rionaleonhart | Entries tagged with finding inappropriate people hot

Up to episode 4.13 of Person of Interest, 'MIA'!

One interesting distinction between Reese and Finch is that, while they both live under assumed names themselves, Reese respects the chosen names of others, whereas Finch insists on addressing Root by her legal name. Back in 2.06, 'The High Road', when they helped the former safecracker who'd changed his name, Reese made a point of still calling him by his new name after they learnt his legal one. It's important to Reese that you can leave your old identity behind.

In light of this, it's also interesting that the name Reese lives under isn't a name he chose himself; it's a name he was given during a period of his life about which he has very complicated feelings. Finch would undoubtedly whip up a new identity for Reese if he asked, but instead he chooses to remain John Reese. Out of sentiment for Kara, after everything? Out of a determination to remember the things he's done?

It's nice to see Reese and Shaw showing open concern for each other in 'The Devil You Know'. Their dynamic doesn't leave a lot of room for sincerity, but it's clear that they care about each other.

I like that Elias is a crime boss who genuinely cares about his underlings. Villains who want to protect their followers are a lot more interesting than villains who view their followers as expendable. Plus it's a practical attitude; if you keep killing underlings who fail you, you're going to run out of underlings!

Very distracted by an Englishman in London supposedly saying 'There's a hospital three blocks from here.' You can't describe distances in 'blocks' in London, Person of Interest; that's absolutely meaningless. Take a look at a vector map of New York: the roads are straight, the blocks are laid out fairly consistently, you can see how a block might be a measure of distance there. Take a look at a vector map of London and try to make sense of that mess.

Wait, holy shit, this is the source of the 'a chain of four people holding each other at gunpoint in a church' meme? This is like when I first watched Community and went 'WAIT, THIS IS THE FIRE PIZZA GIF.'

( Person of Interest spoilers up to episode 4.13, 'MIA'. )

Given that season five only has thirteen episodes, I suppose I effectively have one season to go. I'm going to miss this show when I've finished it.

I have watched the entirety of Netflix's She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and this show is great. Lots of friendship! Lots of focus on the weird, fraught, intimate relationship between two enemies who care way too much about each other!

I love Catra. She's a prickly bundle of issues and she’s relentlessly self-sabotaging and it's incredible. It's great whenever she decides, 'Well, all hope is lost; guess all I can do is put on a smug face and be as obnoxious as possible.' What an absolute disaster of a (cat) person.

Not unrelatedly, Adora/Catra is my favourite ship. I do also think that Adora/Glimmer/Bow could be pretty cute, but Adora and Catra have such a great dynamic! There's so much interesting tension and genuine feeling there! Their emotions about each other are such an awful, complicated mess! I love it.

It'd be good to see more of this sort of intense, messy love-hate relationship between female adversaries in other canons. The only other example I can think of off the top of my head is Kate and Alice in Batwoman.

I may make a more spoilery entry at some point, but for now I thought I’d just jot down these quick notes.

Speaking of weird, fraught, intimate relationships between two enemies who care way too much about each other, I've also started rewatching Phineas and Ferb from the beginning. I'm only a handful of episodes in, but it's still great fun!

I do occasionally feel Candace is being punished for being a teenage girl, though. Poor Candace. If nobody ever believed my claims, even though they were absolutely truthful, because the evidence kept mysteriously disappearing, I'd probably have issues too.

I'm genuinely pleased that Perry/Doofenshmirtz, with nearly five hundred fics in a 1,700-fic fandom on AO3, is by far the most popular Phineas and Ferb pairing. It's good to know that people are still drawn to complicated 'they fight, yes, but they also care about each other and repeatedly save each other's lives and don't know how to function without each other' hero/villain relationships even when the villain is an unattractive middle-aged man and the hero is a platypus.

'Perry the Platypus is objectively the hottest character in Phineas and Ferb,' I said to Rei and Tem yesterday. I regretted saying it before I'd even finished the sentence, but it's true.

Crossposts: https://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/535969.html

I conquered the mountain in Celeste! It took me twelve and a half hours and I died 3,557 times.

The Celestial Resort was particularly good at killing me: seven hundred and thirty deaths. Given that I died there, you could say it was my last resort. You could say it seven hundred and thirty times.

I wasn't expecting to enjoy this game nearly as much as I did. On the surface, it doesn't sound particularly enjoyable to play a game where you're dying, on average, every thirteen seconds. But I genuinely had a great time. There were a handful of points where I started to lose patience, but I usually felt I was constantly improving and making progress, which made the game feel satisfying rather than frustrating.

(Also satisfying: going back and redoing the early levels once I'd beaten the game, just to see how much quicker I could do them now. I'd improved so much!)

Celeste is hard, but it's rarely unfair. It's not just hard as a 'screw you' to the player; it's presenting you with a challenge that can be overcome with determination. It earnestly believes in you and wants you to succeed.

