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that's what I taught you, son
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roadrunner, who is basically my hero: five from Asylum, one of which is epic, one of which is hilarious, and two of which are pretty damn gay.
I watched about half the Battlestar Galactica pilot with my parents today, sort of ... in the midst of the dS watching. It did not break my brain as much as s3 + second half of miniseries would (for obvious reasons involving a bunch of circuits with experimental hair) but it was still a little whiplash-inducing.
1x09 A Cop, a Mountie, and a Baby
Ray having this whole monologue about how your hair reflecting who you are actually makes me kind of sad. WHAT ABOUT WHEN YOUR HAIR IS GONE, RAY. I mean, I am actually mad fond of the way he looks when he stops doing the sort-of-comb-over and accepts that he should be badass and fuzzy and balding, and Ray's assessment of what his hair is saying is totally off anyway -- deadly and dangerous but not afraid to cry? Ray, your hair is saying that you're a tired cop trying desperately to look dangerous and cool. Bless. Also Fraser's hair is not a pelt, it is a neatly coiffed Boy Scout, and my god I need to move beyond the hair thing now.
Much more importantly, apparently these guys get breakfast together. I just. I know Fraser and Kowalski basically spend all of their waking hours in each other's back pockets, but I'd forgotten that not only is that also the case with Fraser and Vecchio; the show sort of goes out of its way to show them shopping together and eating together and -- ahhh I love that Fraser and the Rays really are demonstratably best friends.
I'm pretty sure this one's obvious, but I do like the way they (sometimes) use Diefenbaker as an expression of the thoughts and feelings Fraser won't assign to himself. It's a very convenient outlet!
Also Fraser makes a PUFFIN FACE. I am slightly creeped out by the way Fraser making a puffin face looks like Turnbull making a normal face.
I really adore Ray's hilarious hallucination of the kid as Oliver Twist. I'm not entirely sure what the show is trying to say about orphanages and the foster system here (s2 we have The Promise, with two teenagers out of foster care and a child welfare agent blackmailing them, which seems fairly straightforward) but it's pretty cynical whatever else it is, because three little kids pretending to be tragic in order to get money from people is a little bit funny but mostly ... not. Except for the Oliver Twist part.
UH GOD I LOVE FRASER'S INUIT STORIES. I just love the way Fraser nearly always has some apt story to tell, and he'll never actually come out and instruct someone on the right thing to do; he presents all the information they need and then hopes that they'll be a good enough person to make the right choice. (I also love his soft rumbly unreassuring "Perhaps," when Vinnie wants to know if the wolf'll eat him. Nngh Fraser in a leather jacket please be slightly ominous more.) Ooh, yes, and later Ray's sort of astonished that they're sitting this one out, and Fraser says, "Well, you can't solve people's problems for them, Ray," and I like that too -- of course he's going to help, of course he's going to do everything he can, but everyone's allowed to have their own life. It's part of that respect thing he has. Hi, I love Fraser possibly more than any other fictional character ever.
...And at the end of this episode I realize that it makes no logistical sense -- it's not worth going into, but seriously, I think the internal logic works less well than MotB does, f'rgodsake -- but it ends with Ray's arm over Fraser's shoulder and them walking in step and laughing, so actually I don't even care.
1x10 Gift of the Wheelman
Aw, god, they're doing their Christmas shopping together! (I think I love holiday-specific episodes for pretty much any show and pretty much any holiday; no idea why. This and Good for the Soul are both fantastic episodes, and not just because of shopping-with-Rays.)
Fraser thinks that writing down your innermost thoughts in a journal where any stranger can read them is the bravest thing a person can do! I note this because I desperately want Fraser to keep zillions of journals with all sorts of everyday occurrences and environmental observations and case notes in, and for little fervent bits of emotion for the Rays dropped in without him quite noticing the significance of it. Seriously, someone with good Fraservoice should do this -- I'd even read it for the cases we see in the show if it was done well. (I don't think I could do it -- I don't trust my own Fraservoice very much, because if I don't make a concerted effort not to, I over-think my writing, and I know Fraser over-thinks things too, which means near-paralysis when I try to write him -- see: the only time I was able to complete something from Fraser's POV was when I was mildly delirious with fever. Anyway.)
