#Allowed to get utterly pissed at David

[mizulekitten]

I love the Case of the Two Dead Dragons ep for a lot of reasons, but the scene where they're talking to Twitchy Richie, like when they first start to mess with him is just so... perfect. Like the way Charles steps up and says "Ooh, try it, mate," his crossed arms coming down. And in the following scene when it shows just Richie & Crystal it's like "What's he going to do omg."

Except Crystal tilts her head with the stupid lighter in her face and it's Edwin that goes "Don't mind if I do." And Charles just looks so enamored and Crystal and Edwin are both so pleased with themselves.

I don't know. It's just the way they're working in tandem with each other for once. Not just with one another, but exactly in step. Crystal knew, without a word, that they'd play along. Edwin could've just let Charles do his thing, especially after what he said, after knowing they kissed (even if they broke things off right after). But it's like... Crystal is a part of their team now. He may not be super close to her yet, but they're both bitches /pos that of course this is the moment they fall in step. It's a shared trait that they were using to hurt and annoy each other, but now it's a bonding moment, a crossing of that divide between them.

So of course Charles lets them have their little moment and is so happy to do so. Whether it's queerplatonic or romantic, this is his best mate for 30 years and his new best friend. He knows they'd get along in their own way if they got through it. And here they are.

Perfect sync, not just Charles and Edwin, but Charles, Edwin, and Crystal.

[ingravinoveritas]

Heat rushes through Michael the second they get inside. Finally, finally alone. He pushes David back against the door when it’s barely even fallen shut behind them. 

It feels like all the stress of being apart releases itself in a cascading torrent once he meets David's lips.

It’s noisy, passionate, better than Michael remembers, how can he remember with the way his stomach flips when David threads his hand in his hair? It’s terrifying, the low swoop indescribable and the knowledge that here and now David is his and his alone is making him feel almost dizzy with want.

Michael's hand slides down David's neck to grab the collar of his blue suit jacket. He greedily pulls him forward and David blindly follows, his lips sliding over Michael's and causing Michael's heart to beat out of his chest.

‘Hey’, Michael says, trying to fake indifference while David begins to fall apart in front of his eyes.  And oh, he’s beautiful, he’s so beautiful all the time, but this, when he’s vulnerable like this, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world, and suddenly Michael's heart is aching for David to stay forever, to have him be his forever.

‘Hi’, David breathes, ridding Michael of his jacket that had hung off his frame awkwardly since David had scuffed it riding the waves of emotion. ‘I missed you.’

‘I missed you too’, Michael mumbles in between kisses. They stumble across the room until Michael's legs collide with the bed and he lets himself fall onto it, pulling David with him. They laugh breathlessly, David losing his jacket somewhere in the mess of hands and kisses, Michael having to fight to keep himself sane as David grinds on him, already hard against his hip and he has to roll his hips so David can feel him too. David's hands are fiddling with his buttons, touch hot when his fingers glance over the skin of Michael's chest as cold air and heat emanating from him collide in a sizzling firepit in the small space between their bodies. 

‘I take it you liked my suit?’, David whispers, unbuttoning his own shirt painstakingly slowly with his eyelids dropped low, swiftly moving out of Michael's reach when he makes grabby hands at him, half-pissed that David is being such a tease. There are times when watching that elicits a rush that makes it feel even more satisfying when David finally relents and gives him what he needs, but not here, not now. Not when Michael hasn’t been able to be with him for so fucking long and has been forced to spend the evening watching David dressed in finery and looking absoluley stunning.

‘You know I did’, he answers, ‘you looked fucking gorgeous tonight.’

A pleased flush rises on David's cheek at the praise and he ducks his head, smiling. ‘So did you’, he murmurs, before leaning in for another kiss, hands roaming over Michael's torso.

David is gentle with Michael's clothes, moving slowly, and there is a soft gaze in his eyes that completely contradicts the erection Michael can feel pressing against him. David doesn't flit away from Michael's fingers when he tries to slip a hand underneath the waistband of David's underwear, but lets him fiddle, allows him to brush his fingers along the underside of David's thighs as he pulls his trousers and underwear down and off.

Sweat laces along David's back as Michael's hand trails down, brushing over the curves before glancing over the top of his ass, but that is something for another time. For now, he wants intimate, David sighing and leaning up to kiss him softly.

He wants to be with him, feel David next to him, watch the expression of slow bliss spread across his face.

He curls his fingers around David's lenght, glancing up at the younger man, watching him settle down into Michael's strokes as Michael plants a soft kiss on his forehead. His dick belies his arousal, pre-come wetting Michael's hand every time he brushes over the head, but Michael can’t stop himself from being more vocal when David's own hand trails down to graze over Michael's dick.

‘Fuck’, Michael groans, ‘you're so good at this’.

David gives him yet another kiss, picking up the speed of his strokes as Michael allows himself to get lost entirely in sensation. David's thumb is tracing along the vein of his cock, pressing down with enough pressure to send Michael's heartbeat to break down and go haywire, thrumming in time to David's touch. 

Michael has been yearning for this the moment since he had laid eyes on David this evening. The location was gorgeous, the atmosphere buzzing, the guests dressed in stunning robes, but then there was David.

For all the beauty in the world nothing stops Michael quite like David does.

He’s caught in somewhere between reality and a parallel universe where he and David are the only two people in the world. It would be ideal, just them and no one else. But Michael knows that he doesn’t need that. He’s got his beautiful life here and now, he's got it when David's lying next to him, falling apart and softly moaning Michael's name.

Waves grow in Michael's stomach as his thoughts leap back to David stroking his dick, flicking his wrist and Michael is pleased that he has fallen into his rhythm, has David gasping and sighing as he struggles to fend off his orgasm.

Michael drowns in David when he comes, feels rather than witnesses David collapse half on top of him and for a moment there is nothing but bliss.

Somehow, Michael finds the energy to drape his arms around David's frame, pulling him a little closer and David lets out a pleased hum in response.

‘You okay?’, he murmurs sleepily from where his head is now resting on Michael's chest and Michael smiles, feeling utterly content. ‘Just perfect.’

So listen here sweetie, English is not my first language (I'm the German Anon who sent in the little shippy GO article) and writing smut is The Worst, because it's just not my thing at all, but I thought, because you were feeling down, and because we were all screaming about the NTAs, David in that suit and most importantly the hug, I should try myself at it anyway, to give you a little something. I hope you don't hate it haha and I hope you feel better or will feel better soon ❤

HATE IT?? Whaaat? Anon, this is pure and absolute perfection. Oh my goodness. Hot and sweet and soft and sexy, all at the same time. These are the worlds so many of us saw contained in that hug, and you stunningly brought to life the intimacy and connection that was all over Michael and David that night.

I just, I can’t even thank you enough for this delightful gift, and how DARE you think you’re a terrible writer, because your English is incredibly good (I wouldn’t even begin to try to write a fic in German!) and this is amazing. Smut is my bread and butter, but Michael and David deserve cuddly shit, too, and you’ve written something that encapsulates both. This has ABSOLUTELY brightened my spirits and made me want to write the fic ideas I’ve had for that night, too.

Thank you, thank you, thank you/danke, danke, danke, German Anon! 💗

[bookishofalder]

Pretty Girl - Blurb

A/N- Surprise! This idea came to me last night and I decided to run with it. Companion blurb to Chapter 3 of my Pretty Girl Series.

Summary: An insight into Pretty Girl’s mind on a bad day. 

Warnings: Swearing, sexual harassment description, self blame, sexism, burns, reader is a thirsty bitch. WC-2,175

You were chewing your lip again. You had been working hard to break the habit, but you gave yourself a pass for today, considering the circumstances. While Ron had promised you that he wouldn’t mention any details to Flip whenever the tall detective returned to the station, but you knew him too well. Flip was going to know something was wrong, he was too damn perceptive.

Especially when it came to you.

And actually, you adored how he always seemed to read you like a book. But when it came to how you felt about your best friend? Yeah, he hadn’t seemed to figure that out. A fact that allowed you to breathe more easily. The older, gruff man gave you more attention and kindness than you deserved, you knew that. You had no intention of ruining a perfectly wonderful friendship by admitting that...well, you loved him. You could just imagine how he’d turn inward, his mouth dropping into a frown before he said, ‘Darling, you’re too young for me.’ Or something equally as mortifying.

It was selfish of you, in many ways, not to tell him. You enjoyed time alone with him more than you could even admit to yourself and you loved how protective he was of you. Something about the different ways he showed this-like when he slammed that rude man onto the counter, right in front of you, with a wild look in his eyes that disappeared the moment he had met yours. That moment had shot straight to your core, delighted you entirely, but you worried he might have caught the brief-expression on your face that gave away how turned on you had been.

His protectiveness was the reason you were so stressed at the moment; he was, inevitably, going to find out you had burnt your fucking arm with coffee. And when he did, you knew you needed to try to avoid telling him how it happened. But whenever he fixed you with that damn stare, eyes dark-fuck, you couldn’t help it. You always seemed to cave.

You contented yourself as you waited for the nurse now by imagining the conversation in different ways, practicing what you’d say, how you would explain. Flip had been especially moody lately, which didn’t bother you as you were as laid back as he was passionate, but it did worry you. The last thing he needed right now was a reason to get angry, and if you told him what David Cole had whispered into your ear before his cold hand slid over your bottom and pinched? Well, let’s say you would probably be giving testimony at the murder trial.

The curtains around you swung open as the nurse returned with her tray of supplies. You swung your legs, starting to feel antsy to leave, and smiled at her. You wanted to try and get back to the station before Flip, maybe meet him outside and explain-

Movement caught your eye, and your head spun around as the fucking all too familiar Detective stormed towards you. How, how had he already found out you were here? You knew he was good, but this was insane. You had been here twenty minutes.

And oh, the look on his face. He hadn’t even seen the burn yet and you could already tell he was devastated to see you sitting in a hospital. Your heart tugged at the sight, despite the panic bursting through your veins-you hadn’t thought of how to explain-oh, fuck, he’s seen the burn.

You tried to smile up at him, but you knew he could see the tears on your face from the way his entire body stiffened when he was right next to you. You wondered if he was going to knock the nurse away and start treating you himself. You wouldn’t have been surprised.

What did take you off guard, however, was what he said.

“Pretty girl,” Oh. Okay, where did that new nickname come from? It shot straight to your core, almost numbing the pain in your arm. He’d never called you that before, but you never wanted him to stop. “What the hell happened?” His large hand was on your shoulder, warm and welcome.

“I’m okay, Flip, I just spilled some coffee-it’s mostly on the back of my hand and arm.” You tried to keep your voice calm but flinched when pain shot up your arm as the nurse placed your bandages. You could tell your words had no soothing effect whatsoever, his expression entirely too distressed.

Whoever told him you were here was going to have raisins in their cookies for the next year.

“You were lucky the coffee wasn’t fresher, dear. These would be much worse. As it is, you’ve scalded yourself fairly well so you’ll need to repeat this treatment for a few days, I’ll send you home with the supplies and instructions.” You stared at your nurse, silently trying to convey that she had just utterly betrayed you by announcing that. Could she not see the man standing next to you was coming undone?

The hand on your shoulder squeezed tighter and his thumb began to rub gentle circles, something that should not have distracted you as much as it was. Hell, Flip’s hands were big. You lost track of their conversation, focusing solely on the feelings his touch was inspiring within you. You only pulled from your thoughts when his hand was gone and he was taking a seat next to you on the bed, heaving one of his great sighs. You always wanted to hug him whenever he made that noise. Like he had the whole damn world on his shoulders.

“How did you get here?”

That surprised you-he hadn’t spoken to Ron? Who else would have been brave enough to tell Flip Zimmerman that you were at the hospital?

“Ron was kind enough to drop me off-I insisted I was fine on my own,” You frowned and met his eyes, “How did you know I was here if you didn’t speak to Ron?”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, “I brought in a gunshot victim, few beds over. Saw you when the nurse opened the curtain.”

Okay, so apparently the universe was just as against you as ever.

Now it was your turn to sigh. You glanced away, not wanting him to read your expressions, “I’m really okay, Flip. You don’t need to stick arou-“

“I’ll take you home.”

It was an order, as much as it was a plea; he couldn’t leave you. But the tone he used, that one that left no room for you to argue? You could only smile because you were afraid if you opened your mouth to respond, you’d say something that gave away that it turned you on whenever he used it. Or you’d moan. So you stayed silent.

You could sense him beginning to calm down; now that he knew you were okay, had seen that you received exceptional care, and was now leading you to his work car. He was especially content that he could drive you home, you could see the slightly smug smile on his lips. You were still considering what to say to him when he inevitably inquired again on how you’d managed to burn yourself, and so far your mind was blank.

He didn’t speak until you were both settled in the car. He had pulled out of the lot, the silence heavy. As if he wanted to give you a false sense of security, catch you off guard. But with his eyes on the road, he didn’t seem to notice how tense you were, already waiting for the question.

“You gonna tell me how you managed that?” He nodded at the burn, eyes scanning your face curiously when you made no reply. Damn, you had to say something or he was going to read it in your face and guess the worst.

“Just pouring coffees and spilled, that’s all.” No big deal, Flip, just leave it, for the love of-oh, now his hands were gripping the steering wheel and you could see the disbelief on his face, the surprise that you actually thought you could lie to him. Fuck.

“Okay,” He drew out the word, conveying his downright distrust. And then that damn tone of authority followed, the one he seemed to have reserved just for you. “What really happened?”

This. This was why you needed time to come up with a good excuse-you simply could not think on your feet around this man, and now he was glancing at you from the driver's seat like he just knew you were about to piss him off. Why did you get out of bed this morning?

Your voice came out in a breathy mumble, “Someone walked by me when I was pouring coffees and pinched...well.” You gestured vaguely at your lower body. He got the point.

The fact that he didn’t crash the car didn’t surprise you, you’d seen the way he had control over himself despite the anger many times. It always impressed you. And it made sense, as he was such a skilled detective.

He pumped the brakes as he looked around at you, meeting your eyes with the most searing expression you’d ever seen-okay, you knew he’d be mad, but he looked completely wreaked. You quickly grabbed his arm as he barked out, “What?”

“Flip, do not get so upset, happens more than-“

“Please don’t tell me that more than one person at work has put their hands on you-”

Yeah, you probably didn’t help yourself by saying it like that. But he was so upset it was flustering you. Alright, you’d have to stick with this, “It happens. I shouldn’t have to explain what it’s like being a woman working in a place full of men. Sometimes they forget themselves and-“

Flip threw the car into park, and you groaned internally. He was going to get out of the car, you just knew it. “And they grab your ass? And in this case, make you burn yourself?” He said the word burn as if it caused him physical pain to say aloud.

Before you could respond, he was out of the car, the door of which creaked with displeasure at how forcefully he’d opened it. You waited patiently, knowing he just needed to calm himself a little bit. But now you could feel your emotions bubbling up in the silence of the car, the days' events replaying in your head.

The smarter part of you understood that Flip wasn’t angry with you; though that section of your brain seemed to be down for maintenance. Being friendly, baking, you knew sent the message to some types of men that it was okay to cop a feel. To physically express their gratitude, your personal space be damned. You hated it, but it had been so much worse when you worked at that awful law firm. And really, it had only happened a couple of times since you began working at the CSPD. David Cole was just on another level, but you could handle him.

Flip came around the car and, more gently now, opened your door. You turned in the seat to face him as he crouched on the ground, and blurted out, “Flip, please don’t be mad at me.”

Flip took your uninjured hand into his own and rubbed his thumb across the back, his expression softening entirely. He met your eyes and seemed to steel himself to speak, “Pretty girl, I could never be mad at you,” Fuck, there was that nickname again. So it wasn’t an accident earlier, this was sticking around. You had no complaints, though you were sure he could see that in the way you gazed back at him like a dumb ass. “I’m mad for you-what happened ain’t right. Tell me who did it, each time.”

Absolutely not, you thought immediately. Shaking your head, you quickly replied, “Thanks, but I’d rather not get arrested for aiding a murder,” You squeezed his hand reassuringly and held his gaze, trying to convey just how okay you were, “It means a lot, how protective you are. But I’m alright, okay? I promise.” Relief swept through you when your words seemed to make a difference. First fucking time today, you thought. He visibly relaxed, though his eyes did scan your face for a few more moments.

You wanted to kiss him right there, for being so perfect. How lucky were you to have a man like him in your corner? Of all the dirtbags and assholes you’d encountered, he made up for them by simply existing in your life. For being so protective and caring for you in ways you didn’t even realize you needed. You also secretly loved how you seemed to always be able to calm him down, even if it took some time.

“Let me take you home.” He said after a pause, and you gave him your best smile, hoping he couldn’t see the blush on your cheeks.

[gunnerpalace]

hey there! so i used to be a huge fan of bleach, and loved ichiruki, and i was reminded of them today but i haven't been involved with the fandom since the series ended. however, i've heard of different variations of why the series ended/ships happened the way they did, and was wondering if you knew or could direct to me a post that explains that? i apologize if i'm bringing up bitter feelings, but i've always been curious if bleach's ending was a big FU from kubo or if he always intended rr/ih

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a post that really goes over it structurally in that kind of way (from a shipping perspective). I’ll get back to what you actually asked me after some asides, because it’s not so simple to just analyze the ships in a vacuum.

I’ve had my own post about why the ending was a fuck you moment, thematically, because it failed to resolve any of the themes and momentum of the series in a way that would be appropriate (either internally or in the context of the supposed genre of shounen.)

I would also say that the ending was a fuck you moment in terms of lore, backstory, and mystery, because all of the historical and political dimensions (i.e., things involving the Soul King and Great Houses) were unceremoniously shuffled off to Can’t Fear Your Own World. Not that any of those things were ever brought up properly in the manga to begin with; the proper and natural time for that would’ve been at the conclusion of the Soul Society arc, when Ichigo and co. spent a week there, which we saw none of. So I would say that everything in CFYOW is basically retconned bullshit hung off prior convenient plot hooks, and that the same was true of TYBW and LSS/TLA/Xcution as well. There may have been some notes and forethought, but it’s about as “valid” as Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert’s Dune works are compared to the original Frank Herbert ones; it’s second-hand, at best.

(This is setting aside that Bleach was clearly made up as it went along. For example: Noriaki literally admitted that he didn’t know who had killed Aizen in Soul Society until he realized that Aizen not being dead was the most shocking answer; the clear baiting and abandonment of Kisuke as the villain hinted at through various means such as his unclear and later retconned reasons for being exiled, and so on. Bleach was very much a J. J. Abrams-style mystery box work that was made as it went with, at best, rough notes, which is why its themes and focus change, for the worse. I also have a post about why it stopped being special, which is part of a running series I intend to write on how to rewrite it to fix and preserve that)

The best recent thing to compare it to is, really, HBO’s adaptation of Game of Thrones, wherein D. B. Weiss and David Benioff openly admitted to removing or deemphasizing story elements, and ignoring themes in adapting the work. The difference is that Bleach was not being adapted from anything; it degraded due to its own creator not understanding what he had created.

(To put it very simply, because this would be the point of Hyperchlorate Part II and would take a whole post to explain: the ending of the Soul Society arc did not properly establish and flesh out Soul Society as a place with a history, space, and purpose. Instead, the Arrancar and Hueco Mundo arcs decided to be a thematic inversion and deconstruction of the Karakura and Soul Society arcs. This again had an ending that did not establish or flesh anything out after Aizen’s defeat, with an even greater diffusion of focus onto ancillary characters. The Xcution arc tripled down on this by addressing something entirely new and retconned in, only to abandon it midway through in favor of going back to invoking Soul Society. And Thousand-Year Blood War took all of these problems to 11. tl;dr: Noriaki tried themes, people hated it, and so he just shoved in more and more dumb sword fights between people nobody cared about, half of whom hadn’t previously existed.)

So, let’s get back to your question. Let’s talk about ships. I’ve clicked a lot of keys and spilled a lot of ink on this subject over the years, but I no longer particularly feel like searching my own archives (really ought to go back through and organize them better) beyond this post and my own follow-up to it about the chronology of IR interactions, so I’m just going to repeat myself.

First, let’s say that Bleach was not ever a manga about ships.

I’m not disavowing that what Rukia and Ichigo had was special. That was called out multiple times through the focus of the art, the dialogue, and by the characters themselves. (Directly by, for example, Orihime’s outright statement to the effect in Soul Society, and her later jealousy regarding it. Indirectly by, say, Uryuu’s acknowledgement that him saving Rukia first would piss Ichigo off. In fact, the biggest indirect indicator doesn’t even involve Ichigo and Rukia; Shunsui asks Chad why he’s there and Chad says he wants to save Rukia, Shunsui calls bullshit that two months isn’t enough time to risk your life for that, and Chad agrees and says he’s there because Ichigo wants to do it. Shunsui moves on, but his argument is left hanging: why was two months enough for Ichigo? Because, as Orihime will later say out loud, Rukia is special.)

What I’m saying is that that was never the focus. It was explicitly constructed that way.

How do I know? The Grand Fisher fight. The Grand Fisher fight is emotionally charged, bringing up both Ichigo and Rukia’s greatest traumas, and is their one real moment of not understanding each other for a time. It was a triumphant moment that made them truly glad to know one another, and you can see it in their reactions afterward (Rukia thanking Ichigo for not dying, Ichigo asking Rukia if he can keep being a Shinigami). There was a lot to unpack there, and you can see it in the way they look at each other.

What happened immediately after the Grand Fisher fight? Noriaki skipped a whole month. We go from June 18th of 2001 to July 17th of 2001. He deliberately skipped all of the emotional impact of that event, and Rukia being around for Ichigo’s 16th birthday. Just never happened. We never hear about it. Wasn’t his focus as a writer.

Now, I’m convinced that was because he was scared of what he had on his hands. He wasn’t willing to commit to either a couple’s battle shoujo or a shounen with male and female seemingly-heterosexual co-equal deuteragonists who clearly had a strong emotional bond. More specifically, he wasn’t willing to make Rukia a centerpiece of the manga despite having designed her first, having made her the moral and philosophical core of his manga, and having based Ichigo entirely around completing and complementing her. But hey, that’s just my opinion, right? Except it kept happening.

From the Grand Fisher fight onward, the name of the game in the manga, structurally, became keeping Ichigo and Rukia apart.

The moment she was taken back to Soul Society, her prominence dropped. We got emotionally charged scenes of them regardless. Right at the conclusion, after yet another emotionally heavy set of Ichigo and Rukia interactions, we again skip almost a month, from the end of the first week in August of 2001 to September 1, 2001. (Due to some completely unnecessary timey-wimey bullshit with the Precipice World.)

