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froodleWelcome back to the Eerie, Indiana 2015 rewatch. This Saturday, give your dog the side-eye and pay that doorknobs will be enough to save us. Ladies and gentlemen, keep the Canine Arrest Team on speed-dial, because it's time to watch... The Retainer!
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Date: 2015-08-08 07:50 pm (UTC)From what I remember, not all of the episodes have a day # attached to them - the only one I can name off the top of my head is that Reality Takes a Holiday is marked day zero, for obvious reasons - but I know there's a few. As the rewatch progresses, I'm going to try and look out for them.
This is the second episode and the intro also serves as a kind of "previously" by referencing the ForeverWare ladies (oh my God, that horrible laughter - there's no need to get that excited about a pickle lifter, ladies), as well as what would become the standard for EI, Bigfoot and Elvis, before setting up this episode's foe.
Also, Fluffy, what are you going to do with that gun? You don't have opposable thumbs, you can't pull the trigger, it is of no use to you whatsoever, and it never appears again in the episode.
Could it be Betsy, Grungy Bill's long-lost gun? Did he bungle his twelfth/thirteenth bank robbery because dogs stole his firearm in preparation for the day they rose up agai.st humanity?
"It's probably wherever you left it" has got to be the least helpful parental non-response in history. Yes, it most likely is wherever I left it, but I don't know where that is, which is why I'm asking if you're seen it. I would have made the exact same face as Syndi. Don't be that parent, Marilyn.
Loving the drama chords that play and the dramatic close up of Fifi, the man-eating poodle. Oh Syndi. You are more right than you know.
Looking back on it, it's weird how much emphasis there was on you to have lots of friends when you were a kid. Edgar and Marilyn are all, "you don't seem to be making a lot of new friends", ignoring the fact that he's already become really good friends with the kid next door.
Later in the episode, Mars mentions that Steve isn't his friend, but still lets him come over to his house anyway. You gotta wonder if there's an element of pleasing and/or shutting up his parents concerns about his lack of friends in him hanging out with this kid that he doesn't even seem to like all that much in his own home.
Like, Simon apparently doesn't satisfy the criteria, maybe because he's younger, so he brings Steve by and is all, look, look, kid my own age, stop getting at me and making me feel like an isolated reject just because I'm not surrounded by a crowd of classmates the whole time.
Or maybe I'm just reading way too much into this. Anyway.
Dog, you're sleeping in the middle of the pavement. Don't get snippy when people need to walk past. You're the inconsiderate jackass here, not the random pedestrians.
Ugh, can we take a minute to talk about how horrible it is that Steve has to go over that the house of some kid that he's not even friends with, just so he can have a fucking sandwich, because his mum doesn't like watching him eat? Fucking Eerie, centre of shitty parenting for the entire planet, more like.
Second episode in a row that Simon mentions the Eerie Library. Last week it was old yearbooks, this week apparently their research is a little more esoteric.
Now I really want to know who had checked out the Sorcerers Bible before Simon could borrow it.
Also, Mars, get your own library card.
I really want a t-shirt with that aerial map of Eerie on it. That, or the one from the start of the episode with Normal and Schafer as some of the surrounding towns and a massive bright red WEIRDNESS stamped across it.
"Oh baby, yeah baby, oh, in my mouth baby" is literally me whenever I'm starving and sit down to a delicious meal.
Fifi, stop spying on the Tellers!
Are we all speaking Dog? I think more likely, the retainer lets Steve (and later Mars) read the dogs minds, and then their brains translate it to terms they can understand, ie, English.
I just realised how boring and frustrating this adventure must have been for Simon - he can't hear any of what's going on.
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Date: 2015-08-10 06:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-10 08:40 pm (UTC)My personal headcanon is that Simon is academically gifted, based on the amount of time he spends in the library, the fact that he was apparently doing a paper on the federal deficit in his history class, and because at nine years old he's attending BF Skinner Junior High along with Marshall, even though I'm pretty sure Junior High is for kids eleven or up (Americans, feel free to correct me on this).
