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peachdoxie · 4 years

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Aliens? Please explain

If you’re reading this, beware of MAJOR SPOILERS for the entirety of the Stormlight Archive so far, and brace yourselves for a massive infodump. Also I tried to put this under a read more but for whatever reason tumblr put it inside the ask itself.

Yes, there are many aliens or descendants of aliens in the Stormlight Archive. First, though, a bit of an astronomy lesson...

Stormlight takes place in a dwarf galaxy, with a series of planets orbiting different stars. This is known as the “cosmere,” Some of these planets are known as Shardworlds, meaning they have been Invested with magic energy (called Investiture), which manifests differently from Shardworld to Shardworld.

The cosmere is comprised of three Realms: the Physical Realm, the Cognitive Realm, and the Spiritual Realm. The Physical Realm is much like ours, though it has magic in it. The Cognitive Realm is the Realm of thoughts and minds, where ideas - how something thinks of itself - exist in pseudo-corporal forms (the exact metaphysics is unknown). The Spiritual Realm is the Realm of souls and how they Connect to each other. Note: everything has a soul, even non-living things. All three Realms exist universally in the Invested parts of the cosmere.

The Cognitive Realm is the most important of the three Realms in this discussion. While the Cognitive Realm roughly maps to the Physical Realm, distances aren’t quite the same, meaning that some things that are physically far apart are closer together in the Cognitive Realm. Some things have more cognitive presence than others (think humans vs a rock) and this corresponds to the size of their manifestation in the Cognitive Realm. Since there is very little cognitive presence in outer space, due to it being a vacuum, planets end up very close to each other in the Cognitive Realm.

It is possible for a person to transition between the three Realms at certain spots, called Perpendicularities, provided that that person is aware of how the cosmere works and/or is Invested enough to transition between Realms on their own. From here, they can “physically” navigate through the Cognitive Realm, using the shortened distances between planets as a way to “worldhop.” People who worldhop are called worldhoppers. Worldhoppers are the cosmere equivalent of extraterrestrial life.

Every book in the four main cosmere worlds - Stormlight, Mistborn, Elantris, and Warbreaker - have featured at least one worldhopper, though you have to be rather cosmere-aware to spot him sometimes (I’ll give you a hint: he often takes the form of a beggar or storyteller, and thinks himself very witty...). In Stormlight, which takes place on the planet Roshar - also the name of its only continent - there have been at least 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...plus another 10.............a lot. Big things are happening on Roshar, cosmere-wise, and a lot of people are making their way there, mostly for unknown reasons.

But this is in present-day Roshar, and not actually that big of a spoiler. This information is all part of the behind-the-scenes story of the cosmere that we get glimpses of through the various books and short stories. So what’s up with the big plot twist that most of the characters from Stormlight are descended from worldhoppers, aka aliens?

Well, for that we need to turn to some theology: specifically, Vorin theology, the main church in eastern Roshar that many of our beloved Alethis follow (or outright reject, in one case). Vorinism’s basic cosmology is as follows:

Humans once lived in the Tranquiline Halls, a world of peace.

The Voidbringers came from Damnation and drove them out to Roshar.

The ten Heralds fight the Voidbringers during each of the Desolations, a time of cataclysmic destruction that wipes out nearly all of humanity. They are accompanied by the Knights Radiant: normal people given the ability to Surgebind, or the ability to manipulate Roshar’s Investiture.

In Ahariatiam, the Last Desolation, the Heralds finally forced the Voidbringers back into the Transquiline Halls, where to this day the Heralds continue the fight against them.

Humans, when they die, return to the Tranquiline Halls. If they excelled in their Callings - what they are best at and devote themselves to developing - they will join the Heralds in their fight against the Voidbringers. Normal people just sleep, waiting the day when the battle is over.

The exact nature of the Tranquiline Halls is never explained, nor how the humans were expelled by the Voidbringers, but since it’s where human souls return after they die, it’s not a physical place so much as a metaphysical place. It’s like Heaven on earth. It’s not a physical place you go to so much as a non-physical place where your soul goes. This is how the Tranquiline Halls and Damnation (basically Hell) are treated in the Stormlight Archive by the practitioners of Vorinism.

Quite frankly, the average Rosharan doesn’t seem that concerned about the nature of the Tranquiline Halls. That’s a matter for the ardentia, the monks of Vorinism. Instead, Vorins are more concerned about Voidbringers. Though supposedly they’ve been trapped in the Tranquiline Halls with the Heralds, there are many folktales and superstitions about the Voidbringers still existing on Roshar. Knowledge about what, precisely, Voidbringers were is hard to come by. It’s been 4500 years since the Last Desolation, 2000 years since the Knights Radiant abandoned their oaths and betrayed mankind (an event known as the Recreance), and 500 years since a group of ardents known as the Hierocracy attempted to take over all of Roshar, purging as much information as they could of the Knights Radiant and the Recreance. This included much of the information about the nature of the Voidbringers. What _is _known is that they were extremely powerful and very dangerous, bent on destroying humankind after chasing them out of the Tranquiline Halls.

In the first book of Stormlight, Jasnah Kholin, the foremost scholar in all of Roshar (and avowed renouncer of Vorinism), discovered the origins of the Voidbringers: the parshmen. See, humans are not the only sentient humanoid species on Roshar. There are the parshmen, people with hardened carapace instead of skin, who are slaves to most of the kingdoms of Roshar because of their obedience, endurance, and low intellectual ability. Jasnah theorized that, at some point since Ahariatiam, humans figured out how to enslave Voidbringers into parshmen. This is quite the startling realization, because Jasnah, among others, believes that the Voidbringers are coming back. The Last Desolation may not have been so final after all....

In book two, the Voidbringers return. Enough parshmen who weren’t enslaved and retained enough intellectual ability to function (known as the Parshendi) summoned the Everstorm, a cataclysmic hurricane from their god Odium that returns to parshmen their ability to think, thus freeing them from enslavement. And it turns some parshmen into Voidbringers, and each pass of the storm returns more and more of them. The disgraced Knights Radiant have also begun to return, supported by their god, Honor, in order to fight the Voidbringers and protect mankind.

All of this changes in book three, Oathbringer, in chapter 111, “Eila Stele,” towards the end of Part Four, over a million words into the series. The Eila Stele is the oldest known written document on Roshar, carved into a stone and believed to be from before the Desolations began, rumored to be written by the Heralds themselves. However, until Oathbringer, it was written in a dead language called the Dawnchant, for which translations have been lost. Through a specific use of Investiture, though, Jasnah and her scholars are able to translate the Dawnchant and provide a translation of the Eila Stele, which reads:

They came from another world, using powers that we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers, of spren and Surges. They destroyed their lands and have come to us begging.

We took them in, as commanded by the gods. What else could we do? They were a people forlorn, without a home. Our pity destroyed us. For their betrayal extended even to our gods: to spren, stone, and wind.

Beware the otherworlders. The traitors. Those with tongues of sweetness, but with minds that lust for blood. Do not take them in. Do not give them succor. Well were they named Voidbringers, for they brought the void. The empty pit that sucks in emotion. A new god. Their god.

These Voidbringers know no songs. They cannot hear Roshar, and where they go, they bring silence. They look soft, with no shell, but they are hard. They have but one heart, and it cannot ever live.

The original Voidbringers were not parshmen. They were humans who invaded Roshar after destroying their home planet, likely escaping through the Cognitive Realm and emerging into the Physical Realm on Roshar, the nearest planet.

The first and last paragraphs are where we find the proof of this. “They came from another world” is fairly clear, as is “They destroyed their lands.” The last paragraph is where we learn that the Voidbringers were humans, not parshmen, who actually call themselves the “singers”. The references to the Voidbringers bringing silence is due to the fact that singers are attuned to the Rhythms of Roshar, a cosmere-wide series of vibrations throughout the Spiritual Realm, though singers are the only ones able to feel/hear them. Humans cannot, and are therefore “silent.” They also are “soft, with no shell,” referring to the fact that they have skin instead of carapace.

The tl;dr of everything else is that after humans fled to Roshar, they were given land by the singers, who took pity on them. However, humans then tried to conquer other parts of Roshar that belonged to the singers. The singers’ gods (spren, aka parts of Honor) betrayed them for the humans, and so the singers turned to Odium - who had followed/chased/been brought by humans to Roshar from their original home - for help in order to fight back against the humans. In response, the Heralds worked with Honor to trap Odium’s soldiers in Damnation, ushering in the cycle of Desolations. The term “Voidbringer” is associated with Odium, and so basically anyone who’s allied with Odium, and thus became associated with the singers, as they were the soldiers of Odium. Eventually, the humans won. Or so they thought. Now, Odium and his soldiers returned, and humans once more are fighting to defend themselves from the Voidbringers.

This is where our beloved characters find themselves: fighting another war against Odium and the Voidbringers and facing another Desolation. Except this time, the rightfulness of the war is brought into question. Are the humans right to be fighting against the people who were just trying to defend themselves from humans in the first place? Previously, the humans had Honor on their side to ensure them of the morality of their battle, but Honor was killed by Odium shortly after the Recreance, when the Knights Radiant gave up their oaths upon learning the truth about the Voidbringers. Humans have no God to guide them anymore.

We haven’t yet seen the fallout from the translation of the Elia Stele. Pretty much immediately after the translation was published, an Everstorm approached, with only hours to prepare for a massive battle in which Odium made his first major overture of war. The book ended shortly thereafter. We will have to see what happens in book four, which comes out in November.

So yes. The biggest plot twist of the Stormlight Archive thus far is that it is actually a story about dealing with the effects of an alien invasion in which the aliens won but then forgot they were aliens. In book four, there our heroes will have to grapple with the dubious morality of their way and the themes of the book will include discussions about postcolonial theory and decolonization. In this essay I will

#Anonymous #stormlight archive #cosmere #anecdotes by peachdoxie #i left out a whole bunch (mostly about the cosmere behind-the-scenes sotry)#but here's the infodump about aliens in stormlight archive

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starseneyes · 5 years

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Bishmont - A Discovery of Witches - Series 1 - Episode 3

Rae here, back with more Bishmont goodies for the hyper-obsessed. Now, my husband will throw words my way like, “Shipper,” but we each have our things that we get super excited about. Right now, he’s marathoning his way through Star Trek: Discovery after finally completing A Discovery of Witches with me. I have three children (4-year-old twins and a 1-year-old daughter), I run my own Digital Marketing/Media business working 40-50 hours per week, and my daughter is not yet in school, so she is home with me. That means I work every single day and have since June. These write-ups do take a bit of time. I have 20 pages of notes and roughly 200 tabs in my book, but it’s a great release for me and (I hope) some fun for you, too!

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t read the books, beware. I have. I may spoil things. Please be aware.

Now that we’ve gotten that warning out of the way, let’s get into episode 3, when things really start to heat up between Matthew and Diana.

“Matthew.”

Matthew starts the episode in full-on protective mode. He scopes out the library ahead of when he knows Diana usually heads out, and he waits outside her college for her to emerge. He is literally standing there, through the light, through the gate. He hasn’t gone in. He’s not intruding, but he is waiting. He’s waiting for her to cross that threshold to him willingly. It’s a big thing, to me, since in the books he takes advantage of her fear at one point to plant a kiss on her. Yes, she wants him, but he knows that he coaxed it out of her instead of her coming willingly (because that kind of compulsion is within his abilities). So, it means a lot to me as a lover of strong women and strong men who respect strong women that he almost always lets her come to him. Yes, he does try to make decisions for her and hide things from her, but that’s Matthew for you. He is always harboring secrets and hurts.

SIDE NOTE: Anyone else already excited about the church confession about Philippe in Book 2? It HAS to be in the series. It’s just so perfect and I feel like MG will KILL it.

He has his back to her, but he can smell her scent when she approaches, and he turns around, both hands on his car key. He smiles when he sees her face, just a small smirk, but it’s so sweet. I love how she breathes his name, the first time she has called him by his first name. Diana is noticeably not wearing a button-up today. Instead, she has on a sweater, and she looks more at-ease in her own skin.

“I thought that... would you let me take you out for the day instead?”

I love the pause that he takes. He starts to tell her his thoughts on their day and how it should go, but then changes gears to make it a question, to ask her for her willingness. I think it’s a subtle shift between his instincts to be the head of the pack and thus control her (which we know he has a tendency to do) versus respecting her bravery and strength.

She looks like she is going to refuse him (which is perfectly acceptable) before Gillian shows up. Diana looks to Matthew, and I love the little nod of his head, like, “Sure, go deal with her. I’ll wait.” He steps aside, but we know that he can hear the whole conversation. He knows that Diana trusted Gillian, that she betrayed that trust, that is she is taken in with Peter Knox, and that she thinks of Matthew as “that” and not even a person. There’s such venom in her words.

