#terrible stuff truly dogshit

[realbeefman]

Thoughts on the umbrella academy season four? If you don’t mind me asking.

whoever was in charge of the audio mixing for this season needs to be BARRED from ever working in the industry again. anyways completely bullshit season through and through. i KIND of liked the five/lila plot and that’s about it… even that was very poorly done imo. what was the overall message the show was even trying to send??? that love means nothing??? nothing was even really explained in the end??? how does undoing marigold in ONE timeline undo everything??? poorly executed poorly logicked and entirely nonsensical. perhaps one of the most egregious cases of character assassination i have ever witnessed. boring bad and borderline unwatchable.

[theboookwitch]

Love Next Door spoilers below (and ranting that is not friendly to Seunghyo's character so if you don't want to partake, scrolling is free)!

It's actually so annoying how there are so many dramas that people love and adore that I just can't be obsessed with due to being a 34 year old with a fully formed frontal lobe and at least a decade of being treated terribly by men lol

Like I wanted to be obsessed with Love Next Door. I genuinely enjoyed the first like 4 episodes. I need to start out by saying the acting is incredible and I would die for Mo-eum and the reporter and his daughter. I deeply related to Seokryu as a burnt out older daughter with a difficult relationship with her mom and all of her family's expectations. I loved that in the first 4 episodes you could see that yes, while they did bicker, the genuine friendship and care was still there. And I typically love a "he fell first" moment. BUT...here is where my issues come into play.

I cannot fucking stand when it's a friends to lovers story and the man falls first and then goes on to treat the FL like actual dogshit bc she's not living up to the expectations in his head. Like Seokryu does not know that Seunghyo likes her. She continues to treat him like he's her lifelong friend that she deeply cares about. And at every single turn, he is acting like a petulant child. You can say "ohhh but he does all this stuff for her when she's not looking! it's so cuteeeee." I don't care. To her face, he keeps telling her things like that she needs to grow up and leave the past behind. When she brings him the food she makes on the first day of class and he turns it down in such a mean way and then gets all pissed off and jealous when her ex eats her food? I was so annoyed. He had ten fucking years to tell her he liked her and yes...timing was off and things were fucked, but that doesn't mean you can treat someone like that who has no idea why you're behaving like that. She looks so hurt and confused. And he gets mad at her for everything and instead of being an adult and communicating or just idk having the thought of like "oh my crush is my fault I can't take it out on her" he continues to be a dick. Telling her she needs to move on and they can't be close or whatever like he wasn't the one who remodeled her room and moved back to his parents as soon as she came back to Korea. Like he wasn't the one who told her the time capsule letter was a joke.

Idk maybe bc I've had close guy friends before who like ended up treating me like shit bc I allegedly friend zoned them when I genuinely thought we were friends but they got it into their heads that I owed them sex bc we were friends...but I can't handle that shit. If you cannot get your shit together and confess or if you cannot get over your feelings and treat a woman with the same respect you'd treat any friend, then it's hard for me to root for you. Also like...y'all ever notice that when women have unrequited feelings, we don't tend to be assholes to the person we have the feelings for? Bc we don't automatically assume we deserve their love and attention?

Also, even before he finds out about her diagnosis, he knows that she's at least going through a massive break up, work burnout and quitting a job and also moving back home - like if he's allegedly her best friend...why does he treat her like that when she's going through it? If he loves her so much, how is he making this like super rough time in her life completely about him? I get it - he also has trauma and was raised with parents who do not talk and that I'm sure has informed his life. I understand. Truly. BUT!!! While trauma can be a reason for your actions, it is not an excuse to then go ahead and be a dick to people around you.

Also...his reaction to her diagnosis...once again making it about himself and his hurt? That is not the move. I don't care if he is scared and angry and hurt. I don't give a fuck about his feelings. SHE HAD CANCER!!!!!!! AND HER ALLEGED BEST FRIEND WHO LOVES HER CALLED HER PATHETIC!!!!!!! HELLO?????

If that happened to a friend of mine, I would hunt that man down and beat him to a pulp.

Once again, I will say that the acting is amazing. I love Jung Haein and Jung Somin. BUT when thinking of this stuff in reality, I just was getting so mad every episode. There are so many ways to get around or get over feelings without being an absolute asswipe.

Sorry I needed to rant bc I haven't seen one post of anyone thinking anything is wrong with his behavior. Just tons of posts talking about his feelings...weirdly enough, I've seen people call Seokryu selfish. Love how that happens.

Anyways, I'm gonna wait for the fanfic where Seokryu ends up with his ex and they live a beautiful lesbian life making beautiful pottery and beautiful food and beautiful love.

[something-tofightfor]

a little PSA:

I have been absolute dogshit at replying to comments and reblogs this year. I have been TERRIBLE about reblogging in general, too.

And I want to change this. I want to interact and respond to and converse with you all, because sometimes it truly feels like I just sort of ... exist here. I upload stuff and reply here and there and then feel guilty because I can't/don't respond to everyone and everything, and then get down about it, which perpetuates the cycle because then I think "well if I respond to the stuff on XYZ or to a chapter of ABC or answer this specific comment, everyone else will be upset and think I'm ignoring them."

And then I think 'well if I reply to these reblogs, or reblog my stuff to answer things ... people aren't going to want to see the same story ten times in a row' or 'why would anyone care to read my comment reply to a chapter I posted 9 months ago? they probably forgot they even commented, so it's pointless'

I'm not ignoring any of you, I swear. And I am so damn sorry that my replies have been so sporadic because some of your reblogs and comments are so WONDERFUL and insightful, and I am SO BEHIND on them that it's overwhelming. I see everything. and I read everything, and I APPRECIATE everything. And I most of all appreciate all of you that have taken the time to interact in any way with my writing or this blog, because I'm so happy that you're enjoying my writing.

I will do better in the future. I'm making a promise to myself now, and hopefully by the time the new year rolls around, I'll be in a place to do something about it.

I want to read more. I want to reblog more of the wonderful writing on here. I want to RESPOND more to the things people send to me... And I want to be an active participant in the fandom again.

<3 love you all. thanks for sticking around.

[james-stark-the-writer]

by the way, watched people played a little more, the most terrible, awful change is the lighting. the shot of Sam stopping to admire the view after they get off the lift is so fucking awful compared to the original like it's not just that they have different tones and feel, i don't think the remake even achieves the tone and feel it's going for because it looks so blown out. like legitimately how did any of these choices happen. why the fuck did they redo the entire lighting so that this takes place at a completely different time of the day with completely different effects on the audience. they even took out the iconic chapter recaps!

like changing the areas to add in some nooks and crannies and shifting around the locations of the collectibles, i understand, like you want to change up the gameplay and make it feel fresh for people who have played the original as well, i even understand changing the camera system in some ways, and what the camera highlights. like the way the camera instead of showing you the path to go on with the story, points you towards Matt and Sam when you take control of Chris and go with Josh in the opening, like because i've seen a lot of players miss that you can even talk to Matt and Sam there, so i understand wanting more players to see it. but now because it specifically highlights them, it doesn't feel as rewarding when you discover that you can go there, so you are devaluing exploration for the ability of more players to discover that they can have 30 seconds of conversation that doesn't actually add anything and only felt really rewarding because you found it yourself and went off the path of the game told you to. it's not even good signposting bc the game doesn't highlight a fork in the path, it just shows you that Matt is standing there to go and talk to him. like genuinely what the fuck.

hell, i can even understand changing up some of the dramatic beats or the structure like how they change the opening, but you have to actually put effort into making it interesting and work with the story and make sure the new and old stuff works together. they have not done that. at all. and the decision to change the lighting makes it so dramatically a completely different game that i wonder why they even bothered to call it the same name. that's not Until Dawn. it's just not. they could've added a subtitle or something, anything to distinguish it too, but they didn't. and that's infuriating. because so many people who don't have access to a PS4/PS5 will play this remake and get a completely twisted idea of what the game is about and what it feels like, when that's not even remotely how the game is meant to be experienced because it's a completely different vibe and tone to the original.

also, the new UI is so completely fucking dogshit it's not even a joke. truly awful.

watching someone play the Until Dawn remake and.......... why did they change the opening so much. it's just worse now.

you see Hannah getting the letter in the opening, you find the first death totem before Hannah even runs off, all the characters are just sitting on the first floor saying the same dialogue with different pacing instead of huddled around whispering to each other in the hallway, Sam looks too comfortable with what they're doing before she speaks up instead of intervening immediately as soon as she finds out, it's the same characterization done worse and the same setting done worse. like remaking this was unnecessary but it could've been fun, and seeing Hannah's initial impressions upon seeing the letter could be interesting (it's not in execution) but it's all just worse than the original. not just different, but worse. the micropacing is totally off, it feels like the characters are waiting for their turn to speak instead of the butting in like they already have a dynamic and the lines are still the original recordings so it all feels off bc they fucked with the pacing and structure since characters are now doing new actions in between their dialogue. why did they do that and not rerecord the lines at least. even Mike's note to Hannah is different and just worse and has less of that goofball charm bc it's played more straight! it's just worse! getting increasingly aggravated about it the more i see of it lmfao. anyway.

genuinely stunned at changing the iconic opening tbh, there's other places it could've used improvement, especially in giving Matt and Jessica more stuff to do in the plot — and maybe they do, i haven't gotten that far yet —, but the opening was perfect. and even the character models and facial animations somehow look worse!

getting rid of the static camera angles, at least in this opening is kinda interesting, and they are still tastefully integrated occasionally when a character has to interact with something like opening a door, but it's just odd. why did they fuck with the opening? the new additions don't even actually add anything substantive to the narrative or the characters. there's so many other places they could've redone to make the game better. even when they have interesting ideas like showing us Hannah preparing to meet with Mike, there's just nothing interesting there, like the camera is doing fun things but we're not seeing anything crucial about Hannah because it doesn't add anything, like we already know she was excited bc we can see that on her face, in fact the facial animation when Mike talks to her is just worse bc his face doesn't showcase that he's actually interested and excited to see Hannah naked. like literally just worse. the getting ready sequence added nothing other than just padding out the runtime and showing us more of where everybody was hiding, which was not a necessary thing for this game. anyway, reserving final judgment until i play it myself or at least see it in full, but good god, what the fuck is this remake and these creative choices.

[moonlightmirrorball]

Maybe 👉👈 vander x reader ? With the line "surely there must be another vander becuase this one is an idiot" fluff if you would like to write it!

yes I absolutely love this idea it's so cute!

Battery Acid

Vander x GN! Reader

(set before the events of Arcane) 

Vander always judged your taste in drinks, but he might just find he likes it more than he thought he would..