And it's so charming! I really wasn't expecting that! I like that there's a boss battle where you're just trying really hard to give the boss a hug as she earnestly tries to murder you.

I'm a big fan of physical locations that reshape themselves to reflect the psyche of whoever passes through them. Much like Silent Hill, Celeste Mountain looks inside you and tests you by forcing you to confront yourself.

If you're curious about Celeste, it's included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. A few tips:

- If you're playing on a keyboard, you can remap the controls in the options. I'd recommend remapping jump/dash/grab so they're not all in a line, as the default setting means it's really hard to remember which is which. I put them on S, W and A respectively.

- If a level seems to demand impossibly perfect timing, there may be a simpler solution that you're missing. Often, when a level started to frustrate me, I ended up realising that my approach was wrong.

- Zipping through a level is satisfying when you get the hang of it! When you're struggling, though, calm down and slow down. At one point I threw myself unsuccessfully against one level for half an hour, took a break, slept, came back to the game, tried taking it slower and beat it within five minutes.

To my surprise and delight, there's a small but enthusiastic active Red Dwarf fanbase! I really thought the fandom would be a wasteland by now.

I've never confessed this anywhere online before, but I actually had a mild crush on Dave Lister when I was a kid. Apparently his unfortunate personal hygiene caused me no concern.

Anyway, I've located the exact moment in my rewatch that brought my crush on Lister straight back to me, and it's this scene from 'Holoship'. I'm slightly concerned.

(If you're wondering: the actor actually did do the ridiculous thing Lister does at the end of this clip, it was not scripted, he immediately regretted it.)

Crossposts: https://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/531222.html

I've fallen back into my terrible addiction to watching What Would You Do? clips on YouTube, alas. For those unaware of it, What Would You Do? is an American hidden camera show in which actors play out scenarios (e.g. 'Some arsehole's hitting on a woman who clearly wants him to leave her alone! What would you do?') and see whether bystanders step in. It is utterly, shamelessly emotionally manipulative. I can't resist.

There's one particular actor called Jeremy who appears in many of these scenarios, almost exclusively as some sort of terrible scumbag (he's the unwelcome flirter in the clip I linked to above). Troublingly, I've started to find him very attractive. Why does this happen to me? I hope I'm never asked to describe my perfect man, because I think my answer might have to be 'deeply unpleasant and covered in blood'.

(Here's a fanfiction idea I'm ashamed to admit I've considered: Jeremy the actor is creepily seduced by 'Jeremy', the awful character he plays. The only reason I'm not writing this is because I haven't seen nearly enough of the actor out-of-character to be able to characterise him, which is probably just as well; I'm not sure that What Would You Do? fanfiction is really something the world needs.)

I've been thinking 'hmm, perhaps I've been posting too much about videogames lately'; if the alternative is talking about What Would You Do?, though, I suppose that might be for the best. Back to videogames!

I finished Lightning Returns a few days ago! Final verdict: there's not nearly enough of the original cast - the reason I love XIII so much is because of all the relationships between the characters, so it saddens me that we see so little of those relationships here - but you can make Lightning wear a mask of her own face and therefore this game is amazing.

I forgot to mention in my last entry, but Chocolina is the best character in Lightning Returns. When I first saw her, I exclaimed 'OH MY GOD, IT'S CHOCOLINA' aloud. My very favourite of all the silly things she says: 'Here's your reward. You know, for that "job". This conversation never happened, capisce? I'm just kidding! I don't ever want to forget any of our exciting conversations!'

Being a fan of the Troy Baker Forms an Intense Relationship with a Teenage Girl videogame genre, I thought I'd give BioShock Infinite a try next, despite having been spoiled for more or less everything. Unfortunately, I am not a fan of first-person camera angles. I've had to slow the camera movement down to a crawl to avoid motion sickness, and I don't ever want to touch a skyline again. I'm intrigued by the relationship between Booker and Elizabeth, though, so I'll probably persevere!

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/372031.html

TERRIBLE FIC IDEA: The Last of Us/Pokémon crossover, in which the Paras line are the cause of the outbreak. Runners have little Paras mushrooms on top of their heads; Clickers have the large Parasect mushroom. Possibly there is some sort of glowy Runner-to-Clicker evolution sequence, rather than a gradual transformation. Ellie has a Rattata. NOBODY WRITE THIS.

Adventures in playing Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII:

(I am playing as Lightning, also known as 'the saviour'. It is my task to... save people's souls so they can be reborn in a new world, I think? This game is pretty confusing.)
Riona: Ooh, what are these shiny things on the ground?
(The things on the ground are leaflets.)
Leaflets: The evil saviour will die at the hands of the Shadow Hunter.
Riona: Well, that's not very nice.
RD: Can you even have an 'evil saviour'?
Riona: Why don't these people want their souls to be saved?
(pause)
Riona: Oh, my God, this is how Jehovah's Witnesses feel.

