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stormz369 · 2 months ago

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☕💖 Can I Get Your Number? ☕💖 Ch 5

Jason Todd x (f)Chubby!Reader

written with a female reader in mind, first person pov, no use of Y/N, angst and comfort, will probably get NSFW later, let me know if there's anything else I should tag this with!

warnings: difficult conversation about the past, allusions to trauma, abuse, and body dysmorphia

wc: 1.8k

Chapter selection

I kept seeing glimpses of vigilantes after that night. Every Gothamite had a couple stories about seeing Masks, but five sightings in a week was weird, even after a villain prison break! So considering most of the major villains were behind bars or at Arkham at the time, and that most of these sightings were during the day, I was starting to get really weirded out. Signal made an amount of sense, but the rest of them were never seen during the day! And all of them just sort of standing around on rooftops and in alleys? Something was definitely up with the Gotham vigilantes.

I mentioned it to Jason once. Only once. I had seen Nightwing and Robin whispering together in the alley behind my work. The looks on their faces when they saw me was too funny, and Nightwing's gravely “we were never here” before they grappling-hooked away had me wheezing. But the look on Jason's face told me just how unfunny he found it; for a minute I was concerned that he might try to fight them. I decided it was best to keep the sightings to myself after that; they weren't hurting anyone, most of the time they didn't even talk to me, and I didn't want him doing something stupid. Jason was so protective, and I wouldn't have him get hurt because of me.

Our relationship confused me a bit; in some ways we were moving very fast, but in others it was like we were at a standstill. Every day started with a good morning text, and ended with a good night call. Soon he was coming over every few days; sometimes we would cook together, but usually he brought takeout with him. We would eat and discuss the books we'd selected on our mall date. He would sit next to me on the couch; our knees would touch when we turned to face each other. Our hands would touch when I passed him a plate or a glass. Sometimes he would set his hand next to mine on the couch, and I'd rest my fingers over his. Every night on his way out he hovered by the door, and every night I thought he might lean in for a kiss, or a hug, or something. Instead, he'd stare for a minute, his face would turn pink and he'd mumble out a ‘g’night Doll’ and duck out. It would have been cute if it wasn't so frustrating.

I thought I was putting out all the right signals; I turned toward him when he spoke, didn't pull away when our hands touched, scooted closer when he sat next to me, leaned forward just a bit at the door. I wasn't sure if he was shy or uncomfortable, but I certainly didn't want to make it worse, so I wasn't sure how to get things moving.

Finally, after two months of this, I decided it was probably best just to ask him about it. I told him not to bring dinner, got everything to make one of his favorite comfort foods, and made sure it was ready when he arrived. His knock was quieter than usual, I almost didn't realize he had arrived. When I opened the door he had an unusually blank look on his face, like he'd put on a Halloween mask of himself.

“Hey Jay, … you alright?” I frowned slightly, moving to let him in. He hesitated before stepping inside.

“Yeah, I'm alright. How ’bout you?”

I led him to the dining room where the food was laid out. “I had a good day. I made that chili you like, and I- … are you sure you're ok? You look a bit tense.”

I had turned back to see him staring at the table, like he wasn't sure what he was looking at. “... You … cooked?”

“Um, yeah? … I know we usually cook together if we're not getting takeout, but the chili takes a few hours and I didn't think we’d want to wait until midnight to eat … is that ok?”

“... Y- yeah, that's ok … sorry, I … I thought …” he frowned, like his thoughts were a particularly complex puzzle he was trying to put together. “... I usually bring food, so … when you said not to I guess I assumed the worst.”

“Oh… oh! Did you think I didn't want to have dinner together?” He nodded awkwardly, staring at the table. “Oh Jason! I'm so sorry; I just wanted to surprise you with the chili. I love getting to eat together, promise!”

I smiled gently, holding my hand out to him. He slowly reached out and took it, squeezing a bit. “Me too… you … you're too nice to me, Doll.”

“No such thing. You feel ok now?” he nodded, smiling a little, and we sat to eat. The tension slowly eased out of his back as he ate. I tried not to stare too much, it seemed to make him a bit nervous, but I loved the look on his face when he was enjoying a meal.

“... Jason, can I ask you something?”

“Sure?”

“... Is there a reason you haven't kissed me yet?”

He froze, looking over at me slowly. His cheeks were bright pink. “... W- was I supposed to?”

“Well, not necessarily supposed to, you don’t have to of course, but you could. … I just … Sometimes I think you will, but then it's like … you stop yourself? Is that right?”

“... I just … I don't …” he set his spoon down, chewing on his lower lip. “I'm … I don't want you to get hurt.”

I tilted my head a bit, confused. “... You're worried about hurting me?”

“Doll, I … you know who I am, right?” I nodded. “Do you … remember a few years back, I … was in the news alot?”

I nodded again; “yeah, … you were dead, and then you weren't.”

“... Yeah. I … I didn't … look like this before. … I was dead, and then I was back, and … I was suddenly in this body. I … I should be used to it by now, but I'm not. I still bump into things because I forget how big I am. I still break things when I think I'm being gentle. … I … I could seriously hurt you, and I don't want to, but … I don't know how to do any of this. I was a crime alley kid, and then I was learning to navigate life at Wayne Manor, and then I was dead. I've never done anything like this before, and I …” he took a deep breath, whispering; “I'm so worried I'm going to do something wrong, and you won't be able to forgive me…”

I slowly reached over, setting my hand next to his on the table. I hoped he’d take it, but I didn’t want to push. “... It sounds like you’ve been through a lot … too much.” He flinched a bit, looking away. “You had to figure out how to survive, and it sounds like you had to do it alone most of the time. … But you don’t have to figure this stuff out alone.”

His head jerked slightly, turning toward me but not looking up yet. “I don’t have a whole lot of experience either, but I think relationships are about figuring out life together.”

“... Most people don’t have so much they have to figure out though. You deserve better …” He whispered it, as if he was afraid I would agree with him.

I slid my fingers a bit closer to his, letting them rest against his just a bit. He didn’t pull away, but he didn’t take my hand either. “I would take this with you over anything else with anyone else.”

“... What if I can’t give you what you want?”

“What I want is for us to keep spending time together. Can we do that?” He nodded. “Then nothing else matters. We’ll do things as we’re ready for them. And if we’re never ready for something, if you’re never ready, it will not matter to me nearly as much as getting to keep this. Ok?”

He nodded slowly, looking at our hands on the table. He slowly flipped his hand over, finally letting mine slide against his palm. His thumb gently stroked my knuckles. “... I still don’t know how to do this though… What if I do something wrong?”

“What kind of ‘doing something wrong’ are you worried about?”

“.... What if I want something you don’t?”

“Then we’ll talk about it, just like this.”

“... I’m not good at talking things out.”

“You’re doing pretty good so far. And I’ll learn to read your body language for those days where you can’t find words for your thoughts. We’ll just have to be patient with each other. Ok?”

“... Ok.” He continued to stare at my hand in his, running his thumb over my knuckles delicately. “... Can … next time, can you tell me if you have a surprise for me? This was really nice, but … most surprises in my life haven't been good ones.”

I nodded. “Of course. No more surprises without some kind of warning.”

“Thanks ... I … I do want to kiss you, Doll …”

“I’d like that too.” His eyes slowly met mine, and for a brief moment I saw through the imposing man to the little boy he used to be; he wanted to love and be loved, wanted the easy touches and simple intimacies of normal life. But something between childhood and adulthood had obviously gone very, very wrong, and he had locked away those wishes to protect himself. The look in his eyes, like a dying man in the desert stumbling upon an oasis, broke my heart; being nervous in a new relationship was to be expected, but this was something else. Someone had hurt him, and if I ever found out who … I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d do, but I had a feeling I would end that day in handcuffs.

As quick as I saw it, that broken look in his eyes was replaced by a small glimmer of hope, and he slowly brought my knuckles to his lips. I could feel my face heating up as I watched his face; he seemed to be looking for something in my eyes.

“... M- my turn?”

He slowly nodded, letting me lean forward a bit. I guided his hand to my lips and, starting with the pinky, pressed a gentle kiss to the second knuckle of each finger. Jason stared me down, and with each kiss his face got pinker and pinker. When I placed the final kiss on his thumb his lips parted, releasing an almost inaudible high pitched whine.

In the next instant he had one hand in mine, and the other pressed firmly to his face to hide his bright red cheeks. I chuckled softly, offering him a coy smile; “that was a very pretty sound~”

Next ->

Divider by: @saradika

Taglist (open):

@jawdropforkpop @krys0210 @snowy-violet @superthoughts @wordsfromshona @mystic60 @iwannabealocalcryptid @morstuavitamea-a

#fanfic #fanfiction #dc fanfic #jason todd #red hood x reader #dc #first person pov #jason todd x reader #wayne family adventures #angst #angst and comfort #Can I Get Your Number?

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toy-powerhouse · 5 days ago

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The Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles turtles have some serious “No Friends” energy: Or the turts lack a support network of allies and friends, so it makes the series feel empty

Maybe one of the biggest failings of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (out of many other failings) is how the titular characters lack a (non-familial) support network. They don't really have any friends or allies, and what few friends/allies they do have are very underappreciated, underrepresented, and underutilized (Todd Capybara and Señor Hueso) or "upgraded" to the much more valued status of family members (April and Draxum).

Despite possibly being the most attention-seeking turtles ever to be created so far, they never seem to have any desire to receive attention from outside the family unit. They're all so insular despite constantly showboating in a world where largely no one has any issues with them being mutant turtles. For the most part, the whole world, both human and Yōkai, is their oyster, and they’re free to roam around and mingle as they please. Yet they're largely content to remain detached from it all. And, that lack of connection makes the series, and its entire universe feel so empty and so small in scope. This emptiness is made especially obvious when compared to other TMNT adaptations that do give the mutant turtles a stronger and plentiful network of friends/allies or at least have the turtles working towards building such close-knit ties with others outside their family unit. The 2003 series was so chock full of friends/allies, it ended on a big damn wedding attended by all the folks they befriended. Even if RotTMNT continued beyond 1 ½ seasons and a movie (technically, it’s two seasons, but let’s be real, season two is too truncated to count as its own season), it’d be highly unlikely that the turtles of that series would ever amass that many notable friends/allies.

We see some glimmers of interest that the turtles have in being a part of a world outside themselves, but aside from those fleeting instances, their disinterest in anything apart from themselves is palpable and never challenged in any major way. This limits the characters’ experiences, their development as well as the overall narrative. It makes all their wacky adventures or dramatic exploits seem repetitive and hollow in a way better kids’ shows mitigate with a compelling cast of supporting characters (i.e., friends and/or allies for the protagonists).

Instead, what RotTMNT lacks in platonic support it more than makes up for in enemies, albeit mostly underdeveloped enemies. The turtles just sort of gain enemies time and time again (because they’re usually unfunny obnoxious screw-ups), which makes their lack of reoccuring friends/allies even more noticeable. Big Mama, Warren Stone, Hypno-Potamus, Repo Mantis, Meat Sweats, the Purple Dragons, Ghostbear, Baxter Stockboy, Sando Brothers, etc., (Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, more like Everybody Hates the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, lmao). You get the idea; the turtles seem to have a talent for making more enemies than friends/allies.

But, with friends like the turts (correction: turds), who needs enemies?

The biggest middle finger the series shows to the idea of allies is when in the season one finale, “End Game,” the following allies join April and Splinter to rescue the turds as the B-Team: Bullhop, Franken-Foot, S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N., and Todd Capybara. Only for the quartet to be captured immediately and left for dead because they’re never brought up again in the episode. While each of the so-called "allies" of B-Team aren't given much respect both in- and out- of universe, Bullhop (real name Stanley) may be the least respected. In short, the turds ruined Stanley's life, showed little grace to the poor guy before he got unceremoniously ousted from the series. He got mutated by the Oozesquitos the turds had accidently released from Draxum's lab, the turds let him stay at the lair with them for a bit to make amends but were on the verge of kicking him out because he was annoying to live with (Gee, those sure are a lot of pots calling the kettle black…), only for him to leave anyway of his own volition. He then shows up one more time in "End Game" to get captured by the Foot Clan, and because this was his last appearance, it's probably fair to assume that he died/was killed while the other three managed to escape unscathed. RIP Stanley, I know he must be ballet dancing his heart out somewhere in cartoon heaven.

It's characters like Bullhop combined with other infrequently or one-time occurring allies like Casey (Sr.), Señor Hueso, Marcus Moncrief (aka Jupiter Jim), Sunita, Piebald, Red Fox, and so on that show how little the series wants to commit to giving the titular characters a stable support network built on trust and camaraderie. The closest we get to a true, ride or die ally and friend is Todd (see “Todd Scouts” and “Anatawa Hitorijanai”) and even he barely gets any respect. In “Anatawa Hitorijanai,” he provides them with a haven away from the Shredder when he’s taken over New York, forges them weapons they use to save the day, and he receives no thanks or any real acknowledgment for doing any of it which makes the turtles come off as very ungrateful to their greatest ally and friend. The way in which the series represents friends and allies is, at times, tinged with a dismissive, even mean-spirited undertone that feels like a slap in the face to themes and messages that the franchise often represents.

TMNT is a franchise that’s narrative is built on connection and the desire for misfits to find acceptance. In many adaptations, the turtles pine for meaningful relationships outside themselves and Splinter. And, while this theme doesn’t need to be the focus of every adaptation, its absence in RotTMNT does strip from the characters an extra layer of depth and misses out on an opportunity to make them more relatable to members of the audience, especially those who’ve ever felt alienated.

If RotTMNT wanted to focus more on the familial relationships of the titular characters instead, that would be one thing. However, even the development and depth of those familial relationships are lacking. For instance, Splinter’s neglect of the turtles is never truly confronted along with the impact of Raph’s parentification (the underdeveloped family dynamic is something to be expanded upon for another entry in my lengthy list of grievances with this adaptation).

There was so much potential to explore new relationships for the turtles outside their own little world. The introduction of Yōkai opened new possibilities for the characters with them being able to be among other non-humans (the underdeveloped role of Yōkai and their Hidden City is also a topic for another day). Even the more lenient human world offered a new perspective. But, like all things surrounding Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it was just more wasted potential.

#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise of the tmnt

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spoofymcgee · 5 months ago

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BNHA Fic Rec List

finally getting around to putting one of these together because i'm in another bnha phase and tearing through all my bookmarks.

Crack

Painappuru by Icka M Chif

3k, Erasermic, Fluff and Humor

this fic comes with an excellent podfic by sisi_rambles

Summary:

The first time Shōta wakes up with a hangover, he finds himself in bed, with Hizashi wrapped around him, and a pineapple.

This becomes something of a habit.

Not all secondary quirks are battle applicable. Or easy to explain.

Rec: this is an incredibly cracky erasermic fic where aizawa has a secondary quirk that lets him summon present mic and also a variable number of pineapples by getting drunk and falling asleep. one of my all-time favorites, and i especially love the secondary quirk bit because that's one of my favorite tropes.

Impressionable by Thealmostrhetoricalquestion

5.3k, Gen, Aizawa Shouta & Yamada Hizashi & Iida Tensei

really anything Thealmostrhetoricalquestion writes is just overall excellent, so if you're looking for an incredible writer with a wide variety go check them out.

Summary:

Aizawa spits out a mouthful of hair and says, “Give me coffee, and fuck off.”

There’s a tiny gasp from the doorway. Tensei is fast as a whip when he turns and stares, wide-eyed, at the very small figure of his younger brother outlined by the hallway light. He’s got pyjamas on, fancy silk things, and he’s holding, of all things, a clipboard. Aizawa squints. He’s pretty sure the kid isn’t even ten yet, although he can’t be sure, because the Iida’s seem naturally gangly, and he’s never been very good with kids. How do you measure them? They don't seem to come with a scale.

“You shouldn’t be saying words like that,” Iida says very sternly. “I’m impressionable.”

Rec: this has so many crunchy character dynamics and i love it so much. this is one of my favorite gen pairings and i always love the premise of iida having known aizawa through his brother before ua.

"Average Person Gets Kidnapped 3 Times A Year" Factoid Actually Just Statistical Error by ohshiddlesticks

4.6k, Bakugou & Midoriya

another author whose fics are all on my metaphorical bookshelf. excellent writing and a hilarious premise.

Summary:

"Midoriya Izuku just sort of assumed that everyone else got kidnapped at least once a year, and his once-or-twice-a-month ordeals were just a little bit more than normal."

Bakugou gets kidnapped, and Izuku is surprised that nobody else knows what to do. It's a normal childhood occurrence, right?

