#henry is also asparagus if you will | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

comrade-meow · 3 years

Link

This is a transcript of a speech by developmental biologist Dr Emma Hilton delivered on 29 November 2020 for the ‘Feminist Academics Talk Back!’ meeting. This talk was originally published by womentalkback.org

Sex denialists have captured existing journals We are dealing with a new religion

Thank you for the invitation to speak today, as a feminist academic fighting back.

As ever, let’s begin with a story. And, trust me, by the end of this talk, you’re going to know a lot more about creationism that you expected:

1. In the 1920s, in concert with many other American states, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed the Butler Act, making it illegal for state public schools to: “teach any theory that denies the Story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible.” In other words, banning schools from teaching the theory of evolution.

Three months later, Tennessee science teacher John Scopes was on trial, charged with teaching the theory of evolution, a crime he was ultimately found guilty of. He was fined £71 – about £1064 in today’s money – so it could have been an expensive affair for him, had he not got off on a really boring administrative technicality.

Yet, despite the evidence against him and his own confession, he was an innocent man. Scopes was not guilty of teaching the theory of evolution. He admitted to a crime he had not committed. He even coached his students in their testimonies against him. So why would he admit to this wrongdoing of which he was entirely innocent? Why would he contrive apparent guilt? In protest. In protest against a law he viewed as fundamentally incompatible with the pursuit of scientific truth.

2. The history of creationism and education laws in the US is turbulent and often opaquely legalese, especially for those of us unfamiliar with US law. Some of the methods of the wider creationist movement, however, will be immediately recognisable as they are employed by a new movement, one which seeks to erase another scientific truth, the fact of sex.

Method 1. The framing of human classifications, whether it’s species or sex, as “arbitrary”. This leads to the premise that such phenomena are “social constructs” that need not exist if we chose to reject them. That truth must be relative and consensual. Never mind that these “arbitrary” classifications appear to be surprisingly similar classifications across all cultures and civilisations.

It also necessarily spotlights tricky boundary cases – not really a personal problem for the long-dead evolutionary missing links, but a very real problem in the modern world for people whose sex is atypical and who are constantly invoked, even fetishized, as “not males” or “not females” to prove sex classification is somehow no more than human whimsy.

People with DSDs have complex and often traumatic medical histories, perhaps struggling to understand their bodies, and they deserve more respect than to be casually and thoughtlessly used as a postemodernist “gotcha” by the very people so horribly triggered by a pronoun.

Method 2. The distortion of science and the development of sciencey language to create a veneer of academic rigour. Creationists invented “irreducible complexity” and “specified complexity” while Sex denialists try to beat people over the head with their dazzling arrays of “bimodal distributions arranged in n-dimensional space”.

Creationists, unable to publish in mainstream science journals because they weren’t producing, well, science, established their own journals. “Journals”. Sex denialists have captured existing journals – albeit limited to more newsy ones and to occasional editorials and blogs about gender (which is not sex), about how developmental biology is soooo complicated (which does not mean sex is complicated – I mean, the internal combustion engine is complicated but cars still fundamentally go forwards or backwards), about how discussing the biology of sex is mean (OK, good luck with that at your doctor’s surgery). Many such blogs and articles are written by scientists who simultaneously deny sex to their social media audience while writing academic papers about how female fruitflies make shells for their eggs (no matter how queer they are), about the development of ovaries or testes in fish and about how males make sperm.

The current editor-in-chief at Nature, the first female to hold this position, studied sex determination in worms for her PhD, and she now presides over a journal with an editorial policy to insert disclaimers about the binary nature of sex into spotlight features about research on, for example, different death rates in male and female cystic fibrosis patients.

The authors of the studies are not prevaricating or handwaving about sex, but the editorial team is “bending the knee”. I used to research a genetic disorder that was male-lethal – that is, male human babies died early in gestation. I’d love to know if this disclaimer would be applied there.

Method 3. Debate strategies like The Gish Gallop. This method is named for Duane Gish, who is a prominent creationist. What it boils down to is: throw any old argument, regardless of its validity, in quick succession at your opponent and then claim any dismissal or missed response or even hesitation in response as a score for your side. In Twitter parlance, we know this as “sealioning”, in political propaganda as the “firehose of falsehood”, although Wikipedia also suggests that it is covered by the term “bullshit”. So, what about intersex people? what about this article? what about an XY person with a uterus? what about the fa’afafine? what about that article? look at this pretty picture. what about what about whataboutery what about clownfish? The aim is not to discuss or debate, it is to force submission from frustration or exhaustion.

Method 4. The reification of humans as separate from not just monkeys but the rest of the living world. The special pleading for special descriptions that frame humans as the chosen ones, such that the same process of making new individuals, common to humans and asparagus, an observation I chose because it seems superficially silly – it could have been spinach – requires its own description, one that accounts for gender identity.

3. In the Scopes trial, which saw discussion of whether Eve was actually created from Adam’s rib and ruminations on where Cain got his wife, Scopes was defended by a legal group who had begun scouting for a test case subject as soon as the Tennessee ban was enacted. This legal group claimed to advocate for:

“Freedom of speech for ideas from the most extreme left such as anarchists and socialists, to the most extreme right including the Ku Klux Klan, Henry Ford, and others who would now be considered more toward the Fascist end of the spectrum.”

The legal group so keen to defend the right to speak the truth, in this case a fundamental, observable scientific truth? The American Civil Liberties Union, a group whose modern day social media presence promotes nonsense like:

“The notion of biological sex was developed for the exclusive purpose of being weaponized against people.”

and

“Sex and gender are different words for the same thing [that is] a set of politically and socially contingent notions of embodied and expressed identity.”

and shares articles asserting that biological sex is rooted in white supremacy.

Since the Scopes case, the ACLU have fought against many US laws preventing, or at least compromising, the teaching of evolution. I cannot process the irony of a group of people historically and consistently prepared to robustly defend the truth of evolution while now denying one of the most important biological foundations of evolution.

4. How do we fight this current craze of sex denialism? A major blow for creationism teaching was delivered in 1986 while the US Supreme Court were considering a Louisiana state law requiring creationism to be taught alongside evolution. The Louisiana law was struck down, in part influenced by the expert opinions, submitted to the court, of scientists who put aside their individual and, as one of them has since described “often violent” differences on Theory X and Experiment Y, to present a unified defence of scientific truth over religious belief. 76 Nobel laureates, 17 state academies of science and a handful of scientific organisations all got behind this single cause, and made a very real change.

Support for creationism has slowly ebbed away and the US is in a much more sensible position these days, although I still meet the occasional student from a Southern state who didn’t learn about evolution until college.

Sadly, one of the Nobel laureates has highlighted how unusual this collective response was and that he could not imagine any other issue that would receive the same groundswell of community support. Although he forged his career listening out for the Big Bang, so maybe I need to go through the list and find the biologists.

Part of the problem petitioning biologists to speak out is not necessarily fear of being cancelled or whatever, but simple lack of awareness of the issue, or incredulity that it is being taken remotely seriously. I’ve been working on a legal document and was discussing with a colleague about my efforts to find a citation for the statement, “there are two sexes, male and female”. He laughed at the idea that this would require a citation, told me to check a textbook, then realised that this statement is so simple that it would not even be included in a textbook.

And he’s right. I can find chapters in textbooks and hundreds of academic papers dedicated to how males and females are made, how they develop, how they differ, yet very few that feel the need to preface any of this with the statement “There are two sexes, male and female”. It is apparently something that biologists do not think needs to be said.

But of course, I think they are wrong, and that we live in a time where it does need to be said, where some aspects of society are being restructured around a scientific untruth, and where females will suffer.

Without recognition of and language to describe our anatomy, and the experiences that stem from that anatomy, mostly uninvited, we can neither detect nor measure things like rates of violence against women, the medical experiences, the social experiences of women and girls.

And, as for creationism, the reality of sex perhaps needs to be said by those with scientific authority, in unambiguous terms. Otherwise, we are living in a society that tolerates nonsense like there is no such thing as male or female, that differences evident to our own eyes are not real, that anatomies readily observable and existing in monkey and man alike do not actually exist. I’m sure this last assertion has the full support of the creationist community. And perhaps, as for creationism, a true tipping point will be tested when it is our children being taught these scientific untruths, or worse, when it is illegal to say different.

5. At the end of his trial, the only words Scopes uttered in court were these:

“Your honor, I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom—that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our constitution, of personal and religious freedom.”

I do not exaggerate when I say we are dealing with a new type of religion, a new form of creationism and a new assault on scientific truth. I also do not exaggerate when I say it may take a high profile court case to rebalance the public discourse around sex. There is only so far letters and opinion articles can go.

Two things I predict: 1. It will not be defended by the ACLU, and 2. With the recent proposals on hate speech law, it will probably involve a Scottish John Scopes, who finds themself in front of a judge for the seditious crime of discussing the sex life of asparagus at their dinner table.

Dr Emma Hilton is a developmental biologist studying aspects of human genetic diseases, and her current research focuses on a congenital motor neurone disease affecting the genitourinary tract, and on respiratory dysfunction in cystic fibrosis. She teaches reproduction, genes, inheritance and genetic disorders. Emma has a special interest in fairness in female sports. A strong advocate for women and girls, Emma tweets as @FondofBeetles.

