Doug Walker’s content, perhaps due to the fact that while he was considered “talent” by upper management, unlike any other producers, he was involved in business decisions.
Sometimes the creators’ themselves were unable to promote their videos on Facebook and Twitter due to the website having not been updated to reflect the fact those videos had been uploaded. One producer Kaylynn Sorcedo (MarzGurl) informed Michaud that she had uploaded a video to Blip directly herself and was angrily rebuked until she told him that the only reason she’d done that is because another male producer had done it before with no issue. The fact that these rules were so infrequently enforced is another big theme of the document.
The giveaways did not happen. They were supposed to be sponsored but when it came down to it producers were told to arrange a giftcard themselves. Tom White did a trivia contest and informed Michaud he planned to give away a prize to which Michaud insisted using his Sega Genesis which he no longer wanted. Despite his reluctance, knowing that Michaud was at best unreliable with these kind of things, White accepted. When the winner was announced, he was informed that they would be sent the Genesis immediately. Over six months later, White found out that it hadn’t been sent despite his frequent inquiries on the matter and had to send an Amazon giftcard to the winner instead.
Creators were encouraged to make crossover videos since, due to it being a crossover, the revenue generated would go to the company instead to recoup costs from the expenses for the anniversary movies while receiving no compensation for such videos.
Also, while informal common-sense rules were dictated to the creators upon their arrival for Channel Awesome, the online page regarding company policy simply consisted of the words “coming soon” and was never updated. Due to or perhaps because of this and the lack of consistency enforcing rules around the site, it appeared that management seemed to have no idea what their stance on any given issue was. Alison Pregler (Obscurus Lupa) was told she had to ask for permission to start a new show, and when she approached Rob Walker to ask for it he had no idea why she was doing so. Over producers were bemused to find out that such a rule existed years after the fact. Another gaffe involving Rob was that when someone turned up for an interview at the site, he was under the impression that they already worked there.
At some point after To Boldly Flee comes out, the producers banded together and compile a lengthy list of issues with the site and how it was managed. While the initial reaction was promising, very few actions were taken by the site. One involved a newsletter to update them on the site. It was discontinued after three letters. The second one, in response to a whole host of issues with ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com was to torpedo the site and replace it with Channel Awesome without telling any of the creators what had happened. No other suggestions for improvement were implemented.

I Just (Didn’t) Get Paid!

Channel Awesome did not pay people whenever they could avoid it. Any money that creators got was generated through ad revenue, and sometimes they weren’t even paid for that. The reason that all uploads had to go through Michaud was so the Channel could receive ad revenue instead of the producers. Despite his belief that they should do advertising locally, Michaud hated conventions and anyone attempting to appear at one had to make all the expenses themselves. Producers were also not paid at all for the films they appeared in, and in some cases were persuaded to essentially pay themselves to cover costs of special effects.
Channel Awesome seemed to be opposed to producers making money in any capacity, regardless of whether it came from them themselves. Pregler attempted to set up a Patreon but was told not to by Michaud because he didn’t want them to be “e-begging”. She was also reprimanded for putting in too many midrolls on her videos with Rob calling them “a slap in the face to fans”. Eventually creators shamed the management into allowing them to post a 30-second plug for their Patreon. Pregler uploaded a 60-second one and nobody noticed because management did not watch their videos.
In 2014 the site promoted Brad Jones’ (Cinema Snob) Patreon which prompted Pregler to ask why they’d reversed their “slap-in-the-face” stance on the matter. Michaud asked her if she was available to speak privately. Pregler declined since she recognized this as Michaud-code for “yelling-abuse-at-female-employees” and explained she had a video to shoot in the meantime. A couple of hours later after filming said video she finds that she’s been fired from the site and all her videos have been removed because she was 15 minutes late to a call that she had not agreed to participate in. This was the single quickest update in the history of the site.
When someone was fired by the website, often the people being fired would not be informed. One of the sites affiliated with ThatGuyWithTheGlasses was merged with Channel Awesome without any of the employees of that site being informed that the company they worked for didn’t actually exist anymore.
Topher Ames (Fool Fantastic) informed Holly that he would be taking time off from the website due to issues in his personal life. Once he had returned with the intention of doing videos again, he found that he had been removed from the site. When he asked why he was told that he’d left for months without informing the company. When he mentioned that he’d told Holly, he was told she didn’t count. After explaining the reason he’d been taking time off (struggling with homophobia, and college) he was told they would discuss a possible return to the site with the underlying implication that he would not be returning to the site. He complained about his situation on Twitter and was immediately informed he was fired.
Channel Awesome was also repeatedly unprofessional discussing their employees. On multiple occasions management would speak badly about the people working for them behind their backs, including asking the friend of the sole effects animator for the anniversary films whether he was “half-assing” the shots due to the fact they wanted more debris in it.
The worst example of their mistreatment though, was Holly. She was so essential to the company that she was brought in to work on weekends and holidays without fail. Holly also had to undergo multiple surgeries due to a health condition and voluntarily worked remotely during her recovery period while the filming of the anniversary special was taking place. She was denied vacation days and missed out on years of gatherings with her friends and family due to her dedication to Channel Awesome.
That’s why she was so surprised to find, one day after surgery, that she was asked to drive to the studio to be told that she would no longer be employed there. She was not provided with a reason why, as Illinois didn’t legally require employers to give one and still doesn’t know. She did however find out that they’d been planning it for some time, and Doug was the deciding vote on whether she would remain employed. However, she was made to sign a contract to not work within the industry for the next three years under pain of not receiving her severance payment. That’s how vital she was to the company; they had to make her contractually obligated not to work for anyone else. She lost a lot of her friends and had to leave Chicago, struggling for years as a result.

Pop Quiz Hot-Potato

In 2013, Mike Michaud had come up with an idea for his next big thing for Channel Awesome. A gameshow which nobody else wanted to do. Channel Awesome started a crowd-funding campaign on IndieGogo for a target of $50,000 to buy equipment to make their show “Pop Quiz Hotshot”. They raised $90,000 dollars and fans could receive rewards up ranging from a DVD of To Boldly Flee to dinner with Rob and Doug Walker. What a bargain.
They pledged to make 40 episodes but ran into problems almost immediately. Twelve different versions of the pilot were filmed, some starring the Nostalgia Critic as the host, some starring the Cinema Snob. There was no evidence of any production value that the crowd-funded money had been spent on. There was only one microphone and the set looked abysmal. Prizes were suggested as a last minute addition. They tried to rig the game so the contestants would win but they accidentally gave the winning cards to Doug. Because of this, nobody really wanted to finish the show and it was abandoned with no episodes being uploaded…
Or so they thought! 18 months later Channel Awesome received an email from IndieGogo informing them that they were being investigated on suspicion of fraud since they had not attempted to complete their original goal. Because of this, they released 12 episodes of the promised 40 in a panic since that was the bare minimum legally required to qualify as an attempt. They were highly embarrassed by the entire ordeal and the show has sunk slowly to the forgotten memories of Channel Awesome after being overshadowed by later Nostalgia Critic reviews and the anniversary films.
Also all of the crowd-funding rewards came 6 months later than promised.

There’s No Business Like Show Business

Speaking of which, we should talk about the production of the anniversary movies I foreshadowed earlier.
Kickassia was the least egregious in terms of production errors. The only significant grievance I can find however is a big one. Upon being asked to film in the Nevada Desert, Lindsey Ellis (formerly known as the Nostalgia Chick) asked Doug what his plan for craft services was. Craft Services is the name for the provision of snacks, drinks, and other assistance during the filming of a television episode or film. But for all his time watching and critiquing bad movies, Doug seemed to know shockingly little about film production (for his Moulin Rouge review he had to call three other producers to come round to get his screen record on Skype working as he wasn’t using a proper camera). He laughed in the face of Lindsey when she asked and had to have it explained to him by another member of the cast that it is expected to be at every professional production and is one of the core tenets of filmmaking – make sure the cast has their basic needs taken care of. Only then was it taken seriously.
Suburban Knights for many marked the point at which things got seriously bad. As well as being terrible from a very basic standpoint (there were two cameras and one SD card that had to be provided by one of the cast, and zero tripods) most of the cast were made to provide their own costumes themselves. Due to budget restraints this resulted in flimsy attire that made filming cold and uncomfortable. They were also filming in the suburbs without a permit so people out on their day-to-day would wander into shots. Doug, being unable to tell them apart from his cast (who were all dressed as fantasy characters) mistakenly shouted directions to passers-by, embarrassing the rest of the crew.
There were four injuries on the set of Suburban Knights. One person was taped to a wall for a scene and left there for so long she nearly passed out. The other three were stunts, one of whom was a guest of a cast member who wasn’t a part of Channel Awesome. She was rudely denied basic requests and excluded from cast photos because she wasn’t considered talent. She accidentally had her leg bashed in and was rushed to the Walkers’ residence where before giving her first aid she was forced to sign a form declaring that Channel Awesome was not liable for any injuries. This was the only form that anyone had signed over the course of creating the movies and it was only given to her *after* her injury under coercion.
Every time Doug directed someone, he tried to get them to act more like him in a scene. When they said “my character wouldn’t act like that” he would say “okay, we’ll do it both ways”, shot it both ways, and always used his preferred shot.
To Boldly Flee was by far the most egregious film, both in terms of its troubled production and terrible final product. The entire three-and-a-half-hour movie was filmed within one week, and even then it was only that long because Holly asked for an extra day. Some of the days would be 18 hours of shooting, and some cast members barely got 3 hours of sleep each night. This was because Doug assumed that, since they were doing stuff professionally, it would take less time, and accordingly scheduled two days’ worth of work on one shift. This guy reviews films for a living, remember. On one day, the camera crew had to go home early but, because Doug forgot to tell the rest of the crew that, at the end of the day there were not enough cars to take people home.
The script wasn’t even finished by the time it started shooting. Filming was held up by Rob and Doug having long, painful arguments over the writing. It’s also worth pointing out that some members of the cast never read the full script until the day they were shooting. And what they did get to see didn’t make them happy. A prominent theme of the film consisted of heavy social commentary about the importance that reviewers had. The movie makes numerous references to “the golden age of reviewers coming to an end”. This referred to Doug Walker’s retirement of the Nostalgia Critic. Some producers thought that the language suggested that they were expected to retire their characters out of the film as well. Others noted their concerns that since the Nostalgia Critic was the main draw of Channel Awesome, their revenue might be effected and they would get even less money. Either way, they weren’t informed of the decision until the script was given to them far too late.
If you recall the plot or (lack thereof) of the film, you’ll know it consists of a “Plot Hole” destroying the fabric of reality and making the movie the characters are currently starring in terrible. Because of this, whenever the Walkers would make a basic filmmaking mistake such as breaking continuity, the rule of 180 being broken, a character not appearing where they need to, terrible effects, nonsensical jokes, etc, they would blame it on the Plot Hole, outside of the narrative of the film.
The final and worst criticism of the film is its frequent sexism. While Suburban Knights had the odd misogynistic joke (a female character faints and a male character says “maybe she needs mouth-to-mouth” while creepily leaning towards her. Doug’s character says “Hey!” indignantly, before continuing by saying “that’s my job!” Feel free to shudder in horror) To Boldly Flee turned this up to 11. There’s two female doctor characters who are portrayed as sex-hungry fiends who talk incessantly about penises. There’s a bit where they read Spoony’s mind and find out he’s a “transvestite” which is played for laughs. There’s a comment about Lindsay Ellis having an overly-stuffed bra with Doug gazing at it. Lindsay also complained that her fight-scene made her feel uncomfortable and the Walkers, being known for their sensitivity and compassion, proceeded to make her do it anyway.
But by far the worst offence came in the form of a scene in which Lewis’ character traps Linsday’s character in a room and comically rapes her while a horrified bystander waits outside hearing all of it. Many of you will know of the old cliché of having female characters sexually assaulted for no good reason inside stories but the biggest insult is that both Lindsey and Lewis brought this up as a complaint. Both had made videos talking about the “women-in-refrigerators” trope in the past and were horrified to find this scene in the film. They brought this up to Doug who was baffled as to how it could be seen as offensive. He didn’t back down all the way but he compromised by removing a lot of the more overt sexual references (such as a line from Lindsay saying “no! Don’t put it there!”) and instead told her to make “sexually assaulted noises”.
So no, people didn’t have a great time on set.

Covering Up Sexual Abuse

Most of the previous complaints while serious, are not particularly heavy drama. We hear a lot about this kind of treatment from all different walks of life and while it’s inexcusable, it’s mostly not triggering. The next few bits though, are much more dark so here’s a content warning for sexual assault, extreme misogyny and suicide for the rest of this post.
Channel Awesome was never particularly concerned with the wellbeing of their employees. Dan Olson (Folding Ideas) published an expose of 8chan for uploading child pornography onto the site. As a result, several 8channers started a smear campaign of conspiracy theorists against Olson, accusing him of being a child pornographer. Part of this abuse included blowing up the email inbox of Mike Michaud, Olson’s boss, who promptly fired him, blaming him for incurring the wrath of internet trolls. This prompted Lindsay Ellis to receive an angry message from Michaud, blaming her for Olson’s perceived failings seeing as she was the one who originally spoke up for him being recruited to the site when they were looking for new talent. Ellis left at the end of 2014 prompting the beginning of the first exodus from the site with four more creators either leaving somewhat voluntarily or being fired within the first two months of 2015.
This was also during the time of Gamergate, a period where angry men on the internet participated in the targeted harassment of several female internet personalities, primarily Anita Sarkesian who is unaffiliated with Channel Awesome. This included death/rape threats, review bombing videos, and the origin of several alt-right memes and stereotypes. Some female creators on Channel Awesome had been subject to abuse by these groups but management took no action in resolving or even commenting on the matter. One incident targeting Lindsay Ellis involved a case being opened by the NYPD.
But the most damning examples took place much earlier in the channel’s career. Mike Ellis, one of the former CEOs of Channel Awesome (no relation to Lindsey Ellis), attempted to pursue a relationship with Holly despite already being married. When she declined he became violent, and, when he was terminated by the company, they feared so much for Holly’s safety that she was taken to a safe house surrounded by men with baseball bats, golf clubs, and prop swords for her own protection. Doug Walker tested pepper spray in the sink and apparently injured himself with it (we aren’t explicitly told he injured himself but we are told it “didn’t go well”.
Ellis was known to be violent and harassing. He almost had a fist-fight with Michaud when the situation was made aware to him. When a creator, Sean Fauz (Epic Fail), showed Michaud a bunch of uncomfortable sexual messages sent to him by Ellis for several hours over several days, Michaud responded with “Dammit, I told him he couldn’t be doing that shit!” indicating that this was not the first time he had become aware of Ellis’ misconduct. Ellis had been misbehaving for over a year before he was fired.
A second cover-up of multiple sexual assault happened too. One employee detailed a story of grooming at the hands of a producer on the channel and management refusing to do anything about the matter. She chose to use the pseudonym Jane Doe and all names were removed at her request for the purposes of anonymity. There are chat logs of two other victims of the same suspect sharing their experiences of abuse at the hands of this individual. They state that Channel Awesome had known about this individual for roughly a year before he was fired.

#ChangeTheChannel

The initial reaction as you can imagine, was not great. Preceding the release of the Not So Awesome doc was Exodus 2: Electric Boogaloo where several more creators left the site. The release of the doc was the birth of the #ChangeTheChannel movement. Fans were asking for answers, flooding the comments sections of Doug Walker’s recent Nostalgia Critic video (as I recall it was a recreation of Deadpool 2 and number of dislikes was larger than the likes. One particularly angry commenter ripped the entire video to shreds). Twitter blew up. Forums blew up. YouTube blew up. Management needed to save face and fast.
The initial response from Channel Awesome included the not-apology “we’re sorry you felt that way.” Because of this came Exodus 3 where the number of producers dropped from about forty to about ten within less than a week. So a week later, Channel Awesome doubled down on their stance, releasing a short list of responses to a select few claims in the document.
Was the response bad? Yes. Why? Well first off, whoever wrote it had been highly selective with the claims they chose to respond to. 8 of the 13 responses were towards female creators, 1 towards a male, and 4 being general statements. This included them omitting Linkara’s complaint about the rape scene and making it out so that Lindsey was the only one who had an issue with it.
None of the responses actually disproved or debunked the claims directly. Most were strawmen, arguing against positions that weren’t actually held and disproving the altered argument that wasn’t being made. Several were unsourced denials. On the charge of misogyny, they simply listed a bunch of currently employed women who hadn’t worked for Channel Awesome on the dates of most of the allegations and said “they had vastly different experiences than the ones described.” In response to Alison Pregler saying she was miserable working for them, they linked a video of her when she worked for them saying the opposite. This is unconvincing seeing as if I’m working for someone and they ask me to film something endorsing them, I would do so in the interests of not being fired by them.
But the biggest fuck-up was in response to the cover-up of sexual abuse. They released chat logs of Rob and Mike discussing when they would fire the creator in question. The first problem was that it didn’t disprove the allegation of covering up for over a year, since they didn’t include the date at which the allegation was first made. The second and biggest problem was that since they included the date they finally planned to fire said creator, they inadvertently gave people the information they needed to figure out who the abuser was. Said creator (JewWario) had killed himself in 2014 a year after being fired. Later some blogs detailed their experience with him which were later confirmed to be accurate by the writers of the google doc.
This final response was so bad that all but three of the remaining producers left. Literally every single person employed by the site since its inception had left with the exception of the Walkers, the Cinema Snob (who later justified the whole thing by saying “Logan Paul filmed a dead body and he still has a career so who cares?”) and Guru Larry, who only stayed because nobody believed he was on the website in the first place which is a bit like taking a selfie inside a burning building for clout.
In the years since, most of the creators who left Channel Awesome still upload on YouTube channels which are doing better than ever before. My particular favorites are Todd In The Shadows for pop reviews, Folding Ideas for deep dives into thought-provoking topics, and Lindsey Ellis for video essays (she retired while I was writing this piece).
Doug and Rob Walker are still making videos for Channel Awesome with the Nostalgia Critic. But in the years since the document came out, Doug has taken his place as a sort of acceptable internet punching-bag on YouTube, with a whole niche genre of commentary videos discussing the failures of his reviews, anniversary movies, and sketch shows.
And almost like poetry, a show dedicated to reviewing media from your childhood and finding it wasn’t as good as you remember it, turns out upon reviewing it that it wasn’t as good as you remembered it was.

Source

For proper formatting, please use Old Reddit

The AMA ended with the following message:

Thanks for a great convo everybody! Really enjoyed your questions. So much talent and intelligence out there. Please drop my my free class on March 21st, I promise to light up your brains and get you inspired to write! Signing off -- Brent

Rows: ~65

Questions	Answers
When a sitcom episode is credited to a single writer, how many writers actually collaborated on the story? What percentage of the story does a writer need to contribute to get writing credit.	In TV comedy, we always write in groups. One writer may come up with the original idea for the story, but every one pitches in --- it's a group effort. We generally assign credit BEFORE the story is written. We take turns writing, and when it' s your turn, you will get to write an episode and get full credit on it --- even if you only contributed a fraction of what finally ends up on screen!
Hey Brent! I’m curious to know what your writing process is. Thank you in advance!	When I'm writing alone, i always start early. Creative energy is high for me in the morning and trails off as the day goes on. Here's a secret: Most writers do no write more than 4 hours a day. If you are really focused, that's quite exhausting.
​	In comedy, feedback is crucial. I do 3 drafts of a script, then show it to friends. After 3 drafts I no longer trust myself to have perspective on my own work.
​	Another key part of my process: I always TELL The story orally, before I start writing. Saves a huge amount of time. A quick reality check to see what's working before you start writing!
Have you heard any updates as to the possible King of the Hill revival? Aging the cast of characters would be a stroke of genius and practically reinvent the show (in an awesome way!)	​I am sure Greg Daniels and Mike Judge will murder me for sharing this but... HELL YES. They are in hot negotiations to bring back King of the Hill. The Trump administration made it suddenly very relevant again. The characters have all aged 15 years. The project is sooooo good. Okay I've said too much :)
What line or lines that made it into the actual episode of a show are you most proud of you wrote, and what line you wrote do you wish had made it into an episode?	The Office, "Phyllis Wedding". Michael makes a wedding toast:
​	MICHAEL: "Websters defines wedding as the coming together of two hot metals in liquid form..."
​	PAM: "Michael I think that was 'welding'"
​	MICHAEL: "Hmmm..."
I'm starting a pilot for a female buddy comedy- a sort of mix of broad city's bff riff and difficult people's snark- if you had to lump it somewhere. I got to audit The Writers Guild class about TV Pilots this winter and 95% of the information was about not being a dick in the writers room and what to do when you get a pitch and how to present your stories in a boardroom and whatnot but there was nothing said or asked about how to get your pilot ideas to the desk of the exact in order to get that pitch meeting in the first place. Nothing about if writers need a manager vs agent and how to figure out which fits best. Any advice on that process? Not that I am anywhere close to presentation status but right now that course is fresh on my mind but it's still feels a tad holey for an aspiring TV writer like me. Also do you have cats?	You are asking all the right questions! How do you get your material into the hands of people who matter??? The short answer is, there is no one way to do it. Every successful TV writer has a different story, and luck often plays a factor. Come to my free class on March 21st and I'll talk more about breaking in. (Go to Brentforrester.com for info)
​	Agents and managers are VERY helpful when it comes to getting your script to the right people. Get one if you can! The best way to do that is to have a writer, actor or producer who is ALREADY represented by an agent REFER you to that agency. That means you have to write a VERY GOOD writing sample, and politely beg people to read it. With a little work, you can make those entry level connections. Just make sure your writing sample is good when you ask someone to read it. People will generally read your script only once! Good luck !!!!
Huge fan of ‘Love’ How was it balancing the humor with the more emotional beats? Was there discussion on how much (or little) to add? Or did you have some wiggle room because it was on Netflix? I’ve found I enjoy comedies that can mix in dramatic moments. Some of my favorite episodes of my favorite sitcoms (the office included) were the more emotional episodes. Just wondered how that’s discussed in the room.	Well, you clearly have good taste :) I have found that the best writers and show creators that I work with are similarly drawn to serious themes, and serious material in comedy. A lot of great comedy writers hate "silly" and especially "artificial" material and go after the darkest, most serious material they can. Greg Daniels (creator of the American "Office") developed a style where serious scenes alternated with comedy scenes. He called it "keeping the hot side hot and the cold side cold." That style works great in my opinion, and is a key to the success of shows like the Office.
the below has been split into two	​
I have 2 questions 1. Do you have any tips for going into this field	There are 2 main paths into a career in TV, what I call the "inside" and the "outside" path. The inside path involves getting a low level job somewhere in the TV industry (an assistant on a TV show, mailroom at a talent agency, etc). Use that job to find connections to the people who are hiring, and when you get a shot, try to get those hirers to read your writing sample. The outside path involves making something on your own (a play, a short film, a web series) that is good enough that it gets the attention of agents and managers, who help you break in. Of course you can do both at the same time!
and 2 what's the biggest difference you had to face with going between cartoon and live action shows?	Biggest difference between animation and live action: In animation it costs nothing to go to space, blow up a battleship, fight a dinosaur.... all things that are too expensive in live action. So go big and use lots of visual gags in animation. Animation is also faster based and more gag heavy: you can't rely on good "acting the way you can in live action
What kind of lemon related research did you for Lemon of Troy?	At the Simpsons, we used to have these elaborate "Story Conferences" where the writers would pitch stories all day to James L Brooks in a suite at Shutters hotel. We would be given a couple days to prepare. I spent both days at the public library, wandering through the books looking for any inspiration at all. I was in the classics section, looking at Greek myths and history, when I came up with the idea for Lemon of Troy, which is obviously based on the myth of the Trojan Horse. I thought it was the perfect framework for an "Epic" story of conflict between Springfield and Shelbyville!
For someone not in LA, where would you recommend starting to pitch my series bible? an agent? Talent lawyer? Somewhere else? Any tips on how to evaluate representation? Thanks!	Agents and managers are the place to start. It's not easy to get representation. Reps generally don't want to take you on until AFTER you start selling material! It's a real Catch 22. But it is possible to get repped. As i mentioned in another reply, the best way to get the attentions of a manager or agent is to have someone ELSE recommend you. When you have a really good writing sample, try to get it to people who are themselves repped at an agency. Have them send your material in with a note saying "Check this writer out!"
I absolutely love Mr. Show! I feel like it's an overlooked comedy series. Any fond memories from writing for that show with Bob Odenkirk & David Cross?	Oh hell yeah. Odenkirk was a FAMOUS comedy writer to all of us young writers, whe he was barely 30 and was a mentor to me. He studied under the great improv teacher Del Close and had tons of wisdom at a young age. David Cross and I shared an office on the Ben Stiller show. Dave was just a comic trying to be a writer, but his talent was explosive. The most fearless guy I ever met. In a fancy restaurant in Hollywood one night, he tapped his glass until everyone went silent in the whole place. Then he sang "Feelings" at full volume until he burst into fake tears. Riveting!!
Hi! I’m new to writing and have been looking online for how to write scripts. the pilots or shows that I’ve been lucky enough to read have words that are in bold, underlined etc. is there a guide to best practices on when to do these types of things? I’m trying to make my specs easy on the eyes. I’ve also noticed that some scripts have a lot of direction and others give the actors a lot of freedom to interpret the words and scene. I think I prefer giving the actors that freedom to interpret the characters but I’m having a hard time having my writing come off as comedy. The situations are funny - but they don’t always read that way, so maybe I do need to put a direction in? Any suggestions?	Leave the stage directions to a minimum. We are looking at your dialog, not your prose writing. Many readers scan those "action" lines so just keep them short. As for directions to the actors (what we call "parentheticals") use them as LITTLE as possible. You are correct that the actors don't want to be told how to read the lines, and it looks unprofessional when you but in "sneakily" or "rolling her eyes" etc.
​	You say you are looking for humor in SITUATIONS. Excellent! That is exactly the way to do it. The "sit" in "sit-com" stands for situation after all. The other part of comedy is CHARACTER. Are your characters BEHAVING in funny ways? Generally this means the character is TRYING TO APPEAR ONE WAY and ACTUALLY COMING ACROSS THE OPPOSITE. The girl who is trying to appear smart but making a fool of herself. The guy who thinks he is coming across super-sexy but is actually coming across weird, etc. Trust in situation and character and you will find the funny?
Where can I submit my screenplays to review at? I have a couple of scripts short and full. Mostly suspense, drama, and action.	If I were you I would cold call agencies that represent writers and see if you can find someone who will take a look. Be polite and be prepared for a lot of "no"s. Agencies can be snooty and cruel. But have a thick skin and see if you get lucky!
Hi, I'm 14 years old and very interested in screenwriting. Do you have any advice for younger people like me who are genuinely interested in screenwriting as a career.	Hey buddy, you are clearly much more talented than I was at your age! I did not even start WATCHING TV until after I graduated from college. My advice to you: Try writing SHORT material first. Screenplays are really long. But SKETCHES (like you see on Saturday Night Live) are short, and easy to finish. You will have more fun and develop faster if you get in the habit of writing some short stuff that you can finish and show to your friends, family, etc.
​	Get involved with the THEATER DEPARTMENT and the FILM DEPARTMENT at your school. Make friends with the other kids who share your passion and MAKE short films! So many successful writers and directors started that way.
​	I'm really excited for you, because you are starting so young! Find the other kids who are passionate about film making like you are, team up with them and make great stuff!!! I believe in you 100%. :)
For a person who is trying to break in from the outside, how many samples would you recommend having in your portfolio before you start querying managers? Thanks so much!	2 samples is all you need. Nobody will read more than 2 scripts so that's all you need. But in order to have 2 good scripts you will need to write many more. When I was trying to break in, the conventional wisdom was, you had to write 5 scripts before you had one that was good enough. Remember this: People will generally read your material ONCE. You may not get a second read! So make sure your spec scripts rock before you show them to a good connection. How do you know if your script rocks? Give it to your friends! Give it to your dad. When the people around you say your script rocks, its ready to pass on to a connection.
What are your favourite TV shows at the moment?	I like "What We Do in the Shadows." Enjoyed "Dirtbag." And a friend just turned me onto "Garth Marengi's Darkplace." Check that one out for sure! A couple of English guys from Cambridge having some fun with that one.
What's the worst Office spec script you've ever read?	On the Simpsons we got unsolicited specs all the time. 100% of them were insane.
​	On the Office we never got any. I think NBC was afraid of getting sued. We were told by the NBC lawyers that if anyone ever came up to us at a party and said "I have an idea for an Office episode" we were to put our fingers in our ears and say "No No No!' three times loudly. A real formula for popularity at parties...
the below has been split into four	​
Hey, I took your class and have a couple of questions 1. I’m thinking of writing a pilot about 13 year old during bar mitzvah season and the stress of being a middle schooler, any thoughts on how to make it good?	1) I like the premise! Be observational. Use real details, things you've seen and heard, characters you have observed. The feeling of AUTHENTICITY is always gold. We can rarely make stuff up that is as good as what the real world provides.
2. I wrote another pilot (which was evaluated by someone from your team) and didn’t get a ton of feedback about the idea of the main character’s conscience being a separate character, any thoughts on that idea?	2) Hmm, that's an interesting idea intellectually. But in my experience, the best material involves flesh and blood characters interacting. The character of the "conscience" may be too bloodless and abstract for the reader. A similar idea seemed to work on "Insde Out' but maybe it helped to make the "abstact" psychological characters animated. Check out the old show "Herman's Head" for an example of the same concept gone wrong.
3. I’m writing a more modern version of the breakfast club. How do movies get produced and made?	3) How do movies get produced and made. No easy answer there. I think your best move is to try and get an agent or manager to help you navigate the biz. To get representation, you will need a good writing sample. And try to find someone connected to an agency who will read your writing and call the agency on your behalf.
4. What was your favorite episode of the office (one that you wrote and one that you didn’t)	​4) Some many great ones. "Dinner Party" has a lot of fans. "Diversity Day" was the one that put the show on the map. "Business School" is the best one that I wrote. I just re-watched "Did I Stutter" and really enjoyed it! That was the break out episode for the character of Stanley!
If we want to write workplace comedies, what are your top recommended workplace comedies to watch and study (other than “The Office” of course)?	Larry Sanders is he one that all the tastemakers refer to as the gold standard of workplace comedy. Notice the "naturalistic" tone of the show. It so different from the "sitcommy" (read: "artificial") feel of most comedies of its time.
​	The tastemakers I know also worship James L Brooks. Look at Taxi and Mary Tyler Moore. The "Chuckles the Clown" scene in Mary Tyler Moore (youtube it) was considered the best scene ever shot in TV, when I was first getting into the biz :)
An agent read my pilot and said it was a great sample to get staffed as a comedy writer on a show ... but ... how does one actually go about doing that? Currently trying to get hired as an assistant anywhere. Thanks for all of your work over the years. "Lemon of Troy" always makes me smile.	Agents are the best resource you have when it comes to getting staffed. If the agent who liked your script is not ready to rep you, see if they will pass your material on to another agent!
When writing comedy, do the jokes just come naturally as you bounce the characters dialogue/personality against each other, or do you take time to think of jokes, then base the dialogue around that?	Most comedy writers start out by writing the scenes fairly "straight" --- in other words they write them like it's drama and don't worry about the jokes. If funny lines pop up along the way that's great, but the first priority is to get the main content of the scene down on paper. Now go back and "punch up." Find more colorful ways of saying the straight lines. Find little riffs and digressions that amuse you. Much of the punch up process is TRIAL AND ERROR. You have the straight version of the scene. Now PLAY! Goof around with some of the dialog and see where it gets you. The punch up process can seem a little messy and imprecise, but that's how the pros do it!
I see you write for the Simpsons, does that mean you can tell the future?	Weird isn't it, how many predictions from Simpsons episodes came true? Including the presidency of Donald Trump! But I will tell you the secret there. There have been 500 episodes of the Simpsons. That is a HUGE amount of material. Just by pure coincidence and sheer numbers, SOME of the things we predicted came true. But many many more things did not come true. It's just statistics, sadly. Not magic :)
​	Thanks for being a fan, you obviously have good taste!
Are you still working on that feature The Low Self Esteem of Lizzie Gillespie with Mindy Kaling? It sounded so promising	That script remains one of my favorite collaborations. Please ping Mindy on social media and make her dust that one off. She has a production company now, the time has come!
So what's it like working for Disney after the buy out? Has anything changed?	I haven't noticed any changes, but I am insulated inside writers rooms, with limited contact with the execs on a daily basis. I imagine that's true of most writers rooms. The execs give input on a script at the outline stage, and when a draft comes in, but the writers sit with the script 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. So despite their fiinancial power and authority over the writers, the execs really have limited creative input. Mostly they tell you what NOT to do, and little else :)
Do you think it's better for an unknown to write to market trends or try to develop their own niche?	All the best writers and artists I know are PASSIONATE about sticking to their own ideas, their own voice. This has been true of all art forms forever! Be as true as you can be to your voice, even if it sounds like nothing else out there! That's the stuff that gets people's attention! Good luck, artist :)
When you were first starting out how did you meet the right people who would then eventually listen to you as you sat in a room and pitched to them? What advice would you recommend to stand out in an email when sending an agent work even when they don't accept unsolicited material? You've been very successful as a writer for hit shows, however would you have been satisfied writing for soaps? (Most day to days writers in the UK write for soaps I've found) I'm a writer based in Scotland so meeting people in the industry can be hard because it's so small and can feel pretty exclusive at times unless you are so so's butcher who can get you an email. Thanks doing this AMA! Looking forward to everyones Qs	Keep your unsolicited emails SHORT and polite. Better than an email from you is an email from someone else recommending you. Can you find someone who is connected to the agencies, who will read your work and recommend you to an agent?
​	Is there a local theater community where you live? Can you connect with the actors there? Can you write something short and "put it on its feet?" My friend Mindy Kaling broke into TV by writing a 2 person play called "Matt and Ben" that she acted in with her friend Brenda. It was funny and got the attention of some managers, and she broke in overnight!
​	If you can produce something simple and FUNNY (assuming comedy is your medium) you can film it on your phone and send it around.... Honestly this is the way enterprising artists break into the biz ALL THE TIME! Good material stands out, even when it is ultra low budget. Long story short: be a little innovative, be persistant and MAKE GOOD STUFF. The world is ALWAYS looking for new good stuff!!
​	Good luck my Scottish friend!!
Here's a q, how many people ask you to read their spec scripts?	(I answered this, but not sure it went through, so answering again)
​	I am constantly getting asked to read scripts. It kills me, because I don't have time to do it but I remember how vital it is to get feedback when you're a young writer. So last year I had a eureka moment and created a script reading service. I trained some hot shot young readers to evaluate scripts according to an 8 point system that reflects what I'm looking for when i read a script. Out of every 50 scripts submitted, I personally took the TOP TWO highest scoring scripts and read them myself, giving feedback in a webinar to all 50 "contestants" online. It went great! I was able to give writers a lot of value for very little money. And as a bonus I hooked up the top 2 writers with agents! If you are interested in this kind of thing, go to my website Brentforrester.com. I'll be doing it again soon.
Hey Brent, love all these shows. do you have any wisdom for a college student to get where you are?	Check out my free class online March 21st (go to Brentforrester.com for info) and I will talk about breaking into the biz among other things.
​	There are many different paths to a career in TV but they all have one thing in common. You have to have a WRITING SAMPLE that rocks. This is just an episode of TV that you write without intending to sell, just to show off your skills. You can write an original pilot or a fake episode of an existing show. Then you need to get that "spec" script into the hands of someone who is hiring writers. The process of networking and looking for your break can take years and often demands a lot of psychological endurance. But with patience and luck you can break in. Just remember it all starts with that great spec script!
Hey Brent! I’m an actress and I haven’t been able to book a break out role yet so I decided to write an original pilot script. I’m not necessarily a person with much clout but it’s a pretty decent script and my agent said she would forward it to the literary department of my agency. Can a relatively unknown person like myself get their script produced from having a good acting background with a solid script? Ps— thank you for doing this!	Yes, it is always possible for a first time writer to get a show produced! Generally what happens is, the network will pair you with a veteran writer to help you run the show. But getting your show sold is not the only good thing that come of writing an original pilot. Much more likely is for your pilot to serve as a writing sample that gets you hired as a staff writer on someone elses show. There you can make some money, and learn the craft from the inside as you rise up the ranks. Good luck! I hope to work for you some day :)
In telling a story is emotion more important than story? Do you think the majority of what’s funny comes from character or what the writer is emotional about/wrestling with or does something else lend itself to great comedy? Hope this question made sense. And your shows are amaaaaaaaazing. Thanks!	Your question is great, and tells me you are already a talented writer. My friend Judd Apatow has one mantra that guides him in all writing projects: FOLLOW ThE EMOTION. Much more important than cleverness is feeling. Heart beats head any day!
​	My original mentor Susan Harris (creator of the Golden Girls) said: "Write about what is difficult for you, even painful and trust that it will come out funny." That's still the best piece of advice I ever got in comedy.
​	I will have a lot to say about comedy writing at my FREE CLASS on March 21st. Definitely check it out. Brentforrester.com for info. Good luck Writer!
What TV show that you haven't worked on (either old or still airing) would you love to have written an episode for? Also just want to say my siblings and I quote Homerpalooza all the time. Like, a concerning amount.	A lot of that stuff in Homerpalooza is autobiographical. I walked around Lollapalooza with a little tape recorder taking notes, and a stoned dude came up to me and said "What are you recording there NARC?" :) The most legendary writing staffs that I would have loved to be on:
​	Staff of Sid Caesars Show of Shows (Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart, Woody Allen, etc)
​	MASH
​	Roseanne (the original)
​	Saturday Night Live season one
What last caused you incontinence while laughing?	When Ace Ventura Pet Detective first came out, I saw it in the theater, and the opening sequence where Jim Carrey walks down the street as a UPS delivery guy, intentionally dropping and kicking a package --- the energy was so hilarious I fell out of my seat.
​	However, the truth is I rarely laugh out loud. When I do laugh out loud I make a point of writing down the joke, or the moment and trying to analyze it. That has always been the key to my success as a comedy writer; notice when you laugh, write it down, analyze.
Hi Brent! I'm still getting my feet as a storyteller. I worked on extremely high-concept novels as a teenager along with some really pretentious poems on the side - and now that I'm attempting to tackle storytelling as not only an art of expression but an art of mastery, I'm finding it hard to pin myself down. I know everything that works for me when it comes to the creative process... thank god, but what I'm having trouble with is carving out a niche, so to speak. One week I'll be writing a surrealist Kaufman-esque dramedy and the next a John Wick rip off, only to become obsessed with horror, so I spend a month making a short horror film that falls through because oh yeah I don't have the money for any of the special effects I want. My first question is this: how do you lock down a 'niche', and if you don't recommend doing so, what do you think is the best genre to put forward - one that would maximize potential exposure - since I'm kinda doing all of them right now? I live in rural New England and my best course of action is producing shorts that get attention, as far as I see it. My second question is: my interest of the month is sitcoms. Now, I work in a grocery store. I have not seen a good store-based sitcom in my entire life. If you know of any I can shamelessly copy, that would be awesome. My inspiration for such a sitcom being that I had not one but two old ladies pretend to trip and grab my buttocks, squeeze, then blow kisses in one day. Within an hour I was named "Chapo two-cheeks" by my supervisor and it spread throughout the store. I get back from a thirty minute late forty minute wait for my taco bell lunch, and suddenly my name is "Chapo Two-Cheeks". Multiple male coworkers pretend to trip and grab me. I have familiar customers asking me "how's it hangin', two cheeks?" The day ends with a manager high fiving me for the action I got before my female coworkers showered me in "oh how horrible for you" shows of support. Straight out of a sitcom. I needed to write it, and so I did. I feel that I could create something at least okay with anything remotely this absurd, so... how do you workshop spec scripts and series ideas/bibles around to people who have no experience, considering I'm a complete outsider to the business and the only people that want to read anything I write are friends and family? And furthermore, is it even worth it to work on such an idea? Will it hold any water with producers or agents or networks? Optional satire question (except for my praises about The Office; that show is the Jaws of monotony-based sitcoms): I am wording this to sound like Dwight Schrute as a remorseless psychological tactic to appear more friendly and familiar. What's your favorite episode of the office? Do I have a soul or am I just creating one that appeals to the masses? The office had a real soul. That's rare. To be born (by Brent) is to have a soul I guess. Thanks! SATIRE EDIT: Would you mind taking a look at my 5 hour feature screenplay that I wrote - BEFORE ARI ASTER SAID HE WAS GONNA DO IT GIVE ME ROYALTIES NOW NOW NOW I WANT THEM NOW - on my dad's yacht when I was twelve and still boast about in my mid-twenties whenever people ask what my hobbies are because I have none other than beer pong and ding-dong ditching my rich neighbor Rich's house? Thanks! It's a first draft, written on yacht-napkins because I heard Sorkin did that once and I wanna grow up just like him!	I love your passion for the craft! Don't worry about changing genres, that just means you are abundantly creative. It sounds like you are thining of writing and shooting material that you put online ---- that is a really good instinct. In order to do this, you need to connect with good ACTORS. Find the theater community in your area and see if you can make some connections with talent that inspires you. This will also keep you from getting isolated (always a danger for writers). Remember if you do manage to put some good original stuff online, there are literally people whose job it is to find you. If you create quality they will come! Good luck Artist!
Hi Brent, my name is Scott, and I'm an aspiring screenwriter. I tend to write adaptations, or original ideas based on existing content. An idea I had floating around in my head since 2013 was a song-to-screen adaptation of Rush's song 2112 off the album of the same name. What advice can you give for something like that?	Your idea sounds original, and you are clearly inspired to bring it to life. I always encourage people to go for it, when they are gripped by any artistic passion! So I hope you will try writing something and bringing your vision to life.
​	A couple thoughts: the market for original screenplays ebbs and flows. The market peaked somewhere in the 90's or early 00's and has cooled off --- the market is saturated with movies based on action comics and young adult novels. Consider writing your "spec" script as something that could be sold to streaming (Netflix, Hulu, etc) and you'll find a wider audience. And when you have something that you like, reach out to the band themselves and see if you can get them into it. That would make for an interesting and valuable "attachment" for sure;
​	Scott I answered this but I think it popped up in the wrong window. My advice to you is to follow your inspiration on this --- you have an original idea, and you are passionate about. You owe it to yourself to try putting something on paper. Be aware that the market for original screenplays has cooled off in the last decade or so (the market is dominated by movies based on action comics and young adult novels) but there is growing market in movies for streaming: Netflix, Hulu, etc. Keep your budget low and your script will be more attractive. And when you have a script you like, try to get it to Rush! If they dig it, that's a very exciting "attachment" when you go to sell it!
Looking for an assistant or know someone in the industry who is? :D I'm graduating college in May, run a screenwriting club, have office/set PA experience, and have done all the typical receptionist/office duties. Just looking to absorb all the secondhand info I can. :D :D	You are smart to start sniffing around for those assistant gigs. That's a great way to get your foot in the door. Use your school's alumni network to make connections. Be polite, show some hustle, and stick with it. I have high hopes that you'll find something!
Also- do you know rive marker in nyc at all? I'm a playwright just starting in tv and I have something that I'd love to get to her because it's everything nine stories looks for in stage shows. (No hyperbole or back patting, it's a serious play that ends with what I hope will be a conversation about #metoo and open discussions about abuse and what we can all do to stop or at least recognize abusive relationships using sarcasm and shock as the vehicle- roughly 25 mins)	​I do not now Rive Marker, but I hope you are able to get your material to them. Established writers are always a bit skittish about solicitations from the outside, but if you can find a way to do it politely and sincerely, you have a shot. Everyone who is successful remembers being on the "outside" and most of us are happy to help artists who are looking for help.... as long as you don't seem too weird and stalkery :)
[deleted]	Much more common than selling your script is using your script as a writing sample to get you staffed on someone else's show. Most people who break into TV writing do in fact move to LA. But the pandemic has changed everything. We are all writing remotely on zoom now. I think the future is going to involve writers dispersed all over the globe, rather than silo-ed in offices in Burbank.
​	You obviously have some passion for this craft. Maybe you should see what you can get done in your home city for now. Connect with the local theater community there. Meet actors. Shoot stuff and put it online. You can follow your passion without moving to LA, and if you start to make headway, you can always move out to LA-LA land later.