Rec: the crunchiest dynamic between bakugou and midoriya. i live for them being absolutely wild together and this fic delivers.

i have been in love with love (and the idea of something binding us together) by Drhair76

6.3k, Gen, Midoriya & Class 1-A

there will also be a gen category on this list because i'm a slut for good gen fics, but this is just cracky enough i'm putting it here.

Summary:

"So we're gonna just not acknowledge the fact that you yanked Todoroki from the other side of the couch with only a thought?" Shinsou asks, eyebrow raising.

"Well-"

"Shinsou," Todoroki says, cutting Midoriya off, "we're sleeping. Go find your own Midoriya to bother."

or, Midoriya develops a latent quirk that pulls people he has an mutual affection for towards him with just a thought. Class 1A thinks it's cute. Midoriya does not.

Rec: absolutely delightful character dynamics, a tiny bit of heartwrenching angst and a lovely happy ending. i might have to draw the scene of all might being yanked across the cafeteria to hold midoriya.

It's Not Gay If It's The Homies by palant1r

23k, mostly gen, all different dynamics in Class 1-A and 1-B

one of the funniest things i've ever read. technically unfinished but each character mostly stands by itself so not really.

Summary:

When Hizashi tells Midoriya that "kissing the homies goodnight" is an American tradition, Shota figures it's nothing more than an unfunny joke, and the whole thing will end there.

It doesn't. Because Midoriya has a lot of homies, and he wants them all to feel loved.

Rec: the premise of this is incredible and all the dynamics are just delightful. has iida/bakugou which is one of my favorite rarepairs, but most of the focus of the fic is platonic relationships. so many fun headcanons, too.

top koalaty romance by curovogel

5k (with a 3k sequel), Bakugou/Todoroki, Animal Transformation

if you read one thing on this list make it this.

Summary:

Bakugou wakes up to find his husband is different. Japan watches.

The koala smacks its lips together loudly and impatiently claps its paws together.

dance to be seen by IHaveNothingToDo

Yup, Katsuki thinks as he rolls his eyes, it’s Todoroki alright.

Rec: this is maybe actually the funniest thing i've read in my whole life. the dynamic between bakugou and todoroki is perfectly written as is bakugou's character and i just love all of it.

Gen

dance to be seen by IHaveNothingToDo

1.7k, Hagakure-centric

this fic is one of the most beautiful things i've ever read.

Summary:

Hagakure Toru is invisible. She is invisible in among the bright minds of her class and she is invisible now.

She will be invisible later

Now, she is awake, staring at the ceiling of her bedroom. She has a chem lab in the morning, a gymnastics meet in the afternoon, and two quizzes in between. Most of the girls on her floor have already gone to bed. Most of the girls on her floor have taken someone to bed

Toru swipes at her tears and sits up.

She stands up, stretching the ache of loneliness out of her muscles, and reaches into her closet. She moves by texture, letting her hands decide what should go with what. It’s comfortable here in the dark, no one can see her and no one can see anyone else.

Her hands find the slick surface of what she knows to be a holographic skirt. She grips it, debating. It’s a skirt for dancing, for heavy music and for dark rooms.

She pulls it out.

Rec: i don't actually have words for how much i love this fic. hagakure is such an underrated character and this author writes her so well. the fic itself is like poetry, or being in a crush of people you love, or like the stitch in your side when you're with a friend and you can't stop laughing.

problem child, golden boy by laurenshappenstobemyhusbad

4.6k, Aizawa & Bakugou, Class 1-A As Family

read. this. please for the love of god, i promise it is so good. also go read everything else by this author.

Summary:

"Katsuki, have you taken your meds today? You know you have to take them with breakfast, go do that."

"Katsuki, I know you haven't been doing your sign language practice. Stop groveling, I'll have Present Mic help you with it."

"Katsuki, it's three in the morning, go to sleep. There's cinnamon tea in the kettle, take some for yourself, then go to bed."

The response was always the same: a grunt, a muttered expletive, and then compliance. The compliance part was what made class 1-A lose their shit every time.

OR: It was common knowledge in the UA dorms that Bakugou Katsuki answered to only one human, and his name was Aizawa Shouta.

Rec: the CRUNCHIEST character dynamic between bakugou and aizawa. the entire class is baffled by it and it's so funny and so sweet. also full of a bunch of delightful headcanons.

Katsuki and Izuku's Excellent Adventure(s) by pepperfield

13k (with two sequels that are 40k together), Bakugou & Midoriya, Post-Canon

i honestly think this is my new favorite. i read the whole series in a day last week and i can't stop thinking about it.

Summary:

“Karaoke, Kacchan.” Deku slams his palms on the table, fire in his eyes. “I need a rematch.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not.”

With his boyfriend out of town and the crime rate up, Bakugou hasn't been having a great week. Deku does his best to make things worse.

(Friendship sure is beautiful.)

Rec: i've said it before and i'll say it again but if nothing else read this for the dynamic between bakugou and midoriya because it's just so, so good. this author has such an incredible take on them, and draws the rest of class 1-a into it in the most fun way.

imprint by wonhaebunny

4.9k, bakugou & eri, bakugou & midoriya

i'm limiting myself to one fic by each author otherwise this fic would be 90% wonhaebunny's fics. go check the rest out, please.

Summary:

Katsuki handles Eri with far more ease than an only child has any business possessing. Shouta observes.

Or: Bakugou Katsuki may not have grown up with any younger siblings, but he did grow up with a Deku. It amounts to about the same.

Rec: the premise of this is so delightful, and the way bakugou handles eri is so funny and sweet. i don't have much to say because the fic speaks for itself.

Sunlit Snowflakes by thatgirl_youknowtheone

6.9k, Dabi & Todoroki Rei, Character-centric

part of a currently updating series, some of the most interesting (and fucking delightful) takes on their characters i've ever seen.

Summary:

Dabi pulled out the old wilted rindous and laid them down beside the vase before carefully passing the fresh flowers from one hand to the other, shifting his grip on the windowsill, leaving his body vulnerable to the unforgiving laws of gravity for a brief moment.

He tucked the flowers into the vase and gave the still figure on the bed one last glance before getting ready to shimmy back across the ledge.

He had just shuffled away from the window when fingers as cold as his own suddenly wrapped around his wrist. He spun his head so fast he nearly lost his balance, but the grip on his wrist kept him steady against the wall.

Steely grey eyes latched onto his as Rei Todoroki leaned halfway out the window, holding onto him tight.

"Touya."

Rec: this is a little. idk if darker is the right word? than most fics on this list, for reasons that are central to the way the characters are written and also make it so, so good. both of them are unhinged for excellent reasons and i can't wait to see where the series goes.

butterfly skies by ashenice

5.8k (part one of a 34k series), Hawks & Midoriya, Humor

ashenice is also one of my favorite authors, and this series in particular is just so, so good.

Summary:

"Are you sure you're quirkless?" Keigo asked bluntly.

"Yes? I mean why?" Green Hair's eyes went wide. "Do you think I have a quirk?"

"Yes." Keigo said dryly. "Either extreme luck or extremely shitty luck. I haven't decided which of the two it is yet."

(Keigo meets a very interesting kid who can't seem to stop getting in trouble.)

Rec: this fic has such a perfect dynamic between midoriya and hawks, and an absolutely delightful and sneaky take on midoriya's character in particular.

Toolbelt by LadyLiterature

4.3k, Midoriya & Snipe, Quirkless Midoriya

ooooooo this fic is just so good, please read it.

Summary:

The first thing Snipe tells him, once he commits to taking the bean sprout under his wing, is the truth about his quirk, True Target. Specifically, he tells the kid it’s fake and that he doesn’t and never had a quirk to begin with.

The first thing Snipe tells him, is that he’s just like him.

Rec: i'm not the biggest fan of this trope but i love the way it examines it without throwing any other characters under the bus. the little details and pieces are also so delightful.

Bunny Kick Your Teeth Out by Oceanbreeze7

9.1k, Bakugou & Miruko, Internship Fic

i actually cannot describe how good this is. has a fun 16k sequel post-canon which is just as stupidly gold.

Summary:

“Oi, Deku!” Bakugou shouted, eyes meeting startled green. “How often do fucking heroes contact students for internships?”

Deku looked startled, floundering a tad under the attention. “I- uh- never?”

“Huh,” Bakugou said, reading over the letter again.

“What?” Kirishima gaped. “Did a hero mail you a letter?”

Bakugou rolled his eyes. “Fuck no. I think that bitch Miruko-whatever sent me a fucking death threat and her number.”

Rec: this fic has everything. ass-kicking, miruko being the most badass hero every, fucking delightful character dynamics, and anything else you could dream of.

backbone by kuragay

6.2k, Midoriya & Aizawa, Hurt/Comfort, Character-centric

actually indescribable. so good, hurts in the best way, very cathartic.

Summary:

Izuku wakes up in the hospital, the ceiling so familiar that it’s almost comforting, but when he turns to the side, it’s to Aizawa’s disappointed face, and the momentary comfort is quickly stripped away.

“You can’t keep doing this,” his former teacher says, his eyes tired and his long, dark hair limp. “Please.”

It’s the ‘please’ that does it, Izuku thinks.

Izuku grows his hair out, grows his self-worth out, and learns to rely on others.

Rec: i don't have the words. this fic made me cry, the details like his hair and his dynamic with bakugou had me putting it down to take deep breaths, and it changed my brain chemistry a little bit.

you've made me a home by periapsis

3.3k, Slice of Life, Post-Canon, Character-centric

i spent three hours hunting this fic down so i could reread it and it's just as good as i remembered.

Summary:

After graduation, Shōto tentatively helps his mother move into a new house but finds his way home all the same (ft. Midoriya Izuku and Midoriya Inko).

Rec: i swear, this is the most beautiful fic i've ever read. the imagery is so evocative, the character dynamics made me want to cry, and the way it talks about todoroki is just. i don't even have words for it.

could i but teach the hundredth part by terra_incognita

5.1k, All Might & Class 1-A, Post-Canon

i need to give this a reread. it's so delightful.

Summary:

Ito Matsu knows three things about her neighbor, Mr. Yagi: he's very skinny, he's very kind, and he has enough children to overthrow the Japanese government.

Or:

All Might is retired, but his former students keep coming up with reasons to visit.

Rec: it's not fresh in my memory but i loved this fic so much the first time i read it. the writing is so lovely and the way all might is written makes me so happy.

journey to the past by aloneintherain

44.8k, Midoriya & Class 1-A, Time Travel

no clue how i made it this far on the list without a fic by aloneintherain. hands down one of the best bnha authors.

Summary:

Izuku is five years old the first time he's saved by heroes. He's an instant fan of the woman in pink with her cheerful smile and the man with his ice powers and fine-boned features, even if they both refuse to tell him their names.

For most of his life, Izuku has been the centre of villain attacks, but he has never been injured. Every time, he's saved by bright, unknown heroes—heroes who smile at Izuku, and ruffle his hair or ply him with hugs, and seem mesmerised by how small he is.

Heroes that the rest of the world doesn't believe exists.

(Time-travelling Class 1-A AU)

Rec: it's been a hot minute since i read it but the dynamic between midoriya and all of his classmates is so excellently written, and the premise is just delightful.

Once More unto the Breach by nivo

5.4k (with a 1.2k sequel), Bakugou-centric, Permanent Injury

oh the characterization in this is so, so good.

Summary:

When life gives you lemons, remind it that you have nitroglycerin. Poor fucker never stood a chance.

Rec: i love the way bakugou's internal monologue and interpretation is written in this and all the different relationships he has with the different characters, especially uraraka.

Romance

the ground my feet won't reach by wonhaebunny

3.3k, Bakugou/Iida

breaking my rule here because this fic is so fucking good and everyone needs to read it

Summary:

Iida’s frozen in action, arms suspended comically in the air in the middle of one of his characteristic chopping motions. His eyes are wide, laser-focused on the glasses in Katsuki’s hands, and he’s turned a peculiar shade of red.

“Dude,” Kirishima says, concerned. “I think you broke him.”

Rec: i love literally everything about this fic. it lives rent free in my brain 24/7. the descriptions of iida, the relationship between bakugou and his dad, everything. god. read this, please.

wanna put my tender heart in a blender by lexlex

15.7k, Bakugou/Todoroki, Future Fic

i am THE head advocate for very long oneshots and this is one of the best ones i've ever read.

Summary:

Todoroki won’t eat anything peach flavored and likes his water exactly room temperature. He won’t let Katsuki make their tea because “he does it wrong” even though he does it absolutely right. He once made Katsuki listen to voice recordings of one of his cats meowing at different times of the day to “see if she sounded more melancholy earlier in the morning.” For being like, kind of jacked, his hips and shoulders and elbows are bony as fuck. He, as a rule, has to sleep on the right side of the bed or he can’t sleep at all. Katsuki fucking hates him.

And now previously empty corners of his brain are filled with all of this dumb shit about stupid Todoroki and he has to cart it around all the fuckin’ time.

Rec: this fic has everything. the dynamic between bakugou and midoriya is so fucking funny, all the headcanons are delightful, and overall everything about it is just the best.

when the sea rises to meet us by aloera

8.7k, Hagakure/Mina, Mermaid AU

look when i say that this fic is goals and also the actual sweetest thing i've ever read i am not kidding.

Summary:

Tooru was right. Mina fits in her arms just right, snug like a hermit crab in its perfect shell.

Safe here, Tooru’s mind says, something proud rising in her chest. Safer than the ship. Safer than the rest of the sea. Safest here. Safest with me.

“I’m going to get you to land,” Tooru promises.

Mina is looking at her, eyes glassy and unfocused. “Beautiful,” she breathes. Her eyelids flutter shut.

Pointy-toothed, glowy-eyed, terrifying-looking mermaid Tooru rescues sailor Mina and wrestles with the idea that this romance can't be anything but temporary.

Rec: we all know that aloera is one of the best bnha authors ever (and if you don't go discover that rn, you're welcome) and this fic in particular is one of my favorites because. well. lesbian mermaid au. need i say more. but i will, because the characterization is impeccable and i would kill for the worldbuilding.

wish our secrets farewell by mallsthemyth

1k, Asui/Uraraka, Before The Final Battle

god. GOD. i don't even have words.

Summary:

She wants to take Ochako on a date. She wants to spend time with her. Tsu wants.

Rec: this fic is maybe the most heartbreaking, hopeful thing i've ever read. it's a gut punch of emotion and so fucking sweet and it's part of a whole series i need to read but the first one just knocked my lights out and i haven't yet.

i was busy thinking 'bout... by crossroadswrite

3.4k, Midoriya/Several People, Bi Disaster Midoriya

i don't know if this technically counts as romance but midoriya is just me to a t in this fic so i had to put it.

Summary:

He wonders at times if this is divine retribution for something he did. Is it punishment? Is he being punished with pretty boys who can snap him in half? Is that it? Or is this a reward perhaps? Can you call being tormented by handsome boys a reward? Probably.

(or: local bi boy too gay for this, more at eleven.)

Rec: this is just midoriya being a bi disaster about everyone and appreciating how pretty and smart and capable and strong all of his friends and classmates are, and i love it so much.

Peachy Keen by Thealmostrhetoricalquestion

3.4k, Bakugou/Midoriya, Post-Canon, Slice of Life

breaking my own rule again to yell about how good this fic is.

Rec: i'm a sucker for a well-written dynamic between midoriya and bakugou and this has that and also everything else i could ever want.

Summary:

In which there are not-so-secret plans, birthday hand-holding, and Katsuki reminisces over how quiet and peaceful things were when he wasn't dating a giant nerd.

It’s still early, even after the long drive, and some stalls are still setting up. Deku eventually forgives him for his earlier comment, and he brightens up as they traipse around the market, bobbing along like a cheerful green balloon. Usually Katsuki would have a plan in mind, a mental route already mapped out, but he’s strangely alright with browsing for the moment.

Until Deku opens his big mouth.

“Hypothetically, if I knew about something nice that was going to happen at some point in the very near future, would you want me to tell you or let it be a surprise?”

#bnha #izuku midoriya #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #bkdk #fic rec #mha #mha fic recs #bnha fic recs #bnha fanfiction #class 1a #bnha deku #todoroki shouto #i had so much fun putting this together #i love making fic recs

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mdhwrites · 11 months ago

Note

Going back through TOH's episodes, it strikes me how boring they are. Part of the problem seems to be how criminally unfunny the show is, generally speaking. I can count how many times I've laughed on one hand. In fact I can list them:

There was the "It's been my dream since I was a boy" guy pushing kids off cliffs (Moving Hassle), Luz's "He'll be fine" after throwing Hunter overboard - and then his subsequent re-entry (Hunting Palismen) - and lastly Luz tumbling offscreen in front of Amity after a spider crawls on her face (Grom). That's 3 scenes, 4 jokes if we're being charitable. And sure, maybe my sense of humour is just incompatible with TOH's and I'm being harsh.