This is a good episode for learning a lot about Ray and Fraser's relationships with their fathers without very many words being spoken. When Ray says that what he learned from his father was timing, mostly when to duck, he says it with this wry little smile that invites Fraser to return it; it's just this fact about himself that he's okay sharing with his friend, and if it still bothers him it bothers him pretty quietly. Fraser meanwhile says he wishes he'd spent more time with his father, learned this from him -- which means that at some level Fraser thinks that he's culpable for Bob's absence. This is probably kind of ridiculous, but I suppose as Fraser got older and was in a position where he might have been able to make some kind of real contact with his father, he chose not to. I bet even if he had Bob wouldn't've really responded -- seriously, for Bob being a Mountie is more important than anything, and while he does eventually forge a pretty good relationship with Fraser, it takes being dead and having nothing else to do before he really gives any time to his son. I love Bob, but dammit, man, I wish more people had shown tiny Benton affection.
Fraser's astonished double-take at his father in the backseat is kind of priceless. In fact it is priceless enough that I decided to cap it (and ... also because I need to repent for the puffin face by re-demonstrating how pretty Fraser is). It is not quite as good as the look of frozen horror on Geoffrey's face the first time Oliver talks to him, but it's still pretty great.
Here also the first appearance of Uncle Tiberius! If due South fandom was anything like Harry Potter fandom, there would be an entire sub-faction full of Uncle Tiberius fans, who would set up an elaborate fanon for him, and it would be awesome. Except that I am really glad dS fandom is not like HP fandom. I still think Uncle Tiberius fic would be awesome.
And I think I am possibly a bit screencap-happy with this episode -- is Fraser particularly pretty? do I just particularly want to hug him when he's having daddy issues? -- but when Bob and Benton are at a little diner, and Bob is giving the normal ghost spiel ("Am I really here? Am I in your head? Are you in mine? I don't know any more than you do;" is it too much to ask that Paul Gross ever hang out with a ghost that can reliably tell him he's not insane?) and then he says there are a lot of things he doesn't know -- like how he went all these years without getting to know his son -- and this look on Fraser's face! It's better in motion, but it's ... quietly happy and a little bit like tears. And then of course Fraser instantly changes the subject to the case. Oh Frase.
I do kind of wish that Ray's ghost father didn't exist, though. As a one-episode gag he is fine, and to the best of my recollection he only ever turns up again in North, but Pa Vecchio should only get to exist if Bob Fraser only exists in the one episode also. I mean, it's not like they really made much effort to go through and map out coherent rules for the ghost world, and I don't mind that it's all one big chaotic mess, it's just that -- there is something really poignant about Bob hanging around and working on his relationship with his son, and it works on a level that's about Bob, too, not just about Fraser having someone (who can talk back, unlike Dief) with whom he can share his actual thoughts. Whereas I don't really see Pa Vecchio serving any purpose that Ray alone cannot serve better. Oh well.
"There's only one thing a father needs to leave his son, and that's a good example of how a man should live his life. Anything else, the son can learn for himself. The greatest gift my father ever gave me was the courage to trust my own abilities." Oh god, and the thing is -- the thing is, that means, however secretly hurt Fraser might be about Bob never really having the time for him, he thinks Bob did do the one thing he needed to. If nothing else, the previous scene with Bob and Benton shows that Bob does trust Fraser's abilities, even if he can be a bit mother-hen about it. So by that criteria I think Fraser's actually right, although I think a bit of demonstratable love while the man was alive wouldn't have gone amiss. (I confess that Fraser's daddy issues also make me desperately want to write kidfic. About Fraser raising a child, I mean, although also tiny!Benton fic. IDEK.)
Mm, that one is lovely. <3
roadrunner, who is basically my hero: five from Asylum, one of which is epic, one of which is hilarious, and two of which are pretty damn gay.I watched about half the Battlestar Galactica pilot with my parents today, sort of ... in the midst of the dS watching. It did not break my brain as much as s3 + second half of miniseries would (for obvious reasons involving a bunch of circuits with experimental hair) but it was still a little whiplash-inducing.
1x09 A Cop, a Mountie, and a Baby
Ray having this whole monologue about how your hair reflecting who you are actually makes me kind of sad. WHAT ABOUT WHEN YOUR HAIR IS GONE, RAY. I mean, I am actually mad fond of the way he looks when he stops doing the sort-of-comb-over and accepts that he should be badass and fuzzy and balding, and Ray's assessment of what his hair is saying is totally off anyway -- deadly and dangerous but not afraid to cry? Ray, your hair is saying that you're a tired cop trying desperately to look dangerous and cool. Bless. Also Fraser's hair is not a pelt, it is a neatly coiffed Boy Scout, and my god I need to move beyond the hair thing now.
Much more importantly, apparently these guys get breakfast together. I just. I know Fraser and Kowalski basically spend all of their waking hours in each other's back pockets, but I'd forgotten that not only is that also the case with Fraser and Vecchio; the show sort of goes out of its way to show them shopping together and eating together and -- ahhh I love that Fraser and the Rays really are demonstratably best friends.
