#this podcast is just fully a comedy now

[starsandwriting]

NOT THE BEAUTY GURU ACCENT

[jolieblack]

Jolie’s thoughts on Silver Blaze (Sherlock & Co. podcast) Parts 1 & 2

… because I can already tell that this will get too long if I wait for parts 3 & 4 to drop…

I know Joel has said in several places that this case is his favourite ACD story, so expectations are high… and not being disappointed so far!

I already loved this one at 3 minutes in, with the opening montage of part 1 being totally over the top, mega blockbuster crime of the century style, and then the next thing we get is Sherlock practising the clippity-clop thing and looking for a new home for 327 ants.

Sherlock being a train geek (of course he is) and going on about the ghost trains just after John went on about the creepy Dartmoor legends got me, too. In my book, Silver Blaze has never had a gothic horror vibe to it, but it may well have now! Let’s see how that aspect will develop.

Other details I loved:

John‘s mum: "He‘s a very sensitive boy and you need to respect that." - "He’s not a boy, he’s a man… who plays with ants."

John and Mariana pushing Sherlock into the case by threatening him with a party, and John being a gleefully cackling little bugger about it when it works.

"Just trying to understand how your brain works." - "Yeah, you and me both, mate."

Sherlock giving us a whole paragraph straight out of ACD (the "plethora" bit) - I love how well it always works in contrast with how everyone else in this universe talks.

The dodgy SD card, which - I hereby predict - will turn out to be more than a comedy element as the case progresses.

Sherlock deducing the entry code for the cottage, we love to see that kind of stuff, don’t we.

"We’ve got a horse to find. Giddy up."- Love it when Sherlock speaks ordinary colloquial modern English like a foreign language.

"You are a child, a giant crime-solving child!" - Sherlock Holmes in a nutshell.

"I’ve done the washing up - he said, pausing for a thank you - " - "Thank you."

Oh and scrolling on our phone to the point of existential crisis till we pass out is so how we all fall asleep these days, isn’t it. Jonk Watson, the true Everyman for the 21st century.

And then we get feeeeels, too!

Starting with "Talk to me, John." - 🥹🥹🥹 The incredible intimacy of that little moment. Also, another 'John', seemingly out of nowhere - is this Sherlock being incredibly finely attuned to the moments where John's war trauma may re-emerge, such as in this scene where they’re viewing a very badly injured body, ready to step in with whatever emotional support may be needed? If so, our boy has come a long way already since the first sweet but clumsy "Would you like to hold hands and talk about your emotions?" when they were viewing the body in Thor Bridge and I’M HERE FOR IT.

And what was that shower scene??? Things getting very much *less weird* for Sherlock while he stares at his dear companion in the shower (who presumably doesn’t shower fully or even half dressed) and imagines what life would be without him? If this show was heading in an unequivocal Johnlock direction, I‘d say this was an awakening. As it is, I don’t believe for a second that Sherlock was high. He just wanted reassurance that John would stay in the picture forever, whatever exactly you like to imagine the picture to be. 😭

More lovely details:

"Cinderella will go to the ball" - "You stop being so bloody clever, and I will stop with the compliments." And literally two minutes later it’s "I'm not asking you to be comfortable, I’m asking you to help me solve the case!" and John being Sherlock’s literal beast of burden so Sherlock can look over a wall that even little John Watson climbs without any assistance only a minute later.

Sherlock Holmes telling John Watson to get on his knees as if this isn’t the moment the Sherlock Holmes fandom has been waiting for for over 140 years.

Sherlock being gentle and friendly with the horse!

And to wrap up, a few thoughts on the case aspect:

[Warning: Contains spoilers for the original ACD story and may therefore contain spoilers for this version, too!]

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The limping sheep in part 1 had me going 👀 already, and now the cataract knife has made its appearance, I really don’t expect a lot of surprises when we get to the denouement, and I'm assuming that the fact that there is an imprint of the letter S from the walking stick on the head of the murder victim just means that there was a violent confrontation quite some time before June actually died. Why else would Sherlock agree with Inspector Gregory that the imprint is there, but also with John that those extensive and massive injuries could not have been caused by a single blow with a stick? Nope, not sensing any dramatic plot twists compared to the original version this time. Let’s see if I was right!

[matt0044]

See you later, y'all.

Some are quite fervent in hyperemphasizing their flaws as a company and tragically, it too often came at the pursuit of dunking on RWBY when peeling back the charged language.

Of course, the counterpoint to "Don't speak ill of the dead" i.e. "Don't be an asshole when alive" can certainly apply. But I still come here to remember Rooster Teeth's site not as what it failed to fully be but what it was warts and all.

The good, the bad, the ugly in between.

We had a Halo fanmade series that went from a few guys dicking around to this legitimized expansion to the Sci-Fi franchise.

We've had podcasts and skits that ranged from commentary on current events to just... dicking around.

We've have an Anime that outlived its creator, was carried on by those who valued him and is poised to outlast its company of origin.

We've had a raunchy comedy that felt like South Park but if it legit gave a sh*t and didn't try the "Both Sides" BS. It cared about itself and its audience.

Because somebody fucking had to.

We had a promising wild west fantasy that may not be put out to pasture just yet but sadly wasn't done many favors.

We had a love letter to mecha Anime with some... unfortunate funds allocated from those more deserving. One that can't hands.

The wrong hands tragically...

I don't need to wonder why we were here.

This.

This is why.

Even now, many of their creators are picking up the pieces. It won't be the same like it was but it never truly is, is it?

So you can dress 'em down all you want for very documented wrongs. Bleat on about "Monty's Vision" or RvB Zero like it even matters.

I wouldn't trade it for the universe.

[spaceorphan18]

My Season 3 Diatribe

for @wowbright who gave me a platform that I really didn't need but took anyway. ;)

The thing about Glee was that it started with a woman being fake pregnant for thirteen episodes and then ended the season with a baby being born while Bohemian Rhapsody blared in the background. It was weird and crazy and insane and just edgy enough that it was being talked about but not too niche that it couldn't find an audience. It also hit in the sweet spot of the Obama years when, as a nation, we could get on board with being a little different and a little crazy.

Ryan Murphy is both a genius and insane at the same time. I'm not really fond of him, and I think his tendency for going big sometimes obscures the nuances of really good storytelling. But he knows how to make a loud statement. And Glee was that loud statement.

And then it got big. Too big. It got more money, an awards, and the national stage, and then all eyes were on it. And Ryan Murphy got tired because that's also Ryan Murphy - being distracted by American Horror Story where he could be abstract in the way his brain really wanted to go. And so, new writers were brought in, but having all eyes on it meant you had to dial it back, and the new writers didn't jive the same way, nor could they really juggle all of the new network notes, ballooning cast, mandates of the Glee project and responsibility for now having to be a 'role model' for all the new outsiders who were hanging on.

The show was once about being an awkward kid in the 80s. And then it was forced into becoming a mouthpiece for the changing times of the 2010s.

And that... doesn't work.

The funniest thing is way back when... after I had stopped watching the show for a while, Season 3 is what brought me back. I did think, for a moment in time, that I liked it better than Seasons 1 or 2. I can't exactly tell you why. But The First Time is when I fell in love, and maybe you feel connected to something when you fall in love with it that you can't really discribe.

And I hated Season 4. and I was listening to a podcast of the day (Those of you who remember Lima Heights Adjacent?) and the group of people were talking about how, with all of its faults, Season 4 was at least NOT Season 3. And I was confused because at the time - I much preferred Season 3. Because my favorite couple was at least a couple back then -- because the cast was people I liked. Because the episodes were easy to digest and the structure of it, while being bland and predictable, fit into a nice, uniform way of storytelling.

And then time moved on, and I left my twenties, and digested the entire story (the second half, with all of its faults, does not get the recognition it deserves -- despite it falling apart at all times) and got a lot better at critical analysis and media analysis and being open to the ideas of others and just... shake my head.

When you look at the whole, Season 3 isn't AS bad as I make it seem sometimes. There's a good chunk of it, right in the middle, that is... more watchable than what's at the beginning and end.

There is, however, a laundry list of reasons why it's not good -- from questionable story telling choices to dulling the edge of a more biting comedy to just not being able to service all the characters it has in a satisfactory way. They botched Santana's story, which had been set up nicely in season 2. They threw in guest stars and special episodes to throw off that they didn't really know what to do with the story other than praise Rachel Berry and get those kids winning nationals and graduated. They took Kurt and completely neutered him in a way that went against everything they had built him up to be in the first two seasons. And so on and so on and so on.

But I suppose most egregiously -- they played it safe and it was no longer interesting.

I don't fully understand why people love it so much. But I will say - part of the reason might be why I liked it at the time. There's a huge influx of newer fans always coming to the show. And like Klaine, Brittana (which has a following unlike it ever did when it aired) remains together and having the most screen time in Season 3. All the original characters are around, and the story structure, if nothing else, is secure and sound and plays out exactly as its supposed to. Rachel Berry gets the crown, Will gets the teacher of the year, and they all win nationals - hell, even Sue gets a baby. Cue the music and roll credits.

To each their own.

Season 4 comes next with its awkward new characters and its break ups and its wild ups and downs. And then season 5 with its grief and queer in a way that's not accessible but fuck it who cares and season 6 that just wants to go back to the beginning and end it all like the weird creation it was when it started. And as complicated as all of that is -- it's not as digestible as Season 3. I like the afterwards better. But I understand that some people won't. It has, after all, taken me years to get to this level of appreciation.

Who knows how people are going to look at it in ten, fifteen, fifty years. I'm sure, as streaming shows continue to go on and on and on and nothing dies any more, it'll take on different tones and different meanings.

Maybe this time around - those people just need that comfort.

I can't tell you.

But it won't ever be my favorite. And that's fine. As always, ymmv.

