#but there's a lot less initial acceptance and a lot more hiding on den's part | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thewatsonbeekeepers · 4 years

Text

Chapter 3 – Death Cannot Stop True Love… [HLV 1/1]

… All it can do is delay it for a while. Whilst Westley’s hair in that film horribly resembles my lockdown hair, more happily the fantastic movie The Princess Bride continues to resemble Sherlock – there was a very popular meta on the links between the two for a while there that can be found here: X.

This chapter is going to run through EMP theory as it begins, covering mainly the second half of HLV. It’s important to note, however, that the first half of the episode provides a lot of clues about the way certain images function in the mind palace, which backs up EMP theory quite nicely – the last ideas that Sherlock has going around in his brain before he is shot inevitably swirl around in there whilst he’s unconscious and form an important part of the train of association.

I toyed with the entirety of HLV being in EMP, because parts of it are weird (think Magnussen pissing in Baker Street, or the fucky MP glasses), but I ultimately dismissed it, though I’m willing to be challenged on this. I dismissed it as being a part of Sherlock’s post-wedding drug abuse for a few reasons. The first is that we only see Sherlock wake up from his drug abuse, not go into it – EMP is something that’s going to be hard for viewers to swallow, and Mofftiss are actually quite good at dropping big hints and drawing attention to the important bits along the way. That’s really not the case in the crack den, which is well integrated into the plot and has no traces of Sherlock’s mind palace. The second is that, actually, the premise of HLV is far too integrated into the main plot of s3 to be entirely MP – the CAM stuff and Janine at John and Mary’s wedding could be Sherlock extrapolating, but it seems like a bizarre extrapolation to make given how much fuckier the s4 mysteries are (London aquarium, Culverton’s drugging, the entirety of TFP) - the only MP fuckiness we get in HLV really takes place after Mary shoots Sherlock, like the restaurant scene with CAM or the Appledore Vaults being his MP. Mary shooting Sherlock also has far too many throwbacks with Norbury and Eurus in s4 to be completely irrelevant. So, with that in mind – let's go.

To understand what’s going on in HLV, we’re going to need to understand the metafiction going on – and this is where a good knowledge of acd canon comes in. Most of HLV isn’t actually based on His Last Bow, but on Charles Augustus Milverton X. To give a brief synopsis (although I would thoroughly recommend this story, not least because it’s incredibly queer) Holmes is engaged by Lady Eva Brackwell (Lady Smallwood in our world) to stop Milverton (Magnussen) from showing her husband some indiscreet letters she wrote to a squire some years ago. Holmes realises he can’t get Milverton under the law, so gets engaged in disguise to Milverton’s housemaid (Janine) in order to break in and burgle him. Watson agrees to come too. When they break in, Milverton is talking to another woman (Mary) who shoots him in revenge for Milverton’s use of information causing her husband’s suicide. She escapes and Holmes and Watson burn all of Milverton’s letters, and then escape. They refuse to help Lestrade solve the murder.

All of this lines up pretty evenly with HLV until the moment when Sherlock is shot. Admittedly there are minor changes to the Smallwood plot line (who committed what indiscretion), but these are minor and seem to be to make the plot work in the modern day – nobody cares if someone has a working-class ex anymore. But we get huge canon divergence from the shooting scene onwards.

Sherlock believes that Mary is Smallwood because of her perfume. This is a rational enough assumption to make, but it’s not just based on perfume. We know that since Lady Smallwood has engaged Holmes, Lord Smallwood has committed suicide – so she fits the profile of the blackmailee from Charles Augustus Milverton perfectly. She fits the patterns that Sherlock expects to see in his deductions. Mary does not – our first point of canon divergence. It sets up a painful parallel between John and Mary and the couple from Charles Augustus Milverton; they never name the indiscretion that led the husband in acd canon to kill himself, and given the company that Doyle kept (Wilde, Douglases including Lord Francis Douglas, who was thought to have killed himself shortly after being ennobled – much like the unnamed nobleman - because of his sexuality) it seems reasonable to assume this silence is euphemistic. Let that mirror linger in your thoughts, because it’s important.

Mary is the housemaid who has broken in to shoot Magnuessen/Milverton – so far so good. Although Holmes was hidden in the original stories, he was still present and sympathetic; the logical canon-following route here is for Mary to kill Magnussen, and that’s exactly what Sherlock expects her to do – but she doesn’t. She shoots him instead, and Sherlock can’t understand this. As we’ll see, he spends the rest of HLV trying to justify this pattern-breaking to himself, and is finally unable to.

Once Sherlock has been shot, the Molly/Anderson/Jim/Mycroft section which sets up EMP is fairly self-explanatory – the only thing I want to dive into here to point out is that this is the first appearance of Jim in the EMP, as a kind of restrained beast, and his most pivotal line is the fear he represents: John Watson is definitely in danger. This sets up what he’s going to represent for the rest of the EMP sequence. Other people have delved into the rest of this section before, and extensively – I don’t have a huge amount to add. We know John is in danger from Magnussen, because that’s ostensibly why Mary was there, but she didn’t seem to care as much as the housemaid from the initial stories did. We also know from the original stories that Magnussen has the power to make John suicidal, but in this story he hasn’t yet – but because of this, Sherlock senses that the danger is much more than a loss of reputation. It’s heart-re-starting-ly important.

The next bit I want to jump into is Sherlock’s conversation with Janine in the hospital. A lot of people have argued that this is one of the only real moments following Mary shooting Sherlock, and that Janine fiddling with the taps is part of what induces Sherlock’s fucky mind palace wanderings. I don’t buy into that theory – the more I think about this scene, the less it makes sense as being real in the context of EMP theory. The first reason for this is, very simply, that it means Sherlock has woken up after the realisation that John is in danger. The driving idea behind EMP theory is that Sherlock has to spend s4 making that realisation and trying to wake up – having that actually happen at the very start of EMP, only to be aborted, is bizarre. Secondly, it completely negates the idea that Mary’s actions are possibly fatal, which is a theme that reverberates through s4 (and all the chapters of this meta) - if Janine fiddling with the taps is what pushes Sherlock back into his MP, then by rights Janine should appear in S4, instead of the preoccupation it has with Mary and shooting.

What, then, is going on here? Sherlock is told by MP!Jim that John is in danger – and then imagines he wakes up. In his MP, Janine appears, puts him in pain and puts him back under. She, then, is the reason he can’t wake up. Janine has been Sherlock’s beard, and it’s quite possible to read her as being a symbol of Sherlock’s repression, but I think that’s a simplification; discounting TAB, Janine doesn’t appear again, and even then it’s minimal, whereas s4 is literally built around the concept of repression. As I go into in a lot more detail in chapter 9 (X), which is about the use of drugs to mask our darkest secrets in TLD, it’s the drugs that represent Sherlock’s deepest repression, in this case the morphine that he uses to mask the pain. Having Janine be the one who is fucking with the taps simply makes the link clearer, particularly when we might not associate hospital drugs with the other kind of drugs that Sherlock normally takes to take the pain away – however, it’s clear that the drugs that anaesthesise his pain do the same job as Janine – hide his queerness. Janine turned vindictive causes him intense pain, and he needs to turn back to the drugs to slip back under. Bearding was always temporary in this show, at least for Sherlock; drug abuse is a consistent problem and becomes a running metaphor for Sherlock’s repression in the EMP.

