#tumblr set my standards too high for this guy | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

voylitscope · 1 year ago

Text

Stucky Recs: Back To School

It's September, and that felt like the very most appropriate time for a back-to-school-themed rec post.

So: A rec post of 11, very seasonally appropriate, high school/college Stucky AUs.

Note: As part of my personal campaign to combat the persistent idea that every great fic in this fandom was written in 2015, I'm now marking recs of fics written post-2016 and recs of fics written post-Endgame.

🎓 The Daily Rogers | Nonymos | Explicit | 32,154 words | College

We have a (surprisingly?) large number of fics in this fandom that use tumblr as a decently central plot point. Of all of them, I feel like this one is probably the most well-known. (Unless it's this one?) This fic, featuring a defenses-way-up skinny Steve and a very sweet, but also very assertive, Bucky, is super memorable, and so incredibly well done. It's somewhat of a meet-ugly, or, honestly, a first-several-encounters-ugly, and I love the way their relationship develops from there over the course of the story. I also love what that relationship turns into once they're together. Plus, the place this story gets them— both as individuals and in their relationship — before it ends is a satisfying and beautifully done one.

Quote:

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Steve mumbled, handing him the phone back. “She, uh, she’s the one who drove me to the hospital when Rumlow broke my arm that first time. She’s a bit protective now.” Bucky stared at him. Steve—and when had Bucky started to think of him as Steve?—looked fucking adorable in Bucky’s hoodie, with his stupid glasses and his pink lips. He’d also left Bucky’s bed completely covered in blood and dirt after attempting to fight a guy twice his size. Who’d broken his arm before and threatened to do it again. “I think I understand a bit better why they made a whole Tumblr about you,” Bucky said. Steve bristled all over again. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Bucky looked heavenwards. “Somethin’ nice, Rogers.” Steve looked—well, he looked puzzled. Like he didn’t know what to do with that.

Look, sometimes, you want to read angst. Intense emotions. Canon. Canon divergence. Sometimes, you want to cry about these boys. But then there are times that your heart needs to read about them just being all happy and painfully cute about each other — just being wide-eyed teenagers with wide-eyed feelings about each other. My heart does, anyway. This fic is perfect for that. So sweet, so lovely. A fic that left me smiling and thinking about the two of them on a blanket under the stars.

Quote:

Steve thinks he’s going to die. He wants nothing more than to say yes. To the holding down, that is. But he cannot find his voice at all. He looks up into Bucky’s eyes. It’s dark, but the moon and the stars in the sky already provide enough light to see those eyes sparkle. They’re so close now, almost breathing the same air. Forget stars, forget meteor showers. Steve wants to drown in those grey blue eyes, and he’s barely holding his head above water as it is, judging from how hard it feels to breathe.

All of the rom-com AUs forever for these two, please. This is such an engrossing and immersive fic. That's something I really enjoy about college AUs, and that works so well in this particular fic —the way that, because actual college campuses are often their own little world, the world's of college AUs can be these really tight little realities with their own specific sort of pacing and consequences. I love that, and I love it in this fic — it's so beautifully done, and it's such a great read, too, I think, because the original rom-com is both high school set and limited to being movie length/tied to Hollywood standards. There is so much more depth and additional story here, while still having that really fun element of being an AU loosely based on a film. So enjoyable, and such a satisfying read.

Quote:

“You do this often?” he asks, keeping his voice quiet to preserve the stillness around them. “Lay on the ground and play dead?” “Yeah,” Steve quirks a smile. “It was the second trick I learned after fetch.” Despite himself, that makes Bucky grin. “You always have an answer for everything huh?” he says. That makes Steve sigh a little, his shoulders droop enough that it’s only then that they both notice they had been hunched close to his ears. “Yeah,” he says. “Character flaw.” “One man’s character flaw is another man’s personality trait,” Bucky says. He stretches his legs out in front of him, props himself up on his palms behind him. “Pretty sure a personality trait can also be a character flaw, but I appreciate the sentiment,” Steve says with a half-smile.

I sometimes debate whether I should go with including fics on these rec posts that fall heavy on the porn side of a porn-to-plot ratio, solely because, at a certain point, smut-heavy fics feel like their own thing that should go in their own post. But! That said, this fic, although it does fall pretty heavy on the porn side of the porn-to-plot-ratio is very, very solidly a college fic. It also does have a really fun plot, and I really, so much, enjoy that it features a Steve POV that is an absolute, just total and complete disaster about Bucky. Also! This fic has vibes and aesthetics that I quite appreciate.

Quote:

Steve grins like an absolute buffoon when he sees him, frozen in place like he's rooted there. Bucky glances around, gaze settling on Steve. The expression that spreads across his face in response to the realization that Steve is in fact there waiting for him is incandescent; Bucky actually brightens like maybe he wasn't expecting Steve to show. He draws his shoulders up and walks to Steve. When he reaches him, Bucky reaches out and grabs him by the front of his hoodie, pulling him into a kiss. Steve goes with a muffled squeak, ducking down to meet the firm press of lips. For a second, Steve doesn't know what to do with his hands, hovering just above Bucky's hips as he grasps tightly at Steve's shirt. Just as Steve's knees go weak and fireworks start to go off behind his eyes, Bucky pulls away, blinking at him with big, sultry eyes. "Hey, pal. You're very punctual. You ready?"

So, here's a thing about me: I really like it when fics emphasize that Steve and Bucky are meant for each other. That's it always them, In all universes. It's a thing I'm big into for these two. And this is why I enjoy so much when a fic pulls off the thing where there is some sort of doubled get-together or double feelings build. Like, ID porn fics can do this sometimes — falling for each other two different ways at once — as can fics like this one — a fic about Steve and Bucky both ignoring Nat's insistence that she knows the perfect guy for them and instead going out to a bar and meeting a total stranger. A total stranger they fall for basically on sight. A total stranger who, as it turns out, is that exact guy Nat meant the whole time. — Yeah. That's a premise I really enjoy. This is a fic I really, really enjoy. A total delight.

Quote:

“Now I’ve got some ridiculously low resting heart rate,” Steve said, tipping his head sideways towards his wrist. Taking the hint, Bucky pressed his fingers to the pulse point below the base of Steve’s thumb. Maybe he did have a low resting heart rate, but if he did, Steve was not currently at rest. It made Bucky feel a little better, knowing that for some reason – Bucky? – Steve’s heart was racing. “Do you want to, um,” Steve started. When he paused, unsure, he touched his tongue to his bottom lip before chewing on it and something in Bucky’s body short-circuited. He just hoped it wasn’t the actual mechanical hardware attached to his left side, because that would be ill-timed. “Go home with you?” he suggested quietly. “Yeah,” Steve said. “That.”

🎓What a Wonderful World This Would Be | Mambo | Teen | 28,723 words | College

You know how sometimes you read a fic and you find yourself literally making embarrassing sorts of noises out loud about it? And also feel yourself making ridiculous faces at your screen in response to it? Right, that was me reading this fic. Featuring an art major Steve who is completely convinced Fraternity Bucky is going to be some total jerk of a guy when they're paired as project partners — until they have all of one conversation and Bucky is ... you know, sweet, friendly, smart, charming, and generally Bucky-like. So then Steve spends thousands and thousands of words falling hard for Bucky while also being super confused by why Bucky wants to keep spending time with him — and incredibly doubtful that Bucky actually does want to be spending time with him. Even though Bucky spends thousands and thousands of words being the Very Most Obvious that he's super into Steve. It's so ridiculously and delightfully cute. I love it a lot. Also! This fic is actually the start of an entire college AU 'verse. I've only read this first fic, but the rest of the 'verse is on my TBR and is likely equally delightful.

Quote:

Steve’s brow furrows. “How do you know I do?” Bucky moves his laptop off his lap, sets it on the floor. He stretches his arms up over his head, exposing the stretch of tan skin where his shirt rides up over his jeans. And Steve is definitely not looking for purely artistic and aesthetic reasons, but manages to drag his eyes away before Bucky notices. “You always annotate your books. I can see all those post-its from where I sit, even. You don’t talk much but you’re always leafing through your book because you know which exact quote will prove somebody wrong. Don’t try to argue; I totally notice.” That’s not untrue. “No fair,” Steve says. “You sit behind me. I can’t stare at you creepily at all.” “Not starin’, just appreciatin’ the view.” Steve must look confused because Bucky laughs again. “You’re kinda cute,” he says. “‘Specially when you blush.”

The author tagged this "enemies to friends to lovers" and "the softest of enemy-ships though," which, honestly, is absolutely perfect tagging for this incredibly sweet fic. It is soft. Everything that happens in this fic is very, very soft. Steve and Bucky are assigned to be lab partners! They spend all semester in this terribly and wonderfully cute slow burn! There's tutoring! There are coffee dates shop hangouts! There is cake! There is a Very Meaningful hug! It's all very, very charming and super adorable. Plus, this is a fic that works with one of my personal favorite tropes: someone slowly realizing that they were wrong about another person and falling for that person — hard — as they do. I'm always weak for that, and I love this fic's delightful — and, yes, very soft — take on it.

Quote:

His notebook was full of eraser marks, his lines uneven and confusing, running into each other when he made his structures too small for the amount of bonds between molecules. He could always see them in his mind, but drawing them out was hell for him, his hands just a little shaky. Steve didn’t seem to have that problem because Steve’s notebook…that shit was just about the prettiest art Bucky had ever seen. He couldn’t help himself from reaching out his fingers and running over the neat, perfect hexagons with their lines and perfect little letters for the attached elements. They looked straight out of a printed textbook. Steve didn’t move, the solid mass of him almost against Bucky’s side. “How long do these take you?” he asked. “Oh, I’m quick,” Steve supplied cheerfully. To prove his point, he drew a quick acetyl salicylic acid, copying its structure from the sloppy one on the board, where the lab’s flowchart was. Bucky was mesmerized, his form perfect and confident and tiny, so at odds with how huge Steve’s hands were. “See?” “Okay, well,” Bucky let out a laugh, “You can definitely write the lab report.”

A fic I spent a weekend totally engrossed and lost in on first read and that, ever since, has always been sitting somewhere in my brain. I think something that really, really appeals to me about sports AUs is when they're used as a lens to translate some things Steve genuinely struggles with in canon — the ways he handles guilt, the ways he feels responsible for things and people, his loneliness, etc — into these incredibly real-feeling modern, actual world, contexts. This fic does that so unbelievably well. Steve isn't truly okay, at all, during most of this fic, and affects everything. I love that so much. I also love this fic's worldbuilding, with a childhood Steve and Bucky backstory, a college swim team friend group, the pressures of professional athlete life, Olympic sponsorships, world records, and in-verse media like fake tweets and news articles. (This fic is the first fic in an in-progress 'verse, all of which I would also recommend.)

Quote:

“I didn’t want to come,” Steve says, trying to be honest, “but I’m glad I did. It feels nice to clear the air. I think it’s the most fun I’ve had in a while actually.” Steve thinks maybe this has been the happiest he’s been in a long time. He doesn’t want to tell Bucky that or speak it out loud, but the knowledge that this is happiness, and that he truly feels lightness in his bones, thrills him and he wants to keep that feeling close to him as long as he can. “I’m glad you’re here now. Just you.” Bucky says. Steve doesn’t know how to respond to that so he takes another swig of the champagne. There’s bubbles in his stomach but he’s not sure if it’s from the champagne or Bucky’s words. “We’re really going to do this, aren’t we?” Bucky says. It takes Steve a second to understand what he’s referring to.

🎓Targeting | queenmab_scherzo | Explicit | 149,148 words | High school & College

I do not know if I will ever be over the way this fic manages to mirror canon so closely while being about high school and then college football. I feel as if that shouldn't work. And yet it does, and I love it. I also love the way, because this fic so closely mirrors canon, we get a lot of Steve refusing, just absolutely refusing to give up on Bucky. Or doubt Bucky. Or listen to anyone's objections or concerns about Bucky. There is a lot of Steve being determined to get real answers to things, and Steve being determined to make things right, and Steve being determined to not let Bucky take the blame/punishment for things, and Steve being determined to not let Bucky go. So you know, very much like canon. Except it's about football? It's so, so good.

Quote:

Bucky doesn't attack. He backs away instead, an immediate, heartbreaking reflex, crystallizing proof that Steve isn't dealing with a predator. It's inhuman, the raw metal of his eyes and his expression, his hollow features, the way he blinks slowly and deliberately. He just won a football game, for crying out loud, not just any football game, the Game of the Century, he beat the number two team in the country and he can't even crack a smile. There is James Barnes, but where is Bucky. Bucky used to smile through broken bones and blood in his teeth, where is that Bucky. Come back, what happened, come back to me. Heart thudding, Steve surges forward, thinking about 49-yard field goals. "At least take my phone number." For a long time, he doesn't think Bucky will respond, and when he does, it's on an exhale, an inaudible brushstroke on dry canvas: "Fine." "You—do you want to write it down or something?" "I'll remember." The noise of the crowd rises and falls.

I realized when I was pulling this list together that I actually probably should have included this fic back in June as part of my Pride recs post I didn't, obviously, and I'm a little annoyed at myself about it. But, that allows me to rec it now, and this is absolutely a college fic. So I guess that works out. Anyway, like I said when I talked about Lane Lines, I love when a sports AU also works as a lens to look at some of Steve's less-than-healthy ways of dealing with things. This fic, which is about college hockey, is another great example of that. There are a lot of things in this fic — many of them, but not all of them, related to Bucky — that Steve has told himself he Absolutely Cannot Do, and his journey of letting go of some of that over the course of this story is one I enjoyed so, so much. Like I said, I could've rec'd this one in June, so there's a lot centered on sexuality happening here. There are a lot of feelings and a lot of romance. Also, one of my spreadsheet notes in the tropes column for this one says, "GRAND GESTURES." So.

Quote:

Bucky doesn’t know what to do with those smiles. He doesn’t know where to keep them (because he so desperately wants to keep them) that they won't cloud him. That they won’t press into his stupid crush and spill it over into something more dangerous. The team dynamic is flowing, winding, warming into something so comfortable, it bleeds into their game, and it’s like they can’t lose. They win their next two home games, Bucky chasing down Steve’s scoring record and loving every second of it. The way Steve isn’t even mad about it. The way Steve nods at him in the locker room at the end of the games. Claps him on the shoulder now with the rest of the team… All of it leaves Bucky so wholly unprepared.

🎓Persued by a bear | Zenaidamacrouras1 @zenaidamacrouras1 | Explicit | 19,200 words | **Post-Endgame Rec**

So, they're slightly older in this fic than any other fic on this list. (Well, actually, maybe not? They're a bit older in Natasha Romonaoff's Dating Service, too.) Steve is a professor and Bucky is a PhD candidate. This is also the very most academic of all fics on this list, and it's a complete and total delight from start to finish. It's a Shakespeare conference! There are tweed jackets, and suspenders, and pickup lines using Shakespeare, and the cutest Steve POV voice. I'm always, always a huge fan of a fic that features what could have been, should have been, a one-night stand, but that turns into so much more — with some hiccups, but also a lot of shameless flirtation, along the way. This fic delivers that so incredibly well and is just such a fun read.

Quote:

“You’re good at what you do, too, James,” Steve says softly, looking up at Bucky through his lashes, and shit, he didn’t mean for this to get all sexy all of a sudden. Bucky’s just. Really sexy. “You should call me Bucky. If you want," Bucky says softly. "I think I do, Bucky," Steve says because. He does. And Bucky's at a completely different university, and he's obviously a full-on, real-deal grown-up. Maybe this is okay. "Watching you work and listening to you think after following your scholarly writing for so long was incredibly hot,” Bucky says in a rush. “I’m sure you get that all the time. God, now I sound like a groupie.” Steve suppresses a smile. “Believe it or not, I don’t really have groupies."

There are a few additional fics that could be classed college/university fics and that absolutely are on my rec spreadsheet/in my bookmarks, but that I didn't include here. These are almost all fics with a plot about driving home (from campus) for the holidays/car sharing/motel room sharing/etc. that I feel like are holiday fics more than college fics, and holiday fics will almost definitely be their own post. (I didn't realize I had more than one fic like that bookmarked. But apparently, I do.)

I do have an apocalypse/dystopias/etc rec post sitting in my drafts I'm stressing myself out about it. Probably unnecessarily. I swear it's coming soon. Maybe I'll also do something seasonal in October? I haven't thought about that yet, but it's completely possible.