The Last Drop was truly a sight to behold on Saturday nights. While the hole in the wall was usually livelier than any of the other bars in the undercity, it was nowhere near as busy as it was on Saturday nights. and that's what left you pushing your way through the crowd of inebriated criminals. Well, most of them were criminals. that's just how it was in the undercity.

Music blared in your ears, and you could feel the bass pumping through the soles of your shoes. The band playing was some underground pop punk band, under the alias of "sugar poison explosion" they were tacky at best.

you let out a sigh as you flopped onto one of the rickety barstools, tapping your fist on the pockmarked wood counter, catching the attention of your best friend and long time

"this the best you could do, Vand?” you shouted as the monster of a man turned to face you. “I had no choice, they’re powder’s favorite” he said, gesturing down the bar, to where you could see Vi watching her sister twirl around. “They’re good kids,” You smiled, leaning towards him on your elbows

“They’re a good handful, they are” he avoided your gaze, although you could see the hints of a smile play across his face despite himself as he watched them. “So, what’ll it be?” he turned to you. 

“All these years, and you still ask my order?”

"Well I can't help but hope you'd want something better than the battery acid you usually order"

"it's just whiskey and Cybertron" you shrugged, knowing that you'd had this conversation before and you'd have this conversation again tomorrow night.

"it's an aneurism, that's what it is!" he laughed, but even so he set to making your drink. "I don't know how you drink this stuff.." he muttered, popping open a can of Cybertron Energy , and pouring it into a glass of whiskey.

"what? it's delicious" you spun lazily on your barstool, watching the ceiling spin

"it looks like dogshit" Vander scowled at the murky liquid, placing it in front of you. Grimacing as you took a sip. it tasted like flaming toxic waste, but in the best way possible.

"you look like dogshit." you retorted, taking another swig of the drink

Vander only laughed at you. you were so...you. you drank your battery acid every night, you spun around on your barstool despite the fact you were almost as old as he was, and yet you were quite terrifying indeed. he'd done some terrible things in his time, but he knew you'd done much worse. and he loved you. shit, he loved you.

"Oh! a booth just opened up!" you jumped up, "come on you big lug," gently tugging his arm, instructing him to follow you to the quiet booth in the back.

"I can't just leave the bar-"

"oh sure you can, just leave it to fucking jerry" you sent an offhanded wave to the scrawny teenager taking orders down the counter.  He nodded back at you silently. 

"you go on, I'm gonna grab a drink first"

you nodded, and began retreating to the back of the bar. by now, most people were clearing out of the last drop, drunk off their asses. that is to say that the night was hardly over, but now people were off to seek their...other needs in the brothels down the road, making it much easier to navigate your way through the still crowded bar.

It was from there that you watched Vander gently carry a sleeping powder to the back room, Vi following behind. it was rare to see him so vulnerable when...so vulnerable ever. Vander was a good man, and he had a good heart, but to see proof of that was rarer than gold.

You caught his eye, as he was filling a tankard for himself. he caught you looking, and quite nearly sloshed his beer down his shirtfront as he made his way towards your table. 

“tired are we?” 

“not a word, y/n, not a word.” he grumbled. collapsing into the booth next to you, taking a swig from his mug. 

“I think it’s sweet how much you care about those girls” you said, nudging into his shoulder. “If I had had someone like you growing up, lord knows i’d have a lot less on my conscience.” you said, with a mirthless laugh. “but seriously,” you met his gray gaze, watching as his hard-set face seemed to soften as he looked at you “they’re lucky to have you,”  you nodded. Vander looked away from you, his ears flushing red.

“well now, I’d say they’re lucky to have you to being as you’re, so, i don’t know I think you’re better for them than I’ll ever be” he stumbled over his words, still avoiding your gaze, and attempting to take a swig from his tankard, although he ended up sloshing most of it down his shirtfront. 

Surely there must be another Vander, because this one is acting like an idiot

“you okay there, Vander?”  you laughed, helping him mop the beer, choosing to ignore the close proximity. 

“m’fine, just..uh...” His voice trailed off as your eyes met his, your hand on his chest. you stared at each other, not wanting to speak, lest one of you break the moment.  “hi,” you whispered, not moving at all. 

“hey” his hand slipped around your waist, tentatively, and you felt your breath catch in your throat. “D’you mind if I...” 

you nodded silently, gently brushing your lips against his, and then again, more assuredly. his hands tightened around your waist as he kissed you back, humming as you moved your hands into his hair. 

it was awkward, and messy and his beard was scratching your cheek, the table was digging into your side, and you both smelled like beer, but you couldn’t have asked for a better first kiss with Vander. He was warm and comforting and always made sure you were comfortable. and now he was kissing you.

it was warm and it was sweet and it lasted forever but it was over too soon. You gently pulled away from each other, hearts pressed together, pounding a mile a minute. 

“you taste like battery acid” 

“oh shut up, you big lug." you laugh leaning into his side.

“it’s not..” he took a moment to consider the drink “as bad as I thought.” 

“I told you!” you swatted at his arm.  “But I think I prefer it when I’m kissing you.’

It’s very rushed, and not edited at all, but I hope you like it! I never really write fanfiction so this is a leaning curve but I think overall, it turned out okay, sorry if he’s a little OOC.                                                   

[angeloncewas]

dont wanna make this ask long bc i am tired and dont have the energy to be a well spoken (?) person rn but it probably will be long anyways, so sorry!! but like. as somebody who has hyperfixated on both idubbbz and schlatt (along with a plethora of other problematic content creators, i really know how to fuckn pick em!!) they absolutely foster a dogshit community, at least outside of platforms like tumblr, where like. you cant really avoid fandom culture like you can on twitter or ig, if that makes sense. on here, if you wanna post about your favorite youtuber, whether you tag it or not, other fans will likely see and if you say some bad shit, you will likely get called on it, whereas on ig basically only your followers will see it even if you use a hashtag and on twitter its like if you arent in a subtwt/fandom then you basically dont interact with any subtwt at all unless its an accident, ya know?

so like. i think what im trying to say here is that while ive met a lot of fans of both these creators, especially schlatt, who are great people as far as i can tell, i am also specifically on the fandom side of things and as soon as i step out of that space i realize that a lot of people who watch them are not actually minorities like me and my mutuals who can catch on to satire or who watch their more behind the scenes stuff where you can see them act like a decent person or even call out people for the things they usually joke about which just. fucking sucks. it sucks that, as much as i do believe schlatt is actually a good person (and sort of idubbbz, although i dont really watch him much anymore for a plethora of reasons, mostly related to the fact that i cant stand his jokes anymore even if he is playing a character as he's said before), he also keeps doing terrible fucking things and im really glad his actual friends have been calling him on it recently, especially after that jackbox video (which is a whole other thing on its own bc it literally seemed like nobody wanted to be there basically the entire video?? like as somebody who watched all the jackbox videos before that one, it was really fucking off in that call and the jokes were next level fucking upsetting), but sometimes it's just kinda like. exhausting. bc his community is already fucking bad now, you cant undo accidentally fostering a community of fucking racist homophobes who dont get that you're playing a character, unless you kinda drop off and build a whole new community from that, which would be stupid to do at this point in his career. not really sure where i was going with this tbh, but i thought i would chime in on this discussion as a viewer of mainly schlatt, but also a past idubbbz viewer who is basically a seasoned fucking vet at dealing with shitty fanbases because of him and many other dumb youtube white boys

(also, note on that anisa thing: ian's main fanbase was definitely pissed just bc she does sex work and a lot of them are too fucking young or just too fucking dense i guess to clock the fact that he's putting on an act bc, like i said before, they either dont watch his behind the scenes content, or they do and they kinda just miss those moments between still trying to entertain where he gets genuine. that being said, a lot of people outside of his fanbase were also pissy bc anisa is a less than spectacular lady if you really do your research on her, kind of a bad person but it's not something a lot of people know about, especially since one of the few videos made on it was by fucking creepshow art)

sorry for the rant again, i feel like i do this every other week now and i apologize, you just seem to have the best discourse and i enjoy partaking <3 hope you have a good rest of your day/night/whatever time you're reading this!

—🦷

Thank you for the input (don't mind the rant !) and I hope you have a good rest of your day too <3 For post length, I'll answer under the cut :)

Yeah, I get what you mean (I think ahdsufsd). Fandom as a concept is pretty... I don't even know how to describe it, but it's the kind of thing that I feel like white male Redditors would think of as pussy shit, y'know? Like the Ricegum gang isn't a fucking "fandom" they're a... well, a fandom, but they're not gonna admit to that. So when you step outside of a community like Tumblr (the queerest place on the internet TM) you come into contact with the faces of the fandom you're dealing with and oftentimes they're a lot less like you than you might've thought from the similar interest. It's like going to a Weezer concert and realizing you're surrounded by incels (this is a JOKE).

Satire's a rough topic because some people don't think it should exist at all. Like any words that can be directly interpreted as bigoted or problematic should not be uttered. I disagree with that, I think it's one of the most interesting forms of both social commentary and comedy, but I do see the problem. There are people who watched Filthy Frank (to take an example from that other anon) and didn't know or care what the point of his actions were (I don't know what they were tbh - I never watched him, but it sounds like he's a pretty decent dude) and instead read his jokes as-is. There are thousands upon thousands of people who aren't gonna get satire and that's a problem because if they're already bigoted they're gonna see people like Schlatt and iDubbz and whoever else as truly validating.

(Largely unrelated but yo, is iDubbz still going? Are the views alright? Is the adsense popping? Has he just kept going with Content Cops? I haven't heard about him since the girlfriend thing dropped.)

"you cant undo accidentally fostering a community of fucking racist homophobes who dont get that you're playing a character, unless you kinda drop off and build a whole new community from that"

I think this is what's pertinent when it comes to discussing Schlatt. After the Jackbox video (for me at least, he might've been there before) he put himself at a crossroads. If he'd apologized, said "sorry, I took it too far, that was a mistake" - yeah, plenty of people wouldn't have forgiven him and plenty of bigoted fans of his would've said that the apology was just to placate the snowflakes on Twitter, but to the sort of in-between people it would've shown that he's able to recognize and reconcile his mistakes. He could've transitioned into content that's A) actually good (when I say that the video was bad I don't just mean in terms of racism, I mean it straight up was not entertaining) and B) less "edgy" for the sake of. I wouldn't expect him to go uwu squeaky clean, but he's already reeled in the bad people, so if he really wanted to foster a good, progressive audience, he has to do something significant to show that.

But he didn't.

Maybe for the sake of his career, maybe because he likes those bigoted fans, maybe because he just doesn't get it - I don't know. I don't think we'll ever know. I spoke earlier about doing what is right over what is easy and in the case of Schlatt it just feels like he really did take the easy way out. Whoever he is in his personal life doesn't change how he's perceived online and the kinds of people that are idolizing him for it.