In the Arrancar and Hueco Mundo arcs, they have roughly a day together over the course of three months. What happens after every meeting? They’re shuffled apart and split up, and we cut away. This time, for over a year!

Ichigo and Rukia again have a very emotionally charged meeting in the Xcution arc. And what happens at the end of that arc? We skip ahead another month to TYBW. (Xcution ended sometime in May of 2003, TYBW starts June 11, 2003.)

And in TYBW, Rukia and Ichigo barely meet up at all. Indeed, the focus is scarcely upon them.

In CFYOW, neither of them even appear, let alone have any relevance to the plot.

The implication, in my opinion, is pretty obvious: Noriaki was deathly afraid of dealing with the outcomes of their interactions, and that ultimately became him being deathly afraid of allowing them to interact at all to begin with. Why? Well, as I said in one of the last linked posts:

As an author, sometimes you will find your characters will do things you didn’t anticipate or plan for, and you’ve got two choices: you can go with the flow and do what’s natural and deal, or you can fight it and try and impose your vision anyway.

He refused to let his art take the direction it needed to go in.

Now, some people might say he got bored of them, or of having them together. I say that’s bullshit. And the reason I say is down to three things:

He didn’t ignore them, he did his best to keep them apart. I outlined this above.

He did not emphasize anything or anyone else instead. His focus was all over the place. While, admittedly, Ichigo’s prominence also declined, so did everyone else’s.

It would have served him well to focus on their interactions to expand his universe and explore its lore. The things that were detailed in the databooks and CFYOW could’ve been presented naturally and easily if they were together. But that came with a cost of shifting the focus. A cost he refused to pay.

Let’s talk more about (2) and (3) now.

Regarding (2), Chad and Orihime are inextricably linked in Bleach, because they essentially have the same relationship to Ichigo. “But Orihime loves Ichigo, and Chad is his no-homo bro!” someone proclaims. So what? They’re presented as equal and parallel at every step.

They both gain their powers at approximately the same time.

We are told they gained their powers due to the Hogyouku (in Rukia at the time) interpreting their wishes (and no one else’s, such as Tatsuki, Keigo, or Mizuiro), meaning they probably had the same strength of desire.

They both go to Soul Society “for Ichigo.”

They both utterly fail against Yammy and Ulquiorra.

They both spend most of the Hueco Mundo arc doing nothing.

They are both featured prominently in the Xcution arc, and both fail to see through Tsukishima’s powers despite their love for Ichigo. (Meanwhile, Byakuya coolly tries to murder someone who he thinks is his mentor, in Ichigo’s name.)

They both get sidelined in Hueco Mundo with Kisuke in TYBW, doing little to nothing.

They both are utterly ineffectual in the final fight in TYBW.

They are often portrayed together, they are often as effective as one another, and they are equally as developed in their relationship to Ichigo going forward, which is to say: not at all. The loss of focus on IR did not come with an attendant rise of focus on IH, any more than it did with the sudden rise of IchiChad. Nothing was built in IR’s place. There was no emotional or human content which filled its gap.

This is where the IH ending coming “out of nowhere” stems from: it indeed came out of nowhere, because Ichigo was never shown to have any interest in Orihime in all this time, nor an especially close relationship with her. He never hangs out with Chad or shows a bond with him either. He never hangs out with anyone, in fact. (Indeed, “friends” in Bleach do not do any of the things that friends actually do in real life. Nor do parents. You might say that interpersonal relationships and communication largely don’t exist in Bleach. But that’s its whole own topic.)

I would honestly say that more time and emphasis was given on Ichigo’s pseudo-surrogate mother relationship with Ikumi than was spent on him interacting with Orihime. (I would say Noriaki has serious hangups about relationships of any kind, be they romantic, familial, or friendly, and also has some severe hangups regarding mothers and fathers, but that is also its whole own topic.)

Regarding (3), Noriaki apparently wanted this big, Game of Thrones-style world with a long history and political machinations and so on. This is the whole point of TYBW and CFYOW. Trouble is, early Bleach was successful because of its small-scale intimacy. So how do you go from one to the other? You have to lay the foundations at every step. And Noriaki steadfastly refused to do so at every step. Having Ichigo and Rukia interact, and focusing on Rukia while Ichigo was sidelined without powers, would’ve permitted that organically. Indeed, if RR was the endgame, it would have given time to establish that, were it his desire. (Because Rukia never showed any interest in Renji, and frankly Renji always seemed way more preoccupied with Byakuya.) It didn’t serve his goals, but he did it anyway.

It’s much simpler to say he lost focus, and that he started to hate the manga as a whole. Why else would you have Mayuri fighting a giant hand when that achieved nothing, and Kenpachi fighting Thor when that achieved nothing? It became empty. Hollow, you might say.

But that takes us back to the question you posed: where did the ships come from? Nowhere. IH, RR, and fucking TatsuKeigo weren’t established anywhere. They just appeared. Why?

Well, why did every single character wind up doing the exact opposite of their intended and stated goals in the end?

Why did Soul Society revert to its previous attitude and rebuild the Sokyouku?

Why did nothing get resolved?

Why did nothing change?

Why was it all revealed to have been completely and utterly pointless?

In my view, it’s because that ending was a giant fuck you to the readership and Shueisha. There is no other way to interpret an author pulling a 180° and completely nullifying their characters’ arcs, and their work’s themes. Aizen’s little speech at the end is the cherry on top. I read it as Noriaki saying that he’s showing “courage” in telling us all to fuck off.

As to why? That’s an open question. His relationship with Shueisha was contentious, so maybe he was mad at them. (They gave him a deadline once he was dragging his feet, and reclassified Bleach as a joke manga.) His readership was on the decline after the Soul Society arc ended, so maybe he was mad at the audience. I don’t know. I also don’t really care. What I am convinced of is he decided to blow up his franchise and to not leave a single stone unturned when he did so.

That’s where that “ending” comes from, which is why despite it featuring IH and RR, both are thoroughly unsatisfying and without setup: it was the only way to piss absolutely everyone off, including people who wanted that outcome.

In a way, it was his greatest success since the early days of the manga.

Anyway, this was messy, but it’s not a simple topic to address. The tl;dr is that Bleach was a trainwreck from the very beginning that only succeeded on the merits of its characters, and that Noriaki deliberately avoided the promise it had to be something unique and grand. The ships are just a part of that, and cannot be understood in isolation from it.

[konako]

I WANT SUM SHEPARD AND THE WOLF- I STAN THAT 3 LITTLE PIGS WHY DIDNT YOU WRITE FOR OUAT DA HECK

BECAUSE IT WOULD BECOME A RUBY CENTRIC SHOW AND I WOULD TURN IT INTO A SHAMELESS HAREM

The Shepard and The Wolf – should have been  a blossoming bromance born of brooding bloated b… jealousy.

This is a blanket story for the dynamic of David and Ruby. It starts when they first meet, and ends with their ends, much like Snow and Regina’s grand narrative.

But the core of it (and the moral of the story) takes place in FTL, before the Dark Curse.

Snow White meets Red first, and it’s Red who introduces her to this wild world of survival, living in the forest, fighting with her fists, fending for herself. Snow White before Red was a hopeless runaway princess, hiding in strangers cabins and stealing eggs – nothing like the Snow White that met Charming, years later.

Point is, Snow White and Red share a history together. We know Red owes her life to Snow; she stood by Red through the worst of her wolf, through the loss of Peter, Anita, her identity, everything. But – Snow wouldn’t have survived without Red’s teachings, Red’s guidance, Red’s wild spirit. Snow White, too, owes her life to Red.

And, in this story, Charming has a hard time understanding that at first.

Charming meets an independent, strong, fierce Snow White. Fearless and so smart… Charming falls in love. Deeply. And so does Snow. It’s True Love, after all. Buuuuut, things start to get complicated.

Aside from Charming’s whole thing of pretending to be his twin brother, a Prince, and having to marry King Midas’ daughter, we have the bigger problem: Regina is after Snow White. And after all of the issues are solves in Charming’s end, the great obstacle, and the reason they need all of their forces, is the Evil Queen and the War that is brewing.

Charming knows Snow White has some strange friends. Fairies, dwarves, huntsmen… she’s had a long and tough journey before she met Charming, and he understands she’s made some curious friendships, but – when a werewolf comes through their door, Charming is genuinely afraid.

He’s learned how to fight – he had to be a convincing Prince, and his previous life as a Shepard taught him one thing or two. Most importantly, he learned what to be cautious of. The sheep knew, and so did he. A Wolf is not good company.

And wan’t that the kind that turned during a full moon? Large teeth, paws eight inches across, big long claws…? Those were dangerous, right?

I mean, fairies and dwarves are one thing, but…. werewolves? There has never been a sign of a friendly werewolf! There were always human-hating monsters. Sure, fairies are light and good and grant wishes, that’s cute. Dwarves can be rude and inappropriate, but nothing too serious. But a werewolf? Is Snow serious? Has her hopefulness gone too far? Isn’t she being too trusting, too kind, too… blind?

It’s immediately clear: Charming doesn’t trust Red.

Snow tries her best to convince him that he has nothing to be scared of; that Red has the kindest heart she has ever seen; that Red saved her life; that there isn’t an evil bone in Red’s body – but Charming is smarter than that. Red is a wolf in woman’s clothing.

And it’s not like she’s not a good person. She tries to befriend him. There’s a stiffness to her, though. She stares at him for too long, when he’s with Snow. Her smiles seem weak and falter when he puts his arms around Snow’s shoulder. Her eyes lose some of their color, when he kisses Snow. And he can swear he once heard her growl low in her throat in her sleep.

Wolves are territorial creatures, and Red was once Snow’s once friend. And Charming believes he was discovered the problem: Red is threathened by his presence. Somehow, she’s claimed Snow for herself (like a werewolf does), and will not allow Charming near. But he is Snow White’s true love and he isn’t going anywhere – so she is pissed. And he knows an angry werewolf cannot be trusted. So he doesn’t. Not even a little. Not even once.

Not when they’re running from King George’s men. Not when they’re fighting the Dark Knights of the Queen. Not when they’re huddling together for warmth in a cold night – Snow in the middle as a buffer. Always in the middle, as a buffer.

Charming always keeps an eye on her. He never lets his guard down. When they fight, he never turns his back to her, in case the Wolf bloods takes over in the heat of battle. He always keeps his hands on his sword longer than necessary, long after the fight is over and they are regrouping and Red comes join them, blood on her lips, eyes slightly golden and a little breathless.

It takes Snow putting her hand on his, to calm him down.

But he doesn’t trust Red. And he is vocal about it. To Snow, at least. He cries danger.

“Snow, be careful. Snow, don’t get too close. Snow, please, she’s dangerous. Snow, no. Snow, come back. Snow”

Snow doesn’t listen, but he keeps on crying.

Until the day Snow is not there, to act as a buffer.

She’s kidnapped. A vicious bounty hunter that has been tracking them for months – that slipped through the cracks of mistrust and inner conflicts – he gets to them and takes Snow, in the middle of the night. A night when Red is off running and Charming was supposed to keep a loo -out, but Snow had insisted that he joined her in bed – that Red would howl if there was any danger.

But she doesn’t. And Charming doesn’t see it coming. The man takes Snow in the middle of the night, as she leaves bed to use the bathroom. He just takes her, and Charming wakes up to her screaming.

He runs to them, fast enough to see them taking off on a horse, disappearing into the dark forest. He sees the details on the man’s bag, and he knows who the stranger is (insert coincidental backstory here idk). But he is not fast enough to catch them, and falls to his knees, crying.

Red appears behind him, after his tears have dried and his already up, gathering his weapons.

“Where were you?! Why didn’t you sound off the alarm? He took her!”

Red fights to have a word in.

“You were the one with her! Why didn’t you do anything?!”

“We trusted you would protect us-”

“You never trusted me!”

“And now I know why!”

Red can’t keep fighting like this. She once was used to arguing – with Granny and Peter, but it was always about pointless things, never… never her very existence, her nature, her… worthlessness. She can’t argue, because she agrees with him.

But Charming doesn’t mind that he’s hurt Red. He’s blinded with rage, and he’s putting on his armor.

“Where are you going?” Red asks.

“Where do you think? After them!”

Red nods. “If I turn, I can catch them–”

“No! I will find them! Snow’s my responsibility, not yours”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean–! Oh, you know what I mean. I have to find her.”

Red bites her lips. “I’m faster than you. I’m faster than a horse. I can find them. I’ll track Snow’s scent.” She starts getting ready, too. Her hands are on her cloak, again “It’s not far. I can still smell her. If I go now–”

Charming grabs her by her forearm, and it startles her. Green eyes are wide, staring at him. “No. I’ll go.”

“This is not the time for a competition” Red easily pulls her arm out of his grip. Her temper is getting worse. It’s a full moon, and Charming has a way of getting under her skin. “I’m going. You can stay here, and resent me, all you want”

Red turns to leave again, but Charming runs in front of her and gets in her way. He has his sword drawn, and it takes a moment for Red to register the offense fully. Honestly, she didn’t expect things to get this far.

“Red. I’m not asking you.” His voice is a warning.

“What do you think I’ll do, Charming?” She mocks the nickname. “Snow White is my friend. I will get her back, that’s it” She finishes, but makes no attempt to move.

Charming is silent, but his eyes say everything. “Why didn’t you warm us?”

Red suppresses a snarl at the implication. “I didn’t hear him coming. I was busy”

Charming presses his finger harder around the hilt of the sword. “Doing what?”

Red breathes. “What do you think?” It’s a challenge. One Charming doesn’t accept. “What do you expect of me?”

“I expected a look-out”

“That’s a lie. You never trusted me.” Red steps closer, until the tip of the sword touches her chest. It’s not silver, so it’s not a problem. “And now, they are getting away, because you can’t trust me to bring her back”

Charming doesn’t have a response, but it doesn’t stop him from trying. “I don’t trust you to keep her safe. Not like this” He runs his eyes over her entire body, and Red realizes what he means – her temper and the full moon above their heads. “You were running to stay away from us, right? To keep us safe from the Wolf? So stay away. Please”

His pleading is hollow, and Red is pissed. She breathes in. “I was running to clear my head. I’m not a danger. I’ve got my wolf under control”

Charming is breathing heavily now. It’s his tell, that he’s scared. “It doesn’t seem like that to me”

“You are the one pointing the sword at me”

Charming seems self-conscious, but it’s not enough to get his guard down. “I’m going after Snow–”

“I’m the best at this! I can run faster, I can track her scent, I can get her back safely to your arms. She’ll still love you more, don’t worry–”

Red stops herself, but it’s too late. She’s already said it. Fuck. She bites at her lips. Fucking full moon.

“I’m not…” She tries again. “I’m not going to run away with her, Charming,” She sounds utterly tired, now. “I’ll bring her back to you.”

Charming is not backing down. “I shouldn’t need you”

“But you do,” Red tries not to growl. “You’ve waited too long, now I’m our best chance at getting her back, okay?”

“You should have sounded the alarm–”

“I didn’t hear anything–!”

“She shouldn’t have been taken–!”

“I was running, I thought you were taking care of her–!”

“I should have been!”

It echoes.

Now Charming messed up. Nice. “… I should have been. From the start. I shouldn’t… need you.”

Red frowns. She doesn’t know what to say. “You don’t need me. Snow does.” A moment. “Or… Snow did. Up until…” She motions her hand to Charming, but says nothing. “I helped her when she needed me, and she helped me back. We’re friends. We’re at War. Help is needed. That’s all it is…”

Charming watches her for a moment. She’s got a point. But, still, there’s… something about her. Confusing energy and rough breathing. A full moon. 

He put his sword back, yet somehow it does little to defuse the tension.

“It’s a full moon,” he says, simply, as if it’s enough of an argument.

“Good. It means I’ll be at my fastest” Red’s answer is nervous.

“It means a close confrontation is dangerous. One thing is a vast army in an open field. Another is a one-to-one fight in a dense forest – with Snow held hostage”

It takes a second for the insult to reach Red. “You’re kidding.”

Charming switches to his commanding voice, and Red’s skin itches.

“Let me find Snow. Keep clearing your head. Stay”

Ooooh, that word does something to Red.

Stay.

Like a dog. Like the countless comments she pretends not to hear from afar. Like the jokes Grumpy tells and Charming sometimes smiles at. Like the tail between our legs.

It does it, for Red. She just pushes forward, past him, into the forest. He yells at her back to stay. But she’s done listening to him. He runs after her and grabs at her cloak to hold her back. There’s a resistance at first, but then the knot is undone, and Charming falls back.

Shit gets real. The cloak is ripped off of Red’s shoulders, and just like that, the Wolf is out.

Charming falls on his ass, and the Wolf stops in its track. Oh, shit, shit.

Charming stumbles up to his feet again, as the Wolf turns to him, the dark fur almost indistinguishable from the night around.

“Red…” He whispers, hand held in front of his body.

The Wolf steps towards him, then stops. They stare at each other. Golden eyes fall down to the blade, then up at Charming again. It’s a question. Will you use it?

Charming gulps. “Please. I have to get her back.”

A huge paw stumps on the ground, and Charming almost jumps back. Almost.

“Please…”

The Wolf steps even closer, and Charming fights to stand his ground. Slowly, the Wolf turn back, towards the depths of the forest, and looks over its shoulder, to Charming.

It’s an invitation.

The Wolf lowers its head, then its body. Charming finally understands the command. Come on.

It takes a lot for him to move. His mind races, as he considers the danger, the leap of faith. The man getting rapidly getting away with Snow, and the only chance Charming’s got to reach them and save her.

It truly takes a lot, but, slowly, his hand lets go of the sword. 

On shaky feet, he gets closer, and with even shakier hands, he grabs onto the thick mane around the Wolf’s neck, swinging his leg over the beast’s back, and sitting on top of it.

He can feel the vibrations of a silent growl under his body, but before his fear can permanently set it, the Wolf is already taking off at full speed, into the forest.

Charming’s never been so fast in his life. The tree pass him in a blur, and he has no idea where they are going. The strong strides barely touch the ground, but shake his entire body with a force he’s sure will bruise him.

It’s strangely empowering. His fears are quickly dulled in comparison to this. This speed and strength. He’s never felt so strong before. Never so sure of his chances. This is the most powerful he has ever been. 

It doesn’t take a minute for them to catch up to the man. Never was a horse so slow and a chase so short.

The Wolf jumps over them, and lands in front of their path, blocking their way. Charming struggles to keep his balance on top of the Wolf, as he takes his sword out once again.

“Red! Charming!” Snow cries for them, a huge smile on her wet cheeks. “What…?”

The horse is startled by the Wolf, and the man can’t keep it still. They fall off of it, and Snow falls to the side. Charming gets off the Wolf and runs to her, helping her up.

Meanwhile, the man is getting up, rubbing at his head. The Wolf growls a loud, terrifying sound and the horse runs away, leaving the hunter alone, without his weapons.

Charming hugs Snow close to his body, and they join the Wolf’s side, facing the man. Bared teeth and a sharp sword, pointed at him. He’s caught, he can’t outrun a wolf or fight a Prince. He surrenders, getting on his knees and raising his hands above his head.

The heroic moment is savored.

Charming, the Wolf and Snow, standing side by side, a good team. The silence of victory is sweet and all, but Snow has to comment. She looks over at them, one on each side of her.

“Took you two long enough”

And it has more than one meaning.

And so they stand there. Snow rubs behind the Wolf’s ears and pull its head close against her body, hugging the fluffy mane. With her other hand, she hold Charming’s arm, resting her head on his shoulder.

The Wolf grunts and huffs at the proximity, and Charming is still stiff and sweaty, but it’s a start… 

It’s a start.

[owxanimorphs]

Before the Re-read the Animorphs

Okay before I begin my re-read this is my thoughts on the main cast based on my memory of the last times I read the books (which varies between a few months ago for some and several years for others)

Let's get the hard one out of the way first. I'll start with my thoughts on Cassie. I make no secret that Cassie is the only Animorph I actively dislike. In a way it is tragic because as I've said before Cassie had potential as a character. A character with a very black and white viewpoint and a strong desire to stick to their point of view no matter the cost being confronted with the messy nature or war could have been a gold mine for interesting story lines. Instead Cassie is cast as the voice of morality and the conscience of the group which is a role she is absolutely terrible at. Because in the end she's no more moral than the rest of them (arguably actively even less moral) and her being right is more a function of being creators pet than any real logical story progression. Things work out for her because the creators say even when it breaks the story or contradicts established facts.

In Essence everything wrong with Cassie is everything wrong with the books as a whole which makes her a pretty big example of what not to do in writing. However, even if you ignore all that and focus only her personality she is still lacking. When first introduced Cassie is your typical childish self centered idealist. She puts great value on the things she cares about and tries not to thinka bout things that contradict that view point. Then she doens't really change she's a static character.

There is one redeeming factor about Cassie that is interesting but since it was unintentional I can't give complete credit to the creators for it. Cassie is a perfect example of everything wrong with Empathy as a stand in for goodness. Cassie is actually a very empathic character but she is also a very selfish character. Once she empathises with someone they become "Good" in her mind and she'll bend over backwards to justify making decisions that would negatively effect folks she isn't empathising with. It also informs how she is determined to stay in others good graces and only fights them when she can play the martyr.  Which reminds me of my wish that David had stuck around longer and been a foil to Cassie for a while because they really are starkly similar characters in most regards except Cassie has an almost over developed sense of Empathy (to the point she can be okay with horrendous shit if she empathizes with the ones doing it) and David has almost none outside of the things he cares out.  They are both also able to manipulate people to get what they want. And they read people very well to keep in their good graces or really hurt them if they piss them off enough.

But that isn't what this post is about so to sum up my view on Cassie is that she had potential but what we got was a horrendous character and the biggest disappointment of the books.

Now let's move onto another hard one to talk about and that is Tobias. When I first read the books oh so long ago I way over identified with Tobias but then I was a messed up lonely kid so it's not that surprising. Looking back on them as an adult it flew over my head back then how utterly fucked up Tobias is. This is not a healthy kid even before he got stuck as a hawk. Tobias was clearly already borderline suicidal even before the hawk thing and afterwards it and everything else in many ways turned into a much slower long and detailed decline into an early death. Tobias hated himself so he chose to give up all humanity forever. Which brings us to the problem with Tobias and that is the narrative never acknowledges how fucked up his situation is. Sure some of the other characters come close but they never fully grasp it.Tobias is in many ways one of the other great disappointments of the books because early on they clearly drop hints that he has a major role to play in things to the point where the freaking Ellimist preserves his existence by bending space time twice once to keep him around and then to ensure the animorphs happened and then the plot line is abandoned in favor of creators pet Cassie being the most important and special.

