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bloodyquillink-blog · 8 months

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Sugar and Lemon, Chapter 2 “Solace”

A/N🪶: BIG WARNING: Logan has a nightmare sequence in this chapter. There’ll be another warning before and after it happens but please note, there will be descriptions of blood, wounds and emotional pain, plus indications of what Logan went through(not canon) when Rourke had him. Be advised, there will also be a panic attack after. If the nightmare warnings may bother you, everything in bold will signal the beginning and end of the nightmare sequence. Read carefully! Let me know if you want any warnings to be added!

Warnings: Nightmares, Panic Attack, Implied/Referenced Torture, Descriptions of wounds, blood, canon character death

Word Count: 2.6K

Logan sprawled on his bed. His limbs stretched like that of a 4-armed starfish. The day had been quite nice and fairly relaxing, ignoring the butterflies that seemed to be on steroids in his stomach every time he thought back to the café owned by a sweet person with warm and inviting food. Fuck, he wanted to go back and it had only been hours since him and his brother walked back to the base. A thought piped up in his head.

You know what your therapist would say about this.

Logan’s eyes shifted to his nightstand that carried his dog tags, mask and his victory journal. It was strange to think about how attached he had grown to it over the course of a few months, but he would think about that another day. He sat up and grabbed the journal, pulled the pencil out of the metal spiral holding the pages together and flipped through. He picked the photo of the unmasked Ghosts out of its protective envelope and set it against his lamp to face him as he wrote, as he always did since the photo was taken and the victories were written. He then found a blank page to write in. After he wrote the date and time, he added a summary of the day’s events.

He got to walk around outside of the base, see the civilians as they lived their now peaceful lives. Logan noted the post office and the way buildings looked relatively normal, how happy people looked. He noted David’s bright and ever protective attitude. What streets they took and generally how clean the world was beginning to feel again. It felt almost like childhood… he resisted the temptation to write about the loss of both his and David’s parents and how much his father deserved to see the world as it was today. Logan would light a candle for them tomorrow morning. He brought his thoughts back on track.

“Kick found a café not too far from base. ‘Morning Routine’. There was jazz music playing in the background and the seats were cozy. If we hadn’t been so hungry and,” Logan paused as he thought of the correct word choice, “excited,” he continued, “we would’ve taken a nap in the booth.”. Logan continued writing about the struggle him and David faced when it came time to choose their meals, a smile fought its way onto his face as he reminisced the banter between them. “When I went up to order, I almost forgot how to speak,” He paused again before scribbling down, “Actually, I did forget how to speak. The café owner was really helpful and nice.” He wrote your name and a general description of you. “Their eyes were really pretty. And their voice. And their hands looked soft.” Logan did a double take at his own words and immediately changed the topic, “The food was really good too and David and I ended up sharing our sandwiches. I think my choice was better though, considering how fast we devoured my halves. It was called the ‘Criss-Cross’. Don’t know what inspired that name but it must’ve been great. I’ll make sure I ask them next time.”.

He looked at his alarm clock and sighed. Almost 2300 hours. He promised Merrick that he’d work on his sleep schedule since that one time he walked into the kitchen at about 2 in the morning for some water before almost giving the poor Captain a heart attack and himself an ass beating. He snorted thinking about how the current leader of the Ghosts himself turned white as a ghost just because he had been a little too stealthy that night. Whoever said old habits die hard was onto something. The photo went back into the journal and the journal returned to its place on the nightstand. Logan settled in beneath his covers and turned off the lamp. He laid on his back, hands over his stomach. He breathed in, and breathed out… in… and out… until sleep overtook him.

***Nightmare sequence here, mentions of blood and descriptions of wounds ahead.***

Logan opened his eyes. He was on his knees in a cold room. His arms supported his upper body so he wasn’t lying face first in the dirty water splashed throughout the area. His arms were bloody and he could barely breathe. Fuck, he might as well not breathe at all. Between the bricks making up the wall, dark ink dripped slowly. He knew where he was. He knew what was coming. It smelled like rot and tasted like copper. There was so much blood on him.

How was he even conscious at this point? This was too much blood.

It was starting to clot and congeal, it stuck to him and pulled at his skin in some areas as he tried to move, to stand, to escape. He didn’t want to be here again, he couldn’t handle this again. He felt lightheaded and dizzy, like he was sick. He heard creaking from behind him as a large door opened and scraping against the dank floor of his prison. A familiar face, one that caused so much pain, stared at him. A disgusting smirk on his face.

“Good to see you again, kid,” Rourke said. “Glad to see you took my offer.”. Logan attempted to stand again to shove Rourke but a sudden pain in his arms caused them to give out. Like the stings of wasps and poison. Rourke crossed the threshold, the yellow light from the hallway spilled inside the room. The ink dripped from the walls was now a deep red, darker than any blood Logan had seen. He looked at his arms as Rourke mocked him. He could see the wounds covering his arms, the ones Rourke’s comrades had sliced into him. Looking farther down, he saw his legs too. His thighs were covered in similar but more jagged cuts, as though they had used a dull and rusted knife.

“Get up, Walker, you know you can. Show me what you're made of. Show me what your father turned you into. I thought Ghosts never broke.” Rourke continued his taunting. A shadow blocked the light from coming in as his voice disappeared. It was Elias. Logan tried to call for his dad but his voice wasn’t working again. His silence pained his throat as Elias stepped closer into the room. Getting down on one knee, his hand extended outward to his son.

“Everything’s gonna be okay, son.” Elias said. As comforting as that sentiment should’ve been, Logan knew what was coming next. Logan knew what happened the last time his father told him that. Hot tears streamed down his face, he wanted so badly to be saved but he wanted to tell his father to leave. He wanted to save his father again. Rourke walked into view from behind Elias, gun in hand. As Elias turned, everything slowed and got darker.

BANG!

***Nightmare sequence over. A panic attack will now ensue***

Logan’s eyes shot open. He rolled out of bed and grabbed the handle of the knife he kept between the mattress and bedframe, holding the knife in front of himself with the tip pointing forward as he frantically turned around to scan the room. With a shaking hand and pounding heart, he scurried for the light switch. Nothing was in his room. No one was in his room aside from himself. He opened the closet, his drawers, checked underneath the bed as though someone, Rourke, a Federation soldier, would come out and threaten to harm another person he cared for.

Logan backed up until he felt the cool wall against his scarred skin. He slid down, dropping the knife, brought his knees to his chest and cried silently, rubbing and occasionally squeezing his arms to try to soothe himself while checking for any open wounds. Nothing. Nothing left from his time in Hell. He’s home now. He’s back home. He’s safe. He gasped for air, he knew he was breathing but he couldn’t feel it. He tucked himself into a ball as he hiccuped, wiping his face of the tears that didn’t seem to stop falling. The warm wetness of them always reminded him of that day when he failed to save his father, and watched his life be taken. He remembers how his father’s blood felt on his face and how hard he scrubbed trying to get the feeling off once they got away.

After about an hour of getting his breathing to a normal level and reassuring himself he was okay and not on the brink of passing out or dying, he got up. 0300. No point in trying to go back to bed, the day was already beginning. He looked at the calendar on his desk. He had been using it to track how often his panic attacks occurred. He celebrated with himself the days he was free from nightmares and noted the date and time they came. He wrote in that morning’s box “0200 nightmare/panic”.

He got dressed and grabbed his victory journal from the nightstand before picking his knife up from the floor. Quietly, Logan exited his room and walked down the hallways of the barracks. Stepping outside and sitting on some steps that led to an open field, he breathed out slowly. The cool air felt good on his still heated skin. The sky was dark, emphasizing the stars. His head snapped around to look back at the doors when he heard them open. It was Kick. He looked just as exhausted as Logan felt.

“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” Kick spoke. His voice hoarse as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Probably not from just waking up, though. His voice was always like that, possibly from the cigarettes but that wasn’t for Logan to reprimand him for. Instead, Logan simply looked back to the sky and nodded. He didn’t have the energy to speak, not that Kick would be offended. Similarly to Hesh, Kick understood Logan well enough and could carry on a conversation with only Logan’s expressions to go off of. “Another nightmare?” Kick asked, his voice a little more gentle than usual. Logan nodded, still not looking at him. Kick walked to the stairs. “Did you have a panic attack?” Logan didn’t answer, he sat with his elbows on his knees as he fidgeted with his hands and turned his head to the right, opposite of where Kick began to sit down. It was enough of an answer. The two sat in silence for a bit. “You know it’s nothing to be ashamed of, right?” Logan bit down on his tongue, emotions nearly clogging his airway as he nodded again.

Kick put a hand on his shoulder resulting in a flinch despite Logan’s best attempts to hold himself still. Kick didn’t remove his hand, giving a comforting squeeze. Logan finally let out a sigh, a long one. Kick moved his hand to Logan’s back, rubbing large circles before giving two pats between his shoulder blades. The sound of the wind and slowly awakening birds was nice.

Kick looked down beside Logan and noticed his journal. “May I?” he asked, pointing to it. Logan nodded and kept his eyes forward towards the trees in the distance. He just didn’t want Kick to leave him alone. The company was soothing, however silent it was without the sounds of the environment around them. Logan looked over when he heard paper shifting. Kick had pulled out the picture of everyone from that one night. A small smile on his face as his eyes moved to look at each person.

“Keegan wouldn’t admit it, but I came pretty close to knocking him on his ass before Merrick got involved.” He bragged. Logan snorted.

“Didn’t sound like it.” Logan croaked. He cleared his throat.

“Well, if you hadn’t been so busy stargazing, you would’ve seen me ready to slam him in the ground.” Kick rebutted. Both of them were smiling. Kick leaned closer to Logan as he held up the photo. “You can see the sand all over him and Merrick and I.” It was true. The glints of the grains accented the three of them.

“You look like you got shoved in the sand after putting glue on your face.” Logan teased.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. It’s all thanks to our dear old captain.” Kick put the photo in its rightful pocket, notably delicately.

“How’d you know that was there, anyway?” Logan questioned.

“I see you writing sometimes. You always pull it out before you start writing.” Kick answered. He went to read through some of the passages. His small smile slowly grew wider as he got to more recent pages.

“Didn’t realize we missed the second shooting star.” He mumbled.

“Gee, I wonder why.” Logan sarcastically remarked. That earned a light shove and a chuckle from the other man. Kick flipped through some more pages. There was silence until…

“Oh yeah, David told me about you guys going to that café.” Logan froze as he remembered what he wrote. He blushed and looked away, clenching his jaw. “Heh, what? Nothing wrong with ‘love at first sight’, y’know.” Logan stuttered.

“It’s not– you weren’t even– I just…” Logan gestured to nothing as he tried to explain himself.

“Oh, were you wanting a hookup or something?” Logan deadpanned to his comrade. Kick didn’t even look at him when he responded, eyes still glued to the page. “Just saying, if you’re thinking of bringin’ em back here, you might wanna tell Hesh to sleep in a different room and maybe put music on before y–” Logan snatched his journal back before Kick could finish whatever horrific sentence was about to come out of his mouth about you.

“I am not looking for a hookup.”

“So it is love at first sight, gotcha.” Logan rolled his eyes. “You should go back, talk to them!”

“I could barely talk this time!”

“You can leave a note, write something cute, leave your number!”

“They won’t even remember me!”

“Make them remember then!”

The two bickered, Kick continued to share random and increasingly less reasonable ideas while Logan countered as the sky changed colors above them.

“You’ve seen those scenes in romance movies where the guy throws pebbles at a window. Don’t tell me you haven’t.”

“I’m not risking breaking or even just scratching a window and scaring the shit out of them.”

“Okay, then play music like those guys with the boomboxes and love songs! Easy fix!”

“I don’t even know where they live and I don’t know what song I’d play or where I’d get a boombox!” Kick paused and smirked. He was an information specialist and he did like people watching. Logan grabbed his arm.

“You are not finding their address when I’ve only known this person a day.”

“Oh, come on! I wouldn’t even be prying that far into their life! It’s lightwork, takes like 5 minutes if I’m the one doing it.”

“You aren’t doing anything. You are gonna stay out of this if I have to take your shit and replace it with a computer from the ‘90s.” Kick dramatically scoffed. Logan got up and walked back in, Kick following behind and continuing his argument as they headed for the kitchen.

