I am very proud of myself

I actually managed to make an angst-mocking Gladiator icon.

It is not an easy thing to do.

 

(For context, he looks angsty because he is crying crocodile tears over the body of the father he murdered.)

I am very proud of myself

I actually managed to make an angst-mocking Gladiator icon.

It is not an easy thing to do.

 

(For context, he looks angsty because he is crying crocodile tears over the body of the father he murdered.)

my name is earl

For the most part, I don’t care for sitcoms. I can watch an episode or two and then I need a weeklong break. Unfortunately, The Boys can spend a week, or longer, marathoning nothing but one sitcom. There are only two that aren’t severe threats to my sanity. One was Fresh Prince of Belair. Also a test, but bearable. Will Smith helped. The other is My Name is Earl.

The boys watched Season 1 of MNIE about three times last year. The first time I was paying attention. The second I half paid attention, but wasn’t annoyed. The third got my normal sitcom reaction, but I don’t think we can blame that on the show. More like too much repetition. Since we can’t use our TV anymore (for now) I borrowed Boy I Have No Adjectives For’s Season 2 set and watched it over the weekend.

MNIE is about Earl Hickey. Earl, his brother Randy and his Wife Joy are…well…to call them "poor white trailer trash" would be an insult to poor wife trailer trash. Earl and Randy are career criminals, Joy is a complete slut, none of them have jobs, and everyone hates their guts. Joy scammed Earl into marrying her the night they met when she was eight months pregnant. They made it work, and a few years later, Joy had Earl Junior…who was black. Earl, with some "encouragement" from his father, did the responsible thing and took care of Joy and the kids. A few years after that, Earl bought a lottery ticket and won $100,000…and promptly got into a car. While in the hospital, Joy tricked him into signing divorce papers giving her everything but the lottery ticket money, threw his stuff out, and moved the father of her second son in. In the hospital, Earl saw something about karma on TV and had an epiphany…the reason all that bad stuff was happening to him all at once was karma. He’d spent his entire life screwing other people over, so life was screwing other people over. So Earl cashed his lottery ticket, moved himself and Randy into a cheap motel, and made a list of every bad thing he’d ever done.

Now, Earl and Randy go around approaching everyone Earl-often in conjunction with Randy-had ever done something bad to, explain what they’re doing, and try to fix it. Randy and Joy and the parents show up a lot. They’re often aided by Catalina, a frank speaking illegal immigrant with a huge and complicated family. Sometimes people try to shoot them on sight. Sometimes people make them suffer. And sometimes, it ended up actually making the person’s life better. And Earl, never to be deterred, does everything he can to somehow make their lives better, growing up bit by bit himself in the process. In addition, he’s finally becoming someone his parents could be proud of, and now that they aren’t sleeping together, he and Joy are finally friends. Though it takes an odd form, there’s actually an ongoing plotline and consistent character growth.

It’s not something I want to own, and I need something else, however little, going at the same time, but I like it, and all the characters. And I have to say that one of the best things I’ve ever seen is when the extremely temperamental Joy, on Happy Pills her lawyer had her get a prescription for and turned into a pacifist, saw a neighbor throw a beer can through a window and hit one of her sons in the head with it. After that, Joy got up, went over to the neighbors’, and very cheerfully explained that she was on happy pills, but she was going off them now, and when they wore off in three days, she was going to come back over, and since she wasn’t entirely certain what her normal self would do to them, she very carefully detailed out all the possible things she could think of. I searched youtube last night, but sadly couldn’t find the scene.

my name is earl

For the most part, I don’t care for sitcoms. I can watch an episode or two and then I need a weeklong break. Unfortunately, The Boys can spend a week, or longer, marathoning nothing but one sitcom. There are only two that aren’t severe threats to my sanity. One was Fresh Prince of Belair. Also a test, but bearable. Will Smith helped. The other is My Name is Earl.