Janine being a symbol here helps me to make sense of the couple of lines that didn’t make sense to me otherwise. If Janine were real, getting rid of the bees would be awful – she gets the future our boys want and she destroys it. But if she’s a symbol in Sherlock’s mind of that bearding, and a barrier to waking up and saving John, then her sitting there, pushing him back into a coma and tearing away the future he longs for – that makes a lot of sense, and is 100% more devastating. The other line that has never made sense to me is Janine telling Sherlock that he could have just been honest with her, that she knows what kind of man he is. This line doesn’t make sense unless she means a gay man. I would be really interested to know how else this can be construed. This line can make sense in the real world if we accept that Janine is working with Mary – which must be true anyway, because otherwise Mary can’t get to CAM – and also wants Sherlock to get involved in that situation, although God knows why – the Janine-is-Jim's-sister theory feels like it might work here, but I don’t think there’s enough evidence for me to unravel it. If Janine genuinely does open the door out of affection for Sherlock, regardless of her relationship with Mary (the two aren’t mutually exclusive), Janine knowing Sherlock is gay doesn’t make sense at all - but Sherlock’s mind turning that beard back on himself to mock him? Absolutely makes sense. Remember, this is the loathing that pushes him back into the deep coma – this scene is really pivotal.

Sherlock vanishing from the hospital bed, despite being nearly dead, is pretty much medically impossible, and is probably the first impossible thing that we see happen in EMP – but it should be a red flag that that’s where we are. It’s also nice and symbolic of his movement away from that surface level, a level which we see him return to briefly in the hospital scenes in TLD when he realises his place in John’s heart. Touching stuff.

We then move into Sherlock’s interrogation of Mary behind the facade of the houses. In case we missed the reference, Mofftiss actually have the phrase the empty house used, a reference to The Adventure of the Empty House X, the story on which TEH is meant to be based. It is telling, though, that very little of The Empty House features in TEH, other than that it is the moment when Sherlock comes back. Others have commented on the minor relevance of Moran to the story and hypothesised that Mary is the real Moran – I think that the facade scene presents that as a genuine possibility. I don’t want to overstate the similarities that The Empty House bears to HLV, but Mofftiss do draw attention to it – and there is something interesting about the criminal being revealed by Holmes only after the criminal thinks they’ve killed him. That bears a particular relevance to Mary – and links her to Moriarty as his potential second-in-command. The most important link, however, is that in The Empty House, Holmes tricks Moran into incriminating himself by creating a dummy Holmes for Moran to shoot at. It’s true that Mary doesn’t shoot at dummy Sherlock (John) here, but the dummy is set up to incriminate her, and she acknowledges that this is a basic trick, one she should have known before. The links of the empty house and the dummy, both made explicitly familiar in the dialogue, do a lot to link Mary’s character to acdcanon!Moran.

This, however, all takes place in Sherlock’s brain. In several scenes, we’ve had Sherlock engage with two concepts in his mind that he can’t know about; one is Sebastian Moran in The Empty House, which only takes place in ACD canon, but even if you think that link is tenuous, he’s also engaged with his canon future as a beekeeper in Sussex. And then, on top of this, there is the problem of Mary versus the housemaid from Charles Augustus Milverton. My suggestion is that these aren’t just jokes put in by Mofftiss to say look-we've-read-the-books – Sherlock's mind is actually using the bees from the original stories to negotiate his relationship with his sexuality, and The Empty House to try to understand Mary’s motives. This is confirmed on a grand scale by TAB – he goes back to ACD canon!Holmes to navigate the problems of his everyday life – so Sherlock is not just a modern Sherlock Holmes, he is on some level self-aware of his existence as a fictional character. As we’ll see going through, his awareness of the existing canon of stories is fascinating and tied up in his repression – how do we break out of canon character, and what has canon been hiding, are two questions which repeatedly come to the fore. Mary is the character who most consistently breaks these canon expectations – a lot of TAB is about this – and that’s something he really struggles to contend with, and is one of the reasons that the reality of canon!verse starts to break down in TAB – it's not sustainable, and it doesn’t tell the full story. These two moments early on in EMP show him negotiating his identity and his experiences in his mind in relation to what he knows about Sherlock Holmes – an early iteration of a theme that’s going to become much larger.

The first thing Sherlock does after being pushed under by Janine is go and interrogate who Mary is in his brain, whilst also working out her impact on John. Sherlock comes up with a pretty reasonable background for who she is in the Leinster Gardens scene, but this isn’t really what’s important – it's the The Empty House parallel which sees him subconsciously making the link to Moriarty. ACDcanon!Moran, unlike bbc!Moran, was the last assassin sent after Sherlock from Moriarty’s network – this means that the dismantling-Moriarty's-network plot from the start of TEH becomes more than a fill-in-the-blanks montage, it means that the show retains its key villain to the end – it structurally works, in a way that other plot-level ideas haven’t. [@ eurus holmes. anyway]

Something that’s interesting here, is that there is a real shift away from the implications of the dummy in acd canon. In acd canon, Moran attempts to murder Holmes, which is a way of catching him in the act and sending him to prison. This is about catching Mary in the act in a similar sense, but it’s about being caught by John. This is interesting, because it shows that Sherlock’s priorities have shifted from acd canon – or, more accurately, we’re seeing the priorities that weren’t reported in the Strand. The emotional impact on John is far more important than the legal ramifications – and this in itself is the shift which the creators have been pretty emphatic about taking from the original stories.

John often represents the heart in Sherlock’s MP – I haven’t quite worked out how to distinguish between heart!John and Sherlock’s imagined John yet, and am flying on instinct, which is definitely not sustainable! But it strikes me that a lot about HLV and TST is about understanding the impact of this shooting on John, and that therefore this needs to be John as Sherlock imagines him.

We’re still with Sherlock’s imagined John as we move into “the Watsons’ domestic” in 221B – but, as so many have pointed out, for a domestic between the Watsons, they feature very little as a couple! The core emotional dialogue is often said to come between John and Sherlock, but despite Martin Freeman’s excellent performance in this scene, that’s not strictly true either. The centre of this scene is Sherlock explaining John’s love for Mary. It’s not about the Watsons – it's about Sherlock understanding what’s going on, which fits into EMP theory exactly. I firmly believe that Sherlock begins his EMP trip believing that John loves Mary, and slowly unravels the threads to realise that it’s actually him John cares about, and this scene is testament to the first part – the deduction that he makes about John loving Mary is flawless, but despite explicitly referencing himself, he fails to see the obvious – hiding in plain sight - that such a deduction could equally be applied to himself. He’ll get there in the end (TLD), but right now, that’s what makes this scene so painful for me.

Turning Mary into a client is about moving into the rational part of Sherlock’s brain, trying not to let emotion cloud it, even though it’s incongruous and unworkable. We’ll see Sherlock’s brain and heart slowly integrate, finally uniting in TFP, but for now he thinks rationality is the way forward. This also helps us to set out a framework for what happens with Mary in the EMP – clients are deduced, worked out, they present problems - never forget Mary being framed as the abominable bride – and that’s what is happening here. She is the first problem of the extended mind palace to be solved.

But this scene is metafictional too, because it gets to the core nub of Mary – as John puts it, she wasn’t supposed to be like that. And, canonically, he’s right. If we follow acd!canon, Mary is not meant to be an assassin, but more importantly for HLV, she’s also supposed to save her husband. She’s meant to be all-out devoted shoot-Magnussen type – but instead she shoots Sherlock. When John says that, then, it’s not just a nod to an updated show – it’s a genuine problem that Sherlock has to contend with, because in neither acd!Mary scenario nor housemaid!Mary scenario is she obeying the framework of a woman who loves her husband. This failing marriage is not in the stories, it’s not supposed to happen, and things that come outside of established canon come outside of Sherlock’s pre-programmed mould – we can think of this as a way of thinking about our own childhood programming to be straight/cis/etc., but in a more self-conscious, literary way!