Fic Rec Series

#SteveBucky #Stucky fic #Stucky Fic Recs #fic recs #fic rec series #Me rambling about other people's writing

141 notes · View notes

thequeenofthestorm · 4 months ago

Text

D&D Armor in Elden Ring

A Fashion Showcase & Advice

Read Part One here

Introduction

Hello! It's me again... already. Yeah I should just make these videos instead of rambling on Tumblr about them. Would you guys watch these as videos? I'm not making much content on my YouTube channel anyway. I can decide that later. Anyways, if you read my post from last night, you would know that I use the twelve different D&D armor types to make my character designs in Elden Ring. Well, I want to go over some different designs I've put together for each of the armor types. I want to use this to show some inspiration to those of you who may not know where to start, and to help show some techniques you can use to make characters with even the lowest endurance wear what looks like plate armor without going overloaded! :D

Before we get into it, I want to introduce our model. This is Tempest:

She's a copy of my original 100% playthrough that I used for my first DLC playthrough. As such, she has the most DLC armor of all of my characters, so she'll be our model for today! As one last little thing: if you haven't you should totally try other races rather than just standard humans for your tarnished! I've got a half wolf for example. I also have one who lives in death, multiple nightfolk, and Tempest here is a Draconian! It can be a fun way to tie your build to your character's design. Without further ado, let's get into it: starting with padded and ending at plate. We, of course, don't need to do unarmored because I'm sure you know how to do clothing. The image descriptions will have the pieces in each armor set, as well as their Elden Ring weight class (unarmored, robes, ultra light, very light, light, light medium, medium, heavy, very heavy, ultra heavy, and oversized)

Padded

Gambeson and Particularly Thick Cloth

Leather

Armor Made Of... Leather...

Studded Leather

Leather Armor With Those Tiny LEGO Bricks

Due to there only being one studded leather set, this is the only example I made.

Hide

Armor Made of Thick Animal Furs and Pelts

Chain Shirt

Shirt Made of Interlocking Rings

Alright, so if you read my last post you're likely looking at the right set a little weirdly. I've been deliberately using chestpieces from the lists of armor in each type until now, so why did I use a suit of armor from full chainmail (briar) for the chain shirt. Well, if it wasn't already obvious, it's because it still LOOKS like a chain shirt when used in this context. The lists are great for full sets, but it gets a lot more nuanced when you start making your own sets. As you'll see throughout a few more types of armor, I'll be trying to use chest armor that's not in the same category I'm building for. Thinking outside of the box a little really helps, as the armor on the right fits for a Raya Lucarian Battlemage with the coloring and the mask, while also being heavier than the armor on the left.

Scale Mail

Armor of Metal "Fish Scales"

Breastplate

A Fitted Metal Chestplate, Without Much Extra Protection

As with the chain shirt, this set's right outfit is using a chestpiece from outside the breastplate category. As with the chain shirt as well, this is to show that you can use sets from other categories to make armor of a desired type. For example, here we used the bloodhound knight chestpiece, which is half plate, but basically any suit of half plate or even full plate can be combined with some light greaves and gloves to make a breastplate with higher defenses! :D

Half Plate

The "Greatest Hits" of the Superior Plate Armor. High Torso Protection with Moderate Limb Protection.

Just like with the breastplate, I used a heavier chestpiece to make the armor on the right. This time, it's a full plate set of armor to make half plate. Just change out the legs for something with only about half of the legs protected, and you can make the gauntlets lighter too without compromising the type of armor.

Ring Mail

Armor made of large rings on a leather backing

You need to get very creative to make ring mail, and use armor that can be mistaken for ring mail. There's no ring mail in the game, so I used the shadow militiaman chestpiece for this, as even I'd mistaken it for ring mail originally when writing my first post on this topic.

Chain Mail

A Suit of Interlocking Metal Rings

So you'll notice that neither of these sets use one of the three chain armor sets in their chestpieces. For the left armor set, it's because the surcoats are individual pieces of armor, which I didn't sort in my last post. For the right, I used the common soldier cloth armor as a tabard, in a similar way the surcoats are used. With the way the armor is laid out, it's implied that chainmail is under the cloth.

Splint

Metal Strips Riveted Onto a Leather Backing

I'll be honest, the Gaius one was a challenge on my part. Gaius's chestpiece kinda sucks to work with lol

Plate

Full-Body Coverings Made with Shaped, Interlocking Metal Plates

Those two armor sets above use chestpieces (and just primarily armor) from the plate armor category. I want to show below two examples where I use robes to make the illusion of plate armor

Both of these use armor in the first two sections to make armor that gives the illusion of plate armor while being significantly lighter. Sure, you lose out on the poise and defense that a plate cuirass offers, but you still get more defense than if you built an unarmored setup using these. This same technique can be used for basically any armor type, but it tends to have the most effect with plate and chainmail. As a quick tip from me before I wrap this up as well, use Blaidd's or the Young Lion's gauntlets to make plated armor even when the sleeves roll up on the robes you're using, as they have enough reach to hide the majority of your skin. This works even better when playing as a draconian, nightfolk, etc. due to their dark skin tones. I betcha didn't even notice the back part of Tempest's forearm sticking out of the armor on the left.

Conclusion

Welp, I hope that read wasn't nearly as long for you as the last one. If you want to see the first post, click here to see it! I hope to make one last part to show the fashion of all of my characters, which totals to roughly 16. I want to show their armor and explain what type of armor I think they're wearing and why. Just like this post, it'll also contain the armor pieces used for each one in the image descriptions! If you made it here, thank you so much for reading. This time, I WON'T be getting sleep because it's only 1525 and I have the rest of the day ahead of me, but I'll probably relax and play Elden Ring while I wait to see what the feedback is here! Goodbye :D

12 notes · View notes

brb-on-a-quest · 5 months ago

Note

Day Fourteen Day Fifteen Day Sixteen

im SOOOOO SORRY that I left you guys hanging those two days! *cries* the first one I genuinely forget, and the second I was too busy to do it- and I think that this is not the first time this might happen, since the farm (oh yeah, if you're not one of my regular followers, you should know I'm a farmhand lol) is picking up steam, during my down time Im trying to do more physical rest for my body to recover. which means unfortuantely, Ive been spending less time on here in general, and that my longer posts that take more time to write have had to pause for a while.

so, I'm sorry to say but this is the last day i'll be able to do this for a while, but maybe forever. I've had so much fun with it and loved to see everybody's different answers, and how we've all connected!! but for at least a few days/weeks, I need a bit of a break lol. if anyone wants to pick up this game again, with the same list of people I've given already or different ones, you are more than welcome to! and I'm not leaving Tumblr, I'm just not going to do this particular ask game anymore.

our final question: what is something that you you want in your life, and what can you do to achieve it? what steps do you need to take to earn the life you see yourself living?

thank all of you so much! I hope to return again maybe sometime! I wish you all the best :)

Awww no worries gracie! take care of yourself first. Def appreciate all the work it must've taken to come up with good questions. I'll be sure to haunt your inbox soon with hopefully some equally thought-provoking (or not) questions.

ok, actual question: our final question: what is something that you you want in your life, and what can you do to achieve it? what steps do you need to take to earn the life you see yourself living?

To be honest, this question has haunted me for the past...well since before high school. (has it really been almost 10 years since I was a baby highschool freshman?). To be also perfectly honest, my depression and anxiety were so bad I was never convinced I would make it as far as I did... which allowed me to put off answering the question for a long while until the Hour of College Applications approached.

Well, against all previous conceptions of my future, I am still alive and about to graduate in December (literally how) and set to walk across the beautiful stage in May to get my undergrad diploma with some kind of academic honors (I forget the Latin for it). Definitely not the highest GPA, but I am relatively proud of myself considering the effort and, for lack of a better phrase, blood, sweat, and tears that have gone into this. So, steps that need to happen in order to graduate

Pass classes (Preferably with A's but I'm also in a position where hopefully my self-esteem won't die with a B or 2).

Write and Finish my thesis (shaking crying throwing up I don't have enough capacity for this even if it's only 15 pages in Spanish)

Study and hopefully pass a GRE (graduate school readiness exam I think? 'cuz I'm told it's a good idea for master's school applications I can not stress enough how much I hate standardized tests and am so anxious about this that I haven't even opened my books yet, I've just been throwing myself into thesis research instead; I 'know not all schools require this but I'm going into something that's not my major, so I feel some kind of need to prove myself).

Apply to graduate schools for counseling!

Only four things... it shouldn't be so bad.... one would think... (can I please just skip to the part where this is over why do people call college the best years of my life).

The other thing I want to work on is just being a better person and in particular a better friend. My goal is therapy, particularly pediatric therapy because it's such a neglected area where I'm from and also in general I think because there tends to be stereotypes of "oh children can't have mental health problems." but doing that means I want to develop more compassion, friendliness, and patience and gentleness and actual listening skills while being assertive...yk an environment that nurtures personal and other's growth. Which is really hard. Progress has been made but still more to go.

#why is the imposter system so real #most days I don't feel like any of this is achieveable but I have literally no other plans so we will stick with this one #I just want to make people better #I want to help them help themselves #like I have been helped #ironically i've not actually had a good therapist yet #so part of me is also doing this out of spite #brb-rambles #brb-life

11 notes · View notes

beautifulpersonpeach · 1 year ago

Note

Hi BPP,

I how you are well.

I like you enough and feel safe enough to send this to you without the fear of getting crucified. Is Seven really a song worth of a Grammy? Like it's a pretty average song with multiple remixes. I personally didn't think Butter or Dynamite were worth a Grammy either. Maybe dynamite slightly because it was a shock to get a song like that from BTS plus a cultural reset of some sort but I feel the same way about them the way I feel about Seven. Generic song that could be passed as white people singing for generic radio if there wasn't noticeable accent. Plus the reason we have been able to stay on number one is because we have do many versions similar to what Dynamite and Butter had. It's not really a cultural reset of any sort. Now people might come at me and say I am an anti but I am not really. I feel like BTSs musical set standards are so bloody high. A song like Black Swan deserves a GRAMMY. Even a song like ON does but I don't know if I think their English songs do. The quality decreases a lot with their english releases. I found seven to be the worst out of those releases but PTD to me was equally as bad. I once apologise if I come across rude and antis but honestly, that's exactly how I feel. I hope I didn't anger you too much BPP.

***

You really shouldn't be so concerned about potentially pissing me off. For one thing I'm just a fan like you, what I'm saying is fair game to be picked apart if there's a better argument. And two, it takes a lot to actually piss me off. I'm not sensitive to seeing the members I like and BTS as a whole get dragged through filth because I know they're the real deal. Also don't take pointers for my opinions from k-pop stans on Twt/Tumblr in any case.

That said, I agree with you Seven is a garbage song compared to everything else we've gotten in Chapter 2. I said as much when I first talked about it.

Everybody can see what BigHit is going for here: a catchy summer pop tune to register enough in the wider American consciousness so the Academy sees a win for JK as the only reasonable option.

The mistake the suits in BigHit are making though, is that they've not first done the work to find out what will make a memorable mark in the American mainstream consciousness today. Is it a catchy, inoffensive, sugary song from another high-tenor male singer with his chest out and his pants saggy?

No.

People have made memes and compilations of that exact type of song. It's a working formula but, BigHit failed to note the sorts of artists that formula works for. For BTS, it's going to have to be something with more oomph. The problem for BTS is their fluency. They make sick music but converting that cadence and lyricism to English, can be difficult. Usually, this is where a good A&R guy would come in. Someone who has kept his fingers to the pulse to know what the public wants before they say it, someone who knows the people making the sort of engaging music BTS self-writes and produces. But so far that person has missed the mark.

Seven is a very well-made song. I actually stream it often for enjoyment now with the versions (Explicit, Band, and Festival mix), but American mainstream has heard a song exactly like it every year for something like 2 decades now. JK deserves better than that.

I'd have loved something grittier, maybe a song referencing cigarettes and blunts since he might be into that anyway. Like, JK can do angsty. We've seen him pour every emotion into those bunny eyes to steal hearts and attention. I wish they attempted something more daring than Seven for JK, though I understand why they ultimately chose it.

It'd be nice if they rethought their strategy IMO, because that's the only problem here. BTS have still got it. I just played, in order, RUN BTS, Dis-ease, FTMR, My Universe (Suga's remix) - all songs released in the middle of the PET, and they're all very good. Finding an English song with that spirit shouldn't be difficult for a skilled A&R agent. BigHit needs to get better bang for their buck.

The Grammys as an institution doesn't have the cache it used to. It very much is a local award, and my interest in continuing to know what goes on is tied only to the melodrama that is Bangtan's chances there. Plus a few other groups'. The Grammys are already so shit that if we're keeping it a buck, they deserve a song like Seven. Masterpieces like SMF Pt 2 and Change Pt 2 are beyond their range. That's music that's best heard in an arena, where you're surrounded by other fans and having the time of your life. That's not music you subject yourself to watching that stuffiness and ads marathons for.

Okay I'm rambling lol.

Anyway, Seven is what Jungkook got and he's done a phenomenal job with it. Opening a Tiktok account and using it to promote Seven was brilliant. His voice is very good on it and the choreo kinda slaps. So, not being a total grouch, I hope Jungkook gets some recognition. Seven has good chances and I hope it works out for him.

I'm not holding my breath though. If another group gets a nomination, I'm nearly certain they'll be winning it over JK. Just my little unpopular opinion.

I hope that regardless of what happens at the next Grammys, more ARMYs develop a firm apathy for anything related to it, regardless of whether results are positive or negative for BTS. This is getting to be a major drag when we should be focusing more and positively on the guys.

#bts #bts chapter 2 #kpop #jungkook #jk seven #grammys 2024 #jikook #bighit #bangtan #bang pd

37 notes · View notes

starset21 · 10 months ago

Text

A Dark Day

A/N: Surprise! Here's an addition to the collection with another coming on Tuesday!

Standard disclaimer: I do not consent to the posting, translating, or publishing of my work to any 3rd party site, the only place it may currently be found is on tumblr and Wattpad under the name @.itswildflower

Looking for more? Chicago Fire Collection Masterlist

Word count: 2.5k

Warnings: cannon typical depictions of fires/accidents, explosion

“Please make sure you register at least 30 minutes before the race begins,” the announcer calls over the PA as Matt placed a box on the table. Gabby sighed, “Really? Goat shirts?” Dani brought over another box. “Those are collectors' items,'' Matt defends. “Yeah, garbage collectors,” Gabby laughs. “You guys gonna run the 10k?” Jameson, one of the guys from another firehouse asked. “Uh, Halstead and I are, Casey chickened out,” Gabby told them, high-fiving Dani. “I'm more of a sprinter,” Matt tries to defend himself. “Heard you're gonna introduce the commissioner later,” Jameson teased. “Yeah. Not sure how that fell on me,” Matt grumbled. “Well, a ceiling fell on you while you were saving a baby, baby,” Gabby smirked. Dani pretended to gag. “Hey. It's... it's Kim, right?” Gabby asked, hearing the clattering and turning to see a woman struggling with putting up a display for CPD.

“Yeah. Hey,” she replied. “Hey, you... you need some help?” Gabby asked. “I... I kind of have no idea what I'm doing,” she admitted with a laugh. “She was part of the team that got Diego back,” Gabby told Matt. “On it. Firefighters bailing out cops is a long tradition,” Matt teased. “Oh, okay. Well, when you need a police officer to…” she trailed off. “Yeah, I've got nothing,” she said and they all laughed. “Who's this?” Matt asks, referring to the young girl digging around in a box next to the table. “Oh, this is my niece Zoe,” Kim introduced. “How old are you, Zoe?” Matt asks, helping to set the frames up for the display. “I'm nine,” Zoe tells him. “Really? Let me see your driver's license,” Matt jokes. “I'm nine too,” another little girl comes up to them. “Wow. Well, uh, you're the designated driver because she doesn't have her license,” Matt tells them and they giggle. “Imogene, don't bother them. They're setting up,” a woman says as she approaches. “Oh, no, it's totally fine,” Dani reassured. “Do you want to go see them unload the animals for the petting zoo?” Zoe asked Imogene who nodded excitedly. “Go ahead,” Kim told her niece. “Stay where I can see you,” the other woman tells the two girls. “Okay,” they call out and run off. “Hey, you're the new pediatrician, right?” Gabby asks. “Yeah, Holly Thelan. Nice to meet you. I’m the new pediatrician, just moved here from New York,” she replies. “Well, welcome. Thanks for volunteering on your day off,” Dani tells her with a smile. “Yeah, my pleasure. I'll see you guys,” Holly tells them.

