#this is a grieving process not a “learning how swans work” process

[brookeraider]

The Great Swan

There once was a swan called The Great Swan. She lived in a beautiful pond with her mate. Together they had three cygnets. They were a happy family.

As they got older the cygnets eventually old enough to set out and create their own families, but every summer they would visit the pond. And they would bring their own families with them. And when their own cygnets were fully grown the cycle continued. One big, happy family.

As time went on The Great Swan's mate became ill, and after a while his time in the pond ended. The family grieved the loss as the mate's soul flew around in the sky above the pond, watching over his home and his big, grieving family.

Time passed, the family grew, and while the pain lessened it never dissapeared. The Great Swan still lived in the pond, and her family still visited every summer. She never stopped missing her mate, but she had their cygnets, their grandcygnets and even great grandcygnets who would visit the pond every summer. One big, happy family.

One year The Great Swan suddenly fell ill, and it quickly got worse. Her family came to visit and help as much as they could, but The Great Swan knew her time was up. She didn't fear death, she was satisfied with her life and eager to see her beloved mate again.

She told her family "I see him waiting for me,up there in the sky above the pond. There's no reason to cry. I'll be with him again soon, and we'll watch over you all from above the pond. Our big, happy family".

One or more of her grandcygnets would visit every day, with their own cygnets in tow, until The Great Swan felt too weak for visitors and requested that only her own cygnets stay with her, as she didn't want to be alone. She slept peacefully as she prepared to fly with her mate once more.

When she finally woke up once more her mate stood before her, beckoning her to fly with him. She stretched her wings, feeling stronger and lighter than she had ever felt in her life, and together they took to the night sky. Together they flew below the moon and stars, above their pond.

Down in the pond their family were grieving the loss of The Great Swan, while also celebrating her long life. And if the pond is still there, then so will the souls of The Great Swan and here mate be, where they still to this day will be watching over their big, happy family.

(Art by me)

[themanofgloom]

Oscar & Alice (as well as Oscar’s overall past)

Alice Little is the name of Oscar’s ex.

She worked in the Dying Swan Theater before him, but left before he did. They met when they were both around 25 or so -- Oscar was a performer-slash-pianist, and she worked as a costume designer. They befriended each other and began to speak outside of work, and eventually, got together at around 27.

Their relationship was significantly healthy at first. Alice was a bubbly, comedic, humorous and goofy woman, and Oscar, although struggling with trauma and  mental illnesses, was the shadow to her light, often being reclusive and shy, but appreciating her support and help for his issues. At this time, he’d already begun therapy and was doing all he could to cope in a way that didn’t harm Alice, for he already learned his lesson of being toxic and unhealthy towards family members in the past. Sometimes, it was stressful, her watching him have days where he refused to proceed with daily activities in life due to suffocating anxiety, horrible intrusive thoughts, and the like, but she didn’t abandon him.

However, despite their relationship being built on trust, Alice did hide a part of her life from Oscar, and that was her attempt to handle her drug addiction. She’d already been to rehab and therapy before, doing her best to keep her life together after that, but she was going through relapses and lying to Oscar about her mental and physical state, even when he desperately wanted answers. He figured it out before she told him, and in fear of judgment, she broke up with him just two years after they got together, hurting him in the process.

They’d be on and off after that, not exactly talking but occasionally contacting each other. After their breakup, Oscar had intense with handling his BPD and how it affected him and others, and he stopped trying to cope in a way that didn’t hurt his friends. He returned to the toxic person that he was several years ago. He knew what he was doing, and he wanted to stop, but he still hurt people. A lot. He ended up losing most of his friends before he and Alice got back together, and then after the second breakup, lost the remaining ones.

Alice returned to Oscar, apologizing to him for the sudden breakup from before, and offered to be with him again. Oscar, at a time of desperation for acknowledgment and love, accepted without second thought. Already grieving for lost friends he abused and hurt, he tried to promise himself that he wouldn’t do the same to Alice. But, things slipped through anyway, and in his mind he tried to tell himself that what he was doing wasn’t hurting her; constantly suggesting himself to be hurt whenever she was upset because he wanted to be “good” enough to her so she would stay. Constantly blaming every single little thing on himself, announcing it out loud, shutting down every single piece of encouragement she tried to give him.

What made this worse was that Alice’s drug abuse was still being dealt with on her side, so combining that with Oscar’s behavior made for incredible stress in the relationship, where they went back and forth in emotionally/psychologically hurting each other.

Wishing to be the angelic, goofy, casual person she always wanted to be, Alice told Oscar they should move in together, in a house, ignoring the possible emotional dangers of that possibility. So they lived together -- and then Alice said she wanted to have a family.

Oscar was terrified at that idea, and Alice kept trying to force the concept onto him, even when she honestly disliked the thought of being a mother and was just reaching for an image that she didn’t represent. They were in a constant tug-of-war, until Alice became so stressed and unsatisfied with her personal identity that she overdosed one day.

The two of them had another event added onto their long list of trauma that week, and both of them, exhausted and distraught, broke up, for the last time. Even when Oscar tried to convince Alice that the overdose was his fault a day after that, wanting to be with her again -- if only because he wanted something to cling on.

Unfortunately, in that same month, Oscar was contacted by his biological parents, wishing to meet him. At 32, he last saw them when he was 11 years old. And, at a low point of his life, empty of self-love and starving for a sense of affection, he decided to meet them, hoping, despite all the abuse he’d been through, that maybe they’d changed. And maybe he over-dramatized everything when he was a child, and maybe now his mom and dad were better.

He was wrong. And he’d rather not talk about it -- his biological parents don’t deserve to be talked about. They twisted his vision, making him believe that they were simply stressed and not “truly” abusive to him as a child, and that he was selfish for preferring his adoptive family over them. Oscar left that day, and afterwards, after he came home, made a suicide attempt, with his own medication.

What happened after that seems like a blur to him. All Oscar remembers are his adoptive siblings, parents.... being there. Rob even offered for him to stay over at their apartment for a while, if he really needed it. But he was afraid, and didn’t want to risk hurting someone else again. So he decided to be alone, but did call some of his siblings daily. And then weekly. Monthly.

His physical and mental health were relatively low afterwards, so much so that he dropped out of the Dying Swan Theater for it. He gained weight from binging late at night and taking antidepressants -- which he later stopped taking due to his bulimia’s body image fears as well -- and became a heavy recluse. He had urges to cope with drugs, but he reached out to his therapist about that instead of hiding it, fortunately.

Oscar felt that he was a mess. He missed the stage. He missed his motivation for art and acting and music. He missed having friends, and he missed when he had plans, or what he felt to be a purpose in life. He found an interest in gardening, however, and found it therapeutic to take care of plants. He ended up selling his fruits and vegetables to a farmer’s market, and then that became his source of income.

Then... Molly. His younger sister recently got a pet, and told Oscar about it. Sent him pictures of a nice cute parrot. Told him that it relieved a lot of stress for her and her daughter. And, age 35 now, he got an idea. He feared it, but it was still an idea. Dogs were cute yes, but he didn’t think he could handle playing with one. Birds were cute, but he didn’t have much interest in a bird.

He went to a pet store one day... and laid eyes on a particular cat. Named Marley by the staff, sleek with black hair, looking like a long noodly kitten with emerald green eyes -- Oscar bought him on the spot, and took him home, not wanting to change his name.

Now, age 47, Oscar is doing much better mentally, emotionally, and physically. Throughout the years, he’s been taking care of his cat (and goose, Grayson), keeping healthy contact with family, and writing music and stories for the Dying Swan Theater. He’s been jogging/running out in the park to try and relieve what stress is possible to be relieved instead of going to self-destructive tactics. He makes more vent art, though that doesn’t mean he avoids self-destruction completely. There are times where he falls back into unhealthy behaviors and coping mechanisms, but he’s doing his best.

Sometimes, he does bump into Alice, or have dreams about her, or think about her. But he’d rather not look back at what they had, and instead focus on himself, despite the scariness of the journey.

[fickleminder]

Dragon Raja: The Choice

I’m super new to this game so please pardon any inaccuracies. This little drabble is self-indulgent, canon divergent, and a result of all the posts I’ve seen about MC not getting enough attention during the Japan arc and speculation that they’ll be back in the spotlight once Z returns:

- You and Renata were inseparable back in the orphanage. It didn’t matter if Z often opted out of your little adventures with a lazy shrug or if the other children didn’t care much for either of you to join in; you had each other and that was all that mattered

- Seeing your dearest friend alive after what had apparently been 20 years, after she had taken the fatal bullet meant for you and pushed you to safety, it was nothing short of a miracle

- What you didn’t expect was for her and Z to be on the other side

- “I had hoped I’d be standing right next to you,” Renata says, except that she goes by Zero now. Next to her, Z is completely relaxed, as though Johann and Chime and everybody else behind you aren’t pointing weapons at them

- “They haven’t been very good to you, have they?” Zero continues. “You’d been frozen for 20 years, and after waking up the first thing they do is send you on a mission. They had you fighting for them, risking your life, running trivial errands, and not a moment to explain the truth or even let you breathe.” A pause, and she smiles wistfully at you. “You always did like telling me stories about your day. When was the last time anyone asked you how you were?”

- You hate that she’s right. You hate that you’re tired, that you feel like you’ve been doing all the work and carrying the team ever since Anjou had sent you off. You’ve woken from nightmares more often than you can count and they’ve only gotten worse after learning about Black Swan Bay. You haven’t had time to process or even grieve; 20 years of your life gone, just like that

- Zero holds her hand out, promising that she and Z will take care of you, just like old times. It’ll be the three of you against the world. Behind you, your friends (are they, really?) call out to you, telling you not to listen, to remember what you stood for. You hear Luminous and Caesar shouting, Johann’s calm voice beginning to waver, Chisei and Chime reminding you that your cause was worth fighting for

- It’s too much. You can’t think — you can’t choose

- Your special power has always been to copy others’ EX to some degree. It’s how you’ve won all your battles thus far. This time, you take a page out of Anjou’s book and freeze time before fleeing, disappearing in a blink of an eye

- It’s chaos when you vanish into thin air once time resumes. You’re there one second and gone the next

- Zero recovers first and smiles to herself. She knows what you’re doing; this was one of your favorite games at the orphanage. Z looks at her questioningly, but she says nothing

- Meanwhile your friends are beside themselves with worry. Caesar and Johann are already coming up with plans to find you, while Luminous is on the phone with Finger to put out feelers

- After counting to twenty, Zero walks away and beckons Z to follow

- “It just goes to show how much you don’t know about them,” she answers when Chisei demands to know where they’re going. “They played lots of hide-and-seek growing up, and they’re very, very good at it. The game is on, and there’s just one thing you need to remember...”

- Zero turns to them with a smirk. “Finders keepers.”

Ending 1 here

Ending 2 here

[mz-elysium]

Wow. That was a lot longer than I planned. Do we even do comic sans wip posts anymore? It it cool? Am I cool? 

Photo ID below the cut because this is already way too fucking long of a post. And this ID, bc of it, is so so long.

Photo ID: a 13 slide Comic Sans font powerpoint about an original WIP. All slides but the first are white, black text, all font being Comic Sans to follow the meme.

Slide 1: black background, white text. Titled with red shadow: The City of Fallen Angels: (2) Hitaeth. Definition below: hiraeth: homesickness or nostalgia, an earnest longing for an idealised past, or a sense of regret. Around this title are a bunch of floating descriptors about the WIP: vampires, gothic-punk, regrets vs forgiveness, dark urban fantasy, historical 2003, 4 POVs, secrets, political intrigue, slice of life, compassion vs selfishness, vampires playing Game of Thrones, grimdark and also hopepunk. A Vampire the Masquerade canon divergent original novel.

Slide 2: Worldbuilding, about the Vampire the Masquerade world. Titled: The canon sects but like a little more nuanced. Three columns of bullet points follow. 

The first is the Camarilla. 

neo-feudal lords and princes

rule most of the world

want to rule the rest of it

scheming, old elders who don’t give a shit about anyone else

will kill your family to make a point

BUT ALSO.

stable domains; due process

clan culture, history, tradition

connected to wider vampire society

play their game and you can live as a peaceful peasant (mostly)

The second column is the Anarchs.

rebellious neonates/ancillae

in their Free States, there’s opportunity for power and to live your own life

neonates can actually own land??

ALSO

literal anarchy

no real oversight or leadership

can and will be killed by another gang

“if you can hold it, you can have it”

Third column is the Sabbat

worship Caine as the First Murderer (first vampire)

take “vampire” too literally

inhuman monsters

war cult readying for Armageddon

ALSO

profoundly religious

strict code of honour

accept their inhumanity (no angst)

tight-knit family-like packs

heroes/crusaders for their ppl

Slide 3: Titled: Have a shitty map. A Google map screenshot of Central Los Angeles, with highlighted sections in different colours, clearly done in Paint by a child. Seven sections are highlighted, explained on the next slide.

Slide 4: The lands are divided by the sect who control it.

Anarchs:

Angels Wasteland: remains of the #peaceful Barony of Angels. With Salvador Garcia’s death, it’s a shitshow chaotic warzone. 

Tinseltown: Isaac Abrams, movie baron, just wants to be left alone.

East LA: ruled by loyalists of the Old Guard Anarchs, who are all dead/gone. Sabbat from further east are smelling weakness.

Downtown: technically “no baron” but also nines is baron. Typical Anarchs, shooting each other, living rough, living free. OR ARE THEY???

Camarilla:

The Valley: a praxis backed by legendary elders, who are propelled by faceless masters, using unwilling Prince Barty Vaughn as a pawn

Westside: greedy and ambitious LaCroix goes “hmm. la looks like shit. probably wanna get in on that” and calls up his contact, Therese Voerman and says “yo. u got a barony, huh? wanna be my seneschal?”

“Independent”

Silver Lake: a desperate grab by Monroe and co to build their own “utopia” … sorta like the Anarchs 60yrs ago… and look how THAT went. Monroe ate the last Old Guard Anarch.

Slide 5: Titled: Monroe’s POV, with a subtitle of The Captain. On the left, a photo of half of a man’s face in shadow. He has dark hair, pale skin, blue eyes, and a hard expression. Bullet points describe him as Matthew Monroe, Clan Ventrue, Embraced 1873, Humanity 5, age 28. On the right, a series of bullets describe his POV’s story.

this is a dude drowning in an ocean of Problems and his catchphrase is “I’ll figure it out”

he owes a life debt to the enigmatic powerful archon in the Valley (Jan Pieterzoon), who seems to respect/honour him more than most of LA.

he used to be besties with the Valley Prince (Barty Vaughn), who he can’t trust but seems? the same?

he turned his ghoul and secret love into a vampire (Hawthorne), against her wishes, and now she hates him. monroe: u kno what? that’s fair.

Silver Lake is held together with duct tape. monroe’s right hand (Ashley Swan) is a nightmare and untrustworthy. his people try to kill each other.

he’s got a lot of unresolved trauma/grief/abuse/anger and vampires sort of have “The Beast”, a spirit that haunts them with evil

and oh yeah, LA is about to explode

Slide 6: Titled: Monroe’s supporting characters. Four characters, each of them have a photo, a title, and brief run-on description.

First, a photo of a very pale man with purple eyes and a lock of ice blonde hair. Ashley Swan, the Thorn, Clan Toreador. Monstrously cruel, sarcastic, hedonistic, aggressive, sadistic, can’t be trusted, doesn’t wear shirts. Bisexual transman.

Second, a photo of a dour woman with dark hair. Audrey Hawthorne, the Lovechilde, Clan Ventrue. Blinded by the Embrace, furious, frustrated, grieving, snarky, over accomplished, creative, passionate.

Third, a man in a black suit looking over a ballroom with a crystal chandelier. Jan Pieterzoon, the Kingmaker, Clan Ventrue. 300 year old, archon, elder, sire is Camarilla big-shot, dignified, mysterious, chessmaster, honourable, elite.

Fourth, a man in a dress shirt, sleeve rolled up, hand extended with a cigarette and bloody palm. Barty Vaughn, the Valley Prince, Clan Ventrue. Former Anarch, Prince of San Francisco, now reluctant Prince of LA. Smokes like a chimney, lives to fuck Tremere and have fun.

