Little soldier boy, come marching home...
The Tale of Iroh is officially one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life.
I've watched this song at least 5 times now, and I cry harder every time. OH MY GOD. IROH. I wish the entire sequence was on YouTube, because to get the full impact you need to see how utterly wonderful this man is, but even just that little bit is still wicked heartbreaking. He's just so sweet and open and peaceful and ridiculous and aware, and the short showed us all of that, but then it all leads up to this scene that is so beautiful and tragic in its simplicity. I can't get over how successfully this cartoon pulls off Iroh's brokenness in such a subtle way. This was probably the most overt it's been, and GOD was it beautiful. I would certainly rank this with the Carl/Ellie sequence in Up that makes me bawl every time I watch it. Anyway, when the "In honor of Mako" showed up, it hit me that Iroh is probably going to die considering the show went through 2008 and Mako died in 2006. He's going to die, isn't he? And I will probably cry even harder than I did with this scene, won't I? *sigh*
Momo's tale made me cry, too, which is ridiculous, but I never quite realized the depth of his love for Appa until we got that glimpse of his life. The Katara/Toph one also made me tear up a little bit. Oh, Toph. I love her so very much (also... I think I've started shipping her with Sokka? Ack, what is with me and inappropriate ships? But seriously, their banter is epic. I am still in love with Aang/Toph too, though. And Aang/Katara. And Zuko/Katara. And Mai/Zuko. Basically, I went from shipping no one to shipping everyone).
Meme time! Because it has been too damn long.
Comment to this entry and I'll give you a letter. List ten things that you love that begin with that letter and then post that list on your journal.
otempora42 gave me "H"
1. HEAD PORN.
2. Ho-hos
Mmm, ho-hos. *drools*
3. Harry Potter
Yes, HBP was totally my favorite. Ron/Hermione angst! Voldemort backstory galore! Dramatic death scene! I loved it. My other favorite is Goblet of Fire, pretty much for the same reasons minus the Voldemort backstory.
4. Howard Wolowitz
Check out this killer ladies' man! How could I not love him?
5. How I Met Your Mother
MARSHALL/LILY MARSHALL/LILY MARSHALL/LILY! AND TED! I'm pretty sure I fail at this fandom. I have no interest in Barney/Robin nor Barney Stinson (I do love him, but I probably love him the least out of the ensemble).
6. Honey, I Blew Up the Kid
Cutest movie ever, y/y? That laugh! Oh, I love that big little guy.
7. Hot Dog Shoppe!
It's in Warren, OH, and it contains by far the greatest chili cheese dogs and fries that you will ever consume in your entire life. That's just a fact.
8. Hashbrowns
McDonald's style, IHOP style, pretty much any style, I love them.
9. Hershey's milk chocolate bar
Mmm, chocolate.
10. Hair
Apparently I love it most when it is bountiful and wavy!
Meme #2
Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.
She gave me: buffy/giles, dead like me, ed helms, howard wolowitz, robin williams, will ferrell, and xander/dracula
1. Buffy/Giles
My OTP of all OTPs. My beautiful, angsty, inappropriately USTy age gap ship. Remember when she touched his arm just a little too long and looked at him admiringly?
I do. Remember when he stood obscenely close to her in The Bronze?
FROM BEHIND? Oh yes. Remember when I dweebishly drew hearts around their hands touching?
Remember when they sat super close and mocked Wesley all the time?
Remember when Giles had that dream where he was talking to Buffy about "this is how men and women have behaved since the beginning of time, Buffy" and there is nothing in his apartment except for him and Buffy and HIS BED?
And he is HYPNOTIZING her! He's totally dreaming about seducing her. But even in his dreams his stupid conscience catches up with him and it switches to seeing Buffy as a little girl. Pfft. Whatever, Giles, we know the truth.
Remember when Giles totally looked like he wanted to kiss Buffy when she returned from the dead?
Remember how the first thing Giles noticed about Buffy when he came back from England was that she cut her hair?
Okay, okay, I'll stop with the pics. Basically, these two have a powerful destiny to fulfill together, and I seem to really dig that kind of thing. Besides that, there are all kinds of confused feelings happening for both of them, and neither one really knows what to do with those feelings or even how to classify them. There are misunderstandings galore and repressed emotions and very emotionally charged interactions and two-way unrequitedness and Giles is so fiercely devoted to her while she's kind of a dick to him sometimes, but I think what I really love, what really gets me is that they both achieve their greatest sense of peace when with each other, and yet they are also each other's #1 cause of turmoil. They are both so afraid of loving each other too much that they end up pushing each other way. It's just a very messy relationship purely because of their own self-loathing. They question themselves so much that they both stupidly believe that they aren't worthy of happiness. Despite all their turmoil and epic mistakes, they do love each other, and they have plenty of breathtakingly beautiful moments that make you forget about all the darkness for awhile. They are my greatest love, basically.
