#does twilight still have the cultural reach that a ten year old would know about it

[general-sleepy]

I really don't want to say this in a mean way, because she was a really sweet girl and I don't like to rag on people's names, but I had kid in my class today named Renesmee.

[peapodbond]

A (Mostly) Accurate Timeline of Tommy Kinard

Referencing Lou’s interview with Tommy’s Backstory, his actual age, the dates in Chimney Begins and Bobby Begins Again (with rough estimates of Hen Begins because those cute fuckers didn’t give me a date title card), and the ways that the characters interact with him.

(Lou's) Date of Birth: November 10, 1984.

1984 - 2001: Tommy was an awkward, overweight kid when he was younger. He flourished in classes such as shop, where he could use his hands and create things and didn't necessarily need to talk to anyone. Then he hit a growth spurt, got taller, and joined the football team. Tommy quickly becomes an all star football guy who stands up for any kids who were like him when he was younger.

Tommy says in 7x04 that he flew helicopters for the army before he was a firefighter.

2001 - 2005: In 2001, Tommy would have been seventeen. September 11th was likely the impetus for joining the army, which he could have done as soon as it was his birthday. Basic training is ten weeks for the army, slightly longer if he was aiming for a specialized group. Army tours of duty are between six and twelve months. He could very easily have gone through basic, done between two and four tours in the Middle East, and still joined the fire academy so that he has just finished his probationary year when Chimney comes to the 118.

(updated April 26th: I've been reliably informed by multiple sources that a pilot would have to spend a minimum of five years with the army, and to that I can only say that the writers must be blamed for their timeline. ;) let us assume that there was a reason (good or bad) that Tommy only served four years and I will not speculate as to which in this post because that crosses over from a timeline to headcanons and I want everyone to be able to use this if they want. please see this post for slightly more detail on my reasoning)

2006: 22 years old.

Chimney spends between ten and twenty-four weeks at the fire academy, so Chimney comes into the station in 2006/2007, depending on the time of year (c’mon guys give me something it’s LA and you don’t really have weather out there) and the episode covers most of his probationary year. Most likely it is two years from start to finish, as Chimney does spend part of the episode doing things other than starting at the fire academy.

Tommy is probably the probie who came in just before Chimney, and would have just finished his probationary year. There is a scene in the early part of the episode where Gerrard asks when Tommy’s girlfriend is coming by to cook dinner, but there’s also an offhand comment that she’s never been by the house before so who really knows if there was a girlfriend at all.

Sal DeLuca seems to be Tommy’s senior partner, the same way that Eli is Chimney’s senior partner, so they were probably paired up to show him the ropes when he showed up at the firehouse. Tommy definitely takes his cues from Sal, who takes his cues from Gerrard. Tommy is a bit of a bully because of who he is modeling himself after and the culture that he feels he has to assimilate into but he also does look uncomfortable at a lot of the jokes directed towards Chimney, and you catch him throwing a look to check on Chimney at the funeral in the flashback. After Chimney saves his life Tommy does reach out – awkwardly, but he still reaches out, and even asks Eli about him at the end of the episode.

2010: 26 years old. 

Hen has just arrived at the 118. These dates are based on the Twilight movie joke about being Team Jacob and the fact that Taylor Lautner was 18 when Eclipse came out (2010) and most of us agreed during the first two movies that we would not make gross jokes about minors, right guys? Right Sal? Tommy doesn’t react violently to the gay joke which could be proof that he’s comfortable with who he is even if he hasn’t told anyone. If he’d been truly insulted or grossed out by the joke it’s more likely he would have protested rather than blowing a kiss at Sal. (update May 6th: In 6x01, canonically 2022, Hen tells Bobby that she has been a firefighter for twelve years, so your girl nailed this timing and she's very proud of herself.)

Tommy is splitting his time between Sal and Chimney — we see them sitting together at the dinner table in a similar formation to the way that Hen, Buck and Chim sit together in the current 118 — but still lets himself take cues from the way that Gerrard treats Hen at the beginning of the episode. He is less of a bully than he was in Chimney Begins but still going along with the crowd because he doesn’t want to rock the boat. Saying that the east coast vibes means she was being called a bitch isn’t great, but that entire scene does play into generally accepted stereotypes about the east and west coast in the states and it is perhaps a bad attempt at explaining that to Hen, rather than bullying – but it comes off badly so it doesn’t really matter what the intent was. Chimney looks very disappointed in him for this. (Tommy talks in 7x05 about not being out but knowing that he wasn’t straight when he was in the 118, and we can only assume that showing up to the 118 and meeting Sal and Gerrard in 2005 made it very clear right away that he should toe the line of the rest of the house or find a new job.) The look on his face when Hen does her speech on the fire truck is definitely a realization of who he’s become and it doesn’t appear that he likes who he is.

He is one of the firefighters who is impressed by Hen’s idea about the firehose in the mudslide and he and Sal make a point to come to Hen before she gets called upstairs to see Captain Cook and tell her that she was right about the call and that she is a good firefighter. In the captain’s office Hen is told that a few firefighters made reports – given that in this episode we are mostly focused on Chimney, Tommy, and Sal as her teammates, and they’re the only three that talk to her before this revelation, I believe the storytelling wants us to assume that those three were definitely some of the firefighters who made a report against Gerrard, though we can also safely assume that the entire house reported him.

2014: Bobby is in Minnesota.

Late 2014/early 2015: Bobby moves to LA. Tommy is 30/31.

Based on the montages, this episode covers more time than the other two episodes (both between a year and a half to two years long) and ends with Tommy leaving and Buck coming in. Buck is just finishing his probationary year in 2018, so it follows that Bobby Begins Again covers the three years between 2014 and 2017, with most of Buck’s probationary year happening off screen before the pilot.

We are told during the betting scene that pre-Bobby’s arrival there have been two years of captains switching in and out. Gerrard was kicked out pretty early in Hen’s career at the 118 and Captain Cook came in (but was close to retirement) so it tracks that he was their captain between 2010 and 2012 and then left. 

You’ll notice that during the betting scene and a lot of the fire house montages, Hen is no longer the only woman in the house or on their shift — the higher ups were serious about changing the culture in the LAFD and they did in fact put their money where their mouths were.

As of Bobby’s arrival to LA, Tommy is the third part of the Chimney and Hen trio – they get drinks together, they shit talk work (and Sal), they lend each other money, they talk about how scars get you the girls. (Tommy is obviously still not out at work, but he could be dating someone, it's hard to know.) This is the 118 mirror of Hen’s support group with Athena, and they would not be spending time with each other outside of work if they didn’t like each other. At this point Tommy and Chimney have been working together for eight years! Between Chimney and Hen they have worn off most of the asshole edges that Tommy had in the first two flashback episodes. Chimney, Hen and Tommy sit together at family dinner and Hen arranges a cake and a party for Tommy — something that she wouldn’t have done if she didn’t like him at that point — when he gets his transfer to the 217 and starts flying again. (This is also the first instance of Hen getting a cake to celebrate things happening at the 118.)

Tommy has been at the 118 for twelve years. Chimney and Tommy have worked together for eleven years. Hen and Tommy have worked together for seven years. Bobby and Tommy have worked together for three years.

2019: 35 years old

Tommy has been at the 217 for two years and redirects a flight of their water plane to the subdivision when Chimney calls him. Chim says “Hey it’s Howie,” and still has Tommy’s number saved in his phone. We can assume that they are at least in sporadic contact and have been since Tommy left. We’ll call the odds 50/50 on the chance that Tommy has told Chimney (and perhaps Hen) that he is not straight at this point. Everyone says the Chimney can’t keep a secret but both he and Hen know that there is a difference between a secret and outing someone. (update May 6th: based on the lack of total surprise from both of them that it was Tommy that Buck decided to kiss so hard he got soot beard, I am even more confident now that at some point between leaving the 118 and season seven Tommy did in fact tell both of his friends that he wasn't straight. How and when he did is something I will let y'all decide in fanfic! Still trying to keep this post to things that can be canonically backed up.

Spring 2024: 39 years old

Steals a helicopter for Hen when Chimney calls, flies them to a capsized cruise ship in the middle of a hurricane, makes friends with Eddie and kisses Buck. Gets invited to Chimney and Maddie’s wedding as Buck’s date. (There is a higher than zero chance that he has already been invited by Chimney since they’re friends and he’s just shocked Buck considers that a good third date.)

