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welllpthisishappening · 4 years

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Like My Mirror Years Ago

Hey, hi there, that gif doesn’t really have anything to do with the story! So, a couple days ago @shireness-says sent me this post and was like, “You know what you should do? Write some domestic Enchanted Forest with Killian unlacing Emma’s dress.” And I was like, “Yes, this seems like a good idea.” Only then, I didn’t write it. As I am apt to do. Instead here is some season 5A Camelot divergence set at some point between 5x02 and 5x04 with a conversation I have wanted to write forever, but didn’t originally plan on writing until I started typing it yesterday. And we do get to the unlacing, but first: angst in the form of nearly 5.3K.

Also, it should be known that the Google doc title of this was [Insert Hozier Lyrics Here] so if you’re looking for a soundtrack.

————

She knows the exact moment.

As soon as his breathing shifts ever so slightly, a hint quicker than it is when he’s actually asleep and, if nothing else, Emma supposes his inherent inability to lie is something of a victory. To her. Specifically. Or them. Collectively. Or that pesky future that feels as if it’s begun to drape itself across her shoulders.

That might explain the near-constant ache between her shoulder blades.

She resolutely refuses to accept any other reasons.

“You suck at that, you know,” she murmurs, not taking her eyes away from the piece of curved wood in her hands. Killian scoffs, and she doesn’t have to turn to know when he props himself up on his elbows either.

The creaking mattress helps.

Everything creaks a little in Camelot, another metaphor Emma isn’t particularly inclined to spend too long thinking about, but she’s got the growing suspicion that most of this kingdom is prone to making noise. As if it’s shattering right in front of her, tiny cracks that she’s not able to prevent, but that also might just be a commentary on her sanity at this point and—

She’s holding her breath.

Letting it out in a huff she tries very hard to make quiet, Emma knows she fails. Spectacularly. Another sweeping commentary.

“Unparalleled observational skills,” Killian says. With a smile. Smirk, probably. Emma still doesn’t bother looking, can hear the inflection in his voice and already knows how forced the even tone is. Seeing the inevitable arch of his eyebrow will only make it worse.

“Get me in a crow’s nest or something.” “What do you know about crow’s nests?” She shrugs, fingers still moving and the buzzing under her skin hasn’t ebbed much since she started, but there was something almost oddly peaceful about the pattern of Killian’s breathing when he was asleep.

In and out. Over and over. Simple and easy and consistent. Steady, even. Something about the tides or another nautical joke Emma isn’t willing to make.

The mattress creaks again.

As do the floorboards.

And she doesn’t shudder when his hand lands on her shoulder. She doesn’t stop this twisted arts and crafts project, either. She leans back, though — another passing victory and momentary return to normal, relishing the solid feel of his chest behind her.

Killian takes a deep breath.

“How long have I been asleep?” “Not long,” Emma replies, and one of the muscles in her neck isn’t all that appreciative of the current twist it’s in. She doesn’t move, feels as if it’d be admitting to something far bigger and she can’t imagine how he’s still so warm.

Like magic.

Not at all like magic. At least not the kind she’s used to now.

“Awfully vague,” he mutters. Accusation doesn’t particularly hang from the letters, but Emma hears it all the same. Can see it in the way Killian’s fingers tighten ever so slightly, like he’s trying to hold onto more than just her and her tension-filled shoulder blades, and he’d never unbuckled his sword.

Or taken his hook off.

He always took his hook off. Before. When they were—

Safe, Emma supposes. Emma supposes they aren’t that anymore.

“There was no point in you staying up just so you could stare at me with those sad puppy dog eyes and all of that palpable concern.” His fingers loosen. For the best, probably. Since it appears the laces of Emma’s latest Camelot-provided gown, which she hasn’t bothered taking off, are tightening. Enough to threaten several of her internal organs.

Laughter echoes softly around them.

Her.

Only her.

Reaching for another string that she’s only a little worried she’ll snap before she can use, Emma barely moves her arm before there’s metal around her wrist, and anger runs red-hot down her spine. She snaps her head around quickly enough to do damage to several other neck muscles, but Killian hardly flinches at her expression.

He lifts both eyebrows, instead.

So, there’s something to be said for a change of pace.

“We’ve a variety of things we can talk about,” Killian says, more forced lightness that grates on every one of Emma’s nerves, “Although I’ll admit I’m always partial to discussing the fascinating colloquialisms you’re in possession of.” “Can I possess the language?” “The knowledge of it’s—what’s the word? Slang?” Emma rolls her eyes. “That, at least.” “Oh, yeah, I'm the smartest person around.” “In this realm, certainly.”

Emma snorts, not any real humor in the sound, but her lungs work a hint better once Killian pulls his hook away from her. Licking her lips, she spins and neither one of them mention how close she comes to kicking him in a variety of potentially painful locations when she tugs her legs towards her chest.

His lips twitch as soon as she rests her chin on her knees.

There’s an absurd amount of fabric involved in this dress.

“What do a dog’s eyes have to do with the overall force of my worry?” Killian asks, and it’s not exactly funny. Just like whatever noise Emma makes isn’t exactly a laugh. Not when it scratches at the sides of her throat, and the tip of her tongue and honestly screw Camelot.

No ChapStick in other realms.

She keeps twisting her lower lip between her teeth.

“You shouldn't have let me fall asleep.” Her current eye roll rate is going to give Emma a migraine. Maybe Dark Ones can’t get migraines. That’d be something at least. “There really wasn’t any reason for you to be awake,” Emma says. “And I—” Killian tilts his head when she cuts herself off, something stupid like open book and knowing her and they might both be horrible liars. “I know you’re worried.” “Seems a given in this situation, don’t you think?” Another shrug. No eye roll, though. Small victories and whatnot.

And Killian has to readjust his sword to crouch in front of her. Emma very nearly laughs again. Or cries. She’s having trouble distinguishing emotions at this point.

God, but she’s exhausted.

Metal finds her wrist again, cool on her skin, but Emma’s mind barely has a chance to recognize temperature before she’s wholly preoccupied with Killian’s ability to cover both her hands with one of his. It opens up some fairly romantic ideas, all of them fluttering around her skull and under that same magic-prone skin, a slightly different energy that makes her feel light and heavy and—

Her neck gives up.

Leaves her head falling forward and crashing against Killian’s and he still doesn’t flinch. Even as he exhales again, air brushing Emma’s cheeks and the edges of her lips and she could come up with several better ways to use those lips. Something stops her.

Quite possibly the laughter.

That only she can hear.

“You’ll give yourself a coronary.” “Sounds unpleasant.” Emma doesn’t smile. Quite honestly, she’s not sure the muscles in her face are capable of doing that anymore. Still, something in the center of her flutters traitorously at what might be the most twisted instance of flirting they’ve had in their relationship.

Although there was that sword fight. And handcuffing him to the hospital bed. And him unlocking himself from the hospital bed. The Jello thing, too.

Emma figures that all counts as pre-relationship.

“I can’t imagine it would be,” she agrees. “But, uh—” “—Oh, if you say what I think you’re about to say, I will be very frustrated.”

It’s her turn to lift her eyebrows. “Will you just?” “I understand why Regina asked you to do what she did,” Killian starts, and it’s not the last thing Emma expects to hear, but it’s at least somewhere at the bottom of a list she hasn’t made yet. “And I understand even better why you did it. I also—” “—God, how much is there?” He nips at her nose, more out of place flirting that soothes some of...her, really. “This is it, I promise. I understand what it would be to feel that sort of desperation for someone you love. To be terrified of what will happen if you don’t act. Don’t do whatever you can. To fix all of it.”

Her throat collapses.

Her lungs disappear.

And there’s no more disembodied laughter, but the silence that stretches in the minimal space between them is almost worse, thick with unspoken meaning and heavy-handed allusions and Emma’s fingers are moving again. Before she’s entirely rationalized it. Brushing away strands of hair that’s almost getting too long, Killian’s eyes flutter closed at her touch.

“That’s not your job,” Emma whispers.

“Isn’t it, though?” “Falling asleep is not a failure, babe.” He scoffs, a quick click of his teeth and Emma hasn’t moved her fingers. He leans into her hand. “And yet here we are. At an impasse, of sorts.” “I thought we were having a conversation.”

“Not a very focused one.” “Ah, well you’re tired.” “And you’re a very good distraction,” Killian argues, not the insult Emma briefly hears it as. Even so, something almost like fear ripples across her skin. Latches onto the base of her skull and whatever neurons are clearly unstable and irrational and it only takes him a few moments to realize his mistake.

“I know that’s not what you meant.” He hums, nosing at the inside of her wrist. “What are these things you’re making, exactly?” “Dreamcatchers.” “Sounds nefarious.” “No, no, the opposite, actually. Legend said—well, God, it’s kind of shitty that I’m making them, actually. But, um...they’re supposed to keep nightmares away.” “Is it working?” “I’m not the one asleep,” Emma points out. “And repeating my question seems redundant.” Sticking her tongue out is quite possibly the least mature thing Emma could possibly do — particularly when she’s at least seventy-two percent positive the churning in her stomach is actually magic, but she does it all the same. If only to ensure that Killian’s lips move again.

She might be staring at his lips.

Might be is another very bad lie.

“Now you’re just trying to make me swoon with your own knowledge of the language,” she mumbles. “How’s it working?” “Better than it should.”

His lips move. Directly towards hers. Only to deviate at the last possible second, and Emma isn’t totally disappointed by that. Killian kisses the edge of her mouth. The curve of her chin. The bridge of her nose. Directly between her very pinched eyebrows.

“You know, I thought you were dead.” Strictly speaking, Emma has no idea where that particular string of words came from. The depths of her soul, probably. Some dark — or darker — corner where that very specific terror lingers. The way she swore her heart stopped, and breathing was secondary and part of her might resent him.

For making a joke of it.

“That wasn’t a real reality, love,” Killian breathes, and Emma can’t imagine how his knees are dealing with any of this. He’s ancient, he can’t have the best joints. In this realm or any other.

“Still happened, though.” “Aye, it did. And I’d—” “—Nope,” Emma interrupts, lips popping on the word like that will turn it into some kind of decree. Technically, she’s a princess. It should work like that. “I absolutely do not care. At all. Like, at all. I stood there and watched you die and—” Crying is apparently something she’s not capable of doing anymore either, and that’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to her, but it does leave her blinking faster than she’d like and she’ll have to come up with another colloquialism for the look on Killian’s face.

Abject devotion seems a little over the top.

“This is my fault.” Killian blinks. More than once. “How the hell did you get to that conclusion?” “You died, babe. I—I stood there and watched, and it was...it was you, but it wasn’t you and it didn’t even matter because it’s always been you and—” She’s rambling. Words spill out of Emma without her explicit permission, which seems kind of unfair all things considered. Nearly absolute power should allow her to be a better conversationalist than this.

The more things change, or whatever the saying is.

“The point is, we found Regina after that. Henry and I and...she wasn’t going to do anything. Was going to let Robin marry Zelena. But I—well, I told her that I’d just—” He doesn’t look away from her. Emma isn’t sure if that’s good or bad, far too much blue in his gaze even as the candles around them burn to the base of their wicks. She licks her lips again. Still chapped. “I told her that love was a part of all happiness. That...that she had to fight for it because I’d just—” “—Watched me die?” “Not as much fun when you interrupt me.” He makes a noise, a low rumble that tickles Emma’s cheek. “Apologies, my lady.” “You think you’re very clever.” “I think you’re the most incredible lass—” “—Oh, call me lass one more time and see how that works out for you.” “It’s a compliment,” Killian mutters, almost entirely into her skin and the few strands of hair that have come loose. “And you’re being rather distracting again.”

“Still waiting on the compliment parts of this, honestly.” He finally stands up, both of his knees cracking in the process. And Emma hardly opens her mouth to make some sort of misplaced joke about that before Killian is shaking his head and tugging her out of her chair and they don’t lay down on Camelot’s noisiest mattress.

They sit on the edge. Thighs pressed together and Emma’s fingers gripping his hook like some kind of lifeline, which it very well may be because they should have talked about this before, but there wasn’t time before and— “I love you.” Full-body shock, Emma finds rather quickly, is not nearly as uncomfortable as she assumed it would be. She’s imagined this going a lot of ways, loathe as she may be to ever admit such a thing. Most of the time they’re tangled in very soft sheets, or tucked into the questionably comfortable cot in the captain’s quarters of the Jolly, his fingers in her hair and that one specific smile that she’s only ever seen directed at her.

Not once has she imagined it like this.

Stuck in a different realm with a king that does not live up to the legend and something about the air in Camelot reminds Emma of Boston Harbor in the summer.

Salty and a little stale.

Her mouth goes dry and her pulse noticeably slows, turning her head to gape at him. That’s not romantic. That’s insane. This whole thing is absolutely and entirely insane and she can’t quite come to terms with the precise way he glances up at her.

From underneath those stupid eyelashes, that are both kind of dreamy and even more offensive and Emma doesn’t object when he pulls both her hands up. So he can kiss the bend of her knuckles. Like some goddamn pirate prince.

That helps a little bit, actually.

“What?” “I love you,” Killian repeats. “In a variety of different realities, it seems.” “No.” “No?” “No,” Emma echoes, resisting the very real urge to jump up and start pacing. Possibly cast a few spells. That’s the crux of her problem, though. So she does the only reasonable thing. Stays frustrating still and yells at her boyfriend.

Who doesn’t seem all that put out by this turn of events.

“Where do you think I should start?” “I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” Emma admits with a snarl. “I...there is no way that deckhand version—” “—Oh, that’s also a little insulting.” “You’re telling me that you were in love with me in a fake reality?” Killian shrugs. It’s absurd as when Emma did it. “I’d hardly die for anyone, darling.” “Really way too confident in your ability to—” “—Ensure swooning?” “I will kick you,” Emma warns, but the sentiment lacks any real threat and she’d like to hear him say it several times over again. The I love you part, not necessarily guarantees of swooning.