Slide 7: Titled: Zari’s POV, with a subtitle of The Black Rose. On the left, a photo of a beaming dark-skinned Black woman with bouncy coily black hair. Bullet points describe her as Zari Adeyemi-Swan, Clan Toreador, Embraced 1973, Humanity 6, age 27. On the right, a series of bullets describe her POV’s story.

life sucks, it’s cruel, and there’s no point thinking on the past, even when the past comes to haunt you

she fled her foster sire and once-lover (Ashley Swan) for his cruelty to others, but now he offers maybe?genuine? amends.

thirty years ago, she left her human children. her daughter (Aisha Adeyemi) has been Embraced and brings bad news

her main way of #coping is working and distracting herself. she throws herself to infiltrate the Westside Camarilla court (Sebastian LaCroix), against all good advice.

soon after she arrives, she finds herself having a secret admirer (Mercurio), who reminds her how precious it is to be loved, held, and cared for — but they need to overcome their own instincts to accept what they could have

The Voerman sisters are in the thick of it all, making perfect cautionary allies and, if she can overcome her preconceptions, friends.

and oh yeah, LA is about to explode

Slide 8: Titled: Zari’s supporting characters. Four characters, each of them have a photo, a title, and brief run-on description.

First, a photo of a white man wearing mirrored sunglasses in front of orange-pink neon. It casts his face and smile eerily. Ashley Swan, the Foster Sire, Clan Toreador, monstrously cruel, charismatic, loyal, thorough, too clever, pleasurable. Bi transman.

Second, a photo of a white man in a suit, adjusting his cuffs. Sebastian LaCroix, the Westside Prince, Clan Ventrue, opportunistic benefactor, greedy, ambitious, petulant, ruthless, degrading.

Third, a white man in a paisley shirt, gold necklaces, putting a hand to a tattooed and exposed chest. Mercurio, the Admirer, LaCroix’s Ghoul, resourceful, sweet, empathetic, capable, romantic, salt of the earth, former Mafia hitman.

Fourth, a white woman in a black suit with delicate gold jewelry. The Voermans, the Mirrored Sisters, Clan Malkavian; one is brutal, calculating, patient, reckless, the other is seductive, fun-loving, innovative, insightful.

Slide 9: Titled: Charlie’s POV, with a subtitle of The Moonchilde. In small text, a line says “a.k.a. Me processing grief over my mother #coping. On the left, a photo of a sad-faced white woman with freckles, black eyeliner, and frizzy brown curls. Bullet points describe her as Charlie Bradley, Clan Malkavian, Embraced 2003, Humanity 8, age 20, lesbian. On the right, a series of bullets describe her POV’s story.

life is getting back to normal? well, “new normal”

as a new adult, she has a good ol’ fashioned “start of life” crisis: who am I? where do I fit in? complicated by her mother’s death a year ago. what sort of woman am I? how does this figure into my attraction to women?

maybe. maybe. maybe monroe is cold and distant and ruling a vampire kingdom, but he wants to look after me. maybe i should let him.

also, hey, you (Jesse Harper) get it. and you’re hurting. let me help, let me be your soft place to land. wow, okay, this is kissing.

she didn’t mean to ruin her sire’s (Rhys Wilson) life. but, she did. she killed his mentor. SHHH! secret! she feel bad. maybe friends? uh, okay, weirdo. maybe D&D.

she’s learning to deal with feeding on scumbags and giving what people got coming to them. and the Cobweb, supernatural psychosis

WHY ARE VAMPIRES LIKE THIS? WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG? FFS

and oh yeah, LA is about to explode

Slide 10: Titled: Charlie’s supporting characters. Three characters, each of them have a photo, a title, and brief run-on description.

First, a white man in the middle of screaming, his head swaying back and forth so it looks like he has three heads. Rhys Wilson, the Sire, Clan Malkavian, weirdo, prime D&D fanatic and DM, just wants friends, and vengeance, pulls pranks to teach lessons. Gay.

Second, a very strong white woman with her arms crossed, a tattoo on one, and a t-shirt that is obscured but clearly says “The future is female”. Jesse Harper, the Darkness, Clan Lasombra, former vampire hunter, reluctant vampire, brooding, mysterious, sullen, black trench coat, buff as fuck, brave. Lesbian.

Third, a pair of clasped hands, male over female. Monroe, the Stepsire, Clan Ventrue, fucking old, inhuman, kills too easily, sincere, honourable, intense, gives good advice but really should shut his mouth hole.

Slide 11: Titled: Jack’s POV, with a subtitle of The Lone Wolf. On the left, a photo of a sad-faced strong Chinese man with a shaggy and tufted mullet. Bullet points describe him as Jack Shen, Clan Gangrel, Embraced 1955, Humanity 7, age 25, gay. On the right, a series of bullets describe his POV’s story.

why does he always end up alone? people leave, people die, people drift and change, but the good times were worth it

he’s always had a rocky relationship with his lover (Ryuko Saito), but now the dumbass has found a cult promising power.

he hasn’t lost him. he hasn’t. him and ryu just take time apart sometimes. but it’s been a long fucking while. and jack isn’t sure who he is alone anymore. a new human friend (Dustin Cohen), working at his animal hospital gives new life.

his former best friend (Damsel) has dove deep into Downtown and managing as Nines’ lieutenant, bringing him more and more dirty work to clean up

monroe relies on him to reign in the chaos of vampires trying to live without killing each other.

and oh yeah, LA is about to explode

Slide 12: Titled: Jack’s supporting characters. Three characters, each of them have a photo, a title, and brief run-on description.

First, a young white woman with dyed fire-engine red hair and an Iron Maiden t-shirt. Damsel, the Lieutenant, Clan Brujah, naive, brash, physical, loyal, loud-mouthed, smart.

Second, a skinny man in an ill-fitting Hawaiian shirt and jeans. Ryuko Saito, the Orphan, Mage, power-hungry, desperate, proud, ruthless, loving, isolated, crushingly lonely, gremlin, old and chronic pain, hides and “treats” it with magic.

Third, a white hand extending a hummingbird to fly free. Dustin Cohen, the Receptionist, Human, understanding, the best of Good Dudes, empathetic, kinda lame outsider

Slide 13: Titled: also. A moodboard on the right side includes two weeping stone angels, one at sunset, one in darkness between a tarnished and broken silver crown; a gas station in LA as seen through a rainy car window; grim-looking downtown city buildings; and a sidewalk curb with neon lights reflecting off a puddle and a plastic bag of takeout garbage strewn across.

On the left, bullet points follow.

about 100 million other characters. I legit have a spreadsheet

Everyone is capable of evil

Sins of the sire (father)

Never too late to start being a good person

Takes place  about 6 months before Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines

At least one more novel in the works

Subheading, 22/55 chapters written. Gonna start posting September 28.

End ID.

[amplesalty]

TV Binging: Pushing Daisies (2007-2009)

The facts were these...

At the risk of immediately dating this entry, the entire world is in the grip of a certain public health crisis right now and it seems everyone is taking that time to learn a new language, plunder their local supermarket for baking ingredients or just dive into that long neglected Netflix watchlist for something to pass the seemingly never-ending lockdown hours. For unknown reasons, my brain turned to the late noughties sensation of Pushing Daisies. Maybe because it’s relatively short, only two seasons totaling 22 episodes, or maybe it was a means of finally putting it to bed after two previous failed attempts to watch it all.

For the uninitiated, the show centers around Ned, a small business owner with the unique ability of being able to bring the dead back to life with just a touch of his finger, albeit with a few asterisks attached. Chief amongst them is that if he touches that person or thing again, they go back to being dead, permanently. And, if that person or things stays living for longer than sixty seconds then the power of the Universe, the Grim Reaper or Final Destination kicks in and takes something else in its place. This was something Ned learned at a very young age when his mother died suddenly of a brain aneurysm and in the act of bringing her back to life, he inadvertently killed the father of his neighbour and childhood sweetheart, Charlotte ‘Chuck’ Charles.

Cut to 20 years in the future, or 19 years, 34 weeks, 1 day and 59 minutes later as the narrator so handily informs us, young Ned has become ‘the pie-maker’, running The Pie Hole where he’s able to massively slash his overheads by being able to make delicious pies by simply bringing rotting fruit back to life to serve as his ingredients. It’s amazing the profits you can turn when you can entirely cut out the middle man of fruit suppliers isn’t it?

Plus he makes a little money on the side by helping a local PI named Emerson Cod. Why do all the hard work of investigating a crime when you can simply have a corpse brought back to life for sixty seconds, long enough to ask them who killed them.

It’s through this little business arrangement that Ned stumbles upon the unfortunate news that Chuck’s body was fished from the sea after she seemingly fell overboard on a cruise. With the prospect of a $50,000 reward for information on her passing, Cod is quick to get on the case but in the heat of the moment, Ned has other motives than money and neglects to re-dead his childhood crush.

Thus the series blossoms into what I would describe as a murder mystery meets fairy tale type show, with Chuck now tagging along as one of the Scooby Gang as they solve a new case every week. That’s probably a pretty apt comparison too considering Ned’s dog is often around too, a dog that he also brought back to life and has been keeping around for twenty years. Though, Ned isn’t a massive stoner and Cod doesn’t wear an ascot. He does have a couple of knitted gun holsters though if you want to equate that as his ‘fruity’ accessory.

The reward is something that feels a little shoehorned in early on, they always seem to go out of their way to make a point of saying something like ‘police are baffled and are offering a reward that leads to an arrest’ just so there’s a reason for Cod to get involved. It does eventually settle into someone coming to Cod directly to hire his services, whether that be a grieving widow or family member of a falsely accused wanting to clear their relatives name. That just made a bit more sense to me. You kinda have to look past the fact that the police never seem to be actively involved in any of these cases as well, allowing Cod and co to just swan around doing their thing until they’re able to turn in the real killer at the end of the episode and cash their reward. It always seems that they have a knack of turning up like two minutes too later to someones murder. They do make a point of turning this on its head in one episode though when they find Ned at a murder scene and figure him as the killer.

And maybe it’s just me being a chauvinistic pig but good lord you cannot escape boobs in this show. Or maybe not just me, punch ‘Pushing Daisies cleavage’ into Google dot com and it looks like a few people were talking about this at the time. It felt like one of those things that, once I noticed it, I just couldn’t unsee it. Women always leaning over or camera shots from above looking down their dresses. Just cleavage everywhere. It seems to come up at slightly inappropriate times, like Chuck’s aunts who are socially repressed and virtual shut ins but are stilled dressed up the nines, boobs pushed up and spilling out.

It kinda makes sense for Olive though, waitress at the Pie Hole and with a thing for Ned so she’s just trying to seduce him but without much luck. Doesn’t mean they don’t go out of their way to show off the twins outside the restaurant though such as when Olive takes ownership of the swimming costumes that Chuck’s aunts used to use as part of their synchronized swimming stage show.

Speaking of Kristin Chenoweth’s set of lungs, she gets to show off her musical background a few times throughout the show by breaking into song . It feels a little out of place as there isn’t any other musical acts in the show but she does a great job.

A more family friendly point of design is just how beautiful this show looks at times. Like, pretty much the first thing you see in episode one is young Ned and his dog running through down a vast hillside of flowers. It’s a really vibrant use of colour that runs throughout the whole show, whether it’s sets or costumes, and really adds to this whole fantasy vibe aided by the fantastical nature of Ned’s special power.

Businesses that pop up as part of the story have these grand, bespoke designed buildings that seem like they would never logically exist in the real world like this honey business with a beehive theme...

...and interior decorations  centered around hexagons.

Even something as clinical as the city morgue almost leaps off the screen with a bold red and white striped building. Though, I feel having an entrance labelled ‘deliveries’ brings back a little bit of the coldness you would expect. They might be dead but give them some dignity, they’re not pizzas.

You occasionally get these childhood fantasy sequences as well from when Ned and Chuck would play together as kids, imagining the world in claymation before they would inevitably destroy it as they pictured themselves as giant monsters.

It ties into the characters as well, everyone wearing very colourful clothes except for Ned who only ever seem to dress in blacks or greys.

Except for when he has to act under false pretenses, pretending to be someone else in order to get information from someone or to distract a suspect. To play amateur psychologist for a moment, with someone neurotic as Ned, it’s like a visual representation of his inner self no longer confined, no longer suppressed under the weight of the problems he’s bottling up and pushing deep down within himself. For a brief moment he’s able to break free from the shackles of his black and white world and into rich and living colour. It’s like a strange inverse of how things might usually work where a splash of colour would make someone or something stand out amongst an otherwise drab background. Somehow Ned’s lack of colour draws the eye.

On a more technical level, it is often quite obvious how superimposed the actors are against the fancy backgrounds and that can be a tad distracting. The editing between scenes can sometimes lend to the creative feel of the series, there are a few episodes where instead of the usual wipes you get something more appropriate to the story of the episode. For instance, in one episode centered around a magic theatre show, the transitions are the closing and opening of the stage curtains. It’s a little touch but it adds to the whimsy.

It all adds up to what might the most cutest, adorable thing I’ve ever seen, for the first few episodes at least. Maybe it’s a case of getting used to the whole thing but early on there’s a bit of a feeling out process (or non feeling as the case may be) between Ned and Chuck, the smiles they share or the ways they have to vicariously show their affection by hugging Cod. Him being the unwilling third party in this unconventional relationship doesn’t help take the edge of what might be a saccharine affair. There is a slight sense of ‘will they, wont they’ about Ned and Chuck,, subverting the usual TV payoff of a big kiss by doing so through plastic wrap.Makes you wonder how they explore their other urges under these circumstances. Or maybe that’s just the lockdown thirst kicking in again...

I think the distance they have plays with your head a little bit. There’ a coyness to it that puts you in mind of a bunch of awkward kids at a school dance too nervous to dance with each other. Or maybe Ned standing two feet away from Chuck, holding his own hand and pretending it’s Chuck’s is just an eerie glimpse into the post apocalyptic world we’ll have to enter at some point and all our conventions of greetings and physical contact have been shattered.

For the rotating cast of peripheral characters the show goes through as each investigation comes and goes, it’s nice that a few a started to re-appear now and again, such as Paul Rubens’ Oscar, Christine Adams’ Simone or David Arquette’s Randy Mann. That last one is a name, not a description (a Randy Man, a Macho Savage). It helps build this broader world and story elements, albeit I’m torn on the latter. Oscar, for instance, suspects something is not quite right about Chuck and she worries that he’s going to uncover her secret. It never really goes anywhere though and, whilst you could argue that like any good mystery there is the odd red herring along the way, it still feels like a little bit of a bait and switch considering that are other things in the story that don’t get paid off.

I’ll have to look into the timeline for how the series came to a close because it definitely seems like they knew considering there’s a very tacked on epilogue to the final episode that tries to tie up some of the loose ends, but there are still some left that aren’t. Namely the presence of Ned’s father that he had thought had been long gone for some twenty years but had been closer than he thought the entire time, with the show giving periodical teases of him sitting in the Pie Hole or a more thrilling cameo as he sweeps in to rescue Ned and Olive from their untimely deaths as they cling to a branch on the edge of a cliff.

The fact that he does so whilst wearing a mask and wearing gloves is more of a way to lead Ned towards certain conclusions on the identity of this mystery man but I can’t help but wonder what the implications are on the gloves in particular. The mechanics of Ned’s power seem to be that contact in order to bring the dead back to life has to be made skin to skin, so maybe Ned inherited this power from his father and his father brought Ned back to life at some point? Maybe him abandoning Ned at a young age was done to eliminate any risk of him accidentally touching him again and making death permanent? I’m not sure that would hold up considering he later walks out on his new family and twin boys so this would require three different people to all have seemingly no memory of their own near death experience. Maybe it’s all been repressed, that wouldn’t be surprising considering all the childhood angst present in this show.