Audio-Drama.com is an online directory of audio drama and spoken word websites, with at least one new link added to it each day, and over 100 new entries created every month. As of this post, there are 5,560 published articles. Here are the newest articles from the past week:

1. MOPS! (Full Cast Superhero Comedy Series) As Superperson travels the world, unsuccessfully attempting to defeat menacing villains, he leaves a trail of destruction everywhere he goes. MOPS, Magnificent Occurrences Purification Services, follows him around to clean up his messes and restore peace while experiencing some drama of their own.
2. King Kirby (Full Cast Drama Series) Heroes aren't born, they're made. This is the epic tale of Jack Kirby, the most famous cartoonist you never heard of: Born in the Lower East Side slums, veteran of the battlefields of France, co-creator of CAPTAIN AMERICA, THE AVENGERS, THE X-MEN, Kirby had his biggest fight after his comic books became an international sensation: He had to fight for his name, and the recognition he was denied.
3. Tim Drugan's Story Time (Narrated Comedy Anthology) Humorist and liar Tim Drugan tells stories. Some of these narratives (or anecdotes, or parables) begin with a feeble grip on reality before slipping into the absurd. Many yarns (or chronicles, or fairy tales), however, start in the bizarre and quickly topple into the preposterous.
4. Lady MCreepsta's NightNoise Horror (Narrated Horror Series) Greetings fellow ghouls and ghosts and fans of horror and the macabre, I am Lady MCreepsta. Welcome to my domain. This is where you will find the creepiest and scariest stories on the internet... and beyond... narrated by yours truly. So come. Turn the lights down low. Sit and join me. For tales of ghosts and demons, beasts and madness and everything in between.
5. The Manitobah Heritage Council (Narrated Comedy Series) Founded at the end of the Common Era in 2020, the Manitobah Heritage Council is committed to the Protection, preservation, and presentation of landmarks with significant satirical value for the public to appreciate and enjoy. For the past four centuries, the Manitobah Heritage Council has helped to shape our citizens' cultural, historical, and anthropological opinions through our enrichment programming and tours. In compliance with existing state of emergency protocols, our municipal offices are currently closed, but please feel free to peruse our archival materials presented here for your enjoyment.
6. Glass Letters (Narrated Drama Series) Glass Letters is a limited series audio fiction story about loneliness, connection, and letters in bottles. Brought to you from an island in the middle of nowhere, and created by Anna Godfrey.
7. The Elvet Mysteries (Full Cast Horror Mystery Series) The Elvet Mysteries is a horror-mystery miniseries set in a small English university town. After a strange experience, first year student Livvy Jones starts to document the unusual things happening in Durham, and invites the student body to share their stories.
8. Battle of the Bald (Full Cast Comedy Series) A six-episode scripted comedy series about a young lab assistant who accidentally invents a permanent cure for hair loss and changes the world.
9. Little Stories Everywhere (Narrated Children's Multigenre Anthology) A good story can take you anywhere. Every week Little Stories Everywhere will bring you magical, adventurous, fantastical tales to excite your imagination and carry you and your family members to new places around the world.
10. Lucid (Glos Channel) (Full Cast Comedy Series) Caught in a fog of emotions and attention, Jennifer desperately gropes for something, anything, to hang on to. On the morning of a seemingly important date, she realises the voice in her head is louder...and male. With the voice as an unwanted companion, engaging her in a mix of humour and sarcasm, does he succeed in leading her out of the fog or will she remain lost in it perpetually?
11. Mystery Jones! The Radio Files (Full Cast Comedy Mystery Series) A scripted comedy podcast about drugs, murder, and other elementary school crimes.
12. TYPECAST (Full Cast Comedy Series) Every week, the prestigious Rhiel and Kroulé offices cast a different project. From vampire courtesans to gritty Northern dramas, every actor worth their bread and butter is desperate to get in the door. But it's not all celebrity schmoozing and matcha lattes, this casting office has a spiritual dimension. Will nirvana be achieved?!
13. Kari's Missing Hope (Full Cast Urban Fantasy Series) When T.K. announces that he's moving away, the Digmon Emperor decides to strike! In order to survive, Kari must look within her heart to discover her true feelings for T.K., who in turn must find a way to restore everyone's Power of Hope...
14. Let's Be Frank (Full Cast Fantasy Comedy Series) Let's be Frank is an interactive storytelling podcast. The listener follows Frank, an accountant who is magically transported into a realm of orcs, mages, warriors and other fantastical things.
15. Broken Apocalypse Podcast (Full Cast Science Fiction Series) On July 30th 2028 the world erupted into a ball of fire and electricity. For 70 years Storyteller has walked the earth wondering why he has yet to die. Follow his journey from zero hour to present day In a jumbled mess of memories as we try to uncover the secrets of the Broken Apocalypse.
16. Unwanted (Full Cast Comedy Thriller Series) Two slackers attempt to catch an escaped convicted murderer who is allegedly hiding in their town to cash in on the million-dollar reward the police are offering.
17. Huld County, VA (Narrated Horror Anthology) Huld County, situated in the southern stretch of the state of Virginia, has been forgotten for decades. Only now does any knowledge of this place come to light, its history that was expunged in 1992, and the horrors that occurred there...
18. Tattle Tapes (Full Cast Multigenre Anthology) Tattle Tapes is a collection of audio pieces spread across various genres, conceived and materialised in the wake of the pandemic by the Circle of Acting at RV (CARV English).
19. Good Noise Radio (Full Cast Fantasy Anthology) An anthology series presenting questions and stories of faith in a nuanced and creative medium.
20. Mysterious Mysteries (Full Cast Horror Comedy Anthology) Join Mick and Matthew in this comedy podcast for weekly performances of original mystery dramas peppered with occasional wit, frequent nonsense and perpetual outrage...
21. The Unexplainers (Full Cast Comedy Horror Series) Open-minded rap star John Rutledge and sceptic stand-up comedian Mike Bubbins travel the nation unexplaining the most unexplainable mysteries.
22. Uncanny Japan (Narrated Folklore Anthology) Speculative fiction writer, long-term resident of Japan and Bram Stoker Award finalist Thersa Matsuura explores all that is weird from Japan—strange superstitions, folklore and folktales, cultural oddities, and interesting language quirks.
23. Slaughterhouse Stories (Narrated Horror Anthology) Podcast that features narrations of creepypastas, short scary stories, horror themed poetry, and more.
24. A Lesson In Swimming (Narrated Drama Series) Writeperformer Michael Shutt is a three-time stroke survivor. This is his story. Hilarious and poignant, A Lesson in Swimming is a five-part radio play that takes you inside his brain as it "breaks" and invites you to experience how deep the cracks really go.
25. Inheritance: Ash Falls (Narrated Horror Series) Located beneath a mysterious evil vortex , Ash Falls remains off-the-map as far as most modern earth-dwellers are concerned. But for those unfortunate souls who have found themselves pulled in by its dark forces, Ash Falls is not only home, it's a living nightmare where evil never sleep.
26. The FlyPaper Podcast (Narrated Comedy Anthology) An alternate reality of story and music
27. The Dark Titan Audio Experience (Narrated Multigenre Anthology) The official podcast of Dark Titan Entertainment. Featuring short stories, micro stories, and more across the Dark Titan realms. Stories told by Ty'Ron W. C. Robinson II.
28. Mockbusters (Full Cast Comedy Anthology) Mockbusters is a comedy podcast where two voice actors battle it out to pitch the ultimate movie. Each week, they'll be given a random genre and six hilarious randomly generated movie titles and they'll have just two hours to come up with a kick ass movie trailer to sell their idea to a special guest judge. Whose movie will be thrown out as trailer trash and whose will be awarded the prestigious title of.... Mockbuster.
29. The Martian Broadcast (Full Cast Drama Series) In 1938, a group of talented artists known as The Mercury Theatre on the Air, led by Orson Welles, created a spectacle that changed the course of broadcast history forever by terrifying a nation with a staged alien invasion. This is the story of how the infamous War of the Worlds radio drama came to be and how it almost never was...
30. Nothing much happens (Narrated Drama Anthology) Having trouble sleeping? Join Yoga and meditation teacher Kathryn Nicolai for bedtime stories where nothing much happens to help you relax and sleep peacefully. The stories are a soft landing spot for your mind. Rather than letting your brain race through the same thoughts you've been chasing all day, we are taking a detour to a calm and comfy place. We tell the story twice and go a bit slower the second time.
31. Foundation After Midnight Radio (Full Cast Horror Series) Foundation After Midnight Radio (FAM Radio), is based off the SCP Foundation. Set in-universe, the radio show is hosted by DJ Scip and brings the incredible happenings and strange announcements from the Foundation-verse right to you! Part radio drama, part comedy podcast, the stay tuned for site announcements, SCP readings, personnel interviews, call-ins, contests, sports team updates, containment breaches, and much more from the SCP wiki and the larger SCP fandom.
32. Planet Radiant (Narrated Science Fiction Series) An apocalyptic sci-fi radio drama inspired by text-based adventure games of the 80s and 90s. It's a queer-themed story about solitude and discovery, told in the second person and set to an original darkwave soundtrack. You wake up in an abandoned museum with no memory. Humanity has vanished. What do you do?
33. The Plop (Full Cast Children's Comedy Anthology) A sketch comedy podcast for kids 8 - 13 years old. Every week host Larry Dobbs combs the farthest reaches of the internet and plays auditory oddities, curios of sound, and blasts of the bizarre.
34. The Dracula Inquiry (Full Cast Horror Series) Four college students on spring break in Romania stumble across journals that could prove the legendary Dracula actually exists...unaware of the danger that could comes from making such a discovery. A queer friendly adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula using a modern cast of characters looking back at the original text, 'The Dracula Inquiry' takes a look at the events that came to be known as Case #18B-97S and attempts to solve the mystery once and for all; Just what happened that on spring break in Romania?

In additional to these audio drama articles, here is a collection of role-playing links entered during the past week:

1. Complex Action (Role-Playing Science Fiction Urban Fantasy Series) The official Shadowrun Actual Play hosted by Your Friendly GM Bobby of Complex Action. Join Bobby, Mr. Johnson of the Arcology Podcast, Damian of the Violent Life Podcast, and others as they dive deep into the shadows of Columbia, South Carolina in the CAS circa 2078.
2. Without A Net Podcast (Role-Playing Multigenre Anthology) Without a Net is a weekly tabletop rpg focused podcast. We play to find out what happens, it is because of that we hope you will listen.
3. Dames & Dragons (Role-Playing Fantasy Comedy Series) Dames & Dragons is a comedy Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition actual play podcast with a detailed original setting, lots of stupid jokes, a mystery or two, and some fumbling attempts at heroism.
4. Curse of Carmilla (Role-Playing Fantasy Horror Series) A D&D podcast where we replaced the Brooding Barovian Vampire Lord with a lesbian, and her dumbass brother. Queer AF.
5. OMEN Investigations (Role-Playing Horror Comedy Series) The official podcast for monitoring the activities of the Global Office of Occult Monitoring, Examination, & Negation. Follow a group of rather... eclectic individuals as they battle monsters, aliens and paranormal entities trying to take over the Earth.
6. The Mortal Path (Role-Playing Fantasy Series) Mostly set in the homebrew world Alfallen where magic is uncommon among the masses and the cogs and gears of technology are starting to clank into life, The Mortal Path follows three very unlikely "heroes" on their wild and thrilling journey through new lands. We also play a multitude of systems both in our world and outside of it!
7. Snyder's Return (Role-Playing Multigenre Anthology) UK based Tabletop Roleplaying Game Podcast featuring D&D 5e Actual Play (where a misfit band of 'Heroes' take on adventures across the D&D Multiverse), Interviews and DM/Player Guides.
8. This Is Gonna Hurt (Role-Playing Fantasy Comedy Series) Four adventurers explore the country of Etrun while trying to stop a shady organization from using the souls of their fellow citizens to resurrect an evil tyrant from the past.
9. Falling Star (Role-Playing Science Fiction Series) A West End Games Star Wars D6 RPG podcast. Primary podcasts consist of actual RP sessions, playing out a campaign from inception including discussions of character, plot and theme.
10. Ghosts on a Train (Role-Playing Horror Comedy Series) Take a ride on "The Pride of Duskwall", an electric train traveling through ghost infested territory! Our gang of Line Bulls will ensure your safe arrival by (lightning) hook or by crook.
11. Adventures From The Shed (Role-Playing Multigenre Anthology) Hi, and thanks for joining us for Adventures From The Shed - A Tabletop RPG Podcast! We're Eli, Jason, Randy, Chris, and Joe - a group of people who wanted to get together and record our gaming sessions.
12. Bardic Mystery Tour (Role-Playing Fantasy Comedy Series) We play D&D as an all-bard party on tour! We record our play sessions and include recordings of our original spell songs, and write full-length songs for our in-game concerts that typically happen at the end of each four-episode story arc.

Feel free to discuss any of these shows or comment about Audio-Drama.com. Note that the website is currently in the process of being redesigned, so some functionality is limited and pages may look different from one another. I always welcome any questions or feedback.
Compiling these link takes a lot of time and is something that I work on several (sometimes many) hours every day. If you appreciate this effort and would like to help support it, please consider stopping by the Audio-Drama.com Patreon page. Audio-Drama.com will always remain free for everyone.
Previous weekly Audio-Drama.com links

INTRODUCTION (can be skipped)
So a over a week ago i started thinking about how many Japanese expressions i was learning from wasting months spending so much time here watching streams despite not having learnt formally a bit of Japanese. I ended up gathering all the terms, inside jokes i read and heard a lot in the streams to make idk some starter pack meme or test to post lol. But then i thought that maybe it would be more useful to make it a more in deep dictionary. We have many new people coming from the EN side or translated clips and some of them are understandably thrown off or scared on watching something which is 99% in a language you don't know. This isn't the first time someone has tried to do this, there was a very complete post 3 months ago (https://www.reddit.com/Hololive/comments/icgxaq/a_guide_to_basic_written_hololive_japanese/) but from that time till now we have 3x more subscribers and this was more focused on written posts. Mine is different.
The focus of this one is mostly two things: That you learn enough things to get a tiny tiny grasp on what's going on streams if there isn't enough translation and than you can get and join in in most inside jokes even if you aren't into the weaboo culture stuff.
HOW TO USE
Trying to study this is a pointless endeavour. Just look it over with CTRL+F (too lazy to order it alphabetically now) when you hear some term you want an explanation on or some inside term that you don't get fully. The first word is how the word is in romanji (latin alphabet) and then how is written in Japanese (normally hiragana) in case you want to use it. The dictionary divided into 3 sections for ease of use. This isn't a complete rundown of all the Hololive lingo because it would be waay too long and or a Japanese language course because it goes over my knowledge and as a language is way too nuanced and contextual to teach in one post. But i'm open for submissions and corrections from japanese speakers, i only did the work to research every term from others!
If you need a more complex translation althrough it's far from perfect, it's always recommended that you use DeepL (https://www.deepl.com/en/translator)
DICTIONARY:
Basic Japanese expressions:

• Ohayo (おはよう): “Good morning”. Casual form of “Ohayo gozaimasu” (おはようございます)
  
• Konnichiwa (こんにちは): “Good afternoon”
  
• Konbanwa (こんばんは): “Good evening”
  
• Oyasumi (おやすみ): “Good night”. Casual form of Oyasuminasai (おやすみなさい)
  
• Hontouni? (本当に): “Really?”. Also it's used in the same way as "really x" in English to emphasize something.
  
• Arigatou (ありがとう): “Thank you”. Casual form of Arigatou gozaimasu (ありがとうございます)
  
• Omedetou! (おめでとう): Congratulations! Casual form of Omedetou gozaimasu (おめでとうございます)
  
• Otsukaresama (お疲れ様): A good translation would be "Thank you for your hard work", more like a common generic expression to say goodbye to co-workers and friends after a work day or meeting. Check out the entry on "otsu-" in the Hololive section to see how they transform the word as a goodbye in their streams.
  
• Tadaima (ただいま): A popular expression you tell someone when you come back home. Here they use it when after they had to leave the stream.
  
• Okaeri (おかえり): What you reply when someone says "Tadaima".
  
• Gommenasai (ごめんなさい): "I'm sorry". The short casual form "Gomen" (ごめん) is really common.
  
• Sumimasen (すみません): Another polite way of saying "I'm sorry" but can be more versatile like the English "Excuse me"
  
• Kudasai (下さい), Onegaishimasu (お願いします) : The two main ways to say "please" in Japanese. You will find them mostly at the end of a phrase to 'soften' the blow. Ex: "Yamete Kudasai" = "Please stop". Onegaishimasu is considered a bit more formal and polite but both are used often.
  
• Yamete (やめて): One form of pleading someone to stop something, usually as part of やめてください (yamete kudasai) which is a bit more polite. Also you hear sometimes Yamero (やめろ) which is the more imperative serious form. As with many expressions in Japanese the more commanding and absolute expressions are used more often between men while the softer more polite forms are used more often between women. [That's one of the reasons japanese natives can usually detect if you have been taught mostly by a male/female teacher] In my experience watching streams they do use Yamero often though.
  
• Yabai (やばい): Literally means "risky/dangerous" but it used in the meaning of "dangerously too much of something". It can be used both with positive or negative connotations, like something that is overwhelmingly well-done, a situation in a horror game that is so scary that makes you panic or a youtube thumbnail that is way too spicy to be allowed without banning the stream. It's a common casual term between young Japanese people, not something to be used in a formal context. As with other words ending in -ai the pronuntiation got slurred to -e resulting in “Yabe”. More recently some in chat are writing it like “Yab”.
  
• Naruhodo (なるほど): "I see!", "I get it now!"
  
• Wakatta (わかった): "I understood!" Sometimes they don't wakatta at all, though.
  
• kuso (くそ): It means "shit" and it used in this context exactly the same way you would use it English, like "damn" or "fuck".
  
• Ureshii (嬉しい): “I’m glad”/”That makes me happy”
  
• Bikkurishita (びっくりした): “That surprised/scared me”
  
• Mou ikkai (もう一回): “One more!”, as in “one more try”/”one last game” …
  
• Oishii (美味しい) : “Delicious/Tasty”. Men may use more often Umai (うまい) which is considered more crude and slangy as a term. Umai can also mean “good [at doing something]/skilled at”
  
• Ojisan (おじさん): Literally “Uncle” but frequently used as “middle-age man/mister”. In Hololive (at least) it’s implied this person is some kind of creepy pervert with younger girls when used as adjective for one of their members. Ex: “Watame Oji-san” = “Wata-oji”
  
• Totemo (とても ) : “Very”. Really used generic word but native speakers may prefer more nuanced words depending on the context in the same way you don’t use “very” all the time.
  
• Meccha (めっちゃ): An informal adverb used to do a superlative version of “very” like “supeextremely”. It comes from youth slang in the Kansai region that got popular with the general youth (probably thanks to TV comedians). Other popular words for this adverb are “chou” (チョー) and “sugoku” (すごく)
  
• Mecha kucha (めっちゃくっちゃ): Something that is really: a mess, absurd, all over the place... It could be the origin of Meccha (めっちゃ)
  
• Ikuzo! (行くぞ): “Let’s go!”/”Let’s do it!”
  
• Saikou (最高): “The highest/maximum”
  
• Minna (みんな): “Everyone”, as in everyone in the chat. Minna is the casual form of the word that get used among groups of friends. The polite version when you need a more formal address to an audience is Mina-san (皆さん)
  
• Daijobu (大丈夫 ) : “It’s ok/fine”. You can hear them asking this in question form (something like “Is everything okay?/Are you okay?”) to the chat whenever something (audio, video, connection, missing something important in a game) seems wrong or the chat starts being too agitated.
  
• Nani? (なに): "What?" Also the appropiate way to reply when you get to know you're already dead.
  
• Doko? (どこ?) : “Where?”
  
• Sasuga (さすが ): “As expected of...” In the overseas chat it’s used both as praise of someone’s abilities (as in “You’re great as playing this game (as we all knew already!)” so you’re impressed even knowing their previous reputation) or to mock ironically flaws in character (affectionally). In native Japanese I’m not so sure if this second meaning it’s used as much but Sasuga itself is pretty more nuanced as an expression.
  
• Kawaii (かわいい): “Cute”
  
• Kowai (こわい): “Scary”
  
• Kakkoii (かっこいい): “Cool”
  
• Itai (痛い) : Literally "Painful, hurt" but used as an onomatopoeia of "Ouch!"
  
• Uta (歌): “Song”. A stream dedicated to singing is called "utawaku" (歌枠)
  
• Ganbatte! (がんばって): “You can do it!”, a way to root/cheer for the success of someone
  
• Chotto matte (ちょっと待って): "Wait a minute/ a moment". Chotto is an small amount(ちょっと) and Matte (まって) is "to wait"
  
• Urusai (うるさい): Literally "[Too] Noisy/Loud", in practice it means "Shut up!"
  
• Senpai ( 先輩): Your senior. In Japanese and other Asian cultures this is really important because respecting, serving and being loyal to your seniors (both elders and work/school seniors) is still a fundamental part of the social etiquette. Nowadays though it has been losing some relevance over a westernized meritocratic system so it has opened itself to a more superficial relationship in some places. You will see Kiryu Coco talk about “Paisen” (ぱいせん) which how you call your senpais when you’re really close together.
  
• Kouhai (後輩): Your Junior. In Asiatic cultures the Senpais also have some duties over treating their kouhai according to the social etiquette which includes things like taking care of them as emotional support of to take them under their wings to show them all the ropes of the job.
  
• Sensei (先生): "Teacheprofessor"
  
• Tensai (天才): "Genius". Or at least they claim to be for comical effect.
  
• Sugoi (すごい): Almost always you’ll hear it, it means “Awesome!” or “Impressive!” but hilariously enough it can mean the exact opposite too: “Horrible, Awful”. This is because it’s nuanced in the same way that “Awesome” is: something so overwhelmingly impressive that causes awe, good or bad.
  
• Tanoshii(楽しい): “Fun”, “Pleasant”
  
• Chigau (違う) : “Wrong”, “different”
  
• Tadashi (正しい): “Correct”, “right”
  
• Kimoi (キモイ): Slang for "Gross/creepy/disgusting", literally "bad feeling".
  
• Kimochi (きもち): "feeling". Its most known variation, for reasons, is kimochii which means "good feeling" which includes the noun -ii to mean "good".
  
• Baka (ばか): "Stupid/Fool/Idiot". The king of the swearwords. Shiranui Flare, Tsunomaki Watame and Shirakami Fubuki are self-named as the "Bakatare [stupid, idiotic] trio" due to their antics while playing games in collabs
  
• Daisuki (大好き): "I like you a lot" with suki (好き) meaning "i like you". Disliking something is kirai (きらい), and hating something is daikirai (大きらい)
  
• Aishiteru (愛している) : "I love you" but in real life it's like a really really strong "i love you". Stories tell that even some married couples doubt on using this, so it's more rare to use in Japan than in overseas. Shouldn't have to remind everyone, but for both this and "daisuki" don't take them too seriously when they use them in streams, they like to play with them hyperbolically or to make a comedy bit.
  
• Muzukashii (むずかしい): "Difficult/Hard". For example Haachama wrote once "English muzukashi OMG"
  
• Hazukashii (はずかしい): "Embarrased/shy"
  
• Mite! (見て！): "Look!"
  
• Yokatta (よかった): Can be used as the past form of being good (so "It was good") but you're going to hear it with the meaning of "I'm glad to hear that", "What a relief [to know that now]"
  
• Are? (あれ?): "Huh?"
  
• Yatta! (ヤッタ!): "I did it, yay!"
  
• Yoroshiku (よろしく): You hear it mostly is the form of Yoroshiku onegaishimasu (よろしくおねがいします) A natural translation would be like "Please treat me well/be kind to me" and it's a custom you say whenever you introduce yourself to other people to express your hope to start with a good relationship. In formal business japanese this phrase is used really really often not only in introductions but after asking for favors.
  
• Abunai (危ない): A more normal way to say "dangerous/risky"
  
• Kanpeki (完璧): "Perfect"
  
• Suteki (素敵): "Fantastic/superb"
  
• Hayai (早い): "Fast". Also "early"
  
• Osoi (遅い): "Slow". Also "late"
  
• Omoshiroi (面白い): "Interesting". Sometimes "funny".
  
• Tasukete (助けて): "Help me/Save me! (please)"
  

Japanese Internet and popular culture expressions:

• Gachi Koi (ガチ恋): An expression from idol culture. Literally means "serious love" but a better translation would probably be "super obsessive fan" as you can guess from the first translation. With time the expression has soften and is used many times in a exaggerated/joking context. I think it's used more often by male fans.
  
• Gap Moe: Moe is used very often in anime/otaky culture and is some specifics aspects of a character that makes them cute and really, deeply attractive to you (Althrough the word has to a surprinsingly complex meaning with some nuances and has expanded to general hobbies). Gap here means the difference between different aspects of the personality of someone. So putting both together, it means the stark contrast of different personalities of someone that makes them really attractive to you. For example, the anime "yandere" archetype of a sweet girl that is a psychopath when she get jealous, or a clumsy character that is a pro at some game.
  
• Seiso (清楚): Literally means "pure, wholesome, uncorrupted (of knowing sexual and other adult stuff)" and it refers to some archetype of idols that used to be the ideal expected from of them. Nowadays many fans still take this seriously but it's more often a running joke. For example in Hololive is common for a streamer to say something perverted and when the chat points it out them saying they aren't perverts but seiso idols. If you ask me, modern "seiso" idols are a bit more more about attitude (agency) than purity, a way they chose to act after they look at the abyss (of degenerancy) rather than being some virginal person. In that meaning you can actually be both seiso and degenerate at different times.
  
• wwwwwwwww : In Japanese "warai" means "to laugh".. Writing a w is faster than that, specially in a western keyboard and that's how it came to be in online culture. So it's their way to say "hahahaha". You can see it as a final "w" at the end of many messages if you were confused before. I guess there it means more like "lol".
  
• Kusa, Big 草 : 草 (kusa) is a kanji for grass. As the story goes (that has been explained sooo many times in this subreddit lol) for japanese users the "wwwww" look like blades of grass, hence 草 ended up as a short hand for that so it means something like lol/lmao. It's something you always see in Hololive JP streams' chats. Big 草 is a beautiful example of cross-cultural interactions, like japanglish.
  
• KSZK (くそざこ): Acronym of “kuso zako”. Literally “shitty noob”. Someone who does something pathetically really amateur (unprofessional). For example, oversleeping a scheduled stream or having their stream disconnected due to shitty internet connection. Coco has a recurring segment of this in Asacoco but please don’t take it too seriously, it’s mostly a way to poke fun at her work pals. The majority of the audience are more amused by these problems than angry.
  
• Kaigai niki (海外ニキ): Comes from “Kaigai aniki”, literally “overseas [elder] brothers” = "overseas bros". It means the worldwide community of fans outside of Japan. The japanese fanbase is the "nihon-niki". For the female fanbase the word is "neki" and for the specific fanbase of both men and women they use both like "nekiniki/nikineki"
  
• RTA: Literally means “Real Time Attack” and is what the Japanese use to talk about speedruns.
  
• Haishin (配信): “Stream/Broadcast”. Also used, “Housou” (放送)
  
• 888888: Used as sort of onomatopoeia of clapping. Also, it’s a pun between “Pachi”, which means clapping and “Hachi”, which means 8.
  
• Batsu game (罰ゲーム): A punishment you do for losing to someone or failing to do something. If you have watched Japanese variety TV before you will know this is almost its own genre of entertainment. For Vtubers, it’s mostly just playing horror games or eating spicy food.
  
• Taikyuu (耐久): “Endurance”. In this context it’s used to talk about “endurance streams” which are stream that won’t end until some (hard) goal/milestone gets completed like beating a game in one go or winning an online match of some battle royale game.
  
• Zatsudan (雑談): "Free chat/Idle chat". What you know as "Just chatting" if you come from Twitch culture. Exactly what it says in the tin, the streamer talks about things that has happened to them or plan to happen and interact for a bit with the chat. A stream with zatsudan is a zatsudanwaku (雑談枠).
  
• Doki Doki (ドキドキ): Onomatopoeia of a beating heart. So you can guess it get used to emphasize nerve-wracking situations or romantic interactions in a goofy way.
  
• Guru guru (ぐるぐる): A sound of something that goes around in circles. They use this to talk about the emoji for loading/buffering in a stream.
  

Hololive-related expressions and inside jokes:

• Mama, papa: That's "mom" and "dad" in Spanish, in case you didn't know. They aren't talking about their biological fathers but instead the ones who designed their character Live2D avatar and the person who rigged the animations. Vtubers have a really grateful, supportive relation with the artists that made them come to life. Other words are used for this like mamma/mammy/mamman or the japanese equivalents hahaue (母上) / chichiue (父上).
  
• FAQ: A way to pronounce "fuck you" (the q sounds similar). When you are so elite as Sakura Miko, you discover it's a really flexible word to react, greet each other, confess your love, apologize...
  
• 10Q: "Thank you."
  
• Yubi Yubi: One catchphrase of many of our doggo Inugami Korone. Korone has a fascination with the criminal underworld customs and vocabulary (In fact, she used to have a section in Asacoco about this very thing). Yubi means finger and in yakuza (Japanese mafia) culture it is the one thing you get chopped off when you commit a grave mistake. In Korone's first stream this started as a joke she found funny. The gag evolved into her being an insecure doggo making a collection that wants to take your fingers as a safe deposit to ensure you stay watching all the stream (which can be really long) before her giving your fingers back. The fate of your fingers is decided in the sketch at the end of most streams which is some sort of improvised and hilarious bizarre short story to see if you get them back. Spoiler: You usually get them back but not in the best state. And then you explode and die for some reason.
  
• Nyahello: The standard greeting of elite shrine maiden Sakura Miko. Also written sometimes as "nyahallo". A reference to the greeting "Yahallo!" from Oregairu (Abbreviation of the name of light novel/manga/anime "Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru", known in English as "My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected") character Yui Yuigahama. This is because Tanaka Yuuichi was both the character designer of Oregairu and Miko herself originally (but not currently).
  
• Peko Peko Peko: A catchphrase of mischievous rabbit Usada Pekora. In anime some characters have some finish particles to their phrases like "-desu" or "-aru" that never happens in real life but for Japanese natives it makes them sound cuter. For Pekora the particle is "-peko". In her lore (please don't take it seriously) this is because she comes from the country of Pekoland. There they speak Pekolandish in which somehow every word is "peko". Pekora uses this expression often to laugh before doing some mischievous plan or to mock them after they lose to her. Sometimes wrote with arrows [PE↗️ KO↘️ PE↗️ KO↘️ PE↗️ KO↘️ PE ↗️ KO↘️] to represent the very characteristic changes of pitch she does while saying it. Once you hear it you will never forget it.
  
• Asacoco: Really early morning show (in JST) hosted by dragon Kiryu Coco in her channel 3 days per week (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays). In the show Coco talks about Hololive related news from announcements or milestones to funny moments of the previous days. Asacoco is also the name of some undescribed ficticious drug Coco sells in many forms in ads during the show. It's implicit the very same show somehow is the drug too so when you don't watch it, you feel withdrawal symptoms if you don’t get more doses.
  
• Tee Tee (ていてい/てぇてぇ): It's used to describe pure, cute, heartwarming, affectionate moments between 2 or more vtubers. It’s an internet variation of toutoi (尊い) which means “precious”.
  
• Otsu- (korone, nomaki…): In Japanese a common way to say goodbye/hello in the job or other contexts is お疲れ様 (otsukaresama, a crude translation is "Thanks for your hard work, you must be tired") In Hololive [and other vtubers] many make it cutesy by changing -karesama for their name or some expression to say goodbye to the audience and for the audience to say goodbye to them. There's too many to put here but for example Inugami Korone says "Otsukorone", Tsunomaki Watame says "Otsunomaki", Pekora says "Ostupeko", Tokoyami Towa says "Otsuyappi"... Some other do use completely different expressions, check out Hololive fan wikis for that.
  
• Gaming onion: The head of Minato Aqua's first Live2D model looks like a purple onion. Aqua is also a really good hard-working gamer. Both together are a affectionate way to poke fun at her. Recently, she complained after watching a clip of Hololive EN Amelia Watson mentioning her as a "certain vegetable senpai"; which could lead in the future to the nickname "yasai senpai" as yasai means vegetable in japanese and it has some rhythm to it.
  
• Crazy comedian rabbit: A way for overseas fans to refer jokingly to Usada Pekora because of her comedy hijinks and blessed comedic timing. Also how they reply when Pekora says she's an idol. Hey, she can still be your favorite crazy comedian rabbit idol!
  
• Akipella: A portmanteau of Aki + a capella due to the habit of accidentally muting the BGM of Aki Rosenthal during her singing streams. Her fans are pretty creative about adding Aki- to some other words.
  
• HAACHAMA CHAMA~!: Catchy greeting of Haachama (aka Akai Haato). Haachama used to be like some alter personality of Haato which is crazier and almost supernatural but recently Akai Haato is dead because Haachama killed her (at least that’s what she says). In her videos she uses this greeting very very often, sometimes in the middle of songs she sings in some sort of deranged brainwashing chant way to get her viewers insane and to subscribe to her. In my personal experience, it works.
  
• Kitsuneko (キツネコ). In Japanese "kitsune" is "fox" and neko is "cat". This portmanteau means "foxcat". Our friend and wholesome meme queen Shirakami Fubuki is based on an original mythological arctic fox. Her name in fact can be read as "White god Blizzard" (foxes are a common trope in JP mythology). The thing is that the audience doesn't always agree, they think she's cat. She plays into it by saying so many times that "she isn't a cat but a fox" or doing random cat noises. So her public thinks now maybe she has been a kitsuneko all along.
  
• TMT: Acronym for “Towa Maji Tenshi” which means “Towa is really an Angel”. Tokoyami Towa tries really hard to show she’s a true evil demon but her continuous acts of kindness and inability to do evil things make her fans think otherwise. This acronym usually gets spammed whenever Towa appears or get mentioned on a stream.
  
• PPTenshi: Hololive resident angel Amane Kanata did her debut livestream using Powerpoint (PPT). “Tenshi” means “angel”. Over time the meaning became a backcronym because there are many words that could fit like “Perfect Pitch”,”Poor Precious”, “Pure Power”…
  
• Watamelon: Fluffy sheep Tsunomaki Watame + watermelon = Watamelon. She was made aware of this pun and she started wearing a watermelon helmet for a few streams and even released a (silly) mini song about having a “watamelon head”. Other related puns: “Watamelody”, “sheep-posting”, ”membersheep”.
  
• Haato Basic: Overseas nickname for Akai Haato (Haachama) due to her cooking streams and videos being comparably as cursed as comedy youtuber HowToBasic.
  
• Piki Piki Piiman: Cutey expression for someone who is being pissed off/salty/frustrated at some task, like at a videogame. Piiman means “green pepper”. That’s why Korone has a pepper in her coffee during her streams.
  
• スーパーチャットタイム : In romanji it's "suppa chatto time". The other show Kiryu Coco does is a weekly meme review of this very subreddit with Hololive guests, which is a fun way of bridging the language gap between both communities and to make the Hololivers bond a bit more with their overseas fanbases since Japan has a totally different meme culture and you never know how they would react (althrough you end up discovering meme humor is universal). Anyways, in the show Coco translates the memes to Japanese and doesn't like when someone adds a shitty google-translate Japanese translation or random japanglish but the guests usually love this kind of awkward dorky japanese. One of the shitty japanese that stuck was this one and is used as some sort of call by viewers to send waves of donations.
  
• 量子チキンスープグラ ス ビッグチュングス: It doesn't mean anything. Really. It's an intentionally meaningless expression only made with the purpose of pissing off Coco after she scold the overseas community over shitty Japanese translations.
  
• Shuba Shuba Shuba: Quirky catchphrase of Oozora Subaru when she’s excited, it somehow sounds like a duck. Subaru originally doesn’t have anything to do with ducks but the meme caught up when she did an unintentional Donald Duck imitation in an ASMR stream (really) and from there she likes to use duck drawings in her streams. She has acknowledged that she took inspiration of “Peko Peko Peko” when looking for a catchphrase.
  
• Ahoy~! : Greeting of pirate captain [cosplayer] Houshou Marine and by extension chat spam whenever something related to pirates appear in a stream.
  
• Kensetsu (建設): “Construction” as in “Construction company”. This is a normal word but I didn’t know where to put it lol. In Hololive’s Minecraft server they love their big building/art/automation projects, with their main builders having their own made-up construction company and “employees” sometimes helping out. The ones building the most for now are Aqua, Pekora, Haachama and Subaru.
  
• AKUKIN: Alter ego of Minato Aqua which is an affectionate parody of really popular Japanese Youtuber HikakinTV and comes with the meme sunglasses. Currently the CEO of AKUKIN Kensetsu.
  
• []-chou (-長) [Kaichou, Senchou, Danchou....]: The relevant meaning of the root kanji chou 長 for this definition is "chief/head/leader" and is used to mark many profession are the boss of others. In Hololive, this trend caught like wildfire and now many members use this as some sort of nickname.
  

---- For example: Houshou Marine is the Senchou (船長) or "Ship Captain", Shirogane Noel is the Danchou (団長) or ----"[Military] Party Leader", Kiryu Coco is the Kaichou (会長) or "Chairman of a Company/association [in this instance ----it's implied the association is a criminal one]", Takanashi Kiara is the Tenchou (店長) or "Store Manager" [of her ----made-up business KFP], some others claim to be the Sachou (社長) or "CEO/President of a company"...

Fall 2019 Edition’s Thread

Darwin’s Game

Banjo’s Perspective

Drop It
Kaname Sudou is your average high-school student, toiling away in life with his best buds. One day, however, he receives a mysterious invitation to use an app on his smart phone, and, upon accepting, finds himself thrust into an augmented reality where superpowers exist, riches implode, and death glooms overhead. Coined Darwin’s Game, this survival-of-the-fittest situation demands everything – but supplies almost nothing in return.
The first episode is a double-feature, but it only serves to stab home the point that this anime has a difficult time outrunning its tired premises and eye-rolling events. Motivations are bland. Outcomes have little consequential value. Themes take a backseat to uninteresting dialogue. Alongside the lackluster duels and the inevitable overseers, the storytelling has thus far been a keen recipe for trite dealings.
A lack of meta details and necessary explanations seek to create an air of mystery to the whole debacle, yet this direction exacerbates the show’s problems. I.e., this no knowledge is no good, for the implausibility and the irrationality of the decisions and the confrontations equates to suspended disbelief that drags down the evolution of its natural selection.

Another Perspective, courtesy of Cryzzalis:

Drop It
“I wasn’t too hopeful going into the show, death game shows are generally hard to pull off due to the large cast and limited run time. Darwin’s Game attempts to tackle this issue by focusing on only a few characters.
Normally you’d think that’s a good thing, but if anything it’s to the shows detriment in this case, as there’s not a single interesting character in the show. Thus far out of all the named characters, only two of them has been developed to the point where I can even call them one-dimensional. And I’d be damned if they’re not some impressively one-dimensional characters.
We're stuck with an extremely bland insert protagonist, wiith the few traits he has actually affecting his character negatively and a heroine who looks good, but out of place in this show.
Speaking of visuals, the fight choreography is really boring and the animation and art style is nothing special at all so we end up with mediocrity in that regard.
If I am to be honest, the show has so many faults, I can begin to cover them all and it'd only be worth watching as a hate watch or as popcorn material with your mates. There's probably a good 20-30 shows better than Darwin's Game from this season, so just don't watch i unless you're really bored.”

Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na!

(English Title: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!)

Banjo’s Perspective

Must Watch It
Anime is life. At least, that seems to be the case for Midori Asakusa of Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na!. She dreams of making anime, drawing out sketches and ideas based on her own favorite elements and the avant-garde city where she lives. With help from her money-hungry best friend Sayaka Kanamori and their newfound comrade Tsubame Mizusaki, these three ladies embark on a journey to truly define art, animation, and ultimately anime.
And they certainly go the distance. Above anything else, this anime personifies its namesake, creating elaborate sequences, stylized imaginings, and incredible moments that shape it into a juggernaut of visual awe. The fun musical choices complement the passion therein, yet it’s the self-made sound-effects from the voice actresses themselves that instill a personalized feel into the engaging wonders.
To put devil’s advocate in motion, a rather loose plot and possible pigeonholing for the main trio raise the tiniest of flags. Nevertheless, to return the other way, its overall potential is clearly there anyway as the open-ended nature of its storytelling and the grounded realism of the characters prove it has inherent writing chops. With meta inclusions of drawing techniques and the fact that the comedic pieces land upright, and this anime becomes worthy of several high-fives.

Another Perspective, courtesy of meiiro:

Must Watch It
“From first glance, “Keep Your Hands Off Of Eizouken!” may look like your typical high school girl comedy. However, it’s much more than that; Eizouken is a quirky, imaginative look into the world of animation and people following their passions. It follows three distinctly different girls, each with their own fleshed out personalities and aspirations, on their journey to creating anime together.
The most enjoyable thing about Eizouken is that it’s never afraid to blur reality and fiction together. Each brainstorming session transforms into a fantastical journey. Figuring out how a windmill moves turns into a dynamic animation sequence with explosions and all new inventions. Even more than its random ventures into fantasy, the setting of Eizouken is its own breed of interesting. A faculty room in a pool, a clock on a school the students can’t even see- there’s so much to unpack, and it never gets boring.
These settings only serve to enhance the true stars, the characters. The dynamic between the main trio is nothing short of amazing; each personality is designed to compliment and contrast the other. More than that, the cast is already fleshed out and realistic; there’s no such thing as being two-dimensional from the very get-go.
Overall, Eizouken is an enjoyable watch, down-to-earth in plot and outside the box in presentation. Many have described it to be in the same genre as Shirobako - a sincere love letter to anime. If there’s one show you don’t want to miss this season, it’s Eizouken.