[lastweeksshirttonight]

I've been recapping Strike Force Five both for my followers who can't access or don't really have time to listen to the episodes, and also for myself to get more comfortable with longform writing, something I was doing as well with reviews of S1 episodes of Last Week Tonight. (I promise I will keep doing those, I know they keep falling by the wayside.) Going into episode three of the show, I know I have to address Jimmy Fallon and his toxic workplace, the news of which dropped as I was listening to the third episode of SFF for the first time. Putting this below the cut, and I'm going to be mentioning toxic workplaces, alcoholism, and maybe getting more personal than I need to again, so trigger warning for those.

To start, every worker deserves a safe, non-toxic workplace. This is the LEAST a company can do for their employees as far as I'm concerned. The things a toxic workplace will do to your mental and physical health are things I don't wish on anyone, and things I'm still wrestling with after being two years removed from one of the worst environments I was ever in. The stories that Fallon's staffers tell ring extremely true, from weaponized HR to cruel, dehumanizing showrunners/CEOs, and crying rooms. I want the best for them and hope, despite the very bad "I'm sorry if you were offended" apologies given by NBC staff and Fallon, that there are concrete efforts taken to provide them with a much better, safer workplace. Those apologies don't give me much hope right now, unfortunately.

The other thing is that I really hope Fallon commits to some sort of treatment for his obvious alcoholism. It's been an open secret for decades at this point - the article dances around it but anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about the New York comedy scene knows this. Again, I don't wish alcoholism on anyone. It's a horrible, destructive disease. But I don't think that the culture rot at Late Night can be fully addressed unless Fallon makes an effort to get help.

I've struggled with excessive social drinking and alcoholism runs in my family. It's almost impossible to get out of that hole until you realize you need to make the change. I hope this is the push to get him out of that hole. This isn't me trying to avoid holding him accountable for his part in making his show so toxic, far from it. This is me, coming from a similar place where I had to work incredibly hard to rebuild my life because of the shitstain behavior I perpetuated while drunk, recognizing someone that needs to do the same work to make things right in some way.

I thought about making this part of the recap for Strike Force Five episode 3, but it didn't feel appropriate. I don't know if I will recap the third episode, honestly, and if I do, it won't likely be for a bit, or at least until I know what the future of this podcast is. Last week, episodes dropped on Wednesday and Saturday, and there's noticeably no fourth episode as of today (Sunday). The part of this that sucks is that listening to the show DOES help the staff of all these late-night shows monetarily, including Fallon's, and I want to continue to support them. (Because it will come up, I do financially donate to multiple strike funds as well. You should do the same, if you're in a position to.) It's, understandably, a mess.

In the end, I just really want things to improve for Fallon's staff. It'll take a lot of work, but it's not impossible to turn things around.

[liugeaux]

Thoughts on Everybody's in L.A.

I don't mean to be hyperbolic, but I think John Mulaney's Everybody's in L.A. is a brilliant experiment that both comedy and talk shows desperately need.

On the surface, it's a weird window into what Mulaney finds funny, but underneath, it's a loving deconstruction of the talk show medium. As I've written here before, I have a love for nighttime talk shows: The Tonight Show, Late Show, Late Night, etc. They are a predictable staple of American television, that comfortably threads the needle of topical humor and Hollywood promotion.

Outside of a few quirks here and there, for the most part, you know exactly what you are getting when you tune in. That being said, I think these shows are best when they are weird. David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, and Craig Fergeson really knew how to grow an audience with oddball humor and premises.

Much of the late-night weirdness has disappeared. Fallon, Colbert, and Kimmel, being in the early slot, play it pretty straight; with Fallon being the most off-base. Myers has leaned into political/Daily Show style bits and the Late Late Show has been replaced by After Midnight, a game show.

So where does Everybody's in L.A. fit into this? If you're not aware, Mulaney and Netflix decided to capitalize on comedians raining down on Los Angeles for the Netflix is a Joke Fest, by booking a nightly, live, talk show hosted by John Mulaney, one of the most respected stand-up comedians in the game right now.

It ran for 6 days during the fest and was live every night. I wasn't expecting much. The pitch makes it sound like a video podcast, with a rotating couch of guests, dozens of which you can find on Youtube (most of them are bad). What the show actually turned out to be was Mulaney steering a ship on the perpetual brink of chaos.

From call-in contributors to clueless comedians to Richard Kind being 100% Richard Kind to SAYMO L.A.'s annoying delivery robots to actors showing up to be audience plants, every episode had a bizarre alternate dimension feel to it. The guests weren't there to promote anything, and the show ended up being a love letter to the oddest parts of L.A.

In fact, instead of focusing on the guests, Everybody's in L.A. focused on L.A. Each episode had an L.A.-specific theme. Helicopters, Earthquakes, and Coyotes were just a few of the topics tackled by the guests, with one expert guest always being on the panel to ground the conversation.

The unconventional nature of the show seems to have caught some of the comedians off guard. Nate Bargatze, Mae Martin, and Tom Segura are just some of the guests who were clearly uncomfortable or just didn't fully get the joke. These three are some of the best in the business right now, so catching them off guard says a lot about the comedy featured in the show.

On the other hand, guests like Jon Stewart got the joke. “I feel like this entire show is a Banksy.” he said during the episode on palm trees. Nikki Glaser said to Mulaney in the last episode “It’s like an inside joke that only you are in on.” Bill Hader, Sarah Silverman, and Pete Davidson all were clearly having a great time drinking in the avant-garde nature of the show.

But why is this little 6 episode experiment so important? Well, it pulls influences from everywhere: SNL, Letterman, Graham Norton, and even Chapelle's Show. The pretaped shorts ranged from parodies to local L.A. documentary pieces to slice-of-life/on-the-scene bios. Even the bumpers between segments felt like art.

Bits that seem like one-offs come back like story narratives and legitimately famous actors show up to play uncredited bit parts. Mulaney knew he had a long leash and with it being on Netflix, and a one-off series, he didn't need it to be mainstream or even a success. It could just be art, a snapshot of his and his writer's minds to live on the streaming platform like a Michelangelo painting.

We all know broadcast television and late-night shows are dying a slow death. I don't think anything can stop it. What can late night learn from Everybody's in L.A.? Embrace the weird. Try something new, or do something live. Their viewership is pretty static at this point, making their shows more compelling by adding a bit of spontaneity, and unpredictability isn't going to push viewers away.

Make your guests a little uncomfortable, they're only there to promote some movie or TV show. Don't stray away from smart humor, long-form inside jokes, or pretaped goofiness. Everybody's in L.A. proves the status quo isn't required and audiences, especially younger audiences, want to see something they've never seen before.

It's yet to be seen if Netflix will ask Mulaney to come back for a second run the next time there's a festival, but for the sake of the purity of this show, I hope he declines. Actually, give another comedian a crack at creating a live show during the festival. There are brilliant minds across the comedy world and Everybody's in L.A. has shown there are a multitude of ways for them to shine.

[magentagalaxies]

ok so i checked and the stitcher premium app doesn't block screen recording (and the audio is fully in tact with these recordings too) so i'm thinking with the app being shut down a month from now + the unknown future of if ptsdiva is gonna be available publicly on another platform maybe now is the time for me to just screen record as much as i can just so this podcast doesn't become lost media

the only issue is idk if my phone would have the space for hours worth of screen recordings, but maybe i can upload them to a google drive or something? or maybe even if i just did some of the comedy segments (i.e. how scott would either begin or end each episode with a character monologue) i could put them on tumblr as audio posts? would people be into that?

idk i'll be back in toronto at some point before the app is taken down so i'll ask scott about whether he knows if it's backed up anywhere, but considering he didn't even know the app was being taken down until i alerted him, i might be the number one person on this media preservation case

ugh it's very disheartening how throughout my buddy cole research + being a fan of kids in the hall in general i'm realizing so much of their stuff is genuinely at risk of becoming lost media. like the original tv show, brain candy, death comes to town, etc. those are pretty well protected against that fate bc of physical media and just the popularity of them. but fuck, even 2 levels deeper on this hypothetical iceberg and you start getting to passion projects that might not have had a widespread release but are so important to the story, stuff that was literally made for the internet like scottland and ewe, and sure parts of ewe are still up (the only truly lost pieces are the videos which were uploaded via flash) and scottland's homepage is on the wayback machine, but literally the only thing keeping half my buddy cole timeline from being lost media is the fact that someone bought paul bellini a video camera in the 80s and he made archiving things his whole personality for a time.

and like it makes sense on some level that scottland or the lowest show or the buddy cole sitcom would be at risk bc they're all over a decade old, never officially released, etc. but like.... ptsdiva was released in 2019. it's not even four years old yet. it's not just a half-made project that got stalled in development, it's a full piece that had a major impact on my life

and i just look at this. and i think about how last time i saw scott irl he asked bruce if there was any way to get a physical version of their amazon season. bc streaming services make things vanish all the time, and if amazon one day decides to just drop their kith stuff altogether, an extremely important piece of the kids in the hall story, literally their entire sixth season, could get the same fate as scottland.

[tinylilemrys]

Lonely In London

Relationship:

Trent Crimm/Ted Lasso

Additional Tags:

Angst and Romance | Romcommunism | Friends to Lovers | Romantic Comedy | Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence

Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Summary:

Henry, worried about how lonely his dad seems to be in London, writes into an advice podcast for some help. A podcast run by an ex-colleague of Trent's – one that he listens to religiously. If Trent falls a little for 'Lonely In London' because he reminds him of Ted, well that's just coincidence. An homage to romcommunism, largely based on 'Sleepless In Seattle' with a few others thrown in for good measure.

Previous Chapter | Final Chapter

CHAPTER 4

Trent is in a car park in front of Heathrow.

He's trying very hard not to think about the fact that he anonymously told the man who he's absolutely gone for that he'll be waiting for him here in just under four months. It's a dizzying thought.

Right now, he's just waiting for Ted who's making sure Henry safely boards his flight back to Kansas.