You know what else I’m confused on? The distance between Coeur d’Couers, where Chuck’s aunts live, and the Pie Hole. Maybe I’m misremembering or misheard but I’m sure in one episode the narrator mentions that they’re 161 miles apart, yet characters seem to go between the two like they’re five minutes away. One of the aunts arranges a secret date at the Pie Hole later on in the same night but that’s a pretty massive distance to cover considering they make a point that they’re only traveling on buses. I know travel is all relative to American’s considering the massive size of their country but that’s a pretty ridiculous distance to cover for a slice of pie.

[bunny-wan-kenobi]

Things I appreciate more about Endgame the second time watching it

Steve and Tony’s reconciliation really plays out over the course of three main conversations, the first one resentful and bitter, the second frustrated and distant, and the third accepting and forgiving. They choose to move forward and trust each other again, and that coming together happens organically and slowly enough that it feels earned.

At first I was shocked by Thor’s turn in the story and thought the movie treated him too much like a joke. But during the second watch, I actually didn’t mind what they did with his character (until the end I still don’t like his ending in this movie). Even though his weight gain is still framed humorously often, I do like that the narrative gives attention to the very real trauma he experienced and Chris clearly approaches the performance with those layers. He always seems on the precipice of tears, and you realize the humor is a shield for the pain he’s still feeling and that he truly hasn’t been able to process his sense of loss and failure well. I love that he gets to reconnect with his mom, I adore how compassionate the rest of the Avengers are towards him—like they get frustrated sure, but they’re also really understanding of the fact that he’s not in a good place right now. I love especially how gentle Bruce is with him, and it brings their dynamic in Ragnarok full circle. The ending still bothers me because it undoes a lot of his growth in Ragnarok, but I appreciate that Thor really had a significant character arc over two movies.

I love Natasha in this movie, her vulnerability, her desire to protect her family and make the world better—whatever it takes. She’s the last one to speak the last time all the Avengers are together, and she locks eyes with Steve a final time, and in hindsight that’s just so heartbreakingly beautiful like...

Natasha’s friendships in this movie. I adore her friendship with Steve and how their camaraderie and trust has deepened ever since Winter Soldier. They ground each other and understand each other, a parallel to how Nat and Clint, with all their history and the faith they put in each other, also get each other. There are some wonderful interactions between these characters that reflect the strength of those friendships. It also reinforces that Nat’s sacrifice was not in vain, nor was it fridging—it was for her family.

I love Scott Lang and his earnestness in which he approaches everyone and everything.

I love Nebula’s character arc and how it pays off in this beautiful solidarity with the other Gamora as they take down the man who abused both of them.

I love that Brody and Nebula bond over their disabilities and become friends.

I love Rocket taking getting his family back so seriously.

I love Tony as a dad with juice pops and swear words and “love you three thousand”

I love the freakin’ Hydra elevator scene and the SMIRK Steve walks off with—wow what a change from Avengers 1

I love Rocket and Hulk’s indie road trip to New Asgard

I love how soft and sweet Scott is with grown up Cassie

I love that Thor doesn’t magically lose the weight but gets to be badass at the end and knows he’s still worthy

I love that Tony gets to find healing in talking to his dad one more time

I love how Scott watches the birds outside and knows then that the snap worked.

I love how Clint grieves what he’s become but Nat makes a different call—just like what he did for her long ago.

I love that Cap fought with Mjolnr and Thor always knew he could.

I love the Big Three marching up to Thanos ready to fight till the end

I love that Steve hears Sam’s voice and just knows the armada is on the way

I love that the Infinity Gauntlet is passed from Clint, a member of the original Avenger team, to T’Challa, a new member, to Peter Parker, their youngest member

I love that Carol kicks Thanos’ ass but also isn’t the one to finish him because...

It’s Tony with the perfect bookend line who finishes it and is allowed to rest and I cried again in the theater

I love that we saw Nick Fury right in the back of Tony’s funeral, the very person who first told Tony about the Avengers initiative

I love that Sam and Steve have become like brothers and it’s Sam whom Steve entrusts his shield and legacy to

I love that one prominent theme is Steve learning to move on but on his terms. He gets to love. He gets to live. He gets to rest—at last.

I love the credits and how they serve as a perfect swan song for our original Avengers

I love that Tony making his Iron Man suit is the last sound we hear

[secret-captain-swan-blog]

Castle on the Hill

English Literature PhD student Emma Swan just needs money to pay for her last semester of grad school tuition. Killian Jones has always dreamed of opening a bookshop but has never been able to afford it. So when the small principality of Misthaven is looking for their lost princess, the pair decide that this might just be the perfect money making scheme.A Multi-chapter Modern Day + Lost Princess (think Rapunzel/Anastasia-esque) + Book Lovers in a Coffee Shop AU

Rating: T

Word Count: 88956/ ?

Prologue (Part 1 + 2) // Ch 1 // Ch 2 // Ch 3 // Ch 4 // Ch 5 // Ch 6 // Ch 7 // Ch 8 // Ch 9 // Ch 10 // Ch 11 // Ch 12 // Ch 13 // Ch 14 // Ch 15

Read on: Ao3

“She’s not mine,” He says, as he falls into her arms.

Emma wraps her arms around him and holds him tight. He feels the grief of the last few hours pour out of him. New tears threaten his eyes, causing him to bury his face into the crook of her neck.

“Oh Killian,” she hushes.

He feels her hand reach up to stroke his hair and it soothes him. He tries to pull himself together. After all, crying in the middle of Paddington Station is a bit of spectacle. Brits are all about stiff upper lip and the like. Killian’s histrionics are probably something that needs to be curtailed.

He takes a few long breaths and pulls back to wipe his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Emma,” He says. “I should have texted you to tell you what was happening instead of making a display.”

“Hey,” Emma says, taking his hand. “I’m not upset. I mean, I am upset because I don’t want you to be sad and hurting. But it’s fine you didn’t tell me. Sometimes we need more time to process on our own.”

Killian nods, wiping at his nose. God, he can’t believe what a mess he is.

“Let’s start heading towards the bus and you can fill me in,” Emma says.

It’s sunny outside. The weather a weird contrast with his mood. He sees packs of friends strolling down the streets, heading out for brunch or morning coffee. All of them living perfectly normal lives, while Killian feels his is falling apart.

It’s stupid really. There was always a bit of Killian that was hoping the child wouldn’t be his. After all, a child would mean finding a new place to live. It would mean finding furniture, likely getting a second job. It would mean that the idea of opening a bookshop would be an even more distant idea.

It seems silly that Killian was willing to give everything up for his bookshop dream when there are things that seem infinitely more important now. Home. Love. Family. And a little girl named Alice.

They don’t end up talking on the way to the bus station. Killian still can’t find the words and because she is an actual marvel, Emma doesn’t press him for them. But she reaches out and take his hand and it makes it a little bit better.

They reach the bus stop with some time to spare.

“The bus should be here in about ten minutes,” Emma says, looking at the schedule on her phone.

Killian nods. He tries to make small talk. “How was your last day with Belle?”

“It was good,” Emma says. “We went to the V&A and Kensington, but then we ended the day with wine in the Shard. Not cheap, but memorable.”

“That’s good,” Killian says, trying to put some emotion into his voice.

Emma frowns and then squeezes his hand. She can obviously tell how emotionally drained he is and doesn’t press him for more words.

The bus arrives not much later. It’s packed, so they end up sitting separately. He offers Emma a seat near the front, while he tucks himself into the back row. He leans back and closes his eyes. He’s been so distraught, he hardly slept the night before. He doesn’t sleep on the bus ride, but he rests his eyes, which feels good.

They arrive at the airport, which is essentially, a warehouse. He numbly navigates security and they get to what barely constitutes as a concourse. Emma leaves him with their luggage at a table while she heads out to procure lunch. She returns not long later with cappuccinos and sandwiches from Pret.

They are seated together for the short flight, which Killian is infinitely grateful for. He leans his head against Emma’s shoulder, slouching in his seat. Emma in turn presses her lips to his hair.

“We’ll be home soon,” She whispers, as they take off.

Killian is grateful for that.

It’s another bus ride, another tram ride, before they are back in Emma’s apartment. It’s nearly late afternoon by now, the sun already beginning to dip, creating long lines of light across Emma’s living room floor, announcing the shift to late autumn.

They leave their bags by the door and Emma leads him to her sofa, wrapping him in her favorite soft, grey blanket and curling under it with him. This feels good and safe and right. Home.

It’s crazy because before this Killian thought he was settled. He thought he was beyond the silly feelings he’d had as a younger man where he needed a family, he needed a home. But yet now, with another tease, with another opportunity of seeing it before him and then having it ripped away- he feels that same pain, that same longing, all over again.

He knows it’s silly, but he imagined it. He imagined Alice becoming his daughter. He imagined finding a little apartment with two bedrooms, maybe nearby, in Emma’s neighborhood. He imagined house plants and maybe a cat. He imagined setting up a child’s bedroom. He imagined filling her bookshelf with a combination of his and Emma’s favorite books from their childhood. He imagined Sunday afternoons playing in the park, late nights helping her with her homework. And somewhere in there, Emma would move in. Somewhere in there, they’d become a family.

Killian knows it’s silly now. God, if he’s learned anything by now it’s that family isn’t something that magically appears in your life. Maybe it is something you have to earn. And well, maybe that’s a lesson for him too- he hasn’t earned it. He doesn’t deserve it.

Emma puts her hands on his face. Her fingers are cold, so he takes them in his hands and kisses them softly.

“I’m sorry, I’m being like this,” He apologizes.

She shakes her head.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” She asks.

He nods, the lump reforming in his throat.

“She’s not mine,” He says.

“I’ve gathered,” Emma says. She isn’t harsh.

“Like I went there to the paternity test,” He says. “And I thought this was going to be it. I sat there waiting for the news and I had this feeling in my gut that she was mine. She had to be mine.”

Emma rubs her thumb over his hand.

“I didn’t even meet her or see her,” He says. “She was just like a thought. They showed me a picture of her. She’s small, like her mum, with curly blond hair. The workers told me a bit of what she’s like. She likes to read. She’s good at school. She’s curious and kind and fanciful. So, I thought, of course she has to be my daughter.”

“I would think so too,” Emma says.

“But I suppose she belongs to another person,” He says. “She’ll live this whole other life and never know that there was a man who was desperate to be her father.”

Emma snuggles into him, putting a kiss on his shoulder.

“I hope he’s good to her. I hope he loves her,” Killian says. “I don’t want her to grow up like we did. Broken and unloved and trained in how to survive because that’s all we knew. I want her to get to be a kid and to be able to have real dreams and know what it feels like to have a family.”

Emma wraps her arms around him and leans into him. They stay like this for a moment, just breathing and grieving.

“I just really thought,” He begins, “I really thought I was going to have a family.”

Emma looks at him with knowing eyes and swallows.

“I know,” she says, “but you do.”

He looks up at her.

“You have Ruby and her gran. You have all the people whose lives you helped during the revolution, at the cathedral, at the botanical garden. You have your patrons at the pub who know you and laugh with you.”

Killian bows his head. Of course, he’s been so selfish to not think of these people as his family. He mentally scolds himself for it. Ruby is basically his sister. And her gran has taken care of him like his own gran did.

Yet, he thinks back of him and Liam and their little bed in the basement of the castle. That was family. Liam was family.

And while Ruby and Granny and the old priest at the church and lad at the botanical garden are all fine and well- they aren’t the same as Liam. They aren’t really, truly, his family.

He can’t tell Emma that. She’s just trying to help and knows that the idea of family is touchy for her too.

Instead, they stay cuddled on the couch together till the sun disappears under the horizon. Emma eventually stirs, turning on a few lamps, and setting to work in the kitchen.

Killian gets up from the couch and perches himself on one of stools at the counter, looking over her work.

“You’re making cheese toasties again?” He asks.

Emma gives him an incredulous look, “You mean grilled cheese?”

Killian smirks at her American-ism. The tries to focus on her adorableness and not on his grief.

“You do seem to cook this delicacy quite a lot,” He remarks.

She shrugs, “It’s comfort food to me.”

He smiles sadly, thinking of his own comfort foods. A warm croissant from Liam, snatched from the kitchens, eaten under the covers of his bed. A chocolate bon bon from the Princess. His gran’s famous vegetable stew. For the bit of his childhood that wasn’t terrible, he does have his own fond memories of food.

“It’s usually the cheapest thing on the menu in any diner in America,” Emma explains, slathering pain de mie with butter.

Killian cocks his head, listening. He can sense that Emma has a memory on the tip of her tongue.

“When I was kid, I didn’t ever want to be a burden,” She tells him. “So if a family was taking me out dinner, I’d always order grilled cheese, the cheapest thing.”

Killian knows that feeling too. He remembers the warm feeling of finally getting to a good house and wondering, worrying, about what he would do this time to ruin it. He knows how to tread lightly, how to always feel like a burden needing to minimalized.

“The summer before I started at Duke, I finished working at summer camp a week before the fall term began. I had just enough money to afford the Greyhound tickets to campus and a semester’s worth of books. After that I had ten dollars and fourteen cents. I didn’t have anywhere to stay. It was such a mess. Colleges don’t know what to make of homeless freshmen. I ended up sneaking into the library every evening and staying in after hours, till it locked, and I’d sleep on the comfiest couch in one of the study rooms.” She pauses, turning to the fridge to take out a block of cheese.

“Sleeping in the library, love?” He teases. “That sounds like your sort of thing.”

“I’d always thought it’d be the dream, but it was a really hard time. I could afford a grilled cheese from the dinner down the street every other night, so that’s what I fed myself on,” Emma says, with a rueful look.

“That’s hardly enough,” Killian says.

He thinks of a boy on London bench with no money, no more chocolate bars, and no more adventures.

“I know,” Emma says.

She takes out a fry pan and turns on a burner. There is silence for a moment as her hand lingers over the pan, checking to see if it is warm, before putting a sandwich on. It sizzles as it hits the pan.

“I’m sorry I’m just randomly blabbering about this,” She tells him, shrugging uncomfortably. “I feel like today has brought up a lot of memories.”

He nods and swallows. “I know, me too.”

“I didn’t think it would,” She says. “But I can’t stop thinking about how it’s our lives all over again- another little, lost girl in the system.”

“I know. Being around the council workers again these past days,” He murmurs, “It brought a lot of things back.”

“It’s not fair,” Emma says.

“I just keep thinking about her face, her smile,” Killian says. “I keep wondering if she’ll grow up like we did. Never feeling like we belong. Always feeling like a burden. Always feeling unwanted.”

Emma frowns, swallowing. She flips the sandwich, revealing one side golden brown and crispy.

“I don’t want Alice to be full of sad stories,” Killian whispers.

Emma looks up, a smile now gracing her lips

“We aren’t full of sad stories either,” Emma says softly. “We are hopeful ones too.”

He looks up at her and he wants to pour his heart out to her. He wants to say, “You are my hopeful story. You are my family.”

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to scare her off. Especially when she has come so, so far.

So instead, he smiles for the first time that evening and says, “I know.”

--

Emma had planned to tell Killian that night about her feelings, about her ‘yes’ to an unasked question. But as they eat their sandwiches and she sees the first light of happiness and hope return to Killian’s face, she decides that it’s just not quite the right day. She doesn’t want the start of their relationship to coincide with a day of sadness and unhappiness.

She wants to focus on him healing, not on being a Band-Aid or a mere distraction to his pain.

That night they split a bottle of wine and she reads him The Princess Bride, which they are nearly finished with at this point. Eventually they find their way to her bed. They fall asleep with her body flush against his, her arms wrapped around his middle. She knows that she herself likes to be held this way, and when she hears his cathartic exhale, she imagines he does too.

She thinks she’ll tell him in the morning, but when she wakes she sees grief wrinkled in the corners of his eyes, bleary from a sleepless night and she thinks, “not yet.”

So November begins instead. It’s colder than it was before, early colorful autumn turning suddenly grey, the air unwaveringly chilled. The leaves turn brown and wrinkle and lay damp against the cobblestone.