Lightning Returns is a surprisingly addictive Jehovah's Witness simulator, it turns out! The plot is absolute gibberish and most of the gameplay boils down to doing a million fetch quests for weird NPCs, but somehow it manages to be a lot of fun. Possibly because you're playing as Lightning, who has little patience for all the stupid things she's being asked to do.

My favourite Lightning lines so far: 'I'm not one to judge, but the love you have for your cat is more than a little frightening' and, when she asks whether someone's a firework seller and gets a condensed history of his business in return, 'Well, that was a lot more information than I needed to know.'

My other thoughts on this game so far are under the cut. They're not really spoilery, but they do indicate which characters from previous games in the trilogy show up in this one. I've completed the Luxerion, Yusnaan and Dead Dunes main quests.

( Thoughts on Lightning Returns. )

I'm entirely too amused by the dressing-up system in Lightning Returns. You can give Lightning a fake moustache! You can put a Chocobo figurine on top of her head! Why is this not an option in every game?

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/371845.html

If you've played The Last of Us and you haven't yet watched this video of the motion capture for an alternative ending, you absolutely must. I found it very moving.

It's very strange to go back to the Uncharted games after playing The Last of Us. The games share many elements, but they're utterly different in tone. In The Last of Us, killing people makes sense given the context and the character you're playing, and it's treated as brutal and horrific but unavoidable to survive. In the Uncharted games, you're loveable, good-hearted treasure hunter Nathan Drake and the fact that you kill thousands of mercenaries is cheerfully ignored.

(It's also bizarre that picking up twenty bullets at a time is a common occurrence in Uncharted. In The Last of Us, it's Christmas if you manage to find three.)

I suppose 'ha ha, Nate is such a charming dork, TIME TO KILL ANOTHER HUNDRED MERCENARIES' is the problem with trying to tell stories in a videogame. I'm a fierce believer in the narrative potential of games, but games do typically require some sort of gameplay, and sometimes that gameplay is at odds with the story being told. In lighthearted games like the Uncharted series, I suppose you sort of have to ignore the ridiculous amounts of murder you end up committing; it'll completely undermine the way the characters are presented if you think about it for too long. ALL THIS SHOOTING IS A METAPHOR FOR TRAVERSING TRICKY TERRAIN.

This is something that occasionally bothers me in Final Fantasy games, too; most of the games involve human enemies, usually soldiers of some sort, and it rarely seems appropriate for the characters to cut them down without a qualm. It's always a bit odd to think, Hang on, Snow Villiers seems like a really nice guy, but I just made him punch someone to death.

I'm sure there's a term for this clash between gameplay and tone/story/characterisation. Hang on while I look it up. Ludonarrative dissonance! That's it. Uncharted is ludonarratively dissonancing all over the place.

It's a tricky problem to solve. Not every game in which you fight people can be The Last of Us; The Last of Us is a wonderful game, but I wouldn't be able to cope with that level of bleakness in everything. So I suppose for the moment I'll just accept the fact that loveable treasure hunter Nathan Drake can punch some guys on a train to death and then quip, 'All right, boys, just needed to punch your tickets,' and I'll laugh and say 'Nate, you dork' rather than 'Oh, my God, what's wrong with you?'

After writing the above, I went off and finished my replay of Uncharted 2. I had forgotten how much I love the ending of that game! Nate/Elena continues to be one of my favourite pairings of all time, and their interactions continue to make me make absurd chirping noises. I also really like the friendship that develops between Elena and Chloe; I remember I worried when they first met that their dynamic would be rooted solely in romantic jealousy, so I was surprised and delighted that they ended up getting along extremely well as co-founders of the 'Nathan Drake Ruined Our Lives' club.

LET'S IGNORE ALL THE MERCENARIES THESE GUYS HAVE KILLED AND FOCUS ON HOW MUCH THEY DELIGHT ME.

(I had also forgotten how hot it is when Nate is stumbling around in the Himalayas, slowly bleeding to death. I'm an awful, awful person.)

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/370615.html

Balamb Garden, MD level. Squall, Zell and Rinoa come across an unstable-looking ladder. If you choose the 'Someone else go check it out' option:

Squall: (I'll have someone else check it out.)
Squall: (Zell and Rinoa...)
Squall: (Zell...)
Squall: (Rinoa...)
Squall: I'll go take a look. You two wait here.

This is possibly my favourite bit of Squall-characterisation in the game; it's a rather lovely glimpse behind his efforts to tell himself he doesn't care. And almost nobody will ever see it! Because what videogame player, presented with an intriguingly wobbly ladder, doesn't go straight for the 'I'll check it out myself' option? I managed to play through this game at least four times without ever knowing this moment of conflict was in there.

Recently, when editing a bibliography, I tried to type 'Leonard' and typed 'Leonhart' instead. IN FACT I JUST DID IT AGAIN WHEN TYPING THIS. Once they've typed 'Leon', my fingers know exactly where they want to go.