And then, Sherlock’s response: you chose her. That’s why she’s different, and this is actually a vital line. It suggests that the programmed canon that we know these boys follow, because they have to – that’s not what this show is about. Our characters are agents, and for the first time in history, their lives are dictated by free choice. John chose this Mary, not the Mary of canon – and Sherlock himself makes explicit the comparison between John choosing Mary and John choosing Sherlock. The heart of the story is the choices that can be made for the first time. How incredibly exciting.

The ambulance people coming into Baker Street (seemingly without the door being unlocked?) is, I think, the real world blending with the mind palace world here – although not paramedics, there are people currently trying to restart Sherlock’s heart, and this scene shows us that he’s trying hard inside his brain, he’s working with them – he really doesn’t want to die. The idea of the outside world taking on a physical form in his MP is not incredibly hard to believe – I really recommend watching s02e02 of Inside No. 9, written by Mark Gatiss’s League of Gentlemen co-stars Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, an episode which pulls this off marvellously, although with a big cn: for death. In this moment in Sherlock, we get the lovely lines

Sherlock She saved my life.

John She shot you.

Sherlock Eh – mixed messages, I grant you.

These lines are delivered so quickly between the two of them that it feels like Sherlock is talking to himself, like Mary isn’t even in the room. The way BC delivers ‘mixed messages’ – it’s as though there’s still a problem, bbc!Mary hasn’t been reconciled to good!Mary yet.

The next section on our whistle-stop tour is Christmas with Mummy and Daddy. Plenty of people have pointed out how Mummy and Daddy are very clear mirrors for our boys – you can see here X, or you can just look at this picture to be honest.

The Christmas scene doesn’t make sense in the timeline – there's a great timeline diagram here X that shows how much fuckier than any other episode HLV is (excluding TSoT and everything post s3), and that doesn’t even take into account all of the jumping between scenes that we see in the Christmas bit. Jumping from Leinster Gardens to Christmas to Baker Street and back several times is chronologically odd and doesn’t seem to serve a purpose, except to show that the rift between John and Mary has lasted for months – and even that didn’t need such a complex interweaving of flashbacks that is so at odds with the show. It’s also at odds with the plot – why on earth did Mummy and Daddy invite John for Christmas, if he’s no longer living with Sherlock, and even stranger, why did they invite Mary if John and Mary haven’t been on speaking terms for months? This isn’t the way human beings behave. There’s also an old adage in writing which says to never move a conversation to a new place – it’s a waste of time and space. Have the conversation here, or have it there. Don’t abort it for no reason – and that’s exactly what they do here. Mofftiss are pretty experienced, and I’m inclined to believe that they’ve done it for a reason.

So, in MP terms, why does Sherlock gravitate towards his family home instead of Baker Street as the location to unravel John’s relationship with Mary? Bearing in mind that this is a continuation of the interrogation of their relationship, it seems interesting that he chooses to juxtapose them to the only loving couple we see in this television programme. Like a lot of parallels in EMP, this is something that our dads choose to draw our attention to; Daddy says to Mary “you’re the sane one”, as though every happy relationship has a sane one and a mad genius. And they draw attention to it again – Mary points out that Sherlock brought them here to see a fine example of happily married life.

Except, of course, like so much of this interrogation of John and Mary’s relationship in HLV and onwards, this doesn’t quite ring true. Because, of course, there is no mad genius in the Watsons’ relationship, and in terms of sanity Mary is certainly not the sane one. It’s like Sherlock is trying to fit them into the domestic bliss mould, but they just won’t quite go there. The comparison won’t quite be made.

The conversation between Sherlock and Mycroft, who has been established as his brain in TSoT (I cannot find this meta! Where Mycroft is brain and John is heart! Can anyone help?), is pretty straightforward – the brain is interrogating Sherlock’s obsession with the Magnussen case and why he can’t just let it go, and the emotion we see here from Sherlock is more powerful than pretty much anything we get in real life. I actually think this scene is one of the most vulnerable moments he has in the show – and there’s no way that vulnerability would be to Mycroft in real life. There’s also, crucially, no reason why MI6 should actually want Sherlock dead this early. It’s another tell-tale sign that the surface plot doesn’t make sense – we should be looking deeper. Sherlock has just brought down a terrorist network – MI6 should love him. What Mycroft is actually putting forward is that already, way before Sherlock kills Magnussen, pretty much as soon as he enters EMP this is a two-way fork. He can choose to die at any point. But he doesn’t.

There’s something that I really don’t understand here, though, which I think is important – Sherlock drugging the family with the help of Wiggins. This motif of drugging is something which comes back time and again to represent Sherlock’s repression – but here he’s not drugged. Wiggins is also a symbol of repression, but again he’s completely sober. Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated – I don’t like loose ends, and I don’t believe that another use of drugs is insignificant!

Then we have a quick flashback to the canteen scene. A lot of EMP theory has drawn on the canteen scene, and how phenomenally dreamlike the entire situation is. There is no way this can take place in Speedy’s – in terms of the timeline, it can’t even take place in the hospital canteen! However, it seems to draw on a mental image of Speedy’s because of the visual similarities between them (referenced in this meta, although this meta makes the argument for the reality of the scene X). Magnussen doesn’t seem to even have a bruise, despite being battered by Mary’s gun. This scene cannot exist. Magnussen picking at Sherlock’s food has often been seen as a metaphor for Sherlock being sexually assaulted whilst comatose, which is something I buy into – the food=sex metaphor has been striking from the beginning, and it suits Magnussen’s power play. It’s also quite possible in this scene that Sherlock thinks that everything fucky is real, and the absolute fuckiness of this scene draws it out – this is the scene that foreshadows the realisation that Magnussen is working from his MP, and of course that’s a realisation that Sherlock needs to make himself. The scene opens with a moment of dislocation – is this the hospital canteen or not? – and is about Sherlock working out what’s happening to him.

What’s really striking is that John has brought his gun to Christmas lunch, however. Bear in mind John-being-suicidal is the realisation that Sherlock is going to come to in TLD, but it’s prefigured here. We haven’t seen John’s gun since ASiP, when it was used to indicate that he was suicidal. It’s suddenly come back, but Sherlock misses its significance – he expects John to have it, but he doesn’t focus on the significance of the gun itself. He’s still thinking in terms of Mary and Magnussen. What’s significant is that John throws him the coat, which has the gun weighing down in its pocket. This prefigures that scene in TLD -

Faith!Eurus, who is a mirror for John in TLD, is thrown the bag, and we see Sherlock weigh it and then realise there’s a gun in it – too late. A bag is the female equivalent of a coat (*cries about pockets*) and the throwing motif with the heavy gun inside it is a clear link between the two moments. Sherlock didn’t recognise the significance of the gun in the first one, possibly because he couldn’t process the situation without mirrors (more on the importance of Eurus as a series of heterosexual mirrors later). When he realises in TLD that he’s made a mistake, that there’s something he’s missed, the implication isn’t that he’s missed it in his analysis of Faith!Eurus, because in no sense of the word does Faith!Eurus exist. What it means is that he missed it in his first, cursory analysis of John. Not the heaviness, but exactly what it meant. The symbols of John’s suicidal ideation start to appear and threaten to break in right up until the end of TLD – this is arguably the first point we start to see them.