References:

https://www.goarmy.com/how-to-join/requirements.html

https://www.operationmilitarykids.org/how-long-is-a-tour-of-duty-in-the-military/

https://www.operationmilitarykids.org/heres-how-long-basic-training-is-for-each-military-branch/

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/9-1-1-show-tommy-buck-kiss-relationship-lou-ferrigno-jr-1235872688/#

https://firefighternow.com/fire-academy-guide/

https://firefighternow.com/probationary-firefighter/

https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/aviation.html

https://benefits.com/veterans-benefits/types-military-discharge/

**updated April 26th with some extra references and a little explanation as to why the timeline is off (hint: it's the writer's fault ;) )

**updated May 6th with even more information (and now I kind of want to do Chim and Hen too)

[midzelink]

What’s Going On with the Ears in Hyrule?

(Or: A Needlessly Comprehensive Deep-Dive into the Myst-EAR-ious Duality of Round-Eared Humans and Long-Eared Hylians, a Very S-EAR-ious Write-Up)

As some of you may remember from a few months back, I made an off-hand comment about my ideas surrounding the disparities between the different types of ears we see in Hyrule’s human citizens, and my desire to further expand on that at a later date.  No, that was not a joke, and yes, I am finally Doing the Dang Thing.  So!  Let’s get started.

Long-time fans of the series will know that Hylians are a race of humans in the world of The Legend of Zelda with long, elf-like ears.  Hylians most always dominate the land of Hyrule in nearly every installment in the series, with round-eared humans only making their first appearance in Link’s Awakening, a game that - spoiler alert - was all a dream in the first place.  And though plain old humans again appear in the lands of Holodrum and Labrynna in the follow-up Oracle games, it is very in keeping with the theme of this blog that their most notable appearance happens to be in Twilight Princess.

Though it is never remarked upon in-game, Link is the only Hylian in a village filled with humans, such as Ilia and Rusl, leading the player to assume that he was not Ordon-born.  Other notable examples include Ashei, who hails from the mountains, and even the inhabitants of (New) Kakariko (though only three in number) are all mere humans.  The Hylians of this game seem to be centralized around Castle Town, with notable members including Telma, Shad, and Auru of the Resistance, and naturally, Zelda herself.  Yet as I’ve already stated, the fact that there are two different sets of ears among the humans is never even a topic of conversation; it makes you wonder why the developers bothered to make the distinction at all, and indeed, plenty of fans have never even noticed that such a disparity exists. I certainly didn’t notice when I was ten years old, playing through Twilight Princess for the very first time - but we’ve come a long way since then, and I am delighted to finally be able to tell everyone why I think this disparity exists, and how it has bled into other aspects of the series.  Let’s back away from Twilight Princess for a moment; all good theories have a beginning, and this one is no different.  To understand where this all began, we must look thousands of years into the past, to Skyward Sword.  More specifically, this all started...

...with this guy.

Yes, Beedle.  That Beedle.  But before we can even jump into how he relates to any of this, we must travel further back still, to the very opening cutscene of Skyward Sword.  

In this cutscene, we hear a very dumbed-down tale of how Demise invaded the surface world that was ruled over by the Goddess Hylia; to protect the sacred relic placed into her care by the Golden Goddesses, Hylia rends a piece of land from the earth and sends it skyward, leaving the Goddess Sword and the Triforce with it.  Together with the remaining peoples of the Surface, she seals Demise away, and millennia later the events of Skyward Sword transpire.  The entirety of this cutscene is not in and of itself very important, but I would like to draw everyone’s attention to one particular line uttered by the narrator during this sequence:

“To prevent this great power from falling into the hands of the evil swarming the lands… The goddess gathered the surviving humans on an outcropping of earth.”

It is worth noting here that - though the word “Hylian” itself only appears in reference to the shield which bears its name - Skyloft is comprised entirely of people with long ears.  Keeping these things in mind, let’s go back to Beedle.

Beedle is, by all intents and purposes, a fairly unremarkable character in Skyward Sword.  That is to say, outside of providing Link with goods throughout his adventure, he bears no significance on the plot in any capacity, having only a single sidequest that involves retrieving a pet beetle (snickers) of his, for which the player’s reward is a small sum of Gratitude Crystals.  But there is one, throwaway line of completely optional dialogue you can trigger towards the beginning of this sidequest, and it is upon this line that the entire basis for this theory has been built.  When meeting Beedle on his home island apart from Skyloft for the very first time, the player is given the option...

...to comment on his accent.

[after selecting “Your accent!”] “Hmmm? The mellifluous timbre of my voice sounds different to you?

...Perhaps a touch, I suppose... But pray, what does it matter, hmm?”

What’s important to understand about accents is how they come about to begin with: namely, slight differences in pronunciation and rhythm of speech evolve over time as the language (in this case, some form of ancient Hylian) spreads to different locations.  And of course, everyone who uses spoken language has an accent, but Link’s remarking upon Beedle’s is an indication that his pattern of speech is different from his own.  In most other games, this would be unextraordinary - but in the context of Skyward Sword, where humanity has been isolated to a (relatively speaking) small outcropping of earth in the sky, it becomes extremely noteworthy.  No one in Skyloft should have “an accent,” because theirs is a society and culture so small in scale that they should all have the same accent.  Beedle having an accent makes sense if, and only if...

...he’s not from Skyloft.

And if he’s not from Skyloft, the logical conclusion would be that he must be from the Surface.  In almost any other circumstance, this assertion would be smashed to smithereens by the sheer fact that getting to Skyloft without a Loftwing - companions blessed only to those who live in the sky - should be an unattainable feat. And yet, of all the people in Skyloft, Beedle is the only one who could have achieved such a thing... 

...because his shop - which conveniently doubles as his house - is an electricity-powered flying machine.  Within the context of the game, such a contraption seems almost nonsensical; if he were from Skyloft, why would he not just set up shop in a permanent location?  Even if he wanted to live on a smaller island by himself, the people of Skyloft could simply use their Loftwings to reach him (which they still need to do, anyway!).  Indeed, the existence of Beedle’s Shop makes far more sense...if it already existed by the time he arrived there.

Which brings us back to that introductory cutscene.  The narrator states that Hylia gathered up all of the surviving humans (notice the use of the word humans here) onto an outcropping of earth and sent them skyward, and on a surface level, this seems straight-forward enough - but with the revelation that Beedle is very likely from the Surface himself, it’s very obvious that this is nothing more than a bold-faced lie.  Some humans were left behind - they couldn’t all possibly have fit on such a small piece of land - and those humans were the ancestors of Beedle, in some way, shape, or form.  What became of those humans is another matter altogether (one I will address briefly), as the Surface we explore in Skyward Sword is perfectly devoid of human life, barring Impa.

Now, let’s bring it back home: remember how I said that all Skyloftians have long ears?  That was a bit of a white lie, though only if you count Beedle among that number.  In truth, Beedle’s ears are obscured by the bowl cut of his hair - but this is true for every game he appears in, and the general consensus is that they’re round.  This would make Beedle the only round-eared human in the entire game...and he, coincidentally, happens to be from the Surface.

Before I go any further, I’d like to establish a very base reasoning for the existence of long-eared qualities in the human races of Hyrule.  Hylians are far from the only ones to bear long ears, what with the trait also presenting themselves in the likes of the Sheikah and, by the era of Breath of the Wild, even the Gerudo - though it is exceptionally notable that in Ocarina of Time, the Gerudo have round ears, and Ganondorf is no exception...at least, at first.

Y’see, what’s especially notable about Ganondorf is that he is the same exact character is each title he appears in, and in The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, his ears are long.  This was actually something I only noticed quite recently, upon which I then fervently began scouring for information about his appearance in Ocarina of Time to try and make sense of it all, and the results are...very intriguing, to say the least.  Below is a comparison of Ganondorf pre-timeskip vs. post-timeskip from the original Nintendo 64 version of the game:

As you can see, his model has changed in a number of ways, but... Well, I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

Amazingly, his ears got longer, which is...an interesting choice from a design perspective.  Of course, it leads one to wonder why - and far and above the most significant thing to happen to him in the seven years between these two appearances is his procuring of the Triforce of Power from the Sacred Realm, a relic of the old gods.  Evil or no, Ganondorf had forged a bond with a god unlike any had before him, and for some reason, this elongated his ears - so much so that by the time of Twilight Princess and The Wind Waker, they are indistinguishable from your typical Hylian’s.  It is notable, too, that the Sheikah (who have always had long ears) also bear a special connection to the gods, living to serve Hylia and, later, her reincarnation as the princess in the Royal Family of Hyrule.  

“They say we Hylians have big ears in order to hear the voices of the gods.”