Emma starts to write a final exam for her students. Normally, their exams are held after Christmas, but since Emma’s next semester at Duke begins in January, she’s gotten permission to move up her exam for just before Christmas. She finds that she likes coming up with exam questions, hoping that they’ll challenge her students and allow them to shine. She also likes the change of focus from her thesis. American literature provides an easy distraction.

Killian continues to become a cohabitating fixture in her apartment. Weirdly enough, she likes it. She likes not being alone at night. She likes cooking dinner with him, splitting a bottle of wine as they navigate the small kitchen together. She likes how they curl up and read together each night.

She slowly sees his spirits rise. One afternoon they find themselves laughing over a funny answer that one of her students wrote on a test. Another evening, Granny lets them behind the counter after close and she lets them create their own coffee concoctions. Granny must know about Killian’s loss as well and is trying to do what she can to raise his spirits. It works, a bit. Killian sports a foamy mustache after sipping overly frothed cappuccino and the pair erupt into giggles again.

They take in the melancholy weather with long afternoon wanders around Misthaven. They go back to the North Neighborhood a few more times, stopping at indie art galleries and record shops. They even get coffee at a few of the cafes in the neighborhood. It isn’t Mamies, but it’s fun to see how each café is decorated and serves their drinks.

They spend time walking along the canal in Emma’s neighborhood as well. Leaves collect in the basin, but it doesn’t stop it from being wistful. Emma lets Killian hold her hand as they walk. It’s another sign of the change that’s already happened, the ‘yes’ that Emma has already said in her head and has yet to articulate.

They kiss sometimes, little pecks on the cheek or the forehead or nose, and occasionally the lips. But they haven’t really come close to making out since London.

It’s two weeks after their trip, two weeks of healing and hope, that things begin to change.

They’re sitting in Mamie’s drinking their morning coffee and splitting a pain au chocolat.

“Have you been to the Musée des Beaux Arts?” Killian asks. “The art museum?”

Emma looks up from where she is grading a paper in Mamie’s, taking a sip of cappuccino.

She shakes her head, “No, I haven’t.”

“Would you like to go later?” He asks, offering her a hopeful smile.

Emma feels her insides warm.

“Yeah, that’d be great,” she says.

They spend a few more hours drinking coffee. Emma slowly makes her way through her stack of papers and Killian is reading something new, the volume of Dutch fairytales from the Queen’s library. Emma never got around to reading it, but since apparently Killian easily reads Dutch (she supposes that she should have assumed that given that he is Misthavian), he’s translating it for her. He flags the fairy tales that might seem related to her research.

Around noon, they head out to the museum. They stop for a panini at a cart along the way, splitting it in half and walking together as they nibble.

The Musée des Beaux Arts is located in an old mansion along the river. It has neat gardens tucked to its side, which is where Emma and Killian enter. They spend time taking in the gardens, which despite the frigid weather, features a few flowers still in bloom.

Emma and Killian are good at garden strolls. After wiping the rest of the panini from her hands and throwing away the napkin, Emma takes Killian’s hand. She lets herself lean against his side as they stop to look at their favorite flowers and plants, pointing out the little details of them. There are some sculptures dotting the gardens as well, elegantly crafted nudes and more abstract pieces.

They finally make their way into the museum. After spending so much time in the Queen’s lavish quarters, the museum seems understated, but that doesn’t make it less beautiful or enthralling. There are tapestries lining the hallways, marble detailing on the grand stairway. Classical music plays over speakers, which feels a little contrived, but it sets an elegant tone.

Emma is impressed by the museum. She isn’t an art aficionado by any means, but she appreciates the narrative quality of paintings. The museum does well in terms of breadth and quality of art. Misthaven benefited from the Dutch Golden Age and has plenty of Baroque paintings. Emma finds herself lost in a daze looking at a Vermeer painting and all of sudden wants to go to Amsterdam soon to see more. The museum also has a hardy influence from French impressionist movements, the second floor full of Van Gogh and Cezanne.

Lost in a dreamy stupor from all the paintings, they make their way to the basement. While the rest of the museum was relatively crowded, the basement is empty. Instead of art, it has a few displays of ancient Misthavian pots and sculptures. After all the dazzling artwork, this section seems more subdued. Emma tries to focus on the tiny, faded clay pots, but without the distraction of the paintings, her thoughts drift to Killian.

All of a sudden, she feels his presence next to her in a way she didn’t before, a warmth that quickly turns into the heat. She can hear each breath he takes. The classical music suddenly seems more distant.

She reaches her hand out to reach for his. She feels a rush of warmth at the contact, her heart fluttering as he squeezes back. They’ve held hands before, obviously, but with the added electricity of the moment, this small touch seems galvanizing.

It’s not enough.

And they are alone, right?

Emma turns on the spot to push Killian against the wall, careful not to harm the glass cases of clay pots. Her lips are pulled to his, which quickly respond to hers, kissing back with equal passion and fire. Her hand dives into his hair, the silky feeling between her fingers only turning her on more. Killian’s hands hesitate for a moment, out of surprise, before they reach forward to wrap around her back. They slip under the hem of her shirt to rub along the small of her back, before dipping lower to give her bottom a firm squeeze.

Just like that, it’s changed.

The love that Emma struggled to put to words before now is communicated through this kiss, this moment. She lets that love go into every press of her lips. She lets healing flood through brush of her hand through his hair.

And it’s still not enough.

“Home,” She whispers between kisses.

She wonders if they can get kicked out of the art gallery for making out in the basement. Technically it’s not even PDA if no one can see it, she supposes. But what if someone checks the security camera.

“Home,” He replies.

So they make their way out of the art gallery, up the stairs, through the garden. They make their way to the nearest tram stop. It’s a seven-minute wait for the next tram, so they keep busy by continuing their kisses.

Killian tugs Emma’s coat tighter around her, kissing her nose to keep it warm, running a hand through her hair. She can’t even stop herself from sighing happily at his ministrations.

They board the tram, making for the backseat where they can continue to steal kisses. She slides into the seat first and he follows. His arms wrap around her and he presses her against the glass windows.

She’s seen teenagers, even couples in their twenties and thirties, making out on the tram before. It’s not uncommon here, especially since kids in Europe tend to live with their families into university and beyond. They have to have somewhere to get their urges out away from their parents, so often that ends up being on the metro. Emma isn’t against it and she’s delirious in the moment to stop.

But she also has few lines that she’s not sure she wants to cross in public.

So when Killian nips at her neck, her back arches automatically and she has to suppress a moan. She pulls back from the kiss.

“Sorry,” she admits, “just if this goes any farther I think we might get kicked out of the train.”

Killian blushes sheepishly, before pecking another kiss to her lips.

“I’m not sure I’d mind,” He tells her, sneaking a kiss behind her ear.

“I would,” Emma whispers. “I want this to be perfect.”

She’s not unrealistic about sex. She’s never been one who thinks that it has to be perfect or even romantic.

But then again, this is the first time she’s going to have sex with someone she actually has feelings for, with someone she actually trusts.

With someone she loves.

Wow. The enormity of this moment hits her. She’s going to have sex will Killian.

Make love? Is that the word for it?

The word had always sounded silly and overly cheesy, but now it fit right. Yes, of course, these moment they were sharing were nothing more than a blossoming of love that had been growing for months. They didn’t even have to have sex for this to be making love. There was love furiously flourishing around them. She imagined it as vines tangling around her ankles, curling low around her belly, wrapping around the tips of her fingers. Love.

Killian acknowledges her wishes and pulls back for the rest of the tram ride. He keeps her hand in his, stroking it lightly. The pad of his finger makes circles on the back of her hand.

When they finally reach their stop, he tugs at her hand to lead her off, the heated moment settling into a warm simmer. This somehow only turns her on more. She swallows at the tingling that she feels drop through her spine and settle at her core.

Their walk from the tram station to her apartment is a mess. They try to walk slowly, savoring the moment, drawing the pleasure out. But halfway back, Killian presses Emma against the side of storefront, the stone walls smooth against her back, as he leaves another bite on her neck. This time, just above her collarbone. It’s the incentive she needs to grab his hand and rush him into the apartment building.

“Do we need to stop for condoms?” He asks, as she opens the building door.

She smiles, knowing that they have the same intentions for how this will end.

“No,” she shakes her head, tossing her hair, “IUD.”

It’s another survival technique, but she doesn’t tell him that. They aren’t survival anymore. They’re thriving.

It’s a flight of stairs up and a fumbling with the key and they’re in.

He pushes her against the door when they are inside. Clearly they’re both into this pushing thing and she can’t say she minds.

His hands drop her hips, moving against her, as he pressing his lips to hers in a deep kiss. It’s all she can do to let her own hands find his hair, grazing the prickly feeling of his scalp, before twisting around a few locks to pull him gently closer.

Then he’s back against her collarbone again, etching a love mark with his teeth. God, she’s going to have to wear a scarf or a turtleneck for her next two weeks of teaching, but whatever. This, all of this, is a hundred percent worth it.

He starts to unbutton her shirt, his hands brushing across the tops of her breasts in a movement so gentle and tender, she has to sigh at the pure beauty of thing.

His hands return to her buttons, undoing them one by one, till her blouse slips off her shoulders in a lovely, freeing motion.

“You’re so incredibly beautiful,” He hushes, running his arms up and down her sides, tracing the outside of her curves, toying with her bra.

She wonders if she should tell him that she always has sex with her bra on. She keeps as many secrets as she can for herself, never revealing too much, never giving more than she has to way.

But this is different, today, this, him. She is vulnerable. She is present. They are real in this moment and she can’t bring herself to give anything less than her whole self to him.

So, she unhooks her bra and tosses it aside.

Killian looks at her, unabashed, taking it all in.

“So incredibly beautiful,” he repeats, his voice an adoring whisper.

He wraps his arms around her and pulls her forward. At first, she thinks it’s for a hug, but then she realizes that he’s picking her up. She loops her arms around his neck, letting her legs wrap around his waist.

He walks them to bedroom, where he sits softly on the side her bed. She leans into him, straddling him, reaching to pull off his grey sweater and toss it to the ground. Then she leans back into him, letting her nipples brush across his chest, reveling in the feeling of skin on skin.

He lowers his head to let his mouth take hold of her nipple, his tongue swirling till her toes curl and she wonders if she can come from just this. Then he pulls back to kiss between her breasts, before moving on to lavish her other breast. She writhes under him, before she finally can’t take it anymore and pushes him back against the mattress.

Her hands drop to his pants, smiling into a kiss, as she fumbles with the button.

“I’ve never felt like this before,” she whispers to him, as she pushes his pants down.

He pulls back and smiles up at her, before flipping her gently, his hands on her pants.

“I’m glad I can give you this,” He whispers back. “I want to give you everything. You deserve everything. And I’m sorry for anyone who ever told you don’t deserve the world, Emma. I intend to spend every day that you’ll have me making up for that.”

--

Emma doesn’t realize that she’s fallen asleep till she blinks her eyes open. She can tell a few hours have passed since they made love because the sun is now low in the sky. Orange streaks criss-cross the white duvet they are tucked under. She’s folded in Killian’s arms, her back against his chest.

His hands are stroking her hair lightly, a sign that he’s awake.

“That was so good,” she says softly.

“I’m glad,” he says, kissing the back of her head. “It was pretty incredible for me too.”

She feels more vulnerable than ever. But she’s comfortable in it.

She can’t deny that there is a part of her brain that is focused still on survival. There is a part of her that’s upset with herself for falling asleep after. She’s calculating the chances of getting a UTI and wondering if her international student insurance will cover it and how the Misthaven medical system will work.

But courageously, she silences the survivalist part of her brain.

She turns around so she’s looking at him.  Emma takes in Killian: hair rumpled, eyes sleepy, but adoring. A lazy smile on his face.

She loves him. She loves him.

She has other things to focus on now. And something she has to tell Killian right this minute. Something that she can’t let go unsaid another moment, because she thinks she might burst.

“Killian, I like you a lot,” She declares, her voice racing with nerves, trying to force it out before her courage abates. “I might love you, but that really scares me to voice, so I’m just going to say I really like you.”

His lazy smiles splits wide into a grin, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Her heart feels warm.

“I love you too, Emma,” He says. And she knows he can barely contain himself. The same bursting feeling inside him that is in.

She kisses him, lovely and sincere, on his lips.

“I want this,” She says. “All of this with you. I’ve wanted it for a long time now, but I finally think I have the courage to tell you, so I am. I want to be your girlfriend or human or whatever.”

“Oh Emma, you can certainly be my whatever,” He laughs.

She giggles too, before he catches her lips with his, his thumb gently rubbing across her cheek. The words they can’t say- words about finding a kindred soul, words about curbing a lifelong loneliness, words about feeling like their hearts were finally able to heal with each other- are said in kisses, strokes of hands through hair, and small sighs of adoration.

They are tangled in blankets again when they finally pull apart. The sky is dark now.

“I really should shower,” Emma mumbles, sleepily.

Killian nods.

“Shall I start fixing us some cheese toasties?” He asks.

Emma smiles and rolls her eyes a little.

“Yeah,” She nods. “And tea?”

“Cheese toasties and tea coming right up for my lovely lass,” He says.

--

Life seems light after they are officially a couple. Emma feels lighter, happier.

It’s a stupid cliché, but being loved makes her want to be more loving to others. She calls Belle the next night and tells her the news. She gets re-introduced to Will over Skype and she’s happy for her friend. She makes plans to see them when they are back in America.

Finally working up the courage, Emma calls Professor Shepherd and explains that she’s discovered the identity of Blanche Neige. They decide to keep that information confidential, but that it won’t discredit the research. In the end, a text is a text.

“You’re a postmodernist! Death of the author,” Professor Shepherd says. “I mean, obviously, we don’t want your friend to die. But they don’t have any bearing on your research itself. If you are doing decent critical analysis, it should be fine.”

Emma takes deep breaths, knowing that it’s finally time to return to her thesis. After a month hiatus, she starts becoming productive on it again, spending long nights at Mamie’s working on it. Other times, especially the nights Killian works at the pub, she tucks herself into a back-corner booth with a whisky and cranks out a couple of pages.

One night, in late November, she sees a man at the bar with a large hoodie on, and with a shiver down her spine, she thinks back to how she and Killian met.

She hasn’t given much more thought to the man in the hood and the knife and the scar on her shoulder and the jean jacket she never got back. In fact, she’s tried her best to get them out of her head. Yet now, she feels a weird gratitude for them. Despite this long, bizarre winding path that her journey in Misthaven has taken, she’s happy for it all, because it has all led to Killian.

She looks up and smiles at him, where he fixes drinks at the bar, and he returns hers with a bright grin.

It’s later that night, on the tram home, she brings up an idea that has been weighing on her heart for days.

“I think I need to forgive the queen,” she murmurs.

“What, love?” Killian asks, looking up from the book he was reading to stroke at her hair.

“I think that I need to forgive Mary Margaret for keeping her identity from me. She had good reason to,” She says.

“I think you have good reason for being angry. No one would blame you for staying angry,” he replies.

“I know, but I want to end my time in Misthaven on a positive note. I don’t want to harbor any bitterness to her or to anyone,” She tells him.

He tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I understand that. I think you should do it, if it feels right.”

“It does,” Emma says, snuggling into him, tucking her head under his chin.

He kisses her forehead, a blessing. They ride the rest of the trip in silence.

When they return to Emma’ apartment, she feels like something is off from the moment she turns on the lights. Her spine tingle uncomfortably and she feels inexplicably as if she is watched.

Surveying the apartment, she asks Killian, “Does it seem like something is off?”

He frowns and turns to her, “Didn’t we leave our tea mugs on the coffee table when we left?”

Anxiety swoops over Emma. She rushes to the bedroom to check that her passport is still there. It is. As is all her jewelry, not that it is worth much anyway.

Killian riffles through his own things. “I don’t think anything of mine is missing.”

Emma begins searching her dresser. She frowns as she notices a few vacant items.

“My green cardigan is gone,” she says. “As is my hairbrush.”

Killian chuckles, “Perhaps our thief wanted a cuppa and a cardigan.”

Emma rolls her eyes and sits on the bed.

“I suppose, but do you mind checking the apartment for intruders.”