There's something oddly relaxing about playing Final Fantasy VIII the way I generally do, where every fight takes ages because I'm busy drawing magic to make my characters ridiculously overpowered. It becomes a very slow game, but there's something almost therapeutic about it. It's a bit like knitting.

(Apart from when I'm drawing Zombie, because I can't help finding that hilarious. I'M NOT SURE I WANT TO RECEIVE ALL THESE ZOMBIES.)

I still love it when Squall suddenly yells 'I'M NOT HAVING ANYONE TALK ABOUT ME IN THE PAST TENSE' and runs out of the room.

The Deling City assassination mission is interesting because it really makes it clear that, for all the cast's military-esque training and combat expertise, they're still just kids. Quistis screws up because she feels guilty for losing her temper with Rinoa. Irvine chokes. It really brings home the fact that these mercenaries are sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old. They shouldn't be fighting in wars and carrying out assassination orders. They're teenagers.

Finally (and this is a terrible juxtaposition with the previous paragraph): that D-District scene in which Squall is crucified and tortured for information he doesn't have is hotter than I remembered. WHOOPS.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/368829.html

Full Moon wo Sagashite really seems to be improving in its later episodes, which is a pleasant surprise. Fullmetal Alchemist and Death Note taught me to expect longish anime series to start out strongly and then dissolve into an unmemorable mess. Full Moon, meanwhile, started out with a 10:1 filler-to-plot ratio and then became rather excellent in its final third.

( Spoilers up to episode 45. )

Full Moon wo Sagashite isn't what you might call quality television, for the most part, but everything about it is adorable. Well, apart from Izumi. Izumi's mainly terrifying. Even if that bit where he almost gave Mitsuki the kiss of death was pretty hot. Or possibly he was just going to kiss her and then kill her? It wasn't entirely clear. Either way: pretty hot. I'm an awful person.

I really love the whole Mitsuki-Takuto-Meroko friendship. I love the way Mitsuki draws strength and reassurance from Takuto and Meroko's presence, even though they're gods of death who were sent to collect her soul. I love the way Takuto and Meroko shift from seeing Mitsuki as a job (or, in Meroko's case, as a romantic obstacle) to seeing her as something much, much more important than that. I may be an unstoppable Mitsuki/Takuto 'shipper, but I really like that Meroko isn't left out of their human-shinigami friendship dynamic, even if she's a little more by-the-book as a shinigami. This anime is just so cute and I'm really glad I started watching it.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/358366.html

Uncharted is a very short game! It only took me about ten hours of gameplay to complete, and I'm sure you can shave two or three hours off that time if you're better at aiming than I am, which is no large feat.

Still, I'm not complaining too much about the length, because:

a) it means it takes less time to reach the incredibly gorgeous final gunfight (on a ship! in the rain! at sunset!), and
b) I can now play Uncharted 2.

Here are my thoughts so far on Uncharted 2:

UNCHARTED 2 OPENS WITH NATHAN DRAKE ALL SEXILY COVERED IN HIS OWN BLOOD AND THEN FLASHES BACK TO NATHAN DRAKE ALL SEXILY BEING A CAT BURGLAR

THIS IS AN AMAZING GAME.

I am rather an inept sexy cat burglar, though. There was one part of the museum heist where I persisted in going the wrong way and getting caught about six times, despite the fact that Flynn clearly told me which way to go every time the checkpoint reloaded.

Also, I felt a bit bad about dragging Nathan out of his way through thick snow to grab some treasure when he was clearly seriously injured. Sorry, Nathan. Sparkly things override your wellbeing, particularly when your lack of wellbeing is sort of hot.

(I mentioned in my last entry that Nathan didn't particularly interest me as a character, but I have to confess that he became quite a bit more interesting to me the moment he started dragging himself painfully through a snowy train graveyard whilst covered in his own blood. I'm so shallow. And also possessed of slightly worrying tastes, it seems.

Elena is still my favourite Uncharted character so far, though. I cheered aloud at her magnificent kick in the helicopter scene. I'm hoping to see more of her. Bit wary of Chloe, because so far her characterisation seems to be 'SEXY!!!' (sexiness is fine (see above unsettling enthusing about Nathan's injuries), but it's not an adequate substitute for a personality; I doubt I'd have appreciated Nathan's injuries so much had his role consisted solely of writhing around and going 'LOOK AT HOW SEXILY INJURED I AM'), but I've only just met her, so who knows?

Unexpected but pleasant side-effect of playing Red Dead Redemption: I am now actually capable of playing through the shooty bits in the more difficult Uncharted! Both I and Nathan Drake thank you for teaching me how to aim, John Marston. (Although Red Dead Redemption couldn't prepare me for the Press Circle to Not Die bits, so I picked up Uncharted for the first time since playing Red Dead, cleared the firefight I'd left off at and then impaled myself on a fence, forcing myself to do the firefight all over again, three times in a row.)

