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terrytellyetales · 3 years ago

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The Best Teacher Ever(?) II

Just thought of completing the “Mondstadt set” LOL. (Did I forget anyone? Please tell me if I did) Here’s the first part of The Best Teacher Ever(?) if you’re interested. Hope you guys like it just as much as I enjoyed (sort of) putting this idea into words! If you wanna see what else I have, here’s the masterlist!

For those waiting for part 5 of I Just Wanted to See You I, still intend to finish the story. I’ve just... been having too much fun writing new drafts before the idea is gone forever, hehe... (sorry for the wait). Will also fix up a masterlist soon since it’s getting kina hard for me to keep scrolling just to look for specific posts to copy link.

Just a bunch of short Genshin imagines. Imagine having [character name] as your teacher or supervisor.

Warnings: None. Just a bit of fluff and (mostly) humor.

Characters: Barbara, Diluc (some mentions of Aether/Lumine and Paimon), Mona, Rosaria, Venti

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Barbara

You stand next to Barbara during choir practices. She's notices how you keep going off key and offers to help you out. You get up the same time as the deaconess and join in on her morning idol practice. She teaches you some breathing exercises and vocalization to help condition your voice and lungs. You sing one stanza at a time while Barbara acts as your conductor during the session. Rather than scold you, she'll demonstrate how to do the parts where you go off key and be over the moon when you get it right. To celebrate, she'll show you how to make her signature spicy drink. When she's sweeping the courtyard, you help her out and the two of you sing some choir songs as a means to squeeze in some practice during your busy schedules. When you run out of liturgical hymns, Barbara teaches you some of her songs. Albert, who was always hanging around the cathedral, watched the two of you in awe. You sounded great together! Was this the birth of an idol duet? Albert shared what he saw with the other members of Barbara's fan club and it spread like wildfire throughout the city. The next day, you were surprised to see a huge crowd outside the cathedral hoping to witness the debut of Modstadt's idol duet.

Diluc

You and the traveler join Angel’s Share Bartender’s Academy week because it looked fun (even without the alcohol). Charles gives you guys instructions and even demonstrates the proper techniques. The traveler was a natural! He/she has been mixing drink after drink based on the recipe chart Charles provided, but you on the other hand, can't seem to get it right. In the middle of your practice, some customers have started coming in. Although the traveler’s got the technique down, he/she was still new to this and needed a bit more time per order since he/she always had to check the recipes. Charles was going back and forth. He was taking orders, supervising the traveler, and checking on you and the different drinks you’ve been mixing. Charles was beginning to mix in the wrong ingredients because of all the commotion. Diluc steps in and offers to supervise you instead. He instructs you one drink at a time, guiding your hands as you pour, stir, and shake for you to get the right feel of the motions of each technique. He doesn’t scold you when you make the wrong drink. He just passes it on to Paimon who gladly downs the drinks. He encourages you to try again in a gentle tone and praises you when you’ve finally made a drink that passes his standards. He even gives you a gentle smile as an unintentional reward.

Mona

Unless the stars say it’s destined that your paths would cross and you would be the one to continue her legacy, she won’t even bother entertaining the thought. She’s far to busy with the “All Thins Astrological” column and ordering more astrology equipment. If you’re the type that wants to learn how to tell people’s fortunes for money, you can forget it. You won’t even get a chance to say anything ‘cuz she sees right through you. If you’re like her, truly fascinated by the stars and what the universe has predetermined, welcome aboard! You’d most likely meet somewhere just as foretold by the stars. She would be a strict teacher. Mona would be the type to go into detail for each topic and make sure you truly, without a doubt, 100%, understand everything since precision is a must in this field. Misread something and you’ll end up giving the wrong divination. Will keep a very close eye on you when you’re using her equipment since it’s hella expensive and repairs would just eat up the hours she could be spending on more important things. Always reminding you that your work is for showing people what fate has in store for them, not to give advice, not to get rich, not to get famous. Expect that the two of you will always be starving.

Rosaria

You’re a devout follower of Barbatos. Aside from your duties at the church, Sister Victoria entrusted you with the responsibility of bringing Sister Rosaria with you to the morning and evening prayer meetings. Sister Victoria hopes that you constantly tagging along would overwrite Rosaria’s unorthodox idea of piety with your devotion. Of course, that completely backfires. With you sticking to her like glue, you end up getting in the way of Rosaria’s “work” and almost always nearly seriously injured because of your lack of combat knowledge. Since shaking you off is too much work, she resorts to teaching you how to fight at protect yourself. Every morning you have to move quickly so as not to lose sight of Rosaria. She believes in learning through experience so expect that she’ll intentionally take you to clear hilichurl camps as practice and slowly move up to the bigger (and meaner) fish. Don’t worry too much, though. I mean, she should at least teach you the basics of how to use a polearm, right? Uh... right? In the process, you end up developing her bad habits of skipping your daily activities to look for a place to nap so you can use all your energy to help Sister Rosaria purge the evil within and around Mondstadt.

Venti

The “Most Popular Bard of Mondstadt” would gladly teach you how to sing and play the lyre for a bottle of Dandelion Wine (or an apple)! He’ll turn you into the 2nd Most Popular Bard. Think he’s joking? Nonsense! He won’t make such a claim lightheartedly, not even for all the wine in the world. He knows how you secretly perform in front of Barbatos’ statue at night when no one’s watching, or so you thought. Venti the Bard has always been watching from up said statue. He knows you have the potential not just because of you can kind of sing, but because of the serenity in your voice and your ability to bring out the true emotions of your audience with each song. Truthfully though, he’s not much of a teacher. Unlike Barbara, he just lets you do your thing and rates your performance. Venti’s more of a practice partner, really. Would consider writing a song together and/or performing a duet with you if you’re up for it.

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themattress · 4 years ago

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OUAT AND ME: SEASON 3

Story - Season 3 was the first season to (intentionally) divide itself between two story arcs, with the first half being the Neverland Saga and the second half being the Wicked Saga. While the Neverland Saga focused on the journey of the show's main characters through Neverland as they conquer their own inner demons in order to save Henry from the clutches of Peter Pan, the Wicked Saga focused on a new Dark Curse being cast on Storybrooke and the main characters' fight against Zelena, the Wicked Witch of the West, who is working toward a secret objective that will allow her to exact revenge on Regina, the Evil Queen.

The Neverland Saga, in the present day sequences, is the best the show has been since the Enchanted Forest quest early into Season 2. In its best moments, it's even on par with the Dark Curse Saga of Season 1. Seeing all of the characters work together toward a shared goal after all the clashing agendas from the previous season is so refreshing and exactly what the show needed, and everyone undergoes some kind of character development and gets their moment to shine. Greg and Tamara are killed off within the first few minutes of the premiere episode after finding out that "the Home Office" was the Lost Boys all along, and Peter Pan is quite possibly the greatest Big Bad in the show's entire run, and certainly among its most popular for just how wonderfully menacing, manipulative and despicable he is.

Unfortunately, I can't extend the same praise to its flashback sequences. The ones that involve Rumpelstiltskin and Hook in the 4th, 5th and 8th episodes are great and connect to the current narrative, but I take issue with all of the others in some way, big or small. The flashbacks in the 2nd, 9th and 10th episodes have fuck-all to do with what's currently happening in Neverland, and while the ones in the 3rd and 6th episodes do, there are too many issues in them to consider them good. For the 2nd, 6th and 10th, the problem is that the show is starting to contrive new "Snow White and friends vs. the Evil Queen" stories where they don't belong and aren't needed, and it especially has a negative impact on the Evil Queen since this is the point where she shifted from slightly campy to overtly campy, her menace quota reduced to virtually nil. For the 3rd, giving Regina and Tinker Bell a past connection is fine and works for the story, but the way they do it is stupid and with dire consequences later down the line, plus the show doesn't get much into her connections with actual Peter Pan characters like Hook, Wendy, and, well, Peter Pan. And as for the 9th, I actually have quite a lot to say on that so I'll save it for when I'm discussing Episode Quality.

My thoughts on the Wicked Saga have not changed all these years later: it's a textbook example of They Wasted A Perfectly Good Plot. With the set-up it starts with: a new Dark Curse, a new Big Bad, and new dynamics between many of the characters, they had the chance to take the show in a bold new direction following the ending of the Neverland Saga wrapping up the plot that's been going on since "Pilot". But instead, Adam and Eddy fall back into their bad Season 2 habits, and the result is that the show settles into this kind of bland status quo that it won't ever be able to shake off. The arc isn't actually a bad one, as it's solidly structured just like the Dark Curse and Neverland Sagas and there's a lot of great moments and developments made. It just falls short of the greatness that it could have had.

Characters - Everyone's more likable now! At least until they aren't.

* Emma takes center stage in the Neverland Saga. After finally learning to believe based solely on faith instead of always waiting for evidence to do so, she takes charge as the leader of the group affectionally dubbed "the Nevengers" by fans. In learning how to be a leader, she is able to learn more about herself and become an even more confident and decisive hero. Tragically, her character arc isn't fully resolved before it gets cut off by the events of the midseason finale, leaving her in a state of anxiety and uncertainty in the Wicked Saga before finally making her way back to the resolution of her character arc in the season finale. And on paper, this sounds fine, but in execution Emma's character through the majority of the Wicked Saga is a one-note bore who mainly exists to prop up the development of other characters. She isn't as sidelined as badly as she was in the latter half of Season 2, but still not ideally handled, especially when much of the story arc is specifically building toward only her being able to defeat Zelena only for Regina to do it instead. However, the resolution her character receives in the finale is handled exceptionally well, so I guess it all balances out in the end.

* Snow is actually back on top form in the Neverland Saga and it's wonderful to see, but it doesn't last into the Wicked Saga where she's back to the insipid, Regina-coddling weakling that Season 2 turned her into, whose biggest contribution to the plot is simply having a baby. Charming is a lot more interesting, as in the Neverland Saga we get to see his David Nolan weaknesses return but this time as a result of his Charming strengths, which is a fascinating dynamic to see at work and leads to some great interactions between him and Hook, a relationship that got started in Season 2 and will only continue to grow (and occasionally regress) as the show continues. And in the Wicked Saga, he has an entire episode dedicated to his feelings of failure as a father and how he fears that he might fail his second child too.

* Henry....still sucks, damn it! For a story arc with the mission statement of Save Henry, the Neverland Saga makes it difficult to care about saving him when he's portrayed as so stupid and gullible and easily led by his captor, Peter Pan, to the point where he literally sacrifices his heart (the Heart of the Truest Believer) to him against the pleas of his father and mothers. And while he has the potential to become more interesting in the Wicked Saga due to having lost his memories, the show totally ruins it by giving him his memories back by the end, because Heaven forbid that Regina pay a lasting consequence for her decades of villainy.

* Oh, and speaking of Regina, like Snow she's also really good in the Neverland Saga only for the Wicked Saga to ruin her again. In the Neverland Saga, she establishes herself as the Token Evil Teammate of the Nevengers, who knows she's a sociopathic villain and owns it as she utilizes her skill set for the greater good. Her line after ripping out a Lost Boy's heart at Emma's behest sums up why she works so well in this arc: "She didn't. I did. That's what I'm here for. One happy family." This should have been Regina's seasonal character arc and her status within the show going forward: a part of the family who may be evil and grouchy and not get along with everyone and even antagonize other members of the family, but who can still be counted on when push comes to shove and whom the other members of the family stand on equal grounds with and can push back against. It's the ideal recipe for a slow-burn redemption where by the end of the show she's truly become a semi-decent person. Just the act of destroying and fully reversing the Dark Curse in the midseason finale alone, at the cost of Henry losing all his memories of her while she gives him and Emma good memories of having always been together was a powerful start to such a redemption. It was all right there.

But of course, Adam and Eddy could never let their precious Regina go so long without having all of the things both she and they believe she is entitled to. So in the present-day story of the Wicked Saga (she's still fairly decent in the flashbacks), Regina gets a handsome soulmate in Robin Hood, and validation over her more powerful half-sister, and engagement in family dinners, and reconciliation with Snow without her expressing any remorse or apology toward her (Snow puts the blame on herself instead - "I was such a brat!"), and Henry with all of his memories back, and to out of nowhere and without her heart in her body become a powerful practitioner of light magic to the point where she's basically the Savior now! Yes, she seems to lose Robin at the end when Maid Marian is brought back, but that just ends up making her victim complex and blame deflection even stronger ("You're just like your mother!" she says to Emma, "Never thinking about consequences!" Because how dare she bring back one of Regina's past victims and allow her to be reunited with her family!)

In short, the Wicked Saga put a sudden fast-forward on Regina's redemption, giving her all sorts of goodies that would make sense as individual karmic rewards on a slow-burn redemption but make no sense when they happen in quick succession. And then at the end, they took one of those things away just to make her seem like more of a martyr, something they've been doing ever since the end of "Queen of Hearts" back in Season 2 and at this point I was sick of it. Little did I know it was about to be taken to a whole new level...

* Rumple wasn't bad in the Neverland Saga, per se, in fact he's amazing in the last four episodes. But early in, he backtracks on the goodwill he built up in the Season 2 finale by arrogantly abandoning the rest of the Nevengers to go rescue Henry all by himself, and all this accomplishes is getting him lost in the jungle, crying over old childhood dolls, being plagued by a hallucination of Belle, taunted by Peter Pan, and having an underwhelming reunion with the son he thought had died only to quickly come to blows with said son as he begins showing signs of temptation from his selfish self-preservation instincts at the expense of Henry's well-being once again. It just gets tiring after a while and you're glad when Regina verbally bitch-slaps him back into some semblance of his old self, which leads to the aforementioned amazing moments where he reconciles with the other Nevengers, confronts his father, and ultimately masterminds the heroes’ action plan in the midseason finale which culminates in his final redemption as he sacrifices his life to take down Pan once and for all.