(And yeah I saw the video on Anisa when I Googled her to check if they were still dating, but then I saw who it was made by and I was like oh well whatever avhfdfkj)

[williamsockner]

John Winchester Saltpile

A short list of John Winchester’s dogshit ways he screwed up his kids. Just from what we see in the first two and a half seasons - we’re not even to the truly horrible stuff yet!

- Routinely leaves children under the age of ten alone in motel rooms for weeks with nothing but canned food, a box of cereal and a shotgun, and instructions to never leave the room.

- Disowns Sam for going to college. Maintains this narrative to the point that Dean adopts the idea that Sam “abandoned” and “rejected” them by going off to get an education.

- Actively prevents Dean from developing any ties by keeping him from having friendships or relationships.

- Never calls his goddamn kids back even when they leave him tearful voicemails about how one of them is dying, sulks when they bitch him out on this point. Seems to think that calling them back basically ever is just not compatible with a hunter’s schedule. Guilt-trips them into believing he just loved them too much to stay in contact, despite sending them into harm’s way frequently.

- Convinces Dean and then tries to convince Sam that the reason he disowned Sam was that he just loved Sam too much.

- Isolates the boys from the extent of the hunter underworld just because he feels guilty around Ellen Harvelle for getting her husband killed, thus ensuring that they have fewer resources to draw on for doing their job and protecting themselves and can’t connect with people who share hunting and road life in common.

- On that note, doesn’t even leave the boys with the journal, just hopes they find it, and honestly does an absolutely terrible job of telling them about hunting techniques and information about demons that would be really, really helpful in hunting said demons.

- Sends the boys after the shtriga so Dean can beat himself up with guilt for all the children the shtriga has killed over the years, instead of being like “hey, kid, you were ten years old and you left a motel room you’d been stuck in for days to play at the arcade for an hour and that was it, it’s not really your fault that the monster got away and killed tens of little kids.”

- Somehow pisses off Bobby to the point that the boys are afraid Bobby won’t help them and don’t see him for years, which keeps them away from the only real source of love and support they have in the world.

- Militarizes Dean enough to be a perfect sharp-shooter at age six.

- Doesn’t provide his children with enough food when he dumps them in motel rooms for weeks, ensuring Dean has to go hungry just to make sure Sam gets enough to eat.

- Decides that the perfect moment to start berating Sam for not making an agonizing split decision is while his other kid is bleeding to death in a stupor in the back of the car.

- Decides to keep Sam “innocent” while grooming Dean for monster-hunting, establishing that his children can’t have an honest relationship with each other growing up.

- Ruins Christmas.

- Apparently figures out the entire demon and angels plotline and yet, rather than providing anyone with this information or writing it down, uses his dying words to tell Dean he might have to put Sam down like a dog, because, you know, fuck actually having a conversation with Sam or anything.

- Somehow ascends to Heaven anyway because he bodyslammed a demon and made sad faces. ):

But honestly the part that annoys me the most about John is that the show itself puts all this stuff out there and then doesn’t actually commit to acknowledging that John’s a maliciously terrible parent and a terrible person (and not just a “troubled” one or one who was “trying his best”) until Season 3. John’s not just a neglectful father who was too invested in a lifestyle that was incompatible with childrearing, John’s an actively manipulative scumbag who consciously sabotages his kids over decades. Miss me with that stuff about how he just wanted to keep them safe, because if he had he wouldn’t have isolated them from critical resources or sent them into harm’s way all the time or pit them against each other so frequently or used guilt to manipulate them into giving him his way or like, disowned Sam and then made the story that it was all Sam’s fault.

The show frequently seems to write a villain but have them serve the narrative purpose of a sympathetic protagonist for John and it’s only midway through S3 that they really start to thread the needle, and even then the show’s stance tends to fall closer to “John was neglectful and unintentionally abusive” rather than “John is actively a consciously abusive parent” - which, you know, if they wanted that, they shouldn’t have put the consciously malicious parenting in there in the first place. The fandom seems to have never gotten the memo and I still see a lot of “well, he was trying! he was just misguided! it’s really debatable if it was abuse!” flying around with regards to John. It’s the apologism - both textual and in fandom - that’s elevated John to one of my least favorite fictional characters ever.

I’d say he should get hit by a truck but he already did. I’m not even through S3 and I know it gets worse.

[operativesurprise]

listen. Maybe if there is a single, tarnished, grubby, failing sliver of a silver lining to JKR’s headfirst plummet from deity to transphobic shitheel, it is that people might be able to enjoy media again while also being critical of it/the creator.  Maybe a phenomenon like harry potter will be enough to break the fictitious purity stranglehold on enjoyment that people are obsessed with. I know that it’s worse on this site, and that this site isn’t the best place to consume media or talk about it, but just maybe people will be able to enjoy things.  There are things I loved dearly as a child - harry potter truly being the least of them but still an important part of the media I grew up on - that do NOT hold up. Some were progressive for their times, some were not. Some were -bad- even then but they all had merit and value to little me. Some were riddled like swiss cheese with ‘problematic’ elements (that are FICTION, which is a whole other post). But the stories still have merit to adult me.  I’m honestly pretty tired of seeing people ashamed of liking what they like and caveating it with 40 lines of “I know that X, Y, Z are wrong and bad and I’m terrible for liking STORY but parts B, C, D are important to me,”  We are all flawed asshole human beings. Some authors and artists are going to be super flawed asshole human beings. What a creator intends and what the creation means to others are not always aligned. Sometimes it’s directly against one another. Taking things in the context of their creation means including an awareness of that author’s and time’s internalized (And explicit) biases and stereotypes and virtues. Not to ever handwave away the utter pain that JKR is causing the trans* community, but her being  steaming pile of dogshit should not completely destroy the meaning that Child You found in her books! If you, like others, take comfort and hope in the stairs of the hogwarts dorms allowing you into the girls/boys side or leading you to the nonbinary/fluid secret dorms DO. If you feel brightened knowing that your kindness and friendliness would make you a hufflepuff and you would have friendships that bridge the other houses, there’s no reason to not engage in that internal narrative.  JKR created harry potter, created a world with biases and antisemitism and transphobia and racism and classism and and and and and - and then she gave it to us. She gave us an imaginary world to run amok in and say “no, that’s no good, how about THIS instead!” Make her angry and horrified with how we have bettered what she started.  She won’t see another red cent from me, but. Even though I may not have a potter tattoo, or have used words from the books in my wedding vows, or named my child ‘Luna’, I’m not gonna let her take away the good parts of those stories. No SHIT people have to do better. No shit that you should speak against things (or for!) with your money and your consumption. But the things you are holding up as perfect TODAY will dull with age and then you will see cracks in them as we mature culturally. As we learn new words and overcome new biases. Stuff that you look at as garbage today could have been progressive 30 years ago. Stuff 40 years from now will be lightyears apart from what is being written today.  JKR is going to go the way of Lovecraft. The shameful creator of fiction that will do better and greater things in the hands of fans who see those flaws and want it to Be Better. 

[popculturebuffet]

Jake Reviews Stuff: Bojack Horseman: Horay Todd Episode! (Plus a little bit on girls with slingshots)

Happy final day of pride month everybody! It’s been a hell of a ride.. and not just because the current landscape of the globe feels like hell right now, And to close it out we’re taking a look at an often overlooked segment of the queer community in media: Asexuality. I first learned about asexuality from the web comic girls with slingshots, because I love comic strips as much as comic books and because mainstream media tens to be really bad about telling people about diffrent facets of the lbtqa+ community, proven by the fact It took me till 2010, 18 years into my existince, to learn trans people existed from the long running candian teen drama Degrassi, birthplace of candian rapper Drake despite his damndest attempts to make people forget that, and a show that actually tackled the subject really well and the horrible shit trans people have to put up with, especially at Adam’s age. I also bring it up to apologize for a lack of trans representation of this pride as I scratched my head trying to think of some.. only to forget “oh yeah that really damn good rocko special from last year exists and has been sitting there all month dumbass” as I was writing this. I’m truly sorry and will try to get a review of static cling out sometime in june as an apology. 

Back to Girls with Slingshots though because like with degrassi I want to give it genuine props and a talk here both for teaching me about it and being really good at queer representation in general. We actually meet the comic’s Ace representivie Erin, a shy 19 or 20 year old, when lead and professional dumbass Hazel hired Erin to find out who was dating her friend Jamie.. turns out

Given Jamie had only been dating men up to this point, and her one time with a woman lead to her assuming she wasn’t bisexual,  when Jamie TRIED to tell Hazel what was going on Hazel, being kind of a dim, assumed it was an aaron and Erin decided rather than just you know, show up and let the the hamster in hazel’s brain slowly figure it out to do this. 

Why yes that is a tiny asexual wearing the most transparent graucho marx-ish disguise ever. And why yes Hazel absolutely falls for it and even when Erin outright takes off the disguise it still takes Hazel a good minute to connect the dots. And why yes, this strip is awesome and is worth taking a large amount of time to talk about in an almost entirely unreatled article, more than i’d planned really. But eventually things hit a snag: the two TRIED having sex before Erin left to go to school in london.. and given i’ve out and out admited she’s asexual, you can guess it went badly, with Jamie feeling bad it was so uncomfortable and didn’t talk to her until visting her in london, where the two patched things up: They still loved each other, Erin was simply asexual and Jamie realized she was biromantic.  However this didn’t mean Jamie herself was asexual.. and to Corsetto’s credit she actually fully dealt with this. After Jamie accidently became a meme while complaning about how horny she felt, the two had an honest talk about it, with Erin revealing she was perfectly fine if Jamie hooked up with dudes to satisfy her needs. It was a nice compromise and one of the first times I also learned polyamory wasn’t just something some weird asshole on tv did where he forced three women into what looked like an utterly miserable situation. What i’m saying is polgamy isn’t the same as polyamory and sister wives is objectively terrible and i’ve only seen minutes of it. 

In fact the current daily reprint is up to this storyline and has Erin wing womaning for her girlfriend. And yes I do acknowledge this won’t be a solution for EVERY couple, everyone is diffrent.. it was really nice to show a relationship between two people of diffrent and wildly underrepresented sexual orentations that , rather get into a depressing thunderstorm over something like this, talk it out like adults and work out a resonalbe solution. Hence why I took several paragraphs of something else entirely to get into it. If you want more , check the strip out here. 

https://www.girlswithslingshots.com

Okay now that plot cul de sac is out of the way, though I don’t regret a minute of it, you see the problem: Girls was the exception not the role and media wise, has a small but loyal fanbase. Big shows just didn’t really get that asexuality existed. But then one decided:let’s go let’s do this... so now i’ve talked about something else entirley for a good few paragraphs let’s talk about Bojack horseman Bojack Horseman is, like SU last time, one of the best shows of the last decade animated or otherwise. And like Steven, and adventure time before steven, it changed the game on what a genre of animation could do. See while Animation was going thorugh another renicssance in the 2010′s, it was mostly on the kids side for the first half.. Adult Animation was...

