#it's just very important to me to change the script on unconditional love and start where it all beings: parents and children

[ananke-xiii]

Okay, I think I can finally share this now.

In my version of "Moriah" Chuck orders Jack to kill Castiel with the promise of bringing things back to how they were before all the mess they're in now, Mary included. Jack starts panicking and crying and is clearly being played but he's in no state to rationalize things so he starts blurting out all kinds of stuff and eventually resolves to actually do it. Sam and Dean are forced to watch by Chuck and are totally incapacitated just like us, hypothetical viewers, are made to watch Jack's tragedy as it unfolds.

But Castiel is okay with that and actually plans to do the deed himself in order to avoid at least this one pain in Jack's life so he comes close to Jack and holds his face in one hand while the other is ready for the blade. He needs to tell him one last thing before the end. They're both crying but somehow Cas find the courage to recite a different type of blessing over the children, one that of course doesn't involve God and it goes something like this:

Jack, don't cry. It's okay, it's okay.

I need to tell you something, Jack and I need you to listen carefully, okay? Okay, good.

Being elected as your father has been the greatest joy and honor of my life. Hey, it's okay, shhh, it's okay, listen to me.

It was a joy so great that I got scared, Jack. I'm sorry Jack but I got so scared. I didn't know it then but it was this gnawing fear of losing it all, of losing you, that made me make... many mistakes. It was this fear that prevented me from understanding who you really are, from seeing the truth. So here it is.

Jack, you were, are and always will be such a luminous, beautiful and important presence in this world. Ah, as a matter of fact, in any world. Because you're... you. And you are... amazing.

No, no, no listen to me now, please, shhh, it's okay: You have to know that whatever happens in your life, I will be there for you. No matter what, I will be by your side. If things will go wrong, I'll be there to give you my energy. If things will go right, I'll also be there to give you even more energy.

You must never forget that you're loved, Jack. Oh, look at you: my son...my son... I love you. So much.

Cas, in an instant, is ready with his angel blade but it's in this moment that the Shadow erupts into the world to take Castiel away: no reasoning, no strategic plan, nothing. The moment of happiness is the moment of unconditional love.

Chuck's frantic because this "unconditional love" thing wasn't in his script and yells that it was not supposed to happen this way, that he gave them the possibility to access everything they ever wanted, the price was just one self-loathing, doomed-anyway angel but it still wasn't enough for them, was it?

It's also the moment where Sam, briefly freed from Chuck's powers, gets his lucidity back and decides to pull the trigger on Chuck (and himself). In the background, Jack's screaming and crying so much that the mere force of his screams is enough to resurrect the whole cemetery but Cas is not coming back to him.

Chuck is wounded by Sam (who's also hurting in return) and is forced to flee. Dean is also wounded beyond repair and is like turned to stone and almost can't breathe because he's living, again, one of the worst moments of his life as we go back to a distorted, more messed-up version of s12 finale and to the beginning of Jack's tragic story.

Jack is spiralling and he's out of control and out of himself as he starts opening woundsrifts after rifts through dimensions and worlds looking for Chuck, looking for the Empty, looking for whatever comes first at this point because he's moved by the dangerous, unpredictable and explosive bomb that is revenge spurred by love. Until Billie finds him.

[onlyonecanbeking]

Farewell.

Well well, odd to see me writing again, isn't it?

I will admit, it almost feels strange to write a post on this account, considering its dormancy for so long. How long has it even been? A year? 

Oh god, does anyone remember me? I'm the person that wrote weird "Figment Darkiplier" posts. Ring any bells? Hehe.

I write this post, as a way to simply ramble out my thoughts and feelings. There is no script, no plot, it's simply me. I apologize if it is nonsensical. 

  So .... everyone, it has been one hell of a year. I believe that we've all experienced something difficult in 2020, whether it be loss, loneliness, self reflection, or any number of challenges.

From the month of February until August, I was one of the multitudes of millions of people who had to quarantine within our homes. Over that period of time, stuck with myself, I had a very long time to think, and to grow. I realized that many things in my life were not unfolding the way that I wanted them to. That the things I had surrounded myself with did not properly encapsulate who I was, and am, as a person.

When I started this account, I was a lonely highschooler desperate for some sort of creative release. I used the character of Darkiplier as an escape, playing a role of power and charisma. It was intended to be my own personal journal, a place to practice writing, as it was my passion. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever anticipate that I would amass a community of this size. Over four thousand of you enjoyed my work enough to stick around, and that was just beyond crazy to me.

I think the rapid climb to "fame", to put it selfishly, was both scary and addictive. Receiving the adoration and compliments from online peers gave me a euphoria I didn't even know I needed. I rode that high for a long time, and I made very many friends from it.

But I also made many mistakes. I will not come before you and tell you that I am a "good" person. I have a selfish personality. I overachieve. I'm an attention hog. I want to excel so badly that sometimes I use the expense of others in order to progress. But I can say with utmost certainty that I poured my heart and soul into this account, into the lore I have created, into the story I have made, into everything that is important to me. I cherish my friends. I accept my losses. I never stop attempting to grow and learn as a human being. 

Through that growth, I have come to realize that I surrounded myself with the wrong people. I gave my trust, and my care to individuals who took my patience as weakness. It is unfortunate that many times, those who I thought cared for me, only cared for the "popularity" I might offer them. What I could do for them, and their image, completely overshadowed me as an individual. As time continued, it became more apparent that even my closest friends were beginning to use my world and my story, to fetishize, clique, discriminate, and bully. There was even a period of time where I joined in that "mean girls" behavior. I laughed behind the backs of people I loved. I criticized people cruelly. I became the very person I had been shoving out of my life for years. It disgusted me. 

During the quarantine, trapped alone with myself, I realized that I had become a monstrosity, and that I needed to change. I did what I could to persuade others to join in my efforts, but I am only one person. I have since removed all bad influences out of my life. Those influences would happily call me two-faced and manipulative, because I stopped giving them exactly what they wanted: my attention.

Still, I am never free of sin. Just within the last few years, I have been childish, or too eager. I have rubbed my nose in places I shouldn't have. But I would hope it is clear to everyone, that I only ever wanted the best outcome for the people I cared about.

I suppose this has become a ramble, but I wish to share all my feelings, all my last messages, because of this: this will be my last post. There are too many faces on this website, and too many memories, that mean too little to me. I have continued to return to the account, doing simple reposts just to... I'm not sure. Continue being relevant? But it feels hollow now. There is no reason for me to continue holding on things here. The things that I hold dear remain elsewhere, and that is where I will focus my attention. 

I met the love of my life, who has offered me nothing but total support, care, compassion, patience, and most importantly, unconditional love during even the most difficult phases of my journey. I am so grateful to them and everything they have done to me. I have achieved what I set out for in college, and have a steady job in a forensics lab. But once I get past my own anxiety and self-doubt, I want to join my partner and co-author books with him, as a true career.

My horizon branches far beyond this tumblr now, as I'm sure is the case for many many many other people. But for some reason, I felt it necessary to just write a goodbye. 

So I suppose, what I will finally say is this.

Thank you. Thank you for the fantastic memories. Thank you for the nights I spent scrolling through fanart, nearly in tears because my work had meaning. Thank you for the companionship, with so much interaction and support. Thank you for the laughter, the jokes and the memes. Thank you for the lessons, for reminding me of my values. Thank you for teaching me  about self respect, standing up for what I believe in, and never taking shit from anyone. 

I will not delete the account, just in case any random post in here sparks joy. But it will be only an archive from now on. I hope that in some way I have had a place in some of your lives, hopefully for the better. Perhaps in the future I will edit this post and add a discord link to the figment manor. We will see.

But, to all of you reading this, thank you for sticking around.

So, for the last time.

Goodbye, Lovelies.

[x0401x]

Given Movie: Anime Eiga Interview

The adult trio of “Given”, Nakazawa Masatomo, Eguchi Takuya and Asanuma Shintarou – finding out about each other’s appeal through proffering a deep love.

The sequel to the TV series that adapted Ms. Kizu Natsuki’s popular BL manga into an anime came in the form of “Given the Movie” and made its appearance in the big screen. Along with sensible expressions of emotion, this series depicts the circumstances of youthful love connected by music, capturing the hearts of the viewers. The movie portrays the “bitter and passionate love” between the band’s “adult members”, Haruki and Akihiko, as well as Akihiko and his ex-boyfriend, the genius violinist Murata Ugetsu, whom he continues to live with even after breaking up. Hence, this time, we have hit up Nakazawa Masatomo, the voice of Haruki, Eguchi Takuya, the voice of Kaji Akihiko, and Asanuma Shintarou, the voice of Ugetsu. What kind of appeal did they sense from one another after co-acting in roles where they had to proffer intense love? We had each of them discuss their thoughts.

Discovering the charm of the characters anew in a movie where the feelings of each accelerate.

——The movie is about the romance between Haruki, Akihiko and Ugetsu. The thoughts that they had been concealing are exposed, so what were your impressions when you read the script?

Nakazawa: In the TV series, Haruki, the character I play, was thinking about “wanting the band to do well” and “what he should do for the band’s sake”, being a “sideline support” for Mafuyu and Ritsuka, together with Akihiko. Haruki and Akihiko are said to be part of the “adult group”, but the two of them have their own ways of thinking - Akihiko is the type that aims for good things by taking action using a detonator. On the other hand, Haruki is always calmly concerning himself with everyone, so that they can do things freely. Both of them listened to Mafuyu’s singing voice, were influenced by it and suffered changes, so I felt from the script that I could get a glimpse at these changes. Regarding Haruki, he started feeling his own loneliness more strongly, and while watching Mafuyu display his musical talent more and more, he also had a complex about being just an ordinary person who liked music a little bit. I felt like we were able to see what Haruki was carrying under the surface.

——Were there any points where you felt the appeal of Haruki and Akihiko all over again?

Nakazawa: There were. Haruki never tells Akihiko that he likes him and does his best to hide it. It’s totally obvious, though... (laughs). Through Haruki, I felt that there are things you convey not with words but with feelings, and on the other hand, there are things that can finally be conveyed when you put them into words.

——Eguchi-san plays the role of Akihiko. Please tell us your impressions of the script.

Eguchi: I had read the original work, so I was looking forward to seeing the hearts of everyone from the “adult group” being moved and them putting an end to things. When I read the script, this is quite obvious, but I had many lines (laughs). Akihiko shows in it a part of himself that he never had until then, so destroying something like a sculpture of Akihiko that the TV series had warmed up was necessary work. Moreover, it was the kind of scrip that allowed for all kinds of fun, such as how long the monologues and narrations should be, so I felt a strong sense of compensation from it. During the recordings, I first tried throwing in what I had come up with. The team makes you want to create something together with them, so I felt like making up my mind and challenging myself. I was very happy to be able to take on the challenge.

——When you threw it in, were you able to see a new side to Akihiko’s appeal?

Eguchi: “So he was THAT compassionate?!” was what I thought. Akihiko is always cool, so I wondered when his emotions would take a swing, but I think this was a sign that he was afraid of “changing the present”. In the movie, I had to carry out the job of Akihiko properly facing all sorts of things and doing a retake on his true feelings. He gave off more of an adult impression until that point, so I think I got to see a more realistic, young part of him.

——Asanuma-san plays the role of Ugetsu, who continues living with Akihiko after breaking up.

Asanuma: There were few episodes in the TV series where Ugetsu showed up, but even in them, there are crucial scenes in which you can get a glimpse that “Ugetsu is this kind of person”. It’s exactly because he is a genius that he acts indifferent about anything other than music, gets fawned on in a genius-like way that makes people think, “If he says so, then there’s no helping it”, and has great interest in people like Mafuyu, whom he feels sympathy for. There’s a scene in the movie where Ugetsu and Mafuyu meet for the first time, and when I read the script, I felt that “Ugetsu approached Mafuyu with honest feelings”. It’s because he has sympathy for Mafuyu that he ends up telling him things that he can’t say to Akihiko face-to-face, such as “I love Akihiko to death”, and shows a side of himself that he usually doesn’t show to other people. It seems he speaks out his feelings when he’s with Mafuyu for some reason, which made me wonder if it isn’t Mafuyu who has the power to make people act like that.

——Ugetsu has a mysterious charm as a character. Was there anything you deemed as important when performing him?

Asanuma: It was my first time taking part in a BL show, but I felt that “Given” is a series that portrays emotions very delicately, down to the details. When performing, it’s exactly because the depictions of emotions are detailed that I make sure not to be “too theatrical”.

Love becomes more complicated as you grow older?

——In the TV series, we were able to see Mafuyu and Ritsuka’s high schooler-like romance, yet the movie is about an “adult love”, where they are “going through unfulfilling and agonizing situations, but no matter what, they like each other”. Was there anything you felt seeing their love?

Asanuma: There are things that we end up complicating precisely because we have accumulated experiences as adults. It’s because we know about all sorts of things that we don’t want to get in the other’s way and feelings of inferiority towards the other are born. When you’re a child, you don’t think much about things such as “pulling away because you think too much about the other person”, for example. There are many things we have to face when we become adults, so we might turn the feeling of “romantic love” around in complicated ways.

Nakazawa: I think “being able to break up once and for all” is important in adult romance as well. Not clashing with each other like, “I can’t do this with you anymore!” and parting ways, but instead ending it with, “If that’s how it is, it might be better for us not to be together anymore” after learning about each other’s circumstances is also a form of love. I think that reflecting about not just the feeling of “love”, but also about what you should do to make the “we can’t be together anymore” that lies ahead into a reality is what adult romance is.

Asanuma: They’re called the “adult group”, but they’re not adults yet. Even I, who am in my 40’s, have yet to come across anything like an “unconditional love”...

Eguchi: I believe this is valid for all kinds of romantic love, but I think it’s about being together with someone because you find that person to be an “irreplaceable existence”. And it’s because they’re irreplaceable that going out with them isn’t the goal, and the couple has to properly face one another. Also, when I looked at their romance, I felt it’s precisely because they like and are close to each other that there are words between them that they can’t say. They might have had a different relationship if they had conveyed those words, but there are words that can’t be conveyed exactly because this possibility exists. I think humans are extremely complex.

“Eguchi-kun is sharp!” – A casting that fit perfectly.

——What kind of appeal did you feel in each other’s acting and personalities through “Given”?

Nakazawa: The way that Asanuma-san bears a “quiet intensity” when playing as Ugetsu is very charming.

Asanuma: For real!?

Eguchi: And you’re also too good at putting on the air of a genius!

Asanuma: It’s only putting on, though. I have to make sure not to take it off too soon (laughs).

Eguchi: It had me thinking, “The way he envelops himself in the air of a genius is just genius!” Asanuma-san can push and pull splendidly. I was thinking, “He’s so awesome” when I watched it.

Asanuma: There are times when I tend to explain things with my voice no matter what. Before, in a different work, the sound director told me, “The animation is already doing the explanation, so you don’t have to try to explain with your voice so much.” In works like this one, where the subtleties of the characters’ hearts are so detailed, I think it’s even more important to bear in mind “not being too theatrical”, without deeming it as an exception just because it’s a BL, but instead seeing it as a love pattern that could happen anywhere and performing naturally.