So now, keeping everything I’ve talked about here in mind, I think it appropriate to go over the series of events that likely transpired, beginning from Demise’s invasion of the surface world:

In a bid to keep the Triforce out of evil’s grasp, Hylia formulates a plan to send both it and the Goddess Sword out of harm’s way.  She selects - perhaps by chance, perhaps by choice - a not insignificant number of humans to live on this skyward isle, but naturally not all of them can make the cut.  These chosen humans would go on to found Skyloft, a land whose culture revolves heavily around the reverence of the very goddess who saved them and enabled them to live in prosperity (the existence of the Wing Ceremony, the Statue of the Goddess, etc.), while the humans who remained on the surface, left in a world scarred by war and ravaged by monsters, sought new lands, becoming the ancestors of people who would found Holodrum and Labrynna, to name a couple.  In their reverence of Hylia, the people of Skyloft would develop long ears, as even the Sheikah had - but the humans left on the surface world...would not.

That is to say, the Hylians we see in almost every major installment of the series are the direct descendants of the people of Skyloft, and round-eared humans are the descendants of the people Hylia left behind.

Of course, not all humans fled from their homeland - though we see none in-game, it’s important to remember that we also see no Sheikah aside from Impa, though we know they are great in number.  Beedle was, undoubtedly, one of these very few stragglers, and with stories of a land beyond the clouds on his mind - legends that have been passed down over countless generations - he sought to find this paradise by any means, through sheer blood, sweat, and tears (but mostly sweat, if that cycling is any indication) if necessary. In the end, he was successful, and he lives among the people of Skyloft fairly unassumingly - yet he also lives apart from them, on his own island because, at his core, he is not one of them, and never will be.  He doesn’t get all of this Hylia stuff, and frankly, he doesn’t care - so long as he can chill on his own little crop of land with a full belly, a full wallet, and his pet beetle, that’s really all that matters.

And speaking of Hylia - the reason they are called Hylians is because they are the descendants of those chosen by Hylia, even if the knowledge of Hylia’s existence has largely been lost to history by the events of Ocarina of Time and beyond.  (In a very similar vein, it is my belief that Lake Hylia also gets its name from her because the crater that would later become that very lake was formed...when she lifted a gargantuan outcropping of earth into the sky.)   Hylians largely dominate Hyrule for so much of its history because the people of Skyloft were the ones who founded it - yet by the era of Twilight Princess, we see that a great many of the humans who had moved onto different lands have slowly but surely made their way back towards the place they once called home.  

But I would be remiss to neglect to go back to Breath of the Wild; this game is a much more peculiar case, taking place in an era many millennia after any game that came before it, where reverence for Hylia is once again commonplace - so much so that statues bearing her resemblance have been erected in every town, village, and city across the country.  Humans are once again practically nowhere to be seen (except, again, perhaps for Beedle), and even the Gerudo, who have now long intermingled with Hylians for the sake of having children, have inherited the trait (perhaps in part due to the fact that some of their own may worship Hylia, if the statue in Gerudo Town is any indication).  In every single instance, no matter where you turn, these long ears seem to be a direct correlation to the people’s connection to the gods of Hyrule - but rather than their ears being a predetermined factor in how strong this connection may be, it seems that their faith is what influences this trait to rise to the surface, over how ever many generations or centuries that just might take.  (Ganondorf Dragmire, who lives in a castle and inherited a relic of pure godly power, is an outlier and should not be counted.)  As Shad so eloquently states in Twilight Princess:

“Hyrule was made by the Hylians, who, as we all know, are the closest race to the gods.”

And as long as we’re talking about Shad, I’d love to begin wrapping up this post by bringing things round to Twilight Princess once more - specifically the context in which Shad says the above quote, which is far and away one of the most peculiar instances of casual lore-dumping in the entire series.  The quote in its entirety from the North American version of the game reads thusly:

“At the moment I'm absolutely entranced by the sky beings known as the Oocca. Yes, according to legend, Hyrule was made by the Hylians [...] But also according to legend, long ago there was a race even closer to the gods, and some say these creatures made the Hylians. When they created the people of Hylia, they simultaneously created a new capital, a city that floated in the heavens.”

What Shad is saying here is extremely farfetched, particularly for those of us who are familiar with the Oocca.  But in truth, this was a minor mistranslation on Nintendo of America’s part; the original text from the Japanese version of the game clears actually reads much more like this, when translated correctly:

“The common opinion is that Hyrule was created by the Hylia people, the race closest to the gods, but...truth be told, there's also a theory saying that in ancient times, there was a race even closer to the gods than the Hylia people, and THEY created it [Hyrule]. And they, simultaneously with the birth of the Hylia people, created a new capital, a capital that floated in the heavens.”

So the Oocca - the bizarre, Cucco-like creatures who inhabit the City in the Sky - did not create the Hylians, but rather established the kingdom of Hyrule itself in the world that the goddesses created.  But even with this mistranslation squared away, that still sounds incredibly odd, especially taking the events of Skyward Sword into account; we know that the people of Skyloft are the ones who inevitably found Hyrule, because we see the beginnings of this happening at the end of the game.  Funnily enough, it seems that the very line that was mistranslated in the North American version of the game...was the result of mistranslation itself.

In-universe mistranslation, that is.  Millennia of history being told, written, lost, and found, translated again and again and again, until it barely resembles its original state.  What likely happened was that the Oocca, who live in the sky, were wrongly credited with the creation of Hyrule because the Hylian people who would go on the found Hyrule also came from the sky, as they were the people of Skyloft.  Shad’s claim that the Oocca were “a race even closer to the gods" than the Hylians may not be entirely unfounded, however, as it is incredibly likely like the City in the Sky we see in Twilight Princess is what remained of Skyloft after its human inhabitants abandoned it; the Loftwings that the people of Skyloft had for so long relied on would go on to evolve into more sentient beings, suspending the city above the clouds long after Hylia’s magic had worn off - and Loftwings were, as the people of Skyloft believed, beings bestowed upon them as a symbol of the goddess’s divine blessing.  In this sense, it is somewhat true that the City in the Sky and the Hylians were created at the same time; when the Skyloftians abandoned their home to live in a new land where they were not long after christened the Hylians, the skyward isle that they had left behind found a new purpose, and a new “city” was born.

Of course, maybe Shad was off his marbles (even if the Oocca are evolved Loftwings, there is still much about them and their connection to the Sheikah that remains shrouded in mystery), but the crux of this entire narrative is that the people of Hylia, the Hylians - at least, up until Breath of the Wild is concerned - were the descendants of the people of Skyloft, and Beedle’s eccentricities in the context of Skyward Sword are rather convincing pieces of evidence that this did not comprise all people of the formerly-known-as “Land of Hylia.”  It is therefore only natural that a conclusion could be drawn about where the distinction between the two peoples comes from.

But in the end, even if this can answer the question of why there are round-eared humans alongside long-eared ones, it does not answer the ultimate question of what this distinction means.  Why does a connection with and a faith in the gods elongate the ears of the people it touches?  The Zelda Encyclopedia states that “in the past, Hylians were able to wield magic of considerable might,” a trait that could possibly distinguish them from your typical human being - but the canon nature of the Encyclopedia is...shaky*, at best, and downright disrespectful at worst.  Link and Zelda are two Hylians we see wielding abnormal abilities, but their power can be explained with their respective pieces of the Triforce, not to mention the countless magic users in Hyrule and beyond who aren’t Hylian.  Even if there was a time when the Hylians had special abilities, those abilities have long since faded. They are no no taller, no smaller, live no longer than their round-eared counterparts; they are, in every aspect aside from the length of their ears, in every way identical.  To finish the quote by the unnamed Hylian man who speaks to a young Link in the Castle Town Market in Ocarina of Time:

“They say we Hylians have big ears in order to hear the voices of the gods...but I've never heard them!”

So...there you have it.  I must admit that it is entirely possible that the people of Skyloft had developed long ears before their ancestors had been sent to the heavens - after all, the Sealed Temple was, in millennia past, a temple erected in her honor.  Yet this would also make the story of Hylia gathering the “surviving humans” in order to save them all the more grim; could the gods be so callous as to save only those who respect their divine might? One cannot help but think of the Great Sea in The Wind Waker - for in a world populated by the descendants of those who were chosen by the gods to survive the coming floods, it is difficult not to notice that ears of the round variety are once again nowhere to be found.

And yet, when you get right down to it - though some Hylians seem to rely on their lineage as “the closest race to the gods” to maintain an image of self-importance - the difference between a long-eared Hylian and a round-eared human appears to be, ultimately...only that.  And unless we see our round-eared friends return in a potentially future title, and the difference remarked upon, that will likely be how things remain.

Until that time, I will continue to do my best to fill the gaps with which we have been left - even if, at the end of the day, I’ve written nothing more than a meaningless, nine-page word jumble...about ears.