So if he's smart, there's no reason Mars wouldn't hang around with him, unless other "cooler" kids his own age were inviting him along to something else. He was cool spending time with Simon along with Todd and Steve, but they were 'lame' (headgear braces, glasses); but he ditches Simon when he's around Nick and Eddy (who are, ugh, gross, but probably the cool popular kids by thirteen year old standards).
I would have loved to see a few more Simon-centric episodes; off the top of my head, the only one where he takes centre stage is ATM with a Heart of Gold, and apart from his younger brother Harley being introduced as basically a one-episode plot device in Scariest Home Videos, the rest of we know about him is gleaned from bits and pieces.
And oh God, are those bits and pieces horrible; there's a bit in the Lost Hour where Marilyn says something along the lines of "Simon should be asleep by now" and he's like, "They never tell me when I have to go to bed" and Marilyn's face just drops and she gets all quiet and awkward. And then later in the same scene she's like, "Well, we can be grateful we know where our kids are," clearly including Simon along with Syndi and Mars and it's actually really sweet, she kisses him goodnight and everything, but at the end of the day, he's eventually gonna have that go back to his parents house, ugh.
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Date: 2015-08-11 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-11 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 08:09 am (UTC)At the moment I'm rewatching Boy Meets World - originally for eps that Jason was in, but actually now because all the eps are just so good and I'm sure kids TV today just can't compete with the messages that this show put across. But yeah, the dynamic there is the younger kid is the lead, with a friend the same age, and then an older brother (and his best friend *g*). So still nothing like Eerie in the dynamic.
I guess Simon actually fills a couple of tropes in one as well - being both a bit smart/nerdy and a kid with a shitty homelife. Compared to the kids around him in each ep, Mars actually has very little characterisation. He's fairly bland, and in fact normal, but I guess that makes it easier to drive home the part about him being almost the only one to notice how weird Eerie is.
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Date: 2015-08-15 11:12 pm (UTC)The theme song, obviously, and one where the older brother became a werewolf and fell in love with a lady dog and then that lady dog was sniffing a different boy dog and he was like, "Missus Offenbarrrrkkkkkk!" in this dead heartbroken way. And one where the older boy and the sister were in a house covered in seagull poo because a taxidermied seagull was sour, and one with a contest to see who could pee the highest up a wall.
And most of all, one where there was a fox fur and somehow lemons made it be an alive fox again but then the lemon tree got cut down and the fox didnt have any eyes and the sister was like, "He only just came back to life! Now he'll never see!" but then they found two mini lemons and for some reason that made the fox have blue eyes.
Anyway, I dont really remember the dynamic of the characters, because my child brain was full of zombie lemon fox eyes and peeing contests. What the hell, Australia.
Oh my God, I used to have such a crush on Eric and Shawn from BMW. I havent seen it I. YEARS - I know Jason was in it but I only remember one episode where he said ice hockey wasnt hard because Canadians could do it, and dont remember anything else about his character.
The actor who plays Corey and Erics dad keeps popping up in stuff but playing a douche and I get irrationally upset by it every time. I really want to watch it again now.
I guess Mars is like the litmus test for weirdness - he's "bland" because he's a sort of audience proxy, the "normal" kid who is actually marked out as freakish by virtue of not aftually being freakish.
I think the only kids apart from Marshall whose parents arent utter shitheels are Melanie's dad and Janet Donner's parents, and we dont really see much of them in their respective episodes.
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Date: 2015-08-16 02:29 pm (UTC)The fox one though! I think I remember that.... I have to look for that one at the very least!
I know I had a massive crush on Shawn when I was young. Between him and various characters that it turns out young!Jason played in childhood TV shows I think that pretty much informed the type of man that is my "type". I started rewatching 50% for Jason playing Eric's best friend (and LOL, Jason's character is called Jason Marsden in the show! WTF? Could they just not be bothered with coming up with a name for the character?) and 50% I saw posts on Fandom Secrets recently that suggest Eric has some serious mental issues in the later seasons and I'm curious to see where that goes and how much people are tinhatting that...
