#lol this is even longer than the izzy shit whatever i regret nothing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

knowlesian · 2 years

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THIS ONE IS A G E N U I N E REQUEST i mean sure so was the unhinged izzy one but this one i mean for gentle and good reasons, not weird scuzzy little sad idiot man ones.

anyway has anyone seen the gifset contrasting “i could be family”/the goodbye/jim’s return?

i only ask because i need to see the quietest love song play out in full without swapping between tabs.

How’d you find me?

I just followed a trail of twigs... and footprints.

I’ve seen you get lost on the ship sometimes.

oh yeah, buckle up. i’m going full gnaw this like old bubblegum mode from MOMENT ONE today, and i’m not even starting with a scene i mentioned in the half-genuine request, half stubborn refusal to ever let the framing device bit die; these two deserve it. until they get an official ship name (...and maybe even honestly after? when i fall, i fall hard, and as i said: i do so love to commit to the bit) i will continue to call them my muppet babies.

look. i’m not gonna say the writers were subtle here; what i will say is, sometimes you don’t need to be subtle to punch me in the fucking heart.

...also to be a good writer and make your point very well without writing a secret code to discern why izzy is Like That in his word choice about ed’s breakup self-help book era, but the heart-punching is sort of my main focus here. izzy makes me want to write unhinged meta so i can poke at his dumb sad brain to see if maybe i can discern the source of his inability to take a fuckin’ chill pill (or a dick, as that is His Whole Weird Hangup, see: dickclouds) and maybe fix it? if not that, then mock him a lot.

jim and olu make me want to write unhinged meta because they are so, so unbearably gentle and revolutionary for it that when i think about them, i feel like maybe i’m dreaming.

they make me so unhinged the izzy shit looks like nothing. it is known that i am Deeply Normal and Fine about izzy; i am absolutely feral about these two. though neither of them need me to and jim in particular might find the challenge refreshing, i would fight a bear for them, your honor. a bear from space. with lasers.

fuck you, hypothetical space bear with your fucking space lasers, i will say. what did you say about my babies? i will SEE YOU OUTSIDE and not in the loving way i will see the entire team of monster/lighthouses who created and then brought this show to life outside. in the “i’m gonna die, i can’t fucking fight a normal bear and then there’s the LASERS?” way.

...right! textual analysis, i said.

there’s an obvious joke at play. jim is having an Emo Moment, and vico plays this first bit of the scene to convey that, in way in a fun, subtle way i really love; when olu first approaches, they don’t look at him and deliver their question to the vague middle distance, Woe and Burden starting to settle back onto their shoulders.

they are back in their original non-muppet movie context, and in this world when your half-orange rolls up to try and take your emotional temperature you don’t turn to look at people when you say something vaguely badass and dramatic.

and since in those sorts of canons, you don’t get a practical answer to those kinds of questions, olu’s deeply muppet explanation about the granular details of how he found jim is even funnier than it would be if he said it to anybody other than maybe izzy. subverting expectation is one of the general staples of comedy, so there’s that box checked; jim turning to face olu as they give the affectionate/exasperated response that they’ve seen olu get lost on the goddamned ship is also funny.

but then here’s the not subtle but so good heart punching part. olu, who gets lost in the ship, never has any trouble finding jim. he follows the twigs and their footprints, until he finds the heart that beats out the same rhythm as his own, and reminds jim they don’t have to exist in this world alone if they don’t want to.

this is why i love jim just appearing out of nowhere when they return to finally kiss the living daylights out of olu’s beautiful face so i can scream and kick my feet with glee every single time i watch it: i know, the linear time muppets among us are still blowing their stacks over this, but i’m a galaxy brain muppet. olu can always find jim; it stands to reason jim can always find olu. that’s just the way it works, when you’re two halves of an orange meant to make a whole, even if you have to either bend time or teleport to get there. so you teleport! rules on how you bridge the distance are more like guidelines when you decide to take the risk and allow your heart to beat in a chest that isn’t your own; wherever one of you goes, there the other one will eventually be. to speak in the love language of two other big ol’ dopes who make an orange together and also own my heart: that’s the dot in the i. it’s jeremy freaking bearimy, baby.

which brings me to:

She’s a lot. But she’s my only family.

Well, look. If you wanted... I could be family.

“if you wanted.” oh, olu. a man who probably holds community dearest, but keeps respect and autonomy nestled close enough they’re an indistinguishable part of the desire to bring people into the light where he’s so, so comfortable. i want to be your family jim, of course i want to—but do you want me to be? this is why someone like jim allowed olu to speak for them, before they put together the words to do so for themselves. because he loves jim with all his wonderful heart, and still he asks: what do you want? what would make you happy? those things have just as much value to me as getting to hold you close and call you mine.

there is an ache deep in my heart when i ask myself this question: how does a man who was named by people who knew the words to their own songs and had the space to learn how to let them ring out loud find himself in a place where piracy was his only recourse, and jim his only family in sight?