Now I love stories where the chosen one isn't that chosen after all but that needs to be intended from the beginning when you heavily lay on the foreshadowing that this is going to be an important element you need to address it. Instead the potential story line just peters out in a way that doesn't amount to anything not even a subversion. Tobias then sticks around to be a general misery magnet and to have the most unhealthy relationship possible with Rachel.

I mean I know stories change direction in production and over time and some times that leads to better stories and some times it leads to obvious dropped plot lines and a general degrading of quality. Animorphs sadly is in the second category.  Part of it of course was the real world rush to churn out the books for Schoolastic but parts of it were clearly the writers getting a bit too enamored of their pets and how they wanted things to end.

I'm getting off topic again. My view on Tobias is that he's an interesting character and one that you can pity but man is that boy fucked up.

Now let's move onto Ax the Andalite Animorph and the other one besides Cassie and Tobias who ends up kind of one note. Ax plays an interesting role since hes alien and the books do a good job of showing an alien viewpoint. Far better in his case than many of the other aliens. It helps that he's basically a slacker alien who was a poor student and probably only got brung along on the ship because his big brother pulled some strings.  

Ax is also a prime example of another time when the potential of the story gets left by the way side. Ax's torn loyalties should have come up more than they did and should have had more lasting repercussions. Way too often he'll get reduced to joke one note status when he should be figuring into things more. I don't have much more to say about him since I really remember as liking him but thinking he was wasted several times.

And now we'll move onto Marco a character who when I first read the books annoyed the crap out of me but as I grew older grew on me a great deal. Marco is a wonderful example of a character who can be obnoxious to protect themselves and despite being the other creators pet he is allowed to actually change in ways that are both good and bad so he's not another Cassie. The fact he's even allowed to disagree with her at least temporarily and call her on her BS very rarely also helps. Marco is also very realistic in that he reacts like many people would and for a lot of folks it would take somethign that affected them personally to make them fight as hard as the kids had to end up fighting.

Of course there is still one irritating thing about Marco and that's how he's often forced into the role of the complainer is wrong some times for the others (esp Cassie) to be right. It's a role he shares wtih Rachel she'll suggest the violent solution so it can be rejected and he'll suggested the better strategic solution but it'll be rejected for being wrong.

So final thoughts on Marco slightly annoying at times but very realistic and really grows on you.

Now let's talk about Rachel and this is the character whose fate pisses me off the most. I have no problem with character death in a story but Rachel's death is treated by the creators as necessary and it bleeds into the narrative abit and that really pisses me off.  She's also unfortunately the one who gets the most chaotic characterization as depending on teh writer how aggressive she is varies. Not to mention the books that paint her as a control freak. Of course you can hand wave it as the stress getting to her in different less pretty ways but that raises it's own problems with with how the narrative treats her. She's often also used as a foil to shill for Cassie and that bugs me. She and her cousin get the most discussion of Cassie's moral superiority though everyone gets a turn on it.  

And what is really sad is that she only gets to really call out Cassie and the others very rarely even though they are some of the most satisfying moments in the entire series. She's right when she calls out that the others need her to be the blood thirsty one. She's actually someone clearly sacrificing for the greater good but the narrative treats her as a blood knight. It really pisses me off and while her relationship with Tobias isn't even remotely healthy it makes a lot of sense because the others treat her as damaged and thanks to his neediness he'll never look at her as a monster like the others tend to do to make themselves feel better.

I'll make one final observation and that's that poor Rachel may have died twice in the series the first time being the starfish incident. Cause the Rachel that was split in half would never exist again. The two Rachels may have been re-merged but they had each had time to begin to diverge so what was formed out of them would be a new Rachel. Hell a lot of her issues later in the series could have been a direct result of that and it would make perfect sense.

Final thoughts on Rachel she deserved so much better and was probably one of the more selfless animorphs but gets written off by the narrative as just a blood knight too damaged to live.

Now let's move onto Jake who is actually my favorite character. I know a lot of folks find him boring and generic at first but that's exactly why he's the character that interest me the most because even more than the others he was just a kid when this mess started. You can see the seeds of who everyone else turned out to be in who they were at the start but Jake was just a kid who was slightly more mature and better able to mediate.  That got him forced into the leadership Role and from there for good or ill that's the role he got stuck with. Like Rachel he became exactly what the others needed him to be and at times it wasn't pretty.  

I mean it's so easy to picture how the others would have turned out, Cassie would have ended up one of those activist who says a lot of good things but is very much a walking illustration of perfect is the enemy of good with her probably doing more harm than help to her causes by turning folks off with her my way or the highway stance.  Rachel would have excelled at whatever chosen path she took with incredible zeal and bending herself to be what folks in her life needed. Ax would have lived in the shadow of his brother as a semi competent warrior at best, Tobias would have remained very fucked up and Marco would have done what it took to not be poor and mask all his hurts with laughter and entertaining folks.  Jake on the other hand is the one that just sort of was. He could end up really generic or find something he's good at and make it his life.

Instead he was given the role of responsibility and for the most part he carried the burden though his putting Cassie on a pedestal constantly was one part character flaw and one part character shilling by the creators. It was a realistic flaw he liked her and wanted her to like him. That was very human and relatable but his constant support for some of her more stupid moments crossing the line into plot induced stupidity.

One part that is really sad is that he's often compared with Elfangor and the narrative takes the appraoch that he falls short but honestly to me Jake comes off as more of a success than Elfangor and I wish the narrative acknowledged it. Of course I'll share my thoughts on Elfangor in another post.

There is more I could go into but this post has gotten long enough for now so final Thoughts on Jake generic kid forced to grow up even faster than others. Has an irritating blind spot when it comes to Cassie but over all my favorite of the kids.

[lilacmoon83]

A Darker Curse

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 20: Morning Musings

As Snow started to rouse that morning, she became almost fearful of opening her eyes. The pair of arms around her, the warm body pressed against her back, and the scent of the man she loved was finally a dream once again realized. That's what made her fearful. She almost felt like if she opened her eyes that he would disappear and be lost to her again as he was for twenty long years. Always the risk taker, though, she finally did open her eyes and turned her head to gaze into her husband's beautiful blue eyes.

"It wasn't just a dream," she said with a smile. He smiled back.

"It wasn't...I was afraid that it was going to be too good to be true," he agreed, as their lips met tenderly. He gently caressed her cheek, as their lips parted and gazed deeply into her eyes.

"I love you…" he said.

"I love you too," she said.

"Are you ready for your first day as Deputy Mayor?" he asked. She smiled.

"As ready as I'll ever be," she mentioned.

"You're going to be amazing," he said. There was no doubt in his mind at all.

"Thank you, my love...I suppose I should get ready for the day," she mentioned.

"Want help?" he asked in a sultry tone and she grinned.

"I thought you'd never ask," she purred, as they got up and she giggled, as he chased her into the bathroom.

~*~

Sometime later, they came out from behind the curtain, dressed and ready for the day. Their arms and hands weren't far from each other, as they just couldn't seem to keep their hands to themselves, but this was really nothing new for them. They had never been discrete and passion had always been so very prevalent between them. She had wondered if it would fade between them, as it often did for other couples, but no such detractor seemed to have befallen them. They were still like newlyweds and she had a feeling they always would be.

The sight on the couch though was a bit surprising for them and heartwarming. Neal was sleeping there with baby David asleep on his chest.

"Guess he's really serious about being a part of his life," David whispered quietly. She hummed.

"I...I just hope he doesn't hurt Emma again," he mentioned and she looked up fondly at him.

"He made mistakes...but I don't think he'll let either of them go again. He's stopped running away from his father and that's a good sign," she said. He nodded.

"But we'll both be there for her, no matter what. I don't think anyone would dare hurt her again, especially with her daddy ready to skewer them alive if they did," she said, as she caressed his face fondly. He smirked.

"Damn right I will," he agreed, as he kissed her cheek, just as Neal began to rouse. He instantly looked half embarrassed and half scared to death, as he saw them standing there.

"Oh...it was late when we got home and Emma said I could crash on the couch," he said quickly and Snow put her hands up.

"It's okay Neal...you're baby David's father and you're welcome here always," she assured, as their grandson began to wake up.

"I heard him whimpering during the night and got up with him so Emma could sleep," he said.

"That was very nice of you," she said. She was a bit worried though and put her hand to the little boy's forehead.

"He's been sleeping through the night mostly, except the last few nights. He's seemed restless...I hope he's not coming down with anything," she fretted.

"I thought about that...but he doesn't seem sick. He kind of seems pretty perceptive though. Maybe it's all the stuff going on. Cora is pretty pissed," he said worriedly. She nodded.

"That's what I'm afraid of, but we're not going to let her hurt this family," Snow assured and he felt humbled in being included in that.

"Nana…" he whined, as she picked him up.

"Oh...it's okay sweetie…" she said, as both she and David kissed his head.

"Why don't we change him and then all go to Granny's for breakfast?" he suggested.

"I won't say no to that," Emma said, as she and August trudged down the stairs.

"Me either," Neal agreed.

"Yeah...I mean we don't want to miss all the commotion my article is about to cause," August reminded.

"That's right...a lot of heads are going to explode," Emma said. David smirked.

"Well...we can't miss that," he agreed, as they got ready to go.

"We better make a stop at your father's shop on the way though," Snow told Neal, as they looked at the sapling.

"Are you sure giving it to my Dad is the best idea?" Neal asked.

"I mean, I love him...but if that thing has magic, there's no telling what he'll do with it," he added.

"We can't risk keeping it here though. Cora probably has keys to every place in this town if I know her and she absolutely cannot get her hands on it. At least we know your father has ways to keep her out of things he doesn't want her in," Snow reasoned. David nodded.

"She's right and so far...we're on the same side as him. We all have a vested interest in seeing Cora go down," he said.

"He's right...besides, according to the book, your father's only done all that he's done to find you," August reminded. Neal sighed.

"That doesn't make it okay," he refuted.

"No...it just makes him a parent. Trust me...we get it now," Snow said, as she looked at her husband. Neal shook his head.

"You two are way too forgiving...but I appreciate it. For both of us, because I know I screwed up too. I just hope he appreciates it as much as me," he replied.

"Time will tell, I suppose," Snow said, as they headed out for the day.

~*~

Kathryn stared at the official document with disbelief and defeat. It was done once she signed the line underneath where David had signed. Of course, she could refuse to sign and drag the divorce out for a while. But she knew that David's lawyer would just petition a Judge to order her to sign the papers and he would win. His lawyer was the illustrious Mr. Gold and even if she was foolish enough to hire the best lawyer she could find with her father's well of endless funds, she knew Mr. Gold would rip her apart in any kind of court battle.

He would dredge up everything in her and her father's past, including another contract that would spell a lot of trouble if it came to light for her father. Then he would also bring up her verbal and even physical abuse of her own husband. Even with the stigma that existed when it came to the possibility of a woman abusing a man that was physically bigger and stronger, she would lose. Too many people knew about the years of her abusing her husband. Half of them had condoned it, the ones in her father's circle. To them, David was a second class citizen and belonged to her, making him hers to do with what she pleased. That was how the upper class in her father's circle thought and she was the same as them. Then there was the other half that had silently stood in the background and allowed the abuse, too afraid to step in to help him. She had seen it plenty at the diner. The looks of pity in their eyes had humiliated David on a regular basis and only made him more ripe for her picking.

But everything had changed now. It seemed like it happened with a blink of an eye. Mary Margaret Swan and her two spawn had waltzed into town just mere months ago and had utterly destroyed her life in a sequence of events that none of them had seen coming.

Somehow, David had gone from a man she could order around with a mere look to a man with a backbone that refused her every whim. She had once commanded his every move and held him in her iron fist. He was hers, bought and paid for. He performed his husbandly duties to her, including the warming of her bed, and stood on her arm dutifully at every social event like the perfect, pretty little trophy husband he was. Until her.

Having another woman steal away what was hers and him practically sprinting into her arms was humiliating enough. But the woman he had divorced her for was twenty-years his senior, though an argument could be made that Mary Margaret Swan had seemed to age like fine wine. Most women could only hope to look as good as she did at forty-eight, as she easily looked ten years younger than that.

The utter humiliation that woman had put her through made her blood boil. Sometimes. That was another odd thing that she had been experiencing lately. At first, David's defiance had enraged her, but lately, she felt much of her anger giving away to indifference. She even had notions of regret lately, which was horrifying at first. But there was a nagging voice inside her now, telling her that she was the abuser and her misery was well deserved. She had no idea where such notions had come from though. It wasn't at all like her to think such things. She was one of the town's most powerful women, after all. Or at least she was. With Regina in power now...she had a feeling that her days in any kind of powerful position were as numbered as Cora's.

"So he did it…" Cora said coolly, as Kathryn looked up at her. The older woman wanted to sneer, as the look on the blonde's face was infuriating. She had gone from the cold, unfeeling tyrant that Cora had molded in her image to this simpering mess of a woman. That wouldn't do for her at all for what was to come and what had to be done.

"Even if I fight it now...there's no use. A Judge will just order me to sign," she said pathetically.

"Or maybe not," Cora replied.

"What do you mean?" Kathryn asked.

"I mean that your family's secrets are already out, thanks to Mary Margaret Swan's bastard son," Cora spat, as she showed her a copy of that day's edition of the Storybrooke Mirror. Kathryn looked at the headline and felt the indifference in her ebb away, only to be replaced with that familiar and powerful anger that had made her the feared woman she was.

"How dare they…" she growled.

"Yes...he painted quite a picture. Your poor father is probably beside himself right about now. Everyone knows for sure now that Albert Spencer sold his step-son for a hefty sum and that your marriage is nothing more than a master/slave business transaction. You're the town pariah now," Cora goaded, trying to stoke the seeds of anger and cruelty that she had planted inside the kind Princess Abigail with her perfect curse. Kathryn clenched her perfect teeth in anger and read the words that wrote her as an abusive, controlling wife and her husband as some kind of strong, championed hero that had survived insurmountable adversity.

"Damn him...damn her…" Kathryn growled.

"Yes...she did this. Trust me when I say that Mary Margaret Swan is the reason for all of this," Cora prodded. Kathryn gave into the rage inside her, like a light was flipped, and shredded the newspaper to pieces in her hands with a scream of fury. Cora smirked.

"Good...then you're ready to stop crying and licking your wounds?" she said.

"I'm...ready…" Kathryn hissed and Cora gave her a pleased smirk.

"Good...because for what we have to do...I cannot afford anyone to get a weak stomach now," she warned.

"I want...blood. Their blood," Kathryn said, Cora was thrilled at that, as it seemed August Swan had unknowingly put Kathryn perfectly back under the evils of her spell. And she knew that's what it was. Abigail would be horrified by the things she had done and was probably about to do if the curse was ever broken. But if Cora succeeded, then the curse would never break and Kathryn would remain as her right hand. She needed one too, since she could never count on Regina to be what she wanted. So molding the noble blooded Kathryn into her image would have to do as a surrogate for her own daughter.

"Good...and you'll have it if you stick with me. You may be the pariah, but that can still work to our advantage," she said.

"How?" Kathryn asked.

"They'll be at the diner soon. Why don't you take those papers and cause a scene. It will bode well for the storm that's coming," Cora replied cryptically. Kathryn smirked. Oh yes...she'd go tell her husband exactly what she thought of these papers and the little trollop he was sleeping with.

~*~

The shop bell rang, as Snow and David entered the shop that morning, while the rest of their family had gone onto the diner.

"When I told you both to bring the sapling here right away, I wasn't kidding," he said.

"Sorry...we got a bit distracted last night," David said, with a smirk that told the whole story.

"Clearly…" he deadpanned, as Snow sat the sapling on the counter.

"Have...have you seen Bae...Neal? I went by the Inn last night, but he wasn't in his room," Rumple inquired.

"He crashed on our couch last night. I think he wanted to be close to little David," Snow answered.

"Understandable," he said, as he looked at the sapling.

"Remarkable…" he muttered.

"Yeah...so how do you propose we keep this safe from Cora. I mean, if we know her like I think...she probably has keys to every place in this town," David mentioned.

"You're right to assume the worst of her. Fortunately, I have a place where she will not find it," Rumple responded.

"And you're not going to tell us where," Snow deduced.

"If she goes for broke and threatens someone either of you love to get to it...I think we all know that you would cave too easily," Rumple said.

"Even if she could destroy the sapling, she can't destroy our love. We wouldn't risk the life of someone we love for it," David replied. Rumple nodded.

"You do have a point, considering you both are the source. However, it's still too risky since it's magic and thus unpredictable in a world without," he said.

"Then why did you have me hide a potion that you made from us in Maleficent?" David questioned.

"That's my business," Rumple answered.

"And ours too. In case you've forgotten, we now share a grandson with you. And your son clearly still has feelings for our daughter and Emma may act like she's over Neal, but I assure you it's just that. An act," Snow said.

"She's right. We're the leaders of this family and in this family, we do things together," Charming added.

"I usually work alone," Rumple said.

"And working with us will get you into Neal's good graces," Snow reminded.

"Oh hell…" he cursed inwardly.

"All right...if you must know, originally I hid it away so it would come over with the curse and I could use it to bring magic to Storybrooke. I was going to need it to find Bae...but obviously things have changed on that front," Rumple stated.

"If Cora had magic, we'd all be in serious danger," David said.

"Which is why she can't get the potion or the sapling," Rumple agreed.

"That's what I don't get. Why did she bring your son here? That actually helped you," David said.

"He got free that night and he wasn't supposed to," Snow reminded.

"You weren't awake yet for that part," she added.

"She's right. Cora planned to keep him captive to use against me and if she thinks she can use our children against us in the future...she'll do it," he said.

"Then we can't let her. We have to present a united front," Snow said.

"Which means no more working alone," David added.

"Fine...but you two better be ready for the fight and that means no mercy. You two have a track record of being too forgiving," Rumple warned. Snow sighed.

"Though I will never think mercy is wrong...that was us in the past," she said, as she looked at her husband.

"After what Cora has done to us...we won't stop until she's gone and can never hurt anyone again," David agreed.

"Good...I hope that's true," he said. They nodded and joined hands, as they left for the diner. Rumple remained behind and walked into the back room of his shop. He looked at the magical looking glass and smirked.

"That should do," he said, as he proceeded to come up with the perfect hiding spot.

~*~

Finally. It was finally happening. When he received the call, he could hardly believe it was true. It had happened very fast yesterday when Captain Selvig of one of Portland's precincts had spoken with a Cora Mills, Mayor of a very small town by the name of Storybrooke, Maine. He had found it a bit strange that she had placed a call about an old larceny case involving a man named Neal Cassidy. He was wanted in Phoenix as well, but she had chosen to call them, which would allow them to prosecute the case if they were first to bring him in. It got even stranger though after that. The woman claimed that they were so small that she had taken the liberty of mailing a special map to their precinct to show them how to find the town. And sure enough, just an hour after the call, the map had shown up in the mail. Like magic or something.

If all of that wasn't peculiar enough, his precinct's boss received a special assignment from his superior and sent off on the new assignment. A temporary Captain was brought in at this point, which was why he was now in Maine.

Greg Mendel wasn't new to Maine and he had tragedy in his past. A tragedy that had set him on his life's path to find those responsible and make them pay. He still didn't know exactly what had truly happened that night. Only that some dark force had ripped through the forest that night and killed his father. He could still hear his father's screams that night, as they slept in the woods and some mystical happening had ripped him away.

He had watched in complete disbelief as a town sprawled up from the forest out of no where and as quickly as it appeared before him, it had disappeared. But the damage was done and he found his father's body a couple miles away from their campsite, his eyes frozen open in death.

He had run through the woods, his tears blinding him, as he cried for help. He wasn't even sure how long he had wandered along the side of the road until a passerby had stopped and taken him to the police. He had ended up in Augusta and told his wild story about a dark purple cloud carrying his father away and a town that appeared and disappeared before him.

He could tell immediately that the cops chalked his story up to a boy's wild imagination and that his father's death had obviously been caused by some realistic, but possibly nefarious occurrence.

It was two days later when a patrol car took him back to the vicinity and he was able to lead them to his father's body. By then, animals had found the body and there was not much left, to his sorrow and horror.

Despite all that, the detectives had assured him that there was not, nor had ever been, any town sprouting up in that vicinity. But Greg had never been convinced of that. He may have been young, but he knew what he had seen.

The medical examiner was limited in his findings after the autopsy due to the exposure the body of his father had suffered and the wildlife that had eaten parts of the deceased.

While inconclusive, the medical examiner ruled his father's death as accidental. He had found a broken bones, likely from impact with the ground, and a few burns on the skin still in tact. Apparently, the national weather service had picked up signs of an electrical type storm that night in the vicinity that included high winds. Therefore, the death was ruled accidental due to this "storm". But Greg had never and would never be convinced that what had happened that night was an electrical storm. He had been searching for answers his whole life and found people that believed his story. They had told him about the strange things that happened in this world and found that they had connections throughout the country that could get them into various fields, including, but not limited to, law enforcement. They were called the Home Office, a rather benign sounding name for what they did. They sought out the unexplained things that occurred in this world. The things that mainstream wrote off as impossible and usually buried or gave a plausible explanation, like his father's death. Greg was certain that the electrical storm that night was no electrical storm. And now he was finally going to prove it.

He was no cop, but the Home Office had put him through law school. It allowed him to plausibly involved with law enforcement and cases like these. The district attorney had mandated the precinct to take an assistant district attorney with them to deal with the legalities in this case. In reality, he was a lawyer, but not an assistant district attorney for the state. But the two detectives with him did not know anything was amiss. Nor would they, for they were only interested in making a collar and closing an old case.

Once he had more information, the Home Office would give him further instructions. He would have his answer and they would wipe away whatever unholy impurity had infected the world to quote the words of his handler.

"Damn...where is this place? We're in the middle of no where," the detective that was driving said. Greg didn't know him, but he had a few years of experience on the job and his name was Michael Bishop. The other was a woman. She was petite and beautiful, with curly blonde hair and blue eyes. He was sure she was every bit as capable as her male counterpart, but there was something about her that made him think she was more than she seemed. It was possible the Home Office had inserted another operative into this like they had with him, but he couldn't be sure and he knew better than to question her about it. One of many rules to working for the Home Office was that you didn't ask questions. That was fine with him. So far, they had gotten him to where he was in his life and at long last, this path would give him the answers he needed.

"It should be just around this bend," the female detective answered. Her name was Tia Bellum.

"How? There is literally nothing but woods," the male detective complained. But like out of no where, there was suddenly a sign.

"Huh...there it is. Welcome to Storybrooke," Tia said, as they sailed past the sign and slowed down. Michael looked surprised, as they drove into town proper. There had been nothing but woods for almost fifty miles and suddenly the town was just there. Greg was more certain than ever. This town was the reason his father died almost twenty years ago. Now he was going to find out how and why. Then he was going to make those responsible pay...