#Anglo.txt

39 notes · View notes

writingwithadinosaur · 4 years

Text

“Under the Knife - Part 8

“Under the Knife” - Part 8

My Masterlist - Here

Story Masterlist - Here

My Tag List - Here

Hannibal Lecter x Reader, Will Graham x Sister!Reader

Word Count: 2,700-ish

Key: Chunks of text in italics are (Y/N)’s thoughts. Y/N = Your Name, H/C = Your Hair Color, E/C = Your Eye Color

Warnings: Cursing, Violence,

Summary: You are Will Graham’s sister who works with him at the FBI. When you get offered a job promotion, life starts to change. Some changes for the better; Some for the worst.

Author’s Note: This is my first Hannibal piece and I am proud of it. There aren’t too many stories for Hannibal, so I figured I would add to the collection.

This does take place in some happy medium where they are all alive and work together. Sort of a happier season 1 era.

This is beta-read by @theeactress, but please let me know if there is something that we missed or that we should look at again!

If you would like to be tagged in any of my future pieces, check out my tag list above and let me know! And as always, feedback is greatly appreciated!

- DreaSaurusREX

Tag List: @fruitloopzzz @theeactress @melconnor2007 @ashenfallsof @geeksareunique @all-by-myself98 @sj-thefan @fuck-your-bad-vibes-dude @ntlmundy @a-person-unlabled

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today was the first day in awhile that you didn’t feel any intense pressure weighing down on your shoulders. You walked into your office, prepared to have another day of trying to figure out the puzzle that was the Virginia Scalpel. But as soon as you shut the door, you realized that you didn’t have to worry about that anymore. It was a strange relief that you hadn’t ever felt.

Although Jack’s tactical team still hadn’t caught Henry Urik yet and you were unsettled by him still being out there, you weren’t as scared as before. The killer that had been teasing you and that had named you one of his next victims now had a name.

Jack’s team had all of the information that you and Hannibal could give them. You also had an armed agent watching over you and Hannibal until Henry was caught.

All you had to worry about at the moment was your 1 o’clock lecture on the “stereotypes of gender roles and how they can affect the psyche of an individual,” and then you could take a half day and go take a nap at home. Well, that and your dinner with Hannibal tonight. But even then, you weren’t as worried about that as you were about Henry still being out there.

Your lecture went by quickly, even the students seemed to understand everything rather easily. Only a couple asked a few questions for clarification after your presentation. Even with those students stopping you, you got out a bit earlier than anticipated. Looking at your watch, you realized that Will was going to be leading a lecture soon.

I should probably talk to him. And I do really miss those dogs.

After stopping by your office to grab your bag and close up, you weaved through the familiar hallways to the nearest coffee machine, getting two cups, making one how you like and one for Will. With both cups securely in your hands, you found the lecture hall he was assigned to today. You softly walked in, seeing your brother completely entranced in something on his laptop. Before you made it all the way into the room, you cleared your throat in effort to grab his attention. It worked. As soon as he located where the noise was coming from and saw you, he stood up and walked around to the other side of the desk.

“(Y/N)! Hey! Wh-what uh… What’s up?” You knew he was trying to not seem nervous, but you could see through him. You took a few steps closer and offered him the coffee cup, not seeing the probably empty one already on his desk. You tried to make your voice as comforting as you could.

“I was passing by and decided to stop by to ask you something.”

“Is everything okay?” Will was hesitant but took the coffee, looking all over you for any sort of tells as to what is going on.

“As okay as they can be.” You shrugged, not feeling anything in particular, which only added to Will’s worry and confusion.

“What’s going on, (Y/N)?”

You pause, seeing the visible uncomfortableness and growing fear in Will’s features. You quickly try to find a way to calm him down while getting to the point of why you’re here.

“Do you think the dogs would mind their favorite aunt stopping by for a drink tonight?” You couldn’t help the small smile that crept across your face as a slightly bigger one formed on Will’s. You could hear the extra air he let out in his chuckle, an obvious sigh of relief.

“I think they would really like that.” His smile faltered a tad as he looked down to his hands. He spoke quieter, as if unsure how you would react. “I would really like that.”

As he looked back towards your face to see your reaction, you met him with a sincere and reassuring smile.

“Good. Me too.” Another huff of relief from Will. “I have dinner plans with Hannibal tonight. But I was hoping I could just drive over afterwards for a nightcap?”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll have the good stuff ready and waiting for you.” Will took a breath in, trying his best to be careful with his words. “And, if that nightcap ends up turning into a few, you could crash at my place.”

Again, Will looked as if you were a powder keg about to explode if the wrong button was hit. You just closed the gap between the two of you and wrapped your arms around his torso, his finding their place around you.

Your brother was not fond of physical affection from a majority of people. But you were one of the very few that he not only tolerated, but sometimes felt a need for.

“I’ll pack an overnight bag just in case.” You pulled away and tapped your hand on his upper arm. “For now, I am going to go home and take a nap.

“Jack’s letting you go home early?” Will was genuinely surprised. Jack was never one for early dismissals.

“Well, considering I did finally find out the Virginia Scalpel’s real name last night and got all my work with that wrapped up, I think Crawford is a bit more lenient on what I do today.” You casually mention as you shrug.

“You did what?!” Will’s expression was one of shock and pride. A handful of students filed in behind you. A playful grin graced your face as you tapped his arm one more time before taking a couple of steps backwards.

“I’ll tell you all about it later tonight. I need to get ready for this assuredly anxiety-inducing dinner and you have a lecture to get through.” Will gave you a slightly annoyed look as you winked and walked away, talking over your shoulder. “I’ll call you when I’m on my way.”

You couldn’t see it, but Will just shook his head and let his smile linger a bit longer before turning his attention towards his class. As much as he worried about you during this case, he was very proud of his little sister.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When you got back to your apartment, you tried to take a nap. Key word: tried. Your brain would not calm down enough for you to fall asleep for even a quick cat nap. The coffee that you got before meeting with Will probably didn’t help.

After tossing and turning for 30 minutes, you gave up and decided to make some tea and get some cleaning done around your place. You hadn’t been able to do laundry thanks to the case, so you finally started to chisel away at that pile.

Once you had put the last load in the dryer, you looked at the clock and saw that it was 5 o’clock. You had an hour before you were supposed to be at Hannibal’s. Might as well take my time and get ready.

After fussing with finding a comfortable but semi-formal outfit to match Hannibal’s aesthetic, you quickly packed a backpack with some overnight things. You were sure you’d end up talking to Will for longer than you both intend, meaning you’d either be too tipsy or too tired to drive home safely.

With the last of your laundry out of the machine and plopped onto your bed for you to put away later, you grabbed your keys and headed out the door. Preparing for anything to happen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As per usual, you pulled up to Hannibal’s five minutes early thanks to taking some backroads. You put the car in park and took the keys from the ignition, but you didn’t move. There was a tightening feeling in your chest. You tried to close your eyes for a moment and take some deep breaths.

Dinner won’t be bad. Hannibal is a trained psychologist. If anyone is going to be able to guide the conversation into a calmer place, it's gonna be him. Plus you know damn well that you miss spending time with him that isn’t plagued by confusion or the fuckin Virginia Scalpel. You two are adults. You can talk about literally anything and be okay.

So why am I still anxious?

Because you had your eyes closed, you didn’t see Hannibal approach your car. So when he opened your door, you instinctually jumped back and gasped.

“My apologies, (Y/N). I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you alright?”

“No. It's fine. I’m fine. I was just taking a breather.” Hannibal nodded, sensing that you didn’t want to expand on this further. So instead he held out his hand.

“Shall we then? I have some salmon in the oven that is awaiting your judgment.” He let one of those small side smiles of his grace his face in an attempt to comfort you as you reached for his hand and he helped you out of your car, shutting the door behind you once you got your purse.

Unlike usual, Hannibal led you to the dining room as opposed to the kitchen. He pulled out a chair for you. After you settled in, he poured you a cup of water and a glass of wine as he spoke.

“Everything is prepared, I just need to take the salmon out. I won’t be long.” You just thanked him and nodded as you took a sip of water.

Within a couple of minutes, Hannibal was walking in with two plates that looked just as artistic and beautiful as he normally presents. The main part was a rather large piece of salmon with thin lemon slices laid across the top, paired with a mix of halved grape tomatoes, white asparagus, and the same twirly romanesco broccoli that you had tried the last time you had dinner with Hannibal.

“This looks wonderful, Hannibal. Thank you.” You said as he sat down. The two of you started to eat, both of you trying to figure out how best to start the conversation that you knew was coming. Hannibal was the first to speak up.

“Are you planning on going somewhere?" You were caught off guard, not expecting this to be the starting point of your talk with him.

"What makes you say that?"

"I couldn’t help but notice the slightly overstuffed bag in your passenger seat. I assume it's for staying the night somewhere other than your own apartment. And while you’re always welcomed to stay here if you wanted, I don’t think you would without asking me first."

