The Anxious Octopus

Mainly obsessed with the Spongebob musical, amid other chaos

[spockvarietyhour]

Priorities

[spockvarietyhour]

Priorities

[timrousbeastie]

“He’s the only one who can manage my Deliveroo account” is one of the lines of the season for me. It’s the thinnest possible excuse 🤣

Also enjoying the face of a man who has *not* been briefed on how to deal with Jackson Lamb. Presumably, neither Taverner nor Flyte care if Lamb eats him alive and he got rid of Molly Doran without even having the courtesy to inform her in person, so she wouldn’t piss on him if he were on fire.

[asexual-squidward]

Jackson Lamb Taskmaster Quotes

I found an old forum post suggesting Greg Davies should play Jackson Lamb when the TV show was announced, and now I'm going through Taskmaster quotes that Jackson Lamb could easily say:

"How dare you even speak."

"Yeah, you're right. That's how little regard I have for him. I haven't even registered his real name."

"Literally you are as stealthy as a cow."

"You've seen his face, it ruined his life!"

"It's like we've set you a tricky thing to do and then we've also given you personally the extra challenge of being [River Cartwright]."

[florart98]

There's something so devastating about Jackson not letting Shirley see Marcus' body, but also not letting River find out about Sid's death from Ho, and also letting Louisa go back to work after Min's death.

Something about understanding the pain of losing a partner, wanting to protect them in some way, even if it's clumsy, even if it's wordless. He doesn't want Shirley to go out because he knows the horror that will torment her for the rest of her life, he doesn't want River to find out from Ho because he knows how difficult it is to receive that news, he lets Louisa continue her work because he never stopped either, he simply continued, continued until he couldn't do it anymore. Until the bottle was the only thing waiting for him on the other side.

[montanabohemian]

#He just wants to protect them in his own way.

[asexual-squidward]

Between the O.B Cartwright, Frank and Jackson Lamb - I just can't believe that River has 3 dads and they're all shaking their heads at him

[asexual-squidward]

Shout out to Slow Horses for having a character called Molly who is actually cool and not either a dog, an airhead or a prostitute in Victorian London

[tinkertailorsoldierguy]

future me educating the youths

[asexual-squidward]

Every episode that goes by Jackson Lamb becomes more and more captivating.

A guy so deeply damaged by a lifetime in the spy service during the cold war, hunted and tortured by the stazi (and if the story is true, watch the woman he loved and their unborn baby be murdered infront of him) and losing countless other people in the meatgrinder of the Service - only to then discover the guy in charge of it all is the reason why so many of his people died, and he is roped into executing him by his handler before being quietly dismissed for the crime of following orders.

So he holes up in unofficial retirement in a rundown office building slowly drinking and smoking himself to death through sheer force of self-loathing.

And yet he spends all of his time protecting the group of fuckups that have been dumped on his doorstep, while simultaneously trying to annoy them and drive them as far away as from him emotionally as humanly possible.

Jackson Lamb you are a fucking maniac let people in what the fuck

[hyper-fics-sationn]

Personally I’d like to thank S5 E6 of Slow Horses for basically confirming that the only thing that’s stopping Jackson from being openly in love with Catherine is because the last time he allowed someone in like that, they got quite literally and physically ripped away from him right in front of his eyes 🥲

‘Scars’, yeah… emotionally and physically 🥲

[asexual-squidward]

I don't even necessarily ship them but YES, it explains so much about Jackson and why Slough House exists in the first place.

Like he has gone full Elsa with the whole forced isolation in the effort to purposefully distance himself from the world and anyone he could possibly care about: romantic, platonic, familial or even coworker-friends.

Because the Service has taken everything from him, including any kind of happy future he could have imagined for himself.

So if he ensures no one loves him he can't love anyone else and their inevitable loss won't hurt.

But it still does

[patrickjane]

[asexual-squidward]

Jackson Lamb: [shuts himself away in a fortress of fuck-ups, grossness and assholishness in an effort to push everyone away after years of trauma and torture from being a spy in the Cold War because he can't bear to lose anyone else he cares about.]

also Jackson Lamb, collecting children by the season: Godfucking dammit I'm going to turn this car around

[gheycowboyespressokell]

I absolutely love the difference in the way that Jackson Lamb and River Cartwright go about being spies.