But I can't deny that I just feel like there's no rewatch value in TOH? Like it's just... the jokes are so bad to the point it's not fun, it's not entertaining, it's a slog, I see no value in retreading the same ground. And I am a SERIAL rewatcher! This is coming from someone who spends maybe 85% of their time experiencing the same stories! I love seeing well-done media all over again, because even if I know what's going to happen or what they will say, a well-structured joke or a skillfully delivered line is still gonna engage me.

I can't even recommend the show to anyone because I HAVE in the past... and what ends up happening is they watch the first couple episodes, get bored, go "I recognize that you like this, but it's not my thing" and drop it. And I CAN'T BLAME THAT! Because that's how I reacted too when I got into the show! I only stuck with it because it seemed like it was going really interesting places. And it tried to, I think, and failed.

I'm also a very fandom-heavy person so TOH's boring episodes have made it increasingly harder for me to stay within it. Because I'm not rewatching anything, I can see myself in real time as I forget more and more of the plotlines, and even a lot of the characters. It's just... kind of disappointing. It's like I just had a gradual fizzling out of interest. I don't even hate the show, which might be better in some ways - instead I just can't muster enough shits to feel any type of way towards it.

I rambled a bit but I guess my ultimate ask here was: what are your thoughts on whether or not TOH manages to entertain new/old viewers?

So I like S1. I think the characters are what carry it and that they are at their most interesting, EASILY, in S1.

The vast majority of S1, in terms of concepts and executions for plots, is OKAY AT BEST.

This actually just comes down to a simple tonal decision of TOH and also just the fact that a boring world with boring magic creates little to do with bog standard plots and TOH actually has a LOT of bog standard plotting. It is a pretty classic story structurally and takes genuinely very few risks in the structure... Which is okay in theory.

There is nothing wrong with not reinventing the wheel and TOH talks a big game about subverting tropes but no. As a fantasy fan, I can tell you this is EXCEPTIONALLY normal. Like... Insultingly from how much it talks a big game. Especially because if you're going to do classic, you have three options: Shoot the moon, lean into the unique elements of your concept or do it VERY. VERY. WELL.

And remember: They did a body swap episode and it is one of the most hated episodes of the entire show. That's not a good sign.

But this touches on the second problem I brought up: This is a boring world with boring magic. Because TOH's fantasy world is so basic, has little magic and little flair with its magic, it inherently limits what it can do. Now, it doesn't have to be this way but the show made it this way with how little we see of it, how limited it is (like how plant magic is 99% vines), and how often it just blatantly makes one to one comparisons between it and our world with effectively NOTHING altered like how the covens are just jobs, right down to them being introduced through a job fair and a boring one at that.

So when we look at a classic episode concept like the body swap episode, the three plots are... Easily replicated elsewhere. One person gets in trouble in the swap's job because they don't know what they're doing (with the most unique twist of this actually landing them in prison), a classic animal plot where they're taken in by a place that seems cozy and then isn't with literally no changes, and finally... Teenager pisses off bullies and agrees to jump DEAD MAN'S GORGE! But instead of skateboards and people really building it up, its rat beasts.

None of these plots are actually bad, they're go tos for a reason, but... No one is bringing anything special to this. Luz is entirely ignored so her character may as well not matter, Eda is doing NOTHING to add to her plot and King... King is fun for about two minutes leading the bullies and otherwise is just any other character in this situation. It's not bad, I personally enjoy parts of the episode... But it's nothing special. From the second the thing that X character is going to do is revealed, you can guess every step of the plot and they don't even really throw in good jokes in the process. A couple jokes but nothing memorable because everything is weirdly subdued compared to how other shows would be, even in an episode that is definitely trying to be more over the top.

And this runs into the inherent tonal issue of TOH: It doesn't want to be an adventure comedy. Those are genres that are commonly really over the top. They hear jump the shark and go "How about a shark jumping ten other sharks in order to finish making a can of tuna for their fire giant overlord?" And the face of this fact, in that the genres it pitches itself as for the first two episodes!

TOH flatly refuses to be silly and over the top. It's characters are very... 'realistic'. I don't mean real, just that they're meant to feel more mature by being more in control. They don't let them interrupt each other for a joke, they don't let a character be potentially OOC for a one off gag like Hop Pop screaming "EAT THE RICH!" or Sprig asking "Have you ever killed a a man, Hop Pop," and I can only think of one time Luz got mad for the sake of a joke and honestly, yelling about the Rusty Smidge barely comes across as a joke because of how genuine the anger feels after a point. Otherwise, stuff that would normally get exaggerated frustration or the like to at least let you laugh at the reaction just... doesn't get one, like how Luz yells about Luzura being killed off but then... Just walks off and is passive aggressive mostly instead of even exasperated. For a drama or romance, this is not a bad approach but for even just an adventure kid's show... It's not great to put it mildly because people meet odd situations with weird levels of nonchalance. Not quite irony poisoned levels but getting there.

It's why TOH is mostly remembered for the romance and drama episodes. Not only do they allow some of the romance scenes to actually include melodrama, they also just fit how the characters act better. It's why Amity has some of the biggest emotions of the series and why Lumity have such great lines between each other because they're actually willing to lean into the sort of genre fiction that they're doing. This is also why S2 works better than S1 because a lot of the pretense of being a comedy adventure gets dropped but like... There's still plenty of boring in S2 with stuff like how Elsewhere Elsewhen takes time travel and includes a couple jokes at the beginning and then is just... horribly bland and barely qualifies as an adventure.

This lack of allowing people to be emotional and jokey also leads to the reliance on comic relief characters. People like Gus, King or Hooty, or S2 Lilith, who the characters can mock in someway, including the writers. Characters who can be the punchline even if it means a lot of people come off a lot meaner than they should, i.e. Luz absolutely rejecting Hooty for the vast majority of the series despite supposedly liking the weird and rejected. That also means that most of the time they're not on screen, either the scene starts getting pretty dry or you have a character suddenly warp to be comic relief, like how Eda gets in some S2 episodes like Elsewhere Elsewhen or Eclipse Lake where suddenly she's MUCH more of a joke than she normally is and also REALLY bad at it too and seeming potentially brain dead for it. Thanks to Them even does this to Amity even though she is probably the last person in the cast to make sense as a sudden clutz.

All of this stuff makes it so that if you go in wanting a kid's show, a fantasy show, ANYTHING that is pitched in the first episode... S1 is going to be just okay to you. I enjoyed it... But I also fell off when I first watched it. I thought the characters were good but none of it stuck with me as actually memorable and I watched until I think Adventure in the Elements. I never was never compelled to come back until Lumity animations (literally THE Little Miss Perfect animatic that is nowadays probably hard to find actually) made me go "I remember this show being neat." And Lumity was what kept me, not because I was generally laughing or calling these episodes something special. In fact, that sense of unsatisfaction is probably why I watched through it faster than Amphibia. No one episode of TOH is really great to watch on its own because... It's just kind of boring, or like half of it is boring because the B plots across the board are SO BLAND. S1 or 2 for that matter since Lumity starts getting boring B plots like with the archives or finding out the author of Azura. Both concepts btw that could have been really interesting setups and instead... If you're not into blushing Amity, get FUUUUUCKED.

That's without getting into REPETITION. Repetition kills comedy so King having one joke for S1 and also taking up like half of the B plots for the first ten episodes means you are going to be in agony eventually anytime someone talks to him because you know where it's going and you have DEFINITELY heard this joke before. And you know, he also gets three repetitive B plots which just hurts the joke even more, even as they try to make twists on it, and hurts the feeling that the show is doing... Anything..

It's just not good. Which is probably why once the characters and the 'subversive/unique' elements of the show both weakened, more and more people left because... Why would you keep watching this then? Those elements are what made up for boring plots with boring execution in a world that didn't allow for more interesting storytelling because it had few ideas and expanded on NONE OF THEM. So of course people pitch it using the elements that say "this isn't like other kids shows/fantasy shows" because if you pitch it to people who like those... They'll just be disappointed eventually and bored quickly. Like i think a lot of people did to be quite honest.

And a lack of creativity, and a lack of genre understanding, isn't something time could have ever fixed.

======+++++======

The short version of proving this point btw is going "Compare Bumi's introductory episode, which is a character giving three trials to prove another's worth, versus when the Bat Queen challenges Luz. One is exceptionally funny, interesting and has genuinely interesting twists while the other is... There. So very there. Painfully just... there. Not even bad, just... There.

Also, yes, comedy is extremely subjective which is why I tried to talk more about how a lot of these premises are boring because that can be a bit more objective.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past.

I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead.

If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical #toh #the owl house

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ivyial · 1 year ago

Note

Okay, I just saw your other ask about leshley/eagleone and felt like I had to get in on this because ever since RE4Make came out, I've been going crazy over this ship. I have always found it cute in RE4 OG, but now it's driving me crazy. I cannot understand how many people miss the many implications that Leon is trying to flirt during certain parts of the game. Like seriously, come on, pals, he's being so awkward, trying to sound cool and give compliments that end up sounding weirder than he intended. And I don't know if it's just me that noticed this, but I find it funny how Leon talks to Ashley in certain moments like it's the easiest thing to do; then, in other parts, he really has no clue how to speak to her. Does that not scream attraction to anyone?

i'm with you on this one. i don't know how people miss EVERYTHING about them. like they don't even go "oh?" at times when they're playing. it probably depends on the mindset you have when you're playing. if you're hyperfocused on the action, maybe you'll miss it. idk. on social media, there are two broad types of people who have negative reactions when it comes to leon/ashley:

1. aeon shippers (mostly, can be other shippers as well, but they're mostly chill because they themselves get forced into a corner by aeon stans) who think it threatens their ship

2. people who are fiercely anti-romance when it comes to whatever media they consume and consider it to be dumb and actively making a good piece of media worse (because in their eyes, romance is a lowly preoccupation to have)

and both groups are super bitter for no reason lmaoooo. you might have noticed a tendency in media discourse recently on social media that is very anti-romance - a few weeks ago, it became a whole thing on twitter because of the bear (the tv show) and the ship between sydney and carmy, to the point where even official media outlets started talking about it. romance is considered dumb. everything that contains romance is essentially a bad soap opera. blah blah blah we're all too smart for that. there's a very strong, almost puritanical anti-sex sentiment going around at the moment as well, and i wish it was just some isolated issue within fandoms overpopulated by young teens, but people lost their minds over two sex scenes in oppenheimer for god's sake. and if i had the time and willpower and knowledge, i'd turn this into a discussion about how that ties into humans being obsessed with moving away from every single instinct that they have, but well.

i also agree with the second part of your ask, about leon's attitude towards ashley. tbh, leon can't flirt for shit: most of the time, he's awkward (RE2R, the fence scene with claire: i can never tell if he's attempting to flirt, or if he's just awkward because there's a cute girl right in front of him) or even downright unfunny (was he trying to flirt with jill in death island? was he trying to lighten the mood? idk man leon is a bit of a whore so). he tries to flirt all the time: we got shen may in infinite darkness, ada, etc. we know he isn't smooth.

so one thing that really sticks out in RE4R is his tone with ashley, in two specific instances (maybe more): the one i mentioned in my previous ask, when he says "i can catch you", and when he sees ashley asleep on the bed in chapter 13 (and calls out to her). these are two very intense and high-stress situations where he kind of reverts back to RE2R leon (nick does a great job at conveying the difference in maturity in leon's voice in both games). he's very distressed. why does that matter? because fucking shouting ashley's name when there are two enemies 10 meters away (we know that, he doesn't, but the island is riddled with ganados, so why would he even try?) is the stupidest decision a special agent could make. and yet he does it anyway. there are other instances of leon being in a similar situation, yet he still retains that deeper tone of his - see his first encounter with krauser in chapter 11.

and it's not just because he's doing his job, which is what one of my friends argued, because you don't go around flirting with the person you're tasked to rescue for shits and giggles. not to mention, that's the president's daughter. if he was just doing his job, he'd stick to the plan, be stoic and get her home and that's it. that's what's required of him. implying that the first daughter is hot as fuck and that he doesn't usually enjoy his regular missions nearly as much as he does when he's with her isn't part of his job description. there's a difference between being a decent guy and not treating her like cargo, and overtly flirting with her.

i think he's also very awkward with her at first because he's toeing the line between what's acceptable and what isn't, so he can figure out if there is grounds for flirting and it's not wholly unwanted on ashley's part. then you get that pep talk in the castle, which is when they really start to get comfortable with each other and when he attempts some physical contact that isn't just 100% necessary. she reacts well, which explains why he takes it further in chapter 9. he spends the rest of the game painfully distressed and by chapter 16, they're all over each other (jetski + taking her hand to run to the elevator - leon, the girl is smart, she knows how to run and follow you).

leon has a crush. plain and simple. he doesn't know how to deal with it, except for the few times when he does and the flirting is technically reciprocated. idk how people can't notice the plain signs of attraction, even in a generation that is as recluse and introverted as mine tends to be, but they're very obvious once you start paying attention.

#leon kennedy #ashley graham #eagleone #leshley #resident evil 4 #resident evil

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acacia-may · 8 months ago

Note

Acacia~! 💖

If it’s alright, I have two ships to ask about… 😅

Could you share your thoughts on Finral x Finesse and Levy x Gajeel, please?

Hi Erika! It is always so lovely to hear from you. I hope you are doing fantastically and finding lots of time to write and enjoy your favorite things! 💖 Thank you so much for the ask. Of course you can ask about more than one pairing. ^^

Finral x Finesse

Finral x Finesse does make sense and compels me to an extent (though I'll admit other pairings for both of them compel me more personally 😅). It's a very sweet ship, and I can see how they would be well suited for each other since they are both very kind, generous, and selfless people. I love the idea of them each getting to be in a relationship with someone who is equally as big-hearted as they are, and I can imagine them being extremely happy together even if the circumstances in which they would be getting together aren't the best. As I've been pretty vocal about, I have extremely strong and very negative opinions about the idea of Finral returning to House Vaude in order to marry her and that kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth with regards to this pairing which I otherwise like and enjoy based on their interactions and dynamic alone.

I just really, really wish this ship wasn't so tangled up in the House Vaude succession drama (plus does she have to be engaged to his brother? Why is that necessary??). It's just so much more complicated than it needs to be and often times very messy and not handled as a well as it should be especially when it's tied to such heavy, life-altering decisions like Finral returning to his abusive home (i.e. it's often played for melodrama and extremely unfunny laughs. It was also introduced really late and don't even get me started about the whole Langris thing...). It's these outside circumstances that really make it hard for me to go all in for a pairing I probably would have enjoyed a lot more under different (better) circumstances, but I do like them and understand people who really ship them and don't mind the handling of the pairing in the canon. It's just hard for me to look past that so I have complicated feelings about it.

Gajeel x Levy

Gah I freaking adore this ship! It's my favorite pairing in all of Fairy Tail no question at all. Their relationship arc was incredibly compelling and was one of my favorite plotlines in the entire series. I went in knowing that they were a canon ship but not really knowing anything about them. Needless to say, I was a little perplexed in the beginning seeing as they had that whole enemies to lovers thing going on, but it was really interesting to get to see how their relationship developed over time and I'll admit I got super invested.

I'm not always the biggest fan of enemies to lovers, but I think Gajeel x Levy is a really great example of how good that trope can be. I love that they found forgiveness and understanding then built this friendship with each other based on mutual respect. Gajeel knew he had to prove to Levy that he was sorry and that he had changed, and he showed this with his actions, knowing that it wasn't enough for him to just say he was sorry and that things were different. I also loved that his character arc, while inspired by Levy and (eventually) his love for her, was also independent of her and was something that Gajeel wanted for himself. He wanted to better himself and to become a man who was worthy of her regardless of whether Levy ever returned his affections, and I found that incredibly refreshing, compelling, and wholesome. I was really rooting for him throughout his entire arc, and the selflessness and devotion he shows not just towards Levy but towards his other friends as well by the end of the series is really moving. I was honestly a little misty-eyed during his incredibly heartfelt and vulnerable confession.

By believing in him and choosing to see the best in him, Levy inspired Gajeel to see himself as something more, something better than he ever believed he could be, and I love that he inspires and builds her up too (like when he helped her during the Tenrou Island arc). They really do have this great dynamic. I adore their banter and the way they balance each other and help each other explore different points of views and ways of seeing the world.