“Please don’t do that.” “I’d have to stand up.” “Aye,” Killian laughs, “that is true. Although we are deviating just a tad now.” “From?” “How much I understand.” “Overblown confidence.” Tangling their fingers together doesn’t do much to help the state of Emma’s shoulders, but Killian’s hand is so warm and he’s so warm and, shoulder notwithstanding, every inch of Emma wants to curl against him and close her eyes and let him proclaim every ridiculous thought that has ever crossed his mind.

Regarding her. Specifically. And them. Collectively.

“An appropriate amount of confidence,” he corrects. “In regards to you, at least. Because it wasn’t the right reality, but...finding you, believing Henry, knowing that you could save all of us, that made sense to me. In a world where not much else did. That’s been the case from the very start, in fact.” She doesn’t reply. Knows she should, should say something else that proclaims a whole variety of things Emma isn’t sure she can follow through on, but her mind has already started to drift, eyes moving back towards the window and the dreamcatchers there and—

“Don’t you know, Emma? It’s you.”

“Happily ever after,” she sighs.

Killian squeezes her fingers. “A work in progress. But the fact remains that I am wholly,” he kisses the back of her palm, “irrevocably,” the side of her wrist, “completely,” her tattoo, “in love with you. And if you are going to believe anything, then I need you to believe that.” “Need?” “With my entire heart, Swan.” “Oh, that was good, actually.” He doesn’t pull away from her hand. Just looks back up at her, and Emma isn’t sure if she’s blushing or simply burning from the inside out, but both options seem feasible at this point. “She was desperate here because I told her she should be,” Emma says, “Regina, I mean.” “That wasn’t your fault. Love has a tendency to—” “—Make you desperate.” “And that wasn’t a question.” Emma makes a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat, more scratches and marks that she knows are far more metaphorical than literal and she should probably say something back. To Killian. About loving him.

Saying it under duress likely doesn’t count.

She meant it, though. And in the alternate reality. And every time she thought it before that.

She’s thought about it quite a bit.

“Suppose it didn’t have to be,” Killian muses, dropping his head to press a kiss against Emma’s neck. No goosebumps, that time. “I’m sorry that you didn’t know before.” “Ah, I kind of did.” “Still. It’s—” Pulling back is also at the bottom of that list Emma hasn’t made, but it isn’t often that she hears him quite so tongue-tied and there’s something oddly endearing about the red at the tips of his ears. “It’s something you should hear, as often as possible.”

“You’re on a roll.” “I’m serious.” “I know,” Emma nods, “and I—you know, for like a solid half second I was totally pissed at you when you showed up in the loft.” “What? Why?” “Making jokes.” To his credit, Killian does look more than a little scandalized. Wide eyes meet Emma’s, and his skin is paler than it was a few seconds before, but that might also have to do with the candles and their inability to burn for an entire night.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I can only tell you I know so many times before it starts getting annoying, I just—I’m not entirely sure what I would have done if it was true. Torn the world apart, probably.” She’s not surprised by the sincerity in her voice. Conviction and another promise that seems to rattle the windows and Emma’s bones in equal measure. Killian’s eyes don’t return to their proper size.

“If you’re not careful, Your Highness,” he says, “I'll be the one swooning soon.” He catches her before she can swat at his chest.

“Idiot.” “Less so now, maybe. But I understand the sentiment. When you were—Gods, it’s entirely unfair to do it like this, isn’t it?”

“This?” He rolls his eyes that time. Emma appreciates the symmetry. “Despite assurances otherwise, I’m not a fool, Swan. I knew you wanted to say something in your parent’s loft and I remembered some of that alternate reality. But then, as always, another disaster. Another problem. Another reason for you to sacrifice yourself. And then words I’d waited to hear for far longer than I’d care to admit, but you were gone and it was—” Killian grits his teeth, a muscle jumping in his jaw, and Emma is an idiot. The biggest idiot. Supreme idiot. She should have realized. “Like a nightmare come true,” he breathes. “Staring at the spot where you were, like I could will you back. Like I could tell you how I loved you more than anything else. No matter what else would happen.”

Lunge is not the best word, but at some point Emma lost any previous control she had over the English language and she’s far too busy relishing Killian’s gasp of surprise when her mouth all but slams against his to be worried about anything else.

She tilts her head. Closes her eyes. Forgets to breathe. Emma forces herself into this moment and this feeling, lets it wrap around her and sink under her skin until it times up with the beat of her pulse and—

The magic in her veins shifts. Rushing from the top of her head to the back of her heels, the kind of power that leaves her dizzy and overwhelmed and greedy for more.

Killian’s tongue traces the seam of her lips.

“They don’t want my help.” “With?” Killian asks, not bothering to pull away from her. Emma’s grip on the back of his hair probably doesn’t help much. “Getting Merlin out of the fucking tree.” “Ah.” “Sound more surprised next time. Have they been talking to you about this?” “Not as such, no. It does not appear that I am part of the inner-Camelot circle.” “Is there one?” “Eh,” he grunts. Disentangling their limbs isn’t all that easy, but it does end with Emma flush against Killian’s side and she supposes beggars can’t be magical choosers. “It seems as if your father is rather taken with having another royal in his midst. Can’t have a notorious pirate captain join them on their perilous quest.” “And how exactly does this notorious pirate captain know about such a quest?”

Suggesting that his eyes actually sparkle at her is entirely absurd and inherently fairy tale, and Emma could not begin to care less.

She can’t hear anything but Killian’s answering laugh. “I’m afraid that’s a rather closely guarded secret, my love.” “Oh, that’s absolutely—” Emma nearly bites her tongue in half. Because it’s not a huge change. Might not even be a change at all, but she latches onto it all the same and the ends of Killian’s lips quirk up. She’s got to find something else to stare at. “Is it super selfish to be glad you’re not going on some perilous quest?”

He shakes his head. It makes the ends of his hair shift, threatening to brush over eyebrows that are far too expressive. “Possibly, but I also can’t help to be anything except glad that you aren’t using more of your magic. I suppose we’re on even ground.” “Not the worst ground to be on.” “No,” Killian agrees, and that’s a strange way to do that. “It’s not. Let Her Majesty work out Merlin’s riddle, she’s got Belle doing research. That’s more help than she deserves.” “High praise. Just,” Emma huffs, “I hate sitting here. There’s too much—” “—Magic?” “Sounds shitty like that.” “Sounds understandable like that. And while I understand what Regina asked of you at the ball, using that power is dangerous.” “I know that,” Emma sneers.

Killian still doesn’t flinch. “I’m not suggesting otherwise, all I’m saying is that we are all here to help, Swan. Some more than others.” “You?” It’s another memory. Another moment her mind has conjured up, a string that connects her to the past and the present and his goddamn eyebrows, Killian staring at her with something that feels like longing and even more like—

Dedication, maybe. Love, definitely.

Emma’s not sure she’s ever been looked at like that.

It’s the worst lie she’s told herself yet.

“Me,” Killian says, and there’s no room for doubt between either one of the letters. “How’d you learn to make the dreamcatchers?” “There was no magic involved if that’s what you’re getting at.” “I wasn’t, in fact.” “No?” He shakes his head. Kisses her forehead. “No.”

And Emma doesn’t deflate, so much as she sags against him. Some of the fight leaves her, pleasantly surprised to find that it also doesn’t leave her feeling hollow. Rather like there’s space for something new there, possibility and potential and her fingers curl themselves into the charms hanging over his shirt.

Another metaphorical anchor and cool metal, helping to temper the myriad of emotions twisting between her ribs.

“I didn’t really learn,” she admits, “just kind of remade them from memory and the supplies Guinevere agreed to give me. Should have seen the first one, it looked like garbage.” Chuckling into her hair, Killian’s hand dances across Emma’s back, grazing the laces she’d almost forgotten about. “You think we’ll ever get to go to a ball on our own terms?” “You mean without time travel or Arthur the worthless king involved?” “It’s a good name.”

“You flatter me,” Killian grins, and Emma doesn’t double check that time either. It’s easy to hear. “And I certainly hope so. I have quite a number of thoughts about you and gowns.” “That so? How many thoughts are we talking?” “Vast.” “That’s not very specific. And I don’t know, babe. As nice as the dancing is, getting dressed for balls is kind of overrated. Half a dozen lady’s maids showed up to tie the laces for me and my mom and then they came back to stuff a gazillion pins into my hair.” “Gazillion also sounds rather vast.” Emma’s eye roll gets her yet another smirk, so she figures that’s a fair trade even if there does end up being a migraine involved eventually. “Did you not think about magic’ing the laces loose?” He says it soft enough that Emma can barely hear him — half concern and even more trepidation, crossing a line that hadn’t been there before and shouldn’t remain there now and she shakes her head. “Didn’t even consider it, honestly. Just kinda resigned myself to a crushed spleen, I guess.”

“Sounds painful.”

The metaphors are stupid now. They should go back to declarations and unfounded promises that Emma wants desperately and she’s not entirely prepared for the first tap of Killian’s finger.

Or for him to mutter, “Turn around for me, love.”

She does. Despite the confusion and the flutter of butterfly wings that have suddenly appeared in her stomach, Emma does as instructed. Something — someone — chafes at that, hackles rising and defenses lifting, and her nails dig deep enough into her palm that they leave tiny crescent shaped marks in their wake.

“No need to get anyone else to help,” Killian says, “when I’m perfectly capable.” Emma must nod. Her neck moves, so that must mean she nods. Speaking however, seems impossible at the moment. When her tongue is taking up too much space in her mouth and the butterflies are threatening to surge out of her and it really is easier to breathe when the laces aren’t quite that tight.

Killian makes quick work of it all. At least Emma assumes, still twisted away from him and staring at the mess she’d left on the desk. She’s not sure why there’s a desk in this room.

“Should I be jealous of your talents in this particular area?” He laughs, kissing the side of her neck again. “Part of me finds that very appealing, actually.” “Which part is that?” “The bastard who wouldn’t mind you claiming me entirely as your own.” “Not into that possessive kind of stuff.” “Ah, it wouldn’t be much of a fight,” Killian argues, and Emma’s breath shudders out of her. In a distinctly swoon-like manner. “I think I’d rather willingly surrender.”

“You’re avoiding the question.” “Aye, I suppose I am.” He kisses her again. Emma hopes it helps. “Milah used to—she had these outfits. Full of laces and buckles and there weren’t any lady’s maids on board the Jolly. It became something of a routine. Dressing in the morning, getting on deck, picking a heading. Anywhere and everywhere, right at the tips of our fingers. But it was a bit easier, then.” Emma’s muscles are never going to recover from this conversation. She turns anyway, straining her neck to meet his gaze and barely-there smile and it doesn’t take her long to figure that out either. “You’re resourceful,” she says, “I bet you’d even be able to figure out how to lace me back up.” “Suggests you’ll be here in the morning.” “Quite a royal scandal, sharing a boudoir with a notorious pirate captain.”

Killian’s smile stretches. Not by much, but enough and, for now, that’s enough. “I love you.”

He’s waiting, Emma can tell. For the response. The answer. The words that she swears are going to snap her tongue in half, weighing it down as they are.

She doesn’t say anything.

Pulling in a deep breath, she moves her hands instead and shimmies until the gown she only sort of likes pools around her waist, leaving her in nothing but a slip. And magic, the kind that hangs in the shadows and festers in the corners of her soul.

Emma wraps her fingers around the brace at Killian’s arms. Buckles and leather, some of it a slightly different color than the rest from years of use and magic of a different kind and she’s only a little worried she’s inadvertently frozen him there.

Until his eyes shift, tracing over her face with that same reverence that she’s come to covet in the exact possessive way she’d always wanted to avoid.

Bastard, indeed.

“Your turn,” Emma says, and her voice doesn’t crack. Another victory.

Killian doesn’t object either. Lets her flick and flip and tug, as lightly as she possibly can, twisting the hook off eventually. That last part seems like overkill, but Emma’s always enjoyed the way it clicks off — almost as if she’s flipping a switch on some other part of her, giving into the vulnerability she can see in Killian’s eyes and she’s going to fix all of this. If only to avoid her melodramatic commentary.

“Come on,” she mumbles, tugging him down next to her as she shoves off the rest of her gown. These sheets aren’t as soft, unfamiliar when Emma pulls them over both of them, but Killian’s arm curls around her waist all the same and her cheek always fits very well against the crook of his neck.

He flinches. “What? That’s—are you—” “Fine,” Killian cuts in. “Just tickles, is all. When you exhale so dramatically.” “God.” “Close your eyes, love.” “I’m not going to—” “—I know, but you can still stay here. With me.” There’s more to those words too. Fraught with hope and even more want, and Emma can’t ever remember wanting this as badly as she does now. So she doesn’t move. She doesn’t close her eyes, either. But she stays still, listens to the steady in and out of Killian’s breathing and—

Laughter.

Creeping across the floor and inching up the stone walls, circling either one of Emma’s ankles until it slams into her chest and takes root. She shifts — not quickly, but determined, careful not to wake Killian as she avoids the other face she knows is hidden just out of sight.

Magic makes her fingers itch. Makes her skin crawl. Anticipation clings to each of her vertebrae.

With her gown still on the floor, and a pirate she knows would tear the world apart for her still asleep, she sits back down at the table and starts again, anxious to catch the nightmares before they can linger for too long.

#cs ff #captain swan #cs fic #captain swan fic #captain swan ff #laura writes canon #this is all devon's fault so blame her for any and all angst #i also refuse to accept any blame for timeline inconsistencies #we write what we want and what we want is characters to acknowledge their trauma

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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Making this its own post because replying to the ask got so weirdly formatted I can’t even. Oh tumblr. You work so well.

@themessofthecentury asked:

jsksjf my tumblr notifs are bugging and i didnt see your post but!!! The patron Saint of Robins?? I am much intrigue!!

(This is from this ask game, just....gotten to late, lololol. And I still have more I’m getting to, no worries. Just had a rough couple days is all, laid me up a bit.)

