KeeksyB

Just watched ‘Fear no Mort’ and wow was it a gut punch, I mean ooft “You’re irreplaceable” being the thing to tip him off, but that’s already been done to death, I’m personally more fascinated with Morty’s subconscious interpretation of his Grandmother, IMO it was a curious direction for the writers to take her, she’s a little too much like Rick for my taste, her her being intellectual definitely tracks, I doubt Rick would have married stupid but I always imagined she’d be…gentler, kinder, Rick’s grounding point.

They were happy when they were married, he loved her, there’s no reason for her to be a drinker or cruel or have that mean streak like Rick does because he didn’t really do those things before her lost her, she was the catalyst for his self sabotaging behaviours, I can see her being witty, knowing how to reel Rick back but I never thought she’d be like him, then I realised this *wasn’t* Diane it was Morty’s subconscious creating what he thought his Grandmother was like and since he’s never had any other reference for Diane except Rick’s anecdotes, nor seen Rick when he was healthy it makes sense he assumes Diane had to be like Rick for them to have been compatible.

He can’t actually fathom that Rick might have married a perfectly normal, intelligent woman and stayed in their small Washington town, raising their daughter in their little suburb, in their little nuclear family and he would have been content with that, because Rick can’t be content, he’s always chasing the next physical or metaphorical high, the exceptional, something he (Morty) is not, as Rick takes great relish in reminding him, I found it kinda sad that he sees Diane as competition for his Grampa’s affection rather than a new figure to create a relationship with, this is his Grandmother whom he’s never gotten to meet, that most children would be ecstatic to get to know a long lost family member, especially one held so dear by another close to them, but he doesn’t seem to want to get to know her because she takes Rick away, and let’s be honest Morty doesn’t have anyone else, his life is intrinsically tied to his Grandfather, he doesn’t have friends that we can see, his family either treat him like a burden or ignore him completely so the only person to give him attention, positive or negative is just Rick, they’re parasitically codependent to the point he is nothing without Rick. He’s more competent than he ever was and yet he still doesn’t get half the care or consideration that a fake simulation of his Grandmother gets.

I honestly interpret this version of Diane as not canonically how she was as much as this version is what Morty’s jealousy over Rick never moving on from her manifests as, he’s jealous that Diane got normal, family man Rick, that there was a time when he was decent and good and selfless that he’ll never get to experience, Rick won’t even help with his damn homework and he’s just willing to die for HER, she doesn’t even EXIST, Rick who never gives up, never accepts failure, will happily walk like lamb to the slaughter for HER, he’ll just stay in the hole until it consumes him. Why isn’t Morty good enough? He deals with all Rick’s Bullshit ALL the time, he’s the one losing limbs, he’s the one Rick leaves at the drop of a hat for two crows, he’s the one that he trusts less than Summer, he’s the one taking the blame for too many of Rick’s fuck ups to count and he won’t LEAVE THE DAMN HOLE.

He doesn’t see himself as important enough to leave the hole for, he makes Diane mean and selfish because it makes her easier to resent, because if she was sweet and loving and considerate she’d be so much harder to despise so he makes her selfish and compatible with the Rick *he* knows so he’s not forced to think about who Rick would chose if push really came to shove because he has a nauseating feeling it wouldn’t be him, that Rick wouldn’t hesitate.

So Reid grew up in Nevada, which is not officially the Southern United States, however Nevada is bordered by California and Arizona which is, so there’s a lot cross cultural southernisms in Nevada as a result. I’ve been laughing my ass off at the idea that the team are dealing with a particular difficult ass impeding the investigation in either local law enforcement or business interest in a southern state, there’s been a hurricane announced and in Reid’s irritation reaching the end of his patience checks his phone, his accent thickening ever so slightly and comes out with

“Hell’s bells they’re callin’ for another hurricane, this dude better give his heart to Jesus because if this investigation moves any slower then his ass is mine”

Morgan bursts out laughing, it’s so unexpected, here’s the thing, this isn’t a one off event, this happens every time he’s pushed too far and it’s hilarious, and always a little catty.

“She might as well skip the pleasantries and strap a mattress to her back”

“She’s her Momma up one side and down the other”

“He’s so dumb if water was brains he’d be a one man drought”

“She’s so skinny she could get shade from a flagpole”

“Bless his heart (with a look of utter distain)”

“He ain’t the brightest bulb in the tanning bed”

“You better tuck your tongue behind your teeth cause your crazy is showing”

“You’re about as handy as a back pocket on a shirt”

Best part of this is that Reid is completely unaware of doing it, it just happens, much to the amusement of the rest of the BAU.