I wish I cared more about the characters of Uncharted. Perhaps the caring will come. At the moment, my thoughts are 'quite like Elena, not terribly interested in Nathan'. Although I did laugh out loud when I sent Nathan out for the second time to climb about on the side of a building, far above the sea, and his reaction was 'OH GOD WASN'T I JUST OUT HERE?'

Also, curiously, despite not being massively invested in the characters, I seem to be 'shipping Nathan/Elena a bit. I certainly like Nathan more when he's in her company. (Possibly it's taking me a while to warm to Nathan more for reasons related to the company he keeps than because of anything about Nathan himself; he was with Sully at the beginning of the game, after all, and I was unfond of Sully. I think Elena is a better influence on Nathan.)

Whilst I think this is a pretty great game, a note to whichever Uncharted designer decided it would be a great idea to include a level in which you drive upriver on a jetski whilst people shoot at you and hundreds of explosive barrels float inexplicably downstream: please step forward to receive your punch in the face. You know it's no less than you deserve.

...all right, so I've played a bit more since writing the above and SUDDENLY UNCHARTED DECIDED THAT IT WANTED TO BE A SILENT HILL GAME

I DO NOT WANT YOU TO BE A SILENT HILL GAME, UNCHARTED

OH, I'LL JUST COWER IN THE CORNER, SHALL I? I'LL COMPLETELY FORGET ABOUT AIMING PROPERLY AND JUST RUN AROUND IN CIRCLES, SPRAYING BULLETS IN A PANIC. WOULD YOU LIKE THAT, UNCHARTED? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE GETTING.

unrelatedly I watched Fresh Meat yesterday (episode seven) and there was a bit in which JP, who is an awful awful human being and moreover played by Jack Whitehall (I don't mind Whitehall, but I've never found him even slightly attractive before), sat his geology teacher down to a bribe of a takeaway in an attempt to find out what was to be on the upcoming exam and started going 'oh, but you've already eaten part of it, it's far too late to go back now' like some sort of evil genius and help me it was sort of hot. I think the hotness was based entirely in the sound. Apparently Whitehall does a really good subtly threatening voice.

Regarding the most recent Glee episode, 'Pot o' Gold':

( Spoilers for 'Pot o' Gold'. )

Also, have some brief thoughts on episode 7.18 of Waterloo Road:

- Why do I find it so attractive when Michael Byrne furiously shoves teenagers against walls and gets up in their faces? It's a bit worrying.

- Josh actually got a line in the most recent episode! Amazing! I was starting to wonder whether he'd evaporated.

- Does Emily really think of Scout as a sister? Really? Are you sure? Because if so, wow, I seriously misjudged that relationship. I love surrogate sibling dynamics, but having one dropped suddenly on my head is a bit startling when I've spent so much time in the full belief that two characters are leading up to making out. I was honestly expecting Emily to kiss her in that scene.

I like Fang a lot more now that I'm actually playing Final Fantasy XIII than I did when I was merely watching it; not that I ever disliked her, but she makes sense to me now in a way that she didn't before. This is largely because of the things she says when you have her in your party (I seem to have adopted Lightning, Fang and Sazh as my primary team), but the actual gameplay mechanics don't hurt. I love that she obviously went to the game developers and said, 'So, what sort of Strength stat are you thinking of for me? Ha, that's cute. Double it and then we'll talk.' (Seriously, Fang's Strength stat is ridiculous.)

Perhaps it just took me a while to fully come around to her because, although her voice is great, I feel that her voice actress sometimes emphasises things oddly. In any case, I am now thoroughly in favour of Fang.

Also on videogames: my brother bought a copy of Red Dead Redemption recently, so I've started up a save file on that, although I'm only about an hour in. What a gorgeous environment. There's a detailed day-night cycle - there are dawns and dusks, midnights and mornings - and somehow every moment is beautiful (via

fireholly: there's a time-lapse video of various vistas here). The first time I touched the game, it was on my brother's save, and I manoeuvred Marston out of town just to watch the sunrise.

And then, as I was waiting, a nun came up and gave me a little gold statuette, and I decided that I needed to play this game myself. I don't know! I was weirdly touched!

I'm being completely honourable; given the choice in a game between doing good things and doing bad things, I'll almost always go for the good things, particularly if there are long-term effects on how characters respond to you. Being awful to people makes me sad, even if they are pixellated people! My brothers have no such qualms and will happily tie civilians onto train tracks.

I sort of wish I didn't have all these hangups about doing bad things even in a videogame, because, you know, when Marston ties people up? It's sort of the hottest thing ever. I suppose I'll probably be able to truss up bandits and the like without sacrificing my honour, but I do sort of want to make Marston tie everyone up indiscriminately.

...please stop judging me.

Has anyone made a GIF of David Mitchell snogging the camera from Channel 4's Peep Show and Tell documentary?

I really do think GIFs are necessary. Strangely hot? Just me?