Hypothesis theory – that Sherlock is running simulations in his MP – is not something I hold with through all of EMP, but I do hold with it to the end of HLV. It’s something that we know Sherlock does in real life because of THoB, both in acd!canon and in bbc!canon – he stages something in order to prove it to himself. In this case, he’s not able to see the war between Mary and Magnussen play out, so he’s running it himself, and we’ve already seen him desperately trying to prove Mary’s innocence, and more than that her love for John. But this trip to Appledore will prove that impossible.

It’s possible that the Appledore Vaults being Magnussen’s MP is the first time that Sherlock recognises that this is a simulation, and that this isn’t real. He certainly looks incredibly distressed, although that could also be because of the immense danger he’s put John in. However, the vaults being a mind palace doesn’t make sense as surface plot, as so many have pointed out – we’ve literally seen the letters before. (I grant that Magnussen could be bluffing, but it seems odd to draw attention to the letters having a physical form nevertheless.) However, the fact that Magnussen’s MP is in vaults underground is really interesting – imagery to do with going deeper and deeper into Sherlock’s mind is pretty much always falling or sinking, as seen in both TAB and TST in particular. That idea of descending into one’s mind is prefigured very neatly here, and should get us thinking about height generally (I’ve talked about the reverse side of this in the previous chapter X). I also think, although am not an expert on sound, that we can hear a slight eerie dripping when Magnussen walks through the vaults, which ties thematically to the water that is linked to falling/sinking in the rest of the EMP.

Fast forward past the face-flicking, and Sherlock shoots Magnussen. This is the culmination of the metafictionality of the episode, and I think it’s really fantastic. The simulation that Sherlock has run to prove that Mary loves John has failed, because the only way to save John is to kill Magnussen and he’s the only one who can do it – so in short, Sherlock becomes the housemaid, not Mary. He takes on the role, and it breaks canon completely. He’s supposed to be above that, disinterested – but instead he becomes the woman who kills out of love for her husband. He is no longer filling the traditional role of Sherlock Holmes in the narrative. He has disproven the point he needed to make – and so, as brain!Mycroft seems to suggest, deeper waters still. The cut to little Louis Moffat screaming in the firing line instead of BC is another hint that this isn’t real – we might just about accept it here as showing Sherlock’s vulnerability, but given that the entirety of series 4 is about childhood trauma coming back up, the resurgence of a screaming child of Sherlock as he recognises his new place in the narrative is brutal. (Yes, Sherlock has a lot of gay trauma – we’ll find out more when we meet Eurus.)

Eurus, incidentally, comes up here – you know what happened to the other one. I want to home in, though, on Mycroft’s line about Sherlock, that there’s no prison that he could be incarcerated in. This is a bizarre comment, given the events of TFP – it could just be sloppy writing, sure. Or, again, these inconsistencies are pointing to something else, that Sherrinford isn’t a real place and that Sherlock’s death sentence is not a sentence, but self-imposed.

So much has been said, so eloquently, about the tarmac scene, that I don’t know that there’s much more that I can say. The importance of the plane as being Sherlock going to his death is really important as an image that will repeat later – again, see previous chapter X. I’ve also pointed out that there is no point at which Sherlock is told Moriarty is back, yet he seems to know it automatically – another suggestion that this is EMP, and there’s a lot more going on.

The final thing I want to focus on in this episode, though, is the east wind. The east wind is referenced in His Last Bow, which gets very little coverage generally in HLV. His Last Bow is (I believe) the final Holmes story, and the east wind that is coming refers to WW1 – Holmes tells Watson that there is an east wind coming and Watson thinks he means it’s cold, and Holmes laughs and jokes that Watson is a stalwart who will always be there. This is a touching moment to end the stories on, and might remind us of the It is always 1895 poem that will become so important in TAB. Except, this time, John accepts that there’s an east wind coming – he references it repeatedly, actually, as a threat, both here and in TFP. The east wind is the wind of change that comes through the changing years in acd!canon. This seems particularly important here – the social changes between 1895 and 2014 are vital for the next episode, highlighting the idea that the update of the show is a really central part to it. There’s no world war ahead of Holmes (please God @2020) so the wind of change must be referring to something else… I really couldn’t possibly comment as to why the change of time period might be so important!

This chapter has been a long one, but I hoped it help to set up EMP theory on firm foundations. We’ll move into TAB next – see you there!

#tjlc #thewatsonbeekeepers #meta #mine #my meta #chapter three: death cannot stop true love...#hlv #bbc sherlock #johnlock #bbc johnlock #mofftiss #acd #gosh i was rereading this chapter and boy am i proud of it #metatextuality is my fave thing #what a sexy episode this is

43 notes · View notes

bigskydreaming · 4 years

Text

Batkids’ Viewing Habits Headcanons:

Dick: Foreign films and shows. One thing Dick really dislikes about being rooted in one place and culture after coming to live with Bruce is the sameness of Hollywood entertainment. From a young age, he was exposed to the entertainment of dozens of diverse cultures and cinematic landscapes, and he’d much rather sit down to marathon films from China, Eastern Europe and Brazil back to back than just a string of Disney movies. He does tend to prefer things like romantic comedies and low-stakes dramas that let him unwind from the pressures of actual high-stakes, end-of-the-world type missions, and he has a particular fondness for Bollywood.

The best gifts for him are old DVDs of C-list movies that never even got uploaded to American territories and that his friends and family pick up from wherever around the world they travel, because he insists the best stuff are the movies and shows that never get picked up by the American markets. When they were teenagers, Garth once gifted him with recordings of famous Atlantean plays and became the gift to beat.

To which Bruce gritted his teeth, intoned “Challenge accepted,” and sucked it up and paid Hal Jordan to pick up the equivalent of box-sets from various alien cultures he came into contact with.

Jason: High octane thrillers and action blockbusters....but not for the reasons people tend to assume. He watches them because he gets a kick out of critiquing them the way lawyers and doctors complain about the inaccuracies of legal and medical procedurals.

Watching Jason’s choice of movies or shows is basically sitting down to a running commentary about how that explosion is all wrong for that particular payload, how the actors aren’t compensating for the recoil of their guns, and scoffing at the choice of counter-strike in a choreographed fight scene when a jujitsu move would clearly have been the better option. He once paused a movie to spend two minutes making the sounds that should have accompanied the gunfire from a particular assault weapon, as opposed to what sounds it made in scene.

Jason’s a big believer in the axiom “If you’re going to do something, do it right, dammit.”

His siblings are big believers in the axiom: “Oh my god, shut up and turn the movie back on.”

Cass: Anything animated. She hates live action. Its all equally boring and pointless to her, because barely any actors are capable of marrying their acting choices to the minutiae of their body language, making it all but impossible for her to suspend her disbelief when watching them. They tend to telegraph their real emotions to her eyes more often than they do their actual acting choices.

So she’d much rather plop down in front of Saturday morning cartoons, animated films, Bob’s Burgers or various other animated shows, where she can just immerse herself in the shenanigans of cartoon figures that are as two-dimensional to her as anyone else.

She hates most CGI though, just on principle. What was wrong with basic animation, she wants to know.

Tim: Soap operas. The more ridiculous the better. He used to watch them with his various nannies when he was younger, and as he grew up - and became increasingly entrenched in the bizarre and weird world of superheroics - his fondness for them only grew, because its basically the only form of entertainment that’s consistently more out there than his actual life.

Stephanie tried to hook him on reality TV like “The Real Housewives of Gotham” but that was a non-starter. Its not the same, he insists, like the day-time television purist that he is.