“Then you would be right. I wouldn’t impose on you like that.” You went to take a sip of your wine as you looked at Hannibal. He gave you a look that said that he knew there was more that you needed to share. “I talked to Will briefly today and we made plans for tonight. We are finally going to talk this all out. The bag is for in case I end up getting too tired and sleep on his couch."

Hannibal gave a slight nod before cutting off a piece of salmon and continuing the conversation.

“I'm sure Will is happy to finally have a moment to talk with you and share his side of the story."

“I'm sure he is.” You took a sip of your wine, bracing yourself for the unavoidable topic. “How about you, Hannibal?” Hannibal looked towards you and raised a curious brow. “What's your side of the story?”

Hannibal took a sip of water before turning his body slightly more towards you, giving you his full attention as he finally spoke on what he had been thinking about saying for days now.

“Will came to me rather distraught after you had said that you were going to accept Jack’s offer. It was my idea to insert myself into Crawford’s team as background support. And while my original intention for joining the Scalpel case was to ease Will’s mind, I couldn’t ignore my own reasons.” Hannibal reached a hand out and grabbed yours, you felt your cheeks warm at the unexpected contact. He was so gentle with you as he spoke sincerely.

“After seeing Will crack again and again under Crawford’s intense force on the handful of cases that they worked on, I was worried you would also be damaged under his leadership. I cannot deny that I do truly care about you and your wellbeing. And with this being your first time handling a major active case, I wanted to be there in case something were to happen to you.”

You weren’t sure what to say. Hannibal had not only told you that it wasn’t Will’s idea to have him follow you, but he admitted that he cared about you. The trouble was that you couldn’t tell if it was the type of caring that you had secretly longed for with a more romantic relationship with Hannibal or if it was similar to how your brother cares about you. You wanted to ask, but the words wouldn’t fit together and be coherent enough for you to vocalize.

While you struggled to figure out how to respond, Hannibal lifted your hand to his lips and kissed the back of your hand softly before putting it down and reaching for his glass of wine, raising it in your direction.

“Here’s to you and your impressive mind. Without you, who knows how long it would have taken to find out the true identity of the infamous Virginia Scalpel.” You raise your glass and gently tap his, finally able to form a coherent thought again.

“I’m sure Crawford would have just asked for your help or maybe even Will’s if I hadn’t said yes. I got lucky with this one.” You took a sip of your wine, savoring the sweetness of it as you started to slice the fish on your plate. “Honestly, I don’t think I would have figured it out without you inadvertently helping me.”

“How so?” Hannibal questioned before taking a bite of salmon.

“When you came to check on me after the lab meeting, I went on to say something about being your friend and colleague but not your patient. And that’s when it hit me that we weren’t looking in the right demographic.”

There was a moment of silence as Hannibal thought about where to go from this information.

“And how do you feel now?” You finished the bite of food that you had and looked at your water cup, not wanting Hannibal to see into your eyes even though he was already watching you rather intensely. Trying to read all of the nonverbal indications you were giving.

“I feel okay. Well, as okay as I can be. That insane pressure of figuring out who the hell Henry Urik is was bigger than anything I’ve had to deal with since I started working with the FBI. But there is still the fact that Jack’s team still hasn't found him that has been really messing with me. That and the anxiety of finally having this talk with you and my brother.”

“I hope that some of that anxiety has worn away now that we have resolved things between us?”

“Some. But I can’t help but be worried until everything is settled.”

“You now know that protecting you was my intention when I joined the Scalpel case. I don’t intend for that promise to end with this case being closed.” Hannibal’s hand casually found yours again, making you focus even more on what he was saying (if it was even possible to focus more.)

“I promise to do everything in my power to make sure you feel safe and taken care of.”

His warm hand was instantly comforting and you hadn’t realized how much you craved physical affection from him, even in the smallest forms. Your heart swelled at his vow.

Before you could fully process what he had said, the click of a gun being armed and a very different voice demanded your attention from the other side of the room. A man with messy red-brown hair cocked and aimed a pistol right at you.

“I don’t know if you wanna make that promise so soon, doc.”

#hannibal #hannibal lecter #Hannibal TV #hannibal fanfiction #hannibal lecter x reader #hannibal fandom #hannibal lecter / reader #will graham x reader #will graham #will graham / reader #will graham x sister!reader #Will Graham x Sibling!Reader #Sibling!Will Graham #Sibling!Will Graham x Reader

101 notes · View notes

askthefamous8 · 4 years

Note

Hi. I wonder how was the first date, James and Edward (sorry for mistakes in text, I use the translation). P.S. This is the best and beautiful couple

Alright so I ended up writing way more than I initially meant to (I’m so sorry) so I’m putting it under a read more. Here’s Edward and James’ first date. Also wow, this ask was sent almost exactly 3 years ago. May 2, 2017. Yikes. but uh..hopefully this makes up for it?

James was eager to impress Edward and arranged their date to be at a rather fancy restaurant. On paper, everything should have gone perfectly. Fine dining and good company (James was on his best behavior, of course). Everything went as expected and they met at the restaurant. James, for once, had planned ahead and booked them a table! “Reservation for Álvarez,” he’d said, giving Edward a smug little side glance. For most people this wouldn’t be remarkable as it makes perfect sense to book a table in advance, but for James it was a notable effort.

As I said, everything was going as perfectly as it could. Inside James was nervous as all hell but he was disguising it remarkably well. They ordered their food– James requesting no asparagus and Edward requesting no tartar sauce, Edward selected the wine, and they snacked on some authentic-looking breadsticks. The conversation never dwindled into an awkward silence and the their main course arrived in the middle of Edward recounting a particularly amusing incident with Henry from some years ago.

A few minutes after they’d begun eating, Edward appeared thoughtful. He excused himself to use the restroom, leaving James at the table. James had a moment of insecurity, but assured himself that, surely, Edward is far above ditching someone in the middle of a meal. Everything’s fine. Five minutes went by. Then it was ten. Then it was fifteen. At the thirty-minute mark, James, whose temper was rather short even without first-date anxiety wearing down the fuse, was caught perfectly in between fury and despair. Was Edward hoping James would give up and leave? Had he ran out while James wasn’t looking? The food was cold, the wine bottle was empty, and James’ patience had dried up completely. He stood up and went to see if Edward was even in the bathroom. He’d probably left, leaving James with a fat bill when he lived in a one-bedroom flat while Edward lived in a cushy three-bedroom house. Of all the inconsiderate-

And then he found him. Or at least, he saw his shoes. And his legs, in the pitiful position one takes when one is at the mercy of one’s very upset stomach. James knocked on the stall door, any anger replaced by mellow confusion and a bit of concern.

“…Edward?”

The ever-unpleasant sound of someone– Edward– retching into the toilet.

“You, uh… You alright?”

“No,” was the exasperated reply, punctuated with a groan, then a gag. There was a quiet click, and the stall door hung open slightly. James stepped forward and peeked in. There was Edward, indeed pitiful, clutching the toilet. He flushed and the ex-contents of his stomach vanished from sight.

“Jesus, Edward, what happened?”

Edward sighed wearily, not looking at James. “I, um... I’m lactose intolerant..........severely. Lactose intolerant.”

James thought for a moment, realizing that, wow, now it makes sense why Edward always very firmly denied having any ice cream on common room movie night. James quickly pushed the thought away, almost embarrassed at such a sidetracked observation.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“I didn’t think...” Edward gagged. “It was relevant information. I asked for no t-“ he gagged again. “The...the fish sauce, but there must have been milk in the mash. And...” He sighs again, glancing back at James. “It’s something I’m a bit self conscious about. I’m not sure why.”

And there’s the first awkward silence of the evening.

After what feels like an eternity (it was only 10 seconds) James asks if there’s anything he can do. Edward replies weakly, “Just take me home.”

With those four words James felt his heart completely deflate, and he could almost swear he physically felt any chance he had with Edward go down the toilet.

“Call a taxi or something...”

James leaned against the stall wall and sighed, folding his arms. “I don’t have any cash.”

“Oh god-“ Edward retched again, though nothing came out. “Neither do I.”

James thought for a moment. He knew what he had to do but Edward wasn’t going to like it. “I’ll be right back.”

So James leaves, Edward locks the stall again, and slumps himself over the toilet. He was much too tired to care what trouble James might get himself into. Well, not so tired that he didn’t care, but he didn’t have the strength to physically do anything. So he just stayed there, willing his stomach to settle.

And then... he hears some shouting? Was there a fight? Perhaps some patron who’d had too much to drink. Edward closed his eyes. It wasn’t his problem.

Except it was.

Suddenly he realized it was James’ voice he heard, somewhere distant in the restaurant, though he couldn’t understand every word: “... everyone! I hope you’re listening! ... in the toilet puking his guts up right now! ... don’t look at me like that, he had what you’re having!”

Oh god, what is he doing? Edward thinks. He hears a loud crash, the sound of glass breaking, and someone else scream. Oh for god’s sake–

Edward forces himself up, praying to a god he wasn’t sure he believed in that he’d be done vomiting for the night, and stumbles out the door.

“See?? Look at the state he’s in!”

And the eyes of every patron in the restaurant were on Edward. He surveyed the room– as best he could anyway, he was still a little dizzy. James appeared to be in a fierce argument with someone Edward could only assume to be a manager of some sort. Next to him was an upturned table– it appeared to have been unoccupied at the time, thankfully. Edward mournfully connected the dots in his head.