“First of all, you wouldn’t be able to find a computer from then, much less a functioning one. Second, I can just tail this person until I find out!” Kick finished as they walked into a kitchen filled with the other Ghosts, mugs of coffee in front of them. They all looked at the two staring back at them.

“What’s this I hear about tailing someone?” Merrick inquired. “And why am I not involved in it?”

Fuck.

#logan walker x m!reader #logan walker x f!reader #logan walker x reader #cod logan walker #logan walker cod #sugar and lemon #quill writes

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outrunningthedark · 1 year

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The way I can tell the strikes have been delaying things to long for some of the buddie bloggers who can’t separate the characters from the actors is by how they recently have handled this wedding and Ryan and can clearly tell they need some to spec about. Acting like everything is a big puzzle with hidden meaning. I saw one person say Ryan wore dark glasses outside to hide the sadness behind his eyes. Someone else pointed out it was probably just because they were outside and the sun was bright and not that deep and then got immediately attacked and mocked because if it’s not that deep why do they need to say it’s because of the sun and not to hide his sadness . Another person said he was wearing black at the wedding to symbolizing (yes they actually used the word symbolizing) the death of his and c’s marriage ☠️ just today I saw someone say Oliver got the actress who played Natalia her job and C started following the 911abc page so the two events are related and now Ryan is getting C a job on the show as Eddie’s love interest because Oliver did it. Like blows my mind a little. Like they see clues everywhere ☠️

I- What. I'm not gonna call anyone names because I'm sure I can guess where these comments originate and op is just posting other people's opinions - opinions that they won't own on main, at that. Let's break it all down. o1. Unless someone discloses information about the *actual* dynamic between themselves and their partner who is not a good fit, they are making a CHOICE to stay. R is not a victim in any of this. Pointing out faults or bad behavior reflects on him and his choice to start a family with her. Trying to spread rumors about the behind the scenes happenings won't change what's led up to this point to make many of us realize where his ideals and priorities lie.

It's not on the same level because he's no where near as famous, but the R apologists sound just like Captain America's followers who pick on his new bride in order to avoid addressing what committing to a much younger white woman means re: separating fact from fiction. o2. There is zero evidence to support the claim that Oliver got anybody a job, and if there had been we'd know about it because those stans are always waiting around for content. Now, if you want to say he maybe got her into the audition process? Maybe offered her name as a suggestion? Fine. But she still had to audition. And they still chose her. As far as a "lack of chemistry" is concerned...I'm withholding judgement because, lbr, you can't build or find chemistry when one of your appearances is about your boyfriend's past relationships. Also, #unpopularopinion, but if the show wasn't gonna go with Buddie, I don't care who Buck ends up with 'cause he's never been my favorite. If working with Annelise makes for a more pleasant experience compared to completely ignoring BT as season five got going...good on Oliver for having fun this time around. o3. What is the obsession with writing the wife into the show? In five seasons all he got her was a background role for one of Eddie's fights. They did the same last season when we heard about filming the bodybuilding comp - "Do you think C is gonna have a guest spot since she's been doing that irl???" It's like people WANT something else to happen so they can twist the truth and say she "forced" her way onto set rather than him *asking* if there's something for her to do. And btw, she doesn't need to be in an episode to stay close. "Take wifey to work day", remember? I may not care for the wife, but if he truly were the "better person" as fandom as declared, he's the one looking dumb for forgetting who he is as soon as he found her on ig. She hasn't lost anything yet because he won't leave.

#anonymous #tina speaks #xoxo gossip girl

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ghostincorrectinternetedition · 2 years

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Okay, so I changed the background color on the blog to be darker and the font on that to be white. As far as the posts themselves, I don't know why dark mode doesn't change the font to something that can be seen when in dark mode, but it is a REALLY dumb design flaw. I'm not gonna go back and change all the posts because Tumblr is being stupid, but I'll TRY to remember to change things in all future posts to hopefully make it easier to read. I can't promise anything because my memory has more holes than swiss cheese, but an attempt will be made. If you want to see the other ones, might I recommend the "cybernetic" pallet? You get the dark background, but the font changes to bright green and can be read WAY easier.

Edit: I realized I'm an idiot and didn't change the font color on this post, arguably the most important post to do so. I also just checked and my blood sugar is low af, so I blame that. I grabbed a snack and a shower and that's when it hit me, lol.

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gasha40k · 2 years

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I’ve been crazy busy with general “Normal Human” stuff as of late so I haven’t had much time to work on models. This is becoming increasingly common and while I’m kind of frustrated that I can’t physically interact with the hobby as frequently as I’d like, being forced to slow down is kind of fun, and I’m certainly beginning to appreciate it. Because I have such little time to dedicate towards physical projects, I’ve been filling in those gaps with conceptual stuff like writing, reading, and lots of planning.

And speaking of lots of planning, the Thunderbearers continue to take shape in my weird pulsating brain. I’ve got a lot of schemes cooking up for my custom Chapter! But before we can get into the cool ideas, we need a solid foundation to work off of.

“Nos tempestas sumus, Brother.”

That foundation comes in the form of a newly updated heraldry sheet that I probably spent way too long on. Let’s illustrate some of the differences between the new sheet and our old one, pictured below for posterity.

The most immediately noticeable change is the shift in armor color. Instead of a bland bright grey like the original sheet, the Thunderbearers are now sporting a considerably darker, more verdant color, represented by a palette swap from Citadel’s Mechanicus Standard Grey to Vallejo’s Military Green. This is because the Thunderbearers were never really supposed to be that bright, but when I started painting I settled on Mechanicus Standard Grey because Citadel’s range lacks an equivalent to Military Green, and for some reason I was really intent on using only Citadel paints when I first started.

Nowadays, however, I care a lot less about trivial shit like that, so I’ve decided to finally make the swap to a color more akin to the one from the progenitor Dawn of War marine.

The shoulder heraldry has also been changed up a bit now that I’ve figured out the Chapter organization a little more. At base, every marine has one white shoulder pad, whereas officers have golden trim on their pauldron. Veterans have two white shoulder pads and a white backpack, with veteran officers having two trimmed pauldrons.

Moving on, the original Thunderbearers symbol struck me as kind of bland, but most importantly, it didn’t look very good against a grey shoulder pad. After a few mock-ups I’ve decided on a new one. Coloring the bolt white helps it stand out against both the background reticle and the pauldron, and it calls attention to the lightning as the centerpiece of the symbol. Finally, adding a circle to the reticle makes it look much more like an actual reticle, but the chaos star influence isn’t lost.

Anyways, enough about a colored png. Outside of conceptual bullshit like this, I’ve been working on another special Captain model.

Here he is so far: 10th Captain Vanion Sullist, Master of Reconnaissance, member of the Chaplaincy, and Priest of the Divine Kill. Sullist is both a Captain and an acting member of the Thunderbearers Chaplaincy. Sullist is one of the Chapter’s holiest warriors, and an unquestionably legendary sniper. Sullist is also the Chaplain responsible for the moral foundation of the Thunderbearers stealth and reconnaissance troops, guiding those Astartes that prefer precise fury over overwhelming firepower.

You can tell he’s a Chaplain by the excessive amounts of purity seals!

I’m going to give him an Eliminator arm of some capacity and then I think he’ll be about done. Painting scheme wise, his armor will be black like a Chaplain, and a skull will be painted over his beaky helmet to invoke the image of a Chaplain. On the tabletop he’ll be run as a Phobos Captain.

To conclude, things are slow but dense. I’ve also been doing a good amount of work on the Crusade. I’ll post a bit of an update regarding that soon.

#warhammer 40k #miniatures #building #kitbash #loreposting #adeptus astartes #thunderbearers

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serndestsart · 8 months

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2024-01-07 Jenny holding leg in intense worry 😢

Art Timelapse

Thumbnail Timelapse

Art, plus a shadowed version & two thumbnails.(imo, I like the un-shadowed version better, but the shadowed one's starting to grow on me.🙂)

Based off a spur-of-the-moment thumbnail. In the middle of making it, I interpreted it as she’s not feeling “pain” per se (since she doesn’t have nerves); more like slight pressure that she’s cautious could burst.😔

*So sorry!🙇‍♀️Between getting ‘rona again & readjusting, I took a longer break than I intended. Guess this drawing of worry is kinda subconscious😳…Now that I've ruminated on it, it's okay🙂. This was a work-life balance lesson in managing forced breaks (like sickness).

MINI JOURNAL

This was another piece I was exhausted with. Another was the “Jenny slightly pulling back” one. While this “Jenny tending to leg” was over a week, it almost didn't feel any less concentrated with exhaustion.😔Anyways, in both cases, I didn't have too clear of an idea of what the final piece would look like (less so with this new one, as I knew I wanted to keep most of the lines red-orange & color Jenny aqua-green).

Social Media Strategy Tweak

Maybe next time, when in doubt, just keep it a sketch, with no colors or tones??? Tbh, I didnt go that route bc I didn’t want a piece that was too harsh on the eyes from being over a bright white background, but at least a softer white. …Now that I've written it out, it sounds like a dumb reason.😥

Or, was afraid that wasn’t finished enough for IG/social media? Maybe, especially since I wanted to have a red-orange pencil-sketch style in there. Maybe be a little more elaborate & have black cleaner ink lines & grey base tones (like your ‘quick traditionally-styled storyboard’ art style)?

Wait, I just remembered: could do sketches, but do that Natalie Nourigat “draw the pose 5 times” exercise.

The exception will be the Jenny Injured diptych (to still be colored but not further pushes gesture-wise (tbh, I again want to try to get done as quickly as possible)...plus, I'll just say, “something different.” 😉

Personal Preferences & Little Backburner

Imo, I like the shadow-less version. Jenny's legs contrast better with the background, and the colors are closer to what I ended up having in mind.

Yes, even the unconventional red-orange linework with cyan base colors😄. I’d actually been meaning to try that out on a piece; tbh, I just like red-orange/vermilion-colored pencil sketches.😊 I was doing another red-orange pencil, Krita sketch in October that I wanted to try that color scheme on, but the perspective needed retooling.😵‍💫

BTS

I actually had this, along with a thumbnail for a completely different piece, on the backburner. While I wanted to do the other one, I went with this more unclear-looking one. That way, I could finish it before I forgot what I had in mind.

After I was well into the finalized sketch, I found a 2nd, more pushed-gesture version of one of the thumbnails. That’s when I decided to try not to spend too much time on this piece; I wanted to re-do it with this pushed gesture.

Also, after a while of using one of my go-to Krita watercolor brushes from last time (WaterC Flat Decay TIlt), I got really mentally exhausted. Played around with doing the painting stage in Adobe Fresco, but despite Fresco’s watercolor brushes feeling far more comfortable, I wanted to keep this artwork quick. Therefore, I just continued the painting in Krita.

Oh, and instead of erasing the extra pencil lines, I covered most of them up with white.

Plus, that monitor profile changing fixed my colors after all!😊 I’ve gotten my solution written down somewhere. I’ll try to post it sometime.

SELF CRITIQUE

(-) Iffy depth on the navy-blue block of color

(-) Mouth kinda looks like she’s smiling???

(+) Good foreshortening on Jenny & the chair

(+) Great gesture/line-of-action into the hurt leg; decently faithful to thumbnail’s gesture. Improvement from that in “A Place of a Contemplating Robot”

Shadow-less version

(-) L hand [our POV] gets lost in the sticking-out leg

Shadow-ed version

(-) Sticking-out leg disappears into the ground

(-) L arm should have harder edges on the shadow

(+) L hand has hard-edged shadows

(-) Bent leg’s foot also has too soft of shadows

ART SUPPLIES

Hardware: Alienware x14, Huion Inspiroy H610PRO V2 pen tablet, & IMAGE Light Pad Stand A3

Software: Krita (art & timelapse), Autodesk Sketchbook (thumbnail & its timelapse)

Brushes:

(v 1.1) Krita Redux- Pencil (AFresco) - linework & white cover-ups. Less-aliased version of my custom brush

j) WaterC Flat Decay TIlt - hair, ”clothes”, belly button base colors, BG block, ground

(Dig.) Clean-Up Lines (Aliased) - Jenny white matte & chair base color

#fanart #mlaatr #artprocess #thumbnails #learningexperience #krita sketch #krita painting

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montyterrible · 10 months

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Ernest… Ernest Never Changes

Ernest in the Army (1998) is both the last of the Ernest film series and the last of the direct-to-video trilogy that includes 1995’s Slam Dunk Ernest and 1997’s Ernest Goes to Africa. Tragically, Jim Varney died only two years later, which adds an especially bittersweet vibe to this outing, a movie that features some pretty busy scenes, including multiple action set pieces, but also still in some regards looks to my eye less like a “real” movie. There’s a brightness to it, an unedited-looking frankness or flatness at times, a sort of softness in the visual department that’s maybe just aging SD media viewed through an HD display but still gives the whole thing a dreamlike quality.