“Look, I know that you’re angry with me, I understand, but that does not mean that you need to spend time with that.”

As usual, his hands are occupied, one shoved in his pocket, the other holding the key. But when Gillian calls him out for being a thing instead of a person, his hand has left the pocket. It hangs by his side as he waits for Diana’s decision.

She looks to him, her eyes meeting his, and there’s that pull again. It’s that part of her that knows he is hers as much as he is trying to deny that she is his. Diana walks past Gillian without another word, her decision made. Matthew whips open the door, chivalrous as he was when he pulled out the chair for her at the lab, but she wants him to know she’s still an independent woman.

“I can open my own door.”

Matthew smirks. Her independence doesn’t bother him. It’s part of why he’s falling in love with her. He’s positively smitten.

SIDE NOTE: The first time I watched the car ride, I laughed. My husband was terrified when we were riding in Sommerset with my family friend, Tony. These types of roads terrify him. When my husband watched the episode with me later, he immediately commented on the roads and asked, “Are they crazy!?” Having grown up in the country (relative), I’m not as afraid of narrow roads as he, my lovely city boy. I remember how he’d cringed as we rode down them to the thatched roofed home in Sommerset where we tasted our first rhubarb pies. Anyways...

Matthew glances over at Diana as they ride. They’re in the car with the windows up, so no doubt her scent is filing the car. He looks over to her, glancing at her before she responds with a glance of her own. She leans back in the seat, getting more comfortable, her body relaxing. He states that they’re going to his “house” and I love that subtle nod to the books. If we are to assume this is the Old Lodge (again, thank God there’s no Yoga), then this is, indeed, his “house” while Sept-Tours is his “home.” He tells Diana as much in the books, but it’s never outright spoken in the series.

But, this is still a big step for him. She arrived at All Souls of her own volition, and he brought her into his work. Now, he’s allowing her to glimpse a piece of his past. He goes to the gate, unlocking the lock himself before throwing the gates wide. Once they enter the house, Matthew starts opening curtains, letting in light bit by bit, curtain by curtain. It’s an apt metaphor for the man himself. He’s stayed shrouded in darkness for so long, denying there would ever be someone who could be his mate, the love of his life. He’s hidden away all the pieces of himself, locking them up, casting them in shadows, ignoring them like the humans who would rather think Vampires pretend than probe into the strangeness around them. With Diana, Matthew has found a reason to open up, at last. He doesn’t even realize that it’s happening within him as much as it is happening on the outside.

SIDE NOTE: I love the peacock. I wonder if they sought out the peacock or just happened to find it and said, “Follow that bird! We need the shot!” Peacocks fan their feathers to attract mates. There’s a bit of preening there, and I feel like Matthew is doing a little of that, too.

“I always keep my Christian name.”

Does this line make anyone else think of The Importance of Being Earnest? Just me? Okay...

“You’re French!” “Don’t you ask a lot of questions?”

I love his smile here. It’s bemused and smitten all at once. She looks around and he puts his hand on the banister, acting with that thumb, again. They talk about his family, and I love the use of the term “Stepfather” as it relates to their family tree.

While they’ve been on this first floor, I love that Diana is touching everything she can. I don’t know if that was a brilliant choice by TP or in the script, but it seems so accurate to her. She is a historian, and in the book there’s much you can learn from something by touching it. I can see her wanting to touch everything she can, connecting back with the fast.

Upstairs, Diana sits at the desk, gingerly looking through the alchemy book that belonged to, I assume, Hugh. He seems to be the most beloved of the de Clermonts, and he’s one we never meet. He is known by reputation only, but I still would love to know a touch more of his story. Matthew has poured wine for them both, and he sits with his leg crossed, holding a glass in his right hand. His left hand is restless. It’s the same one he held to his mouth in the Bod when he sat across from her. It’s the same one he’s going to put to his mouth when he talked to Hamish about Diana in Episode 5.

He watches her, taken by her beauty, her studious nature, her curiosity. For the briefest of moments, he just drinks her in. It has to set off an alarm in his head, that familiar mantra of, “She’s not for you” that he has to fill the silence with words, to get things back on track to the book. Diana looks a little taken aback. She was really enjoying herself with him, but he needed to break that connection to keep from feeling too relaxed himself, too off-guard.

I love that they moved up Matthew’s notice of her magic being based on instinct and need. I also love that he tests it. It reminds me of the Directors Cut of Superman II when Lois Lane tests Superman by shooting him with a blank. It’s testing a hypothesis, looking for an answer, and trying to bring it to light rather than sitting back and waiting for something, anything, to happen.

“You were born to be a witch, just as you were born to have blond hair, or those blue eyes.”

I love the take on “and those blue eyes.” In the books, it’s just “and blue eyes.” There’s something flirtatious in the direct call-out, the acknowledgement, and Diana seems to receive it. She flashes him her dazzling smile almost as a thank you. Matthew has his hands shoved in his pockets as they walk (I’m so not coordinated enough to do that on stairs).

“And you?” “Well, I was born a human.”

Do you see that side-eye? The way he just looks over at her with a smile playing at his lips. He knows what she wants to know. It reminds me of T’Pol and Trip on Star Trek: Enterprise and how he always wanted to know her age. She shared it with him only in the later seasons when they were closer to one another, had been intimate with one another, and were flirting with getting together as a star-crossed couple of their own. Age can be a very personal thing to share for some point. Matthew has held it close to the breast, but only in a way to tease his beloved. He finally relents, telling her his age.

What pleases her to know how old he is and how much he must have seen is a sobering reminder to him of what a monster he is. He’s killed so many people. He’s a vampire and one with blood rage to boot. He’s a danger to Diana, and he’s terrified of what he’ll do to her, and yet he can’t stay away from her. His instincts are already kicking in. When she invites him to dinner, he looks to her, and he’s clearly torn between those two realities.

SIDE NOTE: I’m glad we skipped her explaining her parents’ death to him. It makes so much more sense that she did it to Sean, a relative outsider. Matthew is a researcher, like her. If he spent so much time reading her writing and learning about her lineage, he should have a clue that her parents died when she was young.

SIDE NOTE AGAIN: Matthew Goode has ONE lock of hair that in this scene (and many others) refuses to stay in place with the rest. It makes me laugh. It reminds me of my middle child, who has my unfortunate cowlick in the middle of his forehead. My hair is long enough to weigh it down, but he has bangs, and that section of hair does whatever it pleases no matter what, much like MG’s seems to. I feel like unless it’s slicked to an inch of its life, his hair does its own thing. Mine is the same way, sadly, which is why my mother used a whole can of RAVE to keep my curls in on my wedding day.

In the books, Diana wants more time alone with him (the circumstances are different, all surrounding the yoga) and the invitation isn’t even the first time they’ve eaten together. Matthew takes her out to eat several times in the city. She prepares a meal for him at her place, and he also feeds her at All Souls (where he shows off his considerable wine cellar). I like this invitation as she pulls her sweater around her. It reminds me of the cool of Matthew’s touch (which my husband jokes on constantly, now, when his hands are cold after I’ve been under the covers and he has not). He gaze cools her. His body cools her. And yet she is as drawn to him as he to her.

SIDE NOTE: I can’t wait to review the whole series. I love Sophie and Nat. They don’t get nearly enough love in the books, and I love their portrayals by the actors here. Sophie gives you that look at the typical demon, a little space-y, but wildly talented and aware. Nat is the hyper-focused creative, like Hamish, an anomaly amongst his kind.

“i’m not in any danger with him.”

I love that Diana (like Diana of the books) is researching wolf eating habits in hopes of cracking the code on what to prepare Matthew.

“He wouldn’t do anything like that.”

Diana is so adamant, so sure about him, that she’d deny he would ever drink her blood to steal her memories. We know that it’s possible, but she doesn’t, and even if it is, she trusts Matthew.

Em and Sarah are a little concerned about Diana’s new beau, but the more Emily listens to Diana, the more she wonders about Rebecca’s prophecies. Rebecca could see the future, and in the books she asks Sarah what is the most impressionable on a young child. Sarah tells Rebecca that it is stories, and so Rebecca tells stories to little Diana that will help her navigate the future. They are all about the witch with the rainbow ribbons and the Shadow Prince.

“The shadow prince that lived between sunset and moon rise?” “Yeah, I used to love those stories.” “What if it’s him?”

Sarah doesn’t want to hear it, but Em can see things that her partner cannot. She can see the future that Rebecca foresaw and wove for her daughter into the comfort of fairy tales. But, Rebecca did her daughter a tremendous favor... she never skipped the bad parts.

“Well, he’s coming to dinner tonight, so I can just ask him.”

Yup. No turning back, now.

“Is he always this controlling?” “With us, yes. But with a witch, it’s a first.”

I love the actor’s delivery on this and his coy smile. Vampires are very good about family lines and following pack orders. While Baldwin is the head of the de Clermont family line, Matthew is only a de Clermont because of his mother’s marriage to Philippe. Baldwin was sired by Philippe. Matthew was sired by Ysabeau, Philippe’s mate. Part of mating is being protective, and we know from the books that Matthew can be very protective. In later books, there are times he finds it unbearable to be separated from his mate as it makes his Blood Rage all the harder to contain. But, if he knows someone he trusts is with her, especially a member of his own family, it makes it easier to bear.

It’s interesting that Diana is back in a button-up. Is she worried about Matthew at all? Is she pulling away a little? Or did she forget to do her laundry? Hard to tell...

“If any vampire’s going to take her blood, it’s going to be me... Are you alright?”

Want to talk about being overbearing and controlling? This is when you see Matthew’s mating habits really presenting themselves, and Miriam is not in the dark at all. Matthew spies what is happening, and notes another vampire about to take blood from Diana. In Vampire culture, to touch another’s mate is almost unforgivable, as we’ve said before. Matthew, especially has difficulty with controlling himself under those circumstances.

When he demands Miriam stop, she does so immediately and hands over the vials without comment. The last thing she should do is provoke him or try to reason with him. She can see the glint in his eye, and she knows how perilously close he is to the edge. She also sees how protective he is over Diana, and that it is definitely growing.

For Matthew, I feel like this is also a victory. He’s been incrementally upping his exposure to Diana. He kissed her flesh. Then, he rode in a car with her, her scent all over the vehicle. Tonight, he’s going to her rooms for dinner. Now, he’s been exposed to her blood directly from the vein and resisted its siren call. His instincts to protect her win out over his desire for her blood.

Yet the ear it fully knows, By the twanging, And the clanging, How the danger ebbs and flows; Yet the ear distinctly tells, In the jangling, And the wrangling. How the danger sinks and swells, By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells

Oh, the bells. I get so tired of the bells. I know it doesn’t seem that bad when you’re just watching one a night or whatnot, but I tend to marathon these in preparation for these posts. It’s a lot of bells clanging and banging and jangling!

“You’re craving her.” “Miriam, how I feel about Diana Bishop has absolutely nothing to do with you.” “She’s a witch. You’re a vampire. You know the rules. It’s forbidden by the terms of the Covenant“ “The Congregation isn’t about to impose a thousand year old rule.”

He has a bottle of wine, and he stops to look at the flowers. In the books, when she invites him to eat at her place, he does bring flowers. I don’t mind the omission of them here. Honestly, they haven’t had as many encounters at this point as they had in the book (price of an adaptation). So, I don’t mind that.

Miriam has at least part of the puzzle. Perhaps she thinks it is out of the question that he would mate with a witch, but this is the last time she sees him before he returns from Sept-Tours in episode 5, so it’s difficult to say. But, she makes her message clear, “You should stay away from the witch.” Matthew makes his message clear with a very clipped, “Bye, Miriam.”

“Get out of my rooms!”

This is a fine piece of performance by TP. Just watch her face as it changes when she realizes Knox stands at her door and not Matthew. She has everything ready for her Vampire boyfriend. The nuts and berries especially excited me since that’s a big thing in the books. When Knox marches in, she is indignant, her “Get out of my rooms” not quite as powerful as her “Get out of my head,” but no less clear.

Matthew can hear everything before he’s close. He really doesn’t need to stand in the door before rushing to Diana’s side, but it’s completely strategic. He wants Knox to see him. He wants Knox to see what he can do. And he wants the son of a witch intimidated.

I also love that he goes to her side and just behind her instead of in front of her. He’s not here to fight her battles for her. He’s not going to diminish her strength to which he is attracted, but he is there to support her. Already, he is fighting her foes with her.

SIDE NOTE: Do you know that feeling when you’re first dating someone and your heart leaps when they walk in the room? How the sound of their knocking on your door sends a flutter through your stomach? How sick to have that moment of elation, wondering if that is the sound of the knock of the person to whom you are attracted, only to find it’s someone you loath?