“Hey, I guess I'll go get started with registration,” Gabby tells Matt. “You’ll sign me in and we can meet at the starting line?” Dani asked her, stretching out her limbs. Gabby nodded. “Have a good race, I’ll be rooting for you,” Matt tells Gabby, pressing a kiss to her cheek. They finished setting up pretty much everything so Matt offered to walk with her to go find Gabby. The two girls go running past them with huge smiles and balloons in their hands. “Wait for me!” one of them called out. “Hey, I like the balloons,” Matt called out to them. Dani watches them with a smile and goes to nudge Matt when an explosion goes off in the hospital. The blast throws the two friends to the concrete and the world goes black for a moment. Dani’s ears were ringing and she felt someone shaking her shoulder. She let out a few coughs before blearily opening her eyes, spotting Matt checking her over quickly. She pushed herself up so she was sitting and took a moment to take in the chaos. A man with a bloody leg was limping away from the scene, and those that weren’t hurt too badly had already begun helping where they could. She could hear screaming and crying through the ringing in her ears.

“Danielle,” Matt called again and she could hear him clearer than before. “Oh my god,” is all she says as Matt stood up and grabbed her hand, helping her up. The two of them started walking towards the wreckage. There were cars flipped over and burning as they assessed the scene, a chunk of the hospital gone and crumbling. “Matt, look, the girls!” Dani took off for them. “Girls! Girls, can you hear me?” she asks, sliding to her knees in front of them, “Are you hurt?” “My head,” Imogene groans. “My tummy hurts,” Zoe tells her. “Hey. What's your name?” Matt asks a man who was getting up next to them, a bleeding wound on his head. “Vaughn,” he tells him. “Vaughn. I need you to run around to the other side of the hospital... and check to see if the ICU is intact…” Matt trails off as Vaughn ends up collapsing. “Hey! Hey!” Matt tries to wake him. “Oh, my God! Zoe!” Kim runs over and kneels beside Dani. “Imogene got knocked in the head. Zoe said her stomach hurts. This man just passed out,” Matt tells her, moving to assess the man. “Im? Im, talk to me, sweetheart. You know where you are?” Holly asked as she too kneels with the girls. “I'm at the race,” she mumbles. “That's right, honey. Are you okay, baby?” Holly asks. Sirens blared as emergency vehicles began arriving. “Ow!” Zoe cried. “Oh, my God. I think she might have a cracked rib,” Holly told Kim. Matt looked around for a moment before looking back to the women. “Hey. E.R.'s gone. We'll use that tent as triage,” he told them. “Okay, good.” They all nodded and jumped into action picking up the girls. “Everyone, this tent will serve as triage! Start moving people off the street and out of the rubble! Anyone that can help us, help us!” Matt yells.

“Can you move?” Dani asked Vaughn who had started sitting up again. “I think so,” he told her and Dani grabbed his arm, pulling him up and helping him over to the tent where paramedics were already beginning to triage people. “Chief! Chief!” Matt called out as he and Dani pushed through the crowd after spotting the trucks. “Big explosion, no idea of the cause,” he tells the Chief. “You okay?” he asks the two firefighters, pointing at Dani’s cheek where there was a thin line of now drying blood. “Yeah, we’re fine,” Matt starts. “It’s just a flesh wound, triage in that tent. E.R. took it hard,” Dani told the chief. “Alright, people are gonna be trapped up on those higher floors,” Herrmann says, stepping beside the Chief. “Okay, you, Otis, and Mouch... you get the aerial moving,” Chief orders. Herrmann nods, rushing off. “Exterior oxygen and fuel tanks are on the other side of the building. This couldn't have been an accident,” Chief begins briefing the situation as Otis and Mouch hand Matt and Dani extra turnout jackets and gloves. “A bomb?” Matt asks. “The structure's unstable. Where's Dawson?” Chief asked. “Oh, God. She went inside,” Matt’s eyes widened. “Dawson's in there?” Severide asks. “We think so,” Dani told him. “We'll get her,” Severide assures Matt. “Go! Cruz, Mills, stay back!” Chief orders and everyone else gets to work.

There was still debris falling closest to the collapsed zone. “Fire department, call out!” Severide yelled as the others pushed debris off of people they could easily get to. They helped people up and took trips carrying those who couldn’t walk over to triage. “Gabby? Call out!” Kelly yelled. “Hey! Dr. Arata, right?” Matt yelled up to a familiarish looking man. “Yeah,” he called back. “Did Gabby Dawson come in here? Have you seen her?” Matt asks. “Dawson... I did. I left her at the nurses' station,” the doctor told him. “She on this floor?” Kelly asked but the doctor burst into a coughing fit. “Hey! Casey, there's a ton of pockets in here. We'll find her,” Kelly tells Matt as Dani comes back over. “Hey! If you can move at all, get away from the exposed wall! Move back towards the center!” she calls out, noticing some people dangerously close to the edge of the exposed floors. “Gabby! Anyone! Call out!” Matt yelled.

“Hey! Hey! Seriously? What's your problem?” Matt yells as two men try to push past a man who was on the ground with a gurney. “We need to get this man out of here,” one of them tells him. “Here, take it,” Matt pulls the other person out of the way and he groans. “Hey, listen! A lot of people need to get out of here, all right?” Matt yells at them. Creaking sounded and Kelly looked up at the ceiling. “Casey, get back!” he yells but it's too late and part of the ceiling collapses. Matt coughs as Kelly helps him up. “I'm okay,” he grunts. “I'm okay,” he reassures. “Hey, stand back,” Kelly tells one of the men who was trying to get past Matt previously. “No, you get back! This is Alim Al Safir, ambassador from Syria to the United States. Ambassador Safir was here in your city's protection, and if he's dead…” the man begins. “Capp, Tony, get this guy to the "A" wing,” Kelly ordered. “You got it,” Tony told him, climbing over some rumble.

“Severide!” Matt yells, standing up from where he had been kneeling looking at the rubble. “Yeah?” he asks. “There's plenty of room under the debris, the way it's fallen. I'm going in. If Gabby's under there…” Matt starts and Dani shakes her head. “Casey, I don't know if that's safe. You guys get stuck under there…” Capp trails off. “We won't get stuck,” Matt tells him. “Casey, Severide, maybe you should have me go, I’m smaller and can fit through gaps easier,” Dani tries, falling back on her training. Matt looked at her with narrowed eyes as he shed his jacket, shaking his head. Dani looked at Kelly, who looked like he was debating it. “Casey, it makes sense, I follow her in,” Severide tells him. Casey still looked reluctant. “I’ll get her Matt,” Dani tells him. “Halstead,” Capp tosses her a flashlight and she sheds her jacket. “Ready?” Kelly asks and Dani nods, slithering down into the hole in the rubble. “Gabby! Hello?” Severide calls out. “Hey! Gabby! Anyone! Call out!” Dani yells. “Halstead,” Severide says from somewhere behind her. “Yeah?” she asks, pausing. “If we don't find a space big enough to turn around, we're going to have to do this backwards,” he tells her. “I know. It’ll be fine,” she tells him, crawling forwards again. “Well, it might not be the smartest course of action,” he tells her. “We're going to be smart about this now?” she asks him. “No,” he responds. “Then we keep going,” she called back over her shoulder. In the world above Herrmann and the rest of the truck's crew finished evacuating people from the floors above and began gathering with the rest of the squad. “Hey, Casey! Tony! Where's Severide and Halstead?” he asks. “Down there somewhere,” Tony told him. “All right, let's spread out. Let's go, guys. Dig 'em out.”

“I see someone! Call out if you can hear me!” Severide yelled. Dani didn’t quite hear him. “It's not her!” he yells. “What?” Dani yelled back. “She's dead,” Severide yells. “What?!” she yells back. “It's not Dawson!” Severide yells and Dani lets out a sigh of relief. “Gabby! Anyone! Call out!” she yells. “Gabby! Call out!” Severide yells. There is a distant metal clanging. “Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. I hear something,” Dani shushed Severide. They froze, listening carefully for the clanging. “Keep going!” he told her and with a renewed vigor the two of them crawled through the dirt and debris. “The space up ahead is too small,” Dani tells him, moving some of the smaller rocks away and trying to make the hole a little bigger. “You can do it. I'm right behind you,” Severide encouraged. Dani managed to make it wide enough for her to crawl through into the next chamber. “Hey, Herrmann? Casey? Can you hear the banging?” Severide radios to the others. “Hey! Quiet everyone! Kill that torch!” Herrmann shouted. They listened carefully for any kind of banging and it didn’t take long to hear the faint metal banging. “Is that you, Severide?” Herrmann asks. “No.” Banging continues. “That's from over there!” Casey yells and everyone jumps into action, moving debris piles.

“Gabby! Gabby! Gabby,” Dani shouted as she shined the light and spotted a figure. “You came,” the other woman muttered as she quickly moved into a crouch, trying to check her over. “How bad?” Dani asked her. “It's just my head, but I think I'm okay. Matt and you okay?” Gabby asks, as Dani takes a closer look at the large cut on the side of her head. “Yeah, we’re both fine. Matty’s freaking out up there, trying to get to you,” she tells her. “Damn, Dawson. You look like hell,” Kelly says as makes his way into the space behind Dani. They all laugh. “I'm not 100% sure I'm not dreaming,” Gabby tells them. “Hey, guys, Halstead and I have Dawson. She's alive,” Kelly calls into the radio. The guys cheer and applaud. “We're not out of the woods yet, boys! Let's get this concrete off of them!” Herrmann yells. They worked swiftly to uncover them and set a ladder down in. “Drop the basket,” Severide tells them. The two of them carefully place Gabby on it and strap her in. “Ready to get out of here?” Dani asks her. “Yeah,” Gabby nods. “Lift her up!” There was more cheers and applause along with welcome backs from the guys as they helped Gabby free from the basket. Once Gabby was cleared Severide gestured for her to climb up before him. She was clapped on the back as she moved away from the area so Kelly could climb up. Matt was holding Gabby tight, relief evident on his face. The whole of house 51 migrated from the debris to grab water and rest for a moment as another company arrived and took their place. Dani leaned on a barricade, watching the scene when she noticed a blue SUV with flashing red and blue pulled up. Jay Halstead and the rest of the intelligence unit climbed out, looking around. Dani’s green eyes met Jay’s and he gave her a subtle nod in greeting before he followed his unit. “Hey, Chief, commissioner's here,” Severide says.

The commissioner walks over to them. “Fire commissioner,” Chief greets. “Deputy District Chief just brought me up to speed,” the commissioner tells him. “Dark day, sir,” is all Boden has to say. “That, it is. Listen, I am informed that you and your men from Firehouse 51 were first on scene and saved dozens of lives today,” the commissioner tells him. “Yeah. Plus one of our own,” Boden says. “Well… You can fall back, let some relief do some digging,” the commissioner tells him. Chief Boden looked at the company, everyone had stood, looking ready to get back to work, giving him the impression that they weren’t willing to leave so soon. “We think we'll stay,” Boden tells the commissioner.

#starset writes #kelly severide #matt casey #gabby dawson #dani halstead #chicago fire #chicago fire collection #one chicago

7 notes · View notes

ultimatebottom69 · 1 year ago

Note

Even pretending women who find men to be more of a "vague concept than humans with rights" existed, that's nowhere on par with how men treat and have treated women through history as property or less and abused or murdered us for asking for better. Misandry annoys; it doesn't harm like misogyny.

This is also a super weird take as the only women who dislike the movie don't hate it because they hate men (???), they hate it because they see it as bimbo feminism that hurts women.

So you admit you hate the way woman are respresent3d by a doll who has set too high standards for beauty amongst woman AND that in the same breath you sincerely thinks that misandry isn' that big of a deal compared to misoginy, implying that men have it easier then women when the movie is about how men are also victim of the system.

Also every single conservative woman, said some shit like "It's anti-men" which explains clearly that their idea of a man is clearly this broad-shouldered cold guy who hates women and should breed until he dies and never show any emotion except constrained joy and pure seething rage.

In my book that's hating men.

Women and men are both humans not two different species that just had to cohabit for the sake of the other. We ain't roomates or some bullshit, we're litterally the same, the system has rotten you so bad that when you read a queer person named "Ultimatebottom69" on Tumblr aka Dying site dot com, say "Hey women who hated this movie clearly hates men" and decided to come in like a little coward under the guise of anymous mask to explain to me that clearly misandry isn' that big of deal.

How the fuck do you even dare come into my ask box you barely disguised TERF gal ? Like at least pretend you give a damn about feminism which this movie was clearly about but oh yeah it wasn't your lovely "Women are oppressed by men but given power they would definitely be superior" type of feminsim it was "Well we are both humans and we were dicks to each others in different ways who could have been sold if we jist talked about it but neither of us was really ready to do that so we hurt each others and I am sorry" feminism.

You know actual true feminism not your "not like other girls" bs. Real feminsim strives for the end of patriachy AND matriarchy. Feminism strives for equity in all aspects no matter your gender.

The Barbie Movie was excellent and I will not tolerate your bs in my askbox. Either you get ok with me saying Misandry is shit and harms women too or you go back to definitely-not-white-supremacist-nazi land

I excuse myself if you were someone who was sincerely not reading well my post and needed some highlights on it. But I cannot see what type of blog you are so I will by default assume you are 5 times worse then I think.

Have a nice day and equity or die.

#barbie 2023 #Anti-men #Ew #Pro-feminism #feminism #feminism = humanism #femininity #misandry #ken barbie #conservative women

12 notes · View notes

deadlockorignalfilms · 11 months ago

Text

I wrote a really long thing about my opinions on the different adaptations of Hunter x Hunter for my personal Facebook

Since I spent like an hour on it and realized no one was going to read it, I decided I should probably post it somewhere else that no one would read it as well

I used to post my stupid art opinions on Tumblr a lot, before I realized that they were stupid and nothing I said made sense

Also I have, like, two friends now, who listen to what I have to say, which is something that I didn't have before. Now it seems like a horrible idea to post my bad takes on my COMPANY'S social media, because I can just say dumb shit to my friends in private instead of screaming nonsense into the void until somebody inevitably ratios me when I say something stupid enough

Anyway here's this dumb word vomit

-----

So far the 1999 Hunter Hunter has been immeasurably better than 2011. Absolutely no contest, completely blows the later version out of the water

except in one regard

Having seen both versions, I think they kind of weren't able to do Heaven's Arena Justice in the original show.

Aside from the most obvious problem, that the hisoka vs kastro fight is completely removed in the original adaptation, 1999's more dark, lethargic and Atmospheric Vibe doesn't really mix well with the fun tournament Arc it's trying to adapt. It kind of just ends up being boring. which is a real shame

The 2011 version has a lot of problems of it's own in the heavens arena section but it gets the tone right. the biggest problem in 2011 being that the show seems unwilling to animate a good fight scene for most of the first 76 episodes. so the fights, the main things that happen during a tournament arc, are really underwhelming.

It kind of seems like Madhouse was so dead set on keeping the characters on model at all times that they had trouble moving them around too much, or having them do anything exciting at all? (until the Chimera ant Arc, when the show gets a lot more High effort). That's just a theory though, I have no idea why 2011's animation is so underwhelming for the first 76 episodes. (The less charitable interpretation is that maybe they just decided not to put any effort in until the Chimera ant arc, because that was the only section they actually WANTED to do, and they were doing the rest of the show out of obligation)

Another problem with 2011 is that the scenes where the characters are introducing the magic system to the audience for the first time are really half-assed, boringly staged with flat angles and no dynamic cinematography or lighting. I should be feeling wonder and amazement but instead I'm just looking at a cup in a boring hotel room while standard OST track 3 plays for the fifth time this episode. So much wonder, much Whimsy

But in spite of those problems, the more adventurous, upbeat and exciting tone of the 2011 version matches this particular story a little bit better then the dreary berserk-like tone of the previous adaptation. Madhouse didn't put anywhere near as much effort in as Nippon Animation did,

( outside of gon vs hisoka there's almost no good great fight animation. the scenes of gon fighting the guy with the dreidels are especially bad, especially in comparison to shows like Naruto Shippuden that regularly have exhilarating fights, with the trade off being that the higher frame rate means that they can't always keep the characters on model )

but at least it's more fun to watch and in the end that's the most important thing

(except for the agonizing nen explanation scenes in flatly lit hotel rooms, which are just unbearably bad in 2011)

Also since I'll probably never have another opportunity to bring this up

While I'm complaining about the 2011 version of Hunter x Hunter

Why is it so horny?

Specifically, why is there so much fan service?