[mandaating]

an excerpt from a book i’ll never write pt4

“Is there a reason you felt the need to kiss me, huh, Han?”

Never had Otrera been so pissed at another human being. And it was all over a kiss.

He raised a perfect eyebrow.

“Why did you kiss me?”

“Jesus, you didn’t notice how you fainted immediately after? Did you not think I would have any sort of lipstick that could knock a grown man out?” She wanted to smack him, dear God. Did anything get through that think skull of his?

“You could’ve just shoved the lipstick onto my mouth.”

“You really think you’re worth me ruining my favorite piece of makeup? And besides,” she shot him a look, “it was much more fun my way, wasn’t it?”

“Now you’re just trying to make me feel things for you!” James was fuming now, his voice almost coming to a roar. Otrera, as evil as it was, smirked.

“That’s what you get for kissing me without my consent, supervising officer.”

He growled and stepped closer, almost backing her into the wall. But instead she stood her ground and glared back into his eyes.

“I - ”

The door slammed open.

General David Bryan appeared in the doorway.

“Captain Han, I need to see you in my office. Effective immediately.” The door closed as quickly as it was opened, and when Otrera turned back, James was stark white.

“Oooooooohhhhhhhhh - ”

“Otrera, I will take away your firing rights.”

“You wouldn’t.”

James sent her one last look before he stormed out of his office.

Oh, how entertaining it was to annoy him to death. And she knew he’d just keep on coming back for more.

Smirking, she quickly walked to her station, retrieved her things, and settled into his big, overly large mahogany desk. Just to rub it in a bit more

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

The door burst open an hour later, revealing a flustered James. Otrera smiled, not because was happy to see him. Not at all.

To be honest though, it was getting a little boring without him. Filing papers because you went on a rouge mission? Ugh. If only it were legal to be an independent assasin. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about all this bullshit specifics of keeping the higher officers happy.

“How was detention, bad boy?”

A beat had passed before he spoke. When Han finally made eye contact with her, he looked a bit lost, a bit intrigued, but mostly just concerned.

“Why is it always murder and mayhem with you? Don’t you ever just do normal things? Like eat a sandwich? Brush your teeth - ” He inched closer to her, and she pulled her lips back to show him her teeth. “Hm. I suppose you do both.”

“What?”

“There’s lettuce stuck in your teeth. But other than that, they look healthy.”

Her eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “How do you know that? I could just be bleaching them.”

“Your gums are more pink, not a dull red like most. That’s besides the point - ”

“And how do you know that?”

He sighed and dropped his head, debating. He wore a pained smile when he looked back at her.

“I studied dentristy to appease my first generation immigrant Asian parents. Done with the interrogation?”

Otrera shrugged.

“Now, I have a very, very important question for you.” James inched his way over to her side of the desk and crouched onto his knees in front of her, touching the carpet below him for support.

“I will allow that one question, but only if I get to ask one too.” That elicited an almost audible eye roll from him.

“No. You’ve had your questions. And I don’t remember giving you permission to ask them.” He looked at her pointedly, and she shrugged once again. Internally, she felt a current run through up her back.

Was he going to ask about her past? Her present? Why she had the lipstick? Oh dear heavens, he was so close to her. Was he going to ask about her DNR in her file that was completely and utterly ignored? Or was he going to kiss her again? Would she allow it? Was -

“Otrera. Come back.” He almost sounded bored. How cute. He was definitely into her. No one that was ever into anyone else would sound that bored when bringing their interest back to the present.

“Ask your questions, Captain. Or is that even your title anymore?”

Cold. Mean. Definitely unwarranted.

But anyone who even made her think about the past deserved that. And a beat down, but she would allow him to pass with just the former.

He just glared at her.

“I could lose my position, thanks to what you pulled back there with the Suits. Do you even know what you’ve done?”

Otrera pretended to think.

“No, not really.”

If looks could kill, oh dear heavens, she’d be a pile of ashes by now.

[theonceoverthinker]

OUAT 4X04 - The Apprentice

Apprentice? More like Apprent-ICE, am I right?!

...Yeah, that’s all I got. Unfortunately, be warned because it’s not a fun time here today, so strap yourself in and join me under the cut.

Main Takeaways

Past

Gotta say, I love how the writers had the balls to say that the reason Anna and Elsa’s parents went away was to find a more permanent solution for Elsa. Was it the right thing to do? Whether you think it was or not, just the fact that they implied that was heavy.

I love that scream when Rumple gets his dagger back. Seeing how much he hates it is so effective and had he not been the undeniable villain of the episode and more specifically the segment, it might have done more to reapply sympathy to him and allow for a really effective display about why being cleaved of the dagger means so much to Rumple.

So, as a warning, I get pretty angry at the present segment of this episode and to remember that this segment of it exists was like a breath of fresh air. Anna and Rumple have consistent characterization and even throughout all of the twists and turns of this episode, those characterizations are never lost. Because of that, the story is far more powerful in delivering something cohesive and entertaining. Sometimes, for as simple as a story is, that’s what makes it something truly good. The latte segment tries to be all over the place and as I’ll go over shortly, fails so hard because of it.

Present

This episode...was never one I liked. For a while, I found it simply difficult to watch because well...I like Killian. Like with seeing his lips cursed in the last season or seeing Henry turn against Emma in the one before, it’s an action that made complete sense to me from a narrative perspective, but is nonetheless hard to watch and for some reason, this one is harder for me to watch than either of the others.

And after rewatching it, I kind of understand why.

It’s good in terms of being a morality play of sorts. Killian not being honest with Belle about Rumple’s secret is a horrible thing to do and the punishment, while brutal, does make sense given his crimes. Rumple’s manipulation and reverse psychology is so cutting to watch play out. While Killian is trying to improve, obviously, there are cracks to his still developing sense of heroism and Rumple knows how to exploit that into getting a lackey and making Killian pay. It’s a lot harder to enjoy since Rumple’s the villain of the episode, but I also understand that that’s a personally hard point.

That ALSO having been said, Killian’s near snapping points kind of suck. In the case of the first instance, it’s really fucking stupid for him to be so pissed at someone who simply tripped and caused some drink to fall on Emma’s dress. I don’t care what kind of psychology Gold played on him, it’s still really dumb. Now on some level, I get that given the “rings” speech Killian gives in Season 5 (Assuming that he came upon those rings before his encounter with Rumple, and at least one of them came afterwards) and that the move was clearly more subconscious than anything in how it was shot and how Colin played it, this is more up old Killian’s alley, but just...for all of Killian’s confidence, this is such a petty thing to make it falter and it stretches my suspension of disbelief just a smidge too much. The way that it’s played doesn’t help. It drags the date down in a really awkwardly written way where Killian is both enjoying himself and kind of can’t because of the hand. And in the second instance, the moment goes by so quick and is given such little focus that it’s just not as effective as the former point. I found both instances to be so utterly weak.

And how Killian goes after The Apprentice with barely a moment’s hesitation because of such small incidents isn’t really that well written to me. Like, what’s worse: Punching someone or allowing your arch enemy to have his fucking way with a man who very likely doesn’t deserve it? It doesn’t paint Killian in the way that the episode is trying to. The episode is trying to show that Killian is a good person with inner demons that hadn’t finished coming out, but that he wants to stop. But instead, Killian’s getting scared over basically nothing in terms of this series and rather than look for any other solution, opts to help Rumple do Merlin knows! And Killian does NOTHING as it happens! I thought I remembered an apology, but there isn’t one! He just stands there, makes no attempt to even subconsciously stop the hat, and it really grinds the wrong way against all the goodwill he’s accumulated.

The ONLY action of his that was bad, but I at least get the nucleus of is when he threatens Belle. He was angry at Rumple and was trying to irk him (Also, it might have been just metaphorically given the news he had). And when that’s all the segment can provide for me, then that’s just sad.

What’s more: For all the bravado made at the end of the episode for how much Killian will owe Rumple for this, Killian breaks four episodes later the MICROSECOND Emma’s threatened. And the time in between simply has Killian out of focus for the most part in regards to this dynamic! Look, I’m normally one of OUAT’s more defensive fans, but this legitimately, given all the characterization that was picked up only to be abandoned after this episode, must conclude that this episode was only meant to move the plot along by trapping the Apprentice, but unlike other episodes, I mean that in the worst way BECAUSE it tries for so much else only to abandon it afterwards.

And here’s the thing: If they were aiming to make Killian a villain protagonist in this episode, someone who we thought was good but was actually bad, I wouldn’t be complaining. I wouldn’t like it from an emotional standpoint because I don’t like Killian being hurt, but I do understand that Killian’s a character capable of great evil and an episode delving into that would’ve been great (That’s why I like the twist in “A Murder Most Foul” so much). But Killian is clearly, despite receiving Emma’s forgiveness, disturbed by the danger his possessed hand poses and that’s a good thing in both the audience’s perception and in the episode’s framing. Him wanting to get rid of that hand for that reason is a good thing. It’s not like he hurt David or Emma or someone else he cared about -- he hurt an asshole thief (As far as he knew) and was still freaked out enough to make a deal to get rid of the hand. And because of that, the framing is all over the place and seemingly can’t make up its mind about what it thinks of Killian here. And works akin to that can work -- my favorite musical is Hamilton and that show is as scathing as it is praising at times, but Alexander himself is a consistent character. Killian in this episode is about as consistent as curds and whey and it sucks. This came after one of the best Golden Hook scenes EVER. How did they fuck that up in such a way?!

I like how Emma shows real strides in taking the advice given to her about not letting another crisis stop her from living her life. She actually makes the choice to not only go out on a date, but to not chase a thief. She’s prioritizing the important things and living and that’s solid development.

There is literally no point to Henry working at Rumple’s shop. Nothing comes of this and that’s a shame! It contributes nothing to Operation Mongoose, derails this already derailed episode even more with the awkward way that it pops up, and its lack of depth deprives the audience of Neal bonding as well as Rumple and Henry bonding. And again, that sucks. It doesn’t even contribute to saving Killian, like the placement of the hat during the ending scene implies that it might, and that makes it doubly frustrating! Like, there was potential for this idea (Maybe have Henry ask some more questions or delve into Henry’s feelings on Rumple’s betrayal and how it affects Operation Mongoose later since the villain who seemingly got his happy ending lost it).

All Encompassing

I like the more subtle theme of backing away from temptation. Anna steps away from the temptation of saving her sister at the cost of the Apprentice (Or so she thinks) and this is correctly framed as the right thing to do. Killian both does this and doesn’t do this. He backs away to ask for his hook back upon seeing the damage he does to others, but doesn’t back away at the darkness of the cost of that hook (Allowing for Rumple to put the old man in the hat).

Stream of Consciousness

-Ooh! It’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice! M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E! XD

-I like that we got to see Zoso again. You know, seeing as he was Rumple’s mentor, I wonder what it was like for him to train Rumple. I HC that it wasn’t a long journey since Rumple adapted to the darkness fairly easily, but the dynamic would’ve been interesting to see nonetheless.

-What parent names their kid Zoso? And I thought Malcolm hated Rumplestiltskin! XD

-”No Dark One will ever possess what’s in that box.” ...Well, you’re half right.

-“No, but I want you to be happy.” Someone remind me one day to write a giant ass post about why I think the Captain Cobra dynamic is so good because believe it or not, a line like this actually boosts my love for this dynamic!

-That missed dart will brighten me up on my darkest days! :D

-”What are you, like 300?” Don’t get people started, Emma.

-I don’t think I ever realized how close Mr. Gold’s was to Granny’s!

-”You kept it all these years?” Rumple, I know revenge and self loathing and all that, but there is no heterosexual answer to this question! XD

-”This hand belongs to the man you used to be.” I kind of wane back and forth around how bad that dude actually used to be. On one hand, “Good Form” shows that Killian was raring to go, violence wise, but his behavior in Milah’s town in “The Crocodile” suggests that there were circumstances where he wasn’t a pillager. So was it just noble pillaging or was that just an exception? Opinions?

-”That’s just A through E.” Was that an Adam and Eddy reference? Because that’s pretty cute! XD

-So my journey with Killian’s Storybrooke outfit was a bit of an adventure. I didn’t like it when it first came out, but I will admit that that was partially because I was holding out for seeing him in a suit or even a tux AND I missed the pirate coat and the glorious chest hair we got because of it. BUT the more time that I spent with the outfit, the more I liked it and as of a few months ago, I now own a kickass custom Funko of this specific outfit! XD

-”It seems he indeed has changed his ways.” Killian, I get that you’ve gotta explain the sudden reappearance of your hand, but that might be a little too much, even for you.

-I didn’t realize it, but the Apprentice has some jokes to him! I like that bit of personality and wish we got a bit more of it.

-Killian, you don’t get to make poses like that and expect me to live through them!

-”Shouldn’t you be happy [That Marian’s frozen]?” Dude, whether she’s with someone or not, an innocent woman’s doing her best popsicle impersonation because of that frozen heart! Henry, not your best moment!

-That weird bit of Killian looking at his hand mid-kiss is DUMB! Like, I can almost forgive the dumb snapping point at the restaurant because it was somewhat unconscious, but this is Killian focusing on kissing Emma and just a LITERAL SECOND AGO, he was happy with his hands around her. That was simply a poor writing, shooting, and music choice.

-SNOW AND DAVID ON THE COUCH IS NEVER NOT FUNNY! XD

-Emma, don’t just leave your folks! Gossip!

-”Because I don’t want to.” I love how blatant and frank Rumple is with so many of his lines! XD

-We got flowers! We got a run in in a car! DATE NIGHT 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO!

-I love how Rumple’s such a fucking drama queen that he HAD the fucking hook on his person! XD

-I love how Storybrooke has a dedicated radio station! That must be the most interesting job in the world! If by some miracle, I’m ever transported to Storybrooke, I’m getting a fucking internship! XD

-And I love how Granny’s sponsors said radio station! Does she not have enough money?! XD

-Oh hey! Rip Van Winkle survived his deleted scene with Rumple and made it to Storybrooke! XD

-...Wow, Will. They were really planning something for you….I think. (Fun fact: You ever want to unlock my hidden salt? Talk to me about Will Scarlet, apparently! XD )

-I know a lot of people think Killian might have been homeless at this point in the series, but I HC that he just drank himself to sleep or that he just didn’t want to be around people for risk of hurting them.

-I love how Robert Carlyle plays Rumple when Rumple loving what he’s doing, but he’s in Storybrooke mode so he can’t exactly show it but still is showing it. Does that make sense?

-I KNOW YOU, RUMPLE! “OLD FRIEND” MY AUNT FROU FROU!

-YES! MICKEY MOUSE SAVES THE DAY! M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E, MOTHERFUCKER!!!

-Anna, I will forever love the fact that you call the most danger artifact in the OUAT world a “wavy knife.”

-I also love how she proceeds to say “please” to Rumple! XD

-Anna, you are my fucking hero!

-Anyone notice how The Sorcerer is very likely the owner of that gaudy af red and white car?

-”So here we are, Captain. Still in business together.” This line was always weird to me. It had no congruity with the story and for such a big line, it has no presence.

-Umm makeup? Will doesn’t look like he has a shiner.

-Damn, that investigation scene was weird.

-”...before the trail gets...cold.” Thank you, Emma for gracing me with a pun! I needed that!

Favorite Dynamic

Anna and Rumple. These two are fucking hilarious together! Rarely does Rumple get to have a back and forth with someone not only oblivious, but also hysterical and Anna meets this weird mix to a tee! Their banter is truly one of a kind and I’d have seriously loved more scenes of them together! I also love how Anna learns from Rumple! When she finally gets her hands on the dagger, she is VERY careful about how she handles Rumple and her commands! Seeing Rumple’s lip twitch as he is forced to save The Apprentice is just one of the greatest moments ever! Not only that, but I found their dynamic to be a little necessary. While Killian is getting his just desserts for doing bad in this episode (Though it might be a bit overkill-y (Or should I say, over KILL-I-AN XD) for me), Rumple is doing bad too in the present with no consequence and I feel like the flashback here showing his proverbial ass getting handed to him made that a lot more palatable.

Writer

Andrew Chambliss and Dana Horgan are our writers today. It’s actually Dana’s first and...it really shows. I don’t feel too guilty attributing the present segment to Dana as she’s written second on the writer’s list, but correct me if that’s a mistake of judgment on my part. There is no understanding of Killian’s character or what she wants to do with him here and because of that, he flops on the deck like a fish. And when you’re dealing with such a delicate dynamic as Killian’s and Rumple’s, you need to provide it Andrew’s segment of the episode however is fantastic! Everything is much more cohesive!

Rating

6/10. This was is many ways such a failure of an episode. I GET what they were trying to do -- expose cracks in Killian’s redemption so that the door was open to explore more with his character, but the result of the work here made Killian an incomprehensible mess. His morality is all over the place, but not in the way it intended. Honestly, if not for all the goodwill Killian developed earlier on and following this episode, this singular episode might have destroyed my love for his character. If this segment were on it’s own, it very likely would’ve been tied for the series’ low of 3/10. Thankfully, the past segment is such a redeeming factor here. The story is far tighter and the characterizations were done so carefully. Additionally, Mr. Gold is at least consistent in the present segment and Robert Carlyle’s performances here are excellent in selling that sanrmyness of Rumple’s. But the rest of it is trash and apart from the hat scene and the flashback, are completely irrelevant throughout the rest of the series.

Flip My Ship - The Home of All Things “Shippy Goodness”

Captain Swan - So before we get into the squee of things, I gotta talk about Henry. Despite that “no,” Henry is the one to push Emma into that diner. If he didn’t want her asking Killian out, he wouldn’t have done that. I’ll get into this when I one day talk about how much I love Captain Cobra, but I love how Henry likes Killian, but his feelings towards Killian dating Emma are a lot more ambiguous. Okay, we good! Now let’s get into AWESOMENESS that is the date stuff! First off, Killian wastes no time focusing on the mission because he knows how important it is to Emma and assures her that they’ll find her, all the while oblivious to Emma’s adorable nervousness. And then she asks him out and he misses so adorably! And the age banter and the planning banter! Fuck! I just can’t! And I get to watch a whole date of them! I’m already in pain from smiling. But before that, I’ve got to point out how Killian, despite being a lot fucked up i his method, is going for his hand back on the off chance that Emma wants him to hold her! That is just too romantic! Rumple, you’re right about blackmail and his romantic side! Ok! I love those first few seconds where Emma and Killian cannot speak because they’re admiring each other so much. Like, oh my FUCK! That is too cute! And can we talk about And then we get the actual date and while Killian’s having his mini panic attack, Emma’s the one to comfort him and tell him it’s okay. I really like how they both support each other in this way! “Will you go out with me again?” Because I’ve seen that thread where people started the show because of a gifset of that and I’m STILL shook af! And Emma’s response with that kiss is too beautiful! Like, she can’t even think of how to verbalize how much “YES” she has in her so she decides to kiss that “YES” and burn it into everyone’s skull for all eternity! And the way she stands by the door once it’s closed...that’s actual perfection. Like, I can die a happy woman!

Rumbelle - I’m not gonna defend Rumple’s actions in this episode, but seeing just how far he goes to fuck with Killian for threatening his marriage really does show how much he values said marriage. I also loved the deleted scene where Belle returns to the library and think that would’ve been better had it made it on screen.

-----

I hate bitching about an episode and I wasn’t looking forward to doing it at all, so much so that I pushed doing this episode off twice! I want to say that hopefully that’s the last time I need to review an episode like that, but unfortunately, I’m not a fan of the next episode either. This...is gonna be a hard week.

BUT thank YOU all the same for reading! You made this bit of suffering worthwhile! And thanks to the fine folks at @watchingfairytales as well as @daensarah! See you next time!

Season 3 Total (35/230) Writer Scores: Adam and Eddy: (9/60) Jane Espenson: (10/40) David Goodman and Jerome Schwartz: (10/50) Andrew Chambliss: (6/50) Dana Horgan: (6/30)

*Links to the rest of my rewatch will no longer be provided. They take posts with links outside of searches and I spend way too much time on these reviews to not give them that kind of exposure. Sorry for the inconvenience, but they still can be found on my page under Operation Rewatch.

[owoforhorror]

[[ Hewwo! I bring another fic becuase the last one was well-loved and 💕💕💕!! Thank you for all your support, it means so much!!

[[ I'll continue this on if you all enjoy it!

That is what David wants. He wants to go and eat garbage food, drink bad alcohol, and fight whoever he wanted without being questioned. His parents got to a point that they just set down a few rules for him, which he could agree with. No sexual acts, be fair in fights, and come home alive by four a.m. He had agreed right away, but of course there was a catch. He had to participate in the meetings his parents had with other big businesses. He thought he could deal with that, he wasn't doing anything major or anything so it would be fine. That was until he actually went with his parents, dressed up in formal attire, having to wear a nice hat to cover his partially shaved head and long sleeved, and a high collared shirt to hide his tattoos.

Of course the meeting was with the Park family, another heavily wealthy family. It was something about putting the kids in public schools and whatnot, David didn't care, really. He was just there to show up, read his cards in a awfully fake formal voice, and then get out and free himself from the itchy confines of the suit. They got into the meeting room early, and so David just took the last chair, which happened to be closest to the door. He couldn't care, he was going to have to look at these people anyway so it might as well be faster. A cough from his father made him jump, which only then he noticed that he was slouching and had his head in his fist. "David, dear, be more formal. They're outside the door." "Then why don't they just fuckin' come in, then." His parents never specified that he had to have good attitude, and he was up for any loophole in the system he could get. His eyes gazed between the door and the chairs in front of him, what was taking them so long? He just wanted to get this over with and not see them for another two weeks. That was until the other family came in, all dressed up nicely and looking prestigious, except for the last boy that came in. His hair all disheveled, David could see a few twigs in his hair. His suit was loose, and he had the utmost annoyance and unwant on his face that it was almost funny.

Actually, it was funny. Very funny. So much so that David grinned with the quietest snicker. The boy shot him a glare across the other side of the table as he sat down, making a huff. They were sitting across from each other, which made this so much funnier. As soon as the meeting started, David reached his leg over to jab the other’s, which gained him a glare. His parents started on about how they would be better at communicating if they went to the same school; and would probably help them get to know each other and to not be so quiet or aggressive. When he saw Jake roll his eyes, he pulled his leg back. He didn't even know this kid's name, but he clearly didn't want to be here, so he decided he could be a distraction. "Mom-" He cut off them as they brought up how David should go to Jake's school, apparently that was his name. That suited him, if David was honest. He had to come up with something that would be serious, but not too much so that Jake wouldn't be the one that had to go with him. All eyes were on him, and if he was true, he felt oddly nervous. "There's a cut down my leg, I...” He felt Jake's eyes boring into his, he could tell what he was trying to do. At least everyone else was denser then him which worked out in their favour. "Jake, help him to the car." Jake's mom cared more than his own mom apparently, cause David's mom was gonna carry on the conversation. She slid his parent's card over to Jake, along with the car keychain. "Take him home, I've seen you patch up yourself before, you can handle it."