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Date: 2015-08-16 04:15 pm (UTC)Now you've made me really want to see BMW again. I remember when I was older and it was in reruns, there was a Halloween episode where they were talking about how people who have sex die in horror films, and Shawn was like, well, I'm going to get as close to death as I possibly can without dying and it made me laugh really hard. Like, I dribbled a bit levels of mirth.
I dont remember anything about Eric being crazy but then, I dont know how messing ch of its run I even saw; my memories are pretty piecemeal and obv. some of that stuff may have gone over my head at that age.
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Date: 2015-08-17 07:24 pm (UTC)I might need to push you into doing a rewatch, I'm just starting season 3 and I need someone to discuss with! Also, I'm shipping Eric/Shawn and it's so wrong but I refuse to feel any guilt over it ;D
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Date: 2015-08-17 08:04 pm (UTC)I remeber Jason did the voice of this kid Felix in Kim Possible, and obv. Will Friedle is Ron's VA, and they were ridiculously slashy even as cartoons. So, I completely support there being porn about Will Friedle, although back then I was strictly Kim/Shego.
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Date: 2015-08-18 12:05 pm (UTC)I need to look into his VA stuff more, I've not seen many of the animated things he's done. If there's both him and Will in Kim Possible maybe that's where I'll start ^_^
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Date: 2015-08-18 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-19 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-20 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-20 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-22 11:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-18 10:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-18 12:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-18 12:52 pm (UTC)http://heymistercory.tumblr.com/post/115288587107/shawn-huntercory-matthews-rec-listfic
Some general recs: https://www.diigo.com/user/slinkhard/boymeetsworld?page_num=1&type=all&sort=updated
Livejournal authors. First writes C/S, second has a short Eric/Shawn, the last some Eric/Jason.
http://wisheswerefish.livejournal.com/
http://pristineserene.livejournal.com/tag/boy%20meets%20world
http://pocketedwocket.livejournal.com/tag/tv%3A%20boy%20meets%20world
Here's the tag for Eric/Shawn at AO3, oncethrown and imamaryanne are particularly good.
There's a tag for Jack/Eric, Shawn/Eric, and there's even some Jack/Rachel/Eric. No Eric/Jason on A03 yet, I might just have to get off my arse and finish mine.
http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Shawn%20Hunter*s*Eric%20Matthews%20(Boy%20Meets%20World)/works
http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Jack%20Hunter*s*Eric%20Matthews%20(Boy%20Meets%20World)/works
My tag, it's all Cory/Shawn so far: http://archiveofourown.org/users/slinkhard/works
Misc recs on tumblr/ff.net. Last one is an Eric/Shawn fic.
http://slinkhard.tumblr.com/post/126982482383/crumbling-a-coryxshawn-au-drabble
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7055842/1/Five-Things-that-Happened-To-Minkus-and-Shawn
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6999802/1/In-Time
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Date: 2015-08-18 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-18 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-19 09:01 pm (UTC)Again, thank you!
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Date: 2015-08-18 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-19 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-20 08:31 pm (UTC)unfortunately when I searched prime for bmw, it brought up are you afraid of the dark as a suggested alternative, and now the tv has been taken over by some truly ridonkulus 90s canadian "horror".
I used to have a crush on the dude with the glasses, but I can tell you right now, he is NOT as pretty in hindsight as Eric still is.
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Date: 2015-08-20 09:13 pm (UTC)I don't think I've ever seen "Are You Afraid of the Dark". It's one that people reference to me and I make sage noises, but I just know it through pop culture I think...
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Date: 2015-08-22 11:04 am (UTC)it is amazingly 90s and canadian. and there is some shockingly bad acting.