But therein lies the problem: Rumple's entire series-long character arc just came to its natural conclusion. He chose love over power and courage over fear, standing up to the father who ruined his whole psyche and giving his life for his loved ones. However, since it's the middle of the season and Robert Carlyle is still contracted for more, they had to resurrect him. This decision cheapening his sacrifice is bad enough, but the writers also have no real idea what to do with him for the rest of the arc other than act crazy in a cage and then serve as Zelena's meat-slave, which is even less fun to watch than him moping around in the jungle was! While him deceiving Belle and killing Zelena at the end promises better things for him in the future, it's still a slog to have to sit through what preceded it, and you never quite shake off the feeling that the show might have been better off if it only had the balls to leave him dead.

* Hook was already one of the best additions to the cast in Season 2, but Season 3 is where he truly shines. He is in his element in the Neverland Saga, bonding with Emma and Charming while he rediscovers the more heroic and honorable side of himself. The insight into his past especially helps with this, as we better understand where he came from and how he got to where he was when we first met him. And in the Wicked Saga, he is the impetus behind Emma regaining her memories and returning to Storybrooke to be the Savior once more, as we learn that he had attempted to return to his old pirate ways back in the Enchanted Forest but ultimately couldn't do it, as his experiences with Emma and his love for her had changed him for the better. And so when he learned her family was in trouble and needed her help, he sacrificed the Jolly Roger and his pirate captain status in order to get back to her. After learning this on top of all the time they spend together, particularly in that very season finale, Emma finally lets down her walls and enters a romantic relationship with him...and I can't blame her in the slightest, because out of all her love interests, it's clear that she and Hook have the most in common and have the best chemistry. It’s True Love.

* This also might just be the best season for Belle as a character. Her focus episode in the middle of the Neverland Saga is actually about her and her desire to be a hero and contribute to the cause rather than just about her romance with Rumple, and she gets to be a badass who saves the day and makes a great new friend in Ariel. She's also good in the Wicked Saga, where she bonds with Neal, takes Hook and Regina to task for their past misdeeds against her until they apologize and make it up to her, and continues to be a valuable asset as the town librarian and scholar. Pity we can't feel happy for her on her wedding day, though, as even in his goddamn proposal to her Rumple manages to be the worst lover ever.

* Neal is promoted to a regular character this season, which naturally means he's its designated screwed-over regular who won't make it to the next season! It's a shame since despite how miscast Michael Raymond-James continues to be, Neal is better written in this season than he was in the previous one. Through both the Neverland and Wicked Sagas, he shows a passionate desire to be a better father to Henry than Rumple was to him, to not repeat the same mistakes that Rumple made. And so when he is separated from Emma and Henry, he becomes obsessed with getting back to them no matter what the cost, veering dangerously into Rumple territory as he starts dabbling in dark magic. But when the ritual to resurrect his father so that he can find a way back to Earth costs him his life, he ends up accepting his fate rather than cling to life like a coward and risk becoming just like Rumple. While I don't particularly miss him nor do I find his heroic death enough to warrant Snow and Charming naming their new son after him, I'm glad in the end he was able to break the cycle.

* Peter Pan, as I said before, is a top contender for the show's greatest Big Bad. Much of it has to do with Robbie Kay, who absolutely nails the cocky and charismatic yet malicious and frightening qualities that you expect to see from an evil version of Peter Pan. He is so utterly, thoroughly, skin-crawlingly evil that you are invested in the heroes' quest less out of concern for Henry and more because you want to see this demon child be defeated. And of course, there's his backstory and true identity - he's actually Malcolm, Rumple's father, who cruelly abandoned him in order to bond with the Eldritch Abomination personifying Neverland's dark side and obtain eternal youth. But eternal youth doesn't mean eternal life, and Pan will die unless he obtains the Heart of the Truest Believer belonging to his great-grandson, Henry.

While this backstory is divisive among fans, I'm in the camp that loves it. Not only does it add a greater layer of depth to Rumple and his story and make Pan both more pitiful and more reprehensible, but OUAT is at its best when it uses fairy tales to explore real issues, and this is a quite literal exploration of "Peter Pan Syndrome", where adult men selfishly remain in arrested development even when they become fathers. It also really boosts Pan's Ultimate Villain cred, as none of what transpired in the show would have happened if he hadn't abandoned his son and scarred him for life. He is Patient Zero for all the characters' suffering.

* Zelena, the Wicked Witch of the West, naturally feels like a step down when compared to Peter Pan, but this isn't for a lack of effort on the part of the actress, as Rebecca Mader is delightful as she chews the scenery in a blaze of bug-eyed, bared-teeth, shrieking, cackling, psychotic glory. The issues with Zelena are in the writing. First off, making her Regina's half-sister is questionable given that we just had a villain with a secret familial connection with one of our mainstay baddies, which was following from an evil woman with a familial connection to Regina specifically! And them being sisters doesn't have much bearing on the conflict beyond explaining why the Wicked Witch has green skin (it magically turned green out of jealousy for Regina), and she only has green skin in the flashbacks anyway. It also doesn't track with how they first present Zelena in her backstory: she's a girl who wants love and a place to belong, but the moment she discovers she has a sister in another realm her reaction isn't to seek her out and bond with her but "why does she have all of that power and privilege, I oughta have all of that, it's not faaaaaaaaair!" She also lusts after Rumple who, having previously insisted that no-one could ever love him, casually admits that "he has that effect on women" and stops training Zelena because he accepts as fact that she loves him more than anything else and so she can't cast the Dark Curse for him. It makes no sense.

On top of that, her big secret plan ends up being anticlimactic - she wants to create a time travel spell so that she can go back in time and make herself the one who casts the Dark Curse for Rumple - and she is defeated ridiculously easy by Regina's out-of-her-ass light magic powers and then unceremoniously shivved by Rumple in her jail cell. All while Adam and Eddy drop boulder-sized hints that she isn't really dead and we haven't seen the last of her. Then why "kill her" to begin with? Why not just keep her imprisoned? Like I said, Zelena is a good idea for a character and with a great actress, but the writing really let her down.

* Beyond the usual side characters around Storybrooke who are fine as usual, we get several new ones that all make an impact. There's Felix, Pan's creepy and fanatical right-hand boy; Tinker Bell the cynical exiled fairy turned reluctant ally of the Nevengers; the adult versions of John and Michael Darling who run the anti-magic group Greg and Tamara belonged to on Pan's behest since he's holding Wendy hostage; Liam Jones, the deceased older brother of Killian Jones; Ariel of The Little Mermaid fame played to adorable perfection by Joanna Garcia-Swisher, Blackbeard the pirate who serves as Hook's arch-rival in their mutual field of interest; and Glinda the Good Witch who protected Oz until Zelena ousted her from power.

And then there are the new ones that make much less of an impact such as a charisma-free Prince Eric; Walsh the Wizard of Oz (and Emma's short-lived boyfriend, and a flying monkey - yes, he's really all three of those); a bland version of Rapunzel; a dumbfounding semi-villainous adaptation of Lumiere the talking candle, and Dorothy Gale who is so devoid of anything special or interesting that she's a slap in the face to her literary and cinematic counterpart. I'm not sure what went wrong with these characters, but it went very wrong.

However, one side character needs to be addressed above all others: Robin Hood. He's back and involved in the present day story, now played by Sean Maguire instead of Tom Ellis, and the revelation via Tinker Bell's pixie dust that he's Regina's "soul mate" is the start of his character being butchered beyond repair. The sad thing is that it could have worked: the argumentative, mutual dislike yet still caring about each other type of relationship they have in the flashbacks was perfect and should have continued, progressing naturally into Belligerent Sexual Tension and finally romance as Regina becomes a better person. Instead, when they lose their memories and meet again in Storybrooke, it's now love at first sight and instant romance, with Robin being disgustingly courteous and compliant toward Regina (claiming she's "bold and audacious, but not evil"). Robin Hood is supposed to stand against corrupt, oppressive tyrants, not fall in love with them, and Regina is nowhere near out of her corrupt, oppressive tyrant mindset yet. But she's Regina, Adam and Eddy's favorite character, and so if Emma's getting a sexy British love interest than so must she, regardless of how it clashes with his code of honor! Ugh, such a waste of a great hero, and of a good actor.

Atmosphere - Remember when I said that Season 2 got dark in the bad way? Well, the Neverland Saga is dark in the good way, where the darkness isn't coming from a constant steam of personal misery, heinous actions, and the heroes failing against the villains, but from things that are suggested and things that lurk in the shadows, from trials the heroes must face in order to come out stronger that come off almost like an intense form of therapy, and from a particularly evil villain who will do anything to get what he wants. The fight against said villain also restores the tit-for-tat style of combat that Season 1 did so well at, with both the heroes and the villain getting the best of each other on multiple occasions so that it feels like a legitimate struggle rather than a never-ending one-sided blowout like it was with Cora.

Unfortunately, the show also takes this dark atmosphere to way too literal an extreme. The choice to keep Neverland in the present day always at night seems cool early on, but the novelty wears off quickly when you feel like you've been looking at the same backdrop for scenes and even episodes on end. I think allowing some scenes to be at day or afternoon would have done wonders at keeping up a sense of variety - many gifsets online brighten up the pictures and they looks so much better as a result. This was a big wasted opportunity.

The tone of the Wicked Saga is generally lighter and campier, with the only particularly dark things coming from Rumple and Neal's storylines, and that was definitely the right call since anything heavier after the Neverland Saga would start to feel oppressive. And again, the fight against Zelena is an even-handed one, with both heroes and villain getting to score points.

One of the biggest surprises upon revisiting this season is just how well Storybrooke was handled as a setting. It doesn't show up too often in the Neverland Saga but is well utilized when it is, and in the Wicked Saga we get a lot of new locations like Zelena's farmhouse beyond the woods and explorations of ones that were previously underexplored such as the docks and shipyard area. More importantly, magic shenanigans are kept to a minimum and for the most part there are actually sensible rules applied to them! Pan enacting the Dark Curse, the heroes counteracting him, Zelena's usage of magic, Emma learning to channel her inner magic, the séance to summon Cora's spirit, the time travel spell...they are things that don't just happen, there's stuff that has to be done and established beforehand.

It's not all done well, of course - we get the worst excuse why no-one can leave the town line yet (flying monkeys will get you if you try!) and Regina's light magic is pulled out of her ass following a breaking of the Dark Curse from her that makes no sense (Henry wasn't under any curse, so a True Love's Kiss on him shouldn't break squat!), but it's a step up from Season 2, enough to fool you into thinking that Adam and Eddy have learned their lesson.

Episode Quality - There's no bad episode in the Neverland Saga, although there are a few that stand out as weaker than the rest. "Nasty Habits", for instance, is kind of drag whenever Peter Pan isn't onscreen, since the Nevengers are stuck moping around at Baelfire's former tree house while Baelfire himself ("It's NEAL!") continues to be unable to sell the drama between him and his father in the way it deserves to be sold. And "The New Neverland", beyond having an awful title that gives everything away too soon, has a ridiculously fast-paced and repetitive plot in order to set up the midseason finale...a problem that could have been easily rectified had it not also hosted the most pointless flashback in the entire season.

And now I need to talk about the flashback in the episode before that one: "Save Henry", the climax of the Nevengers' time in Neverland. It's about how Regina first adopted Henry, and I actually really like it. It shows how she almost might have reformed after obtaining her new son but then discovered he was the child of the Savior, and unable to choose between him and her power over the cursed town, she copped out by drinking a memory loss potion. Not only is this tragic but it actually explains a lot about why Regina was so unstable and abusive in Season 1, since a flashback in that season had Snow drinking just such a potion to forget Charming and we got to see exactly what it did to her psyche as a result. However...this flashback didn't belong in this particular episode. Sure, Regina's love for Henry was a part of the present day story, but so was Emma's. And Neal's. And Pan's desire to fully assimilate his heart so that he could live forever. I really think that a flashback to Neverland in its prime, shared between Pan, Hook, Baelfire and Tinker Bell, would have been far more appropriate. After all, we hear a lot about those relationships, but I really want to see more of them.

I have few complaints about the present day narratives of "Heart of the Truest Believer", "Lost Girl", "Quite a Common Fairy", "Good Form", "Ariel", "Dark Hollow", "Think Lovely Thoughts" and "Save Henry", though, nor about the flashback of "Nasty Habits" that brilliantly composites Peter Pan with the Pied Piper of Hamelin, luring children away with a pan flute.

And then there's the midseason finale, "Going Home". Holy shit. This is the finale that gives "A Land Without Magic" a run for its money. It's not just the finale to the Neverland Saga, but the finale to the entire story that was begun in "Pilot", with every character making what appears to be their last stand. The stakes and the emotions run very high in this one, peaking with the double punch of Rumple's beautiful sacrifice to save his loved ones from Pan and the scene at the town line where Emma and Henry have to say goodbye to all of their friends and family from Storybrooke, with the town and the characters disappearing in a cloud of purple smoke as Emma and Henry drive across the town line, all their memories of the show's events forgotten but replaced with new memories implanted by Regina, memories of Emma never giving Henry up for adoption and them living happily together for years. It all started when Henry came to Emma's apartment to bring her to Storybrooke, and now it ends with them both leaving Storybrooke and heading toward their happy ending. It's perfect.

The Wicked Saga had its work cut out for it in topping what came before it, and "New York City Serenade" following up the last minute, literal Sequel Hook of "Going Home" does end up feeling anti-climactic in how quickly Stoybrooke, its residents, and all of Emma's memories are restored (also, Emma's new boyfriend being a flying monkey was so dumb), but it's still a solid and enjoyable enough episode to watch, with its direct follow-up, "Witch Hunt", being even better. "The Tower" has great atmosphere and character development, and while "Quiet Minds" definitely could have been better, it could have been worse too. "The Jolly Roger", meanwhile, is the perfect midpoint episode, mostly a breather and a deeper exploration of Hook's character and how much he's changed in spite of him doing his damndest in the flashback to resist that change, as well as the welcome return of our fave fish-girl, Ariel.