Knox leaves, and Diana and Matthew are left with one another. It’s not what either of them envisioned. Diana was flitting around doing last minute things, preparing for this special meal with the intriguing Vampire to which she already feels inexplicably tied. He was readying himself for dinner with Diana, trying to convince himself that the Congregation would not care. But there Knox was, as if a not-so-subtle reminder to Matthew that dinner between a Witch and a Vampire wasn’t a common occurrence, even if one of them was the dinner.

Matthew hands Diana the bottle, and while she finds glasses to go with it, he turns his attention to the door. He looks out, finds the lock, and closes the door. It’s such a beautiful thing, really. These are her rooms. He is inside of her private space, this time not as a creepy stalker hellbent on discovering a book, but as a would-be lover on a romantic encounter. He is already placing himself as the protector, as the guardian, as the one who controls the locks to his Diana.

Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the throbbing of the bells— Of the bells, bells, bells

You guessed it! Another transition with bells. There is an overwhelming number of transitions with bells, people, and I know there’s at least one more in this episode because it always bothers me that Diana asks him the time and he says it’s five when we’ve clearly only heard two bells.

Finally alone, Matthew and Diana are eating. MG takes the most perfect bite of food I have ever seen. I mean, seriously, whose mouth does that? He has his jacket off to eat, and it’s the first time we’ve seen him without it around her this episode. The two discuss Vampires at length, and I adore that they created a hybrid line about the “speck” of truth between a line uttered by Matthew in Book 1 and Gallowglass in Book 2. This version really fits this iteration of the character far better.

“Well, our heart don’t beat... very often.”

Are you trying to break the Covenant? Because that, Mr. Vampire, is how you get a Witch all hot and bothered enough to break the Covenant!

“I thought you knew about Vampires. That’s why you invited me to dinner.”

Let me tell you, I was so confused by this line. I would have thought I’d misheard it, but the first time I watched this show I did it with subtitles on, so I could plainly read it and then check MG’s lips for confirmation. I’m not the best lipreader, but I’ve always had trouble with certain lower-registered tones. My hearing is exceptional, beyond abnormal in most frequencies, but there’s one lower one that is easy for others to hear that just disappears almost entirely for me. So, I learned young to watch people’s lips, especially if they try to whisper to me.

Anyway, let me bring you up to speed, in case you hadn’t read the books, either. Matthew is referring to the fact that being around food makes it easier for a Vampire to forget about bleeding out his company. In short, there are so many other scents mixing in the air (and cooked meats especially smell vulgar to Vampires, from what I remember) that they don’t smell the blood as much. It’s much safer to eat with a vampire than to do almost anything else with them.

Matthew has a taste for rare venison, as we saw, something that Book Diana never liked.

Anyway, the two of them are flirting, and he asks her what she tastes in the wine. Of course, her senses are more limited than his, and he has to throw in the Mary Tudor line (which is a nice segue to Book 2 should they preserve that part of the story line). But, Diana in her ignorance and inquisitive naivety asks Matthew was she would taste like. He’s mid sip when the words are uttered, and he forced the wine down his throat.

“Don’t ever. Say that. To me.”

In the words of Marlin from Finding Nemo (remember I have young children), “Good feeling gone.” She just committed the ultimate sin... reminding him that he’s craving her. It’s not that he could ever completely forget. I could liken it to my pilonidal disease. I have a rare chronic condition, and for one year it was an every day thing... the pain. Sometimes, I could almost forget it was there, but not completely. Others, it was excruciating. I was in tears, crying with a pain that my then-surgeon told me was permanent (thank God for second opinions).

Matthew is facing a similar thing. He can almost forget, sometimes, that hunger for her blood. But, she’s crossed the line, and now it’s all he can think about.

“I only asked to understand.” “It would take but a moment. You wouldn’t be able to stop me if I struck, and I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.” “I’m safe with you.”

He’s really trying to warn her here. Listen to what he is saying. “I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.” Yes, she’s seen him keep his control once with her, but he doesn’t want her to have illusions about what he is. Even in the books, he is constantly trying to remind her that he is a Vampire and they are different. Their pack habits are natural to them, but might seem overbearing to others. Their mating habits, as well, are not what a human (or even a Witch) might expect. (I still wonder if they’re going to do the heart vein story line in Series 2).

When he grabs onto her, I feel like it’s a warning. He’s trying to strike fear into her, but once he has her, the touch of her skin, the smell of her so close to him… it unwinds him in a completely different way. He lifts his hand from its warning position and instead caresses her face, taking pleasure in the way she responds. It’s the most they’ve ever touched, and it has its effect on him. She melts into him, into his touch, his scent.

She places her hands against his chest, a familiar position to anyone who’s read the books. She does it quite often. His hands drop immediately. It reminds me of the scene in the book where he is trying not to hold her too tightly, to comfort her, but keep himself under control. It’s the same thing he does when he was putting the jacket on her shoulders at All Souls. He’s trying to break the connection because he doesn’t trust what he might do it he doesn’t.

She moves up to kiss him, pushing up on her tiptoes, her hand on his face. But he’s trying so hard to control himself. To remember that he can’t be with her. He can’t. It was okay if it was one-sided. He thought he could handle it, but she’s shown she wants him, too, and that can’t happen. It just can’t. She touches his mouth before she goes to kiss him… she really likes touching his mouth. It’s something she’ll do a lot in the future. Diana presses her lips against his, but he doesn’t respond. He doesn’t move. In this case, he’s both predatory and prey, and the best thing he can do is play dead until he can get away. He thanks her for dinner, grabs his jacket, and walks out. He flips it onto him, his shield and protector as he leaves a hurting Diana.

He’s rejected her. Diana has opened herself up to him, to his world, to his touch and to his heart. She thought he was doing the same, but now she’s been called out as a traitor and, worse, she thinks she’s lost him. She’s so dejected, she doesn’t even put away his glass of wine until morning. She picks up the bottle to look at it, the snuffed candles on the mantle half-burned, lopsided, and sad... unsatisfied.

“Are you going to give the book to the Vampire?”

Gillian has seen them together. Even though she may not know about dinner, she knows that Diana is curious about Matthew’s thoughts on the book, on what insights he may have. The Witches want to be sure that they are the only ones to have the book, for better or worse.

“Diana?”

Matthew cannot stay away. Though he left under duress the night before, he seeks her out. When he doesn’t find her in the usual places, he goes up to her room, hoping to find her there. He calls out to her, but he already knows she isn’t inside or he would hear her heartbeat. I love the way he opens the door from the top down, emphasizing his elegant hands (read the book... Diana has a thing for those hands) and his stature. I’ve watched other films where MG has had to duck under doorways. I can only imagine how many he’s banged into in his lifetime.

The bottle of wine is still sitting on the mantle. Diana never did get around to cleaning it up. Once Matthew sees the photos, he is even more intent on finding her, wondering what she will do.

SIDE NOTE: What is in MG’s back pocket while he’s running in these scenes? I really hope it’s not script pages, because his part would literally be, “Matthew races toward the Bodleian” and I hope he wouldn’t forget that between takes. Alright, I jest, but it seriously bothers me! We don’t see whatever that is when he’s on the floor of the Bod cradling Diana. So, I wonder!

“Hold on, Diana. Don’t hold your breath. Just breathe, Diana! I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

First off, MG is amazing at ADR. His additional dialogue always sounds like it’s right from that moment. Second, I saw an interview where he told the story of his stuntman not arriving that day and his choice to do the stunt himself, thus breaking a bone in his hand. That’s hilarious and insane. Also, ow.

The word “safe” is a big one with Diana and Matthew. When she has a panic attack in the book, he tells her, “You’re safe.” So, we’re using actual dialogue here from the source. However, Witch Wind is a little different in the books. It happens at All Souls just between Diana and Matthew. This, I feel, is far more cinematic, so I applaud the writers for the adaptation here. Her display of power in front of the Witches and Matthew helps set up just what kind of which she will be.

This is the moment from which they can’t return. Matthew might think it’s one of the many at the end of the book, but this is the one right here. Just the night before, she claimed she was safe with him, and he tried to show her just how wrong she was in her assumption. Now, he’s holding onto her declaring that the simple act of him being with her, him holding her, him cradling her... she’s safe.

It’s a promise. He doesn’t realize it, yet, but it’s a promise. Not the promise that mates a Vampire to another, but still one from which he cannot return. For her, he is safe. He has to be.

“I’ve never felt so protective over anyone.”

Matthew isn’t thinking with his head. He’s thinking with his heart. And Marcus knows it. His son has seen him through some of his best and worst moments (New Orleans, anyone? Yeesh!).

And there’s the reality that what he’s feeling he’s never felt before. Hamish called him out on it in episode 2, stating that Matthew had never talked about another woman the way he did Diana. In episode 5, he volunteers way too much information about what makes her special without Hamish asking. Clearly, this is something that is getting more impossible for him to ignore.

Before Matthew starts a war, Marcus tries to redirect him, to tell him that there are other ways he can protect her and get her out of town (because that is clearly part of the plan since he’s packing her bags). But, Marcus’ suggestions don’t allay his fears. He doesn’t want to leave Diana with anyone else. That’s part of mating, this intense need to be the protector and be there to keep your mate safe. He decides to take her home to Sept-Tours.

“I’m not leaving her there. I’m going with her.”

I just love how indignant he is on this. As if saying, “You really expected me to leave her? Isn’t it obvious that’s not happening?” I wonder if he realizes how deep he is. He knows he’s falling in love, that much is clear. But does he know he’s found his mate at last?

“Matthew.”

He’s perched by the window, facing the door. He’s ready for whatever may come to hurt her. He’s not looking at her, so the alarm on her face isn’t because she feels a Vampire’s gaze and wonders who it is. Matthew turns to her, but doesn’t immediately leave his perch. He has taken off his professor attire, losing his buttoned-up shirt and traded for a soft, black sweater. He’s still the Shadow Prince, clothed in darkness, but he’s a softer one now than the one she saw the night before. Matthew clasps his hands while he is seated, but when he stands to go to her, they don’t dig into his pockets. They’re out in the open, not because he’s ready to pounce or because he’s hiding from what he wants. He will never give in to his blood craving (or so he tells himself), but he can’t fight how he feels anymore. He’s a “lost man” as he thinks in the books in a brief chapter told in third person omniscient rather than first person.

“I’m taking you home with me to France. No witch would dare trespass on Vampire land.”

Her head cocks to one side. The day before, she thought she’d lost him. She thought he’d rejected her and that it was over. But, today he’s ready to risk it all to take her to his land, to his home, to keep her safe.

Matthew kneels down to her, giving her that promise that he already made in his own heart in the Bod.

“You’ll be safe there.”

His voice is barely above a whisper. It’s almost always soft when he’s with her, ever since the first episode. He only raises his tone when he needs to get through to her (as we will see in Episode 4 when he talks to her about her parents).

Diana’s eyes search his and he looks at her with admiration. The night before, she was climbing and clawing her way to his level in an attempt to make a connection that missed its mark. Tonight, he’s on his knees, eliminating that distance between them. His eyes flit to her loose hair, and he reaches a hand up to touch it, to tuck it behind her ear. This is something he does in the books, as she always has a wild hair that refuses to be tamed. Matthew’s left hand is consistently the active one in this series. He touches it to his mouth on numerous occasions. He fidgits with it. But, here, in this moment, it’s the hand that gets to touch her.

Diana just watches him, transfixed and wondering just what is going on in that Vampire mind of his. He pushes up on his heels so he is fully on his knees, looking her square in the eye. Her eyes lock on his once they’re level with one another, and when he pushes in to kiss her, it only takes a second for her to respond. He connects with her mouth, then his eyes close as he leans into the kiss. She leans back into him, and his lips part. But, she’s not ready to let him go. She pushes in for another taste, another drink of his cool flesh against her warm. And he doesn’t fight it. He breathes in it. Together, they live in a moment.

And can we talk about that song choice?! It’s beautiful and it’s brilliant. I’ve never heard this version of “Go Your Own Way,” but it’s perfect. To be with one another, they have to open up their worlds to each other, to choose to be with each other instead of cast one another out. In their own way, they are both outcasts. Matthew with his Blood Rage. Diana with her seeming inability to connect with magic. The protection and camaraderie they’re supposed to find innate with their biological kind is mostly absent. They each have a few connections, Matthew with Miriam, Marcus and Ysabeau, Diana with her aunts and (at first) Gillian. But, neither fit perfectly into the roles they are supposed to play. They can’t. They’re supposed to play completely different roles. They just don’t know it, yet.