——What is your impression of Nakazawa-san?

Asanuma: Nakazawa-san is tolerance incarnate! He can be no one but Haruki.

Eguchi: That’s right. He gives off a “mom” vibe (laughs). He’s like that during the recordings too; Nakazawa-san himself is a very soft person.

Asanuma: And although he may disagree, “looking troubled” suits him.

Nakazawa: I disagree!

All three: (Burst into laughter).

Asanuma: Since being troubled suits you, it feels like people gather around you, thinking that they “want to try and give you trouble” without any ill intent.

Nakazawa: That rings a bell (laughs). Indeed, I myself think that I have a Haruki-like side too. I also have a side that accepts basically anyone and any kind of comment... As for Eguchi-kun, if nothing else, he’s sharp! In terms of voice quality, his tone is low-pitched and solid, so the acting that he brings out is extremely sharp. There’s a fineness to it where it acts as a detonator, especially in “Given”, as if it will set fire, to his heart’s contentment, to anything that seems inflammable. He pulls off an acting that has an explosiveness to it, as he takes ahold of the important points while performing in a natural manner, so I have a lot of trust in him.

Asanuma: Eguchi-kun gives off a sense of broad-mindedness and security. Not because his body is big, though (laughs). I feel that he’s something like an emotional bodyguard. It was my first time in a BL series, but when I heard that Eguchi-kun would be the other party, I vaguely thought that “everything will go well”.

Eguchi: Thank you so much!

[fy-2pm]

2PM Nichkhun, Not Afraid of 14 Days Quarantine Coming into Hong Kong for Hollywood Movie!

Faith & Love

Beliefs are humanity’s value and living style. It’s also a measure of one’s meaning in life. It doesn’t necessarily need to be related of religion. It can be communicate through one’s emotions and brain waves, which stimulates our desires. The childhood imaginations and the dreams of the youth, both are the living anticipations in one’s beliefs. Unfortunately, people are living in the reality. While we are diligently chasing our dreams, we come across many obstacles, which leads our frustrations.

With the rise of Korea’s “Star Creation Culture”, besides the many newborn solo singers and idol groups each year, it has also “forcefully” changed the dream job for the millennium. Behind the glamorous of the Korean idol groups, there is a heave price to pay. The whole process of “audition and training” is like a canoe in the middle of the rough sea. It is being hit by continuous wave one after another with an unforeseen destination.

This time “MR” has invited early generation of Korean idol group member, known as the “Beast Idol”, 2PM’s Nichkhun to talk to us about his “Crazy Star Creation Dream” being the only foreign member in his group, his “Stardom” journey gives people sense of motivation.

The Curiosity of Exploring the Big World

Despite the world that contains many different kinds of culture or education principle, there is a universal compulsory lesson one must take called, “My Ambition”. For Nichkhun who was in the first wave that exports the Korean music culture into the world, most would think that his ambition since his childhood is to become a singer. However, the thought of entering the entertainment industry has never came across Nichkhun’s mind since childhood. He said, “When I was a child, I was just a ‘Regular boy’. Same as everyone else, I received a standard education. Everyday, I went everywhere and played with my friends. I was having fun and enjoying my youth. At the same time, trying to discover my ambition.”

In contrast, the recent trend for Korean idols is to give up their education and youth at an early age. Around the age of 10, they start their trainee lessons and after 8-10 years, they may be given the chance to debut. It’s no surprise that Nichkhun feels very fortunate and grateful. He said with a smile, “When I was a child, I was very shy. It was even up to the point where I didn’t know how to communicate with others. I thought of becoming a scientist because staying in the laboratory day and night just mixing chemicals seems fascinating.” However, as he grew up, he realized he is not the typical studying type. Because of that, he started to approach the creative art industry.

Nichkhun is different to most of the Korean artists. After he received his fame, he did not change his path and went into the business industry. Instead, he wants to focus in the showbiz by taking on more challenges. In the recent years, he was in varies different reality shows, dramas and movies, no matter how big or small.

This time, Nichkhun especially came to Hong Kong to film “Hong Kong Love Story.” The movie is a story about seeking love and friendship. Nichkhun has generously shared with us value in relationships. He said, “I think both love and friendship consist of ‘love’. The only difference is, the first one consist of the ‘romantic element’. This time I am participating in ‘Hong Kong Love Story’ with a theme that sticks relatively close to the ground. It’s bringing up the choice between the lover and friends. It makes people realize what’s more important in their hearts. Although, love is about give and take, behind all the unconditional giving, there is still the hope for some sort of return. Even if it is just a little bit.”

Nichkhun agrees that even though both singing and acting belongs to the entertainment industry, the way to perform and the to way to receive feedback are very different. He said, “In 2PM, I am just playing the role of Nichkhun and being myself. I can express myself freely with my personalities. I can receive feedback immediately from a live audience. In acting, I need to jump out from the soul of Nichkhun, I need to speak as the character from the story and to analyze the character’s personalities. For example, if I am the bad guy in the script, should I act as a person with some humor, or should I express the character with some masculine charisma?”

Nichkhun is still exploring as an actor, “I think I am still a newbie actor. I am still exploring how to ‘role play’. Although, there are times when I feel uncomfortable and lack of confidence, I believe everyone should jump out from their comfort zone to gain more in life! The main obvious different between acting and singing is that the feedback comes at a later time. You cannot fix the mistake immediately because you only notice the viewers’ reaction after the drama is released. Only then, you realized where you can make your improvements” with what he said, you will notice he is a humble person who is eager to learn.

Me, My Beliefs

As a public figure, you have to take in all the compliments and criticism. If they are good, you must continue with it but if they are negative comments, it will serve as a self-reminder. Nichkhun said with confidence, “I never go into the internet and search comments about myself. We need to remind ourselves, ‘I am me. I am living for myself!’ It does make sense with what he said. There is no need for everyone to be like Nichkhun’s character in “Brother of the Year”, Moji who keep thinking about how others feel. Although, he also agreed that criticism could help with areas where he is lacking. However, we need to distinguish between the good and the bad. There is no need to take care of the ‘garbage’ others have thrown onto us.

Without noticing, Nichkhun has already debut for more than 10 years. Do not look at his handsome appearance and judge him as someone who is “Naturally born for the industry.” Only he knows all the hardships he has gone through and he only looks at ‘today.’ He said, “I don’t have days in the past that I missed. I also don’t have days that I want for the future. The most memorable and happiest day will definitely be everyday’s today!” Nichkhun emphasized that there is no need to feel troubled with the past. He said, “What if I did this, the outcome may be better? You cannot avoid thinking like this but don’t overthink it. You have to believe that every decision I’ve made becomes who I am today. If you have made another decision in the past, the me today may have another unexpected outcome.”

Nichkhun explained the important of ‘Today,’ “We should think about what I can finish off today or what goal I can achieve. If you only think deeply into the future, it will only become imagination and empty wishes. Instead of struggling with time that is intangible, why not use this immediate moment and take into action?”

Life is an exploration that goes up and down. On the stormy and rainy days, it creates inconveniences. On the days when the flowers blossom and the birds are singing, it makes us feel at east. “Self confidence” is like the unshaken lighthouse in the middle of the stormy sea. Although the light can be dim but the darker it gets, the brighter it will be. Over time, in the sea with crowds of people, may us be more like Nichkhun with a faithful pounding heart going towards the lighthouse with motivations.

Credits and translation @JLML718

[revisionaryhistory]

Three Days ~ 55

~*~Sebastian~*~

I stared at her. Stunned. I'm not sure if it's how the conversation went or she wants me and whatever comes with me. Emma is so intentional. Her words carry meaning. She wants to be clear and asks for clarity. This is heaven for my overthinking brain. I’m not stuck wondering what she means nor am I afraid to ask. Because I know she'll answer. Really answer.

"I've got eight years on you, how are you the more mature one?"

"Stabilizing influence and frighteningly direct communication of my second dad."

The expression on her face and deadpanned delivery had me laughing. "I can see that. I'll be the emotionally reactive one and you can be the calming one." Then I remembered. "Although, Eli did tell a story about you laying into some guy in Hawaii at a volleyball game. Ed dumped you in the ocean. I wish there was video."

"There is. You'll have to get dad to send it to you."

Tuesday was a good day. Workout was hard and my abs were already sore, but we'd laughed a lot. Good phone call with mom. The house had come together, she was enjoying some time in the pool, and she'd picked up some piano students. My afternoon was spent in my manager, Emily's, office. Mostly she and I, but a few conference calls. I was about to be busy. The next six weeks I was more gone than home. I was excited about the work. Excited to see friends.

Admittedly, the timing wasn't the greatest, new relationship and all, but I was confident we'd figure it out. This is different. I'd like to say it was because my previous experience is whining and bitching about me being gone so long, knowing I was going to pay for the distance, and trying to front-load my leaving to make it more palatable. While all of those all true, the actual difference is I care. The emotionally unavailable hot and cold thing comes into play here. I put up a wall to block the whining and bitching, not really listening, because it's my job. Bitching at me isn’t going to change anything and I’m not going to feel guilty for doing my job. Well, I do, but it just pisses me off because I shouldn’t.  The expectation of gifts, dinners, or a vacation to make up for being gone made those a lot less fun. And I was never successful at cramming a bunch of stuff in before I left, because my work didn't start when I left. It starts weeks before. I don’t leave for filming for a month, but I’m already prepping: gym reading, watching things, research, and studying the script. I get pretty singularly focused. I don't know any other way. And when pushed I shut down. I don't respond. I brood. And I appear cold. None of this is right. Some just is. Some is my fault. Getting to where I didn't care about her (any of the previous hers) feelings and concerns with me gone was a side effect of shutting down and I regret doing that. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about her feelings. It was feeling ineffectual to do anything about it and my self-protection kicking in. Looking back, saying effectively “deal with it” was incredibly insensitive. Not proud of it.

But now, sitting here looking at my schedule I’m finding places I can find some time for us. We’ll figure it out. I can tell you what won’t happen. Emma won't whine where I block her out. She's not going to emotionally blackmail me for things, which will make me want to give. And she’ll leave me alone to prep, let me bounce things off her, or cook something to remind me to eat. I need all of those. I care how Emma's going to feel about me being gone. I care about what we’ve begun and how we'll keep in touch. I also know that while I'm away she will carry on living the life she had before she had me and be just fine.

Emma had practice tonight and a game tomorrow. It was after eight when she called. She was in a tank top and her hair was wet from her shower. I caught up on her day before leading into mine. "I have good news and bad news."

"OK." Emma drug out the word, wary of my response.

"When I get back from Canada, I've got some time to spend with you. Then I’m gone for the month of July. Fashion show, audition and meetings, comic con, then filming in Rome." Playing off last night’s conversation, I added. "I'm not expecting a bad reaction."

"Well, that's good." Her hand moved toward the screen and I chose to believe she was touching my face. "I'II miss you, but I’m excited for you. And me getting to hear about what you're doing. Living vicariously."

I'd had some time to think. I had a lot of thoughts on plans. This was the soonest.  "You get back Tuesday, doubleheader Wednesday, and I get back late Thursday. What's your weekend look like?"

"Empty. I'll come to you. You'll barely be home if you come here. I can come anytime Friday. I'll be done with work except maybe packing up my room. I can do that whenever."

"Early Friday. Thursday night." I wanted to maximize our time. "I have to do some work."

"I can amuse myself."

"Maybe the shop you liked so much will be having a sale?" I laughed at the way her eyes lit up. "July fourth weekend I'm at a fashion show. Wanna go to Paris?"

"What?" Her face moved closer to the screen. I’d surprised her.

"Not necessarily Paris, but near. The third is the show. Have you been to Paris?"

"Family spent the summer in Europe when we were thirteen. Then Pearl Jam tours. Love Paris."

"Not much more than a long weekend, but museums and I'm sure we can find some romantic Paris shit to do."

"I would love to go to Paris with you."

That was good because I'd already made reservations. "California for about two weeks then straight to Italy for at least that. Depends on how long shooting takes. Hopefully back in time to join you in Chicago. Then nothing until the end of August. Will and I had been talking about a group of us going away. We were waiting for my schedule. What do you think about a group trip and we stay a little longer or go off alone? It would be a beach somewhere."

"You going to rub sunscreen on me?"

"Um yay, part of my volleyball job. Beer bitch and sunscreen applier."

“I’m in."

"End of August is a Disney thing. Labor Day weekend is the Toronto Film Fest. Little stuff in there, nothing big. No idea past then."

She laughed, eyes wide, and moving her head in all directions "It's crazy like a tour schedule. I'm jealous. I love touring."

"I thought about Rome, but the schedule's tight. You wouldn't see me."

"I wasn't trying for an invite. I'll get some of my summer PD hours done so I won't have to worry about them. Make sure I've got time for us."

I leaned back on the couch, "That was easy."

She glared at me. "I thought you weren't expecting a bad reaction?"

I shook my head, "No, no, I wasn't. Just an observation. Thought I might have to talk you into the beach." I held it a second before smiling, "Not really. I do know it’s a lot."

"I will always go to a beach."

"You’re not allowed to play volleyball."

"Did you get the video from dad?"

"About an hour ago." I'd enjoyed it several times. "You're a feisty little thing."

Wednesday was a day of pictures and texts. After the gym, I settled in my extra room to prep. I had my laptop on the table, a stack of books on top of my script, and a huge bottle of water. I took a picture and posted it to Instagram along with one of me with a pencil between my teeth and pulling my hair.

Emma ~ How'd you get a picture of your expression during your last blow job?

Sebastian ~ Hidden camera in bedroom. You should see the other things I have. Coupling Season 1. "The Cupboard of Patrick's Love."

Emma ~ “You really don't have enough blood for both ends of your body, do you?"

Sebastian ~ Very good, Sally.

 Love that she can quote one of my favorite shows.

After lunch, Emma posted a picture of her in the middle of a group hug with her students. "I'll miss my munchkins.”  I sent a sad face emoji.

Then I fell into a hole. I got pulled into my research and reading and the next time I picked up my phone it was one a.m. I need time like this and put my phone on do not disturb. The only thing that comes through is two calls from the same number within a few minutes. Anyone important knows how to reach me. Emma knew, but she didn't. Not even when the Demonic Crickets won their game. She posted several pictures, but I got a much better one in a text. Emma with her back to the camera in her team tank, arm up flexing her bicep, and her looking over her shoulder smiling at me. The gold flecks in her eyes were sparkling and the darker ring made the green more intense.

Emma ~ Hope you're getting a lot done. Internally anyway.  XOXO

Sebastian ~ * 12 hours later * Yeah, I did. I'm hungry. Congrats on the win. Picture is beautiful.

Sebastian ~ You're beautiful

 Her thank you came while I was working out. After a shower, I fell back into my hole until it was time for therapy.

I'd been seeing Celie for a long time. Frequency varied. She had a dark brown bob, glasses, and a round face. At this point, I could read her as well as she could me. If she was looking at me over her glasses, she thought I was full of shit. No words needed. She was about ten years older than me and her style worked for me. It was a great one-sided friendship.