It's really just the four heavily Zelena-focused episodes "It's Not Easy Being Green", "Bleeding Through", "A Curious Thing" and "Kansas" that I have trouble with; I feel like the writers really dropped the ball on Regina and Zelena's conflict and individual character development in these episodes, which is ironic given that Evil vs. Wicked was the biggest thing promoted about this half-season arc and it ended up being its weakest element.

The two-part season finale, "Snow Drifts" and "There's No Place Like Home", is both a weird and wacky homage to Back to the Future and a return to the series' magical roots. Emma and Hook's adventure to the time of the "Snow Falls" flashback is so much fun and is the perfect antidote to the last few lousy episodes. It also could have very well made an ideal series finale if five changes had been made to both it and the whole Wicked Saga's story: Neal would have to still be alive (that way we don't get the baby being named after him, which is stupid), Rumple would have to still be dead (so no lying to Belle via wedding proposal and killing Zelena), Zelena would have to still be alive and in jail (totally doable with Rumple not alive), Marian would have to not be included in the plot at all (past or present), and of course the stinger with Elsa showing up would have to be removed. Do that and it's a happy ending. But they didn't do that, so following a quick diversion, I'm stuck having to watch Season 4.

Overall - Just as there is no doubt in my mind that Season 1 is the show’s strongest season, there is no doubt in my mind that Season 3 is the runner-up. This is an all-around solid, largely well-crafted, entertaining season of television, especially the first half of it. During this season, I was proud to call myself a OUAT fan. It’s such a shame that the Wicked Saga didn’t end up innovating more and instead settled the show down into a status quo, because if it hadn’t done that then this season’s template would have been the one to follow for the rest of the show, with truly new and exciting story arcs in each half of a season that shake up the show and its characters for the better rather than always returning them to the same tired status quo that only lessens their appeal every time it happens. Oh, what might have been...

#Once Upon a Time #ABC #OUAT and Me #Opinion #Analysis

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thebreakfastgenie · 5 years ago

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Food In Star Trek

I have an inordinate number of thoughts about this so I decided to collect them here. Maybe someone will be interested.

There are no replicators in TOS.

Replicators were invented sometime in the decades between TOS an TNG. Technically this is contradicted by the presence of replicators in Discovery, but it’s clearly a mistake on the part of the Discovery writers, and it can be hand-waved as the prototypes being tested on the ultra-advanced USS Discovery and subsequently lost along with other experimental technology like the spore drive.

Instead of replicators TOS has the somewhat less advanced food synthesizers. Food synthesizers are programmed using cards, as seen in “And The Children Shall Lead.” The food eaten on the Enterprise suggests the synthesized food is more limited in both quality and variety than replicated food. In “Charlie X,” Kirk has a conversation with a cook about “synthetic meatloaf,” suggesting that producing synthesized food in mass quantities may also require some level of time and attention (whereas something simple like a chicken sandwich and coffee in “The Trouble With Tribbles” can be easily and readily dispensed). Also, sometimes the food comes out in the form of little multi-colored cubes.

It’s unclear how often food synthesizers are used outside of starships. Non-synthesized food is demonstrated to be widely available on planets and space stations. Some colonies still rely on agriculture, according to the discussion of grain in “The Trouble With Tribbles.” Additionally, Kirk’s friend Tom Leighton claims to have made a scientific breakthrough that could end starvation in “The Conscience of the King,” suggesting this is a more complex matter than simply distributing synthesizers. This may be because synthesizers require a significant amount of energy.

The exact differences between synthesizers and replicators is open to speculation. I believe synthesizers may require some amount of “raw material” in some form, but matter, rather than energy. However, it is also possible synthesizers are essentially early replicators limited to a few pre-programmed options, stored on the cards.

Replicators require significant amounts of energy.

Replicators are a development of transporter technology. They function by converting energy into matter, using the form of matter specified by the user, e.g. “tea, earl grey, hot.” They need energy to operate as well as the energy that is converted into matter, which could be a substantial amount. Voyager establishes that the energy cost of unrestricted replicator use is very great, forcing the crew to institute rations and rely on Neelix’s food when their access to energy sources is limited. Replicators are not truly unlimited, in that they rely on a steady source of energy. A damaged ship or a ship stranded in the Delta Quadrant, or perhaps a colony with limited infrastructure, cannot rely on replicators alone. Starfleet also issues field rations. These rations are likely replicated, but are made prior to missions, rather than supplying an away team with a portable replicator. This could suggest that replicators must be at least a certain size, or that a sufficient portable energy source does not exist.

Non-replicated food

One of the most interesting aspects of food in Star Trek is that, even when unlimited replicator use is available, some people still choose to eat non-replicated food. However, some of this food is made with replicated ingredients. It appears that cooking is fairly popular, for clear social and recreational reasons. During a conversation in an episode of TNG, Keiko expresses surprise not that Miles O’Brien’s mother cooks, but that she uses “real meat.” I believe several episodes imply that by the 24th century, most meat in the Federation is replicated, though sometimes is replicated raw and cooked. I suspect plant-based ingredients are more likely to be non-replicated but I have no textual evidence of this.

Sisko mentions on a few occasions that his father, who owns and operates a restaurant, prefers to use fresh, non-replicated ingredients. Interestingly, not all restaurants do this: Quark’s serves almost exclusively replicated food (though the alcohol is more complicated). Various characters on Star Trek profess to taste a difference between replicated and non-replicated food, and I believe they do. Replicators are incredibly precise devices that match the molecular structure of items. A person could, theoretically, make a perfect recreation of a dish they had cooked by programming the exact patterns from that dish into the replicator. But cooking is unpredictable, with a slight but almost certain variation in molecular structure each time a dish is prepared, even if the exact same recipe is followed. Using non-replicated ingredients adds an additional level of unpredictability. Non-replicated food may not necessarily be “better” but there is a real chemical difference, in addition to the psychological and social differences inherent to the experience of eating non-replicated food.

Restaurants in the age of replicators

The existence of restaurants is absolutely fascinating. Sisko’s in New Orleans obviously provides food prepared by Joseph Sisko. But Quark’s serves replicated food. Starfleet officers living on Deep Space Nine are shown to have replicators in their quarters. Do civilians have them as well? If so, why are they paying Quark for food? Perhaps Quark has proprietary recipes--custom replicator patterns that cannot be easily recreated (anything can theoretically be recreated if the correct pattern is guessed). The Klingon restaurant on the Promenade may be the same way, as Federation replicators may not come with a wide variety of Klingon dishes pre-programmed, and Federation citizens may not know how to create the patterns.

Replicators are not idiot proof!

It’s still possible to get bad food out of a replicator. Ultimately replicators are computers, which means they require the correct commands in order to give the desired results. Tom Paris becomes frustrated in one of the first episodes of Voyager because, despite offering several varieties of tomato soup, the replicator produces soup he doesn’t like. Perhaps if he had been more specific he would have been more satisfied. There is an absolutely maddening variation in the level of specificity used in replicator commands. From “tea, earl grey, hot” to “coffee, double strong double sweet” to people requesting water at specific degrees celsius. One can safely assume that personal replicators can be programmed to recognize consistent shorthand for regular orders, but many of these various commands are given to replicators in public areas or by guests. Presumably replicators will default to a certain version of an item if details are not specified and are also shown to sometimes request additional clarification. There is certainly room for people to create their own unique recipes by making specific requests of a replicator without physically cooking, leading to either good or bad results.

Alcohol

Alcohol can be replicated, as shown in Up The Long Ladder. Presumably restrictions can be placed on this function. However, most of the drinks at 10 Forward are apparently synthehol, which does not induce intoxication (though Guninan does have real alcohol). Apparently synthehol is basically futuristic non-alcoholic beer and distinct from replicated alcohol. I believe the drinks at Quark’s are truly alcohol, though he could probably reduce synthehol if requested. It’s unclear if all forms of alcohol can be replicated, as Quark mentions stocking up on kanar for the Cardassians, and a ban on Romulan ale would be difficult if it could be replicated. (There would be some barriers to replication such as reverse-engineering the replicator pattern, and restrictions could be put in place to prevent replicators from dispensing it, but I imagine these could be fairly easily circumvented).

All in all, food in Star Trek is complicated and very interesting, at least to me.

#star trek #comments welcome

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biglittlesshop · 4 years ago

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Yesterday was a busy day of meetings and airplane travel for peter and connor but last night peter took some time to share his thoughts on the passing of the great christopher lee christopher lee was the tallest actor I ever knew he was also by far the most literate when we first met in a los angeles studio where he was recording his lines as king haggard in the last unicorn he had just recorded haggard’s speech about his first sight of unicorns and I mentioned that it was probably my favorite speech in the book he immediately wanted to know well did I do it properly we can always redo it right here of course he’d handled the lines perfectly but writers and writers�� opinions about their work mattered intensely to christopher that same afternoon we discovered that between the two of us we we could call to mind just about all the lines of g k chesterton’s poem the rolling english road we also discovered a mutual need to hit the men’s room and my son dan in his mid teens at the time still has a very clear memory of christopher simultaneously peeing while declaiming in that voice which no one could ever keep from imitating after fifteen minutes with him before the roman came to rye or out to severn strode the rolling english drunkard made the rolling english road a reeling road a rolling road that rambled round the shire and after him the parson ran the sexton and the squire I leave it to the reader to imagine that voice in the tiled acoustics of a hollywood bathroom we met a second time in munich where the last unicorn was being dubbed into german most of my memories of that time and of chris lee have to do with books and authors he had known both j r r tolkien and a writer who mattered more to me t h white we had a long ongoing argument in munich about a chapter of the sword in the stone that appears in the english edition of the book but not in the american one he turned out to be right he usually was he never failed to mention the last unicorn as one of his very favorite books and as one of the movies he was most proud of having made indeed he left my whopperjawed as mark twain would have put it when we were being interviewed together on austrian television and he announced oh yes I simply couldn’t resist a chance to play king haggard one more time even in another language after all and he looked straight into the camera it’s the closest they’ll ever let me get to playing king lear the camera swung toward me to catch my stunned reaction and chris looked across the studio at me and winked but my most vivid memory chilling as it remains to this day has to do with the day that I and michael chase walker associate producer of the last unicorn and the one who really got the film made in the first place somehow found our way out to dachau I can’t now recall how we managed it considering that neither one of us spoke german and that you had to take both a subway and a bus to get there from the hotel where the crew were staying but we got there somehow and spent a good half of the day roaming with other tourists around a legendary concentration camp peering blindly into the huge crematoriums but staring with equal horror and fascination at the endless rows of filing cabinets containing every record of every human being who was ever imprisoned starved gassed or simply worked to death in this place michael and I grew quieter and quieter that afternoon until by the time we started back to munich we weren’t speaking at all I think we both felt that we might say anything in words again the first person we met in the hotel lobby was christopher he took one look at us and announced you’ve been to dachau we nodded without answering chris strode toward us looked all the way down from his six foot five inch altitude lowered his voice and inquired still smells doesn’t it with the end of world war ii christopher as a member of the special forces and whose five or six languages included fluent german had been assigned to hunt down and interrogate nazi war crminals and had been present at the liberation of dachau and yes the smell of death had undoubtedly faded somewhat since 1945 but it was still as real as michael and me wandering dazedly between the ovens and the filing system we just didn’t know what it was but christopher did and i’d know it again I never saw him again after munich though we spoke on the telephone a few times on the last occasion when I had called to wish him a happy 90th birthday I remember him assuring me that if by the time you come to make your live action version of your movie I have passed on do not let it concern you I have risen from the dead several times I know how it’s done he worked almost to the last as the real artists of every kind do they work to be working because that’s what they do and they die when they stop I always regarded him as the last of the great 19th century actors that bravura larger than life style went with him no modern rada trained performer would ever attempt it today nor should they it would inevitably come out parody however earnestly meant yet there was always more to christopher lee as an actor than dracula or the mummy or saruman or sherlock holmes for that matter though he was very proud of having played not only both holmes and watson but sherlock’s brother mycroft as well lord summerisle of the original the wicker man probably his favorite of his own movies is most likely closer to chris’s dark benignity than any other role he ever inhabited I believe this because lord summerisle sings a surprising amount in that movie and chris passionately loved singing if there is any such thing as an afterlife or reincarnation I truly hope no believe that christopher lee will return as a wagnerian opera singer if he hadn’t been considered too old in his 30s to be accepted for formal vocal training he might have been in his own eyes at least a happier more fulfilled man but we would have been deeply poorer for it and never have known See Other 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post-itpenny · 5 years ago

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✠

Arriving at my muse’s house at three am.

I hope you don’t mind but I wanted to use this as an introduction story of sorts to my characters in the Slasher AU. Also I mentioned it in another post but Magpie and Peregrine go by their human aliases in this AU.

It goes without saying there is a bit of gore.

3am

or alternatively titled-

“Cookie?”

The tired policeman at the front desk looked up as a plate of chocolate chip cookies was placed on the desk in front of him.

“Hehe, thanks Miss Blackwood. You know I can’t say no to your baking.”

Meave Blackwood smiled, “I’m so happy you like them Charlie.This one is a favorite recipe of mine.”

Another officer stopped by, snatching a cookie off the plate, “yeah but what’s the recipe. You're my aunt, you're supposed to share these things.”

Meave smirked, nose scrunched as she snatched the cookie out of her niece’s hand. “It’s not my fault you wouldn’t listen when I tried to bake with you as a child. Also you’ve already had four, save some for the rest.”