The 1999 version isn't like that, the manga isn't like that from what I've seen, but any time there's a female character on screen madhouse animate jiggle physics for no reason

When chairman and Menchi are having a conversation in the 2011 version, for absolutely no reason they decided to add a moment where the chairman stops listening to her and just stares at her tits. As far as I can tell that doesn't happen in any other version

When stuff like that happens it really just kind of feels like they were bored with the show that they were making.

I'm sorry you didn't like making this show, I also wish somebody else had done it because then maybe it would have turned out good 😕 (well it does get good, almost 100 episodes in)

The pre-chimera-arc good parts of the madhouse Hunter x Hunter are the parts where Togahi's storytelling is so good that it shines through the lackluster adaptation. which to me seems like the ultimate proof that they did a shit job. Since the average anime adaptation is very faithful to the source material, the one job that the adaptation is supposed to fulfill is to elevate the story through movement, cinematography, music, voice acting, and editing. Madhouse doesn't do that until the final Arc, up until that point it's just going through the motions, in cartoon form.

1 note · View note

twilightguardian · 2 years ago

Text

asaltystoryteller:

twilightguardian:

asaltystoryteller:

For God’s sake, is Kob back trying to police everyone again?

The guy and his army of goons see themselves as the gatekeepers of Epic Storytelling itself and try to control what small time guys, fanfic writers or otherwise, create and enjoy and police their opinions and subjective feelings about anything they arbitrarily label “bullshit”

Is he friends with Future Stories? lol Wait IS he Future Stories? kidding kidding it’s far too easy to tell when it’s him

I know next to nothing about the guy other than a few really old comments he’s made, and it was so long ago I don’t remember what they said.

But yeah, trying to act like a fanfic writer should be held to the same standard as a professional in the industry is ludicrous, no matter what things that fanfic author has said. It feels very petty and spiteful to me that because you didn’t like what someone said that you’ll just go after their ass and raise the standard super high to the point where it would be next to impossible for them to cross.

As a fanfic writer myself I find the idea of doing that, and insulting all fan creators by generalizing trying to insult one person is really rude and I’ve seen a few people in the RWBY community, mostly on reddit, do that. There’s a lot of garbage fanfic out there, mostly because they’re written by kids. But that doesn’t mean fanfic can’t take work, or have a lot of thought and effort put into it.

It kind of felt like to me he wanted to just ignore everything else I said because it was inconvenient rather than just skipping if I repeated myself without any extra substance to it.

We actually do have Future Stories coming in to Raymond’s comments saying he admires his work, but constantly says that it could be better. Which, you know, fair. It could be. But then his suggestions are usually pretty bad. I set him up with Raymond to chat about writing and he gave a sample of his work under the condition that no one else could see (he seriously thought his ideas were so good someone would steal them). Raymond talked about the broad strokes of the idea and whoo boy. The EDGE.

If that’s what stans mean when they complain about grimdark stories then I agree, it’s stupid lol

No idea who Future Stories are, but I watched this guy for a while on Tumblr, and maybe I don’t remember all of this this correctly, but he would sing praises on tragedy of RWBY, notably how the heroes used their suffering to drive themselves forward while bring up tropes and archetypes in a very hackish way.

But people like him are the poster child for everything wrong with modern storytelling fandoms, not necessarily the creators themselves

He also singed praises of the likes of Madoka Magica as well, and pretty much uses the stories he likes, some grimdark, as the measure of all things and anyone wants otherwise, like I asked him for any epic stories where a character pair like Jaune and Pyrrha and Sun and Blake have a well earned happy ending, and he said that is like “90% of shonen anime” which he gave no substantial examples and in a tone that implies unwashed masses.

When I expressed my desire to write a story, fanfic or original, where a pair like aforementioned characters get a well earned happy ending, he said I wasn’t allowed to do that because that was “leeching off” Monty’s work and stories like that would be “Pandering”, and this is the same guy who after I complained how Dan Didio trashed the marriages of Superman and Lois Lane and Batman and Catwoman sycophantically supported it by saying “Single Batman and Superman Sells well.” obviously because thats something he would buy.

People like him believe nobody is allowed to challenge the things they like while subverting everyone else’s because their preferences are the end-all-be-all of epic fiction and anyone who has a problem with it should just go watch write for Disney, Marvel, Pureflix, romcoms, and sitcoms where what we create and enjoy are restricted and limited and just shut up and like it.

I guess in their minds, its not entitled fanboyism when this bullying and controlling behavior is directed at the peasants, only towards billion dollar companies and creators, and they’ve gotten away with this for a while

But now I worry the likes of this guy will start going after indie creators of comics, novels, and other mediums now that indie platforms like WebToon, Comixology, and Amazon novel writing is getting traction.

Maybe I’m reading to deep into this, but this guy has been on an ideological crusade against anyone who expressed negative opinions and subjective feelings about RWBY or any other stories he deems sacred while condemning any stories he would deem “Bullshit” and I can’t help but get the feeling they’ll go after dissidents who decide to go indie to protect the “purity” of “true” epic storytelling all in the name of their big entertainment overlords, companies and individuals, even though none of said overlords asked them to and could give less of a shit

Cutting my long-ass original post out lol

But oh my god that’s really fucking funny! Honestly I think the tragedy of RWBY is all headcanon. And I know that what V9 is doing is actually delving into that, especially with Ruby, which is great, fans have been wanting that for a while now, but it falls a little hollow because the setup to it isn’t well done. But it’s also not really true for Ruby because she just ignored her pain to focus on the now. Blake also ran away from her problems until she could distract herself from it with something else and Yang had to have it beaten into her. You could say maybe Weiss is the only one of the four that actually does that and then she gets really meek to go back once she escapes, feeling almost like she reverted back to V1 Weiss again.

Also I saw someone somewhere make a great point: it’s not that V9 is bad, it’s just happening a bit too little too late. So it feels weird that WBY still seem to care about issues they’ve already gotten past through character development in previous volumes, regardless of how well it was executed. IMO, I think if they somehow made it that they got transported into the Ever After after V3 what they discussed in episode 4 would fit perfectly.

I’ve never seen Madoka Magica. I mostly know it from cultural osmosis and it being somewhat infamous, I suppose as a ‘stranger danger’ story about trusting random talking animals who claim they can give you magical powers. Kinda sounds like the writer went “what if magical girl but phishing scam?”

I think it’s natural to compare the things you like to things you don’t like. I do it all the time. I compare RWBY to several different shows I enjoy for instance. But it’s weird to act like the only good stories are the ones that you personally enjoy. I didn’t care for MLP:FIM when it came out but watching the first few seasons I’d say it wasn’t bad. Just not what I was hoping it would be. And I certainly wouldn’t be so bold as to claim that I know what “90% of shounen anime” is like. Even being hyperbolic it’s a pretty irresponsible thing to say, and it comes off as more hatred for anime.

If he’s someone who is so media literate, he should be aware of how not unique RWBY is in terms of its genre, themes and especially not its characters. There’s far too many people out there who think they peruse through the TV Tropes page and think themselves experts on the tropes and dynamics found within.

I find this especially egregious. Like, look. It hasn’t been “Monty’s work” for a long, long time. The show will always have been his idea, but the man shouldn’t be evoked like this, especially not to shoot down a fan who wants to write fanfic. It feels like he just dislikes fanfic. It’s not illegal to write fanfic, and the idea of pandering is outrageous. Pandering to whom? “Leeching” is also really funny considering Monty was leeching off fairy tales, anime, you name it. Which is fine. Nothing is made in a vacuum. But fan works aren’t on the same calibre as original works and I think this is at the core of the issue with him. He can’t seem to distinguish that. There’s nothing wrong with writing fanfic about what you personally want to see out of the story. That’s what it’s for and it baffles me that if this is true more widely outside of FRWBY that he can’t understand that.

I talked with him a bit in messages after I ended the conversation and we ended things amicably. But yeah, it doesn’t seem like he understands the core of the issues we have with the type of critique that he and some others give out. A lot of people criticize Fixing RWBY over really petty things. Not because they legitimately believe the work is bad, but because they believe Raymond himself is arrogant, and it bleeds into the larger issue I have with advocates spamming goodreads to let everyone know how much they hate Author of Book due to Reason. No one gives a shit. We’re here to know what is thought about the fucking story, not your shit ass garbage takes on the author.

The way they protect these people due to fanboyish admiration is a little incomprehensible to me. I’m not one to look at heroes and put them on pedestals. If I think someone is unfairly criticizing someone’s work I don’t try to attack that person and doing a whole whataboutism with their own work. I debunk their claims using the attacked writer’s work to butt up against the allegations.

I kind of want to say you’re reading a bit too much into it. But I also can’t say that I know it’ll never happen, either. Scorned fans anonymous online can do anything, and Raymond’s book has already been smeared once on goodreads in such a way that I can’t take it as a serious form of criticism and more deliberate attempt to paint Raymond in a bad light. The best we can do is if we see it, we call it out and let it be known that if it happens, it won’t be tolerated.

Fanfic has every right to exist. People who criticize a writer for their writing are right to their opinions and if they have books or other works of their own they should be criticized for the quality and content, not because of some desire for revenge or ‘see how you like it’. It’s peak childish behaviour.

@kob131

The OP blocked me so I didn't see your reply. Which, fair enough, if they don't want to get notified of our discussion. It was their post, we honestly should have moved off it earlier.

I switched because you literally said your problem was his arrogance. What, would you like me to ignore that and keep focusing on the word spite? It was what I was originally talking about, with most people either claiming one or the other or usually both at the same time, and then you clarified your position on the matter. So I switched. It's not hypocritical, my dude. It's how conversations work.

You don't get to talk about me sidestepping your challenge. My response was to tell you to actually watch his damn content because that's where you'll find it if you want to see it so badly and you ignored it and then shot back a challenge at me without acknowledging it. That's not how things work, my dude. Learn about how burden of proof works, please.

If you couldn't possibly bother to look up anything on Raymond's channel that's your own damn fault, like it would be my own damn fault if I saw... idk, one video of Unresolved Textual Tension's videos and complained about Maria's flippant recapping of the book she's reviewing. If I didn't watch any time they review a book she likes and she still reviews the book the exact same way meaning she isn't flippant out of hate, me bitching about how salty she is would mean I have egg on my face. There's plenty of examples in his reactions where he praises the show's writing that tell me you didn't even bother.

You don't get to make stuff up about how you perceive someone to be when you don't bother to do anything except watch (maybe, or maybe you don't, I don't know you, nor have I looked you up. I am just responding to you as you are right now) his Fixing videos and then claim he's arrogant because he said on his twitter one time that he thinks he's better than M&K.

And really, who cares? Having a writing job on a show doesn't inherently make you a good writer. It means that their works are public and up for critique, which anyone is free to do. Writers on other shows are called bad all the time. Stephen Moffat was called a bad writer all the time who should have stayed an episodic writer. Raymond has said that he doesn't think they're BAD writers, either. Just that, like Moffat, their strengths are with shorter, more contained stories. You'd know that if you watched his content, because he's said it multiple times. Point is, Raymond backs up his words with action while most people don't. Most people just sit and complain and say 'bad writer' and then move on with their lives. Raymond is a writer and is doing FRWBY and his own content outside of Fixing RWBY.

Anyway, I do believe I didn't fully take a look at what you were saying and respond to it, you're right, so I'll correct that.

Prove it. And not by saying "this thing sucks". Actually explain in detail why certain things you take issue with are a problem and taking into account the changes Fixing RWBY has made into context. It should be easy for you to do, since you claim he didn't do a single thing better. Not a single aspect is done well. Nothing at all. So you should have plenty of material to choose one thing.

Keep in mind that I may actually agree with you on something. I don't think Fixing is perfect, but just because I don't think that something is the way that I would have done it means that it's bad necessarily. You have to look at more than one aspect before you determine the difference between it not being for you and it being actively bad. Stepping away from your personal preferences to look at something objectively, I can understand the decisions made.

Mupa and I talked about how it would have been easy to make Ren or Jaune Ozpin's host. Ren has the green theme, same as Ozpin. He can also pull off the wiser-than-he-seems aspect. Jaune is meant to be Joan of Arc. Hearing voices in his head is RIGHT THERE. Missed opportunity, if you ask me lol

Though I've said it before, I actually chewed Raymond out in vc once for replacing Oscar because I was looking forward to seeing his interpretation of Oscar. I also pointed out that the point of Fixing is to stick to canon as close as possible.

Thing about spiteful passion is that you quickly get burned out by it. It wears you down if you keep it up for long periods of time. Raymond has been working on Fixing RWBY for YEARS. Because he loves the show. He's said he loves the show multiple times on his channel. Doing a big project on something you love also wears you down, but you are rejuvenated in the end by the end product. Things made out of spite are only effective in the short term, not the long.

You're making a lot of assumptions here, bud.

That a fan, who has less power than the creators, cannot or should not have the ability to insult the writing. He doesn't insult the writers, at least as far as I remember. He doesn't say 'fuck Miles/Kerry the piece of shit' or anything like that, he says he's a bad writer. Oh. How terrible. He's made jokes before about burning idols of Miles in his backyard, sure, but that's not an insult. It's comedy. You don't have to find it funny, but it's not meant to be taken seriously, it's not a threat; the guy jokes around a lot.

That as a fan he should be held up to the same standards as the professional writers, who are held to a professional standard and judged accordingly. Keep in mind: a lot of fanfic authors out there do believe themselves better than the writers of the fandom they write for. Or unrelated professional authors. There's a reason 'I've read/written better fanfic than this' is a common insult.

He does less and risks less of himself than the original creators. What does this even mean? How do you know how much work Raymond does or does not do to make Fixing RWBY? Creating a base world like RWBY is easy. It can be done in mere hours. Or any story meant for younger audiences, not to talk about RWBY specifically. Sailor Moon is a very simplistic story whose premise and characters can be created in a few hours. Spice and Wolf is a premise that is very simplistic world building. And I've seen plenty of authors who have put blood, sweat and tears into writing fanfic, or rewriting something. Making sure the lore is correct, or references something, the characters are fundamentally the same, expanding on things, adding things that don't contradict, and if you are changing aspects of the canon lore, making sure it still is within the boundaries of what the canon is. My own fanfic is an example I've put a lot of thought and effort into with it being an AU pseudo-rewrite based on my gripes with my own main fandom, so I have to constantly cross-reference to make sure I get characterization right despite the alternate scenario and build up new character arcs from scratch despite a lot of the work already being done for me. To say that because he's building off something already established so he doesn't work hard is an insult to all fanfic writers.

This is just reiterating the point you've already tried to make. He's a fan who is not making money selling Fixing RWBY. Thinking that you should criticize a fan making a fan project is a dick move in any fandom that I know of. It's a nonsense question and just makes you look more like a bully. It's a power dynamics thing. Raymond has no real power over RWBY. He's "punching up" as they say. Anyone claiming that they should have the right to criticize a fan and say things about them because "they're doing it too" is being petty and acting like a child.

For the record: didn't Miles literally say he hates people who criticize just to be spiteful or to be mean? He called out people who do that because it's inappropriate. So why do you feel it's okay to do it when the person you're supposedly defending doesn't condone your behaviour?

Raymond loves criticism, actually. He looks forward to any time someone can give him honest critique of the show. He actively says at the end of his Fixing videos to leave comments and criticisms in the comments section. He addresses them. He's acknowledged mistakes that he's made, and strives to do better.

Not all criticism is written equal, though. Saying 'I think this thing is weak/poorly executed because of xyz reasons' is different from 'ew you did zyx how dare' or 'how dare you change [literally anything] you're a hack writer'.

One is a genuine critique talking in detail about the flaws and why they view it as a problem. The middle is saying they don't like a concept. Okay? Noted, I guess. The other is straight up being a troll or a petulant child.

Raymond takes into consideration the first, sometimes the second and laughs at the third. But he's also allowed to defend himself.

Skipped to here in your next post because I already addressed what you said above.

It's subjective. Also, you're being the second person in the example above. What else am I supposed to say here? 'Nuh uh.'

If you don't explain why, there's nothing to talk about. I do not agree it doesn't improve shit. I don't agree it bloats anything and I don't agree that the project is overworked.

Like I said, get up off your lazy ass and look at his reactions for yourself. They're right there. He talks about what he likes and what he doesn't like and everyone usually says he's consistently the nicer one of the group (to RWBY) apart from Dashie. It's not my job to make you drink, I will just point in the direction of water. If you haven't watched his reviews and caught when he compliments the show, that's on you. If you haven't seen when he says directly that he loves the show, that's on you.

But here, scroll through this guy's post. If the videos are still up then watch them. Now you can't say I didn't show you where. Because they're right there.

Eat your words.

Back to your current reply.

It literally doesn't matter, friendo.