Diana walks around her apartment turning off all the lights while Matthew waits outside. I love this. Diana is presently saying goodbye to her world, to Oxford, to her potential professorship, to everything. Matthew waits outside, letting her cut her ties on her own. It’s so beautiful and symbolic, and comes back to play in the Series 1 finale as they engage in a very similar act, except together.

Here, Diana is making her own choices. Knox always tried to do it for her. Sarah always tried to do it for her (even if it was loving, it was still not the best choice). Matthew will make his own mistakes in that realm come Episode 4. Oh, and Ysabeau will try, too. Hamish seems to be one of the few with sense, realizing that Diana needs to make her own choices. And this choice to go with Matthew... it’s hers and hers alone. She’s crossing that threshold. She’s severing the ties. He’s simply waiting there with arms open to receive her.

Matthew has both bags in the hallway as he waits, but when they are outside, she is carrying her own. I feel like this was more for the aesthetically pleasing shot than for Matthew’s sensibilities. He would definitely want to carry both bags, but I can also understand Diana insisting she wasn’t incapable of the task. After all, she can open her own doors, right?

Thank you for reading. As ever, it is a pleasure!

Read Episode 4: https://starseneyes.tumblr.com/post/182969879177/bishmont-a-discovery-of-witches-series-1

#bishmont #a discovery of witches #adow #adowtv #Matthew de Clermont #Matthew Goode #Matthew Clairmont #Teresa Palmer #Diana Bishop

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mermaidsirennikita · 6 years

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September 2018 Book Roundup

If you’ve read any of my posts you probably know that I have high-functioning depression and sometimes dip into episodes that are worse than the rest of the time, and I’m definitely dipping into one! Which means that it’s getting hard for me to focus on anything, including reading. :( But I did read some good books this month! The high of September book-wise was definitely Kendare Blake’s Two Dark Reigns. If you haven’t tried her Three Dark Crowns series yet, please do. It’s very, very good. Hopefully, October will be full of dark and creepy reads!

Mirage by Somaiya Daud. 4/5. Amani is a farmer’s daughter, her people dominated by the brutal Vathek. On the night that she’s to reach her majority, droids descend and take her to Ziyaana, where she discovers that she’s the double of the selfish and cruel Princess Maram. As Maram--born of a Vathek conqueror and a native Andalaan mother--is hated by her people, Amani will be trained to be her double, standing in for Maram at important events. There are two problems: for one thing, Maram’s fiance Idris connects more with Amani than he does the princess. For another, Amani’s proximity to the crown makes it all too easy for her to become the target of rebel plots.... This book has a lot of atmosphere, and is inspired by Moroccan culture. It’s firmly sci-fi, but feels very fantastical in a lot of ways. The most important and compelling part of the novel--besides the general world--is the relationship between Maram and Amani. Maram is truly awful, but she’s also truly human. While the main romance is a bit meh and the climax doesn’t feel like much of one, it’s an entertaining book and I’m look forward to the next installment!

Toil and Trouble ed. Jessica Spotswood and Tess Sharpe. 4/5. A collection of short stories with one thing in common: witches. This a nice anthology, with all the urban fantasy your heart could want. There’s a good bit of representation--Latina witches, black witches, gay witches, bi witches, I *think* some trans man rep though it wasn’t very explicit so I can’t say for sure. My favorites included Afterbirth by Andrea Cremer (a good, old-fashioned Salem witch trials type of story involving a midwife’s apprentice, a dead patient, and a mysterious baby), The Well Witch by Kate Hart (think like... a shoot ‘em up western but with a part-Comanche witch at the center) Beware of Girls with Crooked Mouths by Jessica Spotswood (about a witch trying to trigger a vision she saw in which she and her sisters survived a curse on their family) and Love Spell by Anna-Marie McLemore (about a bruja who falls in love with an acolyte--so romantic and so very good, McLemore is an amazing writer). A great read for Fall.

Two Dark Reigns by Kendare Blake. 5/5. The third installment of the Three Dark Thrones series sees Katharine on the throne and Mirabella and Arsinoe hiding on the mainland. Fennbirn is caving in on itself, the mist meant to protect it striking out against its people--who, in response, grow hostile to Katharine. Meanwhile, Arsinoe is being sent visions from the Blue Queen, a legendary ruler of Fennbirn whose ghostly presence may spell disaster for the island. Kendare Blake knows how to write spooky shit. She knows how to write sad shit. She just knows how to write. I never want to leave the world of this series. This book was actually better than the last, expanding on the intrigue and mythos of the world. I still don’t love Jules, and I really don’t really like more recent addition of Emilia--but their storylines are compelling, and I love Katharine and Mirabella and Pietyr and Bree and so many other characters enough to overwhelm the characters I’m not as big a fan of. This book left me dying for the next.

Tear Me Apart by J.T. Ellison. 4/5. Teenage Mindy is an up-and-coming champion skier, looking to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team. After she breaks her leg, it is revealed that she has leukemia, sending her loving parents, Lauren and Jasper, into a spiral. The only hope they have of saving Mindy’s life is through a stem cell transplant--but when Lauren and Jasper are tested, it’s revealed that neither of them are biologically related to Mindy. This is a fairly dark thriller that doesn’t simplify the issues it discusses, and certainly doesn’t pull any punches. Will you see the twists coming? I did, though not immediately. But that’s okay, because it was less “failure to twist” and more “something set up pages ago paying off”. The book was a bit long and padded for the story it told, but I have to say that I loved the ambiguity of it all.

Queens of Fennbirn by Kendare Blake. 4/5. These two Three Dark Crowns novellas are bound together in one edition--The Young Queens tells the stories of Mirabella, Arsinoe, and Katharine before Three Dark Crowns begins,during their childhoods; The Oracle Queen explains why oracle queens are drowned at birth, through the story of the “mad queen” Elsabet, who allegedly murdered innocent people based on her visions. I’m not surprised that The Oracle Queen was more to my taste, just because I want to know the backstories of literally every queen in this world... (I mean, I’d take a companion book chronicling every queen in this country... easily.) But The Young Queens was still a well-done story, and added a lot to how I see the world of the series. A must for fans of the books.

Rule by Ellen Goodlett. 2/5. Zofi, Akeylah, and Florencia (”Ren”) all come from vastly different backgrounds. When King Andros summons them to palace, it’s revealed that not only is he dying, but that all three are his daughters, and the only potential heirs he has left after the death of his only son. The girls are thrown into court politics and training, though Andros can only select one to be queen. Each one has a secret, and someone is out to expose them--so who will come out on top? Basically, I loved this idea and the execution was beyond blah. The politics were way too light. The magic system was cool, but not enough to save it. Relationships were shallow. Romances were dull. Very little time was spent on the idea of the girls developing relationships with Andros OR each other. Again, the world was interesting but the characters didn’t work.

Wildcard by Marie Lu. 3/5. After discovering the truth of Hideo’s plans, Emika is set against the man she fell in love with. As she seeks to take Hideo down, she gets drawn into the world of the mysterious Zero--the only person who can protect Emika now that a bounty’s been placed on her head. Aaand as this is a sequel, saying anything more would mean giving away big spoilers. I loved Warcross, which is why Wildcard was a bit of a letdown. Honestly? It felt like Lu was trying to cram two books into one. I thought I’d see more of Emika trying to take Hideo down, and the push-pull between them that I frankly loved in the first book. The truth about Zero’s past? Very compelling. The ending? Kind of anticlimactic.

Not Even Bones by Rebecca Schaeffer. 3/5. Nita dissects unnatural creatures so that her mother--usually their killer--can sell them on the black market. Unicorns, mermaids--Nita has dissected everything, though she herself isn’t all that natural thanks to her ability to heal herself. After her mother brings home a living boy with the intention of cutting him into pieces, Nita suffers an attack of conscience and frees him. She wakes up at the Death Market; once a part of the trade, she’s now for sale. A lot of 3 star reads kind of bore me--this one didn’t. It was super engaging. The concept is super cool, and I want to see more of this world. Nita’s relationship with her parents, and particularly her horrifying mother, is interesting. I’m happy with the grayness of this world. It’s just that the writing is a bit awkward. There are a lot of creepy grins described over and over. Nita’s seemingly cold nature isn’t described very well, to the point that what should come off as human hypocrisy that she learns from reads more as self-righteousness, especially regarding one plot twist. One thing did distract me a bit--a creature that essentially gets off on pain and is thus a great torturer. Technically, they feed on pain and therefore must torture people to live, theoretically. One: these creatures are treated as super valuable in organized crime families, but I don’t really get why they’re needed as skilled torturers exist already. Their powers are vague. And they’re called zannies? I don’t know if these are obscure magical creatures I don’t know about, but to be honest if they are the author needed to use another name. Zannie/xannie is slang for Xanax. That always popped into my head when they were mentioned, and it was very distracting. It doesn’t ruin the book, but it is kind of weird to me that nobody caught that in the editing process.

#books #book recs #reading roundup

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huskybcake · 7 years

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I love the Julian story but...hear me out

I really like Julian as a character and am sincerely interested to see where his story goes. In fact, it's the first book I bought out of the three. Because Julian is adorable and I would like to continue until a full on jumping takes place (I'm not thirsty, you're thirsty!)

BUT It's a lot of suspension of disbelief to ask for in order to get through the last scene.

Hear...or read me out. Beware thar be spoilers ahead.

Think about it, at most you have 4 interactions with him prior to this meeting.

FOUR.

the first one is him breaking into your home, and threatening you for information. When he realizes you recognize him he says, "then you know the trouble your in." One assumes that MC knows him as a convicted murderer at this point. Thus, he has threatened MC's life. Of course, we as the player know the meta and know we won't be hurt, but MC does not.

The second time, if you skip out on bread (but seriously, why? It's spiced bread. It is, in fact, the OTP) MC sees him in the market. No matter what you pick he runs. Not helping the guilty card there. But again, that happens IF you skip bread.

The third time is another IF scenario. You may have wandered outside the palace and in so doing meet him at the tavern. MC's first reaction is to hide. Because all MC knows is that this man is a convicted/potential murderer and he has broken into the house and made a threat on MC's life. The tavern scene is probably 1, maybe 2 hours, at most. And 2 might be pushing it. The only info MC gains out if this is that he's a flirt, dramatic, and has bought MC a beer. It hasn't actually put aside the fact that he's potentially dangerous, or whether he did or did not commit murder. But we move on. This tavern scene is really the only reason MC has to doubt if he's a killer based on personality. And that's not a solid reason to begin with. Again, this is IF MC decides to leave the castle, and in turn, the search for Asra's card.

The fourth time MC meets him, he has broken into the house AGAIN. So now he has committed two crimes against the MC personally. Breaking and entering gets bumped down to trespassing once we discover he had a key along. However, would you be happy if a stranger kept coming into your house uninvited and snooping around your shit when you're not home solely because your roommate gave him the key? I wouldn't. MC can also infer that Portia and Julian are siblings and does confirm this with her. However, as much as I love Portia, this does not clear someone of murder charges.

And now we arrive to the lovers book. To be brief: a slip, a fall, a bite and a healing dooblie-doo later, and Julian has saved MCs life. Cool, thanks DOC. oh right, he's a doctor. Why wouldn't he try to save a life? Oh right, he's a possible murderer. Cool.... Thanks, doc? And after only another few minutes we're on the run again. Oh, and here's a reminder. MC does not need to run. Why should MC be scared of the guards? MC is a guest of the castle. Regardless, we meet the best, sassiest old lady ever, and move right along into the kiss scene. Depending on the options, you either get a tender, sweet kiss, or a sexualized, "I'm practically straddling you" kiss.

Now, briefly, let's recap.

Depending on the choices you've made, MC has spent anywhere from 30 minutes to 2.5 hrs with this man and had gotten no good answers out of him.

He has trespassed into your house, threatened your life, bought you a beer, trespassed again, saved your life, and is making you run from the guards.

.... Why are we making out with him?

I can almost justify the sexualized one: this has got to be a pretty decent adrenaline high for MC. Almost dying, running away from the law with your savior has got to have an effect on those endorphins. And he's attractive and clearly wants to tap that (bow chicka wow wow). Why not jump your dashing, but-possibly-a-murderer, hero? And then to dominate as well? Sure, I can buy that as an effect of the nights activities and the high MC must feel.

But the sweet tender kiss? Kind of confused me.

As a player, I know he's a romance option. I know he won't murder MC (at this time...??? Dun dun duuuuun). I know some backstory on him from the dev Q and A's.

But MC does not. MC has only spent brief snippets of time with this man. Only knows a very small amount about him. And, depending on the story, may have only spent 30 minutes, max, with him. And half of those 30 minutes he threatened you, and all of those 30 minutes he was uninvited in your home. Or MC spent 1-2 hours with over the course of time in which he hasn't proven his innocence or guilt.