Okay, so The Patron Saint of Robins is kinda like the situation at the end of Grayson, except also not at all. And actually this is one of my older WIPs, and according to Scrivener I started it in 2015 afhislfhalhfalf, so it really has nothing to do with that. Also, its Young Justice-verse, but for two specific reasons:

1) YJ-verse is my go-to for Good Dad Bruce Wayne, when I don’t want to actually tackle the issues I have with his and his kids’ dynamic in comic book canon. I don’t carry over things like the adoption issue or the Robin succession into YJ fics, as I don’t think there’s anything that suggests they’re ever a specific issue in YJ and I don’t feel a need to make them one. So pretty much anything and everything I write in YJ goes with the backstory that Dick’s already adopted by Season One, and he’s the one to grant each later Robin permission to use the mantle, with no conflict over that, and more of a pre-Crisis transition to Nightwing than the post-Crisis firing from Robin. And this fic inherently needs Good Dad Bruce Wayne to work, lol.

2) I needed Klarion the Witch-Boy. Who of course exists in comic book canon, but is muuuuuch different there, and I just needed him to be a little demonic evil shithead, who sets everything in motion to get payback on the heroes for thwarting the Light in Season One, and he targets Robin due to being the oft-cited ‘first of the baby brat heroes’ and the ‘heart of the cape community.’

You don’t really need to be familiar with YJ canon at all for this one, as it goes sharply AU from after Season One, and only faintly and vaguely references specific events from that season. And I use my own YJ-ized version of the Titans as much as the actual YJ Team.

So basically, the plot of this one is to take revenge on the heroes for spoiling his game in Season One, Klarion plays a new game, by putting a chaos curse on Robin. It essentially erases him from peoples’ memories, though he’s perfectly able to make new ones. If he re-introduces himself to someone ask Dick Grayson, for instance, they don’t suddenly remember who Dick Grayson is or was, but they don’t forget about him again from that point onward, its like they meet him for the first time as a stranger.

But the curse part of things is only Batman can break it and restore everyone’s memories of Dick and his actual history, and only by identifying him for who he really is. And Dick can’t be part of breaking his own curse or else it seals it and makes it permanent and unbreakable forever.

Which of course leaves Dick completely miserable at first, understandably, and Bruce (and everyone else Dick knows, to varying different degrees) feeling some kind of loss but with no idea what it is they think or feel that they’re missing. Dick makes some half-hearted attempts at starting a new life for himself in Gotham, and in the process befriends a street kid named Jason Todd, though Dick introduces himself to Jason with just the name Robin.

The way the curse operates is it restitches together peoples’ memories to cover up the gaps where memories of him would go. So for instance, even though Jason never knew Dick before the curse, he was familiar with Batman and Robin just as much as any Gothammite was.....but due to the curse, the name Robin, upon meeting Dick, had no special meaning to him or anyone else. As far as he knew, Batman had always operated on his own in Gotham, the first teen superhero was that Speedy kid in Star City, etc. So when Jason first meets Dick, he just thinks he’s some dude whose name happens to be Robin.

Eventually, because Dick’s been kinda torturing himself by spying on Bruce just to ‘keep an eye on him’ and still watch his back, and he’s recognized by now that Bruce is mourning his loss without even knowing that he’s missing something....so Dick, who has also kinda come to see Jason as a little brother figure due to watching out for him as well....decides to kill two birds with one stone, unfortunate pun not intended. (Jason doesn’t die in this one, lol). Basically, Dick puts in motion the chain of events that lead Jason to stealing Batman’s tires, because he doesn’t know EXACTLY what Bruce will do but he knows it’ll get his attention in a big way and Bruce will take it from there.

One thing leads to another, Jason ends up living with Bruce and when eventually he wants to be trained by Bruce so he can do what he does and protect kids like he used to be.....when asked to pick a name....Jason names himself after the guy who always looked out for him, and who led to him being found by Bruce in the first place. He doesn’t know that his friend ‘Robin’ steered him towards those tires deliberately, just to bring him and Bruce into contact, but he does credit him with making the suggestion that ‘inadvertently’ (as far as he knows) enabled his and Bruce’s introduction, and so he names himself in honor of the boy who helped him and who he tried to track down again to similarly help, after Bruce adopted him, but was never able to find again.

Over the years, Dick also ends up steering Tim, Cass, Duke and Damian to Bruce in different ways than comic book canon (Steph and Babs’ debuts remain their own, as family adjacent but not family specifically) and thus is integral to the forming of the Batfam and has a connection with them even before the curse ultimately ends up broken and he’s able to reclaim his full identity. And each of them end up Robin at least briefly, like Steph is never Robin in this AU, and sticks with Spoiler, whereas Cass IS briefly Robin before becoming Batgirl after Babs. I did this for a few different reasons...

One, I really like that Cass is never Robin in main continuity as it creates a different dynamic between her and Dick than most of their siblings have, BUT I’ve always been curious to play around what Cass-as-Robin might even be like, just for an AU. Two, part of the Black Bat and Batgirl but never Robin sequence of mantles for Cass in the comic book continuity is like.....although it doesn’t get explored nearly enough, Babs was as much a kind of mother figure for Cass as Bruce was a father figure, despite Babs’ young age. So it makes more sense for Cass to stick more to just Bat-mantles than to ever be a Robin in the comic books. But in YJ, Babs is even younger, and just way too young to have the specific kind of dynamic that leads to that in the comic books, so its not as unreasonable IMO for her to have a different dynamic in her early days in the family here, before becoming closer with Babs and taking up the Batgirl mantle after she moves on to become Oracle.

And then also, and this is also the primary reason for making Duke a Robin briefly, before Damian is old enough....I got hung up on the title and it just didn’t work as well if it was Robins + Cass and Duke, lololol. See, in addition to helping steer the family into the points of introduction that make them a family, over the years he also acts as like, a guardian angel figure to the various family members, looking out for them and interceding in times of extreme danger, like when Jason is almost killed by the Joker. He’s always in disguise, but the kids eventually compare notes and realize there’s a singular figure behind each of their introductions to Bruce and the guy swooping out of nowhere to save their behinds whenever they’re most in danger, and Jason eventually connects this back to the guy who apparently NOT so coincidentally suggested he go after the Batmobile’s tires that fateful night, and the kids end up jokingly/not-so-jokingly referring to this figure as the Patron Saint of Robins. (Shout-out to the occasional mentions/allusions of Jason’s Catholicism).

They never tell Bruce about this figure (at least before Bruce starts to put together clues on his own), because they all figured out that for whatever reason, this person despite wanting them all to meet Bruce seems to want to avoid Bruce himself, and they kinda want to respect that as a kind of payback for his help, and also like....Bruce, even a kinder, gentler Bruce, is still Bruce. And when Bruce is gonna Bruce, that means Batparanoia. And all of them for various reasons DO trust that this guy has nothing but good intentions towards them, and so they don’t want to like....ruin or tarnish the positivity they associate with his intercession in their lives with paranoia or treating him like a bad guy. Which ultimately is really just smoke and mirrors for saying that he’s kinda a ‘just for them’ secret. Its a Robin thing.

(Until its not).

Because meanwhile, Dick, in between meeting the various Batfam members and pulling strings and looking out for them from the shadows, at first travels the world looking for ways to break his curse. But when ultimately its clear that the only way to break it is the loophole built into it already, Bruce identifying him for who he really is, but without Dick doing anything to steer him towards the answer, Dick settles into a new hero identity as Nightwing, and forms the Teen Titans, a public group of young superheroes (minus Roy and Wally, unfortunately, but still with Donna, Garth, Raven, Kory, ignoring season 3 Vic and also Terra because AU redemption arc what what, etc). And the Teen Titans avoid both the Young Justice Team and the Justlce League with EXTREME measures, much to the other heroes’ confusion and aggravation, because in the early days of the Titans, in a moment of what he’d term weakness, on one of his ‘bad days,’ Dick tells them enough of his story that they’re able to put together a good sense of what happened and who he really is by reading between the lines and what he leaves unsaid....

BUT as a result, all end up extremely committed to not mixing and mingling casually with the rest of the cape community because they don’t want to risk dropping any hints about the guy under Nightwing’s mask, in case that might count as steering Batman towards clues and seal the curse for good. So I have a lot of fun with having the Titans just nope out of the scene the second the bad guys are defeated even when they have to team up with other heroes, leaving the other heroes confused as hell and trying not to be all ‘WHY DON’T YOU LIKE US??”

Anyway, so yeah, that’s the gist of this one, lol. With it of course following the eventual plot that like...the Batfam starts to Detect and put things together.

ANYWHO!

Snippet

Damian versus Klarion: Round One

“Aww, its adorable that you think you’re in my league,” the Witch-Boy cooed in an absolute mockery of sympathy. Damian bristled, but before he could do anything more than that, he was faced with a much more pressing matter as reality completely lost its mind.

The walls of the cavern fell away in an instant, only to be replaced with a whirling dervish of winds all around them, as if they now stood in the center of a cyclone that bled red and silver and black. It shrieked and wailed in a chorus of voices just on the other side of being comprehensible, a symphony of the damned that set every nerve in Damian’s body aflame with a primal instinct to get out, to find silence, to be anywhere but here.

He’d barely staggered a step backwards when the ground erupted beneath him, splitting apart into jagged obsidian shards that bobbed precariously in the sea of magma barely glimpsed through cracks now spiderwebbing their way across the floor. Spears of lightning burst upwards through them, stabbing impossibly at the heavens rather than raining down from them. They hissed and crackled as they flickered like forked serpent tongues of electric violet and black. The forks becoming branches, the pillars of sky-shattering light transforming into the trunks of great trees that grew upwards and outward, weaving a canopy overhead. One that wept violently red leaves that fell gently to the ground, only to hiss and bubble like acid once they did.

“See, normally this is when I’d hit someone with a little razzle-dazzle like this,” Klarion called out over the song of madness he’d created, as it crooned and careened wildly all around them. He snapped his fingers, and in the span of a second it all ceased. Reality reaffirmed itself, and all was right with the world once more…except now the two of them stood at the end of a hallway in Wayne Manor.

Damian stumbled, the sudden reappearance of firm ground paradoxically being the thing to challenge his balance. The demon boy standing beside him crooked his thumb and forefinger in the semblance of a gun, the smile pasted across his face one of wickedly gleeful malice.

“But you, kiddo, you’re special. Cuz there’s nothing I could do to you now that could top what I’ve already done, so why try when I can just savor the moment instead?”

“What are you babbling about?” Damian demanded roughly. In the wake of what the Witch-Boy had just conjured up with nothing more than a gesture, he was keenly aware of how flimsy a shield his bravado made. He just had absolutely no idea what else to fall back on.

Klarion only threw back his head and laughed though, skipping merrily down the hall as he did.

“I know something you don’t know,” he sing-songed and Damian lost what little grasp of his patience he’d managed to hang onto.

“You overestimate my need for an answer. Attempt to intimidate me all you wish, but I have no desire to indulge your little game any further.”

Klarion jerked to a stop and spun around, his face screwed into a childish pout. He stomped his foot, petulance personified. “I’m not intimidating you anymore, I’m gloating! Ugh, you’re so stupid! They’re completely different, how can you not tell?”

Every light in the hallway flickered and fizzed abruptly. The walls wavered, bubbled, momentarily molten as if made of wax.

Again Damian was reminded just how mercurial this being he was faced with was, and how dangerous. Perhaps, as Father would say, this was not the time to indulge his own instinctive inclinations. Or as Todd would put it, just because you’re already fucked, that’s no reason to fuck yourself over more than you have to.

Crude as his older brother was, there was occasional merit to his…pithiness. Not that he would be admitting that any time soon, of course.

“Fine. What is it you wish to gloat about then?” Damian grated out. The appeasement, such as it was, tried its best to stick in his throat before finally clawing its way free. But at least it proved worth the effort when the godling’s mood reverted back to impishness as readily as with the flip of a switch.

“Well. Its like this, you see.” Klarion said. He dragged it out as he folded both legs underneath him to sit cross-legged in the air, plopping his head into his hands. “I did a baaaaaaaaaaaaad, bad thing to your family, a loooooong time ago. And none of you have done anything about it, because you don’t even know! Isn’t that funny? Doesn’t matter how big a hero Daddy Bats is if he doesn’t even know what needs saving huh? Little Catch-22 there, you might say.”

“Yes. Quite hysterical,” Damian said dryly. “So what is it you claim to have done then?”

The Witch-Boy just sat there, regarding him with amusement, and the seconds marched on into minutes. Damian’s skin crawled. Prickling with impatience and possibly something…more. He wasn’t quite ready to name it anxiety or something as melodramatic as all that yet. In fact, he’d rather not put a name to it at all, but today did not appear to be a day for configuring things to his liking.

Klarion’s wicked grin grew as if sensing his thoughts, though to the best of his knowledge (and Damian did quickly ransack the library of his memory just to be sure) there was no indication telepathy was included among the Chaos Lord’s many, many powers. And still that detestable smile stretched slowly wider all the same, in perfect synchronization with the rising tide of Damian’s unease. Perhaps the Witch-Boy’s file was in need of annotation.

“How many doors would you say are in this hallway?”

“What? Seven.” Damian snapped out his answer, annoyed by the non sequitur. Not to mention baffled. Was it too much to expect even a semblance of linear thought from the Chaos brat?

“Are you suuuuuuure?” The Witch-Boy stretched his query out obnoxiously. “Maybe you should count again. Just for kicks and giggles.”

Damian throttled back each and every retort attempting to spring to his lips, stuffing them back down and cramming a lid on everything he most dearly wished to say to this most vexing of…shitheads. Once again, it appeared as though nothing less than Todd’s preferred form of nomenclature would suffice. Wonderful. On top of everything else Damian had to deal with today, he seemed to be finding common ground with the man all over the place. Was there no end to the indignities he must suffer?

But marshaling his own formidable willpower, Damian took a deep breath and indulged the Chaos Lord, glancing his eyes down the length of the hallway and counting out each doorway one by one. There was his own room of course, with Cassandra’s to the right of his, and the room Brown used when staying over to the right of hers. That was three. Then there was Thomas directly across from his own room, with Drake to his right and Todd just beyond that, with Father’s room at the very end of the hall, his master suite staggered and with no direct opposite like the others. Seven.

Except all of a sudden there was a door directly opposite his father’s. For a total of eight.

Damian’s brow furrowed in consternation. The faint whispers of uncertainty already seeded throughout him bore fruit, ripening into poisonous stabbings of doubt.

“That’s not real,” he stated with as much conviction as he could muster.