(please oh please, in the s2 i refuse to accept could ever not be inevitable, with my whole goddamned muppet heart, i would like to meet some of olu’s first family. many of the answers i come up with when i ask myself that terrible question are ones that say this would be impossible, but yet: again and again, like olu, i choose to believe the world can be kinder if i throw my heart against the bars of the cage, and grab at every piece of joy i can until they can’t fucking stop me from finding out what’s outside.)

what i want aside, and whatever happened between then and now, here olu is: planted amidst the citrus trees, food in his belly from his welcome into the heart of jim’s childhood. offering, not demanding: i could be family, too, if you wanted me to. we could be family. we sing the same song. our stories are different, the paths we walked to get to this moment are different, but i hear you. and as olu leans in, heart in his beautiful, kind eyes: he reflects the world back as jim sees it, joyously singing from the same hymnal.

his warmth says, even here, where they used to call you another name and are still having trouble holding as fast as you might like to not doing so anymore, i know you are jim: jim, who has never been anything but. who trusted me to hold their truth in my steady hands and speak for them; oh, how i see you.

i see you, in all your complications, all your flaws and your faults, your glories and your triumphs: i see you. i don’t lie to myself, because love based upon keeping the truth locked away can never last, but i love you because of, not in spite of. i love it all: all of it is you. unconditional and true.

this sort of love, olu’s easy, accepting love, is the best definition of holy i will ever be able to give.

(also, they nearly kiss and the way they frame olu’s 10000000% teal earring is CHURLISH. AND. INSUBORDINATE. i get it, jim: teal’s my favorite color now, too. how could it not be? listen to the way this man says cake!!!!)

is it now painfully obvious olu is the character i actually love best? not just like, but love. because he is. i love everyone in this silly/genius intersectional pirate bar (even you, dizzy izzy) if only because i choose to extend that even the worst of us, when it comes down to it: i hold people accountable, but if i stop believing everyone yet drawing breath has the ability to be better than they were yesterday and even become someone i might want to call my home, i think i’ll probably have to relocate to a cave in the proverbial hinterlands, never to return.

i think olu understands this; when their moment is interrupted and jim decides the next part of their journey needs to take place alone, olu doesn’t even try to dissuade them. his love is the fire at the heart of the lighthouse, burning bright and steady. wherever jim goes, there they are. and there olu’s love shall be. jim carries it with them, now, a twin flame burning alongside their own. a beacon, guiding them home.

i want to admit something before i talk about the hat slap, because that and jim slapping at the dumb little cup and practically yelling SCATTER! SERPENTINE, SERPENTINE! as they dash off to do something stupid are my handkerchief/Boot Touch for these two.

it’s about the boot touch. if you had asked me before they casually confirmed taika improv’d it, i would have sworn up and down it had to be scripted. it’s so good! it’s the boot version of darcy’s hand clenching and it’s a visual joke i think about all the time. they knocked boots! they knocked BOOTS. that’s so stupid and funny and good. so yeah, i would have said to you: no way that wasn’t scripted. it’s too all-around perfect.

BUT: FUCKIN. TAIKA. nope! i would have been a big old dummy and deeply wrong.

with that in mind: i’m gonna guess the hat slap (and honestly, the cup too) were probably just vico and samson being ridiculous and unfairly good at this. if i start talking about how this entire group of actors is collectively a blessing and a joy i will never fucking shut up but let me just say: finding people who just get their characters and are funny as fuck themselves is the magic ingredient for a cast like this.

(still can’t believe nobody planned that damn boot thing out in advance. i mean: they KNOCKED BOOTS. why is everyone involved in this working at their absolute peak!!! it is very cool!!!! thanks everyone!!!! love you!!!! see you in the denny’s parking lot!!!!)

so: the hat slap.

do me a favor: imagine jim’s response to anyone else on the crew getting up in their space, let alone batting at the brim of their hat. got it? good. keep that hilarious shitshow pinned while i contrast it with what happens with olu.

jim’s eyes flick down (the sense that they both want to go in for the kiss again but share the understanding it’s once again, just not the right time: ooof. so good. i’m SO MAD AT THESE TWO) and then as olu walks away, they smile.

like, a wholeass no holds barred actual smile. full-on little kid who just got a gold star on the sticker chart impossible to repress pleased grin. it’s so sweet. we found out this episode the vibe that jim never learned the value of a good afternoon nap is because their ability to be a kid who just chills out, safe to screw around and do silly shit died an abrupt death with their family, and here’s olu: bringing big dumb muppet fun into their life, right up until the last second.

the regret and resolve come right after but now jim has olu’s promise of safe harbor stashed away with a kiss owed and it’s off to be badass with jackie (how fucking great is leslie in this, by the way?) until olu’s beacon guides them home.