If there’s such a thing as a non-canonical Ernest film, this feels like a potential candidate, what with Ernest being the savior of an entire Middle-Eastern country as an ostensible chosen one of some ill-defined prophecy. A certain looseness of the logistics of the plot—like how a hospitalized buddy (played by director John Cherry) somehow recovers fully and makes his way to both the Middle East and to Ernest’s exact location in it at the end to congratulate him on his victory—further contributes to that dreamlike feeling. Enemy vehicles are in hot pursuit and within shooting distance in one scene but are somehow far enough away in the next for Ernest and company to take a breather and set up a bit where Ernest shovels rock mines from the front of a moving vehicle to hit the pursuers. The principal antagonist dictator gets summarily dispatched by an especially hard pancake, and while there are rumblings of an even more global threat in the form of a shadowy organization led by a man stroking a white cat that wants to seize the dictator’s missile for their own ends, they’re barely present and feel like a weird (albeit evocatively-lit!) step too far into the world of fantasy.

This plot, with its espionage-esque complications, reminds me most of the previous film, Goes to Africa. The other link between these two movies is that they are the ones I felt the most trepidation about re-watching. Surprisingly, however, the racism here is much more Ernest Goes to Camp (1987) instead, which is oddly fitting given how it’s briefly referenced in the actual movie and on the box: “America’s Hero is Finally Back in Camp!” Which seems a bit like a strange break from what feels like the tradition of Ernest as a sort of eternally recursive figure: always working some blue-collar job somewhere in America, always dreaming of some bigger and better career, and always pining for a woman out of his league, with no past string of jobs and women to actually reference. No canon, again, in a sense…

What I meant about the racism, though, is that there is surprisingly not that much here that is obviously outrageously insensitive. Ernest never puts a towel on his head or cross-dresses behind a veil, for example. Islam exists primarily in the form of exclamations by certain characters but is otherwise not really depicted or overtly maligned. The fictional country is not a desaturated sandy hellscape: There are a number of shots with vivid green in them, and even the desert is more beautiful white-gold than it is as visually torturous as the action makes it out to be. Like Goes to Camp’s treatment of “Indians,” there’s an essentialist, reductive quality here that is still problematic but that comes off as shockingly ambivalent by the standards of later (read: post-9/11) years.

The Middle East here, as so often, is a land of deserts, eternal conflict, vicious and eccentric dictators, brave guerilla fighters, and an oppressed peasantry somewhere off in the background of it all. There are some digs at American imperialism and showboating principally in the form of General Rodney Lincoln (Jeff Pillars) who drops in a joke about oil prices at one point and who is both deeply incompetent and deeply obsessed with photo ops and shows of military pageantry without substance. It’s the lightest of light taps on the knuckles but still kind of surprising.

Still, Ernest (a very white guy) being a prophesied savior parallels pretty smoothly the sorts of fanciful liberator narratives America likes to weave about itself to excuse its Interventions, so obviously this isn’t a subversive masterpiece. Ernest as a cog in the US’s over-funded oppression machine just feels a lot more icky than him being a bank janitor or a camp counselor or mistaken for a vague sort of secret agent.

Ultimately, though, the armed forces, with their strict discipline and regimentation and homogeneity, are the perfect place for the chaotic force of Ernest P. Worrell to wreak his signature brand of havoc. And there are some good gags here! There’s a fun-gross one where Ernest spits a mouthful of sticky gummies candy into the face of a snarling colonel that ends with a nearby truck being pulled in by the strength of the stretched out gooey strand and flattening the guy. Ernest basically tortures a comatose Ben (Cherry) in the hospital by repeatedly jabbing an accidentally dislodged needle back into his arm (after licking it first, naturally). Ernest and a captured reporter (Hayley Tyson) crawl around beneath a deflated tent for a goofily extended period of time as the dictator’s men go in after them and subsequently get clubbed by their own guys. I chuckled a decent amount watching this one, which is not something I expected to happen, so while I’m still side-eyeing it pretty hard, it was actually much easier to enjoy than Goes to Africa—which would be a good note to end on, if this was actually the last Ernest movie I owned. The visual of a young boy in dramatic, somewhat contemplative silhouette wearing Ernest’s cap that concludes the movie certainly would have been a good last image, and kind of weirdly prescient with the feelings it evokes.

#film #movies #movie review #rewatching #jim varney #ernest p. worrell

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handcalfieetherington · 1 year

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so, your probably wondering how this thing just spawned out of existence huh?

yeah...Same

to talk about the process of making this thing is going to be sort of long winded so hand tight while I go over everything.

I needed a title cover for my alternate comic series, understandable right, yeah I guess so, comic covers usually look good right? yeah we can both agree on that so let’s just take you through the methods and story of this thing okay?

so it started out with the earlier sketch where I doodled some of the character from faulty visions and honestly for some reason the doodle really stuck with me for some reason I decided to use it as a reference point for a theoretical cover for this segment of the comic

so yeah, things started off with this new sketch expanding on the idea a bit, showing the Main characters Jess and Steve just kind of chilling near a canyon with an exploded middle area to show a bit of the story telling implying that the area there hanging around in might of been where one of the nukes went off, pretty dark theming for what I earlier stated to be a buddy adventure comic about a pupil-less Lady and her sentient Tv but considering it’s a background element you’d have to further put thought into to understand the greater implications of I’d say it’s fine to show something considering it isn’t fully upfront with the darker concept of this initially being where a nuke went off.

also quick note about the mild face change I made with the mouth, I personally felt it added more character to her, combined with the pure white Eyes it gives off a sort of “no thoughts head empty” type of vibe and I was kinda endeared to that idea, that Jess is trapped in this completely horrific and hopeless situation yet is completely oblivious to that fact through sheer the sheer power of never questioning where all the humans went, you see a lot of straight man type characters or skilled warrior type character or someone who grows into that archetype be the main character of an apocalypse story, so flipping the script and having somewhat who is completely oblivious to the implications and horror of everything around them yet is also scarily adept at self suffixion despite literally having no idea what the hell is going on is a very funny twist on the trope.

So as for colours explaining my process I began by doing the colours of the characters first before anything with the background being in post i’ll just show everything together though.

ah right the sky, using a similar tactic to my last project I used the gradiant tool with a combined reddish pink and purple to make a convincing looking sunset view and then adding a sun in there as well to complete the look, as sunset covers are really appealing in my eyes and we don’t see those types of views in apocalypses much so having a more pretty view would change things up a bit in a good way hopefully

moving onto shading for the characters first I really tried to make extra care to show how the setting sun background effects the lighting and hading of the characters in the foreground with the side closest to the sun being brightened near the end and the harshness creating a bigger contrast with the rest of there colours being darkened from the far harsher shadows made by the bright lights and setting sun.

with the shading for the background wanted the tips of the mountains to better show the brightness of the sun contrasted by the lower areas growing ever darker as the sun slowly lowers ever more.

and here we are back at square one, aside from the dirt applied, to the sign at the bottom right, so were done right? haha no! we still have at leas a few more things to add at this point.

to add more to the comic idea included the logo design had made sometime after completing this piece along with a white segment to show the issue number and brand name.

at last i had selected a font to serve as the title, one that would fit the “post apocalypse theme as well as serve as contrast with the somewhat comedic title of the comic.

And at last to finish it all off a old paper layer to fully complete the old comic look.

let me just say i am shocking proud of how this one turned out and is probably my second favourite piece of the project, the lighting position background use of lighting and dedication to the bit make it a massive step up from the previous one made and sort of show as a showing of my improvement over the last year or so, utilising an old comic story as a piece in the project itself was honestly one i’m somewhat proud of coming up with as again, it was an opportunity to show my growth over this past yeah, what i learned, what mistakes I’ve learned to avoid and how I innovated from the last piece.

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saturnrevolution · 3 years

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tale of the sun - titan Helios

In a previous post, we talked about the connection between mythology and astrology. Each Greek/Roman deity has an equivalent to a planet in astrology. To understand how the planets function, we can look at the background story of the Gods. I will be looking at the story of Greek Gods, as they are the oldest.

son of: Hyperion & Theia brother of: Selene (moon Goddess) and Eos born on: Island of Rhodes (where he had a statue)

Helios would drive his chariot of the Sun across the sky each day, pulled by two white horses. He was represented as a young, bright, shining person, indicating his solar attributes. When Helios completed his round, he had the privilege of knowing the whole world, so he knows everything that happens during daylight.

‘All anyone could see of him was a ball of light so high it dazzled with streaks following behind. Helios watched what happened to the other Gods when he was present: they absorbed his heat, earth and water and air gods alike. They felt more expansive, more alive, they smiled more, they did small kindnesses for each other.’ — Homeric Hymn, 31 to the Sun

Once he let his son Phaeton drive his chariot, but Phaeton lost control of the vehicle and plunged to his death or, alternatively, set the earth on fire and was killed by Zeus to keep him from burning up all of mankind.

The sun is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. In astrology, the sun changes signs every month or so and it returns to the point where it was when we were born once per year (that’s when we have our birthday or ‘solar return’).

The sun represents:

our identity/personality/when we choose ourselves

our ego/pride/what we prioritize/are vocal about

what we focus on

natural gifts/the way we shine/need to shine

what we are appreciated for

the way we tap into our inner child/how we were as a kid

the relationship/connection to our father

the center of our creativity

our consciousness

our life force/vitality/self love/will

what makes us happy

recognition/who or what we look up to

the person we identify OURSELVES to be

our toxic traits/the way in which we bring drama

The degree of our sun sign

0 - your personality is quite straightforward and in tune with your sun sign’s traits

1, 13, 25 - there’s an energetic side of you, which can make you impulsive, but also a leader

2, 14, 26 - your values are important to you and they dictate your decision making/personality

3, 15, 27 - you are great with information in general and benefit from communicating your ideas

4, 16, 28 - some of your family traits are being reflected through your personality, you have an empathetic side and sparks of intuition

5, 17, 29 - whenever you trust yourself and do things out of pleasure and fun, you’re closer to success

6, 18 - keeping up with a routine gives you space to be your truest self

7, 19 - you are always vouching for justice and you have an aesthetic side to your personality

8, 20 - there’s a mysterious depth to you personality which is difficult to pin down

9, 21 - you have that spark of adventure and dare able to teach people things about themselves

10, 22 - your career is reflected through your personality and you are hard working

11, 23 - sometimes you might feel like an outcast, when in reality all you need is to be understood

12, 24 - there’s a spiritual side to your personality and a great sense of compassion

The house your sun is in

1st house - use your personality/body/appearance as a means of reaching the goals you want

2nd house - gather all the resources you need to lead a stable life and focus on self worth

3rd house - use words and voice/opinions to process information, lead in life and inspire others

4th house - break family patterns and find your own means of comfort in life through self love

5th house - embrace your inner child and prioritize play, tapping into your natural gifts to find purpose

6th house - align your daily routine/health and daily tasks in such a way that it supports your big life goals

7th house - allow cooperation and integration of others in your daily life to learn more about you

8th house - dive deeper into your emotions and form connections that get you to tap into your power

9th house - explore cultures, go on adventures and travel on the journey of life to discover you

10th house - set well planned goals and pursue the career that you are passionate about to succeed

11th house - work on changing the world by staying true to yourself and making friends

12th house - embrace your enigmatic side, you are endless and giving will help you receive

