#also eleanor was like. an entirely different character who was also already dead in the show i believe??? and dr. montague doesn't exist?? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

medusinestories · 3 years

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Today is Two For One because these two eps pretty much follow onto each other in terms of storylines and themes etc.

Black Sails V and VI (s1 eps 05-06)

- A big plot point in these two episodes is Billy mistrusting and investigating Flint. It starts with Flint approaching Billy and claiming he wants an “honest” conversation with him (note that he’s had time to think about what he’ll say to Billy, coming back to my previous comment about how Flint does better at persuasion when he has time to script things). Flint explains that you can’t ever be entirely truthful to a crew because if you explain any risk of failure they’ll be demoralised. He also talks very briefly about Miranda, portraying her as a “nice Puritan woman” who likes books. When Billy asks if this is really true, Flint just gives him That Wink. Billy spends the episode wavering between trying to support both Flint and protect the crew, clearly conflicted. This feeling intensifies when Logan asks whether Flint will give up trying to get the guns even if the situation becomes extremely dangerous, and Billy can see that Flint is risking the lives of men to get at the guns and knows what he did on the Maria Aleyne. The last straw is the discovery of Miranda’s letter and the realisation that she didn’t prevent Guthrie from betraying them like she was supposed to. Gates dismisses Billy’s doubts and refuses to get into it, mostly in a stategic move, knowing that Flint is the only one who can get them through this battle, and that they all need to obey him in this moment.

- Speaking of battles, this is the first prolonged sea battle we get to see, and the first time that Flint is given a really worthy opponent in the character of Bryson. Bryson is extremely clever and uses both sailing and defense/siege/booby-trap strategies that make taking the Andromache practically impossible to take. Flint shows a lot of resourcefulness in response: he seems to know exactly how much his ship can take and how to handle it (in spite of DeGroot’s warnings, which end up being unfounded for once) and hammers out a good (if dangerous) strategy to board the ship. However, this isn’t enough to outwit Bryson, who’s extremely well prepared for a siege if he gets boarded and has the Scarborough already heading their way. In fact if the slaves in the hold hadn’t helped the pirates, I doubt Flint would have had to leave without the guns. Even when he’s dying, Bryson still attempts to blow his ship up. In fact, his explosive booby trap has a real impact on what happens in the end of episode 6.

- It’s interesting to watch Dufresne in his first battle. He’s clearly meant for us to identify with, as the “nerd” on the ship who’s never seen battle. Following him allows us to see the faces of a lot of crew members, to feel the tension and fear before boarding the other ship, the desperation of the battle, and... okay I’m not sure just anyone would go feral like Dufresne does and rip someone’s throat out. This is definitely a turning point in Dufresne’s character.

- Something new in Billy’s character that he is shown lying to Dufresne to reassure him before the battle, using exactly the technique Flint mentioned earlier. First he tried telling Dufresne that guns only go off half the time - not at all reassuring. Then he tells Dufresne that sailors on their crew never die in their first battle. Only after the battle, does Dufresne realise that what Billy told him isn’t true - and tells Billy that he appreciates the lie. Does this change Billy’s point of view on lying? Is lying all right, for a good cause?

- In the meantime, Eleanor is saddled with Silver. I absolutely love this plot line and wish these two had worked together some more, because they’re hilarious. Silver knows that Eleanor’s angry with him and finally gets to find out that it’s because he involved Max in his scheme, but he flatly refuses taking any responsibility for that, saying it was Max’s choice (which it was). Later, when the angry pirates are turning into a mob, Silver is clearly getting anxious and Eleanor pretending not to be, he says: "if you're pretending to remain unconcerned for my peace of mind, please don't", a line mirrored in S2, where Flint openly admits to Silver that he’s “appearing unconcerned” as a strategy (and thus establishing the Flint/Eleanor parallel). Finally, Silver confronts Eleanor about the danger of not appeasing the mob by letting Vane operate out of Nassau again; she asks him to convince her why she should - and he actually does. It takes two hours, but he actually gets through to her. In this conversation, he utters the classic line “guilt is natural; it also goes away, if you let it”. Clearly he’s had to make some nasty choices for his survival, and likely he has quite a personal experience of mobs, too.

- Richard Guthrie continues to be one of the biggest assholes of the show. In these two episodes he 1) betrayed Mr Scott by telling Bryson to kidnap him and sell him as a slave, 2) announcing that he’s liquidating his holdings in Nassau without warning Eleanor and saddling her with the angry mob, 3) shamelessly revealing to Eleanor how he betrayed her and why, disregarding the fact that she’s made Nassau what it is over the last few years, 4) is worming his way into Mr Underhill’s good books and got himself a cosy and very safe place to live while all hell breaks loose in Nassau.

- Speaking of Mr Scott, he ends up amongst the slaves in Bryson’s ship and appears somewhat disdainful towards them, mostly because he doesn’t want to knows the realities of what would happen to them if they joined the pirates (some would still be sold as slaves). Eme believes that they should still seize their chance for freedom, but Mr Scott won’t help the pirates get these weapons, which “are dangerous to someone I love". This of course is understood as being Eleanor, but it also easily be interpreted as the Maroon Queen/Madi in light of S3. In fact, it makes much more sense that he is resisting the Urca plan to protect them/his community than because he’s worried that Eleanor will be killed. Eme counters that he’ll never see this person again, which still isn’t quite enough to break his resolve. Finally, once Mr Scott has changed his mind and helped free the slaves and ended up helping Flint, he has a conversation with him. Flint decides not to tell the crew of Mr Scott's betrayal, because he’d rather prove Mr Scott wrong re: making Nassau into more than it currently is.

- Anne’s inability to bear the violence done to Max comes to a head in these episodes. First she dismisses Mrs Mapleton who’s not being all too gentle while “tending” to Max, and the brief talk between Max and Anne seems to reinforce Anne’s resolve to stop Hamund (looked him up) (but did they really need to bond while Anne pushes a phallic instrument into Max’s cervix after lubing it up? there’s clear sexual innuendo in the way it’s filmed and it’s pretty inappropriate). It’s only when Rackham sees Anne defending the entrance to Max’s tent and can’t believe that Anne would put herself in danger over “a fucking whore”, that it finally dawns on him that Anne is horrified with this situation (something he could have guessed considering the circumstances in which he met Anne). Once Max is freed and thanks Anne, Anne tells her that she didn’t do it for Max. Which is probably not completely true, but again what we know of Anne’s past also means that she didn’t want to see any woman treated that way.

- The theme of men siding together and not listening to women comes up several times in these two episodes. Guthrie says that he persuaded Mr Scott to betray Eleanor because “we talked like men and he saw reason”. The “like men” suggests that men support each other’s decisions, especially to resist a woman’s folly. The Consortium refuses to listen to Eleanor unless a respected captain, in this case Hornigold, also backs it. But of course Hornigold won’t back it unless Eleanor allows Vane to become a captain again; he considers how Vane’s men are treating the “thieving whore” to be of absolutely no relevance. Rackham opposes Anne’s attempt at stopping Hamund from visiting Max to protect her from Hamund, who he fears would harm Anne. And finally, Pastor Lambrick doesn’t believe Miranda when she tells him that doesn’t need to fear Flint’s anger.

- An answer to this is unlikely collaboration between women people in ep 6, aka, Eleanor and Anne who deeply despises her. Both of them share a sense of responsibility for what happened to Max, and believe that they’ll only feel better when Max is free and Hamund is dead. John “guilt will go away if you let it” Silver is roped into the plot, when Eleanor, reminds him that he’s a “loose end” to Flint, who will likely want to get rid of him, and promises to tell Flint not to kill Silver after he’s served his purpose if Silver helps them. Which he does, begrudgingly, and at the risk of getting murdered by Hamund at any moment. This puts Eleanor and Anne’s plan to kill Vane’s remaining crew into place, and ruffles Rackham’s feathers: he’s forced to help kill even the men who aren’t disgusting rapists like Hamund. He asks "do I not deserve say", to which Anne answers "you had your say, now I have mine". GOOD FOR HER.

- When the dust settles, we get a really interesting moment where Silver accurately analyses Eleanor, pointing out that she can’t stand to be wrong, feel weak or let anyone get away with fucking with her - which makes her in his opinion possibly more dangerous than Flint. Does this mean that Silver still thinks he had a genuine chance of winning Flint over and surviving him even without Eleanor’s help? (he’d be right, considering how his relationship with Flint evolves later on the show; perhaps the difference between Flint and Eleanor is that because she’s a woman, she can’t *afford* to show any weakness at all)

- Lambrick has his big moment in episode 6 when he rides chivalrously to Miranda in the middle of the night, hoping to save her from Flint’s retribution. Instead of really reassuring him, Miranda chooses to talk about Thomas instead. This is where we hear the most about Thomas in S1, and the way Miranda speaks about him is clearly loving and admiring. She compares Thomas to Lambrick, saying that he was also a sort of shepherd (the comparison stops here imo). Then she imagines how Thomas would have played devil’s advocate, left all of Lambrick’s beliefs in tatters, all for his own good, to free him from the yoke of shame. I can’t help but think, from her teasing tone and the way she smiles, that she believes that Thomas would have somehow debauched Lambrick. The fact that she decides to have sex with him moments later certainly supports that idea. The ghost of Thomas looms on this scene, and it could be that she briefly imagines being with him, which could explain her smile and the way she holds him afterwards. But Miranda had another reason for sleeping with him: it was a very good way to make him stop asking questions about Flint.

- And in the meantime, Flint knows that Billy has been asking questions about Miranda and overheard him talking angrily with Gates about the letter. It just so happens that Billy has to go cut off a piece of the Andromache’s sail that’s slowing the Walrus down, which puts him in a secluded and dangerous spot. The conversation between Flint and Billy is very brief: Flint asks about the letter Billy found, and Billy answers “I think you know what was in it”. Actually, no, Flint has NO CLUE what was in it. Whatever else passes between them is a mystery, and the next thing we know is Flint announcing that Billy went overboard. We see him hovering behind Gates, watching him intently, until Gates decides that they can’t turn back for Billy. The camera pans a lot on Flint’s face, and his expression is quite unreadable. At first I wasn’t convinced that he’d pushed Billy, but on this watch I’m not so sure, because of the way Flint’s face is filmed. There’s also a sort of clue where we see Flint throw Billy’s sword into the sea during the burial at sea ritual. Of course as Captain he was meant to do that... but the gesture is suggestive of him throwing Billy himself. It’s certainly true that Billy had become a thorn in his side for two reasons: 1) he was one of the rare crew members who could influence Gates and get him on his side; 2) he was much too interested in who Mrs Barlow was and what her motivations were - if Billy had alerted the crew of what she’d done, Miranda may have been in danger (a mob quickly turns against a witch who works against the crew).

- To finish on Flint and Miranda: season 1 has painted them as a unit, an inseparable pair, working as a team (in supernatural ways, sometimes). And to some extent they are. Even at this time where they are truly at odds, where Miranda has tried to take control of Flint’s fate behind his back, they are still protecting each other. Flint doesn’t reveal anything about Miranda and possibly attempts to kill Billy to protect her, while Miranda seduces Pastor Lambrick as a way to distract him from his questions about Flint. She can’t convince him to believe her, but she herself is clearly convinced that Flint is a good, decent person (as she tells the Boston judge in her letter) and she trusts that he knows that she only tried to stop him get the Urca because she wanted to save him - something he will come to accept by the end of S2 (unfortunately for them).

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sfb123 · 3 years

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Sapere Aude - Part 5

Book: The Royal Heir

Pairing: King Liam Rys x Queen Riley Brooks

All characters belong to Pixelberry.

Catch Up Here

Series Description: I developed a theory of what I think will happen in TRH Book 4, and I was encouraged by some very lovely people to turn my theory into a fic, so here it is. Basically, Riley is recruited to join the Via Imperii, this series will follow her as she joins them to try and bring them down from the inside, and all of the drama and bombshells she learns along the way. Sapere Aude is Latin for “dare to know” it seemed like an appropriate title.

Rating: PG-13 Adult language, allusions to smut (but nothing graphic), discussions of death, conspiracy, blackmail, and other adult themes.

Warning: The Royal Heir Book 3 Spoilers all over the place.

Word Count: 3,189

Notes: This is kind of a transitional chapter, no major plot movement (but there is some major Uncle Drake time, if that helps). If I had combined it with the next chapter, it would have been way too long. I promise I’m going to make up for it in the next chapter.

As always, one love to my pre-readers @texaskitten30 & @txemrn, I’m surprising you both with some extra content that was not in the preread (chapter 6 got way too long, so I took the opening fluff and added it to the end of this chapter). And thank you @twinkleallnight for my moodboard!

Tags: Everyone is tagged below, whether or not you get notified of said tag, I guess that’s in the hands of the Tumblr gods 🤷🏻‍♀️

Riley’s eyes slowly fluttered open as she took in her surroundings, she was in an ornate bedroom that she didn’t recognize. “Oh good, you’re awake.” Mara walked toward the bed from the corner of the room where she had been sitting.

“Mara, what happened?” Riley asked.

“You passed out, you had me worried for a moment there.” Mara poured her a glass of water from the pitcher on the nightstand.

Memories started coming back to Riley, she remembered being at the event and taking mental note of the members in attendance. Then she remembered the speaker approaching the podium, it was Liam’s mother. Nope, that can’t be right. I had already passed out at that point. That was a dream, some weird Wizard of Oz shit. Just then, there was a knock on the door. Riley watched as Mara rushed over to the door, opening it slightly and saying something to the person on the other side. Riley tried, but she was unable to hear what was being said.

“Who was that?” Riley asked as Mara closed the door and headed back to her bedside.

“Just someone checking on you. Tell me what you remember about what happened?”

“Nothing really, I remember being in the room and looking around, then everything went black. I had the weirdest dream while I was out though. Liam’s mother, she was up at the podium, giving a speech.” She took in Mara’s serious expression, and started feeling uneasy again. “Mara, that was a dream...right? Liam’s mother died a long time ago.”

Mara took a deep breath, “Actually, that was not a dream, Eleanor is the leader of the Via Imperii’s Cordonian chapter.”

“But why? How? She’s been alive this whole time?” Just when I thought this couldn’t get weirder. Maybe I’m still dreaming, I haven’t woken up yet. Yeah, that’s it. She pinched her arm and quickly flinched in pain. Nope, definitely real life. Liam’s mother is alive, she has been this whole time. Liam has spent most of his life mourning a woman that not only betrayed his family, but that wasn’t even dead. How is it possible that things are still getting worse?

“I believe that is something she is more qualified to answer herself. She is outside waiting to speak with you. Should I let her in?”

“I don’t know. What do I say? How am I supposed to act? What does one say to their dead mother-in-law that isn’t actually dead?” There was a slight tremble in her voice. “Mara, I’m freaking the fuck out here. What am I supposed to do?”

Mara sat on the side of the bed and put a comforting hand on Riley’s shoulder. “It is entirely your decision, but I promise you, things will become much more clear once you speak with her. I know this is a shock, but just listen to her.”

Riley closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to center herself. “Ok, let her in.”

Aside from a few creases along her mouth and eyes, you would have sworn that the woman entering the room had stepped right out of the many photographs Liam had shown Riley over the years. Damn, I guess faking your death is a pretty good anti-aging cure. As Eleanor approached, Riley sat up further on the bed and leaned her back against the headboard.

“Riley, I can’t tell you how happy I am to finally be sitting down with you. We have so much to discuss.” Eleanor took the chair from the vanity and placed it next to the bed.

Understatement of the century. “I have so many questions, I don’t even know where to start.”

“I’m sure you do dear, and I will answer all of them, but you have already been through so much tonight. You need your rest.” She patted RIley’s hand soothingly. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright. I would like to come by Valtoria tomorrow for brunch, we can talk then.”

“Valtoria...my Valtoria? But you’re supposed to be dead, everyone will see you. Drake will see you, he’ll know who you are.” Riley started to panic. “Eleanor is there...I mean, my Eleanor...Eleanor the second?”

“Shh, it’s alright Riley. As much as I would love to meet my granddaughter, you are absolutely right, she and Drake can’t know that I am there. Just tell them you have a meeting, and ask Drake to take her out for a bit. Knowing him, I’m sure he’d be more than happy to take her on a little nature walk. As far as being seen, I’ve managed this long without my secret getting out. Don’t worry, I have my ways of running under the radar.”

Riley could only nod, her head still swimming with all of these thoughts and questions. Eleanor stood, giving Riley a kind goodbye and leaving the room.

After a little more rest, and time to process the conversation she just had, Mara escorted Riley out of the estate and brought her back to Valtoria. Riley was looking forward to the comfort of being in her own home, and seeing her daughter. Eleanor was no doubt asleep already, but even just checking in on her and seeing that little face, was the most calm Riley could hope for at the moment.

As she entered her daughter’s bedroom, she smiled to herself. Eleanor was asleep on her Uncle’s lap, while he also snored soundly, the book they were reading long forgotten on the floor in front of them. Riley gently lifted her daughter out of Drake’s arms, causing him to stir.

“Hey Brooks. Sorry, she must have really worn me out.” He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he stood out of the oversized armchair.

Riley gently laid her still sleeping daughter in the bed, and kissed her forehead as she tucked her in. “Trust me, if anyone understands it’s me.” She turned to her friend and gave him a hug. “Thank you so much for staying with her, Drake. I always feel better leaving her with a friend when Liam and I can’t be there.”

The exhaustion and stress were evident in Riley’s voice. A concerned Drake nodded toward the door, signaling that they should leave Eleanor to sleep. “Are you alright? You’ve been acting weird, different, all day.” He asked as he gently shut the door behind them.

“Yea, I’m good, I promise.” Riley lied. “This event tonight, it was just one of those things that would have been so much easier with Liam. I mean, they all are, but you know what I mean.” Drake nodded as he put his arm around her shoulder and they walked toward her room. “Hey, do you mind taking Eleanor out for a bit tomorrow, like late morning-ish? I had someone tonight request a meeting, and it’s kind of time sensitive.”