Lamb takes in a piece of information, forms a hypothesis, then pretends he doesn’t know or understand that information in order to learn more from people refuting him. He uses his position as a chronically dislikable prick to pull information out of people who don’t want to deal with him, or want to put him in his place. He’s careful, so much smarter than he looks, and he only approaches a solution once he has all the pieces comfortably under control.

River hears one piece of entirely unverified information and sprints face-first into some drywall to try and save the day.

[wetorturedsomefolks]

love island should introduce a "scheming eunuch" islander who is like a smart and completely asexual islander exempt from being kicked off or being made to participate in any challenges and they're just there to provide advice and be a sort of sounding board for the other islanders when they need a disinterested party to talk things through with. but the scheming eunuch has secret goals unbeknownst to anyone e.g. a cash prize for talking a certain couple into breaking up etc.

[thegrimcaptain95]

Set Love Island somewhere cold and I will happily be the scheming eunuch. Please. I need a holiday and want to cause mischief and chaos. I will be nice, and utterly unhinged.

[asexual-squidward]

Being a fan of both Operation Mincemeat and Slow Horses is watching two very different (fictionalised) versions of MI5

Rag-tag group of oddballs stuck in a dusty administrative space away from the main action of the service, considered as a joke and dismissed by their bosses while working on a madcap scheme while the leader of their group has links to Russian spies.

A rag-tag group of of- oh wait.

[boozehund-blog]

ppl who celebrate fictional character birthdays are annoying pass it on

[wolfprud3-deactivated20170620]

FUCK this post and happy birthday sonic

[bitterblackboricua]

[julie-su]

Of course, it’s Sonic’s birthday today! (23rd of June)

[regulargnoll123]

No because imagine you're benjamin linus, proving yourself over and over and over, dedicating your life to a cause, to a person, believing you were chosen for something and leading with that thought. And then A MAN crashed from A PLANE and he suddenly CAN WALK AFTER 4 YEARS OF BEING PARALYZED. And that man sees things and is more of a chosen one than you ever were and ever will be and slowly but surely he starts taking your place. And what are you left with? A tumor in your spine.

ABSOLUTELY Not justifying everything he did before and after but that must have been awful.

[asexual-squidward]

And then you confront your father deity about it and it turns out oops he never loved you or cared about you and your entire life (including the death of your daughter) from the age of like 11 was all just manipulation to await This Other Guy who is apparently more important and worthy of love and you cannot undo any of the terrible things you did to try and earn his attention?

Is it father issues? No, its worse

[asexual-squidward]

Rewatching One Of Them for the first time in years and even knowing that 'Henry' is lying through his teeth, the way Sayid jumps to torture SO FAST is kind of hilarious.

Like imo it doesn't actually matter if Henry is telling the truth or not, there are at least 5 additional logical steps between 'Find a random guy in the forest' and 'Locking him in a room and beating him into the ground' but Sayid just skips all additional steps.

(also 'you would remember how deep you dug the grave of the woman you loved' is a cool line but personally I would have blocked something that traumatic out of my memory.)

[asexual-squidward]

Also you've go to hand it to Ben because I can't imagine he planned on them going to torture so quickly upon his arrival. Like he probably assumed they'd be a bit suspicious of him and question him so he could earn their trust a bit before building to that as a worst-case scenario - but no, IMMEDIATELY gets shot with an arrow, beaten into unconsciousness multiple times and threatened with pliers by a grieving Sayid before the day was out.

Also him having to play the character of Henry Gale convincingly while actively waking from unconsciousness? That's impressive goddamn talent right there Ben you mad lad

[asexual-squidward]

Rewatching One Of Them for the first time in years and even knowing that 'Henry' is lying through his teeth, the way Sayid jumps to torture SO FAST is kind of hilarious.

Like imo it doesn't actually matter if Henry is telling the truth or not, there are at least 5 additional logical steps between 'Find a random guy in the forest' and 'Locking him in a room and beating him into the ground' but Sayid just skips all additional steps.

(also 'you would remember how deep you dug the grave of the woman you loved' is a cool line but personally I would have blocked something that traumatic out of my memory.)