The aspects made to the sun

sextile - there’s an opportunity to use your self expression as a way to fully express the energy of the planet the sun is sextiling

trine - you are able to blend your personality with the energy of the other planet and that’s your natural talent

conjunction - a lot of your personality traits are being expressed through that other planet

opposition - you need to find a balance between what your ego wants and what that other planet needs

square - you are motivated and ambitious, but you might encounter setbacks with that other planet

#astrology #thesun #mythology

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tippedbykreider · 3 years

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it’s all coming back to me | c. kreider (i)

Word Count: 8.2k Warnings: Slow burn, exes to friends to lovers, relationship breakdown, swearing, alcohol mention. Author’s Note: So many of you have been requesting for this to be brought back! The consensus was that you’d rather have it in smaller chunks so I’ll be posting each new part weekly and they’ll come in between 6 & 9k per chapter. Not only is it more manageable for you guys but it also gives me chance to keep writing new content for it 💖 There is a playlist for this fic which I posted separately, it gives a chronological feel for their relationship and their story. This has been a tonne of fun to write so far and I can’t wait to tell the rest of their story. Summary: Chris Kreider x Reader Insert. They say that all good things come to an end, that you can never have too much of a good thing, but when Chris decided to end your relationship you wondered how anything could ever be good again. A chance meeting 9 years later drags up all those feelings you both thought you were done with. Can you work through your hurt and pain to see what it is that Chris is trying to show you? Or are some things better left forgotten? Tagging: @danglesnipecelly - this girl deserves a writing credit on this thing because she’s pushed me to keep going with this and her input and advice has been invaluable. Thank you for all the support on this one, K 💖

*Italics indicates a flashback*

The notion of fresh starts is often something that is associated with the arrival of the New Year. People use the turning of the calendar to turn over a new leaf, to learn a new skill, to challenge themselves to be better than the year before and to let go of all that was and focus on all that will be. There’s something inherently magical about a new beginning, a fresh start; sometimes it’s the excitement of what might lie ahead and other times it’s the comfort in knowing that you can seize the opportunity be whoever you want to be and to reinvent yourself. It’s the line in the sand and the final full stop at the end of the chapter and it’s the anticipation of picking up the pen and writing those first few words on the new page.

For Chris Kreider this feeling wasn’t one that was brought about by the strike of the clock at midnight on New Year’s Eve because while the date on the calendar changed and while he still spent the next couple of weeks dating things with the wrong year just like everybody else, it still often felt like nothing really changed for him. Chris could only feel like the year was truly coming to an end when the first petals of spring exploded like fireworks in a symphony of technicolour blooms and he found himself giving the locker-room clearout interview. That was the end of the year, the full stop, the line and the warmer days and the balmy nights would give him the opportunity to decompress ready for the turning of the page come September when his focus would once again turn back to hockey.

Chris loved New York; that much was undeniably true. He loved the vibrancy of the city but he also loved the way that he could melt into the background or enjoy the feeling of quiet solace his apartment gave him. It was oftentimes a bolthole, an oasis of peace during an otherwise hectic few months between September and May but the end of the hockey season and the arrival of summer had him seeking the cry of gulls on the breath of a gentle breeze and that crisp, purifying sea air that always managed to fill his lungs differently. Rowayton wasn’t far, a little over an hour on a good day but with its coastal Connecticut charm, slower pace and pretty houses, especially the ones that overlooked the water, it was a world away from NYC and exactly what Chris needed to reset and recharge.

It was a Saturday morning in mid-July and for the first time in a long time, longer than Chris could recall, he allowed himself to sleep in. His bedroom window had been open all night and the welcome breeze snaked through the slats in the blinds and carried on it the faintest smell of salt and sunshine. Chris stretched his muscles in big pulls around the bed before he settled on his back and inhaled deeply, the fresh air clearing his mind and filling his body as the last remnants of sleep slipped away on the exhale of breath. Imbued with energy, he climbed out of bed and pulled the blinds all the way up, flooding the bedroom with beautiful incandescence born out of a cloudless sky. He didn’t make his bed though, not yet, because while he had left his room and was padding down the stairs, he had every intention of returning to the still warm sheets to read a chapter or two of the book on his nightstand with a fresh cup of coffee, a cinnamon and raisin bagel, that invigorating coastal air and the oceanscape outside as the soundtrack.

One chapter turned into two and two became three and before Chris knew it, the sun was high in the sky and lunchtime beckoned. It was shaping up to be a beautiful summer day in Rowayton and Chris thought it would be a crying shame to spend his time at home, even if the page-turner he’d held in his hands moments ago seemed incredibly appealing out on the back deck overlooking the water. It was then he decided to take advantage of that gorgeous sunshine, take in the scenery and stretch his legs by going for a walk into town to pick up a few essentials at Rowayton Market. For all it was a small, it contained everything he would need to keep him going for a few more days until he’d finally need to drive into Norwalk to do a more substantial grocery shop, something that he’d admittedly been putting off. The Market also had some of the best baked goods and fresh coffee in the village and if you asked Chris it would be pretty rude to not take advantage – it was right there, after all, and Chris never could say no to a still-warm Danish and Americano.

He walked slower than he usually would, a conscious effort on his part due to the fact that his legs seemed to want to go into an auto-pilot primed for life in New York City. He was in no rush though, he never was whenever he came here and even though it was a route he’d walked hundreds of times before, and one he would walk hundreds more, Chris still wanted to soak in all the pretty trees and shrubs that were nestled in amongst those classical New England style homes, all shingled exteriors and white, gridded windows in soft muted colours that mirrored the coastal landscape of the village. It was a world away from the brick and the concrete and the bright lights of the city and while Chris loved all of those things about New York and loved wandering through the streets of Tribeca and Soho, getting lost in bookstores and hole-in-the-wall cafes, he also loved the sand, shale and stars and those were things that he just couldn’t find in the city that never slept.

There were quite a few people out and about, Chris noted, most of them he recognised as being residents with their friendly smiles and waved greetings, but there were a handful of tourists too; there always was on weekends during the summer. Not that Chris minded, of course, because for all the village was a popular escape for those seeking a break from the metropolitan life of the nearby hub of cities, it never succumbed to the all-too-often inevitability of commercialisation and still managed to hold on to its peaceful charm, despite it not quite being the quaint fishing village it once was back in the days before the Civil War.

It was one of the reasons why Chris found himself retreating here in the summer and not making the trip back home to spend the off-season in Massachusetts. He would go back to Boxford for a couple of weeks, naturally, because family was something that had always been important to Chris and he would never miss an opportunity to spend time with his parents and sister, but if he had the choice between spending his entire summer being bitten to death by mosquitoes back home (his father always did say that they were the town bird, after all) or feeling the gentle kiss of the ocean breeze against his skin, there was no real contest. Rowayton would always win.

The main street through town was busier, which wasn’t exactly unexpected and if anything it only seemed to add to the charm of the village. Chris decided to head straight to the market to pick up his groceries, if only to facilitate the Danish eating in a more timely-fashion. He picked up a basket as he entered and proceeded to add only the essentials he’d need to get him through the next couple of days. He’d pay for his shopping before going to the coffee bar, because trying to pack his reusable grocery bag with a full takeout cup was a mistake he’d made once before and was sure to never repeat again.

With his groceries purchased and bags packed in such a way that the couple of bottles of wine he’d picked up wouldn’t clink together when he walked (it was three to be exact but after seeing the selection of cured meats, cheeses and olives available he thought it’d be a crime if they didn’t find their way into his basket to come home with him, and if there was cheese there had to be wine), Chris made his way to the coffee counter situated near the Market entrance.

You couldn’t remember the last time you’d taken a trip away without the company of anyone else but the last couple of months at work had been incredibly stressful, with projects seemingly coming out of your ears and while you knew your mother had been worried by your suggestion of taking off somewhere alone for the weekend, she also knew better than to fight you on something you’d quite clearly already set your mind to. If you were being completely honest, your plans for the first full weekend you’d had off in months would have consisted of not setting foot outside of your apartment or engaging in any kind of unnecessary conversation had you decided to stay home in Hartford, at least this way you’d be getting some fresh air and the sun on your face.

It was just shy of a two hour drive down to Rowayton, which had the dual benefit of being close enough to home that it didn’t feel like a huge trek just to get there, but also being far enough away that you would be a complete stranger in this town and could take the time to decompress and recharge while blending into the background, and the place was pretty to boot. You’d found a little studio Airbnb not too far away in South Norwalk, figuring that you’d only be using it as somewhere to sleep as you’d planned on spending as much of your time as possible being right by that ocean with the wind in your hair and the warm sun on your skin.

That’s how you’d planned on spending your Saturday afternoon, sat on the sand of Bayley Beach with a good book and a cup of coffee. It was set to be a balmy day, with temperatures sitting in the mid-eighties and the last thing you wanted to be doing in the heat was any amount of excessive walking. So with that in mind, you’d spent your morning exploring the village and taking in the sights and sounds. The gentle protest of your stomach told you it was lunchtime before you’d even taken the opportunity to glance down at your watch and a quick Google search pointed you in the direction of somewhere to get that all important cup of coffee and a small bite to eat.

Rowayton Market didn’t look like much from the outside in the sense that it was a little on the petite side, but the reviews were great and the coffee was allegedly some of the best in the village and that was good enough for you. You were greeted with the smell of freshly baked goods and ground coffee, which was welcoming enough before you even saw the bright smile of the girl behind the counter. Your eyes drifted over the selection of pastries, each one more delicious looking than the last and you knew that you were going to have a hard time choosing just one. You knew you’d have to make a decision, though, suddenly aware of the small line that had seemingly materialised right out of thin air behind you and while you were sure that these people were more accustomed to a slower pace of life, the city girl in you, who was so used to living life in the fast lane, didn’t want to keep these good people waiting while you deliberated. You’d go with your usual and that would be that.

Chris’s attention was fixed out of the large glass windows at the front of the shop, watching as people milled in the street and went about their daily business. It was something he quite often did, whether he was here or back home in New York. There was something oddly soothing about watching the world go by, he thought, and occasionally he’d catch something that would quirk his lips up into a smile, like the sight before him now of a rather large gull in the process of committing larceny against what he could only assume was an unsuspecting tourist. Their sandwich was held high above their head while their free hand attempted to shoo the bird away with little success. He chuckled quietly to himself then, not least because the gulls seemed to get more brazen with each year that passed and he was sure that one of these days he’d see someone’s lunch get snatched right out of their hand by the feathered menaces.

Chris had no reason at all to believe as he stood in that line that everything was about to change. Why would he? The day had started like any other. He’d picked up his groceries in this store more times than he could count, he’d waited in a line just like this one for his coffee and Danish and yet, in that moment, something as innocuous as a woman’s voice would bring feelings that he thought he was done with, and memories he thought had strayed out of his mind for good, flooding back to the surface. But it wasn’t just any woman’s voice, no, it wasn’t as detached and neutral as that. It was your voice; a voice he hadn’t heard in nine years and it was something as simple as a coffee order, an order that he now knew to have remained the same since the day you’d first met at Boston College all those years ago, that blew the dam wide open and every word the two of you had ever spoken, from day one to the last thing you ever said to him, came rushing back.

The sound of Chris’s voice calling your name was something you never thought you’d hear out loud again. It was a voice you’d only heard in your dreams for many years after he walked out of your life, but even that had faded beyond memory to where you weren’t a hundred percent certain that you’d be able to remember what it sounded like anymore. And yet, in the middle of a tiny supermarket in Rowayton, you heard him clear as day with his tongue rolling around the syllables of your name with the same fondness, even after all this time and it was like you’d never forgotten the sound at all.

Autumn was beginning to make her presence felt in Boston. The palette on campus had shifted from a spectrum of vivid greens to shades of deep russet, amber, ochre and vermillion; but even above the changing leaves, the turning of the calendar brought a slight chill to the air that had you reaching for your jacket on a morning as you left your dorm.

Today was no different. The temperature had dropped again overnight as November creeped ever closer and it was chilly enough that you had to draw your coat tighter around you as you walked across campus towards class. Your brisk pace had bought you enough time to make a stop at the coffee stand just outside of Campion where your first class of the day was being held. There was a decent selection on offer, but it wasn’t enough to sway you from ordering your usual.