ID: Invaded

Banjo’s Perspective

Watch It
What do you get when you take the future-crime aspect of Minority Report, the mind-delving craziness of Inception, and the persuasive psychosis of Silence of the Lambs? The answer is ID: Invaded.
An original (that is, non-source adaptation) story, this anime has started for itself an intriguing crime thriller in most regards. The show balances its time between the detective work of its central protagonist and the informants who analyze his findings. What transpires, then, is a cool duality whose simultaneous weirdness and realness melds together in a very neat way.
Moreover, the anime is keen on exploring the important members of its cast and the wild setting it has created. Intentional parallels across plotlines and the blurring of lines between the “heroes” and the “villains” further pushes the story and the characters to higher levels.
The artistic vision for this show isn’t anything too special, so there does exist room for improvement. But this early on, the predictions and discoveries of its identity should hopefully be a satisfying endeavor.

Another Perspective, courtesy of Nazenn:

Drop It
“With obvious world similarities to Psycho-Pass and an intriguing main character, ID:Invaded had all the pieces needed to be the next big sci-fi crime mystery, but it spends far too much of its runtime focusing on its bloated side cast and repetitive exposition.
Any moment we’re not following the MC characters investigations in a criminal’s mindscape, we’re usually stuck sitting in a room listening to generic “investigators” talk at each other, using lifeless dialogue that doesn’t showcase any of their individual personalities. One character will say something, another will repeat it back to them as a question, only for the next character to repeat it again in a different way. If they’re not using techno-babble to explaining the details of the machine in excruciating detail irrelevant to the current drama going on, they’re narrating everything that’s happening on screen to the level of allowing the show to be more of an audiobook.
While the MC’s investigations and history are very interesting, they also fall victim to this over-exposition the moment we return to the investigators. It strips away a lot of the mystery when are made to listen rather than watch, having the show tell you what does and doesn’t matter. If the show cut this excess and focused purely on the three interesting characters it would be a different story, but with its current structure it makes it hard to recommend unless you want feel like you’re being talked at for 20 minutes each week.”

Infinite Dendrogram

Banjo’s Perspective

Drop It
Sometime in the future, true virtual reality has become a norm for most gamers. Reiji Mukudori, interested in such a place, decides to make his own character within such a VRMMO video game: Infinite Dendrogram. Unlike traditional MMOs, however, this adventure has left excitement behind.
The key motif of this story comes from the understood notion that this VR world is organic and alive. Sadly, that’s the extent of the anime, for the unfortunate reality is instead that the surrounding parts are devoid of the same fortitude. The main character, his “maid”, and the supporting cast are largely forgettable. The story beats have been totally ineffective. The attempts at incorporating the gaming side of things are meager at best.
It goes on. The anime doesn’t seem up to the challenge of asking – let alone answering – the moral and the societal questions that their literal realistic fantasy entails. Not to mention that, on an artistic front, the show shows weak signs already. When all is said and done, the scope and the impact of this project is not just finite but practically zero.

Another Perspective, courtesy of porpoiseoflife:

Consider It
“I can hear the detractors now. Yadda yadda SAO clone yadda yadda loli sidekick yadda yadda kuma yadda yadda drop. What these sweeping generalizations miss is that this show is actually a fun thing to watch. The fight animation has been great, the details of the world are wonderful, and the main characters are nicely done yet without the incessant edgelord mentality that is far too common in the VRMMO subgenre.
You know that they are playing a game for the sake of playing a game, without any need for grand stakes or heavy consequences. And oh boy, does that game look like fun. A sandbox environment where the characters can change the game world significantly would be on my top list of things to try out, the concept of fully AI driven NPCs is fascinating, and the little hints about the greater gameworld makes me wish that full-dive technology was a real thing so I could waste my free time playing it.
For fans of the VRMMO subgenre, this should be promoted to Watch status. For everyone else, consider this as an alternative to the others languishing in your drop lists.”

Ishuzoku Reviewers

(English Title: Interspecies Reviewers)

Banjo’s Perspective

Consider It
From humans to elves, demons to beasts, and any other manner of creature in-between, Ishuzoku Reviewers stars a plethora of species-specific humanoids. But it’s not quite that tame. Oh no. In fact, it’s the complete opposite, for this anime focuses on the one inherent quality that drives biology: sex.
Stunk, Zel, and Crim make it their mission to critique these sexual encounters, describing their likes and dislikes which culminate in that all-important climactic score. In doing so, the anime thrusts with vigor in different ways. The comedy angle keeps the content lighthearted throughout. The emphasis on being sex-positive aligns with the ecchi genre. And the scenes may as well be deemed pornography for just how much they are willing to depict (especially so in the uncensored version).
Ironically enough, though, the diversity within the anime is also its downfall. Catering to everyone and everything means that, amidst the laughs and the sexiness, the weird and the nasty inevitably materialize. Indeed, needing to endure such moments is arguably not justifiable in the long run.
If nothing else, the project has some nice production values, and the sex shows no signs of stopping its upward debauchery. So, for now, its final review must wait.

Another Perspective, courtesy of Dagonsnake:

Consider It
“Ishuzoku Reviewers is certainly a unique show, the entire premise is simple, two guys want to have sex with as many different creatures in their fantasy world as possible, and after they sex up their local brothels, they write a review about their experience with said species, and give it a rating from 1-10.
The art is pretty good, and the character design is honestly pretty great from what I've seen so far. Every species has its own unique traits, and no two species that I've seen really look too similar. On top of this, the show probably has one of my favorite OPs of the season, and the ED isn't bad either.
The show, as you'd expect, is very fanservice heavy, there are a few scenes that are honestly, just hentai, so if you're not into that, I'd definitely recommend staying away from this show. However, if you're looking for an ecchi heavy show, or you don't mind ecchi, this show may just be for you since the humor in the show itself can honestly be pretty hilarious!
However, one final point I unfortunately feel I need to make since the show is an ecchi after all. If you're the type of person who prefers small or medium breasts, you might be somewhat disappointed as thus far the show has been pretty lacking in that regard.”

Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu.

(English Title: BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense.)

Banjo’s Perspective

Watch It
As the other major VRMMO offering of the season, Bofuri follows Maple, a young lady taking part in her first-ever online gaming experience. Like any normal human, she hates pain, and so she stacks points into her defense stat. Then more defense. Then even more defense. So much defense that her build becomes an anomaly worthy of this story.
This anime channels cuteness as Maple stumbles into upgrades, skirmishes, and interactions, causing a lot of hilarity and smiles as a result. Her best friend Sally contrasts her both in personality and skills; their buddy duo makes for a wholesome relationship. And the extra side details – such as the variety of enemies, the forums, the admin patches, and so on – solidly round out the underlying game setting.
The story and the characters seem content with where they’re at, so they’ll most likely not go anywhere too deep or too compelling, missing out on that worthwhile status. But when the action segments impress and the docile moments delight regardless of those factors, the project stacks its own defense in the form of above-average execution.

Another Perspective, courtesy of Daniel_Is_I:

Drop It
“Bofuri ticks all the boxes you expect from an isekai/VRMMO show centered on an overpowered protagonist: light comedy, action, cute girls, etc. Unfortunately, ticking boxes is all it does, and it does so to the detriment of any potential it may have offered.
The premise can be grasped entirely from the title. Maple, airhead and VRMMO newbie, dumps her points into vitality and stumbles into the most broken build New World Online has ever seen. In theory, this gimmick has merit; an unkillable protagonist with no offense bumbling through combat could be interesting. This gimmick is also immediately undermined when the world starts bending over backwards to make sure Maple never experiences any struggles whatsoever. Virtually all problems are immediately resolved, often through sheer luck. Maple and co. are blessed with plot armor and play by different rules.
Perhaps the saddest thing about Bofuri is that nothing about it is egregious (except the game design), but nothing stands out, either. The world is a bog-standard fantasy VRMMO. The comedy is inoffensive, hardly eliciting a chuckle. There have been two strong action sequences, but they're sandwiched between long segments with little of interest happening. It's relaxed, but it's also utterly forgettable and requires no engagement from the viewer. Even worse, it's brainless, and thinking in-depth just makes its flaws stand out more.
I can understand why some might enjoy Bofuri, but I see no reason to watch it over the myriad of other shows it's competing with.”

Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun

(English Title: Toilet-bound Hanako-kun)

Banjo’s Perspective

Consider It
At her school, Nene Yashiro hears about one of the seven mystical wonders haunting their building. She goes to an out-of-the-way bathroom, knocks on the stall, and meets Hanako-kun, the wish-giving spirit who maintains order between their two separate realms. For better or for worse, they now help each other, giving Toilet-bound Hanako-kun its origin.
What this show boasts most is a wonderful sense of artistry. Actual animation trends towards the low side, sure, but the shot-for-shot visuals make up for this lack and then some. Vibrant colors. Great use of lighting. Changing styles. Paneled compositions for flair. Nice designs. The anime is definitely one of the best-looking offerings this season.
Otherwise, there’s not much else to boast about. Its sense of comedy and cuteness isn’t the greatest. Its “monster-of-the-week” approach has yet to tie in well with a supposed central throughput. And the characters themselves are uninspired.
It also has a (strangely enough) unheard of problem in this medium: incorrect audio tuning. More specifically, the gain on the microphones used by the voice actors and actresses is so high, one can hear the humming feedback during quiet scenes (which are surprisingly common), breaking immersion and demonstrating an obvious misstep in execution.
Again, however, the art alone prevents the entire project from being flushed down the toilet.

Another Perspective, courtesy of ZBLongLadder:

Must Watch It
“If you’ve watched much anime set in high schools, you’ve probably encountered the “Seven Wonders” trope: a set of seven urban legends the students will use to creep each other out. Hanako-kun gives that trope a clever twist, being set in a school where those rumors are true and supernatural beings from the oddly specific and morbid minds of teenagers really do haunt the halls of the school, ranging from the inconvenient to the deadly.
The show is a creepy comedy, sort of in the vein of Nightmare Before Christmas, and while it never fails to deliver a (mostly) lighthearted tone and plenty of laughs, it also provides a wonderfully atmospheric setting and plenty of odd and uncanny moments. This is particularly noticeable in the design of the main character, Nene, who manages to be intensely moe while also being clearly a bit unsettling, with her ever-present skull brooch, green-tipped hair, and doll-like eyes that are a bit strange even for an anime character. The characters have great chemistry, particularly between Hanako-kun and Nene, the two leads.
The art in particular is excellent, with a subdued pallet and more stylized designs giving the show a storybook-like feel. The show as a whole has an almost otherworldly quality to it, especially in the old building, where most of the apparitions seem to originate.
In all, I have been thoroughly enjoying the show, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes comedy with a dash of creepiness.”

Koisuru Asteroid

(English Title: Asteroid in Love)

Banjo’s Perspective

Consider It
Mira Konohata has a fondness for space and the galactic. Her love of the above sees her joining her school’s astronomy-turned-Earth-sciences club where she meets a bunch of likeminded girls. As a group, they aim to learn about the stars, the rocks, and the bonds they share sandwiched by these halves.
Credit where credit is due, the vibe of the anime vies for realism. Rather than injecting absurdist comedy or over-the-top silliness, the events and the mood at large stay normalized. It isn’t so much flat as it is natural, letting the cute bits and the fun reactions have a subtler delivery. Plus, while the setting is arguably a tad lame, the fluid animation does not go unnoticed for the CGDCT show.
However, it’s probably more accurate to call it “CG---" because it has effectively dropped the “DCT”. Despite the premises, where the anime is supposed to be about the study of space and the research into geology, the content often distracts itself. Granted, they work towards fleshing out the characters, so they aren’t completely meaningless, but the reasoning for telling this tale and consequently the flight of this asteroid is flimsy at best.

Another Perspective, courtesy of SpareUmbrella:

Must Watch It
“This show is, essentially, a cute girls show, but this time it's an Astronomy/Geology club. There's a diverse cast of characters, cute in their own ways, but not overly saccharine like GochiUsa can be.
One of the things that often plagues cute girl shows is the reliance on characters explicitly calling attention to something zany another character has done. Koisuru Asteroid seems to largely avoid this pitfall. It's not what I'd consider laugh out loud funny, but I believe it's trying to balance its more kooky jokes and gags with more endearing character moments sometimes glazed with yuri undertones, and having seen the first 3 episodes, I feel it's done an excellent job of this so far.
That's not to say Asteroid doesn't have elements that feel obligatory for shows of this type, episode 2 features a bath-house scene for instance (because of course it does) however even that is used to actually weave dialogue into the show - dialogue directly relevant to both the situation the characters are in and the overall subject matter of the story.
Much like Doga Kobo's previous work (New Game! in particular, which has a very similar artstyle to Asteroid) the colour palette is bright and inviting and the girls in general have pretty solid character designs.
I think this show is a must-watch not because it's necessarily ground-breaking, but is a very competently written and produced cute girl show in almost every area, and those of us that like that kind of show will definitely enjoy Asteroid.”

Kyokou Suiri

(English Title: In/Spectre)

Banjo’s Perspective

Consider It
Youkai are the otherworldly beings that beget reverence or peril depending on their alignment. For Kotoko Iwanaga and Kurou Sakuragawa, two seemingly normal people intimately connected to youkai, these beings require their wisdom and their strength (respectively). And for Kyokou Suiri as a whole, these swirling dynamics lead to a peculiar story.
Two key elements form the core of this show: Kotoko herself and the infused comedy. Kotoko more or less carries the project. Her rapport with Kurou is fun, her characterization is off-kilter, and her forwardness keeps it all moving. As for the comedy, it upholds the tricky business of coexisting with the drama without ruining it. That’s not an easy feat, so it should be praised to some extent.
Beyond these two elements, the rest is mixed. Huge amounts of dialogue are not necessarily a negative, and the exchanges here are by no means laborious. However, it’s a decidedly uneventful task as they (most often Kotoko) just sit down and explain ad nauseum without there being much to care about. Furthermore, the youkai backdrop has been uninteresting, too, and the art, while solid, really only has the character designs going for it.
Thus, the current inspection stays nominal.

Another Perspective, courtesy of Groenboys:

Watch It
“An anime can have many strengths. Production values, characters, directing, story, but Kyouko Suiri strengths lies in the thing that isn't noticeable right away but is as essential as any other aspect of an anime: the dialogue.
The characters in the anime are witty, thus the dialogue is witty, but it isn't witty in loud and overwhelming sense. All the remarks are evenly spread out throughout an episode so that the dialogue continues to feel fresh. But the biggest reason why the dialogue is so superb is how everything flows so well. Characters talk for minutes on end but it never gets stale or annoying because of how well their sentences flow. The pace of how the words are spoken is soothing. The banter between the characters, how much they respond to one another and how much information is actually being said is juuuuuust right. I have found myself watching episodes only to hear the ED and going like ‘wait, the episode is already over?’ and that is not a bad thing at all.
The reason why I gave this anime a ''Watch It'' and not a ''Must Watch It'' is because 1. the story is good now but I can't say much for later and 2. The anime is very dialogue heavy, so even if the dialogue is great if you like more action in an anime I recommend not checking this out.
For everyone else, if you like mysteries and witty characters, absolutely check this anime out.”

Nekopara

Banjo’s Perspective

Consider It
In Nekopara, cats are no longer four-legged pets with fur all over their bodies. Rather, they are basically humans with fluffy ears and expressive tails that simply take on the mannerisms of their feline counterparts. And for Chocolo, Vanilla, and the other cat girls, their daily lives are simplistic enough to have few worries, save for a recent development.
Per their catlike nature, the anime brands itself as a slice-of-life project with cuteness as its mainstay. The “cats” will climb along buildings, drool at the sight of fish, and chase after inanimate objects. All the while, their cute behavior emerges as they handle regular human activities, work at the confectionary of their household, and bounce their personalities off each other in distinct pairings.
Artistically, the designs for the cat girls are varied and fit the motifs of the anime, but the remainder of its visual acumen is passable at best. Thematically, the anime isn’t very concerned with delivering a message. Narratively, the small subplot tries its paw at world building but lacks the interest to make it meaningful.
So, characteristically, the anime elicits smiles no doubt, yet whether this shtick uses up its nine lives before the end has become a dire possibility.

Another Perspective, courtesy of alwayslonesome:

Consider It
“Ahem… do you know about moe anime? Cute girls and their adorable antics, fluffy atmosphere and expressive animation, all attached to a weekly broadcast of the utmost charm… Do you like shows like that? If so, consider checking out Nekopara! The cutest nekos you’ve ever seen await you there~
Set in a world where sapient catgirls are commonplace, Nekopara’s story loosely follows Minazuki Kashou’s opening of his bakery La Soleil. However, any plot is entirely marginalized in favour of foregrounding the antics of the Minazuki family’s nekos – the moemoe “good stuff” we’re all here for. The ensemble of catgirls includes lovable idiot Chocola, deadpan snarker Vanilla, closet-pervert Cinnamon, among others – archetypes that nobody hasn’t seen before, but still do a respectable job of bouncing off of each other and creating light-hearted comedy. The show’s appeal is greatly enhanced by the good job it does transferring the nekos’ lavishly detailed visual novel designs into animation, with plenty of perky nekomimi and expressive tail wags. For those skeptical of the property’s origins, the TV anime is remarkably ecchi-free and family-friendly, trading off cutting-edge chest-bounciness customization for all-ages wholesomeness.
All in all, Nekopara is not a project that’s especially ambitious or exciting, but it successfully capitalizes on the appeal of its source material and does its job as a moe anime very competently. If you are interested in a show that’s fluffier than a catgirl’s ears but doesn’t do much else besides, then joining Kashou and furrends at La Soleil would be a purrfect choice.”

Pet

Banjo’s Perspective

Drop It
The psychology of the mind is simultaneously a beautiful and terrifying field. Doubly so for the men of Pet who dive into this dichotomy to manipulate their hapless victims. Hiroki and Tsukasa are two such individuals that do the diving, and, while the anime would like the audience to believe its capabilities, this mess is not very promising.
So much of the show is already either misplaced or wrong. The production values, from the consistency of the art to the voice acting, are subpar. The characters desperately wish to be backed by mature writing but come off as ridiculous. And the horror elements do not have a strong enough punch to influence the viewer.
If that weren’t bad enough, the anime gets worse. Unnecessary convolution in the storytelling, uninteresting drama, and low entertainment opportunities in general compound the present mess into a catastrophe. There’s almost nothing worth praising in this project, no matter how many “peaks” or “valleys” this pet visits.

Another Perspective, courtesy of throwaway_zuk:

Watch It
“Pet is a psychological show, about people with powers to get into other's minds and alter memories. While this has been played out in various shows to different degrees, Pet manages to drive home the feeling of how scary this would actually be, and how it can be exploited.
What this show excels in, is the structure it establishes to 'memories', and the rules for 'altering' them, which the characters strictly abide by. This results in clear boundaries of what they can and can't do, with consequences for their actions, as opposed to pulling rabbits out of the hat.
As a viewer, we aren't provided with all the details at the start; in fact, we are thrown right into the mix with a confusing first episode. However, as the show goes on, we learn more about the world and the main cast, with enough questions in our mind to keep us intrigued, while also not leaving us confused.
The cast features strong characters with unique personalities, whose motives and relationships we slowly learn more about. Technically, the show is solid, with notably crisp animations and sound direction, turning the quality up in key scenes. The OP by TK, and the ED (by Memai SIREN, prod. by TK) are exquisite, living up to his reputation.
To summarize, I recommend watching this show for the unique world-building and visualization on the premise of 'altering memories', strong cast, and a mystery which slowly unravels the bigger picture.”

Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shoumei shitemita.

(English Title: Science Fell In Love, So I Tried to Prove It)

Banjo’s Perspective

Must Watch It
Ayame Himuro and Shinya Yukimura are scientists dedicated to their craft. But an unforeseen metaphysical variable has entered the equation: love. As scientists, they conclude that the only “true” solution to deciphering their feelings stems from experimentation, with RikeKoi chronicling their scientific venture.
Purely a rom-com, this anime has been filled with romance and comedy aplenty. Their different hypotheses lead to heart skips, hilarity, and huge amounts of enjoyment as the two lovebirds realize their connection among the misguided ideas. Better yet, the college setting enwraps the project in a refreshing sense of maturity, and the theme on what exactly is love receives two thumbs-up. And the supporting cast – the regular lady, the love “guru”, the woman who stirs the pot – round out the group and supply their own romantic and comedic edge for increased fun.
The artistry isn’t the most spectacular around, but its changes to match for laughs or for emotions are duly noted. And yes, perhaps their formulations are not perfect science per se, but it’s science-y enough (with or without the bear-professor education) to don those touted lab coats.
All in all, this lovely project has proven itself from the get-go.

Another Perspective, courtesy of Taiboss:

Consider It
“Remember Steins;Gate? Of course you do, change of question: Remember the early part of Steins;Gate? The part before all that plot bruhaha, where the most exciting thing you got was Okabe and Kurisu banter, in which you decided those two were the best ship ever?
Well, here's an anime that is basically that, but in explicit and sadly also in worse.
The main premise of Rikei is easily explained: A male and a female scientist like each other very much, but having never watched educational television as a child, never learned to understand their own emotions. As such, once the topic arises, they go full-on Hollywood scientist and seek to prove their mutual love in all kind of scientific and mathematical ways. All this is commented on by another scientist, the audience surrogate/straight man/best girl, who actually is a normal human being and therefore able to show how even in-universe, the main couple‘s behaviour is not normal. Now, on paper, this all sounds very nice, but it quickly runs into trouble: The characters, officially highly-educated scientists, too often behave like total idiots in topics they should understand, asking questions they should know the answer too and taking too long to come up with an obvious solutions. Also, the science often feel much more arm chairy than if it was written by an actual scientist.
In short, this is a must-watch for romance lovers, but everyone less into romance, or maybe even interested due to the S;G parallels, should prepare to groan way too often.”

Runway de Waratte

(English Title: Smile Down the Runway)

Banjo’s Perspective

Consider It
The medium of anime covers a wide range of topics, and Runway de Waratte walks onto this spectrum by highlighting a topic that is foreign to much of the population: professional fashion. Chiyuki Fujito is an aspiring model, Ikuta Tsumura is an aspiring designer, and the two together seek to become the stars they know they can be.
On the one hand, the anime has created an interesting project. The fashion premise, as denoted above, already acts as a lure for the viewer, but its steps to curate themes on adversity help with its writing basis. Hardships faced, perseverance needed. Common threads that the main characters struggle with in their tough jobs. Speaking of, Chiyuki and Ikuta are a nice duo, two sides of the same coin that have their own parts to play yet whose intertwined stories strike a solid balance.
On the other hand, the project showcases some cracks. Parts of the drama can feel overblown when harsh actions and loud reactions interfere with the overall seriousness of the story at hand. Oddly as well, the music direction, selections, and timings are often overbearing, clouding its scenes with more sound to enact emotional effect at the cost of audience distraction.
But with a clear runway to follow and primed arcs to unfold, this one may very well be smiling come the season’s end.

Another Perspective, courtesy of MapoTofuMan:

Must Watch It
“In a season that has everything from beloved sequels to a VRMMO CGDCT and to the tales of a wish-granting toilet ghost, a seemingly boring show with runway modeling as the theme was bound to fly under most people's radar. And unjustifiably so - taking Smile on the Runway's more intense moments into account, it should be able to hold its own against battle shounens when it comes to keeping you glued to the screen.
The show follows the journey of Tsumura, an aspiring clothes designer, and Chiyuki, an aspiring runway model, both of whom could never go past the "aspiring" stage until they met each other due to life's circumstances - Tsumura has to choose supporting his large family over getting into designer school, while Chiyuki is half a head shorter than the acceptable height for professional models.
Overall, Smile on the Runway looks like it's shaping up to be a nicely balanced slice of life drama with a basic but well-executed premise, more than passable technical aspects, and last but definitely not least for this kind of show - great characters. If you think your seasonal roster could use another slice of life show, then I highly recommend giving it a shot.”

Somali to Mori no Kamisama

(English Title: Somali and the Forest Spirit)

Banjo’s Perspective

Must Watch It
In a fictious land teeming with a multitude of environments and strange creatures, Golem is an ancient, sentient robot who oversees his esoteric forest. One day, he spots not a bunny or a wolf but instead a human child named Somali, seemingly abandoned and without hope. Humans no longer exist in this land, so Golem takes it upon himself to find them, to bring Somali back home, beginning the amazing journey of Somali to Mori no Kamisama
Each aspect of this project has been nothing less than great thus far. The touching story of this “father” and “daughter” evokes themes of family, time, and life. Beautiful artistry paints the landscapes with deft skill and gorgeous detail. Golem and Somali are sound characters insofar as Golem learns about emotions and Somali grows up from the world around her. Fantastic music allows the weight of the scenes to shine. And the adorableness, the wholesomeness, and the sincerity throughout grant leagues of enjoyment.
In total, the spirit and the execution of this anime is as grand as it can be right now, making this show absolutely one of the best of the best this season.

Another Perspective, courtesy of ErinaHartwick:

Watch It
"Somali to Mori no Kamisama is a quaint Iyashikei show that centers on Somali, a human child who lives in a fantastical society where humans have been mostly wiped out or are sought after as meals, and Golem, her unlikely father figure.
If I could pinpoint the two things that make the show interesting, its that Somali is as cute as they come and her relationship with Golem is unique and heart-warming. Three episodes in and the show hasn't failed to capitalise on Somali’s fascination with the eccentricity of every settlement they visit, often leading to misadventures. Somali is cute in most scenes she’s in and dazzles the audience with her boundless curiosity and adoration of her father figure, which makes way for some unique father-daughter scenes that’s just interesting to see, to say the least. While they could have made Somali just a kid who only chases things, throws a fit and does nothing else and be done with it, we instead get a child who loves to support her father and tries to help him, as we watch her father fumble bluntly in his effort to care for Somali. This dynamic is honestly one of the selling points of the show, and if you like seeing the charming (mis)adventures of a curious father daughter duo with a relaxing fantastical setting as a background, Somali to Mori no Kamisama is the show for you.”

Part 1 ---- Part 3
November 18
~9. McMYSTERY AT McDUCK MANOR! This was the episode where we discovered that “Bottle Episodes” for animation are a STRAIGHT UP LIE.
If you don’t know, a “Bottle Episode” is an episode of live-action television that takes place all in one location. It’s meant to be easy on production because you don’t have multiple locations to switch to.
We were coming off some design and staging heavy episodes, so we figured a locked room mystery a la “Clue” would be a nice break.
What we came to realize is that an episode can either be easy for the writing team or the board team or the design team. Easy for one means hard for the other two.
An easier story for writing means not having to be judicious with locations, characters, props, action etc. You can just have fun and do anything. This is obviously tough on boards and design.
Easier for boards means heavy pre-thought for writers to make action simple. And to keep the energy up for 22 minutes, the writers might throw extra props & characters, and if boards aren't judicious about their shot count, that's a design heavy ep.
Easier for design (as we thought this would be) means not a lot of new props, bgs, and new characters, so the writers work extra hard to limit these, and the board team has to think VERY judiciously about every new shot and angle of a room designed.
For this supposedly “easier” episode, we had to write an engaging extended mystery with no time jumps and a limited cast, boards had to figure out how to make it dynamic, and design had to figure out EVERY INCH of that main hall. Not so easy.
I love the scene where Ma and Glomgold call out Mark Beaks, like “Seriously? This is what we’re calling a ‘Scrooge Villain’ these days?”
Also a good opportunity to reinforce each villains overarching goals and firmly establish Ma’s goal beyond petty theft: to reclaim Duckburg from Scrooge.
The “Duckworth as Ghost” twist came from a reaction I had to a previous round of development. An earlier artist had done an updated “Family Portrait” for the show. Stodgy Butler, dowdy maid, four equally excitable kids, and a crackpot inventor.
To us, it felt…soft. Safer and more predictable than even the original series or Barks comics. Scrooge is the world’s greatest adventurer, but he’d surrounded himself with soft, squishy tropes.
I was reminded of an ep of the og series (“Metal Attraction”?) where a “Family Portrait” consisted of Scrooge, the kids, a caveman, a dinosaur, a maid, & Gizmoduck for some reason. That vibe was super engaging to me. I wanted to know about THAT family.
So we looked at that old development art and said “She’s a spy, he’s a ghost, he’s a mad scientist, etc….” Basically, coming up with a group of allies Scrooge would have made over a century of adventure.
I was so delighted when the show started and people started complaining “Where’s Duckworth?” They had no idea he was actually in the opening credits. We also hinted at him on Webby’s board in the pilot.
~10. THE MISSING LINKS OF MOORSHIRE! The network asked us to do a sports-themed episode. We thought kids would be excited by golf. So much so that we had a character constantly talk about how much he hated golf.
During the board pitch, the “Glomgold Coin Toss” scene caused one crewmember to start laughing so hard he had to excuse himself from the room. It was a very proud moment for all involved.
The magic pairing of Huey and Launchpad is something we haven’t done enough since. We tried to remedy that in another sports episode coming up in Season 3!
I loved telling a story about the “wise old mentor” being in the wrong. Scrooge will always see himself as vital, but he’s got to learn when to step back. Here and in Neverrest, it’s important that Scrooge is learning and evolving as much as the kids.
Cut for time: like two more full scenes featuring individual golf holes. @americanninjax very wisely condensed them into that rad montage in the middle of the ep.
I remain incredibly tickled that @tarastrong and @AndreaLibman agreed to play the kelpies to really drive this ridiculous joke home.
I’d like to add that I have SO much respect for @Fyre_flye and her work, and even more respect for the fact that she didn’t place a severed pony head in my bed after this episode aired.
Lauren and @CrackMcCraigen gave me my first job in animation on "Wander Over Yonder". The story structure we use to break episodes on this show is a modified version of the one they came up with for that one.
Lauren says she developed “Friendship is Magic” by giving the characters the same personalities as when she played with her ponies as a kid. Craig always said he makes shows by “making the best versions of the shows we thought we remembered as kids.”
Both these pieces of advice proved invaluable in developing DuckTales and trying to recapture both the excitement I used to have playing DuckTales as a kid and updating the show while keeping the core feeling of it intact.
The last joke of the episode proved INSANELY controversial in the Writers Room, with many claiming Launchpad choking on golfballs because he thought they were eggs was TOO dumb, even for him. This became the cutoff line for LP jokes.
For the record, Launchpad eating golfballs: too far. Launchpad convincing himself that he’s been a Molemonster this whole time only to be easily dissuaded by Beakley telling him he wasn’t? Perfection.
November 19
~11. THE SPEAR OF SELENE! The continuation of the search for Dewey and Webby’s search for info on Della hinges on a question that we’ll be asking of various people over the series: “What if my hero is a bad person?”
The answer, of course, is always more nuanced than that, as we’ll see with Scrooge and Della and a bunch of other characters throughout the series.
The Minecart Rule in full effect: What if a booby-trapped temple had way too many ancient treasures when I’m just looking for a specific one? That mirrors Dewey’s refusal to accept any answer but the one that he’s looking for.
Ithaquack, of course, is a reference to the original series episode “Home Sweet Homer”.
Originally, the island was a little more populated and featured a reappearance by the shifty salesman who sold Launchpad all that gear on Neverrest. Here he sold a map to the Temple of Heroes to Dewey and Webby. An unnecessary step, so it was cut.
As per our casting policy, we went out to Greek actors to play the gods: Michael Chikilis as @theironwrist’s favorite petty villain Zeus, @NiaVardalos, whose bubbly nature helped us find a take on Selene, who was originally way more regal and staid...
And of course, THE LION OF LINDOS, THE HERO OF HELIOPOLIS, the mighty STORKULES, played to perfection by Chris Diamantopolous. It delighted us to no end that they guy who plays Mickey was going to play Donald’s best friend.
I love big blustery noble dumdums with egos (I wonder why…). Chris had the amazing idea to pattern his performance off the old Mighty Hercules cartoon he used to watch in syndication as a kid, a weird, almost mid-atlantic thing.
Storkules is allowed to be as full of himself as he is and still be likeable as a character because he thinks everyone has the capability to be as great as he is. Especially Donald.
I’d never worked with Chris prior to this, but he left such a mark and is so stinking versatile that it makes total sense that he’d be perfect for ANOTHER blustery hero I’ll talk about later. Like Keith Ferguson, I want to work with Chris forever.
This was another one where we spelled out every challenge and ended up having to montage it for time. Full scenes had been dedicated to the chariot race and the sculpting contest.
We loved the idea of meeting people who knew Donald and Della back when they were young, and how that would have an impact on Donald. It’s the first time that we see how Della’s disappearance impacted Donald, and why he needs to keep these kids safe.
November 20
~12. DAY OF THE ONLY CHILD! The initial goal of this episode was to highlight each of the boys as kids. We’d seen them in so many fantastical situations in a huge ensemble, we wanted to give each of them a chance to shine on their own.
It also tests each of their personal issues as we’d explore them throughout the series: Huey’s adherence to rules/order despite the risk, Louie’s desire for wealth at any cost, and Dewey’s search for approval and recognition.
Originally, the setup was WAY more complicated. It involved Gyro creating a portal to alternate dimensions where each boy had grown up an only child. Instead of trying to pull off three simultaneous “It’s A Wonderful Life”s, we went simpler instead.
Huey’s story allowed us to focus in on the actual Junior Woodchucks, which we’ll see more in S3. It also helped establish Bouncer as the sweetest of the Beagle Boys. I always had the notion that Bouncer would reform and become Scrooge’s personal chef.
What can be said about Doofus Drake? ... That’s it. That’s the tweet.
Doofus’ character was roughly based on the Twilight Zone episode "It's A Good Life" , where an omnipotent boy becomes a monster because no one can tell him no.
“Dewey Dew-nite!” is based off of something I used to do as a kid. I used to deliver fake late night talk show monologues to an imaginary audience and hold for applause. It was…unsettling to watch.
But in a world where the point was to highlight each of the kid’s strengths, we knew one thing for certain: @rejectedjokes was going to nail this bit. Dewey Dew-Nite returns next season on location with a big name guest star.
November 21
~13. BEWARE THE B.U.D.D.Y. SYSTEM! In Season 1, pretty much all of the writers got to volunteer for the episodes they wanted to write. I called dibs on this one because it premiered what I knew would be one of our biggest characters.
I’m speaking, of course, of Manny, the Headless Manhorse.
Manny became one of my favorite characters because he’s the opposite of most of our characters. The kids feel like they’re ordinary and wish for more spectacular lives. Manny thinks he’s a supernatural freak but he just wants to be a regular guy.
One of our early ideas was the McDuck Nemesis Reformation Program, where Scrooge’s (numerous) defeated foes can apply for support and counseling and a job with McDuck Enterprises. This was how Manny was able to get a job as Gyro’s intern.
If you want to learn more about Manny, I suggest you talk to @HeadlssManHorse. Some good backstory there. Pretty sure everything he tweets is canon, too.
No, but really, Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera will always be one of my proudest contributions to Duckburg. When I grew up, the only Latino superhero I had was Vibe, who, at the time, was solely notable for having breakdance powers.
I’d like to point out, still no Latino superheroes in the MCU. Maybe after fixing our Season 1 air order, @disneyplus can greenlight a White Tiger series.
We wrote a letter to @Lin_Manuel to pitch him our stated goal: making our Gizmoduck a Hispanic hero who was entirely informed by his heritage without being solely defined by it.
He’s so many things, and one of those things is Latino. We’ll talk more about that later.
Because Gizmoduck was a popular known character, this was a unique opportunity. Fenton wasn’t just a token Latino character. He was the MAIN SUPERHERO of Duckburg.
Fenton’s “IT. COULD. WORK!” was based on Gene Wilder from Young Frankenstein, which Lin understood right away because Lin’s the best. Also improvised my favorite line: “Go, you bumblebee-like savant, go!”
The Darkwing opener was entirely boarded and designed by my buddy @BenBalistreri, who I worked with on Wander, and I knew would jump at the chance to do this and cram it with love and easter eggs.
Fact: The Ratcatcher was not in the script. Ben threw in that design for free.
The idea that Launchpad would be a fan of Darkwing from his childhood was influenced by his first appearance in the og Darkwing pilot, where he introduces himself as Darkwing’s biggest fan. And, let’s face it, also based on me.
And yes, of course we knew what we were going to do with Jim Starling in Season 2 right off the bat. We like our plants here in Duckburg.
This episode is where the idea that Dewey is Launchpad’s best friend really paid off. I love this pairing because it forces Dewey to be the reasonable one sometimes, but they feed off their ridiculous kid energy.
Launchpad’s drivers license lists his birthday as 9/18/1987 (the day that the original DuckTales premiered). Also, his signature matches the signature you get from the Launchpad Walk-Around character in the Disney parks.
Cut for time: a scene where Fenton analyzes Launchpad’s skills in a VR simulator. He somehow manages to set the lab on fire. It was too long and too similar to a Simpsons joke with Homer in a Nuclear Plant Simulator.
I teared up three times writing the first draft: “I am the terror…”, Launchpad saying “ Let’s Get Dangerous,” and Fenton saying “Blathering Blatherskite!”
Again, we were playing with the idea of Fenton being an unnamed background character, which would make him announcing his name on the phone a big reveal. Of course, casting Lin as a seemingly random extra probably would have tipped it off.
An executive raised concern early on in the outline process that having Gizmoduck AND Darkwing show up this early in the run. After all, Gizmoduck didn’t appear in DuckTales until late in the run.
Our response: we want to get everything in there because if we hadn’t got a second season, we didn’t want to have regrets about not getting to play with these things we love.
November 23
~14. THE GOLDEN LAGOON OF WHITE AGONY PLAINS! The debut of our version of Glitterin’ Goldie O’Gilt. Because our show emphasizes Scrooge as an adventurer, we made Goldie a bit of a swindler who was the only person sharper than him.
We wanted the relationship between Scrooge and Goldie to have the energy of an old screwball energy, like Carey Grant and Katherine Hepburn or pretty much any Billy Wilder movie. It really comes across in their tango.
“You loved gold more than you loved me.” “And that’s why you loved me.” I mean, OOF, I love that.
Sometimes when we record, we’ll play an actor in with lines we’ve recorded from someone else. When many of our actors heard David for the first time, they’d literally miss a beat and say “Oh my God, it’s Scrooge McDuck!”
For this record, David missed a beat and said “Oh my God, it’s C.J. Cregg!” Honestly, if you’re going to do a screwball adventure romantic comedy, you should be so lucky as to have David Tennant and @AllisonBJanney. I don’t know how we pulled it off.
Odd coincidence: our version of Goldie was influenced by the character The Jackal in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," while Allison Janney famously IS The Jackal.
This was one of the hardest ones to get approved by the network in S1. This being a “kid’s channel,” they sometimes get antsy whenever kids don’t feature prominently in the story. Even more so when they’re sidelined for two “senior citizens”.
Our response, of course, was that these aren’t two “senior citizens,” they’re THE MOST DARING ADVENTURERS THIS CENTURY HAS EVER SEEN.
At one point it was suggested that we periodically cut back to the mansion to show the boys “wondering about” what Scrooge and Goldie were doing in the Klondike. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed.
This is actually one of our rare episodes that just focuses on an A-Story. See also “The Beagle Birthday Breakout!” and “What Ever Happened to Della Duck?!”
It was Sean Jimenez’s idea to set the episode in an area not unlike the famed Rainbow Caves in China. He did such beautiful design work on this episode that he made it his end credits card.
This isn’t really trivia, but I LOVE paralleling the dance at the gala with the pick axe fight at the end. I’m a sucker for ideas/dialogue in Act 1 coming back in Act 3. This whole bit feels so lovely and cinematic to me.
Obviously, we pulled a lot of elements from Don Rosa comics on this one, including the mammoth and the notion of a dispute over a claim at White Agony Plains leading to romance.
The Goldie/Scrooge/Glomgold triangle was somewhat inspired by the og DuckTales episode “Ducky Mountain High” and a LOT inspired by Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
In an episode visually inspired by Barks paintings of Klondike Scrooge, I wish I could remember who decided to have Glomgold’s flashbacks mirror Lichtensteins. Glomgold’s very existence is, like most Pop Art, riffing on a pre-existing theme.
Honestly, I should have assumed this was Tanner. I also assume that @theironwrist saw the muscles in Glomgold and said MAKE THIS MAN A DIRECTOR.
~15. FROM THE CONFIDENTIAL CASEFILES OF AGENT 22! Some BIG backstory for Beakley here, introducing that thread from all the way back in Episode 3 “Daytrip of Doom!” and introducing SHUSH and F.O.W.L., who obviously play huge roles in Season 3.
I’ve often said this ep is the promise of the premise of our approach to heritage: the “Secret Formula” as Gummi Berry Juice from Gummi Bears, Spy Orgs from Darkwing, and classic character Ludwig Von Drake, mashed together in a new, unique adventure.
We typically don’t start off with “How would we incorporate THIS character?” but rather look at the needs of the story and say “Is there some interesting way we can incorporate something from Disney heritage while still being true to the character.
When you start a series, you typically have a meeting with Legal to clear the names of the characters to make sure you’re legally allowed to use those names, or, in the case of pre-existing IP, making sure you’re allowed to use them.
For example, you can’t just throw a character named “Harry Potter” in your show without getting very much sued.
When we had that meeting for DuckTales, we really got away with something. We asked them to clear every character from the original series, as well as all American, European, and South American duck comics.
Then, not knowing if they’d go for it, we asked them to clear every character from Darkwing Duck. And TaleSpin. And Gummi Bears. And…
They shockingly approved it. To this day I’m not sure that they knew what a gift they were giving us. Long story short, I will never complain about our legal clearances team.
I’m pretty proud to say that by the end of Season 3, I’m pretty sure we hit everything that I consider to be “Peak Disney Afternoon”.
My favorite bit of fan service that I didn’t notice until it aired: @domlewismx snuck a bit of “Gummi Bears” into the score during the backstory of the “Ancients of Castle Dunwin”.
Inside writers scoop: Von Drake is RIDULOUSLY fun to write. My kids were listening to a lot of old Sherman Brothers albums at the time and Von Drake’s patter got under my skin. He’s SO fun and specific.
That’s key I think: a character with enough facets that they can still be surprising, but specific enough that a savvy writer will instinctively know how they’ll react in any situation. Surprising but satisfying. See also Glomgold, Darkwing Duck.
This was a surprisingly tricky story to break. We wanted to do a Webby/Scrooge bonding episode as we had done with the other boys. But they had all been on so many adventures at this point.
It also felt reductive to Webby to have Scrooge say, “What?! A little girl is a great adventurer?” Because of course she is. She’s Beakley’s granddaughter, right?
But we hit on something when we realized how much Webby knew about and idolized Scrooge, but how little he knew about this girl as a person, despite her having lived in his house for years. But he wasn’t really talking to anyone post-Della.
Remember how I said “bottle episode” cartoons are a lie? That doesn’t mean that we can’t find tricks to make epic stories manageable. This episode takes place in the same locations at two points in time, so we could cut down on background design.
They still had to be redressed and differentiated, though. And the director and board team had to go above and beyond to make the two different time periods clear.
Luckily, this was @TannerTrue’s solo-directorial debut, and he nailed that tricky balancing act. He also boarded that awesome, brutal Beakley/Heron fight.
Bummed we lost a joke in translation: the binary code scrawled in the cave wall in the present was meant to read “Revenge for Number 4!” The robot that Scrooge let go in the 60s had been camped out waiting for a chance to avenge his fallen brother.
One of the joys/challenges of working for @theironwrist is that he’s SUCH a prolific action-comedy director and he’ll never let you get away with a trope he’s already done.
Robots, superheroes, spies, aliens. Dude's done it all and DOES NOT like repeating himself.
Poor @TheOneCMag kept volunteering for episodes that Youngberg would have specific opinions about. See also “Who is Gizmoduck?!”
The upside of this is that it challenged us not to do the same old James Bond and Mission Impossible riffs on this episode. Hence, Scrooge and 22 became Steed and Mrs. Peel, and we also got to lean on “The Prisoner”. Long live the Troub-bubble.
I LOVE working with April Winchell. She was my personal favorite to write for on Wander Over Yonder, a show full of VERY fun characters to write. You’ll be seeing a lot more unhinged Bond-villain Heron is Season 3.
When we brought April back for her second appearance as Heron, she did not recognize her own voice in this ep: “Huh. I didn’t know I could do a Dench.”
David Tennant does a jaunty, rogueish sway back and forth whenever he records young, cocky Scrooge. It’s delightful.
The “22” in Agent 22 references her alias’ initials. “B” is the second letter in the alphabet, hence “Bentina Beakley” is Agent 22. That said, we still don't know if her number is based on her real name or “Beakley” is an alias tied to her number.
November 24
~16. JAW$! This episode was originally titled “The Beast from Beneath the Bin!”, but I think we wanted to try this title first as an elaborate, unspoken game of chicken with our legal department.
This was the first episode where Magica actually spoke, and also where @LadieFantastic became our go-to Magica writer. Basically, if it rants or raves, she’s on it.
Even though her introductory monologue was cut for time, I think it helped us tremendously in the process of figuring out who Magica was as a character: the insanely petty mixed with the horrifically sadistic. Here’s the original draft of it.
From the beginning of the season, we really wanted to do a “monster loose in the vault” seafaring adventure. This idea forced us to really wrap our heads around the scale of the vault. Was it big enough to sail the houseboat in?
We discussed the idea of the Bin having mystical properties that opened a portal to an additional sea of treasure, but that proved too confusing. Having the money shark start small and gain mass helped give us some latitude to play with scale.
The “Hail Dewdonia” bit was another opportunity for the boys to goof off together like brothers instead of being in conflict with each other.
Also cut for time: a straight up Launchpad as Quint monologue, presented here.
Also cut for time (or logic?): after our heroes come home from a beanstalk adventure in the Cold Open, an angry giant’s fist started shaking at our heroes down out of the clouds.
When discussing how Tiffany would move on land once she broke free of the bin, there was a lot of talk about referencing the monster from the beginning of Princess Mononoke.
It also led to one of our more infamous room bits: Male Shark Lady Legs. @Bob_Snow pitched a male shark but with feminized legs in heels. He then proceeded to sketch about fifty variations on the same theme.
My favorite featured Mail Shark Lady Legs, a female shark postal worker. I really gotta post some of these Bob images.
This was a huge turning point in Lena and Webby’s relationship; it’s the last time that Lena is fully on Magica’s side, and we really needed to sell that turn, as well as her personal stakes.
After she slips into Magica-ranting, calling Webby a sentimental fool, Lena immediately assumes that Webby hates her. She’s so used to fighting she can’t fathom the idea that Webby would still save her. She’s never had a loving relationship before.
That selfless act turns Lena just enough to let us throw in another big reveal: she’s not just Magica’s agent, she’s Magica’s prisoner. And this is her only chance at freedom.
The Grimoire du Merlock is of course a reference to Merlock, the magician villain of DuckTales The Movie.
The Roxanne Featherly storyline also gave us a chance to explore how Scrooge is perceived by the public. It’s the first hint that not everybody in town may love the chaos Scrooge’s adventuring rains down upon Duckburg.
Originally, Roxanne was also going to interview others to attempt to smear Scrooge’s name, including Ma Beagle. In retaliation, Scrooge brought on Gyro to make him seem benevolent. But of course Gyro only made McDuck Enterprises come off as more evil.
One of my favorite cut jokes ever: Gyro is introduced as “Kid Inventor Gyro Gearloose”. Roxanne: “You’re clearly a fully grown man. Why would they call you a ‘Kid Inventor’?” Gyro hides a genetically modified robot baby behind his back. “No reason.”