“Of course, that’s what I came for. Maybe I’ll take her fishing. Would that be ok? I’d love to teach her.”

Riley smiled at his enthusiasm, but the smile didn’t quite meet her eyes. Drake noticed. “I think that would be a great idea. I believe the gear you got her for her birthday is in the sporting shed.”

“You know I’m not going to let this go, right? Something’s going on with you and Liam. You’re my best friends, I’m not going to just sit here and pretend something isn’t bothering you guys.”

Riley checked either side of the hallway before leading Drake into her room. As she shut the door with one hand, she raised the other to her face, signaling for Drake to be quiet. She grabbed her phone and opened the notepad app, typing a message to Drake.

Do you know how to check for bugs?

Drake furrowed his brows and nodded his head.

Do it.

Drake did a full sweep of the room and the balcony, and returned to Riley, who was now sitting on the bench at the end of her bed. “Alright, we’re good. Now what the hell is going on?”

She explained about the Via Imperii to Drake. She didn’t tell him everything, and she definitely didn’t tell him that Liam’s mother is alive, or that that was the meeting she was taking tomorrow. Drake listened intently to everything, his only interruption was a ‘fucking Neville’ when she was telling him about the other members. She told him that one of the higher ups from the organization wanted to meet with her tomorrow, not a lie, and that’s why she wanted him to take Eleanor out of the estate for a while.

Everything that had happened since she and Liam stepped out of the palace doors that morning suddenly made sense to Drake. And it now made sense why Liam had asked him to go with them instead of Maxwell. He wanted protection for his family, not just someone to keep them company.

“Ok, so who else knows? What can I do?”

“Liam wanted to wait until we had some more information to tell anyone else. I know I probably should have waited to talk to him first, but tonight was awful Drake, just so damn awful. And I can’t call Liam and tell him, because I don’t know if they’re listening to our calls, and I can’t keep it all to myself for another 48 hours.” She sighed deeply and ran a hand through her hair. “He just didn’t want us accidentally telling someone that was part of it. I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you. It’s not that we didn’t think we could trust you. It’s just, finding out his mother was involved, it hit him hard, Drake. I think he just feels so betrayed by her, it’s making him extra cautious of our inner circle.”

Drake pulled her into a hug and held her close. “Hey, it’s alright, I totally get it. If I found out something like that, I mean, I can’t even imagine.”

As they separated, Riley let out a yawn. “I should probably at least try to get some sleep. Thanks Drake, for everything.”

“Yea, of course. You guys are my family, I’ll always be here. You sure you’ll be alright?”

Riley nodded and walked him to the door. They said their good nights, and Drake headed down the hall to his room, while Riley shut the door and changed into her pajamas. She laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. She spent most of the night wondering what Eleanor would say to her tomorrow, and listing out all of the questions she was going to ask. She was grateful that she was given a chance to gather her thoughts before having to go too deep with her. She would finally be able to walk into a Via Imperii interaction prepared. Or so she hoped.

Riley never got a good night's sleep when she and Liam were apart. She had grown accustomed to falling asleep in his arms, and no weighted blanket on the planet could replicate that feeling. The emptiness of her bed, combined with the events of the night before, and Riley wasn’t sure anything that happened over the last couple of hours could even be considered sleep. She nodded off a couple of times, but every time the REM cycle started to kick in, she would see Liam’s mother and be jolted awake. Finally, she couldn’t take the tossing and turning any longer, so she got out of bed and decided to work with Gladys to make preparations for their meeting.

Before she did that, she wanted to go get Eleanor and make sure she was up and ready for her fishing date with Uncle Drake. As she entered her daughter’s bedroom, she saw Eleanor sitting at her table, with her back to the door, having a tea party with her stuffed animals. “Good morning, Princess.”

Eleanor turned and smiled, immediately running up to her and wrapping her arms around Riley. “Hi Mommy, come have tea with us!” She grabbed her mother’s hand and walked her to the small table. She moved one of the stuffed animals out of it’s chair, kissing it on the nose and placing it on the bed. “Sorry Woogie. Mommy, sit.” She pointed at the now empty chair.

“Eleanor, remember our manners?” Riley raised an eyebrow at her.

“Mommy sit...please?” She looked up with a questioning expression.

“That’s my girl.”

They sat and ‘drank tea’, Eleanor explaining every moment of her evening with her uncle the night before with so much enthusiasm. Riley watched Eleanor’s arms gesture wildly as she talked about the game of hide and seek that they played.

Eleanor stopped her story at the sound of Riley’s phone ringing, and squealed with excitement at the sight of her father’s face on the screen. “It’s Daddy, it’s Daddy!”

“Here, you answer it, he’ll be happy to see your face.” Riley swiped accept on the video call request, and handed the phone to Eleanor.

Riley sat back and watched the two most important people in her life talking and laughing like there wasn’t a care in the world, when Riley knew that that world was actually in the process of crumbling. She made sure that Eleanor got the phone first so that she could take that time to compose herself before she talked to Liam. They would talk, but she couldn’t tell him anything about last night. Even if she could, a FaceTime call was not the way to deliver that news. She snapped out of her thought when she heard Liam from the other side of the phone.

“I love you too, princess. Can you please give the phone to Mommy?”

As Riley took the phone, she stood from her seat, giving Eleanor a kiss on the head. “I’m going to go talk to Daddy, Finish up your tea party, Uncle Drake is going to be taking you fishing soon.”

“YAY! Fishies!”

Riley exited the room and leaned against the wall, taking a deep breath before holding the phone up to her face. “Good morning, handsome.” She smiled softly at the sight of her husband on the other end.

“Hello, beautiful. How did you sleep?”

“Do you really need to ask? You know you’ve spoiled me all these years, I can’t fall asleep without you.” She was determined to keep the conversation light. If it veered away from that at all, she wasn’t sure she would be able to hold back. Especially with the lack of sleep she was experiencing.

“Trust me love, I understand. I’m already on my third cup of coffee, just one more night, and we will be together again.” His eyes said everything he wasn’t able to say in that call. They were having a silent conversation about how awful the previous night had been for Riley, and how sorry he was , how badly he wanted to be there to hold her and make it all go away.

“It’s going to be the longest night of my life, just so you know.” She sighed, checking her watch briefly. “Liam, I have to go. I had a last minute meeting come up, and I have to go get everything ready.”

Liam nodded, knowing exactly what the meeting was in reference to, or so he thought. “Of course, I have to get ready for my day as well. I will call you later on to check in. I love you Riley, I will see you tomorrow.”

“I love you too, Liam.” She ended the call, and a single tear trailed down her cheek. She wiped it away and stood up straight. She didn’t have time to break down, she had a brunch to host.

Riley worked with Gladys to prepare the solarium for her brunch meeting. Liam had told her how much his mother loved the gardens at the palace, so she thought that this would be an appropriate setting for their meeting. Sure, the circumstances were anything but pleasant, but this was still Eleanor Rys. This woman brought Liam, her Liam, into the world. No matter what happened in this meeting, or what became of this relationship, she would be eternally grateful to this woman for giving her the love of her life.

She impressed on Gladys the importance of privacy for this meeting, all food and beverages were to be set out ahead of their guest’s arrival, chafing dishes and coffee carafes sat on one of the tables to ensure no servers needed to enter the room. Once the door was shut, nobody was to enter until the Queen said so. Eleanor had gone this long living under the radar, Riley certainly wasn’t going to be the one to ruin her life as a dead woman.

Once the instructions had been laid out for the staff, Riley moved to the entryway of the estate to see Drake and Eleanor off on their fishing adventure. She walked in just as Drake was handing Eleanor her mini, hot pink, fishing rod. “Here you go, kiddo. Make sure you hold it up like this, so that you don’t poke anyone while you’re walking.”

She got a mischievous gleam in her eye. One that Drake instantly recognized from the countless times it flashed across Riley’s face, right before she’d do something that drove him crazy. Eleanor turned the rod, holding it horizontally, and jabbing it into Drake’s shins. “Poke poke poke!”

Riley burst out laughing causing Drake to snap his head in her direction, and giving Eleanor the encouragement she needed to continue her assault on her Uncle. “To be fair, you kind of asked for it. You gave her step by step instructions.”

“Of what not to do! I guess I forgot who's kid I was talking to.” He gently took the rod out of Eleanor’s hand. “Here, I’ll carry it out to the car for you princess.”

“Thank you Uncle Drake!” She ran into her mother’s arms. “Bye Mommy!”

“Bye baby girl. Be a good princess, and make sure you do everything Uncle Drake says.” She gave Eleanor one more squeeze and let her go before approaching Drake. “Thanks for doing this, I know you didn’t expect to spend the whole weekend on babysitting duty.”

“Hey, it’s nothing. I wanted to get some fishing in while I was here anyway, always nice to have a little company.” He ruffled Eleanor’s hair as his face turned more serious. “You going to be ok?”

“The image of my daughter ramming a fishing rod into your shins should be enough to get me through it.”

“She hangs out with you too much. She needs to spend more time with Liam so she can learn that stoicism shit.” They both laughed as he pulled her into a quick hug. “We’ll be back in a few hours.”

Riley waved as they exited the estate. Yup, that’s my daughter. Taught her everything she knows. She smiled to herself at the thought. She saw Mara approach out of the corner of her eye, and turned to face her.

“Your appointment is here ma’am, she’s waiting for you in the solarium.”

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shirtlesssammy · 3 years

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6x21: Let It Bleed

Then:

Dean and Cas broke up

Now:

March 15, 1937

Providence, Rhode Island

It was a dark and stormy night, and HP Lovecraft sits at his typewriter clicking away. He finishes his manuscript, and his door slowly creaks open. He pulls out a revolver and heads to the hallway, but quickly backs back into the room and locks the door. A window blasts open and a shadowy figure is there. He pleads with it --but becomes blood cannon fodder anyway.

Dean continues to dissect what could have gone differently to prevent his breakup with Cas. Sam tries being the logical friend --but there’s no explaining heartbreak, folks. Bobby comes in to tell them that when Cas popped in for his late night tet-a-tet with Dean, he stole a journal. But don’t worry, Bobby had a copy.

Upon reading it, Bobby discovers a mention of HP Lovecraft. Dean doesn’t know who that is --and you’re going to tell me the dude that knows horror movies like the back of his hand and reads Stephen King doesn’t know who the father of horror is? And I know that Dean lies to cover up things he thinks other people would look down on him for, but this would be a weird moment to do that.

Anyway, Bobby thinks Lovecraft knew something about purgatory.

Meanwhile, Ben is chilling in his room reading Cthulhu graphic novels while his mom is watching the sportsball with her new beau. Demons bust in and gut the boyfriend right away. One takes after Ben. Ben gets to his room and calls Dean in a panic. He doesn’t know what’s out there and he can’t get to the shotgun in Lisa’s closet. Dean tells him to jump out his window. It’s too late --Crowley’s there and has both Ben and Lisa.

Crowley tells Dean that no harm will come to them if he backs off from the purgatory plan.

Sam throws some salt on Dean’s wound and asks if Cas knows about this. “We gotta assume that he does.” OUCH.

While Bobby heads off to follow the Lovecraft lead, Dean and Sam set to finding Lisa and Ben. They summon Balthazar and tell him that Crowley is alive. He blinks and tells them Cas already informed him. They then tell him about splitting the souls in purgatory plan. Balthazar knew that too, ahem. He refuses to help find Ben and Lisa.

Sam thinks they should call Cas. “WE’RE NOT CALLING CAS.” This is a man in pain, Sam, he needs time.

Bobby, meanwhile, interviews someone who possesses a large collection of Lovecraft’s private letters. He asks about March 10, 1937 specifically, and the dude wonders if he’s working with the other guy --”trench coat, looks like Colombo, talks like Rainman.” We’re supposed to assume he’s describing Cas, but ?? okay. They’re competitors actually.

The guy tells Bobby that Lovecraft had a dinner party with other blackmagic followers. They were getting together to perform a ritual to open a door into another dimension. He has --or had-- letters describing the dinner. Bobby leaves, knowing exactly how the letters disappeared.

Bobby discusses the case with Sam, revealing that one guest of the party -the maid’s son- didn’t die and has been in a mental ward since that night. He’s gong to interview the man now.

Dean, meanwhile, is lining the demons up and taking them down if they don’t answer his questions.

For Murderous Rampage Science:

Sam tries to get his brother to take a break, but Dean is 100% on an emotional bender and will not stop. Sam then heads outside to pray to Cas --pleading with him to bring Ben and Lisa home.

When Cas doesn’t appear, Sam walks away, dejected. Only Cas is there, invisible to Sam. AND I WANT TO TEAR OUT MY EYES.

Cas confronts Crowley. Crowley was “merely exploiting the obvious loophole.” Cas demands he tell him where they are.

Crowley tells Cas the only way to save Lisa and Ben is for him to find Purgatory.

For Literal Science:

Cas flaps away when Balthazar summons him. They meet in a wooded area, and Balthazar confronts Cas about his partnership with Crowley.

Balthazar confirms that Cas would be the vessel to take on the souls from purgatory. He could explode from all that energy. Cas assures him he won’t (weeps). Cas demands Balthazar tell him if he’s with Cas, and Balthazar laughs but agrees.

Bobby interviews the maid’s son, and discovers Cas was already there. Bobby asks for the story. The man tells what was said at the time, but then asks, “Do you believe in monsters?” He tells Bobby that the door did open that night, and whatever came through took over his mother. Then the others died. Bobby gives his condolences to the man, and he shows Bobby a picture of his mother. Bobby recognizes her.

Dean prepares his Tortures for Demons™ when his foot drags part of the devil’s trap away. The demon immediately gets the drop on Dean, only for Cas to flap in (or turn visible) just in time to save Dean’s bacon.

Dean’s...ungrateful. Surly, even! Cas apologizes about Lisa and Ben, and he’s hurt when Dean doesn’t believe that he had nothing to do with their abduction.

“Dean, I do everything that you ask,” Cas pleads. “I always come when you call and I am your friend - still. Despite your lack of faith in me, and now your threats.” Cas is just asking for backup this ONE TIME. (And you know what? Knowing the crap these Winchester boys have pulled, I always felt like Cas made a good point here.) They lob soulful looks at each other. Cas promises to rescue Lisa and Ben if Dean will just PLEASE stand down and let him absorb every single monster soul EVER it’s NOT A BIG DEAL. This is entirely the wrong tactic, and Dean tells Cas to go back to Crowley and he’ll save Lisa and Ben on his own.

Cas flaps away. Soulfully.

Bobby arrives at Eleanor-the-Dragon’s door. She’s at a little cabin in the middle of nowhere - one of her safe houses. He confronts her with the old photo and demands to know her agenda. “You know, we’re not all alike,” she retorts. She reacts similarly poorly to Bobby complaining about sleeping with her without knowing she was a monster. BOBBY! WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT RIGHT NOW. She tells him that the world’s lucky that she’s who popped through the portal. The professor is on Team Earth. Bobby begs to know the secret of the portal so that he can protect her from Cas.

Balthazar flaps in on Sam. He’s joining Team Winchester because he’s terribly concerned about Cas’s life choices. He flies them close to Crowley’s angel-warded lockup, and Dean and Sam swoop in to save Lisa and Ben.

They split up inside the warehouse - always a sensible plan. Sadly, Sam “Soft Noggin” Winchester gets knocked out IMMEDIATELY. Sam plz. Dean bursts into Lisa and Ben’s prison like a little angry blur of knives and in short order, he’s killed all the demons standing guard. They start to flee, when Lisa holds Ben at knifepoint, her eyes flashing black.

The demon goes all in on the mental torture, telling Ben that Dean’s his real father (JK!) and that Dean is Lisa’s WORST EVER MISTAKE. While Dean catalogues the internal damage, he and Lisa fight. He sheathes the demon blade and starts an exorcism, and I look directly at the camera. Demon Lisa’s got another trick up her sleeve. While the exorcism progresses, the demon grabs a tool and jabs it into Lisa’s gut. Then, she gives Dean a choice: exorcise her and Lisa bleeds out or let Lisa remain animate (but a demon puppet). Wrenchingly, Dean finishes the exorcism.

He makes sure Ben’s armed with a salt-round shotgun and then they head out of the factory. Ben shoots his first demon while Dean shouts at him to “pull it together” and I...just…….

Guys.

I’m just going to box these feelings up and stuff them in my Dean Winchester is a Sad Child attic, while humming Cat’s in the Cradle to myself.

They find Sam and head for a hospital, Dean muttering the whole time that she’s FINE Lisa is JUST FINE she is FINE. Cut to the hospital where Lisa is NOT FINE, but also is not dead! Yet!

Cas flaps in.

Dean refuses his apology. REFUSES IT. But Cas didn’t come to apologize. Okay, he DID, but he primarily came to heal Lisa miraculously. Dean looks up at him like he completely forgot that Cas can heal.

For Healing Cas Science:

In Jensen Ackles your face is a menace news, Dean displays grief, joy, relief, anger, betrayal, sad cat memes, and more in like less than five seconds of screen time. He thanks Cas for healing Lisa. “I wish this changed anything.” Regrets lie thickly between them. Dean asks for one more favor. He wants himself erased from Lisa and Ben’s memories for good.

When Lisa wakes, Ben explains that they were in a car crash. Dean enters, and introduces himself as the guy who hit them. GAH. The shitty things these characters do!!! Excuse me while I hurl knives at the wall for a solid thirty minutes!

“I lost control for a minute,” Dean says, not AT ALL metaphorically about their time together. “And I just want to say that I’m sorry.” He heads out, leaving the Braedens entirely unprotected from future supernatural threats and missing a substantial chunk of their lives. Hope Cas also cleaned up Matt’s body??? And the busted door??? (Side note: does anyone else have weird squid emotions thinking about Cas willfully blanking their memories when his own memories have been tampered with time and time again? I SURE DON’T!)