So to be so tenderly drawn into a kiss with a practical stranger left me gobsmacked. This kiss had more conscious thought and less primalness behind it.

I get it, we're a thirsty audience, and I too am thirsty. But would you lovingly kiss someone you've only know for a sparse couple hours who, while having saved your life, had also threatened it and may or may not be a murderer? I don't know.

Ultimately, I'm sticking with the sexualized kiss. Plus it was hella fun.

I love this game, and will continue to pour my time and money into it. But holy disbelieving fantasy romance shenanigans Batman! That was a hell of a confusing play out on that option.

#the arcana #the arcana game #julian devorak #what the hell #thirsty #but damn #spoilers

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yeonchi · 4 years

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Doctor Who Series 12 Review Part 5/10: Fugitive of the Judoon

Air date: 26 January 2020

The Doctor Who fandom is in further meltdown this week as we deal with further bombshells on top of all the bombshells from the series up to this point.

My spoiler-free thought for this episode: “We’re gonna need David Tennant back at this point to explain what is going on.”

At this point, I have caught up with the last three episodes. Weekly posting of reviews will continue from next week. Spoilers continue after the break. Make sure you’ve watched the entire series up to the end of this episode before you continue on.

That big bombshell

Before the series started, we did get confirmation that the Judoon would be returning. That was a pretty good cover for this episode.

This week, we saw the debut of a new Doctor played by Jo Martin. Talk about representation, amirite? Look, in all honesty, I’m not too worried about this being an SJW red flag over this being something that could potentially rattle the status quo of Doctor Who. John Hurt as the War Doctor did do that, but eventually, we came to understand that it was because of three reasons - there was a discrepancy between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors in that there was no regeneration, Christopher Eccleston was unable to return for the 50th Anniversary and Steven Moffat wanted to explore what would happen if the Doctor used up all twelve regenerations.

On a side note, Jo Martin is pretty good as the Doctor. It should also be noted that she is the first black Doctor in the series (maybe not actually the Doctor depending on how this series turns out). What are the chances that this was done for fanservice because people were expecting a more radical choice for the Thirteenth Doctor (as if Jodie Whittaker being female and a feminist wasn’t radical enough)?

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of Chameleon Arch stories. I think that if you (forcibly) conceal yourself as a lesser species despite having superior powers, abilities and knowledge, then it demeans who you really are and makes you look like a bit of a coward. John Smith put it best in The Family of Blood when he was struggling over whether to open the fob watch and become the Doctor again as it meant that this John Smith wouldn’t exist anymore. In the end, he didn’t stand up and insist on staying John Smith, thus making him a coward either way.

So, upon becoming the Doctor again and learning that 13 is also the Doctor, Ruth (we’ll call her this from now on) surmises that the Doctor is from her future, yet the Doctor doesn’t remember being Ruth. Given the design of her TARDIS and her not recognising the sonic screwdriver, I’m surmising that Ruth is based on the classic series Doctors. Let’s take a look at three possible theories I’ve come up with.

Theory 1: Parallel universe/Alternate timeline

This seems to be the most popular and easy-to-explain theory among fans. It would certainly explain the Master’s reappearance and it doesn’t change the status quo too much. However, Chris Chibnall said that Ruth is “definitively the Doctor” (how that sentence even makes sense I don’t know) and that there is no parallel universe involved, which could potentially jeopardise everything.

The Doctor Who Wiki documents many incarnations and alternate versions (including non-canonical versions) of the Doctor other than those we have seen onscreen. However, the fact that Ruth might come from a parallel universe would be too simple unless it’s part of a bigger thing in the story arc. I’m foreseeing a Dimensional Merge thing going on.

(If Peter Cushing actually ends up being acknowledged as canon or an incarnation of the Doctor onscreen, then I’m going to be pissed)

Theory 2: The Valeyard

The Valeyard, a villain from the Sixth Doctor’s Trial of a Time Lord series, was seemingly forgotten until it was mentioned twice in the Moffat era, during The Name of the Doctor and Twice Upon a Time. The Valeyard is apparently an amalgamation of the Doctor’s darker sides from between his twelfth and final incarnations - in terms of the Doctor’s first set of regenerations, it would technically be between the Tenth (post-Journey’s End) and Eleventh Doctors. However, now with the Doctor’s new regeneration cycle, people seemingly like to stretch it out to after the Twelfth Doctor’s era, so anything goes at this point. It would explain Ruth’s darker side during the confrontations with the Judoon and her willingness to bear arms when the Doctor opposed it.

Theory 3: Pre-Hartnell Doctor

This would be the most dangerous theory because it would drastically change the status quo of Doctor Who. During the Moffat era, the show seemed to reinforce the fact that all and only all of the Doctor’s incarnations up to that point were the Doctor. The child we saw in Listen was basically the First Doctor.

The details of the Doctor’s birth and upbringing are very conflicting because different Doctor Who-related media seems to have their own interpretation of it. The 1997 Virgin New Adventures book Lungbarrow details how The Other, one of the original founders of Time Lord society alongside Rassilon and Omega, would reincarnate himself into the loomed Doctor. I don’t like the idea of the Looms, though, so things might be questionable for me if they are canonised. Chris Chibnall has said in an interview around the start of Series 11 that he had not been able to find a copy of Lungbarrow, but chances are that whatever happens will be even more complicated than whatever I’ve theorised.

The return of Captain Jack Harkness

This was another surprise in this episode. As such, this makes Jack the first companion from the revived era, or more specifically, the RTD era, to reappear in the series. Sadly, the return of Jack Harkness may have been fanservice as well as Chibnall also said that he won’t be appearing again in Series 12. If you’re going to have fanservice in order to advance the story, then the fanservice should be more involved in it, like Rose Tyler in Series 4. With the announcement that the Cybermen would return in the Series 12 finale, I would have expected Jack to return then.

So what did Jack warn Graham, Ryan and Yaz about? He had them tell the Doctor to “beware the Lone Cyberman” and not to give it what it wants. He also mentions that an “alliance” sent something back through time and that somehow because of it, the Cyberman empire is in ruins. What this and/or Ruth have to do with the Timeless Child we have no idea yet, but I’ll be sure to keep watching.

Other general thoughts

Since the term was coined in the 2017 Free Comic Book Day comic The Promise, the fob watch portion of the Chameleon Arch has been known as the biodata module. The fire alarm in the lighthouse acted as Ruth’s biodata module; having it in a stationary location does make it harder for it to be noticed, particularly if perception filters are involved.

In the next time trailer for this episode, I thought that Ruth was Grace. And people say all Asians look the same.

Why didn’t the Doctor ask more questions to Ruth if she was confused at whether she was her or not?

Ruth gives the Doctor five points for guessing how she disguised herself on Earth. We haven’t seen the points system for a while now. For those of you keeping track at home, Yaz is on 10 points (S11E5), Ryan has a gold star, which I presume to be 10 points (S11E6) and the Doctor is on 5 points. Way to underestimate.

Following this episode, the next two episodes are also co-written by Chris Chibnall. Whether they will have more details to build onto the story arc is unknown yet.

Summary and verdict

No tokusatsu references in this episode. There was a big SJW red flag, but that was overshadowed by the story arc. Regardless, Ruth and Jack served as mere fanservice to advance the story and I expect to see them again soon.

Once again, I’ve finally caught up on the episodes now, so we will be returning to the normal posting schedule next week. I didn’t complete all the reviews for the last three episodes all in a day - my mind gets tired whenever I’ve done something big.

Rating: 8/10

Mid-series review

Compared to the same period in Series 11, the first half of Series 12 was definitely more dramatic than Series 11. We had a two-parter reintroducing the Master, a story about climate change and an Edison vs. Tesla episode. I thought there weren’t going to be a lot of SJW red flags, but Episode 3 alone proved me wrong. Still, the SJW agenda is less of a problem for me this year than it was last year (though I’m still going to be cautious).

Here are my ratings for the series so far:

Episode 1: 8/10

Episode 2: 8/10

Episode 3: 5/10

Episode 4: 9/10

Episode 5: 8/10

Mid-series total: 38/50 (76%)

Compared to the mid-Series 11 total of 70%, this is probably the better series for me so far. I think the returning characters and story arc really helped.

Stay tuned next week as I review the sixth episode, Praxeus.

#doctor who #doctor who series 12 #thirteenth doctor #doctor who series 12 review #thirteenth doctor review

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jacquettamatias-blog · 6 years

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The One 'Activity From Powers' Theory You have actually Been Overlooking.

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starseneyes · 5 years

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Bishmont - A Discovery of Witches - Series 1 - Episode 5

*phew* That last one was a doozy, wasn’t it? I love this episode. I know that I should be one of those who gushes over episode 4 (read the recap here), but episode 5 is one of my absolute favorites. If you’ve read the books, a lot of the events of this episode are completely in the dark because the majority of the plot is told from Diana’s point of view. We get snippets, yes, but I love the attention we get to Matthew’s side of the story, here, not just Diana’s.

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t read the books, beware. I have. I may spoil things. Please be aware.

Ready, then? Alright, let’s dive into one of my absolute favorite episodes, episode 5.

Can we talk about Diana’s time in the tub? The immersion of the water really reminds me of the books, and how the water would pour out of every part of her until she was convinced that she might become a stream of water and just wash away. It’s Ysabeau who saves her in that moment, singing a tune to her that helps her calm down and recenter. Here, Diana emerges from the water to what must be the most frightening of feelings, the icy cold of not one, but two Vampires watching her from the other room. Diana turns her body, as if gaining back some of her privacy, but Ysabeau and Marthe are already in Matthew’s tower, and they have no care for modesty or privacy with their charge. Ysabeau has an agenda.

Since Ysabeau was unable to force Diana back to Madison in the previous episode due to Matthew’s meddling, she is set on driving a wedge between them however she can. If Diana leaves of her own volition, Matthew can only be so angry with her for so long, and she will have stopped them before they officially mated, thus protecting Matthew and all of the de Clermonts from the Congregation.

“This is Peter Knox’s doing.” “This is because of you, Matthew.”

Ah, the blame game. In truth, it’s a combination of both. If Matthew had never taken Diana away, then nobody would have broken into their lab. However, Peter Knox is a core part of it.

“We’ve run this lab for years without being noticed, flown under the radar of humans and creatures. Then suddenly it’s all jeopardized because you decide to mate with a witch.” “That is enough, Miriam.” “Don’t even begin to deny it. I’m the only one of us who’s mated before. I know the signs.” “Domenico knows, too. Ysabeau phoned me.” “Domenico can go to hell.”

I love this whole exchange. Matthew isn’t looking at either of them. His mind is on the lab, on what might have been taken, on what damage could have been done. But, he’s still carrying on the conversation with Miriam and Marcus. Miriam is right, she is the only one of them who has mated until this point, so she knows what it looks like. She has seen Matthew’s protectiveness over Diana, and it has only gotten stronger. He took her home, to his den, if you will. He is doing everything one would expect with a mate, even though he is still trying to fight it.

I love Matthew’s face when he recognizes Gillian’s scent. He has that face of quiet resolve we’ve seen before. It’s the mask he wears when his mind is made up and his destination is set.

“Where are you going? Matthew, don’t go there!”

It’s not a place she wants to keep him from visiting. It’s the blood rage. It’s the avenging spirit of him taking on anyone who dared attack his mate. His protective instincts are flaring, even though he and Diana are not yet “official.” He is going to avenge her and his lab, and there’s no stopping him or changing his mind. Note that Miriam doesn’t even attempt to go after him because she knows his mind once made cannot be unmade. Not by her, at least.

“What do you mean they’re mating?”

I play this on loop all the time when I need a giggle. I think I should make it my ringtone for my husband. He’s absolutely aghast the idea, completely taken off-guard. We’ve seen him angry (almost a default state for Baldwin when he’s not indignantly self-righteous), but seeing him this taken aback is highly amusing to me. He knows the severity of this claim, the ridiculousness of it, and he can’t fathom that even his brother, Matthew, the black sheep of the family would be so insane to violate the Covenant and expose his family to such scrutiny that would follow.

“He’s righting it... Ysabeau says he will respect the Covenant. He just needs to get his head on straight.”

Oh, Ysabeau. Nice try, telling your grandson that his father just needs to clear his head and then all will be well. But, she underestimates both Diana and Matthew in this scenario. Matthew has loved before, and she has seen him walk away, when needbe, and implode/explode otherwise. He has had many lovers over the years, but she knows the call that Diana made to him as much as he does. She offered herself. She offered her love. And she’s waiting for her answer. She’s still waiting.

“It he breaks the rules, he pays the price.”