I took my regular spot on the blue couch, "How are you today, Celie?"

Celie smiled. She had the unconditional positive regard thing down. I say that, but she does genuinely like me. Most of the time. I can be a pain in the ass. "I've had a good day and after you I get to go home. You seem to be in a good mood. Tell what's going on with you, Seb."

I was always her last client of the day. Sometimes I needed more than an hour. "I am in a good mood. I met somebody. Last time I saw you I was going to help my parents move. I met Emma there. In a grocery store, if you can believe that."

"Sounds like you can't."

"I asked her to dinner in under fifteen minutes."

She widened her eyes in disbelief. Exactly my point. "Did you? Good for you, Seb. A complete stranger. What led you to ask her out?"

"I was all covered up and she tells me I looked like a rehab patient checking into the clinic up the road. But she was kind to me. A sketchy stranger. She didn’t know who I was until we were outside and I introduced myself. She helped me find the things on my list and we chatted." I put my hands in front of my chest, fingers splayed. "She felt good. I didn't know why, just enough that I knew I wanted to know more.”

“And what do you know now?”

I spent the next several minutes telling Celie the salient points. We’ve been doing this long enough that explaining isn’t necessary. She’ll recognize why things are important. My face hurt from smiling after I was finished talking about Emma. I stopped short of the whole conversation on Sunday.

“Besides the obvious early relationship high, how are you feeling about all this?”

“Good. Happy. Hopeful. The only concerning thing was Saturday I woke up from a night terror, panic attack. I got myself calmed down pretty quick, wrote for a while, and once Emma got up I went for a run.”

“Even with being happy, there’s been quite a bit of emotional activity. I’m pleased that you’ve only woken up once. Much better. What do you suspect triggered you?”

I took a deep breath, “Emma and I wound up in this conversation Sunday afternoon. A couple of my friends at the party had told her I wasn’t acting like I normally do with women, but more like I am with friends. This led to a conversation about my relationship issues. I’m not the same with her. She really doesn’t know that version of me. I think that’s why I had the anxiety. It was the night after the party but before the conversation. First time we’d been around my friends. I think it was not because I’m scared, but because I’m not. Like you said, there’s been a lot of emotional shit going on and I’m good. Remarkably good.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Emma is different. She’s incredibly kind and is . . . gentle. Not weak though. She’s strong.”

Celie shook her head, “When I think of gentle people it’s a combination. They can be painfully truthful, but their manner makes others able to listen. They have a compassion for others.”

“Exactly! I noticed she knew everyone. She talked to everyone and used their name. I asked and she said she looked at their nametags and you never know what someone’s day has been. That might be the first nice thing that’s happened all day. I know it’s a little thing, but it’s her. She’s like that with me. She doesn’t try to talk me out of being anxious or overthinking. She doesn’t think my insecurities are stupid. They’re all just part of me.”

“She accepts you.”

“Right. The more we got to know each other, the more we talked, I felt safe. She doesn’t do those things I usually shut down over. I don’t feel the need to protect myself. She’s very different.”  Celie was looking at me over her glasses. Uh oh. “You’re giving me the look.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Why?  I thought I was doing good. I asked out a stranger and got this amazing woman.”

“Sebastian, as quick as you are to fault yourself, you’re slow to take credit.”

“Take credit?” I didn’t know what she was talking about.

She leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees. “You think this relationship is different because of Emma. You lucked out and met an accepting, kind, gentle person.”

“Yes. No. Both. Emma is different and she makes me different.”

Celie made a loud, jarring beeping noise. This was new.

“Ok, I guess I’m wrong.”

“You are. Not completely. You’re not giving yourself enough credit. Any credit. You’ve worked very hard. You’ve read. You’ve journaled. You’ve talked. You’ve done things I’ve asked you to even if you didn’t understand or want to. I’ve seen you grow. To give responsibility for this relationship being different all to Emma is dangerous. What’s going to happen when she falls off this pedestal you’ve put her on? Is that going to be an excuse to shut down and protect yourself? Fall back on old habits.”

I could feel my eyebrows pulled down and the scowl on my face. “So you’re saying this isn’t as good as I think it is.”

“Not at all. I’m saying it’s got as much to do with you as it does her. Previously you would have never asked out a woman you met in a grocery. But that seems to be the furthest you’re going with how you’re different. I do not believe for one second that no other woman you’ve gone out with has been kind and accepting. Or would have been if you would have been able to show them you.  You used to do things to test them. You’d say or do things to see how they’d react. As we’ve talked, you weren’t being real, so you don’t know that their reactions were.”

I nodded then looked down, “I know. Pretty manipulative.”  I felt Celie’s hand on my arm and looked back up. Her face was very soft with a smile.

“Stop, Seb. You need to be proud of yourself. You are doing things differently. You have learned from your past, grown, and come a long way in accepting yourself. Warts and all. You have shown Emma who you are, even the parts you don’t like so much. She can have credit for how she’s responded to you, but you deserve the credit for being brave enough to show her in an honest and authentic way. That allowed her to respond in an equally honest and authentic way.”

I grabbed a tissue from the ever-present box on the table and wiped the wet from my face. Neither the first nor the last time I’d cry in this room.

"If you had met her even a year ago, with her exactly as she is now, this relationship would be very different."

"The wedding."

"Excuse me?"

Yeah, non sequitur. "I was supposed to go to a friend’s wedding last summer but didn't because there was a change in my shooting schedule. Emma was at the wedding. You're right. Had I met her then," I shook my head. “I wouldn't have been ready for her and now could have never happened."

Celie shrugged, "Probably not."

I sniffed and wiped my eyes, "How do I get her off this pedestal I’ve put her on?"

"You seem pretty smitten. Maybe not take her off, just lower it a little." I laughed and she went on. "What you do is own your part. You have been making choices to improve yourself. You have been making choices to go out of your comfort zone. And you have been making choices to let her know you. Emma's been making similar choices to be with you. I'm sure you know what she's come through to be where she is. It seems like you complement each other. Recognize this is both of you waking up and choosing to be with each other. Talk and negotiate what that means. Tell her what you want. And when you're not talking you listen. Listen to what she needs from you. The most important for you is to keep processing the feelings with her. She's the only one who can help those make a picture. And you need to give her the same gift. She has things she’s not so proud of and afraid for you to know about her. We all do. You will need to accept her and treat her with gentle kindness she gives you.”

I was crying again. "She told me. I told her she was different than the others. She asked if maybe I was different."

Celie snickered, "I like her."

"You would. She speaks therapy."

"I want to be very clear, Seb. She sounds wonderful and she may make you better. You sound wonderful and I bet you make her better too. That’s how it should work in a relationship. You help each other along. It takes two people with self-awareness making choices to do what it takes. You both have to choose growth, honestly, humility, vulnerability, and sacrifice. I hear you holding up your end. I’ve not heard you do this before. And while she may be the right woman, you've become the right man. Please, please, do not underestimate how much work you've put in to become the right man for another person.”

"I want to go home and cry for an hour or so."

"I wish Emma was here for you."

I shook my head with a grimace, "It's going to be ugly until I get it out."

"Yes. I think Emma would want to be there to hold you and you'd find more acceptance and comfort in that than you can imagine."

At home, I grabbed a beer, sank down in my favorite chair, and cried. I felt everything all at once but fought to untangle the threads. Sad was remnants of the past and dissipated quickly. Its friends regret and shame fought a little harder to stick around, but they were toxic and needed to go. Pride and relief were together too. Celie was right. I had worked hard. An infinite number of hours had gone into figuring myself out. There have been so many times I thought I'd be stuck forever. Sometime in the last two years that I've been without a girlfriend, all the work must have come together. In the last two years I've been filming almost nonstop. Five movies have come out. Two of which were Marvel circuses. It's like all the therapy (and the work that goes with it) knitted me back together while I was busy filming and living my life. Celie had told me to trust the process. I couldn't rush it or make changes happen before it was time. Patience. I am inherently impatient. Pride was for the work. Relief was for seeing results. Finally.

Next was happy. I’m in a good place. I'm excited about the movie I’m making. I have supportive, fun friends, and a loving family. I don't need a girlfriend to be happy, but one does bring everything together. I like having a person who is mine. Mine in the sense of us experiencing life together. The good and bad. I like that. I want that. And now I have it. The beginnings of it, anyway.

After I pulled my shit together, I wanted to talk to Emma. I wanted support. Maybe not support, but I felt raw. I wanted someone to soothe the raw nerves, to sit with me while all this new stuff integrated. I wish she was here. What I needed was a hug.

Sebastian ~ Can you talk?

I don't like that I asked. It feels insecure and I have zero reasons to feel insecure. I quickly decided to cut myself some slack.

My phone rang and I connected to FaceTime. "Hey." Her bright smile and obvious happiness to see me did wonders to soothe those raw nerves.

Emma's face went from a smile to wide-eyed concern. "Sebastian, what’s wrong? You look like you've been crying. What happened?" Before I could answer, she jumped to a correct conclusion. "You had therapy. Good, bad, or cathartic tears?"

"Mostly the last one."

Her hand went to her chest, "Ok." She picked up what I assumed was her iPad and crossed to the chair in her bedroom. I could see her pull her knees up when she put her feet on the ottoman. She rested the iPad on her knees.

"Mostly a repeat of what we talked about Sunday. Celie said I wasn't giving myself enough credit for the work I've done. My growth."

As Emma had alluded to the same thing, I expected a smile or some acknowledgment of her asking if I was different. Instead, I got, "What do you think?"

"I think I still need to work on not being so hard on myself." I smiled because that statement was me still being hard on myself. "When Celie pointed out how I've changed I could see it and was proud of myself. I can’t see it on my own yet, but I'll get there. I never thought anyone would get past my walls. It wasn't someone getting in, it was me getting out." More goddamned tears.

Emma reached out and touched the screen. "I‘m so happy for you. Proud of you too."

Her words felt like a hug. Close enough for now. "Thank you."

"I know you're a grown man, but I wish I was there. Crying alone sucks."

"Oh," I laughed a little, "the chances of us having a messy reunion are high."

"Why?"

"A lot of you and I talk today. I know me, it's gonna hit me when I see you."

"I should warn you. I have a strict policy that nobody cries alone in my presence."

I smiled at her exaggerated southern accent with the "Steel Magnolias" quote. "See ... gonna be messy."

[hazelspacecadet]

She Ra - a full analysis

WARNING - THIS ANALYSIS CONTAINS MAAAAAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRETY OF SHE RA!! 

“You look out for me, and I look out for you. Nothing really bad can happen as long as we have each other”

She Ra is a show about two people torn apart. It’s important to recognise that this multifaceted masterpiece centres entirely on the Catradora dynamic; Noelle herself has expressed that the show was always about those two, and in a broader sense much of the wider world in the She Ra universe can be seen as a complex manifestation of Adora and Catra’s ever changing bond. Adora is not a hero in the traditional sense, as everything about her character is designed to subvert and deconstruct expectations of the hero’s journey. She is a powerful, strong and determined fighter with healing powers, a morally stubborn and highly empathetic person raised in a genocidal regime, and she runs away from the only home and only exponent of love she has ever known because her internal moral compass is just so intense it overrides the truest bond she will ever feel, at least until external factors allow for reconciliation. 

But what defines, at a thematic level, the human interactions in She Ra is a cycle of abuse that begins with oppressive control - Horde Prime. He punishes the imperfections in Hordak to the extent that Hordak feels compelled to lash out, to prove himself powerful by any means. Horde Prime is an interesting villain because his rhetoric centres not around darkness, but light and purity. This is not only a more subversive type of manipulative language than is often seen by cartoon villains, but it clearly establishes Horde Prime as being a fundamental representation of abuse and its tendency to beat away at character traits deemed weak, anomalous, or more importantly unable to be controlled. Horde Prime needs control; he needs subservience and pure, untouched power, which is why he forms his empire around a hive mind. Hordak of course breaks the hive mind itself, but abuse is a parasitic thing, and controls Hordak’s deplorable actions on Etheria right from his first introduction, talking directly to Catra. But the cycle does not stop at Hordak; his monstrous coping methods cause subtler damage by affecting Shadow Weaver. She is an interesting character because unlike Hordak, she was shown to have independent agency in her harmful actions before finding her way to the Horde, but it is clear that the intense sensation of being cast out, before the Horde rescued her only to thrust her into a cycle of rage and exploitation, leads to the final stage of this particular cycle: Adora, and more importantly Catra.

The show makes it abundantly clear that Catra gets the short straw in interactions with Shadow Weaver; and not only that, but it is shown that Catra’s narrative of Adora being a neglectful, selfish pretend-hero is one instilled not by Adora, but Shadow Weaver and her often-times violent favouritism. Adora isn’t selfish or neglectful - her strong moral compass certainly isn’t perfect, and letting go of complete undirected empathy is something she learns in the conversation with Mara in season 5 (“you are worth more than what you can give to other people”) - but those traits are at odds to how Adora is presented, and in particular how her relationship with Catra is presented. Shadow Weaver neglects Catra, and does it to such an extent that Catra is forced into a mindset of breaking her bond with Adora over an injustice that was never her friend’s fault. Shadow Weaver’s manipulation is so powerful, it makes Catra believe that Adora’s protection, her deep-seated love, is malignant. That is abuse: it turns love into hate and protection into violence. 

In this cycle, this systematic abuse from Prime to Hordak to Shadow Weaver to Catra, there are two anomalies. They have to be anomalous, uncontrollable, natural, because this cycle begins with oppressive control, and therefore only two variables can violate that base injustice - love, and imperfection. From a meta-narrative sense, She Ra is a unique beast because characters do not simply have flaws for the sake of flaws, but those flaws are the direct reason for the eventual collapse of the show’s main antagonism. What breaks Prime is a kiss, and a mad scientist. The kiss is Adora and Catra displaying a desire for closeness that represents years of struggle against systematic abuse, abuse that has deliberately forced love to become hate, and that only when the cycle reaches its peak and the initial abuser makes a final bid for absolute control, can the true reconciliation begin. The mad scientist is of course Entrapta, whose powerful adoration of imperfection ultimately destroys Prime, or at least his preferred vessel. Abuse of the kind shown in She Ra cannot exist when people find beauty and joy in the things it seeks to eliminate, and Entrapta is exactly the anomaly needed to help break the cycle. Returning to the core of those two lovers, Catra finds her want for Adora, and it is reciprocated because the underlying love was always there, but the intent, the desire for closeness only became apparent when years of unnecessary hurt had been recognised and their true cause exposed: not each other, but the cycle.

Of course, abuse in the She Ra universe is only actively broken by one thing: love. I touched on this theme earlier when discussing abuse as the two are somewhat intertwined but love, in platonic and romantic forms, is so crucial to the functioning of She Ra’s characters and their motivations. Catra and Adora have always loved each other (they only express this at the climax because they must fight through abuse to find a shared desire), and this love is shown right from both the start of the show, and the first time we see them interact chronologically - in Promise. What’s interesting is we never know how they meet, or what they say to each other first, but instead the earliest canonical Catradora interaction is the promise itself: a dedication so strong it defines Catra’s actions years later on an alien ship as she saves a person she does not even claim to like. The show puts Catra and Adora’s love first, as that is the establishment of their truly meaningful connection, with other flashbacks and all of season 5 expanding upon that bond. We know that love breaks abuse because Horde Prime is abuse and he is defeated by a kiss, but what does that imply? 