Dean meets judgmental Sam back at the Impala. Sam, I see your judgment, and I judge thee valid. Dean talks about his emotions in an open and healt----hahaha nope. Dean tells Sam that if he ever mentions the Braedens to him then he’ll break Sam’s nose. He punctuates that with mournful, red-rimmed eyes which definitely deal at least 1.5X damage against Sam’s puppy eyes. They drive off into the sad music.

Elsewhere, Eleanor Visyak leaves her cabin, only to encounter Cas behind her. Cas flaps her away. CAAAAAAAAS!

You QUOTE Miette??!!

Your chocolate's been in my peanut butter for far too long

What’s with the slow burn?

You’re just a man. I’m better off protecting myself

I’m officially on your team. You bastards

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

#spn recap #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #cas #Lisa Braeden #Ben Braeden #spn 6x21 #let it bleed #supernatural season 6 #bobby singer #balthazar

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partnersatfazbear · 3 years

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Fazbear Frights Analysis: Friendly Face / #10

I was at my in laws last few days and shopping for decorations with my bff yesterday so I had time to read the Friendly Face book. I'm a few pages into the final story so havent gotten to the epilogue yet. Its fairly more pages than normal so suprised I havent stumbled on spoilers yet.

The first story was okay but stupid ending (I think it could work if it was set up better ie making the Friendly Face seem like it wanted revenge rather than playing--and yes this was kind of creative but didn’t really feel satisfying as an ending.) and the second story was very Goosebumps like ( Seabonnies are assholes but also kinda adorable. Seabonnies are the Sour Patch Kids of the FF universe... ). The third story.. Every character annoys me so far and its a slog. We got some cool animatronics and as I guessed early on it seems like a mini love letter to Kings Carrie. Read my thoughts below, since I had stopped reading before we got to the good stuff.

Nothing really Willry/Helliam relevant lately, unfortunately. Hoping there’s something in the epilogue though. (Now that I read it: Yeah, I think we have a Henry stand in, actually)

More on the book later.

***

So, turns out the last story was the most relevant, at least for me. It gives us more insight into the springlock suits (maybe more specifically the second set of them, not sure). They are described similar to Funtime Freddy in terms of the stomach cavity, but they are springlock suits. There is a switch on the outside that is stated to sometimes fail that converts it from suit to animtronic mode / vise versa. We get a pretty cool description of a character death inside of it--and well, it’s about how you’d imagine it [and pleasantly suprised close to how I remember writing it in my fic]. What’s odd is the springlock suit appears to be immediately “haunted” by the first, then the second girl in the story. I don’t think the number is as relevant as the fact that the souls attatched immediately. I guess Mrs. Carrie-Pig (Rosie Porkchop) may already be infused with remnant? It’s never explained. The springlock suit is also programmed outright. I think this was assumed before, but we get some insight into how it’s done. Also, this furthers my theory regarding Springtrap chasing the voices in FNAF 3. It’s definetly programming. The ones in this story are listed as specifically avoiding adult voices and targeting children’s voices.

Epilogue and theory is under the cut:

The epilogue... you guys, I don’t know where to begin with this. I’m gonna write my initial thoughts here and then scour Freddit for some clarification. The beginning starts with Larson looking into the DNA samples and connecting them to a bunch of incidents, mostly involving a skeletal figure which appears to be Eleanor. Next, we get confirmation that Eleanor took over Renelle at some point. Eleanor goes to the house of “her father”. The description does hold many similarities to the Afton household, specifically a couch with a lamp next to it reminded me a lot of Sister Location, but it’s not enough to really confirm anything (the lamps are different types too). The man is a remnant-specialist named Talbert. I feel like I remember the name being mentioned before. The story specifically points out a photo of him and his partner, Phineas. (This should ring so many bells for anyone in the Willry/Helliam ship..). However, Eleanor as she was or is is NOT Talbert’s daughter, who is shown in a photo and described with: black hair and brown eyes. Most people would probably associate it with Cassidy, but my mind went more to Charlotte. So Talbert seems to be a Henry stand in. He seems shocked to see his dead daughter, yet can believe she’s alive (probably because he’s very experienced with remnant or maybe The Spark). Talbert takes remnant to give to his “daughter”/Eleanor who is disguised as her. We know she can project her appearance with the locket and I guess she does that here. If I wasn’t speed reading too much, it seems the Plushtrap chaser might be there too? Eleanor starts turning into another wierd rabbit-bot-monster thing at the end, too. I’m assuming this thing is related to Pit-Bonnie, but we don’t get many details here. The entire thing also has a long segment of Larson’s “visions” going through all the events of the Fazbear Frights we’ve seen so far and even explaining Blackbird in more detail.

I don’t know what to think about it...

Having checked Freddit: I guess this went over my head, but the most important detail seems to be that Eleanor is harvesting remnant and/or agony to grow stronger and was also behind many of the events in the stories. As in, not just setting them up sort of way, but like... being one of the doctors in Step Closer and having the Plushtrap chaser... and being present somehow in 1280. I think it’s wierd, bordering on dumb, but I’ll roll with it. Also worthy to note, she appears to be bringing all the remnant/agony back to the ballpit. I’m secretly really hoping it’s all an effort to revive William (despite the epilogue that sort of contradicts it, where Eleanor steals agony from AlmagAfton--although I see this as a last ditch kind of move to save it rather than destroying him--it’s clear the Puppet did that, isn’t it?) I even had the thought when they discussed Eleanor specifically having the Plushtrap chaser that it reminded me of the Spring Bonnie plush at the end of FNAF: VR / HW.

Also, since I jumped to the idea that Renelle was Charlotte, I missed a specific detail about curly black hair, which gets reiterated. [TBF, I based my Charlotte off of game-Charlotte, so I depict her with black, not brown hair. I didn’t see the ‘curly’ word specified or missed it] A theory I like and really agree with is Renelle WAS who became Andrew. We all know Andrew is our Cassidy stand in... and what has the fandom been fighting over? The damn gender. If Renelle died and forgot who she was, she could easily reimagine herself as a male spirit aka Andrew. This solves that dilemma. As an extra note, Scott’s voice request for the angry spirit was listed as ‘male or female’.

I think that’s all the important stuff.

#fazbear frights #initial thoughts #friendly face #fnaf theory #fnaf spoilers #spoilers #cassidy #andrew #eleanor #giraffe baby #fnaf theories

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Walking Dead Season 11: Who Lives and Who Dies

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This Walking Dead article contains major spoilers.

Many of us thought this day would never come, but as all of The Walking Dead‘s characters know very well, everything that has a beginning has an end. Season 11 of AMC’s flagship zombie drama will be the show’s final run of episodes, but fortunately it’s an expanded season. Fans will get 24 more episodes, broken up into three parts, before the show — and a few of its characters — meets its end.

And it wouldn’t be a season of The Walking Dead without a few big deaths along the way. As we have in past seasons, we’ve made some predictions regarding who will bite the bullet in season 11. For the final time, here are the characters we think are on the chopping block and the ones we believe will live on to remember them after the credits roll on the series finale.

Keep track of all The Walking Dead season 11 deaths below:

DEAD

Roy (C. Thomas Howell)

Prediction: Dies

Result: Dead

Roy took an arrow to the face during a Reaper ambush.

Gage (Jackson Pace)

Prediction: Dies

Result: Dead

Gage stabbed himself in the chest twice, attempting to kill himself before being devoured by walkers in a train car. Zombie Gage was then put down with a shot to the head by Gabriel.

ALIVE

Pope (Ritchie Coster)

Prediction: Dies

I’ve never seen a guy more likely to die in the first half of a Walking Dead season than Pope, the leader of the show’s newest villains, the Reapers, who themselves strike me as filler villains for Maggie and Daryl while the real story at the Commonwealth develops. I assume the Reapers will be out of the picture by the time Alexandria needs to turn its attention to the much larger settlement in the second part of season 11.

Pamela Milton (Laila Robins)

Prediction: Dies

The Governor of the Commonwealth is poised to be the final season’s big bad. A bureaucrat hellbent on preserving the way things were before the zombie outbreak, Milton even established a caste system within her settlement to propagate class inequality. She represents everything that was wrong with the world before the fall of society and the complete anti-thesis of how the Alexandrians do things.

If you’ve read the comics, you know how Pamela’s story ends in Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard’s story, but the TV series is known for taking sharp left turns when you least expect it. One thing we know for sure is that the Alexandrians will have to reckon with Pamela’s rule before the series finale.

Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton)

Prediction: Dies

A Commonwealth acolyte and bookkeeper of the community, Lance is one of Milton’s chief personnel, helping her run the settlement’s government. He’s also seems like cannon fodder to me as things heat up between the Commonwealth and Alexandria, an early death that could spark a conflict between the two factions.

Mercer (Michael James Shaw)

Prediction: Lives

Mercer is loyal to the Commonwealth but there are more sides to him than his distinct orange military armor lets on. He’s one of the most interesting characters of the comic’s final storyline, and it would be a shame to lose him before we can see his story through.

Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari)

Prediction: Lives

Elijah made his debut in one of the most WTF moments of season 10 when he rescued Aaron and Alden from the Whisperers. For weeks after his reveal, people wondered who the man in the steal mask could be. When he returned in the final six episodes of season 10, the show just kind of moved on without fleshing him out, which is unfortunate since he looks so cool! I’m going to assume that the series is saving a big Elijah-focused episode for later in the season and that he’s too awesome to kill off. You don’t just introduce a blade expert in a steel mask for no reason!

Virgil (Kevin Carroll)

Prediction: Dies

Virgil has a lot to atone for after kidnapping and drugging Michonne in season 10. At the end of the season, we learn that he’s found a disoriented Connie in the woods. His redemption arc will likely include helping Connie survive on the walker-infested road back to Alexandria. Will that eventually involve a final sacrifice to save her?

Connie (Lauren Ridloff)

Prediction: Lives

Connie’s been through a hell of a lot in the past season. After surviving an explosion, a cave-in, and an entire walker horde, Connie’s made it out of Whisperer territory but is still a ways from home. Expect part of season 11’s story to be about Connie’s odyssey and ultimate reunion with her sister and Daryl.

Lydia (Cassady McClincy)

Prediction: Lives

Lydia was at the center of Alexandria’s conflict with the Whisperers for a season and a half. With Alpha and Beta defeated, and their faction all but obliterated, I have to wonder what Lydia has left to do on the show. That said, the writers have continued to find interesting ways to explore this character, and someone has to live on to lead the next generation of Alexandrians. I think Lydia is in it for the long haul.

Magna (Nadia Hilker)

Prediction: Dies

Magna was sidelined pretty quickly after her introduction. While a reunion with Yumiko seems like the logical direction for her story, The Walking Dead universe is a cruel one. She could be headed toward tragedy.

Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura)

Prediction: Lives

In season 11, Yumiko is inheriting a major storyline from the comics that likely means she’ll survive the final 24 episodes of the series. Of course, the TV show could always alter that storyline to bring a tragic end to Yumiko’s story.

Luke (Dan Fogler)

Prediction: Dies

It’s pretty wild that Luke has survived as long as he has. A man of the arts hardly has a place in the cruel world of this show, but he has clumsily persevered thus far. But if the writers are planning an especially bloody final season, I’d put Luke on the short list.

Kelly (Angel Theory)

Prediction: Lives

Kelly has been one of the best late additions to the show. It would suck for her to finally reunite with her sister only to meet an unexpected end.

Alden (Callan McAuliffe)

Prediction: Dies

Another candidate for the chopping block. I’m surprised he’s even made it this long.

King Ezekiel (Khary Payton)

Prediction: Lives

Yes, Ezekiel has thyroid cancer, and were he in Alexandria, that would mean his inevitable death. But the Commonwealth is a different ballgame, an advanced settlement in the comics that will likely have the doctors and surgical resources needed to save him. That is, if Ezekiel isn’t caught up in Milton’s caste system.

Jerry (Cooper Andrews)

Prediction: Dies

I love Jerry and don’t want to see the tank with a heart of gold go. But if the season needs an early death that pulls at the heart strings, Jerry is a prime candidate for a midseason casualty.

Father Gabriel Stokes (Seth Gilliam)

Prediction: Lives

Gabriel has evolved so much since his debut in season 5, becoming one of Alexandria’s key leaders. He’s come so far and even survived longer than his comic book counterpart. I’d hate to see him go so close to the end. So I’m just going to say he lives.

Aaron (Ross Marquand)

Prediction: Lives

Aaron seemed destined to die seasons ago, too kind and trusting to survive this long. But here he is, still fighting and surviving. He’s lost the man he loves, his arm, and many friends — and it’s all hardened him into a war machine. It’d be a shame for him to die now.

Rosita Espinosa (Christian Serratos)

Prediction: Lives

In the comics, Rosita’s head ended up on a pike during the Whisperer war, but her TV counterpart has persevered. It’s difficult to predict where her story goes at this point, but since she survived her comic book death, I assume the show’s writers have something in mind for her in season 11.

Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt)

Prediction: Lives

Eugene has become an unlikely protagonist going into season 11. From a mulleted coward hiding behind his intelligence so that others protect him to the Alexandrian leading his people to the Commonwealth, Eugene is central to the plot of the final season, and I think that means he’s safe. Plus, Eugene is hilarious, and The Walking Dead can always use a little comedic relief.

Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming)

Prediction: Lives

Result: Lived

NO.

Rick Grimes Jr. (Antony Azor)

Prediction: Lives

Nah.

Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan)

Prediction: Lives

I think The Walking Dead is going to end with one last big death, one last sacrifice before the credits roll on the massive zombie drama. Like Rick in the comics, one of the major characters of the TV series will likely become the martyr who inspires change inside the Commonwealth’s walls. Negan would probably be on the short list for this big moment from the comics, a villain finally choosing to do the right thing for a cause bigger than himself, a fitting conclusion to his seasons-long redemption arc. But Jeffrey Dean Morgan recently teased that he was already having discussions with AMC about a potential Negan spinoff after The Walking Dead has concluded, which means the former Savior leader is safe…unless the Negan show is a prequel.

Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride)

Prediction: Lives

This one’s an easy one: Melissa McBride is getting her own spinoff that will follow her character after The Walking Dead series finale. That means she’s safe.

Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus)

Prediction: Lives

Norman Reedus is joining McBride for that spinoff, so he’s safe, too. The actor even told us what the Daryl and Carol show will be about.

Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan)

Prediction: Dies

That leaves The Walking Dead with one logical choice to pick up Rick’s final storyline from the comic. It’s Maggie. It also makes a bit of sense from a logistical standpoint. Lauren Cohan has already left The Walking Dead universe once before to pursue other small and big screen projects. She’s back for the final 24 episodes of the series as a welcome legacy character but that doesn’t mean Cohan wants to stick around for longer than that. I assume Cohan’s returned to bring closure to her character, not to prepare for a spinoff.

Let us know your predictions for The Walking Dead season 11 in the comments!

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jellybeanbeing · 4 years

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Books That Made Me Cry pt. 2

I’ve already written a part one of this list but it’s been about two years since I wrote that one and in that timeframe I have read more books that have made me cry so here is an updated list!

Part one:

https://jellybeanbeing.tumblr.com/post/180974041971/books-that-made-me-cry

Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje

I am so surprised that this book made me cry because it was a book I had to read for school. Usually, I always feel disconnected with books I have to read for school because I’m forced to read it, but with this one, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The journey that Anil and Sarath (and I guess Gamini) go on is filled with such turmoil and tragedy. Throughout the book, each of the characters’ background are sort of revealed, bringing out who they really are to the surface. There is so much heartbreak and loss, and you’re just hoping in the end that everything will be fine but it’s not.

A Torch Against the Night & A Reaper at the Gates by Sabba Tahir

I recently reread the first three books for the third time, and it was this time that the second and third book made me sob. I think it has to do with the fact that I feel like I finally understand these characters and their motivations more clearly now, and I can connect with them. Laia, Elias, and Helene each go on their separate journeys to becoming who they are meant to be, and along the way, they are also hit with difficult and life altering changes though they never want it. They are constantly having to do things and become things that they don’t want to become but they have to for the sake of the greater good.

Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare (spoilers included)

I have to congratulate this book so hard because it is the only book ever to make cry because of the romantic relationships. Like every other book on the lists of ‘books that made me cry’ made me cry not because of their romantic plot lines, but because of their own personal growth and journey and feelings. The moment where Jesse said he would give his last breath to Lucie was just perfect and everything romantic. And at the end, I could just feel the agony and sadness in Cordelia because she and James now have to “pretend” to be in love when she really is but he’s not, and it hurts so much. Also when Matthew tells Thomas (and Anna??) why he hates Alastair so much in front of Alastair and they basically tell him to fuck off, made me cry so much. This entire book is just filled with heartbreak and I know that the next two are going to be the same if not more.

On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Every time I need a shot of nostalgia or sadness, I just open this book up and cry. It’s always so emotional and the way everything just ties in together is what I love so much and it makes my heart hurt. The internal and external personal journey the main characters go through is filled with so much emotion and tragedy that it’s hard not to feel for them and what they have to go through. It focuses in each characters’ relationship within their friendships and family, and it’s so beautiful and touching.

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

I absolutely loved this book and I read it at the most perfect time in my life. The way Noah and Jude’s story is drawn out was one of my favorite things about this book. It built up the emotions and really captured their personal growths and made me care for them and their stories. Usually with books told in two perspectives, I end up enjoying one perspective more, but I equally loved their perspectives. I loved the romance A LOT, but I loved that the story stayed to its core with always coming back to Noah and Jude and their family. The entire book is Noah and Jude finding their way back to each other and mending their family and I cried so much because it was just the most perfect thing ever.

Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S King

Honestly, I can’t believe I cried while reading this book. I was so mellow and lukewarm about the entire book so me crying is a big shocker. I think the thing that had me feeling so emotional was how atmospheric this book was and the relationship between Vera and her father. The father-daughter relationship they had, I felt like was very different from the others that I had read about. They aren’t happy all the time, and they weren’t that close. I really liked that aspect of the book. I guess I kind of also felt a connection with Vera and her feelings of loneliness and being lost in her own kind of world.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (spoilers included)

It took me FOREVER to pick this book back up but once I did again, I flew through this one. The story itself and the writing is so magical and pretty that it’s hard not to love it. I started crying when I got to part 6 because we get Katrina’s perspective and she cares so much for Zachary. We can see her hurt and slowly start to lose hope in finding Zachary, believing that he’s dead. We continue to see Katrina and her story and understand her character more and what she is destined for. The way this story is structured is kind of like stories within a story and the way everything comes back to the beginning and ties together was goddamn beautiful and I loved it. The romance killed me because there’s a lot of missed chances and the characters trying to find their way back to each other but can’t find them, especially with Simon and Eleanor. They’re both lost and have been for so long that they have forgotten what they were trying to look for but they know they are looking for something. Zachary was such a great character to follow and the way he just plunges into this entirely new world because he was just curious and knew that there was more to the world was such a relatable and precious thing. At the end when he loses Dorian and “dies” was the most heartbreaking thing ever because he had gone so far only to end up dead without finding out more. Because this book had an open ending was all the more heartbreaking yet hopeful because we see all the characters where they longed to be and understand their further potential.

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

I loved that this book was written in verse because it made the story all the more powerful and heart hitting. Will has these moments that hit him in such quick moments and so much is happening. Every single moment and person matters in that short moment before the elevator hits the ground and it’s so overwhelming to Will because he has to make a decision and you just feel every single emotion that he feels. You’re there in that moment with him seeing everything come at him and then when it ends, you just hit with “what happens next?” and I loved it and it had me crying.

#anil's ghost #michael ondaatje #a torch against the night #a reaper at the gates #sabaa tahir #chain of gold #cassandra clare #on the jellicoe road #jellicoe road #melina marchetta #ill give you the sun #jandy nelson #please ignore vera dietz #a.s king #the starless sea #erin morgenstern #long way down #jason reynolds

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latenightcinephile · 3 years

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#720: ‘The Haunting’, dir. Robert Wise, 1963.

Robert Wise's The Haunting was the first adaptation of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, only three years after the novel was first released. SInce its production, it has developed the kind of reverence that gets it discussed in the same hushed whispers as Rosemary's Baby. Steven Spielberg reportedly told Wise that it was the scariest film he'd seen, and several years ago Martin Scorsese put it at the top of his list of scariest horror films.

Spielberg and Scorsese are wrong about The Haunting.

This film was made in the same year as Hitchcock's The Birds, for example, and while The Birds is also not the scariest film ever made, it soars miles above The Haunting. So what happened? Why is this film so renowned despite being incredibly ineffective?

The Haunting of Hill House was Wise's choice of adaptation when it came to a film to honour the legacy of Val Lewton, the eminent producer of horror films for RKO. The crucial feature of the horror Lewton produced stemmed from his belief that the scariest monsters in horror were the ones you did not see - that way the audience was able to fill the blank space with the scariest thing they were capable of imagining. Anything displayed on the screen, no matter the buildup, would inevitably be a letdown to the viewers. Wise's film plays this maxim straight, treating the viewer to some tense sequences built around sound effects, and a few visual effects towards the end that indicate something of great strength lurking in Hill House, attempting to invade the space of the characters.

What it might be lacking, in my opinion, is any real sense of threat. The most unsettling elements of the film come in the performance of Julie Harris. As Eleanor Lance, Harris has to occupy two registers at once: the physical performance within the real, physical house, and the mental performance, chiefly made available to the viewer through her voice-over narration. It's unclear for a lot of the film what is happening to Eleanor. She feels an obvious affinity for the house, and starts to consider it her new home, but even before she arrives at Hill House for the first time her voiceover discusses it as though she's taking permanent residence there, not merely attending a weekend of paranormal investigation.This creepiness seems to stop, however, at the edges of Eleanor's self. What everyone else experiences at Hill House is a set of unexplained cold patches and some thumpings in the night. These are creepy, sure, but they don't actually seem to be malevolent. Without any ongoing sense of threat it's hard to find the film terrifying, even for a self-confessed horror wuss like me.

It seems like Wise might have been unable to buy into the paranormal aspects of the film himself: despite being reassured by Shirley Jackson that the novel was really about the supernatural, Wise and the screenwriter, Nelson Gidding, introduced a subtext of mental breakdown into the film's script. Strangely, by introducing this ambiguity, the film becomes even less horrifying. If Eleanor is merely hallucinating a haunting that exists entirely within her own mind, then it remains confined there - it doesn't bleed out into the world and imperil the other characters. If the haunting is real, then it clearly only threatens people with Eleanor's weak constitution. Either way, the viewer is safe.

This type of ambiguity provides a lot of loose ends that don't build into anything stronger. Eleanor's history with the house, for instance, is also ambiguous. At one point she wakes to the sound of rapping at the walls, seemingly the presence of the old woman who once lived in the home, desperately seeking attention from the live-in nurse. We know from the film's opening that Eleanor's mother also died recently, and when Eleanor wakes she tells the noises that she's coming. Is this Eleanor temporarily lapsing into her own real history, forgetting her mother is already dead? Or has she been cast in the role of the nurse for a moment, who also died in the house? There isn't a firm answer provided to this, or much else in the film. Wise likes the ambiguity present here, and it's an effective ploy... just not a terrifying one.

There is one thing that makes this film well worth a watch, and it's the visual style of it. I'm giving this film a lot of flak for not being scary, but it is a gorgeously-constructed film overall. The setting for the house (Ettington Park for the exterior shots) is appropriately ominous at night, and the rooms are consistently filmed from an unusually low angle, making ceilings loom overhead. The house, fittingly for a ghost story, is a character: faces in the carvings are given prominence, and shots are frequently framed with pieces of architecture and furnishing filling spots where humans would typically be.The camera also moves a lot, which would make cutting for spatial continuity enormously challenging - shots track, pan and tilt with the characters. Where the continuity is broken, the effect is suitably disorienting. At one stage, Eleanor trips on a spiral staircase, and we cut to a wide shot of her on the second landing. She starts to climb again, another twenty steps or so, and then when we next cut to that wider frame, she's still on the second landing. Parts of individual scenes are clearly shot at different times of day. Are these continuity errors? Most likely. But they really reinforce the sense that Hill House is a place with its own laws, that ignores the logic of the outside world.

The Haunting is an unusual film, and at first I dismissed it as boring, as a horror film that isn't horrifying. It's far more likely to provide moments where you say 'That was cool, how they did that', rather than moments of terror. What has stayed with me from it, though, is how modern it feels. The Netflix adaptation has the threatening aspects that make it a horror, but a lot of those aspects are here, just in a tame, embryonic form. This is a film with a lesbian character dressed in stylish Mary Quant clothes, as out as possible in a film from the 1960s. It uses some of the same practical effects as you'd see down the line in John Carpenter's horror films. I think that those proclaiming it to be the scariest thing they've ever seen are seeing the reflections of The Haunting's children in its eyes.

#1001 movies #robert wise #the haunting

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athingthatwantsvirginia · 4 years

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Ginsberg, Again

PART SEVEN OF THE DO YOU SEE HER FACE? SERIES

Pairing: Jess Mariano x Original Character (Ella Stevens)

Warnings: mentions of death, plentiful pop culture references

Word Count: 4.2K

Summary: To avoid Mother’s Day, Ella takes a spontaneous journey to the park where David Lee Roth was arrested.

A sleepy Thursday at the diner and Ella was almost finished with her sketch of the streetlamp across the way. Upon doing the preliminary line work, she found it dull, so she had added a UFO circling above it to spice up the drawing. The clinking of mugs filled her ears, but the diner was only moderately populated. Luke was busy filling out some spreadsheet, stealing glances over at the staircase every few minutes. Jess was due downstairs at any moment. Near the front window, Rory sat with piles of notes and textbooks out in front of her. Having overhead Luke and Lorelai, Ella knew Rory had been tasked with tutoring Jess, who was in danger of repeating the eleventh grade. Ella did not envy Rory. She’d only run into Jess a handful of times in the hallways of school, and though they had no classes together, she’d certainly heard tales of his insubordination and mischief. Just as she had finished the shading on the face of the alien through the window of the spaceship, Jess bounded down the stairs. His face brightened when he saw Ella at the counter, immediately taking up the stool across from her.

“Okay, honey, prepare to be amazed,” he began, shuffling his deck of cards before she had even looked up at him.

She scoffed at the name, shutting her battered sketchbook in fear of him catching a glimpse of her work. “Dazzle me.”

It only took him one attempt to guess her card and she smiled proudly.

“It’s Houdini himself,” she appraised.

“And…” he trailed off, grabbing a shiny red apple and a dish towel from a ways down the counter. Showing her the empty sides of the towel, he feigned the apple appearing out of nowhere from beneath it.

Her smile grew, taking the apple as he held it out to her. “Also good. But I’m not the teacher you should be giving the fruit to now, am I?”

Jess sighed heavily as she munched on the apple. “I swore off institutional education long ago.”

She rolled her eyes. “Calm down, Nietzche. You’ll only have to get over yourself for a couple hours so you can stay in this small town utopia.” As she spoke, she gestured to the town around them.

“Well, it’s off to the salt mines, I guess,” he said, head hanging low in resignation.

Ella chuckled at his theatrics and gave his shoulder a gentle push in Rory’s direction. “Yes, I pity you. Now, go.”

. . .

About sixty pages in to White Oleander, though she had read it two times before, Ella was enjoying the decadent prose when the phone broke the silence of her bedroom. A smell of lavender, the plant for luck, calmed her as the candles on one of her crate nightstands burned slowly. The flickering flames were the only ones which lit the room. Clearing her throat, she sat up against her pillows and took the old white phone, sitting on the floor in the corner, off the receiver. She expected Lane, though she didn’t call nearly ever. However, Lane’s nearly-never calls were pretty much the only ones she ever received on her landline. The separate number was one she had installed herself, after her mother died, a cheap phone bought at Radioshack with her first paycheck from Luke’s. She knew she would need a form of communication Fiona didn’t have to pay for, to lorde over her during their screaming matches.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Eleanor?”

She furrowed her brows. “Jess?”

“The one and only,” he joked through the line, though she could tell his heart wasn’t in it. She couldn’t hear the smirk in his voice like she usually could.

“What’s wrong?” she asked quickly, her heart in her throat. Since her mother’s death, any sign of trouble made her stomach sink, no matter how small the issue turned out to be.

“It’s that obvious, huh?”

“Jess. What’s wrong?” she repeated, swallowing dryly.

He heaved a tired sigh. “I’m going back to New York. Tonight.”

She was rendered silent for a moment, the information registering. “Oh. What...What the hell? Did something happen? Is it your mom? Do you-”

“Honey, just shut up for a second, okay?” he cut in, and she didn’t even have time to be annoyed about the pet name. “Rory and I...I screwed up. Tonight after we…” Jess stopped to sigh again.

“You don’t have to-”

“I crashed her car. Rory broke her wrist.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus, are you okay?” she asked urgently, running an anxious hand through her hair.

Jess uttered a noise between a laugh and a scoff. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m indestructible. I thought you knew that by now.”

Ella cleared her throat again and struggled to find words. “Mariano, I-”

“Look, I gotta get going in a second. But, I uh...I got your phone number from Luke’s address book and if it’s cool I’ll give you a call when I get there?”

Taken aback, Ella couldn’t help but let out a doubtful laugh. “Um...yeah, sure. Of course.”

“Good,” he said shortly.

There was a prolonged silence, full of words Ella couldn’t grasp, feelings she couldn’t articulate.

“So,” she said, her free hand fiddling with the hem of her quilt nervously. “Don’t forget to call me, okay? No matter how late it is. I’ll worry you got mugged or something.”

“Yeah,” he said, almost fondly. “I know, Stevens. So...I’ll see you.”

“Yep. Bye, Jess.”

“Bye.”

The line went dead, and she spent one moment still clutching the phone to her ear, listening to the monotonous final tone. Once she hung up, she tried to keep reading, but found herself distracted. Why the hell did he want to call her? The entire conversation felt unreal the moment it was over, and she knew she should have asked more questions. Though she was aware the news and rumors about the car accident would spread through town like wildfire, everyone glad to be rid of the local Antichrist, otherwise known as Jess Mariano. But there were so many other pieces she felt were missing, even if she couldn’t really name what they were. She thought of how dull her shifts would now seem without Jess to argue with about books and music, to laugh with while she closed, to reprimand and call a jackass. Maybe the peace she’d once enjoyed would return, but she already knew how different, how lacking, it would feel.

. . .

Clutching her books to her chest, Ella checked her watch every few seconds waiting for Lane to arrive. Again, Lane had been grounded for some random transgression. But they’d made plans to meet before school and go for pancakes. Ella was too nervous to actually step foot inside the diner alone. She knew Luke would give her those small, sympathetic glances. Especially after Mother’s Day last year. Lane had agreed to be her emotional backup, joining her for breakfast and shielding her from all the dead Mom reminders. Breathing out a sigh, Ella checked her watch again and knew they wouldn’t have time for Luke’s pancakes before school anyway. She was glad at least the morning air was warm, and she could wear her flowy black sundress, covered in tiny pink flowers. She thought wearing her favorite outfit, complete with her black boots and fishnets, would raise her spirits. Of course, the get-up was yet another reason she had to steer clear of the Kim residence for fear of incurring Mrs. Kim’s wrath.

Suddenly, Lane appeared from the front door of the antique shop and sprinted over. “Ella! I am so sorry, I had to-”

“Lane?” Ella said, looking up from her gaze on her shoes with a resigned tone.

Immediately, Lane lost all her joy and urgency. Her face fell and saw the redness in Ella’s eyes, her sleepless features. “What?”

“I can’t do this today. Look, can you cover for me? Tell everyone I’m sick, or something? Get my homework?” she ventured, looking around suspiciously.

Lane narrowed her eyes and put a hand on Ella’s arm. “Yeah...but where are you going?”

A wicked smirk covered Ella’s tired face. “I don’t know. Somewhere I’ve never been before.”

. . .

Even the air and the light were different in New York, though she figured it was probably the multiple kinds of pollution permeating the atmosphere. The local bus had a smell like pine which was not altogether unwelcome, and she was able to finish annotations for an article in earth science class. Squealing tires screeched in her ears as the bus stopped outside Washington Square Park where Jess told her he often hung out on the less than rare occasion he cut class. Her stomach churned anxiously as she ran her hands through her messy hair, loose and wavy. Of all the places she’d never been, New York seemed the most feasible, not quite so far away, a place where she had contacts. She needed to get away from Stars Hollow, away from the memories, away from the life she hadn’t asked for, where she carried baggage which didn’t even belong to her.

Descending the stairs of the bus, Ella clutched her messenger bag, heavy with the books she’d originally packed for school, tightly at her side. As soon as her feet hit the concrete, a smile crossed her face. She was really in New York. And she’d gone all on her own, from the station to the local bus, and she didn’t have to deal with any of the Mother’s Day flower sales or the sad looks whenever she entered a room. For a moment, she watched the streets on either side, the bustling people, as the bus rolled away and she had officially arrived. It took almost no time at all to see Jess’s dark hair sticking up from a bench across the road. She didn’t need to see the other side of him to know he was knee deep in a book. Rushing over the crosswalk, Ella felt excitement rising in her stomach, though fears of being run over also thumped against her chest. She plopped down next to him on the park bench and caught a glance at the cover of his book and scoffed.

“Ginsberg, again?” she asked dejectedly. “And you think I’m predictable.”

Jess looked calm as he recognized her voice and smirked at her appearance. “Always. What are you doin’ here, honey?”

Groaning, she threw her head back dramatically. “Again with the ‘honey.’”

“Hey, I’ve only been gone a month. Not everything changes,” he shrugged, saving his place in his book and stuffing it in the back pocket of his worn jeans.

“We talk on the phone almost every day. The ‘honey’ thing was dead, or so I thought.” She shook her head, speaking with her hands.

“It’s not as gratifying when I don’t get to see you almost ready to murder me,” he explained, smug as ever.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s a little sexist, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“Calling girls ‘honey,’ Jess. Keep up. It’s the twenty-first century,” she said, exasperated.

Jess shook his head and ran a hand over his mouth, a nervous reflex. “I don’t call girls ‘honey,’ I call you ‘honey.’”

She snorted a laugh, missing the redness which colored the tips of his ears. “If that’s supposed to make me feel special, it doesn’t.”

“It was supposed to make you feel unlucky, actually.”

“Well, then you’ve succeeded, jackass,” she said, though she had a fond look.

Jess grinned and cleared his throat, crossing his arms over his chest curiously. “So, what the hell are you doing here, Stevens?”

Ella shrugged, cavalier as she stared across the park and the May breeze blew the hair back from her freckled face. “Working on my spontaneity. This was a preliminary exercise.”

Narrowing his eyes, he nodded slowly. Ella tried to quiet the memories flashing before her vision, screaming through her mind. She hoped Jess wouldn’t notice. Her heart was yearning for adventure, something positive. Anything positive. Jess looked down momentarily, mulling something over. Then, he eyed her again with a smirk on his lips.

“You wanna go somewhere?”

“Anywhere.”

“Well, that narrows it down a bit.”

. . .

“Y’know, it’s just like you to hang out in Washington Square Park in the middle of a school day,” she scoffed, then taking a bite of one of the hot dogs they’d bought off a street vendor. It was salty, but good. The mid-day lull had hit the city, and the streets were only slightly overcrowded as they weaved around.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, chuckling.