Ysabeau knows this, too. It’s why she tries so hard to drive fear into Diana, to show her the brutality of hunting, to get her to turn away from his son.

While Ysabeau hunts, so, too, does Matthew. He hunts not for sport or nourishment, but out of duty. I love the way his lips curl as he talks to Gillian. The attitude and tone he takes is most similar to that of the end of Episode 1 when he has Diana cornered and his Blood Rage is dangerously close to the surface.

SIDE NOTE: MG’s deliveries are impeccable. “Rise in the ranks” still gives me chills every time I hear it. From the Instagram videos I’ve seen (gosh, I sound like a stalker, but I was doing research for these posts, I swear!), he has a reputation for breaking up when filming. There’s no trace of it in the finished product. He is menacing, dark, yet still delivering lines with power and purpose.

Now, in the books he does kill Gillian. But, she’s a far less sympathetic Gillian in the books. Gillian of the books has been following Diana for years, befriending her only in an effort to watch her and report back to the Congregation. She is a weapon of Peter Knox and has no affinity for Diana whatsoever. In the series, Gillian is caught. She is the perfect example of a Witch who can see the difference between right and wrong, but not clearly enough to make her own decisions when the pressure comes down. She conforms to what is expected instead of what is right. It’s a dangerous precedent, and a cautionary tale to us all. There are those in each of the Species.

Okay, I shouldn’t be doing this, but I am. Just look at the Creatures. In each group, there is at least one person who is going with the flow and following the status quo because that is just the way it’s always been. It’s the type of Group Think that strips us of our humanity as we conform to comfort and expectation rather than critically thinking about the integrity of what it is to be compassionate and caring. Prejudices and hatred blind us to the point that we are a mob of angry people, convinced the others have wronged us without evidence that it is true. It takes courage to be the one to stand up, face the horrors head-on and declare with a clear voice, “This is not right!” Diana, more than her abilities as a Witch and her struggles to control her abilities, is that person, as the series will show in future installments.

“If you’re trying to frighten me away from your son, you’ve failed... Can we go home, now?”

This happens in the books, Ysabeau showing Diana how she hunts in an effort to drive a wedge between her and Matthew. In the books, she escalates in the type of animal, something small, then something bigger, her grotesque feeding nothing like the exciting, exhilarating pursuit of the hunt that pushes Matthew. Ysabeau is about the kill rather than the foreplay. In the books, Diana persuades Matthew to take her along as he hunts, and I am glad for its omission. The point was to show the difference between how Matthew hunted and how Ysabeau hunted, and I think they found a more compelling way to do that visually within the constructs of the episodic device.

Think about it. In Episode 2, Peter Knox hunted Diana while Matthew hunted his stag. They were two styles of hunting happening at the same time, two types of prey. Same thing here. Ysabeau hunts her animals while Matthew hunts Gillian. But, in both cases, Matthew is the more restrained of the killers.

I love Diana’s choice of the word, “home.” This is Matthew’s home, as the books tell us. When he thinks of “home,” this is the place that comes to mind, not any of the properties he has around the world. These lines are ripped right from the book, though taken from different pages. I love how the writers of the series have done that. They give honor to the original text while making it tighter for adaptation purposes. In the books, Ysabeau tells Diana that she objects to Diana’s hunting of her son. Diana is a huntress, after all. And she won’t be frightened away from what she truly wants. Matthew and Diana are both stubborn, after all.

SIDE NOTE: I married a stubborn man. Good thing I’m equally as stubborn, and when one of our children asserts his or her stubbornness, we have to laugh because we know with us as parents, they had no chance of coming out anything but stubborn. I could say more, but I’m dangerously close to saying too much, so I’ll just move on.

“I love Matthew. I can’t help myself.”

Her love for him is irrevocable. No matter what he says to her, she will love him. No matter what his mother tries, she will love him. She walks alone in a sweater her hair tumbling down. There’s nothing holding her back anymore. In the beginning, her hair was in a tight braid. Then, a ponytail. It has morphed and changed to fit the situation, sometimes tumbled together but not altogether controlled. Here, her hair is down and unfettered. She isn’t trying to bind it up anymore. She isn’t trying to tame it. She’s no longer trying to tuck away the pieces of herself she doesn’t want to face. She can’t if she’s going to be Matthew de Clermont’s mate.

In the books, she tells Matthew during the argument scene (now at the end of episode 4) that the Congregation doesn’t get to decide who she loves. Here, she tells it to her aunts. She feels like they will understand, since their love was considered taboo by many in the 70′s and 80′s, but they are still concerned for her safety.

“Honey, what does Matthew have to say about all this?” “He hasn’t told me how he feels, yet.”

He hasn’t with good reason. Diana doesn’t yet feel the full weight of it, and in the books she doesn’t even discover all of it until long after the pact is made, which is just batty to me. I feel for her in the books, because she really should have gotten more information upfront about this whole mating pact. Just sayin’.

“You’ve left her with Ysabeau? A twisted idea of culture.” “She loves me… or she says she does.”

He still doesn’t believe it. She keeps giving him open doors, and every time she does, he hesitates. She kissed him, but he didn’t kiss back. He waited. She told him she loved him, but he didn’t say it back. He waited.

“And do you love her?”

But he can’t say it. His look is enough for Hamish, his old friend, who already suspected this might go this way. “I know,” Matthew moans. They both know that there’s no going back from this. It’s not clear in the series, but in the books it’s very apparent that Hamish understand how mating works for a Vampire. This scene here is not in the books, but I feel it is very true to their characters.

“... she’s full of courage.” “Then, don’t fall into the trap of thinking for her.”

And all the strong, independent women instantly fall in love with Hamish. Thank you, Hamish. You just stated what this man most needs to hear right now. I love you. Marry me.

Matthew’s left hand goes to his mouth as Hamish continues, unraveling what is really bothering Matthew. Matthew isn’t a creature without a past. He has multiple pasts, most of them gruesome. It’s something that’s rarely discussed in Vampire romance. Yes, they’re a killer, but that’s all gone, now. Um, no. Matthew’s past doesn’t disappear even if he wishes it would, something that he learns more and more as the books progress.

Hamish encourages Matthew, spurring him on, telling him that he should love who he wants and let nothing stop him. But, Matthew’s still afraid. He’s mostly afraid of himself. Yet, Hamish, who knows the danger as well as Matthew does, save being in his own head, has put his stamp of approval on things. It’s important. Every voice around Matthew is telling him to ignore his heart... except Hamish’s.

“Who’s Blanca and Lucas?”

Ysabeau, you crafty, clever, cruel mistress. She is doing much what her son does in changing tactics. Blood and fear didn’t work. Maybe pain will drive that much-needed wedge. She shows Diana the church Matthew constructed, and lets Diana discover the stone on her own... the last remnants of Matthew’s life as a human, a life shared with a wife and son.

Diana’s hand reaches for the pew, and she lets it guide her as she sits down, overwhelmed with grief. Diana has had her own losses. She lost both her parents in a single blow when she was just a child. Matthew had to endure losing not only his wife, but his little boy, too.

“Matthew’s true love will always be Blanca. She gave him a son. You’ll never be able to bear a child by him.”

This was my first hint that they are going to have kids at some point. It was too pointedly mentioned to be meaningless, but I think like a writer. It’s like someone who writes music listening to music. They hear things others might not see. They can understand patterns others might miss. It’s a strange and puzzling gift for me, because it often rips me out of a story as I start to unravel where it might be going rather than reveling in the moment. There are advantages and disadvantages to having a brain such as mine.

“In 1500 years, Matthew has never mated, and I don’t think he ever will. It’s forever.” “I will never leave him.” “Of course you will. Your life is fleeting compared with a vampires. When you are long gone, Matthew will have to carry on living without you, just as he did with Blanca.”

The knife drive sin. Wordless tears drip down Diana’s face as she starts to understand the full weight of what it means to be Matthew’s mate, should he choose it. The pain he would have to bear to choose to love her instead of a vampire like himself. He’s already carried this weight through the centuries. In some ways his transmogrified self deepens the loss. He didn’t have Blood Rage as a human when he lost Blanca and Lucas. And this time, he wouldn’t have the options out that he did as a human. But, I’m getting ahead of the books and series. We’ll have to wait for series 2 to really tear into that one.

“If I could use my blood to save him, I would.”

She understands some of the vampiric transformation enough to know that Ysabeau’s siring was because of her blood. Diana doesn’t know her words are prophetic, but they are. It also makes it so much easier to believe later that when actually presented with the option, she chooses him. She already did back here, before he’d fully chosen her.

Ysabeau tells Diana about his loss of control, his rage at being sired. She paints a grim picture of the dark things he has done over the years. Perhaps, his past will scare Diana away. But, there is darkness, too, in Diana, should the books hold, and that is something Ysabeau couldn’t possibly yet know or understand.

SIDE NOTE: I love Nat and Sophie. I love their relationship. I love how they balance each other. Sophie is more typical Demon and he is more focused, like his mother and Hamish. But, they need each other. I really hope I find time to do this whole series as an adaptation studied against the source material someday. It’s so intriguing and the adaptation work here by the writing team is incredible.

SIDE NOTE: The swords hanging in the room with Diana remind me I need to find my husband’s sword. Yes, we’ve misplaced a replica sword I bought him long ago before we had children. Hmmm. Now, where could it be? And, yes, it was Lord of the Rings related. My darling man was obsessed. “Where did we lose a 6 foot sword?” he calls out to me. I honestly have no clue...

Now, of course, these are likely swords that Matthew has used over the years, not merely decorations.

“The Knights of Lazarus of Bethany... Matthew de Clermont.”

It’s a small thing, and meaningless to anyone who hasn’t read the books, but I love in her exploration of Matthew’s desk she finds the hand-made block with the “L” on it for Lucas. He is still keeping his son close. Yes, he has made Vampire children, but there’s a different process entirely for humans. Vampires are “reborn” not “born.” It’s something he feels was a one-time thing for him, and to have known it and lost it... I can’t even imagine.

**POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING** I have three children. I fought long and hard for each of them. I have several invisible illnesses that made it impossible for my husband and I to conceive on our own. There were surgeries, tests, procedures, shots, pills, suppositories, and years of crying over negative pregnancy tests. My pregnancy with my twins (the result of my fourth IUI) was pretty great despite everything and their early arrival at 36 weeks. My daughter was entirely different. When I was 12 weeks pregnant, I started bleeding heavily for days. We thought we lost her. I remember being in the doctor’s office and them being unable to find her heartbeat. I faced that moment of absolute loss. Now, they moved the doppler up an inch, and the heartbeat filled the room. That was when I broke, when I sobbed ugly tears. That is the closest I have ever come to that kind of loss. I know how overwhelming that moment was... I cannot even fathom what someone has been through who suffered a miscarriage or the loss of a child. I can barely barely comprehend the agony. So, the fact that Matthew keeps what little he has left of his son close makes perfect sense to me. I love its inclusion in the series. **END TRIGGER**

“How are you?”

He can’t resist calling her. He no doubt found her hair on his clothing, and he couldn’t bear to throw it away. It’s hers, a part of her. It has her scent. Mad props to MG for how his ears bend back when he drinks in her scent, as if they are on alert. I can almost feel the longing in Matthew’s body to be near his beloved, which is why he picks up the phone. It’s a poor excuse for contact, but it’s the best one he has at the moment. His right hand holds the phone, his left hand twitching.

He massages his neck several times during this conversation. I think he had hoped the ache for her might abate with conversation, but he’s a fool, poor Matthew.

Diana is so excited when she picks up the phone, she doesn’t even say anything. She’s still waiting for him to respond to her. When he asks how she is, she doesn’t speak of emotions, but of actions.

“Ysabeau has been keeping me entertained telling me stories about you.” “Yes, I was afraid of that.” “According to her, you’re a mix between Superman and Lancelot” “Well, I try.”

First off, ladies and gentlemen, Matthew Freakin’ Goode. His delivery on that line tells you so much about Matthew. If you’ve read the books, it’s as though MG has captured all the warring emotions in three words and a reaction shot. He seems quite uncomfortable by the whole thing. He already struggles enough with his self-image and doesn’t need Ysabeau filling Diana’s head with new, weird things. He doesn’t need more things to live up to.

This is a line from the book, and I’m glad it is included. In the book, they have several conversations, much as they have several meals before Sept-Tours. I think they condensed things nicely.

SIDE NOTE: I LOVE that in this series they actually have screens on the phone when they call people. It’s not just a blank screen. They have call screens going. Those little touches are so wonderful!

Diana asks if everything is okay, and as soon as she probes too far, “I don’t want you to worry about that.” He stops himself. He’s protecting her again. That instinct is kicking in hard. He turns to science to distract himself from missing Diana. She’s sad, still waiting for her answers, unsure how to ask for them.