Juno rolled her eyes but didn’t complain, she was late meeting someone anyways.

Meave smiled as her niece left, pulling out her phone to send a quick text message to someone and moving on with her plate of cookies.

Pembroke Blackwood looked up at the sound of knocking, his sister standing at the doorway of his tiny office. A plate of cookies that also balanced a tea cup and full coffee mug.

“Brother dearest,” Meave chimed, “you should take a break.”

Pembroke sighed, gratefully accepting the coffee Meave offered. “Yeah but this one is a tough nut to crack. Let me toss this scenario out at you huh? Guy walks home taking Pine Street. Guy stops and drops dead of a bullet wound to the throat. No witnesses cause it’s like 3am. All shops down that street so no residents.”

“Hmm,” Meave hums to herself with one finger tapping her lips. She slides into a chair and looks over the files scattered on her brother’s desk. “Well it had to have been someone he knew to stop him at that time of night.”

“Yeah I thought so too, but any suspect has a water-tight alibi.”

“Oh but it must be someone he knew!” Meave insisted, “think about it brother dearest. Knows his work schedule, knows the route he would walk home, knows how quiet that particular spot is. Does he usually walk home with anyone?”

“Yeah his roommate, they do night shift at the same place but the roommate was out of town visiting his sick mum.”

“Oh! Have we called mum since Mother’s Day?”

“The UK one? No I guess we need to. Back on topic Magpie.”

Meave made a face that could only be described as a cross between a smirk and a teasing scowl at the nickname. One from childhood that really everyone in the precinct was familiar with. Magpie Blackwood, whose mind was sharp as a knife but distracted by a thousand different things at any given time.

And just as mischievous.

Pembroke reached out to grab a cookie only for his sister to slap it out of his hand.

“Not that one Peri sweetheart,” Meave ordered, “try one from the otherside of the plate. Juno seemed to enjoy those.”

Pembroke arched an eyebrow in confusion before a cold dread broke out down his spine.

“What did you-“

“Did you know it was Charlie who was stealing my lunch out of the break room fridge?” Meave asked with a cheerful smile.

Pembroke jumped out of his seat, running out the room. “Damnit Meave not again!”

Meanwhile, the laxatives in the cookie Charlie had eaten were starting to take effect.

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

It was 2am and there was a man running for his life.

An hour before he was heading to bed when he noticed the figure standing outside in the corner of his backyard, petting his dog.

Two minutes later the power cut and in the darkness of the house he could not find his cell phone to call the police.

Five minutes later and the thing was inside, the man scrambling for the front door and down the dirt road his house resided on. His nearest neighbor was away on vacation. The next closest was a mile away, but in the darkness of a cloudy night he accidentally stumbled off the road and down a random side track.

He slowed to a stop, hopping his eyes would adjust to the darkness.

Behind him a twig snapped, followed by a giggle.

The man took off running again.

The cycle seemed to continue on and on. Until finally he had no energy left. Terror being the only thing keeping him going as he stumbled onto some form of civilization at long last.

It was a small junkyard. One he recognized as being a part of the bottom corner of a neighbor’s property. He had accidentally ran to where he was wanting to go anyway.

In the distance he could spot a small pinprick of light he knew to be the lamppost set up by his neighbor’s workshed. The man sighed with relief, falling to his knees in exhaustion.

“Oh, dear. I’m so sorry sweetheart, did I run you ragged?”

The man flipped around in panic. Behind him stood a small lady with stark-white hair. Her outfit old-fashioned looking, skirts and boots coated in mud. She had a satchel over one shoulder and a kitchen knife in her left hand.

“Wh-who are y-“

“Shush, shush now. You need to catch your breath.” The woman insisted as she pulled something from her satchel. “Here we are, are you hungry?”

It was a bag of cookies, the woman took one to eat herself. The man, eyeing her knife the whole time, timidly accepted one as well.

“Do you like it? The secret is a small dash of crushed cornflakes. Adds an extra crunch to them.”

The man didn’t know what was stranger. The woman or the fact that chocolate-chip cookies with crushed cornflakes tasted so good. He looked at the knife in her hand again, could he wrestle it off her

“Now may I ask your opinion? Man is walking home from work at 3am and is shot at close range in the throat. Who would do that?”

The man looked the strange woman in the eye, edging just a little towards the knife. “Uh… s-sounds like some shit my ex would do.”

The woman hummed, finger tapping her lips. “There is an ex but she was at a friend’s house that night.”

“Bull”, the man responded. Inching just a little closer to the knife. “Friends can cover for you. Ex probably called him a liar for something so she shot him in the throat.”

“And did you lie to your ex?”

The man stopped, “n-no! Did that bitch send you? I’m telling you I-“

“Thank you so much for your help dearest. I truly appreciate it.”

The woman took a step back, snatching up a pole from a nearby junk pile and throwing it like a javelin.

The pole went clean through the man’s stomach, knocking the air out of him as he started to fall forward only to be caught in the arms of the stranger.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to try this. Do you mind?”

With inhuman strength the woman hoisted up the pole till it was standing up like a pike with it’s victim at the top. The man made a strange gurgling sound as he slowly slid down to the ground.

The woman frowned, yanking the pole out of his body and tossing it aside. “I was hoping you would stay up longer but own well.” She sighed as she pulled a gun and silencer out of her satchel.

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

Meave arrived at her own home at 3am to find a figure standing in front of her garage.

He wore a dark casual suit, his white hair slicked back and a black medical bag sat on the ground next to him. He was smoking a cigarette as he watched the car pull up on the drive.

Meave grinned as she saw him. “Oh Vespers darling! I was worried when you didn’t answer my text earlier.”

The young man shook his head as he dropped his cigarette and crushed the embers under his foot. “You know, most people like to sleep at this time of night auntie dearest.”

“Ooh I know! I hope you don’t have any early appointments tomorrow.”

“No it's fine, luckily I don’t have to have anyone ready for a funeral until one.”

Meave gave her nephew a hug before turning the pull open the garage door. “Why don’t you sleep in the guest room tonight then. I can make pancakes for breakfast! Oh, and be a dear and get the body from the trunk?”

Meave’s garage had a rather large and strange assortment of tools for a woman who looked like she could not tell the difference between a wrench and a screwdriver. She carefully stretched out a sheet of butcher paper on a workbench for Vespers to lay the body down on.

He switched on a nearby lamp before giving a low whistle. “You sure like to keep me on my toes don’t you aunt Pie huh? May have to just hide this one.”

Vespers looked up to find his aunt was not paying the slightest bit of attention. Meave was busy admiring the blood that had soaked into her silk gloves.

Vespers shook his head, turning to pull on a pair of latex gloves of his own and getting to work. Poking and prodding the body here and there before coming to the man’s face. It took some work but eventually he managed to pry the man’s mouth open and pull out his tongue, giving a cautious sniff.

“Rigor Mortus has already started kicking in, if you have a power outlet nearby I can do some quick electrical stimulation on him to relax the body again… Aunt Magpie?”

Meave was now frowning down at her muddy clothes.

Her nephew sighed, “if you want to go change I can do this part by myself. Also, if you still have that whisky dad left when you had us all over for dinner last week it would be great if you could bring it.”

Meave was quick to leave, coming back ten minutes later wrapped in a pink silk night robe. A cup of tea in one hand, coffee in the other, and a half empty bottle of whisky tucked under her arm.

She watched in fascination as Vespers had already removed the bullet from the man’s neck and shoved a small metal rod through it. He was now taking hold of the man’s ankle, giving a sharp twist. A soft “pop” echoing through the garage.

“You broke his ankle?”

“No, sprained it.” Vespers replied as he took the whisky bottle and poured it’s contents down the dead man’s throat. “I could smell the alcohol left on his tongue. There’s an overpass in town that goes over a construction site, so it should be quiet this time of night.”

“He was drunk and stumbled off the overpass.” Meave speculated.

“Why go through the trouble of hiding a body when you can put it in plain sight?” Vespers offered with a smile. “Could you help sit him up for a moment?”

Meave compiled as Vespers grabbed a cement block from the corner of the garage and placed it down on the table before taking the body from his aunt and slamming it down.

Vespers’ work took another hour, the construction crews would be arriving at the worksite soon so he decided to dump the body for his aunt before coming back to help clean up.

He came back to the garage to find Meave absentmindedly pushing a finger across the bloodstained workbench like a child playing with finger paints. He looked over her shoulder at the small flowers and hearts she had created.

“By the way,” Vespers casually observed, “I know you don’t normally like guns.”

“Hmm? Yes well I was testing out something close range for a case your father was stuck on. Our friend also provided some verbal insight as well.”

“And?”

“And I do believe I want to personally interview the victim’s ex tomorrow.”

“No I mean the pole, and what about the pole.”

“Oh! Yes well,” Meave smiled with a glint in her eye, “I just wanted to see what would happen.”

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girlinparis · 5 years ago

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Why is Peaky Blinders such a successful show…? 5 reasons why you should watch the BAFTA-awarded series with your man

… Because it’s a game changer in the gangster TV/movie scene

Most certainly is Peaky Blinders well-written, with good music, and picturesque characters (and an amazing casting) but above all it’s a story that can please both a male and female audience – and that is a novel and fresh approach to such shows, and an industry game changer. Making it completely relevant on Netflix platform, where couples binge-watch series together. The Peaky Blinders contains all the ingredients of a perfect gangster’s series’ recipe: ambition, illegal businesses (at first at least), guns, violence, sex, love, booze, drugs. Most of gangsters’ series and movies are usually written for a male audience, but Peaky blinders balances muscles and testosterone-y action scenes with the most romantic and tragic love story, while delivering insights into female empowerment in business and politics in early 20th century. To me, it’s a first to be inclusive of a female audience in the gangsters filming industry.

… Because violence is made bearable

Usually, in gangster movies, violent scenes can be quite dreadful to a female audience, the bleeding bodies and pieces of flesh being filmed with the utmost crudity and realism. But in Peaky Blinders, they are choreographed like music clips, supported by a great soundtrack, and filmed in slow motion, making the most violent head knockings, face cuttings and shootings completely bearable among women.

… Because the lead character – Tommy Shelby – is absolutely fascinating

Usually gangsters portraited in movies are strong, violent, raging characters, toughened up by large amount of booze, drugs and testosterone – mostly created to be thrilling among a male audience in fast-paced action movies. Think about the typical male archetype from Scarface, Goodfellas, The Godfather and the likes, either the brawn or the smart guys, they can kill in cold blood, their anger and violence towards either male or female know no limit, and they show no remorse or regrets. Most of the times, the lead character is not particularly handsome nor filmed in a way that would pay tribute to his most flattering features. To add credibility to the character, he usually has sharp face features, strong jaw lines, and thick eyebrows (and dark hair), all typical attributes of strength and power (clichés live long). Not the typical romantic and sensitive lover to please the ladies! We’ve seen many gangsters in the movies that we wouldn’t particularly have wanted to fall in love with, considering how they end up treating their wives.

But Tommy Shelby is a bad guy with an angel’s face – no doubt Cillian Murphy is perfectly casted for the role. His face features are so soft – they were even softer when he was younger, with his pale delicate face, high cheekbones, and sharp crystalline blue eyes, that us women immediately feel like sympathizing with him and loving him.

The whole filming crew had to sharpen his features to make him more credible as a gangster, though. In some movies, Cillian looks so feminine or the most unremarkable handsome man, that they had to give him an edge. That’s why the idea of the severe Peaky hair cut is so brilliant. Not only does it make him look more manly and tough (remember him walking up Small Heath’s central alleyway, with his long coat and cap pulled so deeply down just over his ears), but it gives him an attitude – framing his silhouette. Surely has the perfectly fitted, tailored suit also something to do with it – OMG, don’t start me on this…And when Tommy removes his cap, his smaller than average eye orbits and high cheekbones – typical female attributes, are much more visible making him even more lovable.

With this haircut, his face is a perfect mix of male and female attributes, which we consider the most remarkable beauty at an era where gender identity is blurred and redefined. The filming also has to do with it – when the camera does a close up on his upper face and eye area, where you see him absorbed in his thoughts or negotiating fiercely with an enemy. Although what he thinks or says is tough, cruel, unfair, inhumane in some cases (sending Grace or Lizzie off to a man), you cannot think of him as evil, or hate him because he is so handsome (ah, the magical power of blue eyes). Which truly questions our way of distinguishing the good from the bad…Those are definitely grey areas. What if Thomas Shelby had been ugly? Would we sympathize as much with his character? If he didn’t have Cillian’s angel face, how lovable would he be? Cillian’s face is instrumental to the credibility and success of Tommy Shelby’s character – so much that they have almost become as one (in our candid binge-watchers’ fantasy).

… Because this is the story of a redemption rather than a fall

Tommy Shelby is a complex character. He is a conflicted bad guy looking for redemption.In most gangsters’ movies, the bad guy comes from a poor and lower-class background, has strong ambitions, and reaches a summit before he falls back to his original condition. Because he is not able to change his morality, he remains fundamentally a bad guy.

On the contrary, Tommy Shelby is a bad guy who deeply wants to become a good guy, and although he has good moral intentions – see his determination to build a legit business, he always ends up doing bad things. So is Arthur Shelby. Very interesting to see how these heroes are tortured and self-conflicted. Once again, the voice of Cillian Murphy is marvellous at expressing this duality: he has a deep voice, confident and self-assured, that turns out to be broken or hoarse when he gets emotional (remember how he says “already broken” in S1E2, after Grace warns him about how she’s going to break his heart – OMG, my stomach is still shaking, just thinking about it). Acknowledging and shedding light on the emotions and frailty of his hero characters, Steven Knight depicts such modern male heroes. At the same time, redemption never comes. Tommy always fails to be good in the end, but there is hope in his journey because he is such a resilient character – also a modern-day value.

