#but two characters with vaguely punk attitude are not similar just based on that

[bothzangetsus]

You know, despite being a pretty big grιmmjow fan, I almost never talk about him, because most gj fans are insufferable. But, like, what's with the absolute dogshit takes on him lately? Lately meaning more like the last 5 years, but bleach is an old enough manga for that to be a small enough amount of time. No, he's not the renji of HM arc. No, he's not a kenpachi copy. No, he's not a misunderstood woobie looking for community. No, he's most certainly not an ιchihιme shipper. Where were all of these born from?

[sunnysynthsunshine]

A “Ted Talk”/Analyisis of what it means to be a “Peoples Poet” and why Rik Mayall means so much to me.

It’s like Alice in Wonderland constantly travelling through worlds.

When I enter “the realms” the galaxies I can see in my dreams and music hallucinations.

My childhood is like a cloud sometimes I like a colourful rainbow of positive nostalgic memories, rainy cringe-worthy memories and then there are the thunderstorms that are the memories I don’t want to think about.

I’ve always been fascinated by what I’d see in Films, TV Shows, Musicals, Songs, Video Games and books but not many really connected with me.

I am a complicated person,I can go from being cheerful, relaxed and happy to being dazed and clumsy or cynical or entranced and hyper-fixated to Pessimistic and Cold to Quiet and Timid to Mellow and Loud,my personality is all over the place with fiction I could only partly relate to certain characters or worlds either because we liked a few of the same foods or films or because we simply looked alike, I’ve had my role models,idols and inspirations sure but I didn’t really realise their full importance in my life until recently and while I loved writing about fiction and imagining myself in fiction I would be the person with the quill, not the damsel or leading man.

I’ve always been interested in Media and Theatre but the latter I couldn’t pursue as far as I wanted to,

I’ve had goals and ambitions but they always kept changing in a way some of them are the same they just ended up being expressed in ways I didn’t expect,

Ever since I studied English I’ve been in love with poetry and literature

When I saw him….his voice was familiar it was a sort of high pitched English sounding male voice..sometimes sounding low toned and posh other times not.

As a kid who watched lots of cartoons, films, adverts and public information films I was exposed to lots of familiar sounding voices in characters on silver, big and animated screens

I recall a cartoon I’d sometimes watch about a knight always trying to win over Queen Guinevere, the cartoon was like Shrek because it satirised fairy tale tropes but in the medieval world of King Arthur.

In Between that would be adverts for cleaning products, one with a golden labrador puppy playing with some toilet roll, an animated duck and villains in the Domestos world that would put the villains of Flushed Away to shame.

He was a voice,I didn’t know his name then even though his name was in the credits of the cartoon mentioned prior but there were so many names in my head at the time (Ant and Dec, Spice Girls, Horrid Henry, Shrek, Toy Story etc.) that his name got lost in translation.

Then years later I got interested in film critique and learned about a film,a film that was considered very bad by the American box office about a peter pan esque imaginary friend...it was then that I heard his voice again but I didn’t know at the time that they were the same.

Since I couldn’t form my own opinions much I went by what the critic said and avoided that film afterwards.

I wouldn’t hear his voice again until 6 years later….

By that time I was about to start college, after leaving secondary school, I was in a bit of a dark place,I had been in some drama,and often when I’d see movies I’d remember the panic attacks rather than the movies themselves due to the experience being ruined by idiots making noise and causing all sorts of nonsense.

I could still laugh at times but usually only in a self-deprecating way, I barely left the sofa and just felt like I was drowning in a void of nothingness.

One night changed that, I was about to start college in a few days, I was in the living room with my mother switching channels when on BBC2 there was a special programme on.

Some bloke named Ben Elton was on a podium talking like a university lecturer about the intellectual aspects of the sitcom format of entertainment, while also paying homage to the late great Ronnie Barker a second generation British comedian I adored the work of when I would watch Open All Hours and Porridge.

When near the end of the lecture, Ben mentioned a show, a show I had never heard of before from the 1980s, called The Young Ones and then proceeded to show clips of it, I kept seeing this pigtailed character in a fringe and this orange-haired punk argue and fight only for one of them to give a detailed tantrum about some show called “The Good Life” and the other to fall down the stairs knocking over the bannisters and ranting about some actress named “Felicity Kendall”.

After quickly researching I became intrigued by this show, I had seen the character’s faces before in two places,one was on Amazon while looking for comedy DVD's and on a dodgy “meme” site called Encyclopedia Dramatica which referenced the scene where the orange haired punk loses his head after sticking  it out a train window.

I then looked up the first few episodes and I was hooked, but it wasn’t like other sitcoms where I’d simply laugh at the stupidity of the gags and characters although that was one aspect of it.