The kiss, and therefore the confirmation of She Ra’s central love, carries with it a moral lesson, a message, that hurt and abuse can be overcome through the mutual reconciliation that comes with unconditional love. In the show, all kinds of love shown to be beneficial and non-toxic are unconditional: Catra can only want Adora when she accepts that Adora will always be morally upstanding and stubbornly empathetic, and Adora can only want Catra when she accepts that Catra defaults to self-hatred and pushing away, and only when both of these conditions are made meaningless by the force of attraction and belonging known as love, can the kiss be shown and the abuse broken. 

Love is not just shown between that central relationship, but throughout She Ra and its characters. Glimmer is a flawed and sometimes maligned character, but her importance to the show and its progression cannot be overstated, especially in season 5. On the ship in episodes 1 and 2, Catra needed something to hold onto. Torn from her home, powerless and very clearly unable to manipulate and fight Horde Prime like she could with Hordak, Catra’s only option became Glimmer. Their bond forms quickly and shakily, but what is so crucial about their interactions is that in order to reconcile with Adora, Catra needed to see someone like Glimmer, who had both made huge mistakes and at one point believed her own mistakes to be the right decision, completely and unconditionally forgive Adora and desire to be home with her. They share love for Adora, different kinds of love, but a strong connection and belonging that in the case of the open and empathetic Glimmer is very obvious. It’s also no accident that later on, during interactions in the expanded Best Friend Squad, Catra takes several social cues from Glimmer first, with Adora a trusted support. Catra is always going to care about Adora more than anything, but it takes the model example of Glimmer to show her how. 

But Adora is not just the subject of Catra’s attractions. As the main character, the dual figure around which the show is built both emotionally and plot-wise, she has a striking amount of agency, but also experiences a corruption of her truest desires at the hands of abuse. The abuse of Adora is subversive and difficult to spot, but it all comes down the pedestal that Shadow Weaver built for her, as well as her own innate morals and how those two factors, in Adora’s mind, prevented her from loving and caring for Catra in the right way. Throughout the show, Adora treats her own need to help others and her desire to be with the people she loves as mutually exclusive; even when Bow and Glimmer remind her that she is not alone, Adora has a penchant for going it alone, believing herself to be this chosen hero who must rescue the people of Etheria without reconciling with herself and her closest friends. In fact, the part of Adora that pushes people away in the name of heroism is not actually her, but instead the cycle of abuse exploiting her moral compass to fulfill corrupt desires that are not and never could be her own. Even the purported good guys do it, the First Ones making Adora believe that her path, her destiny, is to be a weapon. She fights this at the climax of season 4, but never comes to terms with it mentally until the conversation with Mara. And after it has all become hopeless, lost and Etheria is destined to burn away, Catra flips the script. Adora’s truest desire was Catra, but the abuse was too ingrained, the hurt too deep, for these desires to become reality, to be found within themselves. Only when Adora knows her blind heroism has lost, and therefore all to be lost, can Catra, whose arc has now culminated, save the universe. They both found not only their own destiny, but learnt to accept the intertwining of their lives as something that can be a force for good, a force for love. 

So to conclude, She Ra is not just about being torn apart, but in the end is about two girls fighting abuse as they learn to love each other, and eventually watching the patterns of abuse fade away as they express pure, unconditional love through a kiss that changes everything. 

“Don’t you get it? I love you. I always have.”

[dani-luminae]

3 4 17 18 20 and 30 for the unique ask meme :)

Thanks for the ask!

3. What loves do you tend to write about? Agape (unconditional, spiritual love), Eros (romantic, passionate love), Philia (affectionate, platonic love), Philautia (self-love), Storge (familial love), Pragma (enduring love like between long-married couples), Ludus (playful love, infatuation you feel during the “honeymoon period”), and Mania (obsessive love that leads to madness and jealousy)

Ooh. Hard to say. I’ve never considered what “type” of love I tend to write about. I’d have to say that there’s definitely a presence of Storge in most of my stories, and Philia as well, but it’s hard to say really.

4. In your works, is blood thicker than water or is the blood of the covenant thicker than the water of the womb? (Are familial ties or friendship ties more important?)

Difficult to answer, honestly. Despite my roots in the Descendants world, where choosing your own family and path and leaving behind abusive families is was a theme of it, I don’t have a lot of OCs who have turned their backs on their family without very good reason. I tend to make my characters have loving families, even the evil ones. Although I guess that overall there is a very strong idea of “you chose your family and who you belong with,” even if that is your family. (To be fair, a lot of my stories deal with kidnapped children/separated families and such. Gosh, that sounds morbid...)

17. Are your protagonists always the “good guys” and your antagonists always the “bad guys” or do you like to do anti-heroes and grey morality?

A bit of both, honestly! I’m still growing as an author. It used to be strictly “protag = good guy / antag = bad guy” but I’m starting to dip my toes into anti-heroes and grey morality, including making a couple of villains protagonists in Bianca’s story.

18. What writers have inspired you with their use of language? What are some of your favorite quotes?

I’m sure that I have been inspired by someone somewhere somehow, but I couldn’t tell you exactly who or how or give you quotes on it. Sorry!

20. If you were published and had complete control over your covers, what would it look like? Do you have any specific artists that you’d like to illustrate it? Do you like when characters are pictured on covers or do you prefer inanimate objects?

Oh my god this would be a dream come true. I can’t think of any specific artists, no. But as to whether I prefer people or objects on the front of a book - it depends on the book. Objects usually seem boring, unless framed cleverly or well-decorated or made into an optical illusion. But I also feel like just using a clear picture of a person and a background and nothing else seems like a boring, un-engaged cop-out of a cover. So really, it depends on the composition for me. On Quotev, especially since the implementation of the handy cover creator tool, I’ve always tried to make my covers engaging and neat.

30. What is some of the best writing advice you’ve read or received? Why does it work for you?

I read it on a Tumblr post somewhere: to get your scene planning in order faster, write down the dialogue first! Make a script or a screenplay form of what’s happening in the scene. Then, once you have the dialogue down to a satisfactory point (think a scene change or so), go back and fill in the actions, details and more. This has made my writing go so much faster, and it really helps because with my ADHD I get easily distracted, but if I get distracted then, with this method, I’ll still have an outline of where I’m going with this scene! This has helped me so much.

Thanks for the ask! I hope this was informative!

[maraudersandlily20]

I got an email this morning...

And it let me know something very important.

It would appear that today, January 23rd, marks the anniversary of the day I started this blog.

Which would mean.... I’ve been here for an entire year.

Of all the places, hobbies, and people I thought I’d be involved with, this tiny little corner of the internet never crossed my mind.

But I’m here.

I’ve written hundreds of pages of fanfiction. (Not a sentence I thought I’d ever type, lol.)

I’ve written, filmed, and participated in over 40 different scripts. (Which, when you think about it, takes a lot of hard work that shouldn’t be overlooked!)

I’ve made more friends than I ever thought I could. I fell in love with those friends. I’ve told countless jokes and stories to those friends. I’ve even visited some of those friends. And they, in turn, have changed my life so entirely that I can’t even imagine the person I would be without them.

I became a better, kinder, more accepting, more understanding, more honest, more creative, more loving person.

Really, I just became more.

And here we are, 12 months later.

Exactly.

To the day.

And I honestly wouldn’t trade a single minute of it.

Thank you all for being apart of a wonderful year. For supporting me, for laughing with me, for encouraging me, for reblogging and liking me, for teaching me about unconditional love and friendship, and for showing me a world I never expected to be apart of.

I am still here because of all of you.

I love you all so much. You’ve made such an impact on my life. And I mean that.

So Happy Birthday, @maraudersandlily20 . You are certainly one mess of a blog. But you’re fun. And you’ve brought people together.

Here’s to another equally wonderful year.

Cheers ❤️

[jennycalendar]

2018 fic writing roundup

tagged by @catty-words​ !! thank u darling

i have this lingering suspicion that the 92k mess that is imperfections has a tendency of bumping up my word count, but also i’ve been writing particularly A Lot this year. so. yikes. this’ll be a mess

Total 2018 Word Count: 465,233 (so uh. yikes squared?) Total 2018 Hits: 16,798 Other 2018 AO3 Stats: Kudos: 1,592; Comment threads: 457; Bookmarks: 186; Subscriptions: 121.

Total 2017 Word Count: 171,640   Total 2017 Hits: 9,156 Other 2017 AO3 Stats: Kudos: 841; Comment threads: 172; Bookmarks: 126; Subscriptions: 40.

Links and Titles to 2018 Works (buckle up kids)

ten questions for new year’s eve (6,669 words) lonely s4 giles meets jenny on new year’s eve. basically fluff laced with some light angst, which i think set the tone for most of my writing this year

forever (4,738 words) some assorted femslash ficlets from tumblr that i immediately forgot about after february. it of course got buried under a deluge of jenny fic but there’s still some cute stuff there! i had a lot of fun in particular writing about bb willow and the beginnings of her attraction to girls

she’s your destiny (9,560 words) AHHHHHH I FORGOT I WROTE THIS. blessings of writing This Much. soulmate au with buffy/willow and giles/jenny where like. none of them are soulmates but they fall crazy in love anyway.

the happy-ending bouquet (3,851 words) set in 2018. giles and jenny have been married for something like 15 years and are still very happy and in love. basically just an endless deluge of fluff

personas (2,729 words) hhhhh i hesitate to count this as a 2018 fic, because i technically posted it in summer 2017 and then deleted it for reasons unknown (even to me). but there aren’t enough fics that explore jenny’s fractured sense of identity and her broken heart and i love my girl so much. so. wrote that.

something real (2,173 words) my valentine’s day fic!! a friend and i share the headcanon that jenny would have finally shoved her way back into giles’s heart if not for the love spell throwing her off, so. wrote a fic where that happened, albeit somewhat angstily.

direct, but not unwelcome (4,478 words) this fic always makes me cringe, a little; the office verse was written largely for faith and tara, and writing giles and jenny in it was a decision i don’t entirely like (mostly bc there really is no narrative place for either of them). but it has a few good lines ig?

putting a ring on it (2,370 words) giles and jenny proposal fic!! a little wobbly in places imo but still so fun to write. those two deserve all the fluff

the second choice soulmates (6,942 words) the inevitable faith/tara sequel to the soulmate au!! i had it planned from the second i started writing the first fic in that series, and i had a lot of fun with it. in which faith and tara have to deal with their soulmates being in love with each other, and end up falling in love themselves.

nightmares and the aftermath (1,205 words) the first fic i wrote in the ripper au! ripper has a nightmare; jenny talks him through it.

the inherent complexity of falling in love (3,519 words) more soulmate au nonsense!! this time with solely giles and jenny!! 

let’s stay together (857 words) i say that this is “a series of vignettes in which ben, ann, and leslie are dating” but really it’s just one. i’ve kept it in bc i really wanna write more than one. ben/leslie/ann is such a blessed ship and there are no fics for it! which is ridiculous! because they really should all be dating!! leslie has two hands y’all

moments of connection in an uncertain world (3,351 words) the olivia/jenny fic that set that amazing ship on its course. set in asoue; jenny’s identity in the narrative is ambiguous bc jenny’s identity in every narrative is ambiguous. mystery bicon

amends (remixed) (2,988 words) i’m like 99 percent sure i spite-wrote this fic after watching amends bc that really seems like something i would do. in which ghost jenny makes sure buffy, angel, and giles all know that she doesn’t blame them for a single thing.

it’s a family affair (11 chapters) jenny, married to giles and mom to two daughters, loses her memory. i meant for this to be an exploration of jenny and giles’s relationship + jenny as a character, but with hindsight i feel like i kinda rushed it. maybe someday i’ll come back and expand this a little?

maybe i’m in love (24 chapters) CRIES. this fic was posted all in one day and got buried under the deluge of fic i wrote this year and i am still so sad that it remains forgotten. even by me. like i forgot it existed till now. but it is the treasure of my heart and i am still not sure what i can possibly do for calendiles day 2019 that will even come close to “slow burn giles/jenny series rewrite in script format.”

dragonslayers (8,048 words) i go back and forth between whether adding a sequel to a sappy-happy-ending fic was actually needed, but i had a lot of fun writing jenny and anya and tara being friends and adopting a dog. those girls deserve so much better.

tech support (1,315 words) jenny works at angel investigations, and giles meets her when he and buffy drive up to la to get a book. unabashed fluff.

family ties (2,294 words) giles introduces jenny to his dad and the aunts. i had giles call himself “rupert” for the entire fic and forgot to explain why i made the choice to do so (and there was a damn good reason!!!) so every time i see this fic....Regret™

i like you (992 words) the product of me realizing “wait, i never wrote a fic about my Very Specific Headcanon that giles and jenny had sex after school hard!!!” and then going ahead and writing that fic. not explicit; lots of giles and jenny being dumb and in love

take me now! (3,460 words) the sister fic to my other jenny/olivia fic! in this one, jenny’s a watcher and olivia’s the sweet librarian who has her all blushy.

the grieving process (9,771 words) this fic! was! such a trip to write! i wanted to write something where giles’s s6 issues were confronted. originally i wrote a jenny’s-alive fic where he goes to her place in la after leaving buffy in tabula rasa, but the mood of that fic was miserable and hostile, so i changed things ever so slightly. and then it became “giles goes to jenny after buffy dies,” and that transitioned into “giles actually finally gets to have an outlet for his emotions,” and then it became a very soft fic that i love very much.

unsolved mysteries (1,704 words) a modern jackaby au! where jenny cavanaugh has trauma-related anxiety and eats pretzels w jackaby in a hall closet! surprisingly soft.

the cleanup crew (2,968 words) post-ted; buffy calls jenny and giles in to help her with ted’s robot body. because that ep was a hot mess and too many things were tied up too fast.

princess charming (2,754 words) written thanks to a throwaway line from the grieving process! about jenny saving fred in pylea! @theforestlesbian​ mentioned in a review that this fic came off as “the adventures of jenny” and that was the best compliment ever.

untraditional, unconditional (4,223 words) ripper au! ripper and jenny get married! i don’t think i will ever write a better calendiles wedding than this one.

gettin’ bi (1,215 words) jenny and giles come out to each other. that’s really it.

intimacy (1,058 words) some root/shaw fluff. g o sh at some point i really should finish poi huh

the battle’s done (and we kind of won) (5,026 words) post-chosen; jenny inexplicably comes back from the dead, and giles works thru the messy aftermath of s7.

chaos, vengeance, love (1,412 words) giles’s exes talk over his grave. (and yes, i do mean jenny and ethan.)

buffy summers, muggle-born (6,075 words) buffy goes to hogwarts! this was meant to set the scene for a loosely connected string of fics, but i could never decide whether i wanted them to be chaptered fics or oneshots. i do have like 3 large chapters saved to my computer, tho :/

a eulogy (920 words) jenny calendar, as told by how she’s remembered.