I could ramble about this pairing forever, but yes, I think they make a lot of sense and I ship them so, so much. They're absolutely compelling to me, but I can understand how some people might not be a fan of this ship given its beginnings and the inexcusable actions of Gajeel during the Phantom Lord arc. For me though, I think the series did a very good job of making a compelling slow burn for them and showing that Gajeel really had changed and had become someone worthy of Levy and her love. I am personally very glad they got their happy ending. Thank you so much for asking about them! 💕

#finral x finesse #finesse x finral #gajeel x levy #levy x gajeel #gah i love gajevy sm #acacia's ramblings #answered asks #ship ask games #erika 💙#thanks for the ask

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cosmic--dandelion · 1 year ago

Text

I had completely forgotten about this until I recently rewatched Stardust Crusaders, but you know how the group split up again after Polnareff, Avdol, and Iggy fought Vanilla Ice?

That happened because Polnareff ran off by himself, again, and Jotaro ran off after him to stop him from getting himself killed. It's a long shot, but if they had been able to fight Dio as a team, maybe Jotaro and Polnareff could have kept Dio away from Joseph long enough for him to help Kakyoin. Or hell, Jotaro might have activated his timestopping powers right then and there to save Kakyoin or at least make sure he didn't die alone.

This is especially aggregious because Polnareff already (almost) got Avdol killed rushing off by himself without a plan or understanding how the enemy's stand works, then he turns around and does the exact same thing, right after Avdol really does die protecting him and Iggy sacrifices his life to save him. Except this time it's Kakyoin who gets killed. The same Kakyoin who saved Polnareff's life over and over again during the Hanged Man arc and helped him avenge his sister. Who straight up beat the shit out of Polnareff to teach him this lesson.

This comes across as very harsh toward Pol, but I'm not entirely sure it would have been in character even for him to do something that stupid at such a critical time. The final arc has a lot of frankly wonky characterization from Iggy throwing his life away for someone he barely knows and doesn't like to Kakyoin being stupid enough to challenge Dio by himself with no backup plan to Joseph actually letting him do it to playing a moronic unfunny prank on poor Jotaro after the latter had the most traumatic, psyche-scarring night imaginable and they just lost three of their friends.

I've never been a huge fan of how this part ended and I'm all too happy to ignore it for fanfic purposes, but it would be interesting to explore how this decision affected Polnareff, especially with how close he and Kakyoin were.

#jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #noriaki kakyoin #jotaro kujo #stardust crusaders #joseph joestar #jean pierre polnareff #mohammed avdol #iggy #dio brando #meta #sdc spoilers

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saithebatguy · 2 months ago

Text

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @saithebatguy & @recoveringdreamer SUMMARY: Sai runs into Felix while on a (failed) cow-related errand.

As it turned out, getting a cow anywhere was hard. In the first place, Sai couldn’t bring it in his car, and he hadn’t thought to get a trailer before selling one to someone off Craigslist. It might have been easier if the cow were dead, but this person had specifically wanted a live one. They’d been pretty clear about that. Sai had made a sort of make-shirt leash with some rope from the hardware store, but even for a vampire, it was hard to tug the animal along. He’d snapped the rope once before resorting to holding out some grass in front of its face to coax along.

It took them almost an hour to get into the next neighborhood, which was around the time he got a ding on his phone. When he paused to look, he saw a text from the very person he was on his way to meet, My wife said we don’t have anywhere to keep the cow 😔. Good luck finding a good home for it!!

Sai stopped in the middle of the street. The cow grabbed the grass out of his hand, as he stared at his phone, thinking. He was starting to second-guess selling the cows one by one. Maybe he could just let the cow loose here and it could be someone else’s problem. He wouldn’t get any money out of it, but it would be one less cow in the cemetery. He wouldn’t have to spend another hour dragging it back either. He looked around, trying to decide if anyone nearby might object to the loose cow, and was surprised to see someone he recognized.

“Felix!” Sai called out, and tried to wave them over. Maybe Felix ate beef.

—

Leaving the boiler room felt… difficult lately. There was something almost funny about it, in a really unfunny kind of way. Felix had hated the boiler room since the moment Leo had insisted they move into it, felt itchy at the mere thought of spending any more time there than they absolutely had to. But… they were starting to think that the rest of the world was a lot safer when they were confined to those four walls. After all, locked away, they couldn’t accidentally poison their coworkers the way they had to Dillon. They couldn’t shift at an inopportune moment and tear their friends’ heads away from their necks, couldn’t make a terrible situation worse by throwing around claws and teeth and who knew what else. Felix hated the boiler room, but maybe it was where they deserved to be right now. Maybe they should try to stay there for as long as they possibly could.

It was easier said than done. The grocery delivery app they used had notified them that they would no longer be delivering to the Grit Pit, citing security concerns. Felix wasn’t sure if it was due to the general lack of safety in Worm Row or if one of the employees of the Pit had made a habit of harassing delivery drivers, but Felix wasn’t sure how much it mattered. Whatever the reason, the end result was the same: they couldn’t get their groceries delivered, so they had to go out and buy them. They had to leave the boiler room, had to risk everyone else’s safety by being out and about in a world they weren’t sure they belonged in.

Normally, they would have been pretty happy to hear someone call out their name as they made their way towards the corner store. Felix liked seeing their friends and the people they knew, enjoyed random encounters with familiar faces. But right now, it scared him a little. The jaguar was a silent force in the back of their mind, but their heart still stuttered with the knowledge that he was there, that he might be hungry. They prepared some excuse to give Sai about not being able to stay long, turning to face him and — faltering at the sight they were greeted with. There was Sai, who Felix had expected upon recognizing his voice. But there was also a cow. And the cow was a bit of a surprise. “Oh, hey Sai. Who, um… Who’s your friend?”

—

“A cow that I was hoping to sell,” Sai said. “Did you see the sandcastle contest? I won in one of the categories, and for some reason they sent me cows. So I’ve been trying to get rid of them”. It hadn’t been going well so far. A lot of people were turning down his offers for beef when they realized the steaks would come with the rest of the cow still attached. Sometimes humans seemed relatable, other times, humans showed just how different they were from vampires. They liked some distance from their food, to close their eyes and pretend it was basically a vegetable or something. He was sure there were some out there who were sensible about it, though, he just had to find them.

“Someone on Craigslist said they wanted one, but they just texted. I guess they don’t want it anymore. You don’t happen to eat beef do you?” Sai asked. From what little Sai knew about the other person, he thought they might land squarely in the squeamish about the whole thing category, but it never hurt to ask, right? “I could give you a great deal if you wanted.”

—

“Oh.” It was kind of funny — a few weeks ago, Felix might have pointed Sai in Monty’s direction. I know a guy with a dairy farm! They might have exclaimed. There would have been excitement, maybe, at the idea that they could help two people at once. But now… the thought of the farm still burning wouldn’t leave the balam’s mind, the hazy memories of the moments just before the shift hanging heavy over their head. They squeezed their eyes shut to chase it away, filling their lungs with a deep gulp and releasing the air through their nose in a way they hoped wasn’t obvious. “Yeah, I, uh, I saw the sandcastle contest. I got — I mean, they — I won a turtleneck. I didn’t know they were giving out cows, too.”

They shifted their weight, staring at the cow. The jaguar seemed to poke his proverbial head up from somewhere deep within their chest, clearly more interested in the cow than Felix was. Felix’s chest tightened at the feeling, nausea tugging at their gut at the thought of all the things they did eat. “I, um… I’ve been thinking about going vegetarian, actually. Meat’s not… It hasn’t been… agreeing with me lately.”

—

“Jonas said he got paintings, so I guess all the prizes are different, for some reason,” Sai said. “A turtleneck seems practical.” Maybe a little less profitable than a cemetery full of cows, but it’d certainly be less inconvenient. And less of a hassle to get rid of. “What was your sandcastle of?”

As they talked the cow finished the wad of grass it was working on, and mooed at no one in particular. He’d probably have to grab something more soon, otherwise it might start trying to wander off in the wrong direction again. Of course, if he could convince Felix to buy the cow, it would be one less thing, or one less cow, to worry about at least.

“There’s a lot of that, I think,” Sai said. “Vegetarianism. I guess it’s popular with hu— people right now. Maybe you have a friend who eats beef? I bet it would make a nice gift.” It would probably depend on the friend, though. Plenty of things might make better gifts sure, but those things wouldn’t leave Sai down one cow. At least it sounded like more of a digestive thing than a moral stance, so Felix probably wouldn’t have a problem giving a cow to someone else to eat.

—

“I guess so. My sandcastle was a turtle, so maybe it’s tied to what you made. Was yours, uh… a sand cow?” They hadn’t seen any sand cows when they’d walked the beach to look at the structures, but there was always a chance the ocean had washed Sai’s entry away.

Felix watched the cow, watched the way it moved. There was something almost relaxing about it, they thought; the cow was thoughtless, with no consideration for the world around it, but it was still peaceful. And, in a way, Felix was embarrassingly jealous of that. It was stupid, wasn’t it? To feel envious of a cow, to wish they could be mindless without being destructive. They sighed, turning their attention back to Sai instead. That was easier, really. It hurt less.

“I don’t know if I’m a vegetarian, really.” It wasn’t really an option on the table, given the way the jaguar would eat whatever he wanted when he was in control. “I just don’t eat meat much. I have friends who do, definitely.” They thought of Wyatt, or Anita. “But… I don’t know. It seems mean to eat him. The cow, I mean. I know people do, it’s just — I’ve never been, um… acquainted with a cow that I ate later. It feels wrong.”

—

“Nothing like that,” Sai said, shaking his head. “It was a typical sandcastle, but sort of in the shape of the bat. For the Bat Conservation Society. Jonas helped with it too, if you know him. The baker at the Bread Cemetery. He said his prize were worm paintings. Maybe it had something to do with an animal theme in general.”

Felix seemed at least a little bit interested in the cow from the way they were looking at it, so maybe it wasn’t a completely wasted trip. At least if Sai could find the right selling point. “I mean, I don’t know that you should make friends with it or anything,” Sai said. “At least if you’re going to eat it. But I think it’s probably normal to see your food when it’s still alive. You know, the circle of life and all that,” It seemed a pretty standard part of the animal kingdom unless you were more of a scavenger. It was unnatural, really, if you thought about it, to not kill your food yourself. At the same time, he could understand not wanting to get to know your food too well. He didn’t make a habit of getting to know people he planned to bite himself.

“Or maybe you want it as a pet or something. You could use it for…” Sai tried to think if he knew what Felix did, but realized he wasn’t sure about his job. “Well, I’m sure they’re good for other things too. Mowing your lawn, maybe?” He’d read some articles about local goats for hire for a similar purpose. Why not cows instead? “It’s pretty tame, I think. It doesn’t bite or anything as far as I can tell, and you can get it to go just about anywhere if you use some grass or something like that.”

—

“Oh.” Well, there went Felix’s attempt to rationalize the prizes people had received from the sandcastle tournament. Maybe trying to apply logic to things like this was always going to be something of a lost cause. Logic never did very well in Wicked’s Rest, after all. “Yeah, I know Jonas. He’s nice. Does he, um… like worms? Do you like cows? Maybe it’s tied to what the person likes?” Did Felix like turtles? They didn’t dislike them, and maybe that was enough.

Their throat felt a little dry all of the sudden. Sai was saying it was better not to make friends with something you were going to eat, and he was right, of course, that was just common sense, but — it was hard for Felix not to think about the farmhands on Monty’s farm. It was hard for them not to remember looking at Daisy one moment, panic seizing his chest, and waking up the next miles away with blood on his tongue. You shouldn’t make friends with something you were going to eat. Maybe that meant Felix was better off not making friends at all. They tore their gaze away from the cow with some difficulty, focusing on Sai instead. “I guess I’m more used to buying meat at the grocery store,” they said, trying to keep their voice neutral. It quivered a little, but… they could probably blame that on being sad about the cow, couldn’t they?

“I, um, I don’t really have room for a pet cow.” Even if they’d been in their apartment instead of the boiler room, they doubted the cow would have fit. Apartments weren’t really built for cows. “And I don’t have a lawn, anyway, so that’s — you know, that wouldn’t be something I’d need. Maybe you could, uh… rent it out to people? For mowing their lawns, or parties, or whatever. Then you could afford to keep it yourself, right?”

—

Sai shrugged. “I don’t really care about cows.” He thought about Jonas’ kidnapping story. “And I don’t think that Jonas likes worms, either. Maybe the prizes were donated or something? Although I don’t know why anyone would donate a herd of cows.” Something about Felix seemed a little off, but Sai couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Maybe they were just more thrown off by thinking about eating a cow they’d met than Sai realized. He’d underestimated how squeamish some people were about that sort of thing.

“That’s fine”, Sai said, only a little put out. “I’m sure someone will eat them.” Although it was starting to feel like all the carnivores in town were staunch patrons of the grocery store, and weren’t interested in branching out. He needed a new angle on selling these cows. Most of his attempts so far hadn’t amounted to much.

“That’s not a bad idea, actually. Only I have a 100 of them. Maybe I could keep one for that sort of thing, if I people might actually interested.” Although there was also the question of if Sai wanted to bother with that. It had been hard wrangling this one cow through town. “Would you rent a car for parties?” Sai asked, figuring he already had someone to serve as a sort of focus group here in front of him.

—

“Oh.” So much for making sense of things. Felix guessed they didn’t have very strong opinions on turtles or turtlenecks, either. Donated prizes being doled out at random might make some sense, they supposed; though Sai made a good point about a herd of cows being an odd donation. “Maybe someone just needed to… get rid of them.” They looked at the cow, who blinked its big, brown eyes at him. It was hard to imagine anyone just throwing an animal away like that.

They found themself wishing they could take the cow, if not for Sai’s sake than for the cow itself. The idea of it being eaten, now that they’d seen it, made their stomach churn a little. It was probably related to Monty’s farm, they knew, to the still-fresh memories of the screams of dying animals through the smoke and flames.

But they knew it was unrealistic for Sai to keep a hundred cows, and Monty no longer had a farm to send them to. Selling them to butchers’ shops might be the only play Sai had. Felix doubted he had room to house a whole herd of animals this size. But… maybe one or two was doable. “I’d rent a cow for parties,” they replied truthfully. “I bet parents would for kids, too. Kids love cows!” Right?

—

“Maybe, but 100 cows?” Sai asked. “It seems like anyone who had them could sell them for a profit instead of giving them away.” Although as he said it, he thought again. If the recent weeks had taught him anything, it was that cows were harder to get rid of then you might think. “Although maybe not. I haven’t had the best time selling them myself. Maybe there’s just not a big market for them with all the vegetarians.”

“I think kids love most animals,” Sai added. That had been the case with his own, as least. Although as soon as caught himself thinking back on that other life, he pulled himself back to the present. It wasn’t any use to think about it now. The vampires were his family now. Vampires and bats, and clearing the cows out of the graveyard would help one of those, at least. The novelty of the cows at Eluria Cemetery had worn off quickly for most of the Noxferatu.

“Well if you need one for any upcoming event, let me know. I have plenty,” Sai said. “Or if you think of a friend who would want a cow not from the grocery store.” He’d take this particular cow around the corner and set it loose, he decided, since wasn’t sure if Felix would take issue with it. The idea of dragging it all the way back to the graveyard seemed like a terrible way to spend his night. “It was good seeing you.”

—

Was there a market for selling cows? Felix thought Monty might know, but it seemed cruel to ask him or to send Sai his way so soon after the fire at the farm, so Felix said nothing instead. They shrugged, wondering if Wicked’s Rest was really that much of a hot spot for vegetarians. “Maybe you should try the night market?” They suggested. “The one that moves around? Someone might be interested there.” There were probably spellcasters who needed cows for… something. Felix tried not to think about what people might use the animals for. It wasn’t fair to expect Sai to keep 100 cows just because Felix disliked the idea of them being hurt.

“Yeah!” They agreed. “Kids like all animals. And farm animals are, uh, really popular.” Were they? Felix knew next to nothing about kids in general. They’d been the youngest of their siblings, and it wasn’t as if the life their family had lived had allowed for any nieces or nephews to get to know in their adult life. But they’d liked farm animals as a kid, hadn’t they? Maybe that could be some kind of a hint.

He smiled as Sai offered one of the cows for any upcoming events, wondering if that meant they’d had some success in convincing the other to keep the animals. Maybe Sai would hold on to one or two. “I’ll definitely call you if I need any cows,” they promised. “And, uh, yeah! It was really nice seeing you, too. And your cow!”

