#lark rambles

[larkspurglove]

One of my favourite moments from watching NPMD with my friends was that one of them always managed to time their questions awfully to the point it was accidental perfect comedic timing.

The funniest one was when Dan Reynolds came on screen and they asked ‘who is that’ and I kid you not Joey sang the iconic ‘I am Dan Reynolds’ line the moment they finished speaking

#you would think I’m making this up but no #my friend has the gift of prophetic comedic timing #or impatience #either way it made for a funny moment #npmd #nerdy prudes must die #starkid #hatchetfield #hatchetverse #lark rambles #damn this post is doing a whole lot better than I thought it would

[soaringlark]

How to pass time on April 1st when you don't like typical Pranks

Step 1: Go to Tumblr

Step 2: Boop

Profit

#genuinely though Tumblr is fun for this #they do little april fools things I usually find quite fun #lark rambles

[rickxation]

So ignoring the probability that the direction of the plot and probably writers changed since wayyy back: What emboldened the council to grab C137 when the string of Ricks were being killed?

I guess probably they got over confident with their ability to outsmart him. Just thinking about the council and culture of the Citadel, it's too addicting to speculate.

#rick and morty #lark rambles #random thoughts

[slimy-vore-bog]

had a vore dream

NS/FW blogs fuck off (from my posts anyway)

still not going to be too active here, but as the title said I had a vore dream and it was pretty strange lol

basically, it was about King's dad, except he wasn't *the* titan like in canon and for some reason he was a really cool-looking wyvern with a skeletal tail and thick furred body and neck with large dark wings.

(I believe part of the dream carried over from me dreaming about when people were making King's species design before the fact that he was a titan was confirmed)

So in this dream, King's dad was looking for him and ended up finding him with Luz and basically he doesn't know she's not going to hurt King so uh... vore lol

Just to establish how this went; Luz is going to be safe, because King pleads with his dad and tells him she would never hurt him and that he really cares about her. I am specifying this for a reason, because I have had vore Nightmares (that I would never share here, because they can get so disturbing I wake up feeling like I need to vomit)

But it kinda went like he quickly got King off Luz, grabbing her, before he swallowed her whole. In the dream there was also Willow, Amity and Gus, but they didn't really do much so it's kinda irrelevant for this, but I still wanted to tell

that was all there was to it, but I just thought I'd share, because it has been a while since I had a vore dream that wasn't somewhat disturbing and unshareable (I have nightmares very often, so even just dreams are rare)

#lark rambles #vore dream #t0h vore

[kirioxel]

Every time I open Tumblr I'm like "I'm going to start posting here somewhat frequently!" and then I forget I exist. otl

#Lark rambles

[thatshortenby]

reigen and serizawa please adopt me challenge i. am also an autistic mentally ill gay who likes ghosts

#Lark rambles #i fukcking love them #cries sobs throws myself on the floor in anguish #i had a dream they were my fatherly friends and i wanna go back #literally at one point we were at the grocery store and reigen goes “haha were like a family” #Take me back I’m not even kidding anymore

[kaseyskat]

lark (and sparrow) core

#dndads #kasey rambles #lark oak garcia #sparrow oak garcia #i have no idea where this quote is from but i saw it awhile ago #and it killed me dead #so i’m sharing the pain

[mj-thrush-gxn]

First off just gonna say that i adore your artstyle and the playlist requests are such a cool idea! And second may I suggest whoever you associate with Choice by Jack stauber tyyy

just some little guys

i didn’t realize that the symbols i put actually applied to the kids until after i did the paeden one

#dndads #dungeons and daddies #dndaddies #dndads art #dndads fanart #thrush rambles #dndads s1 #sparrow dndads #lark dndads #terry jr dndads #nicky dndads #grant dndads #paeden dndads #thrush draws