While there were good shows,after all Archer is a child of the 2010′s, bob’s burgers premired shortly after, and venture bros was, and still is, goin.. they were the exception. Family Guy was devloving from a really funny show to a horrible, unfunny mess that was and probably still is the television equilvent of screaming racist and offensive things just to piss people off and thus get attention and Adult Swim hit a slump, with several great shows like metalocalypse slowly leaving, and most that was left were garbage like Mr.Pickles. It .. wasn’t a great time. 

But around half way two shows changed things and most adult animation stood up and took notice; Rick and Morty, which while i’m not as much of a fan these days was and still to some small degree is a really funny show while also having a deeply complex and deeply deconstructed lead. And around the same time. we got Bojack.  As you probably know, Bojack was the tale of Bojack Horseman, a former 90′s sitcom star who starred in Horsin Around, basicaly fully house if uncle joey adopted orphans with bits of other tgif shows mixed in. Also he’s a horse and this world has a mixture of humans and various anthropormphic animals. And they dont’ shy away from that either and use that for a LOT of great jokes. Anyways Bojack is now a washed up asshole whose done tons, and as the show goes on continues to do, terribe things to get where he was, and is now trying to hang on to the scraps of his career. Around him are Princess Caroline, a pink cat and his agent and ex-girlfriend who wants a real realtionshpi , a baby and her career to go somewhere, Mr. Peanutbutter, Bojack’s dim aquantince who was on a ripoff show (which only PB seems not to get and is even called “Untitled horsing around ripoff project” at first in a flashback) and is really nice but also really bad at reading people, Diane, PB’s wife for most of the series who soon becomes bojack’s friend when she’s hired to do his autobigoraphy, and today’s subject, Todd, a 20 something cloudcuckoolander who crashed on Bojack’s couch after a party, and just.. never left since Bojack thought todd was kicked out for being gay and brought him in for brownie points (he was just lazy), and then despite insulting Todd constanlty kept him around because he was crushingly lonely and before Diane, had no other friends.  There’s obviously more to it. more evolutions but as the episode title shows, today’s ep is all about Todd, so we’ll be focusing on what he’s been up to: Todd spent most of the first two seasons just kinda.. bouncing around. Whlie the a-plots could be more serious, most todd plots were wacky palette cleansears, from him ending up in jail and trying to court two gangs at once like it was that one episode of family ties every sitcom sense has copied, made a giant copy of his own head over months, or started a safe cab company for women that somehow ended up as stripper cabs. Season 3 however added more weight: Bojack’s various slights against Todd were piling up, and he was starting to get tired of it, the straw that broke the camel’s back coming when Todd’s ex emily, who todd failed to sleep with because he didn’t want to but, not knowing what an asexual even was, couldn’t comincate with it and bojack having a really bad track record of thinking with his dick.. you can kinda see what happened.

Finding out much later, after Bojack used emily telling him not to as an easy way out of telling him and both were kinda stupid with that, and Todd eventually found out something happened.. but when Bojack tells him it was sex, Todd is genuinely suprised and had, for the last time expected better of him. Really Todd is a great deconsturction of the wacky sidekick in shows like this: the often abused optimist oppisite of the pesmist asshole protaganist. But here it shows.. that can only go on  so long. You can only treat a person like dogshit so many times before they grow tired of you and as Todd prepares to move out and bum around somewhere else we get one of the most iconic, and best, scenes in the series as Todd unloads on bojack after the horse tries apologizing.. couched in excuses. 

“It’s you bojack, it’s alwasy eben you” This scene hit like a truck, not just due to Aaron Paul absolutley killing it, but because as someone with a bad habit, even sometimes falling back into it, of justifying why I did something bad afterwords or blaming other people for far too long, if not NEARLY to the extent bojack did, it resonated. Sure those kinds of things may have LEAD you to the things you do but sometimes, your just doing shitty things and no amount of reason for it makes it okay. And it was a bold step to take: while the two talked on occasion and their friendship KINDA regrew, it never REALLY recovered from this. Things didn’t go back in the bottle. Bojack lost one of his best friends as his friend.. they were in the same orbit but it’d never be the same.  Todd did eventually tell Emiliy what he was dealing with and Emily told him what he was, and Todd started crashing on mr.peanutbutter’s couch because, unsuprisingly, the two eventually became close friends. So with Emily out of the picture, while she liked todd she needded sex and neither of them thought of an open relationship, that’s where we find Todd, grapling with his asexuality while getting into his usual wacky misadventures, which hadn’t and would never stop, as evidenced by the horrifying sex robot he created to try and please emily in a later season. So with all of that FINALLY out of the way. we can finally dig into horay todd episode after the read more. Because while i’m going to try doing that less to get more readers.. this episode is giant just at the introduction and is a half an hour long. 

We open with an orchestra, nervous Todd won’t show up for his solo.. because of course Todd’s a regular part of an orchestra now. He shows up in time to do his bit on the triangle, cheers all around

Att the bar, the various musicians wonder just who Todd is. Was in a prison gang? (Yes two in fact as stated above) A foreign prince?? ( He looked just like one and they swapizesd for an episode), a tech billionare? (For all of five minutes) Or is he both?... there isn’t a both here I don’t know why I did that. However the conductor roars in, he’s a lion, .. and it’s keith david everybody!

As you can probably wager Keith David is a faviorite of mine, one of the best voice actors around, a fantastic live actor, and just all around awesome dude.. and still pretty damn hot at 64. And while this is a minor role, ANY time keith david shows up is cause for celebration and I honestly forgot he was in this, so it was a nice suprise. 

We then find out how the two know each other, with the conductor calling Todd “The most giving man he’s ever known.” Accurate. Todd once saved his pregnant daughter from a shipwreck carrying her on his back, delivered said baby on a piece of driftwood then circumcised said baby while hanging from a rescue copter.. and also had a spirited but respectful debate before hand about how circumcion had fallen out of vouge, with them eventually deciding on it since the lions are jewish and she’d like the option for the baby to join the relgion if he so chooses when they grow up. Which is both a great gag and a nice nod to circumcisons not being popular these days, and makes todd even awesome. I mean not every man would not only be repsectful when talking to a mother about this, but do so while hanging from a helicopter. Also props to the old timey paperback illustrations, which doubly sell the sudden debate bit. It’s something I love the show: while it’s one of the most depressing in existance, it’s also god a wonderfully goofy sense of humor that helps ballance things out.  The conductor then explains todd later filled in last year when their triangle player died after getting his foot stuck in his triangle, another good one, but worries about todd and just how MUCH the man gives and wishes sometimes to see him not there when his part comes up, to see Todd give for himself. Then of course Todd spoils the move by coming out drenched in water with greasy hands, having tried to wash taco stains off his shirt, but then got greasy hands from said taco he ewa sstill holding and being trapped in a bathroom for an hour. That’s Todd in a nutshell: He can be legendary, selfless and utterly helpful or insightful one minute, and somehow get trapped in a hallway for an entire episode the next. That.. actually happened in case you either didn’t know or entirely forgot. Cue Credits.. a FIRST for this show suprisingly. Given most shows i’ve done are 11 minutes the credits usually happen before the show and I just forget to talk about them. I”ll breifly say the credits for Bojack are exellent and I love how they evolved and changed as each season wore on, and give the team kudos for doing what most shows just simply won’t or can’t do in western animation.

We’re at the peanutbutter residence, where PB is in the middle of his political campagin, working with his controlling and assholish ex wife katrina, and Todd gives him some pocket cheese to help but get’s shoed off and works on breakfast in the background with a giant egg for some reason. Probably because all animals are sentient here. And yes they explained how they still got meat. Anyways, Diane is annoyed that Katrina wants PB to decide if he’s for or against fracking based on public approval, insstead of you know just.. being against it because it’s wrong. She’s STILL better about it than that one episode of last man of earth I watched where the straw man liberal asshole argued with the consertaive asshole lead over a pothole they had and refused to just let his son belivie god exists because it calmed him down and in the next one forcibly dressed said son up as coal to mock his future mother in law because he’s as bad as the lead character, because this show is miserable and Ryan is what the writers apparently think a liberal is.  Anyways as this goes on we see Todd.. pulling his weight. He packs diane a lunch, leaves it by her purse as she gets ready to go to work, makes said giant egg into an omlette for pb and sets up a nice breakfast complete wtih his medication hidden inside because dog. We see that despite crashing there Todd has grown from where he was and is now making sure to actively contribute to the house as thanks for letting him stay. Anyways PB needs his glasses to take them off to seem sincer because he left htem at princess carolyn’s, she also represents Peanut Butter, Todd and Diane. Todd heads off, though dosen’t sign for a package as he once ended up with cremated remains, or cremains as he calls them and I now will, over it because of course he did and heads off while a mysterious horse in a trench coat watches... more on her in a bit.

At Carolyn’s agency , PC annoynces “it’s todd” with todd giving back an excited it’s me... he should enter the room like that every time. It really fits. Anyways, it turns out PC needed him for help with actress Courtney Pourtnory, whose in femalecentric Taken spinoff ms.taken, which i’m shocked wasn’t an actual movie. There’s also a lot of tounge twisting puns which as always Amy Sedaris flawlessly delivers and that i’ll miss now the show is gone. Anyways Courtney isn’t seen as relatable so PC goes with the oldest trick in the book: have some normal guy date the celebrity to see them as relatbale and well todd’s on retainer. Todd is reluctant, less so due to his  asexuality and more because he’s not only already busy with the sunglass errand, but has a meeting tonight. intresting. But PC ensures todd it’s no trouble and they can just do lunch for the paparazzi and todd does like the idea of having his picture taken. “It’s proof I exist.” It’s the same reason I hate having mine taken. It’s proof I still exist and this hell year hasn’t ended yet. 

Back at the campagin unsuprisingly what todd didn’t sign for was important and Katrina just tells him to sign for Pb next time, which is like giving a dog a play bone that also has a dart full of poison that shoots out of it into the rest of the living room. There’s no way this ends well and you should know that. So Katrina asks him to dance a little sidestep on the issue instead. 