After peaking into the bathroom and coat closet, Killian deems them safe and very much alone. He fixes them new mugs of tea and snuggles with Emma in bed. She’s unsettled, clearly, as much by the man earlier as she is by the visitor tonight. But she’s safe. She has her wonderful, protective boyfriend. She doesn’t feel alone.

--

Emma makes an appointment for the following Tuesday. It’s early December and snow is falling in fits of flurries. Nothing sticks, but it lines the hills with a glittering dust. Emma thinks this might be a blessing too.

She watches from the window as the car takes the familiar path up to the summer palace. She notices a few workers outside hanging garland around the entrance and trimming the garden with fairy lights.

Right, Christmas. Emma’s been so overwhelmed with her relationship with Killian, with her thesis, with her hurt from the Queen that she’s hardly had time to think about the holiday as something other than a deadline for everything- her time in Misthaven, her time with Killian. Sure, they’ll do long distance once she leaves. But it won’t be the same. And Emma still has a little doubt that they’ll survive it.

“Emma?” The queen asks, taking Emma’s attention, as she appears in the doorway.

“Queen Mary Margaret,” Emma says, curtsying.

The queen frowns and Emma feels awkward. She hasn’t curtsied to her in a long time and it shows that distance that has already formed between them since their falling out.

“Come inside, out of the cold,” The queen says. “I’ve had tea set in the Enchanted Forest room. It’s one of my favorite places to watch the snow fall.”

Emma wants to resist and tell her that she doesn’t need to sit down to a full tea, that she just wants a few words. But that is something Old Emma would do. Emma with walls and hard edges. This New Emma, the one that is the product of Killian and Misthaven and hope, is able to say,

“Okay.”

She awkwardly follows the queen back to the ornately decorated room. She was right. It is beautiful in the winter, the dark green and gold walls looking cheery in contrast to the white dusting of snow outside.

Emma sits in one of the chairs and she thinks back to her first tea time with the queen. She was so nervous and it’s only now that Emma realizes she’s nervous now too. Forgiveness doesn’t come natural to her. She’s never forgiven Ingrid. Or her worst foster families. Or her unknown parents who abandoned her.

But she’s learned that there is a lightness that comes with forgiveness and she craves it.

She pours a cup of tea in silence, before pouring one for the queen as well. She finds a chocolate croissant on the tea tray and adds it to her plate, before finally finding the courage to break the silence.

“I’m not going to be in Misthaven much longer, just a few weeks more. My fellowship just lets me stay for a semester and I think I have all the data I need, more than I need really, to finish my dissertation back at Duke next semester.”

“It’s been such a quick semester,” The queen says, quietly. “It’ll be sad to see you go.”

Emma takes the little pitcher of milk and pours it into her teacup. She enjoys the moment where the milk hits the tea and cup swirls with clouds.

Then she pulls together her courage once more.

“I wanted to meet with you today, before I leave, to finish things on a good note,” Emma says. “Knowing you has meant so much to me. My friendship with you, along with meeting Killian, has defined my time here in Misthaven. It wouldn’t be right to just up and leave without saying goodbye.”

The queen looks up at her, a note of surprise tucked in the pursing of her lips and wideness of her eyes.

“And to say that I forgive you,” Emma says.

“Oh Emma,” the queen murmurs. “Thank you.”

“I don’t want to look back on this time of my life and hold resentment. Misthaven has given me so much and you’ve been a part of that,” Emma tells her.

“You’ve helped me too,” the queen says. “You’ve helped me see that my writing hasn’t just been a misguided coping mechanism. It helped you. It helped Killian. It helped you two find each other. It’s lifted a bit of the guilt I’ve felt from writing those books.”

Emma smiles at her, before taking a delicate sip of tea. The queen is right. Her books have given so much to so many people. If Emma could help her realize that, maybe she’s done something to give back to the woman who gave her so much while she was here.

“And you and Killian?” Mary Margaret asks, nibbling daintily on a tarte de pomme.

“We’re a couple,” Emma says, a grin forming.

“I could tell,” The queen replies. “Something was different about you. And you smiled when I said his name.”

Emma feels herself flush and she dips her head.

“Yeah, I’m happy we finally worked things out,” Emma says. “We definitely had feelings for each other for a while. But it was hard, hard for me, to let go.”

“Being open to love, believing in the possibility of a happy ending, those are all really hard things,” Mary Margaret says. “But powerful things. And things that will lead you to true happiness.”

“Or pain,” Emma mutters, the thoughts and warnings not yet dead, despite how open her heart is.

“Emma, take it from me, someone who has had a lot of loss in their life,” Mary Margaret says softly. “It’s worth it. Pain is worth it for love. I hate that I lost my entire family, but I wouldn’t trade it for a moment. I wouldn’t want to have never experienced that love.”

Emma nods.

“Will you write to me?” The queen asks.

Emma smiles a bit. “Yes, of course.”

“Good,” she says. “I want to hear all about how your PhD finishes up and how things go with you and Killian.”

Emma nods warmly.

“And if you two happen to need some funds to reunite with your love, well, I suppose the Her Majesty Queen of Misthaven could happen to need to summon you here and pay for your expenses,” the queen says with a wink.

Emma feels a tiny worry roll off of her. Yes, she hates to rely on others and their money, but all the same- the queen has tons of it. And if now she can return to America at peace that she’ll see Killian again, then that’s all for the better.

“Thank you,” Emma says. “Honestly, for this, and more.”

The queen puts down her cup of tea.

“No Emma, thank you,” she says softly, “for forgiving me. That takes a maturity beyond your years. It makes me think that the future of our world is safe, knowing that there are people as courageous and loving as you leading the way.”

Emma smiles warmly.

She doesn’t stay to spend time in the library after. She bids Mary Margaret farewell, giving her a kiss on each cheek. She knows that Killian is meeting her the apartment to cook dinner together before he starts his shift at the pub. She wonders if she’ll join him and edit a few dissertation chapters as works. Or maybe she’ll work at Mamie’s instead. Or go to bed early. Whatever it is, she feels at peace. She has Killian. She has Mary Margaret. And for just a few more perfect weeks, she has Misthaven and the here and now and everything, for the first time in her life, feels good.

Tagging some pals: @sambethe @lenfaz @pocket-anon @the-corsair-and-her-quill@kmomof4@kiwistreetswan@princesseslikepirates @timeless-love-story@shady-swan-jones@katie-dub@1handedpiratewithadrinkingprob@midnightswans @hollyethecurious @hookswan25 @princesse-swan @captainpoe@onceuponaprincessworld

[majorxmaggiexboy]

i recently remembered a film my brother and i watched several times as children, and that got me thinking about the other stuff we would watch. most of which seems kind of weird on reflection. we don’t actually have any of these anymore, so just for funsicles i’m trying to think of the films and see if i can remember any of the details before actually googling them.

     Live Action

Two Brothers - a couple of tiger cubs are captured by poachers or something and separated from each other. one is trained to perform in the circus and is also fed candy by some guy, the circusmaster is an absolute [censored]. the tiger learns to jump through fire which is important later. the other cub is given to a little boy (TERRIBLE IDEA) and is a pet for a while until he’s sold to someone else. the tigers are eventually reunited but then they’re chased by people with guns who try to trap them by setting things on fire BUT because the first tiger learned not to be scared of fire he shows his brother how to jump through it and they escape and are reunited with this other tiger that has a hole in her ear from a really close call with poachers. i think she’s their mom.

Gunther and the Paper Brigade - idk if it was knock-off Newsies or what but like there’s this kid named Gunther whose brother keeps an ant farm and said the line “did you know that all the ants in the world would weigh as much as all the people in the world?” and i think they’d just moved to a new house but Gunther joins some kind of newspaper group and at first he is AWFUL at delivering papers like he just slings em any ol’ place but then he gets into a sort of war with a bully and i think somebody orally siphoned some gasoline at one point and the brother’s ants definitely came into play and in the end Gunther was really good at delivering papers. He rode a bike. at one point he’s hanging out at the mall pretty often for some reason and his brother teases him about it.

Ben Wagner - Uhhh family moves to new town, kid has an older sister and a younger sister, there’s a freaky adult at the school who said the line “Wagner. Waaaagner. I’ve got it. The name is now set. in my. brain....,,..”  Benny’s miserable for some reason but he meets a kind of mysterious girl who takes him to visit her elderly relative but to get there they have to walk across a log that’s across a river/waterfall type of situation. the elderly relative says something to the effect that if they all stand on one side of the house it’ll tip over. Ben regularly visits these people. His dad gives him some chores but he half-arses all of them and the dad walks him around to each thing (like the car that was supposed to be washed, the garage that was supposed to be tidied, w/e) and goes “you did a lousy job”. The older sister wants money for something but hasn’t saved up her allowance so she demands money from Ben and says the line “I bet you have tons of money squirreled away”. He goes to visit the mysterious girl and her relative but his little sister follows him and falls off the log bridge so he jumps in the water to save her and he manages it but then they’re both in the hospital.

No More Baths - Guy runs a club for kids and has some rules in place specifically to keep the kids safe but one kid breaks the rules and winds up getting himself hurt so the guy who just wanted to do nice things for the community kids gets straight up ARRESTED and his dog is put in the pound and the whole thing was some racially-motivated bull and the kids aren’t having it so they protest by refusing to bathe and i think they get to testify at the guy’s hearing too and anyway he wins so then the kids go play in some water bc they haven’t washed in weeks.

Goosebumps: Night in Terror Tower: Some dude is a little too enthusiastic about explaining to two children how the Rack works “It stretched, annnd streeettched, unTIL HIS BOOOOOOOOONES, WERE PUUULLLLLLLLED...poP. Right Out Of Their Sockets. :) “ and then those kids get chased around by some dude who wants to kill them or something. they try to buy a bus pass but they have medieval currency and the girl’s like “Our parents wouldn’t give us play money” but then they wind up in like actual medieval England. I think the girl’s name was Sidney.

Bunch of Assorted Wildlife Documentaries: idk there was a thing about an elephant painting and a lot to do with dolphins idk i think there was a bit of Steve Irwin in there too

     Cartoons

The Gallivants - like Divergent but with very Orange ants who are assigned a career? or pick out a career? but when they reach adulthood they’re all supposed to develop something called a “kabump” which is like an extra segment for their creepy insect bodies. They wear shoes and their limbs can have either pink stripes or blue stripes. they might wear gloves? anyway the protagonist is named something like “Shando” and he doesn’t develop his “kabump” on time so it’s scandalous. His friends desert him or something.  I think he wanted to be a musician and so makes himself a fake kabump but he plays the saxophone a little too vigorously or something and makes it come off, at which point he’s shamed and rejected by literally everyone but at some point he also tries to work in construction but accidentally breaks stuff and is told “You’re not a Con-struct. You’re a DE-STRUCT.” then he wanders around in a labyrinthine cave fighting a two-headed creature called something like, The VanterViper that wants to kill all the baby ants or something at i think in the end he’s appointed like official Mom of all the babies or something of that nature

The Ugly Duckling - Standard retelling of the classic tale, this one was created almost exclusively to sell Crayola products i’m pretty sure. This version has a baby swan just trying to live his best life but then a bunch of [redacted] sing at his adoptive mom about how “one bad apple spoils the batch” and he either runs away or gets kicked out. then he runs into a mouse who wears boots and has red hair and she proceeds to call him “Ugly” as if that’s his name, for the entire rest of the movie. He winds up inside a house at one point and two freaky looking cats sing at him about the importance of having “a high IQ” i think a church burns down and he saves the mouse? over the course of the film he gets more and more swan-like in appearance and maybe works for a theater for a little while and then everyone loves him.

Scamper - a bunch of penguins are trying to hatch their eggs but then they’re attacked by...something....and one penguin feels bad about losing some eggs so he takes someone else’s but then admits what he did and returns the egg to its real parents and everyone mourns the loss of their children while being grateful for the survivors. when the eggs hatch there’s like a little pink penguin and a little bluish penguin and they’re friends, they’re learning to slide during Penguin School but then they get captured and wind up on a boat and there’s a dog. They eat really tasty-looking crackers out of bags and are terrorized by the ship’s crew until they manage to escape and find their way back home to their grieving parents.

Willy the Sparrow - a sick (literally and figuratively) young boy has fun bullying a cat and being a [redacted] to birds but then an elderly woman turns him into a sparrow to teach him a lesson. He meets other birds, all of whom have decidedly human heads of hair, including an old man sparrow who teaches him to fly. he winds up challenging the former child-leader-of-the-sparrows for power using his human smarts to amaze them all and eventually leads an attack on the cat who rightfully holds a massive grudge against him. idk he like helps them find food or something and then gets turned back into a human maybe

The Seventh Brother - a young child is moving to a new place and brings her puppy, but somehow his carrier is knocked out of the car??? or something?? and he winds up lost in the forest but is rescued by a large family of rabbits who teach him how to act like a rabbit. He saves one of them from being carried off by a bird but then begins to die of malnutrition as dogs can’t live on the same diet as rabbits for any length of time. also, he rescues a former tormentor from a creepy-as-hell predator and is badly wounded in the process, prompting the rabbits to band together to get him home to his owner. they succeed and he’s pretty much cured by one (1) bowl of puppy food.

Some Blue’s Clues Special: idk whatever’s the one with the treble-clef and the treasure hunt where the ‘treasure’ turned out to be Steve’s grandma’s cookies that you can tell the exact taste and smell of just by looking at them and also the grandma made an appearance too

That Weird Puppet Cat in the Hat Thing with the grouchy bird who had to be taught how to play pretend but then was pushed into a panic attack when the group was playing pirates and he imagined it too vividly so then they explained that he could change the story at any time and also at one point they played a game called “pass the yawn” and the bird just went OFF more than once

Some cartoon, i think it was Anastasia, where at one point someone’s taking some stuff away and the girl says what on reflection i think might have been “My luggage!” but at the time i thought was “my lungs!” and i spent the whole movie thinking they done straight up confiscated the girl’s lungs.

The Swan Princess - and i remember nothing except the way Odette would say “Darren!” and the fact that she spent a lot of time as a bird and there was a puffin. also Darren was one of my early crushes purely because i liked his name.

The Secrets of NIHM 2: main character’s name was Timothy and was one of the first characters i mentally fanfic’d about. there was some song that was like “Just! say! Yes!” where i think he was being pressured to do drugs or be experimented on or something but mostly i remember him singing “I am my father’s son” and me being so confused thinking “well yeah?? Who else’s son could you be???”

idk some Thumbalina thing all i remember is “Deary! Marry the Mole!”

Friggin’ Barbie Rapunzel there was a purple(?) dragon and Rapunzel liked to paint and that movie was where i learned the word “adequate” and i’m still mad at that woman for being so rude like lady. who raised you. where are your manners. i think the dad dragon wanted the purple dragon to hate humans or something idk

some other film where there was a very definitely purple dragon but i can’t remember any details so it’s just going to haunt me forever but it was like a small-ish purple dragon.

[theseventhhex]

Dead to a Dying World Interview

Dead to a Dying World

Photo by Kathleen Kennedy

Dead to a Dying World’s ‘Elegy’ is a foretelling of a post-human world which explores themes of loss, grief, and the dawn of a new ecology through the eyes of a lone wanderer. The last human grieves the end of humanity, reflecting on the temporal insignificance of man and the sixth extinction caused by the Anthropocene – the end of our kind brought about by our own hubris, greed, and desire for power over one another. ‘Elegy’ marks the third chapter in the trilogy, which explores our relationship to our world by reflecting on our past, present, and impending future. Produced by Billy Anderson, ‘Elegy’ stands as one of the most riveting productions from the acclaimed producer in recent times. The album sees the band’s seven full-time members welcoming contributions from a small cast of guest musicians, including Thor Harris (ex-Swans, Thor & Friends), Jarboe (ex-Swans), Dylan Desmond (Bell Witch), and Emil Rapstine (The Angelus), Pablo C. Urusson (Sangre de Muerdago), and Tim Duffield (ex-Sans Soleil). The new contingent of guests helps elevate the narrative of ‘Elegy’ to a new plateau… We talk to the band about experiencing loss, taking risks and escaping the pandemonium in life…

TSH: Talk us through the band’s recording experience as you readied ‘Elegy’…

James: It was different from every other album we’ve done in that at no point were we all in the same room together. Luckily, the endeavour of writing with people all over the country prepared us well for such a situation. We have finally learned to give ourselves enough time in the studio for embellishments and ideas. Billy always keeps us on track and has wonderful input.