I’m watching the first ep of season of three and the crew have run into a society of women partially controlled by Spock’s mind, setting aside for what that potentially says about his relationship with his Mother or his sexual politics, my favourite part of this episode is that the main female antagonist has a wristband that produces extreme amounts of pain stemming from belts around the main crew’s waist, as a method of control, particularly in the abdominal region.

Which leads me to believe that the ‘unbearable pain’ McCoy, Kirk and Scotty talk about are actually just really mild period cramps, and being men who’ve never the distinct joy of feeling like they’re being stabbed repeatedly in the stomach with a blunt needle, they’re all having a right bitch fest. Being fair to them they aren’t used to it, but come on lads, if millions of women go through it every month you can bear it for a few moments.

One thing I’ve always taken issue with in HP is the fact there’s never bc a moment where Snape’s real accent gets its moment to shine. What I mean by that is the town he lives in Cokesworth in the books is fictional, but the midlands in England are in fact very real, and it’s stated just from the look of Spinners End alone that Snape grew up on a housing estate, the closest equivalent I can think of to describe what it is being the projects, long story short it’s pretty obvious he didn’t have a lot of cash growing up. From the context clues I’ve always gotten the implication that he’s likely meant to be from Birmingham, think Peaky Blinders with a little less vocal clarity, the cast of PB speak intentionally quite slowly and fairly clearly to be understood by an international audience, real ‘Brummies’ however, as some would put it don’t tend to talk like that because ya know…they’re not acting.

Snape’s background leads me to the conclusion that when he entered Hogwarts he likely had a very strong Brummie accent which never made an appearance in the movies or books at any point which I find incredibly disappointing, I imagine in the context of the world it would have become a code switching thing for him, being in Slytherin with the very upper class blood purists who look down on anything Muggle to begin with and being poor on top of that probably didn’t help, I also imagine James Potter also would have mocked it in the early days before Snape adjusted his accent to something more neutral.

I’m on a scrubs kick right now and I just watched season 5 ep 5 ‘My new God’ and I was thinking to myself how much I love the development of Perry and JD’s relationship over the seasons. Their dynamic is certainly complicated but you can tell that Perry really sees an exceptional future doctor in JD and it’s why he rides him so hard, you also know in the back of your head that Perry refusing to fall into the Father/Son is probably the healthiest thing he could do for JD in the long run, it’s actually very emotionally considerate when you think about it. Perry is aware he’s deeply flawed and he’s also aware that JD has an incredible level of hero worship for him on top of losing his own Father, to give into JD’s whims would be 1) to allow him to infantilise himself and depend on Perry too much and 2) to create a worse sort of attachment anxiety than he already has if and when he eventually left Sacred Heart, he obviously wants what’s best for him and what struck me about ep 5 is the almost ease that he admits that he was abused, even if it’s delivered passive aggressively, you can’t imagine it in season 1 or even 2 or 3, admitting to JD that there was a time when he was scared and small and helpless, given how much of an emphasis he places on the fact he’s independent and successful in spite of his upbringing and that’s he a man’s man, it’s still got to be difficult to acknowledge let alone tell people about, I honestly don’t believe he talks about it easily or is open when people ask.

The strange thing about children of abuse is that they often blame themselves, in the back of his head, I think Perry blames himself in some way, he knows logically the fact that his Father was violent wasn’t his fault but his brain tells him that somehow it is anyway, I think he’s terrified that between Jack and JD he’ll damage them in different ways beyond repair, his ego aside I don’t think he actually sees himself as someone to look up to, arrogant, condescending, rude, leaning towards alcoholism and cruel, the good that he performs is repentance for his sins, which, as an atheist he finds ironic, then JD walks into his life and this slightly girlish, day dreaming resident worms his way into Perry’s supposedly dead, cold heart and he doesn’t know what to do with the feeling of fondness so he pushes him away, but JD keeps coming back, every insult, every jibe is dismissed and the kid is still waiting for him in the morning eyes shining with adoration he doesn’t deserve, he won’t give up, he won’t relent, there is nothing Perry can do that gets rid of him so he accepts him.