(And the creator of Peep Show has no doubt that, were the programme to continue for another twenty series, Mark and Jeremy would end up in a passive-aggressive gay relationship! Vindicated. I have always believed this.)

The Christmas episode of Peep Show was a good demonstration of the fact that, although Jeremy would be more likely than Mark to ruin your life if you were friends, in a way Jeremy is the more admirable character. On the rare occasions on which Jeremy does good things, he does them - well, yes, frequently as part of a filthy duplicitous ploy, but he'll also do good things out of love. Mark, meanwhile, tends to be motivated in his good deeds by fear - if he doesn't do this, he'll look bad - or by the desire to make someone feel they're in his debt. Whilst I share many of Mark's qualities (his unease in social situations, his intense fear of humiliation, his irrational but difficult-to-shake conviction that terrible things will happen if he spends money), I like to think that I'm at least slightly more inclined than he is to do things for the right reasons. (Is Mark incapable of really caring about other people? That's a bit tragic.)

Also, Dobby is such a fandom girl. I bet she writes incredibly weird slash.

I hope you had a lovely Christmas, by the way, if you celebrated it! I RECEIVED POKÉMON SOULSILVER AND YOUR POKÉMON FOLLOW YOU AND NIP AT YOUR FEET and basically it is the most charming thing ever. My Dratini hasn't really warmed up to me yet, though, which I find more distressing than I probably should. PLEASE LOVE ME, DRATINI. I love you.

Also, Joey the Youngster keeps calling me up to say 'You remember my super-cool Rattata? My Rattata is different than other Rattata. It's like my Rattata is in the top percentage of Rattata. Do you know what I'm saying?' and then hanging up. I think he's stoned.

I've just found that all the text in my journal is centred when I view it in Internet Explorer. What? That looks ridiculous. I don't approve of this at all.

Does this mean I need to change my layout? My lovely boring-but-functional layout? I've had it for seven years! YES, IT'S PLAIN AND DULL, BUT I AM CHANGE-AVERSE.

Last night, I watched the extended 'Health and Safety' episode of QI on a television with rather poor reception. The static and jumpy picture made it look as if Jeremy Clarkson leant over to make out with David Mitchell over the credits. I was deeply confused.

Typing that has made me realise that I sort of want fanfiction about Clarkson and Mitchell. Not necessarily Clarkson/Mitchell (not really a pairing I want to see, although were someone to write it I would be forced to read out of sheer curiosity), but stories in which they're thrown together somehow and forced to work with each other in spite of their differences. Take Mitchell's excessive caution and Clarkson's 'if it's not working, you haven't hit it with a hammer enough' approach, and then apply that combination to any extreme situation.

Seriously, this would be amazing. Clarkson and Mitchell are trapped in the Arctic! Clarkson and Mitchell in the zombie apocalypse! Clarkson the Hufflepuff (everyone at Hogwarts is as surprised that he's not a Slytherin as you, but I am irrationally convinced that he is a Hufflepuff) and Mitchell the Ravenclaw (I don't think there's any doubt on this point) trying to subdue the leaderless Death Eaters after Voldemort's defeat! I was going to say 'forget fanfiction; let's make it into a sitcom', but then I realised that would basically be Peep Show.

On an unrelated note, here is a video of Darren Criss putting on a surprise public performance of 'Part of Your World' from The Little Mermaid.

Darren Criss, you have made things so awkward for me by being my perfect man. I was already doomed never to find love, and now you've made my doom that much more certain by giving me extremely specific standards.

(I also have a bit of a crush on Blaine, his character in Glee, who is highly unlikely to reciprocate on account of being, amongst other things, fictional. WHEN WE FIRST MEET BLAINE, HE'S CHECKING A POCKETWATCH. IT'S ONLY VISIBLE FOR A MOMENT, BUT IT'S THERE. BLAINE HAS A POCKETWATCH, GUYS. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY THAT'S HOT, BUT IT IS.)

Oh, Glee. I love you, but your moral reasoning can be downright incomprehensible at times.

( Thoughts on episode 2.07 of Glee. )

A good part of my reason for making an entry on language, apart from the fact that I love language, was the hope of posting something that might be interesting to people who have no interest in Waterloo Road, i.e. practically everyone who reads my journal. I fear I'm going to be returning to Waterloo Road now, though, because I have, to my mild embarrassment, reverse-caught up on this programme to the beginning of the sixth series. Thoughts:

- One thing I appreciate about Waterloo Road is the fact that it has actresses who aren't all in their teens and twenties. Ruby's actor is in her forties, Karen's in her fifties. This is a televisual world in which women are permitted to have lines on their faces! How novel!

- I like Chris! I hadn't realised that he hadn't known who Jess was when he slept with her. He is not, as I at first assumed, an irresponsible teacher who thoughtlessly shags his pupils; he is a decent, responsible man who made a horrible, horrible mistake. Also, I 'ship him a bit with Karen.