2. Dead Like Me!
Simply put, one of the greatest shows ever created. It was short-lived, but I loved it fiercely. It was a coming of age story about grim reapers! How can I not love that? The characters were quirky and the stories never failed to be moving and it was utterly hilarious despite all the times it made me cry. And I was wicked in love with Rube/George. They were one of my first fandom ships, but sadly fandom did not cooperate with me on this one. Back then everyone was into George/Mason, so I gave up on fandom. But, that didn't keep me from shipping the heck out of Rube/George (and lord knows the show gave me plenty of subtext, which is even more obvious to me now on rewatches than it was back then. The movie is especially subtexty, and Rube isn't even in the movie!). Anyway, if any of you all have never seen this show, I definitely recommend it. I wasn't as big on season 2 as I was on season 1, but even season 2 was pretty brilliant.
3. Ed Helms
ED!!!!! This pic is from before he had his teeth done. And his eyebrows appear to be a lot messier than they are now. Oh, Ed, you've gone Hollywood, haven't you? *sigh* I still love him though, do not let my sigh fool you. HE IS SO SUPER ADORABLE AND I &HEARTS HIM FOREVER AND EVER. I fell in love with him as Andy from The Office, and then I promptly devoured each and every Daily Show segment I could get my hands on, and then I acquired many of his bit parts after that. I was majorly, MAJORLY obsessed with him for a long while there. Probably because he is prone to randomly breaking out into song:
This is probably the moment when Andy officially became my favorite.
Most romantic TV moment ever, y/y?
OH GOD, DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN THE OFFICE USED TO BE THIS AWESOME?
4. Howard Wolowitz
He is my favoritest perpetually horny nerd ever! I've always loved him, but when he put on a cowboy hat in season 3, I fell in mad, mad love with him. It's like something just clicked in my brain that said, "This dude is actually super hot." And it's true! It also helps that the show has upped his homoerotic subtext with Raj tenfold.
5. Robin Williams
My very first love! So, I grew up watching him on Mork and Mindy, but it wasn't until Hook where I fell in love with him and experienced my very first celebrity obsession. He's the one that started it all! I was... 6 years old, maybe? I saw the film in the theater, figured out what his name was, and spent the next three or so years glued to the TV guide, reading every single entry just so I could be sure to catch Robin in absolutely everything. This was before the world wide web, so, you know, that's how things were done back then. I was relegated to catching all of his stuff on HBO and Showtime, and I would always try to catch Mork and Mindy every Saturday night on Nick at Night (but at one point I was fighting over the TV with my oldest brother who always wanted to watch Lois and Clark. Pfft). I specifically remember myself thinking of Robin Williams as "a major babe." *shakes head at younger self* Anyway, my mom taped Hook for me off of pay-per-view, and I pretty much watched it every day when I came home from school. I did this for a long, long time. My parents seriously wanted to throw the tape away, but they knew I would have had a conniption fit. It was my most beloved item. And then later I got obsessed with Aladdin because he played the Genie, but still, Hook was my most watched film. I know that thing by heart and I haven't even watched it in years. But anyway, I still try to keep up with Robin's work, but he's reached a point where I really don't like the films he makes anymore (I still make the effort, though). I got re-obsessed with him around my sophomore year of high school, after he made Patch Adams. That was basically the Hook of my teenage years.
6. Will Ferrell
I fell in love with Will when I was about 12 or 13. I remember that I was staunchly against the new SNL cast because I was so utterly obsessed with Phil Hartman and I just did not want to watch SNL without him, but then I watched the Garth Brooks ep, and the cast member that immediately drew my attention in every single sketch was Will. I don't even know why, because he did absolutely nothing memorable in the Garth ep, but good lord did I find him utterly charming! From then on I never missed an ep, and I quickly fell in love with pretty much all of his recurring characters, my favorites being the Roxbury guy, the cheerleader, and the music teacher. And, really, any sketch that he did with Cheri O'Teri or Chris Kattan gave me a fangasm (especially when he made-out with either of them). I taped every episode so that I could go back and rewatch all my favorite sketches. I fell in love with the entire cast, really, but Will Ferrell was always the standout for me from day 1. Also, I don't think that America will ever forget the cowbell sketch. It was so utterly ridiculous and just a one-off sketch, and yet it somehow became the thing that Will will always be remembered for. Oh, I love him. My greatest Will Ferrell memories will always be from SNL, but I also love Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Zoolander, and Blades of Glory. And I'll basically watch him in anything.