“I don’t know. Not quite as mainstream as central park, it’s got that David Lee Roth thing. Very Jess.”

“I don’t appreciate being typecast,” he joked, watching her from the corner of his eye.

“Hey,” she said, shrugging. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

“Whatever. I’m not the Stevie Nicks groupie here.”

“If you think that’s an insult, you’re wrong.”

. . .

After a trip to the record store, they strolled along with shopping bags in hand. Jess had paid in crumpled ones, but still scored an Iggy Pop record to add to his meager collection. Still, Ella insisted he wait to buy any CDs until she was gone again, so as not to offend her delicate vinyl sensibilities. Watching out of the corner of his eye, Jess noticed the holes in the knees of Ella’s fishnets and the shine of her frizzy blonde hair in the afternoon light. The moment was so surreal, his worlds colliding. She looked oblivious to his gaze, though, drinking the city in. He felt tempted to laugh at the excitement she radiated at the novelty. Even on the subway, with its stale smell and flickering lights, she’d managed to maintain a level of amazement Jess found baffling. After a few moments, Jess chose to break the serene silence between them. They walked so close he could feel their arms brushing against each other.

“Explain to me why you bought all that relentless melancholia?” he asked, having kept quiet since he’d noticed her placing her choices on the register in the shop, punk music blaring over the stereo system. She’d bought three records: Kurt Cobain, Elliot Smith, and The Velvet Underground.

“There is a time and a place for it,” she argued. “We can’t all sustain a diet of constant screamo and metal, y’know.”

Jess shook his head, and chuckled but said nothing. In his natural environment, he was much the same, but his gait was marked with fatigue. His footsteps were heavier. She wondered what his home life was like in such a big city, where he could wander around on a school day without anyone asking after him. A wave of sadness rolled over her, and she again thought of mother’s day. They passed a cart selling flowers, and the smell wafted off the blooms in sickly sweet clouds. It made her stomach twist into a knot, her mind clouded with thoughts for the both of them. When she returned home, everything would be the same. No one would know where she’d been. And the whole excursion would be nothing but a memory, a painting she could touch but could never live again. She sighed lightly, staring ahead as they walked. Jess cast her a sidelong glance, nudging her with his elbow.

“So, where to next?”

Pursing her lips, she thought for a moment. “A place you like to look at.”

. . .

Litter peppered the grassy hill overlooking the Hudson river. The engines of the cars which crossed the bridge over the river sputtered with exhaust, adding to the smoggy haze of the air. Clouds had hung in the sky all day, and the air was muggy, but Ella felt light with content. She could hear the slight current of the water under the traffic, and it was oddly tranquil despite the overall grimy atmosphere of the city. People milled about on the sidewalk behind them, their designer shoes clicking away on the gray stone. The sounds swarmed around her and created a comforting sea of white noise. Jess took a seat on the hill without saying a word, and Ella followed suit.

“Good choice, Mariano.”

“Thank you,” he smiled, watching as her eyes lit up at the sight of the water. “In Stars Hollow, there’s the lake. So, I figured, here, there’s the river.”

Ella nodded, beginning to dig through her bag. “You come here a lot?”

“Sometimes,” he said, shrugging a little.

“Oh, he’s so demure,” she teased, then found her sketchbook amongst the hodge podge of items in her bag. Jess watched with a raised eyebrow as she brought out a pencil along with the book. However, she didn’t begin drawing. The weathered moleskin was closed on the ground between them, and Jess didn’t think before he took it and ran his fingers over the cover.

“Can I look?” he asked expectantly.

She turned to him with a suspicious look, eyes narrowed. Then, after a moment, she blew out a tired sigh and nodded, pursing her lips. “Yeah. But if you laugh I’ll tell the principal you were the one who took all the dry erasers.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he warned jokingly.

“Well, the stakes are high in New York, aren’t they?” she said offhandedly, her eyes trained on the river. A huge VW Van rolled over the bridge, and it reminded her of pictures from the Haight-Ashbury circa 1967 in the old edition of TIME Luke had in the stock room.

Scoffing, Jess opened the sketchbook up to the first page, which was slightly yellowed with age. He wondered how long she had been carrying the book around with her. The first drawing was of a vase of flowers, but upon further inspection he found the centers of the blooms had mouths full of sharp vampire’s teeth. He skimmed through the others, similar nature scenes with various ghoulish elements. A few pages away from the remaining blank ones, he stopped short. The shading around the figure was dark, but in the center was the face of a beautiful woman, with the light shading of a skull underneath. He ran a figure over the eyes of the skull and brought his hand back again, hoping to avoid smudging.

“This one is…” he began, then trailed off. She glanced over at him, then felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. She’d drawn it only a few days earlier.

“Not my best,” she muttered, hoping to deflect his attention from it.

He laughed in disbelief. “Are you kidding? This is amazing.”

“You don’t have to lie.”

“Stevens, seriously. You’re a fucking artist,” he told her earnestly, staring down at the drawing.

“Well, thank you,” she said, quieting the anxious swirling her stomach. Her heart fluttered. It was rare she showed anyone her drawings, even Lane or Rory. But again, the surreal quality of the moment made her feel as though there would be lesser consequences. Maybe Jess wouldn’t remember her drawing later, as though it were a dream, like she imagined the day would feel the moment she left the city.

He cleared his throat, studying her unreadable expression. “Is it a self portrait? Looks a little like you.”

A bitter laugh escaped her lips and she didn’t look at him while she spoke. “No, actually, it’s my mom. Everyone always says how much we look alike.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, a sarcastic smile crossing her face. “Oh.”

“Mother’s Day, huh?” he asked knowingly.

Furrowing her brows, Ella finally faced him. “You keep track of the Hallmark holidays, Mariano?”

Jess snorted. “I don’t subscribe to them, but I am aware of them.”

“I think they should be eradicated.”

“Agreed.”

Biting the inside of her cheek, she nodded and looked back at the river. It was murky and green, no doubt polluted beyond recognition, but it still wasn’t half bad to look at. Jess noticed the way her fingers, with clipped black polish on the nails, drummed an antsy tune on her leg. He held the sketchbook back out to her and she gave him a grateful half-smile before cracking it open and beginning to draw.

“You okay?” he asked, breaking through the lengthy, but comfortable, silence.

Her smile grew a little more, and her shoulders visibly relaxed. “Always, Jess. It’s just one day. And I don’t particularly care about it. It’s the people back home.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, if you hadn’t noticed, the town of Stars Hollow isn’t known for minding its own business,” she said.

“Yeah, I kinda picked up on that,” he replied, watching her pencil slide across the page.

Occasionally, she stopped drawing and straightened up a little, appraising her work. Using the pad of her pinky, she shaded the clouds above the bridge, transforming the sketch past just an outline. Jess leaned back on the palms of his hands, letting the time pass as late afternoon turned into evening. He found his mouth left with a bittersweet taste at the thought of her hours away from him by the end of the night.

. . .

Back at the Port Authority bus terminal, the air was chalky. The local bus they’d taken to get back to the station had a decidedly more pleasant feel than the one Ella was about to board. But the ride wasn’t too long, and she still had plenty of school work she could finish on the way. They stood facing each other at the head of the bus, with five minutes until she absolutely had to board. Jess had his hands stuffed in his pockets, his shirt adorned with obscenities and the name of some obscure punk band. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, leaning back against the bus for one final moment of escape before climbing back out of the rabbit hole.

“So, how was the tour?” Jess asked.

Humming in thought, Ella glanced up at the splotchy ceiling for a moment before returning her eyes to him. “I’ll give you a seven.”

“Hey, if it’s passing, I’ll take it,” he said, shrugging.

She laughed. “Not a bad maxim. And I guess it's back to Washington Square Park with you?”

“Guess so. It’s a prime spot to brood.”

“I’m glad you’re finally owning your narrative.”

Jess smirked. “Well, if I’m owning mine, you gotta own yours. Show those pictures to someone important.”

Ella shook her head, then stopped for a moment and reached her free hand into her shoulder bag. Placing the shopping bag filled with her new records between her teeth, she flipped to the page where she’d drawn the bridge and ripped it out as neatly as she could along the perforation. Jess watched in confusion as she retrieved a pencil from her bag, she signed her name and dated the drawing in the lower right corner. When she’d tucked everything back into their rightful spots, she held the drawing out to Jess.

“We’ll call this a baby step.”

Letting out a small laugh, Jess took the drawing and studied the messy signature, a grin coming over his face. He brought the book from his back pocket and stuck the drawing in between the pages for safekeeping. “Thanks. I’ll make millions off this someday.”

She snickered and threw a look down at her watch. Two minutes left before departure. “Don’t patronize me, Mariano.”

“Don’t doubt yourself, Stevens,” he shot back immediately, with more sincerity than she was prepared for.

Shaking her head, she ignored the gravity of the moment.

“I think that’s all motivational speaking I can handle. I gotta get back. You sure you don’t wanna return to Hell with me?” she asked, only half-joking.

“I think the moment I step foot beyond town lines I’ll be struck down by the powers that be,” he said, a chuckle in his voice, though it didn’t reach his eyes. He ran a hand over his mouth.

She sighed through her nose and nodded. “Alright, fine. But in my considered opinion, you shouldn’t let those old gossips run you out of town. Sometimes when the world bites you, you gotta bite back.”

Jess raised his eyebrows. “And I’m the motivational speaker here?”

She rolled her eyes and started towards the bus. “You’re impossible.”

“Same to you,” he called as she boarded, and she shot him one final teasing glare before she turned the corner into the aisle.

Jess watched her blonde head move down row after row through the small windows, and when she finally stopped two seats from the back, he rushed down and shouted to her, hoping she could hear him through the thick window pane.

“Stevens!”

Furrowing her brows, she found Jess standing outside her window, uttering muffled words she couldn’t decipher. She groaned impatiently and raised the glass to hear him.

“Come again?” she asked.

“I said, I’ll call you later tonight. Don’t forget to pick it up. I’ll worry you got kidnapped or something.”

A smug smile crossed her lips. “Ah, I’m rubbing off on you.”

“I avoided it as long as I could,” he shrugged, smiling back.

“I won’t forget,” she assured him. “Bye, Jess.”

“Bye, Eleanor.”

And as soon as she shut the window once again, he was out of sight, meandering back to the station’s exit. A moment later, the bus driver released the break, a shrill squeak sounding. Swallowing dryly, Ella settled into her seat and prepared for the long drive back to reality.

#jess mariano imagines #jess mariano imagine #jess mariano one shot #jess mariano one shots #jess mariano #jess #mariano #gilmore girls #gilmore girls fanfiction #jess mariano x oc #gilmore girls imagines #jess mariano x original character #original character #original character stories

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meangirlsx · 5 years

Text

So I saw Mean Girls last night and I have some things I wanted to share with you all:

Everyone is hotter in person

Literally everyone

It shouldn’t be possible and yet it is

We know Barrett is a belting queen but HOLY SHIT

She make it looks like it’s easy and she sounds even more amazing live

She’s adorable and hilarious and intimidating all at the same time

Everything about Erika just screams Disney princess

Her voice, her smile, her mannerisms, her personality, everything

Grey accidentally spit in her face at the beginning of the show and she reacted in character like she didn’t want to make him feel bad but she couldn’t not wipe it off

All of the dancing is INCREDIBLE

Every single member of the ensemble puts their whole heart and soul in it

I want their wig master to do my hair every day

Seriously there were so many gorgeous hairstyles and specifically a lot of impressive braids

I wouldn’t mind the costumer dressing me every day, too

Devon was on for Gretchen and she was actual human sunshine

She was so adorable and SO outstanding

Jonalyn is also actual human sunshine

And lowkey she has amazing abs

Becca was on in the ensemble and she is SUCH an incredible dancer

Ixchel was also on and she is totally hilarious

We know Taylor is also a belting queen but HOLY SHIT 2.0

She just wails on her notes and makes it look effortless

And god she embodies Regina so well with the strut and the stage presence and you don’t want to look away

When the Plastics do their slow-mo walk in the mall, Kate pretends to roll her ankle very dramatically and then signals to the audience that she’s fine, all totally still in slow-mo

The cast has said they can see everyone in the audience because the set has so many LED screens

We were in the front row and I can confirm they really do look at you

Kate and I stared at each other for a few moments when she was laying upside down on the floor of Regina’s bedroom and truly I have been blessed

She is lethally funny but also gives Karen a really grounded, authentic feel

The ensemble talks about how their characters have story arcs throughout the show that can change, like one week two characters will be dating and the next week you could see them break up

You can definitely follow these if you’re looking for them

Like Riza’s character, Sophie, had a huge crush on Aaron at the beginning of the show

And I think it was Jonalyn and Brendon who kissed in the school hallway like halfway through the show

They might have tracks on the floor to help guide the desks and other smaller set pieces that roll on and off but the aim is just so impressive

Like someone will just push a couch off toward someone in the wings ready to grab it and they never miss

They also throw so many different props to each other and I know that takes a lot of practice and they will drop them at some point but it’s so coordinated it’s insane

Nothing can prepare you for seeing Sexy Abraham Lincoln and Sexy Corn in person

Or for seeing Sexy Eleanor Roosevelt smack her own ass tbh

Erika and Barrett had a fight with either imaginary swords or light sabers during Revenge Party (at least I think that’s when it was)

Erika puts so much humor and emotion into her little sung narration moments

After the Mathletes try to rap at the talent show and Principal Duvall shuts them down and they’re goofing around for a few more seconds, Nikhil looked at me and quietly said, “Call me” and then did the same to another girl a few seats over

When they’re displaying photos of the disaster ending of “Rockin’ Around the Pole,” it looked like they just photoshopped Devon’s face onto Ashley’s body, but I could be wrong about that

We never really see Regina being friendly and appreciative with Gretchen, but after Cady’s taken over and Gretchen has her reprise of “What’s Wrong With Me?” outside of the school, Cady comes back on and asks if she’s coming with her, and Erika has this sweet smile and fondness in her voice that’s a nice distinction from Regina’s reign

“Whose House Is This?” really is that lit and wild

Kyle’s part in “More Is Better” sounded exactly like it does on the album except for one note at the very end

Kyle gives off such a strong awkward-but-genuinely-sweet sort of Disney prince vibe as Aaron

I want to know how Taylor manages to throw the papers so perfectly in “World Burn” so that they cascade back down because it’s magical

After Regina’s hit by the bus and Janis and Damian are talking to the audience, when they bring up that Regina was technically dead for 15 seconds, Barrett just keeps making faces and gestures as if to say, “That’s what I’ve been saying!”

Also other than those asides to the audience, there’s almost no time that Barrett and Grey have onstage where they’re not touching each other in some way

And it’s almost always really cuddly, like hanging over each other’s shoulders and hugging

Their comedic timing together is truly unparalleled

Grey really just gives it his all and puts his entire goddamn heart on that stage

And oh my god he really is That Funny

And afterwards, at the stage door, he was just so nice to everyone

You can tell he really loves the fanbase

Kyle was also really nice

Let’s be honest everyone who came out was really nice

After my dad took a picture of me with Kyle and we thanked him, Kyle put on this adorable goofy grin and said, “Thanks, Dad!”

Nikhil asked the name of every single person who wanted to interact with him and he would repeat it back, usually with some nice comment about the name like he just wants everyone to know he appreciates them

Jonalyn was so sweet and she gives off such a Disney princess vibe, too, and you can tell she has so much love to share with everyone

People always scream when a cast member comes out to stage door, but when Devon walked out, it was like twice as loud

Devon’s immediate response was to give this huge smile and wave to everyone and really excitedly shout, “Hi, guys!”

She asked everyone she talked to how they were doing and genuinely wanted to know the answer

Collins and Riza also came out and were really friendly with everyone

That’s everyone who came out to stage door

Seriously the show was phenomenal

Every cast member was stunning and every technical aspect of the show was kind of mind-blowing

I swear I’ve never felt more bi than watching this entire cast

If anyone needs a friend to talk to about this show at any point, I’m officially more obsessed than I already was and am literally always happy to talk about it

#mean girls #mean girls musical #mean girls broadway

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griffinnblake · 5 years

Note

Do you read much fic and are you reading any at the min?

Oh boy. I’m so glad you asked, anon.

Yes, I read a ton of fic (to be honest, it’s the only thing tying me to this show right now. So far, nothing in season 6 interests me). I only read Bellarke, but I have a lot of favs.

Here’s what I’m currently reading:

i'll always wear the crown that you gave me by @captaindaddykru

Clarke is reaped during the 73th Games, with Bellamy as her mentor. Unknowingly, she starts something she doesn't know how to finish. Both in the arena, and at home with him. / Bellarke The Hunger Games Au.

If you love The Hunger Games, you will love this. The series is divided into three parts, one for each book, and while it is lengthy, it’s so worth it. I’ve been sitting on these for weeks and finally started reading them over Thanksgiving Break. I’m on the Mockingjay part and I just can’t get enough.

Other fanfics I’ve enjoyed (under the cut because it’s super long):

WIPs:

The Price of Peace by @chase-the-windandtouch-the-sky

S6. Probably my favorite WIP at the moment. Lindsey takes everything that was wrong in s5 and fixes it. Also ANGST.

Give Me Your Fate by @asroarke

Modern Political AU. Senator Bellamy. Lawyer Clarke. Arranged marriage. Oh crap this is supposed to be fake but I’m actually falling for you goodness.

Mighty Fine Shindig by @talistheintrovert

S6. Clarke in a ballgown. Jealous Bellamy. Need I say more?

Complete:

bite your friend like chocolate by @selflessbellamy

High school BFF Bellarke. This one is so cute (and also somewhat smutty if you’re into that).

who cares if we’re trashed by @probably-voldemort

S3 divergent. Clarke proposes to Bellamy on a dare. Okay I just read this one, and it was hella cute.