TSH: What sort of narratives and themes were you feeling compelled to express with this album?

James: The overarching theme is certainly grief. I, personally, am feeling this more and more each day. It seems clear that we aren’t, as a species, going to mobilise in a fashion large enough to stop the coming irreversible changes. How do you plan for a future that science says is so uncertain? I don’t know but here we are. A lot of that sentiment went into the album.

Sean: I feel like a lot of these themes manifested on a much more personal level with ‘Elegy’ as well. Grief not just for a dying world, but for our own humanity.

TSH: It’s been noted some of you experienced great loss during the lead-up to this release – in what ways did this impact the writing process?

Mike: Everything must die. Even the ideas of who we are and what we think we know about life. It's a process though, and in my opinion real loss is one of the most challenging things anyone can experience. It's extremely difficult to fully express how far reaching a loss can impact one's life even to our closest friends and family. I think music allows us to get close to expressing the emotional turmoil, or at the very least it's a cathartic way to step back and work through it all.

TSH: When you referenced the ancient past for this record, what ideas were you intrigued by?

James: I’ve always been intrigued by the ancient world. When people worshipped the things they needed to stay alive: worshipping the land, the rain or the sun. We’ve lost that largely as a species. It’s something we need to return to, desperately.

Sean: These are truths that indigenous cultures have long known, before settlers arrived and homogenised the world. Unfortunately we are still living in that world borne from such genocide and oppression. Returning to these ancient ideas must be inherently tied to dismantling white supremacy and settler colonialism.

TSH: Talk us through your intentions in opening with the lighter tones of ‘Syzygy’ and then delivering the mighty ‘The Seer's Embrace’…

Sean: We sought to be much more deliberate with our musical intentions within ‘Elegy’ than any of our previous efforts. The musical juxtaposition between both ‘Syzygy’ and ‘The Seer’s Embrace’ is undeniable, but more so than that we wanted to challenge any expectations or presumptions of what was to come. ‘Syzygy’ has a foreboding emotional weight to it that can feel inescapable. It sets the tone for what we wanted to explore through ‘Elegy’ as a whole, as well as being upfront about our musical intent. It can be easy to see our shorter, lighter pieces as breath from what we typically do, but we seek to challenge that assumption altogether.

TSH: What were the key factors in getting ‘Empty Hands, Hollow Hymns’ to sound so concise and refined?

James: I have to hand it to Mike. He really pushed for the call and response vocal part while some of us didn’t quite get. It worked out beautifully. As to the rest of the piece we spent much more time making sure the parts worked cohesively, much closer to Sean’s vision on our first record than ‘Litany’.

TSH: Was it rewarding to use this album to force deeper questions of yourselves?

Mike: Indeed. Asking deeper questions of myself is always part of the writing process. If I can help the listener achieve the same sort of thing then I feel like I’ve done what I set out to do.

James: It’s definitely made me think about how I live day to day into perspective about how much more I could personally do to help stop the impending cataclysms.

TSH: Moreover, how vital is it for the band to continuously take risks and push boundaries?

Mike: I feel that it's essential to take risks and push boundaries. That's the only reason I care to make music in the first place and the only way I know I'm growing as a person and an artist.

James: I cannot stand just walking the same well-worn territory again and again. Always push the envelope. Sometimes you win. Sometimes it’s a mess. Nobody dies. It’s fun.

Sean: Through any creative process there will always be expectations or limitations, and we have always outwardly challenged them in any way we can. However, the most challenging boundaries to push will always be the ones we’ve placed on ourselves.

TSH: Was there a specific type of balance and natural harmony that you feel defines your band’s ethos?

Mike: If anything I would say it’s our combined styles, interests, and influences that create our ethos. Balancing all of those unique traits results in something original or unexpected and authentic.

TSH: How pleasant a factor is it to know that this band inspires and keeps you connected with other amazing musicians?

Mike: I am very aware of how privileged I am to make music with such amazing people. The fact that we have met and made music with so many other inspiring musicians has been a real honour and something I never take for granted.

James: Now that we are so spread out its good just to spend time together and it’s an honour to meet and play with so many talented and pleasant musicians along the way.

Sean: It is always such an honour to be surrounded by such passion. We’ve met and worked with so many fantastic people and tremendously talented musicians over the past decade. It truly is such a testament to the strength of community through music.

TSH: Does possibly soundtracking in the future still intrigue you?

Mike: That’s a very exciting idea and one that I think we would strongly embrace given the right opportunity.

James: James Cameron we’re looking at you.

TSH: What does the band bond over and connect over most whilst on tour?

Mike: I would have to say our varied influences, interests, and lives. Everyone brings a unique perspective to the table and we all very much appreciate and respect those elements from each other.

James: We try to build in some field trips along the way. It helps to spend some time with each other that isn’t just hustling to spend four extra hours at the venue staring at our phones.

TSH: What were the highlights with your time spent in Grand Canyon National Park recently?

James: I drove the van overnight from Albuquerque direct to the South Rim, so I was pretty delirious. Just as we arrived a snow storm came blazing through. The abyss was swirling, filled with fog, and freezing rain was spilling down from the sky. It was magic.

TSH: Given all the chaos and pandemonium in the world, which attributes in life would you say bring you most bliss and clarity?

Mike: Just spending time with my family and friends and helping out wherever possible. We all come up together, ya know.

James: The natural world always tamps down the noise and harsh realities of the modern world. Falling water and towering trees offer an iota of relief.

TSH: Finally, what sort of challenges and exploration do you relish as you look ahead as a band?

Mike: With the trilogy closed out we are totally unbound by a working concept and the idea of labels or genres. I can't wait to push our personal limits and see where things end up.

James: Probably something self-indulgent either that or syrupy pop.

Dead to a Dying World - “Empty Hands, Hollow Hymns”

Elegy

[nightingveilxo]

How Do You Keep Sherlock Holmes Alive? You Make Him A Monster.

“He wasn't busy, he just... sometimes he struggled to fit in. He couldn't switch off, couldn't relax. He just struggled with people, I think. Yet the video... it showed the other side to him. He was rude, yeah. Arrogant. Apparently lacking in anything resembling empathy. But I'd forgotten just how funny he could be. He was so charming. So... human. It's bizarre because most people would say he was the most inhuman person they'd ever met. But he wasn't. He was everything a good person should be.“

TGG

JOHN (switching off the phone): Try and remember there’s a woman here who might die. SHERLOCK: What for? (He looks up at John.) SHERLOCK: This hospital’s full of people dying, Doctor. Why don’t you go and cry by their bedside and see what good it does them? (John looks away in disbelief. Unmoved, Sherlock looks back into the microscope but just then the computer beeps a result.)

SHERLOCK: People have died. JIM: That’s what people DO! (He screams the last word furiously, his personality changing in an instant.)

ASiB

On another occasion, two little girls are sitting together on one of the dining chairs while Sherlock paces in front of the fireplace. LITTLE GIRL: They wouldn’t let us see Granddad when he was dead. Is that ’cause he’d gone to heaven? SHERLOCK: People don’t really go to heaven when they die. They’re taken to a special room and burned. (Like Mary supposedly is in T6T, but Sherlock was supposedly buried after TRF. Odd...) (The two girls look at each other in distress.) JOHN (reprovingly): Sherlock ...

LESTRADE (looking at a bag of evidence): Well, according to the flight details, this man was checked in on board. Inside his coat he’s got a stub from his boarding pass, napkins from the flight, even one of those special biscuits. Here’s his passport stamped in Berlin Airport. So this man should have died in a plane crash in Germany yesterday but instead he’s in a car boot in Southwark. (Like Sherlock in TAB and TLD) JOHN: Lucky escape(!) LESTRADE (to Sherlock): Any ideas? SHERLOCK (examining the man’s hand with his magnifier): Eight, so far. (He straightens up and looks at the body again, then frowns momentarily.) SHERLOCK: Okay, four ideas. (He turns to Lestrade and looks down at the passport and the ticket stub of the passenger, John Coniston, who was meant to be travelling on Flyaway Airways [oh, good invented name, production guys(!)]. Straightening up again, he gazes up into the sky.) SHERLOCK: Maybe two ideas. (The shadow of a passenger jet passes overhead.)

In the street, Sherlock is doubled over with John on his back half–strangling him. John’s face is contorted with pent-up anger and frustration, and Sherlock is struggling to pull his hands off him. SHERLOCK (half-choking): Okay! I think we’re done now, John. JOHN (savagely): You wanna remember, Sherlock: I was a soldier. I killed people. SHERLOCK: You were a doctor! JOHN: I had bad days! (John, chill, son.)

MYCROFT: We’re in a morgue. There’s only so much damage you can do. (Sherlock inhales deeply and then blows the smoke out again.) MYCROFT: How did you know she was dead? SHERLOCK: She had an item in her possession, one she said her life depended on. She chose to give it up. (He takes another drag on his cigarette.) MYCROFT: Where is this item now? (Sherlock looks round at the sound of sobbing. A family of three people is standing on the other side of the doors at the end of the corridor, cuddled together and clearly grieving the death of someone close to them. Sherlock and his brother turn to look at the family.) SHERLOCK: Look at them. They all care so much. Do you ever wonder if there’s something wrong with us? MYCROFT: All lives end. All hearts are broken. (He looks round at his brother.) Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.

THoB

JOHN: Um, Henry, your parents both died and you were, what, seven years old? (Henry is concentrating on taking his first drag on his cigarette. As he exhales his first lungful, Sherlock stands up and steps closer to him.) HENRY: I know. That ... my ... (He stops as Sherlock leans into the smoke drifting up from the cigarette and from Henry’s mouth and breathes in deeply and noisily through his nose. Having sucked up most of the smoke, he sits down again and breathes out, whining quietly in pleasure.) JOHN (trying hard to ignore him): That must be a ... quite a trauma. Have you ever thought that maybe you invented this story, this ... (Henry has exhaled another lungful of smoke and Sherlock dives in to noisily hoover up the smoke again. John pauses patiently until he sits down again.) JOHN: ... to account for it?

BARRYMORE: You’re one of the conspiracy lot, aren’t you? (He grins as Sherlock rolls his eyes.) BARRYMORE: Well, then, go ahead, seek them out: the monsters, the death rays, the aliens. SHERLOCK (nonchalantly): Have you got any of those? (Now it’s Barrymore’s turn to roll his eyes.) SHERLOCK: Oh, just wondering.

SHERLOCK: The sugar, yes. It’s a simple process of elimination. I saw the hound – saw it as my imagination expected me to see it: a genetically engineered monster. But I knew I couldn’t believe the evidence of my own eyes, so there were seven possible reasons for it, the most possible being narcotics. (Narcotics = monster.)

JOHN: Yes, you said: fear. Sherlock Holmes got scared. You said. (Sherlock catches him up, takes hold of his arm and pulls him round to face him.) SHERLOCK: No-no-no, it was more than that, John. It was doubt. I felt doubt. I’ve always been able to trust my senses, the evidence of my own eyes, until last night. JOHN: You can’t actually believe that you saw some kind of monster. SHERLOCK: No, I can’t believe that. (He grins bitterly for a moment.) But I did see it, so the question is: how? How? JOHN: Yes. Yeah, right, good. So you’ve got something to go on, then? Good luck with that. (Doubt, not fear = monster)

MHR

When we see real doubt begin to take hold. For Sherlock, and John.

TSOT

This is when Mofftiss really starts integrating Rathbone/Bruce versions of the stories into the Sherlock series, and there are items in the box John receives that directly correlate to those versions. Terror By Night, Trains, & Sherlock ( x )

FLASHBACK.  John’s blog entry entitled “The Bloody Guardsman” drifts across the screen for a moment, then fades to a view of Sherlock standing in the living room of 221B looking at his information wall behind the sofa.  He turns to where Mary is sitting at the dining table and John is sitting in his armchair and looking at his phone. [That case was June 29th, but John and Mary’s invitation will read May, the sign at the wedding has no date, and John’s blog entry is in August. x ] SHERLOCK: Need to work on your half of the church, Mary.  Looking a bit thin. MARY (smiling): Ah, orphan’s lot. Friends – that’s all I have.  Lots of friends. (We get a glimpse of the paperwork on the wall and realise that Sherlock is organising the hell out of the wedding.  There is a list of things which need to be done, all of them ticked off, and the wall is divided into areas which are headed, “Transport,” “Catering,” “Rehearsal,” “Wine,” and probably other items too.  On the table beside Mary is a cardboard 3D model of the reception venue.) [Transport, not transportation….] SHERLOCK: Schedule the organ music to begin at precisely 11.48. MARY: But the rehearsal’s not for another two weeks.  Just calm down. SHERLOCK: Calm?  I am calm.  I’m extremely calm. MARY: Let’s get back to the reception, come on. (He walks over to the table.) MARY (handing him an RSVP card): John’s cousin.  Top table? SHERLOCK (looking at the card): Hmm. Hates you. Can’t even bear to think about you. MARY (looking up at him): Seriously? SHERLOCK: Second class post, cheap card … (he sniffs it and grimaces) … bought at a petrol station.  Look at the stamp: three attempts at licking. She’s obviously unconsciously retaining saliva. MARY: Ah.  (Over her shoulder to John) Let’s stick her by the bogs. [Transcriber’s note: ‘bogs’ is a slang word for ‘toilets.’] SHERLOCK: Oh yes. (He sits down.  Mary leans closer to him.) MARY: Who else hates me? (Instantly Sherlock hands her a sheet of paper.  There’s a long list of names on it.) MARY: Oh great – thanks(!) JOHN (looking at his phone): Priceless painting nicked.  Looks interesting. [Same idea as TRF.] MARY (looking at paperwork on the table): Table four … SHERLOCK: Done. JOHN (chuckling at something on his screen): “My husband is three people.” MARY: Table five. SHERLOCK (looking at a list): Major James Sholto.  Who he? MARY: Oh, John’s old commanding officer.  I don’t think he’s coming. JOHN: He’ll be there. MARY: Well, he needs to RSVP, then. JOHN (firmly): He’ll be there. MARY: Mmm … JOHN (reading from his phone): “My husband is three people.”  It’s interesting.  Says he has three distinct patterns of moles on his skin. SHERLOCK (standing up and speaking quick fire): Identical triplets – one in half a million births.  Solved it without leaving the flat.  Now, serviettes. (He squats down beside the coffee table, reaches under it and pulls out a tray with two serviettes folded into different shapes. He gestures to them as he looks up at Mary.) SHERLOCK: Swan, or Sydney Opera House? MARY: Where’d you learn to do that?! SHERLOCK (looking down): Many unexpected skills required in the field of criminal investigation … MARY: Fibbing, Sherlock. SHERLOCK: I once broke an alibi by demonstrating the exact severity of … [The John alibi Post-It note.] MARY: I’m not John.  I can tell when you’re fibbing. SHERLOCK (exasperated): Okay – I learned it on YouTube. [MHR itself] MARY: Opera House, please. (She leans to one side and reaches into her trouser pocket.) MARY: Ooh, hang on.  I’m buzzing. (She takes out her phone and lifts it to her ear.) MARY: Hello? (She listens for a second, then stands up.) MARY: Oh, hi, Beth! (John’s eyes lift from his phone as Mary heads for the kitchen.) MARY (into phone): Yeah, yeah, don’t see why not. JOHN (standing up and looking at Sherlock): Actually, if that’s Beth, it’s probably for me too.  Hang on. (He heads for the kitchen, while Sherlock sits down on the floor cross-legged and facing the coffee table. In the kitchen, John smiles at Mary as he walks closer to her.  They talk quietly.) JOHN: He knows we don’t have a friend called Beth.  He’s gonna figure out that it’s code. [TLD burning up = cipher to be broken] MARY: He’s YouTube-ing serviettes. JOHN: He’s thorough. MARY: He’s terrified. JOHN: ’Course he’s not. MARY: Right, you know when you’re scared of something, you start wishing it sooner just to get it all going?  That’s what he’s doing. JOHN: Why would he be scared that we’re getting married?  It’s not gonna change anything – we’ll still do stuff. MARY: Well, you need to prove it to him.  I told you to find him a new case. JOHN: I’m trying. MARY: You need to run him, okay?  Show him it’s still the good old days. [You mean like a dog, Mary?] (She nods encouragingly to him.  He doesn’t immediately respond, and she nods again and gestures towards the living room.  He looks around, then turns and slowly starts towards the door between the kitchen and the living room.  Mary puts her hands on his back and shoves him forward. Sherlock is still sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the coffee table, his head propped up on one hand.  He briefly looks round at John, then turns back and gestures at what’s in front of him.  There are at least seven serviettes folded in Sydney Opera House shapes on the table, and sixteen or so more on the floor.) SHERLOCK: That just sort of … happened. (He looks round at John again, who frowns but then smiles.  Glancing back into the kitchen for a moment, he walks towards his friend.) JOHN: Sherlock, um … (Sherlock stands up.) JOHN: … mate … (Again he frowns briefly, perhaps wondering if he is overdoing it.) JOHN: I-I’ve … (He walks over to the dining table. Sherlock glances towards the kitchen where Mary can be heard talking as if she’s on a phone call, then they both sit down at the table.) JOHN: I’ve smelled eighteen different perfumes; I’ve sampled … (he stops to think) … nine different slices of cake which all tasted identical; I like the bridesmaids in purple … [TLD ends with cake.] SHERLOCK: Lilac. JOHN: … lilac.  Um, there are no more decisions left to make.  I don’t even understand the decisions that we have made.  I’m faking opinions and it’s exhausting, so please, before she comes back … (He glances towards the kitchen, activates his phone, clears his throat and holds the phone across the table.  The screen is showing Sherlock’s “Science of Deduction” website.) [Which isn’t even used anymore. They were using John’s blog by this point.] JOHN: … pick something. (Sherlock’s eyes flicker down to the screen a couple of times.) JOHN: Anything.  Pick one. SHERLOCK: Pick what? (John blinks a few times and then laughs.) JOHN: A case.  Your Inbox is bursting.  Just … get me out of here. SHERLOCK (leaning closer and speaking quietly): You want to go out on a case?  N-now? JOHN: Please, Sherlock, for me. [Don’t be dead.] (Sherlock takes the phone.) SHERLOCK (quietly): Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll get you out of this. [Again, alibi.] (He starts to flick through messages on his website.  After only a few seconds he finds something of interest.) SHERLOCK: Oh.