7. Xander/Dracula
They were my original season 8 OTP (since Buffy and Giles barely even talk to each other in the comics. Also, Buffy/Xander nauseates me, which is what the comics are now sort of trying to go for only not really because Xander/Dawn is obviously the way to go). Anyway, their story actually starts in an issue of Tales of the Vampires. Dracula helps Xander get over the loss of Anya, and Xander becomes Dracula's everything. He is so, so lonely, and Xander provides him with this surprisingly satisfying companionship where he teaches him how to ride a motorcycle and he makes Dracula laugh and Xander is under Dracula's thrall so Dracula is everything to him, and when Buffy comes to bust Xander out, Dracula refuses to let him go. He practically begs her not take him away from him because "He's all I have left..." But then, for Xander's own good, he sends Xander away in much the same way that George sends Harry away in Harry and the Hendersons, and then... when Drac's alone in his mansion, in the dark, his hair goes gray, his eyes gloss over, and he gets all wrinkley and sits in his chair with nothing to live for anymore. Then, in the season 8 arc, "Wolves at the Gate", Xander goes to Dracula for help with their current big bad. When one of Drac's servants tells him that they have visitors, he looks even worse than in the previous comic, he's got this long gray beard and he's in rags, and he tells the servant to send them away, but something makes him get up and look out the window, and he sees Xander, and his eyes light up and he tells his servant to wait. Then, he opens the door and he's back to his exceptionally groomed self and he's looking young and vibrant and he and Xander have this bantery relationship where they act like they hate each other but Drac's love keeps shining through and Xander keeps fussing over Dracula's well-being and Xander's girlfriend is SO JEALOUS, it's hilarious. And eventually Dracula helps Buffy out purely for Xander and he ends up almost sacrificing himself in order to save Xander. The comics aren't even shy about Dracula implying that Xander is his whole world, but of course Drac would never actually say this to Xander. Their love is so very beautiful, and I hope that Dracula makes another appearance in the comics someday and finally admits his feelings to Xander.
Click to viewI've watched this song at least 5 times now, and I cry harder every time. OH MY GOD. IROH. I wish the entire sequence was on YouTube, because to get the full impact you need to see how utterly wonderful this man is, but even just that little bit is still wicked heartbreaking. He's just so sweet and open and peaceful and ridiculous and aware, and the short showed us all of that, but then it all leads up to this scene that is so beautiful and tragic in its simplicity. I can't get over how successfully this cartoon pulls off Iroh's brokenness in such a subtle way. This was probably the most overt it's been, and GOD was it beautiful. I would certainly rank this with the Carl/Ellie sequence in Up that makes me bawl every time I watch it. Anyway, when the "In honor of Mako" showed up, it hit me that Iroh is probably going to die considering the show went through 2008 and Mako died in 2006. He's going to die, isn't he? And I will probably cry even harder than I did with this scene, won't I? *sigh*
Momo's tale made me cry, too, which is ridiculous, but I never quite realized the depth of his love for Appa until we got that glimpse of his life. The Katara/Toph one also made me tear up a little bit. Oh, Toph. I love her so very much (also... I think I've started shipping her with Sokka? Ack, what is with me and inappropriate ships? But seriously, their banter is epic. I am still in love with Aang/Toph too, though. And Aang/Katara. And Zuko/Katara. And Mai/Zuko. Basically, I went from shipping no one to shipping everyone).
Meme time! Because it has been too damn long.
Comment to this entry and I'll give you a letter. List ten things that you love that begin with that letter and then post that list on your journal.
otempora42 gave me "H"
1. HEAD PORN.
2. Ho-hos
Mmm, ho-hos. *drools*
3. Harry Potter
Yes, HBP was totally my favorite. Ron/Hermione angst! Voldemort backstory galore! Dramatic death scene! I loved it. My other favorite is Goblet of Fire, pretty much for the same reasons minus the Voldemort backstory.
4. Howard Wolowitz
Check out this killer ladies' man! How could I not love him?
5. How I Met Your Mother
MARSHALL/LILY MARSHALL/LILY MARSHALL/LILY! AND TED! I'm pretty sure I fail at this fandom. I have no interest in Barney/Robin nor Barney Stinson (I do love him, but I probably love him the least out of the ensemble).