EDIT (5/9/2020): It has been brought to my attention (courtesy of @heartenvy​​) that there is a mild inconsistency with the narrative that Beedle could be from the Surface: namely, the “unbreachable” Cloud Barrier, something Hylia herself created to divide Skyloft from the Surface and keep its inhabitants and the Triforce safe.  However, I would argue that the Cloud Barrier is not a physical barrier so much as it is a mystical one, meant to both keep its location secret (the barrier itself is completely invisible from the Surface) and to ensure the people of Skyloft remain complacent in their isolation (believing Skyloft is all there is, they remain there, and in so doing their long-forgotten secrets are kept safe). Zelda is pulled through it long before any proper portals are actually opened, and I would argue that the portals (that is, the pillars of light that appear when we place the corresponding tablets) are largely a gameplay mechanic meant to keep the story linear, as in a real setting Link would have simply ridden his Loftwing to and from the Surface and would have been able to fly anywhere he chose.  It’s possible the barrier acts to keep out evildoers, specifically (which would explain why Ghirahim had to summon a vortex to pull Zelda through it, where he could reach her), or, not unlike the Isla de Muerta in Pirates of the Caribbean, Skyloft could very well be “an island that cannot be found except by those who already know where it is” - which, to me, makes the narrative of Beedle finding his way there all the more entertaining (the dude must have been, like, super determined).  In any case, I stand by what I’ve stated before: that Beedle is from the Surface, as his accent and the peculiarities of his shop make too strong a case to ignore.

*              *              *              *              *

*The Zelda Encyclopedia states that Termina is a Dream World, despite Link’s Awakening having already done this and in a much more satisfying way.  I can’t take anything it says seriously.

(Special thanks to @ghiirahiims​​ for the high-res screenshot of Beedle, and shoutout to @gaybellatrix​​ for in no small part convincing me to finally sit down and write this all up.)

[thetypedwriter]

Midnight Sun Book Review

Midnight Sun Book Review by Stephenie Meyer 

Oh my god, you guys. 

Just. Oh. My. God. 

This book took ten years off of my life. 

As a heavy reminder, these book reviews are entirely subjective and my very personal opinion. I don’t need the hoards of Twihards coming after me with pitchforks and pretend fangs from Party City because I didn’t fall head-over-heels with this canon spinoff like my fourteen-year-old self would have. 

With that measly disclaimer out of the way, let’s move onto the actual book review. If you haven’t heard of Midnight Sun or don’t know what it is, then I don’t know what to tell you except that you avoided 600 plus pages of stream of conscious ranting. 

For those of you that would like to be enlightened, Midnight Sun is the retelling of the infamous Twilight book-yes, that Twilight, Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen Twilight, complete with vampires, not so-stellar acting, and the more than notorious forest scene of Edward demanding she say… “vampire!” Gasp. 

But no really, like most women in my now mid-20’s, as a teenager, I was obsessed with the Twilight saga and everything it had to offer, especially the dreamy, chivalrous, too good to be true Edward Cullen (fuck Jacob). 

I voraciously devoured the books while I was in middle school, attended the midnight book premier for Breaking Dawn, and stayed up way too late for each and every movie screening that followed, a loyal fan to the end. To give you some perspective, I even joined the Twilight club my freshman year of high school. 

Yes, if you were wondering, I was indeed that cool. 

I was obsessed and in love and outside of Harry Potter, it’s still one of the few book fandoms and series that I was truly enveloped and consumed by. Whether that was due to my age, the experience of the fandom, the cultural phenomena that was following the movies and new releases, or for other reasons, it was an experience I look back on now with simultaneous fondness and slight embarrassment. 

I wasn’t embarrassed by my involvement or my experience in the fandom, like many other people, I made great friends through Twilight (including my best friend, whom I met in college when we mutually bonded over our love of Twilight), read countless fanfiction that, to this day, I still remember and cherish with my heart, and it was one of the series that cemented my love of reading and book culture as a whole for me. 

However, like everyone else, I inevitably grew up, matured, and my reading tastes changed and became more refined. As an avid re-reader of books, I have tried going back to re-read the Twilight saga multiple times... 

...and failed. 

The books had simply lost their magic for me. 

The story seemed dull and nonsensical, Bella had become the epitome of a Mary Sue, the writing was now apparently mediocre, and Breaking Dawn’s lackluster climax angered me to the point of speechlessness (it still does). 

So, I gave up re-reading the series and while I deemed that it was perhaps not as wonderful and life-changing as it had been for 8th grade Melissa, I still appreciated what it had done for me personally and the experiences that I had gained through the books. 

Speaking of 8th grade Melissa, the original Midnight Sun, that being twelve chapters of the original manuscript that had been leaked back in 2008, had been put up on Stephenie Meyer’s website for all to enjoy. 

Like the good, whipped fangirl I was, I devoured all 12 chapters with ease and lamented the loss of never getting more than that snapshot of Edward’s thoughts and musings. 

Now, twelve years later, the full book has been written, published, and released to the delight and downright shock to many age-old Twilight fans that had believed that series to be dead and buried, myself included. 

So, when the book came out this August, I swallowed my trepidation, knowing that my love for the characters was now long gone, but I believed that the sentimentality of 8th grade Melissa’s obsession would long linger, making this a pleasant blast from the past to lift my mood. 

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. 

Now, that I’ve told you my whole life story in an effort to explain why I have the feelings I do and to justify that I’m not just being negative for the sake of being negative, this book did not hold up to any of my expectations. 

One, it was so freaking long. 

Holy shit, was this book long. 

As I have said countless times on this blog, I like big books (and I cannot lie). It’s the best feeling in the world when you get into a story and you realize that you have many days ahead of you of being engulfed within this new world that you’ve fallen head-over-heels for. 

It’s the opposite, sinking feeling of dread when you feel like you’ve been reading the book for weeks and are getting nothing out of it. 

Midnight Sun was a lot like that.

It was too long to be good, especially considering the length was not generally driven by plot, but instead driven by Edward thinking of every fucking thing to the nth degree and driving me crazy in the process. 

Homeboy needs to take a chill pill, he overstresses, overthinks, and overanalyzes everything to the point of irritation as a reader. 

Meyer’s editor really needed to step in and say, “Hey, Stephenie...is all of this really necessary?” and then proceed to cut out at least 300 pages of nonsense. 

But that didn’t happen, probably because first and foremost, the book was already going to sell no matter what changes or edits were made, and this seemed like a book more for Stephenie than anyone else. 

It was very much stream of consciousness like I’ve already said, a style of writing defined as a literary style in which a character's thoughts, feelings, and reactions are depicted in a continuous flow uninterrupted by objective description or conventional dialogue. 

It wasn’t on the level of James Joyce’s Ulysses or other notable works, but damn was it close. 

This writing style I found abhorrently repetitive and exceptionally dull. 

Perhaps my fourteen-year-old self would have felt differently and would have sucked up anything about Edward Cullen eagerly considering he was the fictional love of my life. 

Or perhaps this book would have made me go running and screaming in the opposite direction as Edward is...kind of awful?

One positive thing I can say about this book is that it paints Bella Swan in a very rosy light, which was actually very refreshing. One of the most famous criticisms that Meyer’s has received is Bella’s lack of character, development, and attributes. 

Seeing Bella from Edward’s perspective instead of vice-versa actually showed how kind, thoughtful, and selfless she is, all things that I had never really picked up on before. 

I still find her inexcusably dumb sometimes, but much of time during this book, Bella was actually far favorable to Edward or any other character, a blasphemous statement of irony if I had ever heard one. 

The payoff, however, is Edward’s reveal as not chivalrous, not gentlemanly, and not as wonderful as I remember. He’s arrogant, selfish, obsessive, and honestly? Downright creepy. 

The stalking reaches new levels of not okay, often with him trying to justify his less than criminal activities with the notion of her “safety” as the priority, which I found complete bullshit. 

I found Edward domineering, cold, aggravating, and lackluster, statements which would literally have made my old self sob, which I honestly did when Edward left in New Moon. 

I used to be an avid Jacob hater and lover of Edward to the extreme back in the day. Now, I would weep for joy if he left, root for Jacob all the way, and hope that the horrible name of Renesmee never needed to come to fruition in the first place. 

Oh, how the turns have tabled. 

Other than the atrocious length, my other large criticism came in the form of well...the book was naturally boring in my opinion. Meyer tries to create tension and moments of suspense, but...we already know what happens. 

We know the next few years actually. We know they get married, have a baby, and Bella gets turned into a vampire. So all moments of tension and suspense are unceremoniously tossed out the window. 

You might say, typedwriter, that’s unfair! We didn’t read this for the tension and suspenseful plot that we already know! We read this to get new information and insight into the Cullens and Edward especially. What do the Cullens do at home? How do they interact? What does this juicy insider insight look like?

Well, I still don’t know because we hardly saw any of it. 