#felix #writing

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genlossneg · 3 months ago

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Okay so like. I didn’t have any interest in this, my boyfriend did. He’s been talking about it since the first streams, all of the stuff in it he finds cool, and how novel it is as a piece of media. He loves it, he’s dropped a lot of money on merch for it (which to be fair, the merch looks sick as hell I’m not even gonna lie), and he really wanted me to watch the founder’s cut when it came out. Well, I watched the founder’s cut and I just gotta say. It’s awful. I was so unbelievably bored, and when I wasn’t bored I was annoyed. Honestly I think the worst part for me is Slimecicle. He is remarkably unfunny, annoying, and obnoxious, and if his absolutely piss poor excuse for comedy was completely surgically removed (haha see what I did there?) it would make it a lot easier to tolerate all of the other badly done elements of it. Pretty much none of the attempted humor was funny to me. Maybe if I liked the streamers already I would have found it really funny, but I maybe exhaled out of my nostrils like 2 times total. I’m not sure what the consensus is with the Gen loss community about its humor but it did not hit for me in the slightest.

It feels like little of importance was happening for 65% of the runtime, the acting is terrible, the pacing is bad, and it’s just. It’s not even remotely good until the last like 45 minutes of the cut. I just could not bring myself to care, it felt like a constant barrage of “this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened.” Over and over. It wasn’t scary at any point, and I still, even after managing to just BARELY sit through the entire thing, don’t understand how so much money and effort went into this if this was the end product. I was not familiar with any of these streamers besides Jerma and Vinny Vinesauce, which the Founder’s Cut does woefully little with, so I had absolutely no connection to any of the characters. If there was some effort made to actually get me invested in who the characters are maybe I would have felt more positively towards it but it feels like I’m supposed to go “HOLY SHIT A STREAMER I LIKE OH MY GOD”, which might have worked if I was at all into ANY of the people here. It felt like there were no stakes and nobody was taking anything seriously until the last “act” or whatever when they’re running around the mall. I see what it’s going for, I can read into the metaphor about the dehumanizing nature of producing content for an audience and stuff, but just wow. The worst part is that I was just so bored the entire time. It feels like a “you had to be there” kind of thing, and since I wasn’t there, none of it appealed to me in any way.

I don’t know, this clearly isn’t a piece of media made for me but I spent the entire time I was watching TRYING to like it and it just was not it. Ever. At any point. The ending was okay I guess, I like it conceptually, but having Hetch (I think that’s his name, I don’t really recall and I’m not scrolling through the cut to check rn) trying to be a glorified game show host over the only bit of the end I kinda vaguely enjoyed kind of ruined it for me a little bit. Idk. Having Ranboo say “thank you” as his head was turned into a mid at best blood effect was the only bit that made me feel much of anything besides annoyance or boredom. I like the whole concept, but pretty much every part of the execution was horrifically botched, I feel like I shouldn’t have to like the people involved already to be invested in even one of the characters. Maybe the streams were better but I just don’t have any desire to watch them.

Maybe I’m being too mean here but yeah, I basically forced myself through 2 and a half hours of some of the most amateurish “horror” content I’ve ever seen and it felt like I got very little out of the entire viewing experience besides 45 minutes of content that got dangerously close to being okay at best.

this has been sitting in my inbox since the founders cut came out and i was going to respond to it once i watched it but clearly that is not happening anytime soon, so i can't speak to that specific experience but i definitely think watching it live added to the experience at least a little since the audience had a lot of chances to make decisions which kept it at least a little engaging. im not shocked the founders cut is super jumpy because they condensed a lot and the filler, while annoying, did keep the pace reasonable. i agree w a lot of your overall critiques and thanks for sharing a founder's cut take!!!

#ask #gen loss neg #gen loss crit #founder's cut crit

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mrultra100 · 11 months ago

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Ultra's Ramblings- The WWD '13 Retrospective

“Every fossil tells a story… even if said story is a bunch of jumbled-up nonsense”

As hard as it is to believe it, this month marks the 10 year anniversary of the Walking with Dinosaurs movie, which originally came out in theaters all the way back in 2013. I’m just as shocked as you all that this damn thing’s been around for an entire decade now, but nonetheless, I feel like a quick article is in order to describe some of my personal thoughts on the movie, and how it could’ve been great.

For those who don’t have context for this mini-retrospective, along with the film in question, this was a movie adaptation of the much beloved Walking with Dinosaurs mini-series made by the BBC. The documentary set out to show off the lives of dinosaurs, along with the other animals that they shared the world with during the time. Unlike later nature documentaries like the Planet Earth series, which focus on various scenes of different animals living in the same type of habitat (Deserts, Islands, etc), WWD’s episodes respectively set themselves in a single location, with the focus being on a central animal. New Blood focused on Coelophysis in Arizona during the Late Triassic, Cruel Sea showing off Ophthalmosaurus living on the Jurassic islands that would one day become Europe, Death of a Dynasty being focused on T. Rex in Hell Creek before the KT extinction, etc. While the science behind this show hasn’t aged well during the nearly 25 years since its release (coughcough150tonLiopleurodoncoughcough), the storytelling present throughout the 6 episodes were beautifully crafted. And that aspect of the franchise stuck around for the various sequels and spin-offs that would follow in the years since. This thing even got a stage show for Darwin’s sake! It’s safe to say that, as the first big paleo-documentary to come out after Jurassic Park, WWD has left a pretty big impact for paleomedia as a whole, one that we’re still feeling to this very day.

With all of that said… where the hell did the movie go wrong? To answer that question, some history is needed. Back when this film was first announced, the plan was for the movie to have no dialogue (aside from the narrator, obviously). It would’ve been like a theatrical version of the original show, if it wasn’t for the hivemind of brainless, money-grubbing executives at Fox, who saw the movie in its early stages and thought “Hey, why not add in a bunch of unnecessary voice overs, dumb jokes, and pointless pop songs into this film?” It felt like they were trying to cash off of The Land Before Time, despite that franchise being a zombie begging to go extinct at that point. And thus, that’s how this film was hijacked to be nothing more than brainless nonsense aimed at little kids. That just not only feels disrespectful at the franchise as a whole, but it’s also disrespectful towards children. I, along with many others, grew up with the original series growing up, and they had things like a pair of cynodonts eating their own babies, the Liopleurodon suffocating under his own weight on a beach, a recently-hatched Gastornis being eaten alive by a swarm of giant ants, the gorganopid’s mummified corpse during the early Permian segment in Monsters, Chased by Sea Monsters ending with an entire horde of mosasaurs converging on the Ancient Mariner (And possibly devouring Nigel Marven and his crew), among other things. Yes, this movie had a few frightful moments, with the biggest being the forest fire scene, along with Patchi and Scowler watching their own father get killed off by one of the Gorgosaurus during the aforementioned fire (And that scene didn’t felt forced), but a good portion of the time, it’s just unfunny jokes and pop songs.

With all of that said, while much of the film reeks of suck, there are some good things to be had here. Firstly, the animation. As much as I wished they used props and puppets like in the original show, the animation still holds up well even after 10 years. The dinosaurs blend with the live-action environments, and for the most part, they still hold up with scientific accuracy. Another point to bring up is the setting that this movie takes place in. Keeping up with the tradition of the franchise showing lesser-known animals and ecosystems, this film is set in Alaska, 70 million years in the Late Cretaceous. During this time in Earth’s history, the dinosaurs that lived here had to deal with long summers, where the sun didn’t set for months. On the opposite side of that, the winters that followed were freezing, with the moon looming over the dinosaurs’ heads for an equally long time. It was a tough place to live, and the dinosaurs who lived there adapted to live in the cold. Not only are species like Pachyrhinosaurus, Gorgosaurus (which was renamed as the more-fitting Nanuqsaurus in the Prehistoric Planet re-cut), Edmontosaurus, Edmontonia, Chirostenotes, and more were showed in the film, they looked gorgeous with their designs.

And as much as this film’s humor is child-friendly to an excessive degree, I do have to admit that I liked Alex a good bit. Don’t get me wrong, a good portion of his jokes are some of the lowest common denominators I’ve seen in a film, he still had my interest a good bit. The scene where he helps Patchi realize that living for something he loves is better than dying in vain was one of the few times where the film felt genuine and not-forced. If the dialogue wasn’t so riddled with brain dead humor and had a vibe more like a mix of both the original show and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, I certainly would’ve liked it more. Back to Alex for a bit, my final comment about him is how I feel he might actually be a sort of god…

…I know you’re about to laugh at me for saying that one of the characters in a bastardized movie adaptation of a beloved paleodoc is a god, but hear me out a bit. At the start of the film, he telepathy talked to some kid in the modern world as a crow, morphed into an Alexornis and flew off into the Cretaceous somehow, is able to break the 4th wall multiple times, was somehow able to rewind footage of the film itself, even fade out of existence at the end of the film. I might be crazy for this, but Alex might be some sort of all-powerful, telepathic bird god. How else can he talk without his beak moving? That right there is the magic of a literal deity, and we should've all realized this back in 2013 and given him the respect he deserved! THE TRUTH NEEDS TO BE MADE!

Amen, sorry for all of that. I went a bit crazy back there. Getting back to the topic at hand, those are my thoughts on Walking with Dinosaurs 2013; A film based on one of the most legendary paleomedia franchises, but was ultimately wasted potential by out-of-touch parasite executives. They went and turned the WWD brand into a laughing stock, and it still stings to this day. All of this makes me appreciate modern paleodocs like Prehistoric Planet and even Life on Our Planet from Netflix even more. At least they both had visions that weren’t dabbled with alot. All of this were my personal thoughts on the movie, so if you want more in-depth looks into the movie and its history, check out the videos made by Kody Cook and Rickraptor105, along with the Letterboxd review made by IsaiahCTorre. They all made great reviews discussing what went wrong with this fossil. Oh, and speaking of fossils…

Ę̴̘̖͎͇̹̲͇̱̞͇̺̫͎̲̟͖̰͚̰̰̥͈̣͔̰̬̹͔̥͙͋̀̊̌̎̈́̋͛̊̓̂͛́͒͛͑̉͛͒̑̂̉͛̀͆̀̀̾͗̄̈́͛͋̈́̆̊̌̂͐̈́͆͌͊̕̚͠͠͝͝͝ͅͅͅV̷̧̢̢̨̧̡̢̛̛̟͇̘͔̣̭̤̰̠͖͚̝̲̳͚̹̖͍̖̮͇̞͈̺̝̹͔̻͚͚̠͈̥͕̠̱̤̦͍̺͐̏͝ͅͅȨ̴̡̛̯̘̟̯̙͍̖͔̯̰̭̬͍̯̮̗̞̣͕͔̮̦͚͖̰̱̼̺̖̲̻̪̹͈̫̤̭̙̠͓̦̬͎̩̉̎̿̂̉̏́͒̅̅̒͋̑̇͊̈́̈́͋̒̌̓̕̚͜͜͝R̷̡̡̨̡̖̠͓̼̪̖̗͎̝̱͍͚̼̱͖̩̖̻̠̝͍̗͈͕̘̹̼͕̲̦̞̩̘̱̭͇̪͖̗̫̤͇̰̳̊̋̀͜Y̸̨̨͓̘̯̖̰͎͇̙͕̓̆̓̈́̂̽̌͜ ̶̡̧̡̡͉̙̠̯̳̥̗̲͙̲̲͎͉͚̱̼̹̯͇̱͙̹̫̘̺̗̤͉͍̙͕͚͍̂̾̔͒͒̈́̕̚͜͠F̸̯̜̞̮̪͉̲̟̯̗̹͕̝͖̜̳̼̠̳̰̖̆̔͗͒̂̌̀͌͘͝ͅͅǪ̸̢̧͓̰͔͖̞̙̮̳̗̠͚̼͇͎̮̪̥͉̬̰͉͕̙̲̹̤̤͔͚̦̫̮̪̳̻͖̦͌̀̍̿͒͗͜͝Ş̴̥̻͖̬̣̬͖̜̹͚͎̘͕̞̪̎̎̎͝S̴̢̡̯̲͔̙̥̱̮̘̣͎̣̖͕͈̥̪͈͉͎̮̼̦̣͍̫̜̈́̇͒̈́͛̆͗̒̔͑̀̈́̎͌̿͒̿̽̊̌̈́͐̈́̈́̒͑̈́͗̈́̈̿̈́͛̋̊͋̇̀̚͘̕̚͘͘͜͝͝I̵̡̛̠̿́̀̄͒̎̑͂̑͆͊̀̾̏̚͝͠L̷̡̢͎̘͈̥̲̄̎̆̀̓̿̔̋͛͐̓̚̚ͅ ̶̨̢̡̨̛̛͔̱̬̱̙͓̫̦̦̹̬̠̞̻̻͈̝̰͔͇̙̦̥̫̰̠͉͎̩̦̱̠̼̪͆̄̓̇͌̎̍̿̈́̂̎̄̀͆̓͒̽̒͌̄͛̅́͊̉̾͂͜͝͝T̷̡͓̤͙̺̖̻͎͓̭̠̤̄̑͒͐͊̊̃̂̐̑͋̅̄͋̐̓̊̿̎̋́̈́͌̈́̈́̆̎͐̅̓̓́́̅͋̾͋̈́̄͒̏̈́̏̚͘͝͠͝Ȩ̵̢̨̧̨̛͙̪̹͔̗̣͚̺̠̲̖̪̤͙̩̟̠̳̱͖͚̳͗̊̂̒̿̒̂̃̾́͛͋͆̾̊̐̓̃͋̃̅̐̓̍̃̀̒͌̆͗̐̒̆̄͋̄͂̓̂̅̎̀̚͘̕̚͘͜͝͝ͅL̵̢̛̜̯͈̮̎̽̆̎̑̒͑͋̽̀̈́́͛̌̊̂̉͆̓̈́͆̀́͂̇͐̅̉̈̋̓̿̆̔́͑̈́̾̆̈́͐́̇̽̎̽̒͘͠ͅĻ̶̨̨̡̢̧̡̧̛̛̱͇̥͙̬̦̪̪̥̼͔͔̰̻̥̠̲̹̳̗̗̪͇̲̗̞̜̤̘̟̙͉͎̱̬̥͗̈́́̐̑̓̀̀̆̆̈́̒̊̊̒̈́̀͂̅̋̈́̄́͒̉́̃̾̆̈̓̈́͑̆͋̋͝͝ͅŞ̸̨̢͖̙̩̻͇̞̞̳̅͆̄̃̍̍́͛̈̎͋͌̇̍̊̍̋̑̋͘ ̶͔̹͇̠͈̠̭̑̄̇̔͛͌̈̉̔͒̄̚͝͠͠͝Ȁ̸̧̡̧̛̙̘̞̦̫̤͕̰͓̙̱̗͎͕̝͋̾̇̈́̄̃̓̓̈́̔̀̄̓͆̕̚͜͜͠͝͝ͅ ̶̨̢̡̢͔̦̖̪̱̥̣̭̝̥͙̱̝͇̦̠͆͋̀̊̚S̵̡̖̙̟̻͙͕̖͕̙̣̻̩͚̥̼̪̞̈̓̆̑͋̅͑̃̍ͅŢ̴̧̨̧̢̧̛̛̛̠̮̙̪̯̱̳̗͙̣͔͉̳̟̳͈̝̻͕̼̬̱͕͎̤̼͔̖̳̄̾̓́̓͆̐̇͗̈͗͛͒͂̊̈́̍̇̄̊͌͜͠͠͝͝Ô̸̙̥̦̍̇͌̈́̑̅͂̋̎͆͂͛̎̊̇̽̊̆̿͠͝͝͝Ŗ̶̢̛̘̜͕͉̹͕͎͎̹̯͈̤̼̲͈̪͉͆̆̽̅̑̑͒̓̈́̽̽͐͆̽̀͂̋̒͌͛͗̂̔͌̀͋̈́̏̋͌̆̀̚̕͘͘͝͝͝ͅͅỶ̷̧̡̛̫͕̳̼̘̗̝̭͓̪̦̝̗̱̗̞̦͓̻̝͖̻̰͈͉͉̼͚̘̗̬͈͙̔̎̈́̅̂͗̌̑̌̌͂́̐̐̉̑͗͂̑͛̏͒͋̄́̓̾͊̾̊̅̍͆͒͋͗̕̕ͅͅ

#ultra ramblings #walking with dinosaurs #bbc #dinosaurs #paleomedia

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themattress · 2 years ago

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Some other interesting tidbits from Satoshi Yamamoto’s Pokspe Recollection Tweets:

- The FireRed/LeafGreen Chapter was when Yamamoto feels he fully came into his own as an artist on the manga and not just Mato’s successor, as he was actually allowed to redesign characters such as Red, Blue and Green in his own style rather than merely imitating hers.

- Mewtwo Returns inspired many elements of the FireRed/LeafGreen Chapter such as Mewtwo’s characterization, Giovanni’s characterization, and the Team Rocket helicarrier.

- Yamamoto grew very emotional about Green and Silver’s arcs, and to this day wondered if the dialogue he gave Blue to say to Silver concerning the circumstances of his parentage was sufficient enough to do justice to a complicated situation that many real kids share.