James rushed to Edward’s side, adding a rather dramatic flair to his voice. Whether he also meant to sound a bit drunk is up for debate. “You see what your food has done to this poor pathetic soul?”

The manager was very red in the face at this point. “Look, if you want a refund-”

“KEEP YOUR DIRTY MONEY!” James shrieked.

The manager seethed. “I was going to say, you hadn’t payed for your dinner, yet. We can’t offer you a refund.”

James paused. Edward wished he was invisible. In fact, a small part of him wished that the god he wasn’t sure he believed in would bless him with a heart attack right there on the spot. The restaurant was utterly silent. Somewhere a baby cried.

James cleared his throat. “Are you going to call us a taxi or not?” He could see a vein bulging on the manager’s forehead.

“Anything as long as it’ll get you out.”

And so, the manager called a taxi and some nice strong men escorted them outside to wait. James’ plan had worked, even if he’d gone perhaps a little too far. Flipping a table was perhaps a tad bit unnecessary, but he didn’t really mean to. It was some of the anger and frustration he was feeling from the disastrous date he’d just been on. If it wasn’t his fault before, it certainly was now. Just like everything else that goes wrong in his life, right?

Thankfully, Edward didn’t vomit again for the rest of the night. He had terrible stomach cramps on the drive home, which James wished he could have helped, but couldn’t, so he was silent.

After a very pitiful drive home (the taxi driver could not take a hint and kept trying to make small talk with the men in the backseat, not seeming to notice that one of them was holding a hand to his mouth and burping every other minute), James walked Edward to his doorstep. He helped him inside, to his room, and into bed. Edward passed out moments after he hit the bed. James, who was feeling very awkward, having never been in Edward’s bedroom before and was now technically watching him sleep and oh my god that’s so creepy-

“James?”

James nearly shrieked again but managed to stifle it. Startled out of his little trance he swiftly departed the room and closed the door. Bill and Ben were in the hallway, having come downstairs for a late night snack, but now facing a near-stranger in their home.

“What the hell are you doing here?” “You were Edward’s date????” “What did you do to him???”

“I didn’t do anything!” James whispered harshly. “He didn’t tell me, or the waiter, that he’s lactose intolerant. If police come to the door asking about property damage just tell them it was his date and I’ll pay for it later.””

“Police??” “Property damage??”

But James had already left. Edward didn’t come into to work the next day, but James was secretly glad. He didn’t want to have to face him today. Or the next day. Or ever, preferably. In fact, maybe it’d be better if James just left the country. He doubted Edward would ever want to speak to him again.

But when Edward returned to work, he looked as neat and tidy as ever. James couldn’t get the image of him slumped over a toilet out of his mind, but he was starting to succeed in convincing himself he’d just imagined it. He’d imagined the whole date, in fact! It was just a bad dream. Nothing is real!

You would think such a date would make someone like Edward run a thousand miles in the opposite direction. James did, anyway. But actually, when Edward returned, he had something to say to James. While the table flip was, indeed, very unnecessary, he realized that he only did it because he was trying to get Edward a ride home. It was sweet. In a violent, somewhat drunk sort of way. What he meant was, it was clear that James cared.

“So I thought I’d offer dinner again. But at my house this time. I’ll cook, and I’ll make sure Bill and Ben stay out of sight.”

James felt like Satan himself had reached up, grabbed him, looked him over, tutted and gone, “hm, not yet,” and went to throw him back to Earth, but overshot and launched James into Heaven itself.

What I mean is that James felt blessed to get a second chance.

Edward tried to return to the restaurant the following week to pay for their dinner, but he was met with a polite, but very stern, notice that he was now banned from this restaurant chain until he paid for the damages caused by his boyfriend.

By reflex Edward started to correct the polite but very stern man, but stopped himself. Hm. James, my boyfriend, he thought to himself. Then he smiled. What a funny thought indeed.

He’d pay for the damages later.

#James the red engine #Edward the blue engine #ttte humanized #thomas and friends #james #edward #dandy boy #Anonymous #writings #sleepy speaks

54 notes · View notes

spelviin · 4 years

Text

even though matt and anthony really did the heavy lifting in this episode, i gotta shoutout some very good glenn moments

giving darryl a little more space than the others did to talk to grant even though he was fully eavesdropping just as much as they were

EXPRESSING AN EMOTION!!!! y’all, glenn allowed himself to actually express a genuine emotion in front of other people and i legit think this might be the first time in the whole podcast that i can recall other than literally having a convo with his dead wife i am SO PROUD OF HIM! you fuckin express those feelings hell yeah four for you glenn clo-clo you go glenn clo-clo

also that lil beat at the end where he asked henry about asparagus was very sweet i just love those lil friendship moments

#og #this was a Very Good Episode you guys my heart is so full

34 notes · View notes

vickyvicarious · 4 years

Note

well now I have to headcanon that Killian enjoys cooking

(Regarding this gifset.)

Anon I agree. I very much agree. To a... schmoopy amount, so prepare yourself.

Emma spent most of her adult life living alone, and a decent amount of her childhood essentially raising herself. She’s gained a lot of skills from those experiences - the useful but depressing stuff, like clocking liars and abusers from ten paces, how to get a good deal at a pawn shop, how to shoplift, to break into cars, how to fill the silence with music so loud you stop thinking about how lonely you are, how to fire a gun, exactly how far ten dollars can stretch if you need. Sure, she’s learned all that.

But some of the stuff is just plain useful. Emma’s known for a long time how to manage her money, how to do laundry, how to keep a house clean, how to sew up rips in your clothes to make them last longer, how to cook. Some of those skills she hasn’t needed in a long time, and others she doesn’t use much just because she doesn’t like to, and she no longer has to. Still, even if she doesn’t especially love cooking, for example, she isn’t actually forced to live on takeout. Before Storybrooke, that was more of... a choice.

(Eating alone in your own home has never been something she’s liked. At least in a bar or a restaurant, she could hear other people, watch them.)

Living with Mary-Margaret, she wound up cooking a little more often, and during her time in New York she remembers making dinner with Henry most days. He was pretty awful in the kitchen himself, could burn water, so she didn’t let him do anything too important, but it was more about the companionship. Even having him doing his homework in the kitchen while she whipped something up was just as good. Sure, there was still pretty regular order-in days, and they ate out sometimes, but for the most part they actually had real meals together. She remembers making a decision to do that when he was still small, to always set aside this time to cook and eat together and share their days.

It was a curse memory, fake, but Emma liked that routine. Even after moving back to Storybrooke, at least once everything eventually settled, she tries to keep that going. She still doesn’t especially love cooking - it’s more about the end result for her, having that time to sit down together as a family and enjoy something you made together.

So when she and Killian started living together, she made sure to tell him. Emma wanted him to know everything that mattered to her, wanted him to be involved in it. She... also wanted to know ahead of time, if he was terrible in the kitchen and shouldn’t be allowed anywhere nearby. His other household skills were a bit of a hit-or-miss. He was really good at cleaning, but could never remember when to take the trash out. Maybe she expected him not to have any skill with plumbing or cleaning out the gutters, or using a washing machine, and to be fair he learned those all pretty quickly, but she was surprised when it turned out Killian didn’t know how to fold anything neatly. If a lightbulb went out, he usually just ignored it, lit an actual gas lantern if there wasn’t enough light. He actually had a lot of interest in how to decorate the house, but hated changing the thermostat for some reason, preferring to just wear more layers if it got cold.

Anyway, the point was - she was pretty sure he’d be fine with the idea of family dinners, knew he’d be willing to help even if it were just via setting and clearing the table and doing the grocery shopping, but she wasn’t sure if he’d be interested in actually making the food. And more than that, she wasn’t sure he’d be any good. He had, after all, lived most of his life on ships that had actual cooks to take care of that kind of thing. It might just be something he couldn’t do.

She definitely didn’t expect the way his face lit up at the idea.

“That sounds brilliant, love,” he told her. “You’ll show me how to use everything?”

Of course she agreed, and Killian had always been a quick learner (which was why she kept finding herself surprised at the chores he never seemed to pick up). So the way she only had to explain each modern cooking implement once was not a surprise. He was good with a knife, so she put him on veggie duty, and they made a simple but tasty chicken dish. Nothing unusual, pretty much the kind of cooking she always did. Quick and easy, healthy enough, didn’t taste amazing but definitely not terrible either.

When they sat down to dinner Killian’s face did... something.

It wasn’t quite a sneer.

It also wasn’t quite not a sneer.

“Well, it’s alright,” he said.

Those comments became increasingly common over the next few days. Emma’s pasta sauce was “a tad runny, but not bad,” and her tacos “could use a bit more spice,” and her ribeyes were “perhaps a little too long on the stove, love?” and her Sunday morning pancakes needed “a splash more buttermilk, I suspect.” Killian wasn’t picky, he ate every bite, and he didn’t exactly nag her about her cooking. Just one or two comments, not necessarily even directed at her so much as him musing aloud about the food. But every side dish he made tasted amazing, even if it was just a simple salad, and he very clearly had opinions and it wasn’t like Emma even liked cooking all that much anyway. She’d never claimed to be a genius at it. But she’d never admitted to being bad either, and the little snubs over and over got increasingly irritating until one day she just snapped that he should be in charge of dinner then, if he cared so much.