… Finally, because Peaky presents a modern and (relatively) progressive vision of male-female relationships

Not only is Tommy Shelby a war hero, a powerful and secretive businessman that never goes soft or shows his weaknesses to his many enemies, an ambitious breadwinner on whose shoulders rely the comfort and security of his whole family, but he is also a romantic, sensitive, and progressive male character. Making room for women in executive positions in his business, negotiating with female union leaders (Jessie Eden) or female Russian aristocrats (as they are the ones in charge), and even comforting his child at night to let his wife rest (talk about gender equality!) – certainly Steven Knight is taking liberties with early 20th century war heroes and businessmen, and extrapolates to make this show definitely 21st century. In a century where male and female archetypes are redefined, and male and female attributes are blurred and shuffled to forge new identities, it is very delighting to see these micro-changes in a gangsters’ TV series, giving us hope for tomorrow’s society. Unlike gangsters from the 20th century, Tommy Shelby would never beat up a woman, and considers the women he is dealing with on equal footing. At a subconscious level, and beyond the entertainment, there is an underlying message that could urge the typical male audience to change their behaviour towards women and start considering them equal in both life and business.

Thank you Steven, Cillian, Helen, Paul, and all the Peaky Blinders’ crew that made this show possible!

#cillian murphy #peaky blinders #female empowerment #beautiful actors #best British shows

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mrs-dragneel-stark-solo · 5 years ago

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Unforseen Chasm (part 20)

Part 20 of Unforseen Chasm

Prompt: Two sisters fall for men that are absolute enemies. The love they have could tear all of them apart, or it could bring them together. Word Count: 2908 Note: This is by far the longest thing I’ve ever written (including my other fic series). first major Collab with my best friend @thorne93 what was first a simple “what if” moment turned into a two year writing session and I’ve never been more prouder of myself than when i started my first series. goes through most of the MCU plots there are some changes to accommodate for what we wanted and there is a bit of a crossover between the MCU and other characters. I hope you guys enjoy reading this just as much as I enjoyed writing it.

“That’s it, listen to the sound of my voice,” you cooed as you and Loki sat cross-legged on the rug, trying to meditate. “Try to remember the first memory of Thor. Your first truly happy memory.”

“When I stabbed him after pretending to be a snake?” he asked, his eyes closed as he smirked.

“No, I mean more of a time you two were equals. Fighting side by side. Perhaps he covered for you when you stole a cake at a feast?” you tried.

Loki kept his eyes closed, trying to remember. “Nothing. Y/N, I am getting nothing,” he finally said, sighing and opening his eyes. He got to his feet. “This isn’t working. We’ve been at this for two weeks.”

“And giving up will not help. It’s not like we have much of anything else to do,” you said, gesturing around.

Loki got closer to you and wrapped an arm around your waist. “I could think of a thing or two we could do instead of this,” he said in a low voice.

You smiled at him but put your hands on his chest. “While that is fun, it isn’t exactly helpful, is it?”

“I don’t know, a jarring bed helps clear the mind,” he said, bending down and biting your ear, making you laugh.

“Are you two done?” Tony’s voice suddenly asked, irritated.

You jumped away from Loki, startled. Loki simply glared at Tony and left the room, trying to get to the other side of the apartment where he wouldn’t be seen.

“Tony,” you greeted as kindly as you could, surprised to see him.

“Just checking in. Need anything?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.

“Don’t suppose my freedom is an option?” you joked.

“No, it’s not. If I have it my way you’ll never know what sunlight looks like again,” he promised. “Anyway, need anything? A book? Paper? Toiletries?” He began walking around the outside of the cell, probably examining it for any tampering.

“A notebook and some pencils and pens would be nice,” you tried in a meek voice.

“I can arrange that,” he simply said. “Anything else?”

“How is Shannon?” you blurted out, desperate to know about her.

“Oh, so now you suddenly care about her wellbeing?” he questioned, irritated. “She’s fine, no thanks to you.”

“Is she… does she ask about me?” you wondered, stepping closer to the glass.

“Nope. Not once,” he said, satisfaction flashing across his face at the sign of your pain.

You nodded. “That’s fair. Could you tell her… that I miss her?”

“As a matter of fact, I can’t. I won’t tell her about you at all, unless she asks,” Tony informed, his hands behind his back, gloating. “I’ll do my damndest to make sure she forgets you’re 100 stories below ground…”

Your eyes drifted to the floor. “Tony, I’m sorry,” you said, so much emotion in your voice, but remorse ringing the most. “I… I didn’t want to hurt you or her.”

“Just collateral damage for Reindeer Games, huh?” he asked, gesturing vaguely behind you. “You know, I never pegged you for a woman to lose her head over a guy, but I guess I was wrong,” Tony said, shrugging, frowning at you.

“I didn’t lose my head… I fell in love,” you answered simply.

“Yeah, with possibly the most crazy and vindictive prick I’ve ever met,” Tony retorted. “The people we fall in love with shows a lot about our own character, Y/N/N.”

Your eyes flashed to him. “Yeah, you need to remind Shannon of that,” you said pointedly as you eyed him up and down.

“I will, because.. You know, I’m free and all, and not a criminal, and I can see her every day.” He flashed you a smile and started to walk away. “Paper and pens, got it. You’ll get it sometime in the next month,” he called over his shoulder as he walked away.

Even watching Tony walk away from you hurt like hell. In a split second, Loki’s hands were on your shoulders, comforting you before you turned and wept into his chest as he held you.

Loki woke in a pool of cold sweat, sitting straight up. He made no noise other than a slight gasp.

“Darling?” you asked as you sat up with him. “Are you alright?”

He shook his head. “I had a nightmare. Thanos found us… He came for you… And he… He killed…” He broke off, staring at you with wild eyes before grabbing at you and gripping you tight before crying. You let him sob, get all of his fear and grief out.

“It’s okay, he can’t get to us. I’ll protect you,” you vowed as you soothingly stroked his back.

----------------

In the following weeks, you worked more and more with Loki. You tried to get him to remember good things. To remember that he and Thor were equals. Slowly, he was coming out of it. The brainwashing was slowly washing away. The cruelty of this Loki was ebbing away to the gentle, clever, and sweet Loki you knew and loved.

You’d asked for the paper to write Shannon a letter. You wrote on it every day, adding to it, elaborating. You were explaining your life just before the fall, up until the day you were put in this prison. The brainwashing, the torture, the ultimatum, the reasons behind all of your actions. You would hope she would read it and understand.

By now, it was over twenty pages long. It detailed why you jumped. It detailed that you fell in love with Loki a month before the fall. You explained the good side of him. The side that Earth never saw, and probably never would. The side only his family knew. You explained how Loki had been berated and ridiculed by people closest to him. In your short time there you’d seen it. The warriors teased him constantly. Odin hardly let him talk. The only real good in his life was Frigga.

You explained that while you were with Loki in the library, riding, in the forest, on the training field, he wasn’t this evil monster that was filled with jealousy and hate. He was just a man, wanting to be seen as the equal he deserved. And you saw him as that, as an equal. Your equal, Thor’s equal. Any one with a good heart, he was their equal.

You jumped, because you were in love with a man that truly understood you. A man that knew what it was like to be overlooked. A man that could make you laugh. A man that got lost in your voice as you went on and on about physics. A man that seemed to take great joy in your fascination with magic.

Then you fell deeper in love when he selflessly took the brunt of the torture and manipulation just so you would be left unharmed. When you begged him to let you take it, he refused.

He risked everything by letting you go to Shannon and apologize. He knew he was risking his own life if you all should fail, but so long as you were happy, what did it matter?

This was the side you wrote about in your letters.

Then you went on to explain just how awful it was living under Thanos’s rule. How he treated you almost like a daughter -- fitting, that a man who wanted to ruin the universe would see himself in you. Not your foster parents, not Frigga and Odin, not Diane and Tom -- no, the most sociopathic man you’d ever met, decided to spare you, take pity on you, and take you under his wing as if you were his daughter.

You told her all about Thanos, at least what you knew. You knew he was homicidal and uncaring. You weren’t sure about his overall plan, at all. All you knew was your instructions and that was it.

The letter explained why you could do the horrible things you could do to her. How even though it ripped a hole in your heart, that stabbing her in the leg was far better than Loki, you, Tony, the Avengers, and everyone else - dying. Collateral damage, to ensure that you and Loki ruled Earth, and that ultimately those you loved stayed safe.

Loki’s motivations might have been slightly… different than your own, but both of you knew, both of you were aware just how much was at stake if you lost. That’s why all sentiment had to be lost.

And yet, you still could not do it. You could not fight Tony with the intent to hurt. You couldn’t fight Shannon with the intent to kill.

But most importantly, the letters told Shannon how much you loved her more than anything in this world. No amount of brainwashing, or threats could make you forget how much she meant to you. The letters said how sorry you were, and that you did all of this, just to save her. If you failed at everything else, at least you were able to save the people you loved from that murderous being in space… for now. And that was all that mattered -- that they were safe.

Tony arrived for his biweekly check up. It was his fourth visit in total, meaning eight weeks had passed since you’d been put in this upscale prison cell. By now you were used to the fact that Tony, and anyone else with access to JARVIS could see what you were doing at all times.

But you didn’t care. What were they going to hear? You writing? Loki reading? The two of you sleeping? That had to be enthralling for the viewers…

“Need anything?” he greeted. Clearly his utter contempt for you and Loki had not subsided. Loki never spoke to Tony, nor Tony to him.

“Could we have five more books?” you asked, at this point you hated sounding like a begging child for scraps.

“Sure. Any particular ones?” Tony asked.

You held up a list.

He rolled his eyes. “Read it to JARVIS later and I’ll get it. Anything else?”

“Could we have a handful of things so we can cook? It would be nice to have some variety for down here or if we get hungry at midnight?”

Tony thought for a moment. “Give me two fruits you want stocked, and give me some ingredients for some recipes and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.”

“That it?” he questioned, nearly through with his walk through of checking for tampering.

“Uh, no…” You used your powers of concealment and showed him the bundle of letters. “Could you take these to Shannon?”

He looked at the letters for a second too long, then looked up at you and told you a flat, “No.”

He already began to turn and walk out of the room.

“No? Tony! Wait, what the hell? Don’t I deserve to know why?” you asked, frantic.

He spun back to face you, rage evident in his expression, making you take a few steps back from the glass.

“No! No you really don’t deserve to know anything about Shannon! She doesn’t deserve this shit. So no, I won’t give her your letters.”

“Fine! You selfish ass,” you said, angry at him for refusing to deliver the letters.

He took several more strides toward the glass wall until he was right next to it. “Selfish? I’m selfish? I’m only thinking about her. If I give these to her, they’ll break her. I’m not doing that. I am not watching her go through that.”

“You have no idea what’s in them,” you argued evenly.

“Doesn’t matter. If they somehow magically explain that it wasn’t all your fault, she’ll feel guilty and want to free you -- which we can’t do. If it’s more blind resentment towards her, or me, or anyone else, it’ll just crush her. So either way, it’s a lose-lose.”

On that, he spun and left before you could beg further.

Another four weeks slipped by, and still, nothing from Shannon. When you asked Tony about her, he simply said, “She’s fine.” That was all he would ever say to you. No matter what you asked him, when you asked him, that was his only response.

Part of you wondered why she never came down here herself. Did she really hate you that much? Why couldn’t she just listen to you?

Other than Tony’s visits, and the occasional food and goods drop from one of his workers, you were entirely alone with Loki. Which, in many odd ways, was good. The two of you hardly had much alone time when you were on Asgard, and never alone unless it was night in that godforsaken hut you lived in on Sanctuary (a name unbefitting the elements, mind you). Then, the plot to take over Earth took place and you barely saw him.

Now, now that you two had no freedom, and were bound together in here, you got to know each other even more. It was like domestic bliss on house arrest. Not ideal, but at any rate, it got you some time to fall more in love.

And it granted you more time to get that brainwashed bullshit out of his head. Each day was a small step closer to victory for you, and for him. He slowly came up out of the cruel, wild, mess of a man he’d been turned into and was slowly turning back into your Loki.

If your fate was to be left in a cell with this man for the rest of your life, then so be it. There were fates much worse than this. In fact, this wasn’t bad at all. It was almost like Heaven -- save for lack of freedom, friends or family, at least you had him.

Tony returned for another visit, and asked if you needed anything. It was at this time that Shannon, nearly one-hundred-fifty stories above you, asked JARVIS where he was.

“JARVIS, where is Tony?” she wondered idly as she worked on soldering a motherboard.

“I believe he is at Mr. Loki and Ms. Y/N’s holding cell,” the AI informed.

Shannon stood straight up. “He--what?” she asked, perplexed. “Show me.”

On command, JARVIS turned on the video of your holding cell, the outside camera where Tony stood.

“Okay, you want a board game?” Tony asked, confused and Shannon looked on. The tiniest of smiles played at Shannon‘s lips. Of course you would want a board game. That’s typical. And of course Tony would think it was an odd request.

But then the reality of the situation hit her. Why was Tony even down there? How long had he been going down there? What was he doing?

“Yeah, Monopoly. It’s fun and it’ll take up some of our time,” you tried with a shrug.

“I don’t think a game about owning and domination and money is best for the Wannabe King,” Tony remarked.

You rolled your eyes. “Fine, Twister.”

“Hell no. That is basically foreplay, and I’m not watching that unfold on my surveillance.”

Again, you rolled your eyes. “Fine, then what do you suggest?”

“Checkers?”

“God, you’re so boring,” you said with a slight laugh. “Please, Tony? Something for entertainment other than books and writing?”

“I’ll see about getting you some family friendly, non-dictator-y games,” he promised. “Anything else?”