This movie is eh but this musical number is awesome and I will use it at any opportunity. Rest in peace Charles Durning. It helps it’s still relevant as hell for both sides of the isle. Anyways Todd signs a letter to the state goverment because again, telling todd to do something without even remotely thinking about it is like giving a baby a boomerang loaded with nitro glcyerne, but soon gets cloroformed by our mysterious viewer. “And down goes todd. “.. said by todd himself because of course he did> God bless this man and aaron paul’s performance.  “And up comes todd!” .. whose, not suprisingly, apparently been drugged and/or knocked out enough to have a catchphrase for these situations. After grabbing a pool skimmer for defense because you know a stranger just kidnapped him, the stranger calms him down and introduces himself: And this is where we properly meet Hollyhock..  Manheim-Mannheim-Guerrero-Robinson-Zilberschlag-Hsung-Fonzerelli-McQuack which I copied directly from the wiki because this review is already running long and running behind, and I don’t want to spend an hour trying to copy that from the episode itself. The nightmare of a name, which is a running gag is because she was adopted.. by 8 gay men in a polyamours relationship. And one of them is apparently related to launchpad. 

Anyways Hollyhock, who called at the end of last season to no answer, thinks Bojack might be her dad and thus bought a spy kit to figure out. And used the cholorform, if apologizing for it because once you’ve got it you can’t not use it. Todd is unsuprised by both things; As bojack hilariously but horrifyingly put it his penis was like sun dried tomatoes in the 90′s: it was on everything, and Bojack himself had that kit, mostly using it on himself because of course he did. She tracked down Todd because Todd was in Bojack’s book as his roomate. Todd explains they no longer live together and Bojack has been missing, long story there though we do know where he was due to the last episode, but since Hollyhock really dosen’t need to meet him just wants his dna to find out if he’s related or not, so Todd suggest sher house. Time for more cloroform!

At Bojack’s place Todd wonders where to find a hair, since most ladies Bojack is with understandably shower afterwords only for Holly to find one.. and a sleeping unconcious clearly spiraling once again Bojack. Todd lament siwth an oh bojack: just because he’s mostly done with the guy dosen’t mean he still dosen’t care. Todd’s still a good guy and still dosen’t want to see his former friend go through this for the 80th time... he’s just done being the one to be there for him through it and that’s understandably.  Hollyhock yanks a hair which does nothing to wake him, unsuprisingly, but the mention of “blowing this place” makes Bojack wakes up as he thinks people has blow. it’s also telling that he’s worried Todd’s going to yell at him again and that he’s clearly stills marting from his understandable telling off. Todd is force dto make up an excuse since Hollyhock VERY understandably dosen’t want to tell him the truth, and Todd lightly rebuff’s bojack’s attempts to be pals again.. given he hasn’t really changed, it’s understandable. Also Hollyhock cloroforms him to get out of BOjack asking more questions and sends todd to take the dna to a place. Todd heads to  a 1 hour dna testing lab, because of course there’s one this is LA. But without Hollyhock’s dna they can’t do it but the guy says to come back with it in an hour after he’s done with lunch.. which gets Todd to realize OH SHIT I HAVES A DATE and he runs off. The fact he DIDN’T actually say that is a suprise. 

At the date Courtney transparently breaks up with Todd for publicity as Todd is utterly confused, before getting reminded about hollyhock. This scene just kind of happened so have the first gif I find typing “David Byrne” into gif search. 

Back at Bojack’s house all Hollyhock’s done is snoop around, finding Bojack’s box of bad reviews of other people’s sitcoms because of COURSE he has that, eat a full box of donuts and take a nap.. given the simliiarity todd isn’t sure they need that test. Hollyhock naturally refuses and just wants to use todd’s hair but since the dna guy said that don’t work, they find some in her comb. Todd however has to cover for the earlier Maid excuse he gave bojack, nice bit of foreshadowing there, and cleans up the house while Hollyhock sits around. I know she’s not his daughter, still related but still and even I’m having a hard time beliving the truth.  No sooner than does Todd put out that fire, than things get worse; Naturally the signutre was for pro fracking and while Katrina is pissed, not fairly as again, it’s like she handed a baby a shot gun for tots that make sa funny noise when you pull the trigger and is suprised that he shot up the couch. Anyways PB is understandabily more worried his wife will be upset he has to support fracking now, and Todd untietionally offers to distract her from the media while Hollyhock takes a nap because she feels.. really diffrent early on. While parts of her horseman traits would remain here she’s far less friendly or helpful than she would be later on in this half of the episode. it’s not BAD as sometimes it takes an episode or two for a character to properly become what their like for the rest of the series, it’s just WEIRD. Like Red Green’s monotone in early Red Green Show episodes it just feels.. off. 

Todd rushes off to Girl Croosh, the click baity blog diane works for because I forget when things happened sometimes, where Todd is doing the most todd distraction possible: Telling diane to look at him while he dances. Which to Diane’s shock has been going on for 45 minutes. 

Diane’s boss Stefani comes in voiced by the wonderful Kimiko Glenn who I admited to loving as a voice actress, and having a crush on back in my first close enough review and still stand by. She’s wonderful. Stefani berates diane for not being clickbaity enough, other plot for this season etc etc next todd crisis.  Princess Carolyn is annoyed they didn’t get a picture of courtney with todd.. even though she left first but this eems to be the “blame todd for things that are either not his fault or you should’ve expected by talking to him for five minutes” episode. Anyways PC says to be at the shark jacob’s fashion show in 30 minutes, and Diane bemoans trying to get people to pay attention to the world sucking. Todd shows some more competence and actually gives her a good metaphor: When mr.peanutbutter dosen’t want to take his pill, as I expected, Todd disgusied it.. though in the cheese. Just do that: put some hot goss around the rest of it. Todd, to keep her away from the computer with a literal headline that reads “Mr.Peanutbutter supports fracking and hasn’t told his wife yet”, because this show is amazing, makes up a story about Channing Tatum having an illgitamte daughter and gives her the testing hairs. The theme of this scene, and the episode really is that people underestimate todd: understandably the man got lost in a bathroom at the top of this episode and refused to sign a package because of past shenangians... but because of that they fail to see that todd is .. actually really compitent, insightful and caring. IN this one scene he actually suceeds in his mission in the dumbest, toddest way possible, then on the fly kills two errands with one stone while also giving Diane genuinely good advice. But the big question the episode poses is.. what does TODD want at the end of the day and just how much of this “doing everyones shit for htem” should he take?   

As Todd passes a sheep with a wonderful “The end of the wool is coming’ sign, he sneaks into the fashion show.. we also see a background model bird smoking that I SWEAR is a protytpe for tuca, just with a diffrent bodytype and a more aloof, supermodely face. Though if this is the same universe it could just be a sister of hers. It’s not out of the realm of posiblity. And yes I will defintely be talking Tuca and Bertie at some point, especially once it comes back next year. Being todd he ends up walking the runway instead, and it goes poorly, but Todd telling them that fashion shouldn’t be elitest somehow works and he become a hit. Also Tim Gunn is there as himself, beacause this show liked to mix animal versions of celebrites iwth the real ones, and sometimes had the real ones voice the animal versions of themsselves. Todd also gets a call from Diane: it’s a match. ALso I forgot Todd’s wonderful ringtone which is him , to the opening of that one betooven song going “todd todd todd TODD!” Magical Back at the horseman residence, Bojack’s sent hollyhock to go thank channing tatum for collecting his mail and goes through all the mail that piled up while he was MIA. He’s also wallowing about his miss opprtotunites, some involving pottery barn. He’s suprised by PB’s governor run, with Todd countering that of course he knew he’s been around and when Bojack asks how Diane feels Todd shoots that down right away and insists he just ask her himself, and again counters; Does she even know he’s back? Bojack insists he’s no tready, and he’s only told Todd he’s back.. and his various drug guys, channing tatum, and hollyhock. But not his inner circle. And given he and PB tend to not mesh well, though it is getting better at this point, he ruined things with Todd, he dropped PC for entirely warranted reasons.. Diane really IS the only person he has to call and he’s likely afraid of disapointing her. He then tells Todd to friend break up with channing tatum, with todd thinking his speech was about him and being understandably disapointed. I also like Todd’s attiude here: he’s done just.. taking Bojack’s shit and isn’t going to stick around for it and only really agrees to go to channing tatums because Hollyhock’s over there and he needs to tell her. 

Todd goes over and lies to hollyhock after warning her BOjack might not be readyf or a daughter and Hollyhock expresses her own doubts. Then diane shows up and Todd’s force dto play being channing tatum so they both don’t get arrested for trespassing. Diane confronts channig with her thoughts he’s the father, which hollyhock instnatly realizes exactly what that means, but relents on doing so, not wanting to be that kind of journalest and ruin someone’s life for her own benefit. Todd gives her a pep talk and she accepts it’s him because it’s what she thinks channig tatum would say and leaves with a cheery “love half your movies. Hollyhock meanwhile has fled, obviously upset and before Todd can deal with THAT, he gets another call, clearly tired at this point as am I as i’m not only not used to reviewing 22 minute shows anymore, let alone 30 minute ones, but I have a ticking clock due to my own procastination. She once again gets mad at him, this time a bit more understandably, and Todd darts off to meet courtney. 

The two talk, and Courntey is dressed like todd only her hat is 50 dollars.. and that’s a hella don’t... I miss Macklemoore. Anyway, Courtney opens up about being seen by everyone but not being seen at the same time.. which todd relates to even if courtney can’t fathom someone having the same feelings, but admits it’s nice to talk about it while Todd laments about his meeting, worrying h’es not ready yet. That what if it goes badly? What if the idea of something is better than the truth. I realate both due to my anxiety proving that and because as a comics nerd and general nerd, that’s happened more times than I can count, both with legendary stories that turned out to not be very good or something I really looked forward to turning out to be a mess, like It Chapter 2, or Zoolander 2, or Secret Empire or.. point is Courtney does relate to that and prefers fiction and the paparazzi, the same ones who tailed bojack for multiple episodes in season 1, eat it up with Courtney announcing their engagment iwth todd responding with “Horay i’m confused!”... that’s me all day everyday buddy. 

Todd goes back to Bojack’s to find Hollyhock, and being a good friend even to someone who certainly dosen’t deserve it at this point, tells Bojack the truth.. which he reflexvley denies before Todd admits she didn’t want to tell him and Bojack. understands and once again piles pity on himself. 

We then get the scene that got me to review this in the first place.. thanks asshole! All jokes aside, the two have an honest conversation: Bojack, while not outright saying sorry admits all he does is hurt people and he slept with the one person he ever saw todd be in love with... given it’s hard for him to give out a genuine apology, it’s still a good moment as it shows Bojack, even if he screws up constantly, is really apologetic about destroying their freindship. That part also shows WHY it was wrong: Sure todd couldn’t and wouldn’t sleep with her.. but it dosen’t change the fact Bojack SHOULDN’T have , knew what he was doing, did it anyway and then never told him. 