Spring 2018 Edition’s Thread
The character limit has been reached, so, for those new to the thread, please read this comment for the starting and ending details!
Without further ado, let us start our "Should You Watch It?" Summer 2018 Edition!

Asobi Asobase

A Perspective, courtesy of AnimeEngineerYoutube:

Watch It
“Asobi Asobase: Cute girls doing surreal things cranked up to 11.
Three middle school girls join forces to make a club. The only problem is all three have their own version of what the club is about. In spite of this, the three girls will stop at nothing to maintain their not-actually-a-club.
Armed with an arsenal of moderately coherent gags, this anime isn’t shying away from bold jokes and employs a liberal amount of visual comedy to really drive the points home, all while poking fun at established tropes of the genre and not taking itself too seriously.
Every gag seems to raise stakes and tension, in situations where there otherwise should be none, and our three protagonists lie and manipulate to keep the worst from happening.
The downside of this mix is that the cute moments are so heavily contrasted by both the visual comedy and the almost sinister outbursts from the characters, that those few cute moments may as well not be there. If you’re here for moe, you’re outta luck.
Up for some solidly written comedy with visual gags that pokes fun of the cute girls genre? Asobi Asobase may be the show for you.”

Another Perspective, courtesy of futuristic-arrival:

Consider It
“If you consider abrupt shouting to be the peak of comedy then this is the show for you! Asobi Asobase follows three high school girls, Olivia (a devious foreign student), Hanako (a salty wannabe popular girl) and Kasumi (a quiet but intimidating girl), in their quest to... pass the time together at school.
A good deal of the jokes revolve around yelling over relatively mundane occurrences and presenting the characters off model for added absurdity. If you enjoy more thought out comedic sketches then this is probably not going to rank high for you this season. To its credit it has a very lovely, simple art style (when it’s being used) and the characters are refreshing, if a little generic.
With all that being said, if you’re a fan of comedies it’s worth giving a try. While it does focus heavily on trying to make the mundane ridiculous (and often missing the mark), it’s not a one trick pony and does land some genuinely funny jokes from time to time. If you enjoy the first episode you’ll probably enjoy this series, if not then feel free to overlook it, as the overall tone of the show remains fairly consistent.”

Banana Fish

A Perspective, courtesy of SmurfRockRune:

Watch It
“Following the likes of Parasyte, Ushio to Tora, Captain Tsubasa, and others, Banana Fish is the latest adaptation of a finished manga from 20+ years ago getting updated into the modern world. Adding smart phones and other modern-day technology to an older story in a way that doesn’t get in the way is something I have always found interesting.
Banana Fish has a setting you don’t see too often in anime; a gang setting in America. While there are other shows that have a gang setting in America, both anime and not, this one has a different tone, feeling less romanticized and doing a better job showing how brutal this world can be.
One other thing that really makes Banana Fish stand out is the fact that it is from a shoujo manga. From the type of story told, you would expect the main character to be a tough masculine guy, but he’s pretty unique among this type of story, or really any anime, in that he is not afraid to use sex as a weapon to get what he wants from anybody, including men, despite the fact that he is a straight male.
I think Banana Fish fills a niche that other anime don’t, and that along with how well executed it has been so far make it worth watching.”

Another Perspective, courtesy of a_robotic_puppy:

Consider It
“Banana Fish is a thriller set in 1980’s New York revolving around a 17-year-old raised as a successor & sex toy by a mob boss and a Japanese photographer.
As a warning, this show has incidents, either implied or explicit, of homosexual rape, sexual abuse and molestation among other things. This forms the main reason why this is a ‘Consider It’ rather than a ‘Watch It’. The show shy’s away from showing most of these explicitly but it also glosses over them as just 'things that happen' rather than treating them with any gravity. While this makes sense in the context of the show it makes me apprehensive of future developments also showing the same lack of emotional impact. This lack of emotional impact is exacerbated by the rapid pace of plot developments in the first few episodes leading to what could be dramatic scenes falling flat.
The rest of the show, fortunately, is pretty good. The animation and art quality is high, along with one of my favourite opening songs from the season.
Banana Fish is a show that looks tentatively good dependant on how the script treats its more serious issues going forward.”

Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro

A Perspective, courtesy of Patureau:

Must Watch It
“In a year filled with good quality comedies any title would have a hard time breaking the mold, and yet, Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro manages to do exactly that.
With a simple premise, a high school girl everyday walk to school, Chio-chan creates the most absurd and hilarious situations, putting its title character and protagonist Chio Miyamo in the center of it all, attempting to deal with obstacles that range from regular roadblocks, to mobsters and even her own poor sleep pattern.
While the jokes are consistently innovative and well written, no comedy can thrive without good delivery, and Chio-chan is no exception to that. The timing of the gags has been near perfect so far, aided by priceless reaction faces and quite the amazing performance by the VA cast, specially Naomi Oozora, who some will recognize as the VA for Satania in Gabriel Dropout.
Now, even though we must always remember comedies are a heavily subjective genre, I still firmly believe anyone who enjoys them should definitely give Chio-chan a chance, so far it is one of the best shows of the season and even the year, and it cannot go missing from any fan of comedy watch list.”

Another Perspective, courtesy of Taiboss:

Consider It
“Instead of praising this show to high heavens, as the Must Watch It for Grand Blue will inevitably end up doing, I'd rather write here what kind of comedy Chio-chan is, so you know right from the beginning what you're getting into- hence my judgement. You might really love this show, but you also might not.
Chio-chan‘s School Road is about, well, Chio, and her way to school. But since that would be utterly boring, she will always run into something: from her deciding that roofs are faster, to getting into conflict with Yukaza, to having to play Kabaddi, anything short of the literally impossible will put an end to Chio‘s peaceful walk. With crazy reaction faces, over-the-top action, more imagined than real, and reliance of visual gags, Chio-chan bombards you with one ridiculous scene after another, yet always finds back to the fact it all takes place in reality.
Chio-chan is not a snarky comedy of one guy driven insane by the idiocy of everyone around him, nor is it a cringy show about everyone being asshole to each other. No, this is a classic comedy where everyone is an idiot and can‘t help but cause stupid things to happen. I love that, but you might not.”

Grand Blue

A Perspective, courtesy of CattAnime:

Must Watch It
“You know it's going to be a good anime when it opens with a warning message covering the entire screen.
Grand Blue is a hilarious anime about the shenanigans of the members of a diving club with a passion for alcohol and nudity. Unlike most anime, Grand Blue is set in college. This means it's able to get away with making its characters drink amounts of alcohol that would make any normal person drop dead on the spot. Grand Blue has an amount of nudity rivaling most ecchi anime. But don't start writing your doujins yet- it's mostly male nudity. However, there is no shortage of female fanservice either.
Like most comedies, Grand Blue relies on a good main cast for its humor. We have Iori, our main character who is new to diving. Kohei, an otaku who dreams of having a harem of high school girls. Chisa, Iori's cousin and a tsundere. Azusa, a bubbly and often risque girl. And finally, Kotobuki and Tokita, veterans of the club who look like characters straight out of Jojo.
The ending song is the main cast drunkenly singing karaoke while they strip. It's a good reflection of the anime in general.
Grand Blue is the sort of anime where you'll know if it's for you from just the first episode. You owe it to yourself to give it a shot.”

Another Perspective, courtesy of Sinrus:

Drop It
“There are a few barriers standing in the way of Grand Blue’s success. First and foremost is the subject matter. If you’re the kind of person who finds nudity inherently funny and belly laughs at simple misunderstandings which never get cleared up because the characters are incapable of talking to each other like normal human beings, Grand Blue will be right up your alley. If you’re not, then don’t get me wrong: not all the jokes are that low effort, and you’ll probably find humor you can appreciate, but the more juvenile attempts make a tall barrier to entry. And regardless of whether you like the content, the biggest flaw in Grand Blue is that there’s simply no reason for it to exist. If you’re going to adopt a manga, you should make the experience different and better in some way. But the animation and art quality are poor enough that seeing it move isn’t a draw, the voice acting is unremarkable, and the comedic timing suffers compared to reading the jokes yourself. Overall, if you don’t like its humor, don’t watch it. If you do like its humor, don’t watch it, just read it instead.”

Hanebado!

A Perspective, courtesy of pittman66:

Must Watch It
“Hanebado! delves into a new sport (Badminton) not yet covered in anime, similarly like Haikyuu!!, Yuri!! on Ice, and Girls und Panzer , and it has certainly has a strong serve to start the match.
Similar to Haikyuu!!, there’s actually a focus on two main leads rather than one. One being a very hard worker towards being a great badminton but letting the determination get in her way. The other, being seen as a prodigy yet doesn’t enhance herself due to her past and pressure she held to continue her skills. Their personal conflicts work well off each other, showing both enjoy badminton, but with how they treat the sport is how the other can improve and gain confidence again.
Also how it treats the female cast is great. For example, I can’t recall seeing “locker room” scenes that didn’t treat it as fanservice or just skip those scenes entirely, but for the small scene that did it in Hanebado!, they acted like actual characters than making it overall awkward. I can’t go on about the series without mentioning its animation being superb. We expect the matches the look good, but from backgrounds to the everything in between, this series excels in making it a visually stunning series. High recommendation for fantastically animated, hyped up sports series with a compelling female cast.”
(Author's opinion has changed since written)

Another Perspective, courtesy of ErinaHartwick:

Consider It
“Hanebado! follows Hanesaki Ayano and Aragaki Nagisa, two unlikely teammates bound together in a strange twist of fate. This is another sports show with the focus shared between two main characters, and as such we could see their contrasting personalities towards Badminton clash on and off the court. This show is visually stunning, from the gorgeous OP to its intense and well animated matches. There is little room to complain in regards to how good this show makes playing Badminton looks.
A unique aspect to Hanebado is it's dramatic elements. 3 episodes in and we could see the characters in focus each have their own issues, whether it be about Badminton directly or related to the sport in a more general way. Hanebado! explores the theme of youth much more deeply and takes it further by putting it's character's issues on a magnifying glass so quickly into the story. Hanebado! is in some ways ambitious because it opts for a mostly serious approach to a genre that normally works with a more upbeat and chill vibe. Nonetheless, I’m sure there are people who would be drawn by Hanebado!'s dramatic aspect, where some might find it rather distracting and would prefer a more upbeat sports show.”

Happy Sugar Life

A Perspective, courtesy of HidalgoAndThree:

Watch It
“The saccharine tale of true love between protagonist Satō Matsuzaka, a beautiful and intelligent high school student, and her young love interest, Shio Kōbe. However, Sato's sole desire, to spend time with her beloved, proves problematic as outsiders can't appreciate the purity of their love. So what if she's at least ten years Shio's senior? Love this true can only come from one uncorrupted and innocent. So what if Shio's forbidden from ever leaving the apartment? If she were to those meddlesome missing posters might give some passerby the wrong idea. And that room in the apartment with all the locks on? Forget about it. What's a little adversity in the face of true love? After all, the vows do state ‘until death do us apart...’
Happy Sugar Life’s signature is a lingering, sickening sense of dread as each character’s deranged set of morals interplay with the innocent Shio Kōbe caught at the center; navigating the line between gritty and over the top with variable success. Certainly not one for the faint of heart, Happy Sugar Life promises a disturbing yet intriguing exploration of Satō’s psychotic love for Shio and the depths she’ll go to preserve it.”

Another Perspective, courtesy of FetchFrosh:

Consider It
“Not as happy as the name implies, Happy Sugar Life is about an unusual "couple" with some unsettling circumstances. The creepy dynamic between the leads is driving the plot so far, with a couple of fascinating developments that have raised as many questions as they've answered. The long term direction remains unclear, and it would definitely be easy for things to take a turn towards edgy schlock. For now though, things have been dark without ever feeling like it's crossed that line. Episodes have generally had contained plots dealing with side characters alongside the greater narrative, often mirroring the dynamics with the leads. These side characters have been fairly one dimensional, but the leads appear to have some more substance to them.
Using some strong visuals to emphasize the mental states of the cast, the show can be genuinely disturbing. This is the first work from the studio, Ezo'la, and it seems they've taken at least some inspiration from the works of Shaft, as many backgrounds and effects feel like they could easily be from some of their shows.
Ultimately, Happy Sugar Life is a series that I don't think appeals to everyone, but it's certainly something I believe is worth checking out. If you're on the fence, give it an episode or two. You'll probably know fairly quickly if it's the kind of show you'd be interested in.”

Harukana Receive

A Perspective, courtesy of dadnaya:

Watch It
“You might be already familiar with volleyball if you've watched Haikyu!!, but unlike Haikyuu!!, Harukana Receive puts its focus on different elements.
Throughout the first three episodes, the cast is introduced, and I have to admit the character cast is very cute and charming.
Haruka and Kanata are our main characters, which have a very interesting chemistry between them. Kanata was a good volleyball player in the past, while Haruka is new to the sport, but is very eager to learn, play, and improve.
Unfortunately, because the anime tries to do too much, the drama that was mostly pushed onto Kanata feels very rushed and weak. We can get a huge breakdown because of past flashbacks, but only a minute later and it's magically resolved. Other than that, I think the Ecchi element is well done.
They're always in swimsuits, so we're usually getting boob jiggles, butt-slaps and butt jokes, but there aren't random panty shots or random boobs accidents. It balances well the Ecchi and non-Ecchi moments.
Lastly, the OST sometimes feels week and sometimes fine, but on the other hand, the art is great. It's very colorful and gives an energetic vibe which fits with Haruka being an energetic person.
Harukana Receive isn't really Shounen like Haikyuu!! and also isn't a "healing" show like Yuru Camp or K-On!, but if you're looking for a mix of drama, sports, SoL and Ecchi, I think you'll enjoy it.”

Another Perspective, courtesy of Cacophon:

Drop It
“Harukana Receive is, on one hand, about newcomer to the sport, Oozora Haruka, learning how to play beach volleyball. On the other, its about her partner, Higa Kanata, learning how to overcome past trauma through Haruka's energy and enthusiasm for the sport. If that sounds like something you're interested in, well...I'd agree. Unfortunately, I find it lacking outside its initial serve.
The way it creates drama, in particular, feels tacked on. It feels like an after thought. Like someone wanted to draw an action comedy about girls in bikinis playing sports, but their editor said "You need to up the ante. We need emotional stakes." and so they created inner turmoil within Kanata. While I'm sure this could be done well, its sloppy and often sudden set-up means its never going to land any emotional spikes.
This wouldn't be a problem if it didn't remain effectively dormant until they were in the middle of a volleyball match. However, these long, underdeveloped moments of Kanata attempting to get over herself do nothing but get in the way of what could otherwise be an entertaining series about cute girls doing sports things.”

Hataraku Saibou

A Perspective, courtesy of Daniel_Is_I:

Must Watch It
“'Inside the human body, roughly 37.2 trillion cells are hard at work every day.' Hataraku Saibou beautifully illustrate the daily lives of these cells as they go about their duties.
The premise is simple: cells are anthropomorphized as city workers in the body, with each taking on jobs befitting their origins. Red Blood Cells make deliveries, White Blood Cells act as security, Platelets handle construction, and so on. But this show stands apart from traditional edutainment thanks to the sheer charm the writing and animation give these characters. You can't help but smile as the bumbling newbie RBC-chan desperately darts around trying to find the right address, or as WBC-kun viciously murders invading bacteria.
It's also quite educational. While the narrator constantly drops tidbits as each episode presents its weekly threats, subtleties are everywhere in world and character design. Platelets are children because they break off from a larger cell. RBCs' jackets are reversible depending on where they are in the body. Distances are measured in micrometers. You can tell a lot of love has been poured into the details to make this show as entertaining and informative as possible. But it's so fun, you won't even know you're learning.
Finally, those interested in deeper, educated analysis should check out brbEightball's fantastic Doctor's Notes posts. They even have citations!”

Another Perspective, courtesy of DrJWilson:

Consider It
“Anime is often split into two groups. You have shows that focus on the fantastical: the dragons, the mechas, or the magical girls. And then you have shows that seek to explore mundanity of daily life—or lack-thereof. Very rarely do you have a show that incorporates both. Hataraku Saibou instills a certain level of whimsy into a subject many would consider dry or uninteresting. The show is focused on the daily happenings of the cells that exist within everyone's’ body, the wrinkle being that each one is anthropomorphized (sasuga anime). You’ve probably seen the front page inundated with fanart of the show’s adorable representation of platelets—for good reason!
In Osmosis Jones type fashion, Cells at Work attempts to balance education and entertainment, and I think it succeeds at doing so. Coming from the stance of having a Biology degree, it is utterly engrossing to re-experience words on a textbook being acted out in anime form, and especially how creatively mangaka Akane Shimizu manages to depict bodily functions. For example, I can’t say I ever thought of macrophages as cleaver-wielding sadistic onee-sans in Victorian dress…
However, I readily admit that my enjoyment is tied to my background, and those less scientifically inclined may find themselves losing interest. The first few episodes especially feel somewhat repetitive, and the novelty of the premise is a non-insignificant factor in my decision to keep watching.”

High Score Girl

A Perspective, courtesy of Kraftz:

Watch It
“High Score Girl is a coming-of-age romance featuring Haruo Yaguchi, an unpopular underachiever whose passion for video games has overshadowed his interest in school, and Akira Oono, a popular (although distant) honor student who shares his passion for video games as an escape from a rigid lifestyle. Their shared hobby sets the foundation for the budding relationship between two opposites.
Set in 1991, during the renaissance of arcade gaming, the show mixes a solid romance story (evolving from slapstick comedy to a more dramatic comedy) with several in-depth references and commentary to retro gaming (arcade/console) which functions as the show’s framing device.
Although the basics might sound standard fare, this is a case of the execution and the whole being greater than the sum of parts: it is a charming, fun and heartfelt show without being frustrating. The male protagonist is relatable, the love interest is a very cute mute (yet highly expressive), and both are easily likable. Side cast is quirky enough to give support. CGI has a bad rep, but in this case, it fits well with the unique art style and it allows actual game screens to be part of their world.”

Another Perspective, courtesy of Idziman:

Watch It
“The year is 1991. The Gulf War has just begun, but more importantly, Street Fighter II has been released to the arcades. Enter sixth-grader Haruo Yaguchi, better known as the “Forcible Finger.” Maruo is the king of SF2, that is until his popular classmate, Ono Akira, absolutely crushes him over and over. From there on, their destinies are entwined.
High Score Girl takes the standard perfect-girl-nerdy-boy romcom and gives it a healthy dose of early 90s gaming culture. The moments shared between Maruo and Ono are some of my favorite moments in anime. The biggest reason why is because all character interaction is in person, since it’s the 90s and cell phones weren’t in widespread use. On top of that, I found myself chuckling at nearly every situation our brave heroes endured.
While the art takes some getting used to, the 3D style of the characters really works juxtaposed with the 2D sprite work of the games. In addition, the colors and animation really give you that feel that you’re back in the 90s without a care in the world.”

Isekai Maou to Shoukan Shoujo no Dorei Majutsu

A Perspective, courtesy of Amazingusernamethe:

Consider It
“How Not to Summon a Demon Lord is appealing to a specific audience and appalling to anyone else. If you don’t enjoy excessive amounts of fan service or watching more generic isekai like I do, then this show is not for you. The show rehashes the same old premise of an already over done genre without adding anything new or spicing it up in any interesting or unique way.
The overpowered mc makes his way through the show’s barely existent plot with no struggle accompanied by the real appeal of the show, the generic girls who are defined by a single trait, Cat Girl and Big Elf Tiddies. In spite of this, I still highly recommend checking this out if you are a fan of generic isekai shows or are looking for some quality fan service. This is by no means a good show, but it’s an absolute joy to watch, so much so that it’s my favorite thing I’ve watched all year.”

Another Perspective, courtesy of TheGoldCloak:

Consider It
“Sakamoto Takuma a player of the MMORPG Cross Reverie and has created a legendary and powerful character, The Demon King Diablo. Sakamoto is transported into this magical MMO world after being summoned by two aspiring Adventurers, Cat-Girl Rem Galeu and Elf Shera L. Greenwood. Sakamoto arrives to this world, but he soon finds out he is now living as The Demon King, Diablo! Hence the trio’s adventure begins. This is your typical power-fulfilment fantasy anime in which the main character is extremely high-level and overpowered, he has a harem of lovely ladies with different body types and personalities and he has a whole world of possibilities and magic to explore. If you’re a fan of Isekai anime then this alone would perhaps make it serviceable, however the true charm of the show comes from the Protagonists real personality. Sakamota Takuma was an anti-social loner, who could not bring himself to talk to girls. The only way he can survive this world, and travel with his companions is by roleplaying as The Demon King, Diablo. I respect this show is tropey and standard, but if you want easy fluff to watch, I would Consider watching this anime”

Planet With

A Perspective, courtesy of MetaSoshi9:

Must Watch It
“Planet With is an action show starring an amnesiac boy, a girl in a maid costume, and an anthropomorphic purple cat. If this already sounds absolutely insane to you than strap yourself in as that is only the beginning of this surreal madness.
By far the best aspect of Planet With is its writing. In Planet With it is not concrete exactly who the good guys or the bad guys in the story are. So if you enjoy a story with a potential anti-hero, this may be up your alley. In terms of mystery the show also manages to carefully pace each episode so that not too much or too little information is revealed. If you are someone who dropped this show after episode 1 because it was rather confusing or silly I implore you to keep going. The show manages to tackle numerous themes while also slowly making more sense with each episode. After a rewatch my perspective of the first episode had drastically improved.
Part of the reason some viewers are excited for this show is due to famous mangaka Satoshi Mizukami (Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, Spirit Circle) writing and storyboarding the series. I have not read any of his works so I do not have any expectations for what a Mizukami series is supposed to be like, but watching Planet With has definitely made me want to check out his manga in the near future. If Planet With is a must watch, then I bet his manga is a must read!”

Another Perspective, courtesy of MalacostracaFlame:

Watch It
“Planet With is an original series from acclaimed manga author Satoshi Mizukami, a man famous for his rather peculiar brand of storytelling. His works tend to start off bizarre, quirky, and downright disjointed before somehow having it all come together and make sense by the end. While it’s far from certain Planet With will be the same, so far it seems to be following this formula to a ‘T’.
The plot sounds like something from a fever dream and is honestly hard to really describe. It follows a perfectly normal young man who lives with a giant purple cat and a quirky maid who eventually task him with defeating a group of heroes that are ostensibly fighting to protect the Earth from alien invaders. His motivations for doing so and the details of the plot remain quite cryptic. The characters always know more than the viewer and reveal little, leaving us questioning who the ‘good guys’ really are and only flashbacks and vague statements to try and piece together what's really going on.
Regardless of how things end up, Planet With promises to be a very strange but equally intriguing spectacle that’s worth watching if only to see it unfold for yourself.”

Satsuriku no Tenshi

A Perspective, courtesy of Cheloco3:

Watch It
“Satsuruki no Tenshi is an adaptation of a psychological horror game made using RPG-Maker. If you have played or seen this type of game you will be pleased to recognise many of its elements in this anime even if you haven't played this game.
It follows the story of a girl who suddenly wakes up in an unknown place and is sent as a "sacrifice" to the bottom of a "dungeon" where someone lurks around awaiting to kill a new victim that sets foot on their designated floor.
Being one of the few anime that seem to have a more serious tone this season, it starts with a really strong episode 1 with an interesting twist on the protagonist personality but it decays a bit on episodes 2 and 3 where the relationship between her and her partner gets kind of clumsy. Anyway it doesn't seem like it will affect the main point of the story, the exploration of the dungeon and the past of the protagonist.
At the start I thought of giving this anime a ‘Consider it’ because its engaging plotpoint is almost solely based on what we don't know of this world but as this anime will air 16 episodes, I think it will be capable of showing us a solid enough storytelling so that this weakness gets turned into its strength.”

Another Perspective, courtesy of SuperStarfox64:

Consider It
“Angels of Death is a psychological horror adventure where Rachel Gardner, a 13-year-old with amnesia is tasked with escaping the basement of a seemingly abandoned building after waking up at the bottom floor. Through meeting a bandaged scythe-wielding psychopath by the name of Zack and making an interesting promise, they take aim at leaving this mysterious building.
Angels of Death is probably one of the more edgy shows airing this season. As someone who isn’t really a fan of shows like this, hearing this would be a little draining. Dark topics/tones do fill this show, it does have its share of annoying moments like with the MC being a little repetitive with certain topics, and I wish the antagonists were a little more fleshed out, but that aside it is surprisingly one of the shows that I have been enjoying the most this season. Between the stiff but kind of cute dynamic going on between the two leads, Zacks character and VA(Nobuhiko Okamoto) killing it each episode, and just genuine curiosity of what is going to happen next, Angels of Death has been pretty fun for a show so focused in on dark topics.
I’d say give it some thought and consideration if you should watch this.
original RPGMaker game to the animated series is pretty cool to see side by side.”

Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight

A Perspective, courtesy of Skinny_Canadian:

Must Watch It
“Every season has one show that is loved by everyone who watches it, yet still flies under the radar of so many. This season, it seems that the show about a group of girls fighting, figuratively and literally, their way to the top of a music troop is the one.
Revue Starlight has so far greatly impressed me. The dance and fight sequences are vibrant with energy and beautifully animated. Even when there isn’t much movement on screen, the show remains visually striking with solid directing and gorgeous shot composition. We’re also given a diverse cast of characters with different personalities and motivations, which, if the first few episodes are to be trusted, will all have an episode dedicated to developing them.
It does however require a little bit of a mise en context, since I imagine not everyone is familiar with the Takarazuka stage plays the show is based on. Knowing a bit on the subject does help understand some themes and details, but I would still recommend the show to everyone, since its unique setting, fantastique visuals and music are all enough to make the show a great experience. So far, this is my AOTS.”

Another Perspective, courtesy of PandavengerX:

Must Watch It
“Clad in flowers of love, the Utena-esque Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight blooms into the Summer anime season with enough poise and grace to strike any viewer with awe.
If you were to ask me what this anime was about, I wouldn’t say I could give a straight answer, but perhaps that’s the perfect description for a show such as Starlight. The Ikuhara inspired show is filled with visual metaphor, beautiful shots, and a striking set of characters; each of them with different motivations that come to clash in a beautiful Revueat the end of each episode. Combine that with the elegant inspirations the show draws from the real life Takarazuka Revue (an all-female musical theatre troupe in Japan), and the visual flair will leave your jaw on the floor. The rich, vibrant soundtrack (partially composed by the same Composer as YoriMoi and Houseki no Kuni) perfectly complements the show’s theatricality.
Perhaps the only area where Starlight doesn’t accel in is the story itself, something that we are only shown hints of so far, and will likely remain unclear until the very end. However, for me its unique form of visual storytelling still makes it the strongest show of the season.”

Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san

A Perspective, courtesy of ilkei:

Consider It
“Whether you enjoy Yuuna and the Huanted Hot Springs (Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san) is highly dependent on your tolerance for the ecchi-harem genre (oh I guess its a comedy too!). If it’s not your cup of tea there’s not enough new ground being tread to hold your interest. While there isn't really much here that hasn't been seen before it executes on a slightly above average level.
The biggest draw for the show is Yuuna herself. She is earnest to a fault and it makes her very endearing. The rest of the girls pretty much 1 note characters at this point but they have been very limited on screen time. Our MC, Kogarashi, is a likable enough straight man for the crew of oddballs surrounding him. He helps ground the show and enables some pretty decent comedy. In terms of comedy it has a strong preference for running gags.
On the technical side of things the show is merely serviceable. Animation itself seemed fine but nothing to write home about, the art and character design seemed slightly dated(not bad) from most modern shows. Sound side I’ve liked the voices, particularly Yuuna’s, but the soundtrack hasn’t really stuck with me.”

Another Perspective, courtesy of impingainteasy:

Consider It
“Yuuragi-sou no Yuuna-san is the kind of harem anime that feels uniquely "old-school" in its presentation. The specific premise of a teenage boy staying at an inn with a collection of cute girls who each have their own quirks makes it feel like Love Hina never left, in case anyone still remembers that show. This style may bring about feelings of fond nostalgia for some, but is likely to feel stale and generic for others. I have to make it clear: Yuuna-san does not bring anything new to the table regarding its genre. Everything is played completely straight, and all the jokes, plot beats and character archetypes should all be deeply familiar to anyone who isn't completely new to anime. However, none of this is meant strictly as a negative, and the show can be pretty enjoyable if that's the kind of thing you're into. The show doesn't try to be anything other than dumb fun, the fanservice moments don’t feel too forced, and the girls can actually be pretty cute when they're not beating the MC to a pulp for getting into perverted situations he clearly isn’t responsible for. If you're in the mood for a completely by-the-books harem comedy with supernatural aspects involved, then you could certainly do worse.”
Banjo's Top Three Picks:
(See my comment down below for my own personal perspectives!)
1 Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight
2 High Score Girl
3 Hataraku Saibou
Volunteer Consensus:
(General estimation based off every potential volunteer and their feelings across all anime)
Tier 1 (“Must Watch It” Range):
Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight
Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro
Planet With
Tier 2 (Mostly “Watch It” Range):
Hataraku Saibou
Hanebado!
High Score Girl
Asobi Asobase
Banana Fish
Grand Blue
Satsuriku no Tenshi
Tier 3 (Mostly “Consider It” Range):
Happy Sugar Life
Isekai Maou to Shoukan Shoujo no Dorei Majutsu
Harukana Receive
Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san
Tier 4 (Mostly “Drop It” Range):
N/A
Thank you so much for reading!
Also, give the volunteers a round of applause for their efforts!!
I hope that the community continues to enjoy this Summer 2018 anime season to its fullest!!! :3

Well met! (Hopefully this doesn't get buried under all the patch hype.)
In today's installment, I will dissect the lore and references of one of my personal favorite heroes and the first (and so far only) one I have over level 15: Mountain King Extraordinaire, Thane of the Bronzebeard clan, Bronzebeard representative on the Council of Three Hammers, brother, mentor, and companion to kings, founding member of the Explorers' League, former ruler of the Frostborn, and legendary arse-kicker, Muradin of Clan Bronzebeard.
For official lore, art, and other material, you can check out the official Muradin Hero Week blog article.
All previous "Lore of" episodes

The Second War and beyond

According to the character ages presented in a chapter of the Warcraft III manual, Muradin Bronzebeard was born 221 years before the Third War (year 20), and thus 201 years before the First War (year 0). This information has since become somewhat ambiguously canon, but whatever the case, Muradin was born the younger brother of Magni, who would become King of Ironforge, and the older brother of Brann, who would become one of Azeroth's most renowned adventurers and explorers.
During the Second War between the Orcish Horde and the Alliance of Lordaeron, Muradin served as the official dwarven ambassador to the human kingdom of Lordaeron. During his time in the kingdom, he grew close to Lordaeron's royal family and its young crown prince, Arthas Menethil. Muradin also fought in the war on numerous occasions, including during the Siege of Ironforge and in the final battles against the Horde at Blackrock Spire and the Dark Portal.
As Arthas grew up, Muradin took it upon himself to train the boy in the ways of combat, and the two friends accompanied each other on numerous adventures. Along with Magni and Brann, Muradin was also one of the founding members of the Explorers' League, an organization dedicated to archaeology, exploration, and uncovering the mysterious origins of the dwarven race. As a part of the league, Muradin frequently ventured to the frozen continent of Northrend and became fascinated by its inhabitants and ruins.

Frostmourne

Around this time (Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos), a Plague of Undeath began sweeping across Lordaeron, turning its inhabitants into feral zombies. In the belief that the dreadlord Mal'Ganis was responsible for the Plague, the now adult Prince Arthas set out on an expedition to Northrend in pursuit of the demon. Shortly after arriving on the arctic continent's shores, Arthas and his men suddenly came across an Explorers' League expedition led by Muradin. Though the meeting was unexpected, Muradin and Arthas were glad to see one another.
After Arthas helped rescue some of Muradin's dwarves from the undead, Muradin revealed the goal of the dwarves' expedition: a mysterious runeblade known as Frostmourne. Some time thereafter, an emissary from Lordaeron arrived and informed Arthas' forces that King Terenas had ordered them to disband the expedition and return home immediately. Refusing to give up the hunt for Mal'Ganis, a furious Arthas and a reluctant Muradin hired mercenaries to fight their way through several undead and burn the human ships to prevent a journey home. Arthas then blamed the mercenaries for the act and had his men slaughter them.
In private, Muradin scolded Arthas for his actions, but he was interrupted when a force of undead led by Mal'Ganis suddenly appeared to attack the human base. While the main part of the human forces held the undead at bay, Arthas convinced Muradin to help him find Frostmourne in the belief that its power would help tilt the scales against the undead. After trekking through the surrounding region, Arthas and Muradin reached Frostmourne Cavern and beheld the runeblade floating silently above a dais. Inspecting the dais, Muradin found a dire inscription:

Whomsoever takes up this blade shall wield power eternal. Just as the blade rends flesh, so must power scar the spirit.

Exclaiming that the blade was cursed, Muradin urged Arthas to leave and lead his men home, but the prince ignored him, saying that nothing would prevent him from having his revenge and that he would be willing to bear any curse to save his people. As Arthas called out to the runeblade, the ice surrounding it suddenly shattered. A large shard struck Muradin down, seemingly killing him. After making a final attempt to heal the dwarf with holy magic, Arthas threw aside his own paladin hammer and took up Frostmourne before leaving his old friend behind. Upon returning to the base camp, Arthas told his men that Muradin was dead.

King of the Frostborn

Unbeknownst to the prince, however, the blast from Frostmourne had not been fatal. Shortly after Arthas left with Frostmourne, Muradin awoke, in pain and with no memory of who or where he was. Leaving his weapons behind, he promptly wandered out into the frozen plains.
Shortly afterward, a group of frostborn (frost dwarves) returning to their home town of Frosthold from a trek across the Dragonblight came across Muradin wandering in the midst of a fearsome blizzard. The frostborn had never seen a mountain dwarf before and couldn't make out his foreign dialect, but they weren't the kind to leave a fellow dwarf to die in the snow and thus promptly accepted him into their party before continuing to Frosthold. Some time thereafter, however, a massive jormungar worm suddenly burst from the snow and attacked the frostborn, swallowing a frost dwarf whole before the party even had a chance to react. The frostborn assumed that they were doomed, but Muradin suddenly transformed into an Avatar behind them and hurled a hammer into the worm's throat, killing it instantly. The leader of the party was in awe, and since the stranger could not remember his own name, he was given the name "Yorg", a name reserved for frostborn champions of legend. Years later, Yorg Stormheart had become the King of the Frostborn, thoroughly training his new subjects and turning them into even more fearsome warriors than they had ever been before.

The Brothers Reunited

Years afterward (World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King), Alliance and Horde forces ventured to Northrend to combat the Lich King Arthas and his Undead Scourge. With the help of a seer by the name of Zelig and a magical scrying orb, Alliance adventurers in the Dragonblight witnessed visions of the atrocities Arthas had committed in what was now called the Forgotten Shore, a place inhabited by the anguished spirits of the prince's doomed expedition. The adventurers also discovered Frostmourne Cavern, and with the help of the orb they witnessed the moment when Arthas picked up Frostmourne. The vision also revealed that Muradin hadn't died, as was previously thought, but survived his injuries and wandered out of the cavern with amnesia. Upon hearing of this, Zelig sent word to King Magni in Ironforge at once to notify him that his long-lost brother was still alive.
Meanwhile, Explorers' League representatives in the Storm Peaks befriended the frostborn and their king and managed to track down the trail of their leader, Brann Bronzebeard, who had gone missing a few years prior when he traveled to Northrend to investigate his Muradin's supposed death. With the help of Alliance adventurers, League members stationed at the frostborn's capital of Frosthold managed to contact Brann and help him in his search for an object called Norgannon's Shell, one of two halves of a titan artifact called Norgannon's keystone. The adventurer returned to Frosthold with the shell and asked King Stormheart for aid in finding the other half of the keystone. After a series of adventures involving Brann, a titan construct by the name of Creteus, King Yorg, and hordes of sinister iron dwarves, the adventurer and Brann managed to obtain Norgannon's Core and combined the two pieces into the keystone.
Returning to Frosthold in Bronzebeard's flying machine, Brann asked the adventurer to introduce him to King Stormheart before leaving, as he wanted to express his gratitude to the frostborn king for his aid in the search. When Brann laid eyes upon Yorg, however, he realized and exclaimed that he was looking upon the face of his long-lost brother. Muradin's memories came rushing back as he realized who he truly was. At the same time, Magni, having been informed of Muradin's fate, arrived at Frosthold from Ironforge to reunite with his brothers. Despite his brothers' protests, Muradin blamed himself for not having stopped Arthas when he had the chance and resolved to make the former prince answer for his crimes. As the brothers parted ways, Brann resolved to continue investigating his discoveries in the Storm Peaks while Magni returned to Ironforge. Muradin, meanwhile, walked over to his lieutenant, Velog Icebellow, and named him as the new leader of the frost dwarves before leaving Frosthold behind forever.

Fall of the Lich King

Months later, Muradin joined the assault on Icecrown Citadel, intending to bring Arthas to justice. Upon hearing that the fallen human paladin Bolvar Fordragon was still alive as a tortured captive of the Lich King, Muradin decided to lead his forces in an attempt to rescue Bolvar, hoping that such an act would bring peace between the Alliance and the Horde. After fighting their way through the lower parts of the citadel, Alliance adventurers rendezvoused with Muradin on the citadel's upper ramparts and boarded the airship known as The Skybreaker. However, while the ship was ascending to the top of Icecrown Citadel, they encountered the Horde ship Orgrim's Hammer, captained by High Overlord Varok Saurfang. Declaring that the other side had no business in Icecrown, the Alliance and Horde forces began firing upon each other until one side was forced to flee (which side depends on which faction the player is on; if the player is Alliance, Muradin's forces are victorious and continue onward, while the Horde perspective instead shows Varok as the victor).
After the Gunship Battle, Muradin's soldiers prepared to assault the gates into the citadel's upper reaches, but were suddenly stopped when the death knight Deathbringer Saurfang (actually the reanimated version of Varok's deceased son, Dranosh Saurfang) emerged and stunned the dwarf and his forces. Alliance adventurers managed to defeat the Deathbringer, but soon a Horde zeppelin appeared and dropped off Varok on the rampart. The orc was determined to retrieve the body of his only child, but Muradin refused to let him pass. The standoff was interrupted when King Varian Wrynn and Lady Jaina Proudmoore arrived through a portal, with Varian convincing Muradin to let a grieving father pass. A tearful Varok gathered up his son's remains and solemnly thanked the king before leaving on the zeppelin. (This scene only appears in the Alliance version of the raid; Horde players just see Varok gathering up Dranosh's body by himself before boarding Orgrim's Hammer again, with neither Muradin, Varian, nor Jaina making an appearance.)
After the Lich King was ultimately defeated by the champions of justice, adventurers could retrieve a battered training sword from his corpse. When the sword was brought to Muradin, he thanked the heroes and gave them a special gift from the frostborn before vowing to always treasure the sword they had brought him. Muradin then reminisced about the days he'd spent training the young Arthas in Lordaeron and wished that he had been able to stop the boy from picking up Frostmourne.