Your powers of concealment kicked in again as you revealed the large stack of letters. “Give these to Shannon?” you requested in a soft, desperate voice.

“No,” he firmly said again. This was the third time he’d denied you.

“Tony. Please. Don’t you think she should be able to make the decision for herself? Let her read them. If she still hates me, fine, if she doesn’t then…”

“Then I have to pick up the pieces when you choose that Asgardian asshole over her, again,” he stressed, pointing to Loki who was standing in the kitchen. You turned back to look at him for a moment before sighing.

“That won’t happen.”

“And what guarantee do I have?” he asked, as if your promise were absurd.

“I’m locked in a fucking cell, Tony. What could I possibly do to her? I don’t get to see her. The letter isn’t malicious. Read it if you fucking want, I don’t care. I don’t care if you publish it in the New York Times, just make sure she reads it!” you begged.

“No,” he said again in a low firm voice, his hand making a cutting motion in the air. “And if you ask me about it again, I will go in there and burn them.” He turned abruptly and started to storm out.

“Tony… Tony! Tony!” you shouted after him, putting the letters on the glass. “Please!”

But he wouldn’t respond to your pleas. He left the same doors he always did, and they slid shut behind him.

His rejection, turned into pain, and your pain, turned to rage. You used your dark energy to pick every piece of furniture up and throw it, screaming as you did so.

All the while, Shannon watched it unfold.

Moments later, the elevator opened to the lab, where a happy Tony stepped out and walked over to Shannon.

“Hi, dear,” he greeted sweetly. He was about to kiss her when she pulled back, revealing the video footage she’d been watching. His eyes went from the video to her, panic in his eyes.

Unforseen Chasm Tag list- @reigningqueenofwords @oldfreakything @weclassygirl @adefectivedetective

@dontbetooobvious

Tag list- @cas-you-assbutt-dean-needs-you @winchester-writes

@winchesterenthusiast

@georgialouisea @deansdirtylittlesecretsblog @sammysbuttcheek @bran2015 @misz-adrii @sandlee44 @womanxofletters @natsuccs @childishhoebinoo @depressed-moose-78 @expecteddifferent @girl-next-door-writes @fanaticfanfiction @dakotapaigelove @sassy-spn-knight-of-hell

#loki x reader #tony x ofc #tony stark #tony stark x ofc #tony stark fic #unforseen chasm #unforeseen chasm #loki laufeyson #loki fic

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sleepychihuahua · 5 years ago

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MCs as Ayakashi Suitor Descendants

WARNING: Some spoilers ahead.

Ayakashi RR is it’s own universe separate from the Love 365 games, but what if it wasn’t? Ignoring EITM (since the history and rules of their yōkai are so different), maybe some of the MCs are descended from the Ayakashi suitors?

So far, I’ve only finished Koga and currently somewhere halfway with Ginnojo, but from what I do know about the suitors, I imagine that for the Dawn Faction:

Ginnojo and MPDCTY MC

Koga and MFW MC

Kuya and SITS MC

Yura and FILA MC

Aoi and IYAT MC

Ginnojo and MPDCTY MC

Ginnojo reminds me of the MPDCTY MC. I only played Kimura’s stories, but from what I gathered, MPDCTY MC’s main traits are: she’s a big eater, a Judo black belt, and has a strong sense of justice.

Mizuchi dragons seem to be one of the longer-living ayakashi since Ginnojo is apparently 54 and still looks young, so he could potentially be alive when MPDCTY MC was born and growing up.

He’s most likely a grandpa. The game takes place during the Taisho Period (1912-26) so he could be a great-grandpa, but he’s so shy around women. If he doesn’t end up with Futaba/ARR MC, then it would take a while for him to interact with another woman and start a family with her.

He trained MC how to fight and use her water powers. Sparring is normal and their training room/backyard normally floods from the water that they fought with.

She could never beat him.

They probably caused the family grief with how much they eat. Imagine the food budget. They probably eat extra large pork cutlet curry and beef bowls at least two/three times a day.

Ginnojo would read little MC his favorite books after meal times and tell her about the Shinsengumi and their convictions. These stories and Ginnojo’s love for his country were what influenced her to become a detective.

She becomes a Shinsengumj geek, and she and little Kiyonori became Shinsengumi BFFs. Grandpa Ginnojo is highly uncomfortable when they would team up against him to hear stories that he already told 567 times.

Ginnojo is always flustered when MC gets crushes and tells him about it. But he’s also there to kick ass if anyone makes her cry.

Koga and MFW MC

They like to drink.

Honestly, that’s my biggest argument. I only played Yamato’s stories (can’t bring myself to cheat on him with the other guys even though I love Ren and Saeki’s characters...) so I don’t know how different MFW MC is in other routes.

But MFW MC’s funniest character trait is her love of shochu.

Koga mentioned that only few Ayakashi have long lifespans and in his route, he has an illness known as the “carnage” that some Oni Ogre have. Koga’s probably dead by the time MFW MC was born.

If there was a cure for the “carnage” and he’s still alive, he would drink with MC once she was of legal age. The two would have a Sake vs Shochu argument every time.

Koga’s probably a stubborn, old man. He can’t handle not moving around and doing work even when he should be resting. And he feels embarrassed when his granddaughter takes care of him. But MFW MC is just as stubborn and cooks for him, does chores that he can’t do, and makes sure he doesn’t overwork himself.

That was how she developed wife-skills

MC got his kind and strong nature from him. She’s willing to help others, although she didn’t inherit his natural entrepreneurship skills. Not to say she’s an idiot. She probably took business as her major because she was exposed to it. Taking a page from the PARTY version, MFW MC opens up a flower arranging business

Kuya and SITS MC

There are two types of writers: ones that actually write and publish things and ones that don’t and just keep the ideas in their heads.

Like Koga, Kuya is most likely dead or just very, very old when SITS MC was born.

I haven’t even unlocked Kuya’s route yet, but I found the contrast and similarities between him and SITS MC kinda funny.

SITS MC daydreams. A lot. It’s how she writes.

And then Kuya is here:

If Kuya’s alive when SITS MC was little, they probably took naps together under the shade of the mikan tree in their backyard with Kuya using one of his wings as a protective blanket over her.

They’d also go to the mountains where no one would see them and fly around to stretch their wings.

I don’t know if Kuya actually starts writing stories during his route, but if he does, he would tell little MC bedtime stories...

...then proceeds to fall asleep halfway through before MC does.

He’s an old man now, so he sleeps much more often. MC doesn’t mind and finishes the stories for him so she could tell it to him before his nap times.

Watching movies became normal since they don’t have to waste energy talking and can instead sit on the couch and focus on the screen until one falls asleep and the other daydreams scenarios.

SITS MC inherited her workaholic tendencies from Kuya’s kid/her father, who was taught by Kuya’s wife to work hard. That’s why she can handle working as an assistant manager and lyricist for Revance.

The band would find her napping with Little Yamada under the tree in the yard in a regular basis when she hits writer’s block. Poor girl would wake up to Takashi’s monster mode every time.

Yura and FILA MC

Sweets

Haven’t played a full FILA route yet but I’ve read reviews and read the prologue so I kinda have a general idea of the FILA MC.

If Yura didn’t end up with Futaba, he ended up with a confectioner. In this case, Yura is probably FILA MC’s father. He is already 1000+ years old, so another handful of decades probably wouldn’t mean much to him. It took a while for him to find his true love without being blinded by his love of sugar.

Father, grandfather, or great-grandfather, Yura’s alive when FILA MC was growing up. He doted on her and would always take her out to eat cakes, so he when she decided to become a pastry chef, he was happy.

She would always have Yura taste test her desserts. The two were inseparable and practically lived in the kitchen.

Ever since Aoi made that cake, Yura was fascinated with hybrid desserts a d new food combinations.

FILA MC tries to add sweet-bean jelly to almost everything and makes huge batches for Yura’s birthday. She loves seeing the happy look in her father’s face.

She even makes desserts with a bit of spice for her Uncle Gaku since she loves him just as equally and as thanks for always helping pay for the ingredients she needs.

Outside of sweets, Yura would encourage small animals to their backyard. Little FILA MC would play with them almost every day.

If Yura was freed from his curse, he would play his flute for her (sometimes with Gaku on drums) and teach her how to play the instrument so they could have a duet.

Aoi and IYAT MC

Art runs in the veins.

IYAT MC grew up with Aoi’s paintings and with her powers as a Satori, she can feel his emotions and thoughts for each one.

Aoi’s probably still alive since he’s 16 during the story, so he’s most likely to be a grandpa.

IYAT loves watching him paint. Her favorites are the portraits of his loved ones and she always feels warm and loved when he paints her.

The old paintings of his wife and kids in their old homes were what inspired IYAT MC to be an interior designer. She wanted to create that warmth she saw in his paintings.

She learned to paint by imitating him and they would often spend a whole day together just going out in nature to paint.

IYAT MC often painted her three childhood friends and would do commissions for them.

Aoi made sure that his kids had good work ethic he doesn’t want any deadbeats like that tengu so he taught IYAT MC as well to not be lazy. Recipes he learned from Raccord was passed down to her.

Aoi taught IYAT MC to make sure to not use her powers to invade privacy unless necessary, but also to not become bitter towards his powers like he was.

She didn’t use her powers on Koichi until she saw him with his mistress, which made her depressed. She couldn’t help but think that if she had read his heart earlier, she wouldn’t be feeling the pain of being cheated on.

But if following Koichi’s route, it was her powers that let her forgive Koichi when she saw how he was changing and truly learning to love her. She stayed with him because she saw that there was a part of his heart that thought he would grow to love her because he wouldn’t let go of her as a baby.

IYAT MC designed Aoi’s and her grandmother’s new living room. She went all out to make sure her beloved grandparents will be comfortable and happy. Aoi can always sense her love for them because of it and was embarrassed but happy the first time he stepped inside.

And that’s it for the Dawn Faction! I don’t really have any ideas for the other suitors since they’re not out yet and I haven’t read all of the other Voltage stories. I have a vague idea for Kagemaru and Toichiro but not enough to write about. Maybe once I read more.

Anyways, thanks for reading and I hope you guys liked it!

#ayakashi romance reborn #scandal in the spotlight #metro pd: close to you #my forged wedding #finally in love again #in your arms tonight #MC #koga kitamikado #kuya #yura #aoi #ginnojo #dawn faction

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jeanjauthor · 6 years ago

Link

This article gets a little bit into the science-y math-y side of food flavor combinations, but only a little bit, so it’s still quite easy to understand.

I stumbled across it trying to find out if almonds are popular in Indian cuisine. (Basically, I was having takeout leftovers and thinking “mmm, slivered almonds would go good with this saffron & cracked mustard sauce on basmati rice”...turns out almonds come from South Asia & the Middle East, so yes, it’s definitely in the cuisine, just not that particular dish I’d ordered.)

Sometimes you just fall down into a rabbit hole of “I wonder if...” and some days you just get super-lucky in your research, finding a really fascinating article.

How does this relate to writing?

Uh, duh, almost every story will contain protagonists that eat, right? (Not all, but the vast majority.) Food is vital to life as we know it...but the same old food day after day gets very disheartening. Therefore, flavoring your food in new and different ways is a major impetus for travel, trade, warfare, and economic power.

Plus, food as medicine is important. Not just in the literal sense (lemon juice contains vitamin C, chamomile is a calmative, etc, etc), but in the sense of, if your character is in a great deal of pain, or suffering from an illness...their appetite will be diminished.

One of the medicines I”m taking kinda...kills my appetite. I still get hungry...but I have no cravings for anything. It’s not stimulating. It comes across as same old same old, nothing appeals, I don’t know what to eat, it’s all just fuel that makes me go “meh.”

Except...the myriad plethora of scents in Indian cuisine can stimulate my appetite. Not every time, but more often than not, when my appetite has been dull for a while, that’s when I’ll just go smell curries and so forth. (American chili recipes have similar highly complex flavor profiles, so sometimes a good texmex chili will stimulate my appetite, too.)

It may be simply because there are so many different scents and flavors, something catches my gastronimic senses. Or it may be that only in combination can my body find whatever micronutrients it needs.

In most cases, your body craves certain foods because it’s trying to tell you what nutrients it needs. (Of course, it could be an emotional craving that needs fulfilling, but I’m talking nutritional cravings, the kind where you feel satisfied after you eat the whatever-you-crave, which doesn’t happen with an emotional hunger...and sometimes you’re just thirsty and think you’re hungry, so try drinking something first, then checking in with your body in ten or so minutes.) This is why pregnancy stirs up the weirdest food combinations; it’s literally the uterus telling its person, “I need X, Y, G, W, E, D, and Z to make a baby, GIMME!” and anyone else hearing that combo would go, “you don’t pair E, D, and G, with W, let alone X, Y, and Z!!” (Aka the pickles, peanutbutter, yogurt, and chocolate all at the same time syndrome, or the “send the partner out to get cottage cheese at 3am, please!” cliché.)

So when you’re building your worlds, your nations, your cultures, their resources...what flavors do they have? What flavors do they crave that they have, versus what they crave that they don’t have? Can they afford exotic flavors from far-flung corners of existence? Is it common to find in their local market, or something that costs half a year’s wages for the average peasant/peon...?

What combinations do your people put together? How do they react when traveling to other lands?

...I want to point out one more thing about flavors. The reason why Western (European-influenced) cuisine uses so many “similar flavor” spices and herbs is because exotic spices started getting transported in such great quantities, that it no longer was a status symbol to be able to afford to consume exotic flavors from far-flung nations.

This pissed off European nobles. Whereas before cumin and coriander and nutmeg and so forth were exotic and costly, literally a single meal’s worth of spices costing a peasant’s wages for a week or a month or even a year...became so affordable that even *gasp* the farmer-class colonists in the Americas could afford to have a personal supply of nutmeg and use it in every meal!! (Well, not quite, but...)

