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musicalmoritz · 4 months ago

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What your thought and HC on Sakumei?

SakuMei my beloveds!!

I need to see these two interact in the main manga so badly. They were shown together during Nene’s dream in ASHK, where they appeared as friends. AidaIro love to pull those “what if?” scenarios to show us that two characters would have great chemistry. Their personalities are very similar, they’re both more reserved and act annoyed with others (particularly the Yugi twins). They met off screen when Tsukasa introduced Mei to the Broadcasting Crew + Mitsuba, but we never got to see them interact. It’s super fun as a rarepair tho bcuz there’s so much to imagine with their dynamic. They compliment each other well and there’s lots of room to explore what a relationship between them would be like

As a toxic yuri enjoyer I like to hc them as exes, though I often see them depicted as girlfriends who take care of each other. I like that version of SakuMei as well, unlike some other ships I’m not too picky on how they’re written. Speaking of which, SakuMei fanfics are amazing. With every TBHK ship except Aoi//Nene the fic options are very limited so I’m always pleasantly surprised to see ones that surpass my expectations (no slander to fics for other wlw ships tho I eat up every sapphic TBHK fic I can find). Beecalm has written some SakuMei so I would 100% recommend any of their fics. Their SakuMei fan arts are also super cute

Back to my own interpretation of the ship, I like to think of them as toxic exes who stayed friends. Neither of them had much emotional intelligence when they dated so they both carry a lot of baggage from it (mainly Mei). It took awhile for them to forgive each other but now they’re best friends and they’ve grown a lot and hey, who knows?? Maybe some feelings still remain and they can get back together once they’ve matured and grown as people

For the toxic element I think of it as v much Casual by Chappell Roan vibes. I like to hc that they met prior to the start of the series, before Sakura met Natsuhiko (ik that stretches canon a tiny bit but shhhhh let me have my headcanons). With Mei as a recent supernatural having no sense of identity and Sakura as an older supernatural with no goal to cling to, they were both a bit lost. They both initially agreed that they weren’t ready for a serious relationship so they agreed to keep things casual. Only it wasn’t long before they were hanging out every single day, almost 24/7. Mei especially wanted to be loved so it wasn’t long before their casual dating became unfulfilling for her. She didn’t want to be Sakura’s friend, she wanted someone who would love her and look after her. Someone she could devote all her love to instead of repressing it. Emotions have never been Sakura’s strong suit, so they ignored Mei’s obvious unhappiness. When Mei could no longer hold it in and told them she wanted more, Sakura broke things off. This led to a lot of resentment between the two of them because they both felt like the other ruined things. Over time tho, they learned to stop blaming each other and instead focus on bettering themselves. Slowly, they began to rekindle their friendship, and now they’re back on good terms

I wanna bring up sexuality headcanons here, I love the hc of Sakura being a nonbinary lesbian. I could also see pan Sakura since in ASHK they said they don’t care abt gender but lesbian Sakura is my Sakura. I wrote a mini essay on lesbian Mei awhile back and I stand by that. I actually slightly prefer No.4 Mei to OG Mei at times but shhhhh I love them both dearly

Their dates are very lowkey, it’s enough for them just to enjoy each other’s company. Usually they’ll hang out in the art room or have a mini book club in Sakura’s boundary (with tea ofc, it’s not a Sakura ship without tea). Mei doesn’t like fiction so she reads a lot of biography and nature fact books. Sakura likes gothic horror and occasionally a good ol’ mystery book. I also have this crack hc that since Sakura has been around for so long + they blend in with humans, they’ve gone to college several time like the Cullen’s from Twilight. They probably have multiple PhDs. Mei is p much the only person who will let them infodump so she gets crash courses in every major Sakura has taken

Nowadays, if you saw them together you’d have no idea about their complicated history. I just know Nene was flabbergasted when Mei filled her in on the lore. I also like to think Mei and Natsuhiko have some lighthearted beef over Sakura…but Natsuhiko lowkey wants Mei too so it’s a whole mess (just to be clear I hc Natsuhiko as genderfluid and bi so she fits into this equation just fine dw). Their lives could be a soap opera. When Mei is feeling like turning her life around and being social she spends time with the Broadcasting Crew, so her and Sakura still see each other on a regular basis. If Mei goes too long without visiting, Sakura will go to check on her. They look out for each other in subtle ways like that, even when things were rough between them they kept finding small ways to show that they cared. Some feelings still linger so it never really stopped being complicated but they have more of a handle on things now

Anyways I love these partners who are both super bitter towards the world yet filled with love for it. Let them kiss and get back together

#thanks for the ask i rly love yapping abt tbhk sapphics #ask #ask me anything #headcanons #sakura nanamine #mei shijima #sakumei #tbhk #toilet bound hanako kun #jshk #jibaku shounen hanako kun #ashk #after school hanako kun

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maryhadalittlehobby · 7 months ago

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IWTV S2 Liveblog E3 No Pain

We start out with Daniel in this restaurant and he says he is partial to the non wigging items as his fish is moving. Is this the Louis effect?! from the fox last season

He is trying to piece together things from his dreams. What stands out is "I wont save you this time". I cant really read the rest but its interesting that he is now realizing these are memories and they are significant.

This Raglin James guy. Who is he really? Book readers get the easter egg but is he really the body thief guy. Also Ive heard it say he is a detractor from the Talamasca. Are we meeting him post or pre-detracting if he is who he says he is?

The Talamasca watches and doesn't get involved so why would he be sharing with Daniel EVERYTHING? Especially when he knows Daniel is so susceptible to getting his mind read by the vamps. And he KNOWS but exactly how? Does he have some gifts? Does he have a in the vampire residence like some have guessed. So many questions

900 to 1600 vamps. Geez!