[risetherivermoon]

i think about the oak twins a lot..especially considering the whole twins ending the world together thing, i just think that its such an interesting concept and i love to play with that, twins and siblings in media are so fun

the fact they're considered "the same person twice" constantly, and the way that they put each other over themselves and others, the codependency and different ways they mirror and reflect each other in different ways...the fact that sparrow was able to argue with henry as lark in such a convincing way that no one suspected it could've been the other twin, how lark is convincing enough as sparrow that it takes noticing the tattoos for sparrows own son to realize he was talking to lark instead-

they're both the lord of chaos, we rarely get a scene where the other twin isn't at least present in the room, and if we do its because they've been forcibly separated from each other- they share initiatives, they're together when we see them in Neverwinter, the school dance, and Papa John's, they share a wife-

like they're so different in ways but also the same, and they know each other as well as they know themselves, and when there was no one else there for either twin they still had each other, they both now how fucked up and shitty they are, yet they stick together and work as one, they both take the blame constantly for each others actions, like how sparrow talks about how he released the doodler as well, even though that was lark, and lark takes responsibility for code purple as well,

i just love them a lot and they're such interesting characters with a cool ass dynamic,

#heres a small appreciation rant for the twins ig? i just love them #such an interesting duo #this ramble prob makes no sense but take it anyway #dndads #dndads s2 #dndads s1 #dungeons and daddies #dndads odyssey #dndaddies #dungeons & daddies #lark and sparrow #the oak twins #lark oak #sparrow oak #lark oak garcia #sparrow oak garcia #sparrow oak swallows garcia #the oak family #henry oak #normal oak #autumn rambling #🍁

[tiredwiredanduninspired]

Henry: Lark’ly Oak-Garcia are you smoking a cigarette?!

(Teenage) Lark, holding a lit cigarette: Nope

#*ramblings #dndads #dungeons and daddies #dndaddies #dungeons and daddies incorrect quotes #dndads incorrect quotes #incorrect quotes #henry oak #lark oak #lark oak Garcia #source: dream daddy

[larkspurglove]

It’s always struck me as weird that NPMD ends with homecoming and not prom, because as a non-American, isn’t prom the quintessential American high school end trope thing??

Because of this I looked up what the actual difference is and holy shit homecoming takes place at the end of the first semester of the school year????? (Correction: turns out it’s actually around September/October which is roughly the end of the FIRST TERM)

So you’re telling me that not only do Steph, Grace and Pete have to process their trauma but also deal with SCHOOL????? FOR ANOTHER HALF A YEAR??????? AS HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS?????

#at that point I’d be grateful grace ended the world #Pete has to survive school without his two best (and possibly only) friends #steph goes from mayor’s daughter to orphan #grace probably doubles down on her purity culture craziness but like to the point where she neglects school somewhat #I can’t imagine living through the events of a slasher film then having to do an odd 6 months of school #npmd #nerdy prudes must die #npmd spoilers #nerdy prudes must die spoilers #starkid #team starkid #hatchetfield #hatchetverse #lark rambles #rip I noticed all the paragraphs in this post started with ‘so’ #edited it slightly so I wouldn’t have to deal with that

[soaringlark]

AHHHHH

I have such a stupid ship idea and I want to make art for it, but I suck at drawing people in the pokémon style TwT

Kieran from the Scarlet/Violet Hidden Treasure DLC x Player Character

I've shipped this since DLC part one came out and I played it; I really just shipped it as soon as I saw Kieran's personality, even though the second half of part 1 made me really steer off shipping them

Not as in self ship as such, though I would go with my player character's outfit and looks (since he's the one I followed the story through), because I'm aroace and more importantly he's a kid that's at most like... 14

It just makes for such a cute romance to go from (slight crush on the mc in my headcanon) hesitant friendship to kinda enemies/feeling envious on Kieran's side to kinda boyfriends but not open about it-

It's really mostly a crackship for me too, but I do think it's cute

Also headcanon Penny as gay, because she does say a lot of female characters are pretty XD (which isn't gay as such, but... I don't have a reason ok? I like her so she's gay /silly) Carmine from the DLC and the player character's mom

Anyway making me feel restless at midnight lol Just really giddy about the little guys in the game and more so my stories for them in my head

#lark rambles #I'm probably really weird for this #don't judge me though; you were warned I'm a weird guy from the start

[riverrcottage]

THATS ME THATS MY LARK PLAYLIST IM BEING PERCEIVED HELPHELPHELP

(pos)

#rambles #dndads #dungeons and daddies #lark oak garcia #lark oak #sparkbird

[mintythyme]

I think the Oaks should be inhuman. I want some eldritch fucking hippies.