The Witch-Boy’s smile only grew wider still. “Isn’t it, though?”

“There’s never been a door there before,” Damian persisted, striding confidently down the hall towards it. The Chaos Lord flitted ahead of him, inverting til he was upside down and skipping merrily once more, though this time from the ceiling.

“Or has it been there all along?” He sing-songed some more.

“I would think we might have noticed if it had been,” Damian growled.

“Yes, you’d think, wouldn’t you? You are all supposed to be a family of detectives, I thought. Makes you wonder…if you could miss this, what else might you have failed to notice?”

Damian snarled to himself and did his best to shut out the demon boy’s prattling. He quickened his strides, eating up the length of the hallway in his haste to reach its end. He wasn’t sure what opening the door would prove, let alone what bewilderment the godling had conjured on its other side, but it appeared the only end to this game of his was through it, so let there be an end to it already.

And yet, for all his certainty - or best facsimile of it - he couldn’t help but pause once he reached the door in question. His hand hovered within reach of its brass knob, but some instinct, some…caution, held him at bay. As much as he wanted to dismiss all this as just one more of the Chaos Lord’s inane charades, there was a tension in the air that felt too weighty to be the product of just magical conjuring. Something more was in play here. Real forces were at work. His father might disdain magic, but Damian had been around enough of it himself to know when true power had been raised. And the span of empty space between his hand and this hither-to-unseen doorknob held more of it than Damian had felt throughout all the mad warpings Klarion had made of reality thus far.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Klarion asked from somewhere overhead. His voice, usually pitched to carry, was so soft for a moment Damian mistook it for his own inner doubts. “Some doors are easier to open than to close again, you know.”

Even knowing the goading for what it was couldn’t stop Damian then, and with a simple breath to fortify himself, he reached for the knob, spun it once, and shoved the door open all in a single sharp movement.

The Witch-Boy giggled up above.

The door swung wide, a forceful arc that should have revealed anything and everything within it all at once; the better to react quickly to whatever that might be. Fine in principle, perfect in execution, but thwarted by one small detail:

There was nothing on the other side.

And not in the sense of it being just an empty room, but true nothingness. A pitch-black abyss darker than the deepest night, yawning forth from the doorway in a vast, impenetrable shroud. Nor was anything hidden in the darkness, Damian knew, even if just intuitively. He could feel it, that he stood on the edge of an impossible cliff, that there was nothing beyond this threshold but an aching chasm of emptiness and loss. The surety of it hung in the air, thick and heavy, a miasma that seeped through to his side of the doorway and clung to him like the moisture of a fog beads upon the skin.

Klarion’s head suddenly popped up alongside him, hovering just over his shoulder.

Albeit still upside down.

“Well that doesn’t seem right,” he mused, tapping at his lips with a forefinger. “What do you suppose is meant to be in there?”

The last of Damian’s brittle patience shattered.

“Enough! What is the meaning of all this, demon? Speak plainly, for once in your miserable existence!”

His self-preservation instincts and the reminder of just who it was he was shouting at kicked in too little too late, but he wouldn’t take his exasperated fury back even if he could. He was who he was after all. But fortunately, that described the Witch-Boy just as accurately, and rather take offense or perceive any actual threat from Damian’s rage, the Chaos Lord just shrieked with laughter and sprung backwards. He flipped right side up, still hovering in mid-air, and clapped his hands with glee.

“Oh, I should have done this ages ago,” Klarion sang out. “Why, you’re almost as fun as he used to be. Back before he got all droll and serious, that is. He’s no fun at all anymore, nothing like this. Never wants to play, always just running back to his tower with that little bitch of a demoness.”

His face soured like he’d just sucked on a lemon. But rather than stop there, his countenance kept morphing into an increasingly savage scowl, the longer he ranted. The hallway was suddenly sweltering, baking with unseen heat that twisted the air into shimmering ribbons. The small horns sprouting from his forehead burst into scimitars of flame that cut through those ribbons and set them similarly ablaze.

“Always putting on airs like she’s some kind of royalty, just because her Daddy Dearest put the fear into a few peasants back in the day,” the Witch-Boy snarled viciously. “As if that’s enough to put her on par with the likes of me. No one is the likes of me. NO ONE!”

Reality itself quaked with the force of his shout. White-blue flames spat forth and crescendoed down the length of the corridor, splashing against its walls and searing them to a crisp. Damian braced himself for all the good it would do, keenly aware of the void still gaping hungrily behind his back, but before the fire could become an actual danger to him as well, all was quiet once more.

Silence hung in the air much like the demon boy, poised yet motionless. Suspended. Waiting.

And then Klarion simply inhaled and brushed his hands down the front of his garments, smoothing out the wrinkles as he reclaimed his calm. The corridor restored itself to its former self, curtains of vintage reality unrolling from the ceiling to the floor as though papering over the damage. Damian felt rather than saw when the portal behind him swung shut and was replaced with the expanse of ivory paint and ornate sconces he was used to seeing in its place.

“I am one of a kind, after all,” Klarion finally remarked. It was a casual drawl offered forth almost off-handedly, as if more a reminder to himself than uttered for anyone else’s sake. He used one hand to spell out letters in the air. They appeared and vanished again in bursts of fireworks and fluorescent flame. “U-N-I-Q-U-E.”

“As I, apparently, am not,” Damian said, seizing upon the Chaos Lord’s restored calm and good cheer. “Who is this ‘he’ you mentioned? If I’m to be pitted against him as entertainment in your eyes, might I at least know his name?”

“Nuh-uh-uh,” the Witch-Boy scolded. He wagged his finger at Damian. “No spoilers. That’s not how the game is played.”

Keenly aware of the boy’s power once more, Damian gritted his teeth and pressed on. “Well, if there are to be rules, shouldn’t I at least know what those are?”

Klarion sucked in a deep breath, drawing himself up along with his inhalation as though preparing for some great speech…and instead just toppling backward, flopping onto an extravagant fainting couch that suddenly appeared beneath him, though similarly floating in the air.

“I can’t recall at the moment.” His now-faint voice drifted up from where he lay buried amid a mountain of pillows. “I’ve had a terribly exhausting day. But you’re supposed to be a detective, remember? Go…I don’t know. Detect things.”

He flapped an arm at Damian dismissively, and then crooked a finger into a twirling motion that set his divan to spinning in lazy circles.

“Isn’t life grand?” Klarion sighed fondly. “With all its twists and turns, its eddies and swirls. I mean, take the two of us. Scant hours ago, we were mortal enemies, and just look at us now.”

The Witch-Boy lazily rolled his head to the side as the couch drifted to bring him face-to-face with Damian. His lips spread wide in that malevolent, wicked grin of his once again, but somehow it managed to be even wider than any he’d shown off before. His eyes blazed with a hellish inner light, and his voice, when next he spoke, dropped deep into a demonic register. A bass that boomed forth and set Damian’s very bones to rattling.

“Ain’t we got fun?”

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thevoilinauttheory · 4 years

Note

Okay but for the "Romance and friendship ship asks" - petition for you to just answer all of them, LiveJournal interview meme style, lol. (I'll do it too if you will!)

(( Okay, but first I gotta start with... I still don’t know wtf LiveJournal is. I, uh. I’m not an internet-savvy person, unfortunately (I’m *still* trying to figure out what xkit is and why it’s so important to tumblr, so I usually just smile and nod when it’s brought up lol). I can’t even figure out how to work twitter or facebook. The fact that I learned how to tumblr is a miracle.

And next: A lot of these questions are really heavily dependent on the situation I’m in, unfortunately! So some may not have very clear answers. I’m going to put this ENTIRE thing under the cut - for several reasons. One, it’s long. And two, there’s some sensitive material that’s either triggering [allusions to sexual assault and manipulative behavior ], or NSFW.

A huge thanks to @renofmanyalts, @spotofmummery, @lukawarrioroflight, and @cadrenebula for the asks on this meme! ))

So without further ado - here’s all of the answers to the questions for the “Romance and Friendship Ship Asks”!

1. When you RP a ship do you prefer to make everything be smooth sailing all the time or do you allow conflicts to arise?

I don’t mind either way, so long as my RP partner… y’know, talks with me. I’m reminded of an instance in the past where my RP partner wanted conflict, but took it to a whole other extreme to the point where it physically hurt to RP through. One of my characters, in a serious relationship with theirs; ended up kidnapped, drugged, and assaulted - resulting in the assailant getting pregnant. Now, when my character comes to - only semi-aware of what happened to them; absolutely distraught and hurting once they learned the truth; my partner’s character comes in and berates them for cheating, being unfaithful, not trying hard enough - essentially victim blaming. If I had been warned of this, I would not have agreed to playing this situation out. With adequate warning, however, I’m usually fairly open to anything. So, yes. It really does depend. I would prefer smooth sailing, and with warning, am very okay with conflict in a ship.

2. Do you like to RP smut when you RP a ship?

This one’s doozy lol. The base answer is, I do! I find the smut scenes to be very big character building situations - giving more detailed information on what a character is like in an intimate situation; what quirks they have, and whatnot. Sometimes it’s story building too - and I’m all about that story and character building. BUT. I will not. My IRL spouse is not comfortable with me doing so, and I respect that. So I will not ERP as long as they remain uncomfortable with it.

3. Do you like to plan a ship out or just let it happen?

Usually, all of the ships I have just… happen. Nothing’s quite planned except “what character would interact well with this one” - not with the explicit purpose of shipping (romantically), but more of seeing what kind of interactions can blossom. However, I’m not opposed to planning, if that’s what’s more comfortable with my RP partner.

4. Do you prefer monogamous or poly ships?

I, personally, have no preference. So long as the poly relationship is played out properly (i.e. the people who use being poly as an excuse to cheat/be unfaithful to their partner(s)). I don’t excuse people giving us poly folks a bad name. So I have no preference… but my characters do! Each preference is listed in their profile, whether or not they are monogamous or polyamorous / what their sexual and romantic orientations are. (tbh tho, all of them are negotiable)

5. Are there any characters that you want a ship for?

Ha ha. Yes. Quite a few, actually. (If not all of them, for shipping in a general sense.)

6. Do you like friend-with-benefits ships?

With warning ahead of time, yes. Whether IC or OOC - OOC is preferable, because some of my characters’ personalities make them very easily attached to others. The best example is Danny, with what some of the more recent ask answers show. And I want to make sure that the character is good for the situation. Though I do have a couple characters that would prefer to keep it at the “friends-with-benefits” stage, and if that’s a character or plot I want to play, I would ask my RP partner about it first.

7. Have you ever regretted a ship, romantic or otherwise?

Mmm… I want to say yes. I really do. Even the ones that screwed me over, though, part of me can’t help but cherish them in some strange way. Each one of them has been an experience for me and my character. But. I think… there is one yes in there. ...Maybe a couple, but all of those ships were with the same RP partner. At the time, though, those ships were my lifeblood - upon reflection… they were all pretty yikes. And I’ve got another friend as my witness lol.

8. Do you like to be friends with the people you have ships with?

I have to be friends with the people I ship with. I can do walk up RP with strangers, get to events and all that - but if someone is wanting a romantic ship with me, I need to know them as a person, not as their character. And I need them to know me as a person, too; that I’m not my character(s). Honestly, I prefer to be friends with all of my RP partners anyways! Ship or no! I like learning about people as they are, not just as their character(s) are.

9. What do you look for in a writing partner for ships?

Just… I guess, a decent person? That’s very vague, and that’s because it’s true. I want someone that understands that life gets in the way a lot, and that I might have to pause a thread or two until I can get myself situated. RP does not come before real life, and I want my partners to understand that as much as I do. I will drop threads with people who show toxic behaviors - not without talking to them first, of course, but if it blows up, then I’m done. I can’t put myself in a situation like that again.

10. Do you think romantic ships should be long-term?

Mm. This is another tough one. Which I think coincides a lot with the next question as well. If my partner wants a romantic ship to end, then as long as they talk about it with me, I’m totally fine with it - a day, two, a month, years? I don’t mind as long as I have warning, and things are talked through first. I’ll cover the rest of my thoughts on this in the next question.

11. How do you handle an absent RP partner that you have a ship with?

First, I’d be incredibly worried! I do have some friendships that disappear for a few months, then come back, and I don’t mind those at all. But if I make a new friend, and I don’t know if they’re prone to that, then I’d be worried about their safety! I’ll reach out first, as many times as I need to. I want to make sure that my friend is safe and in a good place. If they respond with “I’m alive, just stuff going on”, the ship won’t be dropped. I won’t drop ships due to absence, not right away - unless otherwise told to by my RP partner (maybe because they know they won’t be around, or they’re quitting the game, etc). If my RP partner is absent for a minimum of three to six months or longer *without* any sort of contact, I will tell them that there will be a pause on our ship and there’s a possibility of the character finding another… but also that if their life allows it, and they’re keen on it, I will pick up the ship again in the future. tl;dr: I want to make sure that my RP partner is in a safe place before I make any comments to dropping a ship.

12. How often do you think people should RP when they have ships together?

As often as it is comfortable for everyone involved. Whether that’s everyday, once a week, or twice a month. I, personally, have no issues with time. If RP isn’t being done, then I’m memeing or asking questions or putting terrible ideas into my RP partners’ heads.

13. Do you RP out all interactions or do you assume some things happen ‘off-screen’ with your ships?

Assumption, always. Even if we don’t play out those interactions, we’ll talk about them. “So it’s likely that [x] has happened during [x] time since [RP session]”. RPing out all interactions would take up a lot of time, and lead to a lot of disappointment - especially if you equate “one day irl = one day in RP”.

14. Is there anyone you know that you want to have an RP ship with (romantic, friendship, hateship, rival, ect.)?

My only answer to this is: yes, absolutely. My only clarification is: all of my wonderful followers - you all have such amazing characters, how could I not want a ship (in the general sense)?

15. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned when it comes to RPing ships?