6. Honey, I Blew Up the Kid
Cutest movie ever, y/y? That laugh! Oh, I love that big little guy.
7. Hot Dog Shoppe!
It's in Warren, OH, and it contains by far the greatest chili cheese dogs and fries that you will ever consume in your entire life. That's just a fact.
8. Hashbrowns
McDonald's style, IHOP style, pretty much any style, I love them.
9. Hershey's milk chocolate bar
Mmm, chocolate.
10. Hair
Apparently I love it most when it is bountiful and wavy!
Meme #2
Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.
She gave me: buffy/giles, dead like me, ed helms, howard wolowitz, robin williams, will ferrell, and xander/dracula
1. Buffy/Giles
My OTP of all OTPs. My beautiful, angsty, inappropriately USTy age gap ship. Remember when she touched his arm just a little too long and looked at him admiringly?
I do. Remember when he stood obscenely close to her in The Bronze?
FROM BEHIND? Oh yes. Remember when I dweebishly drew hearts around their hands touching?
Remember when they sat super close and mocked Wesley all the time?
Remember when Giles had that dream where he was talking to Buffy about "this is how men and women have behaved since the beginning of time, Buffy" and there is nothing in his apartment except for him and Buffy and HIS BED?
And he is HYPNOTIZING her! He's totally dreaming about seducing her. But even in his dreams his stupid conscience catches up with him and it switches to seeing Buffy as a little girl. Pfft. Whatever, Giles, we know the truth.
Remember when Giles totally looked like he wanted to kiss Buffy when she returned from the dead?
Remember how the first thing Giles noticed about Buffy when he came back from England was that she cut her hair?
Okay, okay, I'll stop with the pics. Basically, these two have a powerful destiny to fulfill together, and I seem to really dig that kind of thing. Besides that, there are all kinds of confused feelings happening for both of them, and neither one really knows what to do with those feelings or even how to classify them. There are misunderstandings galore and repressed emotions and very emotionally charged interactions and two-way unrequitedness and Giles is so fiercely devoted to her while she's kind of a dick to him sometimes, but I think what I really love, what really gets me is that they both achieve their greatest sense of peace when with each other, and yet they are also each other's #1 cause of turmoil. They are both so afraid of loving each other too much that they end up pushing each other way. It's just a very messy relationship purely because of their own self-loathing. They question themselves so much that they both stupidly believe that they aren't worthy of happiness. Despite all their turmoil and epic mistakes, they do love each other, and they have plenty of breathtakingly beautiful moments that make you forget about all the darkness for awhile. They are my greatest love, basically.
2. Dead Like Me!
Simply put, one of the greatest shows ever created. It was short-lived, but I loved it fiercely. It was a coming of age story about grim reapers! How can I not love that? The characters were quirky and the stories never failed to be moving and it was utterly hilarious despite all the times it made me cry. And I was wicked in love with Rube/George. They were one of my first fandom ships, but sadly fandom did not cooperate with me on this one. Back then everyone was into George/Mason, so I gave up on fandom. But, that didn't keep me from shipping the heck out of Rube/George (and lord knows the show gave me plenty of subtext, which is even more obvious to me now on rewatches than it was back then. The movie is especially subtexty, and Rube isn't even in the movie!). Anyway, if any of you all have never seen this show, I definitely recommend it. I wasn't as big on season 2 as I was on season 1, but even season 2 was pretty brilliant.
3. Ed Helms
ED!!!!! This pic is from before he had his teeth done. And his eyebrows appear to be a lot messier than they are now. Oh, Ed, you've gone Hollywood, haven't you? *sigh* I still love him though, do not let my sigh fool you. HE IS SO SUPER ADORABLE AND I &HEARTS HIM FOREVER AND EVER. I fell in love with him as Andy from The Office, and then I promptly devoured each and every Daily Show segment I could get my hands on, and then I acquired many of his bit parts after that. I was majorly, MAJORLY obsessed with him for a long while there. Probably because he is prone to randomly breaking out into song:
This is probably the moment when Andy officially became my favorite.
Most romantic TV moment ever, y/y?
OH GOD, DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN THE OFFICE USED TO BE THIS AWESOME?
4. Howard Wolowitz
He is my favoritest perpetually horny nerd ever! I've always loved him, but when he put on a cowboy hat in season 3, I fell in mad, mad love with him. It's like something just clicked in my brain that said, "This dude is actually super hot." And it's true! It also helps that the show has upped his homoerotic subtext with Raj tenfold.