So that left David and Jake to rush outside, David being allowed to lean on Jake just to pretend that he couldn't walk well. Once they got outside, the Brit jerked himself away, he knew he was a bigger guy so it couldn't have been comfortable. "Jake, aye? Be a lad and drive?" All he got was a stare from Jake, and David spent several seconds trying to figure out why he didn't understand, he hadn't used several different words. Then it hit him, this Jake Park wanted him to be polite. He sighed, which only provoked Jake's eyebrow to turn up in question. "Please drive for me. The bitch hit me with glass." "Okay." David felt quiet anger welling up in him just due to the fact that he forced him to be polite, and then didn't even seem to care that he did correct himself. Also how Jake just looked absolutely uncaring constantly, it drove him crazy; in a weird-nice kind of way. He forced himself to brush it off even as much that he didn't want to and just get into the goddamn car. It felt like ages for them to finally get to the King's house, and finally David was actually slightly limping so there was several reluctant movements until they could walk. Jake steadied them and guided David on how to have one arm over his shoulders and use his own to hold David's waist, which was very unpleasant. First of all, they were two men, and it could ruin David's tough reputation. He was pretty much horrified when he stopped going out with girls because then it hit him that he didn't even love girls, and that being with a man would get him kicked out. But... Jake was cute, and very calm, it was... Relaxing. Something he hadn't felt for a long while.

The night was spent as the parents took it upon themselves to just have a night for them, which was appreciated for the two. They'd gotten the wound cleaned out and wrapped up thankfully, and whilst they were sitting on the porch with a Polaroid camera it started dying off to just a sting. It was obvious for Jake's distaste to more fancy things, so David got them into the car and went to Wal-Mart to buy some poor ass quality wine, and then took them out to the forest. David had more self-control when he was drunk then most so he didn't worry, and after it was assured that they would be safe Jake agreed to drink.

Jake glanced over to David who was sipping down on the bottle he had. "Our parents suck." At least he could say that he tried to start a conversation between them. "Of course, but what bollocks? Ya didn't look pretty far from bein' cheesed off." His accent was merely just because he'd been raised with those words, bollocks a kinder way to mean bullshit and cheesed off a politer way to say pissed off. Jake didn't seem to care, really. "I heard you were forced to come. So was I." "Glad I got ya outta it. Bloody hell was what they were on about, yeah?" All David got back was a affirmation of a hum from the forest lover. They seemed so different and strange together, and it would be thought that their personalities wouldn't mesh okay, but it was alright. David offered confidence and pride to Jake, Jake offered calm and collected thoughts to David, it just strengthened their bond. Several minutes went by before the small talk started up again, but on an entirely new subject. "So, y'know, sexuality wise, what you into?" David didn't have much shame in asking such personal questions, and if they weren't on okay terms as kids and he wasn't a little out of his head, he would have declined to say.

"I think anything's fine." A small nod from David and that conversation switched to him just because Jake didn't feel up to the silence right now. "You?"

"Don't go 'round tellin' people this. My parents would utterly fuckin' screw me." David accidentally breathed in too much smoke from his e-cig, so it took a moment longer to answer, but Jake was patient. "I fancy boys." His answer got a thoughtful hum as Jake leaned on him, and the quiet forest around them filled the surrounding sounds. A creek flowing nearby, the tree leaves swaying in the cold wind, the small sound of a cricket chirping, it was nice. Jake had a loose hold on the bottle, and just knocked off the cap with his teeth and took a swig again. It tasted piss-poor, and he utterly despised it, but it was good in his book of cheap. He wondered aloud about if they could spend the night out in the forest like a camping trip, and David made a shrug. "If that's what yer wantin'."

So there David was, lugging a tent and two bottles of pringles in his arms. Jake promised that he knew how to set them up which was good, because David could not whatsoever. He finally found the track that they had took with the bottles and his e-cig, and there was a Jake already racking up a fire in the middle. "I'll keep it goin', you get this set up." He dropped the tent to the ground and the forester got to work, and after the fire had a steady pace David was just watching him. It was quite obvious that he was just leaning on the ground and watching as Jake's muscles moved to pummel the corks in the ground. Jake glanced back over to David to quirk his eyebrow up, and David merely shrugged with a dopey grin. Jake turned away to finish the task on hand, albeit a little redder than before. Thank god the Brit didn't have much shame or it would have been an embarrassing time for him. Never minding that though, the tent was up and Jake huddled in to test it first. It didn't come down when he pressed against the walls a bit, so it was absolutely fine, and he came out to sit next to David. "It's been a nice night, really." "'M glad, lad. We've gotta do this again." An arm around Jake, holding him to his own chest, and under the moonlight. Sure they were a little tipsy, but they were having fun regardless. Plus, they didn't get out-of-hand drunk, so there wouldn't be a horrible time when they got up in the morning. Their parents would be so fucking mad when they found this out in the morning, but whatever. They could chill out in each other’s rooms. It hadn't even been long, but they were out there talking about more personal matters already. It just felt safe with the other, very comfortable and all around just calm. Even though the birds cawed loudly to make their presence, and usually David would have gotten mad, but it was very intensely difficult with Jake on him.

David's hand sifted through Jake's hair as Jake rested his head onto his chest and the other hand on his opposite shoulder. Even with the lingering pain from David's wound, he couldn't be mad. It was so very hard to even think about being mad right now, as he was worried that it would rub off on Jake; at least that was his excuse. The real reason was the boy in general, he offered so much comfort. Even through David's time of just being reckless and trying to fight everyone, Jake made his anger simmer down. It was remarkable, really, and as if Jake knew what he did to him he could feel his hand trailing up from his shoulder. Collarbone, neck, chin, cheek, cheekbone- with Jake's thumb on David's chin he turned his head to face him. Jake could feel the heat on David's cheeks from being so close, their noses were practically touching and Jake was just staring questioningly into David's eyes. Their hearts throbbed, they were both so unsure of making any moves now. It was stupid, they didn't know each other quite that well but it was like an unnatural bond was tugging them together, closer, until they couldn't part. David's heart clenched as he felt Jake's breath on his chin and neck, and his worry of hurting Jake was obvious as his eyebrows moved together and his hold lightened. Jake could make out every perfect angle of David's eyes, every small freckles that were being shown off by the fire, and he counted them all like stars. David was getting inpatient clearly, as his eyes flickered from Jake's own and then down to his lips. His mouth curved in a small grin and that only made David want to retreat more, and it was shown by his bottom lip being sucked in his mouth.

Suddenly they were closer than ever, pressed against the ground and their lips meshing together in sloppy attempts to kiss each other, their eyes shut tight. Hands roaming each other until Jake had his jacket off and by then David kept his lips by tugging on them with his teeth just barely; and so Jake pressed harder down on him. Even though every inch of their bodies were covered by something of the other's, they only broke away to breathe heavily for three seconds before they were back on each other. Jake’s neck felt like it was going to burst in from how little oxygen he had, and so he pulled back away from his lips. David didn't have much of a horrible issue because he was used to getting the air beaten out of him, but he could understand why they’d stopped. Their chests were pressed close together as air was finally being replenished, and so David could feel Jake’s heartbeat that had sped up from kissing. He sucked in breaths before he basically went back full force to smother David’s face in kisses. David reluctantly just let him do what he pleased because each time he tried to lift his head up Jake pressed his chin down. Though, when Jake was content with that, their eyes locked with small smiles. Even with the backache from having someone laying on his chest for so long, David didn’t care. He just wanted Jake right here with him, and he was satisfied. Actually, much more than satisfied, he had Jake here and honestly everyone else could fuck right off.

[agameforgoodchristians]

Lusting After Lovers with Donkey Genitals and Horse Emission (Ezekiel 23:20) and Ezekiel’s Obsession with Pornographic Metaphors

Brace yourself.

We're about to do a deep dive into the card we get asked about the most. To do this, we're going to look into the life, times, and metaphors of the prophet Ezekiel: What he said and how he said it. 

Trigger warning: myriad accounts of sexual assaults presented, in the bible, as sanctioned by God

Part 1: What He Said

Five Fast Facts About Ezekiel

1. He was a prophet from a family of priests. 

"...the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi..." (Ezekiel 1:3b)

Not that this was unheard of, but the religious class were often at odds with prophets during this time period. However, being a priest possibly gave Ezekiel more clout with his listeners. 

 2. He was writing from captivity in Babylon.

In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. (Ezekiel 1:1)

In 587 B.C.E., when the Babylonians invaded Judah and took captives, Ezekiel was among them Yes Bob Marley fans, Ezekiel was one of the people "by the rivers of Babylon" (Psalm 137). His stark words and warnings need to be interpreted as coming from the mouth of someone torn away from his home, his Temple, and his family (his wife even dies in Babylon, Ezekiel 24:15-25). 

 3. He's like Jeremiah 2.0, but even more pissed off.

The prophet Jeremiah warned his people to turn away from evil for fear of God's punishment, especially if that punishment would be coming from the hands of foreign powers. In this way, Ezekiel was no different: he was constantly warning about the bleakness of the future if his people continued down the path that they are on. And remember fast fact #2: he's writing from Babylon. He knows things can get worse.

However, Ezekiel went beyond Jeremiah in content. While Jeremiah was primarily focused on the spirituality of this people, Ezekiel focused on both their spiritual and political failings, seeing the latter as a natural and moral extension of the former.

Furthermore, as discussed in other Card Talks, while Jeremiah (and Hosea) used marital and feminine images in their sermons-- such as presenting God as a husband and the people as a wife-- Ezekiel ratcheted up these metaphors in graphic ways. 

 4. A major policy of his political platform can summed up in two words: Fuck Egypt.

More on this below. 

 5. He likes extended metaphors and allegories.

This is where our card comes into play:

"...and [she] lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions." (Ezekiel 23:20)

We can't make this stuff up. But Ezekiel could. It was part of his prophetic extended metaphor against the actions of his people. From his place in captivity, Ezekiel was expanding on the metaphors of Jeremiah and his hatred of Egypt. Allow us to explain.

On Donkey Gentiles and Horse Emissions

In chapter 23 of his book, Ezekiel presents the story of two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah. These women "played the whore in Egypt; they played the whore in their youth; their breasts were caressed there, and their virgin bosoms were fondled" (vs 3), until a strapping young man arrived (God) and rescued them from their debased lifestyle. Knowing some people are a bit slow, Ezekiel pulls back the skirt of the metaphor, making the connections clear: "As for their names, Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem" (vs 4b).

The names Oholah and Oholibah are important, as they translate from Hebrew to mean “Her own tent” and “My tent is in her” respectively. Scholars suggest that this is a reference to the location of worship. During the Exodus from Egypt (notice how Egypt keeps coming up?) the people lived in tents, and had one special tent set up for the worship and habitation of the divine presence, the Tabernacle (which was was later replaced by the Temple). However, when the kingdom was divided, new shrines were set up in the north. In other words, Samaria/Israel set up  "her own tent," while those in Jerusalem/Judah felt God's true "tent is in her." While it seems obvious that Ezekiel is showing some hometown bias in his metaphor, it should not be forgotten that in chapter 10, Ezekiel envisions God's glory leaving the southern Temple altogether. 

The story moves on with Ezekiel spending time verbally maligning and molesting both of these "women" as a means of political and spiritual commentary on God's chosen people. 

Oholah = Israel (vs 5-10)

He begins with Oholah, representing Samaria, the capital of Israel, the northern kingdom of the divided monarchy (remember: Saul brought everything together into one nation, David strengthened it, Solomon pissed it all away). Ezekiel claims she "played the whore" with every Assyrian man she could find, and then screwed their idols (vs 5-7). After which, she went back to her Egyptian lovers and continued her "whorings" with them, allowing them to play with her breast and cum on her stomach, among other things (vs 8). Yes. That's in the text. Read it. 

For Ezekiel, the “whoredoms” of Israel were its political alliances with Assyria and Egypt, and the gruesome punishments he relays-- rape, child slavery, and execution (vs 9-10)-- are his metaphorical recasting of the destruction of Israel during the Assyrian Exile (722 B.C.E.). He says Oholah/Israel has become a “byword” (v 10), an example and a stark warning of what not to become. A warning her sister did not heed (v 11).

Oholibah = Judah(vs 11-35)

Zeke then turns to Oholibah, representing Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, the southern kingdom of the divided monarchy. She gets the same verbal treatment as her sister, with a list of her various “whoredoms” with Assyria (v 11-13), then Babylon (v 14-16), and currently with Egypt (v 17-22). It is in the midst of this scathing rebuke that our Card's verse is located: those donkey-like dicks and horse amounts of jizz are Egyptian in provenance. 

For this reason, and because Ezekiel finds her to be 1000 times worse than her "sister," he launches into a graphic description of the punishment that shall befall her, including all the horrors of the impending Babylonian Captivity (vs 22-35).

But why all the anger? Especially in relation to Egypt?

The Devil You Know is STILL THE DEVIL

In a historical nutshell, Judah had a back and forth relationship with Egypt. While they were the previous enslavers of the Hebrew people, Israel, and Judah were in a few "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" situations with the nation. Ezekiel is writing during such a time: some Judaeans are hoping an alliance with Egypt will stave off the Babylonian hordes.  But this is at the root of Zeke's "fuck Egypt" rhetoric.

The national identity and spiritual heritage of the Hebrew people was predicated on being everything that the Egyptians were not.

Consider this small sample of statements from the Torah:

You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not follow their statutes. (Leviticus 18:3)

Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, “Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the adversity that has befallen us: how our ancestors went down to Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians oppressed us and our ancestors; and when we cried to the Lord, he heard our voice, and sent an angel and brought us out of Egypt; and here we are in Kadesh, a town on the edge of your territory. (Numbers 20:14-16)

...then you shall say to your children, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. The Lord displayed before our eyes great and awesome signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household. (Deuteronomy 6:21-22)

 The long/short:

Egyptians are oppressive, amoral, assholes who God spent a lot of time and energy rescuing the Hebrew people from, leaving very specific instructions to not be like them.

Ezekiel has a right to be pissed. 

 Perhaps there is something to be learned from their example of selling out your spiritual and cultural values for political gain. At least Ezekiel thought so, and so do we:

Part 2: How He Said It

The Book of Ezekiel has provided a lot of content for our game. And one day we may get to all of them in Card Talks.  In the past we've discussed the graphically gendered and misogynistic metaphors Ezekiel employs in his prophesies.  While we stand by the comments made in those previous posts in terms of his context, but they did not fully explore the content. 

Ezekiel uses intricate metaphors which span entire chapters, most notably in chapters 16 and 23. Our gilded dildos post highlights this. Therein we acknowledge that the modern reader can (and should) be aghast at the apparent and inherent misogyny. As we said:

"...the power of this metaphor is rooted in Ezekiel's knowledge and use of horrific patriarchal norms; he is banking on the fact that the male hearers of his words would be scandalized by, not only the graphic sexual content, but also as being referred to as women, unfaithful women, and unfaithful women who use sex toys. This was intended to be a body-blow to them.

In their estimation the female body should be devoid of pleasure, unless the pleasure being referenced is in the context of providing pleasure to the man rightfully in charge of her body; that women are, in essence, sexual chattel. Yes: Ezekiel's metaphor is pretty fucked up, and he employs much worse in his tome.”

But this post did not go far enough.  We weren’t graphic enough, because we weren’t true enough to Ezekiel’s own tone.

 "Yahweh's Profound Irrationality" 

Here's the harsh truth:

Ezekiel’s metaphors only work if we view women as utterly worthless and unlovable. cREATURES who should be grateful if some man comes along and  deems them as worthy of more than sexual conquest.

 More than this, "the female body is used to conjure up for Ezekiel’s audience images of dred, chaos, anarchy, and evil” (Weems, 61). Some have gone as far as calling Ezekiel's language pornographic, or “pornoprophetic” (Knight & Levine , 317). Which is valid, as Ezekiel’s use of women in his metaphors contains “the preservation of male domination through a denial, or misnaming, of female experience,” which is “considered a distinguishing feature of pornography” (van Dijk-Hemmes, 164). You think we go to far?

Consider: 

Ezekiel spends time obsessing over women’s pubic hair, menstrual cycles, and the fondling of their breasts.

He has women dreaming about the size of their lovers’ dicks and the amount of semen they can release.

He pictures women crafting dildos out of gold jewelry and being sexually aroused by simply staring at the engravings of men's penises on the walls they walks by.

In his world, women are the victims of sexual harassment, abuse, and rape, both as “enjoyment” and punishment from God, making them completely to blame for whatever may befall them. This is why our card "God-sanctioned Gang Rape. (Ezekiel chapter 23)" was not out of line.

 Remember the “whoredoms” in Egypt discussed above (vs 3)? The parsing of the Hebrew suggests that this was a forced sexual encounter: the two sisters were the objects of the sexuality, not the actors. Or as one scholar translated the passage: "They were sexually abused in Egypt, in their youth they were sexually abused" (van Dijk-Hemmes, 166). 

A terrifying thought: the original audiences may have understood the women’s time in Egypt in exactly this light, that they were sexually abused. But they were rescued by a man willing to overlook their “damaged” and married them anyway. So, when they decided to cheat on that man, and go back to their abusers, they deserve everything they got! If this sort of theology is comfortable for you, is something you could say to the face of an abused woman in your midst. . .  our theology of swearing does not allow us to share our thoughts about you at this time. Email us and we'll let you know where you can go.

This overly-graphic degradation of femininity to make theological points, is what Walter Brueggemann calls "Yahweh's profound irrationality," when speaking of Ezekiel 16, 20, and 23 in particular: 

"...in Ezekiel... Yahweh's made passion for Israel has turn to the kind of irrational destructiveness that appears to be driven by sexuality embedded in violence, or violence embedded in sexuality ... What is not often notice is that these texts not only displace the mighty deeds [of God] with sins, they displace a passionately pro-Israel Yahweh with a side of Yahweh not so often visible, a Yahweh who is out of control with the violent, sexual rage of a husband who assaults his own beloved" (382).

One of the difficulties with the text is that Ezekiel's words only works if God is painted in an abusive light.

Period.

There is no way around this. One can say that this is taking the words out of context. But as we show, it isn't. At all, and that's the problem. Others can argue that we're placing modern sensibilities on an ancient text. Those people sound like they are trying to defend their grandparents against charges of racism because they still use certain words to describe different minorities. "They're from a different time." Sure, but we're talking about God. The Alpha and Omega. Beginning and End. The One who is timeless. We can say that the people of the time thought this was an acceptable use of metaphor, but that doesn't mean it is either an accurate representation of God, or that it is an acceptable way for men to refer to and/or treat women. 

Phrased another way: do you really think that God would sanction gang rape as an appropriate punishment?

  We at A Game for Good Christians are writers, artists, poets, musicians, and a few other creative-types. We understand the purpose of a good metaphor or analogy. We like to think we come up with good ones pretty often (some of us more than others). 

We see the brilliance of what Ezekiel was doing. But within that brilliance is the horror.

 Perhaps what we say matters as much as how we say it.

Perhaps we do not have to throw the biblical baby out with the modern bathwater.

Perhaps we can acknowledge the purpose of the images, while also acknowledging why they are so problematic. Not just today, but when Ezekiel wrote them. 

Perhaps we should remember the women in the room when Ezekiel first uttered these words. They had been forcibly marched from their homes. They had watched their families die. Some had been raped by the Babylonians. How did they feel? Perhaps we should remember the women who read these texts today, the women in our churches and homes, whose current situations are not too dissimilar to the women in exile by the rivers of Babylon. They have enough reasons to weep.

But what do we know: we made this game and you probably think we're going to Hell. 

Postscript: 

Once upon a time we talked about the Bible's misogyny, and how we respond to it.

[hookedonapirate]

Tangled Up In blue

Chapter 16

Summary:

Fear for her unborn child, a bruised and broken Emma Swan is determined to escape an abusive marriage. After she drives a long way from home to a small town in Maine, she doesn't think her life could get more complicated... that is until she ends up falling for her OBGYN, a blue-eyed British man who's shielded his heart from love long ago. But he may be just what she needs to begin her healing process and start a new life for her child. If only nothing gets in the way.

Rated M for a violence, language and eventual smut.

*BEWARE OF TRIGGER WARNINGS!!!*

I know I've already put out many warnings so far and you're probably sick of them, but this chapter definitely deserves one! There is a flashback in the beginning that includes sexual assault and attempted rape (surprisingly not by Neal), graphic depictions of domestic violence to a pregnant woman in early pregnancy and crude language.

I've never written anything like this and I wasn't planning on going into too much detail but I wanted to capture a glimpse of Emma's life with Neal more thoroughly. And after my beta reader and good friend, Rouhn, read it over, I was told it is was pretty rough and intense. So, if you're not interested in reading that you can skip to the chapter break which takes you back to the present. You really won't be missing out on anything important if you skip it, but it may make you more pissed at Neal (and probably at me) and give you a better understanding of how she was treated in Tallahassee and also of her appreciation for the people of Storybrooke.

And apparently I'm bashing Snowing in this chapter, I got 2 reviews that told me so. The chapter features abuse and attempted rape and if me “taking jabs at Snowing” is what people take away from this chapter then so be it. Excuse me for addressing real life issues and portraying David as his usual protective self. I'm not changing the story or the tags.

Thanks for all of those who read, follow along and support my story!