Oh Darling, Here’s Hoping by @grumpybell

Werewolf Bellamy. BABY werewolf Bellamy. Red Riding Hood Clarke. Read it.

I want to do to you what spring does to cherry trees by @enoughtotemptme

S1 canon-divergent. Grounder Bellamy. Clarke and the 100 come down and integrate into their society.

Let the Games Begin by @keiraknighted

Capture the flag with FEELINGS.

(only mostly) false memories by angel_deux

Bell has temporary amnesia and is convinced that he asked Clarke out. Unfortunately for Clarke, it didn’t happen.

Spent a Dollar on This Ring by @prosciuttoe

FwB, police partners, and an unplanned pregnancy all wrapped into one.

Save Water, Shower Together by @katchyalater

Another FwB leads to an unplanned pregnancy fic. Hey, I like what I like.

You Go Your Way, I’ll Go Your Way Too by @andsowemeetagain

Slight TATBILB AU. The college version. And I love the author’s note on this. You’ll see when you click on it ;)

When We Die by percybcths

JK it was all a simulation AU. Featuring all your favorite dead characters who didn’t actually die.

Set The Dark On Fire by @talistheintrovert

Clarke isn’t coping well on the Eligius IV and decides to take herself out of the equation. Suicide Attempt TW. PAIN and ANGST but WORTH IT.

astra inclinant by @hermesmultivitamins

S6 spec. Bellamy and Clarke finally figure out what everyone else already knew.

Solid Ground by @thegriffin-blakefamily

Modern fake dating to prove to Echo that Bellamy has moved on.

To Those Who Know How to Listen by @enoughtotemptme

Atlas has always been Bellamy’s dog but now he’s acting weird. Dogs and babies: my jams.

And Now You’re Home by @asroarke

Post s4 canon-divergent. Grounder Bellamy. Accidental pregnancy. You know the drill by now.

heart made of glass by @octannibal-blake

SYTYCD AU. Also angsty exes. Two of my favorite things.

now i’ve got you in my space by @bestivals

Clarke comes back from studying abroad and everything has changed. Okay this fic. THIS FUCKING FIC. Almost killed me. The angst was almost too much. And it has the dreaded NOTP (BE) in the first half because Bellamy’s an idiot. But stick with it. I promise it’s worth it.

fire up hearts that have grown cold by angel_deux

Raven starts intercepting Clarke’s messages on the ring but doesn’t tell anyone. Technically the first part doesn’t have much if any Bellarke in it, but it’s so good. Also Echo is actually tolerable in this series, and that’s saying a lot for me.

Titus Was Born by Flying_dandelions

Daemon AU. Starts in mid-s2. Some angst but good stuff.

There’s a Phrase That Fits by @bestivals

Five weddings, two exes, and one chance to get it right. Angsty exes are also my jam.

the inconvenience of you by @kay-emm-gee

Historical Victoria AU!

Shutout by harmonichearts

High school AU. Established relationship. Soccer player Clarke is sent to the emergency room by Bellamy’s jealous ex-girlfriend. Three guesses as to who the ex-gf is. Also read everything by this author. This is the first fic I ever read by them, but I love everything they’ve written. There’s some nice post-s4 divergent stuff.

A Longer Long Distance by LienidQueen

Modern AU. Bell is an astronaut and is sent to the space station for months. As the author says, there’s long distance, and then there’s long distance.

oceans between us by ilovenutella99

Post-s4 soulmate AU. Bellamy figures out that Clarke’s alive thanks to a certain soulmark.

only fools rush in by @eleanor-sheleanor

Bellamy’s drunk and spends the entire Uber ride home telling Roan about his wife. Super cute.

the waltz goes on by @vexthejester

Olympic Ice Dancing AU. Bellarke as VirtueMoir basically. Fluff and angst galore.

Let’s Give Them Somethin’ To Talk About by @scifibi

Bellamy’s a new teacher, and all of his co-workers think he’s having an affair with the art teacher.

AND because I have no shame:

Told You by moi

Teacher AU. Basically it’s my first year of teaching in fic form.

maybe this time is different by moi

S5 canon-divergent. Bellamy still can’t quite believe that Clarke’s alive.

Also, if you’re still here, you can check out my bookmarks too. The first couple pages are basically this list, but there are some really good ones after that (I had to cut this list off somewhere). Happy reading!

#bellarke #bellarke fanfiction #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #bet you thought you would get only a couple recs #well i went a little overboard #what can i say #i like fanfic #i hope you find something you like #fanfic #fic recs #anonymous #answered

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paperclipninja · 5 years

Text

Younger post-ep ramble 6x05

If I wasn’t already excited about this episode, discovering that ‘Stiff Competition’ was written by Joe Murphy certainly would have got me there. Maybe it’s because he is a fellow Australian or maybe it’s because in every interview I’ve heard I find him utterly delightful and intelligent or maybe it’s because he is a damn great writer, but one thing is certain after this week’s episode of Younger: J. Murphy, I Stan (there was a time I might have been embarrassed about gushing so unabashedly but now I write weekly essays about fake people so I figure the shame level is zero at this point). This ep had the combination of playfulness, funny, flirty and drama that hooked me into this show in the first place and I feel like we got further insight into a number of characters, broadening our understanding of them and where they’re at. Plus kudos must be given for managing to use the title “Stiff Competition” and make the feature book “The Third Leg” in the same ep (one might even call it a riDICKulous feat…and no I’m not even a bit sorry).

A couple of weeks back I wrote about the Liza and Charles dynamic and how it really thrives on the build and resolution of tension. Up until last season it was the sexual tension and now that’s resolved there needed to be something to keep the fuel on the fire, so to speak. Cue the opening scene of this ep, with the competitive fuel well and truly lit and honestly, this whole scene just rocks my world. We had the drama building the past few eps with Charles being secretive and while that would’ve resulted in the destruction of the relationship had it been left unresolved, it has been used to transition into this next type of competitive cat-and-mouse style tension that the characters are embracing (at the start anyway) and using to their benefit and, let’s be honest, we all benefit because it. is. HOT.

Walking into the National Arts Club party very quickly establishes Charles as well versed at such an event and I am so into the immediate retort from Liza that feisty isn’t the ‘f’ word she would choose to describe Charles setting up Mercury. That does of course come after Charles introduces her to Michael Cunningham as his girlfriend which is just so bizarre to hear but also YES. Their banter, the competiveness in the art of the schmooze, bringing her A game; the whole thing set them on such equal footing and seeing them as ass-slapping sparring partners was something I never knew I needed and could have watched an entire episode of with its feature film feel (Kickstarter for a spin-off series of nerdy espionage-style escapades but about books and authors and literary events…and maybe the odd murder to keep it interesting).

While Liza was certainly showing that she can work a room, Charles’ reputation and professionalism was on fine display as authors greeted him warmly and Liza’s introduction of him to Meg Wolitzer as her boyfriend (seriously I’m living for these gf/bf drops) just got more and more awks as Meg and Charles clearly knew each other, Liza snatched his business card from his hand and then asked the photographer to identify him as her ‘guest’ in the pic (loved Sutton’s delivery of this and extra loved Meg’s ‘just pretend you’re talking to me’ to the rando so she could get away from the slightly unhinged antics of the editor she just met). Yet Charles is loving every minute of it and I so appreciate that now the whole Mercury situation is no longer a secret Charles is talking openly about it with Liza, evidenced by his telling her he received a message from Zane (about Mercury being highbrow/brilliant nonetheless).

Where there is highbrow there must be lowbrow (old tv proverb) and unfortunately for Kelsey, the head without a neck aka ‘a floating tragedy’, she has taken prime position in that quadrant of New York Mag’s approval matrix (can we take a moment to appreciate Liza’s ‘well it is a good picture of him’ remark re: Charles? Way to make your friend feel better but also lol and accurate). While I sympathise with how stressful it must be to lose authors, this ep once again highlights that our pal Kels is in quite the spiral. Luckily Liza has managed to pull in Chip and Joanna Gaines, I mean Hayley and Cameron Butler, who are promoting their cringe-worthy new book, ‘The Third Leg’, off the back of their New York Flip success. I heart the way this show parodies real people so hard.

I have said it week after week, but Diana has been such a scene stealer this season (Diana Trout proudly pointing out Shiplap, I don’t know why but this just made me grin). The writers keep bringing it with the lines and Miriam Shor’s delivery somehow magically seems to get funnier and funnier and her heart eyed gaze as she recounts her and Enzo’s third leg(s) (like a centipede…but also nothing like a centipede, speaking of A+ lines and delivery) was no exception. The whole pitch meeting was a bit of a train wreck, with Kelsey’s bitterness about the hot or not list spilling in, Liza’s attempt at diverting resulting in Diana railroading the entire thing and Liza wondering if she and Charles are in fact lacking the third leg (Empiriconda notwithstanding) that two home reno celebs have deemed a necessary factor in a successful r/ship (though theirs hardly seems the picture of happiness unless #relationshipgoals is taking jabs at each other through strained grins).

One relationship I am digging on every level is Josh and Lauren’s and this week’s ep gave us a mighty fine dose. Of course Lauren set up a GemmaLoves Insta and I’m 100% willing to overlook the slight ickiness of her pushing a SM account for the baby without asking Josh because it’s Lauren and she is sublime and also without it we would not have had THE film-worthy (minus the butt plugs) montage. I freaking adore that Lauren is so unapologetic about promoting stuff and getting freebies and Josh’s stance on not letting his daughter be a pusher for consumerism lasts approx. 25 seconds as Lauren points out all of Gemma’s favourite things that she will happily take back (Josh’s ‘but she loves it’ was just too good). Lauren’s declaration that both Josh and Gemma are gonna get free swag ‘and ya both gonna love it’ (the Eleanor Shellstrop vibe is strong and I approve) leads us into the shopping montage that made me want to dance around my lounge room and could sit comfortably in any rom-com from the late 90’s/early 2000’s. From ‘Baby Love’ to Josh and Lauren feeding each other cupcakes to that glorious moment of Josh parading back and forth on the pavement like a chorus boy, I bow down to Younger pulling rabbits like this out of the creative hat six seasons in, it was just such damn fun.

You know what else I adore? That throughout the series we have seen so many different aspects of Diana’s character and we just keep seeing more and more layers peeled back through her relationship with Enzo. I am so enjoying the side of her we see being open about her feelings for him when she’s around others, then the way she is with him; proud of their relationship then honest about her disappointment that they have to cancel dinner, rather than shutting down and pretending she doesn’t care. Enzo offering to buy Diana any necklace she chooses made my cold dead heart swell with the sincerity and sweetness of it all, but Diana revealing that she does not choose her necklaces, they choose her = the revelation I didn’t know I’ve been waiting six seasons to hear. Not to be dramatic but it felt like coming home.

Side note: I’m finding the parallels between the Diana/Enzo and Liza/Charles relationships really interesting. I don’t know whether it’s deliberate or not but these two couples navigating relationships in their 40’s, trying to strike a balance between career ambition and their personal relationships, I am beyond desperate for Diana to know about Liza’s age and for these two to talk about it all tbh.

Speaking of balancing career and relationship, can we please talk about the dinner date because sweet lawd, my heart was already full from the Diana/Enzo goodness, but then along came Liza and Charles with this whole out together with the authors situation and quite frankly, I’m surprised I survived. Bringing together the book and the earlier meeting was just so well done and the moment Hayley dropped the ‘and you’ and we discover that Charles had indeed gushed about Liza and their shared love of books as their third leg (still sounds weird and gross but totally worth it for the sentiment and post-dinner tie in), I too was staring at my screen the way Liza looked at Charles, but I was also a little bit deceased because I am romantic trash and him casually rubbing her back almost did me in.

I feel like each ep is adding another dimension to Charles this season and seeing him relaxed and candid outside the restaurant was certainly another insight into this character. The entire interaction between him and Liza was effortless and I love that it went from Liza ribbing him about using their relationship to secure the book to Charles being so frank about where it’s all at and how he’s feeling (and does anyone else hope a little bit that Charles does end up needing that room in Liza’s bed coz I am very on board with the idea of C. Brooks living in that loft for a while for many reasons). Bring on lusty Charles and I kid you not I let out a little scream of delight at Liza noting his excitement and then heading straight for the cab (yes Charles, she is just going to leave you like this). Thank you Joe Murphy for the ep and the book title combo so Liza could remind Charles competition is stiff out there while glancing at his crotch and telling him to take care of the third leg himself, you truly are doing God’s work. And I’m just all ‘round loving seeing these two adults in a relationship being flirty and lustful and open with one another.

I have to put it out there that Liza’s hustle game is so damn strong this whole ep and as she is questioned by Kelsey and Diana about how Charles is getting all these authors, I a) am very glad she does not blab, b) find it interesting that Kelsey assumes that Liza mustn’t know if she hasn’t told her and c) wonder why Liza is the only one who seems to understand that other publishing houses will be vying for books and that Millennial will lose some fair and square. But Liza once again has another potential author lined up in the musical prodigy turned conductor Gloria Rivera, but this is Younger, we’ve had lots of fun, flirty and funny, so it must be time for the drah-mah.

The moment Liza ran into Charles at the concert I think we all knew the competition might have just about run its course, and I had legit second-hand embarrassment as Liza so confidently gloated she had been in touch with Gloria ‘for months’ in response to Charles’ knowing her ‘quite well’, though Charles clearly wanted to explain further as he said he wanted to talk after the show before the lights go down and Liza needs to get to her seat. Insert appropriate amount of unimpressed for both Kelsey and Diana and it all goes south pretty quickly once Diana discovers that Gloria was the recipient of the Brooks family Arts Scholarship so knowing Charles ‘pretty well’ is a bit of an understatement.

Now I get that it must feel like a series of blows and I also get that we need a way for Kelsey and Diana to be at the axe throwing bar so that whole scene can play out, but for them to both bail on Liza and not even try to convince Gloria to sign with Millennial, I mean, you’re not going to get any authors with that attitude ladies. At this point Liza should just bail and start her own damn company, give it a great name starting with ‘M’, maybe Majesty? Mendacity? Or Mitosis and she can just expand quickly and open identical offices all over the place? Either way, Liza had no time for Charles’ girlfriend game post-show (and it is clear here that to Charles it is still just a game and he hasn’t quite clocked that to Liza this is her career being compromised).

While I think Diana and Kelsey leaving Liza to make a last ditch pitch to Gloria solo was a low blow, seeing them together, rage throwing axes while drunk (I both love and am terrified of the idea of people drinking and axe throwing in one place FYI) was pretty damn great. These two are always so messy together and Diana taking off her earrings and prepping only to have such a terrible axe throw was only surpassed by her saying that she tells people Enzo is a surgeon which is why he’s on call and Kelsey offering up that they both wear gloves. LOL. And Diana Trout peeing beside a dumpster is one thing I never thought I’d see on this show, yet here we are and her ‘I don’t know her’ and running away from the cop when Kelsey produces the axe was ridiculous and excellent and a great excuse for some chin-skin holding mugshots.

My one gripe at the mo is the ongoing distrust Kelsey has of Liza, first at the axe bar asking Diana if she thinks Liza is helping Charles land these authors and then when Liza turns up after Enzo has bailed them (can we just pause a moment to appreciate the ongoing mafia jokes since their first date and also Enzo calling Diana a jailbird and her smitten reaction. I heart it all). Seriously, this is just yawn at this point and while I get that Kelsey is scared (and thank you Liza for pointing out that she’s not the only one) surely Liza is over having to prove time and time again how loyal she is only to have Kelsey continue to question it? I know I am. Again, Liza – ‘Mitosis’. Think about it.

Our Maggie moment this ep is of course just prior to the déjà vu of Liza and Josh chilling on the couch with Gemma, a little throw-back to the cacao-induced dream from last season’s finale. But I gotta say, my heart hurt for Charles when he walked into that awkward af loft situation, because while I have no doubt that Liza is solid in her feelings for Charles, seeing your girlfriend in a super domestic looking moment with her ex has to feel like a kick in the guts. I want to bottle the look Liza gave Josh when he said ‘you two seem good’ because if I could whip that out on demand, it would be mighty useful.

The final moments of this week’s ep certainly heightened the drama all round. I feel like this episode really highlighted the insecurity of both Kelsey and Charles, which puts Liza in the interesting position of having to navigate this with two people she loves but also put her foot down for her own sake at some stage. Liza immediately quashes any concerns Charles may have about being in competition with Josh and uses the baby’s inability to talk ergo. steal authors as a way to broach the ongoing company rivalry. As Charles reveals that Gloria will be signing with Millennial, it is evident it is all still a bit of a game to him (though him saying that all he cares about is that he doesn’t lose her, ugh *heart emoji*) until his true take on it all is revealed, that he sees it all as shared victories rather than rivalry. Eeek, I tell you, I get and appreciate the dick theme of this episode but I struggle with the dick line ‘when you get to the bottom line, it’s still all me’ so much. I had an actual physical reaction to how awful this was and it certainly was not something I imagined this character saying. Yet I do think it also gives credence to the type of man Pauline said she was married to.

It felt insecure, like he was trying to talk himself up in some kind of misguided attempt to sound impressive, but it also was a glimpse of the man whose ambition contributed to the demise of his marriage. Pauline herself said that when they got married she thought they would be a team but right away it was all about Charles and she was there just to be his rock (S5E3). The difference now of course is that unlike Pauline, Liza has called him out on it and in the final second, the expression on Charles’ face (it’s gutted for those playing at home) is hopefully one of realisation that he is repeating behaviours of the past and that moving forward, we see that realisation play out and this character develop.

I have no idea how the rest of this season is going to play out but you know what all this drama and intrigue pave the way for? Growth. Liza’s growth as she becomes more sure of herself and her right to decide and demand what she wants and deserves, who she wants, what she will and won’t stand for, Charles to learn from past mistakes and work to redeem those and think about the kind of man and partner he wants to be, no character’s growth has been as glorious to see unfold up until now as Diana’s and I’m sure this will continue and Kelsey...well I’m sure hers will come. We’re almost halfway people and season six is proving to be quite the ride.