He probably shouldn't have offered but he knows firsthand how shitty handovers are and Ted was just going to take an Uber otherwise. Better to save him the money and the bother, offer him the lift, comfort him about Henry, and maybe even come to some sort of understanding about where they're at. The month since the kiss has been fraught with tension and it's getting to the point where the team and staff are noticing. They need to get on some kind of page about it at the very least.

A text from Ted breaks his gloomy train of thought.

Henry's through check-in. It's still a while before he flies and I have to stay here until he's airborne. Let's do lunch? Or at least a drink. Don't think my nerves could take a meal right now.

Trent doesn't need telling twice.

It doesn't take him long to spot Ted. He thinks at this point he'd be able to immediately spot him in the densest of crowds, like the world's easiest and most specific Where's Wally. He smiles privately at how if Ted could hear his thoughts, he would insist on only being compared to Where's Waldo.

He's immensely glad that telepathy is beyond Ted's many talents.

"Well as I live and breathe, if it isn't Trent Crimm, future bestseller." Ted's smile is as wide as ever, but it doesn't crinkle the corners of his eyes the way it usually does. He's heartbroken, as Trent fully expected.

"How are you holding up, Ted?" he asks and Ted's smile settles into something far more tired, heartbroken, and real.

"Ah, well, you know," says Ted, his eyes looking rather misty, "it never gets easier."

His thumb is worrying over a keyring – a little LEGO minifigure that Trent suspects might be made to look like Ted. Likely a gift from Henry. Trent wants to throw his arms around him. To just hold him until it hurts a bit less.

He knows he can't. Not after July.

"Shall we get this drink you threatened me with?" says Trent gently and Ted nods, taking a deep breath.

After they're settled at a booth in a chain coffee shop with their respective hot drinks – Ted with an extremely apt Americano, Trent with an equally on-the-nose Earl Grey tea – Trent finds himself clearing his throat.

"So, do you want to talk about how you're feeling about Henry flying back?" he braves. "Or would you prefer anything else?"

"Anything else," says Ted. "Please, anything else. At least for a while."

"Great," says Trent, clenching a serviette for emotional support. "Perhaps then I could apologise for what happened at the Christmas party?"

"Oh, uh, sure?" says Ted, taken aback. "I didn't think we were actually ever going to talk about that again."

"We don't need to after today," says Trent.

Unless you want to, he doesn't add.

"It shouldn't have happened," he continues. "I think I must have accidentally been drinking from Dani's 'cheekied' punchbowl instead of the polite one. In any case, I forgot myself and I fear I've made things awkward between us."

Ted seems to be working through conflicting emotions. The lines between his brows deepen for a moment. His moustache twitches. He stares down at his coffee like it holds his response, then looks up at Trent.

"Not a worry, Bill Murray," says Ted, his face fixing itself into that same sad smile from earlier. "That night was pretty crazy, huh? Lot of emotions running wild. You don't have to apologise for anything. It was me too. I was like a helium balloon out of the hands of a careless child – just caught up in the atmosphere."

It might just be Ted trying to match Trent's lie, but it doesn’t mean it stings any less. Trent takes a sip of too-hot tea to cover his gloom and instead suddenly has to pretend that he hasn't just scalded his mouth.

"But, Trent, I will say this," says Ted in the most serious tone he's ever had directed at him, as Trent tries to play off the way he definitely just took off a layer of skin from his tongue. "I really like talking to you. As much as I think you like talking to me. I would hate for this to be something that gets in the way of that. Think we can at least promise to try our hand at being friends?"

"I think we could manage that," says Trent. He's almost able to ignore the agony he's in at the earnestness in Ted's voice. "After all, you know how I love our chats."

Ted smiles another real smile at that.

"Good, that's settled then." He lifts his drink. "To friendship moving forward."

"To friendship moving forward," Trent agrees, clinking his paper cup against Ted's, tears now forming in his eyes at the pain.

"Now, one friend to another, did you burn your mouth on that cup of Satan's swill just then?" asks Ted, to his credit, looking like he's trying his level best not to laugh. Trent can only nod. "Yeah, thought so. I'll go get you some ice."

It's still one of the better coffees he's ever gotten with someone.

Trent's mouth heals, as do things between Ted and him. Richmond has had an eventful start to the season with the arrival of Zava who even Trent finds himself moderately starstruck by. There's no denying the man is a football god and as a lifelong Richmond supporter, he can't help but be pleased with the string of victories that come with his place on the team. He does, however, note the way that Jamie seems to withdraw into himself and wonders that Ted hasn't seemed to notice. He thinks Roy does, though. Trent has realised that not much Jamie-related gets past Roy.

Ted's head seems to be elsewhere.

He considers it a moment of immense growth in his commitment to friendship with Ted when, at the opening of Sam's restaurant, Ted leaves with Rebecca's friend and he only stews on it for half an hour.

Sassy? Really? The woman Trent berated for making a mistake in turning Ted down is called Sassy?

Deciding jealousy isn't a good look on him, he decides to go home, and has all thoughts of Ted's romantic exploits pushed from his mind by the sight of Colin kissing someone outside of Sam's restaurant. Not just someone, though. A man.

Now there's a scoop. A scoop Trent would never share, not even in his days as a journalist. Hell, if the fucking Wonder Kid hadn't lost him his job, this would be the next thing that would. He would never out anyone. It was a hard line he'd drawn himself early in his career. After what he saw happen to Justin Fashanu growing up, he simply wouldn't do it. He wouldn't be part of that. 

The idea of that happening to someone from Richmond, this group of people he's come to think of as family, is unthinkable. He hopes and prays he gets a chance to talk to Colin before something happens and the secret gets out. Colin wasn't exactly subtle with his choice of makeout spot.

He thanks the gay gods of football when he gets his chance in Amsterdam.

At first, there's part of him that really wants to find out what Ted's plans are for the evening. It's Museumnacht, of all nights, and all he wants to do is stay out late exploring every single one with Ted, who he imagines would be a great companion on a museum trip. Sure, he'd likely make a joke about every single painting, but Trent knows he would be genuinely curious about them too.

It really would be too much like a date, however, and so he resigns himself to the fact that the right thing to do is to spend the night seeing what the rest of the team gets up to. He watches, with amusement, the heated debate about what the plan for the evening should be. He even tries to unsuccessfully sell them on the idea of Museumnacht. But so far it seems like they're not going to make it much farther than the lobby of the hotel. It's only when Colin slips away from the rest of the pack that Trent realises what his evening in Amsterdam will be.

There's only one reason he could imagine Colin, usually in the thick of things, would want to separate himself from the pack. He's going somewhere he can be himself. And Trent knows that this is his chance to speak to and encourage him.

He realises, unfortunately too late, that following him to the club might not have been the best option. Colin looks genuinely terrified at seeing him there and Trent can't blame him. He doubts he could ever fully understand the level of paranoia Colin's daily life entails.

When he finally manages to calm the kid down enough to get him to sit down and talk over a couple of beers, the last thing he's expecting is for the conversation to be exactly what he needs to hear too. But Colin turns out to have quite the way with words.

"All I want," Colin explains, eyes filled with longing and wistfulness, "is for when we win a match, to be able to kiss my fella the same way the guys get to kiss their girls."

Trent smiles at that, thinking about a particular fella that he'd like to kiss after a big Richmond win.

"And I know we can't fix every ache inside of us," Colin continues. "But I shouldn't have to pretend it's not there either."

This, more than anything, shakes Trent to his core. His longing for Ted is an ache. One that he doesn't know if it's possible to fix, but he's given himself one Hail Mary in the form of a prearranged grand romantic gesture and by god if this kid hasn't just given him the courage to just go for it.

He could never regret this conversation with Colin, but after a somewhat failed attempt at sharing an historical titbit about Anne Frank, he can't help but wonder what a night in Amsterdam with Ted might have been like after all.

Some of the confidence regarding his new resolve to do the big ill-advised romantic gesture wanes a bit in the week after Amsterdam. Ted is so busy trying to find a team strategy that will work, that Trent is sure the last thing on his mind is his love life.

But then Trent sees it. In their match against Arsenal, he can see the pieces connecting. The team are doing it. They're doing total football. A week ago, they weren't doing anything close to it, but this week, here, at this match, they're doing it. They trust Ted that much that they were willing to try it. And not only try it – actually do it with their whole hearts.

It's the Lasso Effect at its full power. And they're going to fucking win the Premier League. He knows it now.

He has to tell Ted after the match. He can't contain his excitement. Ted's going to do it. He's going to fucking do it. And not because he's an amazing football manager. Not because he's a tactical genius.

No, it's because he's Ted Lasso, and he genuinely cares about what he's doing and the people who are doing it with him.

Christmas Eve, now only a week away, cannot come quickly enough.

***

Ted spends all of August trying to fend off questions about whether or not he's going to meet Isolated in Islington. But he wouldn't trade it for the world, because every time is a reminder that Henry is right there, at arm's reach. With him.

Ted's heart is heavy.

The handover at the end of the summer is the hardest one yet. But it's also somehow one of the better ones because of Trent.

He was nervous when Trent offered them a ride to the airport, but Henry was so excited about the idea and Ted was so worried about being alone afterwards that he agreed. And he's glad he did because it ends up being a great time, all things considered. In any case they manage to patch up things between them, and for Ted, that's monumental. He's willing to pretend that what happened between them was a mistake, as much as it hurts, if it means holding onto Trent as a friend.

Zava turns out to be both as impressive as advertised and a huge disappointment in the long run. It's wonderful to have a winning streak to their name – he knows after the disappointment of the Chelsea game, it's a relief for Rebecca. He can, unfortunately, see that it's getting to Jamie, but there's not much he can do about it. As far as team strategy goes, they've got a good thing going, and he can't shake it up for one player. Not without having to field interrogation from all sides including his fellow coaches, the press, Rebecca, and even Trent.