- Emerald’s character design was deliberately bad, since Yamamoto couldn’t bear the thought of putting real effort into designing an OC protagonist only for readers to criticize the design, so he pre-emptively made a design that he knew damn well was impossible not to criticize.

- Some of the angriest reader reactions ever came after the first round of the Emerald Chapter was released: “Now the main character shoots Pokemon to death with a gun!!!”

- The Diamond/Pearl Chapter is very close to Yamamoto’s heart since it was the first time he contributed with the story-making process alongside Kusaka and editors, and he really enjoys the way the main trio and their dynamic was developed. He notes that he isn’t a big fan of romance as a driving force in kids’ adventure stories, so having a pair of boys traveling alongside a girl while neither of them hold romantic interest in her was refreshing for him.

- Like with Emerald’s design, if you found Dia and Pearl’s comedy routines to be unfunny, that’s because it was intentional. Kusaka and Yamamoto wanted to express how completely out of their depth the two boys were, pursuing a career goal they lacked any real talent in.

- At first, the Diamond/Pearl Chapter received negative responses from readers who thought it was too silly, cutesy and kiddy by this manga’s standards. Again, this was an intentional creative choice since Kusaka and Yamamoto knew how darker and more perilous the arc would become later on. Once that transition happened, readers’ opinions naturally changed.

- Mars’ depiction in the manga was conceived as “emotionally retarded” - her emotions and her rational mind don’t connect, which is why she doesn’t understand why something that’s supposed to be funny is funny or why doing hurtful things that she finds entertaining is morally wrong. To convey this, the irises of her eyes are always centered and don’t move.

- Cyrus is Yamamoto’s favorite villain, being drawn mostly to induce psychological anxiety in the reader which made him effectively threatening, but toward the end of the Diamond/Pearl Chapter drawn in a way that highlights his madness which came off as tragic as it was scary. Yamamoto says even before he got Cyrus’ backstory and resolution in Vol. 40 from Kusaka, he sensed a deep sorrow in him that made him feel for him and hope for him to find peace.

- Maybe it’s just hiatus-related Stockholm Syndrome at play, but Whitley of the B2/W2 Chapter became one of Yamamoto’s favorite characters. He notes that he always took extra special care when drawing her, and that he’d like for her to make reappearances in the future (one of which has already come to pass in the X/Y Chapter’s volume-exclusive epilogue).

- The Team Flare Grunt who says “there are some things money can’t buy, but even more things that money can buy you your way out of” is quoting a real person. In high school, one of Yamamoto’s sempais caustically said this in response to the financial difficulties an underclassman was having, and for some reason or other the line stuck with Yamamoto.

- Lastly, Yamamoto has made note that child abuse by parents appears to be the line in the sand for Viz when it comes to the Western releases of the manga, as so much shockingly violent and even bloody moments are retained while moments like Crystal’s mother slapping her or Norman punching Ruby are edited out (Ghetsis’ murder attempt toward N is an exception, since N is hardly a child and as Ghetsis screams at him: “I am not your father!”)

#Pokemon #Pokemon Adventures #Satoshi Yamamoto #Analysis #Confirmation

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be-themessenger · 1 year ago

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1, 2, 27, 38?

1. what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are?

um good start. this one is tough !!

first thing id say the different approach that my mother and father used w me growing up. mother was cold, harsh and most times violent, dad was kind, funny and playful always. this made me one who sees love, tries to be grateful for it, and then is followed by a harrowing voice telling them they do not deserve it, just like when as a child, one is asked to leave the toy on the shelf where they took it. but it also taught me to be patient and mild even when you're feeling emotions that range from uh-oh-disappointed to world-destructive rage i guess.

then i have to mention the latest 5 years of growing awareness on social media, where people finally got to louder w their disgust at absolutely unfunny jabs and jokes and situations involving minorities. i tried to learn what can i do to become a better person in general. i also learned more on traits that are characteristic of depression and were problematic within my past friendships. it made me realise i was/am just ill and seeking to protect myself from normal things that were unfamiliar and risky as they wouldve brought conflict between me and mother.

third thing is a huge fear of loss. i am scared of losing everything. my phone, my bag, my cards, friends, home, my dearest memories, artistic touch, people's approval and support. i have lost most of this and i will continue to lose as i do not know how to hold my hands tight.

i'm sorry rana, this one question went towards a very miserable direction as I cannot think of anything positive abt me at the moment :// i guess i still need time 🖤

2. show us a picture of your handwriting

lyrics from omd's 2nd thought + a bit of johnny's hand w his jag !

27. any nicknames?

lots of them. i dont really have a name i want to go by yet but my dearest @heartbeatkitty finds a different cute nick for me everytime we talk 🤍

38. fave song at the moment?

this song is basically telling me i must Eject myself out of this body as soon as i can 'because it dont suit me' and as it ends im like 'yeah noel i wish man i just dont have the time to u know'

thank u so much for asking ! 🤍

#.asks #mutuals: rana #i guess i really needed this time to articulate on that first one ;;#also my handwriting kinda slay today #.personal

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 2 years ago

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Is It Really That Bad?

Lindsay Lohan is probably one of the saddest cases of what happens to a child star that you can imagine. Once a promising talent starring in beloved films like The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday, and Mean Girls, everything seemed to be on track for Lohan to have an incredible career… and then came the downward spiral. When you put the weight of being “the next big thing” on the shoulders of a child, it’s not gonna be easy for them to cope, and so this led to underage drinking with her mom, erratic behavior, and several trips to rehab.

During one of those trips, she was released to film a movie: I Know Who Killed Me. And while filming it, the subhuman leeches we know as paparazzi harassed her incessantly. The poor woman could not get a break at all, and in the end it led to a film that was so poorly reviewed and bombed so hard that it not only derailed her career in a way she couldn’t recover from, it got eight Razzie nominations (which is meaningless to be fair) and destroyed the director and writer’s careers pretty thoroughly. And worse than that, Lohan became the punchline for every unfunny hack television comedian out there. It really shows just how callous people were towards former child stars a little over a decade ago.

But as time has gone on and sympathy towards children abused by the Hollywood system has become the rule instead of an exception, this film has started to be reevaluated. In the 2010s and 2020s the film has started developing a cult following among people who appreciate its Giallo-inspired surrealism, intriguing plot, and its reflection of Lohan’s real life troubles in the plot. This isn’t exactly an uncommon fate for films of the 2000s led by then-controversial actresses—Jennifer’s Body has received a similar reevaluation and cult classic status—but considering just how reviled this film was when it came out, it is a little surprising to hear.

Then again, I think it’s pretty apparent this film could never be so bad; no matter how I would end up feeling about this movie going in, I knew that ultimately whatever hate this film got was likely overblown due to the tabloids at the time being out for Lohan’s blood. Now that I’ve seen it, and keeping what I just said in mind… Is I Know Who Killed Me really that bad?

THE GOOD

Lindsay Lohan, full stop.

While the writing surrounding her characters isn’t always amazing, I definitely think she’s putting her all into the performance (well, maybe not her all; those clauses in her contract kept her from full nudity in the strip scenes, which I honestly think was good). Dakota is a bit of a jerk with a heart of gold, and while she has a lot of flaws she ultimately comes off as the most noble character in the movie… for whatever that’s worth.

Also, as amateurish as it is, I am a sucker for the red-blue color symbolism the movie has going for it. I also really like the weird and surreal elements of the movie, like the psychic link and stigmata. These things aren’t taken quite as far as they could be, sadly, but it’s a bit more creative than you’d think a film like this would attempt. One thing that can’t be said about this film is that it isn’t stylish, even if it’s stylish in a pretty simple way.

The very best thing about this movie, though, isn’t even anything in the actual movie. Rather, it’s how this movie is a parallel to Lohan’s own real life. Dakota is an angry, flawed human girl who wakes up one day mistaken for this perfect angel of a girl that she clearly isn’t, and everyone around her keeps insisting she’s this perfect girl, all while ignoring her pleas for help because it’s just not convenient for them. It’s eerily on the nose in symbolically portraying the nightmare scenarios Lohan had to experience, and it manages to help at least make the film a bit more compelling than it would be otherwise.

THE BAD

So the movie has a lot of great subtext about how its plot can kind of relate to the nightmare Lohan was going through in real life. That’s neat, but it’s more a happy coincidence than anything that lets you recontextualize the film. What we actually have in the film is just...okay.

There are so many intriguing elements in it: Psychic twins! Stigmata! Red and blue color contrast! Buying a baby off a crackhead! But none of these elements are really held on or fleshed out enough to really be interesting. Like, look at the reveal of who the killer is. It turns out the killer was Aubrey’s piano teacher, a character who had one appearance at the start and basically never appeared again until the climax. His motives are unclear, his obsessions aren’t explained at all, all those prosthetic legs he has hanging around make no sense… Like I get ambiguity is important to these kinds of movies, but there’s a point where ambiguity goes from making something unsettling and mysterious to being really annoying. And it’s an easy fix too! Like give him a more sensible obsession like, oh, let’s say hands (he is a piano teacher after all) and then maybe at the climax have him go into a whole monologue about why he likes women’s hands. Maybe it’s because when he was a child he saw a picture of a famous painting in one of his school books and got a boner. I don’t know, just throwing out ideas here.

It doesn’t help that every single character in this movie is a cunt except Aubrey and her mom. Dakota I give at least a little slack, because having a jaded but driven protagonist is always fun, but she fucks her twin sister’s boyfriend and is pretty hostile to the people around her. Aubrey’s dad bought Aubrey off her bio mom and never told his wife and refused to help Dakota at all until the very end despite knowing she was right, the cops are all utterly incompetent and unpleasant, Aubrey’s boyfriend cheats on her at the drop of a hat just because he meets a girl who looks like her… It’s really hard to root for anyone here. Again, Aubrey and her mom are sympathetic, but they’re barely in the film. Aubrey is a plot device more than anything, and her mom just spends much of her screentime being a punching bag, facing Dakota’s anger or having to listen to her fuck Aubrey’s boyfriend, and by the end of the movie her husband is dead too.

Speaking of the ending, the movie just ends. Like Dakota finds Aubrey, lies down next to her, and then… That’s it. There’s not much in the way of closure of any kind, there��s not really any sort of ending… Maybe this wouldn’t be quite as frustrating since this is pretty typical of these kind of thrillers and can be effective, but the entire rest of this film is filled with so much surreal nonsense and amateurish storytelling and use of symbolism that it feels like a cheat. And the thing is, they had an ending that would have justified this! On the home media releases, there is an alternate ending that reveals the entire story was merely a book report being written by Aubrey, who essentially split her personality in two to make the twins (which is suggested by her smoking while she writes and the fact she’s wearing purple. You know, red plus blue).

And suddenly, everything makes sense: The amateur use of color-coding. The nonsensical symbolism of owls. The characters all acting like assholes. The lack of closure or cohesion. This all feels like shit a teenager would write… and with the original ending, that’s what it would have been! It probably still would have infuriated audiences, but I think it would have added a bit of brilliance to the film that would have helped it find its cult audience faster. It’s definitely not the film-saving masterpiece alternate ending that Fatal Attraction has, but I think it would have been a pretty bold way to conclude the film as opposed to the literal nothing that we got.

IS IT REALLY THAT BAD?

Like I said, it could never be quite as bad as critics said it was, and it’s definitely not bad enough to deserve so many Razzie nominations; everything bad said about this film is colored with the disgusting disdain for a troubled young woman who buckled under the gaze of the entire world. The question then becomes, “Is this movie any good?” And the answer to that is… eh.

Look, I can see why this has a cult following, and honestly, if you want to get a teen into Giallo films this is an okay choice as “Baby’s First Giallo-Inspired Thriller.” But I find the whole thing to not really rise above being just an okay movie at any given opportunity, and a lot of the symbolism and writing choices are extremely shallow (even if I mostly find it charming). If you’re a fan of the movie, more power to you! I certainly don’t hate this film. I just don’t particularly love it.

With that said, this score is just unfairly low. Somewhere between 5.6 – or 6.1 would be fine. Nothing about this movie is so offensively bad that it needs to be skirting with landing on the bottom 100. It’s a perfectly okay thriller with some decent parts and inspired elements that I just never felt congealed into anything greater, not some truly abysmal piece of garbage. I think I’d compare it to films I’ve already reviewed here like Boxing Helena or Gigli, films that never get to be quite as good as they should be but have unfairly negative reputations around them.

So yeah... I’m sadly not part of this movie’s cult following, but at least I can acknowledge it has gotten a pretty unfair rep due to forces outside its control that people weren’t particularly empathetic towards back in the day. It’s ok.

#Is it really that bad #IIRTB #review #movie review #I Know Who Killed Me #Lindsay Lohan

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yaminerua · 1 year ago

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This one got away from me a bit yesterday and I fell behind again, haha. I might try to smush today's prompt with tomorrow's to try to catch up again.

As always, prompts are by @a-literal-toaster-wtf

Anyway Day 4's theme was Family, and I couldn't help but think of Jim and Bexley. Needless to say it does cover a bit of Lister’s pregnancy.

Words: 6238

****

The last year or so had, for lack of a better word in the English language to adequately describe it, been pretty smegging bizarre. Perhaps it hadn’t really been any stranger than the year before it, after all waking up from stasis 3 million years after you went in to find that the human race had all but petered quietly out of existence around you while you’d been frozen in time had been quite a shock on its own to say the least, but it had certainly done its best to match that level of weird and expand it to newer and more mind-boggling ranges of nonsense.

Most recently, in one of several misguided attempts to orient themselves towards Earth and find their way out of the uncharted, seemingly unpopulated vastness of deep space, the Boys from the Dwarf had wound up skipping into a parallel dimension and come face to face with versions of themselves which had been familiar in some ways but also very, very different in others.

As if that on its own hadn’t been more than enough of a dosage of strangeness to call it a day, the encounter had ended – as many ill-advised, drunken liaisons do – with one David Lister discovering that he was somehow, impossibly, incomprehensibly, ‘up the duff’, as it were.

Sure, he had known that children were in his future, he had seen the two crying little boys with his own eyes in that brief lightspeed anomaly that had allowed him to glimpse snapshots of things that were yet to happen, but with circumstances as they had been at the time the revelation had led to much curious speculation over just how exactly it was going to come about. Lister was the last living human being after all, floating through deep space on a ship populated only by a computer, a hologram and a humanoid who had evolved from what had once, long ago, been a regular black cat. With no women on board, it had seemed only logical to assume that somewhere out there, waiting to be found, was the person who would one day be the mother of his children.

Well, he hadn’t exactly been wrong about that per se… The mother of his children had indeed been out there. He just hadn’t exactly anticipated that it would end up being himself.

Rimmer had found it absolutely hilarious when it had all first come to pass, when that final little piece of the jigsaw had fallen impeccably into place, filling in the mystery once and for all. There was something almost poetic about it in a strange way, something karmic and deeply, deeply amusing about being impregnated by your alternate universe self, and the sheer thought of it had had him snickering and guffawing at frequent intervals at Lister’s expense throughout the process of Lister’s own staggered, reluctant acceptance of his own fate.

The hilarity of it had, of course, only been short lived. Once the reality of the situation had finally settled and it had dawned on them that Lister was, in fact, going to have to endure a full term of pregnancy if these boys were going to actually be born the full picture had blossomed then into cold, sobering clarity and suddenly become quite decidedly unfunny.

For what felt like an endless eternity after that, Rimmer had busied himself reading book after book on pregnancy, trying and failing to take in as much information as he possibly could ahead of the big day, treating it like he would any other exam or test (which inspired no confidence in anyone who knew Rimmer’s track record with those) while Lister just dealt with it in the only way he could, which was largely by continuing to pretend it wasn’t actually getting closer and closer with every passing day.

The logistics of how exactly things were going to work had been something he hadn’t wanted to think about too closely so it had fallen to Rimmer to read up on it himself instead because at least one of them had to be prepared for this and if Lister himself was going to shirk that responsibility despite having been the one to put himself in this situation in the first place then Rimmer was, as usual, going to have to pick up his slack.

That had been much easier said than done, however. Being a hologram, he’d had to rely largely on the assistance and coordination of the skutters to hold the books and turn the pages and whenever those had failed he’d had to turn to Holly and used vocal commands to navigate pages on harsh, bright screens that made his eyes feel like they were burning in their sockets after hours of staring at them.

Rimmer had never realised just how much went into a pregnancy. He’d never had cause to learn it properly before, of course, but there was no time like the present to suddenly decide to become informed. He’d done his best to attempt to supervise Lister’s eating and drinking habits to ensure every possibility of a healthier birth, and he had reprimanded him every time he had so much as even breathed in the direction of his cigarette packs or alcohol.