The Three Hammers

During the prelude to the Shattering (World of Warcraft: Cataclysm), King Magni Bronzebeard conducted a ritual using ancient titan tablets in an attempt to communicate with the earth. However, the ritual petrified the king, transforming him into a diamond statue. The sudden loss of Magni sparked a dwarven succession crisis in which the king's estranged daughter, Moira, sought to take control of Ironforge and secure it for her infant son, who had the blood of both Bronzebeards and Dark Irons in his veins. The crisis was settled by the intervention of King Varian, who decreed that until Moira's son reached adulthood, the dwarves would be ruled by a council of representatives from each of the three major dwarven clans: Moira for the Dark Irons, Muradin for the Bronzebeards, and Falstad for the Wildhammers. However, shortly afterward, Falstad's close friend, the Alliance war hero Kurdran Wildhammer, claimed the Wildhammer seat for himself as he considered himself to be more experienced in leadership.
As a show of unity, the council planned to publicly reforge the Hammer of the High King - an ancient dwarven artifact which had been shattered hundreds of years earlier, with its pieces having been split amongst the three clans. Even after Kurdran discovered that the information regarding the hammer and possibly several of the pieces themselves had been fabricated by the Dark Irons, Muradin urged him to go through with the ceremony regardless, as he felt that the symbolism was what truly mattered. However, when Kurdran instead advocated destroying the pieces to symbolize that the dwarves had to forge a new future instead of dwelling on the past, Muradin gave him his support, forcing Moira (who was the one responsible for the forgeries in the first place) to do the same. Kurdran then stepped down from the council and gave the seat back to Falstad, whom he felt was better suited for the job.
When a group of renegade Dark Irons attacked an airfield outside of Ironforge, Muradin and Falstad expressed distrust against Moira's ability to control her own people. However, with the help of Alliance adventurers, Moira uncovered that the treachery had been masterminded by a Dark Iron traitor loyal to the Twilight's Hammer cult.
One day, in the midst of the Pandaren Campaign (World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria), Alliance scouts discovered that the Zandalari trolls were planning an attack on Ironforge by rallying their local relatives, the Frostmane trolls. King Varian asked the Council of Three Hammers to lend their forces to battle the trolls, but both Muradin and Falstad refused, saying that if they left Ironforge undefended, Moira's soldiers would take control of the city. Ultimately, Moira herself and her Dark Irons were the ones to help Varian with the troll problem, leaving the others to think about their actions. When Varian and Moira returned, Muradin and Falstad were ashamed of their behavior, resolved to never again let distrust cloud their judgement, and pledged their full forces to Varian's ongoing war against the Horde.
A few years later (prelude to World of Warcraft: Legion), King Magni suddenly awoke from his petrification, striding the halls of Ironforge as a living crystal statue and saying that he now spoke for Azeroth itself. While Magni took some time to revisit the city he had once ruled, the Council of Three Hammers debated the repercussions of the king's return, with Muradin arguing that by rights the city still belonged to Magni. However, Magni himself stated that he had no interest in his crown and that he now served a higher purpose. After giving a grave warning to the council about the upcoming return of the demonic Burning Legion, Magni left Ironforge behind, saying that there was not enough time for him to answer all of Muradin's questions.
Shortly afterward, the Legion did invade, launching attacks on various regions across the world. The Council of Three Hammers helped defend Dun Morogh (the snowy dwarven region in which Ironforge is located), with Muradin and Moira fighting alongside the ground troops while Falstad and his gryphon riders patrolled the skies.
After King Varian was killed in battle against the Legion on the Broken Shore, the council and the other Alliance racial leaders attended the king's funeral, with Muradin weeping for his old friend. (Editor's note: Blizzard hasn't really made it clear when the friendship between these two is supposed to have been established; Varian did grow up as a close friend to Arthas, who was mentored by Muradin in the ways of combat, so it's possible that Muradin and Varian grew close during that time as well, but this has never been explicitly stated by Blizzard.)
Though he remains somewhat distrustful of his niece Moira, Muradin continues to govern the dwarves alongside his two fellow council members to this day.

Abilities

• D: Second Wind - A warrior talent from World of Warcraft which works similarly to how it does in Heroes by causing the warrior to regenerate 6% of their maximum health every second whenever they haven't taken damage for 5 seconds. Second Wind is also the name of and inspiration for one of Varian's talents.
  
• Q: Storm Bolt - The Wildhammer dwarves often practice hurling hammers for sport or war, but only Ironforge's mountain kings can hurl a hammer so hard that it stuns their enemies senseless. It is thus considered one of the mountain kings' most powerful and dangerous attacks. Storm Bolt first appeared as an ability of the Mountain King hero unit in Warcraft III, where it essentially works the same as in Heroes. It was also later added as a warrior talent in World of Warcraft, where it, again, works the same by throwing a hammer at an enemy to damage and stun them.
  
• W: Thunder Clap - First used by a dwarf named Murgen Hammerfall to decimate a swathe of invading gnolls in the Alterac Mountains, Thunder Clap is the result of the mountain king slamming the ground and causing destructive shockwaves of energy. It first appeared as a Mountain King ability in Warcraft III, where it damages and slows nearby units. It is also found as a Protection warrior ability in World of Warcraft, where it works essentially the same and acts as an integral part of the Protection arsenal.
  
• E: Dwarf Toss - Reference to the 2001 film adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, in which the dwarf Gimli protests "Nobody tosses a dwarf!" when Aragorn attemps to throw him across a gap in a collapsing bridge. In the next installment of the film trilogy, The Two Towers (2002), Gimli changes his mind and allows Aragorn to toss him onto a bridge full of orcs, as long as Aragorn doesn't tell Legolas about it. These two incidents were actually intended as references to "dwarf-tossing", a pub activity mostly found in the UK and New Zealand in which patrons compete in tossing persons with dwarfism dressed in padded clothing onto mattresses.
  
• R1: Avatar - As the dwarves are descendants of the stone-skinned earthen, mountain kings have the ability to focus the energies of their enchanted heritage, causing them grow in size and strength and gain skin akin to that of carved stone. Avatar is the Ultimate ability of the Mountain King in Warcraft III, where it gives them extra armor, hit points, and damage, as well as immunity to spells. In World of Warcraft, Avatar is a warrior talent that grants 20% increased damage for a 20-second duraton and removes all root and snare effects from the warrior. One notable use of Avatar in lore was when Muradin was being taken to Frosthold by the Frostborn who'd found him wandering across Northrend with amnesia. Suddenly, the party were attacked by a giant jormungar worm, but in response, Muradin grew in size, his hands sizzling with lightning and his skin becoming stone-like, before barreling forward and hurling his hammer directly into the worm's throat, nearly taking its head off.
  

Talents

• Level 1: Perfect Storm - "Perfect storm" is an expression used to describe an event (meteorological or otherwise) where several circumstances combine to drastically aggravate a situation.
  
• Level 7: Skullcracker - This talent is very similar to Bash, a passive WC3 Mountain King ability which gives the Mountain King's attacks a chance to do a moderate amount of bonus damage and briefly stun a target.
  
• Level 7: Iron-forged Momentum - The name of this talent may refer to Ironforge, the capital city of the Bronzebeard dwarves.
  
• Level 13: Thunderstrike - Although this is a fairly generic name for a talent, it may be named after the Glyph of Thunder Strike in World of Warcraft, which causes the visual effect of a warrior's Thunder Clap ability to also include a lightning strike.
  
• Level 16: Stoneform - Stoneform is a dwarven racial ability in World of Warcraft. Presumably connected to the lore of the Avatar ability, it allows the dwarf to temporarily turn their skin to stone, removing most types of debuffs and slightly reducing physical damage taken for 8 seconds.
  

Poke quotes

Uhh, I'll take 'Swords' for three hundred. - Reference to the Celebrity Jeopardy! series of sketches from the American comedy TV show Saturday Night Live, in which "Sean Connery" (played by Darrell Hammond) would regularly mispronounce category names (such as misreading "S" Words as Swords). Muradin's Warcraft III poke quotes repeatedly reference Sean Connery, particularly his portrayal in Celebrity Jeopardy!.
Wha-- I was never dead, alright?! I was just restin' me eyes! - Muradin was believed to have been killed in Warcraft III but was revealed to still be alive in Wrath of the Lich King. This generated complaints from some players who saw it as a blatant retcon, though in the original WC3 cutscene Muradin's fate is admittedly left somewhat ambiguous.
Ah, you wanna know what havin' amnesia was like, eh? No problem, it's-- uh, well, it's... oh. I forgot. - After waking up following his supposed death, Muradin found that he couldn't remember who or where he was or how he got there. He regained his memory upon reuniting with his long-lost brothers in Wrath of the Lich King.
Anyone got some gold I can borrow? I'm a bit SHORT! Eh? Eh? Hello? Is this on? - Pun on the phrase "short on money" and the fact that Warcraft dwarves, like in most fantasy series, are quite short; they average around 4-5 feet in height.
YOU NEVER. TOSS. A DWARF. You hurl a dwarf. There's a difference. - Reference to the same aforementioned Fellowship of the Ring scene as the Dwarf Toss ability itself.
Ugh, outta brew. [gasp] Wait a tick! [wringing and dripping noises] Hah, I knew this beard was good for somethin'! - Dwarves are known for their love of drinking, and they apparently frequently hide things in their beards, so using said facial hair to winkle out some extra drops of brew isn't that far-fetched.
Ya can take the king outta the mountain, but ya cannae take the mountain outta the king. - Mountain kings are ferocious dwarven warriors originally introduced as a hero unit in Warcraft III. Muradin was classed as a mountain king in that game, and his arsenal and character model in Heroes are largely based on those of the hero unit.
You're the dwarf now, dog! - Another reference to Sean Connery, this time to the memorable line "You're the man now, dog!" in the 2000 film Finding Forrester. This was also the origin of the influential meme site YTMND.
Rumor has it that me grandpappy was actually a... a Silverbeard. Dyed the thing his whole life. Shh! - Muradin is a Bronzebeard, a family of Bronzebeard dwarves of the Bronzebeard clan.
Oh no, Blizzard killed your favorite character? Oh, don't fret! Odds are they'll be returnin' in an expansion or two! Trust me, I know. - Reference to Muradin's "return from the dead" in Wrath of the Lich King. Blizzard have become somewhat known for often "reusing" previously discarded characters in this way; the "merely a setback" running gag of Kael'thas fame is a prime example.
Ya know, it's tragic and all... But me brother Magni really does make a... a fine statue. All sparkly and stuff! - During the prelude to World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, King Magni was transformed into a diamond statue while attempting to commune with the earth in a titan ritual.
Back when Brann was a wee dwarf, we'd always catch him looking at Explorers' Guild Magazine. Hah. Said it was for the 'articles'. Bah! We all knew it was really for the paintings of the tuskarr women. [chuckles] - Brann is the younger brother of Magni and Muradin and the leader of the Explorers' League, or Explorers' Guild, an organization of archaeologists and and explorers. The tuskarr are a race of peaceful, tribal, walrus-like humanoids native to Northrend. Funnily enough, tuskarr women are effectively non-existent in canon lore; all tuskarr seen in WoW are male, and there's never been so much as an indirect mention of a single female anywhere in canonical material.

Interaction quotes

Muradin: "Keep that bloody sword away from me!" Arthas: "Then stay out of its way." and Crown Prince Arthas: "[chuckles] Are you nervous?" - When Arthas retrieved the runeblade Frostmourne from its icy prison, it caused an explosion that struck Muradin unconscious and gave him amnesia, so it makes sense that he'd be fearful of the blade. A scene in World of Warcraft: Legion is consistent with this, with Muradin scolding the death knight player for having reforged the shattered remnants of Frostmourne into the Blades of the Fallen Prince and urging them to throw the swords in the sea.
Arthas: "How does it feel knowing how much your failure has cost the world?" and Crown Prince Arthas: "You could have stopped me, Muradin." Muradin: "I failed you, lad. And for that... I am sorry." - Muradin tried to convince Arthas not to pick up Frostmourne, but the prince ignored him and would go on to cause untold amounts of death and suffering as a servant and later ruler of the Scourge.
(To Falstad) Muradin: "2000 gold says I get more kills than you!" - Appears to be another reference to the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, this time to the friendly rivalry between the Gimli the dwarf and Legolas the elf, who constantly compete to see who can kill the most foes during battles.
(To Murky) Muradin: "[shudders] That sound still gives me the heebie-jeebies." - Murlocs in World of Warcraft are known for their tendency to instantly attract large swarms of their fellow murlocs to gang up on and kill unsuspecting players who attack them, usually accompanied by their distinctive gurgling battlecries.
Muradin: "Er... you boys ever been to the Badlands?" The Lost Vikings (Baleog): "Well, we certainly haven't been to any Goodlands!" - The Badlands is an arid level 44-48 zone in southeastern Khaz Modan. The zone houses the Uldaman dungeon, which features an optional boss encounter for Horde players in the form of Erik, Baelog, [sic] and Olaf, together forming the Lost Dwarves, an obvious homage to the Lost Vikings. In Cataclysm, the Lost Dwarves also appear as Alliance quest givers in the main Badlands zone, accompanying the player and assisting them in combat during a series of several quests by performing each of their signature abilities. These World of Warcraft appearances are also referenced in one of The Lost Vikings' poke quotes in Heroes of the Storm. (Edit: Corrected the name of the WoW version of the Vikings from "The Lost Vikings" to "The Lost Dwarves"; thanks to ShoulBeAboutGameplay for pointing this out.)
The Lost Vikings (Olaf): "Oh, and what kind of Viking are you?" Muradin: "Sonny, I'm a MOUNTAIN king. Not a... Vi-King, whatever that is." - The Lost Vikings are very similar in appearance to Warcraft dwarves, so they mistake Muradin for one of their own. Of course, the term "Viking" doesn't really exist in Warcraft lore, so Muradin has no idea what Olaf is talking about.

Kill quotes

Arthas: "That's for leaving me in that cave." - Arthas left Muradin behind in Frostmourne Cavern after the dwarf was seemingly killed by Frostmourne, and the prince told his men that Muradin was dead (though Arthas did attempt to heal the dwarf with holy magic one last time before picking up Frostmourne and leaving the cavern).
Falstad: "Oh, hill dwarves. Big talk, small hammers." - Muradin is a mountain dwarf while Falstad is a Wildhammer dwarf, and the various dwarven clans and sub-races often hold various stereotypes of one another. Funnily enough, though, "hill dwarf" is one of the least well-defined categories, and Falstad actually refers to the mountain dwarves of Ironforge as "hill dwarves" and says that it'd take a hand's worth of them to bring a Wildhammer down.
Horde (Rehgar, Thrall, etc.): "Filthy Horde." - As a member of the Alliance, Muradin is natural enemies with the rivaling faction, the Horde. He has fought against both the Old and New Horde on numerous occasions, such as during Second War and in the Icecrown Gunship Battle.
Raynor: "Right in the Jimmy." - Raynor's first name is James, though he's often nicknamed "Jim" or "Jimmy". "Jimmies" is an American slang term for testicles.
Tassadar: "Clearly, Tassadar has... failed." - Reference to the briefing of the very first Protoss mission in the original StarCraft, during which Aldaris tells the player "Clearly, Tassadar has failed us. You must not." This was also referenced in one of the poke quotes of the Mortar Team unit in Warcraft III.

Killing Muradin quotes

Arthas: "This time, stay dead." / Crown Prince Arthas: "Wait... I thought Muradin was dead." / Dreadlord Jaina: "You should have stayed dead." - Arthas and most players alike assumed that Muradin was killed in WC3, but he was later revealed to have survived in Wrath of the Lich King.
Chen: "Aye, some dwarves just can't handle their brew." - Both pandaren and dwarves are known to be heavy drinkers, with ale and brew being a central part of both of their cultures. The yearly holiday of Brewfest was originally founded as a drinking contest between Chen and several dwarves, and the friendly rivalry between the two races' penchant for alcohol is demonstrated in artwork such as this image of Chen outdrinking an entire group of dwarves.
Jaina: "A warrior should know better than to tangle with a frost mage." - In World of Warcraft, Frost mages specialize in keeping their enemies at a distance by slowing and freezing them, which naturally provides an obstable for warrior players.

Announcer quotes

Player slain: "Ah, merely a flesh wound." - Appears to be a reference to the Black Knight from the 1975 British comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Even after King Arthur cuts off all of the knight's arms and legs, the knight protests that it's "just a flesh wound".
Player slain: "Ooh, hope you don't get amnesia from that." - After being struck down by Frostmourne in Warcraft III, Muradin was stricken with amnesia and only regained his memory around 7 years later in Wrath of the lich King.

Other quotes

Warcraft III Muradin quotes
Warcraft III Mountain King quotes
Alright, who wants some of this?! - Appears to be a callback to the WC3 Mountain King quote "Alright, who wants some?"
Beards, blood, brew, and thunder! - Reference to the WC3 Muradin warcry "Spears, blood, booze, and thunder!"
Chaaaarge! - The way this line is spoken is similar to one of the /charge emotes for male dwarves in World of Warcraft.
Death comes for you! / I'm comin' through. / Move it! / Watch this! - WC3 Mountain King quotes.
For Khaz Modan! (move) and KHAAAAZ MOOOODAAAAN! (Avatar) - Khaz Modan is the mountain kingdom of the Bronzebeard dwarves. "For Khaz Modan" is an extremely common and iconic dwarven battlecry, notably used by several dwarf units, including Muradin, in WC3.
For the Bronzebeards! / Let's do this! / Let's get it on. / Take this, you bastard! / That's more like it. - WC3 Muradin quotes.
I've met blood elves tougher than you! (enemy slain) - Appears to be a callback to the WC3 Muradin quote "I've met gnomes who are tougher than you."
It's hammer time! - WC3 Muradin quote. This quote was spoken by several units in WC3 and is especially associated with dwarves due to their penchant for wielding warhammers. In any case, it's a reference to the 1990 song "U Can't Touch This" by American hip hop artist MC Hammer.
We Bronzebeards are known across the whole of Azeroth. Me eldest brother Magni was King of Ironforge, wise and fair a ruler as ever been. And Brann, well, he's a renowned explorer, always findin' secrets, bein' written about in Explorers' League Geographic. With brothers like that, I'd feel a wee bit overshadowed... IF I DIDN'T KICK SO MUCH ARSE! [laughs] (hero trailer) - Callback to the first three of Muradin's poke quotes in WC3: "My older brother Magni is king of the dwarves. / My younger brother Brann is a renowned explorer. / If I didn't kick so much ass, I'd feel a tad awkward."

Skins

• Mithril - Mithril is an ore found in level 35-55 zones across Azeroth. The ore is named after the fictional, wondrous metal of the same name found in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings.
  
• Magni - This skin depicts Muradin's elder brother, Magni, who ruled as King of Ironforge until he was turned into a diamond statue due to a magical ritual gone awry. This incident led to a succession crisis that was only settled by the creation of the Council of Three Hammers. The skin's description is somewhat vague, but seems to depict an alternate reality in which Muradin actually did die and the council was formed even with Magni not turning into a statue.
  
  • This skin's themed abilities mainly include giving a more fiery, lava-like tint to Muradin's abilities (a theme also seen in the Magni alternate hero in Hearthstone) and modifying Avatar to give it a diamond-like appearance.
• Frostborn Magni - The Frostborn are a clan of frost dwarves that dwell at Frosthold in Northrend. Frost dwarves are similar to their southern cousins, but have distinctive icy blue skin and eyes. While suffering from amnesia, Muradin was taken in by the Frostborn and named as their king under the name Yorg Stormheart.
  
• Dark Iron Magni - The Dark Iron clan is the dominant clan of dark dwarves, a race of dwarves with ash-gray skin, glowing red eyes, and a cruel and sinister reputation.
  
• Maraudin' - This makes Muradin appear as a marauder from StarCraft. For more information, see Subsourian's in-depth post about it.
  
• Ymirjar Lord (former Master skin) - This skin depicts Muradin as he appears in the Icecrown Citadel raid, wearing a unique (and, to players, unavailable) blue version of the Ymirjar Lord's Battlegear, the tier 10 raid set for warriors. The set is named and themed after the Ymirjar, an elite faction of the vrykul (a race of ferocious half-giants) that have been chosen as the Lich King's champions. (Corrected from tier 13; thanks alienschnitzler and MedievalDeaths.)
  
• Blackrock Lord - "Blackrock" has several meanings, but usually refers either to a giant volcanic mountain in southern Khaz Modan inhabited by the Dark Iron dwarves, or to a prominent orc clan from Draenor that formerly dwelled in the mountain.
  
• Dragonflayer Lord - The Dragonflayer clan is one of the most prominent vrykul clans, primarily found in the Howling Fjord. King Ymiron, the former ruler of Northrend's vrykul, was also the direct leader of the Dragonflayers.
  

Miscellaneous

Muradin's idle animation features him pulling out a tankard and taking a swig. The tankard is identical in appearance to the Tankard O' Terror / Tremendous Tankard O' Terror, a one-handed mace which has a chance to drop from the Coren Direbrew boss during the Brewfest world event.
Next week I'm thinking of tackling a character that doesn't have quite as much lore to them, such as Murky or Samuro, or I could do a post covering Dreadlord+Theramore Jaina, since that's relevant with the patch coming out; however, it might be better to do a post on regular Jaina before tackling her skins so I can provide more context for some backstory elements. Anyhow, feel free to post any other suggestions or feedback.

Here it is, folks: THE MEGA ULTIMATE FTM WEBCOMIC LIST OF JUSTICE!
It's every FTM (or trans masculine, trans*, DFAB/AFAB, nonbinary, intersex but raised as a female and had gender dysphoria, etc.) webcomic that I could find (with at least two pages), where I could verify that the character was afab. Randomly ordered.
Some may be very, very NSFW. (Most aren't.) If I've made a mistake, just let me know and I can change it. Please let me know of any broken links.
Get your bookmarks ready, kids, 'cause it's about to go down.
Part Two: https://redd.it/6e3f0r
Format: 1. "Title" (Description of afab character) Link *Length of archive, status of comic (hiatus/ complete/ still updating) *My personal views/ summary *Synopsis from the author *Misc. *My personal rating out of 10 (scores less than five aren't shown)
Part Two: https://www.reddit.com/ftm/comments/6e3f0every_trans_male_masc_afab_webcomic_mega_list/
~1. “Mantime” (Trans guy main characters) http://mantimecomic.tumblr.com/

• Short, but updating sporadically
  
• Brief snap-shots of transitioning in a humorous fashion, easily relatable
  
• From the author: "Being a trans man is tough. Sometimes you gotta wrestle bears. Other times you can't get the goddamn lid off the apple sauce. Here's a bunch of weird comics about it."
  
• 9/10
  

~2. “What-Sexual??” (Gay trans guy main character & amab nonbinary main character) http://tapastic.com/series/What-Sexual

• A few chapters, still updating
  
• Ongoing story of a character AFAB trying to figure out who they are, meeting someone along the way (romance and teen angst!)
  
• From the author: "A suicidal college student struggles with his sexuality and gender identity. Upon meeting another student who happens to be pansexual, they immediately have the hots for each other."
  
• 6.5/10
  

~3. “Queermo’s Journey” (Trans masc main character) http://qmjourney.tumblr.com/

• Smallish archive; last updated in 2015 :'(
  
• Cute strip comic & really love how “shark week” and “dysphoria” are presented as characters
  
• From the author: "Life is confusing. One queer dude’s attempts to muddle through it."
  
• 8/10
  

~4. “What’s Normal Anyway?” (Gay trans guy main character) http://whatsnormalanyway.net/

• Completed; smallish to medium-sized archive
  
• Strip comic about the good things that come with transitioning! Quite humorous.
  
• From the author: "What’s Normal Anyway? is a comic that discusses the trans male experience through the story of Mel, who takes the big risk of being himself and transitioning from female to male. This comic aims to add another voice representing a part of the wide spectrum of human diversity. And be funny about it too."
  
• 9/10
  

~5. “Rooster Tails” (Trans guy main character with genderqueer afab partner) http://www.roostertailscomic.com/

• Medium-size archive, still updating!
  
• C’mon, you know you want a snapshot into someone else’s life.
  
• From the author: "Rooster Tails is a weekly autobio webcomic exploring the life of a geeky transguy transitioning in New Zealand. It’s written by me! (Sam). A geeky, chubby transguy who spends too much time on the internet, messing about, and reading comics. It’s a way to pass the time while I try and get hairier…. (that sounded way more weird than I intended it to, sorry.) And it also quite often features Joe (my lovely companion), who is an incredibly smart, verbose (articulate, is perhaps a nicer word) trans/political/feminist theory nerd, who is femme and genderqueer."
  
• 7/10
  

~6. “Kyle and Atticus” (Trans masc main character) http://kyleandatticus.tumblr.com/post/15310576904

• No longer updating :(
  
• Great modern fantasy kind of setting. Great art and a story that really pulls you in
  
• From the author: "A (gender)queer comic about a kid named Kyle, and a robot named Atticus."
  
• 8/10
  

~7. “Khaos Komix” (Gay trans guy main character) http://www.discordcomics.com/comic/chapter1cove

• Completed! Over 500 pages total- worth every second.
  
• It starts off with some queer romance stories and how a group of people’s lives are intertwined. The FTM story is Tom’s (beginning about halfway through the archive if you're going chronologically, but the characters are introduced earlier), all of which is told very well. I’d encourage you to read them all because they’re wonderful
  
• From the author: "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender main characters. Deals with homophobia, transphobia and sexual abuse. Tear Jerker!"
  
• The author also has one-shot 'minority monster' comics, last updated in August 2016. Readers could vote on which monster the author drew next. So here's the link for the transguy one: http://www.discordcomics.com/minoritymonsters/05-king-monarch/
  
• 9.5/10
  

~8. “GCutie!” (Trans masc main character) http://gqutiecomics.com/page/29

• Small archive & still updating!
  
• AFAB gender queer autobio comic, that gives an interesting perspective on social dysphoria and just being yourself.
  
• From the author: "GQutie (pronounced gee-cutie!) is an autobiographical comic detailing one genderqueer artist’s thoughts, discoveries, and encounters when it comes to their gender and everything connected to it (which is a lot of things, it turns out)."
  
• 7/10
  

~9. “Orientation Police” (Read description below) http://comics.billroundy.com/?p=1116

• Complete; one comic from the archive of “The Amazing Adventures of Bill” as part of an anthology
  
• Just the one short comic about a gay guy’s experience dating trans guys that’s really positive.
  
• 5/10 (mostly because it's so short)
  

~10. “Copper-Rose” (Trans guy main characters) http://copper-rose.tumblr.com/tagged/comics/page/8

• Small archive. Last updated in January 2016
  
• Autobio strips in Scott Pilgrim-style art. It’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you weep, it’ll make you squint at the screen and mutter “Wat”
  
• From the author: "THIS IS MY PERSONAL TUMBLR: day to day life of a transman."
  
• 8/10
  

~11. “Tales From The Closet” (Trans guy main character) http://kfffunk.tumblr.com/post/33362321334/i-made-a-coming-out-comic-for-facebook-have-a

• Complete; four page coming-out comic that helps you vocalize how you want to be addressed
  
• From the author: "I made a coming out comic for facebook. Have a happy coming out day, and may the odds be ever in your favor."
  
• 6/10
  

~12. “Seeing Him” (Straight trans guy main character) http://seeinghim.smackjeeves.com/comics/2388382/page-1/

• ~30 pages so far, still updating
  
• Cute romance that doesn’t focus on the guy being trans but is a major focal point. The creator was also one of the authors for "Validation", a story with a MTF main character, here: http://www.validationcomic.com/comic/validation-1/
  
• From the author: "“Seeing Him” is the story of Kate, a small business owner, and Adam, a transgender male doctor, falling in love and engaging in hi-jinks with their outrageous friends."
  
• 6/10
  

~13. “T-time With Sime” (Trans guy main character) http://t-time-with-sime-blog.tumblr.com/post/101573890542/t-time-1-02112014-introductions

• Not updating/ hiatus; small archive
  
• Autobio strips that are brutally honest and engaging
  
• From the author: "I am an 18-year-old student in the UK, and I'm working hard to be seen as male by the rest of the world."
  
• 7/10
  

~14. “Sing the Moon Down” (Gay trans guy main character) http://singthemoondown.smackjeeves.com/comics/2077565/cove

• Complete; only about ~40 pages
  
• Wish it could’ve been longer, but a cute story nonetheless
  
• From the author: "Sam is the shy and awkward new witch in a small town. After opening up an apothecary clinic, he gets acquainted with Santiago, the local werewolf who struggles with issues of self identity. Luckily, Sam is just the man for this job."
  
• 6/10
  

~15. “3PM in the Morning” (Trans masc main character) http://tapastic.com/series/3PM-in-the-Morning

• Small archive, last updated in February 2017
  
• Strips of autobio content in a very whimsical style, and cute cats
  
• From the author: "Slices of life and colorful rant from a Little transbabe of many faces."
  
• 7/10
  

~16. “Knights Errant” (AFAB main character) http://sparklermonthly.com/ke/knights-errant-chapter-01-page-001/

• Medium archive (5 chapters); still updating!
  
• Fiction of the highest caliber. Action! Adventure! Intrigue!
  
• From the author: "Wilfrid is on a quest. A quest for what, you ask? Wil won't say, but being imprisoned in a city under siege has brought any progress to a sudden, grinding halt. Luckily for Wilfrid, there's a prison guard on their side. Unluckily for the prison guard, and everyone else who has the misfortune of meeting this enigmatic vagrant, they'll soon discover the bloody nature of Wilfrid's quest..."
  
• 9/10
  

~17. “Pretty Fly for a Trans Guy” (Trans guy main character) http://prettyflyforatransguy.smackjeeves.com/

• Hiatus(?) but with recent status updates/ strips on the tumblr page below; short archive (40 pages)
  
• Autobio silliness
  
• From the author: "A trans guy trying to get through life day by day."
  
• 6/10
  

~18. "Second Puberty" (Straight trans guy main character) http://second-puberty.webcomic.ws/comics/first/

• Still updating; decent sized archive (~600 strips)
  
• One of the first trans guy webcomics, if I'm not mistaken, which started as "TransE-Generation". Strip comic of everyday life with a comedic twist
  
• From the author: "A positive funny side of being transgendered. Inter-sex and genderqueer stories are welcomed. Most of them are true stories. The purpose of the comic is to help others laugh at themselves and see themselves more positively because comedy can heal a person and save lives. In contributing, you are helping everyone accept themselves and others to accept them."
  
• 6.5/10
  

~19. "Misfile" (Read description below) http://www.misfile.com/?date=2004-02-22

• Still updating; started in 2004, huge archive
  
• Not about a trans guy, but a guy who becomes a girl due to angelic incompetence. Still has themes we can all identify with (and chuckle about.)
  
• From the wiki: "It chronicles the story of Ash Upton and Emily McArthur who, after a universal filing error in the Celestial Filing Depository, find that their lives are very different than they were the day prior. Emily has become two years younger and Ash has swapped sexes completely, and is now a girl. In order to change things back to the way they were, they must play along to ensure that Rumisiel (the angel who caused this mess in the first place!) gets back into heaven before the bosses find out and make the changes permanent."
  
• 6/10
  
• For other magic gender-bending comics, see: El Goonish Shive @ http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=1
  

Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki @ http://montrose.is/sgvy/archives/Edda1/Cover.html
~20. "Trial of the Sun" (Eliano is a trans guy main character) http://trialofthesun.com/?pn=0

• Still updating Wed & Fri; medium-to-large-ish archive, ~300 pages
  
• Fantasy-type webcomic with a really cool plotline. Very detailed art in a neat style. Trans guy main character without it being a major deal, although I'm kind of confused about some of the pronouns/ titles used (like being a shield 'maiden' even though he's a guy.)
  
• 8/10
  

-21. "Only Two" (Nonbinary main character) https://only-two.tumblr.com/

• Pretty new; still updating; small archive- quick read
  
• Sketches/ stick figure-ish strip comics about being nonbinary (usually from an AFAB viewpoint). Funny, similar to the "Oh no" strips (if you've seen those, source here: http://webcomicname.com/ )
  
• From the author: "A comic about being non-binary in a binary world."
  
• 5/10
  

-22. "FtM" (Trans guy main character) http://asaph.deviantart.com/art/FTM-Comic-pg01-English-261753987

• Complete; only two pages
  
• Angsty
  
• From the author: "A collab comic with my bro."
  
• 5/10
  

-23. "A comic on gender identity." (Trans guy main character) https://toblyawesome.wordpress.com/tag/comic/

• Complete; only three pages
  
• A talk between present self and past self
  
• From the author: "I was going to write a post for Transgender awareness month but I decided that, seeing as I am a comic illustrator, I would draw something."
  
• 5/10
  

-24. "kaicomics" (Trans guy main character) https://kaicomics.tumblr.com/post/154697142576/1-nicknames

• Small archive (~25 pages); still updating
  
• It's like if Sarah Anderson drew comics as an ftm. (Reference: http://www.gocomics.com/sarahs-scribbles )
  
• From the author: "15 year old FTM transgender artist."
  
• 7/10
  

-25. "Hello World, It's Eli" (Trans guy main character) https://helloworld-itseli.tumblr.com/

• Small archive (~25 pages); still updating
  
• Artsy FTM comics about random day-to-day adventures
  
• From the author: "Trans guy navigating life and gender through comics."
  
• 5/10
  

-26. "With great abandon" (Gay trans guy main character) https://tapas.io/episode/550592

• ~65 pages; still updating frequently
  
• Realistic with a great flow. Very cute and not dialogue heavy.
  
• From the author: "Harry is a gay trans man, Russell is gay cis man, and With Great Abandon is a queer romance set over the course of a year in London. It's the story of their differences, their similarities, and their relationship. A hopeful and kind story. Also food and comics."
  
• 9/10
  

-27. "Welp Webcomics" (Trans guy main character) http://welpwebcomics.tumblr.com/tagged/comic

• Only about 10 pages so far; still updating (last updated Feb 2017)
  
• I may relate to this more than others because I'm socially anxious as well...
  
• From the author: "I'm Spencer (he/him) and this is my little spot on the internet where I try to be relatable through comics! You'lI also find positivity/resources here. If you need anything specific tagged please let me know! <3"
  
• 7/10
  

-28. "Squirrely Trans Boy" (Trans guy main characters) https://squirrelytransboy.tumblr.com/post/157481124272/i-used-to-clam-up-and-not-say-anything-but-i

• Less than ten pages; still updating
  
• Kinda minimalist art, interested in seeing where it goes. Small snapshots of daily life
  
• From the author: "This is a blog for trans-related comics. All art is drawn by either Spec or Sasaki."
  
• 6/10
  

-29. "OG Truscum" (Trans guy main character) http://ogtruscum.tumblr.com/tagged/mine

• Less than ten pages; still updating
  
• Humorous strips of daily ftm life. Very relatable.
  
• 7/10
  

-30. "All my trangst" (Trans guy main character) http://allmytrangst.tumblr.com/tagged/trangst

• Less than ten pages; still updating (last updated Feb 2017)
  
• Humorous strips of daily ftm life
  
• From the author: "The day to day life and transition log of Daniel. Pokémon Master, Bookseller, Palaeontologist and Transman."
  
• 6/10
  

-31. "The trans comics!" (Trans guy main character) https://thetranscomix.tumblr.com/archive

• Less than ten pages; still updating
  
• Relatable strips of daily ftm life
  
• From the author: "Comics about my trans experience, I make these to help reduce my dysphoria"
  
• 5/10
  

-32. "Trans-missions" (Trans guy main character) http://transmissions.comicgenesis.com/d/20071021.html

• A little over 50 pages; last updated in 2010
  
• Humorous strips of daily ftm life
  
• From the author: "... a webcomic about my life as an FtM transgender. Not every comic is on that topic though, just like my life is not all about being trans. Currently, I'm planning on running it as simply a series of unrelated strips rather than organised story-arcs, but that might change in the future. Basically, I do this for fun."
  
• 5/10
  

-33. "GNDR FCKD" (Trans guy main character) http://gndrfckd.smackjeeves.com/comics/1666268/page-1/

• 17 pages; last updated in 2014 :(
  
• From the author: "Gene is a FTM transgender teenager who found himself homeless after the death of his grandmother, who helped support him in his transition. One day some thugs from his old High School found him and decided to teach him a lesson for being transgender and beat him till he passed out. He wakes to find himself in an odd community home owned by Alois, an art teacher and an FTM himself"
  

-34. "TwoKinds" (Read description below) http://twokinds.keenspot.com/comic/1/

• Probably the largest archive ever, been going on for 13 years; still updating!
  
• I'm not sure if it technically qualifies, but there is some gender stuff going on with a wolf character that I might spoil some plot if I say any more. Although, it wouldn't hurt to check it out just to see how far the artist has come style-wise and writing-wise.
  
• From the author: "After losing his memory to a mysterious battle, Trace Legacy, a former leader for an organization of mages called the Templar, finds himself in the company of Flora, a girl of strange, tiger-like qualities. As Trace gradually begins to re-learn what he once knew, he soon discovers that Flora belongs to a race of people who are enemies of his kind. As friendship confects with racial differences, Trace and Flora find themselves in a situation more critical than either of them can imagine."
  
• 7/10
  

-35. "Venus Envy" (Trans guy secondary character) http://www.venusenvycomic.com/index.php?id=2

• No longer updating; large archive
  
• Mostly focused on an MTF main character, but features an FTM character as well. Definitely a classic that everyone has probably already read, but if not, check it out. It started in 2001, very much before any significant trans visibility was mainstream
  
• From the author: "Venus Envy is a typical high school romantic comedy, with the welcome addition of lesbians, crossdressers, and of course transsexuals. The story follows Zoë, a teenage male-to-female transsexual, as she comes of age, tries to keep her secret, and tackles life's challenges."
  
• 6/10
  

-36. "Transposes" (Trans guy main characters) http://northwestpress.com/shop/transposes/

• Complete; 120 pages; not strictly a 'web'comic- available for purchase, but has a free 37-page preview for download
  
• From the website: "Dylan Edwards’ Transposes separates gender from sexuality and illustrates six fascinating true stories of transgender men who also happen to be queer. The result is laugh-out-loud funny, heartbreaking, challenging, inventive, informative, and invites the reader to explore what truly makes a man a man. Includes a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Alison Bechdel"
  
• Same author who made this webcomic: http://valleyofthesilksky.tumblr.com/ with trans characters
  
• ??/10 (didn't buy it)
  

-37. "Strapped to the Mast" (Trans guy main character) http://strappedtothemast.blogspot.com/

• Less than ten strips; blog last updated in 2012 :(
  
• Sometimes funny, sometimes serious strips of autobio daily life of a trans guy
  
• From the author: "One transman's journey sailing into the unknown with the only provisions he knows: a spoonful of seriousness, a pinch of humor, and comic artistry."
  

-38. "Bash Back- A Story of the Queer Mafia" (Gay trans guy main character) http://bashback.tumblr.com/post/115042398167/bashback-bashback-cover-art-for-bash-back

• Still updating, but it's been a few months since the last page; smallish-sized archive
  
• Pretty intriguing (nsfw) storyline that draws you in, with a kind of whimsical art style
  
• From the author: "This (comic) is an outré, madness, a tragic, cruel fantasy, an eruption of inner rage, on how the oppressed desperately dream of being the oppressor. - Michael Swift"
  
• 8/10
  

-39. "Prague Race" (Trans guy main character) http://www.praguerace.com/comic/start

• Still updating; medium-sized archive
  
• CanNOT RECOMMEND ENOUGH. Artistically beautiful (Tim Burton-esque), interesting characters, very subtle ftm character... It's perfect
  
• From another reader: "Leona finds out she’s got a deadly magical parasite from another world. Now she’s got one year left to live her life to the fullest."
  
• 10/10
  

-40. "Monster Pop!" (Straight trans guy secondary character) http://www.monsterpop.mayakern.com/pages.php?page=0001

• Still updating; medium-sized archive (~5 chapters)
  
• Gorgeous art in an easy-to-read format. Ongoing story about monsters in school with a very bubbly lead character. Lots of drama. Main character starts dating an FTM guy, but the trans part is subtle
  
• From the author: "Monster Pop! is a comic about two best friends and the slice of life adventures they share! Monster Pop! is set in an alternate Earth where monsters coexist with humans; sometimes they integrate well, sometimes they clash. This comic is heavily influenced by shoujo manga."
  
• 9/10 (I'm a sucker for cute things, so...)
  

-41. "DeadEndia" (Gay trans guy main character) http://deadendia.tumblr.com/post/105119002887/deadendia-1-enter-based-on-cartoon

• Still updating; medium sized archive (~200 pages)
  
• Art style like Regular Show mixed with Adventure Time. Pretty great writing, too
  
• From the author: “Based on Cartoon Hangover’s Dead End, DEADENDIA is a comedic horror comic set in a failing amusement park named Winslow’s Wonderland. The young protagonists Norma Khan, Barney Guttman (and his dog Pugsley) work at the park’s haunted house experience Dead End and soon discover that its really the front for a far weirder operation. Demons who possess dogs, elevators that take you to hell and eyebrows you can see from space are all in a days work at Dead End!”
  
• 9/10
  

-42. "Society of Vice" (Gay trans guy main character) http://sovcomic.smackjeeves.com/chapters/84843/chapter-1/

• Small archive (~2 chapters); on hiatus since March 2017
  
• Very neat watercolor art. About a group of people (mostly couples) with relationship problems who end up in group therapy together
  
• From the author: "SoV It’s a webcomic about a group therapy in a bar where you can be and enjoy what you want. Different stories, different people intertwine and change their lives."
  
• 8/10
  

-43. "Prince of Cats" (Gay trans guy secondary character) http://princeofcatscomic.com/comic/page-01/

• Complete; large archive (~4.5 chapters)
  
• The main focus is the relationship between two guys, but the sibling of one of them is an FTM trans guy. Worth a read
  
• From the author: "Lee is a seventeen-year-old with a dumb haircut, an interest in pharmacology, and an ability to hear cats talk. He’s also in love with his best friend. The latter would be a relatively simple problem to resolve, but it’s not the fact that they’re the same gender or different races that’s the problem — it’s the economic disparity that shapes their miscommunication the most. Prince of Cats is set in the year 2003, in a county situated on the Pennsylvania/New Jersey border of the Delaware River. It’s a slice-of-life love story that spans a year of their high school drama."
  
• 7/10
  

-44. "Bad Bad Things" (Trans masc main character) http://www.badbadthingscomic.com/comics/2015661/chapter-1-page-1/

• Two chapters so far, small archive; still updating
  
• High quality, dynamic art with an apocalyptic plot that not's been overdone to death. With magic!
  