The most important thing I’ve learned… happens to be two things. 1) Communication is your greatest tool. Not communicating with your RP partner about anything will cause everyone grief. If something makes you uncomfortable, if there’s a thread you want to try, if there’s a thread you want to drop - you need, need, NEED to talk to your RP partner. and 2) Your RP partner is a person, just like you. You cannot expect them to shit out a thread on command; nor can you expect them to write when there’s stress going on in their life. Your RP partner is your friend, and you should treat them as such. If the going is tough, make sure they know that they aren’t pressured into writing, and that you’re there for support. If there’s stress in your life, it’s on you to warn your partner - and trust that they treat you like a person too.

#a response for you: ooc #pls #if you are wanting a ship #pls talk to me

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mobius-prime · 4 years

Text

212. Sonic the Hedgehog #144

Mobius 25 Years Later: The Die is Cast

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Jason Jensen

We've finally made it to the final installment of this damned arc! Man, that doesn't seem to leave us a lot of time to solve the main conflict of the world ending, does it…? Well, I suppose we have to read the issue first. Knuckles arrives back home after his visitation to Locke's grave, and tells a delighted Lara-Su that he's rethought his stance on training her as a Guardian and plans to start straightaway - after, of course, his current mission with Sonic. When he makes a vague allusion to asking her mother for help on her instruction if he doesn't come back, Lara-Su tries to insist she come along to help, and Julie-Su, who was listening in, becomes indignant.

Aww, that's actually sweet. I think that's the first time we've seen actual, real affection between any of this arc's married couples. Julie-Su sees Knuckles off to his shuttle, driven by - who else - an elderly Harry, and Sally makes him promise he'll bring her husband back to her. He tries to find Lara-Su for a final goodbye before his mission, but is somewhat baffled to not find her anywhere, assuming she was too angry at not being taken along to stick around. The shuttle flies them out through the worsening storms to the "badlands," a horrifically-polluted section of the planet that's so toxic the group has to wear sealed suits as they traverse the terrain and make their way to Robotnik's old hidden base.

Sonic immediately volunteers himself to go back in time despite the dangers Rotor warns him of, and we cut away to the shuttle for a little surprise - Lara-Su has stowed away in a cargo box, determined to come along and help despite what her father thinks. However, before she can even take a step outside the shuttle, she begins to vanish from reality like that scene from Back to the Future. What could be causing this? Well, back in the base, we might find our answer:

And… that's it! No, seriously, that's literally the end of the arc. No context is given for what we just saw happen. It's not explained if this time travel venture indeed caused the world to end, or if Sonic going back in time erased this timeline in favor of another, or what. This is such an abrupt and unsatisfactory ending that I have to wonder if Kenders was forced to end the story early on short notice, because absolutely nothing is explained here. We spent over a dozen issues building up to something, enduring trite teen drama and old stuffy adults arguing at each other while locked into loveless marriages, and got the most vague and useless ending possible, after all of that. I mean, what was even the point of all this then? Some chapters in this arc had literally no plot or character progression whatsoever! The aversion of the end of time and space was literally the most interesting potential plot hook in this entire arc, and it's basically swept aside in the last few pages with no explanation. This almost makes the actually good writing of last issue seem useless, if this is what came directly afterwards. *sigh* Ah well, we're finally free of this nightmare. And as it turns out, we're very close to the end of Penders as a whole! Those of you who have read the comics before might have noticed that we're rapidly approaching the 160th issue, which is when a certain fan-favorite writer took the reins and started to fix a lot of the messes that the previous writers left him with. So if you're one of the ones who despises everything Penders ever wrote, you don't have much longer to suffer - just a few more issues and we're in the clear!

Love and Loss

Writer: Romy Chacon Pencils: Jon Gray Colors: Josh Ray

This story is a bit of a bizarre one, being very unlike any others we've read so far. There's very little action and a whole lot of solid blocks of text to read, but in a way, I do feel it's interesting and contributes to several characters' arcs in a positive manner. A poor bear is doing his best to sell some newspapers to the denizens of Knothole one Wednesday evening when he suddenly finds himself mobbed by a horde of rabid women all grabbing for a copy.

Now that is quite interesting. No, I don't mean the love advice column - I mean the little signpost in the second panel, the one listing the prices for products at the stand! Now, Jon has a habit of making up things to put on posters and the like in the background of his art, many of which are clearly just meant to be humorous and not to be taken seriously, but this is literally (as far as I can tell) the very first instance we've ever seen of an actual unique currency in this world! "Mobiums", huh? They seem to be kind of equivalent to Japanese yen, in that a single one is barely worth a penny - I mean, I'm pretty sure they're not meant to be like dollars anyway, as $75 for a single comic seems incredibly steep. For now, I suppose we'll have to add "Mobiums" to our list of potentially-canon bits of worldbuilding info about Mobius.

Anyway, as you might expect, several of our favorite girls in this comic have gotten themselves a copy today, and as it turns out, they've all written in their own letters and are eager to see the advice this "Aly" will give them. First up is Bunnie, who writes in under the pseudonym "Feeling Terribly Alone." Obviously, her main problem is with Antoine. She details how they've grown apart and how she feels like she doesn't even know him anymore - and yet, despite all their recent difficulties, she's still in love with him and wishes things could go back to the way they used to be.

Poor Bunnie. One of the things that seems to crop up for her now and again is her well-hidden insecurities about her cyborg nature. From her recurring nightmares, to her concern over the idea of Antoine still being able to be attracted to her despite her robotic parts, it's clear that she struggles a lot more with her nature than she lets on, and her relationship with Antoine boosted her confidence immensely. They were clearly happy together, and just as they were getting past the honeymoon phase and settling into a more steady relationship, he became cold towards her without a clear explanation as to why. It's clearly broken her heart at a time when she desperately needs to be able to hold it together, and the idea of her sitting in her house at night, alone and sobbing to herself uncontrollably, is really sad.

Next up is Mina, AKA "Singing the Blues." Her letter discusses how lately she's feeling torn between old crushes and new relationships. Her new boyfriend, Ash, was briefly shown in StH#134, but apparently they've grown quite close in the year that Sonic was gone. However, with Sonic back, Mina has been feeling the old familiar butterflies around him, and questions whether she truly loves Ash in the same way she cares for Sonic. (Obviously, however, in the usual vein of these kinds of ask columns, everything she says is vague, not mentioning any names.) Aly's letter advises her to not give up on a current happy relationship to chase someone else who may not even be interested, and Mina appears to genuinely take this to heart, deciding to give her boyfriend a call despite the late hour.

Well, good for her! Mina's a sweetheart, and it does seem like she and Ash genuinely care for each other. The third letter comes from Amy, or "Wishing for Love," who lays out her crush on Sonic and how she's tried to get his attention here and there, including going so far as to "look and dress older" (bit of an understatement there, Ames) to catch his eye. However, she's frustrated that she can't seem to gain his affections, and wants Aly's opinion on whether she really is putting too much effort into a silly crush, or whether she actually has a chance. Aly begins by tactfully pointing out that it sounds like she's still young, and it's not a good idea to rush into love too quickly when there's so much more life ahead.

…yeah, that's about what I'd expect from Amy. After all, remember that despite her physical age, she still mentally skipped half her childhood up to this moment, and she's also the hopeless romantic type, so it's not surprising she'd be unimpressed by advice telling her to look away from her crush. The article appears to be winding down, but everyone reading is struck by what they see in the last entry, from someone called "Royally Scared." The writer dives into her story, about her deepest love and how they made a commitment to each other only for her love to be "lost," which broke her heart. When he came back, she tried to get him to walk away from his "job" for a better job in her family's "business," but he refused and they had an ugly break-up as a result. She still loves him, but she's too scared of losing him again, especially because he's so brash and throws himself into danger without a care.

Everyone immediately realizes that this is Sally's letter, and are riveted to the page for Aly's response. Aly admits that she doesn't have a solid answer for this one, but says that it seems like they both have valid points. She points out that Sally's "dramatic confrontation" might not have been very fair to her lover, and urges them to both talk it out like adults after they take some time apart to reevaluate their own priorities, before wishing her luck and concluding the article. I just want to point out that the entire section where she lays it out and Aly responds is masterfully put together, with the heart-filled background slowly transitioning to a deep, tangled mass of purple and black as the letter goes on, interspersed with silhouettes of Sally crying and looking very alone in a dark void. I've pointed it out before, but Sally was very clearly traumatized - badly - by everything she's been through, with Sonic's supposed death being a breaking point for her, and the backgrounds of this issue symbolize this struggle very effectively. But here comes the real twist. After all, "Aly" is clearly a pseudonym, and no one knows who's really running this column. So who do you suppose it is?

God damn. Even in the middle of dealing with severe PTSD, Sally's still got a damn good head on her shoulders. It seems that people were starting to suspect her as the writer, so she deliberately wrote in a letter that was obviously her, and then answered it herself to throw readers off the scent. And her answer to herself was well thought out and reasonable - it's clear that she wrote her entry letter first, then forced herself to take a step back and evaluate her situation as though she were a third party who didn't know any of the finer details. The result is a response that doesn't betray her true identity, and isn't obviously colored by her own biases, where she gets a chance to look at her situation with a clearer head (probably helped out substantially by Nicole as an outside perspective). She flat-out acknowledges that her own actions on the stage the night of Sonic's welcome home party were unreasonable and unfair to him, and calls herself out on it in a public newsletter (even if most people aren't aware of the circumstances behind this entry). I feel like this only supports what I said about The Slap several issues ago, that she wasn't acting rationally that night and needs to be cut some slack on account of her (now-canonically-acknowledged) trauma. And in the end, her Aly persona is right. While she and Sonic still love each other, their differences have made a stable relationship between the two currently impossible, meaning it's best for them to take that time apart to figure out what each of them want before they think about getting back together. I think this is a really good follow-up to what happened in that issue, and gives a lot more insight into just why Sally did what she did, and how she's handling it after the fact.

This issue ends with a single page reminiscent of the Sega Data Files of issues past, this time covering the entire Acorn Royal Family. There's not much info here that we don't already know, but we do find out that Elias and his wife Megan's child has been born by now, a daughter named Alexis. Hope we get to see them all again soon!

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 144 #writer: ken penders #writer: romy chacon #pencils: steven butler #pencils: jon gray #colors: jason jensen #colors: joshua d ray

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fatedcipher · 6 years

Text

It’s over. I beat Kingdom Hearts 3, a game I’ve waited thirteen years for. And now that it’s all said and done?

I’m just disappointed.

What follows is mostly my stream of consciousness impressions of the game, put to text more to organize and vent than anything else. Be warned of strong opinions and acerbic criticism.

The Good

Roxas

It was one scene, but it was one hell of a scene. McCartney fucking killed it.

The Sea Salt Trio finally gets justice. Xion and Axel finally wear something besides the coat.

I had Sora walk around and take selfies while Roxas and Xion effortlessly demolished Saix. So much catharsis.

Demyx

Yeah, I know, last thing I was expecting too.

Had exactly zero patience for series melodrama. Every other word out of his mouth had me laughing.

Dude stabbed evil mcdarkness in the back to do the good guys a huge solid and got away with it scot-free.

Lingering Will

He was on screen for all of five seconds, but I cheered for all five of them.

Namine was the one who called him in.

Should have been him to finish off Terranort, but close enough.

Half the Disney Characters

Telling the obnoxious villains to fuck off.

Actually making them fuck off in a couple instances.

Put that Edgelord back where he came from or so help me!

Hayner! Pence! Olette!

Twilight Gang actually contributing to the main plot again.

Them giving a shit about Roxas when they didn’t need to.

Fucking bamboozled SoD, he just didn’t know how to react to their Scooby Doo shenanigans.

Mixed Bag

Some of the Disney worlds were pretty charming and had good cast interactions.

Frozen’s world was not.

Sora using the fallen keys was visually breathtaking and played in well to his power to connect to other people.

It was a reference to the stupid mobile game that has only polluted the plot further.

TWEWY world effectively confirmed in whatever is next.

I may not actually want to play whatever is next.

Music

It practically goes without saying at this point but, JESUS CHRIST THERE’S SOME GOOD MUSIC IN THIS VIDEO GAME

OTHER PROMISE/VECTOR TO THE HEAVENS ARRANGEMENT SLAYED ME

I LOVE YOU YOKO SHIMOMURA

The Bad

Gameplay

Plays like a janky version of 2 with a botox injection of DDD flowmotion that only makes the game feel more awkward.

Clunky melee combos have too much start-up, most have no invincibility or even armor to prevent being hit out of them.

Only a handful of the keyblade transformations are actually useful, all of which are a massive step down from drive forms.

Shotlocks still feel like extraneous instant damage and add nothing to gamplay flow.

Oversaturation of minigames leaves several worlds light on actual combat.

Attraction flow is too easy to get, not fun to use, lasts too long, and leaves you vulnerable to damage.

Worlds are simultaneously expansive by individual area and depressingly small on an overall scale. Most of Twilight Town is inaccessible, Destiny Islands and Radiant Garden can’t be visited.

General Plot and Storytelling

Generally poor writing that fails to resolve several plot threads and introduces ridiculous retcons that only create more questions.

There’s a scene where all of the good guys are in the same room having a discussion about how convoluted the plot is and Jiminy chimes in that they should read the in-game summaries on the in-game phone. This was when the game crossed over into self-parody for me, and not in a good way.

The total absence of Final Fantasy characters save for the mention of Cloud and Auron at the start of Olympus eliminates half the appeal of what is ostensibly a crossover series.

Awful pacing, having the Disney worlds as unimportant filler with the majority of the plot happening in the last few hours of the game, following what has depressingly become the norm.

General cutscene incompetence, from characters being effortlessly overpowered by enemies to standing around unarmed and slackjawed waiting for said enemies to cut them down.

Bad dialogue and direction clearly mandated by someone who doesn’t speak English mars a number of moments that could have been good. The script shines primarily when it escapes that ignorant control, which is not as often as it should be.

Mass death and revival scene was entirely pointless, as were the multiple Heartless swarms everyone was suddenly incapable of even putting up a fight against.

Death is still largely non-existent save for a few characters.

It made me more bitter and fed up with this series than DDD did and that is a fucking accomplishment.

Sora

How fucking dare you treat my precious boy like this, Nomura.

Half the cast spends half the game demeaning him and refuses to listen to him for no discernible reason, despite the fact he immediately solves every problem he is introduced to.