AO3 FF.N

Chapters: 15 16 17

~~~

About Five Months Ago (nine weeks pregnant)...

Emma looked in the mirror, carefully studying her features as she touched her cheek and shifted her face, eyeing the image in front of her. She dropped her hand, letting it fall to her belly through her red uniform. She was wearing a short dress with a white frilly skirt underneath that rested on her thighs and white stockings with red heels. She feigned a smile, making sure that she was able to mask her pain and the soreness of the bruise on her cheek that was covered in a heavy amount of makeup. Neal had lost more control than usual. He knew that something was going on.

He knew that Emma had changed physically and emotionally. He knew that she was keeping something from him and struck her in the face. Emma had pleaded with him, assuring him that she just wasn't feeling well, which thankfully he accepted... for now at least. He told her to cover up her bruise before she went to work and left the bedroom. He let the issue rest for the moment but she knew she wouldn't be so lucky when she came home from work. Eventually Emma would have to tell him the truth. Especially since she would have to schedule a doctor's appointment soon. There was no way she would be able to keep that from him.

She walked away from the sink and reached for the door handle of the ladies room. She paused briefly, exhaling a long breath before leaving the restroom and going back to work.

A few of Neal's friends were sitting at the bar, looking in her direction as she went to grab her tray and retrieve a few beers before heading to her next table.

As she gave one of her tables their drinks, another crowd of loud and boisterous men entered the bar. New faces. They looked to be around her age, one of them was really attractive. Blue eyes, brown hair, tall and strong-looking. As they sat at one of the tables, she approached them with a friendly smile. The guy eyed her immediately, scanning her from top to bottom and licking his lips like he wanted to devour her as he sat closest to her on the left. Her heart raced as she greeted them, trying to ignore the attention he was giving her.

“Evening, gentlemen, what can I get you?” She asked them. The others gave her their drink orders as she wrote them down, and finally she looked in his direction, catching him openly staring at her breasts. “And for you? What would you like?” She asked him as politely as she could muster.

The other men were chatting amongst themselves as he lifted his eyes. His elbows rested on the table as he raised a hand from the surface, waving her closer. She swallowed thickly as she stepped up to him and leaned in, allowing him to whisper in her ear. She was used to men hitting on her. It was her job to tolerate it. Her boss would fire her otherwise. She brought in lots of business and received a hefty amount of tips by flirting and being overly friendly with the customers. And Neal had no objections, in fact he forced her to keep the job. They needed the money. And he liked knowing that he had a wife who all the men wanted but could never have. In fact, Emma was pretty sure he got off on it. Although if she ever reciprocated the feelings, she would surely be punished.

“I'll take a Long, Slow Comfortable Screw Up Against A Wall,” the man spoke in a low, husky voice, his breath hot in her ear. Emma trembled, her hand shaking uneasily as she wrote down his order, although the way he looked at her with hungry eyes, she was certain he wasn't referring to the cocktail drink.

“Coming right up.” She smiled tentatively as she tucked her notepad in the pocket of the white apron wrapped around her waist.

He winked at her. “Mmmm, I can't wait, sweet thing.” As he spoke, his hand reached over to graze her thigh just below her skirt. “Fuck… nevermind the wall, I'll take you right here bent over the table.” He moved his hand up her skirt and firmly squeezed her butt. She retaliated by pulling away and slapping him in the face, storming off before he could grab her wrist.

She hurried to the hallway that led to the kitchen, out of view from the customers and she leaned her back against the wall as tears swelled up her eyes. She wanted so badly to leave this town and never come back. Away from Neal, away from this bar, away from everything in this dreadful town.

She managed to refrain from crying and straightened her posture, blinking away her tears as she maintained composure.

Before she could walk away, a pair of strong hands grabbed her arms and pressed her into the wall, making her gasp.

“How about we pretend you didn't just slap me and I won't tell the manager about your rude behavior?” The same guy from before asked as he stepped into her space, his lips inches from hers. Her stomach turned. He smelled like cigarettes and alcohol and she turned her face away from him.

He grabbed and yanked on her chin, forcing her to look at him. “You didn't answer my question,” he spat before moving his hand to one side of her face to hold her in place as he started kissing along her jaw. Her whole body tensed up. She screwed her eyes shut, trying to think of how to proceed. She didn't want to lose her job but she certainly didn't want to be touched and god knew what else this guy had in mind for her.

She opened her eyes as he continued kissing her. “What do you want me to do?” she asked quietly, her voice shaky. The man smiled against her skin and pressed her more firmly against the wall.

“I want you to let me fuck you against this wall. No screaming, no resisting, got it?”

The air escaped her lungs and she managed to nod as a tear slipped down her cheek. Certainly someone would walk by soon and save her. She was sure of it.

“That's a good girl.” He growled, kissing and sucking on her neck as his hand crept up her skirt, his thumb running over her covered folds. He lifted his head and whispered obscenities in her ear as he pressed his erection against her stomach. “Fuck, I can't wait to have you. So goddamn sexy,” he breathed as he thrust his hips into her. She gasped, her heart pounding nervously in her chest.

He started kissing the swell of her breasts as he fondled her clit. She felt utterly nauseous as she looked up towards the ceiling, praying that someone would catch them. She didn't need this, she put up with this enough as it was in her own home. But she didn't want to lose her job.

The man let go of her and started unzipping his pants, certain that she wasn't going to fight him.

However, she took full advantage and lifted her knee, attempting to nail him in the crotch, but he was quick to grab her leg and stop her. “You stupid, bitch. I told you to not to fight me!” He wrapped her leg around his waist and slammed into her against the wall, making her cry out.

“Let me go!” She shouted but the loud music and chatter of the bar drowned out her pleas. She shoved her hands against him but he was too strong. He gathered her wrists against the wall with one hand as his other one finished undoing his pants, his body firmly pressed into Emma's to hold her still. He ripped her skirt trying to get to her panties and she struggled against him but he only became more forceful.

Emma closed her eyes, sobbing with tears as the man was suddenly peeled off of her. Exhaling in relief from the heavy weight being lifted from her, she opened her eyes and saw Neal pushing him against the opposite wall. “Get your hands off my wife, you motherfucker!” Neal punched him in the face as Emma wiped her tears and the runny mascara from her cheeks and straightened her dress, feeling deflated. Her stockings had been ripped and tattered and her body was stiff as she watched the guy sliding to the floor, putting up his hands in surrender.

“I didn't know she was married. I'm sorry.” There was fear in the man's blue eyes as he looked up at Neal. He sharply grabbed Emma's hand and showed him the ring on her finger.

“See this ring? She's mine! Get your own!” Neal growled possessively and kicked him hard in the side a few times, making him wince and groan in pain before Neal started storming off, his grip on her hand tightening.

“Ow, you're hurting me,” she cried as Neal tugged her down the hall. “Grab your shit!” he demanded and finally released his grip. “We're leaving. I'll let your boss know.”

She complied and grabbed her purse before meeting Neal at the exit door. He grabbed her arm, his fingers painfully imprinted in her skin as he walked her out and led her to his car in the parking lot. She held back tears but didn't fight against him.

He opened the passenger door, his eyes black and full of anger. “Get in!”

“But what about my car? I have to be back here tomorrow.”

“I'll bring you back,” he said impatiently, “if I decide to let you keep your job. Now get in the fucking car!” he yelled, his voice echoing through the night air.

She immediately got in the vehicle and he slammed the door shut before taking long strides to the other side, claiming his seat on the driver's side. He turned on the car and pressed his foot madly on the gas pedal, the tires screeching against the pavement as he pulled out of the parking lot.

They were silent the whole ride home. Uncomfortably silent. An unsettling feeling crept inside of her gut. She didn't know what she was in for, but she was certain it wasn't going to be good.

Neal entered the driveway and hastily got out of the car, approaching Emma's side as she undid her seatbelt. He ripped the door open and grabbed her arm harshly, yanking her from her seat. She yelped, her eyes stinging with tears and her stomach full of knots as he pulled her inside the house.

After he shut the door, he slammed her aggressively into the wall, holding her in place. She cried out in pain as tears escaped her eyes. “Please, don't. I tried to stop him,” she pleaded, her voice strangled through her tears.

He sighed angrily. “You like the attention, you ungrateful whore!” He slapped her across the face, causing her head to whip to the side. She cried out, holding her cheek, her face and eyes stinging red as she looked at him in fear. “I saw the whole thing! Here I came to the bar to apologize for how I acted before and there you were flirting with some asshole, letting him put his hands all over you.” He stepped away and swung his arm, knocking a lamp over from the end table, letting it crash to the ground, the base of it shattering on the hardwood floor.

“Then you should have seen… I tried to stop him.”

“Bullshit!” He grabbed her shoulders and aggressively shoved her into the end table, causing her to fall to the floor along with the table, her hands pressed into a few ceramic pieces of the lamp as she laid helplessly on her side.

She started sobbing uncontrollably as she looked up at him. There was rage in his eyes. “It's true! You're the only one allowed to touch me!” she wailed out. “I swear, I tried to push him away but he wouldn't leave me alone.”

He knelt down in front of her, his voice much more quiet as he grabbed her hair, yanking her head back. She cried out in pain. “I want to believe you, Emma… but you've been keeping something from me for weeks now. If only you were as good at lying as you are at telling when others are lying.” He let go of her and slowly stood up, looking down at her in disgust. “If you lose your job because of your whorish ways you'll be be lucky if you see the daylight ever again.”

Emma's heart was pounding in her chest as he towered over her. He stood in front of her stomach and he lifted his foot back, ready to kick her belly when she held out her hand in defense.

“Wait! I'm pregnant!” she blurted out in a desperate haze of panic, making him pause. “You'll hurt our baby! Please!”

He immediately surrendered his foot, shock washing over his features.

“I was going to surprise you. I wanted to make you a special dinner and tell you over candlelight. That's why I kept it from you,” she cried softly. “I love you. And I want to have this baby. I want to have a family with you. Don't you want that too?”

He knelt back down, his eyes growing softer as he cupped her tear-stained cheek, brushing his thumb over her skin. “We’re having a baby?”

She nodded, forcing her lips to pull into a smile. “We are. I haven't been to the doctor yet, but I took a few pregnancy tests. I'm sorry I kept it from you. I just wanted it to be a surprise.”

He leaned into her and she gulped dryly ready for him to attack again. To her surprise his lips curled into a smile as he kissed her forehead before offering his hand and helping her sit up. He threw his arms around her and buried his face in the crook of her neck. She winced in pain, her body sore from being pushed around. “Are you happy?” she choked out as she returned the hug, sighing in relief.

He pulled away slightly, still grinning from ear to ear. “Are you kidding? You and I are having a baby.” He helped her stand up and he stayed on his knees in front of her, kissing her belly through her waitress uniform, wrapping his arms around her waist apologetically. “I'm so sorry, Emma,” Neal murmured against her and started crying into her belly for hitting and pushing her. “I was upset because I don't wanna lose you. I just love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered, to appease him, cringing at the words.

“I'll take you to the doctor when your bruises are healed, Em. I can't wait.”

“Me neither.” She cupped the back of his head, tears streaming down her cheeks again. She never wanted to tell him she was pregnant. Now what was she going to do? She needed to escape more than ever, but how? She needed to think of something soon. But maybe for now, he would back off. Maybe he would show a little bit of mercy while she secretly thought of how to execute her plan of escape.

After a while, Neal stood up, hugging and kissing her tenderly and she didn't even attempt to fight him. She was too exhausted and sore and she didn't want to upset him again. She cupped his cheeks and kissed him deeply through her tears. He grabbed her waist and picked her up, carrying her to their bedroom, actually showing her kindness and compassion as she pretended to enjoy being intimate with him.

As they undressed each other and fell into bed in each other's arms, she was disgusted with herself that she allowed him to control her that much. As she wrapped her legs around him and allowed him to kiss her and caress her and let him take her, she hated every moment of it, but at least her baby was not in any immediate danger. And that's what would get her through - knowing that she would do what it would take to keep her child safe.

~~~

Present Day (thirty weeks pregnant)...

Emma helped Killian inside, her heart aching for him. His face was bruised, his bottom lip swollen and cut, and he was holding his side in pain as they walked through the loft.

“Whats going on?” Mary Margaret asked as she and David stood from the sofa, a mixture of concern and confusion in their features.

Emma walked Killian into the kitchen and pulled out a chair from the table and sat him down as her roommates followed behind her.

“Sorry to interrupt, but there's something you should know,” Killian told them as Emma went to the bathroom to retrieve some alcohol and bandages. She also grabbed a washcloth and dampened it with warm water under the faucet. “You might want to sit down for this.”

David and Margaret exchanged looks as Emma emerged from the bathroom.

“What is it?” David asked as he sat at the table beside his wife. Killian sighed as Emma set the supplies on the table and leaned in to clean his lip with the washcloth, making him wince. She gently grabbed his chin to hold him still while she worked. “Thanks, Emma,” he said graciously as she set the washcloth down and poured some alcohol on a cotton pad.

“Don't thank me yet,” she smiled teasingly. He hissed as she applied it to his wound.

“I got into a bar fight this evening,” he went on. “But before I tell you with who, there's something you should know first.” Emma finished tending to the wound and got up to get him an ice pack for the swelling. She sat back down and applied it to his lip. He smiled appreciatively and took over holding it before she and Killian turned to face David and Mary Margaret from across the table. “And hopefully you'll be gentle with a man who's already taken a beating,” he said playfully, but they weren't really amused. “Although, you should see the other guy.”

Emma lifted Killian's shirt up and inspected his ribs, running her fingers gently over the tender spot as he hissed in pain. “Maybe I should take you to the hospital.”

“No need, love. It's just a cracked rib. It will heal on it’s own,” he assured her. “But, do you have any painkillers?”

“Of course. I'll get them,” Mary Margaret said as she got up to retrieve them from the bathroom cabinet. She came back a moment later and filled a glass with water before handing Killian a few pills along with the water. He swallowed them down before setting the glass on the table.

“Now, what were you going to tell us?” David asked as Mary Margaret took back her seat.

Emma drew in a breath before she began. “Well, recently I switched doctors.”

David and Mary Margaret looked at her even more confused. “How come?” the brunette asked.

Emma swallowed thickly as she glanced at Killian, then back to her roommates. “Killian and I are dating.”

They were both silent, their faces white with shock.

Killian took Emma's hand, her heart beating wildly in her chest. “I know how this may seem, but I genuinely care about Emma. She's…” Killian turned his head and flashed her a smile as he entwined his fingers with hers. ��She's made me feel things that I haven't felt since I lost my wife.”

“So… this is the guy you've been seeing? The one who bought you the car?” Mary Margaret asked her.

Emma nodded. “Yeah.” She glanced over at David and he looked a bit angry.

“So, you're dating one of your patients?” He asked, not believing what he had heard.

“Aye. Former patient.”

David sighed and stood up sharply, resting his hands on his hips. “And here my wife was going to seek your help so we could get pregnant-”

“David,” his wife pleaded. “Please, sit back down.”

“I don't understand how you could let this happen,” he said angrily, ignoring her, “going after one of your patients.”

“I'm the one who started it,” Emma explained. “He helped me and showed compassion and I… I like him very much.”

“But he didn't stop it,” David said, his voice cracked and harsh as he glared at Killian. “You're a professional who has your own practice. You should have stopped it,” he told him. “Mary Margaret, we’re getting a different doctor.” David started to walk out of the kitchen.

“Neal's here in town,” Killian blurted out before David could leave, causing him to stop in his tracks.

Emma's heart stopped in her chest and she felt like all of the blood was drained from her body as David turned around, his features etched with worry. Suddenly she couldn't breathe. She sensed that he was here, but she was still not prepared for this.

“Emma, I'm so sorry to have to tell you,” Killian said softly. “Liam and I saw him at the bar. He made some crude comments and I knew it was him right away.” Killian squeezed her hand gently, flashing her a weak smile. “He knows about us. And Liam sold him the car before he knew who he was. Apparently Neal's been in town for a while, hiding out.”

“Emma, it's okay. You'll get the restraining order tomorrow and everything will be fine,” Mary Margaret said encouragingly.

“Yeah, but it's just a slip of paper,” Emma breathed, realization settling in. “It's not going to stop him from coming after me.”

“Which is why I would like you to stay with me for a while,” Killian said softly, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. “If you want to. I have a good alarm system and Neal won't be able to break in.”

Emma looked to her roommates, trying to gauge their reaction to Killian's offer.

“But what about when she's not home? What are you going to do, keep her imprisoned?” David asked bitterly.

“David!” Mary Margaret scowled at her husband.

“No, of course not. But he will be less likely to attack when she's at work surrounded by a town full of people who care for her.”

“I'll do it,” Emma finally replied, drawing their attention. “I'll stay with Killian. My baby and I will be safe there,” she assured her roommates as she put her hand on her belly, “I'll do what I have to do to keep him safe. And I don't want to put the two of you in danger.”

“And I'd gladly risk my life for her,” Killian said adamantly.

“What and we wouldn't?” David asked, offended. “We care about her too.”

“I know, mate,” Killian said, starting to get irritated. “But there's one other thing you should know.” He paused, sighing heavily. “He has a gun.”

Emma started to panic, her eyes blowing wide. “No… I can't stay here. I can't stay in Storybrooke at all.”

The three of them looked at her, confused.

“I can't put any of you in danger. It's all my fault that he's here and I won't let him harm any of you trying to get to me.”

“Emma…” Killian pleaded in a shattered voice. She released his hand and stood up from her chair. “I should just surrender myself to him.”

“Are you insane?” David asked, appalled. “No way we’re letting you do that. You're staying with Killian.”

Killian shot him a bewildered look before he stood up and held his ribs as he walked over and took her hands. “Please, love. When will you realize how much we care about you?”

“I know that, and I care about all of you too. That's why I don't want you to get involved.”

“We already are, Emma,” Mary Margaret assured her. “Like it or not, we’re in this no matter what.”

She released Killian's hands as Mary Margaret approached and gave her a hug. Emma smiled weakly, sighing into her embrace. She didn't like this, but what other choice did she have? To keep running on her own with no way to protect her son? No support, no shelter, nothing except her car and the road. “Thank you,” Emma breathed in surrender.

“Of course, what are friends for?”

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Killian.”

“It's okay. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about setting up an appointment to get checked out.”

“Don't worry about it,” she laughed weakly as she pulled away and David took his turn, hugging her as well.

“You're family to us now and we fight for our family.” As David pulled away, they heard someone clearing his throat from behind Emma.

“What and you let me miss out on this special family moment?”

Emma turned around and they all looked at James who flashed them a questionable look.

“James,” Emma cooed, happy to see him as she came up and hugged him. “It's not really what you think.”

He looked at her confused as he pulled away, seeing the worry in her eyes. “What's going on?”

“Neal's here in town,” Emma replied.

“What?” James asked in both shock and rage. His hands balled in to fists. “Where? I'll take take care of the bastard.”

“Good luck with that. As you can see I already tried,” Killian told him as he came to Emma's side and put his arm around her shoulder. She grabbed his hand and carefully wrapped her other arm around his waist.

“And you've been in how many fights? One or two? I've been in dozens. I can take him.”

“Alright, just calm down,” David told his brother, putting his hands up. “No need to get hasty. Why don't we all just rest, especially you, Emma.”

Emma shot him an offended look. “Why because I'm pregnant?”

“Yes,” the four of them answered at once.

“We don't need you stressing out, love.”

“Don't you think it's a little too late for that?” she asked him.

Killian gave her a small smile and kissed her cheek. “No, I don't.”

“Killian, why don't you just stay for the night and we can help Emma move her stuff to your place tomorrow,” Mary Margaret suggested.

“Are you sure you don't mind?” Killian asked.

“Of course not. Right David?” Mary Margaret asked her husband with a stern look that told him he really did not want to fight her on this.

He sighed, officially relinquishing his stance on the former issue of Killian dating his former patient. “Of course not.”

“Emma's moving?” James asked, lifting a confused brow. “Did I miss something?”

“It's just temporary, to keep Emma safe,” David replied.

“Well, if he's staying with Emma tonight, I'm sleeping on the couch,” James announced as David and Mary Margaret started to head for the stairs.

David grumbled and put his hands up in defeat. “Fine. I'm too tired to argue.”

James smirked in success. After they disappeared upstairs, Emma headed with Killian to her own bedroom. “Goodnight James.”

“Night, Emma. Goodnight Killian.”

They went into her room and she shut the door before she helped him into bed. She helped him take off his shirt and jeans and they laid in her bed as she was careful not to bother his injury.

They talked for a bit. Killian told her about his conversation and argument with Liam. He told her how he struck his brother for making some comments that were uncalled for, although he wouldn't tell her specifically what they were.

She didn't like that they fought over her. She didn't like that Neal hurt him. It made her feel guilty that she interrupted this small, quiet town by calling it her home. She didn't like it one bit, but she did love the fact that she felt loved and cared for. She loved feeling like she had an actual family who would always be there for her.

“It will be alright, Emma,” he affirmed confidently, his voice calm and soothing as he kissed her temple. She wanted to believe him, she really did. But how could he possibly know? He sounded like the Nolans, always putting their faith in things they couldn't possibly know the outcome of. Emma sighed in surrender and nodded. “I'll be staying home with you at my place. I've decided to take a few days off of work.”

“Good, you need to rest and heal.”

“And you need to not worry. Promise me, love?”

Emma nodded and smiled weakly. “I promise.”

He smiled back and lifted her hand, pressing his lips softly to her knuckles before lowering her palm to his chest. Her heart fluttered and she snuggled closer to him, resting her head next to her hand, listening to his heartbeat and slow breathing. It calmed her for a bit, although she was nowhere close to feeling restful.