I'm pretty sure this one's obvious, but I do like the way they (sometimes) use Diefenbaker as an expression of the thoughts and feelings Fraser won't assign to himself. It's a very convenient outlet!
Also Fraser makes a PUFFIN FACE. I am slightly creeped out by the way Fraser making a puffin face looks like Turnbull making a normal face.
I really adore Ray's hilarious hallucination of the kid as Oliver Twist. I'm not entirely sure what the show is trying to say about orphanages and the foster system here (s2 we have The Promise, with two teenagers out of foster care and a child welfare agent blackmailing them, which seems fairly straightforward) but it's pretty cynical whatever else it is, because three little kids pretending to be tragic in order to get money from people is a little bit funny but mostly ... not. Except for the Oliver Twist part.
UH GOD I LOVE FRASER'S INUIT STORIES. I just love the way Fraser nearly always has some apt story to tell, and he'll never actually come out and instruct someone on the right thing to do; he presents all the information they need and then hopes that they'll be a good enough person to make the right choice. (I also love his soft rumbly unreassuring "Perhaps," when Vinnie wants to know if the wolf'll eat him. Nngh Fraser in a leather jacket please be slightly ominous more.) Ooh, yes, and later Ray's sort of astonished that they're sitting this one out, and Fraser says, "Well, you can't solve people's problems for them, Ray," and I like that too -- of course he's going to help, of course he's going to do everything he can, but everyone's allowed to have their own life. It's part of that respect thing he has. Hi, I love Fraser possibly more than any other fictional character ever.
...And at the end of this episode I realize that it makes no logistical sense -- it's not worth going into, but seriously, I think the internal logic works less well than MotB does, f'rgodsake -- but it ends with Ray's arm over Fraser's shoulder and them walking in step and laughing, so actually I don't even care.
1x10 Gift of the Wheelman
Aw, god, they're doing their Christmas shopping together! (I think I love holiday-specific episodes for pretty much any show and pretty much any holiday; no idea why. This and Good for the Soul are both fantastic episodes, and not just because of shopping-with-Rays.)
Fraser thinks that writing down your innermost thoughts in a journal where any stranger can read them is the bravest thing a person can do! I note this because I desperately want Fraser to keep zillions of journals with all sorts of everyday occurrences and environmental observations and case notes in, and for little fervent bits of emotion for the Rays dropped in without him quite noticing the significance of it. Seriously, someone with good Fraservoice should do this -- I'd even read it for the cases we see in the show if it was done well. (I don't think I could do it -- I don't trust my own Fraservoice very much, because if I don't make a concerted effort not to, I over-think my writing, and I know Fraser over-thinks things too, which means near-paralysis when I try to write him -- see: the only time I was able to complete something from Fraser's POV was when I was mildly delirious with fever. Anyway.)
This is a good episode for learning a lot about Ray and Fraser's relationships with their fathers without very many words being spoken. When Ray says that what he learned from his father was timing, mostly when to duck, he says it with this wry little smile that invites Fraser to return it; it's just this fact about himself that he's okay sharing with his friend, and if it still bothers him it bothers him pretty quietly. Fraser meanwhile says he wishes he'd spent more time with his father, learned this from him -- which means that at some level Fraser thinks that he's culpable for Bob's absence. This is probably kind of ridiculous, but I suppose as Fraser got older and was in a position where he might have been able to make some kind of real contact with his father, he chose not to. I bet even if he had Bob wouldn't've really responded -- seriously, for Bob being a Mountie is more important than anything, and while he does eventually forge a pretty good relationship with Fraser, it takes being dead and having nothing else to do before he really gives any time to his son. I love Bob, but dammit, man, I wish more people had shown tiny Benton affection.
Fraser's astonished double-take at his father in the backseat is kind of priceless. In fact it is priceless enough that I decided to cap it (and ... also because I need to repent for the puffin face by re-demonstrating how pretty Fraser is). It is not quite as good as the look of frozen horror on Geoffrey's face the first time Oliver talks to him, but it's still pretty great.
Here also the first appearance of Uncle Tiberius! If due South fandom was anything like Harry Potter fandom, there would be an entire sub-faction full of Uncle Tiberius fans, who would set up an elaborate fanon for him, and it would be awesome. Except that I am really glad dS fandom is not like HP fandom. I still think Uncle Tiberius fic would be awesome.