You rooted around your backpack for your wallet while the barista prepared your coffee and grabbed you your cinnamon roll, unaware of the new presence to your right, before handing over the money and taking the coffee and pastry bag from the young man’s hands.

“Coffee and cinnamon roll, eh? Now that’s the breakfast of champions.”

You turned your head towards the source of the voice, lips quirking into a small smile at the sight of the stranger beside you who looked to be not much older than you were, incredibly tall and broad for his apparent age but not for his height. He was grinning at you with a fullness that made his eyes crinkle at the corners and gave him a unique kind of softness.

“My mom would disagree,” you replied with a smirk. “If she found out I was having this for breakfast she’d be in her car so fast and dragging my ass back to Hartford.”

He laughed at that, loud and bright with his head tipped back slightly before running a hand through his dark brown hair that was shorter on the sides but had the faintest hint of a curl at the longer strands on top.

“I won’t tell her if you don’t.”

“Oh, I’m definitely not telling her,” you grinned as you swung your backpack over one shoulder. “So looks like you’re sworn to secrecy.”

You studied him for a brief moment, with the way he was still grinning at you and his eyes that seemed to sparkle behind his dark lashes before your brain gently reminded you that you, in fact, had somewhere you needed to be. “Well, I hate to impose a vow of silence on you like some sort of mafia boss and then immediately split but I uh I gotta head to class.”

“No problem at all and hey, your secret is safe with me. In fact, I’ve forgotten already. What were we talking about?”

There it was again, that smile of his that made you want to stay rooted right where you were standing and look at it all day, but class beckoned and so you gave an awkward wave of your hand and a soft laugh before you turned and headed into the building behind you without another glance back. If you had you’d have seen the stranger from the coffee stand watch until you’d disappeared from view, with that smile still on his face.

This little routine of yours would continue over the course of the next few weeks. Every Tuesday morning, at around 8:45am, you’d find yourself stood at that coffee stand outside of Campion to get your coffee and cinnamon roll, and every Tuesday morning, at around 8:46am, the tall stranger would appear beside you with his kind eyes and his bright smile. You’d exchange a ‘hello’ and a friendly grin and you’d laugh more often than not too while you made pleasant small talk before you both said your goodbyes and went to your respective classes, though you would always leave first and he would watch you go until you’d disappeared into the building.

It was mid-November, now, and the campus of Boston College was firmly in autumn’s frigid grasp. The temperatures continued to drop, seemingly overnight, which had you bundled up in your hat and scarf and the trees had shed their branches of leaves, crunching underfoot with the slight frost as you made your way towards Campion. Your hands were shoved deep into your coat pockets to ward off the gnawing chill and you were looking forward to being able to warm them around your coffee cup.

You approached the stand as normal, rooting through your backpack for your wallet ready to order.

“Hey!”

You looked up, your features fixed in a state of mild confusion while you looked for the source of the voice you recognised but couldn’t quite place. It was then you saw him though, all bright eyed and bushy tailed with a medium coffee and pastry bag held up in one of his large hands as if on display. He was grinning at you and cocked his head, beckoning you over with the wordless gesture.

“Hey, yourself,” you smiled as you approached. “What’s this then?” You tilted your head slightly at the items in his hand as he offered them to you.

“Breakfast of champions.”

Your eyebrow quirked as you took the coffee from him before taking a tentative sip, smiling while the warm liquid slid down your throat.

“You got my coffee order right.”

“It wasn’t hard,” he smirked. “You order the same thing every week and if you open that little paper bag I think you’ll find a cinnamon roll in there.”

Sure enough, as you opened the bag you were greeted with the sight of a perfectly formed cinnamon roll and you couldn’t help the grin that sparked at your lips and spread the full width of your face.

“I don’t order the same thing every week.”

“You do,” he replied with a laugh. “Every Tuesday for the last 5 weeks you’ve come to this coffee stand and ordered a medium Americano with half and half and a cinnamon roll and every Tuesday for the last 5 weeks I’ve been meaning to ask you your name.”

Your face flushed warm at that, not only at his words but at the sure little smile he was giving you and the way his eyes were sparkling. In fact, now that you were really looking at him properly, you were knocked back a bit by the perpetual kindness that seemed to rest in them and you couldn’t help but notice how they really were the perfect shade of hazel, like a forest with a deep bark heart surrounded by leaves that were every shade of green. You’d been quiet a little too long though and so you took a settling sip of coffee to give you enough time to find your voice again and tell him your name.

“Nice to meet you,” he smiled as he offered you his hand, which was large and warm as you shook it.

“And who should I thank for the coffee?” you asked.

His smile grew into a grin then, the kind that you’d noticed over the course of the last few weeks that made his eyes crinkle and happiness radiate from him, before simply replying:

“Chris.”

“Chris?”

It was as if time had stood still in that little Market in Rowayton, where your surroundings become a still-frame and there’s nothing but static in your ears. You’d often thought about what it would have been like to see him again. Those first couple of years after he’d left Boston College had you imagining all kinds of scenarios, much like the one you were in right now where you’d bump into each other in a supermarket or a pharmacy, anywhere really, but now that you were living it, seeing it, breathing it, there was nothing you could have conjured up in your imagination that would have prepared you for what it would really feel like to see him again. If you were to be completely honest, you were glad that your coffee and cinnamon roll were still on the top of the counter because you were certain that they would have fallen right out of your hands and onto the Market floor.

He abandoned his position in the line then, as if you speaking his name was a call to him, and maybe it was, on some level, but the truth and simplicity of it was that you were suspended in a state of pure disbelief and even in the short time it took for him to close the distance between you both, you were still yet to move and fix your features to something more neutral.

“Hey.”

It was a simple greeting that he gave you and logically you knew that there wasn’t really any tangible meaning behind that single word he spoke and yet there was something about the look in his eyes and the warmth in the smile he gave you.

“It’s been a while.”

“It has,” you replied, finally finding your voice. “You look, you look good.”

It wasn’t a lie either, he did look good. The tall college boy you remembered, who was just a little too slight for his height, had filled out; you could tell that just from the way the fabric of his t-shirt stretched across the broad plains of his chest and strained around his biceps, and he was no longer clean shaven, which was something that had always made him look quite baby-faced. Instead he was sporting a neatly trimmed goatee and while he had kept his hair short on the sides, just like you’d remembered it, it was longer on the top than it had been in college and the curls were sweeping in a way that reminded you of the waves just beyond the Market door. He looked older, yes, which is exactly what you would have expected in the nine years since you’d last seen him but his eyes were still exactly the same, sparkling and full of mischief , yet still soft, perhaps even softer than before on account of the faint lines around them drawn by time’s fair hand.

“So do you,” he grinned. “You cut your hair.”

“I did,” you looked down as your face flushed with warmth, unsure exactly what you were supposed to say to him.

It was something you’d thought about during those imagined scenarios where you’d magically bump into each other again and you’d thought about all of the things that you would say to him. You would tell him about how much you’d cried when he left you behind to live out his boyhood dream and how angry you were that he didn’t want you to be a part of that, how it felt like all the plans you’d ever talked about were nothing more than empty words and how hurt that had made you feel. You felt like you at least deserved that, especially given that it was never just a casual fling between you both. After all, you’d been practically inseparable for two years. You’d been inseparable ever since he’d said those three words that mean so much. But now that he was here in front of you, all those words that had swirled around in your head and in your chest like a hurricane for so long, dissipated into nothing and you found yourself clutching at straws to find something, anything, to say.

Chris could sense this though. Of course he could because he was Chris and he had always been so in tune with you and your emotions and the fact that he was still able to read you so well was both a comfort and a knife in your chest, and while he internally grimaced at the fact he was having to fall back on using small talk between you both, he felt like it was what you needed in the moment. He wouldn’t expect things to go back to how they were after all this time, he couldn’t, and so he started with something simple, something he knew you would be able give him an answer to.

“So, what brings you to sunny Rowayton?”

“I could ask you the same question,” you replied.

“Ah,” Chris grinned, trying to keep the mood light. “See I asked you first and also, I live here so therefore the ‘question answering’ responsibility falls back to you.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that, at both his words and the silly little expression he was wearing and despite all the years that sat between you both like a void and all of your hurt that was held within it, it all seemed to briefly melt away and in that moment it was like you were back at that little coffee stand outside of Campion.

“I didn’t realise this was an interrogation. Wait is this one of those little weird cult towns? Should I be worried?”

Chris knew by the little smirk you were wearing that you meant no malice behind your words and so he responded by sucking in air through his teeth before speaking again with one of those smiles that went all the way up to his eyes.

“Watch it, Pickle.”

Your stomach fell right into your shoes in that moment, that name he used only for you slipped from his lips like it was the easiest thing in the world for him to do, like he’d never stopped calling you it and like it hadn’t been nine years since you’d last spoke a word to one another. Chris knew all this of course and he didn’t need to rely on intuition either because he could see every emotion written all over your face.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly on the exhale of a breath. “I um.. Force of habit, I guess.”

“It’s okay,” you muttered, not quite meeting his eyes. “Although not exactly ‘habit’, it’s been how long?”

Chris winced at that, the reality of how he left things between you both slapping him in the face and he was filled with the guilt that he’d spent almost a decade pushing out of his chest and shoving into the darkest corner of his memory where he would hope it would rest undisturbed. He knew that you were angry at him for leaving things the way he did, how could you not be? After all, he was the one who had broken your heart and left you in Boston, but it was never as simple as that, even back then there was so much he should have said but that was something he wouldn’t realise until much later when it was too late to repair the damage. The thinly veiled hurt in your eyes and the way your mouth was downturned was demonstrative of that fact.

“I know,” he all but whispered. “It just-“

“It’s fine, Chris. Can we just forget about it? Please?”

He nodded, watching with a quiet kind of sadness on his features as you turned to finally pick your coffee and cinnamon roll up off the counter before he cleared his throat softly to continue speaking.

“You never did say what brought you into town.”

You took a sip of coffee to give yourself long enough to settle the thundering in your chest before answering him, because for all your heart felt like it was about to burst from all the hurt you’d managed to hide away up until now, there was also a weird sense of nostalgia that came with seeing him and hearing his voice again, and even though he’d shattered your heart completely when he decided he no longer wanted you in his life, your mother had raised you right and you knew the proper thing to do was to indulge him in a little small talk, even if for nothing more than old time’s sake.

“Just here for the weekend,” you replied. “Work has been nuts lately and I needed some time away from home.”

Chris shuffled on his feet for a moment as you spoke while his eyes darted between you and the door that would lead to the outside world and the possibility of the two of you parting once more. It was an unexpected pull that he felt in his chest at that thought, you reappearing in his life out of the blue only to slip out of it just as suddenly by doing something as simple as walking out of that supermarket back out into the wide world. For nine years he’d thought about where you were, what you were doing, if you were okay, if you were happy and with each year that passed without seeing your face or hearing your voice, he’d resigned himself to the fact that you were lost to him, drifting out there in the seas of life never to see you again. He didn’t know why you’d suddenly come back to him now, whether by some stroke of luck or twist of fate, although Chris couldn’t have cared less which one it was. All he cared about was the fact that you were here at all and it was an opportunity that he was sure he wasn’t going to waste. He didn’t even know for certain that you would want to give him any of your time after what had happened when he left Boston, but he wanted to at least give you what he should have all those years ago and that was an explanation and an opportunity for you to tell him how his actions had made you feel.

“Hey, what are you up to this afternoon?”

“Not much,” you shrugged. “I was just going to sit on Bayley Beach and enjoy the nice weather.”

“Would you mind some company? No pressure, of course, I understand if you… I understand if you’d rather not want to spend any time with me.”

You exhaled then and Chris’s shoulders visibly sagged, bracing himself for your polite refusal, but your response was not one that he was expecting and truthfully, it wasn’t one that you had expected either.

“Honestly?” you started, getting swept up in the nostalgia of seeing him again before the rational part of your brain could catch up. “That would be nice.”

“Great,” he smiled in what you could see was pure relief. “Do you mind if I grab a coffee before we head out?”

“Sure,” you replied. “I’ll wait outside for you.”