I was the most curious about the Cullens as a family unit and more information into how they functioned, interacted, and cohabited. I even wrote a fanfiction back in the day about what freaking Esme did home alone because I was so intrigued by the idea, but nope! 

Edward was always stalking Bella 24/7 so almost no new information was gleaned about the Cullens, sucks for you. 

There would be little nuggets here and there, little bouts of cool information (Apparently Esme just stays home all day every day doing….nothing?), but not nearly enough to justify a 600+ page book of a recycled plot that we were already familiar with. 

I needed more from this book, craved all the little moments in between, and it was a letdown to the most extreme proportions. 

Recommendation: I didn’t really enjoy this read despite my past involvement with the series, my lingering fondness for the movies on a cold, rainy day, and the still sporadic delves into Twilight fanfiction that maintains its reputation of quality and characters. 

Twilight will always have a special place in my heart for what it did for me and the people it brought into my life, but I wish I had remembered Midnight Sun as the 12 chapters I read on Stephenie Meyer’s website when I was fourteen and infatuated instead of 26 and uninterested and unforgiving. 

Score: 4/10

[salmonthestoryteller]

Pirate Bay

A Supernatural Fanfic

Written for @spnhiatuscreations

Week 2: Urban Legends

“Think I found us a case.” Sam greeted him when he entered the room.

“Good morning to you, too.” Dean replied, setting a cup of coffee down by where he was seated, and sipping from his own.

“Three kids have disappeared out of Orderville, Utah in three weeks. The doors were locked, there was no sign of a break in, and there was a parent home with them, though in a different part of the house. None of them heard anything. No connection between the victims.” Sam turned the laptop toward him.

Dean scanned the article with a frown. “It doesn’t really sound like our kind of thing. There are lots of mundane ways these kids could have disappeared. Maybe they left themselves. Maybe they let someone in. The parents could be lying bastards.”

“I know, but the bit about the parents being home sounded familiar, so I looked it up.”

“Looked what up?”

“Dad hunted something like this. Every 3 years nine kids would go missing. Different towns, but the MO was the same. No forced entry, someone home, and the kids just gone. Like they vanished.” Sam offered the journal to him.

Dean froze when he saw the pages. He set it back down on the table without reading it. “This case was solved.”

“Yah, but not by Dad. A hunter by the name of C Pierce left Dad a note saying the job was done. Dad, being Dad, didn’t trust it. He hung around the area, but the disappearances had stopped. He asked Bobby about C Pierce. Bobby said he’d heard of a hunter called Pierce, but he himself had disappeared nine years prior.”

“Okay, but the case was solved, how is this connected?”

“Maybe it’s the same type of creature. Dad thought it was some kind of Boogeyman. Every culture has it’s own version. Appearance and gender differs, but all of them kidnap kids.”

“Yah, but Boogeymen are nocturnal.” Dean argued. “These kidnappings are daytime. How could it get around that?”

“I don’t know. There’s just something about it that’s bothering me. This old case, I would have been, what? Ten?”

“You were nine.” Dean replied with absolute certainty.

Sam frowned, recalling something. “…was Dad hunting this when I thought one was in my closet?”

“No, that was after this case. It was never actually in your closet, either.”

“It must have been one of the only times it really was just a nightmare.”

“…yah, a nightmare…”

“I don’t remember much about our time there. I don’t think we even went to school.” Sam looked over the journal pages.

“No, it was summer.”

“You seem to remember it really well.”

“I was older than you.” Dean shrugged. “Look, we’ll check this out, but for the record, not a case.”

“Not a case, huh?” Sam asked him as they exited the house of the third victim.

“I didn’t even know there was such a thing as “Web TV”. I mean, really?“ Dean deflected.

“I just don’t get how it’s working. Somehow it’s through this show, but are the kids being hypnotized? Possessed? I mean, how do they disappear?”

“There is a lot of ancient lore involving mirrors and mirrored surfaces being doorways. A laptop screen is a mirrored surface.”

“It just sounds like something out of a bad movie. Kidnapped through a screen. I think the first thing is to look up this show.”

“Great, I’ll grab dinner.”

“It shouldn’t take that long.”

“Well, I’m hungry, so I’ll get food, and you look up about this Web TV show. Just don’t go watching any episodes without me.”

“Afraid I’ll get laptop-napped?”

“Sammy, seriously. We don’t know how this works, remember?” Dean scowled at him as he they got in the car.

“Okay, okay. Geez, you’re so serious about this. Does this have to do with the case that Dad worked? You’ve been weird since I brought it up.”

“Solved, remember? So no connection.” Dean snapped back.

Sam frowned, but held up his hands. “Okay, no connection.”

The tv was small, and old. It had seen better days, with one knob cracked and one rabbit ear missing. Dean carried it into a house he was parked in front of, displaying a “for sale” sign. The inside was empty, and he set it down in the living room, plugging it in but not turning it on. He stared at the blank screen for a moment before he pulled out a piece of chalk, which he used to draw lines down the screen. He turned it on then, and the tv gave a small whine before displaying white static.

Dean stepped back, pacing in front of it for a moment. He took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair before turning to face the screen. “Pierce.”

Nothing changed. The static continued to show, and the white noise continued.

“Pierce!” There was still no change and Dean scowled. “Captain Pierce!”

After another minute of nothing, Dean switched the tv off. He left it where it was, slamming the door behind him on the way out. After a moment more, the tv clicked on, showing black instead of static. A metal cup then appeared, and ran along the chalk-marked screen, accompanied by a sound not unlike rattling a cup against metal bars.

“Let me outta here! Let me outta here!” A voice shouted, and screams started behind it - sounding faint but growing louder.

A laugh sounded from it next, cackling ominously over the screams. “Go in! Go in!” A new voice shouted.

The tv shut itself off with a loud buzz, and silence reigned in the room again.

“I’ve got your rabbit food.” Dean greeted as he entered. He paused when he saw Sam’s expression.

“So, when were you planning on telling me?”

“About what?”

“Pirate Bay.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t find any web tv series these kids could be watching. But I did find a forum conversation detailing an old show that used to play on a local tv channel. The more I read about it, the more it seemed familiar. I used to watch it, too. Or I thought I did. Do you want to read the messages?”

“…no thanks.”

“Static. White noise. The parents saw no show on that screen. So what were we watching?” When his brother didn’t respond right away, Sam’s expression grew more upset. “Dean!”

Dean sighed, and sat down on the motel bed. “I was researching for Dad. All the lore about boogeymen I could find. You said you were watching some show, and I didn’t think it was strange. You were kind of a tv junky when you were younger. You got more into books later. I always wondered if that wasn’t what turned you off of it, even if you never really remembered…”

“Remembered what?”

“Any of it. There was only the nightmares as evidence that anything was off.”

“The boogeyman I thought was in my closet.” Sam sat across from him.

“Fragments of memories.”

“Memories of what?”

“It didn’t take the bodies first. It took the souls. Brought them into it’s world, played with them. The so called episodes you all thought you watched - you lived it. Pierce said it wanted to taste their terror first. It took the bodies only after it drained the souls dry.”

“In the posts, the names they mentioned?”

“The kids who didn’t make it.”

Sam took a moment to digest the information. “And the pirate? Captain Pierce?”

“He was a hunter. He had been on it’s trail and got trapped somehow. Couldn’t leave. Even after he killed it, he couldn’t get out.”

“The letter to Dad?”

“…Bobby and I staged it.”

“Bobby knew?”

“You didn’t remember. When you woke up and I asked if you were alright, you just said you must have fallen asleep watching the show. I didn’t know what to do, so I called Bobby. It was our secret.”

Sam ran a hand down his face. “Wow.”

“Yah.”

“So somehow, it’s back.”

“Sam, its feeding cycle was three years. If Pierce hadn’t killed it, it would have shown up long before this. So how can it be happening again now?”

“I don’t know. That’s what we’ll have to figure out.”

“Dean… Dean…”

Sam’s eyes shot open, and his eyes were drawn first to his brother’s bed, only to find it empty. Light flickered across it, almost as if… His head snapped toward the television, but the screen was an empty black. When he looked again, there was no light, but also still no sign of his brother. “Dean!”

“Sammy?” Dean charged out of the bathroom, but paused when he saw no sign of a threat. “What’s wrong?”

Sam relaxed, but his eyes flickered to the tv briefly. “Nothing, I just… I guess I was just dreaming.”

Dean frowned, but didn’t push. “I was going to get breakfast.”

“Yah, sure. Coffee sounds great.”

Dean stared at him for a moment, but nodded before grabbing the keys to head out. Sam rubbed his eyes tiredly, but got up to turn on his laptop before heading into the bathroom. After the sound of the car engine had faded and the sound of the shower had started the laptop screen changed from the desktop to pure black.