And I think I am possibly a bit screencap-happy with this episode -- is Fraser particularly pretty? do I just particularly want to hug him when he's having daddy issues? -- but when Bob and Benton are at a little diner, and Bob is giving the normal ghost spiel ("Am I really here? Am I in your head? Are you in mine? I don't know any more than you do;" is it too much to ask that Paul Gross ever hang out with a ghost that can reliably tell him he's not insane?) and then he says there are a lot of things he doesn't know -- like how he went all these years without getting to know his son -- and this look on Fraser's face! It's better in motion, but it's ... quietly happy and a little bit like tears. And then of course Fraser instantly changes the subject to the case. Oh Frase.
I do kind of wish that Ray's ghost father didn't exist, though. As a one-episode gag he is fine, and to the best of my recollection he only ever turns up again in North, but Pa Vecchio should only get to exist if Bob Fraser only exists in the one episode also. I mean, it's not like they really made much effort to go through and map out coherent rules for the ghost world, and I don't mind that it's all one big chaotic mess, it's just that -- there is something really poignant about Bob hanging around and working on his relationship with his son, and it works on a level that's about Bob, too, not just about Fraser having someone (who can talk back, unlike Dief) with whom he can share his actual thoughts. Whereas I don't really see Pa Vecchio serving any purpose that Ray alone cannot serve better. Oh well.
"There's only one thing a father needs to leave his son, and that's a good example of how a man should live his life. Anything else, the son can learn for himself. The greatest gift my father ever gave me was the courage to trust my own abilities." Oh god, and the thing is -- the thing is, that means, however secretly hurt Fraser might be about Bob never really having the time for him, he thinks Bob did do the one thing he needed to. If nothing else, the previous scene with Bob and Benton shows that Bob does trust Fraser's abilities, even if he can be a bit mother-hen about it. So by that criteria I think Fraser's actually right, although I think a bit of demonstratable love while the man was alive wouldn't have gone amiss. (I confess that Fraser's daddy issues also make me desperately want to write kidfic. About Fraser raising a child, I mean, although also tiny!Benton fic. IDEK.)
Mm, that one is lovely. <3
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The only Tiberius fanon I know is: if Fraser needs to have, like, a gay uncle or something, Tiberius is it! He is convenient for these things in the same way that Mark Smithbauer is. :D
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...I bet somewhere Kowalski is mad grateful his father's still alive.
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Re: ghost rules: there's a thing in Ride Forever or Southbound - one of the behind the scenes specials (I think) - where Paul Gross talks about how they reinvented their ghost rules with basically every episode. "Can Bob touch things or does his hand go through everything? What happens if he tries to touch a person?" And I like
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And yeah, I'm pretty sure in Ride Forever Paul Gross admits that they just sort of invented & changed the ghost rules depending on the circumstance. I kind of like that, honestly, it's -- consistently inconsistent? Something like that.
(Edited a day late for ridiculous typo. *facepalm*)
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Do it do it do it.
Re: cuteness of Fraser. I think he's especially cute in those farmboy shirts. They're, um... hot. *shallow* (I'm not sure why; well, OK. Maybe it's the juxtaposition of those shirts, which evoke for me a very specific kind of dude, with Fraser who is not really that kind of dude at all except he is butch and energetic and outdoorsy. So Fraser gets this weird conservative farmboy heritage + his general Fraserness = a new masculinity? Or maybe it's the contradiction, like the way women wearing menswear is hot.)
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Re: cuteness of Fraser, I think you are definitely right about the juxtaposition thing.
Also I love his supply of tight jeans.Honestly though I think a lot of it is that Fraser is in uniform so often that uniform-hotness sort of turns off and we just see the Mountie getup as Normal Fraser Clothing, so when it's civvies it's like ... being allowed something extra? That, and I also have a sophisticated theory that Paul Gross just looks really great in [a] leather jackets and [b] blue.no subject
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Spoilers for 'North'!
One of the (many, many, many) things I love about "North" is that it's the last time we do see Vecchio's ghost-dad, and it's after he has the exchange that goes:
Pa Vecchio: I'm your father.
Ray: That's right, Pop, you are my father.
It's a cool moment because I feel like it's Ray embracing all that that means, finally. Instead of trying to push his father away, he finally says, "you know what? This is who I came from, and I don't have to be like this. I can be my own man." (Of course, I also then add "and be happy and gay with Fraser," to that, but that's me and is totally optional. *g*) It fits really beautifully in that episode because Vecchio starts out lying about how great his father is to Fraser and by the end of it he realizes that he (Ray) doesn't need to, that he (Ray) is better than that. Especially after all the Victoria stuff.
Argh. I have so many good dS icons I need to upload over here! Heh.
Re: Spoilers for 'North'!
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Fraser thinks that writing down your innermost thoughts in a journal where any stranger can read them is the bravest thing a person can do!
There's a story in there somewhere.