Emma looked up at Killian after a while and smiled when she saw that the painkillers had knocked him out. She kissed his forehead and reached for the lamp on her nightstand, turning off the light. She sank her head on the pillow and tried to sleep, but she was wide awake. She couldn't even close her eyes knowing Neal was somewhere in Storybrooke.

~~~

@followbatb

[cripplinganxietyflix]

I saw Alien: Covenant.

I’m starting to notice a trend in a few of my reviews where I tend to clarify something about myself or my expectations in relation to the film I’m talking about. I guess I do this in an effort to illuminate certain things about why I like something or why I hate it in a way that maybe otherwise wouldn’t be evident from my words. 

So let me start off by saying I’m a pretty devoted fan of the Alien franchise. I have Xenomorphs all over my office, I’ve owned several HR Giger yearly calendars and artbooks. My husband and I will likely name our firstborn in honor of Ellen Ripley. 

And as of quite recently, I’ve never seen an Alien film I didn’t, at the very least, enjoy watching. I would prioritize the original Alien as the best film (as I assume most do). Aliens and Prometheus come in second place- in that I enjoy Aliens and think it’s a fine film, and that I greatly enjoy Prometheus as something I accept I have to turn off all critical thinking facilities in order to fully appreciate. I rank Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection on the same level; as films that I didn’t hate and can actually watch to gain some minor degree of pleasure, but also acknowledge their glaring flaws. I’ll even go so far as to say that I liked what David Fincher was trying to do with Alien 3. It had the guts to try something totally new like Aliens did, and had the balls to give the audience a giant, veiny middle finger right in the first few minutes. Admittedly, I haven’t seen Alien vs Predator or Alien vs Predator: Requiem since seeing Alien and Predator maul, disfigure and murder each other would feel like watching a full length film of dogs being kicked- and yes, I realize this is an issue that is likely unique to me. I truly haven’t seen an Alien feature that I didn’t like. 

Until now. 

What the fuck, Alien: Covenant? What the fuck, Ridley Scott? What the fuck was going on here? 

I’m gonna start talking about the plot, so prepare your anus for spoilers. If you’re doubting the fortitude of your sphincter, skip past the next image. The basic premise of this film is that there’s a ship with couple dozen people as crew schlepping 2000 colonists out into deep space to start terra-forming a new planet. The crew consists of a lot of sexual partners and I assume that they are planning to help populate, but I can’t recall if that was addressed at all. Maybe in the future, spaceship crews are allowed to bring out the wife. Whatever. Anyway, an android named Not-David Michael Fassbender accidentally fucks the ship up and wipes out a little chunk of the crew. This fuck-up results in Captain James Franco getting incinerated in front of his wife inside a stasis capsule, before he ever has a chance to deliver a line. 

In fact, had I not watched the promotional material beforehand (which features a scene that I assume precedes the one I’m talking about and also clarifies it better than the movie gave a shit to attempt), I don’t think I would have even known the schmuck getting torched by explosive oxygen in the capsule was James Franco. Nice.

This leaves the ship with a new captain, Passive Billy Crudup, who they mention a few times is a Christian, just like Dr. Shaw in Prometheus. The inclusion of his religion is even more stupid and pointless in this new iteration. He is also fairly incapable, which makes me wonder who put this booger-eater as second in line. This whole fuck up by Not-David Michael Fassbender is just a plot vehicle to get Danny fucking McBride outside the ship on a repair mission, where he receives a mysterious distorted transmission of a woman singing a John Denver song. The source of the transmission is traced back to a planet which happens not to be the planet that the crew is headed to to terraform.

Obviously, the crew decides to divert to the planet from which the signal came from instead of the planet that they are supposed to travel to, because why the hell not? 

Like the idiots in Prometheus, the idiots in Alien: Covenant decide not to wear oxygen-fed helmets or PPE because who ever heard of aspirating deadly microbes and bacteria? However, this time, that’s addressed, and predictably two of the crew members manage to get infected by the flora on this planet within 5-10 minutes of setting foot on land. They become sickened and spew white baby Xenomorphs (not chestbusters, for whatever reason). Then the crew is dispatched unceremoniously as a pack of CGI Xenomorphs whip the shit outta them in ways that will be too fast to actually see. But aren’t you happy with 0.9 seconds of digital blood? 

The remaining survivors are rescued just in time by a cloaked Actual David, who leads them back to his lair. Let me just say that Actual David confirms to one of the crew members that this lair is safe a few short minutes before a deformed Xenomorph casually enters and decapitates someone. Actual David pretends to be a bro, then makes it very clear he is NOT in fact a bro, and he carries on fucking up everyone’s shit until the end of the film, in a final twist that most viewers will see coming about 20 minutes in advance. 

This installment of the series is a colossal pile of shit, and it really pains me as an Alien fan to lay it out like this. 

The first issue I became painfully aware of is that there is no main character. Is the plucky captain’s widow the protagonist? Is it Danny McBride? Is it Actual David? Not only is there no attempt to establish a protagonist, there is little effort in place to ensure that you know the names of any of these people. How the fuck am I supposed to be horrified, disgusted and invested when these people are dismembered if I don’t even have a name to pair them with? I actually had to check the IMDb page to recall that Plucky Captain’s Widow’s name is Daniels. Nobody matters and I didn’t give a shit about anyone. I barely gave one for Danny McBride, who seems like a likable crew member but makes some really piss-poor risk/benefit analyses. 

Because of the way Actual David’s underlying prerogatives were portrayed, I wish they hadn’t included him or anything from Prometheus. It’s become readily apparent that the only reason why this film ties into Prometheus or includes Actual David is because they couldn’t think up a fucking decent plot device to get these new people killed by an alien threat. Actual David’s story made me feel like I was watching an excruciatingly dull Star Trek: TNG three-parter where Data has some banal interaction with Noonien Soong because half the cast was on vacation that week. It felt cheap and like the screenwriters really had to push themselves over a massive hump to even write this trash. Instead of being a flawed and curious creation of sociopathic humans, Actual David becomes just another bad guy. There’s a really dumb scene where he’s trying to become friends with a Not Xenomorph that is given almost no explanation into. Did he kill all the engineers on the planet because he was mad at them for making the humans, and now he wants to be an engineer by creating inbred Xenomorphs? If they explained this, I wasn’t paying attention because I was bored to tears every time Actual David was explaining things to other characters.

After producing something like Prometheus, which I would argue has some of the best modern visual effects for its time, I can’t imagine how anyone thought Alien: Covenant was an acceptable final product. The Xenomorphs/creatures looked incredibly fake and were shown far too often. The digital blood and gore effects were wholly unsatisfying: not particularly graphic and shown only very briefly- maybe because they realized too late that CGI gore is completely unimpactful? People were screaming in disgust during the cesarean scene in Prometheus. I don’t think I heard a solitary gasp at any of the featured gore effects. I’ve read other reviews claiming “the gorehound will be sated” but I can’t imagine that unless the gorehound’s a 12-year-old with limited experience. The suits are ugly, the ship is unremarkable, and the CGI looked cheap and slapped together into the film by people who seemed to be generally unfamiliar with the franchise. I mean for fuck’s sake, if you’re going to give me a CG Xenomorph it better knock my pants off with a firm stream of shit. 

I came out of this one feeling like I’d seen some cheaply-made bullshit teen-demo weekend matinee flick from the mid-2000s, like a Final Destination or an Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid. You know what I mean, the type of movie you go see and completely forget about after a week. This film wasn’t scary, it never gave me cause to feel invested. It was utterly inconsequential, whereas Prometheus felt like it was trying to build something new, fresh and mythical. In fact, my anxiety spiked as I was leaving the theater because I remembered that Ridley Scott took a fairly active role in the production of Blade Runner 2049. That fucking movie is going to have sexy, smoldering Ryan Gosling starring and extremely competent and capable Denis Villeneuve directing and this fucking orphanage fire of a movie has me WORRIED about it. If that doesn’t discourage you from watching Alien: Covenant, I don’t know what will. I can’t even recommend it as So Bad it’s Good because it is so monumentally boring. I could write a book of all the things I would have done entirely differently. Don’t pay any more than Wednesday matinee prices for this foul, backstabbing tripe. If you told me I’d be scoring this movie an entire half a star lower than the Ghost in the Shell movie I would have shat right in your mouth. You know what? This is what we get for electing Donald Trump. 

★ ½

[willmeiertext]

Will Photography Survive Its Art-Historical Karma?

via One Good Eye (Denver)

“I wanted to learn at all costs what Photography was ‘in itself,’ by what essential feature it was to be distinguished from the community of images.” – Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, 1980                 

Month of Photography is just about over, and again, it was a great set of shows, with a diverse array of aesthetics and concepts. But going around and looking at these shows, I can’t help but skew every single one of them with this train of thought, which was at the forefront of my mind even during the last MoP. What I’m talking about is this funny notion that like, what photography did to painting oh-so-many years ago, it’s now suffering itself next to the infinite scrollability of the internet, and as a fine-art discipline is now sort of scampering in painting’s footsteps, conceptually.

Okay, so what do I mean, exactly?

I remember a few years ago suddenly realizing, with everyone talking about how ISIS was using Instagram as their new principal recruitment vehicle, that this was the same Instagram that was in my pocket. Sure enough, a few copy-pasted arabic hashtags (who knows) later, and I was seeing the frontlines of the mythic War On Terror through the eyes of the enemy. Graphic Stuff. Not something many people would want to see, and yes, I definitely worried about the NSA liking my Facebook statuses in the future, but just pause and think about what I’m getting at here. If you can have an experience that shockingly unique on Instagram, an experience also by most accounts not-at-all-Art, where does that leave Photography, the medium of imagery, in its fine-art gallery context? Where does it find meaning anymore?

Without diving too deep into a conversation that is largely played out, this is just so obvious an echo to me of the art-historic birth of the photograph (among other technological revolutions) planting the modernist seeds of conceptual art in painting. Like, ‘okay, well, if we can’t just be images anymore, what can we be?’ Self-reference begets itself.

Today, it’s likewise the case that photographs in a gallery rarely seem to hold up merely by the merit of their imagery. Some do, sure. But as a whole, how much of the representative body of MoP 2017 were ‘just photos’, vs. how much seemed to raise the question of the taxonomical boundaries of Photography? Coincidence?

It’s interesting because much of the best work that was ‘purely photographic’ seemed to reference its own flatness (see: the sort of iconic moment of painting’s departure from photography, denying the illusionistic depth of the picture plane and calling attention to itself as an object). Take, for example, Michael Borek’s really wonderful series in the entry alcove of Redline’s Between the Medium, in which various immediately identifiable landmarks suddenly ‘freeze’ flat as you notice that they’re just photos of photos of the landmarks, applied as vinyl to the sides of buses or some other sort of metal industrially-paneled surfaces. These defining, contrasty fissures in the images’ surfaces carve their own space up like a Mondrian, referencing the perpendicular edges of the picture plane. The fact that multiple images wind up in a single frame in this body of work only further adds to the feeling that these things are really about themselves being viewed.

Even further down the line of the ‘Expanded Field’ trajectory of painterly dialogue, another really exceptional body of work belongs to George Perez at Alto’s Denver Collage Club group show. Stacks of home photos with their centers carved out, like tunnels through remembrance of a vacation or something, are curled from being wrapped tightly in rubber bands. They become objects, almost. At least more than they would simply as a stack of images, which would read as a presentation strategy more than a state of being. The tension in their form, though, sort of snaps you out of viewing their content, and all you can pay attention to is the density of them together, in the room. There’s something very real and here-and-now that happens from this – it’s what Rauschenberg was seeking, on a humble scale.

This ‘in the room’ feeling seems to be one of the most prevalent trends for Month of Photography shows this year, in one way or another. At Leon’s Skins, Tya Alisa Anthony sheds the frames from her images, letting the prints ripple in the air conditioning, the texture of the images breathing the same air as us, getting us all the closer to the skin of her models, the face-value subject of the show.

A similar sort of relationship-to-the-body occurs in the best pieces at CVA’s Presence: Reflections on the Middle East, a series in which the ornately decorated windshields and interiors of various public transit buses fill the frame, life-sized, allowing us to sort of sit directly in front of these things, contemplating them as stand-in portraits of who might be driving them. You feel empathy for the ghost of the driver purely for the sake that you could almost step in there. Tableau-vivants.

I mean, I’ll admit, I’m definitely putting a spin on all of this, framing all this work this way. I’m biased, I’m a painter. But let’s take a step back from the as-painting conversation, and talk about MCA’s Ryan McGinley retro. Here is an utterly ‘just photo’ show, and what’s more, it’s totally the kind of thing that you would see on the internet. But where the show is interesting is that it’s there in physical space with you. It’s the fact that an art museum is willing to put blowjobs, pissing, coke-sniffing, and projectile-vomiting on their walls, larger than life. The difference between a computer screen and an art museum was really driven home here when a circa-eight-year-old girl ran ahead of her parents into the porniest room of the exhibition as I was leaving.

The most successful show this past month, in my opinion, was David B Smith’s Penelope Umbrico solo, because it really brought all of the things I’ve mentioned together in a dialogue that felt very nuanced and high-level. At first glance, it’s certainly the most painterly show, with large, manipulated images in various forms of prints and frames, repetitiously referencing fluorescence in various ways. As well as themselves, rather explicitly. But from the serial, tiled arrangements, even overlapping, of the photos, to the most resonant moments – rows of polaroids of lens flares and fireworks, hung just high enough so that the track lighting reflects into your eyes, the show is about the entire thing together, there, in the room. Which is why the way that these polaroids, sparklingly activated by their surroundings, are so much more interesting than the superficially similar arrangement of McGinley’s at MCA. When I asked a gallery attendant if Umbrico always made photography, I got the response that photography was her subject, not necessarily her medium. Nice.

Plenty of these shows had politically or otherwise relevant content, but let’s face it, none of them really dug into anything in a way more significant than what you’d get from a few seconds of googling their themes on your phone. There’s plenty to say about various work that was successful that I didn’t touch on, as well, sure. But at the end of the day, the only work that really felt like it was alive and thriving and not just there because it’s the biennial was the work that was aware of itself. Maybe aware of its own mortality. Which is where I go back to my original point — that the ‘aura’, the ineffable thing that was supposedly the last stand of painting in the face of photography, may be all that photography has left to set its fine-art status aside from the unending stream of images we see every day.

“Even the most perfect reproduction … is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.” –Walter Benjamin, Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1936

[speedygal]

McCoy Prime ends up a Medium au

Inspired by Medium and its concept and a episode. This has a read more because of its length. A sort of Spones au. Meant to be a Spones au but then some events  happened and I enjoyed writing it. Enough said. Originally meant to be very Spones au. Decided to write the au post as it is Deforest Kelley’s birthday.

Post five year mission. Jim is driving a sleeping McCoy to Joanna’s house in a hovercar in Georgia.  It is night out. Spock is dealing with another issue regarding Christine Chapel and Nyota Uhura having a lovers quarrel and he somehow is in the dead center of it and his plan involves Vulcan and T’Pring while visiting his mother. Jim can feel Spock’s headache from the two women shouting at each other. He looks at the rearview mirror to see McCoy is in the backseat fast asleep not buckled. He considers how lucky he is to have just married the best man in the galaxy. He tells  Spock through bond that he loves him and Spock replies the same thing. They had been to a medical conference that McCoy was supposedly looking forward to. Suddenly there’s a hover car that comes out of no where and there’s a accident. It strikes the front end of the hover-car McCoy is stirred awake as he is flying. He has a very bad feeling about this in his gut. He feels that he is never going to see Jim again. The rest is a blur. Jim watches McCoy fly past him. And the last thought he sends to his husbands? I am so lucky I had you, with love struck eyes  and a smile. Jim dies without pain. The driver of the other hover car gets out, with a few bruises and scratches, to find the bloody scene. The driver runs away and goes to a local clinic. Spock experiences the sudden death of Jim right as he enters his fathers home. Amanda is taking care of their twin boys, Sterek, George, and  one month old  S’Tamuel with a Sehlat. Sarek calls her out through their bond. Spock is unresponsive once collapsing to the ground. They perform CPR on Spock and get him stable for the healers to attend to him. McCoy’s accident is called in thirteen minutes later by a passer by in the ditch.

When  McCoy awakens, he sees Vulcan who he recognizes from the medical conference. He screams. Because they have a phaser injury all over them. He doesn’t see Jim. He doesn’t feel Jim. The nurses sedate him and tell him that Spock is arriving soon. McCoy feels broken all over. two stinging pain in his mind as though the marriage bond between the three men has broken. The dead Vulcan has vanished. McCoy rests. When he awakens, Scotty, Nyota, Christine, Pavel, and Hikaru are around the bed. Spock isn’t there. They are relieved that he is alive. McCoy feels like he should be dead and Jim should be the one alive. He doesn’t feel lucky.  He feels miserable. He asks when Spock is coming. Nyota explains Spock admitted himself to a Vulcan Ward a few hours ago. McCoy gets pissed off and wants to get the next shuttle to Vulcan to drag is ass out. Scotty and Pavel stop McCoy and tell him when they saw Spock, he was in very rough shape. They reveal  McCoy has been in a coma for three months. McCoy feels his heart break. He inquires about his side of the bond. Why did no one approach him and try to bring him out of the coma via mind meld. They inform him that Spock had. Spock broke himself pulling this stunt to bring him back. McCoy goes silent, then asks, what else is broken? They inform him that Jim, is in fact, dead. The driver who killed him is not dead and the passengers in the drivers car were all ready dead before the accident. There’s a investigation going. McCoy is told a healer was sent to repair his bond and numb it. They talk about Jim, how they have been going, and the funeral that McCoy was not able to attend. How Spock handled it. How the children handled it. McCoy makes it his mission to go to the Kirk cemetery at the Kirk Family Lot.

After his friends leave, McCoy talks to the dead woman. They share condolences to each other. McCoy requests she leave because there is a waterfall that feels like is ready to come out any any minute. He requests that she come later. She introduces herself as T’Pro. She leaves. McCoy cries into his hands of his loss. He spends the next three hours weeping until he can’t cry anymore.  McCoy recomposes himself when a Vulcan healer comes in. He is prepared for the repairs. His personal life is ruined. And he doesn’t feel appropriate to return to being a doctor in space without Jim and Spock. His shields are risen up and the bond is repaired. McCoy gets a lawyer and has his will written. He gives the children to Amanda under guardian ship, his belongings donated to a historical museum regarding the five year mission  upon his passing, his likeness can be used but it must be correct (He got worried someone will make a holoprogram version of himself and be far off so he makes several holovids before leaving to the Enterprise. McCoy makes a lot more regarding situations. How he pronounces words or names. He gives his life into it for the possibility.) McCoy goes home to Georgia. He falls into Joanna’s arms and there’s relief. They talk about family and the children and Jim and about his future. McCoy admits that, “We were a tragedy from the getgo. Three perfect men. I should have known it would not last.” and Joanna tells him.  “You know and you took the risk, dad.” McCoy waits for the children to come running toward him from kindergarten. They tackle him down instead in glee. He hugs them tightly. McCoy encounters T’Pro, again. This time about her murder. McCoy has to go somewhere. He is not sure but T’Pro is sure.

McCoy meets Carol Marcus and her son  David Marcus

McCoy, understandably, is furious that she has come RIGHT NOW AND TELLING HIM THAT HIS HUSBAND HAD A SON AND MADE IT SEEM TO THE BOY THAT JIM LEFT HER WHEN SHE LEFT HIM AND---He can’t take the painful reminder and the painful sting he has. Jim should have known about David Marcus after surviving the incident. McCoy is wishfully thinking by this stage that he had buckled himself in and died in the wreckage. His heart aches too much. McCoy is drawn to the  Reliant where he discovers this is the ship where T’Pro met her maker. He spends twenty-four hours on it. And with some persuasive help from Pavel, gets the one who killed her and put into the brig until their return to Earth. McCoy is pleased to have been useful  (But not as much as having a shrapnel against his neck while Pavel’s commanding officer negotiated). McCoy visits Vulcan to see Spock. He sees the shell of what had been Spock. Shattered, ruined, and utterly destroyed. He sees a sehlat by the man’s side. Which isn’t odd because there are SEHLATS EVERYWHERE HE LOOKS . McCoy keeps his distance from the animal while trying to get across to Spock and telling him what he found himself doing. McCoy feels he lost everything when Spock doesn’t act like there’s a reasonable rational conversation. The sehlat sniffs McCoy and McCoy recoils. McCoy asks a nurse why Spock has a sehlat and they tell him that he doesn’t. McCoy asks about the other sehlats. McCoy learns pets are not allowed. He is seeing dead pets. McCoy looks over to see the sehlat is gone. McCoy tells Spock goodbye. And that he hopes to see him again.  Spock remarks, “You are an odd man, Mr Blue.” McCoy asks, “Why?” “I can see things that are there and you don’t. You sure you don’t have problems up there?” McCoy pauses, carefully thinking how to word that next reply. McCoy finally says, “I see dead people.” Spock takes it without question.  McCoy pats the man’s shoulder,  “There’s hope in you, yet. Mr Spock.” As painful as it is for McCoy.

McCoy goes home, for the last time, as he has decided what to do. McCoy spends the last few months of the year with his family and working at the hospital. McCoy gets administrative leave in 2371. McCoy has been privately going through the grief and has come to accept Jim’s passing but not without seeing ghosts. He has a double life helping the deceased. Joanna has been assigned to a medical colony. McCoy leaves the children with Eleanor. Who adores the children and loves the boys. He hugs and kisses the children. McCoy leaves town.  S’Tamuel and Sterek have known all along what their father is up to. Eleanor takes a nap. Sterek has left a holovid behind. They take their little brother with them after their daddy. The take short cuts, lie, cheat, backstab, trick,and the whole nine yards by acting adorable. Sterek is the stubborn one whose determined on going where daddy goes. They take a mobile transporter that a cadet was in the process of making and has some problems. And chances of death. And they stole it despite being warned. McCoy has taken the necessary steps to make a new life where he is going. It takes a few days to get there but he makes it. And the ship leaves but right behind him is the THREE KIDS GENETICALLY MADE TO BE SPOCK AND JIM’S CHILDREN. The children catch their father’s attention and repeat a phrase Spock said to him years ago, “Together or not at all.” McCoy decides to take the children with him but decides that they must be returned when they  are one week from Pon Farr exactly the time span that they had been gone. The Guardian of  Forever takes them to a different time.

McCoy gets a house in San Francisco and becomes a trial consultant to district attorney who looks like Jim but really isn’t and calls himself  Denny Crane. He used to be  a big time lawyer who won every case for a law firm called Denny, Poole, and Schmit. He has a loving husband named Alan Shore and he is treating for his Alzheimer which no one knows about. McCoy goes up his radar by solving a case in  Tennessee and having someone babysit the kids. In Tennessee McCoy meets a man who look+s a lot like Spock but is not a Vulcan. The man likes McCoy and introduces himself as Harold Grayson. The man follows McCoy, quits his high paying well job as a engineering scientist for Airtech and goes after McCoy once learning where he lives. But he doesn’t have the address. Harold accepts his job at air tech but in SAN FRANCISCO. McCoy is helping Crane with getting the right jury. He has visions of people. There is one prominent vision bothering him throughout the day. The day Jim died. He sees the perpetrators face. He sees the man get fixed and sent on his way. He recognizes the man from his time in the hospital in Georgia. McCoy snaps out of the vision. McCoy has set up his new life, social security, fake background,and birth certificate. McCoy has a system ready for little S’Tamuel. McCoy’s little boys have their ears covered by a beanie in kindergarten. McCoy befriends a group of psychics  and non-psychics who are huge skeptics. He befriends a detective named Hank Son and his husband Peter Connor.  McCoy has a vision of Eleanor waking up to find the children gone. And searching through the house for them. Nikki Understone works as a translator for the medical hospital. Catherine Cine is a nurse at this same hospital. They are both parents for a adoptive little boy from Pakistan who is ten years old.