But then, he starts noticing the rest of his team slipping further and further back. He sees how their victories start paling next to their feeling of boredom out on the pitch. By the time they reach the West Ham game, his team is in dire straits, but Ted can't bring himself to focus enough to deal with it, because at the same time, he's accidentally spoken to Dr Jacob for the first time since his last marriage counselling session.

The West Ham match is a blur to Ted. Only three things stick out in his memory of it:

One, the generally sick feeling that came over him every time he thought about how Dr Jacob used to give him marriage advice, only to swoop in the minute his marriage was over.

Two, the anger he felt at Roy and Beard showing the team the footage of Nate tearing up the sign that's come to mean so much to them. It was the last thing the team needed and it made them play the worst match Ted's ever seen them play.

Three, the feeling of helplessness he felt, both at the way his team was playing, and at the way that this awful, unethical psychologist was now around his son far more than he was. That he was the one giving his son rides to soccer practice and helping him with his math homework.

His call with Michelle after the match offers some catharsis, but is ultimately not that helpful. He's exhausted, drawn, and all he wants to do is go to bed. Just as he's about to, however, he gets a call from Trent.

"Hey, Trent," he says, not really in the mood for any of his usual affectations.

"Hi, Ted," says Trent. "I've just managed to get Squish to bed, so I thought I would call and see how you're doing after the match today. We were watching. It looked brutal."

"Yeah, well, they saw your footage," says Ted, a little more biting than he means to be.

"Oh," says Trent. "Yes, I was wondering why they looked like they were out for blood. That explains it."

"Yeah," says Ted, voice still strained with the effort of not completely losing it. He's so angry and hurt and tired he could explode, but he doesn't want it to be at Trent. "Listen, Trent, I appreciate that you might still be trying to work the journalism out of your system, but the next time you find a big scoop that might affect the mental state of my players, I'd appreciate if you ran it by me first."

There's silence on the other end for a moment before Trent's voice comes back, smaller than Ted's ever heard it.

"I'm so sorry, Ted. I really am. And look, I know this doesn't excuse anything by any means, but by way of explanation, let me just say that I think I was trying to get you to feel as angry about the Nate situation as I am. I just… he cost me my career, you know? I liked being a journalist. It wasn't necessarily what I imagined I'd be doing with the rest of my life, but I was good at it. I was a bloody good sports journalist and all it took was one story for it all to fucking collapse."

"That wasn't entirely Nate's fault," says Ted, closing his eyes as though trying to prevent every thought he's currently having from leaving his head. "You didn't have to share that with me. I mean, I appreciate that you did. But you could direct a little of that anger my way."

Trent sighs deeply.

"You know that I can't."

Ted knows that that might be true. He rubs his eyes with his free hand.

"Look, Trent, I have to believe that people are able to be forgiven. I just have to. Because otherwise, when I get back to Henry, when I have to explain to him why I was out of his life for so long… I have to…"

It's the tipping point. He collapses onto the armchair behind him as huge undignified sobs wrack his body. He hates that he's crying like this. He hates that he's crying like this while Trent can hear it. It doesn't matter. There's nothing he can do to stop it at this point.

"Ted, Ted, listen to me," says Trent. "Your son loves you, okay? Whenever that boy isn't at your side looking up at you like you personally hung the sun, he's telling anyone who will hear that you're the coolest dad in the world. Whatever happens, I know that that child knows how much you love him, okay?"

Ted nods, but realises Trent can't hear him.

"I'm gonna hang up now," Ted says. "But it's not because you aren't making a great point. I just think half the battle is that I haven't had a decent night's sleep in over a week and I need to crash. I'll see you at work tomorrow."

"See you at work, Ted," says Trent. He sounds concerned.

Ted pulls himself together enough to put together two packs of shortbread, writing a short note in Trent's one.

Trent – thank you for your kindness last night. I needed to hear that. But I hope that you'll eventually find it in your heart to forgive too. It'll help you feel better too.

He ties it all together with a bit of ribbon he has left from his Christmas in July wrapping and the sunflower hair clasp that he still hasn't returned and leaves it on Trent's desk the next morning for when he comes in.

When Trent opens it and reads the note, he turns in his chair to make eye contact with Ted, smiles, and nods, and Ted feels one of the weights on his heart fall away.

Of course, with Zava leaving and the team having played backup the whole season so far, there's a lot of catch up to do. But it's a challenge that keeps Ted's mind on the game and not everywhere else. For a while, he finds himself able to disappear into managing the headspace of his team, Roy's ideas for stamina and speed training, Beard's best stabs at strategies for them to try.

The only exception to his new workflow is a fairly big scare in the form of reports of Henry bullying another classmate. And Ted doesn't quite know how to feel about the fact that it seems to resolve itself. By the time they talk, Henry seems to have the scope of what he's done wrong and has even apologised the kid for it. Did Michelle talk to Henry about it? Did Dr Jake? There's no way for Ted to know but there's not much more for Ted to add. The thought breaks his heart.

With difficulty, he decides to take it for what it is: a sign that his kid, for the time being, seems to be okay without him. Another weight drops from his heart.

He continues to ignore Henry's nagging about meeting Isolated in Islington. He doesn't have time to think about that. Instead, he decides to focus on the promise he's made to Henry, to the team, to himself: winning the whole thing.

It's in Amsterdam that everything starts coming together.

The so-called friendly match is a disaster and the only thing Ted can do for himself and the rest of the team to make it okay is to give them all a night to let loose.

Somehow, to Beard, this gets translated as "get Ted high", but Ted is so out of ideas at this point that he's willing to try anything. He almost doesn't try it when it's presented to him as a tea, even if it does bring back a fond memory of Trent trying and failing to play it cool after burning his mouth on the foul stuff. Eventually though, Ted decides if he's going to give himself half a chance at anything new, he needs to try something new, so he downs the tea and heads to the front desk to ask about the nearby museums.

He ends up at the Van Gogh museum, specifically in front of the famous "Sunflowers" painting, just staring. He's seen it plenty before, in prints and in digital pictures. He didn't realise, seeing it up close, that it would be possible to see the individual brush strokes. He alternates between being pulled so closely into the details that all he sees is paint in various shades of yellow, green, and blue, to looking at the whole thing and feeling himself trembling at a brand new thought.

He's grown up with sunflowers his whole life. Adorned on any bit of kitsch to do with Kansas. The great big fields he'd drive past on road trips. The ones his mother grew in the backyard and always had in a vase in the kitchen. The ones on his father's grave. The one or two in Michelle's wedding bouquet. It was his state flower, part of growing up in Kansas.

So why, in his mind, do sunflowers only belong to Trent now?

His thoughts are interrupted by a museum guide who shares a Van Gogh quote with him. And, as beautiful as it is, it's his next statement that really sends Ted reeling.

"When you find beauty, you find inspiration. When you know you're doing what you're meant to do, you have to try."

Of course, he realises this applies to his team, and absolutely tonight is about figuring out what the next step there is, but…

But Trent had looked like a sunflower earlier, with his bright yellow shirt and peppery dark hair. So beautiful. And Ted knows he could keep pretending that he doesn’t want him with his whole heart. It would kill him, but he knows he could do it. But there's a part of him, a far bigger part, that wants to give it one more try. That kiss hadn't been nothing. And he owes it to himself to see what could be. To take his own medicine and believe for once.

He accepts the notebook from the guide and decides to make his way to the glimmer of home he's hoping to find in the Yankee-Doodle Burger Barn. As looming as it all is, he can think about Trent in a bit. Right now he has to fix his team.

Eight hours and one placebo-induced drug trip later, Ted has it. At least, he thinks he does. He doesn’t know if it will work – Beard will know more about that than he does – but it's something. And another weight drops from his heart.

He loses the final one a week later.

Total football turns out to be a lot trickier to implement than Ted initially thought it would be. He knew it would be a lot of work to some extent, but he thought that because it was designed to get the team looser it wouldn't be the monumental challenge it's turning out to be. But here they are, playing against Arsenal, still struggling to work together the way he imagined.

But Jamie – proving once again to Ted that his football career will be long and storied – comes to the rescue at half time, explaining where the team is going wrong in the simplest way possible. Ted could absolutely smother him in a hug right now, but he thinks he'll leave that to Roy. He's noticed that he and Jamie seem to be even cosier since Amsterdam and lord help the poor soul that interferes with something Roy Kent cares about.

They still lose, but the second half is absolutely beautiful to watch. The team play off of each other seamlessly. They still seem to be finding their feet, but Ted can see that they finally get it. And that they're having fun. And crowd is having fun watching them have fun.

He's never been prouder to be their manager.

The absolute cherry on top of his success sundae is when Trent quite literally tears into the corridor after the match, looking for him specifically.

"Ted!" he says as he barges through the doors. "It's going to work."

"Great," says Ted, confused as to what could get the cool and catlike Trent Crimm all riled up like a jackrabbit in spring. "What is?"

"Total football." Ted is still confused. "And I'll tell you why. The Lasso Way."

This causes even more confusion. He's only ever heard The Lasso Way used derisively. Used in a biting tone when he does things a little differently or something he tries doesn't work out. He's never heard it said so excitedly with such optimism and hope.

"You haven't switched tactics in a week," Trent continues.

He definitely has. This whole week has been nothing but a new tactic.

"I haven't?" Ted asks, still baffled.

"No! You've done this over three seasons."

Oh. Maybe it was meant to be a little bit derisive then.

"I have?"

"Yes," Trent explains, "by slowly building a club-wide culture of trust and support through thousands of imperceptible moments, all leading to their inevitable conclusion – total football."

Ted tries to believe himself a humble man, one not prone to basking in praise, but something about the way Trent is talking about him, about his achievements, about the achievements of the team, makes Ted want to live in this moment forever.

Trent, Ted realises, is proud of him. Is truly, one hundred percent rooting for him. And Ted feels the final weight on his heart drop as he soars away with it.