He’d drawn up timetables, plotting each significant milestone of the pregnancy, and bored Lister half to death with all the fussy, pedantic little things he did to try to take control of the whole situation and after enduring it for as long as he could Lister had finally rolled his eyes and groaned in aggravated frustration one day and pointed out how much he was starting to sound like a nagging, controlling husband. Rimmer had choked and spluttered in disgusted horror at the implications of such a comparison and had promptly disappeared off to some quiet, isolated part of the ship and avoided being anywhere near him for the rest of the day, which had come as a welcome relief.

Eventually, of course, the slow, steady march of time had brought the final day upon them and there had been no way to continue to put off acknowledging it any longer. By then, thankfully, a few important things had changed on board Red Dwarf. The biggest of these had been that they had acquired a new crew member, a service mechanoid by the name of Kryten who they had crossed paths with once before.

Kryten was well equipped to be able to assist in all manner of things, mostly pertaining to the upkeep and maintenance of the ship’s general tidiness but he also was quite competent in numerous other fields and was, importantly, capable of learning new skills and good at comprehending and retaining the information which was far more than could be said for Rimmer, who had at one point found himself more than halfway through a chapter on natural childbirth before he had belatedly remembered that Lister wouldn’t be experiencing it that way and had flipped, mortified, to the chapter on C-sections and promptly been rendered entirely unable to focus well enough to take anything in.

With Kryten’s presence on board, Rimmer had been privately relieved to discard the initial plans for carrying out the daunting procedure, which would have largely involved him trying desperately to coordinate the skutters to work together to deliver the twins without accidentally killing them or Lister in the process. Needless to say, that was one role he had been more than thankful to be able to hand over to someone else.

When the big day finally arrived, he had tried with all his might not to give a single solitary smeg about any of it. He had been as carefully nonchalant as was possible as Kryten had come in to wheel Lister off to the medical bay, waving after him with a falsely bright “Don’t die, Listy!” as he’d watched him disappear down the corridor. He’d swallowed about as much of the nerves as he could keep down but the fact of the matter was that, in all honesty, he had been absolutely petrified. The little matter of his own continued existence relying heavily on Lister’s survival through this crucial procedure aside, there was – deep, deep down where not even Rimmer dared to investigate – a genuine concern for Lister’s wellbeing in its own right. He didn’t exactly like Lister, and he made that patently clear at every available opportunity, but he didn’t hate him – didn’t really want anything bad to happen to him. Certainly not something bad enough that they wouldn’t be able to laugh about it afterwards (even if Rimmer was the only one who might have been laughing).

While Kryten worked what he hoped was medical magic behind closed doors, Rimmer had paced along the length and breadth of the corridors like a man possessed, wringing his hands and vibrating with anxiety. Several times across the excruciatingly long duration of the procedure, he had become increasingly, frustratingly aware that this behaviour was doing absolutely nothing to shake off the appearance of ‘overly-concerned husband’ but given that the only other person bearing witness to any of it had been the Cat who honestly couldn’t have given a smeg, he’d simply brushed it off and pushed it down every time it had tried to resurface.

When finally, after what had genuinely felt like an eternity, the doors to the medical bay finally slid open and a self-satisfied, proud looking Kryten had walked triumphantly out, wiping his hands, Rimmer had nearly bowled him over with his aggressive impatience. “Well?” he’d snapped urgently, nostrils flared and lips drawn together in a tense, thin line. “What happened? How did it go?”

Kryten had simply smiled genially at him then and announced happily, “It’s two boys!” and if he had been capable of it Rimmer would have throttled him right there.

“I know it’s two boys you half-chewed rubber-headed git! I’m talking about Lister!”

Kryten had been a little put out by the outburst, blinking sheepishly down at the floor, the smile on his face wiped off in an instant. “Oh, yes of course,” he had said, fidgeting slightly before recovering himself and straightening up. “Mister Lister is going to be fine, sir. He just needs to rest up and keep clean.”

Rimmer had rolled his eyes sarcastically and scoffed. “Oh, fantastic, he’s doomed then is he?” he’d said wryly but there hadn’t really been any bite in it. At this point, now that presumably the worst of it had come and gone, he’d simply been left too exhausted for there to be any genuine hard edge to it. In all honesty he’d just been filled with an immense sense of relief that the whole thing was largely over and done with now.

Kryten had paid the remark no mind, instead deciding to inform Rimmer that he was heading off to prepare the room the twins would be staying in once they were ready to do so and had given him permission to go in to see them if he wanted to, requesting only that he be mindful not to wake Lister and then he had been off leaving Rimmer with nothing better to do than do precisely that.

That had been a good few hours ago now and as Rimmer sat peering down into the little crib at the tiny sleeping bundles destined to be named Jim and Bexley, he felt the weight of all these past weeks weigh down heavily on him, equal parts relief and exhaustion.

This had been more work even than preparing for his exams had usually been. At least with those he had been able to take breaks away from it but living with a pregnant buffoon that you had to effectively supervise and educate yourself about had felt like an endless job he had never willingly signed up for.

The boys had been moved into their new room by now, just down the corridor from the bunkroom so that it was near enough to be easily accessible without the sounds of screaming and wailing being too close and loud to get in the way of Lister’s much needed rest or get too much on Rimmer’s nerves.

Lister himself had been moved back into his old room – mostly because he had apparently insisted on it – however given his current condition and the effort that getting up onto the top bunk would have required, Kryten had carefully placed him on the lower bunk without Rimmer getting much of a say in the matter. It didn’t really matter all that much anyway. Lister had already been forced to relocate to Rimmer’s bunk as his growing size had limited his movements so it wasn’t so much of a leap to let him keep using it a little longer. He was pretty certain that once he was finally able to be granted access to his own bed again after Lister was fully recovered he was likely going to have to fumigate the whole mattress and all of its covers but that was a problem for a later date.

It was strange that it was over, all that build up, all that preparation that had been made in advance of this day and now the moment had passed. Now all that stretched on ahead was a new and entirely different situation and it was one that Rimmer was secretly dreading in an entirely different way.

Jim – or was that one Bexley? He couldn’t remember – hiccupped gently in his sleep and snapped him from his thoughts, catching his attention as he shifted a little, letting out a soft, gentle vocalisation as he turned towards his brother. They were so small, so fragile-looking, and Rimmer felt entirely out of his depth thinking of the responsibility of keeping them both safe. He didn’t know the first thing about children. He doubted Lister knew any better. This whole thing was surely going to be a disaster.

Bexley – or simply ‘the other one’ – whimpered slightly, a small, feeble whine that threatened to escalate into something else. “Shhh,” Rimmer said quietly, as soothingly as he could, indicating urgently for the skutter sitting by his feet to initiate the gentle rocking motion he’d instructed it to do in events like these, anything to try to keep the boys content and quiet, though he knew that would only be able to work for so much longer before the problem became something that genuinely required someone else’s assistance.

That was another thing about being a hologram that was going to make this new future difficult to handle. He couldn’t touch anything which meant that he’d be useless at any of the more hands-on aspects of looking after children. There was nothing he would really be able to do to stop the boys from doing something if they wouldn’t listen to his commands (and if they turned out to be anything like Lister was, that was a very likely outcome). Not only that, but he wouldn’t be able to help feed them, or hold them, or change their nappies or any of that – not that those duties would have fallen to him anyway. The most he could hope to do was simply sit as he was now and watch over them quietly, speak to them occasionally and try to soothe them with his words if they started to cry, rocking them gently back to sleep with the aid of a skutter to handle the movement for him.

He supposed he shouldn’t really feel as bereft as he was about this whole thing. These weren’t his children in any capacity. They were Lister’s through and through. Rimmer was effectively just someone else who shared the same space as them, a strange ghostly uncle of sorts at the very most, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to be a little more involved in the process, at least a little. Maybe he just wanted some kind of evidence to prove to himself he’d have been any good at this…

He sighed, gesturing for the skutter to ease the rocking to a gentle stop now that the twins seemed to have settled back down again.

He lost track of just how long he sat like that watching the two of them sleeping on peacefully but it must have been quite some time. Kryten had popped in every now and then to check on them and even the Cat had swung by to squint curiously down at them and comment that he hoped they would have better dress sense than their daddy when they grew up.

When the door to the room slid open behind him some time later with another gentle hiss he expected it to be Kryten so when he turned round to find that it was in fact Lister making his way with some difficulty and no small degree of discomfort towards the cot he had to bite his tongue fiercely to keep from shouting for him to get back to bed.

Catching himself in time, he opted instead for hissing the demand but Lister waved him silent, all stubbornness and disobedience as always. “I want to see my boys,” he said firmly and Rimmer couldn’t really argue with that.

He stood up from the chair he’d been seated on and shifted over to the one next to it that Kryen had been using earlier, letting Lister drop down heavily and breathless on the one he’d just vacated, watching the way he winced with pain and clutched at his lower abdomen. “You really should still be in bed, you know. You can’t just walk around all willy-nilly after you’ve been sliced open,” Rimmer said matter-of-factly.

Lister simply offered a partial shrug and leaned carefully forwards over the cot as far as was comfortable, beaming down tiredly but joyfully at the two little boys he’d brought into the world.

“Aren’t they fantastic?” he cooed, awestruck, reaching a hand out to tentatively brush his fingertips feather-light across their little cheeks. “They look just like me.”

“Well,” Rimmer began, his tone sarcastic and utterly unsurprised. “When your mother and father are the same person what do you expect?”

Lister shot him a look, unamused, and turned back to look down at the twins again. “Alright, Rimmer, leave off. Yeah, it’s a bit unconventional but it’s what happened, alright?”

He could hear Rimmer let out a small, indignant ‘tsk’ to his left and decided not to acknowledge it. He wasn’t going to let anything he had to say ruin this moment for him after everything it had taken to get here.

He sat back in his chair, eyes still twinkling proudly, warmly, down at the wholesome little sight, a single shining gift in what had otherwise been a cold and difficult couple of years to process. Behind his ribcage, he felt oddly light, a rosy glow of affection radiating out from his heart and expanding to fill every inch of him, making him feel positively giddy, though that might have also partly been the painkillers.

“I always wanted a family,” he confessed quietly, suddenly, eyes softening with a wistful, distant look of longing. “A proper one, I mean. The one I got did their best but, well…”

He trailed off, ending the sentence with a shrug and a shake of the head. Rimmer didn’t say anything, didn’t really know what to say.

A heavy silence settled between them, oddly tense, before Lister decided to break it again. “Never actually knew me real dad. Or me mum,” he began, speaking aloud to no-one in particular, peeling back the more private, personal layers of his past just a little, giving Rimmer a few more pieces of a jigsaw he’d previously only had scraps of before. “I was left in a box under a pool table in a Liverpool pub when I was still a baby. No idea why…”

Rimmer bit back the urge to say that explained a few things. It didn’t seem appropriate. Instead he remained quiet, watching Lister out of the corner of his eye, noting the way he chewed anxiously on his bottom lip, a little agitated crease forming between his brows, staring absently into the distance for a moment before affixing a falsely bright smile to his face and shaking his head, attempting to mask how he really felt about the whole thing. “I like to think they had a good reason for doing it but… I dunno.” He looked down at Bexley, who had unconsciously grabbed hold of Lister’s finger in his sleep, his tiny little hand loosely clinging on unknowingly to someone to whom such a simple human gesture meant so much.

Lister swallowed hard, struggling to push past the tight little ball of emotion that had formed in his throat. When he spoke, his voice sounded choked. “I always wanted to have sons of me own one day, so I could be there for them, watch them grow, y’know? Do what my parents couldn’t.” He laughed, a little incredulous, disbelieving sound, as he looked around at the room. “Didn’t think this was how it’d end up happening though.”

Rimmer huffed a short, curt laugh beside him, hollow and humourless, and Lister shot him a glance, eyebrow quirked slightly in curiosity. “What about you?” he asked after a moment, searching the tightly drawn lines of Rimmer’s face. “Did you ever want to have kids one day?”

Rimmer didn’t look at him, didn’t dare to. He could feel the burn of that inquisitive stare boring into the side of his head but he kept his gaze fixed straight in front of him, locked on nothing in particular, and Lister watched carefully as he swallowed slowly, adam’s apple bobbing above the collar of his uniform shirt.

“I don’t know, to be quite honest with you,” he admitted quietly after a moment, a rare fragile, vulnerable quality to his voice, honest and open in a way Rimmer only occasionally allowed himself to be. “My parents expected me to of course – they expected us all to – but I don’t really know if that kind of life was ever actually in the cards for me.” His face crumpled slightly and a harsh, sharp laugh ripped its way bitterly out of him. “Well, obviously, of course it wasn’t – just look what happened to me!”

Jim stirred suddenly in his sleep in the cot, disturbed by the sudden sound, his little face scrunching up momentarily, seeming just about ready to burst into tears and Lister readied himself to react but the moment never came to pass. He simply settled back down and kept on sleeping peacefully, which was a much appreciated relief for now.

Rimmer became very quiet then, introspective and solemn, his whole form seeming to shrink into itself as he sat with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped tightly between them. He bowed his head and looked down at them, agitated, flexing his fingers tensely as his brows knitted together.

“I don’t know if I’d have been a good father. Guess I don’t have to ever find out,” he said bitterly, the muscles in his jaw tensing noticeably as he wrung his hands together. “I didn’t exactly have what you would call ideal role models so maybe it’s for the best.”

Lister regarded him sadly, sympathetically, and had to fight the overwhelming urge to reach out there and then and place a supportive, encouraging hand on Rimmer’s right knee. Given the circumstances it would only have made the mood worse.

He’d heard Rimmer talk about his family life before and each revelation had been steadily building a much more detailed picture of Rimmer’s past and all the smegged up little things that had made him into who he was today. He knew very well that he wasn’t joking about them being less than ideal, in fact that was something of an understatement. They’d certainly done a number on him, that was for sure.

Not wanting a repeat of the gloomy mood that talk of his parents usually caused him to descend into, Lister tried for an optimistic, sympathetic smile. “I dunno, man. I think you’d probably have been alright,” he said, and somewhat to his surprise, he meant it quite genuinely.

Rimmer, however, didn’t seem to agree. He scoffed derisively at Lister’s words and rolled his eyes, doubtful. “Oh, please, I know you don’t actually believe that.”

“I do, man. I do,” Lister insisted gently and then, seeing the persistent look of disbelief still painted stubbornly across Rimmer’s features, he huffed a sigh and looked down. “Look, so your parents were smegheads and they got a lot of things wrong but that might’ve worked out in its own weird way. I mean, think about it. Now you have a pretty comprehensive list of things not to do to start off with. Can’t go too far wrong if you stick to that, right?”

Rimmer considered his words for a moment and then begrudgingly offered a stiff nod in agreement. “I suppose,” he said quietly, contemplatively, but there was still a noticeable note of bitterness to his voice, like he still didn’t quite believe that was enough on its own. “What does any of that matter anyway? I’m never going to get to find out what kind of father I might have been.”

That same awful, suffocating silence as before descended once again upon them and this time Lister didn’t know how to break it so he didn’t try to. Instead he let it hang in the air around the two of them, thick and heavy, until one of the twins coughed and startled himself awake.

Lister was quick to reach for him, scooping him up and cradling him tenderly in his arms, crooning softly to him as he rocked him back and forth, the gentle motion enough to stall whatever waterworks might have been about to follow.

Tiny and curious, his little face squinted in enchanted bewilderment up at Lister who beamed warmly back down at him and planted a quick little kiss upon his forehead. “There you go, Bexley. Let’s not wake up your brother just yet, yeah?”

Rimmer found the affection hard to look at, like staring directly at the sun, so he tore his gaze away and fixed it instead upon Jim who had thankfully remained peacefully undisturbed.

“I still think you could have gone with better names than Jim and Bexley,” he said pointedly, glad for the slight change in subject. “There are so many more appropriate options out there.”

Lister shot him an impish grin, mischief glinting gold in the brown of his eyes. “Oh yeah?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Still trying to make Arnold Lister happen are you?”

He waggled his eyebrows teasingly and relished the way Rimmer dissolved into a spluttering flustered mess, the tips of his ears flushing scarlet red in mortified horror.

“Don’t,” Rimmer said warningly, not wanting a repeat of the last time he’d innocently suggested the name. “You know what I meant when I suggested that, Lister. Don’t try to turn it into something else!”

If he hadn’t had his hands full, Lister would have held them up placatingly. “Okay, okay! I won’t,” he insisted but Rimmer seemed doubtful, suspicious, unwilling to let it go quite yet.