He continues with it though after todd wonders if he’s evne allowed to love. , saying he got more of Todd than he deserved, and all the guy asked for was a roof over his head and the ocasional smore in a baquet, and tells todd he didn’t deserve him and he really appricated him. This.. actually gets Todd to open up and he comes out as Asexual to bojack which after making it clear it means he’s not a sexual deviant, dynamo or what have you, a great wordplay gag, that he’s just not sexual.. Bojack.. shockingly and to Todd’s suprise dosen’t think it’s weird like he expected, but is thrilled and honeslty wishes sometimes he was asexual and we get what I consider to be the best joke of the seris.  Bojack; Maybe then I wouldn’t have A strain of herpes Todd; You have multiple strains Bojack: I know, it only works with the A.  Todd feels.. good.. while i’m not Ace myself I am bisexual and both times i’ve come out, first to my mom and a few friends, then to the rest of the world this month on facebook, it felt.. freeing. To not have to worry or hide no more.. to just be who you are.. and it feels.. good to Todd. While Bojack tries to slide back into friendship since todd isn’t mad about Emily anymore, Todd gently stops him: It wasn’t just here, as I made clear earlier, he’s not ready to be his friend again.. but hes ready to be more than NOT friends. While their freindship won’t be the same anymore, as Todd makes painfully clear.. Todd gives him a genuine i’t’s good to see you as he leaves. Again he may not LIKE the guy anymore and understandably dosen’t want to be the only person he can count on in bojack’s life... he still wants the guy to be okay, which the fans could probably relate to the whole damn series; Being fed up with his bullshit and TERRIBLE TERRIBLE actions, but wanting him to be better already. The door rings.. and it’s HOllyhock. We MIGHT get to that another time, but for now we close out Pride, and todd’s tale as todd goes to his meeting... which as it turns out...

While there is still more miles on Todd’s journey, ending his sham engagement set up here, a failed relationship and a sucessful relationship at the end of the series, not to mention reconcliation with his family... Todd takes an important step and takes what he wants, finding his people and being proud of who he is.. and that’s sometimes the best and hardest step. And we get a nice button on the framing device as Todd misses his solo for the first time, to the conductors delight. The End. 

Final Thoughts: This was a really good rewatch.  While not AS heavy as some other bojack episodes, it still has plenty of good character work, moving along or setting up several plots for the season without any of it feeling forced whlie giving Todd added depth in his coming out story. Todd still dosen’t fully understand what his asexuaity is and is scared to be open with it.. but that beautiful scene above is what makes the episode work as is the ending right after: By finally telling someone he knows, and by being accepted by the last person he’d expect to not only understand what Todd is but embrace it.. he can finally find others like him to help him through it and finally find something for himself after giving so much to everyone else while asking nothing in return.  That’s also a nice bit of deconsturction here... while Todd’s happy to help we do ssee bouncing from storyline to storyline actually wears on him and that sometimes it’s tiring being the guy everyone assumes has nothing but time for htem. It’s a nice development and Aaron Paul does it beauitfully and I do stand by HIS casting, as unlike with Allison brie where they knew diane would be an vitamese woman and cast a white woman anyway, though to Ralph-Paul’s credit, he’s throughly apologized for this and Allison Brie herself recently also apologized for it personally in the wake of the recent black lives matter lead call to not have white actors voice People of Color anymore. Also props to Jenny SLate for, if a bit late , still leaving big mouth for the last two seasons and apologizing herself among with any other actor or actress whose dropped a role as a POC when their white. It’s a good trend. But here.. I get why they didn’t try and get rid of Aaron Paul. It was probably hard enough to get executives to give a shit about Ace representaation enough to let htem do it, adding “firing a big name draw to replace him wiht a likely no name” was probably a bridge too far and sadly, sometimes you have to pick your battles, and they picked getting to have an ace character at all and to Aaron Paul’s credit he’s been an Ace ally ever since. HOpefully in the future we will get more ace chracters and more ace actors and actresses playing the part, but every journey begins with a sigle step and this storyline was a huge one.  But overall the episode is truly fantastic, a highight in a series full of amazing episodes and it was a good note to go out on for this month. I won’t stop doing LBGTQA reviews obviously, and I should’ve added the a way sooner, but it’s been fun doing them and i’ve been proud too. Some have been better than others but the better one shave been some of my best work. So as we live in uncertain and stupid times, stay safe , black live matter and your all beautiful. I have other stuff in the works; a full steven unvierse arc, regular coverage and of course that “sorry I was a moron” static cling review, but until then, I love you all and i’d like, if I may, to close on a song... not by me obviously my singing voice is “sorta adaquate I guess’ at best. 

[ninaahelvar]

Paw Prints

Summary: Owen owns the local animal shelter and trains service dogs. Claire volunteers there for a nice line on her resume. Everyone teases Owen about his obvious attraction towards her. The thing he doesn’t realise - the feelings aren’t one sided.

AO3

A/N: This was a prompt from an anon! I adored it so much! thank you to whoever sent it in! hope i did it justice! xx

“She’s hot, right?”

“What?” Owen said, realising he was staring. Claire sat at the front desk, her pen between two fingers as she balanced it back and forth, some lawyer talking to her with his fancy suit and perfect grin. Owen rolled his eyes when the guy laughed and Claire forced a smile. Lowery nudged Owen again.

“You know, the love of your life? Claire?”

“Shut up,” Owen shoved Lowery, who laughed and took Echo to the next room to go for outdoor training. She was a calm blue heeler who followed her commands, but liked to play a lot. Rex barked as she followed Lowery and Echo, her head held high as she walked briskly towards the sliding backdoor.

Claire worked the front desk occasionally, something about how she needed volunteer work on her resume. She was a young hotshot lawyer straight out of law school and said she liked what they were doing for veterans. Her father served once, and had required a service dog on his return. It seemed to be close to her heart, and Owen agreed to let her on - though he had tried to pay her for her work, she requested that it all be put on as volunteer stuff. He had a few paychecks to give her when she decided she no longer needed the position.

Without fail, however, every day lawyers from her classes or ones that she knew came by to give her coffee or talk to her for longer than Owen liked. They had one thing in common. God he hated pretty boys. He knew he was jealous - of their easy grins and floofy hair and the way they seemed to talk so effortlessly with her. But comparing himself was a new low. Maybe she liked pretty boys, like the ones that always came to visit. Instead, Owen was sitting there with his ex-marine status and ptsd to match the war wounds, and hairy as bigfoot.

He was training Charlie that day and, the beautiful black labrador came trotting up behind Owen as he guided her to her spot. As the other dogs got to relax and unwind outside, Owen had his own pup - Blue - sitting nearby as Lowery and Barry came to the training exercise. For some vets, crowded or tight spaces were triggers; and admittedly it was one of Owen’s, but it allowed them a unique opportunity to help the dogs understand a real event. As they walked the length of the animal shelter, Lowery and Barry came up beside Owen, their shoulders touching and pushing him into an uncomfortable position. Owen could feel his heart rate increasing, and as Charlie saw, she immediately got in between Owen and Lowery, and the same to Barry, giving Owen as much space as he needed.

The two other trainers looked cautiously at Owen before nodding and giving a treat to Charlie for her good behaviour. But Owen’s mind hadn’t kicked out of gear, reeling and charged with energy he wasn’t able to omit. And then, his head raced with flashes of memories, the realness of it all making his hands shake and he was having a full fledged attack that he couldn’t control.

Bomb. Drop.

Explosion.

Fire.

Flash.

Screaming.

Calls of his name.

Flash.

Crushing.

Legs feeling numb.

Flash.

Owen felt Blue jumping up at him and he collapsed down to his knees, the two dogs whimpering as he settled him against the wall, guiding him down and licking at his face. Charlie had already been trained in this exercise, but had never truly achieved what Blue had. Blue rested her head in Owen’s lap as he began breathing in long deep breaths. Charlie occasionally licked Owen’s hand, staying as close as she could on Owen’s other side.

It was calm, having Blue by his side. After his final deployment, he was exhausted and he knew the dreams he was having were signs of ptsd. The moment he could, he got therapy, he had his service dog - Blue - and he was having less attacks because of her around. The attacks less severe and less frequent, but he still had them bearing down on him. When he heard the owner of the local veteran animal shelter was selling, he knew he had to get in on it.

Although he knew very little of taking care of a business like this, he was good at training animals from his time abroad and when his friends all heard, they wanted to jump on board too. Zara and Zia were two vets who volunteered at the clinic for check ups on the service dogs, whilst Lowery trained animals for a living, Barry was just a lucky break when he had no job after serving and was great with training the dogs for stealth units. Franklin kept their business together - though he was terrible around the dogs, he managed to work with Claire on the books and keep away from the animals for most of the time. When they housed cats for a short time, Franklin would steal away to their section before leaving in sneezing fits.

Hated dogs, and was allergic to cats.

“Are you okay?” A voice asked and Owen looked up - his mind racing and in his own world.

“Huh?” He asked before realising Claire was bending down to his level, hand cautiously touching his knee.

“You’ve been in the corner for a little while with Blue and Charlie,” she said, and Owen felt his heart rate had definitely gone down and the dogs had calmed down along with him.

“Oh, uh…” Owen said, shifting to make the dogs get a little excited. Owen cleared his throat. “The exercise is a hard one for me. We usually do it to trigger for the dogs to see how they react. Blue is usually close by in case they can’t,” he explained, realising the mistakes of his exercise - and although it wasn’t always like this, it could be a possibility.

“You shouldn’t purposely trigger yourself,” Claire said, patting his knee gently.

“Yeah, we know, but it’s good that they experience what a real attack is like,” he said, feeling his heart rate go a little haywire. Charlie soon began licking his face, leaning her head on his thigh to indicate to him to calm down.

“Do you want me to bring you anything?” she asked.

“I think I’ll be fine,” he said, patting at the dogs’ heads. “Thanks anyway,” he smiled.

“Shout if you need me,” Claire said, rising from her crouching position to walk back to her desk, turning and smiling at him as he let his head rest against the wall. It was only a few minutes later when Owen stood and went back to work, maintaining a level head throughout the day.

It was a well known fact around the shelter that Owen was completely in love with Claire. He couldn’t help it - she was strong, smart, and never let anyone get to her. The minute she was hired, everyone made fun of Owen, how he listened to her and the way he watched her walk away all the time. He was a mess and the whole shelter had begged Owen to ask her out. Something that Owen was still struggling with…

It was hard; trying to get the courage to approach her. He’d tried - so many times he’d called her name, only to be dazed by her perfume. Or he’d walk up to her desk, plans for coffee already flying off his tongue, and she’d smile up at him and he’d choke on the sentence at the back of his throat. Finding the words was always difficult around her - in a way it had never been with anyone else. He could charm just about any woman to come home with him, take them to bed and show them a good time - and the one time he needed his charm to work, he became a bumbling mess of a man, unable to find his limbs and the giddiness erupting like a teenage boy.