"Well how about that," he says, mostly responding to Trent's excited babble, but also to this new feeling of weightlessness and just… happiness that he hasn't felt in months.

And then Trent does the absolute cutest little giddy gesture and Ted knows beyond a shadow of any doubt, he could never be more in love with anyone than he is with Trent right now.

Trent exits the corridor, leaving behind two coaches bemused and one absolutely besotted.

"What a fucking dork," says Roy, not without his own brand of affection.

"Yeah," shrugs Ted, aware of how his feelings are probably plastered across his face, "but he's our dork."

He doesn't miss the knowing look the other two coaches give each other.

Henry calls him later that night to discuss the match.

"It was so cool, dad!" he says. "Do you think Jamie and Roy will teach me how it works the next time I'm there?"

"I'm sure they'd love to, Bud," says Ted, heart so full it could burst.

"Awesome!" says Henry. "Are you still sure you can't come here for Christmas?"

"I'm sure," says Ted, a little pang marring his happiness for a moment. "I have the big Boxing Day match. But that's what Christmas in July was for, remember?"

"Yeah," says Henry, the disappointment in his voice palpable, but as soon as he looks glum, he perks up again. "Hey, that means you can go meet Isolated in Islington!"

"Oh, Bud, no," says Ted. "I can't do that."

He can't do that because it doesn't matter who this Isolated in Islington is, he's got his heart set on Trent. He can't imagine anyone else holding a candle to him, no matter how convinced his son is that this mystery person is his soulmate. He's not ready to tell Henry everything about Trent though, and therein lies the pickle.

"Why not?" says Henry. "Dad, you only get a chance like this once. This person sounds so perfect for you. Can't you just go and see?"

"Look, Kiddo, I really want to be with you on this one," says Ted with a sigh, "but it wouldn't be fair to whoever I'm meeting. I couldn't give them what they're looking for. I'm not saying no because I don't think it's a beautiful idea. I need you to trust that I'm saying no for a good reason, okay? One that you might not understand right now, but I hope you will soon."

Henry doesn't respond. He looks sad, then angry and when Michelle takes the phone from him after a few minutes of pained silence, she also looks concerned.

"He'll come around, Ted," she says. "There's a lot going on at the moment and I think it's just a lot for him to process. Give him a day to cool off and I'm sure he'll be back to his normal self."

But the next day and the day after that when Ted calls, he just gets an apologetic Michelle.

Ted feels some of the weights return.

They all return a few days later, on December 23rd, when Michelle calls him in tears.

"Ted," she says. "Ted, I'm so sorry. Jake took him to the airport and signed him in. He says he got a message from me, but it seems like Henry sent it. Apparently he's safe and I'm on the flight right behind him but oh god."

Ted is about to throw up. He's never heard Michelle this panicked. Ever.

"Hey, it's alright, I'm here," he says, trying to reassure her. "What's going on?"

"Henry's booked himself onto a flight to the UK. Jake helped sign him in."

And then Ted does throw up.

Final Chapter

[sehnsuchts-trunken]

Hey , i love your matchups 👍

Can i get a The Hobbit* male ,( and if its not to much a female*Lotr ) matchup

My Pronouns are She / Her (pansexual , ace ) , i'm 5'8 and my mbti is intp-t , my zodiac is pisces , my aesthetic would be dark academia and witchy like dark colors and long skirts and plattform boots .

i'm a person who is mostly alone or with my pets than with an other person , i love comedy and trash - TV and i have almost everywhere i go my headphones on , i love podcasts and music , i'm pretty funny and can be loud and open if i know i can trust people wich is hard because i have trust issues also ADHD , but i'm insecure and need someone i can rely on . I love baking , dancing and mostly i sit on a swing in my garden while i watch the sun go down , i love all my pets ( i have 6) , i would like to travel the world sonetime with someone , i always want to help people and want a harmonic surrounding , my love language is physical touch .

I don't like people who are closed and cold all the time , or talk behind others backs . Or someone who is overly protective and controlling .

All in all i need a person who is okay with with what they have , loyal , caring , can get me to laugh and smile and loves me with all their heart .

💜💜💜💜💜

( i'm sorry it's to short , or when there are any mistakes , English us not my first language )

hey that's no problem at all, this is absolutely long enough! i hope you enjoy your matchup!!!

also can i just say. after reading through your introduction a few times i um, you are scarily accurately me. this is probably of zero interest to you but you are really terrifyingly similar to me. still i focused on who i think would fit you (me? us? sorry i'll stop) best instead of who i dream of most so yeah. whatever you know

I ship you with...

Bard!

It's harmonic and quiet and calm at home, as always. And you love that, you do. But when your brother gets a surprise visit by a company of thirteen dwarves and decides not to help (in favour of his own harmonic and quiet and calm at home), you're physically incapable of not helping in his place. Helping is your thing, plus you feel like the dwarves should be able to enjoy that same peaceful quiet in a home the way you can, and the only way that could possibly happen is with your help. So you do help.

The first time you meet Bard you're wet and worn out on some big rock in the middle of a river. You've been through literal hell and you're definitely far from your best, but he's obviously attractive and for a second there you try to wring out your skirt and comb through your hair and make yourself look presentable again. Not that that you manage in the slightest, so you do your best to shrink into the background and stay quiet the way you usually do.

What follows is worse (you reek of fish and you don't think you'll ever fully recover from swimming through toilet water) so when you finally stand steadily on both your feet in Bard's home, you feel nauseous. But you push through and you clean yourself off and when Bard comes in to see you fight against disgusting wet clothing, he addresses you directly for the very first time. And that to offer you a bath and some of his daughter's dresses (if they fit you, of course).

Your brother is the only one who actually talks to Bard. The dwarves all aren't too fond of him, but Bilbo is happy about the first cultured person on this entire journey (no matter how fond he's become of the dwarves) and since you're mostly with him... well, you're mostly with Bard now, too. He holds good conversation, he's open and honest and he's funny too, quick-witted and sarcastic and if at first glance you were already a bit in love, now you definitely are. This isn't the right place or time in the slightest, but you're dry and cozy and he's tall (or maybe you're just tiny?) and intelligent and nice and you can't help yourself after that dreadful journey you went through. You wanted to travel the world, you did, but you'd stumbled into just a few too many vile creatures until now to actually have enjoyed it, so you liked the comfort of an actual home much more.

It wasn't particularly comfortable, of course, because there were thirteen dwarves with you and one of them was deadly injured, so in that helpful manner of yours that you'd shown so many times already, you did your best to help out Kili too. It's why you miss out on a mighty few things - Thorin and Bard verbally facing off, for example, and most of the party the master of Lake Town throws for the entire company, but it does mean that when eleven out of thirteen dwarves plus your brother go out to drink, you're pretty much left alone with Bard, who would rather have thrown himself off the Lonely Mountain than join in these festivities.

So when Bard sits in a corner, with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands and all his children are asleep and Kili is in some state of delirium and Fili is staring out of the windows at the party outside (not that he couldn't have gone, but he wanted to stay with his brother), you feel the overwhelming urge to somehow comfort him. You push back the gnawing insecurity in your mind, try to ignore your growing attraction to him and do your best to remind yourself of the fact that you've had quite a few conversations already, of the fact that he's nice and funny and apparently upset. So you talk to him.

You talk to him the entire night. At first it's to ease his discomfort, then it's to talk about anything and everything - to laugh and to smile and to forget about everything bad happening for a minute. Only when you yawn for the first time do you realise that it's way past midnight already, that even Fili has fallen into some kind of slumber by now and that you're actually really, really tired, and Bard smiles and tells you to go to sleep. And after a night of talking to this lovely man in front of you, you've come to trust him a bit - maybe that's irrational and maybe it's dumb, but he feels safe - so you end up with your head on his shoulder. He's still right there next to you when you wake up in the morning, his arm wrapped around your waist safely, and at first you recoil - you're not used to anyone touching you, not anyone but Bilbo. But this feels strangely comfortable, he's warm and cozy and after a second of shock, you decide to allow this to feel exactly that way. Maybe it's all a bit quick and you're definitely stressing about it - it's hard to let someone in and let someone touch you and trust them not to try and imprison and kill you like the last few times you were grabbed and manhandled, but all of that was rough and this is soft and deliberate. You've known this man for a few days now and you decide that that's enough to let him hold you like this. For just another few minutes.

That morning you face quite a hard choice. It's relatively easy in the end, but the thing you'd worked so hard for (reclaiming Erebor) stood in direct conflict with helping Kili not to die, so it took a bit of thinking and stressing for you and Bilbo to eventually come to an agreement - he'd go with Thorin to fulfill the part of the burglar, and you'd stay with the princes to look after Kili. It wasn't like you were a skilled healer or anything of the sort, but with all the pets you'd had over the years, you'd picked up on at least some things to do when someone was injured, and that was better than most things the dwarves could do. And luckily, even though he's certainly no fan of them, Bard is a decent human being, kind and empathetic, and he doesn't want anyone to die a horrible death, so he helps where he can, makes sure to get you everything you need and generally stays by your side until Tauriel shows up.

You pretty much collapse after that (you'd gladly helped Kili out, of course, but it had been straining to say the least), sinking into a little pile in a corner of the room and breathing in and out a few times, and then Bard is there right next to you, handing you water and bread and asking if he can hug you, and you look up at him and debate it - debate whether you're going to let this man in, this man who you've been talking and laughing with for over a week now, this man who has been nothing but kind and understanding and responsible, who may have opposed your entire journey, but with good reasoning - and besides, Thorin has barely been anything other than a complete arse, so you don't mind that much that Bard isn't totally fond of him.

So? Do you let him in? This man who ticks off all your boxes? Who's compassionate and loyal and helpful and reliable?

Of course. Of course you do. It's the one time you decide to bite the bullet, to push back the insecurities and the anxiety because he's here and he's been here, he's been there for you practically more than anyone else has, and that's only been the last week or so. You decide that yes, you trust him, you trust this hunk of a man, because he's asking for your consent instead of just touching you, because he's been making you laugh and luring you out of your shell step by step, because - yes, because he's here, right now, when you need him.