The boys watched Season 1 of MNIE about three times last year. The first time I was paying attention. The second I half paid attention, but wasn’t annoyed. The third got my normal sitcom reaction, but I don’t think we can blame that on the show. More like too much repetition. Since we can’t use our TV anymore (for now) I borrowed Boy I Have No Adjectives For’s Season 2 set and watched it over the weekend.

MNIE is about Earl Hickey. Earl, his brother Randy and his Wife Joy are…well…to call them "poor white trailer trash" would be an insult to poor wife trailer trash. Earl and Randy are career criminals, Joy is a complete slut, none of them have jobs, and everyone hates their guts. Joy scammed Earl into marrying her the night they met when she was eight months pregnant. They made it work, and a few years later, Joy had Earl Junior…who was black. Earl, with some "encouragement" from his father, did the responsible thing and took care of Joy and the kids. A few years after that, Earl bought a lottery ticket and won $100,000…and promptly got into a car. While in the hospital, Joy tricked him into signing divorce papers giving her everything but the lottery ticket money, threw his stuff out, and moved the father of her second son in. In the hospital, Earl saw something about karma on TV and had an epiphany…the reason all that bad stuff was happening to him all at once was karma. He’d spent his entire life screwing other people over, so life was screwing other people over. So Earl cashed his lottery ticket, moved himself and Randy into a cheap motel, and made a list of every bad thing he’d ever done.

Now, Earl and Randy go around approaching everyone Earl-often in conjunction with Randy-had ever done something bad to, explain what they’re doing, and try to fix it. Randy and Joy and the parents show up a lot. They’re often aided by Catalina, a frank speaking illegal immigrant with a huge and complicated family. Sometimes people try to shoot them on sight. Sometimes people make them suffer. And sometimes, it ended up actually making the person’s life better. And Earl, never to be deterred, does everything he can to somehow make their lives better, growing up bit by bit himself in the process. In addition, he’s finally becoming someone his parents could be proud of, and now that they aren’t sleeping together, he and Joy are finally friends. Though it takes an odd form, there’s actually an ongoing plotline and consistent character growth.

It’s not something I want to own, and I need something else, however little, going at the same time, but I like it, and all the characters. And I have to say that one of the best things I’ve ever seen is when the extremely temperamental Joy, on Happy Pills her lawyer had her get a prescription for and turned into a pacifist, saw a neighbor throw a beer can through a window and hit one of her sons in the head with it. After that, Joy got up, went over to the neighbors’, and very cheerfully explained that she was on happy pills, but she was going off them now, and when they wore off in three days, she was going to come back over, and since she wasn’t entirely certain what her normal self would do to them, she very carefully detailed out all the possible things she could think of. I searched youtube last night, but sadly couldn’t find the scene.

I just want to say...

...having just poked around The pit(and a couple other places), that most of those fandom names for pairings that involve squishing character names together is just very odd to me.   Not a judgemental statement or anything...just odd for me to see 99.999% of the time.  Especially the ones that replace names with numbers, like the entire Gundam Wing and Saiyuki fandoms...well, except 1xr for Heero/Relena, which stands out because I think it's the only time I've seen that system applied to het, and 585 for Hakkai/Gojyo, due to certain people chanting it to me a few times(or, more accurately, mostly to each other, with me as a bystander.)  But mostly I see numbers or number/letter combos, scratch my head, and ask for help.  At least something like IchiHime my mind automatically translates as "Ichigo/Orihime" as long as I know it's Bleach(unless I'm distracted and read it as IshiHime-Ishida/Orihime-which is true of any Ichigo or Ishida thing...)

I think the only time I don't blink at fan nicknames is royai for Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye in Full Metal Alchemist...and that's only because my brain instantly goes"royai=Roy-ai=Roy-love" and it's all good...)

Then there's names like "Spuffy" and "Clois," which just make me giggle.

(Yes, the above was just a bored ramble and nothing else.)

I just want to say...