survivors’ guilt (4,690 words) in which giles dies instead of jenny, and jenny and buffy deal with it poorly. my only problem w this fic is that i really wish i’d explored the messy aftermath of what might have happened if jenny had brought giles back. 2019 project y/y?

regarding honor and honesty in the workplace (43 chapters) CRIES IN JENNY/LILAH. given that i did not shut up about this fucking fic for a good 3 months, i don’t think it needs a summary.

maybe we could have a thing (3,184 words) giles and jenny’s first date!! canon told us they went out beforehand and it really did need to be ficced.

the most important words (2,753 words) passion fix-it! how many of these have i written dfshlsdhdf. anyway, by some lucky stroke, jenny doesn’t die, but she’s understandably kind of a mess. giles tries to help.

that brown-eyed technopagan (2,821 words) ripper au! willow has a HUGE crush on jenny calendar, who in this ‘verse is in her senior year at sunnydale high. lots of high school shenanigans.

seven new and very bad songs about jenny (8,597 words) another ripper au fic, this one about what it takes for ripper to finally give in and kiss the girl.

love of mine (282 words) one of the two fics i have written that involves giles grieving jenny. angst abounds.

the adjustment period (4024 words) i wanted to write about how weak vamp jenny is for her gf, so i returned to the grand romantic gestures ‘verse and explored that. femslash calendiles!!

love, scotch, and late-night parties (2,539 words) the aftermath of eyghon in the ripper au. jenny wants to be smothered in attention from ripper; ripper wants to give jenny the space he thinks she needs. basically the exact opposite of canon with the exact same inability to communicate.

father and son (3,761 words) in which ripper examines his relationship to his dad, and worries about treating his new son the same way. (spoiler alert: he obviously does not.)

imperfections (46 chapters) TECHNICALLY i added a few new chapters in 2018. i stg i’ll at least get closer to finishing it this year.

happily ever after (2,005 words) set after the dire king! jenny and jackaby being dumb and in love and experimenting with “the mechanics of ghost-human relations.”

cardboard robot (2,097 words) ripper au: halloween edition! ripper gets a pumpkin stuck on his head and sings about jenny, who Definitely Doesn’t Like Him What Are You Talking About Shut Up.

tea, with honey (3,295 words) a modern jackaby au, where jenny’s trauma really is trauma with no ghost metaphor. jackaby, darling of my heart, is still just as sympathetic.

very really married (6 chapters) THIS I WILL FINISH IN 2019. FOR REALS. i have too many unpublished chapters on my laptop to NOT finish it. set in s1; giles and jenny get drunk married in las vegas pre-canon. which, of course, adds a whole new level of complexity to both of giles’s new jobs.

coping (2,611 words) i really wanted to write about jenny and eyghon, bc there are like 0 fics that address the absolute mess that canon throws at that woman. so i did. very angsty with no clear happy ending, bc that’s what happens when you write canon compliant fic about jenny calendar.

yours (2,747 words) my first foray into writing phryne and jack! and, if the 4k-and-counting wip is anything to go by, definitely not my last. 2018 brought me a lot of things, but watching mfmm all the way through was definitely one of the best.

family ties (2,640 words) catch me crying about river and the ponds for the rest of my life, probably. centered around river’s graduation from luna university and her relationship with her parents.

decently clothed (1,516 words) lots of dumb calendiles fluff!! based on a paragraph from a btvs novel; jenny and giles go clothes shopping. it’s exactly as cute as it sounds.

making things right (1,060 words) passion fix-it that came to me when i thought “what if jenny survived, but didn’t even care that she’d almost died, bc what really mattered was that she’d fixed things with giles and buffy?? lmao how badly would that fuck giles up, knowing that she placed earning his trust over her own life???” and then i wrote it bc i love pain

bless her soul (6,294 words) s3. jenny comes back wrong. lots of explorations of the guilt that buffy, giles, and angel harbored for jenny’s death, with none of the pain of using jenny solely as a mouthpiece for evil. so like. amends done right.

dear friend (1 chapter, so far) a you’ve got mail calendiles au that i really do intend to work on some more in 2019.

haunted (15,622 words) WHAT a note to end 2018 on. a (mostly) non-supernatural au in which jenny, after an intense & awful trauma, leaves sunnydale and buys a ridiculously inexpensive mansion in england. why was it so cheap? because giles, the ghost who lives there, has been scaring off buyers. naturally, jenny is not easily rattled.

Favorite Fic: it’s hard to choose bc i wrote so many but for now i’ll pick bless her soul. writing the-first-as-jenny and playing up scooby guilt while still getting to bring jenny back for a happy ending??? that was just so much fun.

Hardest Fic: very really married. absolutely. i was in a v weird place while writing that fic, so that certainly didn’t help, but that fic has been giving me Trouble since i started writing it.

Do You Plan to Take Prompts in 2019? always!!

What was the best thing about 2018? friendsssss!!! i’m entering 2019 with a lot of solid friendships, which really wasn’t the case in 2018. 

What was the worst thing about 2018? tbh the answer will always and forever be “my mom” until i am out of this house

Any last thoughts for 2018? how the FUCK did i WRITE more than half of the fics i have posted on ao3 in THIS YEAR ALONE. 55 FICS. i’m REELING.

Goals for 2019

finish the cheesy au g/j multichapters i started

maybe start work on a detective au sequel? i miss that ‘verse

more ripper au fic!!!!!

more jenny/olivia!!!

more jenny centric fic in general like It’s What She Deserves

SOMETHING about jenny and angel. i talk big talk about how much that dynamic fascinates me but i only ever touch on it in fic. it’s never the central focus.

finish the phryne/jack fic i’m working on, and maybe...tentatively...write more?

[thefatlannister]

“You’ll have to make it a kill shot:” That Bellarke Scene in 4x11

Okay so at this point I’m aware that I’m bordering on beating a dead horse, but “Clarke would never choose to sacrifice the entire human race for Bellamy” is apparently the Hill I’m Dying On.

I wanted to respond to this comment on my old meta “Start with Bellamy Blake: Unconditional Love + Narrative Meaning” with what’s basically my overdue reaction and analysis of what happened in 5x11 with Bellarke. **It is important to note before I begin that the gun scene in 4x11 is primarily about Clarke thematically, and her character arc. What did and didn’t happen in this ep is also tied into Clarke’s (semblance of a) character arc in season 4 which I’m hoping to write about separately.

But for now let’s dive into the 4x11 gun scene from a bellarke perspective:

I see everyone out here like “CLARKE WAS WILLING TO LET HER MOTHER DIE BUT CAN’T KILL BELLAMY TO SAVE THE HUMAN RACE!!” Which is basically a retread of the argument that was going around after 3x15 and the “start with Bellamy Blake scene.” My reaction to this interpretation of 4x11 is largely the same as my reaction to that interpretation of 3x15, namely that this is a very reductive interpretation of the scene and the circumstances surrounding Clarke’s decision and bellarke’s relationship. Also, just a warning up front that I’m really not trying to sound preachy, mostly because it’s totally understandable for people to interpret the scene the way they do— more than 3x15, the 4x11 scene is framed in /extremely/ personal and even romantic terms. It’s FRAMED like it’s a scene where Clarke DOES choose Bellamy over the rest of humanity.

However, I’d argue that both the very specific circumstances of the plot AND the nature of Bellarke’s relationship undermine that interpretation. I will also talk a little below about how I believe poor writing- from a macro and micro standpoint- contribute to the confusing framing of this scene.

Plot Context

The task of describing and understanding the actual circumstances and stakes of the moral conundrum we’re presented with in 4x11 is very hard. This is largely because the episode does SUCH a poor job of establishing and explaining them itself. In many ways I’d say the episode actually makes false assumptions about the scenario it sets up, which is frustrating on multiple levels. So here’s what we know about the situation:

1. Clarke, Jaha and all of Skaikru are locked in the bunker. Skaikru thinks they’re safe to ride out the 5 years.

2. Octavia, Indra, Gaia, and Kane are the only ones outside the bunker who KNOW that Clarke stole it; this is true for THE DURATION OF THE EP.

3. Clarke, Jaha, Abby, Bellamy know from the beginning of the ep that Octavia won the conclave and that NO ONE OTHER THAN HER (and Indra,Kane, etc) KNOW THAT CLARKE STOLE THE BUNKER.

4. Clarke, Jaha, et al have the ability to communicate with Octavia et al if need be.

The problem with 4x11 is that it’s written as if Clarke and the others have no idea what’s going on outside that door. Clarke is written as if there’s a mob on the other side of the door waiting to slaughter skaikru. In fact, I think an earlier, perhaps even a filmed, version of this episode had exactly that, because even in the promo for the original ep that’s the situation that’s implied.

Clarke’s defense to Niylah in bed (don’t even get me started…) about Skaikru’s technological know-how would make a TON more sense if Skaikru were actually shown as in danger of being completely slaughtered. But as it is, we know Octavia is in control, and that word of the stolen bunker hasn’t gotten out yet. Which means that if they open the door, the likely outcome isn’t the slaughter of skaikru, and it CERTAINLY is not the end of the human race (a HUGE leap).

The stakes of opening the door are that hundreds more members of SKAIKRU will die. Not all of them, but more of them. And honestly, as the leaders of skaikru, it would be totally valid for Clarke and Jaha to be worried about that!! But that’s not the argument that’s presented in 4x11- that argument isn’t introduced until 4x12. Instead there’s this nonsensical assumption - by apparently both the writers and the viewers - that if Clarke opens the door then all of humanity will die.

Character Context

Now, to get to the central question at play when interpreting this scene from a bellarke perspective: Does Clarke believe when she lowers the gun that she is dooming the human race to death? We the audience know she’s not, but in Clarke’s mind, is her choosing to let Bellamy open the door fundamentally the same as if Clarke gave ALIE the passcode in 3x15, thus temporarily saving her mother but dooming the human race?

The obvious answer, to me, is OF COURSE NOT. Because only someone weak-willed or short-sighted would make that decision, and Clarke Griffin is neither. I cover this topic in considerable detail in my original meta, but if Clarke knows for a fact that sacrificing a loved one could save the world, and the alternative is losing the world AND that loved one, there is literally only one choice that makes sense. That’s why she let Abby hang in 3x15, and that’s why she would have been forced to let Bellamy hang too.

So what’s different in 4x11? Clarke seems convinced throughout the episode that opening the door could mean the end of the human race. She also, notably, spends the episode NOT TALKING TO BELLAMY, until this last scene.

What makes 4x11 different is that this ISN’T a clear cut “save the world or save this person” situation, and that it’s BELLAMY that’s able to instill enough doubt in Clarke that she’s not willing to kill him over it (read: an infinitesimal bit of doubt).

With ALIE, there WAS no uncertainty - like Bellamy says, "we knew what would happen then - now, we know nothing.” Fundamentally, Clarke's argument in the 4x11 scene is based on that fact that she KNOWS that if they DON’T open the door, the human race survives. But if they DO open the door, the survival of the human race is UNCERTAIN, not categorically doomed.

And, ultimately, Clarke is NOT willing to kill Bellamy over an uncertainty.

Of course, had it been anyone BUT Bellamy on those stairs, she likely would have been willing to kill them. But Bellamy is her partner, her co-leader, the person she loves most in the world. And, importantly, in the moments where Clarke doesn’t trust her own decision-making, she trusts Bellamy’s. That’s canon fact.

That’s why the subtext of what Bellamy says to her about keeping the door closed is so important: I know we’ve done stuff like this before, I know this feels necessary- like closing the dropship door, like pulling the lever in Mt Weather, but it’s not. And you know how you know it’s not? Because I won’t share the burden of it with you. In fact, you’ll have to kill me to do it.

And Clarke, who wants DESPERATELY not to hurt him, who has affirmed and reaffirmed how much she trusts him, ultimately is not willing to bet Bellamy’s life on him being wrong. Which, of COURSE she’s not, because she loves him.

Although my interpretation of this scene may not be as classically romantic as others, I find it no less compelling. In fact, I think it says really fucking beautiful things about Bellarke.

Their relationship is defined in part by their knowledge that, in a situation where the choice was LITERALLY between the survival of the human race and the other person's survival, Bellamy would beg Clarke to pull the trigger and vice versa. They would do it, to save their people, to save the human race.

Bellamy literally does this in 4x13- makes the choice to leave Clarke behind, because not doing so means both she and his people die. It kills him to do it, but it is in the strength of her love and the knowledge of her faith in him that he is ABLE to do it!! They have changed and molded and supported each other in order to make each other capable of making decisions that might ultimately mean putting the people they both love before each other. That’s what bonds them and, ultimately, that’s what breaks them.

4x11 is an example of that bond being used to help Clarke understand when NOT to make that kind of hard choice. The very fact that Bellamy isn’t on her side is what allows her to make the right decision and to hold onto her humanity. It’s their relationship with each other that keeps them CENTERED, that keeps them balanced enough to retain their humanity but also to be able to make the hard decisions.

Narrative Framing

To finish off, I want to circle back to my original observation that I totally understand /why/ people interpret this scene as the romantic trope “you over the world.” And that’s because it’s literally presented that way. As explored in this essay, anyone reading into the plot and character dynamics of the scene can see that it’s nowhere near as straightforward as that. And yet, Clarke’s tears, the lack of her verbal acknowledgement of his arguments, and even the script itself all combine to narrative frame this scene in a way that is undeniably… romantic.

In a way, the scene oversimplifies *itself.* The actual dialogue we receive (not the subtext) - "you'll have to make it a kill shot"- is specifically meant to frame Clarke's choice as either kill Bellamy or let him open the door. This is the frame even though a reasonable viewer could just be like “well obvi she can shoot him in the leg or something.”

It is CLEAR that the writers/directors.etc. intended to frame this moment as "Clarke can't pull the trigger because she loves him too much.” That is indisputably what the scene is telling us, and I think it is this message that is the catalyst for so many members of the audience to then conclude “Clarke chose Bellamy over the human race.”