When Jason eventually reconciled with the family and was trying to figure out how to awkwardly apologize and/or make it up to Tim for the whole “so about the time I almost killed you, that was my bad” thing, Dick advised him that the quickest way into Tim’s good graces would be if he gave Tim free reign to come up with a way to resurrect him in the public eye. Tim’s eyes literally glazed over when Jason told him this, followed by: “Brb, I have to go...research.”

What followed was a week-long binge of every soap opera resurrection while he took detailed notes complete with spreadsheets and flowcharts before he somewhat manically presented the rest of the family with no less than a dozen proposals for explaining away the presumed death, mysterious disappearance, and ultimate return of one Jason Todd-Wayne.

Damian: Documentaries. Initially nature documentaries, with an emphasis on wildlife, he likes to zone out in front of them, occasionally drawing or sketching based on his viewing choices, but always with a ready claim of “Some of us choose to use the television to expand our minds instead of rotting them,” whenever someone walks in on him and muses that perhaps he really just likes watching cute little seal pups flopping around on the ice.

Eventually he branched out into documentaries of all kinds, and lately he’s been on a “How Things Work” viewing kick. Which has in turn expanded into....him trying to apply his newly acquired knowledge in various ways.

Just last week, Tim wandered down to the kitchen to get something to drink and found Damian hard at work on the plumbing under the sink, wearing a spare utility belt that had been haphazardly modified into a kind of handyman’s tool belt.

“Wha-,” Tim had said.

Damian’s eyes had squinted dangerously and done all his talking for him.

Being the brainiac that he is, Tim had then decided discretion was the better part of valor and slowly backed out of the kitchen without another word, hands raised in surrender. He was mildly vindicated later when Bruce arrived home to find the kitchen half-flooded and Damian still at work under the sink cursing about shoddy instructions.

“Did you break the sink just so you’d have something to fix?” Bruce demanded, pinching the bridge of his nose to fight back a progeny-induced migraine.

Damian threw his arms up in exasperation, still sopping wet. “Well I wasn’t going to just wait for something to break on its own! How inefficient would that be?”

Stephanie: Nobody actually knows. She takes eclectic to an entirely new level, and claims she’s not about to allow her entertainment choices to be used against her by adding to the psychological profiles she’s convinced all of the rest of them have of her. Whether she seriously believes this or is just in it for the drama....again, who can say.

“Nobody’s getting any free real estate in my brain, no sirree!”

Tim, Dick, and assorted others have tried over and over to express “None of us care that much, you can stop treating ‘What do you want to watch’ like a CIA interrogation,’” but she just snorts oh so elegantly and sneers down her nose at them.

“A likely story, Bat-brats!”

“Steph, you’re a Bat-brat too,” Tim tries explaining patiently.

“Only by association.”

“You’re literally Batgirl.”

Anyway, the long and short of it is when its Steph’s turn to pick what movie or TV show is watched in the den, her choices range from reality TV from obscure black and white films from the 50s to Japanese re-tellings of Shakespearean plays. They’re all at least a little convinced that half of the things she picks she hates as much as the rest of them do, and she’s just silently suffering through them to make some point that’s incomprehensible to anyone but her.

Duke: Anything that can be spoiled. See, Duke has a vindictive side, and an epic ability to hold a grudge. After his first few weeks living at the Manor had revealed unto him that everyone else in this weirdo family had a bad habit of deducing the ending to anything as soon as possible and spoiling it for everyone else because apparently everything in this household has to be a competition, Duke’s further exploration of his powers eventually revealed that here at least, he has the ultimate edge. In time, he figured out how his ghost-vision can be used to literally watch what’s on the TV a minute or so ahead of everyone else.....and he is merciless in exploiting this.

To the extent that many of the others just flat out refuse to watch any kind of game or contest or mystery with him, period.....but Duke is a Bat, after all, and not so easily thwarted.

This eventually snowballed into him 'practicing his stealth techniques’ in the den, family room and other assorted places where the family tended to congregate around a TV.....whereupon he’d leap out of hiding at a crucial moment in the show, yell “Spoil Bomb!” and hastily shout out the spoiler while they were all still cursing and swearing about being caught off guard.

“You were supposed to be the normal one,” Bruce said to him, somewhat mournfully. Duke just shrugged.

“That sounds like a you problem, old man.”

Then he ran off cackling while Stephanie chased after him shouting about trademark infringement.

“You just had to give him a suit that can make him invisible,” Jason commented in a superficially neutral tone that was actually anything but.

Bruce sighed. “Jason -”

“I’m just saying, you never gave me a suit that can turn invisible.”

“You’re never just saying.”

“Oh, so now you’re calling me a liar, too? Nice, B. Thanks a lot.”

58 notes · View notes

benitakbenito-blog · 7 years

Text

1st Book: "The Last Song" by Nicholas Sparks

Literary Artist – Benito Benita K.

Father’s Love

A father loves a child

Like no other love on earth

From the moment he first meet the child

Nothing can compare its worth.

Forever they are bonded

With love that never fails

For always he will hug and

Kisses goodnight with fairytales

He will love his children and protect them

With strong arms just in case

But also hug them tenderly

With a fatherly embrace

Eskimo kisses touches their nose

With a giggle and squeeze

And that sparkle in their little eyes

Could bring him to his knees

What more could any father want

Than a child so lovely and pure

There’s nothing in this world so rare

Of that he can be sure

A father’s love is so unique

It can never be replaced

He will always treasure time with them

And the memories embraced.

This poem relates to the fatherly love of Steve to his children. Steve is almost an ideal father. Even though he is dying, he keeps his illness a secret and puts the wants and needs of his children ahead of his own. Through his words and actions, Steve demonstrates to his children, but most significantly to Ronnie, what it means to love another. And Ronnie is able to learn from her father’s words and actions as she grows into an upstanding young lady.

Comment: Our Literary Artist found out Father’s Love as relative to the novel. She focused on Ronnie and Steve’s relationship and she got it right.

Vocabulary Enhancer – Aiziah Shehanie T. Usop

1. Adrenaline a substance that is released in the body of a person who is feeling a strong emotion (such as excitement, fear or anger) and that causes the heart to beat faster and gives the person more energy.

*Sometimes the burst of adrenaline you get the night before the deadline is enough to propel you to a successful finish

2. Chemotherapy the treatment of disease by means of chemicals that have a specific toxic effect cancerous tissue.

*At the completion of high-dose chemotherapy, all tumor markers had returned to normal in 6 patients.

3. Empathy intellectually identifying the feelings or thoughts of others; not feeling what others feel but being able to understand their feelings.

*He seems to have a genuine empathy with the part.

4. Hospice a healthcare facility for the terminally ill that emphasizes pain control and emotional support for the patient and family.

*Patients and their families too often hesitate to call hospice.

5. Malignant a tumor that invades surrounding tissues, is usually capable of producing metastases, may recur after attempted removal, and is likely to cause death unless adequately treated.

*The malignant cells are invading and destroying the muscle fibers of the heart.

6. Metastasized to have spread to other parts of the body.

*Take a virtual tour into the growth of a tumor and watch how blood vessels help tumors grow and metastasize.

7. Oncologist a specialist in the study and treatment of cancer.

*Each consultant has a clinic covering general pediatric oncology.

8. Pasty pale and unhealthy in appearance.

*Len’s face was pasty white and for a moment she thought he was going to throw up.

9. Psychopathic those having antisocial behavior who were most likely born with temperamental differences such as impulsivity and fearlessness that leads to risk-seeking behavior and an inability to internalize social norms.

*Psychopathic killers coming out of the past are not even her driving reason for trying to hide herself.