Also you claim to know how much his book has been seen now? How many people bought his book? Since you know so much, please tell me, I'm curious. His video views on his announcement aren't indicative of that, I hope you know. The Artificer has been reviewed by at least one other youtuber, a booktuber, so it's out there. It might get picked up by more. Not everyone who casually reads books leaves reviews, either. I know I'm one of those people, because I have nothing substantial to say, or I just don't feel like it even if I do.

I ask why the hell do you care about his other works and whether they're popular. But if we're comparing here, you have a company of at least 300 people by the time of volume 2 compared to a single man. And you think a company with a budget of any kind, no matter how small it may be for marketing and merchandise is really comparable to one man? Like frig. Bigger youtubers than him don't even compare to Company money. Shadiversity for instance, for all his popularity, doesn't compare to Company money.

It's disingenuous of you to act like they are.

I'm not lying lol

Saying you're a better writer than X doesn't make you spiteful gtfo with that stupid argument lol

You're so caught up with that one little thing. Is that your main gripe with him? Would you actually think not a whole lot is wrong with Fixing RWBY if he didn't say that one singular thing you don't like? Are you basically trying to give him a taste of his own medicine? If not, then what the hell does it matter? He said something you don't like. Do you go around disliking and talking shit about everyone who has said something you don't like ever? Or do you move on because in the end it doesn't matter?

You think he's not proving himself better. Say how and why. Popularity doesn't matter, my dude. There's plenty of quality shit out there that's obscure. Look at all the things out there that bombed at the box office but became cult classics. Doing numbers is not indicative of quality.

You perceive him to be arrogant. Doesn't make him so. I think you just have a stick up your ass because he insulted someone you have attachment to and admire and you view him as a bad guy meanie head for it.

I don't think he owes Miles or Kerry anything. He doesn't need to be nice to them. It's ridiculous to think that just because his channel makes money off RWBY content that means he has to be grateful to the writers of the show and thus not say anything derogatory about them.

It's also none of your business, nor do I understand why you whiteknight (not meant to be an insult, it's just late and I can't think of synonyms) for them so much when you don't even know them personally as people. They're professionals. They're big boys with big boy pants who take criticism a lot better than you have. It's the professional world. They're not the only writers who have had mean things said about them, and they're not the last. They probably have learned to let the criticism roll off their backs and pick out what is harsh, but fair criticism and what is just people frothing at the mouth.

He's not fucking MysteriousMrEnter where he used to fly into such a rage calling them names and wishing death upon them he caused other people to harass the writers of Spongebob on twitter. He said the writing was bad. You can criticize someone's work without insulting them as people. You can criticize someone's work without thinking the writers are bad people. Raymond has shot ME down when I said they were bad writers and explained to me where he thinks their strengths are. I've said it many times. If you haven't seen him say it when he has multiple times, that's on you.

He HAS said things in a fit of rage and he regrets it. Terrible thing owning up to his mistakes and trying to be better. What an asshole.

Nah. It's because after I replied to you the first time I learned you're a known issue in the community and I had little faith in you that you would actually be honest. Plus, I'm busy; leads to inaccurate reading, for whatever that's worth. I'm making up for it with this by giving you the proper attention. If I was actually like Lilith Fairen I would have blocked you the moment you replied to me and then kept talking about you behind the block, laughing at how pathetic you were for being a rwby stan who thinks it's okay to harass small creators and blah blah despite that not being the reason you were talking to me.

It's happened before, where I thought I could have a decent conversation with someone only to learn they'd actively ignore anything Raymond said that was positive, the person wanted to believe whatever he wanted about the man and say shit about his content due to that false belief that he hated the show. I'm glad you are actually talking to me and engaging, but we'll see where it goes.

#asaltystoryteller #rwde #rwby

24 notes · View notes

aquagustd · 3 years ago

Text

aquagustd’s masterlist

❝everything posted is my original work, please do not copy/repost/translate on tumblr or on any platform. my work is protected by this license © | NSFW / minors dni

please do not take any of this seriously, this is FICTION.❞

✩ navigation ✩ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ꕤ shorts · WIPS · archive ꕤ

key: angst- ⌫ fluff - ♡ smut - ✘ crack - ✺ hurt/comfort - ☽

updated: 220824

➸ zookeeper bangtan masterlist ongoing

⤷ Welcome to Bangtan’s Zoo!

ᴰᴿᴬᴮᴮᴸᴱˢ&ᴼᴺᴱˢᴴᴼᵀˢ

docile ♡✘ | 6.4K | zookeeper!namjoon | strangers to lovers

much to your chagrin, your friend set you up on a date with Kim Namjoon, despite you telling her that he isn’t your type. He’s too sweet. You decide to humor her, and things take a wild turn.

↳part of the Zookeeper Bangtan Series

detention ♡✘ | 4K | high school au | teacher!namjoon | legal age gap

Namjoon wants to believe that he’s not a bad guy, but you’re unafraid of acting on your desires.

ᴰᴿᴬᴮᴮᴸᴱˢ&ᴼᴺᴱˢᴴᴼᵀˢ

influence ♡✘⌫ | 5K | strangers to lovers

take each day as it comes, one fake smile at a time but what happens when a certain someone sees through your act, a certain Kim Seokjin, your fiancé’s cousin.

overture ♡✘ | 5K | zoo owner!Seokjin | vet!Seokjin | strangers to lovers

following your grandfather’s demise, you had received an offer for the plot of land that you had inherited, one that holds memories and sentimental value, one that was left to you for a reason. Surely you can devise a solution that suits both you and the buyer?

↳part of the Zookeeper Bangtan Series

soarin’ ✺♡✘⌫ | 3.3K | established relationship au | husband!seokjin | pregnancy au

when you find out that your husband is hurting just as much as you, you realize that you’ve been thinking selfishly. And when you come forward with your doubts, he shows you how much he loves you.

ˢᴱᴿᴵᴱˢ

need to know ♡✘⌫ | ongoing | 39.6K | sugar daddy au

a series that explores the budding relationship between you and your ‘sugar daddy’, Min Yoongi.

yoongi’s birthday drabbles⁹ 𓃠 ♡✘⌫ | 11.5K | ongoing | minMarch

nine drabbles for nine of my favorite yoongi fics I’ve written so far.

ᵀᵂᴼˢᴴᴼᵀˢ-ᵀᴴᴿᴱᴱˢᴴᴼᵀˢ

mortalised ♡✘⌫ | 15.5K | dilf!Yoongi | best friends to lovers

after a year of being away from your best friend, he finally takes some time off to pay you a visit and he has something important to ask you, but something else gets in the way.

𖧷 01 - 02 - 03

ᴰᴿᴬᴮᴮᴸᴱˢ&ᴼᴺᴱˢᴴᴼᵀˢ

cotton (teaser) ♡✘⌫☽ | - | fairy au

you’re tired of listening to what the world has to say about you, the standards you’re forced to live up to, and one day when you’ve had enough, you run into the arms of six magical men who whisk your worries away.

quirofilia ✘♡ | 3.6K | tutor au | studio sex

when a handsome stranger, who seems to know a lot about you, wants to help you have some fun, who are you to refuse this gentleman with the heavenly phalanges?

Min Yoongi, one of your closest friends, the popular guy, funny and charming, captain of the basketball team, aspiring rapper and producer, incredibly handsome and your crush for a long time, ALSO your best friend’s (head cheerleader) new boyfriend. Trouble begins.

you’re in love with Min Yoongi, yes, you are, but why do you keep thinking of the boy who broke your heart into a million pieces when you should be focusing on the one who’s mending it.

↻ drabble #1

lipstick on my satin sheets ♡✘ | 4.8K | college au | social experiment | strangers to lovers

you don’t know his name, you don’t have an image of him in your mind, all you can recall is the deep, inviting drawl that seems to hypnotize you whenever you’re speaking under the cover of darkness; the frenzy is what drives you to seek out the man behind the enticing voice, even if it goes against the rules.

bloom ⌫♡✘ | 14.5K | brother’s best friend au | age gap

you’ve been crushing on your brother’s best friend for years now, and after you overcame your diffidence, your feelings escalate which could only cause more agony because he would never return your feelings.

↻ drabble #1

hypnotic ✘♡⌫ | 6.1K | zookeeper!yoongi | strangers to lovers

your sister had asked you to take care of your niece for a day, what better place to take her than the zoo? The pretty kitties seem to be her only interest and you’re not mad.

↳part of the Zookeeper Bangtan Series

Yoongi doesn’t like brats, not one bit, and he knows exactly what to do to fix it. But first he has something to give you; the final seal of his love.

subscribed ✘♡ | 15K | college au | asmrist/camboy!yoongi

you find out that youtube isn’t the only site he uses to satisfy his subscribers. what do you do with that information?

night shift ft. Hoseok ⌫♡✘ | 8.3K | office au | milf!reader | pwp

it’s Hoseok’s birthday, and Yoongi has the perfect gift in mind.

→ part of the Suit & Ties Sope Collab

ᴹᴼᴿᴱ ᴰᴿᴬᴮᴮᴸᴱˢ

༄ almost as sweet ⌫ — 1K | college au

༄ prod. suga ✘ idol au | pwp

ᵀᵂᴼˢᴴᴼᵀˢ-ᵀᴴᴿᴱᴱˢᴴᴼᵀˢ

heaven sent ⌫♡✘ | 24.1K | soccer player!hobi | roommate au | bff2l

sometimes your best friend sleeps with you. no literally, you share a bed whenever either of you want some cuddles and need to vent. did you stop once to think that those harmless cuddles would cause a heap of buried feelings to resurface? no. did you stop to think that your best friend nuzzling into your neck with his d!ck pressed between your ass cheeks might be deleterious to your health? no.

but here you are, falling madly in love with jung hoseok — after one particular incident — who’s so out of your league. or is he?

𖧷 01 - 02

ᴰᴿᴬᴮᴮᴸᴱˢ&ᴼᴺᴱˢᴴᴼᵀˢ

need a fix ⌫♡✘ | 7.2K | hanahaki au | age gap | pharmacist!hoseok

you had this job for five years, since high school, you won’t quit your job because of your crush on the new pharmacist. It’s just a stupid crush, right?

snug & smug ✺♡✘ | 6K | zookeeper!hobi | pizza-delivery-girl!reader

you’re forced to take one of your coworkers jobs after she had suddenly quit. On your delivery trip to the local zoo, you spot someone, someone who looks oddly familiar. What bothers you is that you can’t place him, but it seems like he recognizes you.

↳part of the Zookeeper Bangtan Series

dust of snow ✺⌫♡✘ | 14.8K | soulmate au | fake dating au | christmas themed

having dealt with a hand of cheated fate, you lost all hope of finding your soulmate along with tasting true love ever again, however, a weekend away for a friend’s wedding leads you into the arms of all the hope you needed, in the form of a silver-haired, silver-tongued man who wasn’t searching for his soulmate either.

night shift ft. Yoongi ⌫♡✘ | 8.3K | office au | milf!reader | pwp

it’s Hoseok’s birthday, and Yoongi has the perfect gift in mind.

→ part of the Suit & Ties Sope Collab

he’s the breath of fresh air, the bright smile, the vitamin you need, the hit of serotonin you desperately sought for a long time; but it’s still not enough for your mangled heart.

ˢᴱᴿᴵᴱˢ

your summer holiday takes an interesting turn when Park Jimin, your step brother’s best friend, barges into your room asking for directions around the house, dripping in the same charm and allure you remember from all those years ago, still willing to teach you a few things.

ᴰᴿᴬᴮᴮᴸᴱˢ&ᴼᴺᴱˢᴴᴼᵀˢ

háblame bajito ✘♡ | 4K | bachelor party au | stripper!reader | strangers to lovers

you expected the same routine when the strip club hosts the seventh bachelor party for the month, what you didn’t expect was the alluring guest who has you on the receiving end of pleasure.

blind whispers ✘♡⌫ | 9.5K | guardian angel?jimin | college au

it’s been years, four years to be exact when the male who has been appearing in your dreams finally materializes in the form of your guardian angel. Well, you think he’s your guardian angel, and you sure hope he is because you take his counsel without thinking twice.

→part of Jimin’s Sunset Spooktober Event

ˢᴱᴿᴵᴱˢ

life has a tendency to throw things your way when you least expect it, when you’re content, and the ominous presence knows exactly how to steer your existence back into the darkness.

ᴰᴿᴬᴮᴮᴸᴱˢ&ᴼᴺᴱˢᴴᴼᵀˢ

spice ✺⌫♡✘ | 14.7K | playboy!tae | strangers to lovers

you and your best friend, Jeon Jungkook, take it upon yourselves to help the community when you find out that an ancient building that acts as a shelter for the homeless is to be demolished. All efforts are fruitless, but there’s one more thing you could do; approach the mayor’s son, Kim Taehyung, who’s scarier than the mayor himself.

ˢᴱᴿᴵᴱˢ

when the sweet, innocent nerd asks for your help to woo all the girls, you didn’t think that you would be his first victim.

life has a tendency to throw things your way when you least expect it, when you’re content, and the ominous presence knows exactly how to steer your existence back into the darkness.

ᵀᵂᴼˢᴴᴼᵀˢ-ᵀᴴᴿᴱᴱˢᴴᴼᵀˢ

lisp [masterlist] ⌫♡✘ | 38.7K | snake hybrid!JK | childhood friends au | friends to lovers

from day one, he has the irrational urge to protect you, even from himself.

𖧷 01 - 02 - 03

opposable ✺♡✘⌫ | 7.5K | zookeeper!JK | fake dating au | best friends to lovers

𖧷 01 - 02

you’re invited to attend a high society dinner event, everyone is excited to meet your classy boyfriend but there’s just one problem: you don’t have one. Although your scruffy best friend could help, right?

ᴰᴿᴬᴮᴮᴸᴱˢ&ᴼᴺᴱˢᴴᴼᵀˢ

bonus ✺♡✘ | 4.7K | coworker au

you thought that no one would notice your flustered state whenever he is in close proximity, but you were terribly wrong.

↻ drabble #1

challenge ✘ | 4.3K | werewolf!JK | pwp

Jungkook likes to challenge himself. He likes to push himself to the edge, just to see how much he can take, how much he can endure until he loses all semblance of control.

bewitch ♡✘ | 2.7K | idol au | established relationship au | LDR

Jungkook misses you, he yearns for your touch, your smile, your body, but the virtual form of your presence would have to tame his impatience.

angels like you ♡✘ | 3.8K | college au | social experiment | strangers to lovers

show up and dance, that’s what you expected to happen on another insipid Saturday evening that was stolen by your college, what you didn’t expect was a dance partner who was chosen for you without your knowledge.

está dañada ⌫♡✘ | 20K | neighbors au | singer!JK

life through the eyes of someone who watches you fall apart and helps gather the shards of your heart, only for you to make the same mistake time and time again, but he refuses to accept the truth because to him, you’re infallible.

whipped ✺♡✘ | 5K | tiktoker!jk | established relationship au | pwp

another day, another trend that you’re forced to participate in with your boyfriend. It was his idea but he somehow gets sidetracked, with his head between your thighs.

fast forward ⌫♡✘ | 12K | biker!jk | HIE au | established relationship

If every single person you knew was against you, it wouldn’t matter, doesn’t matter because Jungkook would be there for you. That’s why you don’t question his words when he repeats ‘I’ll be back’ one disconcerting morning, and you respond with ‘I know. I trust you.’ He’ll make you eat your words.

first time ✘♡ | 5.8K | HIE au | bff2l

he’s your peace in the storm, the blood like velvet in your veins, the stardust to your soul, also the ripples in your stagnant heartbeat; you hold onto him like the ocean grabs at the shoreline, even if he brings chaos with his serenity.

ᴹᴼᴿᴱ ᴰᴿᴬᴮᴮᴸᴱˢ

#masterlist #bts fan fiction #bts scenarios #minyfic #aquagustd

5K notes · View notes

killemwithkawaii · 3 years ago

Note

Hiiii!, this is an idea I got thanks to a TikTok video that said "Imagine a parallel world where real people are characters from anime, videogames, etc. And your favorite character creates fanfics and fanarts about you." I can't help but imagine Fisher writing on Tumblr about the s/o lol.

Holy shit Holy Shit HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT-

Sally as a Selfshipper-

[CW: self depreciation, unreality]

>When he first sees S/O, he could swear a chorus of angels had begun to sing and had swept him right off his feet. He couldn't take his eye off of S/O for a few minutes, absolutely and undeniably smitten, before he realized what just happened and felt pretty embarrassed about it. He knows he can't set his standards for a romantic partner very high, but they should at least be real… right?