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Date: 2015-08-23 09:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-23 12:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-08 07:50 pm (UTC)also, the way Mars says "dogs check in, but they don't check out" makes it sound like thats the pounds motto, rather than Mars making an off the cuff remark.
I can't tell if that's supposed to be a real cat watching through the windows at the pound, or if it's a stuffed cat attached to the fishing lines used to lure the dogs to capture.
Whelp, Mister Dithers is dead. Or at least missing a leg. To be fair, he was in league with the cats, and being eaten by dogs pales in comparison to what the cats would have done to him in punishment for his failure to keep the dogs in line.
Ugh, the dogs chanting. The vehemently whispered chant of "Freedom!", "bite the hand that feeds us!", "doorknob!", "smash the chamber!" and the increasingly loud and menacing "metal mouth!" at the end of the episode - so scary when I was a kid, and still pretty creepy now.
And Steve panics, and runs, and the dogs chase him down and kill him and eat him and then Fluffy delivers his mangled retainer to Mars as a warning to keep his mouth shut if he wants to live.
Edgar tells Marshall at the end of this episode that he "lived to tell the tale". The fortune cookie at the start of No Brain No Pain gives Mars the same prediction. I like to think that the whole series is actually narrated by an adult Marshall, who sends his stories out into the world disguised as fiction, after getting increasingly frustrated and jaded about getting anybody to believe him about the centre of weirdness for the entire planet.
They probably believe him about the centre of shitty parenting, though. Jesus.
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Date: 2015-08-09 03:05 am (UTC)Secondly, this bit: I like to think that the whole series is actually narrated by an adult Marshall, who sends his stories out into the world disguised as fiction, after getting increasingly frustrated and jaded about getting anybody to believe him about the centre of weirdness for the entire planet.
That is probably my #1 headcanon for the series. I feel very much like Marshall graduated high school and went to college elsewhere. As fascinating as I'm sure the post-secondary education system would be in Eerie, I think he would look at it from a hero's journey sort of perspective--to defeat the monster, he has to step away from the battle and train elsewhere until he is strong enough to win. But of course, half of his battle is getting people to believe the monster exists. When he gets fed up with trying to convince them, he turns it into 'fiction' instead.
I considered this a lot at one point, because I thought it would make a good background for a Mars/Dash post-series fic, with Marshall having left Eerie for 15 or 20 years and then moving back.
(I should actually go rewatch the episodes now that I know you're doing this. I have not been the best at keeping up with my DW reading list/LJ flist over the past few months.)
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Date: 2015-08-09 09:06 am (UTC)There's so many bits in the show where Mars is like, "someday the world will be ready for the truth" or "you'll find out what I already know", and I'm like, it won't. They won't. Outside of Eerie, you're blatently on your own, and inside, the people who know about it aren't going to acknowledge it.
I considered this a lot at one point, because I thought it would make a good background for a Mars/Dash post-series fic, with Marshall having left Eerie for 15 or 20 years and then moving back.
This. THIS, so much.
With shades of "is it possible I really did imagine it?" because he's been gone so long, and everyone has been telling him it wasn't real for years (Edgar: "You know Marshall, he never fotgets anything. Heck, he even remembers things that didn't happen!") and in turning the artifacts in this evidence locker into fiction, he's already self-editing, ordering events more sensibly so the story runs better, and like, maybe his editor is all, put a little romance in there! how close were you and sara-bob, your readers want to know!
And then he comes back and its like, holy shit, thats actually really REAL, andandand I really want to read this now omg!
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Date: 2015-08-10 04:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-10 08:54 pm (UTC)He was all about Fluffy up until Fluffy wanted to eat him, he's so desperate to make a connection with another living thing that he befriended a cash machine, he was willing to call a vet for a werewolf who was suffering head trauma, and animals are generally co sidered to be nicer than people, a view I think he'd subscribe to, given his life experiance.