Which was why, when he ran into her on a sunny Thursday, he found himself with a barking dog, a coffee stained dress shirt, and a vow to never even bother asking again. Claire had done a girlish laugh, patted his shoulder, and the courage that he could have had was now deeper than the dogshit he had to pick up later that same day.

From that day on, it became pining looks that were never inconspicuous, and daydreams that were lost to the mess of his ptsd mind.

*~*~*

Rex was a largest dog he’d ever trained, a giant caucasian ovcharka. When her owner had passed away, she had no real home to go to, so she acted as the shelters carer - but went home with Blue and Owen at the end of the day. Blue had recently had a bath, and was running around outside in the sun, as Rex relaxed inside with Owen underneath the air conditioning, following the airflow. Rex barked at Owen when he got in her way, but she wagged her tail anyway.

Claire walked in with one of the regular douchebag lawyers on her heels - Eli Mills. He wore his suits like he was the richest man in the world, but they were cheap and tacky - just like Eli, it seemed. Claire, on the other hand, wasn’t going into her firm just yet; she was only a researcher, so didn’t have cases to work. Graceful as ever, Claire wore the pastel blue summer dress, wrapped around her like she was a gift, and her hair pulled up off of her neck.

So yeah, Owen was staring.

Very obviously staring.

Rex barked, but Owen just patted her head, pretending to guide her in a circle as he still watched as Claire went over her notes and tried to hold a conversation with a wooden door.

“Yes, Owen, I do love you. None of the other men matter, only you,” Lowery whispered in Owen’s ear, and Owen shoved the shortstack aside, even though Lowery’s fits of laughter made Owen smile.

“Come here, asshat,” Owen cursed, chasing Lowery around, Rex racing after them and bellowing out howls, tailing going nuts as she jumped around. She was a dominant force, pushing them around and they both chuckled as it became a battle between the men and the beast.

“It’s a little unprofessional to just beat up an employee, don’t you think?” Eli called out and the pair looked at each and scoffed, Rex still jumping around.

“Rex, down,” Owen whistled sharply, and Rex stopped barking and stood her ground, staring at Owen as he made full eye contact with Eli, “heal,” he said, Rex meeting at Owen’s side. “Beg,” he ordered, “assert,” he said, Rex moving around Owen, barking before standing in front of him and giving three barks, equal distance apart as she sat in front of him. Owen smiled, kneeling down and patting Rex’s head, handing over a treat, which she gladly took. “Good girl,” he praised. “I’m a good trainer. If I’m good at my job, I get to fuck around,” Owen said,

“You should be concerned that veterans come here and get shitty dogs,” Eli commented, just as an old army buddy came through the front doors and Owen beamed, hollering to him.

“Sempa Fi!” Reaper called. Owen saluted the man.

“Hey Reaper! I have Charlie ready for some training,” Owen said, hugging Michael - nicknamed Reaper - arm over his shoulder as he took him to the back rooms with the other dogs.

“Owen is a veteran. I think respect should be shown to a guy that’s seen more shit than you have,” Claire replied, and Eli said something in a hushed voice to Claire. Owen smiled to Claire as he continued on.

“Rex,” Owen called, whistling again and the giant dog walked quickly behind Owen as he showed the fellow veteran Charlie and guided him through commands.

*~*~*

Owen was watching Barry as he guided Delta, an eager German Shepherd, through her basic runs as a seeing eye dog. She was very talented and could be very focused on her job. The two trainers made some remarks to one another, noting some small things she could improve on, getting her to go through the exercise a few more times with praise coming from every successful run. It wasn’t long before Owen became a little distracted by the redhead by the door.

It was the staring.

The staring always made him a little fumbly.

Because when Claire looked up at him, Owen’s attention went down to his shoes when he should have refocused on Barry and Delta.

Owen had no game whatsoever.

He crossed his arms, and felt his palms get sweaty as she walked over, the outfit of the day was a suit that made Owen’s mouth a little dry.

“I have to grab coffee today, I was wondering if you wanted to join me?” she explained, and all Owen’s mind did was focus on the word - I have to - because she was meeting Eli. She was meeting with Eli again and Owen would have to watch him try and flirt with her yet again, and his jealousy was a raging creature. He lost to it every time. Owen cleared his throat.

“Oh, I don’t want to get in the way, you go on,” he said, noticing the slight shock on her face - an unexpected response?

“Oh, okay, uh, see you later?” she asked and Owen nodded.

“Yeah,” he said, smiling at her weakly before she moved towards the doors. Owen watched as she left, mentally beating the shit out of himself for being the absolute worst

“Owen,” Barry said, meeting Owen at his side.

“Yeah?”

“You’re a dumbass,” Barry said, and Owen looked over at his friend.

“Why?”

“She was asking you out, you complete idiot,” he said, smacking at Owen’s shoulder. Owen’s eyes narrowed - she wasn’t asking him out, that’d be stupid. She didn’t like guys like him; he wasn’t like the guys she was surrounded by. He was different and rough and serly compared to the lawyers that fawn at her feet.

“I can fire you, you know?” Owen snapped, and Barry clicked his tongue.

“Do it, I dare you,” he replied.

“Rex, chase,” Owen called, Rex bounding from her sitting position and springing up to Barry who tried to control Rex and Delta, as the two dogs set each other off - overstimulation was bad for service dogs.

“Hey!” Barry called out in a laugh and Owen whistled.

“Okay, Rex, heel,” he called, and Rex came back to him, waiting for her next task and he gave a small clicking sound before she circled to her spot and sat down.

*~*~*

Owen had Rex staying at the shelter as he did some errands with Blue. He had bangs hanging from his wrists, wandering around corners trying to find a cafe that may be service dog friendly when a voice called out in the crowd. “Hey you!” Owen looked forward, finding Claire waving at him delicately. Blue barked, wagging her tail and moving eagerly next to Owen.

“Oh, hi!” he replied, smiling to Claire. Though, his smile shifted when he saw Eli.

“Claire, we have to -” he tried to say before she waved him off.

“You go on ahead,” she said. Owen looked between the pair before trying to whisper to Claire.

“I don’t want to hold you up,” he said, but Claire ignored the question, bending down to Blue who sat patiently by Owen’s side. She didn’t interact with Blue, just waving and smiling.

“Are you going for a coffee?” she asked, and there was a small dart of her hand that was clear that she wanted to pat Blue more than she’d care to admit. Owen hid his smile.

“Ah, yeah, but -”

“Come on, I’ll buy,” she said, seemingly ignoring his efforts to stop interrupting her day. She willingly became a part of his day, it seemed.

“You don’t have to d-”

“Claire!” Eli called out, but Claire just waved over her shoulder.

“Go ahead, Eli! I’ll be right there!” she said, arm still hooked with Owen’s as she walked them to a cafe nearby.

Owen was always nervous about taking Blue to cafes or restaurants - many didn’t accommodate an animal inside, or they didn’t known if they had a certain policy against animals. Instead, it seemed, Owen was willing to follow Claire, trusting her instincts rather than his own. Walking inside, people eyed the dog with the vest on the minute they walked in. Blue stayed focused on Owen’s side as the pair walked up the counter.

The barista looked at Owen and Blue, their brow furrowing as they stammered for words.  “We don’t -”

“Service dog,” Claire interrupted, “can I grab regular caramel latte,” she ordered quickly with no hesitation. Owen was still unsure but she soon looked at him with a curious tilt of her head, “you?”

“Large black coffee,” he said back, not wanting to take up anymore of her time for that day.

“And a large black coffee,” she repeated for the barista, “oh, and some whipped cream for the dog, please?” she said, handing her card over for payment.

“Sure,” The barista smiled at the request and it was all put through.

“You know you don’t -”

“No arguing,” Claire said, taking the card back and smiling at him. Owen gave over a defeated chuckle, giving her a weak salute.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied and Claire laughed.

They sat outside the cafe for a little while as Blue laid down on the ground, licking the small cup of whipped cream before the pair decided to set off. Blue was still concerned with licking the remnants of the cream from her nose when there was a soft and breathable moment that Owen took in droves. It was a courage he was lacking, but he wanted to make it last.

“You look nice today,” he said, and Claire smiled, looking down at her outfit. She wore a flowy white skirt that went just past her knees and matched with a long sleeve pastel blue blouse. It was slightly see through, a white tank top underneath, but she looked amazing.

“Thank you,” she replied, a giddiness in her reply. “I’m meeting with the partners of the firm today and get to talk about becoming an actual lawyer instead of a researcher,” she said, holding her coffee a little tighter.

“That’s amazing,” Owen nodded, trying to follow her words as much as he could - though he had very little knowledge on what it all meant.

“It’s a little nerve wracking if I have to be honest,” she laughed.

“Yeah, Blue can tell,” Owen chuckled and Claire turned to him.

“What?”

“She’s whining,” Owen said, and the pause between their words let the dogs soft whines be heard. “It’s not because of me,” he said and Claire huffed, crouching down to Blue’s level once more.

“Hey, girl,” she greeted, “I’ll be okay,” she winked before standing. Owen gave soft pats to the border collie’s head.

“You’re gonna be just amazing, Claire,” Owen said, and there was a sigh that left Claire - a breath of relief.

“Thank you,” she said, moving into his space and kissing his cheek. She pulled back as her phone started to ring and she cursed under her breath. “I’ve gotta run! I’ll see you later!” she said, hurrying off and Owen watched as she ran as fast as she could around a corner, heading towards whatever destination she needed to go. Regardless of how many times he had watched her leave - he could do it a thousand times over.

*~*~*

Blue was being calm that day - he felt the pressure from his shoulders lifting with her by his side, and even as he paced about some business with the shelter, she still kept him calm. The forms he was reading were simple and didn’t mean anything bad, but he needed to go over them as owner of the business - it just confused the shit out of him.

Taking another lap, Owen heard the doors of the shelter open and he rolled his eyes when he saw Eli walking into the room, cocky attitude following him like a bad stink. He leaned on the front desk as Claire’s attention was on her own that she was trying to get off her desk. “Claire, you know your starting at the firm soon,” Eli said and Owen’s pace slowed, listening into the conversation that he really didn’t want to pay attention to, but he wanted to make sure Claire was okay.

“I’m very much aware of that,” she replied, voice quick and uninterested.

“Before then, I want to take you on a nice date,” Eli said, his tone seductive yet condescending at the same time. Claire looked up at Eli. It made Owen feel sick and his heart felt like it was burning - racing to erupt into something that would finally -

“Blue, hey, stop it,” Owen said, feeling Blue push herself against Owen.