“Yohoho and a bottle of rum…”

Though the boogeyman’s world was an endless twilight, the colors in it weren’t muted by the lack of light. Instead they contrasted starkly against one another. After awhile it almost hurt to stare at anything too long.

“It’s this way.” Mindy, the young girl Dean had met who knew about “Pirate Bay”, pulled at his arm. Sam followed her along the coast toward a cliff face full of caves. A sound that he had first thought was the howling of the wind changed as they got closer. Morphing into the sound of human screams.

Whatever Pierce had been, the creature cackling at them, his hand around the throat of the young boy Dean had called Jacob, wasn’t human.

“Let him go.” Dean told it.

“Let him go… Let him go…” The creature repeated, but then started cackling again.

The screams continued through the cave, an eerie symphony around them. “Pierce? Are you in there?” Dean asked.

“Pierce?” The creature looked at him sharply.

Jacob was crying, as was Mindy behind them. Sam glanced between his brother and the new boogeyman, his hand inching toward his gun.

“Captain Pierce.” Dean tried again.

“…But one man of her crew alive, what put to sea was seventy-five…” The creature sang in reply.

“Pierce, let him go.”

“You asked the same of it… Let her go… Let her go… She could go. You could go…” Whatever remaining piece of the hunter Dean had reached was quickly fading. “I couldn’t go… Let me outta here! Let me outta here!”

Jacob was sobbing now, and Dean reached out a hand. “Pierce, let him go.”

The creature cackled, claws beginning to grow, piercing skin. “No.”

The rapport of Sam’s gun sounded loudly in the cave. Dean leaped forward to pull Jacob away as the creature fell back, eyes blank and empty of either boogeyman or human.

The day was quiet as they emerged from the house. It almost felt like it was pressing in after all the screaming in the boogeyman’s cave. The sun still burning in the sky too bright after the endless twilight.

Dean’s face was closed off, but Sam knew his brother too well to be fooled by it. “That thing… it wasn’t Pierce anymore.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Dean retorted. “But he was once. He saved our lives from the first one all those years ago. If he hadn’t been trapped there, maybe…”

“You couldn’t have known what he would become, Dean. And even if you had, what could you have done? You were thirteen, man.”

“There was lore that mentioned it. The victims becoming boogeymen. There was no evidence, though. Even Bobby didn’t mention the possibility.”

“Exactly! You couldn’t have known. Couldn’t have done anything about it even if you had. We only got in because he became one and opened the portal again. There was no way to end this until now.”

“I get it.” Dean’s tone was sharp. He rested his hands on top of the Impala, taking a steadying breath. “We can’t save everyone, right?”

Sam didn’t reply, but his expression said more than words probably could.

“Let’s just get out of here.” Dean told him. Sam nodded, glancing back up at the house before climbing into the car.

From the house across the street, Jacob watched from his room as the car pulled away. The scratches the boogeyman that had once been Pierce had left across his throat were still there in the real world.

“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

Drink and the devil had done for the rest

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

But one man of her crew alive,

What put to sea was seventy-five…” He backed away from the window slowly.

“Jacob, dinner’s almost ready!” His mother’s voice called. Not getting a response, she climbed the stairs to knock on his door. “Jacob?” She opened the door to look inside the room, but found it empty. On his desk his laptop was open but the screen was blank.

Fini?

Based off of the Candle Cove creepypasta. And, of course, the boogeyman. I always assumed it was the boogeyman Sam was referencing in episode one when he said John gave him a gun when he said he was scared of the thing in his closet. However, I still fail at this challenge because I wrote about things not shown in the show. Cuz when I read the post I failed to see it said urban legends already shown, not ones not shown.

This is rather rough. Since I am a slow writer, I opted to focus on certain scenes, with hopes of filling in after certain parts were done. With the challenge almost over, though, I am out of time to play with it anymore. It is supposed to be creepy, but I probably failed at that. I am failing all over this week. Also, apologies to the residents of Orderville, Utah. I literally picked your town name off a map. And, yah, I stole the song from the original Treasure Island. For that I am not sorry.

[theangelmojo]

4am Wiki Adventures

I typed “Lord Byron” into Wiki. Don’t ask me why. Those early morning hours, you know.

And I knew stuff about him before, but not stuff. Not like the stuff Wiki can, so I was not prepared for the awesome of Lord Byron. 

This guy’s insane, like, he is The King of Le Drama. The biggest drama-llama to ever ding-dong, I stg. He takes extreme to a whole new level. Like, you know those posts where they go “well that escalated quickly”, he is that. 

So I have some facts I’d like to share. Random facts. Hilarious facts. Facts that are totally unnecessary and unimportant to know, but are the thing I am probably gonna think about for the next solid week. 

Hold onto your hats, folks, we’re in for a long ride. 

1. His father was a douche. Only married women for their money, bled them for that money, stuck babies in them and then ditched them. What an asshole.

2. He had Issues with his mom, who was understandably depressed because of her asshole husband, and reportedly called her “short and fat” (assholery is genetic, probs). In return she had Issues with him, but also spoilt him and is part of the reason Byron is well known for being stupid with his money (also genetic, probs). 

THIS CONTINUES FOR A WHILE, SO I’LL PUT THIS UNDER THE CUT TO SPARE YOUR DASH, SORRY

3. He started falling in love with people at a reaaaaally young age. Like, whoa son, steady on chap. His first crush was a distant cousin (Mary Duff) at the age of 8, who he then forgot about till he turned 16 and found out she was gonna get married. Then he remembered her and was like oh heck, how will my heart go on and wrote a big paragraph about it, wherein he acknowledged the fact that his feelings were ridiculous but nevertheless intense and true. 

4. That one wasn’t a sexual love though, apparently, but he also acknowledges that he started developing shall we say certain ‘cravings’ at a considerably young age. He claims this is partly the reason why he writes like he does. In his own words: “Perhaps this was one of the reasons that caused the anticipated melancholy of my thoughts — having anticipated life.”

5. At this point there are a bunch of people who want to claim that his, how shall we put it, ‘young sexual awakening’?? is the reason for his “sexual propensities”. Like, no dude, he’s just bi. Accept it.

(I’d like to cut in here and say that the next fact made me very sad. Very very sad. 4am Me was not prepared for the sudden hit of sadness and started sniffling a lot. Prepare yo’self.)

6. There are reports that he was sexually abused as a kid. One of his abusers was one of his caretakers, Mary Gray, who was later dismissed when he turned 11. She also used this abuse as a way of keeping him silent about the bad company she kept. I mean like, holy shit, that is such a nasty bitch. My god, I hate reading about stuff like this. (4am in the morning and I whimpered “poor baby” to myself, blinking through tears) Then this guy called Lord Gray De Ruthyn, who was also one of his mother’s suitors, also forced himself on Byron. The poor little guy was “deeply disturbed by this” (no shit) and apparently never told his mom, which in hindsight is probably part of the reason for his Issues with her. My god, this guy was so destined to be an angst-writer. Jesus Christ. 

And then some asshole historians or god knows who have the audacity to suggest that these events led to him having sexual liaisons with men at college like what the fuck. How many times do you have to say “he was bi” till it gets through their fucking skulls mother of god --

Moving on.

7. Onto the more interesting and hilarious facts. His first male loves were found at Harrow, where he found a fondness for a bunch of lads, all named John. John FitzGibbon, John Thomas Claridge, John Edleston, John Cam Hobhouse. Must have been real confusing trying to navigate all these Johns, but one thing he knew for sure is that he definitely likes boys too. 

8. Proof of him liking them boys is him pouring all his fucking money on them. This guy was such a freaking Sugar Daddy. Jesus. He left £7000 in his will to a 14 year old boy he met in Athens who taught him Italian. I mean, the sum of money got cancelled, but still. Come on, By. This isn't even the only time he shoved his money at a guy, no siree, but we’ll get to that part later.

9. The most likely reason he left England was because of his reportedly incestuous relationship with his half-sister Augusta Leigh. Ugh. Okay, this one grossed me out, but he like, had children with her too, apparently. Around this time he also got married to Annabella Millbanke and had a kid (Ada Lovelace!!) with her, but their marriage was too shit and she thought he was insane so she left him. All this scandal forced him to leave due to all the rumours circulating, plus the fact that he was majorly in debt too at the time. No surprise there.

10. Once he left England, he never came back. He went to Belgium. Then to Switzerland, where he met another John -- John William Polidori, who became his physician, and there he also befriended Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary Shelley (née Godwin). He had another affair with another lady, this time Clair Clairmont, who was Mary’s stepsister. Got her pregnant too. 