Killian instantly looked contrite.

“I don’t want to step on your toes, love,” he said. “If you enjoy cooking - just maybe another shake of the pepper next time -”

“I don’t like cooking,” Emma snarled, “I just like eating together. Except I’m liking it a lot less when I’m constantly getting criticized!”

“Oh,” he said, a little taken aback. “Oh. Well, then.”

And then he completely took over.

It started with him making her own staple recipes, just being the one in charge of the actual meals. He told her she didn’t have to help if she didn’t want to, and Emma was pissed enough to agree that she wouldn’t. Except then the simple pan chicken she’d been making for ten years came out tasting like it never had before, and there was this sort of lemon-y sauce with it? And he’d made asparagus and some kind rice pilaf thing as well, and even though he claimed he’d just “tweaked it a little” it was so clearly a completely different meal. A better meal. Definitely.

He went through all her favorites like that, completely elevating them beyond anything Emma had ever dreamed of making herself. They took longer, of course, but unlike her he didn’t care. He’d be in there for an hour or more; she’d hear him singing sea shanties to himself as he kneaded homemade bread. Whenever she (begrudgingly, at first) complimented his cooking he’d get this very sweet smile on his face. He rarely seemed satisfied with his own efforts either, still making little comments about how it was a shame the bread had come out a little too chewy, after all -

It was ridiculous. And that was before he started trying to recreate various meals he’d eaten over the course of his long life, a wide variety of vastly different foods he cobbled together from memory and instinct alone. She started helping him out more often, definitely over her irritation at this point and dipping right into fascination. She liked to watch him think, the way he’d dip his hook into a sauce then suck on the tip with his brows knitted together, before adding a little more of some seasoning or other. Now that he was in charge and no longer holding back out of respect for her feelings - or whatever the hell he’d been doing at the start - he’d talk through his decisions. Whether that was muttering aloud about needing more garlic, or telling a long and convoluted story about the first time he’d had this particular curry in a tiny dockside tavern and then delayed leaving port until he could at least partially figure out the recipe from taste alone - thus setting off a chain of events that led directly to his first near-death experience at the hands of mermaids. When he’d come back five years later, the tavern was gone.

Their spice cabinet grew, and their fridge filled up. The pantries too, and the cooking implements, though that happened more gradually. They’d started off with a coffee machine that automatically brewed a pot every morning; five months into living together, Killian acquired a French press and, always an early riser, ground beans himself every morning as she woke up. By the time she got out of the shower and downstairs, he would hand her a cup with exactly the right temperature, flavor, and timing. This went along with the breakfast he’d made, of course.

Emma bought him a set of cookbooks for Christmas; Henry got him some kind of complicated food processor that led to a sharp increase in soups and smoothies and sauces. His repertoire increased. Instead of going to Grannies for New Year’s Eve, they had a party for their family, and Killian went all-out on making a giant feast with Emma and Henry as his hapless assistants. She tried to tell him New Year’s was really more about partying than dinner, but he insisted he didn’t care and made a roast. It was obviously delicious, everyone who hadn’t had much of Killian’s cooking yet lost their minds a little and he alternated between incredibly smug and that familiar bashful grin. Later, they had some kind of pudding for dessert, and played board games for a while until everyone had digested enough to actually move - only then did more traditional festivities commence. They drank, danced, sang, all watched the ball drop and shouted the countdown together; and Emma kissed Killian at midnight, feeling a sharp burst of joy that finally, she could have something like this. Starting a new year surrounded by those she loved, and who loved her back, laughing giddily and dancing together with her parents and her son and the man she’d fallen so so hard for.

But even that paled, honestly, to the next morning. They hadn’t bothered with attempting to clean up, just waved everyone out the door where they’d stumbled down the street in a loud, happy cluster. Emma’d sent Henry to bed, then grabbed Killian and yanked him to their bed, and they hadn’t gone to sleep right away at all. When she did eventually fall asleep, it was blissful and slow, sated in every possible way - and well into the night.

When she woke up, late, it was to an empty bed, sunlight filling up the room. Going downstairs, she heard that familiar low croon from the kitchen; stepped over the streamers still scattered on the living room floor and rounded the corner to see Henry slumped at the table, yawning over a plate of pancakes. Killian at the stove, timing his song to a flip of the newest pancake. She could see blueberries in it. Coffee and orange juice waiting for her at the table. Bacon. Three different kinds of syrup.

Emma started crying.

Henry jerked up out of his chair, rushing to her in a panic. He held her arms and called her over and over, “Mom, mom, what is it?”. Killian moved the pan off the heat so it wouldn’t burn then came over to her too, gently touching her arm. He didn’t say anything, just looked at her.

“Mom, please,” Henry said, and pulled her into a hug - and he was so tall now, so much bigger than he’d been when he found her all that time ago. “Tell us how we can help.”

She shook her head, unable to speak clearly enough to explain they already had, that absolutely nothing was wrong and it hadn’t been for a while now. She didn’t know how to tell them exactly how monumental it felt, walking in here and seeing them both calmly engaged in such a familiar routine. How she’d woken up alone and had been doing so for months and never once worried Killian was gone. She knew he was downstairs, making breakfast.

Emma didn’t know how to say this was the moment she finally realized she had made a home, found a family, and that neither was ever going to be taken away. She didn’t even know why this was that moment, after all the more significant events they’d been through. It didn’t make sense that her deepest doubts would suddenly be banished by a simple breakfast she’d had countless times before.

“You made my favorite,” she sobbed instead, hugging Henry back tightly. She pressed her cheek into his hair, reached out to catch Killian’s hand and tried to blink past her tears to meet his gaze. “I-it’s my favorite breakfast.”

So stupid. So insignificant, after everything, so small, so - so important somehow, the most important thing in the world. Killian had made her favorite breakfast. Henry was there to eat it. Emma hadn’t cooked herself or asked him to make blueberry pancakes specifically or for either of hem to share this moment with her, hadn’t done anything besides sleep in. And it didn’t matter. Here they were, and Henry was always sleepy in the mornings but affectionate still, and Killian’s cooking was delicious and he always sang during and Emma loved them both so much.

Henry held onto her tightly, swayed on the spot a little. Killian reached out to wipe away her tears. He moved his hand to Henry’s shoulder, squeezed gently until he stilled, and then touched the back of his hook gently to her cheek and leaned over Henry to kiss her. Soft and slow.

“I know, Emma,” he told her after, smiling so soft and his voice rough with emotion. Emma had no doubt that he understood exactly what she meant; that he knew just what she couldn’t say and he felt that wonder too. That same incredible contentment, somehow more stunning than the fiercest joy. “I know.”

#captain swan #cs ff #ouat #my fic #replies #anonymous #i haven't written an askbox cs fic in so long and it feels so gooood #i got really emotional with this one i dunno. not what i was thinking when i started it at all #but yes killian cooks #also i know there are tense errors and stuff. i wrote this straight into the response box and have not edited. will get to it later

12 notes · View notes

losingitinjersey · 5 years

Photo

First things first - IT Chapter 2 was everything and more for me. I’ll put my review under a “read more” line below for anyone who feels like clicking through.

@zerocarb requested a lipsticked SDS awhile back so here you go! My movie watching outfit of an olive green shirt paired with a black skirt. Definitely a fan of this outfit and will be repeating. Tagging @healthyhappymari, @gainingmomentum and @busylivinnow to share your beautiful faces should you care to.

I have just one episode left of “The Boys” to watch tonight and I’m already lamenting having no more to watch. You should have seen my eyes bugger out of my head when I was watching and realized who the guy in the screenshot is.

Now that I’ve seen IT I am pouring over all the subreddits I’ve been avoiding and bingeing on content, comments and opinions about the film. Having followed the production of these films for the last 3+ years, it’s definitely been keeping my attention. Please enjoy this Monday meme that’s on topic :)

Breakfast this morning was greek yogurt with dried cranberries and granola paired with iced decaf coffee. I had a very busy work day (like they all seem to be lately) but today was the first day with my new CEO. Thankfully, I’ve known him for the last few years and he’s a really great guy. I feel very fortunate to have had three kind leaders the last three years. Looking forward to finding a groove with him. It’s always slightly challenging at the beginning learning how each other operates.

At my lunch break today I walked over to the mall to pick up a birthday card for a co-worker, after work I ran by Walgreens to grab something for Kevin then hit up a grocery store to pick up flowers for the birthday tomorrow. Then I came home and immediately started making dinner so it would be ready when Kevin got home from his meeting. He’s been doing keto and we had ground beef to cook so I made this casserole dish along with a side of asparagus and onions. Unfortunately, we should have communicated better because he had already eaten before coming home. Oh well, at least I don’t have to make dinner tomorrow! After dinner I cleaned up the kitchen, ran the dishwasher, ran a load of laundry and put clothes away before finally sitting down at 8 p.m. I feel like such an accomplished working professional! I can’t imagine doing all of this with a baby. I feel very fortunate that she’s still inside of me and I don’t have to do all of this plus take care of her. Five months from now is going to be a very different story.