I doubt his shitty parents would have paid for vetinary school, but I think, after Mars leaves, he gets a job at an animal shelter (not the pound, a proper one) and works his way up. A few workplace development programmes to fund the class fees, he moves into Marshall's old room to save on rent, maybe there's still a bit of Mister Wilson's programming floating around in Eerie's banking systems... he could totally do it.
Also, headcanon, Things Incorporated are one of those companies that is big on supporting local charities and enterprises in the town where it sets up shop.
Dash, I have no idea though...
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Date: 2015-08-11 03:07 am (UTC)Re: Dash, having pondered on it today, I have found myself growing fond of the idea of him owning a bar. After all, it wouldn't unfeasible to imagine that some paperwork turned up some hand-wavy amount of time after Ned's departure, leaving (among other assets) ownership of the Loyal Order of Corn lodge to his "grandson." Because, I mean, Ned surely wasn't dealing with the Order 24/7. Out of uniform, he'd just be another old dude on the street, and he could've been quietly observing Dash for a while before TLOoC, preparing for the possibility that his plan would succeed and that he might want/need to provide for his replacement since he also knew (or lied through his teeth) that Dash needed to stay in Eerie.
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Date: 2015-08-11 04:51 pm (UTC)I can see dash owning a bar, or like, maybe rental properties? with a name on the paperwork that is just the fake name that ned used and now hes inherit ed it, and to the public hes just like the handyman/rental agent so nobody puts together the kid with the grey hair with this dude on paper that owns a boarding house or a bar or whatever...
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Date: 2015-08-12 06:52 am (UTC)Dash though. I'm kinda headcanoning him as being a bit of a drifter. He floats in and out of town on the trail of any clues about where he came from/just trying to survive. He's rough around the edges, but charming,
has probably sold himself in more ways than one a few times, and a skilled con artist by now. When Marshall returns to Eerie he finds Simon easily enough (maybe even has an acquaintance type contact with him through his family and Facebook anyway), but Simon's not heard from Dash in a long time, and Mars finds himself unexpectedly disappointed.....no subject
Date: 2015-08-12 01:01 pm (UTC)omg WHY do we not have ei/wtnv crossover fic yet, for realsies?
I so want simon and koshek stories now...
itd be interesting to see dash as an adult still living a life outside the 'normalish' confines of eerie, and how hes gone from being sort of snarky and immoral but essentially still a kid,to the harder edged and darker aspect of that life now that hes not a kid. horrible and depressing, but interesting -it could make for some amazing dark!fic
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Date: 2015-08-12 04:42 pm (UTC)omg WHY do we not have ei/wtnv crossover fic yet, for realsies?
I so want simon and koshek stories now...
itd be interesting to see dash as an adult still living a life outside the 'normalish' confines of eerie, and how hes gone from being sort of snarky and immoral but essentially still a kid,to the harder edged and darker aspect of that life now that hes not a kid. horrible and depressing, but interesting -it could make for some amazing dark!fic
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Date: 2015-08-10 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-10 08:44 pm (UTC)One of the later Narnia books has this whole bit where they talk about Susan, and she's basically doing the same thing; when the other then-kids-now-adults bring up all the stuffthat happened in Narnia, she's all like, "Oh, how funny that you remember the games we played when we were little" and that biz.
Except I think at the end she doesn't go to heaven because she's forgotten magical Jesus Lions or something, which seemed really harsh to tiny!me, so that can just not be hoe it ends for Marshall.
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Date: 2015-08-12 07:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-12 12:54 pm (UTC)which is a REALLY harsh judgement just because she likes pantyhose and lipstick...
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Date: 2015-08-11 03:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-11 05:25 pm (UTC)thats what I imagine mars would be feeling when he comes back and starts slowly realising that it was all real after all!
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Date: 2015-08-12 07:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-12 12:51 pm (UTC)Landy has this character, Skulduggery Pleasant, who is a magical skeleton who fights crime and the stories in the collection are from his universe but not necessarily about him, so you can read the collection without having read all the SkullyP books. Although they are amazing and well worth reading, fyi.