11. This lovely bunch of drama-llamas then got rained in, and due to the shitty weather they were stuck indoors for 3 days. During this time they read a bunch of cool horror stories, which then inspired them to write their own. Yes guys, this is where Frankenstein was born, but not only that -- John William Polidori also wrote The Vampyre (with a Y) which is The Start of the romantic vampire genre. That’s right folks -- thanks to this guy, we have Twilight. (But in all honesty, his story is far better, go check it out.)

12. Byron is super clever. No surprise there, but an example of this is that he learnt the Armenian language and culture well enough over a couple years to write books on it. He was passionate about Armenian culture and history, dude, like he proper went for it, and his writings and teachings inspired a wave of Armenian poets and writers. Not bad, Byron. Not bad.

13. Dude falls in love every-freaking-where, and not casual love, oh no -- he falls madly in love every fucking time. Where does he get the energy? God only knows. This time he falls for this 18 year old Countess, Teresa Guiccioli, and ends up eloping with her. Thing is, she’s married. (Byron NO)

14. Byron likes animals to the degree that Damian Wayne likes animals (sorry for the Batman reference, but I can’t help it, it’s who I am), ergo: he loves them. In one of Shelley’s letters, he describes the house as such: “Lord B.’s establishment consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon; and all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were the masters of it… [P.S.] I find that my enumeration of the animals in this Circean Palace was defective… I have just met on the grand staircase five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian crane.” Get on that, Dami. You’ve got a long way to go to reach this level.

To add to this fact, he also had a Newfoundland dog called Boatswain (???) who he loved so much that when the animal contracted rabies, he nursed him “without any thought or fear of becoming bitten and infected.” (cue: 4am Me hysterically sobbing about this). Also, even though he was in debt at the time, Byron commissioned a funerary monument to be built for Boatswain at Newstead Abbey, which was the only building work which he ever carried out on his estate. The thing was bigger than his own grave, and in his 1811 Will (what is this guy with Wills), he requested that he be buried with him. Also, he wrote a 26‐line poem called "Epitaph to a Dog" in honour of Boatswain. That is some serious dog-love there, you have to give him that, and as I said before: he never falls casually in love, only ever madly.

ANOTHER THING. I’m just gonna quote this straight from Wiki cos I can’t put it any better: “Byron also kept a tame bear while he was a student at Trinity, out of resentment for rules forbidding pet dogs like his beloved Boatswain. There being no mention of bears in their statutes, the college authorities had no legal basis for complaining. Byron even suggested that he would apply for a college fellowship for the bear.” Byron, my man, that is So Extra. (“What’s that? I can’t have a dog here? Well, no problem, I’ll just get a bear.” “BYRON, Byron what the fuck. Where did you even get a bear? Bears aren't indigenous to England.” “He’s very intelligent. Loves to read. Heck, lemme get him enrolled here.” “Byron what the fuck.”)

15. Skipping ahead a little, he ends up in Genoa, right, and gets Bored. Probably because of lack of pets. Possibly because he’s not Fallen Madly In Love with anyone recently, though he’s still technically ‘with’ the Countess, let’s be real -- this boy isn't good with commitment. So, he gets bored and this is where he starts getting involved with the movement for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire. He realises he still has his lady with him but cannot join this military movement whilst she’s still around, so he ends up shipping her back to her dad (dick move, Byron). 

Then this guy called Edward Blaquiere tries to recruit him, and Byron realises he has no fucking clue what he’s meant to be doing. In his own words: "Blaquiere seemed to think that I might be of some use-even here;-though what he did not exactly specify". Get it together, Byron, FFS. He boards a ship called Hercules (ha ha) to go to Greece, and the poor Countess lady weeps while waving him goodbye, but then Hercules has to return to port, so that dramatic farewell wasn’t nearly as dramatic as he’d probably been hoping for. Oh well.

Moving on -- 

(-- okay, to be honest, I kind of glossed over the whole part with his involvement in the war. I mostly picked out the parts that stood out to my 5am Brain, which were mostly to do with money or the boys he was eyeing. No offence meant in the way I’ve interpreted things. I fully blame the fact that I should have stopped reading Wiki five hours ago, but didn’t, and also I have a dumb sense of humour.)

16. Byron chucks money at the Greeks. Where did he get this money? No one knows, but he gives the Souliots £6000. Then, to be fair, he gets fed up of them asking for more and more money. He cuts off the Souliots and tells them to get stuffed. 

At some point he sells his estate, Rochdale Manor in Scotland, which gets him some £11,250, which means Byron has something like £20,000 altogether, all of which he plans on giving to the Greek cause. “In today's money Byron would have been a millionaire many times over, and the news that a fabulously wealthy British aristocrat known for his generosity in spending money had arrived in Greece made Byron the object of much solicitation in a desperately poor country like Greece.” Byron, old chap, that is super generous of you but what the fuck. I kept thinking to myself, reading this, what the fuckkkk?? Like, the cockles of my heart were warmed, but my brain couldn't comprehend it. May I remind you, he got into this because he was B O R E D, and now he’s throwing all his money at this ??? What even a r e  y o u  B y r o n ? ? ?

I don’t mean to make any judgements here, but this is then where Byron draws some Attention to himself again. Throwing all this money around -- it’s no surprise that suddenly all the different Greek factions start to fight over him, and in my 5am Brain, all I could see was Byron being like “kids, pls, stahp” and getting all exasperated with it. In Wiki’s much better written words: “he complained that the Greeks were hopelessly disunited and spent more time feuding with each other than in trying to win independence.”

17. As a little ‘aside’, whilst all of this is happening, Byron falls in love. Again. Madly. To another boy. This time his Greek page, Lukas Chalandritsanos, who he spent some £600 (equivalent to about £24,600 in today's money) over the course of six months on, and wrote his last poems about his passion for. Holy hell, Byron, control yourself please. And then Wiki slams down the coldest line to all this drama and goes: “but Chalandritsanos was only interested in Byron's money” -- and I’m sorry, I almost peed myself laughing. Omg Byron, that is cold. 

18. Spoiler alert: Byron dies young. He dies at 36, just before setting sail on an expedition. On 15 February 1824, he falls ill and then, my friends, comes the usual, in the form of the typical historical medical fuck-up remedy of bloodletting. When I read this I legitimately SMH, because how many books have I read where they use bloodletting to try to cure someone and SHOCK HORROR, it ends up killing them? Poor guy gets made worse by it, makes a partial recovery, but then catches a violent cold which then more therapeutic bleeding (insisted on by his doctors) ends up making worse. It is suspected that this treatment, carried out with unsterilised medical instruments, may have caused sepsis, and then he dies. 

Sometimes, looking back on historical medicine and treatment methods... I realise how lucky we are nowadays, to know better. Things like this also remind me that despite how much I’d like to go back in time to see history and stuff, it’s probably not a good idea. Not only because of this, but also the lack of plumbing. And hygiene. And sanitation. And wifi -- omg no internet, no thank you.

19. So, to end it all, Byron’s English friends are shocked to hear he’s died, and his Greek friends all mourn him as a hero. 

20. Now, to describe how Byron looks... according to Wiki, he was: “5 feet 8.5 inches (1.74 m), his weight fluctuating between 9.5 stone (133 lb; 60 kg) and 14 stone (200 lb; 89 kg). He was renowned for his personal beauty, which he enhanced by wearing curl-papers in his hair at night.” Ha ha ha, ha... 

Then he’s also famous for having Foot Issues, namely a deformity of his right foot. Whether he’s clubfooted, a consequence of infantile paralysis, or dysplasia -- what’s agreed is he had Foot Issues. The Foot gave him a limp, and “caused him lifelong psychological and physical misery, aggravated by painful and pointless "medical treatment" in his childhood and the nagging suspicion that with proper care it might have been cured.” At this point, in my head I went ‘awww, poor baby’, and felt sorry for him (I still do), but then I read on, and.

Byron was his usual Byron-like self about it, so I couldn't help but giggle.

Firstly, he nicknamed himself ‘le diable boiteux’ (French for "the limping devil", also the nickname given to Asmodeus by Alain-René Lesage in his 1707 novel of the same name). 

Secondly, although he often wore specially-made shoes in an attempt to hide The Foot, he refused to wear any type of brace that might improve The Limp. Byron, seriously, wear the brace. A Scottish novelist (John Galt) said he felt his oversensitivity to the "innocent fault in his foot was unmanly and excessive" because the limp was "not greatly conspicuous". 

[He first met Byron on a voyage to Sardinia and did not realise he had any deficiency for several days, and still could not tell at first if the lameness was a temporary injury or not but by the time he met Byron he was an adult and had worked to develop "a mode of walking across a room by which it was scarcely at all perceptible". The motion of the ship at sea may also have helped to create a favourable first impression and hide any deficiencies in his gait, but Galt's biography is also described as being "rather well-meant than well-written", so Galt may be guilty of minimising a defect that was actually still noticeable]

Byron. Oh Byron. I feel sorry that he was so self-conscious of his foot deformity, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t help but also giggle imagining him doing all this. It’s so dramatic. This boy. 