So I guess my point here is that they clearly wanted to frame this scene as being about Clarke’s (nonplatonic, earth-shatteringly intense) feelings for Bellamy, for better or for worse. And I, for one, am curious as to WHY they would be so intent on doing that….😏😏

[imjustthemechanic]

The French Mistake

Part 1/? - A Visitor Part 2/? - The Kulturhistorisk Museum Heist Part 3/? - Cutscene Part 4/? - The Marvel Cinematic Universe Part 5/? - Breathless Part 6/? - Escape at Last Part 7/? - Fox in Socks Part 8/? - Things Go Wrong Part 9/? - Downey and Out Part 10/? - Road Trip Part 11/? - Temptation Part 12/? - An Awful Reunion Part 13/? - Unreality Intrudes Part 14/? - A Call for Help Part 15/? - Loki’s Guests Part 16/? - Stan Lee Cameo Part 17/? - Reassessment Part 18/? - Midnight Invasion Part 19/? - Elevator Fight Part 20/? - Courage Part 21/? - Unwelcome Back Part 22/? - Darkest Hour Part 23/? - They Are Here Part 24/? - The Jet Propulsion Laboratory Part 25/? - Word of God Part 26/? - Avengers Assembled Part 27/? - The Houston Underground Part 28/? - Houston has a Problem Part 29/? - Onward and Upward Part 30/? - The Chi’Tauri Queen Part 31/? - Through the Wormhole Part 32/? - Prisoners Part 33/? - Arm’s Length Part 34/? - A Moment’s Respite Part 35/? - Ravagers to the Rescue Part 36/? - What Happened to Hiddleston Part 37/? - Haven Part 38/? - Steve Has a Terrible Idea Part 39/? - Can’t Be Choosers Part 40/? - Stan Lee Cameo Redux Part 41/? - Shipjacking Part 42/? - The Gauntlet Thrown Part 43/? - The Queen’s Chamber Part 44/? - The Guardians Part 45/? - The Nest Part 46/? - Heroes Part 47/? - Homeward Bound Part 48/? - Loose Ends

Just a few things to tie up - like Johansson’s marriage, how they’re getting back, and what will happen to the tesseract.

A moment later Musa was called away again by a group of astrophysicists, who were hoping she could tell them about her home system.  Steve wasn’t alone for long, though – the next person to approach him was Natasha.  She was now dressed in a pair of jeggings and a shirt with a cartoon bone on it and the words I Found This Humerus.  Next to her was Scarlett Johansson, wearing a blouse and skirt.  Both had washed up and combed their hair, and they looked nearly identical, but Steve immediately recognized which was which.  The two walked differently, Johansson gliding along like a glamour goddess, while Natasha moved with a determined stride that spelled trouble for anybody in her way.

“How’d your checkup go?” Nat asked.

“Nothing but bruises,” Steve assured her.  “If I cracked any bones it was so minor they’ve already knit.”  The bruises would be gone by this time tomorrow.

She smiled.  “Good to be back?”

“Yeah,” he agreed.  “And possibly just a little more appreciative of how tough I am.”

“Oh, really?”  Nat smirked.  “Does that mean you’re going to start using a parachute?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Nat laughed.  “I’m going to Malibu with Scarlett,” she said.  “We need to patch things up with her husband and daughter, and it’ll be easier to explain if I’m with her.”

That felt like something that had happened weeks ago, and Steve had almost forgotten about it.  Now he groaned.  It was true, they should do something about that, but whatever it was they ended up doing would be very, very unpleasant.  “Do you want me to come with you?” he asked, praying that the answer would be no.

“Probably not a good idea,” said Johansson.  “Romain’s had a bug up his ass about Chris for a while now, and I don’t think he’d want to see your face.”

Steve tried not to show how relieved he was.  “Got it,” he said.  “Text when you arrive, okay?”

“Yes, Mom,” said Nat.  “Wouldn’t want you to worry about me.”  She leaned down and gave him a kiss on the cheek goodbye.

Once she was gone, Steve worried he’d be alone again – but it was only a minute or so after Natasha left when Evans came up to him.  He had a few bandages and stitches, but he, too, had washed and shaved and changed his clothes.  With no beard, wearing jeans and a dark blue t-shirt which, thanks to somebody’s sense of humour, had the image of the shield on the front, he looked so much like Steve as Captain America that it was downright eerie.  He came and stood awkwardly facing Steve, hands in his pockets, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t figure out how to word it.

“How are you doing?” Steve asked, deciding to take pity and give him an opening.

“Okay,” Evans replied carefully.  “That was a hell of a thing but I… I’ll get over it.”

Steve had heard that phrase before, from people who would very definitely not get over it.  Far too often, he’d been the one speaking it, himself.  “You sure?”

“Yeah,” said Evans.  He sat down on the bench next to Steve.  “My parents are coming to pick me up.  I told them guys, I’m thirty-five, I can buy my own plane ticket, but Mom wouldn’t hear about it.  She actually said, I won’t hear about it, like little old ladies do in cartoons.”  He chuckled.

Steve smiled back.  He was glad he hadn’t called Evans’ parents when he’d been tempted to, but lord, he missed having that kind of loving, unconditional support.   It would have been wonderful to steal just a drop of it, even knowing it was not rightfully his.  Loki really had meant what he’d said – this world was full of everything Steve had ever wanted.  It was just that to get it, Steve would have had to compromise everything he’d ever wanted to be.

“Sorry for freezing up when Musa grabbed me,” Chris added.  “I, um… I have some… I’m good with a script, but actually talking to real people is hard for me sometimes.  I almost turned down playing the role – playing you, I mean.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to be…”

“To be that kind of movie star,” Steve finished for him.  “Bob told me.”

“Yeah.”  Chris nodded.

“What changed your mind?” asked Steve.  Bob had offered an explanation, but he wanted to hear it from Chris Evans himself.

“Well… Captain America,” said Chris, with a shrug and a cockeyed smile.  “You’re everybody’s hero.  You’re… you’re everything I was raised to believe in.  It sounds corny, but all that freedom, equality, and justice stuff, you embody that and you make it look cool. When I post about politics on my twitter I get comments from people who say things like here we see Chris Evans actually being Steve Rogers and it always makes me smile.  I’m proud to stand for that, even if the fame part is kind of terrifying.”

“The fame part is terrifying,” Steve agreed.  “At least you got warned about it.  When I volunteered for the project nobody told me I was going to be a celebrity. Then they dragged me off on that tour with the chorus girls and the posters…” he shook his head.  “And I end up standing there…”

“Wondering how the hell this happened,” Chris grinned. “That’s what I figured you were thinking.  Reading the lines off the back of the shield was my favourite joke in the movie. Anyway.”  He sat up a little straighter.  “My point, which I’m getting to in a roundabout kind of way, is that it’s an honour to meet you in person, even if this is really, really weird.” He held out a hand.

“Thanks,” said Steve, giving him the handshake.  He had to agree – it was weird, but he also felt a sense of kinship with this man. Not just because of what they’d just been through together, but because he realized that Chris Evans must have spent more time thinking about Steve, and trying to understand him, than anybody else he’d ever met.  Which left one rather important question.  “Bob told me about something you said in an interview…” he began.

“Oh, no,” groaned Chris.  “This is about the teams thing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Steve said.

Chris spread his hands.  “Well, for one thing, I never thought I’d be having this conversation.  I thought it was all hypothetical.  And I was talking about our world, if there were superheroes here. Our world isn’t run by people who thought nuking New York or approving Project Insight was a good idea.  I mean, sometimes they’re not much better, but they’re not that bad.  I just feel like real superheroes would have to accept limitations and be responsible when they hurt people.  Even if it wasn’t on purpose.”

Steve thought about the pirates… they weren’t nice people, but nor had they asked to get into a fight with the Chi’Tauri.  He wondered how many had died, and supposed he would never know.

“Well, thanks for not getting me killed this week,” Steve said.  “I’m a rotten actor.”

“Same,” Chris agreed.  “I’m the opposite – a good actor, a rotten hero.  Better for you to live your life and me mine, even if yours does sound way cooler.”

Now there was a thought… would Chris Evans find the details of Steve Rogers’ life as tempting as Steve had found his?  He decided not to ask, partly because that would involve admitting how tempted he’d been to call Evans’ parents, but mostly because the whole subject was better left alone.

NASA offered them all dinner in the Space Center cafeteria, which was fortunately not one of the buildings that would have to be torn down from the damage.  Natasha and Scarlett had already gone to Malibu, and Scarlett had texted Chris Evans to let him know they would be staying overnight. Hemsworth also turned down the meal. He hugged everybody, and then left to catch a flight back to his home in Australia.  Most of the other actors who’d come in for the charade were already gone, but Hayley Atwell hung around, as did Bob Downey.  At dinner they all sat together and listened to Hayley tell stories about the props – and people – she’d accidentally broken while filming the Agent Carter TV series.

“I need to watch some of that before I go,” said Steve.  He would probably regret it… but he would regret it more if he didn’t.

“I’ll get you some DVDs,” Hayley promised.  “In fact, take them back with you and show them to Sharon.  I can get confirmation from Emily if you like, but for my own part I’m sure she would want to see them.”

Steve could bet she would.  “That would be great.”

“That gives me an idea…” Bob began, but before he could explain what it was, the conversation was interrupted as Thor and Steve moved aside to make room for Donny Glover and Kevin Farinas, who had come to join them.  Kevin was proudly holding a tablet and a stack of binders, which she dropped on the table in front of her.

“Good news!” she declared.

“Good news?  For us?” asked Steve.

“Careful there,” said Bob.  “He’s an old man.  Too much excitement might give him a heart attack.”  He winked at Steve, looking uncannily like Stark in that moment.

Kevin opened the top binder in the stack and passed around some photographs.  “I’ve been looking at the insides of your spaceship,” she said, “and it looks like their actual device for directing a wormhole runs on very similar principles to my hypothetical one.  Here’s the switches.”  She reached across the table to indicate a particular picture, which Hayley happened to be holding at the moment.  “They’re hidden under the console, probably so the people on board couldn’t mess with them.”

Hayley passed the picture to Steve, and he saw two rows of twelve symbols, one in pink and one in blue.  The symbols themselves were indecipherable to Steve, just messes of intersecting lines.  “What do these mean?” he asked.

“No idea,” said Kevin.  “They’ve called in some cryptography people, but figuring out will probably take longer than it would take to build a new one.”

“How is that good news?” asked Bob.

“I’m getting there,” Kevin informed him.  “Now, as you can see, there are two lines – two ends to the wormhole.  The pink one tells you where you’re starting from, the blue one tells you where you’re going.  If I understand this properly, the ones on the right refer to the specific destination universe, and the ones on the left are your exit point within that universe.  I have no idea how to program it.  The left ones must be a space-time coordinate system of some sort, but I don’t know what their reference point is, while the ones on the right must refer to properties of the target universe, whatever those are.”

“I’m still not seeing the good news,” said Steve.

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” asked Kevin.  “Look, they’ve got this thing set up to take them between a chosen point in this universe and their home port in yours.  But if you can change the spatial destination coordinates for your universe to match the ones you leave from in ours, then when you activate it you’ll transfer to the other universe exactly where you left from ours with no programming or linguistic knowledge required!”

That did make sense.  “So we appear over Houston in our universe… and we can fly right out over the Atlantic back to Wakanda,” said Steve.  That would have the bonus that the Leviathan would end up in hands Steve trusted.  He wouldn’t have wanted any other country on Earth trying to reverse-engineer any more Chi’Tauri technology, even the United States.  Wakanda, however, would either destroy it or do good with it, whichever T’Challa decided was best.  “Perfect. Can you have it ready by the time Natasha gets back?”

“Definitely,” said Kevin.  “It seems to remember where it left from, too, so if it doesn’t work the way I think, you can just come back here and we’ll give it some more study.” She picked up her binders again, beaming.  “You know, it sucks that we can’t keep that tesseract things.  With that kind of energy we could explore the whole solar system and then head for Alpha Centauri.”

Steve blinked.

“Yeah, sucks,” Donny agreed cheerfully.  “I’d ask to go with you guys, but my alternate in the Marvel Universe is a guy who finds Spider-Man hanging out in dumpsters, so nah.  But!” he held up a finger.  “Kevin, can you get me into the Star Wars universe?”

They were joking around, so Steve made himself smile as if he were enjoying the conversation. But he couldn’t stop thinking about what Kevin had just said.

[allenmendezsr]

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Shalom.

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[beigetortoise]

Synecdoche, New York

I just watched Synecdoche, New York.

There will be spoilers, but I don’t think the point of this movie is in its plot. You might need to watch it twice anyway.

What you probably know about it is: “A theatre director [Caden] struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he creates a life-size replica of New York City inside a warehouse as part of his new play”. This is bollocks.

I.

Synecdoche, New York is a movie about how it feels to be stuck with no self-love, not knowing that you need it, not knowing how to get it. Never being loved unconditionally. Spending your whole life in this state. Having no idea what’s wrong with you.

Caden’s wife doesn’t even dislike his play—she doesn’t think it’s worth anything. “I can't get excited about your restaging someone else's old play, it just... There's nothing personal in it.” Later she leaves him.

Pretty Hazel is into Caden. But when she finally gets him to come to her place, she makes him beg for a kiss:

—Does [the drink] make you wanna kiss me? —Kind of. —Tell me why. —Because I feel a lot of longing. —Beg a girl, why don't you? —Please, Hazel. —On your knees. [...] I want you to beg me on your knees for a kiss.

During sex, Caden breaks down and starts crying: “I'm just really confused. I'm sorry. I... I'm really sick. And I think I'm dying”. Hazel’s response is “You should go”.

Fast forward, Caden is old now. Scroll to the title image and back. He is going to have sex with Tammy—an actress playing Hazel in his play. “You're very pretty”, he tells her, and follows with “Sometimes I wish I could be pretty like that”. Maybe he could’ve gotten unconditional... something... if he was a girl.

—What, you wish you were a girl? —Sometimes I think I might have been better at it.

Tammy tells Caden that he’s pretty, but he doesn’t believe it. Immediately after they are shown in a car. It’s morning. Tammy goes “I shouldn’t have drunk so much fucking beer last night”—his fear, I think, is validated.

Before dying, Caden’s daughter asks him “I want to forgive you, but I need you to ask for forgiveness first”. He begs, and then she says “I cannot forgive you” and dies.

II.

What does Caden do with all this?

After getting a MacArthur grant for his previous work, he decides to write a play. “You see, the idea is to do a massive theater piece. You know, uncompromising, honest”. So he buys a huge warehouse and hires a lot of actors.

How do you write something uncompromisingly honest? Caden addresses the assembled troupe during their first meeting:

“We'll start by talking honestly, and out of that, a piece of theater will evolve. I'll begin. I've been thinking a lot about dying lately.”

We don’t see anybody else “beginning”, though. For the rest of the movie, it’s mostly just Caden’s life. An actor playing Caden, and an actor playing Hazel. An actor playing Caden’s second wife, and an actor playing her new boyfriend after she leaves Caden. Paralleling everything happening to Caden in real life.

I had a similar idea when I was a kid, in a long-distance relationship (and my first relationship overall). “I had better save all chat logs”, I thought. “Later I will write a book about this relationship—just the whole history of it. It will be so awesome. Everybody will love it. And be jealous, too.”

Caden’s idea is: “if I show people my life, maybe this will amount to something”.

It’s not narcissistic rage (“and they will see how I suffered”). He doesn’t try to embellish anything, doesn’t try to present himself better than what he is, doesn’t try to draw a lesson. “Theater piece. Something big and true and tough. I'm gonna finally put my real self into something. [...] The MacArthur is called ‘the genius grant’, and I wanna earn it.”

In other words—if he manages to show people his true self, his idea of human experience (both his and others’), they will love him.

III.

Charlie Kaufman, the writer and director of Synecdoche, New York, doesn’t talk about it much. But it doesn’t matter, because three years after the movie he gave a lecture pretty much explaining it. I talked about it on my other blog—Charlie Kaufman does public self-therapy.