>Denial about his feelings/ 'I just think (media) is neat' ➡ Bargaining/ 'I'll just look up the wiki pages and articles about the show. Saving a few images won't hurt, right?' ➡ Depression/Anger/ 'God, I'm really in love with some pixels I am such a loser.' ➡ Gradual Acceptance/'Everyone thinks I'm a weirdo anyway this might as well happen' pipeline

>I'd bet he'd be a lurker in the selfship and f/o tags for a long time, liking a bunch of imagine posts and images of S/O but leaving his page pretty bare besides the necessary info to interact with certain blogs. He resisted posting his own content until his feelings for S/O grew too big to keep in, and he knew people in the selfshipping community would understand what he was going through.

>When posting those dreaded first few gushes didn't kill him instantly, he started posting a few times a week, and all of his content is so goddamn romantic! Lots of pining under screenshots he took of S/O, sappy poetry/songs, painstakingly selected playlists, some personally-tailored imagines and a few cute little doodles on lined paper that he did his best on and was feeling brave enough to post (because he was thinking of S/O encouraging him 💘)

>And then he would have a venty (occasionally horny) sideblog that is technically unlinked to his main but he's not good at hiding it and everyone in the community is like 'oh yeah thats his side blog we didnt think it was a secret??' Reblogs lots of angst/comfort fics, quotes about the universe and love that isn't meant to be, "At least my fictional bf/gf thinks I'm cute" posts, etc.

>Might eventually make one or two selfship friends that he DMs, but definitely has some silent mutuals that pop up in his notes.

>Has sent in a few anonymous requests to fic writers that he will not admit to. He doesn't use sign-offs, but you can always guess he requested them because he's the first to like them. His emoji use and the way he types gives him away, too.

>Says he's fine sharing S/O because he doesn't want to be 'that guy,' but he is 'that guy' and quietly blocks the selfship tags of people that also F/O them.

>Nobody IRL can know ever know about his selfshipping or his crush on S/O EVER (but his friends have a feeling. And eyes.)

>Has one (1) self-insert that is just him but without the prosthetic and mental illness and trauma (and maybe a little taller than his IRL self)

>Consumes S/Os media regularly, but prefers to do so alone so he can stare, swoon and longingly sigh in private.

>Chronic (occasionally maladaptive) f/o daydreamer

>"I'm not ''''In looooove~''''' with [media]/[S/O]!" (Said while shoving a mountain of merch into his closet)

#k.e.w.k. answers #k.e.w.k. writes #sally face imagines #sal fisher #sal fisher x reader #sal fisher x y/n #selfshipping #tw unreality #tw self deprecation #i already have a selfship AU for almost this exact scenario 🙈#edited

181 notes · View notes

xgryffinwhore · 4 years ago

Text

september nights

request: i was wondering if you could write another soft bill smut? i don’t really have a specific plot in mind, we’re just really lacking content on tumblr rn :( in some really precarious place where they don’t want to get caught

warnings: soft smut, like i mean very soft.

word count: 2118

before your lips met bill denbrough’s, love was always, to say the least, a conundrum. lets be real for second, boys wasted your time, and you let them. only the cute ones of course. you are a hopeless romantic, drunk off of molly ringwald and john travolta films. you wanted any relationship you had to be just like the movies.

through your heart breaks, your best friends stood by you, your losers. eddie, richie, bev, stan, ben, and bill. for each tear you shed a punch was thrown to the man who caused it, they were protective over you. bill the most though, he always got so defensive when you were in the mix. all throughout middle & high school, bill has had to deal with every guy who even dares to think about breaking your heart.

“its not fair bill” you wailed into your pillow. he stroked your back and hushed you, his eyes welling with tears. “im never fucking good enough for any guy and its so fucking sad!” your complaints being cut off mid sentence by a choked out cry. “y-y/n. all of y-your boyfriend are i-idiots. anyone w-who would d-d-do this to you isnt w-worth your t-time. anyone w-would be the luckiest in the w-world to have y-you in their life” you picked your head up and looked at him with swollen lips and blood shot eyes “there no one out there for me bill, no one.”

he bit his lip, fighting back any tears dripping from his eyes “they j-just dont see how p-pretty you are. how g-gentle and caring and s-s-sweet, and h-how your face c-can light up any room. theyre f-fucking idiots, and you d-deserve m-more.” you clearly thought he was being nice, because you could take a MOTHER FUCKING GOD DAMN hint, so you replied “i wish there was someone out there like you, for me, that thinks of me the way you do.”

he furrowed his brows, tossing his head back and running his fingers furiously through his hair. “d-dammit y/n!” he cursed “cant you s-see what ive b-been trying to say? w-w-what ive been t-trying to say f-for the last f-five years!?!” your expression was bewildered, your brain was going a mile a minute trying to figure out what he meant. his frustration got the best of him, he got up and stormed out the door, feeling embarrassed and stupid for trying to make you understand how he felt.

he was half way out your front door, fuming for his keys lodged deep into his front pocket; when suddenly:

“bill!”

his head turned at the call of his name, “y-y/n please i d-”

smack.

your lips locked with his, he rain pouring heavily outside. bills lips stilled at the contact, but this lasted briefly, he deepened this kiss by pulling you in to his abdomen by your mid back. your bunched the front of his base ball t shirt with your fists, and he did the same but with your hair.

the rest is basically history.

now six months later, and you couldnt have been happier. bill knew how to treat you, nights out twice a week (you always wanted to pay but bill insisted,) holding your hand to and from classes, he let you borrow have his varsity baseball jacket, which smelt just like him and was a little too big for you.

when he would drop you off and your classes, he would always grab your hand and transfer a tiny piece of paper into your palm. when you got into class to unfold it, it was always a cute little message about his love for you.

bill had it bad for you, everyone knew that, and you loved every minute of it. he met every and any standard you had, and exceeded your expectations.

it was september, still warm enough in derry to wear shorts, so you and your friends thought of a last hurrah for the ending of the summery weather.

“camp out, its nearly perfect” Richie exclaimed. eddie rolled his eyes “like youve ever been near anything perfect toizer, do you even know what perfect means?” richie shoved eddie “yeah eddie i actually have. have you seen amanda’s tits?”

you tuned out richie and eddies bickering as you’re boyfriend cleared his throat. “you g-gonna go?” he said into your ear, “only if you promise to wear bug spray bill, you know how bad-” he cut you off with a kiss, his mouth forming a small smile at how cute you were. “get a room, honestly” stan poked, pda wasn’t his favorite... “at least i h-have something to k-kiss aye s-stannie”

you arrived at the edge of the forest, parking your car at the last parking ish space. you walked toward the sounds of ben and richie fighting, and came to see that richie really went all out. three tents, sticks for a fire, and more snacks than anyone needed.

you all spent the remanence of the daylight dancing in the light sky, sharing stories, and eating waaaay too many chips. it was dark now, you all huddled in a circle near the fire; making small talk and trying not to admit you were all very tired.

“ok folks, im off to bed” richie yawned “me stan eddie n’ mike will take the green tent, bev and ben in the red.” richie paused and smirked over at you and bill, you were tangled in his limbs, golfed in his navy blue pull over. “and uh- heh- billy boy and y/n in the yellow tent eh?” you could practically feel bills eye roll, god richie was so immature.

“w-we dont have to s-sleep in the s-s-same tent, i c-can ask ben if he’d s-switch” you look up at bill and reassure him “bill no- its not a big deal, right?” he tucks your hair behind your ear and kisses the side of your temple “c-course not.”

you both went into the tent, bill began to unroll the blankets you both had packed tightly into your bags. You both set up your makeshift bed, bill leaned against a pile of pillows while you hugged his side, your face buried in his neck. his smell was absolutely intoxicating; his skin had remanence of his milk and honey body wash, but it was slightly overpowered by wintergreen, clove, and his bourbon cologne.

you were like this for around an hour, the orange crank-powered lantern being the only source of light. you switch positions though, you now laid your head on his lap, reading a magazine you stole from the hair salon. he watched your eyes scan every letter, when you read something funny you’d huff to yourself, and when something was intresting you stuck your tongue out from between your teeth. he adored you.

“d-dont stay up t-too late” he stroked your hair off your shoulder “we have t-to have you w-well r-r-rested.” you sat up from beside him, as he adjusted the pillows and took off his pull over, then his pants. he got under the covers and waited for you.

“nice donut boxers” you laughed. “s-shut up” he blushed and regreted not changing them when he had the chance. you turned around took off your shirt, you were shy about how you looked, but it was just bill. it was just bill. you heard his breath hitch, his eagerness radiating off his body onto yours. the air became tense as you unzipped your pants and threw them to the corner. you turned around, bills pupils growing until you were completely facing him.

“yeah i know. mine are boring” you laugh nervously, brushing your hair behind your ear and getting under the covers next to him. he didnt respond, he couldnt take his eyes off of you.you began to sit up again “i can go put back on-” “n-no!” he interrupts, his blush taking up his entire face.

“i j-j-just cant b-believe i g-get to see something s-so special” he gulped “s-so b-b-b-beautiful.”

you grabbed him by his shoulders and kissed him, hard. youve been with boys before, i mean youve dated plenty of people. but no one ever called your body special. hot, yeah. nice, yeah. beautiful, sure. but no one ever thought that it was special.

bill was a kind boy, the most you two have ever done is get each other off with your hands, always clothed. bill never asked to see more, he felt lucky enough just to make you feel good, and that was enough for him. so when you felt the heat of his hands hovering over your body but not touching it, you new you’d have to call the shots tonight.

“bill,” you laid down “just touch me everywhere, please.” he crawled in between your legs, kneeling so that he could lean over your face “m-my pleasure.”

he traced your collar, leaving small, delicate, kisses to make up for what his fingers left behind as they trailed. he kissed the valley between your breasts, licking slow striped down your skin. he picked up your upper back a little and cocked his head to the side, you nodded and he unclipped your bra. he sat their with his mouth open, taking in the view. you blushed and muttered “hey, keep that mouth to good use.” he dipped down and sucked on your nipples, his mouth felt so good against your skin grazed with goosebumps. he was gingerly with his tongue, it was sexy, it was romantic. he kissed down your stomach, his fingers sweeping down your sides. you could see his member pressing against his boxers, the pressure made him wince every once in a while. his fingers met your panties and he hooked them. again, he looked up for permission, you nodded once again.

he brought your underwear down your legs and off, looking back to see what he had relieved. he licked his lips, getting ready to please you more than he already did. but you felt bad, bill always gave gave and gave. “its ok, im ready right now.” bill looked up at you in shock, he wasnt expecting you’d want to go all the way. “y/n, y-youre sure?” you lean up and kiss his lips, swiping your tongue against his bottom lip “please.”

he pulled down his boxers eagerly, his member sprung out to hit his stomach. he lined up with you, checking once more that it was ok. then he pushed in, bottoming out. he felt bigger than you thought, of course he was well endowed, but he filled you up so well. you mewled, the pain and pleasure making a delicious feeling that made your toes curl.

he waited, but began slowly moving after a bit. he grunted, feeling you wrapped around him was something he’d never be able to get out of his head he thought to himself. he grunted “f-fuck this feels g-good’ he grunted, his breath becoming heavy and full of lust. with every stroke, you felt yourself get more and more lost in the bliss he made you feel. “youre making me feel so good bill” you moan, the sound of his name coming out of your mouth driving him absolutely crazy. he speeds up, loving the view of your face contorting in pleasure and your body moving with his.

he couldnt help but feel admiration to you, your hair formed a halo around your head, and the sweat that coated your skin made you glisten in the orange light. “im t-the luckiest in the world” he husks, holding your cheek.

you felt the knot in your core coming undone, “bill im close” you strain, trying not to be too loud so you dont wake your friends. he moved your leg up to his shoulder, hitting you from a different, deeper angle. his fingers went to your clit, making you bite your had to stop you from screaming. “you l-look so p-pretty y/n, t-taking me s-so well. making y-you feel so good.” “so good bill” you repeat, drunken off his cock and fingers.

without warning, you came came, your legs spazzing as you moaned “fuck bill” he followed, his hips stuttering, as he cried out into your shoulder. he pulled out and laid next to you, both of you breathing heavily and coming off your highs.

“y/n” he looked at you “t-that was really j-just wow- thank y-you.” you kissed him, chaste and sweet “that was great yeah?” “it w-was perfect babe. t-thank you f-for t-that. i love you y-y/n.”

“i love you too bill.”

he sat up, his fingers dancing on your inner thigh.

“y/n?”

“yeah?”

“c-can we p-please do t-that again?”

#bill denbrough #bill denbrough x reader #bill denbrough smut #bill denbrough x you #bill denbrough fanfic #IT movie #it fanfiction #it bill #jaeden martell #jaeden lieberher #jaeden wesley #jaeden x reader #jaeden martell x reader #jaeden martell smut #richie tozier #eddiekaspbrak #stanley uris

2K notes · View notes

tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 year ago

Text

Okay, I have an update to this post (I’ve edited it to be behind a cut so I don’t bring back that whole long thing across the feed of the many people who will not find it interesting – but if you are seeing this and have any interest whatsoever in anything like this, you should really watch that video, it’s such an interesting piece of comedy history). I shall put the update behind a cut as well, but behind this link you will find clips of Josie Long and DO’D’s specific sets, a thing from 2021 of Josie Long talking about David O’Doherty and this competition specifically, and me discussing all those things. Basically, the above video is so relevant to my interests that I needed to spread my thoughts across at least a couple of posts.

Tumblr will only let me upload one video per post but I can embed as many as I like, so I’ve cut out these clips and uploaded them to YouTube just so I can add more than one to this post. So here she in in all her glory: Josie Long’s set at the 1999 BBC New Comedy Award Final:

youtube

Guys, it’s so good. Not as good as she is now, or as good as my favourite actual comedians are as proper adults or anything, but it’s so good for a seventeen-year-old, and it’s so good for someone who was new to comedy. It’s hard for me to strip away that context when judging it, but I’m pretty sure it would be decent even by the standards of an average established comedian. I have definitely seen plenty of properly established comedians have three-minute bursts that are much worse than that.

I have spent some time hate-reading old website archives (for a number of reasons, some justifiable and some not), and can say that Josie Long was subject to some online vitriol that was bad even by the standards of what most women in the public eye in the 00s would get, and the two chief criticisms were: she has no proper jokes, and she’s all fluffy lighthearted whimsey instead of doing good gritty comedy. Aside from the misogyny involved in all of that, I feel like Josie Long had proved both those claims inaccurate within three minutes when she was 17: there were proper jokes in there, and there was way too much gruesome imagery to be called lighthearted fluff (the “whimsical” thing might still apply, to be fair). She had good, well constructed jokes, like the kind you’d expect from someone who had watched a bunch of stand-up comedy on TV and learned the structure of the format, like any high-achieving ambitious student, and had carefully constructed her own. She had one-liners that had been built that way. And then she had surreal stuff, which sometimes involved throwing people down wells. Whimsical, maybe, but still violent.

As far as I know, the only bit of this set that made it into her material as an adult was the reveal of a “tattoo” on her stomach – she does something similar in her 2008 show Trying Is Good. I don’t remember any of the other jokes cropping up elsewhere, though I could be wrong. There was a bunch of time between this and when she started her proper comedy career as an adult, and in that time she did a whole degree at Oxford, so it makes sense that she came back with new ideas.

I watched Daniel Kitson do a similar thing just a few years earlier, a short set at the finals for this same award in 1995, when he was only 18, so again, there was the novelty of being a teenager. At that one, I was struck by how amazing it is that someone could have that much confidence while only a teenager, be that comfortable performing. The material itself wasn’t great, but you could see a level of comfort on stage that just shouldn’t be possible at that age.

Josie Long was almost the opposite. She didn’t look incredibly comfortable. That didn’t take away from her performance or anything – that sort of anxious, eager-to-please, excitable approach has been part of her persona as an adult too, and I think it adds to what makes her delivery good. But it’s not a comfortable approach. So teenage Long lacked the superhuman confidence of teenage Kitson, but her material was better. Her set was polished in a way that I think is just as shocking, for that age, as Kitson’s confidence. It is not normal for a teenager to be able to smooth out the edges of anything as well as Josie Long did on that set. It looks like she did so much editing and rehearsing and getting everything right. It’s such a delight to watch.