In short, simply from reading the Wiki article on Lord George Gordon Byron, I feel incredibly fond of, exasperated by, entertained by, and confused by this hugely influential, incredibly dramatic and complex historical figure.

I already love reading poems and quotes by him, but knowing more about him now... I am also inspired by him. Even from just a Wiki article, even from just reading this one source about his life at a questionable time of night -- I feel like I understand better why people have coined the term “Byronic hero” in honour of him. 

[The Byronic hero presents an idealised, but flawed character whose attributes include: great talent; great passion; a distaste for society and social institutions; a lack of respect for rank and privilege (although possessing both); being thwarted in love by social constraint or death; rebellion; exile; an unsavory secret past; arrogance; overconfidence or lack of foresight; and, ultimately, a self-destructive manner. These types of characters have since become ubiquitous in literature and politics.]

I see Byronic heroes all over the place. In all my fandoms, in all walks of life. From the classic Heathcliff to the likes of the Hunchback of Notre Dame (sobs), to The Phantom of the Opera (sobs), to Lestat from Interview with a Vampire, to Batman (LOLs), to fucking Edward Cullen from Twilight (gags).

The drama-llama lives on in all types of characters, in so many fictional worlds. As someone who lives to read and loves to write, I am completely unsurprised that stumbling across a Wiki page such as his has moved me so deeply, because in so many ways it was like reading a fanfic (albeit the driest, flattest fanfic I’ve ever read in my life). In so many ways I saw so many of my favourite characters written in his life, and by golly, it’s just fantastic to think that he actually lived in our world, isn't it? To think that and know that is both wonderful and strange. 

So, without anything left to add to this long, ridiculous post, I apologise for rambling on about a dead poet and contributing absolutely no new information to what is already known about him. I am aware all I’m doing is regurgitating old facts and basically oohing and ahhing over them, like an idiot. All I can say is I’m glad for Wiki, and Jesus Christ, I’ve got to start going to bed earlier than this. 

Auf wiedersehen. 

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/the-vampire-baseball-game-in-twilight-is-the-funniest-film-scene-ever/

The Vampire Baseball Game in Twilight Is the Funniest Film Scene Ever

From Twilight. Photo: Summit Distribution

It’s bewildering how the last ten years have flown by, but also that the most legendary bit of comedy ever put to film is only a decade old. It’s such a cultural touchstone of universally agreed-upon comic genius that it feels like it’s been around forever. But the numbers don’t lie. The funniest movie scene ever created reached movie theaters on November 21, 2008.

Obviously, I’m talking about the vampire baseball scene from Twilight.

Twilight is an okay movie about a not-particularly-interesting romance between a boring vampire and a boring young woman that, at one point, grinds to a halt for three minutes so that we may all be treated to the ridiculously hilarious experience of watching a family of vampires play baseball. Why do they do that? Well, as Edward, the sexy vampire guy (Robert Pattinson) explains to his human girlfriend (and the audience’s surrogate) Bella (Kristen Stewart), baseball is “the American pastime, and there’s a thunderstorm coming.” That … doesn’t explain this scene at all. This scene is similar to that scene from Fargo where Marge Gunderson has lunch with Mike Yanagita, in that it is inconsequential to the plot. Except that this scene has vampires. And baseball. And vampires playing baseball.

Let’s break down just why this scene is so hilarious.

Esme is very excited. Photo: Summit Distribution

Bella is there because Esme (Elizabeth Reaser), the matriarch or “mom” of the Cullen vampire family, asks her to be the umpire, because, according to one of the vampires, “She thinks we cheat.” “I know you cheat!” Esme teases back to her more-or-less son, with more than a little flirtation.

Also, the vampires wear old-timey-looking baseball caps, some of which bear a “C” that obviously stands for “Cullen.” Yeah, they’re wearing hats with their family’s initial on them, which is the dorkiest thing ever.

Traditional vampire baseball socks. Photo: Summit Distribution

Okay, the hats are the second dorkiest thing ever, because some of the vampires — creatures that can live forever by consuming the liquid life force of other humans, a concept that has fascinated fiction writers for decades — are presented in Twilight as individuals who are so excited about their dumb family game of baseball that they even have special, old-fashioned striped baseball socks.

Kellan Lutz shows off his dance moves. Photo: Summit Distribution

There’s a random cutaway to Dude-Bro Vampire (Kellan Lutz) doing some hip-hop dance moves he seemingly learned from Darrin’s Dance Grooves. This (correctly) suggests that the big game of vampire baseball is going to be aggressively athletic, something one does not normally associate with either vampires or baseball.

It’s time. Photo: Summit Distribution

A lighting bolt flashes, indicating that it’s time to play vampire baseball. “It’s time,” vampire Alice, played by one-time pop-culture sensation Ashley Greene, says, confirming the notion that it’s time to play vampire baseball. She throws a pitch and the film slows down a little to imply that she threw it very fast, because these here Twilight vampires do things very fast and with very much vigor (and as a family, because family is so important, you guys).

Play ball! Photo: Summit Distribution

Coinciding exactly with a thunder clap, vampire Rosalie (Nikki Reed) hits the baseball very hard. That prompts Bella to quip, “Okay, now I see why you need the thunder,” except it doesn’t actually explain anything at all. But she says it with the same straight-out-of-a-commercial delivery used by Chris Farley (“I think I’m gonna like house-sitting!”) in that “Schmitts Gay” commercial from Saturday Night Live.

Just vampires playing baseball. Photo: Summit Distribution

The ball goes very far, and this makes Edward very competitive and determined. He gives the inanimate object a steely gaze and then runs very fast after that flying baseball.

Bella taking in her first vampire baseball game. Photo: Summit Distribution

“That’s gotta be a home run, right?” Bella asks Esme as Rosalie rounds second base, because she is very fast. Not necessarily, Bella. “Edward’s very fast,” Esme basically purrs. What an unsettling and suggestive thing for a mother to say about her son, to his girlfriend!

Nice. Photo: Summit Distribution

Hey, here’s another vampire (Jackson Rathbone) twirling an aluminum baseball bat like a baton, the way vampires, like teens from 2008, like to do.

Esme is still very excited. Photo: Summit Distribution

Edward uses his vampire powers (his eyes) to find the baseball on the ground. He picks it up and throws it back to the diamond. Esme — who has apparently been playing catcher this whole time — catches it with her bare hands, because vampires obviously have very tough hands and don’t need mitts. Bella timidly calls her out at the plate.

It’s not fun being a human umpire at a vampire baseball game. Photo: Summit Distribution

Rosalie gets so mad that she stares down and tries to physically intimidate Bella, as if this one play in a game of vampire baseball matters in the slightest. She refrains from sucking out all of Bella’s blood and thereby murdering her, which she very much could do, but does not.

The vampire dad loves vampire baseball. Photo: Summit Distribution

Vampire dad Carlisle Cullen (Peter Facinelli) calls his own shot, à la Babe Ruth. Dads love baseball lore, so vampire dads are just like non-vampire dads in that they do dorky stuff that makes you cringe. (Also, Esme is having so much fun she literally never stops smiling.)

Comedy gold. Photo: Summit Distribution

Alice is a terrible pitcher, because Carlisle also hits the ball several miles away. But look out, because Dude-Bro and Edward both think they can catch it and they jump up high into the air to get it, but even after 150 years of vampire baseball experience, neither remembers to say “I’ve got it!” and they collide mid-air and have a wacky, hilarious pratfall.

Everybody is having fun playing vampire baseball. Photo: Summit Distribution

The bat-twirling vampire goes up to bat. He makes this face when he hits the ball. He can’t even believe that he’s playing vampire baseball and doing a real good job at it.

Vampires catch balls like this all the time. Photo: Summit Distribution

Once again, a vampire connects for what would be a home run for a human, but since these are vampires playing, Dude-Bro parkours up a tree to catch it. Rosalie likes that and calls Dude-Bro her “monkey man,” as if that is a term of endearment and not the weirdest and grossest thing you could say about another person (or baseball-playing vampire).

Game over. Photo: Summit Distribution

This game would probably go on forever, because nobody ever seems to score a point, but it comes to an abrupt end when a coterie of bad vampires arrives. And just like that, the funniest and weirdest scene of all time is over and you, viewer, are expected to watch the rest of Twilight with interest, even though your mind is still reeling from witnessing the world’s least-scary vampires enthusiastically play baseball.

Source: https://www.vulture.com/2018/11/twilight-movie-anniversary-vampire-baseball-scene.html