I want to see Normal keep practicing his cheers a little too long, stamina still up in the sky when everyone around him is exhausted, not even sweating, when he’s been going for hours without a break. I want to see Hero be shown to not blink, or to not breathe like humans should. I want to see Lark have such mastery over his weapons that they seem to be a part of him, and when you look too close, it doesn’t just seem like his weapons are a part of him. I want to see Sparrow be a little too still at times, when listening to something, or when paying attention, not making even the slightest of sounds, not even a heartbeat. I wanted to see Henry smell, not just badly, but like a burning pain that shouldn’t be familiar but is. I wanted to see Barry twist and move in ways he shouldn’t, cracking and popping a few too many times, comfortable in positions he shouldn’t even be able to achieve.

GIVE ME SOME NON HUMAN OAKS GOD FUCKING DAMMIT

#dndads oak-garcias #dndads Barry oak #dndads henry oak #dndads Henry oak-garcia #dndads sparrow oak #dndads lark oak #dndads hero oak #dndads normal oak #henry oak #Barry oak #sparrow oak swallows garcia #lark oak garcia #hero oak swallows garcia #normally oak swallows garcia #normally ly oak swallows Garcia li Wilson swift Marlowe the unworthy #dndads season 2 #dndads #thyme’s rambles

[littlecello]

Lazarus: An Autopsy

So. I just got back home, and though I have to get up at stupid o'clock for work tomorrow morning, I am sitting down at my computer to give you all as much of a detailed write-up of the table read as I can. Please bear in mind these are my and Fern's opinions personal opinions, so if you disagree with anything said here, that's totally fine! This is all coming from the perspective of people who have been in the fandom since 2012 and 2009 respectively, and both of us love the show very dearly.

Now, without further ado - here is a summary and discussion of the table-read of the pilot episode of Lazarus. The detailed write-up is under the cut, but I want to share this shaky train-doodle I banged out on the way home to give shape to my own feelings:

Set Up

This was a dramatic table-read, meaning actors were sat on stage, taking the roles of the main and side characters, plus one narrator who read out the scene-set ups in the script. This was a complete reading of the pilot-episode as it would have aired on TV, complete with songs playing over the speakers as they appeared in the show (off the top of my head - Another Brick In The Wall, Somewhere Over The Rainbow (Ukulele Version), Life on Mars (yes they went there), Merry Christmas Everybody, and several more). It's important to note that this was not performed by the original actors; rather, they brought in a troupe of actors associated with the BFI, called the BFI Players. Unfortunately they aren't credited on the BFI website and there were no printed programme notes, so I can't tell you their names. Notably, though, Ashley Pharoah (co-writer of LoM) was present; after the table-read, there was a short-ish Q&A session.

Lazarus Pilot: A Summary

We start in 2024, with a car chase. Sam Tyler, now DCI of Internal Affairs of Greater Manchester Police, is hot on the pursuit of a Constable who we later learn has raped multiple women while on duty. Notably, Sam is driving exactly the way Gene would, ignoring regulations, nearly running over pedestrians and a cyclist. Sam apprehends the PC on the campus of Manchester University, which is filmed by the assembled students of the lecture that's been interrupted (a quote from the script: "heteronormative queer trans students") - that video subsequently goes viral as another example of police violence. It's clear that the PC is guilty of his crime, but he's let off, and most of CID pretty much turns against Sam. Sam's DI, incidentally, is biromantic and asexual, which is also turned into a joke with Sam making some acephobic remarks.