• From the author: "Bad Bad Things is a dystopian horror coming of age story about magic, friendship, adventure and shitty teenagers doing the best they can. Updates every monday and some fridays! This comic is going to include some potentially upsetting themes, so proceed with caution! http://badbadthingscomic.tumblr.com/ "
  
• 7/10
  

-45. "Sharp Zero" (Trans guy main character) https://tapas.io/episode/170613

• 14 chapters; medium archive; semi-hiatus
  
• I'm a sucker for superhero stuff, and this hit my sweet spot. Lots of laughs, reoccuring jokes, it's like if Marvel did a comic with every gender identity (although it's difficult to know who's the trans guy- so I'll tell you: it's Alex.)
  
• From the author: "Our story centers around Elliot, a delinquent indie rock musician who gets caught up in the world of vigilantism through an unexpectedly stupid accident."
  
• 9/10 (although the 'gender' stuff can get kind of heavy-handed)
  

-46. "UnderDog" (Gay trans guy main character) http://underdogcomic.tumblr.com/post/131769028069/next

• Small archive; still updating (as far as I can tell)
  
• From the author: "UnderDog is an ongoing webcomic about an adopted transgender 16 year old boy, Andres, and his adopted sister Oceana. When a new teen, Koray, at school brings on a lot more than the town can chew, Andres throws himself into the supernatural hell of werewolves, witches, sirens, zombies, and more to protect his friends."
  

-47. "Oh Human Star" (Trans masc minor character) http://ohumanstar.com/comic/chapter-1-title-page/

• Large archive; >350 pages; still updating!
  
• I got into this awhile ago, and I just realized that Titus was probably AFAB. It's a quirky, intelligent tale with robots and ethics.
  
• From the author: "Alastair Sterling was the inventor who sparked the robot revolution. And because of his sudden death, he didn’t see any of it. That is, until he wakes up 16 years later in a robot body that matches his old one exactly. Until he steps outside and finds a world utterly unlike the one he left behind – a world where robots live alongside their human neighbors and coexist in their cities. A world he helped create. Now Al must track down his old partner Brendan to find out who is responsible for Al’s unexpected resurrection, but their reunion raises even more questions. Like who the robot living with Brendan is. And why she looks like Al. And how much of the past should stay in the past…"
  
• 9/10
  

-48. "Title Unrelated" (Trans guy secondary character) http://www.comic-rocket.com/read/title-unrelated/1

• 5 large chapters; still updating
  
• Twapa might be nonbinary, not sure, but Axis is a trans guy. Pretty cool art, full color pages, unique story. Lots to like.
  
• From the author: "Title Unrelated is a story of family, love, friendship, and identity. Three adopted sisters (Erin, Twapa and Mara) and their best friend Ciaran befriend a mysterious stranger named Xe who has no memory of his past. While visiting her cousin's family estate in eastern Europe, Mara is kidnapped and her family and friends travel through a gateway to a parallel world in search of the missing girl..."
  
• 7/10 (took me awhile to get into it, but then it wouldn't let go)
  

-49. "Spire" (Blaise is a gay trans guy main character) https://tapas.io/episode/337080

• Small archive (2 chapters); still updating!
  
• It's like... steampunk space vampires? But cooler. B) A quirky, visually appealing art style with fantastic color. And fancy pants. I'm actually angry at how much I like this one. Like... how dare you take up so much of my thoughts
  
• From the author: "A story about a bunch of vampires who just want to be human again."
  
• Also from the author (just in case you thought I was lying about there being a trans guy): "My main character from SPIRE Blaise is a trans guy. It's not really a major part of his arc since he's already post-op and fully transitioned but it'll be touched on a few times in the story. My character Cog is also a trans girl, and the hunters are all nonbinary and use they/them pronouns."
  
• 10/10 (I don't even know why I like this so much. But I do. Fight me.)
  

-50. "Paisley Brickstone" (Trans guy minor character & nonbinary minor character) https://tapas.io/episode/468315

• Medium archive (still on chapter one, but 100+ pages with the prologue); still updating!
  
• 'Prolog' is cool, but the art starting in chapter one is unreal, yo. Crazy colors, lots of detail. Fun plot that doesn't make you think too hard. Like candy for your eyes.
  
• From the author: "Being the new kid is never easy, but life gets even harder for Harvey Mammaroth when gym class takes a wild turn and he and his classmates find themselves trapped in an empty school. Is the whole thing just a vague assignment set up by their sadistic gym teacher, Coach Trener? Or is something much darker going on?"
  
• Also from the author: "There's a couple characters in my comic, Paisley Brickstone, who are trans, although one of them is more a minor character so far (Haven, who shows up in the prolog, but won't show up in the main story until chapter 2), and the other hasn't shown up yet but is one of the more important characters (Pierce, who does show up in chapter 1 and who's journey is about learning to deal with anger, which flares up a lot around his twin brother, Fenmore, who has a lot of masculine insecurity but is not trans). There's also a nonbinary kid who's shown up in the Prolog, Quinn (who uses he and they pronouns). I haven't decided yet if any others are since I leave gender pretty ambiguous with a lot of the kids, but yeah. I'm avoiding self discovery stuff involving gender, and focusing on self discovery involving peeling away the insecurity most, if not all, teens go through during their time in school. It's still pretty early on so a lot of this stuff is not going to be evident at all, yet, but it'll gradually roll out over time."
  
• 8/10 (kind of confusing at times, but still cool.)
  

-51. "Looking for Avin" (Trans masc main character) https://looking-for-avin.tumblr.com/

• Only a couple comic strips so far; still updating!
  
• From the author: "a webcomic where i document my experiences as a trans masculine person"
  

-52. "Godsblood" (Trans guy main character) https://tapas.io/episode/546003

• Started in Dec 2016; small archive; still updating!
  
• Neat premise and characters
  
• From the author: "When Rivinie wakes up in the forest with a magical seal around her neck, she has no choice but to seek help. As she travels with Barlowe, a soldier-turned-guide, and Washa, the callous witch of the woods, she finds that her search for a cure goes deeper than expected."
  
• 8.5/10
  

-53. "Artistic Process" (Trans guy main character) https://red-vaporeon-draws.tumblr.com/post/159385628262

• Small archive, started in April 2017; still updating!
  
• Deaf AND trans AND a poc AND chill main character? Gotta check it out
  
• From the author: "Artistic Process follows Collin and Alex, as well as their group of friends, showing their struggles through out highschool and how they deal with their identity. As the comic stretches, you see how the characters begin to express themselves in their own way."
  
• 7/10
  

-54. "Are you happy yet?" (Trans guy main character) http://happy-yet.smackjeeves.com/comics/2371298/cove

• Small archive; 15 pages; complete
  
• Facing your extended family isn't easy. Nor is thinking about what your past self would think of your life now
  
• From the author: "A short comic about a transman going to his grandmother's funeral."
  
• 7/10
  

-55. "TransLife" (Trans guy main character) http://translife.smackjeeves.com/comics/2041144/intro/

• Only 5 pages; hiatus
  
• Autobio comic from a married trans guy with two bio kids
  
• From the author: "Comic life of my journey as a transmale."
  

-56. "Hellbound" (??) https://tapas.io/episode/508790

• Small archive (~20 pages so far); still updating!
  
• I found this one on a list of webcomics with 'trans-male' tags that's been right about every other webcomic so far, but it hasn't been mentioned in the actual comic yet. So I'm including this until either it's revealed and I leave it, or it's debunked and I'll remove it
  
• From the author: "As part of a deceitful land-grab by Volac (a King of Hell), Mike gets unjustly banished to eternal damnation to be used in a procedure that would tear a rift between space and time. The plan is simple, get back to Heaven and avoid capture, but it's easier said than done."
  
• 7/10
  

-57. "Little Fish" (Straight trans guy main character) https://tapas.io/episode/642372

• Short; complete
  
• Cute revisioning of the little mermaid. Easy to follow, not much text. Short and sweet
  
• From the author: "Little Fish is a reimagining/retelling of the classic The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen that I did a couple years ago for the Valor anthology, a fairy tale book by indie comic artists and writers featuring courageous heroines. The anthology is still available for purchase, after a highly successful Kickstarter, in e-book, paperback and hardcover: hivemill.com/products/valor-anthology"
  
• 6/10
  

-58. "Cunning Fire" (Trans guy secondary character) http://cunningfire.com/about/1

• Short (1 chapter so far & started in Dec 2016); still updating!
  
• A story about witches and death gods with semi-realistic art. Very cool. Remy is on testosterone, and Riley- from the cast page- seems nonbinary
  
• From the author: "Cunning Fire is an urban fantasy story about witches and spirits in modern day Chicago, following the journey of Akiva Stein as she enters this unfamiliar, hidden world and learns the craft of the Death witch. Caught up in her new coven's quest to create the legendary Elixir of Life, Akiva is forced to face her ability to see spirits and come to terms with the ways magic has tainted her past, and how it will shape her future."
  
• 7/10
  

-59. "Poppies and Aconite" (Straight trans guy main character) http://poppiesandaconite.tumblr.com/post/110155426323/welcome-to-poppies-and-aconite-a-story-about

• ~35 pages; complete
  
• A pregnant trans guy married to a trans princess and werewolves
  
• From the author: "welcome to poppies and aconite, a story about love, duty, and sacrifices. also, werewolves"
  

-60. "Wicked Hero" (Gay trans guy main character) http://www.wickedhero.se/post/145170855703/if-you-have-spotify-this-link-has-a-song

• Very short archive; still updating!
  
• I think the main character is a troll, but anyway, he has magic and tesosterone gel. And sweet hacking skills
  
• From the author: "Wicked Hero contrasts to our own world by showing what it could be, to live in a society where diversity and individuality is a given. Where things such as gender, body or skin no longer come with setbacks. Where asking for someone’s pronoun is considered just as normal as asking for someone’s name. But… Even in the best of worlds some things still needs fixing."
  
• 8/10
  

-61. "Click" (Trans guy main character) https://clickwebcomic.tumblr.com/post/157588739977/page-1-no-cover-no-promo-just-diving-into

• Only 7 pages so far; very new comic; still updating!
  
• So far, space station sci-fi stuff
  
• From the author: "A queer scifi comic about wildlife photography and self-isolation."
  
• 5/10
  

-62. "Moço" (Trans guy main character) https://tapas.io/episode/375363

• Short strip comics dealing with dysphoria, religion, family... Not much text, but it's in English, although there might be some Portuguese, too
  
• From the author: "The life of a transsexual any"
  
• 7/10
  

-63. "Tunes of Lycka" (??) https://tapas.io/episode/294907

• 4 chapters; small archive; still updating!
  
• Again, this was on the list of webcomics tagged with 'trans male', but it hasn't become apparent in the story yet (except for a nonbinary character that might be amab anyway) so idk
  
• From the author: " “Tunes of Lycka” is a webcomic about the 14yo girl Lycka forming a band with her friends and her older cousin. There’s adventure, drama, a little bit of romance - and it is all revolved around our relationship with music."
  
• 6.5/10
  

-64. "Cirque du Royale" (Trans guy minor character) http://cirqueduroyale.tumblr.com/post/139531168234/welcome-to-episode-1-first-previous

• Medium-ish archive (<50 pages so far); still updating!
  
• A family of clown royalty trying to throw together an act with people from the freak show. Also there's magic and flower people. One of the comedians, Will, is a trans man
  
• From the author: "Cirque Du Royale is a slice of life comic about the regular lives of the newly appointed royal clown family."
  
• 7.5/10
  

-65. "Caoine" (??) https://tapas.io/episode/517731

• Small archive (<20 pages); still updating!
  
• Magic is always fun. No mention of who (if any) characters are trans yet, though
  
• From the author: "Tobias lives in a town of monsters and shenanigans. So, when a previously asleep god is brought back to life, he's on the case. Too bad the path leads to dark caves and annoyingly cute boys."
  

-66. "Stuffy Stuff" (??) http://stuffystuff.smackjeeves.com/comics/2407858/page-0/

• ~30 pages so far; still updating
  
• Not sure (again) which (if any) characters are trans yet, so keep an eye out for me, will ya?
  
• From the author: "Slice of Life/Comedy Webcomic. Stuffy Stuff is a webcomic following the lives of four girls with both visible and invisible disabilities and the people around them, follow them as they struggle, grow and most importantly have a laugh, mucking around and being kids."
  

-67. "Butterfly Blues" (??) http://butterfly-blues.tumblr.com/post/150917638921/cover-art-for-chapter-0-conceptualized-by-devon

• About 2 chapters so far; small archive; still updating!
  
• Since it's so new, I still haven't yet found out who is what (shocking.) Again, it was tagged for 'trans male' character(s)
  
• From the author: "A webcomic that takes place in a world destroyed by the Gods, following the journey of a homeless trio who takes on a job to help two brothers from a prestigious family hunt down an infamous terrorist group, Butterfly Blue."
  
• 6/10
  

-68. "Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate" (??) http://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate/daffodil-page-one/viewer?title_no=47624&episode_no=1

• Only one chapter so far; short; still updating (last updated in Feb 2016)
  
• No mention of who is/ isn't/ might be trans yet. A kid gets caught being a stowaway and ends up working for the boss
  
• From the author: "A tale about love, crime, and what it means to be raised by birds."
  

-69. "Zoo Academy" (Trans guy minor character) https://tapas.io/episode/274440

• ~70 pages; short-ish; still updating!
  
• Apparently Coco is trans, but omg. Main character is a big ol' dog human thing. My true weakness
  
• From the author: "Zoo Academy is a LGBT orientated high school comic about inhuman and criminal kids trying to fit into the society that looks down at them. Updates every week!"
  
• 9/10
  

-70. "Steph Le Trans" (Trans guy main character) https://stephletrans.tumblr.com/post/156356433300/melodycrescent-so-today-i-went-to-mc-donalds

• Short strips; small archive; still updating!
  
• From the author: "And I am Steph. A few Slice of life comics about a 15 y/o transgender boy adventures in France~"
  

-71. "Doodlebug Comics" (Trans guy main character) https://doodlebugcomics.tumblr.com/

• Small archive; still updating (last updated in March 2017)
  
• Pretty great for a minimalist (think 3D stick figure) art style
  
• From the author: "A life of a transman."
  
• 7.5/10
  

-72. "Noir City" (Trans guy & nonbinary main characters) https://tapas.io/episode/508842

• Small archive; still updating!
  
• Zack is a trans man and Ricky is nonbinary; together they solve mysteries
  
• From the author: "It’s hard to make a living in the city that never sees the sun. In the permanently dark Noir City, fresh-faced detectives Zack and Ricky attempt to solve the city's unnatural mysteries—from missing dames to lurking shadows that stalk dark corners. But underneath the city a darker secret lurks, and a decades old mystery begins to stir…"
  
• 8/10
  

-73. "Conduit" (Gay trans guy main character) https://tapas.io/episode/405825

• Small archive; last updated Feb 2017, so maybe still updating?
  
• Great horror effects (prolly NSFW), themes, intriguing characters, fun times. From the cast page on the tumblr for the comic, it looks like Simon and Erik are trans guys/ trans masc, and Miyu is nonbinary
  
• From the author: "Simon is a clumsy, amateur ghost hunter who is kidnapped by a ghost hunting dance squad to help them defeat a demi-god who is trying to kill their leader."
  
• 8/10
  

-74. "Oglaf" (??) http://oglaf.com/cumsprite/ *Medium-largeish archive; still updating!

• Okay, so, it's basically just sex humor. But some of the characters might have different gender identities. Probably
  
• From the author: "Warning. This comic started out as an attempt to make pornography. It degenerated into sex comedy pretty much immediately. Confirm that you are over 18 and we’re on our way!"
  
• 9/10
  

Part Two: https://redd.it/6e3f0r

Name:	Team:	Age:	Gender:	Species:	Aura:
Auryn McIntosh		17	Male	Human	Mardi Gras Purple

Attributes

Mental	#	Physical	#	Social	#
Intelligence	4	Strength	2	Presence	2
Wits	3	Dexterity	3	Manipulation	1
Resolve	3	Stamina	2	Composure	3

Skills

Mental	-3	Physical	-1	Social	-1
Academics	3	Athletics	1	Empathy	3
Computer	0	Brawl	0	Expression	3
Craft	0	Drive	0	Intimidation	0
Grimm	4	Melee Weapons	3	Persuasion	1
Survival	2	Larceny	0	Socialize	1
Medicine	0	Ranged Weapons	2	Streetwise	0
Politics	0	Stealth	2	Subterfuge	0
Science	2

Other

Merits	#	Flaws	#	Aura/Weapons	#
Ambidextrous	3	Color Blindness	Free	Aura	2
Quick Draw	1	Low Self Image	1	Semblance	1
Dual Weapons	1	Insomnia	1	Weapon	2
Grimm Hunter	1	Curiosity	1
Eidetic Memory	2	Overprotective	1
Combined Weapon	2

• Physical Description:

Auryn can be best described as a diamond in the rough. All the elements are there for an attractive individual but he lacks the confidence (and conviction) to make them stand out. Auryn has mostly symmetrical features on his tan, lanky 6'3"" body. His tan body matches fairly well with his almost golden hair and honey eyes. His hair comes down to his defined, stubbled jaw and is clearly clean but is very rarely styled, beyond being parted in the center. His build is more of a long distance runner type than that of a brawler with stamina focused over strength.
He'd rather have his actions and words speak over his appearance. While never dirty, he doesn't seem to put any more effort into himself than he has to. The only time that he gets any form of messy is when he's drawing. He ends up coated in graphite and charcoal, and often spends just as much time cleaning after a piece, as he did when making it.
On his own, he will choose to wear his school uniform in all settings. It's sleek, pre coordinated, and doesn't require much time on his part. Time he can dedicate to other endevours, instead of wasting it, trying to guess what grays match other ones, or searching through his sock drawer for the poorly embroidered #3 match. His color blindness contributes to his lack of caring in fashion. Most of the time though, his appearance isn't his call. Auryn learned long ago that it's simply easier to go along with his sister's plans for as long as she's interested, rather than fight her. When it comes to fashion that means cow-towing to her questionable choices. In this case, it's a bright green and yellow musketeer talbard, with a large brim feathered hat that often dips into his vision. Emblazoned on the talbard with silver trim is a large golden yellow Fleur-de-Lis in the center. Underneath the talbard, he's allowed brown long pants and a matching long, puffy sleeved shirt underneath. Due to his sister's enthusiasm, Auryn has had to learn how to fight with forearm length, black gloves on and matching knee high black boots. She insists they complete the look. Honestly, if Auryn had the confidence for it, he could pull off the look. However, until then the outfit just makes Auryn king of the awkward turtles.

• Weapon:

Comedy and Tragedy
Auryn's weapons take a total of four different forms, two for melee and two for ranged. For the first of the melee forms (and his most favored), he dual wields a pair of silver rapiers. They are about four feet in length, including the guard and hilt. They weigh about three pounds each. The handles of these weapons gently curve for the grip, with decorative mother of pearl-esque inlays and spiral engravings along them. Auryn is fascinated with how the light brings different shades of grey forward in the mother-of-pearl inlays, at least to his colorless vision. To those with the gift of color vision, the inlays take on a myriad of blues and greens. The guard looks like a silver metal gyroscope on each blade, with the interlocking wires aiding in disarming opponents. When the light passes through the guard of each blade just right, they project the mask from their namesakes. Like identical twins, these weapons are nearly impossible to tell apart aside from their shadows.
In the combined melee form, the guards interlock carefully to create a two handed long sword. Their gyroscopic shapes overlap and intertwine to still allow him protection though they lose the ability to show the masks for the time being. This form sacrifices the length of the rapiers to increase the width of the six pound weapon. Traditionally such a weapon would be heavier, but Auryn's preferred fighting style involves expert flourishes and surgical strikes. The lighter blade lends itself to the speed while keeping him from getting exhausted. The mother of pearl inlays now surround the entire hilt to make them appear as though they belong together.
The first of the ranged forms keeps the weapons separated, allowing Auryn to duel wield Comedy and Tragedy as twin revolvers. The blades fold in to create the barrels while curving to allow for them to be held properly. Each weapon has an iron sight at the tip of it's muzzle made from the tip of the blades. The hammer and trigger extend from the curved ornate handles and the carefully crafted guards shift to become the revolving cylinders. The grip of each one being covered by the inlays on each side. Though the front and back of each grip is still made of the silver from the hilt of the blades.
The final ranged form of this weapon is a musket, with the blades combining to form the elongated muzzle. The guards interlock once more about the muzzle to create a form of iron sight on the gun. When lined up with the sight on the end of the barrel, it increases the accuracy of his shots. Part of them also straightens out to create a curving pattern that helps hold the barrel together. The mother of pearl inlay elongates to cover the stock of the gun as well as the lock plate. The bottom of the guards extend down to form the lock itself on the plate and hold any additional bullets he might need.

• Semblance/Aura:

Researching the Role: 4 AP – Minor Action
Auryn's analytical mind focuses on a single target, ignoring all distractions and boosting his attacks against his prey. A purple aura mask covers his face when this semblance is activated. This mask starts out as a version of the Comedy mask, progressing slowly over time into the Tragedy mask before falling off and fading away before it can touch the ground.
Effect: This semblance can only be used after 11 – [Intelligence + Semblance] rounds of combat on the selected target. If he loses sight of the target for more than one round during that, the timer resets. After that time the user may choose one target and gain advantage against that target for [Semblance/2] attacks.
Advantage means that the player rolls damage twice on each attack, then takes the result that deals the most damage.

• Backstory:

Auryn's story begins before his birth, with his parents Claret Carnation and Vert McIntosh. Claret was born and raised in Atlas and a graduate of Kaldur, the science academy in Atlas. Her specialty was as a field researcher, focusing on analyzing Grimm movements and congregations. Vert was from Mistral, and was just about the exact opposite of Claret. He was an actor and talented artist. His wit and charm were near legendary, allowing him to perform nearly any role. Well, any role not written down. He put these talents to use as a travelling salesman. They met each other at a Vytal Festival after Claret finished school. She was 23 and Vert was 20. Vert quickly found himself enamored with Claret's sheltered innocence and incredible wit. Vert was smooth and elegant, treating Claret as if she were the rarest flower in existence. He showered her in compliments and showed her parts of the festival that she never would have found on her own. To say that Vert swept her off her feet would be an understatement. The festival may have only been a few short days, but neither were willing to let their budding relationship end with it. Claret was unable to change her travel schedule for Vert, but the actoartist could. He dropped everything to follow after her. He could sell his wares and promote his art anywhere, and she could continue her research. Their relationship only grew as they traveled the world and had grand adventures. Vert encouraged Claret to discover herself, and pursue interests not tied to her continued work for Atlas. Vert, and others from the troupe, worked on teaching Claret how to dance like she had always wanted to. Atlas education didn't have room for such frivolities. As the jovial Vert had suspected, she had a natural talent for dance. Eventually, they married at one of the largest celebrations in Mistral, Carnival. They continued this way for another year, performing, selling, and researching until the next Vytal festival. There, they discovered that they were pregnant. Together they decided to move to Rouge, in Mistral to reduce travel on Claret. She, however, insisted on continuing her research. Three months passed, and Claret returned to Kaldur for a conference only to have a revelation of her own. During a routine check up while in Atlas, they found that Claret was carrying twins.
Time again passed until the night of February 16th (the last day of Carnival) in Rouge, which ushered in Mardi Mcintosh at 11:58 pm and Auryn Mcintosh the following day at 12:02 am. In hindsight, their birthdays were highly appropriate for their blossoming personalities: Mardi, the partier, born on the last day of one of Rogue's largest festivals and Auryn, the studious one, born after the festival had ended. As Auryn would probably say, practice makes perfect. Even with their wildly differing personality traits, Auryn still shared a lot in common with his twin sister. Due to their parents, both children inherited or at least adapted an interest in the theater. Auryn took more after their father, with his romanticized vision of how the world should be. The young man's acting style, however, came from his mother. He was research and technique oriented, rather than inheriting his father's knack for improvisation. Even at a young age, Auryn was jealous of his talented sister. She could pick things up naturally, or at least bluff her way through it so that others believed she could. Auryn continuously felt inferior to his older sister because of that and strived to outshine her in his own ways. If nothing else, he could out-study his distractable sibling. Even with their family's constant travel, Auryn found time to read, study, and sketch. The latter of which was always of real world objects, things he could see and as they were. These images bordered on being more scientifically inclined than artistically.
As they grew, Claret began to take the pair into the field with her. They were young, around six, but Claret wanted both of her children to understand the dangers this world contained, as well as it's immense beauty. She was always vigilant with her children nearby (mostly due to her daughter's impulsiveness). Auryn was more likely to lose himself sketching than wander off into danger. At the very least, that was the case until they were 8. Their parents realized that in a few short years, the family would have to make decisions that would affect the rest of their children's lives. Things like whether their children would attend combat school, or one of the prep academies for a trade or scientific field. Due to this, they decided that an educational field trip was in order. Claret enlisted the help of a pair of hunters for protection as they took the children out further than ever before. They were well protected, but it still allowed the twins to see various forms of Grimm in the field. For Auryn, the precocious youth was able to bury the Hunters with questions. Who they are, where they're from, what their goals are.... and so many whys that even their mother was telling him to hush. It didn't do much to slow his curious mind. He was enamored with Mantis and Jade, the two hunters with them. Mantis received the brunt of Auryn's torrent of questions. His dual wielding style fascinated the ambidextrous youth. Auryn wanted to learn everything about them, and how to be like them.
The entire experience left Auryn changed. He was excited, as children often become after a field trip, by the possibilities that they had shown him. Being a Hunter would let him protect the people he cared about. He would be able to travel, and he would be able to continue in science like his Mom. He would get to live the life like in his heroic tales or in old films. Rescue the damsel, save the day, ride off into the sunset on his steed.... but more important to him than all of that was the opportunity to do what his mom had always done. Add to science. Mardi started to pull away from him at this point. She didn't want to keep going out into the field and requested her own room. He didn't care. So what if they had never been separated in their entire lives. It's not like he needed his slightly older sibling around anyway. His room quickly became covered in sketches of Grimm, painstakingly made to be as accurate as possible. Though, one night, when Auryn passed by Mardi's new room he could have sworn he heard her crying? He quietly checked in on her only to find her sleeping fitfully. He stayed with her until the nightmares passed, before slipping back to his own room. This cycle repeated each night until Auryn found himself having trouble drifting off to sleep without checking on her.
The lack of sleep didn't slow down Auryn's studying. Even with his eidetic memory, he started to keep immaculate notes for his classes, and review them for accuracy. Admittedly, that last part was mostly to benefit Mardi. He knew, besides her best efforts to hide it, that his sister was stealing his notes to study. After years of knowing her, the younger twin knew that confronting her would only make her deny the accusation and stop studying... So he just got in the habit of leaving his notes out for her, and keeping them up to date for her sake. In the end, it also benefited him, forcing him to study harder than he normally would have on his own. As a result, his scores started to sky rockets, at the expense of his popularity. At such a young age, few kids wanted to be friends with such an unapologetic brainiac. Beyond that, the majority of his free-time was either spent with his mom conducting research, or with his dad working on plays and literature. At first, some of his classmates started to approach him to 'copy' his work, but Auryn refused. He offered to tutor them instead, feeling that they shouldn't reap the benefits of his work. They.... didn't appreciate his point of view. It started out simple. Being left out of groups, not invited out.... then it started to snowball. He started to get shoved around, but Auryn honestly refused to defend himself. He didn't want to have to fight humanoids, even if that meant protecting himself. Things continued to escalate over months until he was finally cornered by four other students. Caught in a corner and surrounded, there wasn't much the young boy could do to defend himself.... except open his mouth to try to convince them to let him go. He may have been persuasive, but he lacked the manipulation skills of his sister. His speech only succeeded in pissing off his attackers, and after a single word from their leader, two of the group pinned Auryn against the wall. The remaining duo took turns jabbing him in the gut. It didn't take long before Auryn's knees gave out, dropping him to the ground. At that point his bag was stolen from his prone form and, to drive their point in, the group started to kick him while he was on the ground. This became his new norm, with his bullies deciding that using force was significantly more effective than asking him for anything. Well, it was more effective excluding the times that Mardi had his notebooks. Then they just beat him harder for putting them through the trouble of cornering him. No one said their logic was flawless.
This continued for almost a year. Auryn learned how to hide his injuries, not wanting to get anyone involved with his problems. Let alone his sister. While his popularity was at an all time low, she had somehow become Queen of the Plastics.The last thing he needed was for her to rescue him. As much as he despised it, he would have to fight back. The next time he was cornered, he tried to reason with his attackers again. Well reason is the wrong word. Bargain would be the most accurate. They were wasting a lot of energy beating on him, so Auryn wanted to offer a wager. One last fight, one v. one. If the bully won, then Auryn would agree to do their homework and wouldn't run any more. However if Auryn won, they'd back off. It was a gamble. Auryn couldn't actually count on winning this, but he had to do something to defend himself. He couldn't just go on being beat on. Fortunately, this time they agreed.
The fight did not start well for Auryn. His opponent already knew where to focus him to cause the most damage. After all, his torso was a continuous patchwork of bruises in various states of healing. He did his best to defend himself as blow after blow reigned down on him. Slowly a crowd began surround the duo as Auryn was on the defensive. A solid blow to Auryn's lower back dropped him to his knees. The boy had to drop a hand to catch himself as his opponent turned to gloat for the crowd. With his positioning, he never saw the purple aura mask cover Auryn's face. Minor gasps from the crowd may have tipped Auryn's opponent off, but he probably thought it was a delayed reaction to his imminent triumph. He started to turn just as Auryn's purple Comedy mask appeared just over his shoulder. Auryn's right fist connected perfectly with his opponents kidney just as he started to turn. He cried out with pain as Auryn's left hand snaked over his right shoulder. The pack leader then tripped backward over Auryn's leg and he landed without warning directly on his head.
Auryn panted, standing haggardly over his toppled opponent. He turned to face the other students that had beaten on him in the last year. The face of Tragedy stared at them, before falling off of Auryn and drifting to the ground. The stone like stare of Auryn stayed locked on them even as his mask faded from view, only then speaking. He promised that if they ever tried to attack him again, they would meet the same fate. He would adapt with the sole purpose of defeating them. With that, he walked through the crowd, trying not to limp as best he could. He paused for a moment, before turning to go home. He offered, once more, to tutor them before actually leaving. They ended up taking him up on that offer later that week. Whether it was due to the fight, or Queen Mardi's 'no touch' ruling on Auryn (unknown to him) can be debated.
Going to combat school was rather bittersweet for Auryn. He loved what he was learning, and getting the chance to become a Huntsman was a point of pride for him. Unfortunately, Mardi had also decided to go to combat school. He had been looking forward to the chance of stepping out of his extroverted sibling's shadow, but yet again he was known as 'Mardi's kid brother'. Besides that point, Mardi had spent years teasing him for studying as hard as he had. Treating him like a freak. Even if his studying was what was benefiting her so much.For the most part, he spent his combat school years trying to avoid his sibling and throwing himself into any classes he could. Fencing, marksmanship, Grimm, anything that piqued his interest, he studied. These combat classes were selected due to his prior exposure to huntsmen. The fighting style that Mantis had used all those years ago still influenced Auryn's actions. Due to it, he selected a pair of weapons to mimic the other huntsman. This choice required some creative liberties, since traditionally the rapier is a single blade fighting style. Though the modifications were possible considering his own intelligence and his memories of what Mantis had once done. Around the end of the second year of combat school Mardi started to change her tune. Slowly, at least. Then again, Auryn had a long list of reasons not to trust his sociable sister. Starting with the fact that she seemed to find it hilarious to trade out all of his charcoal drawing pencils for colored pencils, knowing that with his color-blindness, he'd never know the difference. That is until Vert decided to comment that he like the surrealist Grimm look. That it was 'psychedelic'. In retaliation Auryn decided to leave holes in his notes that he knew Mardi was still stealing from him. That lasted all of three hours, before his conscious convinced him to rewrite those sections correctly.... and he still felt terrible for it. For all of Mardi's faults, he couldn't bring himself to actually retaliate against her. He had never wanted to attack people if he could help it and the time at the school revealed how aggressive his fighting techniques were. The boy tried to find a way to use them more for defense and protection but nothing fit exactly what he wanted. After some research, he was able to come up with a plan that might make his weapons more suitable for defense. Though getting them to form a singular blade or an antique musket wouldn't be easy. He enlisted the help of the school's crafting teacher Papaya. The faculty member was willing to help forge a system that allowed the two to become one. For the year and a half, Auryn switched his combat classes to be able to better use the long-sword and musket forms. Though he continued to fence at points and always took a weekly trip to the range to work on his reflexes to keep the fastest guns in the East in prime condition.
At sixteen, he found himself considering which of the elite schools he would eventually attend. With his test scores alone, he would have a fighting chance of getting into any school he wanted to. The fact that his Mom aided him in writing a scientific paper on Grimm: 'Classification of Collateral Damage, categorized by Grimm Species and Destructive Capability'. Not the most imaginative title, but it did give a rating system so that response teams would have a better idea about what type of situation they may be riding into. As of now, the research is incomplete as Grimm such as the Annelith were not included in his Danger scale. Continuing research should allow him to complete this line of research. Due to his scientific leanings, Atlas seemed like the most logical choice. Through them he would have access to the most advanced technology, and their programs were considered among the best. However, Atlas heavily 'suggested' that their students join the military after the completion of their education. With Auryn's romanticized version of the world, he'd prefer not to get drawn into conflicts between humans. He's a lover, not a fighter, in that regard. With that in mind, he quickly dismissed the idea, settling on Beacon. The melting-pot culture intrigued him, while still giving him the chance to study what he wants without selling his soul to a war machine government.

• Personality:

Auryn is a quite, gentle soul. He'd sooner sketch Grimm than destroy them. In all things, he is precise. Whether this be in the accuracy of his strikes on the battlefield, or in the lines of a Beowolf's maw, he carefully ensures he will hit his mark. If asked, Auryn would describe himself as a student of life. His philosophy encompasses silent, carefully planned strikes. Every stroke falls within his meticulously planned lines. He is willing to sacrifice to achieve his goals, and will naturally choose this path rather than cling to vices. He rarely lets anything intrude on the solitude of his studies. The only exception of this rule is his twin sister, Mardi. She is the chip in his mental armor, bringing out elements of himself that he would rather keep buried. When she's endangered, he's quick to anger, often irrational... in short, the opposite of everything he sees himself as. His over-protectiveness sometimes overreaches, causing him to occasionally force Mardi to do things she may not like... such as study for finals, or eat healthy. In turn, she knows exactly how to best terrorize him, insisting that he should be more out-going and social (like a character in one of his plays). For Auryn to achieve his dreams of understanding the Grimm, he has shunned the aspects of life that his gluttonous sister has wholly embraced. His antisocial nature belies an empathetic heart. He occasionally gets sympathy pains from others, but his social graces are currently a bit stunted. Auryn can fake it for a role, as a Method actor he tries to envision himself as the character, and studies intensely for the role. One can't do that for real life however. Due to this, Auryn often ends up being isolated. He doesn't go out of his way to approach people. He would rather spend his time in a library than, well, pretty much anything. Auryn's curiosity is a natural foil to this, driving him to if not converse with an individual, then hover creepily over them until his curiosity is satisfied. Ways to peak it include: Grimm knowledge he doesn't have, anything he considers mentally stimulating, or comics. The latter of which he swears he likes for the artwork. Aside from all of this, however, Auryn is a true gentleman romantic. From the outside his actions may seem like that of a misogynist, which is not actually the case. He doesn't believe that women are inferior in any way. He's simply enamored with 'old-school' actions of affection: opening doors for women, standing when they arrive or leave a table, and pulling the chair out for them. He'll even go as far as attempting to kiss the back of their hand upon greeting them. This last action is not nearly as smooth as he would like with his current social graces, but it should get better with time.
Advantages

Speed	Health	Defense	Armor	Initiative
10	7	3	2/1	6

Attacks

Attack	Value
Unarmed	2
Melee	7
Ranged	7
Thrown	6

Verified? (This bot cannot verify AMAs just yet)
Date: 2015-04-26
Link to submission (Has self-text)

Questions	Answers
Hey Thomas! I'm currently a student at iO Chicago. I know you were there for a bit. Can you tell any fun stories from your time there? Also, you kill it on every podcast I hear you on. I don't know how to end this. Good bye.	I love Chicago. Great place to learn improv. One time, at an Improvised Shakespeare Company show, the logic was that the secret to the show, the thing we were all searching for, was inside this piece of gum that was on the edge of a woman in the audience's glass. Like, she had chewed it there and stuck it there. It fell down and made a noise, then we all pounced. So the only way to get the secret out was to chew the gum. I chewed it. Then Joey Bland asked "what was the secret?" and I said "you have to chew it to find out." We all ended up chewing that woman's old gum, then wrapped up the show, then stuck the gum over the arch. It was great. Gum stayed there for a while, I'm sure it's gone now though.
Two questions: Of all the things you've done, what was the hardest scene to finish because you couldn't stop laughing? How do you find time to enjoy your hobbies with your busy life?	Oh wow. It's hard to remember the time I broke the most. I break all the time, is the thing. I remember, back in Chicago, TJ and I used to shoot these short films with our director friend Jordan Vogt-Roberts (who's doing the new King Kong movie) and one night we bought a pig. Like a dead pig, but a whole pig. And we dressed it up like a baby and pretended that we had to babysit it. It was one of the weirdest, most macabre night I've ever been through. I was both disgusted and delighted the entire time.
I feel like you kind of popped up out of nowhere, does it sometimes feel like that to you too? Obviously you worked very hard to get here, but now does it feel like you've "made it"? You're on a pretty big HBO show, how has that changed your life?	I can see how that would appear. I've been at it for fifteen years now. SV has definitely changed a lot of things. That's what happens to many actors. They hustle at it for a while until something pops. For me it's been performing live comedy, writing, big parts in small films and small parts in big films, commercials, internet sketches... and then SV comes along. But believe me it's not like it was my first audition.
I was intrigued by what you said about GURPS in the Rolling Stone. What's the funniest scenario you've been involved with?	In GURPS? Well, I GM'd a game where everyone had to pick a signee of the Declaration of Independence. They had to research that person, then present them to the group. Then they had to make that person with 120 points as accurately as they could. The game kicked off just after everyone signed the DoI. Then... one man turned into a werewolf. They had to go find Washington, and he trained them into being psychic monster hunters.
What is your opinion on the hate the TJ Miller received after the Crunchies?	People love to get mad at things. TJ was being TJ. They hired him, not the other way around. He, and really no comedian should, censor themselves. So they brought a giraffe into a forest and got mad that the giraffe tried to eat the tree leaves. People are sensitive and love to express that via negativity to someone else.
Hi, Thomas! Just wondering, how do you and the ISC guys prepare before every show?	We do a bunch of old school warm-ups with new twists. We still do a version of zip, zap, zop. I've never been with a group that takes warming up more seriously and I think we benefit from it.
	I should also add the warm-ups are genuinely fun, too. They are sometimes more fun than the show.
I saw you do improv at UCB before I ever saw you on TV/in the movies, and I'm extremely happy that you still make time to do shows as often as you do (loved Snowpants last night!). What keeps you coming back to the stage?	I love it. There are thousands of just-ok shows that are all good and fine and I like doing them... but then there are the truly great ones. Those are shows where everything comes together. You can't get it through TV or film, but only through live performance. I'll be in the pursuit of those for as long as I'm able.
How often do people come to you and call you Doobs? Does it still bother you? I remember you mentioning it you the Jake and Amir podcast.	I don't really mind it that much. There's a difference between recognition and support as opposed to spam and trolling. I was dealing with the latter for a bit but things have evened out for the time being. Part of the game, I suppose. Bummer though.
What was your take on that salon article a couple weeks back that credited Kumail as an actor on the Big Bang Theory? Pretty ironic, eh?	In an article where they were defaming us for sexism they followed up be being racist in the most blissfully unaware way. It's a great example of the type of journalism that Salon is interested in. Gotta find something to get mad at.
Do you play as the Kings or Canucks?	I'm a King's fan. In the game, I'll play as the Kings or the Leafs. On EASHL (which wasn't in the last NHL game, shockingly enough) I'll drop in with whatever game, but I usually turn off my headset because there's too much racism and homophobia in random games. Sad.
Have you ever checked out /hockey? It's one of the best subs on this entire site.	Never checked it out.
What was your favorite scene from Wolf Of Wall Street, and what was it like acting alongside Leonardo Dicaprio? Thanks a ton!	Leo was great, but my personal scene was really between Jonah and myself. He was great, too. Scorsese likes to make sure he gets coverage, so we did it different ways a whole bunch of times.
	I loved Leo on Quaaludes. A real physical comedian!
When will your next Twitch stream be?	I can only say that I'll Twitch when I can. Schedule is just too crazy otherwise.
what games are you currently playing? Any games in the future that you're especially looking forward to playing?	I wanted to get Elite Dangerous working but something between that game and Xsplit doesn't work. I dunno, what am I looking forward to? In all honesty? DCS 2.0.
Hey man, I saw you and Zack Woods at UCB Sunset last night and immediately went home and watched season one of Silicon Valley in its entirety. Yall are hilarious.	It's the best.
What's it like getting to work with your friends? And how much of the show is Retroscripted?	I would say if anything, we improvise on top of the script. We get great scripts, and we just try to add a little character color or a little moment. If it's good and can't be used we might find another spot for it, but we like to keep it in-the-moment.
Actually I know you more from CollegeHumor and Key and Peele! I think you are like the male version of Anna Kendrick :P Anyway, your favorite actor you've worked with and why?	She complimented my suit once. I was very flustered.
	I think Will Ferrell is up there. He was so kind, so enthusiastic about comedy... he included my in conversation when I was a very small potato. Just a real tiny tot. And he was just a genuine dude.
How did you react upon hearing Jake and Amir was coming to an end?	I get it. It's been a long time. There's nothing wrong with wrapping something up when it's still positive as opposed to tired. It was a great series, those guys worked very hard on it.
Which episode did you find most difficult to film and why?	In terms of sheer difficulty, the shows with a lot of tech jargon are pretty tough. I'm dumb, you see, and I have to pretend I'm smart. That's hard for a dumb person to do.
Hey Thomas, big fan of Silicon Valley here :) Have you ever had a crazy fan experience or something like that? Thanks a lot for doing this AMA.	Nothing crazy crazy. Mainly creepy. Sometimes I'll look over and there's just someone with their phone taking a picture. That's weird, you guys, just come over and say hi. You don't have to be Kraglore The Kreep.
Hey man, loved every episode of Silicon Valley since the beginning! What are some tips you can give to improvisers who have only been in for about 3-5 years?	Love what you do. Chances are you won't get paid, so you better like doing it. Embrace the philosophy of it. Be confident. Be you -- that is to say you aren't every improviser, you are the improviser that you are.
Hey Thomas! Huge fan :) What's your favourite part of nature and/or technology?	When the two meet. Our world is in trouble, and since the habits of man are hard to break, it seems like innovation might be our only option.
Hello, and thanks for your time! My dad - whom I suspect to be the brogrammer of his office - is always appreciative of the scientific accuracy in Silicon Valley. (He does laugh condescendingly every time the Weissman Score is mentioned.) How much of the science do you understand? Also, out of all of your fellow cast-members, who is the most similar to the character they portray?	I know a little, only because I'm interested in it. But I do NOT know how to program. No one does. Mike Judge did in the 80s, Kumail studied it for a bit then forgot it. Basically, we're actors. BUT, we're actors who play video games, go to Comicon, and attend Renn Faires in garb, so...
What specs do you run on PC? Do you plan on buying a fully operational simulation cockpit for Flight Simulator? Thanks!	When I get the space, a sim pit is definitely a possibility.
	Specs I don't know off by heart but it's a Maingear Shift. I've swapped some parts out though.
If you could do one thing to Silicon Valley show, what would it be ? It's awesome by default but I hope you'd have thought something that would make the show even more awesome.	We get to the end of the internet and find a portal to the Game Of Thrones world. We zap in, and I become the Father Of Dragons and marry Daenerys so we can all move on from her boring free-the-slaves plotline.