So there’s the first bit. And now, in all his glory, here is the DO’D:

youtube

...Okay, it might not be quite as bad as I suggested in the first part of this post. I was judging it a little harshly, having recently listened to some of David O’Doherty’s albums and comparing it to that. It’s not fair to compare this to his proper comedy. And at 23, he doesn’t get the same “Wow, this might not be top-quality comedy in general but it’s very good for a teenager” leeway that 17-year-old Josie Long does, but 23 isn’t that much older. It’s not bad for age 23. Also, I think he may have been doing comedy for less time than Josie Long had by this point, even though he was older.

I suppose I should also have given him more credit, in my initial post, for the originality of the ideas. I have to remember that in 1999, the type of weird idea like ending a short set with a meta mini-sketch about outtakes would have been much less commonplace than it is now. Even sitting down during a comedy set and playing a plastic keyboard was less common before David O’Doherty made it common (okay, not exactly common… but Huge Davies followed in his footsteps, so that’s one influencee, at least).

That song he played isn’t on any of his albums, but I had heard it before, and it was bugging me that I couldn’t remember where. This afternoon, I remembered that he played a bit of it on It’s David O’Doherty Time, a BBC pilot he made in 2008. That pilot was for basically a radio version of his 2006 TV show The Modest Adventures of David O’Doherty, which is odd because usually TV shows don’t turn into radio shows, it should be the other way around. However, that TV show was on the Irish station RTE, so maybe moving from RTE TV to BBC Radio is a step up overall. Either way, the radio pilot didn’t get picked up for any more episodes, but the pilot itself is fairly entertaining.

The point is that in that pilot, he tells someone: “That is the first song that I ever wrote, when I was about twelve,” and then he plays that song Ladies. I assume he wasn’t actually twelve when he wrote it, but I can believe it was the first one he wrote. It’s not that bad. It’s mildly, gently amusing. It’s that thing people think David O’Doherty is, when they say there’s no substance to him and he just does gentle mildly amusing fluff. It's sort of the same thing people have said about Josie Long, though they say it about her with added misogyny. Though I have heard one particular horrible comedian who can go fuck himself say it about David O’Doherty with a surprising amount of homophobia, given that he’s talking about someone who isn’t gay. So basically, that’s a criticism people will level with bigotry behind it, and if the person they’re criticizing has no identity to be bigoted about, they’ll make one up.

Anyway, the song Ladies is that thing people call David O’Doherty when they want to dismiss him as pure quirky whimsey, which makes me want to say, “No, you don’t understand, there’s a depth there if you just know how to listen for it, his lines can hit hard while being very funny at the same time, there’s more to him than you think.” But this reminds me that, okay, sometimes he is just mildly amusing gentle quirky whimsey. And that’s fine. I wouldn’t love his work nearly as much if that were all he was, but I like his mildly amusing gentle humour too.

Anyway, DO’D deserves a little more credit than I gave him. The song was okay. The outtakes bit was a properly good and creative idea. I think it led to an interesting debate, in the judges’ room afterward, about how to judge a thing like this. They all agreed that David O’Doherty showed the potential to get much better, had natural creativity that promised the ability to create very good stuff. And then they discussed whether you should give the award to the person who was very good on the day, or to the person who shows the most potential. For most awards it would clearly be the former, but I think there’s an argument that you should favour the latter in a newcomer award, which is meant to grow the artform and the industry, and give opportunities to people who could take it to new places. Though Josie Long showed potential as well as being better on the day, so they were right to pick her.

Watching this made me go back and look at a couple of the things I’ve heard before, in which David O’Doherty and Josie Long talk about this shared point of origin for their careers. Here’s something I really like, Comedy Catalysts s02e04 ( @my-excellent-bicycle , I’ve just realized I don’t think I’ve ever sent you this, and I think you specifically would like it, you can listen to it at that link if you want).

It’s Josie Long going on a radio show hosted by Harriet Kemsley in 2021. The premise of the show is that a comedian comes on to talk about the comedian who inspired them to become the comedian they are, and Josie Long picked David O’Doherty. The fact that she picked him at all is pretty cool, I think, but the whole interview is worth listening to, to see what she says about him. Here's a quote from near the beginning, when she talks about this award:

Josie Long: When started in comedy I was about – I started gigging at sort of 15, 16. And it wasn’t that there wasn’t wonderful things on the circuit, but at the time when I started, it felt like there was me, and there was everyone who was a grown up, who was like, in a different world to me. So I’d go to gigs, and it would all be like, men who must have been 15 years older than me talking about Star Wars. And I’d be like, “Ugh, who cares? This isn’t relevant to me, as a youth. In 1997.” And then I was in the comedy competitions in 1999, and obviously the reason I want to bring this up because I, obviously, as well all know, beat David O’Doherty in the BBC New Comedy Awards, where I came first –

Harriet Kemsley: That’s why you want to talk about him – to talk about your win.

Josie Long: Yeah, my big win.

Harriet Kemsley: Great.

Josie Long: But, in meeting him, he was the first person I met who, like, had a very playful attitude to life. So his life is about playing games, finding out new games, enjoying fun. You know, on a daily basis. Like, he’s always somebody who’s got something to enjoy playing with other people and to bring to the table. So in that final, there were like, some people doing some really fun and unusual stuff. But it will be no surprise that I was the only woman in that final.

Harriet Kemsley [sarcastically]: Unbelievable. I won’t hear it.

Josie Long: Could you believe? Also, he and I were, like, younger, generationally, than the other people. And so, I really remember, there was this one comedian who was doing sort of like, “man in a suit, very slick, gag-y stuff”. And that, to me, was what, kind of, comedy had seemed like, in lots of ways. Obviously not entirely, but it seemed that way. And then David came on and his style was so vulnerable and humane and humble and silly, on top of that. It was really a game changer for me, because he was doing stuff that was very inventive, even in, like, a seven-minute sketch. He had this really funny song called Ladies that I, like, still know the whole of.

Harriet Kemsley: Oh, I love that song.

Josie Long: Right?

Harriet Kemsley: Yeah.

Josie Long: This song is like, so old, and it’s probably, like, the fifth song he ever wrote.

Harriet Kemsley: He just loves writing songs about ladies.

Josie Long: Yeah, do you know what? He’s an advocate for ladies, and we should be proud of that. This is like, the gentlest little song, is like: “My mom is one, my sister is one too. They’re called ladies.” I could sing the whole thing, because I know the whole thing.

Harriet Kemsley: It’s really lovely. I liked it.

Josie Long: But it was sort of, very exciting to see, like, this person come out with a little keyboard and just do stuff. And then at the end of his set – so bear in mind this is like a seven-minute set – the last minute and a half of his set was fake outtakes from his set. And it was just like – oh, this is, kind of, what alternative comedy can be. And it was really formative for me as a person, because I felt like that was the present and the future.

So, I’m not sure I loved that song quite as much as Josie Long did, but I see her point. It’s a nice song. Not ideal that it was worth remarking upon that a male comedian had a song about women and it wasn’t full of misogyny, but that probably was worth remarking, I see why Josie Long would appreciate that. And I certainly see why she appreciated everything else about him.

I also find this interesting because that’s the Chocolate Milk Gang thing again, isn’t it? I don’t know if I can quite explain why that specific phenomenon interests me so much. I know why I like the comedy. I know most of the comedians who were involved in that movement make comedy that I really like, so that justifies my interest in them and their work. I’m not sure I have as good a justification why I’m so fascinated by the specific phenomenon of a bunch of comedians who showed up in Britain (and Ireland, sorry DO’D, though I think what I really mean is “Scotland” as this seems to have really coalesced at Edinburgh, also there’s American Demitri Martin and Kiwis Flight of the Conchords and probably a few other international people involved as well) in the early 00s, and did something very loosely similar to each other but different from what was mainstream at the time, so people talked about it as a new movement in comedy. I’m fascinated by the way people talked about that change, what the change really was and whether the way they talked about it was accurate, what they were replacing and what new thing they were replacing it with and why it worked and how they did it and how it influenced what comedy is today. And whether a whole movement was born from five people ritualistically sacrificing a cow on stage in 2003, but I’ll try not to get into that again.

The movement is loosely named Chocolate Milk Gang; credit has been given to Glenn Wool for coining that term (though I think I’ve heard Andrew Maxwell also credited with using the name), just by making fun of them for drinking milkshakes instead of alcohol after late-night Edinburgh shows, as not being alcoholics was a big part of their trend-breaking rebellion. I’ve seen a number of people, from Stewart Lee to some tabloid self-styled “journalists”, refer to Daniel Kitson as the leader and/or king of the Chocolate Milk Gang.

But I think there’s a solid argument that David O’Doherty was the heart of the Chocolate Milk Gang. He’s the one I’ve heard talk about it most often, even relatively recently. I’ve heard DO’D do a lot of interviews across a lot of years, and he’s always incredibly quick to give credit to the other CMG members for making him the comedian he is. He’s eager to talk about how he loved being part of that group and standing for what they stood for, how the other people in it showed him what kind of comedy he wanted to do, gave him opportunities (ie. when he met Flight of the Conchords in Edinburgh and eventually ended up opening for them as they toured arenas), and were so much fun to work with that they’re the reason he decided to keep doing comedy.

He has a bio (written himself, but in third person) on his (adorably low-tech, clearly made himself with HTML) website that summarizes what he did in the few years that followed that 1999 video in this post:

In 2000 he wrote a book for children, Ronan Long Gets it Wrong that Mammoth Storybooks in London published. He performed his first full show The Story of the Boy Who Saved Comedy at the Dublin and Edinburgh Fringes where it received a nomination for Perrier Best Newcomer. It was a long winded narrative about a boy searching to find the jokes to put in his father's Christmas crackers that should probably have been another children's book rather than a show for grown ups. Some nights it really worked and they were among the most fun nights he has had in comedy. Other nights it tanked. Absolutely tanked. Once, during the Edinburgh run the entire audience of five people, all of whom had won their tickets through a radio giveaway, walked out.

He spent 2001 contemplating whether he really wanted to be a stand up comedian and cycling in France. He wrote some cartoons for German children's television and a book that is still on his computer. He did a university stand up tour with Noel Fielding where, one night, the audience hated them so much, a man shouted, “STOP CONFUSING ME.” All in all, a tricky time.

But then in 2002 he went to Edinburgh with a new show "small things", met comedians such as John Oliver, Bret McKenzie, Taika Cohen, Andy Zaltzman, Josie Long, Jemaine Clement and Daniel Kitson each doing wonderful and unique things, and decided that he definitely did want to be a stand up comedian.

That’s what Josie Long was talking about, you know? In that quote I transcribed above, she’s talking about the CMG stuff, about how it really did seem different and new and exciting at the time.

I also find it funny that she specifically references that guy I disliked, who wore a suit a told a bunch of (mostly bad) one-liners, but was still picked as co-runner-up with DO’D. I’m glad Josie Long agreed with me that he was shit (okay, maybe she didn’t technically say that, but read between the lines). He was young at the time, but clearly trying to follow in the footsteps of how they used to do things. He was exactly the thing the CMG was rebelling against, the slick one-liner comedian in a suit. And seventeen-year-old Josie Long took one look at him and one look at DO’D and said, “I like the guy who’s doing something different."

Here's a quote from further on in that radio show, when that topic comes up again:

Harriet Kemsley: I think one of the things that seems really special about David is that he was in an era when quite laddy comedy was in. Do you think that’s true?

Josie Long: Yeah, I agree. And it did feel so completely different. And when I was growing up, things that I watched on television were alternative and strange and unusual, absolutely. But it was a very different environment, there just weren’t so many female role models. There was a couple, and they were fantastic. But it wasn’t – it did not feel equal in any way, shape, or form. So, yeah, to meet somebody who had such a different energy, that was very kind and thoughtful and playful and gentle, was really important to me, I think. The fact that I was able to see somebody who didn’t make me feel like I was an outsider adapting to his point of view – I think that was the thing – made me feel like “Oh yeah, I can do this in my own way, and this is how I would like to do things”, was really useful for me, as a woman.

Harriet Kemsley: Particularly, as I imagine you were predominantly gigging with men?

Josie Long: Oh, completely. Yeah, it was 90%, I would say at that point, were men. And I didn’t really understand or appreciate that that much, because I was very young, and I just was like, “Here I am. I love this.” It was only sort of as I got older that I was more at the mercy of certain things, and more aware of certain problems and stuff. But it was a really useful thing to sort of find people that felt inspirational in a way that was really natural.

Harriet: Yeah, yeah, kindred spirit.

Josie Long: Yes, truly.

A few things about that quote:

1) I’ve seen various lists of CMG members, all a bit different and none definitive. They didn’t collect membership dues and publish official lists of card-carrying members or anything. Many lists probably contain one or two people who wouldn’t identify with it, or who wouldn’t be identified by the other people involved as being part of it. And I’m sure every list leaves off at least a few people who would be considered part of it. But you can get an idea of who the Chocolate Milk Gang was by aggregating the lists, seeing what names show up every time.

And one thing that’s common across every list I’ve seen of people who were part of that “Chocolate Milk Gang”: I’ve never seen them include any women besides Josie Long. That doesn’t mean she was the only woman doing what she did at the time. I’m pretty sure Isy Suttie could claim to be part of that group on a number of factors. But when someone writes a weird article that lists people associated with the term “Chocolate Milk Gang”, Josie Long is always the only woman.

It can be alienating to be the only woman in a group, even if that group is a cool progressive hipster movement. But also, if you’re in an environment that’s sufficiently male dominated and full of enough casual sexism, then it might not bother you so much if the progressive hipster movement within it is also male-dominated, because it looks so good by comparison to the non-progressive hipster parts.

It makes me think of my sport, where I was pretty much the second generation of girls to get into it. Just a few years before I started (in 2004, when I was 14), my province didn’t have girls’ divisions at the provincial championships. Just a few years before I started, the national championships gave out an MVP award for the best male athlete and another award for the prettiest female athlete. Girls just a few years older than me trained all year with their male teammates, then watched them go off to competitions where the girls couldn’t compete. Girls just a few years older than me were signing petitions to get all championship tournaments to have women’s divisions, and to get the tournaments that did have women’s divisions to give out MVPs for best male and female athlete, and get rid of the Prettiest Girl Award.

Some men argued that the Prettiest Girl Award is just a bit of fun and the girls needed to be grateful that they’d been allowed to compete and lighten up, and I’m thinking of some of Josie Long’s old material about her support for the Anti-Page 3 Girl Movement, in which she said it it felt ridiculous that they even had to argue about that. That material is old because now, everyone agrees (well, most people agree) that it was ridiculous that it was ever an argument. But at the time, they got told to lighten up about it.

When I was a teenager, I had a female teammate who was just a few years older than me, yet had had faced a much different landscape than I had, since girls’ divisions had become the norm in the few years between her age and mine. She had spent her high school years signing petitions and watching the Prettiest Girl Award get given out, I’d been spared that bullshit for being born slightly later. I had it so much better than the generation that preceded me, the first generation of girls in our sport.

I so looked up to the women who fought just for my place in the tournaments, and who put up with more than I did. And now, as a coach, I see teams with something close to gender parity sometimes, and I’m so glad that those girls have it so much better than I did. I try to help them, and pay forward what older girls did for me.

But also, I did have it second-worst, compared to other female generations. Girls were so new to the sport that it was very male dominated; I was the only girl on the team for a lot of my high school years (this female teammate moved away for university when I was fifteen, though she was always happy to mentor me when she came home to visit, to tell me I wasn’t crazy when I complained about sexist coaches, to warn me about which coaches and refs and older male athletes I should stay away from due to creepiness). I was coached by men who’d done the majority of their career in a sport with no women in it, and would think they were being reasonable when they said things like “Of course, now that we have women in the room, things are tricky, because…” I put up with a lot of shit, some of which seemed normal at the time, and some of which I knew even then was wrong.

So I had some amazing female role models, and I was very grateful for them, I still am. But mostly, I just had men around me, and I figured things out with them. I knew some men who saw the way things were done in the years before I joined the sport, knew that was bad for a whole host of reasons, and wanted to do things differently. Not only in terms of gender balance, but that was part of it. They just wanted to change the sport, overall, into something better and more inclusive. I gravitated toward those guys. They became my closest friends, and some of them still are my closest friends.

I remember being the only girl on the team, part of the Second Generation of Women. I was caught between the genuine trailblazers, and the girls who would get to be in a community where their presence was expected and normalized. Back when I was caught in that position, the guys who weren’t part of the old boys’ club were like an oasis.

That’s the context I’m projecting on it when I hear Josie Long talk about how much she liked seeing David O’Doherty do something different. I realize I’m projecting pretty hard, and I probably don’t understand what that was like for her nearly as much as it feels like I do. But I recognize at least some of what she’s talking about. I can imagine what a relief it would be to navigate through an old boys’ club that barely tolerates your presence, and then find someone playing a plastic keyboard. And say, “I’m pretty sure he’s not here to participate in the backlash against the changing tides that have led to my presence here. He seems all right with changing tides, actually. He’s got a plastic keyboard. I’m going to hang out with that guy.”