It’s not as bad as DDD, but he’s still written to be way less intelligent than he was in 1-2.

He’s the only one who doesn’t get a perfect happy ending and the only who actually seems to suffer any consequence to his actions, despite those consequences being utterly nonsensical.

It’s not even clear what the fucking “Power of Waking” is and he never needs it save for the artificial death scenes.

Riku

Every other line in the script is shilling him and how he’s somehow better than Sora.

This Yozora clown is literally just a palette swap of him.

Three Rikus in one scene. It is laughable in how stupid it is.

He gets two playable sections and fights the same shitty boss in both.

He’s the one who goes to pick up Namine, not Roxas, Sora, or Kairi.

You can feel how much Nomura loves him and it repulses me.

Kairi

Her lively personality is completely absent along with any agency she might have once had.

Despite getting a keyblade and training the whole game, she gets halfway through a single fight before she’s easily kidnapped, held hostage, and callously executed.

None of her statements about protecting Sora are followed through on and are empty allusions to the first game.

SoKai is finally all but canon, yet the characters themselves hardly interact in the game and the Oathkeeper charm is never even brought up.

Namine

Her in-engine model is only ever used in the character files.

The only thing she does in the entire game is have a single conversation with Sora in the afterlife, in which he still fails to properly thank her.

Riku is the one to pick her up after she gets a body because Nomura felt like awkwardly shifting Versus XIII’s unused dynamic onto two characters totally unrelated to it.

She’s still wearing the same white dress she has been since her introduction in CoM.

Aqua

Loses every fight she’s in to cutscene incompetence.

Seriously, you kick Vanitas’ ass in her only playable segment for her to throw herself spread eagle in front of some fireballs he throws out, it’s embarrassing.

Likewise jobs to Terranort and has to be saved by the COME GUARDIAN who is apparently Terra’s heartless?

Her single contribution to the plot is finding Ventus.

The refusal to let her age is just bizarre, the same extending to Ventus and Terra.

Antagonists

Xehanort remains nonsensically overpowered and omniscient, using time travel, clone bodies, and other contrivances to achieve his goals and have the heroes play straight into his hands until his actual last scene.

Multiple members of team dark don’t even have a good reason to work for the old man. The former traitors are the ones to remain unfailingly loyal.

They show up to vaguely talk down to the heroes and/or wipe the floor with them before smugly disappearing without a scratch. The only instances where this is even slightly averted are a couple scenes with the Disney characters and the defeat scenes in the final boss rush.

The majority of the villains are given cloying and contrived attempts at casting them in a sympathetic light when they have only ever been shown to be selfish, merciless, and cruel prior to their final defeats. Xehanort himself is the absolute worst offender, being cast as a well-intentioned extremist at the last possible moment, despite this directly contradicting the entirety of his character prior.

So yeah, Kindgom Hearts 3 isn’t that good of a game and has a story that’s legitimately quite poorly written and told overall. Are my expectations inflated by the amount of time I’ve had to wait for this game? Absolutely, but the series has been on a downward slope in quality since BBS and this was their big chance to correct course. Even with the promise of TWEWY involvement in whatever is in the future, I can’t honestly say I’m interested in playing another Kingdom Hearts game after this disappointment and that’s depressing for someone who’s loved this series for so long. There’s still a lot I want to write for Roxas and the rest of the cast, but when most of that stuff is attempting to revise the canon, it can be pretty discouraging. All the same, I don’t want to give up on this blond haired kid and his friends just yet. Their story’s too important to me to let it end like this.

#unchained #kh3 spoilers #Wow it feels good to get this out of my system #Beware of walls of text

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omg-johndel-b-villarin · 4 years

Text

ASYNCHRONOUS TASK NO. 3

ACTIVITY 1:

this page by putting an arrow to the object/s. [No need to indicate what type of Figures of Speech they are]

Notes: Most Commonly Used Figure of Speech

1. Alliteration is the repetition of initial sounds in neighboring words.

Example: Fresh fern fronds from the forest

2. Allusion is a figure of speech that quickly stimulates different ideas and associations using only a couple of words, thus making an indirect reference.

Example: Describing someone as an “Adonis” makes an allusion to the handsome young shepherd loved by the goddess of love and beauty herself in the Greek myths.

3. Anaphora is a stylistic device that consists of repeating a sequence of words at the beginning of neighboring clauses to give emphasis.

Example: You are lovely, you are gorgeous, you are pretty, you are glorious, you are, you are, you just are!

4. Anticlimax refers to a figure of speech in which a word is repeated and whose meaning changes in the second instance.

Examples: He got his dignity, his job, and his company car.

In the car crash, she lost her life, her car, and her cell phone.

5. Antiphrasis is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is used to mean the opposite of its normal meaning to create ironic humorous effect.

Example: She is 65 year young.

6. Antithesis is a figure of speech that refers to the juxtaposition of opposing or contrasting ideas. It involves the bringing out of a contrast in the ideas by an obvious contrast in the words, clauses, or sentences within a parallel grammatical structure.

Example: To many choices, too little time.

7. Apostrophe is an exclamatory rhetorical figure of speech in which a speaker or writer breaks off and directs speech to an imaginary person or abstract quality or idea.

Example: Oh, moon! You have seen everything!

8. Assonance is a figure of speech that refers to the repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences.

Example: A certain purple curtain, captain. (note: cer in cetain, pur in purple, and cur in curtain. Also tain in certain, curtain, and captain.)

9. Climax refers to the figure of speech in which words, phrases, or clauses are arranged in order of increasing importance.

Example: Three things will remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

10. Euphemism is a figure of speech used to express a mild, indirect, or vague term to substitute for a harsh, blunt, or offensive term.

Example: saying “passed away” for “died”

Saying “in between jobs” to mean “unemployed”

11. Epigram refers to a concise, witty, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement.

Example: Oscar Wilde’s “I can resist everything but temptation,” or “I am not young enough to know everything.”

12. Epiphora (or epistrophe) is a rhetorical device that consists of repeating a sequence of words at the end of neighboring clauses to give them emphasis.

Example: “…a government of the people, by the people, for the people. (Note: The phrase the people is repeated twice after it was first mentioned.)

13. Hyperbole is a figure of speech that uses exaggeration to created emphasis or effect; it is not meant to be taken literally.

Example: I told you a million times to clean your room.

14. Irony is a figure of speech in which there is a contradiction of expectation between what is said and what is really meant. It is characterized by an incongruity, a contrast, between reality and appearance.

Example: The explanation is as clear as mud.

15. Litotes is a figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.

Example: Instead of saying that someone is “ugly” you can say that someone is “not very pretty.”

Instead of saying that the situation is “bad” you can say that it is “not good”.

16. Merism is a figure of speech by which something is referred to by a conventional phrase that enumerates several of its constituents or traits.

Example: saying “young and old” to refer to the whole population

Saying “flesh and bone” to mean the whole body

17. Metaphor s a figure of speech that makes an implicit , implied or hidden comparison between two things or objects that are poles apart from each other but have some characteristics common between them.

Example: The planet is my playground. The Lord is my shepherd.

18. Metonymy is a figure pf speech in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with the thing or concept.

Examples: Using “Malacaňang” to refer to the president or the government

Saying “a hand” to mean “help”

19. Oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines incongruous or contradictory terms.

Examples: open secret, virtual reality, sacred profanities

20. Personification is a figure of speech in which a human characteristics are attributed to an abstract quality, animal, or inanimate object.

Example: Red punctuates and makes bold statements, says something, and means it like an exclamation point!

21. Simile is a figure of speech directly comparing two unlike things, often introduced the word, like or as.

Examples: A smile as big as the sun. She prays like a mantis.

22. Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to represent the whole of something is used to represent part of it.

Examples: Sixty hands voted. (The part “hand” is used to refer to the whole person)

The country supported the president. (The word “country” is used to refer to the people.)

23. Understatement is a figure of speech used by its writers or speakers to deliberately make a situation seem less important or serious that it really is.

Examples: A nurse to give an injection saying, “It will sting a bit.”

To describe a disappointing experience, a participant may say, “It was …different.”

ACTIVITY 2:

LITREADITURE!

Look for literary pieces and take note some lines in it that expresses figures of speech listed below. Write your answers on the space provided. (One example for each)

1.ALLUSION: The Outsiders (1967) by S. E. Hinton

"Ponyboy."

I barely heard him. I came closer and leaned over to hear what he was going to say.

"Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold ... " The pillow seemed to sink a little, and Johnny died.

2.ANAPHORA: "London," William Blake

In every cry of every Man,

In every infant's cry of fear,

In every voice, in every ban,

The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

3.EUPHEMISM:Dropping the Euphemism, Bob Hicok

When I said

I have to lay you off

a parallel universe was born

in his face, one where flesh

is a loose shirt

taken to the river and beaten

against the rocks. Just

by opening my mouth I destroyed

his faith.

4.EPIGRAM: Sonnet 76 (By William Shakespeare)

“So all my best is dressing old words new,

Spending again what is already spent:

For as the sun is daily new and old,

So is my love still telling what is told.”

5.LITOTES: Fire and Ice (By Robert Frost)

“Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if I had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.”

6.METONYMY: Bartleby the Scrivener (Herman Melville)

As I afterwards learned, the poor scrivener, when told that he must be conducted to the Tombs, offered not the slightest obstacle, but in his pale, unmoving way, silently acquiesced.

7.OXYMORON: Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare)

Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,

That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

8.MERISM: "There is a working class—strong and happy—among both rich and poor; there is an idle class—weak, wicked, and miserable—among both rich and poor." (John Ruskin, The Crown of Wild Olive, 1866)

9.ANTITHESIS: Community (By John Donne)

“Good we must love, and must hate ill,

For ill is ill, and good good still;

But there are things indifferent,

Which we may neither hate, nor love,

But one, and then another prove,

As we shall find our fancy bent.”

10.IRONY: The Necklace (Guy de Maupassant)

“You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?”

“Yes. You never noticed it, then! They were very like.”

And she smiled with a joy which was proud and naïve at once.

Mme. Forestier, strongly moved, took her two hands.

“Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most five hundred francs!”

JOURNAL WRITING:

Journal Entry #2

What’s the language of the piece?

Read a literary piece (prose or poetry). Review and examine the language used by the author (Tone, Diction, Style and Figures of Speech). Include photographs to add creativity and visuals in your writing. Your answers must not be less than ten sentences.

To an Athlete Dying Young

Title

A. E. Housman

Author

A. E. Housman has also include literary devices in his poem in tittled " To an athlete dying young" to express and share his feelings towards the athlete. The literary devices used are: Personification, Assonance, Metaphor, Oxymoron, Consonance, Symbolism, and Enjambment.

The poem or him shows the run or the cycle of how a man's life goes. The first stanza shows how people (close one) gets happy, great, and proud seeing us fighting to live and achieve our goals. But nothing last forever, time will come and all of these will stop. And all of those who really know, support, and been there for us will also be the one who will march our dead body towards our grave. Even our glory, dreams, achievements, and hardwork will be gone. It stated there that our lives is like how fast a single roses losses its own petals. Our eyes will forever be close it will be dark as a night and there will never be any color. Whole body will be numb nothing to hear, nothing to fell. And only those close ones will remember our name and our deeds. Life is a competition and we should keep running 'til everything stops. Everything has its ending point. It has no exemption and that everyone includes our life.

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solo1y · 7 years

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Five years ago, I was given a free review copy of this book for a now-defunct e-book review site. In my review, I said that it’s the worst book I have ever read, and that remains true. It’s still available if you really hate yourself.

This is the (obviously NSFW) final published review:

I'm 37 years old, I have read many books in my time, and I have never said this before: The Audacity of Hope and Change is the worst book I have ever read.

A brief summary, so you don't have to actually read it: A conservative U.S. president time-travels to 2084, where liberal policies have destroyed the entire planet, and the population of the world is contained in ten dome-enclosed U.S. cities, where the citizens live under an oppressive centralised government. Horrified, the president goes back to his own time, aware of the fact that he can't change the future. However, it turns out that he's the one who created the domed cities to house the "un-American" liberals, and just lied to them that the rest of the world was destroyed. Then he makes Rush Limbaugh (I'm not kidding) his Vice President so the United States can live in peace and prosperity now that the traitorous elements have been removed. That's it.

Initially I thought it was a clever satire of conservative attitudes to liberal politics. However, it's not a satire at all. In fact, it's intended as a satire of the liberal position! To give you an idea of the mental trauma I have recently suffered, the smug partisan political grandstanding is only the third most annoying thing about this book.

The most annoying thing about this book is that he assumes his readers are unread simpletons. It is a sign of terrible weakness on an author's part when he gives up trying to describe something and just refers to something else which describes it better. He does this a number of times in the book. We bounce from blatant allusions to 1984 (oxymoronic ministries, party uniforms, ad hoc government data), Brave New World (productivity-driven eugenics program), Star Trek (limitless energy) and Soylent Green (meals made from reconstituted humans). None of this would be so bad if the author didn't flag all the references. "It was positively Orwellian," says the infallible protagonist in one particularly painful passage, and not for the last time. “Sounds like something from ‘Men in Black’,” he says on another occasion. It may not be entirely unusual for a book to be completely unoriginal, but I've never seen a book so ready to advertise its poverty of thought. Even his unfunny jokes are telegraphed and labelled for ease of consumption.

The second most annoying thing about this book is that it's badly plotted and sloppily written. How can someone steal so many good ideas from so many wonderful sources and still make a complete mess? The tone is confused throughout. It seems to be a political satire, but it has lots of Douglas Adams-wannabe throwaway jokes that are so silly, they jerk you out of the otherwise completely serious satirical push, reducing it to a farce. You won't miss any of them, because, as you will remember, even the migraine-inducing jokes are flagged for you: "Brian replied, ignoring her double entendre." Characters are one-dimensional, either there to be impressed by the president, or to help him find the things he needs. No one changes, no one has any personality, no one has a family or a life away from the president or any motivation or emotion other than those which intersect with the president's motivations or emotions. Splashes of what the author probably imagines constitutes character are awkwardly placed in the way of the narrative, like the irrelevant story about a scientist's middle name. When the protagonist carries a gun, it is referred to on at least ten separate occasions as a "Heckler & Koch MK23"; I have no idea why. By the way, in direct opposition to everything we know about linguistics, in the future, people speak the same as they do now, but with unnecessarily longer and extra words. For instance, a chat is now called a "brief communication period". In the future, we are all verbose Vulcans, except we use the word "scientific" instead of "logical" (keep in mind that the author intends the word "scientific" as an insult).