The next day, Sam finds the rapist PC dead - hanging from a lamppost as though he's died by suicide. CCTV reveals that about an hour before his death, a car idled in front of his home, and the PC had hurled abuse at said car. The driver cannot be seen. That same car is seen at a carehome in Didsbury, idling there just like it did in front of that house... and that car is also confronted, by none other than a geriatric Gene Hunt.

Here is where we start to realise that this Sam is different. It seems he never went back to 1973. He never had that accident, he never met Gene Hunt - he is, however, married to Annie Cartwright (only until half of the episode though, at which point she says they need to get a divorce). A lot of anachronisms going on here, but those will get explained a little later in the episode. Sam also starts having visions - first of a Space Hopper that keeps passing him by, later Clangers from the Planet of the Clangers appear to him. He keeps remembering lines we've heard in Life on Mars ("I never stitched anyone up who didn't deserve it", "If you can feel things you are alive, but it's when you can't feel things that you know you aren't alive", etc). Eventually, he goes to visit Gene in the care home and invites him for a drive, to see if that will jog any memories.

Gene, however, has other ideas - he eventually forces Sam to stop by the roadside, insisting "I'm going back! I'm going BACK!" The two start arguing, and then it devolves into a physical fight, which pushes them into the road... at which point, they are both his by a car. A red Audi Quattro, in fact, and just as everything fades to black, we see someone with white cowboy boots and a white leather jacket get out of the car...

1977. Sam wakes up utterly hungover in the Cortina, next to Gene who's driving. These are their 70s selves. They get to the station, where they find out that they've both been suspended due to Gene assaulting the Superintendent ("I didn't assault him, I strategically placed him... in a bin."). The department has been disbanded and taken over by none other than Derek Litton. Sam and Gene leave, with Sam driving home... to his wife Annie. On his way, he realises that he must have dreamt about 2024, and obviously doesn't understand what is going on. He talks to Annie about it, who becomes upset that he's starting to talk about all the future stuff again. It becomes clear that the case that Sam was investigating in 2024 (the dead rapist PC) is mirrored in 1977. And, crucially, near the end of the episode we realise that Gene also has memories of what we saw happen in 2024... and just at the end, when Annie is on her own, she suddenly sees the video footage mentioned at the very top (the fight at the MU) playing on the TV, and realises that Sam was telling the truth.

The Good

Let me start with the really enjoyable part of this afternoon - the actors who performed the script for us. They all did a brilliant job, especially Sam's actor. I'm pretty sure he must have studied up on John Simm's performance, because he got Sam's tone and cadence so closely to the original that I could really believe he was the character. The production was done well too, with the songs being played over the speaker system; plus, the narrator was absolutely brilliant at setting the scene, reading the descriptive bits of the script with loads of character and humour. The other actors were great too (Litton got a fantastic impression). The only one I wasn't convinced by was Gene's actor, because he gave his Manc accent a very theatric drawl that sometimes made him sound like a pirate. Definitely didn't come close to Philip Glenister's brilliant delivery of his lines.

Speaking of lines, there were some genuinely funny jokes in this. The whole scene with Litton was hilarious, and some of the modern-day jokes landed quite well too (Sam's DI pulls an "ok boomer" on him, to which he responds "that's Gen X I'll have you know").

And of course, I have to mention that it was SO LOVELY to meet a bunch of you in person!!!! It was lovely to chat, and thank you especially to @bisexualroger and friends who came and said hello, you genuinely made my day 🥹 The Bad

Sigh. Buckle up.

This table-reading really cemented for me what I've been saying for several years: The writing in Life on Mars is very mediocre. What made the show so amazing and special was the fact that the crew and actors took that material and elevated it to the heights we know and love. If you take that away... All of its shortcomings become very glaring.