- I like that Marcus, although he's controlling and a bit snobbish, is also a brave and good man. Waterloo Road does have outright villains, but they seem to be rare in comparison to characters who are flawed but basically mean well. Also, I 'ship him a bit with Karen.

- I am becoming increasingly fond of Tom. He may not quite know how to deal with his son's sexuality, but he tries, bless him. I do not yet 'ship him with Karen but could probably be persuaded.

- Sambuca's friendship with Harry was adorable. More of that, please. I 'ship neither of them with Karen, which is just as well because Harry is her fifteen-year-old son.

- Oh, Karen Fisher. If you were my wife, I'd never cheat on you.

...all right; since typing that, I have, to my intense embarrassment, bought the first half of the fifth series. IT WAS AN ACCIDENT. I've been sitting in front of the television, shouting 'LINDSAY YOU ARE SUCH A PSYCHO' and 'MAX YOU BASTARD' and 'NOOOOO KIM DON'T FALL FOR IT HE'S SO SLIMY' at the screen, and I am ashamed of myself. Also, I find myself sort of adoring Ruby and Jo and Kim.

(I am fairly certain that I won't go back any further than this, at least (please don't make this warrant the 'this entry is retrospectively hilarious' tag, Future Riona (EDIT: WAY TO FREAKING GO)). Josh doesn't show up before the fifth series; the main reason I purchased it was because I was intrigued by the relationship between him and his father. Tom's hesitant, tentative efforts to develop a relationship with the son he didn't know he had warm and occasionally break my heart.

Unfortunately, I frequently require subtitles in order to understand what Josh is saying. As his storylines are my favourite part of Waterloo Road, this is a bit of a problem. Please speak more clearly, Josh!

Last night, incidentally, I dreamt that Josh and I were attending the same school, and I spent all my time following him around and staring at him in a mildly creepy fashion.

...he's cute.)

WHY CAN'T I STOP WATCHING THIS

WHY CAN'T I STOP POSTING ABOUT IT

THIS IS STUPID

If I read something immediately after watching something unrelated, I tend to have trouble getting the images of the characters I've just watched out of my head. This means that I have caught myself picturing Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of Charlie Brooker and Martin Freeman in the role of David Mitchell whilst reading fanfiction. It is bizarre.

I mention this because, having just been watching Phineas and Ferb on

hippyjolteon's recommendation, I began catching up on a fabulous work of Brooker/Mitchell UST and realised that I was envisioning Brooker as Phineas.

Charlie Brooker is not an animated triangle-headed ten-year-old. He's really not.

So, yes, Phineas and Ferb! Thoughts!

- Phineas and Ferb has possibly the most repetitive structure of anything I've ever watched. I worried at first that this might mean it would quickly become boring, but six episodes (twelve half-episode stories) in I'm still having fun. I do occasionally feel as if it's trying a bit too hard to be cool, but that's not a terribly meaningful complaint; what is 'too hard'?

- It is quite frustrating to watch, though, because my favourite characters appear to be Candace and Dr Doofenshmirtz, both of whom are constantly thwarted. I really wanted something good to happen for Doofenshmirtz on his birthday. You could at least have given him a present, Perry!

- I'm fascinated by Doofenshmirtz's relationship with Perry, actually. I always love it when villains and heroes have a hint of something a little warmer than enmity in their relationship; we see it between Sherlock and Moriarty, between Red John and Jane, and here we see it between Perry and Doofenshmirtz. Apparently I am no less fascinated by such a dynamic when the hero a) cannot speak, on account of the fact that he b) is a platypus. (Here is a charmingly daft song about their complicated enmity.)

...would it be wrong to 'ship them? (Yes. Yes, it would.)

- I would rather like to see Holmes and Watson (any incarnation, but the Sherlock version could be particularly fun) investigating Dr Doofenshmirtz. I can't imagine such an investigation would take very long, though.

- I suppose part of the reason I've warmed to Candace (besides the fact that she is voiced by Ashley Tisdale (Sharpay of High School Musical), which is just hilarious) is because she isn't exaggeratedly, invariably malicious in the way in which Vicky of The Fairly OddParents is. She's more of a Squidward figure; she's an antagonist, but she's also a victim, and she definitely has a softer side. I do enjoy The Fairly OddParents, but I was never particularly interested in Vicky, whereas I like Squidward of SpongeBob SquarePants and Candace of Phineas and Ferb enormously. Don't judge! I may watch quite a bit of children's television, but it is good children's television, I swear.

- Perry the Platypus is sort of, erm, hot. You're allowed to judge me for this one.

Speaking of Phineas and Ferb and David Mitchell: would you like to hear David Mitchell voicing a villain in a children's cartoon? If so, here you go! (His character appears at around the 2.30 mark; that link should take you directly there.)

Lee Mack is more attractive with every episode of Would I Lie To You? I watch. This is worrying. He's brilliantly funny, but I was not expecting this. (Also, I am totally 'shipping Lee Mack/Kate Silverton after the most recent episode. He leapt in to challenge the opposing team's questioning of her! Brydon observed that they were like a couple! I had to suppress an 'awww!' because I was watching with my family and it would have seemed ridiculous!)