So they had to distance themselves from the peasants...and switched on the “national pride” stuff and started insisting that herbs grown in France were the best flavoring for foods, far superior to that foreign stuff--aka the “your tastebuds are too coarse and unrefined to appreciate the delicate subtleties found in similar-flavor-profile seasoning!”

...Also, better food preservation techniques had a hand in it, because they got better at keeping meats fresh rather than spoiled, and didn’t need strong flavored herbs & spices to cover up any gamy or starting-to-go-off flavors. All of which had the peasantry wanting to imitate their local nobles, etc, so they, too, started going for the locally grown stuff as the “fancy food”...and of course everyone wanted to be thought of as “fancy” in their class/caste level, fancier than they actually were so...recipies emphasized “French cuisine” influences with all those local-grown herbs...

This is literally why it took generations for curry restaurants to get a foothold in Great Britain, even if it was popular in the British colonies of South Asia. People who lived in colonized India loved the food flavors over there, but when they got back home, the Upper Crust weren’t touching that “foreign food stuff” because it wasn’t “national pride” enough, and “belonged to the overseas subjects (subjugated peoples) of the Crown” who weren’t “British enough” to have it be considered “noble enough”...and just...ugh. Just trust me that there was a LOT of racist bigoted bullshite going on underneath the surface of a seemingly simple “preference” for one style of seasoning versus another.

Anyway, this is why American Colonial cuisine was...pretty bland and boring, really, until they started experimenting with flavor profiles of the Americas. The first major complex food flavoring developed in America was...well, chili. Chili con carne (sans/con frijoles, doesn’t matter) has a gazillion different flavor profiles. Sweet, salty, spicy, fatty, acidic, creamy, sour, peppery, oniony, meaty/umami...incredibly complex flavors that seem like they would clash and not go together, yet so much ends up going into them that they meld together into a melange of deliciousness.

(Seriously, if you want to know just how complex a dish can be, try this link for Oaxacan mole negro, 30-ish various different ingredients, takes hours and hours of preparation, different methods of evoking flavors (smoking, frying, baking, grinding, etc...: https://youtu.be/ysiEyAQ27P4 Mole can be just as complex as chili, but it’s very much a thing developed in Mexico, not in the U.S.; I’m just saying that in the United States of America, chili was the first truly complex dish that we developed with our own explorations into developing our own complex flavor profiles...of all the dishes that got written down. I’m sure we lost a lot of complex dishes due to the slaughter of indigenous peoples and/or the destruction or suppression of their cultures & local knowledge of non-agriculturally-based food resources../)

So food needs to be considered when you’re creating cultures. Flavoring food needs to be considered. Are there specialists who grow and/or process foods? Are the recipes written down and widely available, or are they controlled by only a few producers? Which areas produce the best local sauces (everyone knows that the best garum (ancient Roman fermented fish sauce) came from such-and-such port town) or the best spice blends, or the best... On and on and on, these things drive trade, commerce, wealth, warfare, exploration, travel, and more.

Don’t be afraid to have one or more of your characters be a culture-appropriate foodie. Don’t be afraid to have your characters be hesitant about new foods...but make sure to have them like at least some things, and even like it enthusiastically. (Whatever you do, don’t promote cultural isolationism & bigotry/xenophobia...because what we write, others absorb and emulate. We got waaaay too much of those things in the world. We need to open people up to new experiences...and not do it in conquest-minded genocidal ways. Waaaaay too much of that in the world already. That trope’s been done, so move along & pick something new.)

Anyhoo, long digression short, this is a complex mix of fun food science and good background ideas for both your own personal food exploration & experimentation, as well as a healthy consideration for your worldbuilding and/or characterization efforts.

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ikonislife · 6 years ago

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SpellBound

-Hanbin x Female reader

-Hanbin’s birthday project (:

-Hogwarts au, friends to lovers, school life au.

-This chapter will get update as new characters get introduced. Also this scenario is Hanbin focus but I feel like it’s good to have a little bit of background for everyone.

-Spellbound masterlist

-A/n: A little teaser for what coming! I’ve never written a true au before in my life so please give me constructive feedback. I’d really appreciate any comment at all you guys have so I can do better in the future. I feel like I’ve always gotten away with very simple au, and this was truly a challenge and I don’t think I’ve done the best job.

Chapter 0 - Introduction

1 - Hanbin’s group

Kim Hanbin:

For a boy with heart made out of gold, Hanbin’s childhood was anything but. Faulted for having his head in the cloud, his peers thought of him as insane simply because their parents never liked the way his imagination fueled the curiosity in his heart. Always asking what-ifs and how-its, he was far ahead for anyone his age and had it not been for the why-nots he’d asked so often, Hanbin could’ve easily been deemed a genius. His parents had always told him to believe with all his might for at one point in time, visiting the moon was mere stuff of fiction. But he was still lonely, isolated for believing in things beyond what was presented, worlds outside the scope that was comprehensible by simpleton. The night after he had received his letter, Hanbin was restless for the universe had exploded in questions, but most important of all, it gave him an answer for his loneliness. The moment he had read the first line of the letter, bold and prideful “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry”, Hanbin felt at home. He felt at home even though he knew nothing of this magical world, or even that he was someone they referred to as muggle-born. Hanbin finally felt like he belong. Kim Jiwon:

Jiwon had always been a force of life despite being dealt the worst cards even before he was old enough for school. His family wasn’t rich, barely making ends meet even, but what they had was love. His parents and brother love him very much and those around him knew, they knew that they’re the reason for the sparkles inside his heart. Jiwon felt like summer’s firework to those around him, warm and vibrant. He had the courage to conquer the world but also the heart to realize being on top wasn’t everything. He understood struggle, the hardship of life and how it could callous even the softest heart. Perhaps his compassion was his downfall for he too began to sympathize with the wrong crowd. He thought it was cool to be around the sort of people his parents had so sternly described as “the wrong sort”. His brother didn’t understand and parents disapproving of seemingly anything he did. So in the end, he was lonely in his own home. something was missing in his heart and it wasn’t until he had met his fellow housemates that he realized what it really was, real friends. They taught him the true value of friendship and that to be brave, he needed to be openminded about things his old crowd would laughed at him for. For the first time in years, he had dreams, he wasn’t afraid of being happy, and he wasn’t ashamed of his likes and dislikes. And for the first time in his life, he found a purpose, realized that home extended to even those who aren’t related when a certain young captain extended a welcoming hand and taught Jiwon what quidditch really meant.

Cr.

Kim Donghyuk:

There was no doubt that Donghyuk was the epitome of sunshine and the crisp warmth of summer, and he himself wouldn’t dare argue or deny the fact. Yet there was a part of himself that no one knew, beyond the happiness that could be felt simply just by being near him. There was a darkness in his heart that fueled his fascination, dictated his interest that no one understood. For someone who was so often liken to the sun, Donghyuk had always thought the best time of day was when the sun safely tucked away in bed. The stars so brightly shine above, magnificent and ethereal. His favorite season? Winter when the sun barely shine, shied away behind a dark plume of cloud, rainfall or snowfall, he wasn’t picky. Donghyuk had always felt out of place, the constant expectation weighted down his shoulders and it too, weighted down his heart, dulled the light behind his eyes. He felt as if there was no place in this world for him, no place he could truly be himself and belong... No place until a young Gryffindor captain breathed the most beautiful sentiment after a night out star watching. “Stars cannot shine without darkness.” It seemed so simple, just a passing comment yet nothing had ever resonated with his heart the way the strange boy did. Donghyuk could see too a loneliness in his eyes and that was all he needed to stick around.

Song Yunhyeong:

Yunhyeong had always solved life’s problem with a smile on his lips. There wasn’t much that could dampen the light in his heart and the grin on his lips. Even at the age when his peers were still worrying about what present they’d get for Christmas, Yunhyeong already knew what he wanted out of life and where his passion laid. His parents had always been there, always supportive of their’s son decision even if it was as crazy as opening up a cafe in the muggle world for they knew Yunhyeong’s talent was too great to not to share. Their friends, however, didn’t quite share the same sentiment, always thought they were too soft on him. Of all the reputable profession, how could his parents accept such a silly dream. He felt helpless listening to the well disguised derision thrown at his parents not only by their friends but also his grandparents simply because they chose to be supportive. So for the next few years of his life, auror was what he had chosen to be his dream despite the protest of his mom and his dad’s sorrowful gaze. They knew he did it for them, to make them proud but he had failed to realize that it was him that made them happy.So he carried himself as any reputable auror could, serious and even if it meant watching from the sideline as his friend enjoy their days. His days were dark and rigid, wasn’t until a certain sunshine entered his life and reminded him that “Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” He reminded Yunhyeong of the lost dream to travel the worlds, to learn all the recipes his brain could hold, and most importantly, to have fun. Once more, Yunhyeong was abled to breathe easy.

2. Y/n’s Group

Cr.

Y/n: (If you’re wondering why I left the middle top panel blank, it’s because I truly believe in doing my best to make the story personable for any reader. Yes, some details won’t fit perfectly with everyone but it’s my hope that a big part of it, you’ll be able to see yourself in place of Y/n. I don’t want to fall into the trend of inserting these beautiful Asian models because one, I know for sure not all of you are Asian. And two, not everyone fit the body type and me included. I hope you understand my choice. Thank you.)

“A muggle born Slytherin”, what a funny joke that must’ve been. Some laughed, other giggled, few grimaces from the oldest bunch at the table donning that beautiful shade of emerald. You hadn’t understand it, a smile on your lips still that they hadn’t tossed you out and deemed you too muggle to do magic. A stiff silent sunk into the large room so beautiful with the constellation twinkling, beautiful warm light from hundreds, thousands floating candle instilled a sense of wonder in your chest. Your smile slowly worn away as the laugh too died away when the magical hat once more spoke with certain, “A muggle born Slytherin, another one for the book.” By the time your body settled into the wooden chair by the group of second years wearing sympathetic smile on their lips, you knew something was wrong. Your first year was spent futilely trying to convince the 7th years, the last fews lingered still from an outdated mindset, that there was more to being a Slytherin than devil worshipping and discrimination. You’ve forgotten how many time you were shoved into the dirt, tripped on your walk to herbology, and how they had so cruelly laughed at your very ironic existent. The magical world that had given you an out from the mundane one your parents had always taught you to dream to escape suddenly darken with hopelessness. Yet when the world seemed to be at its worst, a beautiful young boy showed you that inside each person, there will always be a light and a dark side. Junhoe had lifted you from the bottom of the dark hole you had dug yourself and taught you that just because a person belongs to Slytherin, doesn’t mean their eyes must be blinded by one shade of green. The world exist in a beautiful blend of colors and to be bounded by a single color, a single shade would be disrespectful to your own soul.

Junhoe:

There’s no one truer than the Koo when it comes to the meaning of living, breathing Slytherin. Perhaps that in itself a contradiction for they stand tall to shield those who suffer injustice, use their wit and cunning brain to play the world to their favor. They’ve managed to stay true to the meaning of the Emerald and silver logo they wore so proudly on their chest without succumbing to the evil of the world. Perhaps that’s why they’ve always been hailed as the royalty, true heir to Slytherin. Needless to say, that title comes with the weight of the world as it was passed down to Junhoe, the eldest boy in the family. He suffered greatly as the old school beliefs often meant he was belittled, jeered for simply being proud of his heritage, being proud of the house he was placed in. The world he lived in perhaps seemingly glamorous to those unaware of what lied behind the closed door of his grand home. Junhoe had always hide behind the sass and sarcasm, use it to hide that behind the cold exterior was just a boy with stars shining in his eyes. He had no friend for his fellow housemate feared him, those from adorning other crests couldn’t wrap their head around everything he stood for. He was lonely in the quest to show there was more to being a Snake than just the stain left behind by the greatest evil that ever was. Lonely until he met you, a walking, breathing paradox being beat down by the world for being proud of who you were - a muggle born Slytherin. Suddenly his world brighten up and for the first time in a long time, he walked down the hallway of the school with a smile on his lips.

Lisa:

Cr.

Jinhwan:

-Spellbound masterlist

#ikon scenarios #ikon au #ikon imagines #ikon drabbles #ikon fanfic #hanbin scenarios #hanbin imagines #hanbin fanfic #ikon #hanbin #kim hanbin #b.i

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aeschknight · 5 years ago

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March Reads

This is rather late thanks to the absolute madhouse my life has been lately. As always, the video can be found here.

1. The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book by Alice B. Toklas

First Published: 1954

Page Count: 277

Read For: University

This is an interesting book because it is, actually, a cook book but throughout it Toklas weaves a piece of her autobiography. You may remember Toklas from last month’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, her partner. This book, however, was actually written by Toklas. It shows the importance of food in French culture and how Toklas herself viewed food in relation to her life.

Some people in my class tried some of her recipes, especially the hot chocolate, and enjoyed it. I didn’t make any because of time. Keep in mind, that these recipes are largely antiquated but they could be adapted for the modern day.

This book didn’t really influence me in one way or another. It was interesting hearing Toklas talk about her own life, for once, and the way in which she did it was fascinating. This piece is a true example of modernist literature and she didn’t even consider it writing! I’d say it’s intriguing because of it’s style but I don’t image many people outside of a class have read this.

2. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

First Published: 1964

Page Count: 220

Read For: University

I genuinely enjoyed this novel and it has changed my mind in regards to Hemingway. I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with Hemingway. There’s no denying that he was a great, influential writer but I never truly enjoyed his work. This has made me think that perhaps it’s time I reconsider Hemingway.