Last updated: 2015-04-30 18:39 UTC
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Date: 2014-05-03
Link to submission (Has self-text)

Questions	Answers
Hey Brit, how come you never rep Phili???	Brittany: I do, I have a lower back tattoo of a cheesesteak
Brandon, is it hard to make Vines everyday so consistently??	Not when your'e unemployed and living at your parents house.
How do you feel about legendary Viner Danny Lopriore mocking you guys and other popular Viners?	Christiano: Danny is awesome. It was a bit of a roast, sort of a right of passage to be roasted by him. Everyone was really into it.
	Brittany: I think it's hilarious.
	Greg: Hahaha, I love it! I think it's great! In comedy, being roasted by someone is the BEST form of flattery! Lolol.
	Kc: He's hilarious and I think its great.
	He is a legend for a reason, he's hilarious.
KC James, I love your Basketball vines, Were you ever a basketball player back in high school or college? have you ever won countys or states in high school? what were your stats?	Thank you! I played basketball for Capo Valley High and played college ball for uPenn and SF State. Look up LeBron James' stats.. mine were similar.
	Kc.
Brittany! Love your vines! Who are some of your favourite viners? From whom do you draw inspiration?	My favorite Viners are Bach, Bo Burnham, My dog Wicket, and my big toe Edgar :)
Hey Brandon my name is also Brandon and I am also 20. I've always wondered, do you guys make money from doing vines? From sponsors?	Greg: yes, which is why you see so many ANNOYING app brand vines.
Do you guys record your vines directly from your phone? Do you have any special accessories or equipment for your vines?	Brittany: I record most on my phone because I don't know how to edit because I'm 7.
	Christiano: Yeah, we have tripods, lights, play sounds off another phone, and use assistive touch. Or you just shoot it all in your phone's camera and edit it and upload it.
	Brandon: For me its straight from my phone. Then again, I'm a simpleton who likes to yell at pigeons.
	Greg: I still don't know now to use Vine properly. I'm an idiot.
Do any of you think a dislike option would be an improvement to vine? I see a lot of pointless vines that make it to the popular page simply because of the Viner's popularity as opposed to quality of the Vine.	Brittany: I don't think there needs to be a dislike button but I think the spamming has to go. No one likes spam but Hawaiians.
Also, do any of you know if there will ever be some sort of fix to the spam in vine comments? It just seems like a wasteland of spam and a waste of time to try and even read through it.	Christiano: That button would get out of control! But it could help quell a lot of those "Thirst" vines...
Brandon, where the fuck is Jason Nash?	Brandon: In the trunk of my uncles Volkswagen Beetle.
Seeing as all of these comments start off with 'Brittany...' I'll ask everyone else, how much do you envy Brittany out of 10 and what's the deal with that Brittany girl?	Christiano: She's a succubus. She keeps us around to steal our youth and absorb our knowledge.
	Greg: I hate her.
Brittany, how constipated are you right now?	Brittany: I haven't shit in 3 days. My asshole feels like the 405 at 3.
Who does everyone hate more, Wahlid or Chris?	Kc: Definitely Wahlid because he is so hot and brags about it on his twitter like an arrogant man. Everyone also hates him because he lies about his age to get girls. He is actually 43. People love Chris because he is actually funny and cute AF.
	Brittany: Who's Whalid? Who's Chris?
	Greg: who are they even both?
How did it feel once people on the streets started to recognize you?	Kc: I thought to myself "It's about time."
	Brittany: It's crazy. I always think they're talking to someone else or mistaking me for Harry Styles.
	Greg: kinda cool, lol. Weird too. I got recognized by the entire kitchen at in-n-out a few weeks ago on my way to Coachella, lol, that was pretty cool.
	Brandon: I always assume that they recognize me from my short lived career as a Sandwich Artist.
	Christiano: Someone weirdly enough recognized me as Batman the other day. But I wasn't wearing the mask or anything... I guess this is how Val Kilmer feels...
KC, have you ever met Drake Bell?	Brittany: I'm developing my own TV show where I play Drake Bell.
Was it harder to make longer-form comedy? rather than just six seconds? I liked Juice Cleanse!	Brittany: I came from a longer form space, so for me it was harder to get adjusted to Vine. I'm still not perfectly adjusted to Vine... cc my vines.
	Greg: not really, I came from a longer form background w/ film & Tv, so it was kind of an easy transition.
Hey guys! Thanks for doing this! Who would you guys say started the whole vine famous craze? Who are the vine legends?	Brittany: I have no idea who started it but I know who's gonna end it points to self
	Greg: Nicholas Megalis's "Gummy Money" vine. Hands down, lol.
Were you all friends even before vine? Or was vine a unifying factor?	Brittany: We're still not friends. I'm only here for the pizza.
	Christiano: I met Brittany first, and then she introduced me to KC. I met Greg through Vine and he introduced me to Brandon. So yes... Vine.
Kc is it true u stole pokemon cards when u were younger and also do u cry in ur sleep?	Kc: ... it's not my fault!
Brandon: How much does your mom love being featured? Are any vines with her scripted or thought out beforehand?	Brandon: They actually are all scripted. My mom is a sweetheart in real life, except when she locks me in the basement for 3 days cause I didnt do the dishes.
Are you guys still here? If so, how awesome is Rudy in real life, and is he going to be on SHFTY?	Christiano: Rudy is the most awesomest dude around. He IS gonna be part of SHFTY, he's in 2 sketches and a few other videos too!
You're all very talented, and the collabs make it 100x mo' betta'. Thanks for doing chat time with reddit.	Greg: he's a half Italian/half Brazilian 5'4" dude from Jersey with a Napoleonic complex, does that answer your question? Lol, Hahha. J/K, Rudy's awesome. Very smart and talented individual.
What's the creepiest message you've guys ever received? I always see weird fucked up shit on your guys instagram and Twitter	Kc: I had a girl tell me she wasn't of age.. but her body was ready.
	Brittany: I had someone who asked me to send them some sexy pictures ...the only creepy part about it is that they said they were a 7 year old girl...
	Christiano: A lot of reuests for pictures of my feet on SnapChat. Whoever you are... stop it.
Did any of you think you'd ever gain this much fame with vine? Did you plan on regularly making vines right off the bat when you downloaded the app? Also TIL Klarity's real name is Greg.	Greg: Haha, never. I downloaded vine to stalk a girl that I liked b/c she had vine. I was bored when I downloaded vine and almost delete it, lol. And yeah, most ppl don't know, but my real name is Greg. A disappointment I know.
	Brittany: I never thought anything would come of this but me just getting to have fun. I feel really blessed and I hate when people say "blessed" because I think that's cheesey but it's so true so I am gonna hashtag it now ok? #Blessed
Do you guys all live in the same area?	Brittany: Yeah we do. Strangely enough. I've lived in LA for 10 years.
	Christiano: Yeah! We all live in LA, but none of us are from here...
	Greg: I'm currently homeless, but yes, we do.
Do you guys miss Nick Spears? Hope I didn't make anyone mad/sad...	Kc: Very much.
	Brittany: SOO MUCH :(
That makes sense. His vines have always been consistently good even with all that going on. I really appreciate how classy this answer was. I wasn't fishing for a bad one or anything, but it just shows your character.	Christiano: Thanks! Ron Burgundy told me to stay classy, so i try.
Hey Brittany, Brandon, Klarity, Kc James, and Christiano How has vine effected your life? What inspires you all to make each vine With a fresh idea? (Ps.love you guys!!)	Brittany: Basically I was eating out of the trash before vine, and now I'm not... so that's a plus.
	Kc: Before vine my friends thought I was crazy, and now they still do. I'm inspired by every day moments as well as my active imagination.
	Greg: well I get a bunch of free clothes now, I get to eat at expensive restaurants for free and every girl that didn't want me a year ago now does, lol. Also, I get hit up a lot my friends to promote things for them on my social media, haha. -__- What inspires me to continue to make vines? Lol, MONEY and social acceptance by the internet so I can separate myself from Kevin Hart.
	Christiano: I was a commercial director before Vine, and having all these Viners around has literally consumed all my time. So now I just focus on doing projects with these maniacs instead of working for brands.
Hey Brittany! I follow you on Instagram aswell as vine, I love your sense of fashion. Who is your favourite designer? and please make clothes.	Brittany: So funny you said that! I want to do a line of clothes! Way before Vine I worked as a wardrobe stylist while going on auditions and what not and I had so much fun. My favorite designer? Hmm... That's hard, so many goodies but I am pretty much always feeling Alexander Wang.
What has been your favorite trend (to do or to make fun of)?	Kc: Not a huge fan of trends unless its 90's bowl cuts.
	Brittany: I had fun doing the 'lemme take a selfie' vine but then after like 6 hours I immediately regretted it and wanted to kill myself.
	Christiano: Flappy Bird, for sure!
	Greg: the Nae Nae, #LetMeTakeASelfie and "Relatable" vines are all ones are/we're fun to make fun of.
Hey guys! Ive followed all of yall for about a year now and i love all of yalls vines! I guess my question to any of yall is what do you think sets apart the Vine Famous from the Vine Regulars? When did you first think, "hey, i could make this a big deal?"	Kc: Most of the "popular viners" put a lot of time and effort into their vines which I think sets their work apart from other vine users.
Also, Brittany: I would date you so hard KC: so glad you finally found stuff to do on your saturday nights!	Brittany: Thank you. I would like to be dated.
Who has been your favorite viner to work with on shfty?	Kc: Kc.
	Brittany: ...Myself?
	Christiano: It's tough to say, cuz they're all sitting here next to me. So to not offend anyone, I'm gonna say Ry Doon.
	Greg: Kc James, hands down. Plus he's so tall and good-looking. My future girlfriend is NEVER meeting him! No no no.
Do you guys like the changes Vine has been going through? Or do you wish it was the way it was before?	Christiano: Progress is always great. Vine's really starting to mature as a platform, especially with the new Vine.co "youtube-style" layout and search functionality. Psyched to see Vine finally come of age.
	Greg: Personally, I miss the way vine was. I hate the way it is now, but everything evolves, just gotta roll with it.
So is it possible to make a living off Vine? Or should I keep my job? Keep up the great work guys! SALUTE!	Brittany: I get paid in POGS so I'm pretty satisfied.
	Well I put it to you like this: 6 months ago I was homeless, now I'm looking at places on my own with no 9-5 job. Miracles do happen. :)
What is the combined total amount of dicks each of you have sucked off?	Brittany: Does it count if I watched KC suck his own dick?
	Christiano: To full completion?
(to all) What is the vine you are most proud of/is your favorite you made?	Brittany: I love my first Ghetto Dora vine... and that's about it.
	Christiano: Law and Order: Flappy Bird. That and the Batman Series.
Are there any popular viners you will actually admit to finding awful, or will you just take the easy road and say everyone is great?	Brittany: Hmmm. I think KC is awful, but that's just because I've seen inside of his asshole.
	Kc: Bonded for life.
	Christiano: People who just use YouTube clips to tell their jokes kinda suck. Sorta flies in the face of how much time and effort we put into our vine sketches.
	Greg: Hahaha, I would, but I don't wanna go down that road. I could give you a politically correct answer here, but there are definitely some awful Viners out there, lol.
What college did you guys go to or what was your previous job?	Kc: uPenn. My previous job was flipping pokemon cards on ebay.
	Brittany: I went to FIDM in downtown LA because I didn't want to go to a real college and I needed something easy enough to break away from and go on auditions.
	Greg: I didn't go to college. Previous job was a waitor, I got my first TV show and I quit on the spot.
	Christiano: Full Sail University! Best technical film school in the world.
Lastly and kind of serious, do you guys ever have vine beef and what do you think of the whole Curtis Lepore/Jessi Smiles crap that happened?	Greg: there is def vine beef and "tension" between certain Viners and groups of Viners for sure. And I have no comment on the whole Curtis/Jessi things, lol. Zero.
Hey brandon did you ever end up buying that shirt that your brother said was too small?	Brandon: I bought 20 of them because I like showing my midriff. I'm literally the biggest slut AWMAWGAWD.
How do you feel about mom's spaghetti?	Brittany: I fucking love spaghetti. I'd eat fuck the shit out of a plate right now.
	Kc: Needs ball meats.
	Christiano: My mom is irish, but my dad is Italian, so he makes all the spaghetti in our house. And i'm obsessed with it. The meatballs too...
	My Mom's Jamaican, she's jerk chicken and curry goat.
How do you guys take your orange juice? Pulp free, some pulp or lots of pulp? Or.. other?	Christiano: Pulp Fiction. Inspired by @BrandonCalvillo.
	Brittany: I HATE PULP. It just feels so whack in your mouth shivers
What's brown and sticky?	Brittany: All of Kc's vines.
	Brandon: My bathroom after eating Chipotle.
	Christiano: Klarity covered in honey.
	Greg: Me after I make Kool-Aid.
Cast: What's one thing people don't know about you?	Christiano: I have two penises.
KC: Where did you get those face cut outs? Any other celebrities to be included?	Brittany: I like turtes
Why did you move there?	Christiano: Wanted to increase my chances of dying in an earthquake.
How many cuts/takes does it take to make a good vine?	Kc: It can go either way! Some of the best and most popular vines are done in one shot, while others are really intricate with multiple cuts. It depends on what you're going for!
	Greg: one time I spent over an hour making a vine. Then sometimes, it takes all of 5 minutes, lol. It just depends. Vine is like a bad relationship you can't get rid of, haha.
	Christiano: Sometimes you nail it in the second or third take, and then you save that one and keep trying for more. But then you always end up going back to that first one you liked.
Brittany, what's the best reaction you've received from bystanders while doing your vines?	I've been strangled before... That was fun.. and kinda erotic...
Context?	I stole this gay guy's grocery cart and he kinda lost it and had super human strength. He garbbed me by the throat and lifted me off my feet. It was awesome/ scary as fuck
What do you make of vine 'beef' and in particular vines aimed at the likes of Nash Grier?	Greg: sure, if he was down for it, I'd LOVE to start a fake Vine beef with Nash Grier, Hahahahha.
	Brittany: It's entertaining but I'm not a huge meat-eater.
	I hear Vine Beef is high in protein and also quite savory. Also, Nash Grier's eyes help feed starving children in Africa.
Why can't I find breaking bad on netflix??	Christiano: Because Walter White doesn't want you to see his downfall.
Question for the entire cast— How does one become officially "Vine famous"? What crew or networks decide if you're popular enough to become Vine verified? Have you met the people that verified your accounts? Explain the process and your reactions when it happend, please.	Brittany: I don't even know what to make of the whole "vine famous" thing. It's weird. I'm just grateful for all of the opportunities I've had. :)
How does someone like myself start to get a following off of Vine? I hate the relatable Vines, and I have few ideas of legit skit type Vines. But what's the point if only a few people watch it. I would want to increase followers but do it the right way. Any tips?	Brittany: Honestly, I don't even know how to answer that. I'd say just be you, be funny and the rest will follow.
What kind of music do you enjoy?	Brittany: I like de music with da good beats.
	Kc: Russian Dungeon Pop.
	Brandon: I am a huge fan of the band Wavves and the band HEALTH. Their music causes me to have multiple eargasms.
	Christiano: The Who. Pete Townshend is god.
Did any of you guys know each other before Vine?	Brittany: I knew Jason Nash, Simone and Bach before Vine but everyone else I met off of Vine.
	Kc: I knew Brittany. She sold crack to minors in my old neighborhood.
	Christiano: Minors, or miners?
Brittany..i have a hot dog just like meg. Does your hot dog's feet smell like fritos too?	Brittany: Hahaha! She doesn't... but she should.
	Christiano: My Dachshund's feet TOTALLY smell like Fritos!! weird... didn't know that was a thing...
Do you guys do any traveling for your vine career? Like travel to other states? Or do you stay in LA for most of your stuff?	Brittany: I've traveled a lot. I've been to at least 10 different basements in the US.
Do you enjoy the ocean?	Brittany: I love the ocean. Especially throwing all my trash into it.
	Greg: I'm black.
Klarity Christiano Brandon those batman bane and robin are some of the funniest vines you guys make, also anymore of 6bit?	Christiano: SHFTY has eaten up all the time i used to spend on 6-bit. But now that we're done shooting SHFTY, 6-bit is gonna make a glorious comeback!!
	Christiano: Also, THANK YOU!! The batman vines make us laugh, and it's rare that Vines that make us laugh are also popular.
	Greg: thanks man! I'm glad there's an audience out there who appreciates them! Lol...we love to make them, but the general vine audiences doesn't particularly care for them unless they're offensive. But w/e, we don't care, we still love them, lol. And more 6bit? Mayyybe, ask Christiano, lol. They're so hard to make.
If you have any comedic inspirations (that don't include each other hehe) who are they?	Kc: Sacha Baron Cohen, Ben Stiller, Lucille Ball, Jim Carrey.
	Brittany: Comedic Inspirations for me are definitely Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Tina Fey, unfinished bowls of Mac N' Cheese, my friend's iguana Craig... oh and Dave Chappelle.
	Louie CK is my idol.
	Christiano: George Carlin!! And of course, Adam McKay as a director. Gary Larsen gives me a lot of my ideas for Vine.
	Greg: Rudy Mancuso, Bo Burnam and Dave Chappelle.
Why does every viner have an endless supply of 20-30 year old African American males, at their disposal for use in their vines?	Chrsitiano: There's a slavery joke here, but I'm not going to make it.
	In truth, there's a bunch of crazy talented black Viners that have been killing it on Vine. Their audiences are highly engaged, so Vining with them means you'll have a hit. That, and they're some of the nicest, hardest working Viners on the platform.
	Brittany: I don't think about their skin color, I just see the funny.
What was it like working with Jake Moreno?	Brittany: Who?
	Brandon: He constantly shouted racial slurs on set. Made me feel real uncomfortable.
	Christiano: You ever heard the Christian Bale rant from on set... Like that, only worse. One of the most unprofessional people you'll ever meet. Great guy, though!~
What do you guys like to do in your free time?	Brittany: I like to play with my dogs because I have no friends.
	Brandon: I work part-time at an Applebees. I'm also the kingpin of a meth empire.
	Christiano: KC James...
	Greg: try to get Brittnay to date me.
How much on average do you get paid to do sponsored vines? Y'all are hilarious btw!	Brandon: I get paid in Jack Links beef jerky. Also, THANK YOU!
	Greg: just enough to buy a 2 piece meal from KFC.
Brittany - who farted?	Brittany: I did.
	Christiano: Brittany did.
Other than Bryan Silva, who is the best viner?	Brandon- RED 6 hands down. That man is a genius.
	Sorry but Bryan Silva is life.
	Now you got your answer in VINE form too - Link to vine.co
	Greg: JJ ICE FISH.
Britny bby giv me sum fuk, yes?	Christiano: Do it, Brittany. Giv hm sum fuk.
	Brittany: No fuks are given.
Kc- What does Kc stand for?	Christiano: Kansas City.
What are your hopes for super happy fun time?	Christiano: Well, seeing as we did it for Endemol, the biggest TV production company in the world, we obviously would love to see it make the move to TV. But our main goal for SHFTY was to prove to the world that Viners can act in longer than 6 second spurts.
	These guys are some of the funniest actors on the internet right now, so it was a dream being able to have comedic powerhouses bringing my ideas to life. I hope the world sees SHFTY and laughs. Because that's what we're really in this for, above all else.
How did you all meat?	Brittany: In a sausage factory.
	Greg: in an AA reject group group meeting of failed actors.
Are you guys creating this series to keep your famous life alive since Vine is dying rapidly (and has been for months)?	Christiano: We're doing it because we love making people laugh, and YouTube gives us a bigger canvas to do so.
	Also, I think the claim that Vine is dying is a bit premature. Especially with Viner's followings growing at 500,000 new followers a month.
	Brittany: Hahahahhahaha! YES.
	Brittany: Dats true Christiano.
How did you guys first discover and get into vine?	Brittany: I was bored and just messing around on my phone one day when I stumbled across it.
Absolute favorite song at the moment?	Brittany: "Set it Off"- Diplo.
	Christiano: Bedbugs by The Limousines.
When does the next video come out?	Christiano: Monday! Starring the incomparable Brittany Furlan.
What is the rudest comment you've ever received?	All shit remarks just make me laugh.
Brandon: How long did you work for subway?	Brandon: Too long.
Is vine dead? Is there a god?	Christiano: I'm pretty sure KC James is god. Vine's not dead, it's just a teenager.
Brittany just wanna say thanks to you and all the vine girls (Simone, Kiya etc) for proving women are fucking hilarious. Also Natalie Nature is my spirit animal and please tell Simone I love her and she should have got on SNL ok thanks.	Brittany: Thanks girl! You da best! XO.
Who's the hottest guy on social media.	Kc: Wahlid Mohammed.
	Christiano: This guy named Wahlid Mohammed. But i heard he's gay.
	This guy with the eyebrows of a goddess.
	Brittany: Gordon Ramsay
Love you Brittany and your vines! P.s. your dogs are adorable!	Brittany: Aw, Thank you so much. Kisses from dem.
Magcon broke up	Kc: :(
	Greg: no worries, all the black Viners are starting "Black Con".
	Brandon: HOW AM I GONNA MARY MY BAE CAM DALLAS NOW!?! WHY IS LIFE EVEN WURTH LIVIN?!?!
	WAAATTT??? Raises arms in the air, weeps uncontrollably
	Christiano: It feels as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.
I'd just like to say HI to all of you and thank you for bringing laughter into many lives. Sketch comedy had always been my favorite platform and I looked forward to seeing more from all if you and SHFTY!	Christiano: Thank you!!! So happy to make you laugh. That's why we get up n the morning.
	Brittany: Thank YOU! kisses you on mouth
Brittany: No question here. I just stopped by to say that I think your vines are hilarious and you are awesome! If you are ever in the San Diego area you should totally drop by and say hello.	Brittany: Thank you so much :) Let's touch tongues sometime.
Just want to say Brittany, you have really inspired me to come out of my shell and embrace my weirdness! You and your 2 adorable dogs kick so much ass!	Brittany: Thank you so much. Weird is good. Never be afraid. I'm here with you. X.
	Christiano: Brittany was also born in a shell. Well, more of a chrysalis really. She's a moth.
Come back you guys :(	Christiano: We're still here!
Brittany Furlan is easily the most grating person I have ever seen.	Brittany: Thank you so much! Love you too.
	Christiano: Right? Let's throw her down some stairs...
	Greg: I think she's hot, but my taste in women have been questionable over the years.
Thats a little much.	Christiano: Oh... okay... nevermind then.
Brittany you are my favorite vine and i wish i could meat you	Brittany: Thank you. If you Meat me, will you eat me?
	Christiano: You want to make her into meat?
Brittany, love your vines and your snaps so funny and cutes...PLEASE MARRY ME!	Brittany: Ok, just give me a time and location.
I call bluff.	)
Whuuurrrgggaaahhh.	Christiano: Exactly.
Brittany you're my fucking favorite. That is all I have to say.	Brittany: I really appreciate that. Dad? Is that you?
Not really a question, but a statement—	Kc: Hey thanks! I'm glad I can do that for ya!!! :) Kc: Really? Christiano: I'd pay to see that.
KC, you're the best looking man on vine. And you crack me up!
Do Any Of You Smoke Weed?	Brittany: ... No comment...
Brandon: Where did you get that freakin' sweet jacket you sometimes wear in your vines? Sooo nice.	Thank you for the compliment. I got it at a shop called ''Moist Men'' in West Hollywood. All the men there were really nice to me, for some reason...
Brittany, what is your favorite movie?	Hmmm... That's a tough one... probably Kill Bill.
Brittany, what is the half life on your boobs? Also you make awesome vines and instagrams and snapchats. Stay gold ponyboy.	Brittany: They're already starting to expire... I'm about to to put them on markdown.

Last updated: 2014-05-07 23:42 UTC
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Date: 2014-03-28
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Questions	Answers
How do you feel about being compared to the late (and great) Mitch Hedberg?	I started doing comedy in 2002 and I had a VHS tape of one of my first few sets. I took it to my RA, Open Mike Eagle. He watched it and said you sound like this dude, he played some Hedberg for me. I thought it was amazing.
	Mitch played Zanies in Chicago in 2005. I was brand new and I went up to his green room and asked for a spot. (This was really obnoxious but I was hungry and ambitious.) The next night he let and 3-4 other Chicago comedians that he never met perform on a sold out show of his fans. That's unheard of. Comedians just don't do that type of shit. I won't do that shit now. I can be in the greatest mood ever and I won't let a stranger on my show. It went well and he let me open for him at the Zanies in Vernon Hills that weekend. They paid me $60 or something for a 5 minute spot which was cool as fuck. He passed away a month or two after that and I was bummed about it. I used to hang at Zanies all the time after that and watch whatever headliner would be on that week. One week the middle act didn't show up and I was there so they put me up because they saw me crush it opening for Mitch. I went on and it went well and the club started booking me regularly. I started working my home club because he put me on.
	He's a legend and it's great to be compared to legends but I think that my newer special shows my style more.
Is there a reason you lift your chin up to the crowd? Is it a vision thing?	Because I'm better than them and they need to know it.
When can I buy a "Bamm Bamm, We Eatin' Ham" shirt?	I need to get it going quickly.
	BLAM BLAM.
Hannibal, why won't you just move to New Orleans already? You've been down here like 5 times in the last three months. We love you, you love us. Shh. Just let it happen. Shh.	If I moved there, I would die sooner than I planned on dying.
To be frank, am I screwed if I pursue comedy starting in a small city? (200,000ish ppl)	Nope. Start your own room. Build an audience. People in small cities get excited about entertainment options. You can run that town. Unless you suck.
Hannibal, watching a bunch of white kids stare at you blankly during Gibberish Rap last year at your Notre Dame show was a highlight of my college career. What's the best reaction a crowd has had to Gibberish Rap?	Haaa. I did it 9 times just because they weren't feeling it.
	Gibberish rap got several standing ovations by crowds of 15,000+ during the oddball tour.
When will you drop your autotuned scatting mixtape?	Tomorrow.
What is your stage name in the autotuned scatting game?	MC Full of Lies.
Hello mr. Buress. I was wondering: because of your pickle juice and apple juice jokes, are you worried about getting stereotyped as a juice comic?	No.
Are you more hesitant to make jokes about a famous person as you've gained popularity, since it's more likely you'll run into them?	I try not to be too mean spirited. It's the nature of the business though. I'm really just talking about my experiences and what I think.
Will you please perform "Gibberish Rap" at Bonnaroo for the Skrillex Superjam?	THAT'S A GREAT IDEA!
Love you on Broad City. Anything you can tell us about your upcoming show? I'm super excited for that. What's your favorite joke you've written that didn't make it into 30Rock/SNL?	I don't even have a show yet. I just said that I did because I thought it would be fun to do it. I have a pilot that I feel very confident about. Fedora Basketball didn't make it on SNL but it will live on somewhere. And if you don't know about Fedora Basketball, I will not elaborate.
Have you ever been struck by shrapnel produced by Eric Andre?	Nah but I've definitely been hit with all types of weird food and shit. That dude is disgusting.
Do you enjoy marijuana?	Not every time.
Who is your favourite comedian?	I'd have to say Dave Chappelle. He's brilliant and fun to watch. Patrice O'neal was one of the best live acts I've seen. His crowd work was amazing.
Mr. Buress! Who do you dislike more, people who are racist or people who hate apple juice?	I think you know the answer to that.
When was the last moment you thought that you were truly happy?	I'm consistently happy but when I did panel on Conan the other day, that felt really amazing. I've done so much stand up on late night shows so walking over and sitting down was really cool. It felt like a nice progression. I wasn't nervous at first but when I sat down, it was weird. I was thinking "Whoa this dude is super close. This is crazy"
How do you feel about the reports that your delivery makes you sound like a black Forrest Gump? It's a good thing.	I think you made up that report.
What is the best advice ever given to you?	A friend of mine said "You should just announce that Comedy Central picked your show up"
Hello Hannibal, How much influence do you have in "The Eric Andre Show"? That show has some pretty bizzarre skits and scenes, how much of that is just reaction, and how much is inspiration?	I come up with a few bits on TEAS a lot of the time, those are my genuine reactions to what's happening. He does some weird stuff on that show and it throws me off sometimes.
I'm looking to visit Chicago soon - whats your favorite pizza place?	I used to eat at Homerun Inn a lot as a kid. That's Chicago's best thin crust pizza.
Who's your team in NBA 2K?	I play with a few teams. I like the Blazers, the Raptors are fun, the Bulls are awesome. I won't play with the Heat because that's not fair I killed with Fredette recently.
Hey Hannibal! Do you know how many parades you're responsible for in New Orleans since you started performing that bit?	I don't know. I hope it doesn't get too crazy.
What's your favorite simile that you've used on stage? What's your favorite simile you've heard another comedian use?	Recently I tagged a bit that's already in my special. I said that the ER is like American Idol for injuries. Meaning that you really have to impress them to get attention.
	I'm on 3 hours of plane sleep so my brain is not fresh enough for me to think of my favorite simile of another comedian's. Good question though.
What's the most memorable rap show you've attended, good or bad?	The Yeezus tour was one of the best shows I've seen in my life. great production. A mountain. White Jesus. Dancers. Hit songs.
Sometimes when I get lonely I wedge stacks of nickles between each of my toes and flex my feet for strangers on chatroulette.com. Hannibal; what do you do when you get lonely? P.S. Did I use that semicolon correctly?	I just play video games. You're pretty weird.
Hey Hannibal! You said on Conan that when you were writing for SNL only one of your sketches made air. Which sketch was it?	Barkley Golf. We made fun of Barkley's Golf Swings.
What's it like working on Broad City? and how often does your own work get incorporated into it? BTW HUGE FAN!	We improv a lot.
	It's a fun set.
	I was high for one episode. My acting skills were diminished.
Was your Mom a fan of the Punic wars between Rome and Cathage?	My Dad was. My mom wanted to name me Louis actually.
How's your masturbating little shit of a cousin? Also saw you on tour with tosh and bo burnham, it was great.	He's doing well. he's an astronaut now.
I'm a woman and a huge comedy fan. When I saw the Broad City TV show for the first time, I freaked out because it was so perfect. It's incredibly funny and, more importantly, relatable. You've done an amazing job with bringing Lincoln to life. Some of the asides and line deliveries have left me in stitches (the part in Pussy Weed where Lincoln tells his patient that he's "killin' it, two-for-two"--I laugh just typing it out). How much of the character was created by Abbie and Ilana, and how much is your own input? What is working with them like? Are they as amazing as I want them to be? Any thoughts on working with funny women or on female-driven comedies, and the role of women in comedy?	It's really cool working with them. They created the character, he's slightly based on me. I'm able to improvise and have fun. I don't have to act like a "typical dentist" A lot of shows on Comedy Central are geared toward the male demographic and I think that Abbi and Ilana's characters are fresh and different. People connect with that.
When are you going on tour again? Your site only lists that you're going to Iowa and Texas.	When I get my life together, I'll tour again. I'm trying to buy some motorcycles and a Keurig coffeemaker. Once I settle that, I tour.
Why didn't you get high with Joe Rogan while you were on his show?	Free will.
How is it working on Chozen?	Chozen is very easy. I do an episode in a studio in NYC in about 45 minutes. It's fun to watch. I watch my animated character high and I tripped out and had to turn that shit off.
bonus question, why aren't panel shows a thing in the US?	I don't know why there aren't. There's Chelsea, @midnight sort of fits the bill.
Also, how did you get your role in Broad City? And what's the deal with your show on Comedy Central, did it get picked up or not?	I knew Abbi and Ilana from the NYC comedy scene. I did a part in their web series. Link to www.youtube.com
Edit: heres the picture i got with you, nice and blurry thanks to my drunk brother	When they got a pilot, they asked me to be a part of it.
What is your favorite Iron and Wine song if you could only pick one?	Pick one? I can't even name one.
Hannibal will you marry me? Btw you play my favorite character on Broad City and I love that you started a beef for Childish Gambino! Keep doin you bae.	This would be a weird way for a marriage to start. Thank you I'm glad you enjoy the show.
How difficult was your recover after being shot twice in the airport by the underage gunman?	I gotta thank the fans for keeping my spirits high.
Love your work! Come do some shows in Raleigh, NC soon?	I will. I'm gonna do a big tour in the fall once I get these new jokes together.
Ever been to the Clermont Lounge in Atlanta? If so, was it a noteworthy experience?	That old lady crushed a beer can with her tits and I was unimpressed.
Huge fan of Broad City & Lincoln! He's the voice of reason in Abbi & Ilana's chaotic world :)	INT: ILANA'S APT Lincoln enters to see Ilana fucking another dude. LINCOLN: What the fuck babe? ILANA: Derrr, I'm getting some pink dick. Now gett outta her. LINCOLN: But I love you! ILANA: I know you love me but I'm young and I only care about myself. LINCOLN: Welp, I gotta murder both of ya'll LINCOLN PICKS UP A LAMP AND CHARGES IT KINETICALLY (ALA GAMBIT) AND THROWS IT AT ILANA AND THE DUDE. THEY BOTH DIE. LINCOLN GOES HOME AND STARTS PLAYING NBA 2K14 ON XBOX ONE. HE STARTS AN ONLINE MATCH AND PLAYS SOMEONE THAT PICKS THE HEAT. LINCOLN PICKS THE MILWAUKEE BUCKS. THE GUY THAT PICKS THE HEAT HAS A 100-0 RECORD. LINCOLN DESTROYS THE HEAT BY 20 POINTS, MASTURBATES AND FALLS ASLEEP. OJ MAYO PLAYER OF THE GAME. SCENE Yeah that didn't make the cut. I pitched it.
Any fun deleted scenes or dialogue you can give us?
Pussy or Strawberries and ham, whats your favorite?	Strawberries and ham is something I just made up because there's always food on the set of EAS so we were riffing and I put them together. They really aren't that great together.
How was it touring with Chappelle this summer in the Oddball fest, I know you've previously mentioned him as an influence? I saw you at the first stop in Austin and have been a huge fan ever since.	It was amazing to tour with one of my idols. I learned a lot watching him. Thank you.
Do you prefer a casual relaxing evening at home or a wild and thrilling night out on the town?	I enjoy both. As much as I enjoy the energy of the nightlife, it's nice to chill at home with the lady and watch a movie and order food.
Hannibal, you are great on Broad City. Do you plan to come out with your own show in the future?	I think so. Unemployable. Comedy Central 30 episodes.
With your PhD in pickle juice immersion, I think you can help me out.	208y402174-4924112984797.
I have finger lengths ranging from 2-2.75 inches. My average finger circumference is around 1.75-2.25 inches. Assuming I leave my fingers immersed for 3 seconds, what would be the appropriate amount of flicks to properly flavor a ham sandwich?	Peace.
I heard on the JRE that you had Thundercat open for you at Largo, so pissed I missed that show. Who else is currently in your music rotation?	Thundercat is dope. I listen to him Fly lo, Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, Open Mike Eagle, Chance, Vic Mensa, Tree, YC the Cynic, Jean Grae, there's a lot. Janelle Monae is amazing. I saw her twice in one day at SXSW in 2008 or 09.
What's the status on your show Unemployable?	I'm not sure what's up with his show now.
Hey Hannibal! I've heard other comics say you were...let's say less than good...when you first started open mics. How did you finally make the transition? Did anything in particular happen to make it click? I know you still have your Sunday show in Brooklyn. Do you still book it? What are some other things you produced while coming up in comedy? What are some up and coming comedians you like, as well as your old favorites? Thanks!	This is the thing. EVERYONE struggles early on. That legend of me being extremely horrible is heavily exaggerated, because I was doing ok and booking festivals, and making it to the finals of competitions 3 years into my career. So if we're talking about me being a bad comedian 2 years in, then that's insane because everyone is.
Mr. Buress, who else belongs in the Association of Greasy Motherfuckers?	That's a good question. Coolio?
I saw you on the oddball tour in Mass. and you and chappelle were hands down the best two acts. One of the funniest shows I've ever been to. You're Gucci mane bit was hysterical.	I actually roasted the shit out of that dude. I tell the whole story on the nerdist podcast.
Enough with the stories, my question is if you had to name one inspiration as a comedian, who would it be?	Chappelle and Patrice O'neal are big influences.
What went down with you and Scarlett Johansson?	She was nice to me so to return the favor I made a semi-creepy joke about her. Pretty standard stuff Tooheyman.
Do you enjoy the NBC show Hannibal?	I don't watch any Hannibal related stuff that doesn't involve me and that's not even a joke.
I was going to ask where we can see your special, but It looks like you already provided that information. You the man!	It was pretty fun when I made the kid in the dentist chair give me five.
What's been your favorite bit from broad city so far? I love the show.	Link to www.youtube.com
On average, how many parades do you throw for yourself a year?	I've only thrown 2 in my entire life.
Hannibal, Louis CK turned me on to you when he mentioned you were his favorite comedian. What was it like hearing that kind of praise from a comedy legend? You're fantastic on Broad City as well.	It's awesome when someone like that respects what you do. I'm appreciative that he's turned a bunch of people on to my comedy.
Hey hannibal, Thank you for doing what you do. your comedy has been a huge light for me in some tough times. i'm tremendously grateful for that. In your new special you talk about bombing all the time when you were starting out. what changes did you make or what did you learn that made you start changing those heckles to laughs?	Everybody bombs, it's all about getting better and trying to improve.
Hannibal, I didn't know who you were till you popped up on my pandora station for Aziz Ansari. At first I was like, "who is this guy? Popping up on my aziz ansari station!" But then I was like, "Yo, I wanna kick a pigeon with this guy!" So here's my question, do you like acting more like you do in broad city ? Or doing Stand up? And...bruh you wanna launch my career by acting in my short film for college? Lmao.	I enjoy doing stand up way more. Acting is fun, but it's slow-motion and I like immediacy.
Hannibal, who are some of your favorite rappers currently in the game?	DYLAN DYLAN DYLAN DYLAN DYLAN.
Hey man, big fan ever since I first heard My Name is Hannibal. 30 Rock is one of my favorite shows, any interesting stories during your stint as a writer there?	I started playing the homeless guy because sometimes writers read the uncast parts during the table read so I read the line "get a room, whatever that is" during table read and then they decided to cast me. And then they kept doing it over and over and over.
You've been pretty hilarious on @Midnight and on Broad City. Anything else besides your stand up that we can see you in, in the near future?	The movie Neighbors starring Seth Rogen and Zac Efron premieres May 9th.
	I play a cop on a mission. This movie has no conflict at all.
As a fellow person with an alternatively rhythmed speech pattern, how do you deal with people who think you are just high all the time?	It's slightly annoying. I've been high on camera ONCE in my entire career and it didn't work out well at all. besides that, the most I've had before being on TV is one or two drinks. It's weird when people just ASSUME that I'm high because I'm not yelling. I've never been high on Eric Andre show. It was just one episode of Broad City where I was pretty stoned. I kept fucking my lines up. If you've seen me on the road doing stand up, I've never been high. I've done stand up high a couple times in NYC and that's it.
Do you play NBA 2K14 on PlayStation or on XBOX?	Xbox.
If you could describe your stand up comedy to someone who has never seen you in THREE words, what would they be?	Look on Youtube.
Anthony Jeselnik told us after one of his shows that Eric Andre filled his desk with fireworks for the Jeselnik Offensive. What's the best part about getting to work with someone like Eric Andre?	Eric is extremely creative and driven and when he's on camera he wants to make it a moment. He's incredibly prepared and he's a smart dude.
	The best part of working with him is that I really don't have to do anything but be myself and react.
Saw you in Chattanooga and it was the best comedy show I've ever been to. My brothers saw you open for Chappelle in Nashville, and I will never forgive myself for missing that one.	@midnight is a fun show to do. Hardwick has created a cool situation that allows him to showcase a bunch of comedians each week. And I crush the competition every time.
What system do you play 2k14 on?	I play XBOX.
Do you still have future plans for Fedora Basketball? Do you plan on going back on Wits again? The deli segment with you and Open Mike Eagle was the hardest I've laughed at an inappropriate time.	Wits was really fun. I'll do it again sometimes. I did a song with Open Mike Eagle for his new album that's coming out. My rap career is flourishing.
What components do you recommend for a great parade?	Band, liquor, enthusiasm, girls, commas.
You seem to be a happy guy. Is there a person you hate?	There's definitely some people that I dislike. We all have that. I'm in a good spot and I try to appreciate everything.
"yo man start the show!" Hey Hannibal, I find the delivery of your jokes to be the best of any comedian around. Its so unique and spot on! Is there any, at all, type of strategy that goes into it?	I just like playing with tone and phrasing and specific words and making it fun for me to say.
Loved your show, thanks for coming through. Was the fire alarm part of it? I was baffled at the end cause... DJ was going, an inexplicable appearance by spiderman & darth vader... and next thing I know I'm outside laughing and scratching my head, wondering what the hell just happened.	Mannn I was mad that the alarm went off. It fucked my show up. I wanted to continue outside.
Hey hannibal, love your stuff, man. How do you come up with routines/ jokes? What is the process, and how long does it generally take?	There's no rhyme or reason. I take an idea or story and write it or try it on stage. I'll remember what worked and try to fix what didn't. The length of time varies based on the bit.
Hope you see this in time: yesterday, I drank an entire bottle of grape juice in one sitting, and felt terrible all day. As a fellow juice enthusiast, do you have any tips to avoid this feeling?	Yeah. Don't do that.
Hey Hannibal, what's the best rendition of 'Jibberish Rap' to date?	When Bun B came through in Houston. This was by far the best one.
	Link to www.youtube.com
Hey Hannibal, I love your work! What do you think about The Comedy Cellar in NYC, have you ever performed there? I really wish you would come visit us in SWVA sometime :)	The Cellar is great, I'm there all of the time. It's an amazing place and I remember when I wasn't working there and just hanging out and wanting to be a part of it. The crowds are amazing and it's an NYC institution.
When are you begining you Rap Video Directing job for the Save Money Crew and ChancetheRapper?	I can't handle that pay cut at all.
I turned on nerdest this morning and you are there, I go to watch last night's Conan and you are there, I go on reddit and you are there! Why have you taken over all the things!? Are you a wizard who has finally decided to use his powers to gain fame and fortune?	Nerd illuminati.
Whats the first big step towards getting into stand-up?	Doing stand up.
Big fan Hannibal. One of the few comedians I can handle on XM radio. I was curious, what is the one place you performed where you thought you were killing, but the audience just wasn't getting it? Keep up the awesome work!	That never happens. The reverse happens where I think I'm bombing but the audience really enjoys it.
Bro your voice is so buttery. You do any voice acting?	Chozen, China IL, Bob's Burgers and an animated feature called Boo coming out next year.
Hey Hannibal. I saw you perform before Aziz Ansari in DC a few years back. You made me feel real hipster telling people about how you were going to blow up. So thanks. Anyways, what philanthropic activities do you do?	Thank you for your early vote of support.
	I was joking about being a philanthropist in the description but I'm pretty active with Mercy Home in Chicago Link to www.mercyhome.org
Hey Hannibal, thanks for the AMA. Did you really come drinkin' the handle of Jameson?	Nah. I don't even think Jameson comes in handles.
	Link to rapgenius.com
Hey Hannibal! What do you think of Pete Holmes' impression of you?	It could use some tinkering but it helps promote me.
Hannibal. To mask the noise of erotic throes of passion, my girlfriend and I played your stand up special. It was the most hilarious 17-21 minutes ever.	Ya'll fucked to my new shit or my old shit? My new shit is better for fucking.
I'm seeing you at Bonnaroo, forsure. I still think you should do the set on the Yeezus mountain. Edit: I tweeted at him that he should perform on Elton' piano or the Yeezus mountain, and he favourited it so why not milk that shit.	I think I should too, but I don't think I will. Life is weird.
Favorite memory from hanging out with donald glover.	I introduced Gambino at the Woodie Awards at SXSW and that was cool because he was one of the headliners. It was a huge crowd. It's fun when you and your friends progress in your careers like that.
Thanks for doing your free shows in Brooklyn too. Caught a few of them and loved it.	That shit is ending soon. hahahah.
What is the most awkward situation you can think of right now.	Having hundreds of people ask you questions on the internet when you've only had 3 hours of plane sleep and trying to be witty and thoughtful and get to them all even though you know it's impossible.
Hannibal goes Pootie Tang on AMA..the silence man. the silence...	I'm trying. This shit is overwhelming!
If you could work with any active comedian on a project together. Who would it be. Also you are the best part about broad city. Hands down. Great show and you make it even better	I would do a buddy comedy with Bill O'Reilly or Pat Sajak.
No question, Hannibal, just wanted you to know I'm reading all your answers in your voice though.	I respect that.
Love your stuff Hannibal, it actually made me start hitting up open mics and I'm having fun. Just wanted to know why you give shit to younger people that ask you about letting them into 21+ shows, because that shit is funny.	The shows in the mainroom are all ages.
What's your favorite restaurant in Chicago and why is it Portillo's.	Diner Grill on Irving Park Allende on Lincoln.
	That's it.
Hi Hannibal! I just wanted to know if the story about having your own parade in New Orleans was true. If so, I need to think of something to have a parade for, stat.	Super true and you don't need a reason.
Thanks for playing in Chicopee, MA at the Comedy Cafeteria. So much closer than Boston or Providence to Albany.	No problem thanks for coming.
No questions, you are just my favorite comedian! I do agree a dog should not be subjected to the crazy lifestyle of a dentist though.	True.