Irrelevant matters are explained in boring detail, choking the pace, whereas plot points which could benefit from an explanation are glossed over awkwardly. Page after gruelling page presents itself: how time travel works; how public transport of the future works; how photo-electric cells work; and sundry other copy-and-pastes from Engineering for Dummies. A lot of it just doesn't make any sense, and the whole thing is a Swiss cheese of plot holes that are never acknowledged. However, once the president decides he understands something, no matter how nonsensical, it is assumed that the readers understand it too.

The third most annoying thing about this book, as promised above, is that it reads like a campaign manifesto. You don't see much of it at the start, which is mostly highly derivative time-travel, alien technology, conspiracy theory stuff and almost fun. As the book drags on like a grindstone bolted through your knee, it gives way to pages and pages of right-wing, conservative policies, framed as a series of speeches the president makes to his advisors, all of whom intermittently praise him for his wisdom and genius.

If you have to insert characters into your story just to agree with your protagonist, you are doing something wrong. On one occasion, his words earn him "a standing ovation". In another section, a sentence appears: "I found myself increasingly impressed by Brian’s knowledge and wisdom." But the author wrote that! The author is impressed with his own knowledge and wisdom! He thinks so little of his readers that he decides to hit them repeatedly over the head with his stupid message. At least twice, in case we didn't realise what the point of the book was, the following sentence occurs: "It sounded like he could be referring to the political debates of my time." Events are referred to as "like something from Hitler’s Germany or the Soviet Union under Stalin." Satire doesn't work if you have a big flashing neon SATIRE sign pointing at it!

The real meat of the book is the description of the future America, where liberal policies have made everything go bad. In this state, all the ridiculous right wing agit-prop straw men you have heard from Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck (name-checked in the book, and eventual cabinet ministers) are firing on all cylinders: universal health care death panels; the abolition of religion, gun ownership and private property; rampant abortions; the establishment of "science" as a god; global warming as a massive hoax perpetrated by Al Gore (referred to in the text, for some reason, as "Agore"); wanton sexual promiscuity; the subjugation of the individual to the state - it's all presented not as a possible alternative future, but specifically as a future which will occur if Barack Obama gets re-elected (never actually named in the book, although it's very obvious).

When the protagonist returns from the future, he gets some people together and decides how to reshape America so this liberal apocalypse can be averted. There follows pages and pages of tedious ruminations on tax reform, clean energy, healthcare mandates and foreign policy, all explained in mind-numbing detail. The Chicago School tax reforms, for instance, are pages of demographics and percentages and glaringly incorrect conclusions. The president claims to run on a "pro-choice" ticket, by which he means to promote the idea of consumer choice. He picked this name, he explains, specifically to confound the pro-choice women's rights movement, and thereafter confusingly refers to them interchangeably. It's a crime of the written word to use terms and phrases in a manner different to that expected by a reasonable consensus of your readers, but to confuse them yourself is unforgivable.

This president gives long, eye-tormenting speeches filled with nothing but conservative values, and emotional reactions to the perceived lack of those values, with everyone around him agreeing and applauding. It's like being stuck at a Nuremberg rally, but without the undeniable Nazi sense of style, or anything that could be referred to as "efficiency". Alles ist sehr viel nicht in Ordnung.

This book is nothing more than an adolescent right-wing masturbatory fantasy, whose target market will surely have more respect for itself than to kneel before him, encouraging every feverish stroke, willingly accepting his literary semen as it splashes on their eager Christian faces. It's a vanity project, an empty puff of vague, hackneyed, outdated political philosophies dreamt up while on marijuana but without the concomitant trashing of those ideas the following sad, sober morning. Our pseudonymous guide to the future clearly thinks he's the literary heir to Jonathan Swift, but he's more the literary heir to that guy who sat behind you in high school who kept talking about robots and dinosaurs and now still lives with his parents, hates black people for no reason, and has just discovered what the word "alveoli" means.

The Audacity of Hope and Change, the worst book I have ever read, is written by Yushud Choosewisely, possibly the most gratingly awful pseudonym I have ever seen. His real name is Steven Lloyd. It is published by the Pro-Choice Press, which as far as I can determine, is managed, staffed and run solely by Mr. Lloyd, who has chosen the name to be deliberately provocative, as he is aggressively pro-life. There is one comment on the amazon page for this book; as it is gushing with praise, I can only assume that this customer review is also managed, staffed and run solely by Mr. Lloyd. Someone needs to buy a paper copy of this book, just so we can tear the pages out of it, and gently run the edges of each page along the soles of his feet and his tongue. Then we should re-assemble the book, encase it on concrete, tie him to a post, and throw it at his head until he promises never to write anything ever again. If that sounds harsh, remember that he has mentally assigned a far worse punishment to those who commit the crime of disagreeing with him on political issues.

This guy actually answered my review with a bunch of passive-aggressive right-wing smarmy bullshit, which completely failed to counter a single one of the points I made. Which is great because it gave me a chance to rip him a new asshole twice instead of just once. He’s deleted his response, but you can probably pick up the gist from my response to his response.

#The Audacity of Hope and Change #Yushud Choosewisely #Steven Lloyd #my book reviews

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mirrorfalls · 7 years

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Wonder Woman - assorted thoughts

(This disjointed excuse for a review made possible by contributions from Baroness @lauralot89 and viewers like you. Thank you.)

Well, I suppose I should start this with a disclaimer that I’ve never seen any of the other DCEU movies (it took me a good long while just to warm up to Harley’s Squad costume), so those who view this one in the context of the DCEU’s arcs and themes as a whole may find additional reasons to be elated or disappointed. That said...

It was good. Not great, but with the numbers of things that it - that any Wonder Woman origin, really - had to juggle, that was perhaps never in the running...

Alright, the way I see it, the chief stumbling-block in Wonder Woman’s mythos (at least, where connecting her to the wider DC Universe is concerned) is... well, the mythology. To accept the Amazons, the audience must also accept that actual Gods exist, and that those same Gods have been influencing human society and behavior since the dawn of time. This is kind of a problem in the modern superhero genre, which is largely built on individualism, emphasizes both good and evil as conscious human choices, and distrusts any authority that isn’t 100% deferential to the hero 100% of the time (I believe @ragnell has some choice posts on the modern trend of pitting Wonder Woman against her own pantheon, and how toxic it is as a storytelling choice). When Diana and Steve are making eyes at one another, for instance - do they love each other for what they are, or are they merely dancing to Aphrodite’s will?

(Thor weaseled out of this by portraying the Asgardians as a distant alien kingdom whose pre-Avengers interactions with Earth amounted to “dropped a Plot Coupon here a couple millenniums ago, also inspired some old stories” - but from what I understand, mortals have never been as important to Norse myths as they have been to Greek ones. Thor and Loki are first and foremost princes and brothers in their own Godly realm, not stewards of mortal functions like love, communication, or dying.)

Wonder Woman tries to head this problem off by emphasizing Ares (and maybe Zeus...?) is the only Olympian still alive by 1917, but even then, there’s a delicate balancing act. Make Ares too big of a villain, and the audience will come away with the impression that all (or at least most) human evil can be blamed on some upstart God; too little, and you’re left wondering whether our heroine made any difference at all in the grand scheme of things. I can’t say Jenkins and the writers didn’t try for balance, but it came off more as bet-hedging - there’s a big song-and-dance about how beating up one guy won’t accomplish anything, and yet that one guy was the reason Steve had to make his big sacrifice at all...

In vaguely related topics - hinging the central conflict on “stop the bad guys from fucking up the peace process” rather than “turn the War in favor of the good guys” is a neat idea on paper, but in practice it sort of feeds into that “did we make any actual difference” issue. To mitigate this, I think the movie should’ve portrayed more of the War from the cheap seats, show off just how much the average citizen's life sucks and how much they have to gain from peace. There are little allusions to things like racism and PTSD, but give me a soldier who tries to charge into No Man’s Land because he just can’t take being cooped up in the trenches anymore; give me a mother who has to divide a single, half-rotted apple among five children; give me the specter of polio and typhus and Spanish Flu hanging over it all, preying on a populace too tired and poor and uprooted to even bathe regularly.

(I suppose I should also say something about the Diana’s birth, which I believe was the biggest pre-release kerfuffle among fandom, but the bet-hedging is even worse in this department, like the writers are leaving a backdoor open to any combination of retcons. @bluefall-returns, you have any particular thoughts on this?)

As for the villains... Field Marshal Whatshisface and Dr. Poison are largely disposable, though I liked the Doctor’s quarter-mask, and that scene where they laugh and twirl mustaches over all the generals trapped in the gas-filled room give me some good Evil Family Bonding feels. Which is more emotion than Ares ever roused... I didn’t hate him as much as everyone else who saw this movie seems to, but I was begging and praying that for once, the authority figure who’s (apparently) on the heroes’ side wouldn’t turn out to be the traitor, and I was bitterly disappointed. I like the Perezian touches on his armor, but I really wish they kept his face to two glowing coals over a field of black; having his face be actually visible in the helmet just makes him look like a Ren Faire escapee.

Okay, that’s enough whining about the cons. The pros - Diana’s childhood is absolutely adorable; Themyscira as a whole is a gorgeous, functional society that left me wanting to see more; Gadot’s accent isn’t nearly as distracting as I thought it’d be; Steve’s little band is pleasantly diverting without being distracting; Etta is also adorable (though after seeing what @themyskira had to say about the fish-out-of-water bits, I went to get my first refill during the London sequence so I probably missed quite a bit of her); and praise Gaea, there’s no obnoxious #notallmen moral like in the 2009 DTV.

Most of all, though, I loved the use of the Lasso. Unlike previous adaptations, which mostly turned it into a fancy grappling hook during fight scenes (if they didn’t ignore it entirely), here it was almost like a Green Lantern Ring, constantly moving, constantly changing shape, always dangerous. Come to that, I also loved how the Amazons were more than a match for the German soldiers despite being five centuries behind in weaponry, and the scene where Diana charges into No Man’s Land is the first time in a long, long time any superhero movie actually managed to get my blood pumping.

(That said, I agree with @renaroo that there was too much slow-mo; bullet-timing bracelets be damned, it got real old real fast.)

Now, my usher said there wasn’t a post-credits scene, so I only stuck around for about thirty seconds into those, but the Cast List was a pleasant surprise. Euboea! Mnemosyne! Artemis! Sure, none of them had any on-screen names or relevance, but it goes to show someone who worked on this movie cared, and I salute them for all this sequel fuel respect for the source material.

Oh, and the soundtrack was great. More memorable than any Marvel movie I’ve seen, but we’ll see if that holds up a couple weeks down the line...

#Lego reviews stuff #Wonder Woman #There's probably a shitload of stuff I forgot to mention #Or just plain didn't care about #But overall I'd give it a recommend

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twdmusicboxmystery · 8 years

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7x09: Nitty Gritty Details

Good morning and Happy Tuesday! Can I just say how great yesterday was! Thanks to everyone who talked to or contacted me, and if I haven’t gotten back to you yet, I’m not ignoring you. I’ll get there, I promise. You gotta love the day after a new episode. Everyone’s so excited and wanting to talk and I love it!

So, this is my details post. I talked yesterday about broad things and about the biggest things that caught my eye. Today I’ll go over smaller things: background details, colors, paintings, etc. I’ll also add to and clarify a few things from yesterday. So here we go:

First, let’s start with Gabriel. Thanks to @katkhaos and some Nonnies for pointing this out to me. Does everyone realize there was someone else in the car with Gabriel? I totally missed that in my original watch last night. But you can see it here.

Just wanted to point that out. And it reinforced all the Beth parallels because it looks here like Gabriel was actually kidnapped (as was Beth) and it also shows that they are once again not showing us everything. They’re trying to fake us out. Kinda like after Coda.

At Hilltop:

The first thing I noticed was in Gregory’s office where TF was talking to him. There are a pair of blue scissors on his desk.

That’s actually very fitting. Scissors are always seen when trying to break free (which is what TF is doing in this scene) but remember when Carl escaped the walker in 4b, they were yellow scissors. (X) Yellow is the color of escape (i.e. Beth’s yellow polo). These scissors are blue. Per Beth’s blue scrubs at Grady, blue is the color of imprisonment. And of course Gregory still has a very imprisoned mindset right now. (Not that I’m holding my breath that it will change anytime soon.) He wants nothing to do with freedom, revolt, etc. So very fitting symbolism there. Just backs up color schemes we’ve identified in the past.

There’s a picture of a white animal behind him, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Horse? Dog? But I don’t want to spend too much time on the pics at the Hilltop, because they’ve already been discussed at length.

There are also two candlesticks on either side of his lamp. They are unlit, but I mention them now because there’s a candlestick motif at the Kingdom as well. I’ll come back to this.

This may be a bit vague, but Gregory yells at them for answering his question, saying, “Rhetorical!” And then Daryl accuses him of talking out of both sides of his mouth. Not sure what to make of this, but I feel like it’s sort of a lack-of-communication theme or something. There may have been one other instance of it at the Kingdom. I’ll come back to that.

When the group goes outside, the woman who talks for the group of Hilltoppers who want to fight names herself Birdie. Now, I immediately thought of “song bird” and I also noticed that she is wearing red. Everyone else in her group is wearing muted brown or green or blue tones.

And please understand, I’m not saying that this woman will necessarily be heavily paralleled with Beth. The red may even mark her for death relatively soon, and I don’t think she’ll be a major character. But I couldn’t help but think of the red garment hanging in Beth’s cell in 4x01, Red Poncho Guy, and all the other times we’ve seen this motif. (X) Plus, this woman is the spokesperson for a group of people who want to rise up (hehe) and fight against the Saviors. Just saying.

At the Kingdom:

We see a LOT of greenery in this episode. Green plants and trees and shrubs every other shot. And a lot of that is focused at the Kingdom.