This was even more obvious with Lazarus. Although we have to remember that this was a pilot, which means it was basically a sales pitch to studios and as such they tried to cram as much exciting stuff into it as possible, on the whole it just came across as very confused and embarrassingly self-referential. The characters often (but not always) came across as caricatures of themselves. The script often pointed out the race/ethnicity of characters in ways that felt very unnecessary and strange (more on that later). Most of the dialogue that took place in 2024 was incredibly stilted (again, more on that in a little bit). Most crucially, although it's clear that Lazarus was trying to bring Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes together to tie them up in a neat little bow, it just felt far too all over the place, even for a set-up episode (Lazarus as a whole was planned to be two series with 6 episodes each, like LoM). The Ugly

Basically, this show was supposed to be commentary on the present-day commentary between the public and the police... written from the perspective of two Old White Men(tm) with an unhealthy amount of nostalgia for the past who seem to think of the police as literal guardian angel, which is why they made Gene an actual angel (this is confirmed by what Ashley told us the ending of Lazarus would have been, which I will write up tomorrow because this would be too much for this post).

So, what does that mean in practice? It means that everything that was set in 2024 was an absolute shitshow. There were jokes about "wokeness" in every scene - things such as gender identities, diversity, ethnic food, vegan food, recycling, climate activism and more were only ever played for laughs, with a clear emphasis that everything was better in the "good old days". Especially all the jokes about gender and sexuality made me so angry, seeing as the fandom who has kept the show alive for the last 10 years is overwhelmingly queer.

Worse than that, this show would have been absolutely choc-full of copaganda. We already learn in the pilot that the entire philosophy is that "bad cops" are simply "rotten apples" that need to be removed from the force, which can only happen from the inside (this is Sam's role as DCI of Internal Affairs). And also, the public are just way too mean to cops, for no reason whatsoever - this is very literally shown in a scene in 2024 where a male PC touches a drunk woman's arm in sympathy and she yells at him "DON'T TOUCH ME", whereas in a mirrored scene in 1977 we see a PC giving a woman advice, who seems to be extremely grateful for it and even squeezes his hand for it. Which, if you know ANYTHING about what was going in Manchester at the time, in the wake of the Yorkshire Ripper and the associated police failings, is laughable at best, and an insult at worst.

Furthermore, during the Q&A, Ashley Pharoah unintentionally told on himself and Matthew Graham. I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said that when they both realised during the watchalong on twitter back in 2021 there still were a lot of fans of the show, that's when they felt compelled to properly give Lazarus a go. It very much came across as him saying "we loved the attention and wanted more of it, oh and also we thought we had something to say about the state of affairs regarding the police". Which, as I have laid out above, frankly is a sick joke. After everything that's happened - the protests in 2020, the way police forces in the whole country handled the Sarah Everard case, the fact that the current Chief Superintendent of GMP is an old conservative guy - the fact that Matt and Ash had the audacity to shop a show like Lazarus around to be picked up for TV is... astonishing. The confidence of white men, eh?

In Conclusion

Both Fern and I are very, extremely glad that Lazarus was not, and never will be made into a TV show. We are very glad that we get to keep Sam, Gene, Annie and all the others as they are. And we are also very glad that we went to this table-read, since we can now stop wondering what could have been. It's done and dusted. And, funnily enough, this has invigorated my fandom fire for LoM. I now want to create art of the characters I've come to know and love, to reinforce who they are to me. They are our characters now, Ashley and Matt. You don't get to play with them anymore. You don't get to twist them and put them through the wringer.

Tl;Dr

#Life on Mars #Lazarus #drawing lark #cello rambles #uhh I don't know what else to tag #I don't want to start fandom drama but I also wanted to give my personal opinion #off to bed I go now

[thatshortenby]

just went down a moral orel rabbit hole (watching essays bc i heard about it and was curious) and even though i didn’t watch any full episodes of the actual show, i feel like it smacked me directly in the face and then sh0t me between the eyes it was a little TOO realistic and WAYY too close to home for me jesus fucking christ

#tw religious trauma #no rb #lark rambles #might watch it eventually but not rn #im going Through It especially w religious trauma