Last updated: 2014-04-01 13:45 UTC
This post was generated by a robot! Send all complaints to epsy.

Verified? (This bot cannot verify AMAs just yet)
Date: 2014-01-17
Link to submission (Has self-text)

Questions	Answers
What was it like working with Patrice O'Neal?	Only worked with him that one day on Chappelle. I really loved Patrice. But he had complicated energy. I sort of diffused on chappelle by whispering to him, "I know you don't listening to people, but..." And he was like, "Nahh...Where'd you hear that?" Meanwhile, he hated listening to people. One things about Patrice: He's the only person in my entire life who ever called me on the phone out of the blue just to tell me he thought I was funny. Another thing: I wanted to act in a pilot I co-wrote and was directing with Dov Davidoff. This is in 2009. I call Patrice. I go, "Dude, I want you to be in this pilot. But are you gonna be a pain in the ass?" He's like, "Neal, how the fuck you gonna call me and come at me with some shit like that?" We argue about his personality for an hour and a half (wish I'd recorded it). Finally, at the end, he goes, "You know what? I can't promise you I'm not gonna be a pain in the ass." Then he called me a month later and goes, "Yo, I owe you an apology. I just did a pilot I was in charge of and there was a dude on set who was being a fucking pain in the ass and I wanted to choke that motherfucker. I get it now. Making shit is hard enough without somebody you hired giving you shitty energy." Great dude. Incredible comic.
Did anything surprisingly adult or racy ever happen on the set of All That?	I'm afraid not. One time, the head writer made me and the other writers go to a gun range in the middle of the day. Also, ME AND KEENAN USED TO DO TONS OF COCAINE.
What happened to your contract when Dave left and didn't finish season three? Did you get paid out? And could you tell leading up to him leaving that something was wrong or did it seem like he just snapped one day?	I still got a bunch of money, just not as much as I would have gotten. I sort of knew a foul wind was a-blowing. We hadn't really been getting along.
When working on Chappelle’s Show – apparently you and Dave thought killing the white slave master and Anthony Berry’s “Holla Holla” was hysterical and made you both crack up. What other bits or sketches had you and Dave on the editing room floor cracking up?	Because of the episode where we used all of the outtakes, you pretty much got to see all of the stuff that cracked us up. People always talk about Chappelle's Show being quotable. Dave and I will quote it ourselves, but it's more obscure stuff. Like Rick James saying, "People think I do things just to do them. I got a little more sense than that. Yes I remember putting my feet on Eddie's couch." Dave and I will meet for coffee and say shit like, "People think I do things just to do them. I got a little more sense than that. Yes I remember going to get coffee with Neal." It's pretty stupid.
My favorite is "THE MILKS GONE BAD!" it works in so many situations	Also a good one. Four thumbs down, etc.
Who's your favorite artist in Hip-Hop right now? Huge fan of the podcast btw.	Right now? Kanye West. Been my favorite for the last decade. Probably the greatest all around artist in the history of hip-hop. writes his own rhymes, largely makes his own beats. Triple double no assist. And he's 7 for 7 in terms of albums as far as I'm concerned. Dark Beautiful Fantasy is a fucking masterpiece. Blame Game makes me tear up. Never been anyone like him in hip-hop. Come to think of it, he's one of the greatest musicians of all times. Now I'm talking like him. YOU DON'T HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS, JKLAP.
Occasionally, my friend and I will drunkenly sing the theme to "Good Times" loudly in public. It started after you reveled the correct lyrics to us on the "I Know Black People" skit. A lot of the time, this involves a lot of black men looking as though they are going to beat us. So my question is, is what we're doing racist? I didn't think it was, but it seems to only upset black people. Also, did you actually know those lyrics prior to the show or was the game fixed all along?	Couple things. That's not actually me in the I Know Black People sketch. That's Bryan Tucker. He's a great comedy writer. Dave and I wrote the show ourselves, but we did take outside pitches. Tucker pitched The Racial Draft (an awesome sketch) and The Player Haters Ball (stupid/great sketch). But people do get us confused sometimes because of our giant bulging eyes. Is singing Good Times around black people racist? I kind of think it is. Can't explain why. I suggest you stop immediately. Try "Facts of Life." (written by my buddy, the great Alan Thicke). Thirdly, we actually got the lyrics wrong on the show. (thanks for nothing, 2004 internet) Questlove met the writers of the Good Times theme and they let him know in no uncertain terms that the lyrics are not "Hanging in a chow line." They are indeed, "Hangin' and a jivin." Also, sidenote, the painting at the end of Good Times now hangs in...Eddie Murphy's basement bowling alley! I seent it.
Hey Neal. Did your explanation of the Chappelle's Show situation on the Joe Rogan Experience create any backlash from Dave or anybody on his side of the issue?	Not really. Dave said he listened to it but didn't really have massive beef with it.
Favorite way to respond to a heckler?	The thing I try to remember with hecklers is just to take my time and listen to them. I believe it was Chappelle who said, "A heckler's first punch is their best punch." They're generally not clever people. You don't see a lot of scientists going to comedy clubs and heckling. They're just drunk. And mostly women. So you just have to take your time and then eviscerate them.
Thanks for doing this AMA! Here's my few questions, feel free to answer any or all of them. Where is your favorite place to perform or watch stand up? If you could work with any comedian alive or dead who would it be and why? A recent BBC article claims comedians have 'high levels of psychotic traits', would you agree with this? I'm sure you might have some mixed emotions surrounding this, but what's your most fond memory from your time working with Dave on Chappelle's Show? If you could give one piece of advice to aspiring comedians, what would it be?	I love the Comedy Cellar in NY. It's a great room to perform in. And there's a table upstairs where all of the comedians hang out and eat free food. It's kind of what you think comedy will be like before you start, but rarely is.
	I'm lucky to have worked with Dave and Chris Rock, my favorite living comics. I wish I could have worked with Billy Wilder, the director. And Chuck Jones and Mel Blanc - the creators of Looney Toones. Incredibly funny and interesting.
You wrote one of my favorite tweets of all time then turned it into a sketch. How has twitter influenced/affected your writing and its process? Who is your favorite person to follow on twitter?	I love that sketch. But nobody has watched it. maybe when Jerrod becomes a big star. Twitter hasn't effected much beyond expanding my audience. Favorite people are @robdelaney and @bazecraze.
What happened with Chris Rock and the name of the new special? What did he say and do you know why he wanted it changed?	I still don't know why Rock doesn't like the name. But here he is, trolling me on my facebook page...Link to www.whosay.com
Hey Neal, What the fuck was interviewing Riff Raff on The Champs like?	I think he might have been on grugs.
Two questions: Who would you take a cup of coffee to the face for? You run track?	You know I run track. And you know who I'd take a cup of coffee to the face for: Mike.
Why and the hell aren't you more well known? You have to get some penises in your mouth my man... In all seriousness. I'm familiar with you because of Chappelle's Show. Finding out you are affliated with the others you've listed, you should be on everyone's radar. Big fan man.	Tell me more about these penises you speak of.
Are there differences in writing/directing humor for female characters than for men? What are they?	I don't really see much difference in writing for male or female characters. Other than the basic differences between men and women. But comedy-wise, not at all. The same people (Alex Baze, Mike Shoemaker, Seth himself) who write for Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon wrote for Tina and Amy at the Golden Globes last week. By the way, follow Alex Baze on twitter. he's awesome. @bazecraze He wrote that DiCaprio warm vagina intro at the Globes.
Hey, Neal. You host a podcast called The Champs with Moshe Kasher wherein you only have black guests. Was your podcast always exclusive in that sense or did you formerly have a more diverse variety and then one day you just interviewed a guy who was black and, you know, never went back?	When Moshe Kasher (my co-host) and I set out to do the podcast, we needed a hook, and I figured that only black guests was one we could deliver on. I know way more black dudes than Marc Maron, Chris Hardwick, and if you can believe it, Pete Holmes. Now, having said all that, our most downloaded episode it with Aziz Ansari, so our hook clearly doesn't work.
What current comedians are you into?	Chris Rock Doug Stanhope Bill Burr Sebastian Chappelle Kev Hart Patrice O'Neal Brian Regan Felipe Esparza Jerrod Carmichael Chris D'elia Hannibal Burress Schumer Whitney Cummings Daniel Tosh Kathleen Madigan Wanda Sykes I'm forgetting tons of people. But if you've never seen Doug Stanhope, look him up.
Is Moshe the hairest person you've ever met?	His mother is actually. his deaf hairy mother.
Do you prefer black rooms over white rooms when doing shows, or do you generally find the people who come like it?	I prefer mixed rooms. The most mixed room I ever played was the the Improv in Richmond, VA. Black people thought it was their show. White people thought it was their show. It was awesome.
Also, any advice to someone like me trying to pursue comedy in any form possible.	Advice: Don't wait. Do it asap.
Can you explain what "looks like she got dickholes in her underwear" is supposed to mean? FWIW I laughed regardless and it's still my favorite Chappelle Show sketch.	That's a Chappelle line from outerspace. I believe it means Rosie O'Donnell has a penis? Chappelle just blurted it out. Half the time, working with Dave was just figuring out a way to edit together all the hilarious shit he said. That sketch especially. me and Bijan the editor needed like a day and half to figure that sketch out.
Did Moshe win any money betting on whether or not you would bring up your spend time with white people theory? Did you smoke newports? Thanks.	At this point, my white people theory is more or less recognized by science. I smoke Kools.
Thanks for doing the AMA. Enjoy your work and your white liberal shit. My question is when was the first time you realized you wanted to be a comedian/writeprofessional funny person? Did your family tell you not to fuck with that?	I was funny from an early age. I remember saying something when I was like, 9, that was legit funny. My family was cool with it. My older brother, Kevin Brennan is a comedian, so he was massively helpful.
Do you have a "ghetto pass" How often do you have to present said pass? Who issues said pass? Can you post a picture of it? I've never seen one before.	I do not have a ghetto pass. But I believe John Mayer issues them bi-yearly.
How often do you get mistaken for Seth Meyers? Has the beard helped?	Never mistaken for him. Just a lot, "You guys look alike." NOT GONNA APOLOGIZE FOR BEING CRAZY-HANDSOME, BRO.
How often do you get confused for Steve Buscemi?	Never. That hurts that you would ask that. Deeply. In my bulging eyes.
Hey, huge fan!	Favorite books: Portnoy's Complaint, Ten Minute Toughness, Denial of Death.
What are your favorite books and/or podcasts?	Podcasts: WTF with Marc Maron, Radiolab, the Moth, The Leonard Lopate show, Freshair.
Really looking forward to your new special! Thanks for doing the AMA.	Basically, some liberal white people shit.
Do you still keep up with Amanda Bynes? She has kind of gone of the rails lately.	Never met her. But I was sad to see her episode last year. Seems like she's back with her parents. Hopefully she'll get better soon.
Do you still talk to DJ Douggpound? Who are your dream guests for The Champs?	Haven't talked to Doug. I'd love to have Kanye on. Andre 3000, Q-tip, who I think will do it at some point. Dave, Eddie Murphy.
Neal, big fan of the Champs. Anyways, when will you be publishing all of your research about how growing up around white people affects black youth?	New England journal of medicine next month.
Were you the real-life white guy "Chip" from Dave's "Killing Them Softly" stand up?	Nope. But he is sort of the impetus for my bit about black people relaxing.
Do you happen to know if the Beastie Boys lyric from "Intergalactic" that goes "Tammy D getting biz on the crop" is a reference to Tamra Davis' involvement in Half Baked (the crop being weed of course)? Thank you.	I believe that was about the fact the mike and tamra were growing their own weed in their backyard. Which in the 90s was a big deal.
What's your favorite Ja Rule song?	Holla. It's on my ipod right now.
I thought it was so funny how you described your podcast to Seth Meyers as "I know a lot of black guys that Marc Maron doesn't". What white dudes, other than Riff Raff, are black enough to appear on the podcast?	Mc Serch was on this week. He was awesome. Eminem would be good too. He's funnier than people think. And nice.
Hey Neal, loved you on on Rogans podcast, any plans to be back on again anytime soon?	This Monday as a matter of fact.
I heard that you stabbed Nick DiPaolo in the foot. Is that true and what is the story behind what happened?	That was on Louie ck's first short film called "Caesar's Salad" I played the part of "crazy pumpkin head" where I charged a group of people with a knife. Nick was one of them. We used a real knife and I dropped it on nick's foot in the scene. Went through his shoe and everything. He had to go the hospital. But he did get a bit out of it.
Didn't Louie ck use that for inspiration for the hospital scene with Nick in his show?	Did he? Haven't seen it.
Hey Neal, Is writing standup different or difficult compared to writing sketch comedy? What are the nuances and is the creative process the same? Thanks dude.	More or less the same. The thing with standup is, you have to play all the parts yourself. And you can stop and do observations that you can't do in a sketch.
Which was a more memorable experience from your Wikipedia page history, former roommate of Jay Mohr? or writer for The Source magazine?	They were both so formative. Jay mohr and I were a terrible combo. Smart Ball buster vs. forcefull ball buster.
What is your ideal position in regards to making film or t.v.? Writing, Directing, Producing etc.	Writing and directing. But writing is the hardest and most important. Especially in comedy.
I like most of the things you've been involved with. Is there anything out there that you would recommend for entertainment that's not as well known as it should be? Is there any hope for Chapelle's Show coming back?	That I've done? I made this silly TV movie called totally awesome. Tracy Morgan and chris Kattan are in it. It's very funny to me.
Neal! Caught you on @midnight this past week. You were hilarious. Run Funches seems like he may be the nicest dude in comedy. Is he for real? Also, do you dig the format of a show like @midnight, or do you find it easier to deliver on the jokes in a stand-up or sketch format?	I love @midnight. I love the format. Ron destroyed me that show. He was so funny.
Why did you delete the Ghetto Physicist episode of The Champs?	It stunk and was a lot of nonsense.
Who would win in a fight; Mindy Kaling or Amy Schumer?	I honestly don't know. That shit is an ancient riddle.
What is your favorite joke and/or skit that you didn't write?	There a mr show sketch called The audition that is prob my favorite sketch ever. White like me - SNL - Eddie Murphy.
I loved Totally Awesome. I remember on the commentary you talked about how SNL and Hollywood didn't get Tracy Morgan's skill set as an actocomedian. After SNL, he kind of dropped off and TA seemed to pick him up. I'm not saying you should take credit for his success from 30 Rock, but you certainly believed in him when it looked like nobody did. I guess my question is, what made you decide to stick with him and do you have any memories of him that stick out?	Tracy's rise is totally due to tina fey and 30 Rock. Tracy often says that me and Tina write for him better than anybody.
How was your experience on the mindy project? such a great show.	Mindy Project was awesome. I sort of stunk on the New Girl. I just didn't know the process of directing an episode of a sitcom. With Mindy, I was more comfortable. And I've been friends with Mindy and Ike for a long time, so it was looser. And their writers and crew were great. Tracy Wigfield wrote my episode. She's awesome. And Jack Burditt and JEremy Bronson, and Charlie Grandy are great writers too. Everybody over there is extremely talented and Mindy is very impressive.
I always wondered what the writing staff was like on Chappelle's Show. Were the a lot of people writing sketches, or was the majority of the material generated by you and Dave?	Mostly me and Dave. Bryan tucker pitched a few. Charlie and donnell. And actually the Niggar Family was pitched by Nick Kroll, Mike Birbiglia, and roger Hailes.
What happen been the highlight and lowlight of your career in entertainment? And how can I be apart of one of your projects?	Highlight was Chappelle's Show. Lowlight was before my first jobs where nobody would hire me.
What do you think of Whitney Cummings?	I love Whitney. She's one of my best friends.
You mentioned in your Nerdist interview that you were offered Superbad and Blades of Glory, among other movies. Do you ever watch movies you turned down and think of what you would've done differently if you were directing?	I wasn't exactly offered them. I could have pursued them. They were interested. I don't get too caught up in what I could have done. I have better ways to torture myself.
Hey Neal, I came to quite a few of the Sunday comedy nights at Westside Comedy Theater. I think it's a pretty special forum for comedians (established and younger) to workshop new material. Any particular nights that stand out to you?	The night Dave was there was fun. Really appreciate you coming. I live that place. Such a good vibe. Damon Wayans came by this week.
Hey Neal, I love the champs podcast & I'm stoked about your special coming out. How was it working with Jeremy Piven in The Goods?	Piven was awesome. Said one of my favorite things ever. The night before the movie came out, he looked at said "something's gonna happen!" That was a big bet for both of us. Im afraid we crapped out on the goods. But it's a really funny movie.
Who was your favorite special guest to work with on Chappelle's show?	Probably spike lee. He's one of my heroes and when we shit with him, my cellphone went off during the take and I had to give him $20.
How fun was it to work with Trevor Heins on Totally Awesome?	His work on wonder showzen shall live forever.
How would you quickly describe Dave Chapelle to someone completely unfamiliar with him?	Imagine if Malcolm X and Bugs Bunny had a baby. That's Dave.
I was at Dave's show in Hartford over the summer where he had the alleged "meltdown" and basically just sat on stage for 20 minutes without speaking. I completely understand it must be difficult to perform in front of crowds that won't shut up, but I would think you'd expect a rowdy crowd when your the last performer at an all-day outdoor comedy festival. It seemed to me that the vast majority of people were just extremely happy to see him in person. So basically my question is: How do you handle bad crowds, and do how do you feel about the way Dave does it?	Yeah. Not sure what I would have done in his position. Looked like a nightmare.
Huge fan of your work Neal, are you working on any screenplays lately? I would love to see another movie with Chappelle.	Just wrote a movie that hopefully Kevin hart will do. And me and whitney cummings are writing something.
Quick question: Which New Girl character are you? Link to www.buzzfeed.com	I think I'm a Nick. Site unseen.
I was in the audience for the Fox Com taping. Why the fuck hasn't Fox turned your mini pilot into a show yet? It was awesome.	Working on a longer version now for fox.
Hey Neal, I saw you at the Comedy Cellar last year and your bit about how black people fall asleep faster than white people was one of the funniest bits I've ever heard. What's your favorite comedy club?	The cellar. You were there bro.
In your opinion, what was the worst sketch you wrote/co-wrote on Chappelle's Show?	The worst? There was some sketch about a camera that Dave found. Stunk.
When are we gonna get Dave back??	Soon. Go wait outside for him.
Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. You're cool. Fuck you I'm out.	I rarely take credit for lines...but I may have written that.
Tell us everything there is to know about your episode of WTF. There was hella tension.	The one that aired was great. Very rarely does my brain come through for me at just the right time. In that case, it did. Marc is very smart, but sometimes he can use his intelligence to be reductive and disrespectful. That's what I felt he did on the WTF episode that I asked him not to air. One of the things about my career is, I used to work the door at a comedy club in the early 90's. Some of the guys from that era (Marc, Attell, Jeff Ross) had to adjust to me becoming a comedian/writer. They still see me as a doorman at times.
I don't have a question, I just wanted to give credit for a fantastic interview Buzzfeed intervew. You really hit the mark with your comments about race relations & looking at symptoms instead of the disease. Well done.	Thanks. ta-nehisi Coates disagrees with you. He referred to me as white America's klingon writer. 😩
Who is the funniest guests/celebrity u have ever worked with.	Dave Chappelle Chris Rock Eddie Murphy.
What was it like to work with Dan Schneider	Hands down the funniest crank caller I've ever heard in my life. And he's great at writing those shows. Has a freakish gift for it.
I saw your stand-up in Denver and my god you were funny. keep doing stand up. That is all.	No. I quit.
Ta-Nehisi Coates just absolutely destroyed you. Link to www.theatlantic.com.	I was afraid that might happen. He's one of my favorite writers too. Bummer. Not gonna read it but I am curious as to what his argument against me is.
Why did standup call to you? Your shit is weak.	I'm sorry. I didn't know that.

Last updated: 2014-01-21 20:24 UTC
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Date: 2013-11-22
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Questions	Answers
Do you think there's a chance that Jonah could have his own show? (Please say yes)	There's definitely a chance.
Hey Chris, how far has your breakdancing improved since you last portrayed Jonah???	It's so hard. I love it but I'm not that good. Wish I was better.
I’m a huge supporter of yours and all of your shows. I wish you nothing but success! I was always impressed with the young actors on your series. Particularly in Angry Boys with Gran, and even all the kids in Summer Heights High. At times it seems like they aren’t even acting, just reacting to what your character is saying/doing. Is everything always scripted and planned out or is there a lot of improvising as well? PS. You're quiche.	Thanks. You too. It's all scripted. Occasionally scenes extend beyond the script. It's about creating an environment where the kids feel like its all real and actually happening. And its casting the right people that have the ability to get into the illusion of it.
As a teacher and a son of two teachers my family was blown away by Summer Heights High by how accurate it was to a modern Australian School setting. Having worked in performing arts schools, Mr G was an extremely accurate portrayal of PA staff. How do you do your research and get those finer details?	I hung out in schools and interviewed teachers and students and parents.
You're a legend sir. What character would you say you are most like (if any)? And do you ever do sneaky nuts in real life?	I am different to all of them but probably most like Nathan Sims in real life. And yes I get a lot of requests to do sneaky nuts and I always do it. Yolo.
How is Gran? I worry about her? Will we get an update on her ..?	She's doing fine. Please don't worry.
How often do people come up and say: "Puck you"?	A LOT.
You have 3 hours to do your 3 favorite things. What are they?	I'll get blocked from here if I honestly answer this..
To me one of my favorite moments was jonah's rap in Summer Heights High. Was that free-style or scripted?	You mean the one in the Polynesian Pathways classroom? "I;ve got a Tongan dick and its really quite big"?? That was freestyle.
Is Ja'mie based off any specific person you know? Or a combination of girls in your past? Either way you play the character insanely well and I'm a huge fan.	Thanks. It was entirely based on you. Jks. Nah I made her up.
Love all of your shows, but Jonah is my favourite character. Grew up with tons of kids like him, and you absolutely nailed that type of character. Any chance he shows up again down the line?	There's a chance. I like him a lot too.
Is your ability to portray your characters with such emotional commitment something you've learned through dedicated practice and study, or is it something you’re “born with”? (I tend to believe you have a special gift, there’s just something about your acting man…thanks again)	I like you a LOT. Glad you enjoyed Angry Boys so much.
	Yeah less study and practice and more just committing to something and being brave about it and following through the vision without allowing interference.
What made your decision to bring back Ja'mie and make her the central character, instead of you playing Multiple?	She's too good. I wanted to see more of her.
I recently found a Chinaman's hat in my girlfriend's bag, should I confront her?	She's definitely having an affair with a Chinese man. Get onto it.
I maintain that SHH is the funniest show ever created and you're a brilliant actor. It took me and my friends a few episodes to realize that it was the same person playing all three characters. I'm just wondering who was your favourite character on SHH, besides the ones you portrayed?	Toby. He was the coolest kid to work with. And he made me laugh during takes a LOT. And favourite animal. Celine.
Some of my favorite parts of WCBH and SHH are the original songs. Any plans to do an original musical? Also, was there any backlash to doing blackface in America, where it's viewed as very offensive?	No backlash. Americans love comedy and get it. Thanks re songs. I love writing music and would be keen to keep doing it.
I adore Summer Heights High. I can't tell you how many times I've re-watched the Mr. G scenes. And so many scenes were just things of beauty (like Jonah learning to read). Did you have any difficulties or pushback when bringing your brilliant comedy to the (very p.c.) U.S.?	I just decide what I want to do and the networks in various countries back me. There are no difficulties. People just love funny and unique things.
Chris, what's it like now that you aren't only well known in Australia, but now all over the world? Did you ever expect for your shows to become successful?	I never had any concept that the shows would be so far reaching. It blows my mind that people so far away love them so much. I was just in Nashville and hundreds of students turned up for a signing. They were so excited and knew the shows backwards. Some even dressed up as the characters. It is seriously the coolest thing in the world. I feel very lucky.
How do you feel about the fact that people (admittedly including myself) have illegally downloaded your shows? I will be watching JPSG on HBO but I couldn't wait and needed to check it out before it aired. Sorry Chris!	It's illegal. You will be hearing from the police shortly.
I've slowly been able to convince my mother to think that Jonah, Mr. G, and Ja'mie are all different people. She thinks Ja'mie is by far the ugliest high school girl ever, thanks for showing me how much of a jerk my mom is. Chances of Jonah and Mr. G getting another show?	Your Mum's not very clever is she?
Hey Chris, big fan. Do you base a lot of your characters on real people? If so, have they noticed?	They are never based on real people. But I have a lot of people come up and claim that the characters are based on them. (despite me having never met them). A lot of girls like to think they are the real Ja'mie. (not sure why you'd claim that...)
At what age did you feel comfortable enough to dress up as women and laugh about it?Takes a lot of confidence in your sexuality and humor!	I was always up for it. From a really really young age. My parents and brothers and sister thought it was hilarious. I had one wig growing up that i was obsessed with. I used to play women in high school too and everyone loved it.
What would Ja'mie say is her greatest fault?	Small tits.
Ja'mie seems much meaner in PSG, was that deliberate or are we just seeing more of her personality?	Ja'mie has always been a bitch. She's just more herself in front of the camera these days.
Is Celine's doggie wheelchair temporary or permanent?	And yes Celine has sustained a permanent injury.
Sup ya big poofta, you're a legend sir! I'm a huge fan of your work, SHH is one of my favorite shows. Hope I get the chance to meet you someday! Can't wait to see the new series Sunday. Who has been your favorite character that you have portrayed?	Daniel and Nathan Sims.
Will Jonah or Mr. G make an appearance on Ja'mie's new show? Will you spin them off as well?	No they are not in the Ja'mie show. But they'll be back at some stage.
I am a huge fan. You are one of the top 5 people I would like to meet and so I wanted to know if you ever do meet and greets in the states? I would love to go. I hope you see this. You're awesome. Thanks for being you!	I'm in Los Angeles at the moment. I have been doing meet and greets in San Francisco, Nashville, Washington DC and NYC. I would love you to come to one next time.
Hey Chris, Firstly I have to say I'm a HUGE fan. You need to come to Canada soon, there's a lot of us fans over here :) I was wondering if you were ever thinking of spinning off any other characters from We Can Be Heroes? Phil was my favourite!	I love all the characters and would gladly spin them all off. (that sounds weird)
Hi Chris! Love your shows! I saw a making of clip from Summer Heights High and it seemed like everyone was having a lot of fun working together. My question is how often do you have to cut because people laugh during scenes?	This happens a LOT. And is really tricky. I am usually the biggest culprit for laughing. But somehow I make it seem like its someone else's fault if I laugh.
Hey Chris, Thanks for doing this! How do you think your Aussie Characters were received in the US, and Vice versa ( did Australians get S.mouse, for example)?	They love the Aussie ones. I'm in LA at the moment and I get Americans dudes yelling out "Nathan" at me.
Why are all of your theme songs to each series so similar? is it a trademark or running joke or what?	They're just inspiring uplifting songs that get you in the mood. I spose it's become a trademark. They're pretty catchy. My favourite is Angry Boys Theme.
There are so many hilarious, quotes from Angry Boys that me and my sister use all the time. Especially the scene where S.Mouse is singing with his girlfriend and calls her singing shiiittt. Will we see more from those characters again?	S.mouse is one of my favourite characters ever. So yes there's a good chance he'll be back.
When's the *** video going to leak?	Spoiler Alert.
Edit: Removed spoiler.	(You're going to see it soon)
I love your show! I enjoy how much it pushes the envelope. My question is, how do you over come your fear or justify airing offensive material? You seem to succeed every time.	Thanks. It's not offensive. It's just funny.
You, as Ja'mie, play the most spot-on, perfect high school mean girl, than any portrayal in any movie or TV show that exists. How do you do it?	Thank you. ILYSFM. I have no idea. It freaks me out just as much as you.
Are you as into guinea pigs as gran? if you could raise any animal as gran did what would it be? give me your best, most adorable animal name. (big fan, thanks for this AMA!!!)	I'm secretly a little bit scared of guinea pigs. They're a bit too ratty for my liking.
You did a character of a Japanese mother and a black rapper. Is there a character you wouldn't do?	If its funny I'll do it. I don't like to give myself limitations.
I put the entire Summer Heights High albumn on repeat for my Friday mornings! Is public school in Australia really as much of a drag as Ja'mie makes it out to be - or she just really just that quiche and superior?	Public Schools rock! Yeah Ja'mie is spinning it like that. She's full of shit. And I love that you played the entire album. How good are the remixes of the musical songs?
What was your favourite scene to film in Summer Heights High? Surely the "[Bec], why don't you just go the fuck back to China" scene with Ja'mie has got to be up there.	Oh yeah the girls mediation scene was REALLY fun to film. We kept laughing. And the Mr G drama class stuff was fun.
Who would win in a Battle Royale style fight: Mr G, Nathan, Gran, fugly girl Ashley, Ricky Wong or Jen Okazaki?	Jen Okazaki would definitely win. She has martial arts skills.
Hi Chris, massive supporter! Love every character you have created. What's been the funniest moment on set throughout your career and why? Legend sir!	There's been a lot. For Ja'mie it was probably the fart scene in JPSG or the squeeky boobs scene in SHH.
I always look forward to the moment when the theme song of the show shows up inside the show. How does your songwriting process usually go? And don't ever do a show without at least one song in it they're always so perfect.	Thank you. That's so nice. I usually muck around on the piano for a long time while I am in the script writing process. I like the theme music to feel very uplifting and emotional and to suggest something really big and epic is coming. Nothing says epic more than choirs and strings and horns and timpanis. It's too exciting thinking about it. I just got a semi.
Chris besides being so talented, what else do you like to do especially in your spare/down time?	I have no spare time. All I do is work on these shows. And watch tv.
I'm glad S.Mouse! Finally found his true self as an artist in Schwayne Jr. When might you think he could drop a new single?	I would LOVE S.mouse to do a new single. Good idea!!
Oh snaps. Chris my wife and I love your HBO shows. Seriously. And she hates everything on television. Any chance of you returning to HBO soon? Ever need an extra for a show I would probably eat dookie to do it.	Good chance. New show starts this Sunday night.
My teacher when I was 15 used to let us watch episodes of Summer Heights High in English class, granted we didn't do as well as anticipated come exam time, but it was brilliant at the time! Just wanted to ask, who is your favorite character to play? And do you have any specific inspirations for Ja'ime's character?	My favourites to play are Daniel and Nathan Sims.
Hey Chris, huge fan here. My question is..while watching Angry Boys I couldn't help but think Jonah would have been perfect for that show. Was there any reason Jonah wasn't involved or you just didn't think it was right for his character?	I have no idea why he wasn't in it. It just wasn't his show.
Thanks for doing this AMA! Looking forward to more of your projects!	But don't worry. He'll be back at some stage.
2 things: 1. How does it work when shooting scenes with both Nathan and Daniel in them? 2. Will you marry me?	It's just camera tricks. I have a body double. And I use whip pans. And very occasionally its a split screen. (rapping skype scene and bedroom wanking scene). It's all in the editing. And I have the costumes on set so I do really quick changes between takes on set.
	And yes I will marry you.
Chris, quick question! (By the way love all of your work) Any chance you could do a live tour with you characters?! To see that in the UK would be amazing!	Yeah cool. Could work but the make up and costume changes would take a while.
Did you puck Katy perry?	Puck u miss.
Chris, wondering where you started your career? Were there other TV shows you had been on before SHH? What was the process like to get the go ahead and backing to produce SHH?	Umm. Big question. Yes I was in a few sketch comedy shows in Australia before my first series We Can Be Heroes. And I started out doing stand up comedy.
Is there a reason you didn't base this series on Ja'mie going and getting a job/working, rather than her just being back at school?	She looks hotter in a school uniform.
Have you ever had a dick on your shoulder? If not, how did you come up with such a brilliant rap tune?!	No my dick doesn't reach my shoulder.
	S.mouse is quoting Lasquisha who always complains when he puts his dick on her shoulder. It's a rap about his relationship issues.
Chris Lilley- big fan! What scene took the longest to get through due to bloopers/laughing?	The fart scene in Ja'mie Ep 4. I was mostly responsible for the laughing.
HEY! Big fan, love all the characters, but how did you learn to completely NAIL what a character like Ja'mie would be like? I personally grew up with girls similar to Ja'mie and find it so hilarious to see it replicated. I feel like teenage girls may have experienced this type of person moreso than their male counterparts, and I just find it so funny because I can relate to that experience first hand. Did you have a muse for her or something?!	Ummm. I've just seen a lot of Ja'mie's around. They're everywhere.
You've probably been asked this a few times already, but do you have any plans on doing another Angry Boys series? PS - Thanks for forever changing the way I greet people named "Nathan"!! You're going up on my Legends wall.	I LOVED Angry Boys so would love to revisit it. Or maybe some of the characters in a different kind of show. Dunno. So many possibilities.
Your characters seem so real. How do you research them? Like, did you find a 12 year old Tongan boy and ask to hang out with him for a day? What's that like?	Yeah I usually meet with similar types of people. I know and met lots of Tongan teenagers. I really like Pacific Islander people and they were very willing to share things with me so it was easy and fun.
Hey Chris, i absolutely love your shows. You make me laugh and feel emotions i've never felt before when i watch. I just wanted to ask what plans you have for the future? More seasons of Ja'mie?	Maybe. Not sure. And Thanks. Yeah I can relate to the confusing emotions thing. The shows are pretty weird slash emotional.
Chris I'm a huge fan! Me and my friends constantly quote all of your shows! What has been your favorite show to make so far?	Angry Boys was my favourite.
Chris I love you. When are you visiting Canada? Specifically vancouver ahem.	I would LOVE to come to Vancouver. Too many good places in Canada and not enough time. Gotta keep making TV shows!!
Do you think oriental folk are quiche?	Definitely.
Any chance you'll come to the UK soon? i am in love with all of your work and your multi-roling ability never ceases to amaze me. puck you, you quiche bitch x.	Thanks. UK visit next year for the launch of Ja'mie!
Since HBO has brought you more fans from America, would you consider maybe trying your luck in more American based tv and film? Or are you more a "go your own way/make your own stuff" kind of guy? Thanks for taking the time for this AMA and I can't wait for J'amie's show to come to the states!	Ummm. All my shows are on HBO in America. They fund them. Do you mean would I appear in like Bones or something? Probs not.
Why is everyone from Tonga a shit breakdancer?	Keirans the only shit breakdancer. Togans are the best.
Will any of your shows be on Netflix or free American networks?	Nup. On HBO.
How long do you think you will be able to pull off acting as school age kids? I was only thinking about this the other day. Your characters personas are so large and your acting so convincing, I nearly always forget your thirty something!	There are no limitations with what you can do. So age and race and gender are irrelevant. As long as its a commitment to something and it's a great character and story it just works.
As someone in a country where your new series has not yet aired, how would you feel about me pirating it? - I'll buy the blu ray I promise. Love ya.	Just reported you. You are being closely monitored.
Did you choreograph Ja'mie's dance routine yourself?	Yes. It's a contemporary/stripper style fusion.
I'm probably too late for this, but Chris I'm a massive fan. I'm one of those annoying guys who just quotes your stuff endlessly. Now I've got the creepy stuff out of the way, I just wondered how "sneaky nuts" came about, and has anyone managed to sneaky nuts you in a photo?	I invented sneaky nuts as a game and managed to do it in several photos. Then thought it would be perfect for Nathan Sims.
	And yes I get sneaky nutsed a lot by randoms. But its usually a set up.
Hi Chris big fan, been loving the new series. With Private School Girl this has been the first series to venture away from multiple characters. How do you feel that move has impacted your writing and are you going to keep writing like this for all future projects?	It was harder than I expected. As the episodes are just as long and I had to find a different rhythm. There's no "meanwhile" and swipe to another story that allows you to pick up the pace. But the pros are it allowed me to write longers scenes and to expand on relationships with other characters. And there's something comforting about being in the same world for the entire episode. I really enjoyed working with one character and would definitely do it again.
Do you have a favourite quote from any of your shows?	I'd rather be a pedophile than a lesbian.
Hi Chris, do you approach your shows differently now to cater to your international audience. Has it affected your content creating process?	No nothing has changed. I'm still just making shows that I think are funny. I don't find there is much difference between fans across all the countries that air the shows.
I can say honestly that you are one of the most profound actors I have ever seen. You can fully become your characters and I see no more of you just Gran or Jonah. How do you do it? How do I become a better actor?	Thank you. That's really nice. I don't really know! I just get into it. I'm not really an actor. I don't have any training. Maybe just do it as much as you can and if you really love it it will work out.
Have you ever been to Tonga? Was it shit?	Hahaha. Tonga rules!
Will you ever do a tour as S. Mouse?	I wish. I did a few shows a while ago and it was the most surreal thing I have ever done. A full tour would be amazing. Wish there was more time!
What do you have to say to people who think your humor is crude and offensive? (I'm not one of them, I LOVE YOU, but just wondering what you think of the criticism)	I never heard anyone say that.
	(until now..)
What's a show that you watch on a weekly basis?	Big brother australia.
Thanks for doing this Chris I'm a huge fan from the US. If you had your choice who would be the next character after Ja'mie to get their own spinoff show?	It's hard to decide. I love them all. Maybe Phil or S.mouse or Jonah or Mr G or Daniel and Nathan or maybe Gran. Too hard to decide.
Favorite character you've portrayed?	Changes. But today I would have to say Daniel and Nathan Sims.
Summer heights high is one of my favourite tv shows. How many takes did you have to do for the "he touched my dick" scene with Jonah? It looked you were trying not to smirk.	That was tough. It was pretty hard not to laugh.
Who's on your personal wall of legends?	You.
Chris, I am a huge fan. I know everyone asks about Jonah, but I personally would like to know if Mr. G is coming back. He was so deliciously self-centered that I couldn't help but crack up at his craziness. You'e the best!	Mr G could definitely come back.
Out of all your characters you have to; Have sex with one. Marry one. Kill one. GO!	Ja'mie, Pat Mullins, Ricky Wong.
Aw man Chris Lilley wants to sleep with Ja'mie. What a pedo.	Hahaha. Shut up. You tricked me.
PLEASE do a series of Ja'ime at uni, if you don't I'm going to buy a plane ticket from the UK to Aus just to say PUCK YOU. That's how much I want it to happen.	How good would it be? And I'm confused by your threat. Is that good or bad?
There's a lot of stuff you can do with deaf guys.	Hahahaha. I like you.
I just wanted to say thanks to you and your amazing work several kids from my school do sneaky nuts in pictures now.	Hahahahahaha. Sorry.
Chris! Let's party tonight in LA!	Where we going?
I saw S.Mouse in London. Many an elbow were slapped.	How good was it? Most fun show I have ever done. London rocks.
Aussie Aussie Aussie!	Oi Oi Oi.
Chris, I am literally going to starve myself unless you respond to me.	Please eat.
Recently rewatched SHH yesterday (all of it...I'm unemployed. Just wanted to say thanks for making an amazing show that helped me through a tough day.	No problem mate. Glad it helped you out. Good luck getting a job. (if you want one)
It's illegal. You will be hearing from the police shortly.	Jks. But just buy it. Otherwise I can't keep making shows!
Ok whats the scariest insect/ thing that you have encountered in Australia. All I see on here is these crazy pictures of monsters.	Blue bottle on the balls.
Ever since my roommate and I started watching JPSG, he starts every morning by yelling "ILY" in his best Ja'mie voice while making Illy espresso. So um thanks I guess. PS. All of your shows are amazing! Thank you for brightening up my life 30 minutes at a time!	I love this message so much. ILY.
Teach me to slap my elbow Chris!	Step 1 put your arm in front step 2 get your elbow ready step 3 slap it hard.
You are really great writer and actor. No yourre not, you're a fucking twat.	HAHAHAHAHA! ILY.

Last updated: 2013-11-26 21:03 UTC
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