Okay, IT review is under the break! And nope, no spoilers here.

Personally, Chapter 2 did the book justice and I honestly think was even more enjoyable than Chapter 1 (I know! How can it be?! It was just that good). The film was humorous throughout, never took itself too seriously but also had incredible heart. The casting was spot on, especially for Richie, Eddie, Ben and Henry Bowers. Richie and Eddie positively made the movie(s) for me. Their wit, realistic swearing and constant jabs were so enjoyable to watch. I was a Bill Hader fan prior to this movie but now I’m even more sold on him. But truly, I feel like Bill Hader and James Ranscome were simply channeling the sharp performances Finn Wolfhard and Jack Dylan Grazer gave.

Yes, there were obvious strays from the book but I don’t feel like any of them took away from the story. The nearly three-hour run time flew by and by the end I was sobbing pretty hard. Not that it’s an especially sad ending or movie, although I was tearing up throughout it, it’s just that this story means so much to me. Much more than I realize until I’m confronted with it.

I can’t wait to see this movie again. And yes, while it’s technically a horror movie, as someone who doesn’t enjoy horror movies don’t let the genre scare you away from watching these movies about childhood friendships, the feeling of being a kid during summer, shared trauma and coming home again.

#it #it chapter 2 #it review #it chapter 2 review #stephen king #kiss me fatboy #selfie #sds #the boys #keto dinner #pregblr #22 weeks #plus size pregnancy #ootd

33 notes · View notes

surejo · 4 years

Photo

— ❄ TASK THREE: THE CORMAC FAMILY TREE

MATRIARCH: Lucille “Lucy” Cormac ( Carla Gugino )

PATRIARCH: Benjamin Cormac ( Henry Thomas )

SPAWN™: Josephine “Jo” Cormac ( Victoria Pedretti )

SLET: Asparagus (The Theatre Cat)

LUCILLE “LUCY” CORMAC (WOULD BE 48, BUT RIP): a teacher. introduced jo to t.s. eliot’s “old possum’s book of practical cats” ( and skipped over the blatantly racist ones, love that wwii propaganda ) and we hate her for that. we also stan her tho. 11/10 mom, would defend jo to her dying breath. which happened. lmao get wreckt. almost got sole custody of jo, but died a truly horrifying death ( tw: drowning, car accident ) was hit by a car. didn’t actually harm her, but it was an icy day. skidded. car was too much weight for what she skidded onto to handle. rip.

BENJAMIN CORMAC (48): ( tw: implications of various forms of abuse ) used to be in an ac/dc cover band, so you already know he’s a douche. became a carpenter later on. still stayed in his ac/dc cover band (dc/ac), so he was still a douche. anger problems. epitome of :\ when lucy died because... ya, he’ll miss her... but also... he just wanted jo as a bargaining chip and now he actually has to provide for her? :\ character gregory anton was probs based off of him even though benjamin wouldn’t be born until,, like,, 30 years after. hates life and makes it known. still in dc/ac.

JOSEPHINE “JO” CORMAC (24): everyone either hates her or should hate her because she likes ‘cats’ ( the musical, movie, and book it was based off of ).

ASPARAGUS “GUS” (THE THEATRE CAT) (15): black cat with some white specks. old. got him at a shelter. he had no dignity. he still has no dignity, what considering he’s part of jo and cindy’s theatre troupe. great cat tho. 11/10. best friends with cal. coworker of rabbert.

#bigbeartask3 #we luv copouts!! thank u hill house!!#i decided to take the blurbs a LITTLE bit more seriously in this one since the family wasnt AS talked abt in the intro #but lmao.#ok. pls make fun of ivan's graphic. but sumn went super awry when i was making this one.#wld've been bad no matter what but. i must!! be left be!! rose can attest!!

4 notes · View notes

starrynyxa · 5 years

Text

STARRY...to the best of Nyxa’s recollection

(this is gonna be so inaccurate im sorry, im really making this up as i go)

Okay so at first we have the prologue with Jo Bonger. She’s like, possibly showing off Vincent’s art work. POSSIBLY. The rest of the cast are holding up frames, and when they step through the frames, it’s like. Being transported back in time??? The Starry Instagram have posted vids of this part on their account.

So after the prologue we go into Impress Me, which I believe is like. Theo Van Gogh is an art dealer and the galleries are like “impress me! Find us some good ass art my dude!”. And Theo is like “All you want are fuckinnnn paintings of asparagus. What’s up with all these asparagus paintings huh?? What about something new and exciting?”

So Theo is kinda discouraged and he meets up with his brother, Vincent Van Gogh. And Vincent shows him a painting and Theo is like “This is great! (That’s the title of the song) Brother, I’m tellin ya, my dude, amazing. I can get your paintings in a gallery.” And then they sing about how together they’re gonna achieve great things (A New Horizon).

And then I think Theo takes Vincent to the Tambourin Café where some artists hang out and he meets Paul Gauguin (Jeff Blim’s character) , Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (I remember that he drinks a lot and has a flask in his cane), Émile Bernard (19 year old boy/brat I can’t remember which), and Agostina Segatori (runs the cafe), and more. So in the song United in Distaste, they meet Vincent and they’re all like blahhh nobody wants to buy my paintings :((

Oh yeah also I forgot to mention that Theo runs into Jo, I think after Impress Me (?) and legit immediately proposes to her right then and there. Jo is like “wth no.” And then he later apologizes for being so direct and they’re both like ;) <3 and Theo sings A New Way to Love. And then Jo sings Enlightenment.

So over in the cafe, the artists are like “bruhhh I don’t wanna waste my life away here. What the heck are we doing, where are we going?” (This is the clip Jeff posted on insta)

And I don’t remember who but someone gets the idea like “hey! Why don’t we have an art show right here in the cafe?”

So they have the gallery (Gallery 1887) and some of them sell some of their paintings. Nice!

I literally don’t remember what happens now in these last two songs before the end of Act 1 so let’s pretend they don’t exist.

Oh yeah at some point during this there’s a Christmas party, Jo sings and “plays the piano”, and Theo proposes.

Act 2-

So Gauguin and Vincent like move to the Arles (the yellow house) to paint or something. Theo and Vincent exchange letters and Jo is like “let me write to him, he’s my brother in law” so that’s the song Sunlight and Storms. Some shit happens, Gauguin gets pissed, Vincent cuts off his ear and is now in a psychiatric hospital. So while there, Vincent is thinking bout that good good night sky and paints the iconic Starry Night (you can find a vid of Dylan Saunders singing this song. In the show the cast all hold little lights in their hands and it’s v pretty). Theo and Jo get Vincent’s art in a gallery and they’re writing him like “remember that one painting (i forgot which one exactly, it sold!”

But then Vincent like,,,,dies and not even that long after Theo dies too and Jo sings about getting Vincent’s paintings into galleries, and translating/publishing the letters and that is basically It.

Fin.

#I hope this was helpful and not some random bullshit lmao #nyxa posts #starry musical

79 notes · View notes

flwrpotts · 5 years

Text

anyways bc im tweaking here are my thots(tm) on riverdale x the secret history, the collab that didnt need to happen but i absolutely want to anyways:

- betty is obviously henry! she’s brilliant, the ringleader, and the one who masterminds the major plots. she’s also got the ruthless streak. there’s an argument for her as camilla, but honestly she much more fits the henry archetype

- im gonna make the argument that jughead is richard. he fits the outsider archetype, and also tends to be analytical and views people in a fairly neutral way. richard and jughead are both also the recorders of their respective stories and the ones writing them down.

- archie is charles. evidence: puppy that turns into the guy you sideye whenever he walks into the room. plenty of action but no control. tries really hard to do the right thing but ends up making situations worse

- i want to say veronica is camilla.....but also......do i really want to make that comparison answer no

- omg reggie is cloke rayburn. i just thought of this one as i was typing but that fits perfectly. sketchy drug dealer that gets pulled into the crime coverup with the rest of them and starts to unravel along the way

- i want to say kevin is francis bc “asparagus is in season” IS something kevin would say in response to murder plans going awry, but also kevin simply isn’t iconic enough for franics abernathy

- ethel is judy poovey no i will not be taking questions at this time

#honestly time for my yearly rereading of tsh im fully tweaking out #the secret history #riverdale

14 notes · View notes

twdmusicboxmystery · 5 years

Text

9x16: Details

Okay, let's dive into the details. These are in chronological order (not categorized by subject) which makes them feel a little haphazard. Bear with me.

Let me preface this by saying that I think Beth will return in S10, and probably fairly early in the season. So I think a lot of the details in this episode exist to point to how soon we’ll see her.

For example, we figured out a long time ago that Beth = water, right? So having snow at all, seeing parallels to Them or other previous Beth-heavy episodes except that there’s snow on the ground now, is really telling to me. Perhaps these parallels before, when it was hot = no Beth. Now that we see them again and there’s snow (Beth = water) it shows that she’s about to appear.

During the opening montage where Ezekiel talks on the radio, we see Carol and Ezekiel in their bedroom. They're facing separate directions. This is something the show has used before to show a couple isn't doing particularly well. They did the same thing in S7 with Richonne. We saw them waking up, facing away from one another. That was when Rick was doing as Negan wanted. Michonne didn't agree with his decision. So, they use this to show that a couple is in on the same page or isn't seeing eye to eye about something.