Why’d you give it away?

I, um... I missed you.

the way olu’s eyes light up when he first sees jim, like he’s just been handed everything he ever wanted and never thought he’d get. i just can’t with samson, i can’t.

before ed rolled up to save izzy’s dumb ass from being thrown overboard, olu was told by the ragtag group of dummies who have also become his home they wanted him to be their captain. he had seen his true value laid out in no uncertain terms, before the chance to lead was taken away from him just as fast as it was offered.

he might say he doesn't want the job, but he could do it. he could do it well and olu knows that, but now he’s not going to be captain after all and worse: he still doesn’t have jim. he’s been pining for the runtime of nearly two whole episodes for them and he can't bear to be in the space where jim’s absence looms largest at the same time all he wants is to go back to sleeping there. that’s where olu can touch the echoes of home and remind himself: he had to wait for jim once already to find it before, he can do it again.

the thing olu knows that makes him so wonderful and able to see people clearly and love them just as hard as ever is that as long as he’s open and looks for it, once he finds the people he’d like to fill it with home is never doing more than waiting for your return, arms open and cake ready.

and now he has jim who was in the room they share literally waiting for his return. i think there was a piece of olu that fell just a little bit more in love there, in a way he didn’t even know was possible. olu is steady; a hearthfire, the kind of warmth you can depend on. he is so often waiting for people to come home to him; and he wants them to. it’s who he is, but the difference between “i was waiting for you, and now you’re back” to “you waited for me; this is a moment when i needed you to comfort me so much it made me ache, and you were just magically here” is just... so very deeply unfair. i mean, jesus fuck, leave me here to weep, etc etc etc. SO unfair.

also unfair, jim kissing his fucking face off and launching both of them back onto the bed together.

there’s this deeply cool and genuinely beautiful part in the bible where they take a little break to do some slam poetry about sex, called the songs of songs. (it’s also about the beauty of having dark skin; i would lay down my life these are both things the writers know about, particularly because there are places it gets Arguably Gay, too.) it’s referred to as the song of solomon as well, alongside a handful of other things, but i’ve always been partial to the emotional resonance of how the first one hits me.

sing not just a song; sing a song of songs. sing not just your song, but the song of every other person alive, all raised together in joyful, unified noise.

the part people tend to know because it’s the part most writers like best is “let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.” and no shade to a very good line, but i just want to throw down a later verse that gets less play and deserves so much more.

His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven / His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set / His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh / His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires / His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold: his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars / His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

first, this is obviously olu as fuck, because he is not just a snack he is the whole damn meal and dessert besides (respectful).

but: this is my beloved, and this is my friend. usually when people say “oh, the sex isn’t the point” it’s to hide their discomfort and sweep sex had by people they don’t understand in ways they don’t understand off as a sort of niche interest, a conversation piece and not someone’s source of joy.

the sex may not be the point, but it is now Part of It and olu is the little spoon because this isn’t izzy’s sad weird need for tenderness found only through completing all the intricate rituals needed to even begin to fumble uselessly towards grace, and then heading out back to beat metaphors about dicks and daddy issues and god with sticks until they cry.

that’s the old world. this is the new: when it comes to these two, saying the sex isn’t the point here means that before jim and olu ever had a truly excellent first kiss and adorably spooned, jim trusted olu to know the words they wanted to say and how to say them. this is my beloved; this is my friend. wherever they go, there i am.

as with everything on this show, it’s all the point. nana blessed their union in the heart of her church, but olu offered to be family on even holier ground still: the ground jim grew in. all those rough edges, the disappointments and pain that shaped them, refashioned into the place where olu looked at jim and said the words in their hearts out loud: we could be family, but only if you want to.

the old life came back to swallow the new, then, the old fears and vendettas and patterns. but they’re home now, and so jim’s song becomes: i want to. i want you, and together they consecrate yet another space.

in the place they made a home, together they sing a song of songs. they sing it out, and they sing it strong.

...so yeah anyway. anybody seen it?

#our flag means death #ofmd spoilers #oluwande boodhari #jim jimenez #my ofmd meta #MY MUPPET BABIES #O! I LOVE THEM #lol this is even longer than the izzy shit whatever i regret nothing #feels AT ELEVEN #i love them your honor i would fight an army of those damn space bears for them #there are two vibes to this: the holly holy sections and the jackie and wilson sections #...no okay there's also one come healing section #i'm MAKING JESUS SHIT ABOUT SEX AGAIN #this time it's healthy don't worry #many thanks to @tothetrashwhereibelong for a million reason but rn shepherding this into the world with me

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