[When writing, do yourself, not somebody else.] It isn’t easy but it’s essential. It’s not easy because there’s a lot in the way. In many cases a major obstacle is your deeply seated belief that you are not interesting. And since convincing yourself that you are interesting is probably not going to happen, take it off the table. Think, ‘Perhaps I’m not interesting but I am the only thing I have to offer, and I want to offer something. And by offering myself in a true way I am doing a great service to the world, because it is rare and it will help.’

Caden tried it, but missed a crucial ingredient. He is not trying to help the world by offering his understanding of human experience—he is trying to sell himself.

But more importantly, if you’re honest about who you are, you’ll help that person be less lonely in their world because that person will recognise him or herself in you and that will give them hope. It’s done so for me and I have to keep rediscovering it. It has profound importance in my life. Give that to the world, rather than selling something to the world.

This is what he doesn’t do. He does it to be counted as a genius. He thinks he’s dying, and he wants to prove himself, to amount to something. Kaufman hopes to change himself by being honest about his experience—Caden thinks he’s already good enough, but nobody sees it.

Caden spends forty years trying to create a truly monumental play, all just to get someone, anyone, to relate to him. Imagine that.

IV.

In the end, by some twist of dream logic Caden merges with another character—Ellen, who was Caden’s runaway wife’s cleaning lady.

As a side-note: if you’ve seen the movie—note how Caden finds comfort in doing Ellen’s job. Cleaning is the only thing he does that is directly useful to others. It has meaning. If only he had figured it out earlier.

The shot above is not from the end of the movie. What happens in the end is better.

Everybody has left the set. Caden sees a woman. “Would you sit with me for a moment? Because I'm very tired and lonely.”

She does not reject him. She does not roll her eyes. They sit together. The woman is Ellen’s mother. “I feel like I've disappointed you terribly”, he goes. “Oh, no. I am so proud of you”, she replies.

By this time, he is no longer the director of his own play. He’s given up the role. He wears an earpiece telling him what to do, how to act.

“Ask her if you can put your head on her shoulder”, instructs the earpiece.

—Can I lay my head on your shoulder? —Yes. —I love you. —I love you too.

At last, unconditional love.

And then he dies.

P.S.

Kaufman’s preface to the published version of the movie script:

They want me to write an introduction to this thing. They’re pestering me. This guy, Keith, at Newmarket Press. [...] So here I am, as I knew I would be once I agreed to having this thing published, trying to write an introduction and being mad at Keith. I don’t even know Keith. I’ve never seen him, as far as I know, which may be completely untrue. I may have met him forty times and not paid attention. I don’t even know his job title, that’s how much Keith and this screenplay book are part of my life.

[...] He’s an annoyance to me. That is all he is. But if I stop and think about it, which I just did, if I try to broaden my view of the world, which I just did, I realize that every moment I exist as me, Keith exists as Keith. He is not the occasional letter in my e-mail box. Every moment of every day, he is living a life somewhere far away from me. As an experiment, I decided to e-mail Keith and ask him to tell me a bit about himself.

[...] Wow. Keith’s letter did way more than I anticipated. Now I love Keith. Now I feel a connection with him. There are so many things I love about Keith’s letter. Not the least of which is his willingness to participate and his openness in talking about himself, his leap of faith that I would not abuse the confidence. I love that he took me seriously. It made me think: How many hundreds of people have worked on this film whom I’ve never had a conversation with, whom I don’t know at all, didn’t think it was important to know?

[violetsystems]

#personal

New York is probably good enough for some in terms of “putting yourself out there.”  They say if you can make it there then you can make it anywhere.  I’ve made it a habit every two months for the last year or so to explore it in the same meticulous fashion.  Same flight.  Same brands.  No sudden movements.  On a dimly lit viaduct off flushing I see the abyss reflected back at me.  Someone across the street wearing the same shoes.  What you put out into the world comes full circle.  And yet things still remain moderately the same if not worse.  New York has given me a lot of perspective in my adult life.  For years people have made me feel like I’m not good enough at so many things.  The idea that I can simply walk down the street and exist seems important enough to people out East.  Here there’s always some sort of judgement or validation that needs to be attached.  You can get trapped in a constant cycle of proving yourself to the wrong people.  Which has never been the case down here where I write the script constantly that nobody pays attention to.  In a lot of ways I see this as better not worse.  I’ve been as far as Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai by myself.  There’s reasons I wouldn’t travel back alone right now.  When I travel by myself to New York people seem to gradually understand my motivations better.  I can’t help what I’m dragged around by or wander into.  I also am not as clued in as people hallucinate me to be.  Nobody texts me at all.  I have friends but I wouldn’t say any of them are close enough to know any perspective of what I do.  I find people don’t listen or tune out which is why I maintain these kind of love letters to the void.  I figure if you really liked, loved or appreciated me you’d want to know what I’m thinking.  I’m a fairly transparent person to a fault at times.  There are times when being open and honest has gotten me manipulated or worse.  My life is what it is and I make it so by working on it.  The people I lost contact with I question if I ever really had any with to begin with.  This space and writing in it has been the only really emotional contact I’ve had with people for years.  I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t isolated and alone most of the time.  I’m also not that depressed about it.  I’ve stayed fit by exercising in my home.  I made 14k gold in World of Warcraft from a random drop on the auction house.  I still suck at Hearthstone but enjoy losing anyway.  More so than playing card games in public for various reasons.  Every time I leave the house back home it’s like some weird aggressively social pressure to perform.  Everybody wants me to share my attention, my opinion and how I feel then punish me for it.  I’m used to that game and the rules kind of suck.  I’ve been doing that week after week for I don’t know how long on the internet here.  I wouldn’t say I feel punished.  I do feel included.  I do think me sharing my perspective does a lot of things.  I think you could get what I’m about at the very least.  Enough to be comfortable around me in public.  So realistically I’ve been putting myself out there for years at this point.  What’s different?  What’s changed?  And why am I not good enough for some people?

Money probably.  It seems like people with money think they can do whatever they want.  I’ve listened to too many Fugazi albums at this point to think otherwise.  I’ve worked for a non profit since the dinosaurs were first wiped off the planet.  I’ve had so many little side hobbies and art projects that weren’t good enough for people.  Wouldn’t make enough money to pay attention to.  I’d be more bitter if I hadn’t succeeded more in other things.  Since I quit the gym last year I’ve made so much more progress on my health.  I look way better than I ever have.  I’m still the same person inside if not better.  And yet people want to pop out of a portal of yesterday and catch up suddenly again and again like an infinite crisis.  I’m used to talking to people in New York.  I don’t really get nervous in street conversation anymore.  I don’t have any expectations on it.  I’m not trying to set someone up or weave myself into somebody’s inner circle.  I’m trying to connect with my people.  And my people are in the moment.  There was that meme with the Shiba the other day that hit me hard.  If you enjoy the time you wasted then it isn’t a waste of time.  If all these years have inspired me to become who I am now why would I regret it?  It is rough and thankless for sure.  Everybody knows how much less sensitive I am about all this now.  I’d argue I’d have to be inevitably.  The streets are like a catwalk to me that I greet with a cold, dead stare at times.  That’s what I feel in my head anyway.  And then people smile at me gently for no reason.  Like they know.  And my eyes soften a bit more.  Money is just money.  People like myself work very hard for it.  I work very hard trying to spend it more wisely.  I’m not sure I will return to New York until my birthday next year.  Not that I can’t afford it.  More so because I have enough clothes at the moment and would like to rest and stay warm.  Home isn’t a terrible place to be outside of work.  But people with money can be extremely invasive anywhere.  Look at how much they pry into my life looking for something darker to prove.  That’s how it seems these days anyway.  I don’t know that any amount of money will change the trajectory I’m on.  I do think about moving to New York often.  Then I think about commuting there instead.  I could always make more money.  I could always be in a place that understands me more and expects less.  Everybody in the Midwest needs to be connected.  Families, money and politics.  Chicago is one of the most corrupt cities in that respect.  And then there’s more to Chicago we’ve come to realize.  More importantly there’s me sitting at my kitchen table every Saturday morning typing love letters out on my surface.  Thinking about how I’m going to spend fourteen thousand gold in isolation over the next few months.  Who is living the dream now?  I’ve farmed gold since beta with the best of them.  I also nuked my account at the first expansion.  Oh how the mighty have fallen.  Bowing to the corporate whims of Hellish Blizzard.  Maybe that’s why Fugazi never made another good record.  The system is rigged to fail.

When I talk about keeping it real these days it’s much more in the Sega Bass Fishing tradition.  I’m not trying to start a maritime revolution or anything.  Unless you are talking about putting power back into the hands of those who don’t traditionally have it.  When you talk about a movement it’s always implied with me.  I walk alongside these concepts because I believe in them.  Freedom for all.  And people test mine in the process.  And I start to realize Freedom in America isn’t really free.  People are always trying to sell yourself back to you at a higher price than you can afford.  Make you doubt your path into the unknown by shaking your confidence and resolve.  Negging your plans if you share them out loud.  Standing in your way out of jealousy and worse.  People have tried to hijack my narrative so much that I’ve given up on whole sections of it.   Nobody cares about my music.  If they check in it’s to comment about my haircut not my artwork.  It’s vapid as fuck.  Like I’ve become some hyper intelligent Ken doll imprisoned behind a firewall for the better.  I realized a long time ago people won’t let me be me.  People want control over everything.  They have brands at stake.  Legacies to build.  Family empires and flows of cash to maintain.  Small little circles that have no vacancy unless you have something to offer.  And when my haircut shines back into the spotlight the same meat market mentality shows its ugly face.  Nothing has changed with me.  I still love the same people deeply in ways you will never know.  No one ever cared to read into that other than here week after week.  And in some ways my feelings towards it were allowed to grow in a very quiet way.  I’ve carved a really genuine spot out of chaos where I can speak what I feel.  People can twist it in whatever way they want in their Utopian vision for society.  But the simple fact is that I do not feel included out there.  So why do I feel so included walking by myself alone down Flushing every two months.  Imagine if I would have believed all these things people project onto me.  That I’m not good enough.  That I’m weird and a failure.  That there’s something about me that someone can’t put their finger on that bothers them.  So they want everybody to keep tabs on me just to be sure.  Someone who has never spoken two words to me or worse.  And then there are people out there who I understand care deeply with a simply click.  I don’t have to shake them down for proof.  I already feel the love there.  You have to have real love in yourself to notice it reflected back to you.  Real unconditional love is difficult.  But anything built on anything less is doomed to fail.  I don’t necessarily feel doomed at all.  Granted Sega Bass Fishing is an extremely challenging game.  So is running a mile under eight and a half minutes.  You know where to find me when you need me.  Just putting it out there.  Love.  Imagine putting more of that into the world.  I don’t have to imagine my love for you.  <3 Tim

[classyaccident-blog]

Finding A Balance... Stress & How to Cope

Hey all!

I have been struggling on a topic for my third blog post. I think I know what I want to write about, then I hit a wall. I have all of these ideas, but when it's time to write it, the words just don't come. A lot, I think, has to do with stress, and it has been a couple of stressful weeks for me. A big part of that stress is work. I work as a Pharmacy Technician for a Shopper's Drug Mart. 

I have been working in the pharmacy for the last ten years! A very long time, although sometimes it feels a lot longer. Lately it has been feeling like a thankless job, which is discouraging because I used to really love it! My main reason to start this blog was to find a new outlet and passion, since my love for my job has suffered.  Don't get me wrong, I love helping people. It gives me such satisfaction in my life. However, the politics we have to deal with on a day to day basis makes it a little challenging to do your job to the fullest. I also find patient's lack of understanding of what we actually do is disheartening.  

It's a normal occurrence to have people verbally abuse you, but from a customer service standpoint, we are to take it with a smile. This just isn't in pharmacy, this is retail in general, and it disturbs me. First, we are not customer service, we are health care service providers. Yes, part of our jobs is customer service, but to an extent. We can not provide a service until either, you bring us your prescription, or your physician calls or faxes it in. Though on occasion we will offer to fax your physician, but a phone call should not be expected. Sadly, we can not get a hold of the physician any quicker than you. 

It is very important that you see your doctor on a regular basis. Yes, the long waits are frustrating, but at the end of the day, it is your health and your responsibility. You should care a lot more than your pharmacist. We want to ensure that you are getting the proper care and medication, this is why regular check ups are vital. Especially if blood work and close monitoring is involved. 

Over the years, I found that there is this sense of entitlement from patients. Yes, when the physician writes you a prescription, you have every right to get that filled. But when you do not have refills, even if this is an ongoing medications, we can not just hand over the medication with no script. That is illegal. 

One of the great things about pharmacy is that the scope of practice is constantly changing. There are so many services that we are able to provide besides fill and counsel on medications. In Canada, there are different legislations and regulations for each province. Just go down to your local pharmacy and ask what other services they can provide. At my store, some of our services are listed. Though, keep in mind, these services may not be billable to your insurance. 

I literally could go on about this topic more, but I do not want it to become a tireless rant. I want to use this as an eye opener and get people inspired to ask questions. I love when people ask me what I actually do! The answer usually surprises them, and makes them more appreciative of the work my colleagues and I do. At the end of the day, that's all this girl needs! 

When dealing with stress, whether it's work or life related, it's important to learn how to cope. Stress can be cruel, and it can do crazy things to your mind and body. It is better to nip stress in the butt,  and to not let it fester. There are many ways to help cope. It is important to find what best works for you.  I'm going to share some of the activities I do to help relieve stress. 

1.Going for walks helps clear my head. No matter how short or long they are, just getting out and removing myself from the situation for a bit does wonders for me. I also have a dog, and he always joins me. He is a great companion and helps comfort me. He always seems to know when I'm sick, upset or angry and at those moments he becomes a little cuddle bug. It's amazing how he can just make me feel better as soon as he curls up beside me.  That's unconditional love and I wouldn't trade it for the world. 

2. Reading is another great escape that I like to indulge in. It removes me from the situation so I don't dwell or over think. Just like walking, I find when I occupy my mind with something else, it makes things clearer when it's time to go back to reality.  

3. Talking to people and venting out your frustrations (or writing them down in a journal...or blog),  so it doesn't fester. It's great to get an outside opinion. It can bring in a whole new perspective to the situation. When you are in it, you tend to only see one way.  They can help you realize other options you couldn't see on your own. It also very important to talk to the people who are involved. Don't attack each other though, that can just make things worse. If need be, have a third party my with you, so things don't get too out of hand. 

4. Cranking up the tunes and singing my heart out This also helps calm me down. Who doesn't love jamming to tunes? I'm such a 90's baby, so putting on those good old 90's pop songs always brings a smile to my face. This just takes me back to my pre-adulting days when life was tad more simpler. 

5. Lastly, I do enjoy a good cry. It just helps alleviate the tension. Putting on a good old rom-com that pulls on the heart strings works too. 

In life, it is important to find a healthy balance. It doesn't always come easy, but finding out your best ways to decompress can be. 