Keep in mind, this is the first time they have spoken since he stormed out. She doesn’t know what he is going to say, but I’m sure she was hoping for more than what she received. And him? I don’t think he knew what he was going to say. He just had a need to hear her voice, to know that she was okay. Like the unnecessary, “Are you alright?” when he took her bloods, he wants to hear from her that everything is alright.

SIDE NOTE: My husband thinks this song is weird. It’s “For You” by Rae Morris. Besides her stealing my name (Rae), I love it. I really do. It’ beautiful and haunting and carries you through the scene. There’s longing and sadness. Desire and fear. It’s all there.

Matthew needs a task. I noticed even in the book that his thinking is its clearest when he is set on a task and his speech falls into a familiar patter. MG does it amazingly in Book 8 during the Time Walking chat around the table with the team. Have you ever seen Sense & Sensibility? There is a scene in it where Alan Rickman’s character is nearly clawing the walls with worry for his beloved. He begs for a task, for something to do to take his mind off of the agony she is going through and his inability to do anything about it. Matthew has no one to ask, so he creates one himself. He decides to delve deeper into Diana’s bloods.

He’s sitting in the dark when Miriam arrives, and it’s so different from the last time she found him in the lab at an odd time. Last time, he was sitting relaxed with a glass of wine in hand looking over information about the “academic” he overheard at the Bodleian who happened to be a witch. This time, he’s hunched over, bent over, in the dark, focusing intently on the information in front of him.

“Well, genetic mutation over the centuries made an exact match impossible, but... I compared the actual physical data.”

Matthew Freakin’ Goode. That breath between “but” and “I” is masterful. There’s incredulity and amazement, the breath of the impossible made real. Magic is desire made real, right? Well, Diana is magic.

“Help me run them again.”

This is Miriam and Matthew in their element. They love the discovery, and the act of working through the problems. This is what they have been waiting for... a possible break. Matthew was focused so much on protecting his queen that he missed the plot, again. The Book is only part of the answer. There is more in Diana and... and he will someday learn... himself.

Now, I think there’s a bit of ADR here with Matthew’s “I need to get back to tell Diana what we’ve discovered” and Marthe’s, “Matthew called for you. He’s on his way.” It’s a little like JARVIS explaining away things in the early Iron Man movies. Of course, I could be completely wrong, but both of these lines feel like after-thoughts to fix a transition broken either by omission of a scene or realization that it wasn’t quite flowing.

I love that Diana rushes to the driveway, just as she does in the books. She gets to her stopping point first. As soon as she sees him, she plants herself. He was rushing, too, but upon spying his beloved, his pace slows, more purposeful. She waits for him, this time allowing him to cross to her, allowing him to be the one to breach this. Every time it has been her inviting him to dinner, kissing him, saying I love you. This time, she is waiting. His jacket is open, his hands are out of his pockets. Everything is in the open as her hair flows freely. There are no more constraints and restraints.

Sidenote: Am I the ONLY one distracted by TP’s bra as she runs down to greet him? It looks to me like she has a wireless mic in there. I may be wrong, but it caught my eye the very first time I watched the scene. I’ve worn wireless mics before (yes, I was an actress once… but nowhere near as talented or beautiful as TP), and that might be just the place for them to hide it on her, especially considering how many wide shots are in this sequence (making it very difficult to use a traditional boom mic).

“Tell me,” she breathes. “If I do, there’s no turning back. You have to understand what that means.”

Thank you, Matthew. It always bothered me in the book that he basically swore her to this life without giving her a clear view of what it meant. Ysabeau has given her some idea on camera, and maybe more off of it.

“Ysabeau made me understand. Tell me.”

She remains undeterred, and that last bit is all he needs from her. He approaches her, holding out his left hand to her right. It’s often that left hand of his making contact with her. I have no way of knowing if it was intentional on the part of the actors or the production team, but it makes for great storytelling. It makes for great symbolism to have that consistency. The tips of their fingers touch, the opening ceremony in their elopement.

“From this moment, we will always be one.”

Matthew turns his hand slightly until his fingers interlock, one by one with hers. He lets there hands rest there in the air, suspended in perfect unity. Then, he does something the audio team must have adored. He says, “Diana... I love you.”

Why am I gushing about the audio team? Well, for Yanks like myself, you might not know that many English people create an “r” between a word that ends with a vowel and the next word that begins with one. Matthew does it in the very next scene! But, to edit out the “I love you” cleanly (which is needed in the last episode of the season), it’s MUCH more helpful for MG to take a nice long breath between her name and the statement. So, if I was on the audio team and the editing team, I’d be quite pleased with that considering how this phrase needs to be used later in the series. If he had run it together, it could still be salvaged, sure, but it’s far easier to separate it out this way.

Anyway, back to the action... to the moment when he tells her he loves her, and they both just let go of each other’s hands because those hands have other places to be. Watch it. They just unclasp those hands as fast as they can so they can get their arms around one another. I want to know who chose to put TP in flats that day so she has to get on tippie toes to reach MG for the kiss. Of course, MG is hunched slightly down to meet her, but it does crack me up in the wide shot just a little.

Diana’s hand goes up to the nape of his neck (thank you for the consistency, TP), her other arm wrapped around him. I’m not surprised she does little “exploring” in this kiss. She’s holding onto him for dear life! And Matthew his holding her up, his life, his love, his mate.

“If we are not welcome here, Diana(r) and I will leave.”

You’re not seeing a typo (though I do have a few here and there in here... I really should type them up in a document before I create them, but writing in a blogging app has been my tradition for 15 years, so I feel no inclination to change it, yet. That is the rolling “r” I spoke about above. Diana ends with an “a” and so does “and,” so MG naturally adds an “r” in there.

What I also love about this is that MG is approaching his mother, for the first time, completely open about his relationship with Diana. The first time they arrived, he introduced her as his “friend.” They stood apart. He rarely touched Diana, save the dance and later their stroll. This time, he is holding her hand. They are a united front, truly one. The inclusive language, also, is so striking. “We.” “Diana and I.” He gives her first billing in his declaration to his mother. But, she is not about to abandon them.

“You are my beloved son. And you are now my daughter.” “If you have the courage to love my son, you have no need to fear your power. The women on the de Clermont family defend themselves, and you will be no different.”

First, everyone seems to pick up on Diana’s fear of her own power. Ysabeau and Marthe saw it after the Witch Water. Diana doesn’t know what to do with it, how to handle it. It doesn’t matter that she’s madly powerful and they can all tell that. She’s afraid, and that’s holding her back.

Second, she declares that Diana is her daughter. This is a paraphrase from the book, but it was one that confused me a little. Diana is a part of the de Clermont family by marriage, now (let’s just go with it. It’s the easiest way to explain this) as she is mated to Matthew, bio-sire of Ysabeau, the wife of the head of the de Clermont family, the late Philippe. I have five parents, so I know how family trees can get a little confusing. I had to draw my husband a map when we first started dating 16 years ago at University.

I love how Matthew watches Diana and his mother in this moment. Ysabeau welcomes Diana to her, kissing her on either cheek before imparting her wisdom. She releases her to her husband’s care when she is done (I’m just tired of writing “mate” and there is precedence for this in the book. Matthew starts calling her his wife almost immediately). Watch how MG plays this moment, though. It’s so beautiful and subtle, almost completely out of focus. He just stands back, quietly watching the proceedings, but there is almost a look of pride on his face.

SIDE NOTE: I love that we get so much with Meridiana and Gerbert and all of this. There’s not a lot of it in the books, and I am a big fan of how the screenwriters have definitely honored the intention of the author while translating this story to a totally different medium.

“I need to show you something.”

Well, look at you Mr. I’ve Unbuttoned Another Button! Now, before we get any deeper, I want to note that there’s a lot of their discussion we haven’t heard. We’re joining them at some point, but they must have discussed the detail of her role as his mate here, because in episode 6 he says, “I told you,” and I know we certainly never heard that conversation before. I’m not upset, but I did want to call it out for anyone else who might be wondering. This seems the most appropriate place for him to sit with her and discuss some of the details of mating with a Vampire. I doubt he discussed the heart vein with her, especially considering he is still craving her blood despite their affirmation of their love, but I think the larger issues at hand have been discussed before we transition to DNA.

Also, she has told him about what happened. When she says, “Witch Wind and Witch Water,” he seems absolutely unsurprised. The only way he could be so is if they’ve discussed it. So, we’ve missed quite a bit of Matthew and Diana’s discussion. Again, inference is a big part of film and television, so I don’t mind a bit! But, it’s fun to slow down a bit to really drink in those context clues. Bet it would make your English professors happy, eh? (says the woman married to an English and Theater teacher who is still disappointed that speaking in iambic pentameter evades her)

I think she was hoping for something nicer here than a DNA report. Matthew, we know from Book 2 that you often write poetry. How about drumming some up for the love of your life? But, this is important. He sits across from her, his hands instinctively clasping after he hands her the result. They discuss her abilities, but she’s worried, and he can feel it.

“My parents were persecuted for their powers.” [He reaches for her] “Hey. We will face this together. Otherwise, you’ll always be running.”

Matthew told her there was no turning back for him. They are mates, now, and that means Diana never has to be alone again so long as he breathes. He has his hand on her thigh, I’d guess by positioning, or perhaps her knee. She lifts her hand, tracing down again to his mouth just like she did the first time she went to kiss him in Episode 3. He pulls away, and I respect that they added this moment between them where he at least tries to tell her about what happened with Gillian. I know, he didn’t follow through (his libido had other ideas), but I do appreciate the effort on the part of the screenwriters to protect his character here by having him at least try.

Matthew makes mistakes, just as Diana does, but in a television series, you don’t always have as much time as you do in a novel to convince your audience to forgive.

“I need to talk to you about Oxford, Diana.” “I don’t want to hear about Oxford, Matthew.”

And how could he deny her now? He can’t. His eyes lock immediately on her lips, and as he bends down to kiss her, they do not waver. His lips touch hers, and his eyes close as he leans down into the embrace, both her arms around his neck, his encircling her waist. Warm flesh meets cold, but neither will ever flinch away. There are no barriers here, anymore.

Matthew carries her into their bed chambers, very symbolic of carrying one over the threshold to a marriage bed, and they’re both giggling. Matthew presses his head to hers, and I love how he pauses ever so slightly, just savoring the feel of her skin against his before he kisses her nose playfully.

I mean, just think about how liberating this must be for him! Diana is still Spellbound, her magic bound up and trapped within her. She will have her own liberation soon enough (though not such a happy one, sadly). For Matthew, he has been fighting his mating instincts with everything within him. He has wrenched himself from her side to go back to Oxford, which pained him more than he would ever say. With them mated, time apart will be even more difficult for him, as it brings his Blood Rage ever closer to the surface.

But, in this moment, he is reveling in every touch of her skin. He’s savoring every moment of connection between them, because he has finally found her. After 1500 years of life, he has found his one true love. This is Matthew’s liberation. Well, one of them. He has a few of them throughout the books, but this is the first. Instead of binding his feelings and instincts, he’s given into them completely. The call has been answered, and the two of them are bound together not only in the anchor of magic from Diana to Matthew, but in the act of mating from Matthew to Diana. The circle is complete. Almost like an Ouroboros, right book readers?

For all the times he has reminded himself, “She’s not for you.” He finally gets to say with wonder, “She’s yours.” Oh, Matthew. She’s finally yours, just as you are hers.

“What does the distinguished historian know about bundling?”

Now, watching this the first time, I had no idea. I wondered if they were going to bundle up clothes or candles or something. I kid you not. After reading the book, I finally had a better idea of this custom.

Bundling:

According to Merriam Webster: “a former custom of an unmarried couple's occupying the same bed without undressing especially during courtship.”

Now, Diana and Matthew might have a little trouble with keeping their hands to themselves, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

They clink glasses, and he sees the hunger in her eyes. I love this kiss. It’s one of my favorites of theirs, honestly, because Matthew isn’t holding anything back. He’s not afraid of what someone will think. He’s not afraid of someone in the house hearing. He’s given in completely to his love for Diana, and she is ever as much his and he is hers. There’s a big emphasis in the book that he claims her as his, but the ghosts of Sept Tours (I believe, likely Philippe) urge her on to tell her that he is hers, too. They belong to each other.

Now, Matthew makes a LOT of excuses about not sleeping with Diana until Book 2 when Philippe basically insists they bed each other. I mean, a lot. That’s right, non-book readers. They bundle and bundle a lot in Book 1 without any actual action. But, I think a part of it is still about control. At least, that is how they paint it in this show.