This was published posthumously and written during a rough time for Hemingway. It was towards the end of his days, after he had suffered extremely damaging electroshock treatment. He felt that there was nothing left to him. This was the last piece he ever worked on and he never finished it. Even the title hadn’t been chosen. This copy of the book includes the fragments that may have been cut and has arranged the book in the best way they can. He killed himself before the book was finished.

The book is made up of vignettes of Hemingway’s time in Paris during the 20s. Each little snippet falls into place with the story but there isn’t a strict cohesive narrative. They offer great insight into Hemingway as a person; in fact, it shows a bit more of his sensitive side, instead of just the super macho man that he always portrayed himself as.

For class, I actually rewrote one of these snippets from a different perspective. It was a lot of fun. I haven’t put it up anywhere yet, though.

3. Fledgling by Octavia Butler

First Published: 2005

Page Count: 310

Read For: University

Yes, that’s right, this was read for university. Octavia Butler was known for using fantasy to properly tackle huge topics. Fledgling is no exception. It takes on race/racism, consent, women’s issues, and many more. The novel is interesting because it appears to be written from the perspective of a black child, who is out on her own. As the story develops, we better understand her and what’s happened/happening to her.

I don’t like to do spoilers but if you google this book (or even read the back of it) you will be spoiled. All I’ll say is that our main character isn’t what she appears and you should keep in mind when this book was published.

I had nothing against this book but in comparison with another one of Butler’s books, Kindred, this didn’t seem to be her best work. This one was written near the end of her life and it just doesn’t hold the same punch that her other works did. It still expertly handled it’s subject matter but the ending was flat and disppointing. She started a battle but never proved that she one it. Still, this book was very interesting in the way that it repurposed certain traditional s*********** (see no spoilers) tropes. She breathed new life into this already well-worn genre and also used those consistent tropes to better highlight her points. It’s an interesting read for that and for the way she handles narration and point of view. We already bond with the main character before we really know who she is, and once we do we’re caught in a battle of being with her and against her. From a writer’s perspective, it’s a very neat idea that I wouldn’t mind giving a shot.

I realize I never include book links in these and I think I should. I’ll be linking to a local bookstore to me but feel free to go elsewhere! It’s important to support your local stores :)

The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (the local bookstore didn’t have this one)

A Moveable Feast

Fledgling

#monthly reads #book review #book recommendations #books #the alice b toklas cook book #alice b toklas #a moveable feast #ernest hemingway #fledgling #octavia butler

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bushybeardedbear · 6 years ago

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Lance Birthday Week!! - 3/7

@mcclainetwork‘s Birthday Week for our favourite Blue Paladin, more than just a boy from Cuba to us all, continues! So does my contribution spanning the full seven days. A series of Fan Fictions covering each of the daily prompts. This one seems to have gone a little off the rails in a good way. Never thought I’d be writing from a Lion’s Pov. A part was also inspired by this post from the lovely @anchoredtether. Be sure to check on the previous parts because, like Voltron, it’s all connected.

DAY 3 - Red Those Whom I Have Homed

Running his hand over the almost impossibly smooth metal, Sam Holt smiled, his lips and grey beard curling to an awed smile. Somewhere between reverence and fear, the elder Holt looked cautiously into the gently glowing eyes of the Red Lion, finding only unexpected kindness therein. Amid the vast hangar, retrofitted hurriedly into the Pit-Stop of Lions, Sam sat. Machinery of coalition worlds without number were scattered, stacked and partially unpacked around his seat beside the Red Lion. Today alone had shown Sam such miraculous little wonders as the Olkari Echo Cube, Reiphodian gravitation webbing and the subtle nuance of pre-imperial Galra poetry as translated by an Altean linguistic scanner. He was sat amongst the kind of technology that most humans had only dreamed of, himself included. Cataloguing them as if they were mere odds and ends to be later used simply as tools, no more incredible than a pencil. Proof positive of alien life and of whole new branches of scientific enquiry were already gathering dust. Any one item would have been enough to make a career out of in any other context. Now though, the cerebral had to give way to practical. Still, when he had a spare moment, such as this, he took the chance to examine the most incredible of all the technology here. The Lions. Today, if only for not previously having tried, he had chosen to sit alongside Red.

“I still find it remarkable...” Sam's tone was peaceful, “The nature of this metal. The warmth of it, the sensation. It feels almost as though I'm holding my newborn children again. Like a heartbeat from the universe...” “That's great and all, Sam!” Hunk called back, “But I'm about to...” His voice was drowned out by a loud clattering of boxes, their heaving mass bashing into the floor. Mercifully, none burst open. Though one was resting quite painfully upon Hunk's toes. The protection of his usual civilian garb offering not much in the way of defence. “Ok, just a tick too late there... Little help...?” Hunk asked with a heaving squeak of repressed pain.

Sam stood himself slowly, shaking his head, “Let the work set aside for a while, Hunk.” He smiled, even as Hunk busied himself tidying the boxes aside. “I know you've been trying to balance getting things ready here and organizing that party for your friend. Really, you should take a break for a little while.” Sam sat himself again beside Hunk on an overturned container.

Hunk sighed, setting himself heavy on nearby a box, “Well, you're not wrong. Between Coran and Pidge, I feel like I've been put through a marathon. Throw in building Earth's defences and I just want to sleep...” He made a grab for a small plastic tub, cracking open the pliable blue lid and offering it to Sam, “Free sample. Not my best work. New recipe I'm trying out with ingredients from across the coalition. I think the Nemdari Cinnamon is touch a touch too fizzy...”

Biting into the iced roll, Sam's response was a pleased hum, “It adds a little character.” He laughed softly, “Honestly these are superb. No need to be such a perfectionist, is there? Take the risk, bake something great!” He parodied his own favourite saying with a self congratulating laugh. “Alright, if you say so...” Hunk smirked, glancing to a large array of hanging cables and cobbled together boxy looking devices. The entire odd assembly hung over the Red Lion's head, set upon a large set of mechanised rails. “Is that ready Commander Holt...? Still looks a little on the hodge-podge side...” “Sam is fine, Hunk. You know that.” Commander Holt chastised just a touch, “And yes, Cadet Garret...” He teased, “I've just now put the last few touches on the scanning array. Had a little trouble getting the Galra and the Olkari systems talking first to each other and then to the Taujeerian systems.” He sighed, “But, in the end and now owing a favour, I got it working after all. Which reminds me, you know Harris from Tech? He needs a batch of muffins. I'll owe you instead.” Hunk grumbled to himself, “Fine. I guess I'll be opening a Yellow Lion bakery when all this is over... If it's ever over...” Sam nodded sadly, “If indeed.” He agreed. “Now, all that aside. I think it's time we set this scanner here in motion, don't you? See if we can't just possibly find something fascinating eh? Bound to be a little something within a part magic part science sentient being with a body made of a comet from outside the universe, right?”

Hunk agreed, following Sam to a nearby workstation with nothing but a laptop. “You sure this is going to cut it...?” “One nano-millimetre of Red's structure. Just a proof of concept really. It may not do it superbly quickly, but it will certainly give us something to work with.” Sam looked to the scanner and nodded, “Alright!” He smiled, striking a key. “Here goes nothing.”

Strange energies awaken ancient memory. “They are remarkable, my husband.” Her soft tone lost to the millennia, in my mind she speaks again. Beside her, unknowing what shall pass and hopeful for the future, My Paladin. “Even standing near them, it is as though... Reality bends to them...” “It's not far from the truth.” My Paladin agrees. My Paladin knows. “Maybe it bends to them and recoils from them all at once.” His young eyes regard my young chassis. Much is yet to pass. Much is yet to be known. My Paladin, in my mind, lives once more. His absence is never far from me. His was a will that binds and guides. His was the power of hope and unity. His was the heart of the Five of Us. My Paladin. My Creator. My Lost Friend. He places a gentle palm to his queen and beloved. So often have I known My Paladin's mind, I feel their bond of quintessence as if we three were one. They have created another. “The Lions of Voltron will serve as the hope of the Universe. I want to give our son...” “...or our daughter.” She corrects My Paladin.

“Our child.” My Paladin agrees. “The best possible future.” My Paladin shall never forge this future. I am saddened that it is so. My mind moves. As it moves again it stays in motion. Yes! The thrill of battle fills me! I am among the stars. Cold metal shears beneath my might! A blade in the darkness cuts deep into the fray! I am pounced upon and spin, I fire forth such fury!! Another reduced to nothing and still, he calls out within. My Paladin. That he has rage I know well, that he focuses that anger I know well. That when I am wielded by him and he by me, there is nothing in this reality to stand before us. And the memory is good. The satisfaction at each fresh enemy reduced to atoms. The hunger for the battle, it always burns within him and so too in me. My Paladin is uncomplicated. Yet, he is guarded. My Paladin seeks simplicity. In truth, much is hidden. In battle, he understands. In battle, there is nothing but his instincts to rely upon. Something perhaps of his other side that no other yet knows. Yet they shall in time. When he is my guide and I his champion, it is a deadly dance we weave and cleave upon the stars. My Paladin, he has so far to grow and yet so much skill already. Again my mind moves. We are as One. Our Paladins and Our Selves. One. Here in the moment, I feel him. Once my own, now Paladin to Black. A sword. Fresh forged. That was My Paladin. He is tempered now. Wisdom and time have quenched him. Raw power now a strong weapon. My Paladin. I trust you unto Black now. I know that you are ready. We are as One. And we charge. My mind moves on again. He stands. So meek before me and unsure. My Paladin? This? It seems a joke at first. Then, I truly see. Even in my thousands of years, I trust too easily the surface. The mind of this boy is doubt and fear. But the spirit? Yes. The spirit, the quintessence. He is My Paladin. When we fly it is not always smooth. He always apologises for every bump. When we fight, it is not always elegant. But his heart is always in the right place. His motivation. His mind. His quintessence, pure. He has such love within him. Love enough to sacrifice his very self. I feel him pass again. My Creator's Last gift to the universe. She keeps giving still. She returns My Paladin to me. I feel him rise again. Deep within him, unknown even to himself, he guides and inspires. There is greatness. Bound greatness, shackled only by self doubt. And then, there are such dreams. Across the gulf of space, as we journey to his home, his dreams fill me. Strange and wonderful. Family and Friends. Hope for a future free of war. The many faces and smiles he has loved and longed for and lost. My Paladin, Lance. He reminds me so much of My Paladin, Alfor. Neither of them acted in rage nor anger. They act in defiance of darkness. They act at the behest of the universe. They are not men of war, but guardians of peace. Such nobility and courage in them both. I am honoured to be and have been their Lion. My mind moves and we are as One again. We call upon the sword. She is nature's wrath and wielder of the shield. I am fire, creation and destruction alike, who bears the weight of the sword. Each of us have our place. We draw together. Closer. I feel her quintessence as if it were my own. Or it is perhaps my focus is only upon her. If feel her Paladin as though she were my own as she feels mine. My quintessence seeps into hers and hers to mine. We are One, yet we are distinct. We touch. For a moment, we are truly One. Or so it seems to me. As we draw apart, the blade ignites. I feel the ties of our quintessence grow taut and strained, yet always present. And for a moment, weaker, growing, reaching, threads tying ever closer, Our Paladins. I have no time to think on this. The Battle must be won once more. We are One and again we charge. My mind moves to the now. Yellow's Paladin is concerned. The creator of dear Green's Paladin stands expectantly. Another war approaches. Another front to ever more defend against the darkness. Somewhere else upon this world, I feel his quintessence. What he calls, his soul. His soul reaches out to mine and to one other strongest of all. Yet, it spreads further, like a web of threads combined. Such love to give and to share. So many to protect. And also, I feel it. The power to do so. Perhaps, My Paladins and I will yet forge the future they dreamed for...?

The sound of the clicked key had barely faded. “Well.” Sam waved his arm furiously, trying to waft away the smoke from the sparking laptop. Not long after the scan had begun, the poor quantum processors he had assumed fit to the task were now, to use the newest technical term, QUBAR. Quiznaked Utterly; Beyond Any Repair. “I was not expecting that. More than it could handle I suppose” Hunk pulled a nearby extinguisher free, smothering the laptop in flame proof foam. “There wasn't even enough time to upload the data...” He ruminated, “I don't suppose Iverson would let us jack into something with a little more oomph, would he?” “Most likely not.” Sam considered the base computer reduced to wreckage, “Most likely not...” It was then that the older man's expression subtly changed in a way Hunk was not familiar with. As the two of them cleared away the remnants of the laptop, Hunk awaited something. Though he had no idea what. “So Hunk, could you perhaps tell me a little about this friend of yours, Lance?” Sam asked in a very fatherly way. The kind of tone that suggested he was very concerned really, but wanted to appear unconcerned, “Didn't really get a lot of chance to talk with him back on the castle, you see. But ever since my little girl came home, well, his name seems to keep cropping up a lot. Excited about a party for Lance, wanting to meet Lance's family. Deciding who gets to keep her and Lance's adopted child she said... Thankfully she was just talking about Kaltenecker. Gave me a little fright, honestly... There was talk about who keeps the games console and on what alternating days they'd trade, who'd host game nights. Talking with Colleen about picking out the right dress for the evening. Things like that. Gets the old noggin joggin' as they used to say.” Hunk could feel his stomach squirm as he nodded, offering only a nervous, “Mmmhmmm...” In response. “They must be very good friends, is what I would assume.” Sam nodded, “Though, I wonder... As a concerned parent might, you know? I'm probably being over analytical aren't I? But is he a good man? Good head on his shoulders? I'm sure he must be, right?” Hunk fell into silence as he carefully considered his next words. He could already see himself setting hours aside for baking, this was going to be an even worse interrogation than Iverson's debriefing. “Could my favour be not having this conversation...?” Sam smiled kindly. Then shook his head. Red, sat silent and ever patient, returned to his thoughts once again.

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