5. Robin Williams
My very first love! So, I grew up watching him on Mork and Mindy, but it wasn't until Hook where I fell in love with him and experienced my very first celebrity obsession. He's the one that started it all! I was... 6 years old, maybe? I saw the film in the theater, figured out what his name was, and spent the next three or so years glued to the TV guide, reading every single entry just so I could be sure to catch Robin in absolutely everything. This was before the world wide web, so, you know, that's how things were done back then. I was relegated to catching all of his stuff on HBO and Showtime, and I would always try to catch Mork and Mindy every Saturday night on Nick at Night (but at one point I was fighting over the TV with my oldest brother who always wanted to watch Lois and Clark. Pfft). I specifically remember myself thinking of Robin Williams as "a major babe." *shakes head at younger self* Anyway, my mom taped Hook for me off of pay-per-view, and I pretty much watched it every day when I came home from school. I did this for a long, long time. My parents seriously wanted to throw the tape away, but they knew I would have had a conniption fit. It was my most beloved item. And then later I got obsessed with Aladdin because he played the Genie, but still, Hook was my most watched film. I know that thing by heart and I haven't even watched it in years. But anyway, I still try to keep up with Robin's work, but he's reached a point where I really don't like the films he makes anymore (I still make the effort, though). I got re-obsessed with him around my sophomore year of high school, after he made Patch Adams. That was basically the Hook of my teenage years.
6. Will Ferrell
I fell in love with Will when I was about 12 or 13. I remember that I was staunchly against the new SNL cast because I was so utterly obsessed with Phil Hartman and I just did not want to watch SNL without him, but then I watched the Garth Brooks ep, and the cast member that immediately drew my attention in every single sketch was Will. I don't even know why, because he did absolutely nothing memorable in the Garth ep, but good lord did I find him utterly charming! From then on I never missed an ep, and I quickly fell in love with pretty much all of his recurring characters, my favorites being the Roxbury guy, the cheerleader, and the music teacher. And, really, any sketch that he did with Cheri O'Teri or Chris Kattan gave me a fangasm (especially when he made-out with either of them). I taped every episode so that I could go back and rewatch all my favorite sketches. I fell in love with the entire cast, really, but Will Ferrell was always the standout for me from day 1. Also, I don't think that America will ever forget the cowbell sketch. It was so utterly ridiculous and just a one-off sketch, and yet it somehow became the thing that Will will always be remembered for. Oh, I love him. My greatest Will Ferrell memories will always be from SNL, but I also love Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Zoolander, and Blades of Glory. And I'll basically watch him in anything.
7. Xander/Dracula
They were my original season 8 OTP (since Buffy and Giles barely even talk to each other in the comics. Also, Buffy/Xander nauseates me, which is what the comics are now sort of trying to go for only not really because Xander/Dawn is obviously the way to go). Anyway, their story actually starts in an issue of Tales of the Vampires. Dracula helps Xander get over the loss of Anya, and Xander becomes Dracula's everything. He is so, so lonely, and Xander provides him with this surprisingly satisfying companionship where he teaches him how to ride a motorcycle and he makes Dracula laugh and Xander is under Dracula's thrall so Dracula is everything to him, and when Buffy comes to bust Xander out, Dracula refuses to let him go. He practically begs her not take him away from him because "He's all I have left..." But then, for Xander's own good, he sends Xander away in much the same way that George sends Harry away in Harry and the Hendersons, and then... when Drac's alone in his mansion, in the dark, his hair goes gray, his eyes gloss over, and he gets all wrinkley and sits in his chair with nothing to live for anymore. Then, in the season 8 arc, "Wolves at the Gate", Xander goes to Dracula for help with their current big bad. When one of Drac's servants tells him that they have visitors, he looks even worse than in the previous comic, he's got this long gray beard and he's in rags, and he tells the servant to send them away, but something makes him get up and look out the window, and he sees Xander, and his eyes light up and he tells his servant to wait. Then, he opens the door and he's back to his exceptionally groomed self and he's looking young and vibrant and he and Xander have this bantery relationship where they act like they hate each other but Drac's love keeps shining through and Xander keeps fussing over Dracula's well-being and Xander's girlfriend is SO JEALOUS, it's hilarious. And eventually Dracula helps Buffy out purely for Xander and he ends up almost sacrificing himself in order to save Xander. The comics aren't even shy about Dracula implying that Xander is his whole world, but of course Drac would never actually say this to Xander. Their love is so very beautiful, and I hope that Dracula makes another appearance in the comics someday and finally admits his feelings to Xander.