Smaug's attack and the battle that follows are a blur. Afterwards, you don't remember that much about it, and you're honestly not too mad about it. You remember Bard being a hero and a leader and a saviour - your saviour, specifically. You remember fighting and screaming and blood and the desire to help out, to help as much as you can, and you remember surviving. You remember the dread, the gut-wrenching dread because you weren't sure just who had survived - had Bard died? Had Bilbo? How many of the dwarves were still alive?

But then it all becomes crystal-clear. The hazy, foggy memories turn sharp and bright from one very particular moment on: That moment that the raging battlefield clears, that the screaming dies, that Bard returns to you with blood all over and a limp and a sword in his hand but alive, well and alive, breathing and with a beating heart. That moment that you drop everything you'd been holding, throw your arms around his neck and kiss him. Because he'd made it. Because you'd been terrified for him. Because, just maybe, you'd fallen in love with him.

Your brother is alive and so is the rest of the company, which makes the whole thing a little easier to deal with. At least there's no major death problems. While you were busy with your own little romance, your brother's now engaged to a king, so your home back in the Shire is available to you and to you only - and while Bard feels a responsibility to help rebuild his town, the promises of not one, but two kings (Thranduil included, of course) and a very powerful consort (your brother, that is) plus twelve other dwarves and a wizard are quite enough for him to realise that his people are in good hands, that the town will be restored and that until then, they will have food and water and shelter and so he takes his things and his children and goes back to the Shire with you.

It's a little small (a little a lot) and you have to make quite some changes, but it does work out in the end. It's new to all of you, of course, the whole situation - you've never been in love like that, but especially not with a man who already has children of his own, and it's not always easy to manage a relationship like this. But Bard is just a little too perfect for you not to give it your all, so you do exactly that. Bard loves nature and he loves animals and his kids do too, he loves the swing in your garden and so do they, he loves your baking and he loves to dance with you and he especially loves when Bilbo and Thorin visit, or when you visit them, because his children are occupied then and he can steal you away to a tavern or an inn and dance long into the night. He holds you in his arms and carries you wherever you could possibly want to go and if it were up to him, he would never let go of you again until the end of times.

[golbrocklovely]

I'm amused the 3 hour interview has caused a ruckus on twitter because Joe Rogan 'might' be in an upcoming video, the interview they did it's very unclear if he'll be in it or not or how long he'll be in it. But it's confirmed he's not investigating with them, so I'm kinda doing the old person sigh at all the young folks kicking up a fuss over this.

I found the interview fascinating myself, it went so in depth on a lot of things and I enjoyed the fact the boys were clearly feeling relaxed enough to open up and just talk about their thoughts and feelings in depth.

i mean…. twitter also gets upset when sam's girl vaguely maybe possibly says something about kat (but didn't actually) so of course they would get upset at this lol

that's the thing i don't get. snc were so vague with what they said, idek if joe is gonna be in the video or not. and if he ends up not being in the video, it's not like these ppl are gonna take back their anger either. i know snc went to his coffee shop or comedy club or whatever building that man owns but like??? i just don't get the anger fully.

i don't like joe rogan. i think he's dimwitted and is so "moderate" that he allows those with the dumbest of opinions and the most terrible views to come on his show and spew their nonsense. i wish snc didn't collab with him when they did all the way back in 2023. however, i get why they did. that man has the biggest and most well known podcast in the WORLD. it would have been dumb for them to shoot down the opportunity just bc a couple 100 fans are upset joe's not left leaning.

not to mention, they went on there bc his daughter is a fan!! hello?? what's not clicking??? what were they supposed to say? "sorry, we can't come meet you or do an interview with your dad bc he's gonna get us cancelled by our chronically online fans. but thanks for buying the merch!" like bffr.

and i don't like joe rogan AT ALL. i'm the polar opposite spectrum of political views when it comes to him. but being upset at this just feels so surface level to me.

bc the same ppl bitching about this now will not care in a week or two, tops. but they will now use this moment and bring it up every fiscal quarter when they get pissed at snc for something. just add it on to their ever growing list of "reasons why snc suck (but none of the reasons are strong enough for me to stop being a fan of them)"

but anyway lol

the interview was really interesting. there were some conversations that they had that i'm gonna have to go back and rewatch just to understand it better. i like these longer conversations and i hope snc do more of these type of podcasts.

[majicmarker]

I am desperate to hear about drop dead ed

ah, i see u have chosen violence (aka the most complex of my wips), but NEVERTHELESS…

drop dead ed is, as the title indicates, my take on an eddissy drop dead fred. it’s been a hot minute since i’ve seen the movie, but i was fully inspired when i listened to the how did this get made podcast ep about it (which—y’all have to listen to that, if you haven’t already. if you don’t have stitcher premium, google it and you’ll find the audio files. seriously legendary).

now, i am firmly in the team fred camp—that is to say, i don’t take the events of the movie literally so much as i believe that elizabeth is purporting the things that fred is doing. fred is a figment of her imagination, and everything she thinks he’s doing, she’s either Actually doing, or imagining doing for various reasons. i have wildly strong opinions abt this film, like—

you call it a dark comedy, i call it a high stakes family drama about the generational trauma that impacts mother/daughter relationships, how it shapes our sense of self, and how we cope with that via the outlets we create to give ourselves freedom from our repression. ya dig?

that being said… welcome to my excuse to dig into the psychoanalysis of a movie from 1991, i’m gonna make it eddissy

how am i going to do that, exactly? i’m still shaking out the specifics. whenever i write a movie, etc. au, i tend to rework the plot to suit the ship (as it should be done, imo; i don’t want a shot-for-shot remake that renders the ship ooc, i just want to use the source material as inspiration). SO…

right now, i’m toying with the idea that chrissy knows eddie irl in a sort of tangential, abstract way—she knows of him, they just don’t run in the same circles—and once again i’ll work the angle that she admires him, envies him, etc. at some point she has a slight mental break, thanks to her fucking mother (though more of a fantasy-genre mental break than a psychologically accurate one?), and the imaginary friend she manifests to cope is eddie, because his irl self is such a comfort to her even though they don’t know each other personally, intimately, what-have-you.

as chrissy deals with this new, unhinged aspect of herself, shenanigans of self-discovery abound and, natch, she and eddie fall in love for realsies. i’m just trying to sort out how to fuse imaginary friend eddie and irl eddie, but chances are it’s going to get very fantasy and meta and maybe they’ll have been the same entity all along? yadda yadda, whatever i need to call it to make it work.

i def need to give the movie another rewatch or several, and this fic outline will probably have more in-depth notes than i’ve ever bothered to dig into before, and all that said it’ll probably be a wee bit before this baby’s ready to post, but—i am unreasonably excited about it, so it’s on its way in the near-ish future 💫

[tailsrevane]

[podcast & comic review] the adventure zone, campaign 1: the balance arc

i have… just… a lot of feelings about this.

this is messy. and a lot of the criticisms you’ve almost certainly heard about it if you’ve looked into it at all before coming across my years-too-late review of it are spot on. bad d&d, bad representation. all of that shit is hella valid. and all of it is why i’m not going to devote more time to the adventure zone after having finished its first & by far most celebrated arc. but what’s equally valid is that this podcast is also responsible for some of the most singularly incredible, and unique, storytelling moments i’ve ever heard in any medium. it grapples with themes that you just don’t expect the guys who riff on yahoo answers to come at you with.

there are also all kinds of mitigating factors about the most-criticized aspects of the podcast, for what it’s worth. like, yeah there’s some examples of bad representation. but it’s bad representation made by guys who were trying to do good representation and accepted & even signal boosted criticism, and then did their best to do better. and that matters. i’m sorry, but what are we even asking for if that isn’t exactly how we want to see creators handle it when they fuck up?

the bad d&d was easy enough to shrug off at first, because i like these guys. i don’t know as much about clint, but his three sons are some of my favorite comedy podcasters. i’m kind of out of my mbmbam phase. i binged it for a while, and i did genuinely enjoy it, but i’ve gotten to a point where a general interest podcast that doesn’t really focus on any specific kind of content that i’m hella into just doesn’t hit the spot anymore. but i’m still grateful for the space it had in my life for a while. i’ve just always deeply appreciated the wholesome & warm vibe of their content.

the easy narrative is that when adventure zone was at its worst, it was because griffin (my favorite of the performers involved, fwiw) just wasn’t giving his players space to co-create with him. and admittedly it is pretty hard to be impressed by that brand of d&d when i have shit like dimension 20 in my life now, but honestly it also just isn’t that simple. because yeah, in a macro sense, griffin’s tendency to railroad his players does grate on me. but you can’t just say that that’s always bad when a lot of the best moments of the podcast are actually him narrating at his players. i’m talking about the truly heartbreaking shit in the divisive “stolen century” mini-arc. i’m talking about the penultimate episode, when this podcast became about the entire fucking world hearing a story that gave them hope, and then getting their asses up and fighting. this dude can write.

this dumb fucking d&d podcast had me fully sobbing on multiple occasions, and the fact that it clearly had the same effect on the people making it, that they cared so much about it, and just… fuck if that isn’t one of my biggest weaknesses. i like feeling feelings. i like other people feeling feelings. i like it when people care.

also, like… yeah there are stretches of this podcast that get pretty railroady, but a lot of times it’s not, and a lot of times the players really do get to meaningfully co-create. and sometimes it’s just magic.

earlier in the podcast, before shit gets really real, there’s an arc where they’re in basically a fantasy car combat/race, and this arc has just one of the most purely awesome moments i think i’ve ever heard in any work of fiction? justin just shocks everyone by summoning a fucking magic bicorn named garyl and everyone freaks out about how fucking cool it is and just… i love how into it everyone is. and a few seconds later justin gets nervous and asks how fast the battlewagons are going to make sure this is going to be practical, and griffin responds, “approximately garyl miles per hour. [...] are you kidding me? i’m not going to ruin your fantastical visions with a thing as ridiculous as speed differentials.” and just. i love it so much.