Tonja 

[musemash]

Images from The Return Of The King, courtesy of New Line Cinema

ARWEN’S CHOICE, GRIMA’S TEAR  – part 3

Temptation & Forgiveness

The many Christian elements clearly present in Jackson’s Rings have been noted by some critics, including the power of sin, service to others, sharing, conversion, overcoming evil, pilgrimage, good will, salvation, vocation, love, compassion and redemption. One theme would be obvious even to a biblically illiterate viewer: susceptibility to temptation, as embodied by the One Ring’s effect on Bilbo, Smeagol, Deagol, Saruman, Boromir, Denethor and Faramir. This motif is presented at its most complex in the various stages of temptation Frodo goes through.  

Forgiveness is especially apparent in several places: Frodo’s treatment of Gollum; Gimli’s change of heart regarding elves; Aragorn’s acceptance of Legolas’ apology; and Theoden’s kindness to the repentant Grima. The self-sacrifice, loyalty, servant nature and unconditional friendship of Samwise are a beacon throughout the film. Christ’s devotion to his mother Mary is echoed when Aragorn honors his own deceased mother’s statue (which is itself an obvious reference to Catholic veneration of the Virgin).

Providence

Divine providence rears its majestic head in several places. Gandalf tells Frodo: “Bilbo was meant to find the Ring; and you also were meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.” As Aragorn lies grievously wounded, Arwen’s spirit hovers over his body. Deep in Mordor, Sam looks up and sees a star through a break in Sauron’s poisonous cloud, and says: “There is light and beauty up there, Mr. Frodo, that no shadow can touch.” The White Tree finally blossoms, a none-too-subtle reference to the Tree of Life. Frodo and Sam are rescued by Gandalf and the eagles, as if by angels.

The filmmakers also add a surprisingly biblical twist to Theoden’s release from mental and spiritual subjugation: the king is literally exorcised, freeing him from being directly possessed by Saruman. Whether this was done because Jackson knew it was a very Catholic concept, or simply because it was a way cool cinematic device, is a matter of speculation.  

Christ Figures  

Just as Sauron, Saruman and the Witch King are clearly symbolic of Satan, and the Black Riders represent demons, the film also presents several obvious Christ figures: Gandalf, Aragorn and Frodo. Gandalf is explicitly called The White Rider – invoking the horseman of Revelation 19:11. As Gandalf the Grey, he falls at Khazad-dum, his arms spreading out to form a cross; he wrestles the Balrog of Morgoth (Satan) into the abyss (hell); he is later reborn as Gandalf the White, a more powerful Istari than he has ever been. In his new form, he is able to drive the fearsome Nazgul away with the white light issuing from his staff.  

In the book, after the battle of Pelennor Fields, Aragorn demonstrates his gentler skills in the Houses of Healing. Tolkien writes: “The hands of the king are the hands of a healer – and so shall the rightful king be known.” While Jackson doesn’t overly emphasize this, he shows Eowyn being nursed by Aragorn – accompanied by a peaceful and lyrical song by Liv Tyler. Early in the film, Aragorn also uses his healing skills to help Frodo. There is also a very touching moment near the end, when Aragorn tells the hobbits: “You bow to no one.” He bows his knee to them, echoing an aspect of Christ: “He humbled himself.” His humility is also demonstrated by his earlier willingness to serve another king, Theoden, even though he is a monarch waiting to ascend to his own throne.  

Mercy & Sacrifice

Frodo repeatedly shows mercy to Gollum, hoping to somehow help reverse the effect of the One Ring and start the pathetic creature on the road to regeneration. Frodo also embodies the punishment Christ endured when He was “wounded for our transgressions.” By the time the hobbit gets to Mount Doom, he is a devastated shadow of his Shire self.  

The crucial moment, where he is stricken by the poison of evil, comes in act one – when he is wounded by the Witch King on Weathertop. Jackson reminds us of this moment several times, through flashbacks and other references. Toward the end, Frodo tells Sam: “It’s never really healed.” The price he pays in gaining the victory over Sauron’s evil, through his sacrifice, echoes the price paid by Jesus on the Cross.

Rebirth & Eternity                                    

Resurrection is also very much evident throughout the film. Gandalf is literally raised from the dead. The injured Aragorn is restored by a mystical kiss from Arwen’s spirit; and the future king symbolically conquers death by walking the Paths of the Dead.  At the Grey Havens, the last elves in Middle-Earth board a ship to the Undying Lands (also referred to by Tolkien as the Blessed Realm, the home of the Valar).  

Frodo tastes death symbolically several times: getting stabbed by the morgul blade, whose poison could turn him into a wraith; succumbing to the Ring’s power on several occasions; falling into a swamp filled with demonic ghosts; and being struck down by Shelob’s sting. But all of these are overthrown by the Grey Havens scene, which represents his resurrection. “We set out to save the Shire,” he says, “and it has been saved – but not for me.” The only way out for him is to pass from Middle-Earth to the elves’ paradise across the sea. Thereby, “death is swallowed up in victory.”  

The film only briefly alludes to the Undying Lands, with no detailed explanation of the term; but the concept of eternal life is touchingly enunciated by Gandalf, in a wonderful passage taken almost verbatim from the climax of the book (describing Frodo approaching the Undying Lands). As they sit barricaded in Minas Tirith, with enemy forces closing in, the wizard says to Pippin: “No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass. And then you see it … white shores – and beyond them a far green country, under a swift sunrise.”  

Arwen’s Importance

Many critics and purists have complained about the increased role given to Arwen. Initially, the perception was that the filmmakers were simply tacking on a gratuitous romance to appeal to ‘the female demographic.’ But such talk died down when it became known that most of the Arwen scenes were taken directly from material in Appendix A of the book. Curiously, most Christian commentators don’t seem to have picked up on the Christian elements that virtually saturate the Aragorn/Arwen subplot.

In my view, this subplot was the most significant script decision taken by Jackson and company; indeed, it was a stroke of genius. By expanding Arwen’s role, based faithfully on the back story outlined in the Appendices, the scripters greatly increased the Christian content; they added a strong metaphorical element which was only implied in Tolkien’s actual narrative. It makes me wish Tolkien had woven the details into the narrative instead of relegating them to the appendix.

Arwen’s Grace

A summary of the Arwen/Aragorn story arc will help clarify my thesis. The first hint of the subplot occurs in act one, before Arwen appears in the film. Beside a campfire, Aragorn softly sings a song about the legendary elfmaiden Luthien, who gave her love to the human Beren, thus relinquishing her immortality. Frodo asks whom the song is referring to; Aragorn’s response subtly indicates he is thinking of his own immortal lover. Arwen is introduced soon after, and rescues Frodo from the Black Riders; as his wound overcomes him, she prays: “What grace is given me, let it pass to him; let him be spared.” In Rivendell, Arwen gives Aragorn encouragement, renews her vow to ‘bind herself’ to him, and bestows her Evenstar jewel upon him. He goes off on the quest, after a somber parting.  

In act two, there is a flashback to Rivendell. The lovers share a tender moment; then Elrond exhorts Aragorn to give Arwen up, thereby allowing her to leave Middle-Earth and keep her immortality in the Undying Lands. Reluctantly, Aragorn breaks off the relationship; but she insists that he keep the Evenstar. Later, he is severely wounded in the warg attack. As he lies stricken, she materializes above him, conferring a blessing and a phantom kiss upon him. We hear her voice: “May the grace of the Valar protect you”; the Valar are the Ainur, the Holy Ones, the first creations of Tolkien’s Creator, Iluvatar – in other words, angels.  

Arwen’s Destiny

The scene switches to Rivendell. Arwen refuses to leave Imladris with the other elves, determined to be reunited with her lover. Elrond then tells her what will become of her after Aragorn meets his inevitable mortal end; in a vision of her future, Arwen sees herself mourning the passing of her beloved, as her father paints a devastating picture of the black-clad widow wandering desolate, alone in a barren forest. Arwen capitulates, and leaves Rivendell with the other elves.  

In act three, Arwen is heading through the forest with her elvish escort. She sees a vision of an older Aragorn embracing his young son, who is wearing her Evenstar jewel. She returns to Rivendell, and confronts Elrond about this alternate future; she chooses to stay in Middle-Earth, to bring her son into the world – and exhorts her father to reforge Narsil, the shattered blade that cut the Ring from Sauron’s hand 3,000 years before. Elrond sadly accepts her choice, comforts her and laments: “The life of the Eldar is leaving you.” Meanwhile, in his tent, Aragorn has a dream of the Evenstar being shattered.  

Elrond gives Aragorn a gift: Anduril, the reforged Sword of the King. He also gives him the sad tidings that Arwen is dying – her destiny now mysteriously tied to the fate of the One Ring. Aragorn later uses a palantir to confront Sauron – who shows him a vision of his dying lover; the Evenstar shatters, this time for real. Aragorn takes up Anduril, and goes to confront Sauron’s army at the Black Gate; the Ring, and Sauron, are destroyed. At Aragorn’s coronation, he is reunited with his lover. The reunion, while joyous, is rendered even more poignant by the bittersweet implications of Arwen’s new mortal status.

Love & Hope

In total, Arwen is onscreen a fairly small amount of time; but it feels much more substantial. Her appearances are paced just right, and her importance to Aragorn resonates throughout the film. Their story is heavily imbued with Christian meaning, as web critic Abercius has eloquently pointed out at CatholicQandA.com.  Aragorn is willing to sacrifice Arwen’s companionship to save her from a life of war and despair – loving her “as Christ loved the church, and gave Himself up for her.” Yet, he never totally gives up on his love for her, continuing to wear the Evenstar.

Indeed, he is the very embodiment of Christian hope, in Tolkien’s view; the author names him Elessar, which means ‘the Renewer’, and Estel, meaning ‘hope’.  While the film doesn’t clarify these ideas, Aragorn still embodies them. At Helm’s Deep, facing overwhelming odds, he tells a boy soldier: “There is always hope”; when all seems lost, he motivates Theoden to ride out and meet the enemy regardless; and his short rallying speech to the troops at the Black Gate is truly inspiring.

Ultimate Sacrifice

In her own way, Arwen is also a true Christ figure. She, too, humbles herself; and she also makes the ultimate sacrifice. She is free to go to the Undying Lands, but chooses not to – partly motivated by the vision of the child she could only have if she stays with Aragorn. She sacrifices her immortality to bring the child into existence. While her motivation is a combination of romantic love, and love for the child, the fact is that she lays her life down to save another’s life. What could be more quintessentially Christ-like?  

In some respects, Arwen is the purest element in the entire film, an embodiment of nobility, grace, loyalty and love. Her story adds extraordinary emotional and spiritual power to the film. By increasing her role, Jackson and his co-scripters actually improved on Tolkien in a profound way – and that is no mean feat.  

For Fanatics Only?  

Finally, here’s where we separate the elves from the dwarves. At the risk of being dismissed as a hopeless fanatic, I have to say that The Lord Of The Rings is best appreciated when it is watched in an all-day marathon; the story has greater immediacy, momentum and accumulative emotional impact. Some key elements resonate more intensely throughout the saga.  Indeed, watching the complete film in one sitting (with breaks for second breakfast and afternoon tea, of course!) greatly enhances one’s appreciation of some of the most important elements of this sprawling narrative.

These include: the evolution of the relationship between Frodo and Sam; Smeagol’s struggle against his alter-ego, Gollum, and his ultimate capitulation to evil; the growth of Merry and Pippin, from juvenile clowns to seasoned warriors; the dire significance of Frodo’s wound; the relationships between Denethor and his sons; Aragorn’s progress from uncertain exile to confident monarch; the weight of Arwen’s acceptance of mortality; Theoden’s evolution from slave of Saruman to courageous champion; Gandalf’s progression from lovable Grey bungler to imperious White commander; Frodo’s view of Smeagol, going from hatred to pity to mercy; the importance of the Shire as the hobbits’ idyllic refuge from the world; Eowyn’s progression from sheltered royal to shieldmaiden; and Frodo’s evolution from carefree and complacent hobbit to haunted, battle-scarred outsider.  

The shorter version is probably best for a day-long marathon, of course, simply because of the daunting length of the extended edition; but the latter is well worth devoting a day to, for the maximum experience. For the less venturesome, the film can also be split very nicely into two parts and viewed on consecutive days. In my opinion, it’s best to end part one after Saruman sends his army of Uruk-hai off to Helm’s Deep; and to begin part two with Merry and Pippin seeing Saruman’s army in the distance. A Galadriel monologue soon after that scene effectively encapsulates the key points of the story’s first half.

Missed Opportunity

After all is said and done, there’s only one thing Jackson could do to improve upon his work: release the full extended film worldwide as a big-screen special event – preferably in Imax theatres. The extended editions of Fellowship and Towers were given a brief theatrical run in 2003; but as far as I know, aside from a few limited presentations, the extended finale has never been widely shown to the public on the big screen internationally. Surely, this is a missed opportunity.

Now that he has gotten his King Kong remake, The Lovely Bones and The Adventures of Tintin out of his system, and especially since The Hobbit has finally become a reality, I hope Jackson may consider doing a big-screen edition of the complete Rings saga (maybe even a 3D version, if it is done properly). New Line Cinema would be wise to do it now that the complete Hobbit trilogy has run its course; indeed, I would love to see a special presentation of both trilogies in the theatres.

Supreme Masterpiece

Speaking of The Hobbit, much has been written about the supposed failure of Jackson to remain faithful to the book. I have to disagree with that assessment, and have done so at great length in my review (see link below). Personally, I think the Hobbit series is surpassed only by the Rings Trilogy, as a supreme work of fantasy. I can't think of any production unit that could have done a better job than Peter Jackson and his colleagues, and I am greatly looking forward to further flights of fancy from those quarters. It's fun to ponder how the Kiwi Wizard could possibly top himself.

We might dare hope that he and his team could someday tackle The Silmarillion. It is a rather unwieldy book, but a great film could be made by focusing on the creation myth of Iluvatar and the Ainur; the theft of the Silmarils; the villainy of Sauron’s mentor, Morgoth; the tragedy of Beren and Luthien; the cataclysmic destruction of Numenor; and Sauron’s defeat in the War of the Last Alliance. Tolkien’s Children Of Hurin would also make a fine film – albeit a rather gloomy one, but powerful nonetheless. However, considering the intransigence of the Tolkien Estate, it is highly unlikely Jackson would ever get the movie rights.

In conclusion: It is indeed no exaggeration to call The Lord Of The Rings a supreme masterpiece. While it has a few miniscule flaws, it is nevertheless one of the very greatest accomplishments in the history of film. It is highly doubtful that it could ever be surpassed as a spectacle. In my mind, the only thing that could conceivably trump it would be a faithful adaptation of the Book Of Revelation – done with the same state-of-the-art technology, craftsmanship and imagination, by someone with money willing to invest it. Is George Lucas listening? Just kidding! How about Spielberg?

For an archive of outstanding Rings-related videos, click here for the APPENDICES:

http://musemash.tumblr.com/post/181194210475/the-rings-trilogy-multi-facet-appendices-in

VINDICATING A SPLENDID HOBBIT'S TALE

https://www.facebook.com/fugue999/photos/a.337095876312460/1040775709277803/