He accepts him and he begins to trust him, by the time season five rolls around he’ll admit his darkest secret and hope the JD doesn’t use it against him, he doesn’t, he doesn’t give him pitying looks and he doesn’t offer placations, he hears it, understands and moves on, Perry can tell he wants to say more but for once Dorian manages to bite his tongue, his shoulders drop and his face clouds in a way he doesn’t like but that’s it, it’s controlled for Newbie, and they still have a shift to finish so he lets it go but JD corners him before the baptism and simply stares for what seems an inordinate amount of time before plucking up the courage to speak.

“I know you don’t want to hear this but I’m sorry about your Dad, mine, rest his soul I loved him, but he wasn’t the nicest drunk and I was always just…there”

The silence is deafening

“He got…physical, sometimes. So I get how it feels to an extent”

That was not what Perry had been expecting.

“I don’t know what to say Newbie”

“You don’t have to say anything, just know that someone understands it” he turns around and enters the church.

I’ve recently gotten into the Rick and Morty comic book series and I’ve just finished Headspace, you’ve still got all your wacky fun and classic adventures even if you’re following C-132 instead of 137 but the content of it is just so sad when you get down to the implications, that Morty waited 180 years for his Grampa and that Rick worked 180 years to find him, in the edition Morty essentially becomes a living God but instead of the power corrupting him he just gets so…low. The high of having whatever he wanted must have worn off quickly and by the time we open onto the time skip he’s just plain defeated, deferring his responsibilities to what is essentially staff and fending off assassins with practiced bored ease, when he’s rescued as the world is literally imploding around him, he asks Rick “Did I do the right thing?” and the we see Rick is crying, followed up by the Morty we follow removing the glasses showing him the timeline and stating that “We both made some pretty hard choices”. It can’t be any longer than 25 pages and it’s broken me for some reason, 180 years, 180 years of growing slowly more and disconnected and detached, trapped in what should be paradise, the family doesn’t mature either, it’s just the setting that changes, they’re still egotistical, bitter and shallow, he rules an empire, but what for? And I can only imagine Rick’s perspective of that time.

If anyone has ever seen concept of Morticia/Milly/whatever people call female Morty, she’s generally depicted as having long brown, wavy hair which I totally vibe with, however she also often depicted with said waist length hair down or held up by a hair band, and as anyone with long hair will tell you in the most loving way possible, that’s bullshit, especially with all the portal jumping and running for your life your bound to do as a Rick’s companion, you’re not leaving your hair down in a million years, it’s gets in your face and mouth if it’s windy or you’re running, it gets caught in clothing, doorways and zippers, if it’s not up it gives people something to pull ect, Morticia here as a experienced young woman with long hair is putting it up in something practical before she leaves the house, until the day she doesn’t.

The day Rick drags her through a portal before she can get her hair tie into place and drops it is a fucking terrible one, cue an adventure that she spends constantly tucking her hair behind her ears, quite rightly bitching out about her obscured field of vision and how limp and unattractively greasy it looked after an afternoon fleeing death, its embarrassing, it looks like she doesn’t take care of herself, she feels sweaty and gross and just wants to go home, and her bitching eventually works, Rick can see she’s actually humiliated, and even though he won’t admit it he cares for her and adventures are no fun if she genuinely doesn’t want to be there. From then on Morticia notices he keeps spare hair ties in the ship and an emergency can of dry shampoo, he won’t acknowledge he’s obviously doing it for her, but it makes her smile.

Then she forgets again, she’s squinting into the side mirror of the ship trying to put her hair into something that doesn’t look so off putting, cursing under her breath because it just won’t sit right and promptly hits her face off the dashboard as Rick brings the ship to a complete stop.

“What the hell was that for!”

“Hand me the hair tie kid”

“What?”

“Hand me the damn hair tie”

“Fine” she flicks it over at him, he sits himself behind her, picking a hairbrush out of a drawer she’s never noticed before and starts brushing through the frizz more gently than she’d ever expected he could be be, separating her hair and deftly pleating it, pulling the base a little then tapping his watch which came up with a digitalised image of the back of her head.

“Holy shit”

“Yeah Dawg”

“Where did you learn to do that?”