We also see Carol and Ezekiel closing the gates of the Kingdom together. That not only foreshadows their breakup at the end of the episode, but it supports what Angela said on TTD. This chapter of their lives is over. It’s not that their relationship is over and, who knows, the might return to the Kingdom at some point, but they’ll probably never be living happily together at the Kingdom in the same way they did during these past 8 years.

When Daryl gives Lydia food, the plate includes carrots (Carrot Theory) something green (looks like asparagus to me), apple sauce, and something red. I’m thinking maybe they’re kidney beans? So carrots are definitely a Beth thing, especially because of the King of Carrot Flowers thing in Alone. Applesauce is really jumping out at me, not only because of the Apple Theory but because Aaron specifically showed up with applesauce RIGHT after the music box woke up.

I also think we should note parallels between Lydia and Daryl here. She’s acting very much like he did in 5x10, after losing Beth. She even takes off, leaving the group during the journey, to be on her own, much like Daryl did. I think Daryl is taking care of her because he went through this exact same thing once. He knows she needs support right now.

Henry's box with all the cards reminded me of the music box. Which I suppose makes sense from a parallel standpoint. We didn’t see Beth’s music box until after Coda, and we didn’t see this box of Henry’s until after the pikes.

No one's heard from Maggie in a while. I'm sure that will end up playing into next season in some way.

We catch a glimpse of this blonde torso walker. It reminds me a lot of bicycle girl from 1x01. They said on TTD it’s an Easter egg for another movie, but if they were also going for a callback to 1x01, that suggests that perhaps someone (like Rick in 1x01) may be about to awaken.

When Jerry says the huge storm is coming, Ezekiel answers that they're going to have to travel through the night if they want to survive. That's obviously a huge piece of symbolism right there. The night representing trials and their fight for survival. Again, it just reminds me of 5x10, Them. They didn’t travel through the night in that episode, but they stayed awake most of the night, fighting to keep the barn doors shut. In other words, to survive.

Back in Alexandria, they have no power and decide that they need to keep everyone together in three places (the meeting room, Aaron’s house, and Barbara’s) to keep them warm and wait out the storm. We have a rule of 3s there. Also, we see red and green wires coming out of the radio in this scene.

On the road, Alden is somewhat mean to Lydia, and Daryl intervenes, telling him to lay off. @thegloriouscollectorlady is working on a much more detailed meta about this, but this is important because it shows us the contrast between Daryl and Lydia's relationship as compared to Daryl and Beth's relationship. Daryl is being very protective of Lydia and defending her against those who are being mean to her. Obviously Daryl was protective of Beth too, but for the most part, Beth did just fine defending herself.

Beth wouldn't let Daryl bring me to her and got in his face and told him to knock it off. Lydia, so far, is just be taking the abuse. Haters like to say that Daryl and Beth had a father/daughter relationship because of the age difference. This more or less disproves that argument. Daryl does have a father/daughter relationship with Lydia, and it's very different from his relationship to Beth, who challenged him and was his equal, rather than just someone he protected.

When Ezekiel asked Daryl to step back, the phrasing he used jumped out at me, because we’ve heard it before. He says, "I'm just trying to get back a piece of what I lost. What we lost.” In 5x16, Maggie says the same thing to Deanna. In defending Rick's meltdown with Pete the previous episode, Maggie told Deanna that Deanna didn’t understand “what we’ve lost. What we’ve all lost.” I always wanted to read into that, especially where Beth is concerned because that was only a few episode after Beth and Tyrese's deaths. Now, Zeke is using the same phrasing right after Henry dies, and Henry had a gazillion parallels to Beth.

Lydia almost lets the walker bite her and Carol sees. They said on TTD that this was a nod to how Carol died in the CBs, but I think it's more than that too. Carol herself has been suicidal before. She, like Morgan, is not someone who would actually kill herself. She's never tried and I don't think she ever will. But if you remember in 6x16, when she had the encounter with that Savior who shot her several times, and Morgan saved her, she kept asking him to kill her. So, I think part of the sadness of Carol seeing this is that she knows exactly how Lydia feels because she's been there before herself.

Back in Alexandria, Negan uses the line, "it's like Christmas to me." So just another Christmas reference. There have been so many in the last couple of episodes, they’re pretty hard to ignore.

Judith tells Negan that Dog has run off and is lost. She wants to look for him, but of course there's the blizzard. That really jumped out at me as a Sirius/Dog Star reference. Any dog on the show relates back to this symbolism, but here, Dog is specifically lost. Which means he has to return at some point, right? He does, before the end of the episode, but again, we’re literally talking about a dog who was lost for time and then returns.

The fireplace in the meeting room explodes. I really want to read into this, but I’m not sure exactly how. I think it could parallel to big burning events in the past, such as the burning of the prison or Terminus. (I talked earlier this week about how there are major parallels both to Alone and also to S5 before Daryl and Carol go to Atlanta to look for Beth.) So it depends on how you want to interpret it.

Eugene also says that what caused the explosion was that the chimney was gunked up. A mixture of creosote and H20. Creosote is just the black gunky stuff that really will block a chimney if it doesn’t get cleaned out. Obviously they haven’t used this chimney much and it hasn’t been properly cared for. I’m assuming the H20 comes in from the now and the storm. But it’s also interesting that we have a reference to a mixture of fire and water here. (Daryl = Fire, Beth = Water).

(Not to mention, the flashlight beam in the above pic looks a lot like the ones I’ve pointed out before, one of which was around Beth.)

Once the fireplace blows, they decide to squeeze into Aaron's house. I'm wondering if there's some significance to it being Aaron's house. They mention his house several different times, emphasizing it. I mean, they couldn't grant any house or any building. I'm not sure what the significance would be. We know that Aaron's been a proxy for Beth before, and he showed up right as the music box awakened. But I'm still not entirely sure how to relate back to this particular situation. Just something I noticed.

When Daryl and Carol talk at the Sanctuary, we heard the “it’s okay/not okay” theme. We’ve heard similar convos between Daryl and Carol before. In Strangers, for example. *ahem, right before they went to Atlanta to search for Beth; just saying* The two of them tend to say this when one of them is actually not okay but saying they are.

Daryl also says, “We’re gonna make it.” It's a dialogue foreshadow because they do. Maybe that's obvious, but if one of them wasn't going to make it to Alexandria, they wouldn’t have included this line in the conversation. We can always rely on dialogue parallels.

Carol also says she's losing herself and doesn't think she can hang on. I didn’t catch this reference but Angela explained it on TTD and I went back to find it.

When Carol and Ezekiel first got together back at the end of S8 after she saved Henry, she told him about Sophia. She said (and I paraphrase bc I didn’t get all this down in my notes, “I had a daughter. When I lost her, I was nothing. But the people I was with (meaning TF)…I found myself again. Some better version of myself. It always feels like it could just be swept away again. But that doesn’t mean that it will and it doesn’t mean that I couldn’t find myself again if it does.”

So Angela said that’s the real reason she wants to go with Daryl. She wants to be around him and Michonne and those she’s known from the beginning. She’s genuinely trying to find herself again. That was also a foreshadow back in S8 that Carol’s fairytale would be swept away again at some point.

Trying to figure out where to go next, Ezekiel and Michonne talk about what route to take. The mention route B, which has been a big theme in the past.

I also thought it was interesting that Aaron says, "Rick's bridge would have saved us." In way, that makes me look at the bridge symbolism from a different angle. I said recently that the bridge represents the cohesion of the community, and I still think that’s true. But I also think, in terms of individual character arcs, the bridge may represent someone who almost died, or should have died, but something about the bridge saves them.

If you look at past bridges, we have some evidence for that. Rick was blown off the bridge into the river and swept downstream. If he’d been anywhere else, there wouldn't have been a place for him to go. If he'd been cornered in a canyon or something, either the dynamite would've killed him, or the surviving walkers still would've gotten to him. The same could also be true of the bridge in Consumed. Daryl and Carol got trapped on it (from walkers) but they drove the van off it. Again, that was only possible because they were on a bridge and had the option of driving off of it.

Oh, another thing. I know this top pic is hard to see, but Daryl wore his black bandanna again in the storm. We’ve seen it more than once, but he first wore it at the prison back in 4a, and AMC made a big deal about it, even doing a special Daryl figurine with the bandanna. So another callback to S4, and could point to something important coming.

I talked on Monday about how Lydia’ suicide arc parallels Beth’s, and they use walkers in the field to show that. But I also want to mention one more thing about Carol and Lydia, specifically the part where Lydia asked Carol to kill her. (First off, Carol finds Lydia in a BARN, so that could be a thing.)

It occurred to me that at this part, Lydia becomes something of an antiparallel to Lizzie (notice the similar names). In both cases, Carol comes to a point where it's just her and the girl (Lizzie and Lydia) and she has the option to kill them. I think we can all agree Lizzie was pretty messed up. She honestly didn't know what she’d done wrong in killing Mica, and therein lay the problem. Carol told Tyreese it wasn’t safe for Lizzie to be around other people, which is why Carol did what she did. She simply couldn't trust that Lizzie wouldn't kill someone else.