The characters felt relatable while it was in the same nihilistic way I saw myself and some of humanity, that’s how I perceived it, at first I didn’t like tantrum throwing Rick I thought he was too whiny at times and I was drawn to Vyvyan and Neil first,Vyvyan because he felt like the side of me that I rarely showed, the side of me that had a dark sense of humour,  had a sort of free-spirited attitude and liked mild,playful slapstick type of violence, I did have a softie side too but I rarely showed my “Vyvyan” side, now though I couldn’t be prouder to show my “ Vyvyan” side I used to dislike it when I’d walk along my school playground only to see random fights breaking out that would block my walkway but on the inside when I’d watch Japanese cartoons I’d laugh at some fight scenes and I realised there was a side of me that did sort of like violence when it would be in a playful context.

After rewatching and rewatching and thinking back….I grew to like the “Rick” character a bit more, I related to his at times timid social awkwardness, his hypocritical attitude and the questioning of his sexuality.

I had then realised….he acted a bit like I how I did back in secondary school,always being overdramatic if I wasn’t quietly timidly working or being cynical, going on about socialism and the importance of it despite hanging out with problematic internet bloggers at the time who was the complete opposite,I would be lowkey interested in poetry and literature and the fact that at the time he hated Thatcher while I despised Theresa May, who was just starting to use her power to control the UK,I vaguely knew who Margaret Thatcher was because I was in a production of Blood Brothers and before we performed the play we had to research the background history of the play’s setting that’s when I found out about the miner strikes and how the way Thatcher was acting was similar to how Teresa was today.

I also kinda had my own gang in my final years of secondary school but we didn’t go anywhere, some of them stayed in touch others just moved on with their lives.

We would play card games, I’d rant about politics and “Tumblr Aesthetics” and sometimes one of my pals would play metal and pop-punk music in the background, we were the cool kids.

I realised I related to both the “Rick” character and the “Vyvyan” character, after months of not writing stories based on the media I liked,I started writing (again) short stories about “The Young Ones” my ideas for episodes if more than 12 episodes were made,how I would interact with the characters if I lived with them or in the stories case the “alternate universe” version of me.

I’d draw them, I’d write about them, I’d think about them when I’d listen to music, but that wasn’t all.

I had started my Performing Arts course and was learning what skills you’d need to be in “Theatre”.

At the same time I was watching a bunch of the other shows the actor who played “Rick” had been in,sometimes I’d realise I had a lot in common with not just “Rick” from The Young Ones but “Richie” from Bottom,”Richie Rich” from Filthy,Rich and Catflap,”Lord Flashheart” from Blackadder and even the horrific  “Alan B’stard” even though I disagreed with tories despite still hanging out with bad internet “skeptic” people and being raised conservative.

For someone who used to be a massive “weeaboo”, I was becoming quite the Britcom enthusiast

Yeah at times I would mimic his and Ade’s character voices,facial expressions and actions but other times I didn’t need to copy him because we already acted similarly and even if we didn’t I’d realise later in life I did have those other traits It just took a long while before I could proudly express them.

In Between Drama class, I had met some new people and if I was having a day where I felt low, I could just put on a show he was in and cheer up.

That was when I realised his voices and the voice from the bad movie about the imaginary friend and the voice from the cartoon and adverts from my childhood were of the same person.

The person I had finally figured out the name of after all those years.

I had fallen in love, the same love I would’ve had for musicians and fictional Japanese cartoon boys I had for him

His charisma, his looks, his characters, his wise words, his personality, his iconic moments, his variety of facial expressions, his creativity, his eclectic work from Sitcoms to Dramas to Theatre to Video Games to Music.

I couldn’t stop thinking about him...at first, I thought it was going to be like all the other “role models” I had….that changed in 2018.

2018 certainly was a year...I went through my first work experience in a local theatre production,I had met more new people some of which I had met because of our love of him and his work,I took up a new course and even when I did my old drama course,I got to write my own monologue for our final play and I had gotten back into the activity I used to only do when I was an “emo”.

“Poetry!”, the art of putting together multiple rhyming sentences that are all relevant to a certain emotion, feeling or topic.

I was always into literature and English but I was more the type to write stories and read poetry not read stories and write poetry.

After having some big life realisations I decided to pour all of that into a big poem in February,some of my friends read it and loved it,this convinced me that not only were these amazing friends that I will love and cherish to this day but that poetry was something that with a bit of work I could be quite good at….

So I wrote and wrote and wrote I got better with each one, my dreams when listening to music got more vivid than before, so vivid they were almost real like I was visiting another universe.

like an out of body extraterrestrial/paranormal experience.