Rick averts his eyes, going little pink at the cheeks “Your Mother used to get me to do her hair for her dance recitals, it was the one thing your Grandmother just couldn’t get the hang of”

“Aww, that’s sweet Rick”

“Shut up, and don’t you dare mention this at dinner or I’ll leave you on a deserted ice world in gamma 4”

Ahh, classic Sanchez. She thinks.

“Point taken, god, we finally have a normal Grampa/Granddaughter moment and you have to fuck it up by saying that”

“Bite me bitch”

“You know what! Screw you Rick”

“Tell it to someone who cares”

It’s one of those very rare days when there’s no great adventure to get his boss out of or mess he needs to clean up, it’s almost too quiet, before he started working for Wooster this would have been a pleasant afternoon, a respite from being condescended to by some uppity arsehole who had more money than he could have possibly dreamed of and squandered it in drink, or gambling, or girls. Hell, he reflected, the voice he used with Wooster wasn’t even his real accent, it was one he had put on when he’d been applying at first to be a gentleman’s helper, he had to pretend, the company wouldn’t take “His sort” as the first man he’d ever spoken to in the job centre had said almost twenty years ago now, that was before the war, his service medals for bravery got his foot in the door after he got back. Looking back on it now he was one of the lucky ones, many didn’t get to come back at all. He hears something drop to the floor beneath him which brings him out of the stupor he realised he’d found himself in.

Bertie’s sitting in a lounge chair staring at him with the most disconcerting look on his face, biting his lip and clearly trying to structure the question in the most casual way possible before he blurts out

“Did you grow up terribly poor Jeeves?”

His eyes go wide with shame and his cheeks pink up as he slaps a hand over his mouth in shock.

“Oh my god Jeeves, I’m so sorry, fuck” he shoves his face into his hands making sounds of humiliation and distress.

He had never imagined he’d ever hear Bertie Wooster of all people say ‘fuck’ or that he knew the word at all, it didn’t seem in his character to be crass, although he probably shouldn’t have assumed a man in his twenties was that naive.

“I take no offence to it sir”

“I shouldn’t have asked, it’s just so awful of me, can you forgive me”

He resists the urge to laugh “Honestly lovey, my skin’s a bit thicker than that, I’ve been asked far more insensitive things over my time working, there’s nothing to forgive” He didn’t even realise he’d let something so colloquial slip until it had left his mouth “and yes, I did grow up very poor”.

Bertie toys with his hands still tensed up like a jackrabbit before almost whispering

“What was it like?”

It’s a question that catches him off guard, he’d never thought about it if he was being honest, it was just how he grew up, it was how everyone from Bethnal Green grew up, poor, filthy, half starved and desperate.

“It was what it was” he says evenly “We didn’t have any choice in the matter”.

“Where are you from?”

“Bethnal Green”

“The slum?”

“You know of it?”

“There was a friend of mine in school that used to sneak out the dorms to see uhhh…ladies of the night”

“Prostitutes”

“It sounds ugly when you put it like that” Bertie hugs a cushion on the lounge to his chest.

“It can be an ugly profession, girls and boys taken in by wolves with false promises, only to be used and spit out when they get too old or too disturbed to be useful, and you’re plenty old enough to know what I mean by ‘useful’ “

“Boys?”

“Surely your friend let you in on the scandalous male on male activities of the slums”

“He neglected to mention that part”

The phrase “probably because he was seeing one instead of a bird darlin” was out his mouth before he could stop it, real voice and all, he’d never dared address a former employer like this, above all else it was horrendously unprofessional.

“Is that how you really sound?”

This had gone way too far, but now he was forced to commit.

“Fraid’ so”

“Why do you hide it from me?”

Oh Mary, Joseph, Jesus and all his carpenter friends, how was he meant to answer that?

“It’s not personal, innit, it’s just your sort looks down on my sort and that’s that”

“I don’t”

“You’re one of few”

“Oh…I’m sorry” Bertie shifted his gaze down to the floor again, crushing the cushion with his delicate, bird like hands with this wretched expression of guilt on his face.

He sighs, gently tilting Wooster’s chin to face him.

“Poppet, I’m not blaming you for being born with money, and I don’t resent you for having opportunities I didn’t, one flip of a coin and it could have been the other way round, you couldn’t control it anymore than me being born in the slums, I worked my way out, I make a comfortable living now, I survived”.

“But people treated you badly because of where you came from, regardless of how good you were at doing your job, how is that fair?” 

