Himbo Guardian

I think these all or nothing ways of thinking are super harmful in their own way (Jax ends up alone and open to abstraction and Ragatha comes off as fake or trying too hard to others).

I also think it’s super interesting that their methods end up backfiring anyway (Pomni wants to get close to Jax and get him to open up and Ragatha thinks everyone hates her)

Throughout the show we see three prominent women in the OSI: Gathers, Myra, and Amber Gold. They’re all mistreated by the organization in one way or another.

Gathers is forced to detransition to get back in because she knows it’s a boys club and there’s no way they’ll ever let a woman into a position of power.

Myra has been broken by her job and then the OSI sweeps her under the rug and tries to act like she never existed.

Amber Gold is almost never seen in the field on her own and is always accompanied by a man (Headshot and Brock).

On the other hand the women of the GCI have wayyy more agency. There are plenty of female antagonists who work on their own and are in positions of power (Vain Gloria, Mommy Longlegs, Novia). Sheila was originally an antagonist in her own right as Lady Au Pair and later became part of the council and became more important than her husband.

Hell, even Bobbi says that she basically switched sides because of how badly she was treated in the OSI.

So Jonas has been dead for 20 years. Now at this point the boys are already 16, but Myra says that they're actually supposed to be 19 later in I Know Why The Caged Bird Kills

Of course there’s the obvious red team vs blue team but there’s also the fact that their wars are complete bullshit and are being used for some bigger purpose (freelancer training and control of Mann co and their Australium cache)

Their “command” is playing both sides (VIC and Miss Pauling)

It starts out silly and fun but then it turns out that there’s a bigger, more serious plot going on (the director with the freelancers and the administrator with the Mann brothers and Australium)

Hell, even some of the characters line up!

Tucker and Scout- The “womanizer”

Sarge and Soldier- The gruff old southern guy who will do ANYTHING to be a soldier

Caboose and Pyro- Silly little guys with childlike wonder who can and WILL cause mass murder

The second the words came out of that man’s mouth I said OUT LOUD

Both grew up going on adventures and received boatloads of trauma from it

Grew into adults not really sure how to handle their trauma so they use other techniques:

Getting super buff and becoming more violent (more so for Steven)

Insisting that everything is fine when it most definitely isn’t

Fixing everyone around them because they don’t know how to “fix” themselves (also "No prob, Bob" parallel!)

So in episode 2 Finn takes Simon on an adventure to cheer him up (though it definitely feels like it’s just Finn trying to distract himself from everything while also being able to possibly “fix” Simon). We then see Simon walking through the forest blindfolded, figuring that Finn is guiding him but then..

Finn’s blindfolded too.