Transcript ( x )

TLD

At MI5, or wherever it is, Mycroft walks into the surveillance room, a grim look on his face.  Lady Smallwood is standing behind the computer desks. LADY SMALLWOOD: We can keep tabs.  You didn’t have to come in. MYCROFT: I was talking to the prime minister. LADY SMALLWOOD: Oh, I see. (Mycroft looks at the screens, and particularly at a camera watching Sherlock walking along a road.) MYCROFT: What’s he doing?  Why’s he just wandering about like a fool? LADY SMALLWOOD: She died, Mycroft.  He’s probably still in shock. MYCROFT: Everybody dies.  It’s the one thing human beings can be relied upon to do.  How can it still come as a surprise to people? LADY SMALLWOOD (turning to him): You sound cross.  Am I going to be taken away by security again? MYCROFT: I have, I think, apologised extensively. LADY SMALLWOOD: You haven’t made it up to me. MYCROFT: And how am I supposed to do that?

FAITH (offscreen): Sex. (Walking with her along Regent Street towards Piccadilly Circus, Sherlock looks round to her.  They are now each carrying a can of energy drink.) SHERLOCK: I’m sorry? FAITH: Sex.  How did you know I wasn’t ... getting any? SHERLOCK: It’s all about the blood. (Close-up of the bloodstain on the paper, which Sherlock now gestures to.) SHERLOCK: This one comes from the very first night.  You can see the pen marks over it.  I think you discovered that pain stimulated your memory, so you tried it again later.  I’m no expert, but I assume that since your lover failed to notice an increasing number of scars over a period of months, that the relationship was no longer intimate. [Pain stimulated your memory. So if this coma, trance, EMP or whatever, this is our queue that Sherlock’s pain is stimulating his memory.] FAITH: How do you know he didn’t notice? SHERLOCK (shrugging): Oh, well, because he would have done something about it. FAITH: Would he? SHERLOCK: Wouldn’t he?  Isn’t that what you people do? FAITH: Well, that’s interesting. SHERLOCK: What is? FAITH: The way you think. SHERLOCK: Superbly? FAITH: Sweetly. SHERLOCK: I’m not sweet; I’m just high.

MARY: So all he needed to do was find the first available lunchtime appointment with a female therapist within cycling distance of your surgery. (While she speaks, John turns his head away and rubs his nose briefly.) MARY: My God, he knows you. (The ambulance drives past the limo.) JOHN: No he doesn’t. MARY (smiling): I’m in your head, John.  You’re disagreeing with yourself. DRIVER: You ready, sir? (John is alone on the back seat.  He turns and looks at the blank space, speaking a little angrily.) JOHN: Yes, I am. (He turns to look into the rear-view mirror where the driver is watching him in the mirror through sunglasses.  The man turns his head away.) MARY (back sitting beside him): He is the cleverest man in the world, but he’s not a monster. JOHN (looking at her): Yeah, he is. MARY: Yeah, okay, all right, he is.  (She mock-shudders.)  Urgh! (She chuckles.) MARY (softly): But he’s our monster. (John turns away again.) In a TV studio, Smith smiles into the camera. SMITH (in a loud whisper): I’m a killer. (Outside the building, a large billboard is being carried away by a couple of people.  The image shows someone – presumably a man but the picture only shows him from the neck down – wearing a suit and tie and holding up a large sharp knife covered with blood.  To the right of the person, text reads: ROWBANK MEDIA A ROWBANK ORIGINAL SERIES ROUGE [in bright red] SERIES PREMIERE 8TH MARCH EXCLUSIVE TO PLAY TV Along the bottom of the poster it reads: ON MARCH 8, THE SECRET WILL BE UNLEASHED

SHERLOCK: I’m at the bottom of a pit and I’m still falling and ... (he shakes his head and clenches his eyes closed) ... I’m never climbing out. (Mrs Hudson turns away sadly and goes back to the kitchen.) SHERLOCK (standing up): I need you to know, John – I need you to see that up here ... (he gestures to his temples with both hands) ... I’ve still got it, so when I tell you that this ... (he walks to the side table to point to the open laptop) ... is the most dangerous, the most despicable human being that I have ever encountered; when I tell you that this-this monster must be ended, please remember where you’re standing, because ... you’re standing exactly where I said you would be two weeks ago. (Grimacing in pain, he slumps into a chair beside the table.) SHERLOCK (more quietly): I’m a mess; I’m in hell; but I am not wrong, not about him. (He points to Smith’s photo on the laptop.) JOHN: So what has all this got to do with me? (Folding his arms, he smiles humourlessly at Sherlock.) SHERLOCK (savagely, still looking at the photo): That creature, that rotting thing, is a living breathing coagulation of human evil, and if the only thing I ever do in this world is drive him out of it, then my life will not have been wasted. (Related to the wet paint discussion, because there is something dead rotting away. Culverton also talks about H.H. Holmes, the man who built a hotel to use as a deathtrap. Because, at this point, there is a bigger monster than Sherlock could ever be.

SMITH: Oh, I don’t know. (He pulls back the sheet on the table to reveal the head and shoulders of the corpse.  There is a Y-shaped cut, sewn up, in the chest.) SMITH: No, I’ve always found ’em quite pliable. (As he says the last word, he reaches out to the body – which we can now see is an elderly woman – and pulls her jaw down with his fingers.) JOHN: Don’t do that. SMITH (staring at the woman intensely): She’s fine.  She’s dead. (He smirks, still holding her jaw down and staring at her misty eyes and stained, misshapen teeth.  He finally releases her jaw.) SMITH: H. H. Holmes loved the dead.  He mass-produced ’em. SHERLOCK (probably for John’s benefit): Serial killer, active during the Chicago Fair. (He walks off and starts wandering around the mortuary.) SMITH (raising his head to look at John): D’you know what he did?  He built a hotel, a special hotel, just to kill people.  You know, with a hanging room, gas chamber, specially adapted furnace.  You know, like Sweeney Todd ... (He reaches out to the dead woman’s jaw and moves her mouth up and down with his fingers while he speaks through clenched teeth as if manipulating a ventriloquist’s dummy.) SMITH: ... without the pies! (He chuckles, releasing her and turning away.) SMITH: Stupid.  So stupid. (Instantly John grabs the sheet and pulls it over the woman’s face.) JOHN: Why stupid? SMITH: Well, all that effort.  You don’t build a beach if you want to hide a pebble; you just find a beach! [Insert the visual of Mycroft’s feet at the pebble beach at Musgrave in TFP] (Sherlock has stopped at the far end of the room and is leaning back against a sink.) SMITH: And if you wanna hide a murder, or wanna hide lots and lots of murders, just find a ... (He pauses for a moment then meets John’s eyes.) SMITH: ... hospital.  x )

TFP

MYCROFT (looking at him): Memories can resurface; wounds can re-open.  The roads we walk have demons beneath ... (he turns his gaze to Sherlock) ... and yours have been waiting for a very long time.  I never bullied you.  I used – at discrete intervals – potential trigger words to update myself as to your mental condition.  I was looking after you. SHERLOCK (softly, intensely): Why can’t I remember her? (Mycroft pauses for a moment, glancing in John’s direction but not looking at him.) MYCROFT: This is a private matter. SHERLOCK: John stays. (John had been about to get up but now looks across to Sherlock, surprised.  Mycroft leans forward in his chair.) MYCROFT (in a harsh whisper): This is family. SHERLOCK (loudly, firmly): That’s why he stays. (The brothers lock eyes for a long moment.  John smiles and lowers his head. Eventually Mycroft sits back.  John clears his throat.) JOHN: So there were three Holmes kids. (He pulls the lid off his pen and re-opens his notebook.) JOHN: What was the age gap? MYCROFT: Seven years between myself and Sherlock; one year between Sherlock and Eurus. (Capable of reprogramming people since age 5.)

MYCROFT: Musgrave. (Sherlock and John stand either side of him a few paces behind him.) MYCROFT: The ancestral home, where there was always honey for tea. (Not sugar or coffee)

MYCROFT: After that, our sister had to be taken away. SHERLOCK: Where? MYCROFT: Oh, some suitable place – or so everyone thought.  Not suitable enough, however.  She died there. JOHN: How? MYCROFT: She started another fire, one which she did not survive. SHERLOCK (firmly): This is a lie. (John looks towards Mycroft, who hesitates only for a moment.) MYCROFT: Yes.  It is also a kindness.  This is the story I told our parents to spare them further pain, and to account for the absence of an identifiable body. (Supposedly why Mummy and Daddy never said anything else or ever showed photos of Eurus? Pfft)

@monikakrasnorada @gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @swimmingfeelsinajohnlockianpool​ @loveismyrevolution

[rexylafemme]

you must’ve come from the trees, fallin out of them branches, fallin all over me

sitting with the circumstances under which we live currently, how they tie into age-old processes of power/destruction/dominance: we can’t deny them, we can’t repress them. we’re being called, as always, to face them in order to transform them. which is a call to action, fighting, and an end to living under any illusions of misguided comfort in what is. there has to be some level of adjustment, tho, to the circumstances we live under, if not acceptance—we have every right to find them unacceptable. and every right to adjust begrudgingly. there is power within disapproval and criticism, power in the unacceptable. instead of sinking too far into hopelessness, into despair, it’s important to key into visions of change. what something else could be. despair brings up desire: what we want, what shit could look like, or even what we could go back to. the past, those sense memories, the things that worked and felt good, live in our bodies, too. as much as what didn’t work, what hurt. we have a lot of will inside us.

part of me feels all off. topsy turvy. it’s in the weather, the way i’m experiencing summer. i expect to feel nyc—sticky, hazy, sunstruck—and i feel bay area—rainy, breezy, chilly. i remember we have a lot of it left tho. that this mild june has been enjoyable. and i have to remind myself that mild summers aren’t completely unheard of, or only/exclusively a sign of catastrophic climate change… ugh. everything stresses me out, naturally. and the topsy-turvy feeling is just an internal felt assessment of all the burning, spiraling, awful things sprouting out structurally. feeling sick with it often, as we all grip onto ballasts, as we brace ourselves for the next catastrophic thing. fuckhole summer.

but, right now, sitting with my legs propped up in the backyard of the johnsons house where i’m catsitting, legs slathered in lavender and lemongrass to repel the bugs, air conditioners murmuring, light carving rectangles out of shadows from windows, lush green and little trees, and it’s humid but it’s cool, there’s a light breeze and leaf shadows move against a building wall in cobalt blue. i look up and i can see a star peeking between branches and leaves. the honeysuckle all tangled up in the curled hearts of the iron fence lining the stoop steps. it feels like summer, all this. and i love it and i can be alone with it and feel content, tho also tender. look to my left and see luna propping herself up with her face against the glass of the back door, looking at me, looking past me, wondering about me, wanting out, too.

sometimes my dread stems from my overactive anxiety, the fear of spiraling out of control stuff, or not spiraling, but not having control, in general. and i have to put myself in check and roll with the punches, breathe into what is. and, but, being alive is nice. it’s confusing and strange and we don’t make it too easy on ourselves or other people a lot of the time because we can be massively foolish and misuse our consciousness and complex decision-making capabilities. but we can be so beautiful, do so right sometimes. we make such magic together and we can transform our pain. and magic is essentially that—the intention and action of changing, transforming, using and guiding energies. it makes perfect sense. it’s in everything we make, in connection.

i keep telling people, often with frustration, that i’m supposed to be a bird. maybe i just am a bird. but not just a bird: a swan, a hawk, a raven, a sparrow. and not just a bird, but a snake and a doe. and a turtle and a starfish and a cat and a snail. i want to be a tree standing in time, too. what does water feel like on a leaf, is it like a raindrop on my arm? i was settled under the thick branch of a tree by a pond in greenwood earlier when the passing rain came. it started gentle and slow on the water, little pin drops poking at the surface, then it got heavy and pixelated, then the whole surface of the pond was vibrating with it, fuzzy like interference on a tv screen. i barely got wet at all. it was heavy and then it turned into a sunshower and then the sun was just radiating after it passed. everything looked and smelled more alive. there was steam rising from the flat surfaces of marble gravestones.

what would wind feel like if my arms were branches? i’m sitting in the dark and looking at this thin stalk and its leaves and i can imagine how it feels—just gently swaying. i love plants and creatures most of all. they make so much sense to me. people on the other hand… i can make sense of them, but there are some fundamental things about how we are and operate that i really don’t understand. i see things happen, i watch things play out before they do in real time in my head, patterns unravel, and i am often so powerless to influence things. i think of the tangled family we were, here, or in the bay—all the ways i’d hoped we could be different, could take the other roads. watched us play out every old thing & over & over, replayed it over & over, & the same outcomes. kept it in my head or chronicled all of it—all the ancient, all the momentary, all the premonitory things, all interspliced and threaded over and against each other.

some of our self-states are bratty, troublesome, reckless, grim—popping their gum while rolling their eyes, talking back, holding grudges, making mean jokes, thinking they can cheat death or grieving. sometimes it feels good to be cold. sometimes it feels good to be sharp. sometimes it feels good to be closed. to be reckless. sometimes we seek all this out in other people. sometimes it was alluring.

but there’s a difference between being cruel or careless and being a rizzo—tough and aloof, wise-cracking—it’s to protect a big ole soft & gooey heart, one that knows the world well enough to understand that we need our fences sometimes, need to pretend we aren’t affected by the nasty things other people say or think about us, all the judgments.