You headed out the door and were sure to stand where Chris could see you, knowing him well enough to realise that he’d be worrying, at least on some level, that you’d slip off into the crowd. You’d never do that to him, of course, even after everything, because while he had broken your heart, he was also the first person you’d ever truly loved and when you’d put the pieces back together, you couldn’t help but keep a part of him wrapped up amongst the tape and string holding those pieces together while you healed. It was in doing that that you understood that he would always have a special place in your heart and honestly? You were kind of okay with that because while the ending hadn’t exactly been perfect, the two years you’d spent together were and you wouldn’t have changed that time for anything.

You weren’t sure what exactly had possessed you to let Chris talk you into venturing off campus and out in the early-February snow to get burgers at Eagle’s Deli but you were cursing those sparkling eyes and that roguish grin of his for wearing down your sensibilities as you righted yourself after what felt like the hundredth near-fall. It was slushy underfoot, the kind that’s a twisted ankle or sprained knee waiting to happen and while you’d dressed weather appropriately in your winter boots and heavy parka, you were still very newborn lamb-like in your movements which was amusing Chris to no end.

“Come on, slowpoke,” he called from up ahead as he grinned at you over his shoulder.

“Not all of us can be hockey prodigies and thrive in this kind of inclement weather,” you grumbled, shuffling slowly so as not to slip.

Chris laughed as he came back towards you with confident and purposeful steps, surprising you when he offered his arm for you to loop yours through.

“Now, I’m no expert in geography or meteorology but it snows in Hartford, no?”

He was grinning at you, the kind of grin that you had to fight with every fibre of your being not to reciprocate because you’d already committed to your grumpy act and you couldn’t have him thinking he’d cracked you already, even if he, in fact, had.

“Yes,” you stressed. “But I don’t make a habit of going out in it to get burgers like a crazy person.”

The cackle you received from him in reply was loud and a little wild and you couldn’t help but be completely captivated by the way his cheeks were ruddy from the cold and the snowflakes clinging to the curls on top of his head and long eyelashes. Tuesday morning coffees with him outside of Campion before class had turned into coffees in actual cafes during free periods and getting lunch together. It was even dragging your body out into the cold to the Alumni Stadium with your blanket and your thermos to watch Chris play with the BC Eagles because you couldn’t say no to that damn smile and those damn eyes and even now, as you looked at him taking in the scenery along the Chestnut Hill Reservoir pathway, you knew that they were going to be the death of you.

“It’s really pretty along here,” he spoke, more quietly than before; softer too. “You wouldn’t think we were in the middle of Boston.”

“Yeah, it’s a nice walk,” you agreed before shooting him a smirk and a look. “Would be nice in the spring sunshine too.”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it, Little Miss Chilly.”

“I don’t know what you have against being warm, Kreider. Warm is good, warm is nice-“

You shrieked as your feet went out from under you, courtesy of a patch of black ice hidden under slushy snow and you squeezed your eyes shut in preparation for the impact of your ass hitting the cold, hard ground. But it never came.

“It’s okay,” Chris spoke reassuringly, one hand tight around your bicep while his other arm was curled around your waist, holding you upright. “I’ve got you.”

You opened your eyes then to be met with Chris’s looking right at you, all moss and bark and warm. He was smiling at you but it was different to the easy grin he usually wore around you, this was softer somehow and all rational thought was replaced by one of those monkeys playing the cymbals. For the briefest of seconds, and for reasons completely unknown to you, the monkey tried to take the wheel and the idea of kissing him right there, in the middle of the pathway that had made an attempt on your life, flashed into your head.

Maybe it was the snow and how perfect and picturesque the scene around you felt? Maybe it was the fact he’d just saved you from slipping? But the reality of it was that those eyes and that smile held some sort of power over you that you couldn’t yet fully understand. You shook your head quickly, if only to take back control of the situation before you did something more embarrassing than almost falling on your ass.

“Thanks,” you muttered as you regained your composure. “This damn pathway.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Chris grinned as he turned so his back was to you and stooped slightly. “Hop on.”

“You can’t be serious?”

“I never joke about piggy-backs,” he replied in a faux solemn tone with the face to match. “Come on, we’ll get you to the Deli in one piece one way or another.”

And that was how you ended up with your arms looped around Chris’s shoulders and his strong hands holding the backs of your legs as he carried you on his back to Eagle’s Deli.

Not twenty minutes later, the pair of you were shuffling into a booth as you shed your coats, gloves and scarves, Chris grinning at you while you blew on your fingers in an attempt to restore warmth into them.

“See, told you I’d get you here in one piece.”

You scoffed at him and shot a playful glance across the table separating you both.

“You’re not human, that is the only explanation for how you’re able to walk in that,” you nodded towards the window where the snow was still falling to illustrate your point before continuing, “and not fall flat on your face.”

“Or my ass,” he added with a grin.

“Hey, that never actually happened!”

Chris’s face split into an even bigger smile at your little protest and the pout that had formed on your lips and while the gentle teasing between you was simply a part of the dynamic of your friendship, Chris would have been lying if he didn’t admit that the reason he did it so often was because you always looked so adorable trying to rebut him.

“No, you’re right. It didn’t,” he mused with a smirk, not needing to remind you that it was him who had come to your rescue judging from the unimpressed look you were throwing his way.

“All I’m saying is that we could’ve just gone to Hillside for lunch.”

“But the burgers here are superior,” he countered, smiling at you. “And you got to enjoy a beautiful walk in the snow with me so who’s the real winner he- mmpf!”

Chris was cut off by your damp mitten hitting his face, brows knitting into a slight frown before laughing at the proud grin you wore at the accuracy of your throw.

“That wasn’t very nice,” he said with mock hurt.

“Maybe I’m not a very nice person.”

“I don’t believe that for one second,” he replied, but there was no teasing in his tone this time, only the kind of sincerity that had your face flushing warm and had you reaching for the menu to hide behind under the pretence of looking at the choices available.

He couldn’t help but smile at the awkwardness with which you were trying and failing to hide from him but soon joined you in picking up a menu and perusing it, despite already knowing what he was going to order.

It was a few moments before the waitress came over and while neither of you spoke the silence between you both wasn’t exactly awkward even though Chris knew there was something about his last words that had had some kind of effect on you. He was right, of course, because despite the fact that you’d had hold of this menu for a good couple of minutes already, you hadn’t actually looked at a single thing on it even though you’d made such a show of doing just that and now that Chris had ordered, a cheeseburger with fries and a chocolate milkshake, the waitress was looking at you expectantly. Unable to form any kind of rational thought under that kind of pressure, you found yourself simply saying “same” and soon enough it was just you and Chris at the table once more.

Chris was looking at you like he had something he wanted to say and the unreadable expression on his face had you feeling somewhat uneasy for reasons you hadn’t quite ascertained but probably understood on some level if you let yourself think about it for more than a second. He could feel the nervous energy radiating from you though and so rather than pursue his current train of thought, he picked a topic of conversation that was much safer and knew you’d be comfortable with: school.

You talked about your classes and upcoming assignments while he listened intently and you returned the favour while he spoke earnestly about hockey and his own academic workload. It was so easy to settle into a natural rhythm with Chris whenever you talked, as if you’d been having conversations like these for years when in fact it had only been a few months of knowing him and a few weeks of meeting up like this. None of that seemed to really matter though, not when the conversation was good and the chemistry felt right and especially not when it was clear that you were both on the same page when it came to your friendship. There was something else there though, something that was beyond being purely platonic, that much was becoming crystal clear and yet despite the ease in which it was to talk to him about literally anything else, there was something that had you stumbling over the thought of bringing it up.

You were saved from falling down that particular rabbit hole by the reappearance of the waitress, two burgers that were big enough to have your eyes popping out of your head in her hands. Chris chuckled from behind his milkshake at the look of disbelief on your face as your burger was set down in front of you before he reached for the bottle of ketchup between you both. You took the top of your burger bun off, nose immediately wrinkling at the sight of four pickle slices resting on top of the lettuce and tomato.

“Ugh, I forgot to ask for no pickles.”

Chris looked up from where he was squirting ketchup onto his bun, his eyes meeting yours briefly as his face split into a grin.

“You’re not one of those people, are you?”

“Shut up,” you grumbled as you began to pick the offensive green menaces off your food and set them at the edge of your plate. “I like what I like.”

Chris reached across and began to transfer the pickles from your plate to his burger, smiling widely at you as he did so.

“Well, I might have found a solution to this particular pickle you find yourself in,” he chuckled at the exaggerated groan and roll of your eyes at the expense of his joke. “You see, I love pickles.”

“You love anything,” you countered. “You’re like a human dumpster.”

“Hurtful,” he replied as he clutched at his chest. “But also true so I’ll allow it.”

You picked up a fry from your plate and threw it at him, immediately filled with equal parts surprise and a strange sense of awe as he reflexively moved and caught it in his mouth.

“You really are a dumpster,” you grinned as you shook your head at the proud little smile he was giving you.

“I am, so how about you don’t ask for no pickles on your burgers and you just give ‘em to me instead?”

It was easy to agree to his proposal, not least because his logic actually made a lot of sense when you thought about it, but mostly because of the way his eyes were sparkling and the way his smile made you feel warm all over, like the falling snow and freezing air outside didn’t exist, like your fingers and toes hadn’t been numbed by the biting cold during your walk here, like there had only ever been sunshine. It was also why you’d agreed to let him carry you back through the snow to your dorm, his large hands hooked around the backs of your thighs and your arms draped over his shoulders much like during the walk to the diner. You’d protested initially, of course, not wanting to burden Chris or put you both at risk of an injury due to the slippery conditions, but he wasn’t about to be convinced otherwise and remained unperturbed by the weather, gently reminding you that he had in fact got you to the diner in one piece in the first instance at your objections.

Truthfully, despite the mild embarrassment you felt at your complete ineptitude when it came to walking on ice, you couldn’t help but be more than a little impressed at Chris’s sheer strength. You wondered then, about how hard he must work in the gym to develop such a strong core because while you knew from first-hand experience how slippery it was underfoot, he didn’t falter once throughout the entire walk home and with the way he was talking amiably about his favourite places in the city he called home, and how his hands were holding your legs so surely and securely, you felt safe as houses with your chest pressed into his back – even with your thick coats and layers of winter clothing between you.

He walked with you on his back right up to the entrance of your dorm, setting you down carefully on the pathway that looked to have been newly shovelled before he turned to face you, his cheeks once again ruddy from the cold and your walk home.

“I don’t want to say ‘I told you so’ twice in one day,” he grinned, sucking air in through his teeth and shaking his head slightly. “But didn’t I say that I’d get you home safely?”

“So what if you were right twice?” you rebutted with a playful nudge. “It’s not like it’s ever gonna happen again.”

“Watch it, Pickle. I’ll have you know that I’m right about a lot of things.”

“Pickle?” you barked out a laugh, watching as Chris walked slowly backwards down the path away from you with that smile still on his face. “What kind of a name is that? I don’t even like pickles.”

“I know,” he called out into the growing distance between you both. “But I do, remember?”

You shook your head at him, chuckling to yourself with a smile on your lips that mirrored his as you watched him.

“See ya Tuesday then, Trash Can!” you hollered.

His raucous cackle cut through the silent flurry as he continued to walk slowly backwards, his grin clear as day even through the falling snowflakes.

“Trash Can! Fucking, Trash Can! Man, you got some serious chirps, Pickle. Can you throw hands too? I mean, I know you suck at keeping your balance on the ice but we could use an enforcer! I could push you around?”

“Anytime, anywhere!” you laughed, watching him with a grin until he had waved his goodbye and turned away before he retreated into the heavy snow.