...having just poked around The pit(and a couple other places), that most of those fandom names for pairings that involve squishing character names together is just very odd to me.   Not a judgemental statement or anything...just odd for me to see 99.999% of the time.  Especially the ones that replace names with numbers, like the entire Gundam Wing and Saiyuki fandoms...well, except 1xr for Heero/Relena, which stands out because I think it's the only time I've seen that system applied to het, and 585 for Hakkai/Gojyo, due to certain people chanting it to me a few times(or, more accurately, mostly to each other, with me as a bystander.)  But mostly I see numbers or number/letter combos, scratch my head, and ask for help.  At least something like IchiHime my mind automatically translates as "Ichigo/Orihime" as long as I know it's Bleach(unless I'm distracted and read it as IshiHime-Ishida/Orihime-which is true of any Ichigo or Ishida thing...)

I think the only time I don't blink at fan nicknames is royai for Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye in Full Metal Alchemist...and that's only because my brain instantly goes"royai=Roy-ai=Roy-love" and it's all good...)

Then there's names like "Spuffy" and "Clois," which just make me giggle.

(Yes, the above was just a bored ramble and nothing else.)

here, let me voice another fanfic/fandom thing I don't get...

 What's with all these post-series(for actually completed series) that basically go "ok, fine, the canon pairing got together, but I bet as soon as they settled and had a kid, he ran off to have adventures and popped back in sometimes."  The "relied on so-and-so" addition doesn't really help.  I mean, seriously, most of the heroes I see fic/theories endorsing this are guys who are pretty big on responsinility and obligations.  Dumping your wife to take care of the kids, or dumping your wife and kids with a buddy?  Really, really not the responsible thing to do, much less living up to your obligations.  Not only is it something I simply can't see the characters who do it the most in fanfic ever doing because it just isn't them, but it's a really good way to make an attractive character unattractive.

I especially have problems with it in something like Rurouni Kenshin(and thus issues with the second OVA series) because a lot of the narrative there is the character finding a home and a reason to not wander around/fight anymore.

I assume a lot of the logic is that the characters or adventurers/travellers/whatever, but really, isn't growing up and finding your place and moving past the point you were at in the beginning the point of a story?  Moving forward?

But really...I get it when it's "I leave to go help a friend, but then I come home," but when it's "I'd rather be off having random adventures with my buddies than than take care of my family(one of which probably used to go one those adventures with me)"  it just makes an otherwise attractive character really, really unattractive to me.

Ok, no more unsupervised exploring of fanfic for Megan for a while.

here, let me voice another fanfic/fandom thing I don't get...

 What's with all these post-series(for actually completed series) that basically go "ok, fine, the canon pairing got together, but I bet as soon as they settled and had a kid, he ran off to have adventures and popped back in sometimes."  The "relied on so-and-so" addition doesn't really help.  I mean, seriously, most of the heroes I see fic/theories endorsing this are guys who are pretty big on responsinility and obligations.  Dumping your wife to take care of the kids, or dumping your wife and kids with a buddy?  Really, really not the responsible thing to do, much less living up to your obligations.  Not only is it something I simply can't see the characters who do it the most in fanfic ever doing because it just isn't them, but it's a really good way to make an attractive character unattractive.

I especially have problems with it in something like Rurouni Kenshin(and thus issues with the second OVA series) because a lot of the narrative there is the character finding a home and a reason to not wander around/fight anymore.

I assume a lot of the logic is that the characters or adventurers/travellers/whatever, but really, isn't growing up and finding your place and moving past the point you were at in the beginning the point of a story?  Moving forward?

But really...I get it when it's "I leave to go help a friend, but then I come home," but when it's "I'd rather be off having random adventures with my buddies than than take care of my family(one of which probably used to go one those adventures with me)"  it just makes an otherwise attractive character really, really unattractive to me.

Ok, no more unsupervised exploring of fanfic for Megan for a while.