2) It is kind of funny to hear Josie Long basically say “It was lonely being the only woman in a male-dominated environment, so it was nice to meet David O’Doherty, and then I was no longer the only person who did not fit in among men.” Nice to finally get some gender diversity here, due to the presence of David O’Doherty.

I realize that’s pretty much the same thing that homophobic asshole said about David O’Doherty, and it is in fact bullshit. That guy specifically referred to David O’Doherty’s stage persona as being insufficiently heterosexual because he’s not into rugby, despite the fact that David O’Doherty talks all the time on stage about being into rugby and cycling and several other sports. He’s actually quite into a number of sports, and he likes to talk about them on stage. Also, being into sports does not make you a man, or a straight man, or whatever, obviously. But even if we’re speaking purely in gendered stereotypes, David O’Doherty does not fall short of the expectations placed upon men to be heterosexual and into sports, because he’s both those things (also it would be fine if he weren’t), so that guy who called him those names can go fuck himself. Anyway, I’m again going off topic. The point is that, while that guy was factually wrong in addition to being morally wrong, I do see Josie Long’s point that DO’D offered a bit of relief from guys who are like that homophobic asshole who talked shit about him on a podcast.

Quote from Josie Long at the end of that radio episode:

What I like about David, as well, is that everything he does is so deft. He makes it seem really warm, effortless – not frothy, but, like, light. But actually, he’s able to talk about incredibly deep feelings of heartbreak, desperateness, everything. Incredibly deep political thoughts, like, intense stuff. And I think he’s so masterful. But because his style is so affable and unassuming, people just love to sort of take it for granted, you know? Be like, “Yeah, funny songs.” And it’s like, no. Also, an examination of life, and a really, sort of, well-crafted bit of work.

Yes, thank you, Josie. That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to say about David O’Doherty for ages.

I don’t love doing this because it’s not my favourite thing to focus on what men have to say about the MeToo movement or feminism or whatever, but after quoting all the stuff about Josie Long saying how great David O’Doherty is, I want to quote a bit from this Irish Times article – from 2021, the same year as that radio episode I’ve been quoting – where David O’Doherty returns the favour a little bit (it's not the best example because it's not much about her specifically, I’ve heard him talk in more detail than he does here about how great Josie Long is at other times, but that Irish Times article is an easy one to find, and it does back up her characterization of him as a good guy to have around if you're in a male-dominated environment and would like someone who isn't cool with the status quo - so yeah, sorry, I think I am going to do that thing that kind of sucks where I amplify a male voice talking about feminism and give him credit for it, but to be fair, I think he's earned it):

In recent years there has been a reckoning in the world of comedy around the side-lining and the abuse of female comedians. When O'Doherty started, he says, it was "that era where Christopher Hitchens was still writing articles about why women aren't funny. But at the same time, I could always point to how Maria Bamford is my favourite comedian and Maeve Higgins is the funniest comedian in Ireland and Josie Long beat me in the BBC new comedy awards... So you're always aware that those arguments were bulls**t... I've learned a lot in the last few years, mostly through the tragedy of the various sexual assault allegations. And they're not [merely] allegations… They're what happened in Irish comedy. And it's a real sense of shame to be involved in the same business where that stuff has taken place… It's so sad to me that some really unique voices have opted to leave comedy or were driven out of comedy. In the comedy that I love, some of the most creative people have always been women. It's a question of how comedy from this point forward attempts to deal with the trauma that's there… even in a tiny comedy scene like Ireland."

He has no time for comedians who complain that they're being stifled by political correctness because he just doesn't believe it's true. "For some men in particular the move towards a more equal society feels like oppression to them," he says. "I've always been very close with Hannah Gadsby. And one of the backlashes to Nanette [her excellent Netflix special] was 'this isn't stand up' which just shows the limited thinking [about] what stand up is, unless it fits certain parameters, which is generally a dude being angry about things."

Well, I’ve gone pretty far off the original topic of what happened at the 1999 BBC New Comedy Awards. But I want to end this post by going back to that. Given all of that context, can we agree that it is the sweetest thing in the fucking world to see them announce that Josie Long has won this competition, with money and a break in comedy and all this exciting stuff, and before going out on stage, the first thing she does is stop to celebrate with David O’Doherty? Not to mention, David O’Doherty has just lost, and the first thing he does is congratulate her?

youtube

Somewhat recently, the 1995 BBC New Comedy Awards appeared on YouTube, and I wrote a post in which I highlighted the main points that occurred to me as I watched it. Well guess what, everyone? Guess what? It happened in other years, and the 1999 ones are also on YouTube now:

youtube

I’ve seen this particular year for this particular award talked about before. I’ve seen David O’Doherty and Josie Long talk about this running joke about who beat who for comedy awards in 1999. Because in that year they were both finalists in awards geared toward new comics – So You Think You’re Funny, and the BBC New Comedy Awards. David O’Doherty won the former, and Josie Long won the latter, and I’ve seen them both amusingly hold their victories over each other twenty years later in ironic Tweets about it and things like that. So it’s very cool that I actually get to see the show in which one of those things happened, this being the one that was won by Josie Long. A version of Josie Long who would have been quite young, as I know she started stand-up as a teenager and these awards are only open to people who haven't been doing stand-up long (at least, not long enough to have achieved much).

So, here are some thoughts I have while watching:

- Host is Bob Monkhouse, who opens with his famous “They laughed at me when I told them I wanted to be a comedian, well they’re not laughing now” line. Looking very slick in his suit and tie, and comes out with a few slick one-liner jokes, interspersed as he explains the premise of the night. All done in a really professional way, full of humour but little irony.

It’s now a cliché that comedians will come out trying to look cooly causal in jeans and a t-shirt or whatever, I’ve heard people say it’s hard to stand out because “guys in t-shirts noticing things” are a dime a dozen in comedy, including on TV. But in my frenzy last year of reading all that Chocolate Milk Gang stuff, articles and interviews and anything I could find about that certain “new type of comic” emerging in the 00s, it struck me how much this was described as a novelty. That what made those people special was that they were not like their predecessors who wore suits and were slick and professional, they were nerds in t-shirts. Bob Monkhouse’s whole demanour does seem to highlight how much that really was relatively new at the time.

Not completely new, obviously. I think Bob Monkhouse represents the other extreme, not to mention an even older generation than the one that immediately preceded the Chocolate Milk Gang. Obviously not every pre-2000 comedian was Bob Monkhouse. Lots of them wore casual or just different clothes and were offbeat or whatever in their style. The CMG didn’t invent a previously unheard of way to do things, they just really committed to a direction that wasn’t so common back then. Took the type of thing that some people from the original "alternative comedy" thing might have been doing as rebellion, and made it the norm, and now it still is. If someone wants to stand out from the crowd today, they’ll have to dress in a suit and tie like Bob Monkhouse and tell a bunch of one-liners with practised professionalism.

At least, that's what I think. I don't really quite know enough to know what I'm actually talking about, but I'm interested in trying to work out what all those things mean, and seeing the way this is run looks like a pretty clear example of "Oh, that's the exact thing all those Chocolate Milk Gang articles are describing when the say they 'The CMG isn't this, they're different from the previous generations'." It's not just the clothes, either. I haven't seen Lee Mack wear many suits, but he's in that earlier style. It's the one-liner thing, the way that specific comedy style used to be in fashion and isn't as much anymore, but not just that (there are still lots of one-liner comedians too). It's the way that when Lee Mack's hosting something, he's smooth and professional and works a joke into every line. I don't know. I don't really know enough to know what I'm talking about.

- Judges: Richard Wilson (actor who’s familiar to me but I don’t know from where), Rhona Cameron (comedian whom I don’t know much about, which is odd considering that I’m quite familiar with pretty much all the other people in the category called “British lesbian comedian from that generation”), Peter Kay (probably don’t need to say more about him), Meera Syal (person in Goodness Gracious Me), and Patrick Kielty (guy I know a bit for, I don’t know, just being Patrick Kielty, he comes up when I’m clicking through YouTube recommendations of stand-up clips).

- Then there are various established (by 1999) comedians offering advice to younger ones. French and Saunders are mildly amusing about it. That guy named Arthur Smith. Harry Enfield looking unrecognizably young

- Evidence that in the 90s, there were definitely some comedians who weren’t just in a suit and tie all the time:

- Phil Kay looking, again, so young I would not have recognized him without the name at the bottom:

- Baby Ardal O’Hanlon:

- Baby Reeves and Mortimer:

- Second comedian on is a guy from Swansea who does a joke that I swear I’ve heard Rhod Gilbert do, about Terry Wogan and Pudsey the Bear. I’m pretty sure Rhod would have been starting comedy around this general time, so probably would have overlapped with this guy on the Welsh comedy circuit. Okay, who stole the joke from who?

- Three comedians in, all guys I’ve never heard of, but one thing that strikes me is the quality of this show is a fair bit better than the other one I’ve seen, from 1995. All three of these comedians have been decent, I can’t say the same for most of the 1995 finalists. I wonder if it’s a fluke, or if comedy was just getting bigger so fast in the late 90s that the bar for entry into the profession was raised significantly in four years.

- Oh my God! Baby Mel and Sue!!

I'd seen Baby Mel before (she turned up sometimes in French and Saunders things from that era, and I think was in The Vicar of Dibley), but Sue from that age doesn't look as familiar, even though I think she was in those French and Saunders things too. Maybe she wasn't in them as much as Mel was. Anyway... fucking hell. I'm having two separate reactions here. One is my usual reaction of: Oh that's adorable, look at the young versions of the comedians who are now less young and more famous! The other is a slightly less usual reaction of: You know how I sometimes had trouble focusing on Taskmaster season 15 because Mae Martin was so incredibly attractive? Well... that image of Sue Perkins is reminding me that this issue might crop up in season 16 as well.

- “And our next performer was lucky enough to get [words of wisdom] from her mom, who said, ‘Have a go, Jo.’ She’s doing her A-levels in her hometown of Orpington in Kent. Hoping to be top of the class, here she is: Josie Long!”

- I don’t know what I was expecting, I really don’t. I knew Josie Long would be a teenager at this point, since that’s the age she started comedy. I didn’t know what she’d look like as a teenager, but I was curious to see.

...Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't blond hair and a shirt that says "Keep Away From Boys".

Amazing, Josie. Amazing.

- Okay, I’m definitely going to cut that Josie Long video out and stick it in a different post, but for now I will say: That was fucking good. It was very good, for her age. Obviously with a teenage comedian there’s “good” and then “good for their age”, and I think Josie Long was legitimately both. Not, like, as good as she is now or anything. But good enough here to be better than just “good for a teenager”. To be honest, I think better than Kitson’s set from around the same age a few years earlier.

She had jokes. Classic, funny jokes, of the type that people on message boards several years later accused her of not having. She had them at 17! You can see that set was really carefully written and carefully rehearsed, which fits with the image of Josie Long as the overachieving student, would have practised the hell out of that before getting her chance to appear on TV. She also did a bit about drawing a tattoo on her stomach, which she did again in her 2008 Edinburgh show, as an actual adult.

...Surprisingly violently-themed set, overall. A fair bit of gruesome imagery in it. All quite funny, I see why she won. I really enjoyed that.

- Guy after Josie Long makes me think there is a correlation between wearing suits on stage and being all smoothly delivered one-liners. Also possibly a correlation between that and being shit (maybe not all of them are shit, but that guy definitely was).

- “Here’s a Dublin-based children’s book author who loves to hear the sound of laughter and know that he’s the cause. The brilliant David O’Doherty.” Wait, really? By 1999? I knew DO’D has written some children’s books by now, and I knew he did it early in his career. I think he’s said he did his first Edinburgh show in 2000, it went quite badly so the next year he just traveled and did other stuff and I think he wrote a children’s book then, then came back to Edinburgh in 2002 and it went better so he stuck with comedy. But I didn’t know he’s written a kid’s book by 1999.

Also, there may actually be something to be said for professionalism, because Bob Monkhouse pronounced his last name closer to correctly than most people do, I'm pretty sure. Definitely didn't put a C in there, the way a lot of British TV presenters do (I'm still not 100% sure on the exact correct pronunciation, but I know it's not "O-Dock-er-ty").

- Fucking adorable. Look at his little face.

- In case anyone was concerned about the lack of plastic keyboard in that previous screenshot, don’t worry, he has it with him:

He did a song that... I mean, it's probably fine that that song never made it onto any of his albums. And neither did any of the material from that set. Probably fine. There are little flashes of the David O'Doherty I recognize in this video, and a lot of flashes of something else that he was apparently trying to be at the time. He talks about kind of starting over as of Edinburgh 2002 when he worked with people he liked and figured out what he wanted to be and pretty much scrapped the few things he'd tried but disliked until that time... and yeah, that might be for the best. I'm definitely cutting out this video and putting it in a separate post too, though.

- They keep switching to the established comedians giving advice via videos between the finalists’ sets – here’s another new addition to those videos after DO’D’s set:

- Then they have a proper, non-comedy band come out, they’re legitimately very good at music. What the hell? What are they getting proper bands for? Bring back Bill Bailey.

- Then they intersperse shots of the judges talking about each finalist, with a quick clip of that finalist saying something about their own performance. Clearly, they were all just asked backstage to say something into the camera about what they were about to do, and all the others so far have made some kind of joke about the situation. Josie Long, meanwhile, went completely sincere, talking about just trying to get in the right state of mind and enjoy it and not be anxious. She always gives off the energy of the overachieving student, but it’s really coming out here, when she actually was a student.

- When commenting on her performance, almost every judge, including Rhona Cameron, focused their comments on how she was the only woman there, and she broke what you might expect from a woman (didn’t just talk about being a woman or whatever), and there’s a bit of a sense of “well that’s better than I’d expect from a woman”. Except – to his credit, and I wouldn’t have expected to say that – Peter Kay. Doesn’t necessarily mean much, obviously the TV version is just taking a couple of seconds from each judge, maybe it just happened to grab the gender-focused stuff from everyone else and cut Peter Kay off before he said “At least she didn’t bring up her period.” But still, that rather impressed me, that he commented purely on the originality of her surreal style (talking purely about her comedy style shouldn't be impressive, but it was compared to what everyone else said).

Am I hypocritical for complaining that they brought up Josie Long's gender, when I brought up how hot Sue Perkins is earlier in this post? That's a question I briefly asked myself, but the answer is no, because they're judging a comedy competition and I'm writing a Tumblr post.

- Rhona Cameron said she thought David O’Doherty was the best one, which I guess makes sense because he won a different new comedy competition that year with presumably the same material, so I guess something in it was worthy of a win. Though I have to say… she’s wrong. She’s just wrong, Josie was better. David O’Doherty is brilliant, and has been for at least 20 years. But this video proves I’m not sure he’s been brilliant for a full 25 years.

There were flashes of something good in his set, though. He had some creative and original (certainly original for the time, I think) ideas. You could see he could be good. But no, Rhona, he was not the best one.

- After all the deliberation, the judges declare that Colin Ward (the guy who went on after Josie Long, did a bunch of one-liners, and I specifically said he was shit) and David O’Doherty were the two runners up, and they struggled to pick a winner among those two and the winner. They might have been wrong to put Colin Ward up there with those other two, but I'd say history judged him correctly, as he's the only one of the three I haven't heard of.

- Genuinely fucking adorable, Josie Long after they've announced she's won:

She stops to celebrate briefly with DO'D before walking out on stage, also adorable. On both sides.

- Wow. And I thought Julian Barratt was not happy to receive his hug from Boothby Gaffoe when he won his competition in 1995. Josie Long has set a new bar for how much a winner of this competition does not want to have their hug from the host:

“Are they baby comedians, little tiny baby comedians? Oh, I love those little new ones. Little tiny new ones, they’re so sweet. They’re only about that big. You can hold them on your hand like that. Then they get bigger, bigger, bigger, and suddenly they’re Jack Dee!” – Dawn French, at the end

How fucking dare you, Dawn French? Don't you ever compare the likes of Josie Long and David O'Doherty to Jack Dee again. They've just done these impressive performances, they do not deserve to be insulted in this way.

...Okay, I've enjoyed this so much, I want to say more about it, accompanied by video clips of certain parts, but I really have to go to work, so posting this now but will come back with the cut-out clips soon. This was a lot of fun, I'm so glad I got to see it.

#Youtube

12 notes · View notes