Part ii

#it's all coming back to me fic #my writing #chris kreider #chris kreider fic #chris kreider x reader #nhl fic #nhl writing #nhl fanfic #nhl fanfiction #hockey fic #hockey fanfic #hockey fanfiction #hockey writing

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blackradandmad · 3 years

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why blippi is rotting yr children's brains

preface: i literally expect no one to read this. it is an essay length, strong opinion piece critiquing a niche youtube-based children's show that i don't expect most of y'all to even have knowledge of lol. but like, i promise that even if you know nothing about what i'm talking about, in my incredibly, super humble opinion, it's a good piece of writing and interesting nonetheless. anyway if you read this whole thing for some reason yr really hot and we should kiss.

i thoroughly vet everything my child watches before he watches it, episode by episode. and we rarely watch youtube for entertainment; we usually just look up educational videos when he has a question about something and wants more detail than i can provide him. and that's mainly because children's content on youtube is so fucking troubling and distressing. i don't judge parents who give their children a tablet at a restaurant at all bc i've been there and sometimes it's easier on everyone to just put on a video and avoid a giant scene, but i do judge parents who just leave their children alone with youtube kids on autoplay.

take stevin john, a literal millionaire who got famous from dressing up as a silly character called blippi and going on tours of places like aquariums, zoos, construction sites, etc and posting it on youtube. this has branched into a whole empire of blippi videos, hulu shows and specials, live shows and tours (that he outsources to another character actor), merchandise and so on. this 30-something year old man cites his main influence as being mr. rogers, but i question if he's ever even seen an episode of that program.

mr. rogers had no background in early childhood development or media production, but he revolutionized the world of children's media, because he respected his audience and didn't shy away from real world situations, all while creating a show with an enormous heart. mr. rogers begins his episodes by inviting the viewer in, literally changing his attire to be more comfortable, and talking about/doing things he genuinely cares about. whereas mr. rogers calmly and maturely addresses the viewer, blippi puts on a high pitched, contrived voice, interjecting every other sentence with a forced exclamation such as, "teehee! we're having so much fun!"

i don't find it a coincidence that john (blippi) is a veteran, either. his videos are completely devoid of the absurd, abstract, childlike thinking that makes children's media fun, creative, and entertaining. his thinking and process is methodical, devoid of emotion, and very superficial. this line of thinking clearly shows the kind of creative sterilization and emphasis on sameness and conformity instilled in the military. blippi simply observes things and interacts with them in a stale, matter-of-fact way. "this ball is purple! this ball is pink! anyway... what's over there? teehee! a car! vroom, vroom!" objects are colors, toy cars don't do anything but drive, curiosity is simply not encouraged.

he uses the "it's educational!" excuse to hide the fact that his show lacks everything that makes media a valuable resource for children to consume in the first place. further than identifying colors, numbers, and the occasional letter or shape, there is just this total lack of children's need for social and emotional development. when mr. rogers breaks the fourth wall to address the viewer and let them know they're special, it feels authentic and natural, because we've spent the last half hour building whole worlds with diverse characters and unique stories in a pretend neighborhood, learning about and enjoying different musical instruments, being exposed to and making friends with (even if parasocially, it is still a real bond to children when done properly) children who are similar to us in character regardless of physical or environmental differences, feeding the fish, making art together, and so on. when blippi tells the viewer, "you are very special, and i enjoy spending time with you!" it falls completely flat and feels unearned, because the last half hour was spent running around a soft play center pointing at bright, colorful objects, visiting interesting locations like farms or fruit production factories while failing to acknowledge the humanity of the humans actually working there (everything is machine or product focused; the human workers are simply an extension of the machine), learning "fun facts" about elephants that just list attributes of elephants, not taking the opportunity to inform the viewers of elephants' intelligence, or diet, or matriarchal society. it is a loud, sensory overwhelming display of a man so disconnected from the social and emotional needs and desires of children that he assumes they're stupid, easily entertained idiots who only need some silly dances and fast-moving cartoon graphics to give their attention (meaning time and desire to purchase products meaning $$$). john clearly views his audience as a means to gaming the algorithm and ultimately a paycheck by the hollow way he addresses them.

the show is so narcissistic, so focused on all the fun blippi is supposedly having, but he lacks any of the character traits that make individual children's show hosts memorable, so much so that he was able to have someone else who doesn't even vaguely resemble him dress as blippi and impersonate him and host the show or appear at live shows, and it went unnoticed by most of his toddler and child audience. the show is so formulaic and the character of blippi is so unmemorable that instead of taking the blue's clues route of developing a story of the host leaving for college and his brother now stepping in, or making some sort of believable excuse for the change in actors, they can simply swap him out with some random guy and not acknowledge it at all. although a comedy show for older children, the amanda show in no way could or would try to replicate the show with the same name but swapping out amanda bynes with a random teenage girl who is clearly not amanda bynes. it's weird and nonsensical and shows that his character is so much of a farce put on for a paycheck that not even his dedicated audience is affected or even cares when he is replaced by a random, unknown person.

this is completely garbage content made by an opportunist with no experience with children who saw his nephew watching children's youtube content, took it at complete surface level and still hasn't realized that while children's content only looks and feels so easy, entertaining, and enriching because it is so hard to do well. even with outsourcing his music, that aspect of the show still sucks. famous and successful children's musician, raffi, is known for his song describing the life of a little white whale, called "baby beluga." it opens with a calm strumming of his guitar, followed by the lyrics, "baby beluga in the deep blue sea/swim so wild and you swim so free/heaven above/sea below/and a little white whale on the go." is it silly and kind of pointless? yes, but the point is that he is captivating children and showing them the fun of listening to music, dancing, singing, and appreciating art. the "excavator song" featured in an episode of blippi about construction vehicles opens with what sounds like a default garageband loop and the flatly sung lyrics, "i'm an excavator/i'm an excavator/hey dirt, see you later/i'm an excavator." i don't feel i have to meticulously analyze the aforementioned lyrics; the stark contrast should speak for itself.

i have a million more criticisms about both blippi specifically and youtube children's content as a whole, but this is already so long and i doubt many people will get this far anyway. it's an issue i was completely apathetic towards until i had my own child and had to wean him off these kinds of junk food shows because i realized the fast-paced visuals and bright colors and repetitive songs/lyrics were putting him in this spaced-out, fugue state, and he thought he could demand this show or that show whenever he wanted. the moment he started regularly yelling things like, "watch! cars!" or "no! click it!" i knew i had to be a lot more invested in the things he watched even if just for entertainment or as a soothing message. i showed him an episode of mr. rogers yesterday and feared it would be too slow to hold his attention, but he was mesmerized, greeting and interacting with mr. rogers verbally, asking me, "what's that?" to different objects on the screen. since purging this low-brow children's entertainment, he has had a noticeable increase in attention span and concentration, can focus on a task for longer amounts of times, is more likely to "read"/look through books without me initiating it, and doesn't throw a fit when the tv/my laptop is off.

i just know that for me, growing up with so much unsupervised internet access definitely led me to real-world pain and consequences, and it seems like now children are born with an iphone as an extension of their arm. if my child is going to be consuming videos, i'm definitely supervising every second and am going to be highly critical of the videos and the credentials (or lack thereof) of the creators and team behind it. but i also know, from pure observation admittedly, that parents letting youtube kids autoplay parent their children for hours at a time is not an uncommon occurrence. and it worries me that a generation of children are being raised on videos that rely on being as loud and bright and superficially enjoyable as possible. what's the use of a child knowing their colors and alphabet if they don't know how to treat people with kindness and empathy and respect? there is something wrong for a children's show host to plug the spelling of his name at the end of his videos ("well, that's the end of this video. but if you wanna watch more of my videos, just type in my name! can you spell my name with me? b-l-i-p-p-i!") after essentially rotting his audiences' brains for a half hour. there's something so insidious about the prioritization of naming different parts of construction vehicles over honest depictions of and conversations about dealing with feelings, or why someone with autism may act differently than you, or what to do when you feel lonely, or ways to make art and express yrself creatively. also, not to mention the blatant police propaganda and outright worship is seriously jarring; as a black mother to a visibly non-white child, i cannot sit there and watch blippi show kids how to be a bootlicker for the shittiest profession on earth, but that could be a whole essay in and of itself.

anyway, thanks for reading, if yr looking for quality children's content, i recommend, in no specific order: mr. rogers, sesame street, the electric company, molly of denali, daniel tiger, bluey!, blue's clues, the odd squad, word party, trash truck, puffin rock, uhh... that's definitely not an extensive list but that's just off the dome!!! ok bye y'all <333

#lil rambles #long post t #idk why it's formatted like this ig cos i copy pasted from my fb?#whatever anyway idk why i waste my writing skills on shit literally nobody else but me cares abt #blippi #children's television

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where-theres-smoak-2 · 3 years

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I think it's interesting how fire plays a starring role in many Darklina scenes. There's always burning candles, incense, lights, or even Inferni fire at the Winter Fete. Remember that scene where Alina tells Aleksander "You looked like you needed saving?" When turns his head with that soft look there's a burst of flame like an almost divine signal that, yes, this man needs saving and she's the one to do it. Plus, fire traditional represents the eros (romantic love and passion).

I love that scene at the winter fete when she says he looked like he needed saving then the inferni fire lights up behind up. I did a post about reasons why I think the darkling might get a redemption arc in the show and that scene was number one on the list, the symbolism in that scene is on point.

I do think the way light is used in darklina scenes is very interesting and you are right fire does often play a role which as you said is very symbolic of love and passion. But here are some other things I've noticed. In a lot of their scenes there are lanterns in the background and what I find interesting about that is that lanterns area tool used to guide you through the dark. So to me this could be symbolic of how Aleks is lost in the dark and needs Alina's light to help guide him out of it. Another thing I noticed is in the scene when Alina and Aleks first meet in the tent the tent is very dark and has lots of smoke/mist. But there is a beam of sunlight on the floor between Alina and Aleks.

Also here you can see that the rays of sunlight that are coming down to make that patch of light are also kind of illuminated Alina, whilst Aleks you can barely see because he is standing in the dark (he's over on the left hand side for anyone struggling). What else is interesting is when Aleks approaches Alina to test her and see if she is the sun summoner he has to walk through this beam of light to get to her.

He literally has to go into the light and if that ain't symbolism in its finest I'm not sure what is.

There are a couple of other things I noticed too. The first ties into what you were saying about fire and how that symbolises passion and love. Well in this same scene when Alina's power is revealed it looks alot like flames, its got that orange/yellow glow to it.

The other thing is you've got that blue lens flare across the bottom which kind of looks like a thread connecting the two of them. Mairzee the episode 5 director said in an interivew that during the war room kiss scene when Aleks turns on a lantern they deliberately had a lens flare go across the screen and this was suppose to be symbolic of Alina.

But again the lines stretch right from Alina to Aleks which is very reminiscent of a thread and connection. Once again they have that orange/yellow flame like colour to them. And I do think the colour is significant particularly when it is in instances where she is using her powers like in the tent scene when they first meet. The reason why I think it is significant is because I noticed that sometimes her power has this colour but other times it is white. For example when she uses her powers in the fold (both times) it is very bright white, during both her demonstrations (to the king and at the fete) it is again bright white. However when she is sharing intimate moments with Aleks they have that orange/yellow glow that reminds me of fire again symbolising that passion and love they have between them. The tent scene is very intimate despite there being others in the room with them. Another intimate scene where she uses her powers is the war room scene in episode 4 and again the colour of her powers is reminiscent of fire. Also once again you have that lens flare across the bottom.

This lens flare actually also appears another time which I think is really interesting and that is actually when Alina has run away. When Alina is trying to get out of the crate she is in by burning the keyhole away it appears again.

The really interesting part is when we see Aleks sitting at his desk looking over maps and Zoya comes in and he is arranging a search party for Alina, there is a lantern next to him and this is also giving off a lens flare but the flare is fainter.

So basically when Aleks is looking for a lost Alina there is a lantern right next to him tying back into what I said before about how lanterns are used to guide those who are lost. Once again the lens flare is there and its the same colour as the ones in the war room kiss scene but they are fainter like they are fading away. This could be symbolic of how Aleks feels like his love is fading away and that he is losing her.

Another thing I spotted which I don't know if this was deliberate or not but in episode 5 when Alina comes into his bedroom Aleks is standing in front of the brightly lit window.

To me this was really really interesting, to have Aleks being the one to be surrounded by light in this moment. Ordinarily Aleks is more in the shadowy parts of the room with Alina being in the light but for this conversation they are showing him literally standing in the sunlight. I mean this is literally right before Alina takes their relationship to the next level so maybe its suppose to symbolise how Alina had now pulled him into the light. I mean we all know it doesn't last but its still interesting. Also worth noting that he is still in front of that window when Alina helps him with his kefta which to me had very domestic wifey type vibes. Also they were still in front of the window when they nearly kissed. I mean another symbolism you could draw from this is seeing as it all happens in front of a window it could be seen as a window into what their future could be together, a small glimpse. When they move into the next room and Alina gives her speech about finally belonging and they share their first kiss once again behind Aleks their is window but there is also a lantern on the desk.