Anyway, hello! Sorry for vanishing without notice for the past week; I've been on holiday in the Midlands with my family, which was lovely. I'll probably make an entry about that sooner or later, but first I wanted to talk about the BBC's Sherlock.

( Spoilers for the entire first series of Sherlock. )

On a non-spoilery note, I dreamt a couple of nights ago that I was Clank, a tiny robot from a videogame series called Ratchet and Clank, and I was giving the BBC's Watson advice on relationships.

Clank: What you want is to be alone.
Watson: (unimpressed look) That's exactly the opposite of what I want.
Clank: I meant alone together.

The gist was 'you have too many people in your life; it's preventing you from forming really meaningful relationships; cut all your ties and run away to live with me and Sherlock for ever'.

It was, in retrospect, really bad advice.

Since then, I appear to have scribbled down a few snippets of a Sherlock/Ratchet and Clank crossover, in which Watson is trapped on an alien planet and teams up with Clank to find Holmes. THERE IS NO MARKET FOR THIS. NONE. NOBODY READS RATCHET AND CLANK FANFICTION, LET ALONE CROSSOVERS BETWEEN RATCHET AND CLANK AND SOMETHING COMPLETELY ILLOGICAL, BASED ON A DREAM. Why do I never write things people might actually want to read?

Finally: I am adoring Watson's blog. His writeups of cases may not be great, but the comments! Comments from Holmes and Sarah and Mrs Hudson (regarding the Study in Pink case: 'This is exciting. I am writing this on Mrs Turner's computer. One of her lodgers is trying to get me to join Facebook but I have told him I don't want to poke people. I am writing this to you from next door.' She is sort of adorable!) and Harry and Molly and 'theimprobableone', who leaves amusingly dramatic comments and whom I thought at first to be Moriarty before realising he was just a massive Sherlock Holmes fanboy. Holmes criticises Watson's writeups and Watson tells him to buy milk in return! I love it.

The blog is breaking my heart for Harry, though. She so clearly desperately wants to have a good relationship with her brother. She's immature and a bit annoying, but there's a real need to be closer to John that comes through in her comments; look at the way she comments on almost everything he posts, for one thing, and her frequent requests for contact:

Who's Ella?? You got yourself a woman at last? What's she like?xx x Send a pic!!!
Are we meeting up soon?!
What!? Answer your phone!!!
Seriously, John! What's going on?? Are you alright?!!
You can't just leave it at that!!! Tell me what happened!
Ooh! A new case!! So when do I get to come and visit?!?!
I'm going to have to meet Sarah one day!
Will you please answer your phone! Where are you?

In summary: my heart. She loves him. He's ashamed of her. I really hope further episodes of Sherlock address the relationship between them.

All right, 'Red Sky in the Morning' didn't have a great deal of Jane/the team, but I can forgive it for shallow and also slightly worrying reasons.

( Spoilers for the second-season finale of The Mentalist, 'Red Sky in the Morning'. )

In less 'things I shouldn't find hot but do' news (come to think of it, quite a lot of The Mentalist falls under that category), I'm not quite sure what to make of Hightower. When she was first introduced, there was a lot of emphasis on 'if Jane steps out of line, Lisbon is out'. Tension! Conflict! And then that idea never went anywhere and completely disappeared after two episodes. Was the plan just to go 'aha, you thought Hightower would be an antagonist but it turns out she's all right really'?

My main problem with this is 'how am I supposed to know what Pokémon Hightower would have when I can't get a handle on who she really is?' Honestly, Mentalist writers, you have to consider these things. (I still don't know what Pokémon Jane has. Perhaps he doesn't have one; perhaps he had one before, but Red John got to his Persian as well as his family. The Persian was his house Pokémon; he also had an Abra for public appearances, as a psychic would be expected to have a psychic Pokémon, but he gave it away after the Red John incident.

Actually, as actual psychic powers exist in the Pokémon world, The Mentalist probably wouldn't work there at all. Whoops.)

My mental screensaver is now Charlie Brooker snogging an adorable furry handpuppet. If I'm not thinking of anything in particular, I'm seeing Brooker making out with a puppet. I suspect this may be the case for a while.

By which I mean that I went to see the You Have Been Watching Children's TV Special being recorded yesterday with

causethesounds,

anewcitylife and

th_esaurus. My memory is sort of overwhelmed by CHARLIE BROOKER SNOGGED A PUPPET, but I'll try to recall enough things to make a proper report.

The guests were Mark Watson, Chris Addison and Holly Walsh; the host, of course, was Charlie Brooker.

( Mr Fuggles and Other Stories: the recording of the You Have Been Watching Children's TV Special. )

There was a LINE here. It's gone now.

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Entries tagged with finding inappropriate people hot

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