So we have Lizzie who obviously didn't want to die, but Carol killed her anyway because she had no humanity, and that made her a danger to other people.

In this case, Lydia is doing the opposite. She begs Carol to kill her. The thing is, the reason Lydia wants to die is because she does understand how terrible what's happened is, and what her role in it is. She's not homicidal and looking to kill people and turn them into walkers. She's genuinely depressed and understands exactly why Carol blames her. She obviously blames herself a lot.

I don't think Carol would have killed her one way or the other, but understanding the difference between Lydia and Lizzie is probably one of the reasons Carol didn't. She said, “You're not weak,” which is another way of saying Lydia is strong. Of course we can relate that back to Beth, but I think we’re supposed to relate this more to past things in Carol’s arc. Lydia is different than Lizzie. She strong specifically because she’s sad about what’s happened and understands other people’s grief (neither was true of Lizzie).

I’m also reminded of a convo Carol and Rick had in S4. Carol talked about looking back on her time with her abusive husband. She says she didn't understand back then that she could be strong. That she already was. I feel like she’s applying that line to Lydia here. And, in my opinion, it does show a lot of growth on Carol’s part, even if she’s still in a dark place

I really want to read into them crossing a frozen river. I'm not sure exactly how to apply it, but a river is water. Water =s Beth, and water is what often runs under a bridge (not always, but a lot of the time.) So it’s interesting that to save themselves from death, they crossed over frozen river. It also occurred to me maybe we should draw a parallel between the frozen river here and the dry river in Them. I know they’re kind of opposite things, considering the weather, but we had them able to walk in or on the actual river without being swept away by water both times.

Daryl fights a blonde, female walker. It's the one he stabs in the eye with the icicle. I thought it was very Beth-like and made this joke in my group:

The thing is, stabbing in the eye with the icicle (also water) could actually be a Sirius/Dogstar reference. We’ve talked about this a lot in my group, and I’m sure @frangipanilove has mentioned it in her metas. Sirius is the one-eyed dog, and we had the one-eyed dog in Alone. Also consider Denise, who had so many Beth parallels and took an arrow to the eye. Same eye as the one Daryl stabs with the icicle here. So basically anyone who gets in the eye, we think is a Sirius/Dogstar reference.

So why would they make that reference here? As I said at the beginning, I think it’s to show that Beth is about to return. Everything about this storm, the snow (water), the Christmas theme, etc., points to her being the next thing we see.

It’s also worth mentioning that an icicle to the eye is a reference to the classic Christmas movie, A Christmas Story. So more Christmas references there too.

I already mentioned the Negan/Judith/Dog/Alone parallel. Just wanted to add that the “okay/not okay” theme was heard here too. Negan asks Judith, “you okay,” to which she replies, “I’m okay.” It was a theme we saw around Beth at Grady. Details HERE.

When Carol breaks up with Ezekiel, she says, “I'll never regret the fairytale.” In TTD, Angela Kane explained that Carol feels like her life at the kingdom, being queen and having a husband and son was a fairytale. She loved that part of her life, but she thinks it's over now, which is very sad.

When Michonne and Negan talk at the end, they mention Adam. I'm not sure what all these Adam references are referring to, but we’ve heard them more than once in the last couple of episodes. Earl and Tammy discussed naming the baby Adam before Tammy died. I wondered if there was some symbolism in that but I didn't know it was. Now, Negan says it again. The name Adam obviously holds a lot of biblical symbolism, but beyond that, I’m not sure where to go with it. I’ll keep an eye on it moving forward.

We saw Beta whipping Alpha’s arm. Little bit twisted, no? The writers told us the Whisperers migrate south for the winter. I can’t keep my mind from straying to the fact that Atlanta lies to the south, and if they went so far that there was no snow and tons of green while TF pushed through a blizzard, they must have gone pretty far south. Like the Saviors, the Whisperers obviously roam over great distances. So it wouldn’t be at all hard for them to run into a certain blond at some point. Just saying.

When Ezekiel talks to Judith at the end, he uses the phrase, "the winter of our discontent." We’ve talked about this in our group and, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what conclusions to draw from it. It’s a famous line from Shakespeare’s play, Richard III. For those who don’t know, that a play where the main character is the villain. He’s an evil king who kills lots of people, including two children to hold onto his power. In the end, we see his downfall.

We saw a reference to Richard III around the Governor in S4. And it made perfect sense for it to be a symbol of him. Because we saw his ultimate downfall in S4, and he was a villain/evil ruler. I’m even wondering now if that’s why they put in the part where Lily brought him Megan’s body and he shot her. It was such a cold, calloused thing to do, but maybe they were trying to liken him to Richard III and show that same kind of evil.

The thing is, I’m not sure why they’re using this line here. On the one hand, we literally saw the downfall of the Kingdom in the middle of winter. So as a tongue-in-cheek line, it really fits the plot. But Ezekiel isn’t an evil king—quite the opposite—and TWD is usually more specific in their symbolism than that. Not to mention, I think it must foreshadow something. The only “evil leader” we have on the show currently is Alpha, so I’m wondering if this foreshadows something for next season. We just really have no way of knowing what.

We actually had a discussion in my group just today about this and something else (very Beth-ish) that it may point to. I’ll probably post about that later, but I don’t want to get into it here.

For now, perhaps we can argue that we saw the Richard III reference in S4, which was right in the middle of Beth’s S4/S5 arc. Hearing it again now might be yet another way to point to her imminent return.

One thing I know @frangipanilove was super excited about from this conversation is when Ezekiel tells Judith that, “just because we lost our house doesn’t mean we lost our home.” He means that home is where your family is, not where your house is. Guys, that kind of proves everything @frangipanilove said in THIS POST about the Sirius/Dogstar/North star symbolism. It’s about coming home. Returning to family after an absence, and we’ve seen that symbolism around Beth a ton!

TTD:

Angela Kang talked about Ezekiel in the relationship, and it struck me that everything she said exactly what TD has always said. Find that. She also said that Sue think about how she always goes back to those people in that earlier scene.

Melissa also talked about Carol's hair and she said pretty much the same thing we've always said. Courses been confirmed anyway that the reason she grew it out was because she was happy with Ezekiel, but I just wanted to point out that we predicted that here in this post. So just another thing TD was write about.

Angela also said that the voice be heard on the radio will play in the story and asked 10 and it will "turn the story in an interesting way." Kind of interesting that says turn the story. I think that could definitely be a Beth thing. All of our ears perked up when she said that.

In closing, let me just add two more things that might give you hope for season 10.

Credits for the first one goes @bethgreeneprevails. She found this picture, which is a trading card of Beth. Notice how the blood on her forehead kind of looks like an H.

In 9x15, we saw Hilde making the H coins. She specifically mentions her and her husband's five year anniversary. We’ve seen many 5s over the seasons, and I usually suggest that they point back to S5 and Beth’s arc. However, if she returns in S10, that will be exactly 5 seasons after she disappeared. Perhaps the 5s have pointed to that. Remember, Hilde said the H represents both hope and home, as in coming home. As @frangipanilove said HERE, the Sirius/Dogstar/North Star symbolism all represents coming home.

This episode emphasized the lot that home isn’t a place. It's where your family is. Wherever they are, that's home. So between the H on Beth’s forehead, what the coins mean, and paired with the five year reference, were thinking the idea is that she’ll return after five seasons, which will be S10.

Finally, this last thing just occurred to me last night. A non-TDer on IG was asking questions about Beth. In short, the conversation got me thinking about how the writers knew about Rick’s departure since S4, and they both planned for and foreshadowed it.

So I started thinking about that foreshadowing, and something potentially huge occurred to me. While there might have been earlier signs, the bulk of the symbolism we picked up about Rick’s departure came in S7. There was when he fought Winslow and got the stigmata wound

as well as all the stuff in 7x12. Now, Rick didn’t leave until S9, which was two seasons later, but we now know he was originally slated to leave in S8. It wasn’t until they were filming 8b that he asked to push his departure out until S9. So when they put the foreshadowing of his departure in S7, they were planning on him leaving in S8.

Then I started thinking about other foreshadows we’ve already seen fulfilled. We saw this foreshadow in S4

which is obviously a foreshadow of her arm falling in Coda. So we had the foreshadow in S4, and the fulfillment in S5. Same with Tyrese. I’ve said before that his injury to his arm at the prison foreshadowed his death, because he was bitten in exactly the same place. The foreshadow came in S4 and the fulfillment in S5. I’m going to revamp my Red/Green theory next week, and I’ll talk about this more then, but I recently noticed a major foreshadow of Sasha and Abraham’s deaths that came in S6. They both died in S7.

So I’ll admit this may not work across the board (I’m sure some deaths were foreshadowed more than a season in advance) and then there’s the fact that we’ve seen foreshadows of Beth’s return every season (nearly every episode) since Coda aired. But I also think we can all agree that the Beth parallels were more obvious and on-the-nose during season 9 than during any past season. So I’m just saying that, based on precedent, her return in S10 makes more sense than ever.

Whew! Okay that was long. I’m done now. ;D

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusiona #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

18 notes · View notes