I had finally moved on from my drama of the past, Self Reflected on my actions learning how to change for the better and I took that punk “free-spirit” of mine and learned how to fully express and how to be more accepting of myself and others.

I got into new and old music, tv shows, films and books...but he was still there

As I went through each show or film of his that I hadn’t watched yet, the love just kept blossoming whether I was laughing my arse off or grinning at a relatable moment from one of his interviews.

It was soon Christmas, a few weeks before, my lucid dreams had a new feature,my Wiccan powers of communication with spirits had gotten powerful enough to the point that when I’d listen to some music I’d hear voice waves in between, voice waves of people I looked up to who unfortunately are not physically with us, I recall it was My Generation by The Who that triggered it,that was a song he performed once on the Young Ones live events,I had interacted with the dead in dreams before,but this was different when I had heard his voice in the dreams where I thought of his characters or of himself, the voice would be vague and barely audible, but this time the voice was more clear and natural almost like he was actually talking to me.

Then Christmas happened, it was a mixed day but I got good gifts and I stood up for my political beliefs for the first time.

Some of the gifts were related to him like his book, box sets of some of his work and…...a red hat

A red hat just like the one his young one's character had on.

A took a few photos and loved the way it looked on me with the blazer I had on, a black blazer similar to the blazer he had on the first few episodes of The Young Ones.

In the middle of the night, I got an idea for a poem, I had written a poem about his show before but this poem was different.

It was a tribute a poem dedicated specifically to him, yes it would reference his characters, but the poem was mainly about him, the impact he made the world and how I felt this amazing ethereal, psychological and philosophical connection to him.

The Lord of Misrule, one of the best poems I’ve ever written, the days after I uploaded photos of me in the hat, and almost everyone I knew loved it,even the friends of mine who didn’t know the young ones but knew the name and look because of me loved the hat and pictures of me in the hat.

It was a sign, my lucid dreams got more vivid than ever and his face became more visible. sometimes when I’d dream about him it wouldn’t be the usual dream of me being in the young ones or me filming a comic strip presents episode or me going to a Ziggy Stardust concert with his teenage self,it would be dreams where I’d be travelling through the galaxies only to end in his place,it looked like something out of the grand Budapest hotel with how well it looked with the pastel-toned colours and minimalist decor and there he would be,he wouldn’t always be in a Jesus esque robe like before,he would be chilling on his sofa, looking exactly like how he looked before in the early 2010s, wearing a plain sweater or dressing gown his long grey hair flowing like an angel, waving and sometimes talking with me,it felt more clear than before it was probably a response from all those times before when I was learning how to spiritually communicate where I was usually the one doing most of the talking,

Usually I’d see him as an idol, icon, deity, legend, role model of sorts but now I started seeing him as a mentor and grandpa sort of figure,his mantras stick with me to this day, we have enough in common to be good pals from other dimensions but such a difference in age and living status that he can be a grandpa figure to me,the angel cheering me on before and after an exam,allowing my spirit third eye self to stay over at his place when I’m feeling low and lost, tickling me, offering advice and I love being able to have these abilities, I’ve always loved astrology and anything to do with ufos, magic or “other worlds”.

He is my guide and I am his apprentice, in my poems and philosophy, I say most of us are peoples poets because of our strong free-spirit opinions and attitudes even if we don’t all have a quill to write those opinions with.

But in the context of his young one's character and the traits of his(him and the character) that I already shared and the traits I overtime learned to accept. 

From the poetry to the similar personality and interests to the spiritual connection,

 to the times my friends and comrades had said that “he would be proud, that I even looked like him and I carried his “energy”, one of them referring to me as a “People's Poet”.

I’ve now realised after all these years that I’ve finally found my meaning, to bring Art, peace and love into the world.

When his character gave that speech about his revolutionary life and how the new generation would gather round for their fallen leader only for  a  sensitive and articulate teenager to say “How can he be dead if we have his poems?” (or shows in this context)

I was a sensitive and articulate teenager as we are all.

I am also the next People's Poet

Step aside,  let’s share the rikosophy by carrying on his legacy into the 21st century 🌈🖇🏴⭐🌠

I shall produce art for the world to see, teach them how to see it in new perspectives, and I shall guide us while we try to stop fascism for good,

let’s be free!

you and me!

Thank You, Doctor.Richard Rik, Michael Mayall  you’ve changed my life  

It is an honour to carry on from where you left off, bringing joy back into the world, inspired by your art while creating my own experimental ideas, I know your listening from the heavenly afterlife clouds and all those galaxies beyond.

Now let’s share that wonderful energy in the ruddy 21st century.

While I’m not the man himself Rik Mayall, I just share his energy and personality 

I am Kelsey….and I am bloody brilliant