there’s a lot of power in our shadows, even in the parts of ourselves that self-hate and pick at ourselves, do bad things, control. they’re hurting and scared and wanting parts. they’re parts that are still trying to work out the modes of dominance/power/control we were told would get us where we need to go. we know they can’t. we can use those parts if we can face them and work with them, teach and learn with them. like starhawk talks about integration, not suppression. feeling all of our feelings without judgment and containing rather than stomping out or shutting down or caging. contending with our humanness—the flawed, the monstrous, the confounding. we contain a fire within a barrier of rocks, we don’t bury it completely, we don’t let it take over, either. finding our own boundaries and limits where our fires are concerned. the body is its own container, but it’s also always moving and flowing. it is dynamic, not stagnant. tho emotions and shadows can stagnate in places inside us, tied up, clumped up, building up and not moving. but we can budge stuff, push stuff, stimulate stuff, move stuff around, get stuff flowing.

everything is going to be ok, and it all won’t. it is always both. some things will always be off or will suck or hurt or not turn out exactly as we want or plan or expect them to. that’s ok, that’s life. that’s part of the adventure. there is a magical, enchanting side to this—things can turn out better than expected. or different in the loveliest, unable-to-be-anticipated way. all is never lost or doomed completely. sometimes we are at the mercy of other people’s choices—which sometimes means they have too much power and are abusing it—and sometimes it means we are just connected to each other and we care and are affected by what others do. love is so hard, i don’t know. under these conditions. sigh, but it can still be beautiful to connect. there’s always new music. there’s always new resonances to old music. feeling the things you wanted to feel, knowing it’s ok if you didn’t. the contrast of now as opposed to then. channels opening up or re-opening.

i feel for people in my guts, in the backs of my eyes, in my chest, when i breathe, when i furrow my eyebrows, when i sigh. it’s appreciation—little bubbles. it’s a desire for them to be ok—safe and have what they need and be treated with love and kindness, and to get what they want. a feeling of being closer and of knowing them well. of wanting to be closer and know more. a feeling of wanting to hold their joys and experiences and sorrows and pains—to be there, to show up, to do what i can and have them define what that means and looks like. and being ok if they don’t know or can’t say or are still figuring it out, if they aren’t there yet. and wanting all this in return. and you know when you’ve had it and when you haven’t. and i do. and mostly, too, i am building/growing/reinvigorating these things with myself and it has been a longstanding project that keeps going, but i’ve progressed, we progress, and it shows. it’s reflected in the people i keep around me, the way we are together, the give/receive, push/pull, pleasant sloshing back and forth, not sucking or grabbing. i think love for anybody—friend, lover, family, a vision, a pet—is always somewhat laden with heartbreak. a streak or a wash or a pinprick or bigger. because we want to take away or be able to prevent suffering and we live with the reality that we can’t do that. and sometimes we’re the ones who cause it. it’s painful. but we do heal, we do give each other sweet things. and working toward less pain, toward transforming it, is so possible and worth it and we are doing it all the time, even without knowing it.   

[shadowdianne]

I have a prompt for you! (If you want to write it ofc, no pressure). Regina is a grieving widow with a child.  Luckily, she has a next door neighbor who’s more than willing to help with Henry throughout the process.  Emma can get him to smile despite everything.  Along the way, Regina realizes Emma is helping her move on with her life despite the grief.

A/N After perhaps too long… thank you for the prompt! I hope you like it!

A03

When it had first happened Regina had been tootired to even say anything to the blonde neighbor that had moved into the nextdoor several weeks prior. The blonde, beautiful looking but with guarded eyes,had merely been someone she had sometimes grunted at, too angry at everything,at the world, to even say anything else. A part of her, the one who had beenraised by her ever proper mother, had screamed inside of her for it, whisperingthe insidious things she sometimes still thought about in the middle of a fartoo big, too cold bed.

She wouldn’t know that the name of the blondewas actually Emma or the reason of her own guarded eyes until very much later.That very first time, however, had occurred on day Regina had go to pick him upfrom school; the kid looking stubbornly at his feet while exiting the elevator,hands hanging limply at his sides as the weight of his backpack seemed to draghim down.  The blonde, the blonde whoalways had a smile and a quiet look for Regina, in her eyes twinkling somethingthe brunette didn’t know what it was, had stopped in front of the two of them; handresting on the elevator’s doors as they both walked past her and with just awink had made Henry smile -as feeble as it was- for a second before the slightcurved line had disappeared again, replaced by the troubled eyes Regina couldalso look on herself staring back at her on the mirror every single day, hadbeen finding on her ever since…

Daniel. The name still made her flesh burnaround the place she had worn his ring until just four months ago, nowcompletely unable to look at it without gritting her teeth and wanting toscream at the stars he had always been so fond of. That, however, hadn’tmattered, not in the moment when Regina had looked at Henry’s half-attempt of asmile and perhaps because of her tiredness, of her sadness, the knowledge thatat the other side of the door she was so close to there was nothing butmemories that still hovered around every objects, every corner, as laughterdanced, still audible between the cracks of the furniture, she had called theblonde while offering her right hand, doing her best impersonation of thepolitician she didn’t feel anymore as she told her who she was.

The blonde had looked at her hand with justenough curiosity and cockiness for Regina to feel somewhat intrigued as she informedher of who they were, her names, her surnames, the sting on her last namealmost seeming to pass far too quickly for her liking as she did so. Emma hadnodded and had looked at Henry, crouching to his level and offering him herhand, chuckling when the boy had answered the gesture, eyes as stubborn and jadehued looking than the ones of the still stranger where.

That had been the first time Emma and Reginahad first met for more than just the few seconds a neighbor needed to clashwith another as they both tried to reach their homes. That had also been thefirst time Regina had been left behind, wondering what on earth the blonde hadmeant when, instead of answering her gesture, had done her best to reply toHenry’s silence.

However, it hadn’t been the last time and a fewweeks after that the blonde, winking and looking at Henry as she asked himabout a series Regina couldn’t remember the kid watching anymore as everymemory seemed hazy even when she tried her best not to, before walking away theelevator, the shadow of a badge what had given Regina enough for a part of her,the one who always worried, to relax.

Days, weeks passed and every time the blondemet with either Regina or Henry she would smile, looking at them fully insteadthe sideway glances they got from the other neighbors, the ones who had met Daniel,who had known her before. Emma, instead of them would say something that wouldmake Henry either smile, smirk or even giggle, sadness somewhat dulled for amoment, long enough for him to be the child Regina remembered him being, inanother kind of life.

But, even though Regina could remember everysingle detail the moment Emma Swan had first looked at them with something shewould later on learn to read as care, as apprehension, as the fear of someonewho was also running away from truths as equally complicated to accept thanhers, she couldn’t remember the first time those small moments had turned intosmall chats. Ones Regina soon found herself wanting, desiring to have even ifit only was for her to look through the gashes Daniel had left, his memory, hiswords, still hurting, still burning, still scorching the skin around herfinger, the one who had been bare ever since he had finally closed his eyes,his face almost unrecognizable, as the last words he had uttered started theirchant inside Regina’s head, a place they had never left ever since.

“Love again.”

She couldn’t remember the moment albeit on hermind, every time she tried to picture it, it had been sunny outside anddefinetely warmer than the first time they had truly interacted. She couldn’t rememberas well the moment she had opened up enough to offer the blonde a cup of coffeeunder the premises of knowing each other better considering how they saw eachother almost every day, the blonde managing to keep Henry smiling for a fewminutes every single morning with a few well-placed words. That had been themoment she had first heard Emma’s name from the blonde’s own lips and the firstmoment she had repeated it before enunciating it slowly, noticing the way thosegreen eyes seemed to change for a moment before quickly dissolving into thecarefully constructed gaze Regina was already so accustomed to. It had requiredeven longer after that for Regina to finally explain the absent photos, the wayHenry sometimes got silent, the way she sometimes clutched the pendant she worearound her neck, ring always there, warm against her skin. It had gotten evenlonger for Regina to accept out loud that she, as much as she had loved Daniel,had still felt betrayed by his departure. By his death.

“We had so many ideas, for us, for Henry.” Shehad said once, after taking a sip of her coffee. “And then he was… gone.” Thebrand she used was the best but Emma’s was definetely stronger and the blondealways remained tight-lipped about the way.

“I’m a police officer.” She had said whilesettling the cups. “I’m only capable of doing this kind of coffee.”

Emma had opened up as well, explaining justenough, words, glimpses into much more complicated stories Regina understoodhow not to push.

And so, little by little, she started noticingthat Henry’s smile became something normal after she followed Emma’s comment ofperhaps the boy needing some external help. An idea that had crossed Regina’smind but one she had battled against it, afraid of branding Henry, of makinghim see grief as something he needed to fear. The boy had answered wonderfullyto the treatment though and she could still remember the way Emma’s own laughhad echoed the afternoon he had made her known on the blonde’s door and leavinga note behind when they had realized that the woman was still at work tellingher to call him ASAP just because how excited he had been of finally… “Talking.I… Archie told me that I need to write, I think I will try that, you always aretelling mum that I’m a good storyteller, right?”

Emma had smiled so proudly at him that Regina’sown heart had ached and so that night she had discovered herself slipping intoa dream that didn’t involve Daniel, not at first, and when she had awoken shehad realized that she wasn’t crying, not like she had been for the past fewmonths.

She still had needed a lot of first steps, alot of quiet moments of realization, a lot of hours talking to Kathryn once shefound herself strong enough to call her old friend, the blonde’s voiceconcerned but happy of hearing again from the brunette after Regina had shuther out after Daniel’s funeral. She still had needed a lot of time to realizethat she, too, needed help and she had needed even more to look at Emma, trulylook at her and get to know why sometimes Emma seemed about to say things she,at the end, didn’t. She had needed a lot of time but then, one day, one day shecould remember as clear as Emma’s eyes were green, she had looked at the ringaround her neck and it hadn’t hurt, not as painfully as it had once, not asexcruciatingly as it had done.

“I will always love you.” She had said once tothe already unmoving Daniel, tears running down her cheeks, completely unableto do anything by cry.

She had known that day that the statement stillheld; She would always love him, no matter what but she, as well, also wantedto feel something more, something else.

That night she had asked Emma in a date, allrehearsed words and curtesy until Emma had engulfed her in a hug in the middleof the street as she whispered to her that, yes, she very much wanted a date.

She had needed even more to finally kiss theblonde, to finally hear all the story she hadn’t been privy off until then. Thestory of a girl called Lily, misplaced trust and the fear of being rejectedafter a whole life of being so. She, however, hadn’t needed as much to smile asHenry had finally learnt about them, giggling as he pointed as the story hehad, apparently, been writing about; the story of a heroine and a queen, of aknight in shining armor, one that, in the real life, was a blonde cop that,once upon a time, had smiled to a sulking child in an elevator just because anda Queen who would always have a magical ring around her neck but, as the weightaround her heart, the one that had once tear her apart in two, didn’t quitehurt as much as it had done. And that was more than enough.

[pro-bee]

Alright, so here goes nothing:

“Past, Present and Future” just leaves me so conflicted.

On the one hand, taken on its own, there are things I find so lovely about it. 

I think all the Tony-Ziva scenes are so rich with feeling and subtext and history, and the actors knocked them out of the park. 

I love that Ziva was finally allowed to grieve for so many of the traumas of her past. For her father, for her sister, for her mother, and perhaps more importantly, for Ari. Because that’s been the elephant in the room for years, and the effect it had on her was always brushed under the rug, unless it was to place blame and accuse her of being a stone-cold killer. So now she’s allowed to acknowledge the pain and the guilt and the sadness. Along with the dreams she lost and those she hasn’t dreamt yet and everything in between. And all of this is on-screen.

[putting the rest under a cut because this got way longer than I anticipated]

Not surprisingly, I love all the Tony-Ziva moments, because as painful as they are, they also give us those two at their best together, performance-wise. It was a tour de force of  Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo feeding off each other and pouring their hearts out on-screen, and it really was some of their best work to that point in the series. You could feel how much the characters cared for one another, yearned for each other, were desperate for each other, but ultimately let each other go out of respect for their wishes. It’s not the way we wanted it to go, and arguably not the way it should have gone, but there’s no denying that at the very least, it gave us some top-notch performances in their swan song. (Sniff.)

And while I wish Ziva could have gotten closure with all of the team, I have to admit that if they were only going to let her have scenes with one character, I’m glad it was Tony, because that was the story that seemed to have left the most unresolved at the end of the previous season. (Because Ziva and Tony were totally together, we’ve been through this already.)

It’s really sad that the story ended the way it did, and that Cote de Pablo had to leave the way she did, because yes, it absolutely through a wrench into whatever the next phase was supposed to be. And I recognize that the writers, in some ways, were caught between a rock and hard place when at the eleventh hour (I assume) they had to completely change their arc for the upcoming season to adjust for her departure, and that couldn’t have been easy. We may not have wanted Ziva to leave, but they probably didn’t either, and they had no choice but to write her out.

And taken on its own, Ziva having a crisis of faith isn’t so out of left-field to me, because like I said, she’d been through a lot, especially in the last year, and at some point, this was bound to come out one way or another. I’ve said in the past that this would have made more sense to me on the heels of Eli’s death, and not over six months later, but who would I be to judge someone’s grieving process were they actual real people and not fictional? And, again, the writers had to write her out somehow, so I suppose this makes sense in that respect.

But then, there are so many frustrating aspects about this arc, and this episode, too.

Like, for instance, that this is in fact Cote de Pablo’s last episode, and Ziva is in all of what, three scenes? It’s like the show decided to shoehorn her into this other plot with SecNav which, don’t even get me started because I’ve watched the episode three times and I still don’t understand what the fuck that’s all about, nor do I care. (Sorry.) I’m glad we got as much as we did because the show/CBS could have easily decided not to let her get any closure whatsoever, but it’s unfortunate that it was done in such a disjointed manner.

And while it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Ziva would cut off all contact with her NCIS family, because she’s done it before, it still seems to ignore all the growth she’d made in the years since the last time she’d left, and that’s probably my biggest gripe with all of this. The Ziva who’d forged her own path, who made new friends and a new family and a fresh start, away from her father’s influence, now suddenly decided to throw that all away? Especially when we find out what really happens next?

It’s a qualm I had about the Bodnar arc, too: that to me at least, it would have been way more compelling if after all her soul-searching, Ziva realized that this time, going after revenge wasn’t the answer, because that was never going to solve anything or fulfill what she was searching for. That what she learned from her time with the team was that justice and vengeance were two different things,  and the latter would do nothing to soothe her soul. (Which is why she ends up doing a whole Eat Pray Love thing afterwards.)

So yes, it’s true that we didn’t see what happened between the time she sent Tony that text inviting him to Israel and the time he finally showed up at her door three months later, and presumably whatever it was was Bad. Bad enough to scare the shit out of spy ninja Ziva. That may explain why she wanted to then cut herself off and deal with her shit, which is admirable in some respects. But unfortunately due to real-life constraints, there wasn’t really any build-up to it. It is jarring compared to the Ziva we last saw at the end of season 10, who was content and fired up for whatever came next.

I realize my perspective is different, because I wasn’t watching this in real time like you folks. If I had been, man, I would have been raging for months. I’m not angry about it because I knew what would come next, but now seeing it in context, it does make me sad for the characters, because they did deserve better. They deserved to be happy and maybe even sad but all of those things together, and they should have had their own happy ending. But instead everything hurts, and we won’t even know how much until three seasons later.

So, to sum up: I wish things had ended differently. I wish Ziva found her purpose and her family and did it with the team by her side. And I wish Tony got to be the man he wanted to be here, and grew into his new role in this newly-fulfilled partnership. But we can’t have nice things and neither can they. At least, though, we got the little we did get, and that’s no small feat. Because they could have completely thrown the baby out with the bathwater, but instead, at least these two got a proper goodbye. And we had those lovely scenes in the orchard and on the tarmac to see them off. That kiss is absolutely everything, and it’s a crying shame we never got more of them, but now we’ve got gifs that will live in infamy, as solace.

I am going to stop myself here and regroup. But what a wild ride, guys.