Also after their kiss scene all their other major scenes like the kiss on the war table are lit with that same orangey yellow lighting. But going back to how the colour of her power often changes colour, well if the orangey yellow fiery colours represent passionate love then it can be argued that the white represents pure love. What's interesting to me is in those demonstration scenes where Aleks is supporting Alina it has that pure white colour and yet when they have more intimate passionate scenes they have the fiery orange colour. Also it is right after she looks at Aleks during the winter fete demonstration that she is able to make an even brighter purer white light.

I mean I am sure there are loads of other scenes too but those are the ones I've noticed so far. Could I be looking way too much into this? Absolutely, but I don't care I still think its interesting.

#darklina #answered

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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Hi! I was just watching good omens and I came up with some questions, but I didn't know whom to ask, so I was digging around for go analysis blogs and found you. *takes a breath* So, I was wondering if you had any thoughts on why Heaven's camera angles are the way they are. I noticed that, in heaven, the camera tends to focus on the characters' heads specifically, so they fill most of the screen. Either it's a meta reason or a reference to something (like Newt with the Office) that I'm not getting. That's the main thing, but I've also wondered why exactly Aziraphale uses the verb "fraternize" in the 19th century. It seemed an odd pivot from caring about Crowley's safety to Heaven's rules. Thanks so much!

Hello! Omg yes, let's talk Good Omens cinematography.

First, the obligatory Analysis Disclaimer: I doubt there's a specific interpretation that you're just not getting, some singular, "correct" reading of the scene(s). Two years past release, I'm positive the fandom as a whole has come up with plenty of ideas (I mostly hang on the periphery. I'm far from up to date with GO meta), but any and all of it will, by nature, be subjective. Thus, all I can offer is my own, personal interpretation.

So for me? It's about intimacy.

Not intimacy in the sense of friendship, but rather the broad idea of closeness. Confidentiality. Emotion. Knowledge. Understanding by means of literally getting into the thick of these conversations. I love the camerawork in Heaven (and elsewhere) because the camera itself acts like a person — an additional party to these interactions. And, since we're the ones watching this show via the camera, it makes it feel as if we're peeking into scenes that are otherwise private. Obviously all cinematography does this to a certain extent, the camera is always watching someone or something without acknowledging that we're doing the watching (outside of documentary-esque filmmaking), but GO uses angles and closeups to mimic another person observing these scenes, someone other than the characters involved.

The easiest example I can give here is when Michael makes their call to Ligur. Here, the camera is positioned up on the next landing of the staircase, as if we're sneaking a look down at this otherwise secret call. There's even a moment when the camera pans to the right to look at them through the gap in the railing, briefly obscuring Michael from our view.

Here, a standard expectation of any scene — keep your character in focus — is done away with to instead mimic the movements of someone actually hiding in the stairwell, listening in on the conversation. It creates that feeling of intimacy, as if we're really there with Michael, not just watching Michael through a screen. The camerawork acts like a person overhearing an illicit conversation prior to falling back on mid/closeup shots. We're spying on them.

To give a non-Heaven example, the camera helps us connect with Aziraphale during Gabriel's jogging scene. It's hard to show through screenshots, but if you re-watch you'll see that the camera initially keeps them both in the frame with full body shots, allowing us to compare things like Gabriel's unadorned gray workout clothes with Aziraphale's more stylish outfit; one's good jogging form and the other's awkward shuffle. However, this distance also creates the sense that we're jogging with them, we're keeping pace.

That is, until Aziraphale begins to lag. Then the camera lags too, giving them both the chance to catch up, so to speak.

Until, finally, Aziraphale has to stop completely and the camera, of course, stops with him. We're emotionally attuned to Aziraphale, not Gabriel, and the camerawork reflects that. Even more-so when we cut to a low shot of Gabriel's annoyed huff at having to stop at all, making him appear larger and more imposing. Because to Aziraphale, he is.

This work carries over into Heaven's other scenes. The closeups are pretty much a given since, whether it's Gabriel realizing Aziraphale has been "fraternizing" with Crowley (more on that below!), or Aziraphale choosing to go back to Earth, the scenes in Heaven are incredibly important to the narrative. Closeups allow the viewer to get a good read on each character's emotional state — focusing on minute facial changes as opposed to overall body language — and that fly-on-the-wall feeling is increased as we literally get an up close and personal look at these pivotal moments.

Compare a shot like this one of Gabriel to the line of angels ready for battle. We don't get closeups on any of their faces because their emotions aren't important. Yes, that's in part because they're background characters, not main characters, but a lack of emotion — their willingness to enter this war without question — is also the point of their presence in this scene. So they remain a semi-identical, nearly faceless mass that runs off into infinity down that hallway, not any individual whose inner life we get a peek at via a closeup.

I particularly like Aziraphale's conversation with the angel... general? Idk what to call this guy. He's just gonna be Mustache Angel. But, getting back on track, his scene has a lot of over the shoulder shots which, admittedly, are pretty common. From a practical perspective they're used to help the audience situate both characters in the scene — you're here, you're there, this is how you're spaced during this conversation — but it can also help emphasize that closeness between them. Keeping both characters in the shot connects them and though Aziraphale and Mustache Angel definitely aren't on the same page here, those shots help cue us in to the unwanted intimacy of this moment. They're both angels... even though Aziraphale no longer aligns himself with them. They're both soldiers in a war... but Aziraphale will not fight. This angel has a list of Aziraphale's secrets, including that he once had a flaming sword and lost it... but Aziraphale doesn't want to admit those circumstances to him. This angel wouldn't understand, even if he did. Intimacy here, connection and closeness, is something discomforting because Aziraphale can no longer embrace those similarities. They put him (and us) out of sorts, so when we get them both in frame, that connection creates tension, not relief.

And many of those over the shoulder shots are given sharp angels, or the camera is placed too close to the "off screen" party. Compare a shot like Luke and Rey to Aziraphale and Mustache Angel. Here, Luke is a clean, solid line on the left side of the screen, just enough there to cue us in to where he is in relationship to Ray, In contrast, Mustache Angel's mustache is Too Close and proves rather distracting. Rey and Luke are connecting here over being Jedi with responsibilities to uphold (or at least, Luke will acknowledge that connection later lol); Mustache Angel is forcing a connection with Aziraphale that makes everyone uncomfortable.

We are too close to him here. He feels too close to Aziraphale too. This whole conversation is upsetting and discomforting, pushing Aziraphale to finally choose which side he's on (his own with Crowley). The shots aren't meant to subtly keep the audience from getting lost and then otherwise be unobtrusive, we're supposed to be Very Aware of this angel's body and how close he's getting to the character we've come to identify with — both literally (he's leaning in) and in terms of forcing Aziraphale to finally make his choice.

When Mustache Angel marches forward and gets all up in Aziraphale's face, the camera positions itself behind Aziraphale in a way that makes it feel like we're hiding behind him, with Aziraphale taking up far more of the screen than Luke does. Like the scene with Michael or running with Gabriel, the camera often likes to mimic a "realistic" response to these events. This angry, shouty angel is getting closer, best take a step back and stay out of sight behind Aziraphale, holding his ground.

These closeups also serve as a nice contrast to the wide and longshots we get of Heaven. It's an imposing place with skyscrapers in the distance, lots of steel, immaculate floors, and endless white. It's overwhelming and it's cold. But then we cut to those mid-shots of Gabriel and Michael, telling us that they're in control of it all.

Aziraphale? Aziraphale is not in control. Not now, anyway. When he appears in Heaven we get a longshot to show off this endless void and he's just another, tiny speck in it. If he weren't flailing around — an acting move that likewise helps sell how out of his depth he is — it's unlikely you'd even notice him. Aziraphale's clothing and hair blends in perfectly with the background. He's forgettable. Easily overlooked. Someone to underestimate. And when he moves, he has to come to the camera. We don't cut to Aziraphale to establish control like we do with Gabriel. He's left to awkwardly shuffle up to Mustache Angel until he's finally come into view.

Yet when Aziraphale makes his decision, he aligns himself with the brightest, most colorful, most interesting thing in the room: Earth. Earth, with all its messy individuality, is the antithesis to Heaven's controlled uniformity and a bright blue orb hanging in the midst of all this white helps remind us of that. Aziraphale rejects becoming one of the identical soldiers and instead literally reaches out for the one thing in Heaven that doesn't fit in.

When he leaves, we get an extreme closeup for the first time. Mustache Angel is pissed and as such we not only get a good look at his face in the aftermath of Aziraphale's choice, but that extreme closeup on his mouth as he's shouting too. It's like he's shouting directly at us, the viewer who is currently cheering on Aziraphale's decision. There's a war, dammit... but we don't care. Not in the way he cares, anyway.

So there's a lot! And I could probably go on, but apparently I'm only allowed to add 10 images per post now (tumblr what the actual fuck if anyone knows a way around this please share!) and I've already had to merge a bunch of images like an animal. So let's awkwardly finish up with the duck pond scene.

...without a GIF because they apparently count as images too 🙃

Simply put, I don't think Aziraphale bringing up fraternizing is a pivot from one to the other — from caring about Crowley to caring about Heaven's rules. I mean yes, Aziraphale is lagging behind Crowley in terms of rebellion and a part of him is, at this point, absolutely concerned with how he'll come across to the higherups, but that worry doesn't stem solely from a (now very shaky) desire to obey for the sake of obeying. The thing is, Aziraphale's disobedience is, by default, also Crowley's disobedience. If they're friends and they're ever found out, they'll both get in trouble. Which, we know from the end of Season One, basically means being wiped from existence. That's horrifying! And it's a horror that threatens them both. I don't think Aziraphale cares about rules for the sake of rules; after all, he started off by giving away his sword, lying to God, is currently meeting with Crowley anyway... this angel has always ignored/bent the rules — established and implied — that don't suit him. Rather, he cares about the rules if he thinks they have a chance of being enforced. If there will be consequences for breaking and bending them. This is still about caring for Crowley (as well as saving his own, angelic skin). If they're found out, Crowley dies. And, as we the viewer learn, Heaven was indeed observing them that whole time. There was always legitimate risk attached to this relationship. Aziraphale's fear, hesitance, and at times forceful pleas to stop this stem as much from Aziraphale worrying about Crowley's safety as they do a learned instinct to obey the rules without question. He pushes to end the relationship because the relationship threatens the only thing Aziraphale cares about more than that: Crowley himself.

As for the term "fraternizing," that's a loaded one! I won't go into a whole history lesson here, but suffice to say it has military roots: to sympathize as brothers with an opponent. That is literally what Crowley and Aziraphale are doing. They are an angel and a demon, supposedly innate enemies, supposedly poised for an inevitable war... yet they've formed an incredibly strong kinship. They've both learned to love their enemy, the thing every army fears because, well, then your army won't fight (just as Aziraphale won't). However, beyond the enemy implications, "to fraternize" eventually took on a sexual meaning: to not merely love as a brother, but to lay with the enemy too, usually women from enemy countries (because, you know, heteronormativity). Nowadays, "to fraternize" often implies a sexual component. I've been rewatching The Good Wife lately and in one subplot, the State's Attorney cracks down on fraternization in his office. He doesn't mean his employees are forming bonds with assumed enemies, he means his employees are having sex on his office couch. So Aziraphale's phrasing here carries a LOT of weight. He's both reminding Crowley of their stations in the world — you are a demon, I am an angel, us meeting like this can have formal, irrevocable consequences for us both — as well as, given the fact that this is a love story, drawing attention to the depth of this relationship. They love one another, as more than just friends. Though whether Crowley's scathing "Fraternizing?" is a response to Aziraphale falling back on the technicalities of their positions, or acknowledging a love he's yet to overtly admit and commit to — or both! — is definitely up for debate.

#Good Omens #Ineffable Husbands #Air Conditioning #mymetas #whew #long post!#with too few images imo #with this done I'm gonna steam #about tumblr's absurd limitations #how's a girl supposed to do meta on this website anyway

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