10. Sociopathic those having an anti-social personality disorder yet have a relatively normal temperament with erratic criminal behavior.

*People who smoke marijuana or hashish will run around doing unspeakable acts that can only be described as sociopathic.

Comment: I hoped that they understand some of the difficult or unfamiliar words in the story.

Passage Picker/ Literary Luminary - Mary Den Lea S. Duron

“Truth only means something when it’s hard to admit”

Yes, I agree with this quote because there are really times when situations get worse then all you have left to do is to accept the truth because it is the reality that speaks, whether it is from the view of society, influence of belief or the principles you personally value as moral and right. Because if you deny the fact, the truth will still haunt your conscience and then follows the consequences of the decisions you have made. Interestingly, realizing, weighing and admitting the truth are three difficult consequential processes- for me, they only mean of surrender because you have no more moves to get rid of the situation. And when such truth means something to you, it just reflects that it is real and affects you and the situation at most.

“In the end you should always do the right thing even if it’s hard.”

In life, people are expected to always do and follow the right thing whatever situations they are in or whatever factors are at stake. However, there are really times that decision-making is tough when there are many considerations to weigh about. Sometimes, you beat your own self against the expectations of your family, your career, your friends, your obligations and better opportunities that divide your focus. An old man once shared, it is better to do the right thing to so everything would happen accordingly. I can agree to that however, I also allow mistakes to happen because I believe nobody is truly perfect. There will also be exceptions to expectations. One can lie, the other can be selfish and more cannot deny the fact of committing other sins. There can be times that we cannot prevent situations to complicate because we are many. We cannot control everything on this world. We have different personalities and intellectual capacities, that even the society affects our doing one way or another. Nevertheless, it is up to us to make or life because it’s our choice how to live it. Yes, doing the right thing is the best but sometimes, having mistakes are more fun and exciting. One should also mind to make sure that mistake doesn’t end as still mistake, it should be taken as room for better learning and understanding of what sense life really means.

“In a lifetime of mistakes, you two are the greatest things that have ever happened to me.”

This passage is from the main character of the story Steve Miller, the father of Ronnie, who admitted to have made a lot of mistakes especially to his daughter but he tried to find ways on how to revive their relationship and bring back the love of his daughter despite how Ronnie treated him he still hoped and loved his daughter. This passage affects me personally because I have resentments to my parents. I belong to a broken home that’s why I have grown and live with my grandparents until now. My parents are separated and both of them already have families. My mother just died a month ago and my father currently resides at Dumaguete. Well, it’s really painful to experience abandonment and rejection from your own family, being away with them for your whole life but everytime I think of it, it becomes more tiring and stressful that’s why I decided to drop off the issue, forgive and forget as much as I can, and continue my life. Upon reading this line, it just made me think of the greatest things that ever happened to me. Well, there are so much to say. For now, I am just happy that I am still alive and I am looking forward to be graduating soon.

“We’re not perfect, any of us. We make mistakes, we screw up but then we forgive and move forward”

Well, this passage simply says that how inevitably imperfect we people are. Yes, I can commit mistake, others can be able too. We can make mistakes no matter how we see and plan things yet at the end, we are still unsatisfied to ourselves. However, we cannot move forward in life if we don’t know and learn to forgive ourselves and forgive those who failed us. That’s why, difficult as it is, we cannot deny mistaking and be selfish of forgiving because nobody is perfect. Even the Bible said that so, why can’t you forgive others? Haven’t you sinned at all?

Sometimes you have to be apart from the people you love, but that doesn’t make you love them any less. Sometimes it makes you love them more.

Yes, being apart from your loved ones is really hard and I believe everybody knows home-sickening. It’s the thought and feeling that you missed already the moments at home with your family, the bonding with your children, and the laughters with friends but because of important reasons that we bear being away with them for some time or even years like the sacrifices of the OFWs. True enough with the above-mentioned passage, actually it is a reminder because most of the people today tend to forget this truth. Oftentimes, people are consumed with arrogance and opportunities, and have forgotten where they actually started. In the passage, it reminds me that sometimes, distance has become an excuse to escape, make promises and leave people behind. This should not be. Being distant to the people you love only shows how much you still think and care for them despite how busy the career you are in. By texting, calling or any electronic communication that you can avail just to send regards to your family only proves you really loved them and that your love remains the same with and away with them.

Comment: Our Literary Luminary had posted and explained well most important and realistic passages in the story, he even related it to her personal life so she got an A for me.

Summarizer - Darlene Mamoso

The Last Song is a novel by bestselling author Nicholas Sparks. In this novel, Ronnie Miller has spent the last three years not speaking to her father because of his decision to leave the family. However, Ronnie finds herself forced to spend the entire summer at her father’s home in North Carolina. Initially, Ronnie does all she can to avoid her father by hanging out with a new friend on the beach, but overtime Ronnie finds herself reconnecting with her father in a more meaningful way than she could ever have imagined. The Last Song is a novel of growth and maturity, but also a novel of love that takes the reader’s breath away.

Ronnie Miller is angry with her father for leaving the family without explanation. Ronnie assumes that her father had an affair and this is what has caused him to abandon her, her mother, and her little brother, Jonah. For this reason, Ronnie has stopped playing the piano, a passion she and her father once shared, and has not spoken to her father for three years. However, Ronnie finds herself forced to spend the summer with her father.

In the beginning, Ronnie spends as much time away from the house as possible. Ronnie makes a new friend in Blaze, a girl her age who is also struggling with parental issues. However, when Blaze’s boyfriend, Marcus, makes a public pass on Ronnie, Blaze retaliates by setting Ronnie up for a shoplifting charge, her third in recent years. Ronnie finds herself forced to turn to her father for support as she tries to get everyone to believe that she did nothing wrong.

A short time later, Ronnie’s father shows her a nest of turtle eggs. Ronnie becomes obsessed with the nest, frightened that a raccoon might attempt to eat the eggs before they emerge. Ronnie spends several nights sleeping beside the nest and harassing a volunteer at the local aquarium to place a cage over the nest to protect it. This volunteer, Will, is a local teenager Ronnie literally ran into on the beach her first day in North Carolina. Will decides to spend the night sleeping with the turtle nest beside Ronnie in order to protect it before the cage can be placed.

Ronnie and Will spend an afternoon together after sharing guard duty over the turtle eggs. Ronnie greatly enjoys herself. However, Ronnie begins to doubt herself and her trust in Will when a girl tells her that Will is a serial dater. Ronnie shuts Will out, but later regrets her actions, asking for his forgiveness. Will and Ronnie begin to see one another regularly. Will’s friends resent Ronnie’s presence in his life because of the time it takes him from them and Will’s mother dislikes Ronnie. However, Will and Ronnie manage to forge ahead despite these difficulties.

On the day that the turtle eggs hatch, Ronnie discovers that her father is dying from stomach cancer. Ronnie is devastated by this news, especially due to the fact that she did not speak to him for such a long time. When Ronnie’s mother comes to take her back to New York, Ronnie makes the decision to stay with her father and help him through the final stages of the illness. Ronnie shuts out everyone in her grief, including Will, struggling within herself to find a way to honor her father and make up for her childish behavior after the end of her parents’ marriage. Eventually Ronnie realizes the best gift she can give to her father is to embrace her own gift, to return to the piano.

Ronnie finishes a song her father had been writing before his illness forced him to stop. Ronnie begins playing for her father each day as the cancer slowly takes away his life. After her father’s death, Ronnie returns to New York and auditions to attend Julliard. Will, whom Ronnie thought was gone from her life for good, comes to New York to attend school and to be close to her.