McCoy’s visions increase in volumes throughout the day. The search for the perpetrator becomes very important and he is apprehended by Pavel Chekov, personally, on his way to Romulus and sent to a prison ship. Pavel visits Spock and tells him that the strange man from earlier has vanished. And so has his three children. Spock has no idea who Pavel is and thinks he is someone else entirely. Pavel goes somewhere private and weeps for his role model’s breakdown. McCoy is shown a flashback where Spock had met the one who caused him pain and misery and forces a mind meld that in part is part of why Spock ended out the way he did. The visions end from his regular universe. McCoy comes across Harold sometime in his new life, again, this time at a crime scene. Hank Son is understandably concerned. Harold  is surprised to hear McCoy's job title and frankly thought he was a relative of the doctor who died last year in a car accident. Doctor Lenny Thomas McCord. McCoy goes throughout the next few days dealing with these visions from the victim that are vague, cryptic, and mostly appear as nightmares about what happened before or after the crime. He feels threatened when a bloody box appears on his doorstep.  Crane tells him it is going to be all right and they have the house guarded. He nearly gets killed by the killer who somehow got onto him when the doctor had gone to where he was at during the time and asked around specific questions with Hank Son by his side. The children are terrified. George,Sterek, and S'Tamuel sleep that night around McCoy on the first night. McCoy dreams of that killer who informs him that he knows what he has and he will stop at nothing to ruin his growing credibility to the detective. McCoy painfully makes the decision not to continue helping Denny on his cases.

McCoy is regretting coming here. He misses Joanna. There is a knock on the door the next morning and it's Harold, soaking wet, asking why he didn't get his damn phone number and let him find out through the local news where he lived and mentions, "That's a terrible way of making a first impression on your domestic life so I brought this." And it's full of  chocolate related items and a card that reads "Do you want to go stare at a aquarium with me?" And he apologizes for appearing this way. And he notices the doctor has been crying.  McCoy smiles back, wary, saying, "If you can accept the kids." And Harold  LOVES children. Loves. loves. Loves to bits. And McCoy mentions it will be chaotic going to the aquarium. They make a date. Harold ends up showing he had something behind his back and it's----McCoy's skin runs cold seeing a doll looking like Spock  in a container along with two other men. McCoy learns that he is fictional. Everything he has done in his past was fictional. McCoy is unable to speak at first but he takes the gifts and the wheelie for George to play with.  He doesn't reply. He is just in a state of shock. Harold is smiling and he gives his phone number, stuttering, and writes it down. He mentions living in a flat and that they can start out as friends if he would like. He wants to take it as slow as McCoy wants. And that he looks forward to meeting him again in the future. McCoy closes the door then slides his back against it hearing his heart beat against his chest. He is not even real and there's a real, living person interested in him who is not fictional.  He goes through his hair. He knows two Spock's. One is real and the other is not. He doesn't know if he can continue this charade. Because how can a fictional person live in real life that he isn't supposed to be? He places the packages on the couch and curls up to bed wishing he never had the accident to begin with. He dreams of Spock curled up on the couch in a meditative position and then the killer comes up and taunts him and antagonizes McCoy in a very degrading way. McCoy wakes up  in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep. That morning he goes to Denny Crane and tells him he can't do it anymore. He tells  Denny that he can't foresee the future. All he sees is that stupid killer who terrorized his family. And he can't work for him. Denny gives McCoy a leave of absence and is unwilling to let him give up like that. He contacts a psychic friend of McCoy's , who the man had mentioned after their first case together, and asks if she is dealing with a slight problem. Denny is horrified. He knows he is going to lose this case without McCoy's help. Denny goes home that night and gets comforted by his husband--after Alan's hectic day of funding poor people's case and trying them and listening to the amusing stories--regarding it.

McCoy has a dream of a thirteen year old boy getting abducted near the kindergarten school his boys go to. He doesn't know when or where this is going to occur. He thinks he has a edge over the man but in reality he was showing him of what lead him to this. McCoy is not happy after he discovers this. George has a accident at Kindergarten and McCoy picks him up with his twin then takes them home. McCoy finds the psychics at his house, in the living room, knitting being happy as they cam be. McCoy has to make sure they are still alive to believe it. They tell him to ignore the visions from now on and readapt his life style. They make one major suggestion: be a doctor. He can't destroy a human life with being a doctor. He can't go back to a profession that he could not save his husband in. McCoy opts for finding a different job. Dog sitter. The boys are playing with their toys. S'Tamuel cries so McCoy gets the boy out of his room with his beanie on and has the other psychics, a mix of men and women, calm him down. They arrange for a road trip after the aquarium. Just him and his new found friends. Hank Son calls McCoy asking for his help on a difficult case. McCoy can see the vision of the killer with the new victim taunting him. And McCoy hates it but he has to say no. McCoy begins drinking to prevent himself from seeing the dead people BECAUSE HE CAN'T HELP THEM. HE JUST CAN'T. NOT ANYMORE. Somedays McCoy wishes that he can see his husband again but he knows that is never going to happen. McCoy and his three boys go to the aquarium with S'Tamuel in tow. McCoy has to gently tell Harold that they won't work out. Harold refuses to believe that because they can work things out. McCoy goes to the point of telling him that one of them isn't really born in this continent. Harold grows concerned asking him if he is okay and if he is a immigrant. McCoy nods, because that is the easiest way he can explain. He has a green card. He explains about the lengths his immigrant went to nest him here. McCoy admits that he was born in a Toccoa, Georgia but now this Georgia. He spills out the truth in a way that he could understand.  The man uses logic to explain away what he is saying. McCoy tells him that they have to be friends. Harold grows concerned for the doctor.

McCoy steps aside from Harold. Harold only grows determined to win the man over. The boys leave. Harold follows McCoy across the country showing up at random places. HE'S THERE. ALL RIGHT? He  finds the boys within a heavy crowd while the psychics are treating McCoy to his own vacation. One of the psychics is totally okay with one year old S'Tamuel. Harold treats the kids and they get drunk. Very drunk. Harold learns quickly not to feed the children chocolate. Harold finds their slurring very odd and how drunk like they act. He looks up for reasons why children get drunk. And of course, he comes across Vulcans. The children protest against taking the beanie off because  "daddy will be very angry" and he asks, "why?"  they plainly said that they don't exist. Harold takes the beanie off to reveal their eyebrows and their pointed ears. He deduces that logically, they are Vulcans. And Vulcans are real. They are here so therefore they are real. When the group drops McCoy off to the designated hotel room, Harold is waiting alongside it with the children tucked into bed. Harold tells him that he understands where McCoy is coming from and that he is quite honored to have met the famed man. He also says he will wait for as long as McCoy wants. McCoy feels a sense of loss at what just happened. He doesn't understand what just happened.  Harold also admits that he got himself flat broke and he just ran out of his vacation money to get himself a room. McCoy is still floored. McCoy apparently has plenty of money. Thousands, upon thousands, thousands of dollars from leaving his reality prepared. McCoy questions Harold to know if he moves around the bed. Oh, and if he snores. Harold doesn't know if he snores but he doesn't move in bed. McCoy shares his bed with Harold but the man must sleep under the blankets. Harold agrees to the terms. McCoy falls asleep and Harold wonders what happened to  Spock. S'Tamuel is snoring lightly. All three of the Vulcans are not wearing their beanies and at least all three of them have black hair. McCoy has the nightmare featuring the killer again so Harold strokes the man's shoulder and sings to him lightly changing the direction of the nightmare. McCoy's face relaxes. Harold stays up all night admiring McCoy's face and the children and watches them breath and live and sleep. He watches the twins sleep walk around the room, so he has to tell them go to bed. They respond to him and go to bed. On his feet. Harold is trapped by the boys. They don't want him to leave the following morning. So the bunch of psychics, sleep deprived, take the group to a remote location for camping. And then for karaoke. McCoy finds himself feeling glorified while Harold is making sure the little ones are okay and having fun. Harold has four hours of sleep. The children really like Harold and call him father. That night, the boys sleep in the same tent as the men with S'Tameul. Harold holds McCoy that night. He pulls McCoy close to him as he struggles. When McCoy awakens with a pant. Harold wakes up, and asks him what's wrong. McCoy lets it out. He tells him everything. And then it fits together why he is in a sleep deprived group. He then tells McCoy that it has to end. It can't continue forever.

McCoy falls asleep once more. A sixteen year old girl corners the killer in the very same room the family are in. And the killer realizes she is not supposed to be there. The sixteen year old informs McCoy of a family member around where he and his family are is about to be threatened in an hour and lists an exact illegal thing her killer is doing. The killer is outraged that she is here. Two ghosts can't be in here! The girl says,  "Who says we are asking for help?" The killer is then suddenly aware of other people in the room. Thirteen. All the people that people like McCoy could have helped. They all reflect the manner of their death. The killer screams running out then down the hallway and down the staircase followed by a mass of ghosts. The killer goes outside to the parking lot where the other ghosts say they are going to take him to hell whether he likes it or not.  And that this will end no matter how he kicks and screams. The man  is taken. McCoy awakens and calls the number that the sixteen year old told him to call. McCoy falls asleep shortly afterwards. In the morning there is breaking news of a serial killer having been caught due to a anonymous tip. McCoy feels a lot better. Harold notices the change in McCoy and asks if he had a good night rest. McCoy smiles back at Harold while taking a shower and the curtain is pulled back and informs him that he is better than okay, he is excellent. He can go back to his old job. That is if Denny Crane is still there and hasn't been forced to resign. Harold has a feeling he is still there.

One year later, Harold and McCoy have gotten married. Thanks in part to Harold's sheer determination of reassuring that "Even if you are fictional, you will live as a human and die as a human. You will have mattered in this life. You will always matter to me." Now share the house that McCoy bought as a family.  Harold adores the children to bits and McCoy usually does the cooking in the morning but Harold cooks dinner. Harold has been informed regarding that the children will leave one day and never come back. Ever.  Somewhere in their late thirties. Harold doesn't mind that part. But McCoy worries that the boys will have families by then and vanished without a trace. McCoy makes a contingency plan for that. He plans to inform the three children on a specific date on their eighteenth birthday. They both share the same last name, now, Harold Grayson McCoy and Leonard Horatio McCoy. McCoy wakes up once per night with nightmares and Harold is quite used to it and anticipates it when he can't sleep because the looks on McCoy face are so adorable, priceless, and breath taking. Worth it. McCoy uses his friendship with Catherine to get around the medical loop holes and the whole species ordeal about is children. Sometimes McCoy steals Nikki to translate for him during cases. Hank Son is happy to be working with someone he trusts over some hacks who tried to fill in his shoes. Harold Grayson McCoy snores.

We have a montage of McCoy waking up. There is this one part of the montage where the music fades into the background. He wakes up flailing, landing on the floor with a thump followed by, "Honey, is your victim drowning or were you drowning in your fear of being in something entirely new?" Because sometimes the dreams McCoy has are illogical, supernatural, and don't make sense. They rarely take an airplane to anywhere as a family because of some of his visions. Harold looks for the logic in every dream. McCoy does not plan to tell Harold about Spock and Jim. But you know what? McCoy is lucky that he has Harold and his best friend Denny Crane being a major flirt to anyone not relating to a case. He actually reminds him a lot of a aged James T. Kirk now that he thought of it. McCoy dreams of a old Spock visited by a man strikingly looking like him with a device on his shoulder and holding his hand out, "Doctor McCoy, EMH Mark VII. And I am goin' to get your ass out of your head. Fixin' minds has improved recently in medicine for Vulcans." The old Spock just simply doesn't understand. "That's okay, because I am goin' to do somethin' that the original McCoy will be proud of." The  Vulcan finally takes the man's hand and shakes it as it transitions to Harold taking McCoy by the hand down a unusual zoo without cages and has plastic walls and is large and comfy to the animals followed by the children in beanies and short sleeves. The montage continues showing the happy family growing older, in the kitchen, walking in and out, then of a really aged up Harold and McCoy being part of a shuttle craft visit to Mars. And Harold kissing McCoy's cheek. McCoy talking to thin air, agreeing, "Yes, it's a wonderful view. How lon' you been dead?" He apparently enjoys what he does now that he is retired. McCoy is happy and so is Harold. The final part of the montage ends with young bright eyed McCoy waking up from a dream then going over to jot down onto a padd and taking a phone out, "Did you just dream a murder on our honeymoon?" From the side of the bed. McCoy shakes his head, "You signed up for this marryin' me." Harold tosses a pillow over toward him. And so McCoy tosses it back only to end up falling out of bed right as he dialed the number. And then the scene fades to black.

The End.

Dedicated in honor of Deforest Kelley.

[christhatcher]

12 albums from 2016

These aren’t in any particular order. I have, and continue to, love them all. If I’d have listened to the Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard album more often I reckon that would’ve got in too. Unfortunately I do a lot of listening to music in the car, and I’m perpetually late for work, and it’s impossible to drive at anything approaching the speed limit when you’re listening to an album by a band called Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard.

Underworld - Barbara, Barbara We Face A Shining Future

Oh Underworld you've soundtracked many significant moments in my life from the 90s onwards, and as we both get older you keep reminding me that youth and fire in the belly aren't the only ingredients necessary for making vital music. Underworld have blown me away again with an album which finds them at their most intimate yet transcendent. To my mind that's the perfect balance to pitch on an album that takes its name from some of a husband's final words to his wife.

The lyrics to Low Burn ('Time, The first time, Blush, Be bold, Be beautiful, Free, Totally, Unlimited') could, in the wrong hands, all too easily find their way onto a platitudinous meme but they sound vital in the context of the tune, a cresting wave of synths, strings, bass throb and eventually Hounds of Love toms. The perspective shifts on the penultimate line to include, "Panic, craving, nothing... Time, the first time..." and it transforms the vocal from a call for the Living to one that seems to encompass life and death's full cycle. Played back to back with Nylon Strung, whose refrain 'I want to hold you, laughing' assumes a mantra like quality, the two tracks feel like a compellingly heartfelt plea to embrace utterly the short moments we have.

David Bowie - Blackstar

We will never see his like again. To some extent that’s probably true, but that’s because Rock n roll is now nearing the point of anachronism; it's passing is inevitable but not something to mourn. We can't be forever young and full of piss and vinegar and I think if you're determined to be 18 till you die you've set your sights pretty low. I actually hope that the future of expressive culture lies not solely in the hands of men and women on raised stages preaching to the masses but in increasingly indivisible hands and minds brought together and operating in the spaces where the real and virtual world blur. I hope it's a place where individuals come second to the product of expression. In short, I hope there isn't another David Bowie. I love the guy (as much as it's possible to love someone you've never met), but I hope that before too long we no longer require these figureheads to align ourselves with or against. I want his work to survive and be celebrated but I hope that the culture he sprung from baffles my descendants, because there's something rotten about our obsession with the shock of the new that is the third quarter of the 20th Century.

Jez: Look, Mark, I'm a musician, in case you've forgotten. I answer to a higher law, the law of "If it feels good, do it."

Mark: Oh, that's a great law, isn't it? What's that, Gaddafi's law?

Jez: It's the musician's law. Colonel Gaddafi could not lay down a bass hook, Mark. That should be clear even to you. - Peep Show (series 3 ep 5)

It was the shock of the new, not a Solomonesque cultural cache. And now the world is moving on. Not diminishing in talent over time as we speed further away from the grand ejaculation of the Big Rock n Roll Bang. Music hasn’t descended into an over reliance on auto tune, or computers. There isn’t a dearth of ‘real’ musicians learning ‘real’ instruments, learning their song ‘craft’… ‘organically’. The world is moving on. But still we get to listen to the fucking bullshit put about by old people convinced that the brief period when you’re most emotionally engaged in the cultural stimuli around you happens to be the apex of civilisation; and you should never underestimate a Baby Boomer’s ability to slip a pair of rose tinted blinkers over your eyes when you’re moving into the crawl space they’ve rented out to you from their burgeoning property portfolios (Hippies and Yuppies – only really distinguishable by the proportion of their income spent on joss sticks).

But back to Bowie. Guilty of none of the above. His capacity for re-invention and forward thinking doesn’t need re-iterating, the back catalogue up to and including Blackstar speaks for itself. This has turned into a rant but, sod it, I'm not in the mood for not ranting.

Here's to Mr Bowie, perhaps the ultimate rebuttal to those who cite ‘honesty’ or ‘realness’ or ‘rocknroooooll’ as fundamental to making ‘organic’, ‘real’ music and writing ‘proper’ songs. Who used artifice, and sounds regardless of source, was fearless and transcended rock n roll and took it higher than it deserves, subverted and utterly disregarded hoary, chin stroking… fuck it… boring… notions of what a song/album/concert could/should be.

And he left us with Blackstar. All of the above.

The Comet is Coming - Channel The Spirits

It's quite hard to believe that this is the sound of just sax, synths and drums (or ‘skins’, if I'm trying to be vaguely alliterative) recorded (to tape no less) in a three day burst of creativity. The sound, all pervading atmosphere and ethos at large here is worthy of the entire Arkestra, amped up and channelled through Funkadelic via Leftfield at their most furious. If they've heard Channel The Spirits, then I imagine that the house band at the Restaurant At The End Of The Universe are probably worried about losing their residency. Sub point: Slam Dunk In A Blackhole (which wouldn't sound out of place on either Blackstar or Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly) is my song title of the year.

Savages - Adore Life

Opening with the three chord grind of The Answer, Adore Life positively pulses and howls (the guitars sound feral) before dissolving into more cerebral territory for the title track. Jehnny Beth's lyrics run the gamut of love, turning the subject inside out fearlessly, never breaking eye contact. It's an intense, beautifully paced piece of work, packaged in monochrome but red blooded through and through.

David Holmes – Late Night Tales

I was introduced to Mr Holmes via one of those late 90s Chillout compilations. The culprit, 'Rodney Yates' is a journey borne on floating ride cymbal and strings a la Lalo Schriffin, which led me to its mother album 'Let's Get Killed'. Over the subsequent years, I've lapped up pretty much everything he's done, be it soundtracks (Out of Sight springs to mind), Psychedelic Funk mix albums (Come Get it I Got It), freaky Hip Hop (The Free Association) and this year, Late Night Tales and Unloved (more of the latter in a bit).

If there's a unifying thread to Mr Holmes' work, to these ears, it's the sense that he's a man outside of time. His work is peppered with samples and ideas from pretty much every decade since it became possible to capture and replicate sound. But this is not the back catalogue of a retro mongering throwback, it's a body of work that speaks of a genuine love of sound and an overarching desire to share it. I have no idea how much of his own music is created from samples and how much is original composition... the lines are utterly blurred and it makes for compelling listening.

In these interconnected times, the Internet, behaving like it's second syllable, drags the endless bounty of musical creativity onwards with ever decreasing regard for chronology and Holmes has a rare talent for sifting through the haul for treasures. If you're on the search for new artists then Mr Holmes beats Spotify or any app you could imagine hands down. He's arguably never been better than on Late Night Tales. It's a beautiful, torchlit collection made all the more striking by the fact that it's largely beatless and full of acoustic and vocal performances thematically linked to questions of love and loss. A truly mesmerising experience.

Church of The Cosmic Skull – Is Satan Real?

I've spent the last few years resolutely trying to engage with modern sounds after years in a proto metal, Sabbath indebted cul de sac (not a bad place to be admittedly, but it's good to shake things up every so often). This year however, I've found myself slipping back into my comfort zone, maybe as a way of escaping the hideousness of 2016, maybe because albums like Is Satan Real? are so fucking tasty. It combines the vocal, harmonic... There's no other way of saying this... pomp of Queen, hooks and almost jazzy flourishes that The Zombies would've actually stayed split up over and a deliciously sparse smattering of Sabbathian crunch. The fact that they only properly let rip on the closing 'Evil In Your Eye' is a masterstroke that has had me reaching for the repeat button, repeatedly.

Metronomy - Summer '08

Joe Mount is not cool, he’s no rock star and he doesn’t swagger, but the music he makes does, albeit in a slightly jerky, twitchy St Vitus on espresso way. When I was small I used to make myself spaceships out of bits of furniture, and go on adventures of the imagination… Listening to Metronomy has always felt a little like being invited into someone else's world of 'let's pretend'. One where the lightsabers are still visibly made from mismatched lego bricks and the Darth Vader helmet is quite obviously a plastic policeman's helmet with a flap of cardboard inexpertly sellotaped around the back. They aren’t smooth. They're not making music for parties in and around Jacuzzis and JD shaped swimming pools, but 40 minutes in the company of this collection of off kilter electro funk, break and disco beats and aching slow jams might allow you to pretend that you are. And, once again, the artifice is far more stimulating and appealing than reality.

Opeth - Sorceress

Opeth. Opeth. Opeth. I just bloody love them. That's a shit review, but it's basically how I feel. I guess that how you feel about Opeth depends on your views on progressive music. If you think it's wanky and unnecessary then you'd be forgiven for avoiding Opeth but I'd argue that you're mistaken, because there are very few elements included in an Opeth number that could be considered unnecessarily wanky. Dramatic shifts in tempo and volume and time signature abound on this, as all, their albums. The key to their success though, is that they're artfully and meticulously placed with an almost architectural eye for detail that seems set on firing the imagination, rather than bludgeoning the listener with its own cleverness. In the truest sense of the word Sorceress is a wonderful addition to an enviable back catalogue.

Hedvig Mollestad Trio – Black Stabat Mater

 I don't really know much about these ladies. I'm not sure whether to describe it as Jazzy proto metal or proto metallic jazz... maybe the latter. But it is fierce. Really fierce. The five tracks slowly descend from a (relatively) straight forward opening freak out on a jazzy, turning bluesy groove, to nightmarish feedback and clatter that could be mistaken for King Crimson being dissolved in a rusted cauldron of battery acid stirred by Trolls. Also: One of my favourite album covers in a long time.

Paul Simon - Stranger To Stranger

Received wisdom has it that 74 year olds should just rest on the canon, firing blanks, cashing in on the willingness of Mojo readers to part with their coin for ever more padded out and barrel scraping reissues. Paul Simon seems to think that the best way to get through one's three score and tens is to build an album from the beats up and then bring in a designer and player of micro tonal instruments to add layer upon layer of otherwordly sound. I like Paul Simon. A lot.

Unloved - Guilty of Love

A collaboration between Jade Vincent, Keefus Ciancia and David Holmes (him again). As with Late Night Tales, Unloved is a creature of the night, but this time with teeth, paraffin eyes and a taste for smoke in the back of the throat. Guitars twang, drums can be heard reverberating up blackened alleyways and the astonishing voice of Jade Vincent entices, admonishes, damns and defies. When A Woman is Around should be considered a classic, 'Truth is seldom found (by a man) when a woman is around... Lose that Cheshire grin, take it like a man, keep what's yours, leave me mine.' Although there's a dark 60s vibe at work here, it's beautifully realised, with the faultless songwriting, performance and production giving it an elusive timelessness.

Nissenenmondai - N/A

This album is a perfect example of singular and fearless exploration.

They're a power trio, but that's where the similarities to that particular trope end.

They veer closest to making minimalist Techno, but with guitar, bass and drums.

They sound like they're being beamed in from the future, and not necessarily a good one.

Some of the album is hard to listen to and imagine it having been created by humans.

That's why I love it.