#youngertv #younger tv #ramble #review #6x02 #liza miller #charles brooks #kelsey peters #diana trout #liza x charles #diana x enzo #team charles #younger season 6

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thecloserkin · 5 years

Text

book review: Marian Veevers, Jane & Dorothy (2018)

Genre: Biography

Is it the main pairing: Yes

Is it canon: Yes

Is it explicit: No

Is it endgame: No

Is it shippable: Yes

Bottom line: Y’all fools: Stanning Lord Byron and his half-sister Augusta whom he didn’t even meet until he was nearly grown, never mind whether he actually knocked her up. Me, an intellectual: William and Dorothy Wordsworth are right there, eloping to the countryside and spending the rest of their days holed up in a picturesque cottage composing poetry.

First let’s have a detour where I yell about Crimson Peak (2015, dir. Guillermo del Toro). A few of the recent asks about incest vs. the patriarchy got me thinking about this line from Jane & Dorothy: “the malevolent power of married women over their spinsters-in-law.” Between the wife and the unmarried sister it’s obvious who has more power and it’s clearly not the spinster sister-in-law—and yet Guillermo del Toro would have us believe that Edith in Crimson Peak is helpless before Lucille’s resistance to giving up the skeleton key (the one that opens every room in the house). Edith is made out to be the victim of Lucille’s bloodthirsty unhinged jealousy, when she’s not only THE WIFE she’s got ALL THE MONEY, she’s literally holding all the cards??? It doesn’t add up. This biography is the antidote to that. It looks at the paucity of options open to your average 19th century girl who just wants a Room of One’s Own to write in, and situates her bid for freedom in the context of having no good options. The trouble with “Crimson Peak” was not that Edith wasn’t relatable or that I didn’t identify with her; when Thomas tears her down in that faux-breakup speech he attacks her on the terrain where she’s most vulnerable, her abilities as a writer. The trouble with Crimson Peak was that this beat would have hit so much harder had it landed on Lucille, a woman who’s WAY more vulnerable than Edith by dint of having (1) no marriage prospects and (2) no inheritance. Without Thomas this bitch has (3) no survival strategy either! Otoh take away Thomas and Edith is still left with her dad’s $$$, Edith still has Alan waiting in the wings to swoop in & save her, in other words Edith will be just fine. No wonder Lucille feels so threatened!! The situations are not even comparable. Here then is Jane & Dorothy which offers two case studies of women whose impulse to write & create was just as strong as Edith’s, but whose plight was much closer to Lucille’s ie. precarious as fuck.

I picked this book up because it’s actually a dual biography of Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane Austen, and I’m a basic bitch and Jane Austen is my eternal favorite. I’m going to focus on the Dorothy chapters but rest assured I read the Jane chapters with equal gusto. Jane Austen (b. 1775) and Dorothy Wordsworth (b. 1771) were both born into the British pseudo-gentry, which means they were too highborn to go and get a paying gig as a governess or companion but not highborn enough to have any independent source of income (neither of them had a dowry settled on them). While the two women never crossed paths, the arcs of their lives run in parallel as they pursue divergent strategies to secure their futures. So the primary imperative here is to avoid a life of domestic drudgery. But the secondary imperative, because these are both perceptive girls with rich inner lives, is this:

For an intelligent woman, confined to a society which denies her higher education and restricts her existence largely to the home, the male companion with whom she shares her life is her chief provider, not only of security and affection, but of intellectual stimulation.

This is a popular romance novel plot, do I want to marry a man who is a bore (possibly also a boor) or do I want to starve hmmmm. The point is that women are frequently starved for both affection and intellectual stimulation, and it’s little wonder Dorothy fell so hard for her brother William when he showered her with both. Dorothy and William were separated as children when, after the death of their mother, she was sent to live with an aunt in West Yorkshire (she was seven, he was eight). Nine years later they reconnected and sparks flew almost immediately. I mean I think their letters speak for themselves:

”the last time we were Together William won my Affection to a Degree which I cannot describe.”

What kind of brother needs to “win” his sister’s affection? Most of them treat sisters like furniture.

”Never have my eyes burst upon a scene of particular loveliness,” he wrote, “but I have wished that you could be transported to the place where I stood to enjoy it.”

standard “everything beautiful either reminds me of you, or makes me want to share it with you” pablum but EXTREMELY effective for all that

but enough he is my brother, why should I describe him? I shall be launching again into panegyric

Dorothy: hahaha but don’t you think my brother was looking mighty fiiiiiine today

”his attentions to me were such as the most insensible of mortals must have been touched with”

”I assure you so eager is my desire to see you that all obstacles vanish. I see you in a moment running or rather flying to my arms.”

That letter is from William, and you have to remember that William was supposed to be a huge dick who routinely ignored his friends’ missives leaving them in suspense whether he was alive or dead and yet he managed a lively & regular correspondence with Dorothy for years before they moved in together. It’s almost like he treated her … special.

”that sympathy which will almost identify us when we have stole to our little cottage”

These kids are already plotting their elopement jfc! Here are some snippets from Dorothy’s diary from much later, after they have in fact achieved The Dream of their own cottage:

”After dinner we made a pillow of my shoulder, I read to him and my Beloved slept.”

”The fire flutters and the watch ticks and I hear nothing save the Breathing of my Beloved and he now and then pushes his book forward and turns over a leaf.” It is a picture of domestic contentment such as Jane Austen draws to portray a genuinely happy marriage.

”After we came in we sat in deep silence at the window — I on a chair and William with his hand on my shoulder. We were deep in Silence and love, a blessed hour.”

This is literally #goals. Veevers points out that “the conflation of marriage with home, spinsterhood with insecurity” meant that “William was promising the kind of permanence and safety which women usually found in marriage.” Dorothy really thought she could Have It All: a home of her own and a rich, stimulating intellectual life shared with the man she loved. And she proceeded to spend the rest of her life making fair copies of his poems. Hell, she pushed him to be a poet in the first place (it was not at all clear initially that this was the best plan for William, who could just have easily have embarked on a career as a political polemicist, but it was Dorothy who pushed him to be a poet, Dorothy who spent the rest of her life copying out his verses in her fairer hand). Early on Dorothy & William befriended the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was so envious of their bond that he complained, “You have all in each other, but I am lonely, and want you!” Can you b e l i e v e Coleridge actually said that. If one of you hoes doesn’t write me the William/Dorothy Historical RPF that’s Coleridge Outsider POV I s2g I will do my damnedest to die of consumption.

Veveers sums it up this way: “It was a relationship few women would be able to have with their husbands, for, at the time, the two sexes were expected to inhabit different mental landscapes.” To put it bluntly women had ovaries instead of brains; they just weren’t interested in the same stuff a man was. Otoh you have William and Dorothy Wordsworth, actual soulmates: the historical consensus is there is “some uncertainty as to whether she would be best described as muse, emotional support, secretary or co-author.” And she didn’t hide it, either. This is where you really see the difference between Dorothy, who is so open, and Austen heroines like Eleanor Dashwood (Sense & Sensibility), Fanny Price (Mansfield Park) or Anne Eliot (Persuasion) who also feel things deeply but had to regulate the bejeezus out of their emotional responses. This is Dorothy:

After any separation her joy at meeting her brother again was uncontrollable. “I believe I screamed,” she admitted on one occasion when there were witnesses.

Uncontrollable screaming in front of witnesses every time she’s reunited with her brother??? WE STAN. This is how low Dorothy’s spirits sink whenever he’s gone:

”I slept in Wm.’s bed, and I slept badly, for my thoughts were full of William.”

adkfjdkfjdkfjdk I just want to add that when William is home the floorboards are so thin that she can hear him pacing in the bedroom above hers, so his insomnia keeps both of them up at night but she doesn’t mind, she can’t sleep until he falls asleep, she would probably give up a kidney or a lung if she thought it would sell 500 more copies for him. I’m torn between GIRL HE AIN’T WORTH IT and stanning her even harder for being so ride or die on any topic that touches her brother (later, when he has kids, she decides William’s kids are smarter and better-looking than everyone else’s kids).

This is the most iconic line in the entire book, from a letter Dorothy writes to an interfering relative who deplores Dorothy’s judgment for throwing in her lot with a penniless failson like William:

”I affirm that I consider the character and virtues of my brother sufficient protection”

The icily scathing tone of the setdown is PERFECTION. But also, this just in your brother abandoned his pregnant Catholic mistress in France. You know this. Yet here you are gallivanting around the countryside in his company. In fact, when he proves too much of a coward to tell your uncle himself about the existence of said pregnant mistress—this is the uncle who funded all of William’s education and reasonably expects some return on it—he delegates Dorothy to break the news. Dorothy also winds up in charge of all correspondence with the poor girl, who writes occasionally asking for a little money or when is William coming back to France to marry me, and it’s Dorothy who has to fob her off. And this whole incident—the revelation of the French mistress, the break with the family, William refusing to take holy orders to become a clergyman—is so pivotal in their relationship! They were close before but this is the irrevocable step when Dorothy decides to join her fate to his. And her motivation could not be clearer:

William’s outspoken affection for her seems to have first aroused a reciprocal love in Dorothy, but it was his fall from grace, his isolation and his need of a friend, which provided the final catalyst that raised her gradually deepening affection into wholehearted, single-minded devotion.

She saw his need and responded almost involuntarily. She is a RESCUER.

Dorothy, was in one way, very fortunate to have fallen in love with her brother. “Rambling around the country on foot” with a slightly disreputable brother might bring down the censure of her more conventional relatives, but it was a good deal safer than rambling about with a man who was not a brother.

This is the kind of behavior that if two unrelated people engaged in it must have resulted in the man being honor-bound to extend an offer of marriage, because a woman has nothing if she doesn’t have her virtue. Two siblings roaming the countryside, picking flowers and wading thru streams and stargazing? My god what PRIME fodder for fake married tropes! Just present yourself at the first inn you come to as a married couple and then guess what? There was only one bed!!!!

at Grasmere “there was an unnatural tale current of Wordsworth … having been intimate with his own sister.”

tell me MOAR omg this is so deliciously Gothic i keep thinking about that line from Wuthering Heights “whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

at Alfoxton, “the master of the house,” it was said, “had no wife with him, but only a woman who passes for his sister.”

PASSES for his sister trololololol like they don’t act the way you’d expect of a brother and sister, like they’re too into each other.

And it was generally accepted that immorality and radical anti-British sentiment went together.

But really William got much more staid and less radical as he got older, and Dorothy was never political because her energies were centered on William William William. On top of which it’s hard to overlook the fact that William would go into Dorothy’s journals and “borrow” her words and publish them verbatim as his own; he felt as entitled to her intellectual labor as her domestic labor, and there is nothing radically egalitarian about that. So I definitely don’t think this is a case where incest is subversive so much as incest illuminating existing hierarchies & oppressions. Veveers writes: “An unmarried woman’s hold on her own time was extremely fragile. She could be made use of in any crisis, transported against her wishes” to fulfill another family members’ needs. Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra evidently shouldered both their weights when it came to this sort of emotional labor: writing letters of thanks & condolence, minding their brothers’ children, calming hypochondriac aunts down, attending births of little nephews & nieces. Cassandra doing all this extra labor gave Jane the space and time to write. Moreover Jane had formed the ambition to write. Dorothy, on the other hand, thought anything worth saying was already being said by William. And she didn’t have her own Cassandra to share the unceasing burden of housework with:

In fact, the domestic labor and childcare that lay ahead of Dorothy were almost indistinguishable from the duties she had escaped at Forncett rectory. But now she was to be living in a home she had chosen, with a man she loved.

Did it matter in the end, Dorothy’s rebellion? If she’d remained a hanger-on in her uncle’s household, living on his charity, her life would not have been outwardly all that different. I have to believe that her choices did matter, of course. It would be easy to sit here and speculate that if Dorothy had not poured all her mental and physical resources into supporting William’s career, she too might have produced another Pride & Prejudice, but naturally we cannot know that. What we know is that Dorothy and William were 100% in love, a fact that anyone with a modicum of reading comprehension can verify by reading their letters. Why is this not more widely discussed? William Wordsworth was not exactly an obscure poet. The explanation, again, comes back to patriarchy:

The idea that Dorothy might have inspired (or felt) desire at Dove Cottage was as abhorrent to mid-20th century academics as it was to gentlemen of the early 19th century … who preferred to think of unmarried women drooping and degenerating after the age of 25, rather than maintaining a subversive and disturbing sexuality.

I wish I could say that William and Dorothy grew old together at Dove Cottage. What actually happened is he got married (she talked him into it—she chose a mutual friend of theirs whom they’d known for ages) and accidentally fell in love with his wife oops. His new wife was neither young nor pretty, in fact she was painfully plain, but that William became genuinely attached to her there can be no doubt. Dorothy continued to live with them and look after their children until her death. So I think we have avoided the worst case scenario, the malevolent-power-of-the-married-woman-ruins-her-spinster-in-law’s-life scenario: This is what happened to Jane Austen when Jane’s father unexpectedly announced his retirement, uprooting Jane and Cassandra from the Steventon rectory where they’d lived all their lives and forcibly removing them to Bath, where Jane was so miserable she did no writing for years. All this upheaval on account of Jane’s brother and his wife wanting the Steventon rectory and its income for their own! The accursed woman was probably measuring the drapes before she’d moved in. Anyway, it is fortunate this open enmity did not characterize Dorothy Wordsworth’s relationship with her sister in law; they were fast friends and they remained friends after the latter’s marriage to William. But instead of William-and-Dorothy forming the nucleus of life at Dove Cottage now it was William-and-Mary, and if this did not sting at least a little Dorothy would not be human. She had been supplanted in William’s heart. I CRY.

Because I’m literal shipper trash I want to end on the bittersweet note of SIBLINGS EXCHANGING RINGS AS A SYMBOL OF COMMITMENT EVEN THO THEY CAN’T LEGALLY GET MARRIED. This is Dorothy’s description of the morning of William and Mary’s wedding, right before they leave the house to attend the ceremony:

”I gave him the wedding ring—with how deep a blessing! I took it from my forefinger where I had worn it the whole of the night before—he slipped it again onto my finger and blessed me fervently.” It might be said that William married her before he married Mary, and that Dorothy was making a promise in that upstairs room try like the one Mary was about to make in church.

it’s been two months since I read this book and i’m STILL SCREECHING byeeeee

#dorothy wordsworth #book review

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aletaevers · 5 years

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( cisfemale ) haven’t seen ALETA 'PIXIE' EVERS around in a while. the FREYA MAVOR lookalike has been known to be (+) DRIVEN & (+) RESILIENT, but SHE can also be (-) VAIN & (-) UNRELENTING. The 22 year old is a JUNIOR majoring in NURSING. I believe they’re living in TERRA FIRMA, but I popped by earlier and no one answered the door. ( james. 20. EST. she/they. )

i’m......so excited......................like i LOVE aleta and im so iskdjfg !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

pleathe give this a like if u’d like to plot w/ her !!! esp if u have a hendrix bb as they’d know her more ... obv

TW: child abuse, alcoholism, death, violence, grief. just some really tragic shit, man. self loathing.

a e s t h e t i c s

french-pane windows and ivy-coated bricks, silk pajama sets and champagne bubbles, wind through hair and constant, constant running; red cards and penalties, explosive words and hair-tugging, tear-soaked pillows and red eyes in empty bathrooms, the smell of roses and death, loose curls and sharp scissors, fairy tales and their endings -- how bittersweet, nails against desks, against backs, nails down a chalkboard, nails breaking skin. thrown fists and bruised knuckles, late night cereal-runs, getting lost in the woods, sleeping in fields. choking down insults, forced smiles, a wish for comfort.

general information !!

full name: aleta marit evers

nickname(s): pixie, tbd

b.o.d. - june 17th, grand ol’ gemini

label(s): the vixen, the amaranth, the hellcat, etc. etc.

height: 5′8″ tbh

hometown: giethoorn, netherlands

sexuality: bi as hell

stats

biography !!

all aleta has ever wanted was to be happy. to just, for once--be content.

born to anton evers, a well-known neurosurgeon and eleanor evers (nee du pont), a talented actress appearing on several tv shows in her youth -- privilege is, essentially, her middle name

her parents met on the set of a hospital show, anton a consultant and eleanor a ‘patient’; it was the kind of love that was volatile and loud and known -- dangerous, in the end, maybe.

this was only possible because eleanor had always dreamed of being a star, instead of inheriting her families’ horse racing business; which thus resulted in her traveling across an entire ocean to pursue her dreams where there wasn’t already a name made for her.

lil fun facts about the evers: anton’s older brother is a partner with their father at evers & evers, and his younger brother is koninklijke marechaussee.

life was normal in the beginning; eleanor had her firstborn, rhys -- a son, which made anton happy. then, her second born, aleta -- a daughter, which made anton less happy. a few years after aleta came laurel, another daughter. and that was that.

it was supposed to be the three of them.

anton evers, in all his glory -- was nothing more than a no-good cheater with a bad temper and a lack of empathy. which, of course, led to his numerous affairs with one of his nurses. which -- in turn, led to the birth of one ramona evers, only to be discovered six years later.

pre-ramona: when the kids got too much for eleanor, she’d let them fall into the hands of the nannies. plural, as there were many; not all willing to deal with three spoiled devils from the deepest pits of hell. she loved her children, but god, was she not built for motherhood. eleanor spent her days drinking wine and champagne, excessively, while the nannies chased after mud-coated children and faced their tantrums head-first.

their house was old and ~vintage~ and more like a mansion than anything else, a backyard leading into woods--countless woods. this is where aleta spent most of her time, when she got sick of rhys pulling her pigtails and him refusing to play knights and princes with her.