“You know, wear a dress that would put any other woman to shame, get the best bottle of wine,” Eli continued and Owen clenched his fist around the paper. Blue began jumping up and down, trying to gain his attention as she whined.

“I’m calm, stop jumping,” he replied, trying to get the dog to calm down.

“Dinner, movie, walk in the park, back to my plac-”

“Woah!” Owen said as Blue jumped up and basically tackled Owen to the ground. She laid straight down on top of him, wagging her tail and keeping him pinned. Owen resigned to this feeling. It helped. And he knew why.

“Owen, are you -” Claire tried before Eli’s laugh echoed in the shelter.

“That guy really is nuts,” he said. Owen covered his eyes, patting at Blue’s head as he regained a better breathing pattern.

“You can go, Eli,” Claire said to Owen’s surprise.

“What?” To Eli’s surprise too apparently.

“I know you don’t get this job, but I’ve liked it here,” she said, and he gave over a reluctant sigh.

“Just call me about the date okay? I’ll pick you up wherever you wanna go,” he said, just before the doors shut. Owen was watching the inside of his palm, trying to remember when his life wasn’t a mess. It was never clear. Maybe the womb was his only non-chaotic place.

“You okay?” Claire said and Owen turned to her.

“Fine, I think Blue misread a sign, and pounced,” he lied, and Claire laughed as she sat down next to them.

“She looks very comfy,” she said, nodding and hiding a smile.

“I’m her favourite bed,” he said, scratching behind the dog’s ear.

“Lucky her,” Claire said, teeth nipping at her bottom lip. Owen’s heart ached.

“You’ve only got a couple more weeks with us, huh?” he said, sitting up next to.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she said, tucking hair behind her ear. Owen became unexpectedly nervous, the obvious indication was the whine from Blue. “Did you want to -”

“I’ve got a few paychecks for you,” he interrupted. Claire’s brow furrowed.

“What?”

“I didn’t want you going unpaid for this, at least part of it wasn’t volunteer work, but you should be paid for the overtime you did,” he said, shifting his position underneath Blue and managing to stand.

Claire followed him up. “Owen, that isn’t wh-”

“I’ll get that for you before you leave,” he said, clearing his throat.

“Can we talk about this, please?” she asked, and Owen stepped back from her.

“I gotta go train some of the dogs,” he said, turning on his heels and feeling his hands shake. God he was bad at...he didn’t even know what this was - but he certainly fucking sucked at it.

*~*~*

It was quiet that night; a shaking breath of a coming night that made Owen nervous. He was closing up the shelter for the night, making sure everything was off - almost about to close up the veterinary rooms when he felt the lack of something by his side. “Blue?” he called, and when she didn’t come, he whistled. Owen switched on the lights, wandering the shelter as he became more panicked. Outside, he called her name. “Blue?!” he yelled, and the reply was silence. Until he heard laughed and thuds that sounded too familiar for Owen not to notice.

Racing over to the back gate, he looked at the lock on the wooden fence and saw the lock was snapped off. He opened the door to the back alley to see something that made his stomach sink. His little partner in crime - the thing that kept him sane was struggling to breath and the only sound she was making was a pathetic whimper. The two guys saw Owen and dashed. Owen picked up a nearby rock throwing it at one before dashing after the other. The rock landed and hit the guy square in the back. Owen caught up to the guy and snatched him up by the collar, pulling him back to his friend and before keeping the guy on the ground with his foot. Owen held the guy by his collar, fuming with a rage only Blue could control and shook the guy.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he asked, the two men struggled, one trying to move his foot as the other clawed at Owen’s defiant hands.

“Get your hands off of me!” the guys

“You just beat the shit out of my dog? For fun, right?” he said and the man laughed, “I’m an ex-marine, asshole,” Owen threatened and the guy stopped laughing. “Whatever you did to my dog, I’m going to you, ten times over,”

“Owen?” he heard the soft voice of Claire and he turned. She finally saw the scene and covered her mouth in shock.

“Call the police,” he yelled, pushing the guy to the fence, pinning the two guys in place, “if you know what’s good for you, you stay here,” he warned. And out of fear, neither of them moved until the police got there.

Owen’s hands hadn’t stopped shaking. He worried about his dog. He was having an anxiety attack. And he needed his dog. That was on the brink of death probably. He didn’t have time to talk about this shit. He wanted it all over.

“Yeah, thanks officer,” Owen nodded, turning to find Claire by the doors of the shelter, opening them up for him. “What’s goin-”

“I got Zara, she’s treating Blue now, but...she’s operating,” she explained, and Owen’s hand went to his forehead. He was barely registering anything, he felt everything and nothing all at once, but there was a definite tremor in his limbs.

“O-operating?” his voice shook.

“She thought you’d want to as soon as possible, we didn’t want to wait,” Claire said, holding onto his arm.

“Okay, okay,” he said, his breathing getting ragged as he stumbled forward on legs that could barely hold his weight.  

“Rex!” Claire called and the giant dog came racing, guiding him to a safe spot and settling him down on the ground, head resting near him and licking at his skin whenever she could.

“Okay, I got to get in -” Owen said, almost standing, but Claire pulled him back down, keeping him in place. He looked at her with a shaking bottom lip and his hands bound so tight, his knuckles turned as white as the bones underneath.

“Slow down, big guy, sit down,” she said.

“Blue...is-” he choked.

“It’s going to be ok,” she said, her hand rubbing up and down on his shoulder. Owen’s hands went over his face, the shake in his limbs still present as he tried to keep himself together.

“I always tell people with service dogs that they do need to understand that their dogs aren’t forever. They’re a temporary part of your life,” he said, the tears slipping past his eyes and he sniffed. “I hate that I can’t follow my own advice,” he whimpered.

“I may not be able to lower your blood pressure, or slow down your heart rate,” Claire said softly, and her hand came to his, taking the tremor-filled fingers and wrapping her fingers around his, “but I can hold your hand until Zara is done,” she said and Owen looked at her with a heart that couldn’t calm down. He nodded to her, the tears still in his eyes, and Claire rested her head against his shoulder. He kept still with her there, Rex allowing him to breathe.

It felt like a lifetime before Zara came out, her forehead broken into a sweat and she looked exhausted. Owen sprung to life and Claire followed with Rex on her heels. They came to his side and Claire hooked her hand with his again. Zara sighed before smiling to the pair.

“She’s a little banged up right now, but she’s going to be fine, Owen,” she said, and Claire sighed in relief.

“Thanks for coming in, Zara,” she said.

“Anything for you guys,” she replied, “I’ve got an early shift at the -”

“Yeah, yeah, you can go,” Owen said, clearing his throat.

“She’s on a drip, but I’d still like to monitor her,” Zara said, and Owen shook his head.

“I can do it,” he replied and Zara nodded. She picked up her things and waved goodbye to them. Claire tugged on his hand briefly.

“I’ll get us something to eat,” she said.

“Claire, you don’t have to stay,” he said, but the scowl she had told him he should have swallowed his words.

“Don’t you dare argue with me right now,” she told him, “go see Blue, and I’ll bring us back something,” she nodded, her hand still gripping tightly to his. “Rex, you stay right there with him, okay?” she said to the dog, who was pinned to his side regardless. Owen laughed as her hand let go and went outside.

Owen went to sleeping area, Blue’s pen had the drip attached to it and the dog slept soundly. She looked so broken - bandaged covering her legs, stitches piecing together wounds and blood stains in her fur that was once a polished coat. He sat down next to it, pulling blankets next to him, and on top of him as Rex came and sat by his side.

Claire came back with a meal for the three of them - though she did prepare Rex’s when she came back with their take away. They managed to finish their dinner quickly and stayed up for most of the night to make sure Blue was doing alright. There seemed to be no problems, but Rex still occasionally whined when Owen became anxious.

Claire drifted in and out of sleep. It wasn’t until Owen’s attention came to her, did he realise that Claire was in sweatpants and a large t-shirt. She had been wearing it since he saw her - which meant she only caught them there when she was going out to the grocery story or something. They had completely interrupted her night, but she didn’t seem to mind. Owen tapped his foot to hers. Her eyes opened weakly.

“Thanks for staying here with me,” he whispered and she smiled.

“Anytime,” she murmured her reply before sleep finally took her. Owen managed little sleep, but when the next day came, the entire staff was there to take their place, allowing them both to go home and rest. Owen worried the whole time - but he was lucky that he had Rex by his side.

*~*~*

A week or so had passed, Owen’s anxiety was maintained by Rex. But Blue was healing well and he liked seeing her with her panting smiles. Owen sat down next to the two dogs, keeping them calm. Lowery was training Echo, the shelter was quiet save for the entire staff being in attendance. Owen asked them why they were all there, but they had things to do that day, with Zia having an early appointment with an old dog they had trained. Zara came for a check up on Blue. Franklin was there to see the books, as this was one of the last chances to see Claire before she left. And the other two were training their dogs that day.

The doors opened and Claire came through, a very casual look of jeans and a t-shirt with a faded print on it. Her hair was tied back and somehow she looked like a moviestar.

“Hey girl!” Claire called and went racing over to Blue. The dog wagged her tail quickly, and Claire scratched the dog behind the ear. “She looks great,” Claire said looking up at Owen. He tucked his hands into his pockets.

“Thanks for helping us,” he said.

“Always,” Claire shrugged, as though what she had done for him was nothing. He took a deep breath.

“I wanted to ask you something,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck briefly before tucking it away again.

“I did too,” Claire said, taking her own breath. He had no idea what she was going to say, but he breath made him curious.

“Do you want to go out with me?” The words that came out of both their mouths echoed, cheers and high fives exchanged between their staff behind them. They both laughed, Owen’s cheeks burning, and he saw the same redness emerging in Claire’s cheeks.

“What?” Claire muttered.

“Sorry?” Owen choked.

“No, you -” Claire cut herself short.

“You -” he tried.

Claire sighed, letting out a nervous chuckle before she straightened her shoulders and looked at him. “Owen, do you want to go out with me?” Claire said, a slow smile coming to her lips.

“Yes, a lot actually,” he nodded. Another cheer from the staff before they both looked at them and they shut their mouths but laughed amongst themselves. Looking back at each other, they both rolled their eyes, smiling anyway.

“Okay then,” Claire nodded, moving towards the back of the room where Franklin had been waiting and talked to him for a bit. Owen excused himself, going back to rooms for the dogs, and when he knew he was alone, he pumped his fists into the air.

“Yes!” Owen cheered silently to himself, Blue dancing around his feet and Rex jumping up and almost knocking him to the ground.

He couldn’t believe this life was falling into place.