It was all the silly little jokes that had been building up over the passing weeks sharing the same space together that had buried themselves under his skin like an itch that couldn’t be scratched and refused to budge. Everything felt like a suggestive insinuation now, an accusation of something his own father would have surely disowned him for – if it had had any truth to it of course, which it didn’t because Rimmer was absolutely, one-hundred percent not whatever it was those implications might try to suggest. It didn’t matter that no-one was left around who would give a smeg about whether he was or wasn’t in any way that would have actually mattered. Rimmer still felt the need to defensively deflect any and all implications regardless.

“Don’t even joke about it,” he said, staring evenly, piercingly, at Lister, hazel eyes dark and deathly serious as he said in a choked, half-hissed, tight voice, “I’m not even remotely that way inclined and don’t you forget it!”

“I never said you were!”

“Well I’m not.”

“Okay! Okay.”

Rimmer seemed to finally relax a fraction, satisfied for now with Lister’s acquiescence. He breathed in deeply, slowly, and released it in a long, steadying exhale, his tensed, squared shoulders finally slackening just a bit.

Lister watched him out of the corner of his eye and couldn’t help himself.

“Even though you were the one who smushed our names together in the first place.”

“Lister!” Rimmer all but shouted, his voice rising to a desperate, rasping hiss, all thoughts of keeping quiet very nearly forgotten in the wake of incandescent, scandalised rage.

Lister laughed as quietly as he could, wincing as the pain in his abdomen seared at the motion, tears beading at the corners of his eyes at the way Rimmer’s nostrils had flared and his whole face had pinched itself tightly to contort around his scrunched up nose. It had been a step too far, he knew that, but Rimmer’s buttons were far too amusing to keep from pressing and he really was being far too defensive about what was genuinely just a little teasing.

He hadn’t meant anything by it, just a little joking around, but every time he did it Rimmer always seemed to become immediately aggressively defensive, his whole body drawing itself taut and rigid with tension, coiled up tight like a spring waiting to snap.

He looked about ready to explode, his jaw set and knuckles white, a pleading, wild, desperate look in his eyes and Lister knew then that he’d pushed him about as far as it was safe to go.

“Alright, I’m sorry!” Lister said, and this time he meant it, not wanting to risk a further escalation.

The apology did little to release Rimmer’s tension, the knuckles of his hands still blooming a ghostly white where he continued to grip them tightly. His mouth was drawn tight and thin, distrust burning fierce and unrelenting in his eyes.

Huffing an exasperated sigh, Lister bit back the urge to utter some remark under his breath about the negative effects of a conservative Ionian upbringing but ultimately decided he preferred not to instigate a full-blown argument in front of his newborn sons. Instead, he turned his attention back to little Bexley in his arms who had started to stir with discomfort again at all the commotion. “Hey, don’t worry, Bexley. That was just your Uncle Smeghead. Nothin’ to worry about. See? From this angle you can see right up his nose into his empty head.”

Rimmer scowled incredulously up at the ceiling and shook his head. He’d had just about as much nonsense as he could take from Lister right about now and here he was still trying to poke fun at him.

“Ha ha, Lister. Very funny,” he said flatly, stonily. “You better be careful what you say around the two of them, you know. If their first words end up being smeghead instead of dad that’ll be a personal failing on you.”

“Yeah, yeah, but it’ll be worth it for the laugh I’ll get from it, eh?”

Rimmer turned to look at him askance, a thousand possible insults and retorts flying through his head but none of them making it past his lips. There was nothing to say, really. Lister was an imbecile and he was absolutely going to raise his sons into precisely the same kinds of imbecile and the mere prospect of having more than one of that kind of person around was quite frankly a depressing thing to imagine.

“The wrong people get to be parents,” is what he eventually decided on, looking back down at Jim in the cot and wondering if there could have been any hope for either of those two boys’ braincells.

The smile on Lister’s face died then and there and he became oddly quiet, rocking Bexley back to sleep before finally lowering him back into the cot beside his brother.

Sitting back, he watched the two of them silently for a few moments longer, the humming and creaking of Red Dwarf all around them the only other sounds.

Now that he’d been up and about for a while and had had a bit of a joke and a laugh, the exertion was beginning to wear him out, the ache in his abdomen and the heaviness of his body calling for him to yield to the pull and finally go back to bed. His eyes slid closed of their own accord and his head bobbed and lolled as he began to gradually drift off, his body starting to ever-so-slightly tilt to the side, towards Rimmer who only realised what was happening moments before it would have spelled disaster.

“Lister, wake up!” he cried, hands flying up helplessly to try to stop him, passing uselessly through him with no resistance whatsoever.

Lister started awake and caught himself, one hand bracing steadyingly against the chair Rimmer was on, disappearing into Rimmer’s torso as though it were impaling him. He jerked back, alarmed and unconsciously rubbed vigorously at his forearm, momentarily disturbed by the reminder that although Rimmer was very much there in spirit, he was very much not there in person.

“Sorry. Nodded of there for a second,” he muttered sheepishly, unable to lift his gaze to meet Rimmer’s.

“I told you you shouldn’t have got up,” Rimmer said, his tone thick with patronising condescension. “I told you you should still be resting.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” Lister relented, pushing himself up with great discomfort onto his feet and steadying himself with the rails of the cot.

“For what it’s worth, Rimmer, and I know what you’re gonna say to this but just listen, alright?” Lister held up a hand, silencing whatever interruption Rimmer might have been about to make. “But, in a way, you kind of will know what kinda dad you’d have been. You’re helpin’ me out with these two after all.”

Rimmer’s face twitched a little, that same little pang of defensive discomfort twisting in his gut. “That’s not being a dad, Lister. If anything I’d be something of an uncle.”

Lister shrugged. “Uncle, Dad, whatever. You’re still helpin’ raise them. You never know, we might end up balancing ‘em out in the end.”

“You mean they might not end up the same kind of lazy, slobbish gimboid as you are?” Rimmer said, raising a dubious eyebrow.

Lister frowned, leaning against the doorway. “Well, yeah, that. But also…” He trailed off for a moment and looked away, suddenly unable to look Rimmer in the eye, his face grimacing a little as he tried to shrug off the awkwardness of what he was trying to get out. “I dunno, it’s just good to not be doing it on me own. Yeah, they’re my kids but beyond me, you and Cat and Kryten are all else they’ve got. Smeg, even Holly too.”

He scratched the back of his head restlessly, feeling altogether too exposed, too naked in this rare show of vulnerable honesty towards Rimmer of all people. He risked a glance in Rimmer’s direction, trying to gauge his expression but Rimmer wasn’t looking at him. He was very pointedly facing away.

He fished helplessly for something else to say but he couldn’t think of anything. A yawn was threatening to force its way up his throat and his energy was flagging. He really needed to get back to bed.

“You should probably take a break soon too, Rimmer,” he said, bringing a hand up to shield the yawn as it finally broke through.

Rimmer nodded. “I will when Kryten comes back,” he said simply and Lister nodded in agreement at that.

“Alright. Night, Rimmer.”

With that, the door to the corridor slid open and closed and it was just Rimmer left in the room with the two sleeping boys again, as he had been for much of the day.

Lister was right, he really should take a break. He felt mentally and emotionally spent after everything but he was finding it hard to switch off after months of hyper-vigilant supervision and he didn’t really know what else to do with himself. His bunk was currently occupied and he would sooner die a second death than ever consider using Lister’s even once.

He thought about what Lister had said again about how they would all be contributing together in their own little ways to the collective raising of Jim and Bexley, about how in a funny little way they were all now part of what was surely a very dysfunctional and highly unconventional family unit. Something about that made him feel a tad strange, an unfamiliar little glow of something warm and light in his chest that flitted about like little butterflies, a mix of apprehension and something almost pleasant.

Maybe he would never have been a good dad, and maybe he was a little bit thankful he would never have to truly find out, but for the time, in this current situation, he was quite content to settle for being the best possible uncle he could be.

And they’d call him Uncle Arnie, not Smeghead. He’d make absolutely sure of that.

#smegtober2023 #i let this one get too long and im not really happy with it bc i was absolutely exhausted trying to write it #but i cant spend any more time on it bc im already super behind so ;;;; there it is

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 5 months ago

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Finished listening to the Peacock & Gamble podcast today. 84 episodes, and it was remarkably good for a lot of them. I felt like it took a little while to get going, and then tailed off a bit toward the end, especially as they got busier with other things and started seeming more tired/frustrated and having less fun, but then came back with a few really really good ones right at the end, as I think often happens with things like this. It’s good, and then it hits a rough patch as they run out of steam, and then when they realize it’ll be over soon anyway and they don’t have to keep this up forever, they find a bit of momentum again.

It was very funny. I sort of feel like I’ve misrepresented it on this blog, referring to it so often as The Gross and Tasteless Joke Podcast, as it is difficult to find clips that seem acceptable to share or quote on Tumblr, it was a different time with different understandings about irony. But it wasn’t mainly defined by being offensive, it was mainly defined by being incredibly silly and childish in a very funny way. And that was a lot of fun to listen to for about 44 hours. Well, it was a lot of fun to listen to for about 39 hours. Not 100% solid gold. But mostly good.

I finished that and listened to a couple of their out-of-character interviews, which was very interesting and cleared up some stuff about the previous podcast, which was significantly more offensive but also almost entirely a construct. I realize I’ve referenced several times on this blog, without context, their claim that Ed Gamble bit a guy on the arm and drew blood. They actually claimed that he’d done that, as well as hitting him in the face with his knee and giving him a nose bleed. I’d like to clarify that I was completely sure, when I first heard that bit, that they were lying about it as they were about most things. It was just when they started the next episode and made what sounded like fairly casual comments, as opposed to the over-the-top acting they did when they were obviously pretending to do something, about him having a bandage on his arm, that made me think I guess it’s possible that they could have meant to be pretending the week before but it got out of hand and he really did get hurt.

Though by the time I’d finished the podcast and heard even more of the lengths they were willing to go to pretend to be doing horrible things (that was the entire premise of the podcast, two guys pretend to do horrible things to another guy, which I realize is now the domain of a thousand horrible unfunny prank shows, but they did it in 2007, before everyone else ruined it), I was convinced that they were quite capable of putting in an untrue lie about him having a bandage on, and nothing had really happened. Then the other day I listened to an interview, in which they confirmed that actually, one of the few horrible things that had happened for real was Ed really had hit the guy in the face with his knee. So I was right, to think that in that scene, it sounded like pretend violence had got out of hand. Just not in the way I’d thought, which should have been obvious, because it’s a lot easier to accidentally hit someone in the nose than to accidentally bite them on the arm.

The interviews mainly lined up with what I’d assumed when I first listened to it, that most of it was made up, though it seems to have been a more carefully planned fiction that I’d thought. I did read an interesting post on the Patreon about how the different time made a difference, how anyone listening to it now would assume they’d just faked everything, because it’s so common today for people to do staged prank shows that no one actually thinks are real. But in 2007, apparently, some people listened and thought none of it was planned at all, because this wasn’t happening so much then. Which must have been pretty wild for anyone listening because, I mean, quite a bit of that stuff is illegal. You can’t commit crimes and release the evidence on a podcast.

They did genuinely make Ed Gamble liveblog pornography though, I’m still convinced that was real because someone would have checked those videos and picked them up on it if they were wrong. Something that amazingly, there are videos of Ed Gamble doing that again going around Tumblr this week. Can’t imagine he thought his career would come back around to liveblogging pornography on a podcast again, 16 years later. This time on a podcast hosted by two guys whom I’m booked to see in Edinburgh because I like their actual comedy, but I tried listening to their podcast ages ago and couldn’t get into it, and the clips going around of what goes on in that podcast makes me pretty sure I’m not missing much by ignoring it. I don’t need to hear any more Ed Gamble liveblogging pornography than I’ve already heard, thank you.

Anyway, I feel slightly weird writing posts about this podcast because I know I’m writing for basically no one, pretty sure no one here has listened to these, and usually if I’m writing about something for which no one will have context I justify it by saying I’m writing this to recommend that other people check it out, but in this case I don’t recommend that at all, absolutely don’t listen to either of those podcasts. But I had a lot of fun with the Peacock and Gamble one. Made me laugh out loud on the bus, to the point of people turning to look at me, probably just over 15 times. Also gave me the next experience, one time and for the only time ever with any podcast, of making me wince so hard on the bus that the guy beside me turned to look at me. And I couldn’t just say, “Sorry, it’s just… sorry this man from Lancashire has just told me something about his imagined sexual exploits that’s made me figuratively curl up in a ball in horror so hard that I’ve accidentally literally curled up a bit, enough for you to notice, my apologies.”

But like I said, it’s mainly about the very silly and childish comedy, the fact that it’s also wildly offensive is just a garnish. I suppose they disprove something I said a few months ago now, that double acts aren’t particularly funny if there’s no proverbial straight man role. I guess you could argue that Ed is the straight man as he took the role a bit more often, but they mainly just passed the idiot ball back and forth and frequently both held it at once.

I’ve also gone through all kinds of their little video and audio extras and live show stuff, some of which have been very funny, and it’s given me a chance to sort out a whole big comedy folder all categorized and labeled, which is a great hobby of mine, comedy admin. This is a highly challenging level of comedy admin, trying to organize a bunch of files that often didn’t even have a year attached to them, much less a specific date. Given that, it is helpful that Ed Gamble looked extremely different in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014, so I was able to date a few videos from that. And estimate months based on the length of Ian Boldsworth’s hair. I finally got my folder properly organized last night so I’m pleased about that.

Anyway, I’ve now got the 2012 and 2013 Edinburgh podcasts, which have guests so that’s fun. I like radio and podcast things that turn into audio diaries of old Edinburgh Festivals. And of all the guests they’ve had across both years, I think only one is now a convicted sex offender, which all things considered could be worse (as in they could have had more than one… not, you know, that it’s not bad). And I have gone ahead and downloaded all their FUBAR Radio episodes, to listen to at the end of that, because I don’t think the above paragraph could have made it any clearer that I’ve gone full completist on this. The FUBAR Radio episodes that, based on what I’ve read about them from a few different sources, apparently consist entirely of Ray Peacock having a breakdown. Which I’ve worked out is how all these things end up. I’ve checked with enough of them, and I can confidently say that if you start at the beginning and completist-ly/chronologically go through all the work of a comedy double act, it will end with one of them getting significantly more successful and the other having a breakdown. Every time. If you think it hasn’t happened with a particular double act, they just haven’t gotten to the end yet. This is also true of every single other type of relationship.

Oh, one more thing! So, in that original podcast, at one point, Ray Peacock did a whole speech advertising a new album by this guy Paul Heaton. A speech that I completely tuned out the first time, because I just assumed it would be metal music, as in those years I got the impression that Ed Gamble had cribbed most of his personality off this guy and I figured they shared the music taste as well, and I’m not really in the market for new metal music. But at the end of the episode, they played a bit of a song that sounded so good that I Googled the lyrics to try to find it. Nothing came up, so I used Shazaam, and it identified it as a Paul Heaton song, which I realized must be the guy mentioned earlier, so I went back and actually listened to the speech.

This made it clear that if I’d listened the first time I’d have known it wasn’t metal music, because he said this guy was in The Beautiful South, a band I know a tiny amount about because Russell Howard and Jon Richardson used to talk about/play them, in particular the one time they used their song Liar’s Bar to turn one of their little robot sketches surprisingly poignant (see my above point about where all double acts end up), and that is definitely not metal music. Anyway the point is I liked the song so I looked it up on YouTube, couldn't find it, I checked Bandcamp, not there. Ray Peacock had advertised it on the podcast by saying it’s on iTunes, but when I looked it wasn’t there, because just because something was true in 2008 does mean it’s true anymore. But I liked this song so much that I got the name of the CD off Ray Peacock’s speech, found that CD for relatively cheap on eBay, and ordered it as though it were 2008.

The CD arrived the other day and I’m obsessed with it. It’s so good. I’ve had various songs off it stuck in my head for several days now. I really wanted to share some of it and was annoyed that I can't just post a YouTube link like I normally would to share a song, and I could just upload an mp3 but I feel a bit like I shouldn't do that - I will will share things uploaded by other people but I have some standards about what I'll upload to share publicly myself and try to avoid doing that with things other people could be paying an artist for, even though that doesn't make sense in this case because I didn't pay the artist for that work, I ordered it off eBay, and there isn't a way to pay the artist for this work anymore, I checked pretty carefully.

However, having said that, I checked just now and it turns out the whole album is on YouTube, but not available in Canada. I don't know what the scope is, but the videos don't appear when my VPN is off, and they do appear when it's set to be in the States. So if anyone is reading this in the States and wants to listen to some good music from 2008 by a guy who was in The Beautiful South and does not make heavy metal, here are my favourite couple of songs off that album.

youtube

Well this post has not done a good job of staying on topic. The point is that no one should ever listen to this podcast.

#Youtube

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