after a severe accident, ramona was suddenly left motherless and thus: custody went to anton. it came to a shock to the entire family, but eleanor the most -- she’d gone six years unknowing of the fact that her husband had another child.

it was like watching their mother turn into a completely different person overnight -- while never cruel to her own children, eleanor was relentless towards ramona. whether it were insults or nails dug into arms; more often than not a martini glass in her hand.

aleta had always loved her mother -- even with nannies looking after her more often than not. in her eyes, her mother and father had a marriage that fairy tales were based off of. anton worked often, but everyday he’d bring home flowers for eleanor; their home was essentially a garden; vases and vases of roses.

if her mother hated ramona then aleta hated ramona. rhys had begun closing up and laurel, out of fear than anything else, stayed clear of the soap opera that was now their life.

these were aleta’s nightmare child gone extreme years. unapologetically violent towards any other student who dared step in her way, she took what she wanted and was a typical bully throughout her school years. she was essentially just. a really angry brat. with dyslexia, which also made school Hard which in turn made her Hate School.

more often than not, she was alone at home. more often than not, she was in the woods. they were her only source of peace. it was in the woods that she met vos. whether that was his real name, she didn’t know. she didn’t care. he’d gotten his foot stuck in a rabbit hole, and she’d gotten it out. and from that point, they were friends. it was like a fairy tale, which aleta had always been big on. she went by duif, going along with his shenanigans.

together they played knights and princes (aleta, always the knight. always. vos, the prince. always.) practically everyday until sundown, where they’d part ways.

throughout this all, eleanor had been getting worse. her alcoholism had taken an extreme turn for the worst.

when aleta was 12, she found her mother dead. she doesn’t remember much, just red wine mimicking blood and pearls strewn across the room, shattered glass and her own screaming sobs.

the day after the funeral, they moved.

aleta was, essentially, alone in the world after that. rhys had gone off with the bad sort of crowd and had no time for his mourning sister; he was grieving in his own way. laurel had befriended their neighbor, eva, and aleta had immediately taken a dislike towards her. she thought she looked like a rat. aleta told eva that much. and ramona was...off doing ramona things, avoiding her family by any means necessary.

time sort of...flew, after that. aleta channeled her anger through sports--and as she got older, into parties and general reckless activity involving alcohol and whatnot. grief still hung heavy in her throat, but she put on a mask of cynical coldness and became known as the resident bitch. it fit her. she didn’t care.

her moods calmed a bit as she entered university, but not by much tbh.

uuhhh hmmm. met tiago through her brother, and only pursued him because she had overheard ramona gushing to either laurel or eva or whomever the fuck about her little ~faraway crush~. so, like, obviously aleta fucked him? and somehow! they wound up dating! she’s very much in love with him, which terrifies her because she’s very scared of loving someone.

also...........uh......................may have gotten ramona expelled out of sheer pettiness. more on that later. :~)

personality !!

frank, rude, and spiteful -- at least she’s honest. even if her comments are riddled in backhanded compliments and eye-rolling.

she’s not the....easiest person to befriend. has a habit of really only paying much attention to people she finds interesting; if you bore her then you’re out! thanks for playing!

despite how off-putting she can be, she’s pretty well-known. whether its because of her viciousness on the field in the many, many sports she has played for hendrix, or her presence at parties, or ‘cos she made your cousin or best friend or whomever cry in the bathroom, or y’know. her famous, dead mom.

doesn’t...seem to have a problem with her reputation? likes being seen as this tough, untouchable person.

is soft with very very few people, like, maybe three at the max? and she’s not even soft towards her siblings so difjgkh. one of these people is obv tiago.

she’s endlessly loyal, even if she does flirt with other people to make her bf jealous ?? like, she’d never actually cheat. not after what her father did to her mother. does it excuse her actions ?? fuck no. she’s still a bad person

hates her dad so yay !! daddy issues. p sure papa evers is part of a secret society but, y’know. just dad things.

she’s....very emotional. very prone to sudden spouts of just, anger. it doesn’t take a lot to piss her off, and she’s not a particularly friendly whirlpool.

cries a lot tbh. usually before she sleeps, or in the shower, or in one of the campus bathrooms. doesn’t let people see her cry but like...it’s also not surprising to catch her fixing her eyeliner in the bathroom after an episode.

she’s just in general p moody ?? petty ?? will talk shit to you in dutch, even if u fucking speak it. she doesn’t care. would probably spread a rumor about u just for funsies.

she’s gr8 at parties, usually ‘cos shes too crossed to be actively mean.

like, okay, i’ve made her out to be pretty Horrible but hbjnfdmgh she isn’t going to look at your character and just. start beating them down with words n fists and shit, y’know ?? she might be thinking it, but she’s not That impulsive

is apathetic at best towards most people otherwise, like, idk -- if she doesn’t have a reason, even if its a very small reason, she won’t bother with you.

this VIDEO right fucking here. GOD. that’s an aleta vibe. it’s probably not something she’d say but just. the tone ?? awful. it gave me flashbacks to middle school when i watched that video.

has a sketchbook which is essentially anatomy notes and like, lil doodles n shit of fantasy scenery n shit

kinda...escapes into her mind sometimes ?? is still in love w the concept of fairy tales and perfect love and just. happiness. like she’s kind of obsessed with it ?? with the perfect image ?? which, hence, leads to her illustrating it. hence why she’s just so. in love. hence why she sabotages everything for herself too ‘cos ! she just sort of hates herself and knows nothing will ever be magical and perfect and shit.

so like, big secret fantasy nerd. probably has tried to sing with birds once when nobody was looking. she cant even sing. she shower sings and like maybe the bathroom acoustics make her sound not horrible but ?? she’s mediocre at best. it’s tragic, really.

there’s sm more, like, she’s just got a lot of feelings and contradicting personality points and she’s udfjighk she’s annoying. that’s what she is. aleta is CANCELED

ok ok ok but GOD is she good at sports ?? like genuinely just. she does like, track, hockey, lacrosse, tennis prolly idk, maybe other shit. and like granted she gets angry n then gets penalized for almost beating a girl down but isjkdfg she’s good at sports

got the nickname ‘pixie’ on the field ‘cos shes fast and also has bitten a few people and is just very aggressive

EDIT: i forgot to mention that she !! stopped relying on her father for money (this does not include....stealing from him, which she most definitely does!!) and she’s kinda paying for things w/ savings and like...soon, she’ll get a job, i promise uhdfijfkg

wanted connections !!

like...two close friends. pleathe, for her sanity.

uuuuuHHH god, just enemies of all sorts. ex-friends or never-friends or exes before tiago. people she’s talked shit about, or spread shit about

maybe she fucking poured her alcohol on ur muses’ head during a party

GOD i don’t know she drops people so much !!

other....friends, y’know, that she isn’t ~close~ to, but she gets along with fairly well

people she flirts with to make her bf jealous !! because she’s awful !!

temptations...b/c commitment is difficult for her b/c of y’know. her parents. not an actual affair but just...y’know. checking each other out, flirtatious banter, the whole ‘no i can’t ive got a boyfriend’ and shit like that.

teammates !!

dead parents club.

somebody who caught her crying in the bathroom hfdjgkh whether theyre concerned for some fucking reason or r straight up like ‘lmao...u deserve it’

ummm give me rhys ?? and laurel ?? or people who know them

rhys is a drug dealer so like.............she prolly knows a few ppl who get their drugs from him

friends of ramona’s before she uh . . . disappeared / got expelled

good influences who r like ‘stop being such a fucking dick aleta get ur shit together’

cousins !! she prolly has a ton

maybe......an online friend ?? who shes known for a while ??

bad influences who r like >:3 yes stay angry. stay bad. here, break this fucking window with this bat. yes, good.

literally i will take anything sjkfdg

people she’s tormented ??? has bullied ?? has embarrassed ???

#water:intro #child abuse tw #alcoholism tw #death tw #grief tw #violence tw

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urcadelimabean · 5 years

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"For that is the single most dangerous weapon they possess...the one they tempt. Give us your submission and we will give you the comfort you need.”

There’s something really interesting about this quote. I think Chaz is mostly right here, except the thing that “tempts” people to remain in civilization isn’t always comfort--in fact Black Sails argues that for many people it’s love.

A lot of Black Sails characters who end the war do so explicitly because of the temptation civilization offers to keep their loved ones alive. Jack is content to fight and maybe die in the war avenging Charles Vane’s death until Max appeals to his concern for Anne's safety and points out that the war has already killed Eleanor. Jack switches sides and focuses all his attention on creating an outcome that will keep Anne (and Max) safe. Silver goes behind Madi’s back to make the same deal with the other Maroons.

And although Flint seems to be disagreeing with Charles Vane in that scene in Miranda’s house, he actually comes pretty close to having the same ideology as him. Because for him the things that were the greatest sources of comfort -- Miranda and Thomas -- are gone. Before he lost Miranda he even personally removed another source of comfort in the form of Gates, his only other friend and ally at that point, in order to continue his war. So by season 4 there is very little left to “tempt” Flint to stop pursuing the war, even though he came to trust and care for Silver during the process and gained a friend in Madi. This is not to say that there was nothing noble in his effort to fight England, but there was also self-destructiveness and hopeless rage behind it as suggested at many points during the series. He has simply lost too much.

This also makes me think maybe Charles wasn't as tempted by protecting the people he loves because let’s face it, in season 3 his and Eleanor's love had completely withered and died. If she had (in an extremely out of character manner) left Rogers to ally herself with him I don't think he would have been so willing to die, because suddenly he would have had something to lose again. And I'm not suggesting that he was willing to become a martyr because he was heartbroken, because I do think he was driven primarily by ideology, but the removal of those close personal relationships and attachments, be it Eleanor or Miranda or Thomas, allows both Charles Vane and Flint to be more reckless with their lives and put themselves in more danger in a way that they were not capable of doing before.

Even though we can all see how deeply Silver hurt Madi by lying to her and how deeply he hurt Flint by betraying him, I honestly think most of us would have made the same choice--end the war and avoid the continuation of bloodshed. Maybe in a better way than Silver did, but for the same reasons. It's human to want to live a safer and more peaceful life. Very few of us are willing to die in an effort we aren't even sure will change civilization. We do not have Charles Vane’s recklessness/destructive tendencies/stupidity/ bravery/whatever you want to call it. Most of us who like Black Sails, assuming we didn't completely miss what the entire show was about, see huge injustices in the world and want to change them. But the temptation to try to keep ourselves and our loved ones alive is what makes us decide to do this from within civilization as opposed to doing it from without.

It’s also always struck me as a very hypermasculine and overly simplistic idea that the best and ONLY way to change civilization is through violence and that anything less is the act of a coward. Again this is not to say there isn’t something fucking tempting and satisfying about waging war against England, but as usual in Black Sails there isn’t always one right way and one wrong way, but multiple paths which all have negative and positive consequences.

For a lot of the characters it's less about right vs wrong (we all know the cause of the war is just) and more about weighing costs vs benefit. It’s interesting that some of the characters who are the most vehemently against the war in the end -- Max and Silver -- are themselves survivors of violence both on screen and in their backstories. They are done living lives of sacrifice. To them, the costs of war greatly outweigh the benefits.

When Silver said "I don't care" I think he was - wait for it - lying. (Shocking I know. Silver, lying?) I believe he does care that they will be seen as monsters. He cares deeply, painfully so, and is trying to remove himself from the narrative as he has so many times before. When he says "I don't care," he is saying the costs of war outweigh the benefits. They may control the narrative but we will be alive.

So while I think Charles Vane was right that civilization “tempts” us, I don’t think it’s wrong to be tempted. It makes us human and it means we’re thinking of our futures and the futures of our loved ones and trying against all odds to survive. It is also a HUGE oversimplification to say that not waging war on civilization = submission. Max’s story arc proves this and I think that’s really interesting considering both she and Charles were formerly slaves but had such insanely different philosophies about how the world can be changed.

Charles Vane’s death was brave, to be fair, and I loved his speech before he was hanged, but the fact of the matter is you can do a whole lot more to fight civilization when you’re still alive and working from within it than you can if you’re dead. Even Anne, the quickest to want to stab anyone, bless her angry heart, prioritized survival for herself and her loved ones over any war or ideology. "It ain't fear to want to do a hard thing smart."

I know in some ways it's open-ended whether Flint's war could have succeed or not. What's inevitable and what isn't? In some ways we can't know, and Flint's words about inevitability are extremely powerful. I know it's not necessary to use historical parallels because Black Sails is fiction and not history. But at least for me when having discussions about the moral choices these characters make I look at the context of what happened to slave communities in the Caribbean that were able to secure peace treaties and what happened to Haiti after their rebellion.

There are so many possible types of resistance here, from all out war, to some piracy being tolerated in the Bahamas, to attacks on slave ships, to creating an underground railroad like I think many fans imagine Max and Madi would be involved in after the war. Not all types of resistance would bring the same response from colonial powers or the same degree of risk to the people involved. And the degree of risk is hugely important when calculating the chances of success and ability to continue the operation.

So even as part of me wishes Flint's war could continue, I resent the idea that ending it was wrong specifically because victory was assured, or the idea that anything short of full-fledged war = submission to England.

#i hope this made sense good lord #this show is so wonderfully complex #black sails #black sails meta #my meta #mystuff

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tessatechaitea · 5 years

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Scarab #3

Every time I see a Glenn Fabry cover, I assume I'm about to read about Jesse Custer.

I also know the term "misdirection"! Look at all the titties!

I wanted to say I knew the word "legerdemain" because it's way fancier but it wasn't as specific as I wanted to be. But I still wrote the previous sentence where I say wanted to write a different sentence so that you know the thing I wanted you to be impressed by in the first place. Meanwhile, Eleanor is still flying around in the Net having profound Vertigo thoughts. If you're speculating, "I bet she thinks about her first kiss and the first time she got her period and her father's funeral and the rain on her wedding day," I'm aghast. How'd you know?! Fucking clever of you, mate. Two new characters are introduced: Sidney Sometimes and his sidekick (not named! I'm not even sure "Sidney Sometimes" is the other guy's name). They're Fortean dudes publishing a Fortean magazine. But this one is heavy on the sex and mutilation and probably drugs. Sidney's upset that his alien rape story has fallen through and now has to decide if he should run the Manson interview this month or next month alongside the DIY surgery issue. I'm sure these characters will fit into the story later but for now they just seem like a one page dumping ground of John Smith's story ideas.

Sure, every teeaboo knows what a Clanger is now. But back in 1993, American audiences wouldn't know what the fuck this was about.

Speaking of teeaboos, I've got a new idea for a streaming service: I'm the only customer and I'm paying a single British person to upload all the shows I want to watch on a private YouTube channel. Come on, somebody! I need a reliable source for full episodes of Taskmaster! Marty is the guy watching some Clangers. He's still bitter that all the men drowned themselves without him. Imagine having self-esteem that low that you're hurt and angry that nobody invited you to the mass suicide? I guess he could also be affected by magic but I'd rather think he's got the same kinds of problems that I do. I mean that we all have.

See? He's Everyman!

Scarab arrives in Whitehaven, the town without any men (except for me. I mean Marty). He realizes something bad is happening in Whitehaven because, um, women are running things, I guess? Maybe his subconscious is reacting to an article he forgot he read about how hundreds of dead and bloated men washed up on the shores of nearby towns for weeks. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you'd forget too readily but remember Scarab was a super old guy for the first two issues. Or maybe Louis is just a Comicsgater at heart. He walks into a town full of women and thinks, "What the fuck is wrong with this comic book I'm in?! Where are all the men? Fucking pandering bullshit!" It's also possible he senses the magic monster at the center of this mystery. But that's not as much fun to speculate about. Louis meets Marty who tells him how every woman in town is now four months pregnant and how the matriarch of the town is living with a monster. He's going to take his shotgun and put things right. I don't know how a shotgun does that but then I'm not a fucking cuckoo nutso whackjob who thinks every problem can be solved with physical violence. Scarab probably thinks there's a better answer too. I don't mean to suggest he doesn't also think physical violence will be the answer. This is still a comic book, for fucks sake! He'll probably just concentrate the violence on the monster while I assume Marty is just planning on going around shooting pregnant women. It turns out the god Pan is fucking everybody in town. He also drove all the men into the sea. But for some reason, he couldn't figure out how to deal with Marty because how do you get a guy with a broken leg to kill himself? It's impossible! The only flaw in an otherwise perfect plan! Unless Marty wasn't driven to suicide because Marty is trans. It's possible because later that night when Marty goes to shoot Pan in the face, something entirely different happens instead.

Marty was definitely fucked by Pan (raped? Probably! But who knows what happens when you get a whiff of a lustful goat god?!). But what is he trying to show Louis? That he's suddenly pregnant? Or, with his pants open like that, has he lost his cock?

Scarab #3 Rating: C. I'm super confused by this ending. Is the art just not sufficient to portray what Marty is upset about? Is he simply upset that he's all beaten and bloody due to being raped by Pan? Is he holding his pants that way because they were torn off during the violence or because he's trying to show Louis his genital region? Or is he holding his pants that way to show that he's suddenly pregnant? It's possible because the art could be suggesting a swollen stomach. Rarely do I find the art failing me in a comic book to this degree. I suppose the writing is also failing but I only think that's because this final image was supposed to portray whatever the dialogue was leaving out. The good thing is that I don't have to be confused for a full month because I've got the next issue waiting for me in my stack! Corrections: It was brought to my attention that The Phantom Stranger has more than ten fans. Although no proof was provided other than that The Phantom Stranger has gotten published in more than its initial series. I'm not sure that's enough proof though because I've purchased a lot of comic books about characters I didn't give a shit about and by writers I actively hated. But I will grant that the person providing me with this information was also a fan of The Phantom Stranger. So in my previous commentary, I should have said The Phantom Stranger had eleven fans.

#Scarab #Vertigo #DC Comics #DC #John Smith #Scot Eaton

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