i love “yes, and”ing and then actually supporting it. i love how excited they all are to craft a story together. i love justin managing to pull off something that caught griffin totally by surprise and griffin just aggressively supporting it. and i just wish there were more moments like that in the podcast. because if you ask me, that is d&d at its best. it’s literally what this game is for.

totally warranted criticisms aside, i really did enjoy this podcast. the truly special moments more than make up for the things about it that frustrate me. and fuck, no matter how much i might disagree with aspects of griffin’s dming style, i really do love a lot of his characters. especially angus, and lup. they’re just so badass in drastically different ways. just. i could’ve just spent all this time gushing about how fucking awesome lup is.

what really sticks with me about this story, though, is that it contains ideas & feelings that are just truly so much bigger than the imperfect shell containing them, and there is something so achingly divine about that. griffin weaves a story that grapples with themes of immortality & the nature of existence & the literal end of the world in ways that are so thoughtful, so thought-provoking, and convey the reality of those things so much better than fiction usually does… everything else aside, i just have to stand in awe of that.

the graphic novels are cool, too, but if you’re only going to do one or the other i for sure would go with the podcast. but yeah, the comic does a great job of adapting the content of the podcast while making necessary adaptation choices to account for its different medium. the art is pretty lovely, and killian is just as pretty as i imagined her–i mean, what? nothing!

[good-realtor-bad-realtor-dynamic]

I finally caught up with Succession over the course of this week. In fact, I literally finished S3E9 a few hours ago and I'm still completely thunderstruck.

I actually started season one a few weeks ago but struggled getting past the first few episodes. I reckon it took the writers a few episodes to settle on the tone of the show, to hone in on the correct balance between comedy and drama, and to identify the strengths of their cast so they could write them into the characters.

Once I made it to S1E6 though, I was hooked, and by season two, I was laughing, sobbing, seething and getting my heart broken, all in equal measure, because somehow showrunner Jesse Armstrong had managed to elevate the stories, the dialogue and the characters, and somehow Jeremy Strong had found new and interesting ways to complicate his portrayal of Ken, the only financebro sonofabillionaire loser on tv to have ever broken me, before his brother Rome joined the club, by reaching heretofore undiscovered depths in Pathetic Failure acting...

I was so ready for season three to fall short of the standards set by its predecessor, but it didn't. It may have been slow going in the middle for a bit there, but by the end, all I can think is what a ride. I don't know how it matched them, perhaps even exceeded them, but it did. At the beginning of this season, "Relevant Donuts" planted the idea that what we really want is to see the siblings together on the same side, taking down their father. So when the season finale finally pays that off, and we start to feel hopeful even a little proud of our trio for overcoming their father's machinations, only to have the rug pulled out from under us all in that Godfather betrayal — I'm still reeling. It was not shocking that Tom would do that, given everything he'd been put through, but I'm still shocked. And that is some brilliant writing.

I fully understand now why Charlie and Glenn were so in awe of Matthew Macfadyen's acting range and his seemless transitions from the most ridiculous comedy to most affecting drama (in a conversation from one of those early video episodes of the Sunny podcast). I've only known him from his fantastic performance as Mr Darcy in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film, and Tom Wambsgans couldn't be further away from that role.

I have so many thoughts about how charming yet sneaky and two-faced Greg the Egg was all along, how that social climbing nature was developed, and how fascinating his dynamic with Tom is, especially as a parallel to the Tom/Shiv marriage. I despise everything that people like Shiv and Roman stand for and yet I can't help feeling so sorry for them as they stand before their father, looking for his love and approval, only to be ruthlessly dismissed, used and humiliated. I don't remember the last time I hated a character more than I do Logan Roy for his manipulative behaviour and the cruel ways he makes his children compete for his affection while claiming to act from a place of paternal benevolence. I can't say enough about Kendall, Siobhan, Roman, Tom, Greg, Logan, Gerri, Frank, Marcia, Hugo and just the whole bloody cast of characters and actors on this show.

As always, the "Jesse Armstrong and Armando Iannucci Uncomfortable Satirical Comedy Universe" of shows and films about fucked-up people, usually in positions of power, does not miss. I'm going to try not to be very annoying about this on my Sunny blog, but hey, it's my blog, so I might actually, at least in the near future since season four is nearly upon us. But I'm also a lazy bastard who hates hitting Post on their drafts. So who knows.

Anyway, I'm likely going to be the obnoxious friend who quotes this show like I do with Sunny and The Sopranos with my mates all the time now. It's already begun irl and I don't think I'll be able to stop anytime soon.

Excuse me while I go down a rabbit-hole of videos featuring the writers and cast of this show now. Maybe Jesse Armstrong will somewhere explain his brain to me.

[sshbpodcast]

Resistance is futile: A Borgiful Season 4 of Voyager

by Ames

While we here at A Star to Steer Her By were sad to see the departure of Kes, season 4 of Voyager also heralds in a new era of Trek thanks in no small part to the addition of its newest main character, Seven of Nine. Say what you will about how much the show leans on the Collective in future episodes, this season had just the right amount of Borg action (and I’m not just talking about Harry’s dreams) to keep us titillated (and now I am talking about Harry’s dreams).

It was actually a struggle to pick three weak episodes from this batch because by now the characters have mostly hit their grooves, there’s so much fun to be had in teaching humanity to our shiny new Borg drone, and there were interesting science fiction concepts to be seen even in samplings from our bottom lists. Follow along below and/or listen to this week’s podcast episode with bonus faves from guest star Liz (discussion start at 1:19:24) as we laud some of the best Voyager episodes we’ve seen yet and piece together some very varied bad lists.

[images © CBS/Paramount]

Top Three Episodes

Our favorites from the season lean heavily on some of the best elements of science fiction: that sneaky ability to comment on modern society, the creation of complex characters from fully developed worlds, and yet another great Neelix showcase for Ethan Phillips!

“Hope and Fear”: Jake The finale stands out in Voyager because it actually highlights some unintended consequences from past episodes. It’s a good way to wrap up the season by examining how saving the Borg back in the season premier comes back to bite the crew in the ass. We also really enjoyed Ray Wise’s character Arturis and his ever-deepening backstory, and we got to see a fun new ship along the way on the interstellar superhighway!

“Message in a Bottle”: Chris In the past, Star Trek has so frequently failed at melding comedy and science fiction, so it is always a triumph when a show balances the two so superbly, and “Message in a Bottle” excels in this category. The EMH gets a chance to really show off, we get yet another snazzy new starship to drool over, and the discovery of the relay network impacts the whole show with lasting effects we tend not to see in Voyager. Message incoming: Way to go!

“One”: Ames, Caitlin Seven of Nine got to shine very frequently in this season as she developed as a character, but perhaps the best look at how far she’s already come (in just one season, for crying out loud!) is in “One.” The whole episode is an intriguing look at isolation and perseverance, but also demonstrates Jeri Ryan’s acting chops as she carries a hefty helping of the story literally by herself. We Are Borg!

“Mortal Coil”: Caitlin, Chris Practically every season has contained a delectable outing for Neelix, whose character doesn’t get nearly the amount of praise that he deserves. Watching Neelix wrestle with the concept of his existence and have a crisis of faith rarely explored in science fiction was actually spellbinding. We’re impressed as hell, especially considering that our last faith-vs-science exploration in “Sacred Ground” failed so hard.

“Year of Hell”: Ames, Jake “Year of Hell” might be one of the most successful Trek two-parters because it doesn’t run out of steam like many we’ve discussed in the past have. Instead, this one builds and builds, continuing to up the stakes even after the cliffhanger at the end of Part 1. Add to that Annorax, a villain so compelling that for a hot second you almost want to root for the guy, and a weapon so interesting that it made the tippy top of our list of powerful spaceships, and you’ve got a classic on your hands.

“Living Witness”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake This is how you do a mirror universe episode right. After too many slogs through the looking glass in Deep Space Nine, visiting an evil Voyager through the lens of historical inaccuracies gifts us not only with a really original and impacting frame to present social commentary on how we relate our histories, but also with some of the funnest acting we’ve seen out of the Voyager cast getting on with their bad selves.

—

Bottom Three Episodes

While we all agreed on two particularly lousy episodes this season, all of us struggled with how to fill in the third slot of our bottom threes! So you’re going to see a lot of disagreement in what’s bad enough to make the list from this otherwise pretty decent season. A good problem to have, I suppose!

“The Killing Game”: Chris While there are probably worse episodes than this (Editor’s note: there definitely are), our trip to Nazi-occupied France makes it on the bad list through the sheer amount of missed opportunities. This two-parter could have been way better if its execution were different. Do we want more or less of our crew’s French personas? Unclear, except that we wanted something other than what we got since it meant it took most of Part 1 to get things actually going! This resistance was more on the futile side.

“Demon”: Caitlin First off, the slumber party in medbay was just innocuous. That out of the way, this episode is another example of a lot of wasted opportunities wrapped up in something that came out just confusing. The concept of the duplicate Tom and Harry never really gets explored. There’s so much to plumb there: the ethical debate, the prime directive breaking, the identity crisis of it all, what B’Elanna maybe has to think about this? And we get none of that meat in favor of the Doctor being mean to his houseguests.

“Unforgettable”: Ames While we were pretty jazzed about the concept of an alien species who cannot imprint on your memories, what that concept annoyingly necessitates is a large chunk of your episode telling you things that happened instead of showing them. And even when it did show them through clunky flashbacks, it left us wanting something… else. Sadly, it ended up being another wasted opportunity for the Chakotay character, which is a damn shame.