I’ll get to that in episode 7. I have a lot to say about it, but I feel like Matthew still doesn’t totally trust himself, even though she is his mate and even though he loves her. He’s still a vampire with tainted blood. He’s still a monster. He’s still an anomaly. And that still haunts him.

He can’t imagine ever hurting her, but making love is about more than just physical attributes causing pleasure. There’s rushing blood. There’s adrenaline. There’s sweat and scents and flavors abounding. There’s so much more to it for a Vampire like him. His senses are heightened (Does that include pleasure? Does it include pain?). So, for now, they bundle. You read right, folks. They don’t have sex this night.

I have a friend who did that with her husband. They actually bundled their first night of their honeymoon. They were both virgins on their wedding night, as were my husband and I. It’s definitely an interesting custom and after reading the books, I have new appreciation for it. Matthew and Diana have the opportunity to really get to know one another’s bodies and pleasure areas. They figure out what works and what doesn’t before getting to the main event.

SIDE NOTE: Ysabeau was totally underestimating just how many candles Marthe lit for them. I mean, yeah, it won’t solve their problems, but it looks so beautiful and romantic!

Also, while we’re on a Side Note... where did Diana’s sweet long sweater go? It was there. I know it was there when they were sipping wine, but when she’s kissing him, I don’t see it anymore! And it certainly isn’t there when she circles him looking at his scars (I know, I’m skipping ahead... it’s two paragraphs down). Hmmm.

Matthew and Diana finish the spine-tingling kiss, and we know Diana has a problem with patience. There’s a lot of instant gratification that magic brings that she has avoided for most of her life, but I’m sure if she had an undressing spell in her arsenal, she would have fired it on her husband without hesitation. The subtitles note her breath is shaking, and it is. The anticipation is mounting.

She starts to undress him, but his hands catch on either side of her face, just as they did during the kiss by that fabulous tree that I still want to climb (like Diana wants to climb Matthew!).

“Diana. You might not like what you see.”

SIDE NOTE: My husband hates this part. Now, amazing actor that I think MG is, he’s not my “type” when it comes to body type. I think he looks like a bird shirtless. Don’t get me wrong. He’s attractive, but not personally appealing to me in this shot. I acknowledge that he has an attractive figure (my husband calls him a “marble god”), but it’s not my cuppa. I can admire Michealangelo’s David (and I have in Florence) without wanting to jump his marble bones.

Even as I write this, my husband is complaining about Matthew asserting that she won’t like what she sees when he “is in better shape than most men.”

“It’s not his fault,” says my Matthew. “It’s the line, but come on! Get someone who looks like me to say that and it’ll make more sense.” I think my husband looks great, for the record. He has lost 75 pounds since June and I couldn’t be more proud of him. “I’m sorry,” my Matthew continues. “He’s a beautiful man. It’s ridiculous to have him say that line.”

Anyway…. Back to the shirtless bird and his lioness…

She lets her right hand run down his cheek again, and his mouth again parts to her hand. She continues to unbutton his shirt as he sighs, unbuttoning his cuff for her. When she pulls his shirt off, he shimmies. And I giggle. I can’t help it. It’s so not sexy to shimmy. But, it’s adorable. She sees his scarred form for the first time, and immediately starts kissing the injuries, running her hands along them. There’s acceptance in those kisses, embracing of who he is. In the books, after going hunting with him, she kisses him. He’s a very clean killer, which mirrors what a clean eater he is. There is no blood on his lips, but there’s still the taste of it in his mouth. When she kisses him, she says it wasn’t strange... just Matthew.

I feel a kinship to that scene here. Diana is taking in his scars, touching them, kissing them, accepting them as a part of him and his past that is now intertwined with their future.

When she breathes, “Oh, Matthew,” his eyes close. These are only pieces of his past, the visible scars left behind that only hint at the emotional ones he carries inside. He feels exposed (literally) and doesn’t know what to expect from her. These memories still hurt, even if the scars do not.

“That one was made by the tip of a broadsword during the Hundred years war. Think of them as a map of my life.” “I want to hunt down everyone who hurt you.”

The look in his eyes is unmistakable. It’s an extension of how he looked at her when she stood alongside him against Domenico. This is not some fragile, frail woman. This is his warrior. His lioness. The woman for whom he has waited his long 1500 years on this earth. His eyes meet hers, and for the first time, he pulls her up into his arms, her legs locked around him, as his mouth descends on hers.

Diana, the huntress, is his at last. His warrior. His queen. And she doesn’t look upon his scars with pity so much as the thirst for vengeance. He would avenge her at any cost, and to know that she feels the same way about him sends a new wave of longing through his body. Suddenly, her impatience is his, as he cannot go another moment without touching her, kissing her, feeling her move against his body, his beloved Diana.

When we rejoin them at the bed, Diana has magically changed into a sexy camisole (seriously, where did this come from? In the scene by the fire, she has on a white bra, and it looks like it’s still the same shirt from the elopement scene.. it’s hard to tell with the dark lighting on my computer screen). Then, during the kissing after the sip of wine, she magically loses her long coverup (of course, parts of the scene could have been cut where she took it off... and I don’t mind the passage of time between shots. I just think it’s highly unlikely Diana went off to “slip into something more comfortable” to borrow the line from Lili Von Schtupp Blazing Saddles while Matthew just waited. She has less patience than he does!). So, somehow she lost the long-sleeve shirt, the white bra, and gained the sexy camisole. Movie magic!! I know I’m overthinking these things, but that is what I do! You wouldn’t be reading these if you didn’t want to watch me over-think things!

“My love, with you my life has a beginning, middle and end. For when you are gone, my life will be over.”

This is from the books, though it’s a bit more drawn out there. Time, of course, is a major factor. We can’t possibly fit all the words from the books into the series. But, it’s almost an over-simplification. In the books, Matthew tells Diana within this sequence that he feels time passing again. Now, Series Matthew has already talked to Diana about the passage of time and how his sense is different to hers. But, he says that being with Diana makes him feel 37, makes him feel the days passing as if he passed them with her. He feels alive, again, with her. And, she tells him in the books that she feels as though she is alive for the first time.

I’ll be brutally honest with you. I abhor sex scenes and always have. It has nothing to do with my sensibilities as a Christian, as I was watching sex scenes long before I made that decision and still hated them. I feel like I’m intruding on something very intimate and personal and private. I know I sound like a 9-year-old girl watching her mom kiss her boyfriend from the hallway and going, “Ewwww.” (Yes, this really happened… repeatedly… even though my little brother and I very much liked George. He was a good guy.). Making out? Heck, yeah, I am here for that. The build up? Ooooh, yeah. But when hands start going under clothes (or when clothes are completely optional), I start to get uncomfortable. Don’t know why, but I’ve always been like this. This little prude.

Can we fade to black? Pan to the curtains? Of course, this is not realistic, and this is on a network that isn’t going to shy away from a little sexiness, even if it’s not the near-soft-porn of Dangerous Beauty, a movie I loved in my youth, but always turned away from when I felt the need (and there is a lot of sex in that movie). Even Lost Girl’s sex scenes made me uncomfortable, but it’s a show about a freakin’ succubus, so what do you expect? I knew what I was getting myself into when I started watching it.

I’ve also done make-out scenes on camera before in nothing but a skirt and my bra and was fine. Yes, I was an actor once, but that was a long time ago and I’ll likely not return until my children are a bit older. I’m not pretty or talented enough to do anything big, but I enjoy theater and small television roles when I have the opportunity. I’m perfectly content with that. It’s all a blast and a blessing! But, I remember making out with multiple guys in one day on a shoot. It was basically, “Hi, nice to meet you, I’m going to nibble on your neck, now.” My husband thought it was hilarious, thankfully. One of the benefits to marrying a theater major!

MG and TP are professionals and they do all of this brilliantly. I give major props to the actors for portraying the intimacy between these two characters so beautifully. For me, these scenes are on the edge of my flight instinct. But, that’s because they are so good and it feels like I’m looking in on someone’s private intimacy. There are bad sex scenes out there between actors who have zero chemistry. Trust me.

TP and MG breathe life into Diana and Matthew. They give them hearts that beat and souls that feel rather than just lips that move and limbs that react. It’s because of their performances that I get just a touch uncomfortable. If they were lesser actors, I wouldn’t be bothered because my brain would remind me, “It’s just a show.” But, because TP and MG do their jobs brilliantly, I want to look away and give Diana and Matthew the privacy I think they deserve.

Let’s get back to the bundling. Yes, that’s right, series fans who haven’t read the books... they bundle this night. They don’t actually go all the way. In the books, you have to wait until book 2 for them to finally go there. A whole book of bundling! I always figured it was partly because he doesn’t trust himself, wholly. He loves her. Oh, he loves her. But, he still has Blood Rage, and that doesn’t go away. If you note, Matthew works up incrementally with Diana. He starts with surviving their first encounter when he was craving her. Then, he dares to share a car with her, sealed in with her scent. He dares a private dinner, and survives her attempted kiss before finally kissing her himself. Everything is a slow build-up. Matthew doesn’t dive into anything with Diana where he thinks he might lose control. He’s too frightened of himself, and if he ever did anything to harm Diana, that would be the end of his life. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

His declaration of love finished, Matthew focuses on his bride, on bringing her pleasure. He looks to her face, lowering himself closer to her pelvis before his hands wander where they dare, past trousers and pants (yes, fellow yanks, these are two separate things) to touch the most sensitive parts of his love. Watch how he watches her. Matthew may not yet trust himself in the throws of passion, but he will not let that prevent him from bringing his wife as much pleasure as possible while he steels himself for that day. Diana revels in it, and once he’s had his moment, his eyes meet hers, and the two can’t help but laugh a little. His face grows serious once more as he pulls up to her. She places a hand on either side of his face as he pulls her back onto the bed (her enjoyment did throw her a little off of it), pulling her back beneath him.

“I don’t think that’s bundling.” “Well, it is in France.”

They laugh together as she touches his mouth. They re-situate, just soaking one another in. She lays on her side, him on his, but he’s sure to grab onto her bum to pull her close to him again. Her hand rests on his cheek as the two regard one another. It’s so… beautiful. It’s so wonderful to see them happy and laughing again.

Of course, their happiness cannot last too long. In addition to their story still unfolding, this is a television series and there’s only 3.5 minutes left in the episode. Something has to go horribly wrong. It’s just story-telling structure. So, enjoy it while you can, Bishmont fans! Because, it’s about to go pear-shaped again.

The next morning, Diana wakes next to her husband, her mate. She regards him quietly as he sleeps. That’s right, the Vampire sleeps. He’s told us before (and we know full well from the books) that Vampires don’t sleep in the same way that humans do. Yes, there are rare occasions when they do sleep, but they don’t require nightly rest to function. You see, this isn’t a functional sleep. This is the contended sleep of a man who is, at last, content. He has no need to be restless, to ponder, to walk, to work, to drive himself to insanity attempting to atone for his many sins (he is Catholic, like my Father’s side of the family).

Diana doesn’t miss its importance, even if she doesn’t fully know his past. She knows that her beloved is as happy as she. Content. Safe. Enveloped in true love. Princess Buttercup and Wesley would be proud. Their bed finally has both of them in it. Before, it was his bed that she was occupying while he was there. When he left, it almost became hers, separate from him. But, with both of them there, it is theirs. Scents mixed and wound together, inseparable as the bonds they share. Matthew is drenched in her scent as he sleeps. It fills his nostrils. It fills his lungs. It covers his skin. He rests. At last, after years of searching, he has found her, and she has not only received him, but met his intensity with her own. He can finally rest.

SIDE NOTE: We know from this episode and the next that both lost their trousers in their exploratory fun the night before. But, the real blockbuster lovemaking is coming later, Bishmont fans. Don’t get too discouraged. If you were reading the books, you’d have to wait until Book 2!

She watches him for a moment, a small smile playing at her lips as she leans on her hand. Diana leans up, brushing her lips against his back. When he still doesn’t stir, she decides to let him sleep while she takes her run. I’m sure she has some excess adrenaline to burn off, considering their night of bundling.

As I said, things have to go pear-shape. It’s the end of the episode, after all, and we’re pushing through this back half of the season. I warned my husband to watch episodes 5 & 6 together, but we didn’t listen. He decided to watch Episode 5 just before bed, and he threw his hands up at the end in frustration. I laughed at him, reminding him of my warning. There’s a lot of ground to cover to get to this season’s exciting conclusion.

Thank you, again, for reading everyone! I have been so overwhelmed by your Likes, Reblogs, and kind comments. I haven’t written in so long, and this has been an absolute pleasure.

#adow #a discovery of witches #Matthew de Clermont #Matthew Goode #matthew clairmont #Teresa Palmer #Diana Bishop #adowtv

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