“The world ain’t fair but you learn how to deal with it, plus, if all the employers who treated me like a human accessory were trials for getting to work for you at the current moment, I think I’m content with that”

A rosy hue of mortification rose on Bertie’s face.

“Really?”

“Yes, you treat me like a human being instead of just ‘the help’, you’re more than generous with not only your pay but your companionship and fundamentally Wooster, you are a good person, and I am dead proud to call you my gaffer”

“You’re what?”

“Boss”

“Ahh”

“Good, now, Earl Grey or Darjeeling?”

“Darjeeling”

“I’ll get on it”

“And Jeeves”

“Yes”

“Thank you for answering me honestly”

“No prob, love”

“What?”

“No problem, I’ve got to teach you some slang”

I’ve always wondered why he never speaks Spanish, Sanchez is obviously a Spanish name and while I get not using it with the kids or Beth because he actually cares about them understanding him, it’s totally in his character to use it with other Ricks or to piss Jerry off knowing it would drive him crazy to be talked about and have no idea what he was saying.

My main premise to this is I honestly don’t believe Rick is a no sabo kid (nothing wrong with being one BTW) I’ve done the math and if we assume Beth is 34 at the beginning of the series in 2013 (Summer must have been born 1996 when Beth was 17 and Morty would’ve come 3 years later in ‘99) that makes her birth year 1979 and presuming Rick had a slightly more planetary mindset when she was born that makes him 23-26 as was average for having kids back then, making his birth year 1953-1956.

Historically I get Beth not being taught Spanish to avoid discrimination, maybe it wouldn’t have been as bad when she was growing up but If Rick’s parents immigrated during WW2 , just before or after Rick was born or when Rick was a very young child that makes him a first gen immigrants child and while northern states were better, they weren’t great either, he would have very much been subjected to some pretty intense racism that he wouldn’t have wanted for his daughter no matter how much it hurt him to not know part of her own culture.

However I also believe Rick’s defiance streak is probably genetic and like hell he would give up his first language just to assimilate like many children of that generation may have been forced to, it was a thing in immigrant homes in America, particularly South American ones ( I’m not sure where the name Sanchez would be from specifically) where the children were banned from speaking their own languages. He however, was Rick Sanchez and would steadfastly refuse to be ashamed of himself or where he came from. It would have been a massive scandal when he married Dianne in their small town, she was most likely pretty, popular and white, he would have been heavily targeted as the schools wouldn’t have been non segregated for very long by the time he was in high school. Marrying Dianne was probably a very satisfying “Fuck you” to people who’d tormented him.

Which leads to the question why do we never hear him use Spanish. Six seasons and 40 years of heavy drinking and drug use and we never hear him slip once, and it’s not like he doesn’t screw up in other areas, language would be a simpler one. He never switches, never even swears in it, but there has to be something that triggers it.

I always imagined it would be Morty getting mortally wounded in a way that he can’t seemingly fix with what’s available to him. His June-bug is bleeding out in front of him and he can’t do shit, another person he couldn’t save. He breaks down, clutching the limp body his grandson, begging a god he doesn’t believe for the first time since his teens in a desperate mix of Spanish and English to do something, and illogically, when he thinks Morty has died, giving him what he remembers of his last rights knowing that if there’s a God the fact it’s him administering his rights is probably not doing any favours for his Grandson’s eternal soul, but then Morty miraculously coughs up blood.

He coughs up blood, not good but it means he’s alive, he can think now, he can do something, so he does.

Morty survives. Barely. He erases the memory, even he considers it too traumatic for Morty to recall, but he has to live with it, it haunts him, it haunts him in a way he hasn’t felt since his Dianne and Beth were killed in his dimension. That’s when he starts speaking to Morty in Spanish, the occasional “mijo” here, the rarer story about his upbringing there and openly conversing in Spanish with other Ricks in Morty’s presence.

Morty learns almost fluent Spanish in four months just to try and spite him. That’s his June-bug, guess Beth did pass down that competitive spirit, and some of his smarts too. It’s nice talking regularly in his mother tongue again even if he’d never tell Morty that, and it’s adorable when his grandson can’t pronounce something properly, messes up the tense of a word or stumbles in Spanish when he’s pissed off, it reminds him of a little kid. He gently corrects the tense errors under his guise of grumpy, codgery old man, Morty doesn’t even know how much better he gets.