Comment: Our Summarizer having a hard time summarizing a very long novel. But then thanks to her that I understood well the content of the story.

Discussion Director - Jezreel Kris Puda

1. Why is the book entitled “The Last Song?”

Mary Den Leah Duron: I think the novel is entitled the last song since Ronnie and her dad share a common passion - piano - that relates to the title. Moreover it ends up with her father having cancer and that may lead them having the last song - few moments to be together - to sing.

Darlene Mamoso: The novel, as I understand is a twist for the protagonist (Ronnie) as she rebelled at first and served as her father’s support at last. She has to be strong and gather her strength to finish what her father was doing (stained glass window) and composing a song for her dad. That was for me is the reason why the novel got the title, “The Last Song”.

Cariz Fangolo: I think it got his name from the last part of the story where emphasis on the composition of a song is noticed. Ronnie wrote a song and she was the only witness to her father’s death. for me that is the last song for her father which was from Ronnie.

Aiziah Shehanie Usop: The novel got its name from the moment where Ronnie and Steve reunited and spent a father-daughter relationship while cancer struck Steve down and Ronnie has to play the piano and write the last song her father may hear in memory of his daughter.

Benita Benito: It is entitled “The Last Song” because the first song that Ronnie composed for her father is the same song her father heard before his death. Song in here emphasizes on reconciliation and love.

Ezel Mae Polo: The novel is entitled “The Last Song” because Ronnie and Steve share a common passion for piano and Ronnie offered a song to her father before his death and that for me is the last song for Steve.

2. Why do you think the story ended that way?

Mary Den Leah Duron : I think the story ended that way to serve as inspiration to Ronnie and her family. Her mother, they don’t fight anymore and she lived happily from that experience that she had. How to forgive and discover the beauty of life.

Darlene Mamoso : It emphasizes on embracing and flourishing life because life is for the living. It also teaches her a lesson about continuing life no matter how difficult it has been to her.In the true form, the story has a happy ending.

Cariz Fangolo : This shows that it does not matter how many people one touches in one’s life — what is important is the depth of one’s relationship with those people. The love of a daughter to her father is greatly shown in the ending of the story.

Aiziah Shehanie Usop : Steve listens to the composition that he and his daughter created together and is at peace. He compares life to a song and finally feels God’s presence in the world. That leads to a beautiful ending with a realization that love of God is love in its purest form and Ronnie greatly learned from that.

Benita Benito : I think the story ended that way because it signifies a calm and serene situation between the father and his daughter. This means that we should continue life as Ronnie did. The love of God is the purest form of all love.

Ezel Mae Polo : It focuses on how beautiful life is, so the protagonist in the story lives on with her own life and that was a very beautiful ending for a story involving a family and their relationship with each other.

Comment: Its really fun when our discussion director discusses the novel to us, and when he raised these questions we have different opinions. And i’m impressed because he manage to take notes even we answered in chorus.

0 notes

carizfanggoloworld-blog · 7 years

Text

1st Book: “The Last Song” by Nicholas Sparks (eng80) Connector- Cariz Fanggolo

Nicholas Sparks’ novel, “The Last Song” is somewhat related to the film “I’ll be There” starring KC and Gabby Concepcion. In the novel, Ronnie was angry with her father for leaving their family without any explanation. This was the reason why Ronnie has stopped playing the piano, a passion she and her father once shared, and has not spoken to her father for three years. However, Ronnie was forced to spend the entire summer at her father’s home in North Carolina. Initially, Ronnie does all she can to avoid her father by hanging out with a new friend on the beach, but as the time goes by Ronnie finds herself reconnecting with her father in a more meaningful way than she could ever have imagined. On the other hand the film “I’ll be There”, the story revolves around Maximina Dela Cerna, the role KC Concepcion, a fashion designer based in New York and is in debt after her ex-boyfriend swindled her money. Shortly after her mother’s death she returns to the Philippines in order to claim her share of inheritance from her father, whom she hated for neglecting them for 15 years. Her father is glad that she decided to return and asked her to stay for one month before passing the inheritance to her. Although Maxima finds it hard to forgive her father she leaves herself with no choice as she desperately need to pay off her debt and hope to return back to USA soon. Just like in the novel, the protagonist in the film also forgives her father. Both Ronnie and Maxima opened their hearts again towards their fathers.

Comment: Indeed it is connected to the movie “I’ll Be There” and the theme is connected also. Our connector have chosen a very much similar movie to the book.

Vocabulary Enhancer – Aiziah Shehanie T. Usop

*Sometimes the burst of adrenaline you get the night before the deadline is enough to propel you to a successful finish

2. Chemotherapy the treatment of disease by means of chemicals that have a specific toxic effect cancerous tissue.

*At the completion of high-dose chemotherapy, all tumor markers had returned to normal in 6 patients.

3. Empathy intellectually identifying the feelings or thoughts of others; not feeling what others feel but being able to understand their feelings.

*He seems to have a genuine empathy with the part.

4. Hospice a healthcare facility for the terminally ill that emphasizes pain control and emotional support for the patient and family.

*Patients and their families too often hesitate to call hospice.

5. Malignant a tumor that invades surrounding tissues, is usually capable of producing metastases, may recur after attempted removal, and is likely to cause death unless adequately treated.

*The malignant cells are invading and destroying the muscle fibers of the heart.

6. Metastasized to have spread to other parts of the body.

*Take a virtual tour into the growth of a tumor and watch how blood vessels help tumors grow and metastasize.

7. Oncologist a specialist in the study and treatment of cancer.

*Each consultant has a clinic covering general pediatric oncology.

8. Pasty pale and unhealthy in appearance.

*Len’s face was pasty white and for a moment she thought he was going to throw up.

*Psychopathic killers coming out of the past are not even her driving reason for trying to hide herself.

10. Sociopathic those having an anti-social personality disorder yet have a relatively normal temperament with erratic criminal behavior.

*People who smoke marijuana or hashish will run around doing unspeakable acts that can only be described as sociopathic.

Comment: I hoped that they understand some of the difficult or unfamiliar words in the story.

Passage Picker/ Literary Luminary - Mary Den Lea S. Duron

“Truth only means something when it’s hard to admit”

“In the end you should always do the right thing even if it’s hard.”

“In a lifetime of mistakes, you two are the greatest things that have ever happened to me.”

“We’re not perfect, any of us. We make mistakes, we screw up but then we forgive and move forward”

Sometimes you have to be apart from the people you love, but that doesn’t make you love them any less. Sometimes it makes you love them more.

Comment: Our Literary Luminary had posted and explained well most important and realistic passages in the story, he even related it to her personal life so she got an A for me.

Summarizer - Darlene Mamoso

Comment: Our Summarizer having a hard time summarizing a very long novel. But then thanks to her that I understood well the content of the story.

Discussion Director - Jezreel Kris Puda

1. Why is the book entitled “The Last Song?”

2. Why do you think the story ended that way?

Literary Artist - Benita K. Benito

Father’s Love

A father loves a child Like no other love on earth From the moment he first meet the child Nothing can compare its worth. Forever they are bonded With love that never fails For always he will hug and Kisses goodnight with fairytales He will love his children and protect them With strong arms just in case But also hug them tenderly With a fatherly embrace Eskimo kisses touches their nose With a giggle and squeeze And that sparkle in their little eyes Could bring him to his knees What more could any father want Than a child so lovely and pure There’s nothing in this world so rare Of that he can be sure A father’s love is so unique It can never be replaced He will always treasure time with them And the memories embraced.