“Vis à Vis”: Jake This episode is a lesson in how not to do a body swap. We were so confused by the rules that the writers had to create in order to make this work that it ended up not even worth thinking about in the first place. Steth is just so bad at whatever he was trying to do that it is distracting. Tom is out of character all episode long, so it felt like he took a couple steps backward in development. And the hand-wavey wrap up: entirely anticlimactic!

“Concerning Flight”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake If you want to watch John Rhys-Davies go for a jaunt in a silly hat, this episode is harmless enough. If you’re like us however and tried to follow any of the plot, you’re pretty doomed. The more you try to make sense of what Leonardo da Vinci is doing here, why he’s not aware of the sun ever moving, why the plane was at all useful, and everything else in this confusing meander of an episode, the more you’re likely to have an existential crisis too.

“Retrospect”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake Finally, Trek revisits a classic concept that we heartily wish they’d stop doing: violating their female characters. Troi got it practically every season on TNG, and watching this plot unfold around Seven was uncomfortable in all the ways the writers weren’t intending. Plus we’ve got the Doctor practicing freakin’ hypnosis pseudoscience all of a sudden when they’ve got a perfectly good mindmelding Vulcan RIGHT THERE. It’s all pretty infuriating and misses the mark thoroughly.

—

That’s it for season four of Voyager, and we didn’t even have time for all the runners up and honorable mentions. Keep following along here for more posts and opinions, keep up with our watch-along through Voyager to see how season 5 compares over on SoundCloud or your favorite podcast app, hail us on Facebook and Twitter, and let’s find out if assimilation is that bad after all. We Are Borg.

[spookytuesdaypod]

spooky tuesday is a (now not so new!) podcast where we’re breaking down all of our favorite slashers, thrillers, monster movies and black comedies on the new scariest day of the week.

ever wished you could watch the he’s just not that into you of horror? the valentine’s day or new year’s eve of halloween? on a new spooky tuesday, we’re talking about trick ‘r treat (2007), a movie about a (candy) grab bag of different interwoven stories that fully delivers when it comes to killer principals, karmic justice, and the cutest lil spirit of samhain you’ve ever seen.

give spooky tuesday a listen on apple podcasts, spotify, iheart radio, or stitcher

[pridewon]

@pontevoix​​ said:   🤍 + belatedly running by with our ships or any one of them sdfuhg chase your dreams cha (all about that ship) (kuroo & tsukishima edition, in tandem with this post)

Who cooks meals for the other? kuroo lends importance to his meals, but apparently not enough to make time in his (often hectic) schedule to cook properly for himself. he tries to make efforts when he’s cooking for two, but the chore more often befalls tsukishima and his meagre repertoire vbfvd because he’s the one at fault, kuroo is not very picky about what tsukishima makes (he’ll just poke fun at him for the blandness and meticulous leftovers recycling). he’ll often suggest take-aways or the convenience store when he’s lazy about cooking. the only thing he lowkey insists on is fish - he tells tsukishima it helps with memory and a museum curator needs it to remember all those dates and fun facts he tells the visitors. 

Who spams the other with memes? you said it all. it’s all kuroo, it’s all recycled memes, it’s all a spam even if he knows he’s not going to get a reaction. his colleagues have already looked at him weird because he laughed out loud (with the hyena laugh, you know the one) when tsukihima responded with a ‘no’. 

Who likes to tidy around the house? kuroo appreciates tsukishima’s tidying habits and has quickly figured out the whole logic behind the no-clutter policy; and he sticks to it, since it also helps him keep the place organised if it’s at his apartment, or once they move in together. it’s one of those things where seeing another person do it reinforces a good habit. he has, and still does, however, wonder if tsukishima is serious when he periodically threatens to leave should kuroo adopt a single bad habit. he is curious... but even he has a few limits of what he’ll risk to get on tsukishima’s nerves. good job on finding one of them, tsukishima :’)

Who likes to play pranks on the other? i’m still wheezing at kuroo’s passive-aggressive taunting payback at tsukishima’s failed warning for the party, so - yes. remember when i said kuroo respects the anti-clutter policy? he does - but when tsukishima says/does something that he deems deserves retribution, boy, does he find the sneakiest, stupidest ways of getting back at him. the sheets turned the wrong way. an empty tube of toothpaste. not taking the laundry out of the washing machine even though he said he would and the majority of it is tsukishima’s. evil. he is evil. (and has a partner to match so it’s fine i guess).

Who asked the other to move in with them? kuroo noticed fairly quickly. it’s not like tsukishima ever said he wanted to move in, or wanted them to live together. in fact he is fairly certain tsukishima idn’t want that or just didn’t think in these terms. but he saw the signs coming that this would eventually happen; tsukishima spending more nights there, the extended stay after the heating broke down... he never commented on it because he knew it would make tsukishima run away. so he patiently waited, to see what would happen, to see if tsukishima would eventually state the obvious now that half his wardrobe is already there and he spends more time at kuroo’s than at his own place. he never told tsukishima about this, but he didn’t seem surprised at all when tsukishima asked about paying rent. 

Who is in charge of the music during a car ride? tsukishima tells kuroo you can tell he’s from the city, and kuroo tells tsukishima you can tell he’s a country bumpkin. uroo fully embraces his driving style that’s definitely more alert and impatient than someone who is used to the country’s; and he’s pretty chatty when he drives too, despite tsukishima’s insistence that he focuses on the road (it should be noted that kuroo has never been in an accident and is, despite it all, a very careful driver - he knows how to exist as a driver in a busy city). he comments on the comedy and pokes fun at tsukishima’s lacklustre sense of humour, comments on the science podcasts/asks questions if they happen to be about tsukishima’s areas of expertise at the museum, and sometimes suggests they play games instead, like a fun facts quiz. 

Who is more likely to tickle the other mercilessly? you would think the spilled water incident would deter a cat from misbehaving again. you would be wrong. kuroo just gets more creative about it; tries to do it from a distance with a wooden cooking spoon, by shifting the positioning of a fan without tsukishima noticing... tsukishima can never know peace unless he catches kuroo red-handed and gets back at him. then he can know peace for... about three days. 

Who needs to hold the other during scary movies? kuroo would like tsukishima to know that spritzing your boyfriend/partner/non-boyfriend/non-partner when he’s trying to be smooth is very poor (non)relationship practice and loudly complains about it until tsukishima shares the blanket. and a little longer after that. but with a little satisfied smile instead of the dramatics. he may stretch his arms and place one over the back of the sofa behind tsukishima’s shoulders; surprisingly, it’s genuinely not a smooth manoeuver, just something he does without really thinking about it (usually when they’re halfway through the film and kuroo isn’t particularly on his guard or thinking consciously about boundaries. you can tell because he apologises without thinking if tsukishima comments on it). 

Who has to help the other when it comes to technology? oh kuroo is so weird with technology. he types weird. he accidentally turns on weird settings and doesn’t know how to reverse them. he has called kenma to the rescue so many times kenma blocked his number once. he never apologises about it and always blames the television/phone/computer/microwave.

Who likes to get a bit frisky in public / an inappropriate setting? kuroo definitely gets surprised when his jokes venture out of joke territory fvdjb and the sending texts in public/murmuring into his ear are his preferred methods for stirring up trouble. he has very quickly learnt that with tsukishima it can really be hit or miss, five minutes of privacy or literally getting pranked... somehow, he decides it’s still worth trying his chance. no one can say kuroo isn’t an optimist and a risk-taker.

Who wakes up first, and do they wake up the other or let them rest? when kuroo wakes up first, if there is no rush, he either checks his emails on his phone while moving as little as possible, or/and watches tsukishima sleep. tsukishima has noted that’s it’s weird, and it made kuroo snicker. he has yet to say it out loud, but those tacit pledges of peace are a favourite moment of the day for him. as much as he likes to be an annoyance, and as much as he likes his life to be busy, there is something special in the quiet of lazy morning company. if they have a set wake up time, on top of the morning coffee, kuroo also has a habit of going through his schedule for the day - and tsukishima’s, which he tends to memorise out of professional habit. he just like to know when things are happening and what to expect throughout the day, and to make sure tsukishima also has his own schedule in mind. 

Who is always taking pictures of the other when they aren’t looking? nothing to add to your perfect take on the matter, except that kuroo sends the occasional blurry picture to tsukishima with the comment ‘this is your best profile’. he thinks he’s really funny, can you tell. 

Who always forgets their wallet and never ends up paying for anything? neither tsukishima nor kuroo are very good or comfortable at expressing appreciation or affection verbally, so - kuroo demanding to pay for a dinner, and tsukishima sneaking him into practice with the sendai frogs, is kind of a little language of their own. doing nice things for the other, unprompted, preferably without even acknowledging it’s a nice thing done to make the other a little happy. 

Who can’t sleep because the other snores or moves too much at night? at the beginning, kuroo does wake up every time tsukishima rolls towards him and settles there - and has poked fun at him for it until he saw tsukishima was genuinely weirdly embarrassed about it. then he stopped - and also stopped waking up whenever tsukishima gets close in his sleep. it should also be noted that kuroo carries his really weird sleeping position into adulthood, so that factors into him waking up when tsukishima bumps into him; he progressively grows into the habit of releasing one of the pillows sandwiching his head so he can turn a little and drape his arm around tsukishima instead. it’s much more comfortable that way - the dilemmas of someone who sleeps on  his stomach. 

Who is better at video games, and do they let the other win or show no mercy? kuroo only has kenma to thank for his proficiency at multiplayer and single-player games. they frustrate each other when they play together, even passing the controller back and forth; kuroo tries to outsmart tsukishima in puzzles and strategy, and when it doesn’t work, he isn’t above trying to distract him. 

Who always gets up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and accidentally wakes up the other? 👁👄👁 fun fact, kuroo is a rather light sleeper, but when he wakes up in the middle of the night/before his sleep cycle is complete, he’ll forget where he is or what his name is. much confusion, much sleepy, please let the man sleep and please make fun of him next morning.