Did you all notice how nervous Daryl got when Richard said, “Line up.” I’m sure that had everything to do with Negan’s lineup. Jesus trusts Richard, so Daryl has no reason to fear him, but he just didn’t like the choice of words. And he really didn’t line up at all. He just so happened to be standing close by, right behind Sasha, but he didn’t move to stand in a line as the others did.

But we’ve seen this behavior from him before. It reminded me of in episode 5x10 when he didn’t want to go near the cars. He practically dove into the woods to avoid them, and we’re sure that has everything to do with leaving Beth behind. So kind of interesting to see this reaction from him again, even though it’s over something different. Starting to feel like things are coming full circle.

About the communication theme at the Kingdom? There’s this walker.

That thing hanging out of it’s mouth is it’s tongue. (Ew!) At first I thought maybe it didn’t have a jaw (we’ve seen lots of walkers with no jaws, and I think that could be a motif related to the communication (or lack thereof) theme. But the I found this thoroughly disgusting picture, and I think the jaw is intact, it’s just covered by that horrible tongue.

Still, the camera focuses on this walker and the mouth and tongue are prominent here. So yeah. Again, not entirely sure what to make of it, but wanted to point it out.

Ezekiel’s clothing really caught my eye. When Rick first goes to meet him, he’s wearing a blue shirt with yellow stars on it. Looks kinda like a night sky. In my mind, it reinforces the North Star theme, which we’ve already connected to Beth. (X).

The next day, when he tells the he won’t help them but will give Daryl sanctuary, he’s wearing a bright green shirt. And we all know what green means, yeah?

More Beth symbolism at the Kingdom. As I said yesterday, I’m more and more convinced that Beth will show up there first. Of course that remains to be seen.

There’s a 183 behind Ezekiel when he’s talking to Rick and refuses to help. It’s too high a number to be a comic book issue. If added together, they = 12. So could be pointing to something in episode 12. I only side-eye that because 4x12 was Still, but that doesn’t mean this is necessarily TD.

Ezekiel talks about how things come at a cost. We’ve seen that theme a lot this season, especially around the Saviors, of course. But it was something that was begun at Grady. He also talks about losing arms, legs and lives. I talked yesterday about all the allusions to someone losing an arm. The talk of losing legs could connect to the lost shoes theory. Maybe these are two halves of the same theory? Not sure.

Oh, so I talked about candles around Gregory? I noticed a lot of candles when Ezekiel and Benjamin are talking outside the kid’s room that Ezekiel told the story to.

There’s one candle to Ezekiel’s left and two to Benjamin’s right. That makes three (rule of threes). But you can also see two more burning inside the room. Five could point to S5. Or maybe they mean nothing at all. But what struck me was that these candles are lit, where Gregory’s weren’t. Yet another possible evidence of Beth showing up here first, rather than at Hilltop.

Finally, I noticed that Morgan was wearing a very white shirt in this episode.

Then it struck me that Jerry (funny Jerry) was wearing a red shirt.

And I may be reading WAY too much into this, but remember the post I did a while ago about clothing, including how Glenn seemed to have changed from a white to red shirt in Coda? (X) It just occurred to me that these colors are the exact colors of Glenn’s two shirts, and Morgan and Jerry are not only both at the Kingdom, but often they stand next to one another. Again, it may be nothing. Just something I saw because I did that post recently. But I’ll keep an eye on it.

That’s pretty much it at the Kingdom.

Now on to the highway.

So as I said yesterday, the bomb was almost entirely red and green components.

Obviously we’ve connect that specific color combination to Beth like fifty times. (X) Not to mention, Rosita pulls a battery out of it. (Battery theory). And it makes sense because between the bomb, the dynamite, and the fire they produce, well, Beth is the one who likes to burn things down, right?

@rachelmarie63 (IG) also pointed out to me that Rosita says, “First part’s done.” That could be an example of part 1 being over and part 2 being about to begin. She also connected it to each of the three parts of Operation Lead the Walkers Away in 6x01. Like in that episode, this was an example of them directing walkers the way they wanted them to go, which is interesting. Great catch there!

But something else that occurred to me when re-watching is that the Saviors blocked the off-ramp to keep the walkers on the highway. In other words, it was kind of a “no exit” theme. Remember there was a No Exit sign in Beth’s cell in 4x01, (X) so this is a theme we’ve seen around her. And there was that very Beth-ish blond walker in 6x01 leading the horde. I’m not sure what this will all end up leading to, but I am sure that it’s all connected.

The other thing that struck me is that this is a great big throwback to 4a. The last time we saw a car being hot-wired, combined with red and green, was when Daryl told Bob to do so in ep 4x04? Daryl: It’s the red and green wire.

So it’s a throwback to that, and in that scene, Bob is most definitely being a proxy to Beth. That’s also the episode where Daryl finds the green jasper and focuses on it for a lot of the episode. Just saying.

So then Rick and Michonne hot-wire their cars. Because of the bomb Rosita diffused, and then thinking about 4a, I paid close attention to the wires they used to start the cars, thinking they would be red and green. They’re actually not. Well, not entirely. So then Rick and Michonne hot-wire their cars. Because of the bomb Rosita diffused, and then thinking about 4a, I paid close attention to the wires they used to start the cars, thinking they would be red and green. They’re actually not. Well, not entirely. Rick has a yellow and white wire, along with green. It made me think of Still, where Beth wears the white sweater over the yellow polo.

Michonne has white, red and blue wires. So all of our signature colors are present, but they’re not together.

So the red and green car wires are present, but they’re in different cars. And that’s cool. The two cars ended up functioning as two halves of the same machine. Connected by a wire, which sort of has a telephone/communication feel to it.

Let’s think about that a little bit more. This is a whole mish-mash of symbols. We have the wires, which recall Beth’s colors and stuff from 4a. (It’s even been suggested by my FB peeps that where Beth’s color is green, it would make sense for Daryl’s to be red because that red bandana hanging out of his back pocket has been a staple of his costume for a lot of seasons now.) But Rick and Michonne are also two halves of a whole in a romantic sense. And they had to work together to overcome the dangerous situation. And that makes their convo in the car afterward that much more powerful. Saying they made it. Together. Reminds me of what Glenn said to Daryl in 5x10: We can make it together, but we can only make it together.“

So yeah, the symbolism here is deep and far-reaching and fun. I’m sure we could analyze it for hours. Don’t worry. I won’t. :D

Finally, thanks to a Nonny for telling me this (X). Apparently on TTD, they said this highway was the same one that ran by the Greene’s farm and that they lost Sophia on. That’s significant to begin with because when I first watched this episode, I immediately thought of 2x01. That was the first time they dealt with a "herd” or walkers and it happened to be on a highway. It felt like a throwback to that. Of course Sophia disappeared just after that, Carl was shot but survived and received the sheriff’s hat, and Daryl’s arc searching for Sophia was a huge part of that season. If they’re trying to remind us of that highway, there’s got to be a reason.

But I really like the idea of stuff happening on this same highway, because right after it happened in S2, Beth suddenly appeared on the scene. Just saying.

Finally, after trashing Alexandria, just as Simon is leaving, I noticed that he used the word, “litany.” It’s kind of a strange word coming from him. I thought I knew what it meant but I looked it up just to be sure. Yup, it’s a religious reference defined as “a series of petitions for use in church services or processions, usually recited by the clergy and responded to in a recurring formula by the people.” So yeah, random church-y reference from Simon. It really stood out as odd for his dialogue and speech cadence. Keep in mind that he says it RIGHT before his line about there be no statute of limitations for a character’s return, even if it takes two years. Just saying.

Okay, I think that’s all I have for today. Anyone have anything I missed?

#td #beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance

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brilliantheartbeautifulmind · 7 years

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google + my reading list

Nicholas Carr picks up where our previous readings from Phaedrus and about the invention of writing and movable type left off. He brings us to the present day, when we get our news in 140-character tweets and our attention spans are smaller than they have ever been. The invention of the Internet and, to a lesser extent, Google, changed the way we approach knowledge and information forever. No longer are extensive allusions in literature and the possession of arcane bits of trivia impressive; the information that once was reserved for those with excellent memories and expensive educations is now available to all with a few clicks. This is an extension of the fear that Plato expressed in Phaedrus, of people being “filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.” We don’t even have to read and absorb knowledge, we can find a definition or opinion for us to read off our glowing screens.

The part that struck me most in this essay was when Carr talks about Taylor’s theory of automation in factories and Google’s plan of applying that to the internet. My favorite quote at the moment and one that I have been basing many of my actions around recently comes from the Victorian art critic John Ruskin. In The Stones of Venice, a book that nominally addresses the form and function of Gothic architecture but is really about humanity, he says, “…while in all things that we see, or do, we are to desire perfection, and strive for it, we are nevertheless not to set the meaner thing, in its narrow accomplishment, above the nobler thing, in its mighty progress; not to esteem smooth minuteness above shattered majesty; not to prefer mean victory to honourable defeat; not to lower the level of our aim, that we may, the more surely enjoy the complacency of success” (178). As a perfectionist myself, it is tempting to only attempt projects I know will succeed, rather than trying for something that will stretch me that may also completely fail. The internet takes away the possibility of failure but removes much of the potential for learning. To illustrate this, allow me two examples.

In the first, I am trying to recall the name of a poet. I tell my mother, “I can’t think of the name of that poet who wrote a ton of depressing poetry and eventually stuck her head in the oven and killed herself. Do you know her name?” My mom nods her head and I quickly interrupt her, “Don’t tell me! I’ll think of it.”

“Let me know if you need a letter,” she replies. In our family, we frequently play the name game. Someone asks another person for help remembering the name of a family friend or famous person, living or dead, and the person who has the answer gives the first letter of the searched-for first or last name. Needing a letter is, of course, admitting defeat, so I start rattling off the things I remember about this nameless poet.

“She had a horrible husband who cheated on her and knocked up his mistress…he wrote a radio play about the affair and she was horribly humiliated and that led to her successful suicide…It’s not Edith Wharton; she’s a novelist…” This tactic is not working out so I switch to the Alphabet Game. “A…B…C…D…E…still not Edith Wharton…F…G…” Somewhere around “M” I have my eureka moment and shout out “Sylvia Plath!”

This whole interval took me about three minutes. I just tried Googling the exact question I asked my mother. It took nine seconds for me to type in my vague clues and get the correct answer. In the week since my little memory work, I have never once had to reach any further than a second to find Sylvia Plath’s name.

My second example finds me, as is typical, needing the answer to a technical question. I enter “how to screenshot on a mac” into the Google bar and find the answer (command + shift + 4). A few days later, I need to screenshot something yet again and can’t remember how to do that, so I return again to Google for my answer.

These examples show, to me, the difference between memory and accessibility. In the first instance, I searched my brain for a bit of knowledge I knew was there, but couldn’t remember at the moment. After a few minutes of musing, I found the answer within myself (in the least cliché way possible) and have had no trouble recollecting that answer since. The process of looking and coming up empty, of trying and failing has cemented certain pieces of knowledge into my brain in a way that instantly retrieving information from a secondary source will never achieve. However, knowing how the invention of printing revolutionized the way we interact with and gain knowledge, it seems foolish to decry what is obviously the next great step in accessible information. Instead, I would encourage everyone, where and when it is possible, to take a few minutes to search your own personal information database before turning to that blinking cursor and typing in “what is a word that means outside but attached to your body?”

What I’m Reading and Why

After much deep thought over the past week, I have come to the realization that I am avoiding the inevitable. I have been staying in my comfort zone. I have written short stories before and the idea of writing 12 short stories was not as formidable as what I now understand I must do. This is a novel. A novel about three women, related to each other by blood and experience and location. The inspiration I took from Paul-Albert Besnard’s prints does not lead me to a series of vignettes, but rather to a larger work, encompassing generations.

I avoided this decision because I will need to have a grander theme with a more acute reason for the action to begin. Since I’m writing literary fiction, the need for a momentous action is not as necessary as it would be if I was writing a mystery or thriller but the need still exists. I also want to keep the original order of the Besnard prints intact. In addition to an overarching plot, I will also be jumping around in time quite a bit and will need to decide how to do that. These struggles and decisions will impact the research I need to do, hence this announcement.

Renascence by Edna St. Vincent Millay: This poem by one of my favorite poets depicts the sensation of dying, being buried, and deciding to rejoin life. It will be helpful when crafting the chapters that deal with suicide and apotheosis.

Willa Cather: Our Nebraskan author fulfills several needs from the fiction I am reading. She provides a female voice and a rural setting. I have loved her work since I first read My Antonia years ago and am really looking forward to reacquainting myself with it.

Mari Sandoz: This historian provides stories from the rough and tumble days of the homesteaders, an important group to know about when you are writing about people who still live in the glory of their successful ancestors.

Non-Fiction and Essays: I will be using my favorite search engine (JSTOR) to find academic essays and research papers on the psychological and emotional repercussions of the various traumas my characters will undergo. JSTOR offers a list feature in which I will collect these various articles until it is time to read them. A few examples of the search terms I am using are:

- After effects of rape within a family

- Hereditary mental illnesses

- Influence of evangelical Christianity on self-esteem after trauma

- Results of a matriarchal society on adult children

- Drug abuse in rural America

As you can see from these categories, the issues I will be doing research on are the themes on which I feel unqualified to address without further study. If necessary, I will expand my search past journals only to books, documentaries, etc.

Sylvia Plath: A famously troubled poet, Plath tried and eventually succeeded in taking her life. The themes she expresses in her poetry are similar to the themes that I will be working with and will provide additional insight into the emotional mindset of my troubled characters.

The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney: This is a great intergenerational family drama that fits into the genre I chose. I read this book when it first came out, but I think it warrants a reread so that I can learn at the feet of a master.

Literary Fiction: The former is only an example of that, but I will be reading this genre in general so that I can truly understand the mechanics. This isn’t as pressing a To Be Read item as the rest of the items on this list, but I will be focusing my “fun” reading time on this style.

Of course, this is only the start of my list. I feel like these texts will give me a good jumping-off point from which to begin outlining and writing.

#ENG 311 #research

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