Comment: Our Literary Artist found out Father’s Love as relative to the novel. She focused on Ronnie and Steve’s relationship and she got it right.

Character Captain - Ezel Maze Polo

Veronica “Ronnie” Miller- “She is rebellious she shows this on page 9 when she snaps her gum she does this because she knows that her mom hates it when she does it so she does it just to annoy her mom who always cringes when she hears her do it.

“The 17-year-old protagonist; at the beginning of the novel, Ronnie is angry at her parents, who are separated, and resents having to spend the summer with her father. During the summer, however, Ronnie gains a new appreciation for family, life, faith, and love, as she develops from a rebellious teenager into a responsible young woman”.

“At the beginning of the book, Ronnie comes off as very rebellious and carefree, but towards the middle and end, we learn that she really has a tender spirit and a loving heart.

“Up until her father, Steve, divorced her mom, Ronnie avidly played the piano and was without a hint of rebellion. But after Steve left for the south, Ronnie started to hate her father and blame him for the separation. She began breaking curfew, shoplifting, and doing everything she could to go against the wishes of her mother. She went from being a sweet, innocent child to a rebellious, independent teenager. Hopefully by spending the summer in Wrightsville Beach, Ronnie will learn to correct her ways and go back to the kind and loving Ronnie he family used to know”.

Will Blakelee - is considerate he shows this on page 34 when he smacks Ronnie’s soda out of her hand and spills it over her he asks her if she’s okay and offers to help her clean up while she rejects it really angry with him.

“The “eye candy” beach volleyball player who is definitely not Ronnie’s type … or is he? After literally bumping into Ronnie, Will’s path continues to cross hers until they cautiously and carefully explore their mutual attraction. The only problem is the secret that he is keeping, a secret that might irreparably destroy their young love.

“At first, Will comes off as a popular jock that doesn’t care about anyone but himself. However, later in the story, a different side of him is revealed. Will is not superficial by any means. He doesn’t care about money or looks; all Will cares about is the real person inside”.

“Will comes from a very wealthy family owning a large and successful chain of break shops along the east coast. He grew up as the rich, popular guy that everyone wanted to hang out with. He dated the pretty cheerleaders and was invited to all the parties. In a sense, he was living every teenager’s dream. But, somewhere along the line, he realized that he didn’t want to be that superficial, popular jock. He was tired of fake people. Will was ready to turn over a new leaf, and that started with Ronnie”.

Steve MillerRonnie’s estranged father. They used to share a passion for the piano and writing music; now they share nothing. Steve has one summer to reconnect with his daughter. During this same summer, Steve engages in his own spiritual journey as he struggles with the question of what it means to experience the presence of God, and he develops a lasting and special relationship with his son.

Jonah Miller - Ronnie’s 10-year-old brother. Unlike Ronnie, Jonah is looking forward to spending the summer with his dad. Not only does Steve teach Jonah how to build a stained-glass window, but he also teaches his son about love and trust. It is clear that Jonah has learned from his father when he unexpectedly assists Ronnie in her time of need.

Blaze -is a pushover she shows this on page 87 by letting Marcus eat all her food just because he was her boyfriend when before she told Ronnie that she was really hungry.

“Wrightsville beach girl whose real name is Galadriel. Initially, Blaze befriends Ronnie when she first arrives in Wrightsville Beach, but jealousy and insecurity cause Blaze to betray this budding friendship. In the end, Blaze has the opportunity to redeem herself, but will she?”

Marcus - is a flirt he shows this on page 104 he shows this by putting his arm around Ronnie’s waist and asking her if she wanted to go to walk on the beach even though Ronnie tells him that Blaze is his girlfriend he doesn’t care.

“The resident bad boy and fireball thrower. Although Marcus is interested in Ronnie, she does not fall for his charm. A self-centered manipulator, Marcus’ primary concern is taking care of himself”

Pastor Charlie Harris - the local minister. Pastor Harris served as Steve’s surrogate father and piano teacher as well as Steve’s oldest friend. He provides both Ronnie and her father with spiritual guidance and strength during their journeys of self-discovery and faith.

Scott - Will’s best friend. Because Scott saved Will’s life, Scott is able to convince Will to keep his secret.

Kim - Ronnie’s mother. Unbeknownst to Ronnie, Kim is responsible for two of the important life lessons that Ronnie learns.

Megan Blakelee- Will’s older sister. Rather than holding a grudge about the interruption of her wedding, Megan uses it as an opportunity to show understanding. She is a minor character who plays a major role in attempting to reunite Ronnie and Will.

Ashley- is Will’s ex-girlfriend who will seemingly do anything to get him back,

Cassie is the girl Scott seems to have his eye on.

Tom and Susan- Will’s parents. Susan believes that Ronnie is beneath her son’s station in life and is hesitant to encourage any relationship between the two.

Teddy and Lance - Marcus’ flunkies.

Comment: Our Literary Captain had actually laid down the characters and their role and description in the story and she got it from the most important to the least.

0 notes

aiziahshehanietusop-blog · 7 years

Text

1st Book: "The Last Song" by Nicholas Sparks

Vocabulary Enhancer – Aiziah Shehanie T. Usop

*Sometimes the burst of adrenaline you get the night before the deadline is enough to propel you to a successful finish

2. Chemotherapy the treatment of disease by means of chemicals that have a specific toxic effect cancerous tissue.

*At the completion of high-dose chemotherapy, all tumor markers had returned to normal in 6 patients.

3. Empathy intellectually identifying the feelings or thoughts of others; not feeling what others feel but being able to understand their feelings.

*He seems to have a genuine empathy with the part.

4. Hospice a healthcare facility for the terminally ill that emphasizes pain control and emotional support for the patient and family.

*Patients and their families too often hesitate to call hospice.

5. Malignant a tumor that invades surrounding tissues, is usually capable of producing metastases, may recur after attempted removal, and is likely to cause death unless adequately treated.

*The malignant cells are invading and destroying the muscle fibers of the heart.

6. Metastasized to have spread to other parts of the body.

*Take a virtual tour into the growth of a tumor and watch how blood vessels help tumors grow and metastasize.

7. Oncologist a specialist in the study and treatment of cancer.

*Each consultant has a clinic covering general pediatric oncology.

8. Pasty pale and unhealthy in appearance.

*Len’s face was pasty white and for a moment she thought he was going to throw up.

*Psychopathic killers coming out of the past are not even her driving reason for trying to hide herself.

10. Sociopathic those having an anti-social personality disorder yet have a relatively normal temperament with erratic criminal behavior.

*People who smoke marijuana or hashish will run around doing unspeakable acts that can only be described as sociopathic.

Comment: I hoped that they understand some of the difficult or unfamiliar words in the story.

Passage Picker/ Literary Luminary - Mary Den Lea S. Duron

“Truth only means something when it’s hard to admit”

“In the end you should always do the right thing even if it’s hard.”

“In a lifetime of mistakes, you two are the greatest things that have ever happened to me.”

“We’re not perfect, any of us. We make mistakes, we screw up but then we forgive and move forward”

Sometimes you have to be apart from the people you love, but that doesn’t make you love them any less. Sometimes it makes you love them more.

Comment: Our Literary Luminary had posted and explained well most important and realistic passages in the story, he even related it to her personal life so she got an A for me.

Summarizer - Darlene Mamoso

Comment: Our Summarizer having a hard time summarizing a very long novel. But then thanks to her that I understood well the content of the story.

Discussion Director - Jezreel Kris Puda

1. Why is the book entitled “The Last Song?”

2. Why do you think the story ended that way?

0 notes