Sleeping Beauty Louis. Get some sleep, you desrve it king! Scoot over I'm tired too!

Peaceful beings real Rashid?! Biological imperative in conflict with human morality?? Sir its in conflict with human existence! but go off i guess

I knew there was some significance to the camera panning to the audio recording on the Daniels laptop but I didn't get it until a second viewing! We didn't see it while Armand was talking but we saw it after and there still should have been sound waves even after he finished speaking! But there weren't! omg Armand!

Blenders lol

The vampire we see in the beginning broke the first and fifth law that rules the Children of Darkness-possibly made a vampire without the coven leaders consent and detroyed another vampire...

Ok here we go Armands version of event. You know its gonna be good -truth or not!

OOhhhh Armand telling Lestat "Come to me?! Did he actually say this or is he parroting Louis's story here?

Hmm this kid is not who I imagined for Nikki but we will give him a chance

I love the mirror story telling here with Lestats rejection of the coven with Louis's rejection of the coven.

Armand showing Lestat his power! Yes humble him king!

The eye thing was hella freaky though not gonna lie

Armand saying Nikki is unharmed meanwhile my man looks ROUGH- Bitten, bruised and battered. This is Armands idea off not harming mind you. Didn't Armand tell Louis last episode I will not harm you??Louis should be afraid.

Lestat has never been more French lol- What are those sounds lol

I wonder is anyone not familiar with the books believes Armand. I can't wait to watch reaction. Lestat is a cartoon bully.

They ended themself * mournful innocent look* Sir you murdered those people!

Lord Lestat and Armand speaking French. Yes whatever yall are saying

Here? now ?! in front of Nikki and the whole theater?Armand playing coy and getting lost in his own self insert fic like soooo hilarious

Lestat is, was and will always be for Lestat... ok IS?!?iS!! Where is he? what does Louis KNow?! In the books up until the end of Louis and Armands relationship, he assumes Lestat is dead because thats what Armand tells him. This Louis seems to know he is alive so what does this mean?!

Never say i love you to a raging narcissist. Louis knows all to well but I do think we will get a Loustat love admission this season if not to actual Lestat then to Dreamstat

Oh Claudia- he kept you hostage. Fucking Bastard

Can we talk about the makeup? The too much eyeliner is so young girl trying to play grown. Trust me I know. Its a canon event. 18 y0 Mary had a little hobby

Some people were upset with the coven calling her puce and the "abuse" she was getting from them. Tell me you haven't been called a lovingly mean nickname without telling me. It was hazing. She has to start from the bottom. And lets face it its nothing in comparison to what they could have and will do.

The sneeze!Somebody had their panties in a bunch about vampires with allergies but come on. It was funny! It was supposed to be comical. Relax babe.

Claudia interning at the theater. Not unlike my internship experiences tbh. Less blood but still alot of sucking up.

I love Sam...both the character and actor

Vampire date night!

Louis said-I'm for the streets! I'm in da club! As he should. Get with it Armand or get Lost!'

"Oh there's room. I'm blushing!" Louis flirting is a thing to behold....but was that a double entendre (eyes)

Daniel flustered trying not to get caught looking at the Talamasca files. When in doubt bring up Claudia. Bam distraction! lol

Santiago if you don't leave Claudia alone! Fishing for details that she and Louis haven't got straight yet(angry face)

Also she tells Santiago she got lying from her maker at-sick burn to Lestat. Santiago's line after could be read that he doesn't think she is a great liar. Neither was Lestat girl!

Louis admitting to Armad he killed Lestat thus breaking one of the great laws. Girl. Armand already knew but GIRL. Atleast he didnt implicate Claudia but STILL ARMAND KNOWS(crying face)

I honestly thought the new version of the "Come to Me" song would come when Louis and Armand were trying to have sexy times. Who knows maybe it will be a reprise lol

The Loustat park scene tho! I am ashamed how much I replayed it...the good bits.

"I am still the only one you trust even now Kill me again" !1!!they are so insane

Louis is so mean to himself as Lestat. Thats not the only way you know how to love. What about Claudia? Your family? Even Lestat in the good years.

Claudia must feel Louis going through it and she must NOT CARE smh He is always kinda going through it so she is probably used it.

Claudia debut on stage. She looks so happy and Louis is a proud dad. This is so fucked up.

I wonder if Louis can hear Santiago talking to Armand. I have no doubt Santiago does not give to fucks about Louis hearing them but Armand does. Louis outright believes Armand is going to kill him so maybe yes. Or maybe he just has a bad feeling especially with how the conversation with Armand ended last time.

The five laws and Louis and Claudia have damn near broken every one 😭

This whole time watching s1 and now s2, I was like i will be fine with what eventually happens to Claudia. Cue to me CRYING at the mention from Armand that she wont make it and not even by his or the covens hand. But because of her own doing.

"And I play the little girl?" ugh this back half of this episode is all pain!

Not for nothing I was genuinely scared for Louis when Armand was threatening him in the sewer...as if Louis is not alive and well telling this story lol. I let the tale seduce me a little too much.

Not Louis and Armand bonding over Lestat breaking their hearts. And that yesterday line is absolutely yesterday. He got Lestat tied up awaiting the trail I know it.

Are you inviting me in? "I love that little fun nod to vampire lore but Louis is so wild for that. Armand was absolutely going to kill you minutes ago fam. And you told you self (through Lestat) that you don't trust him or any of these vamps.m WILD i say

So much happened again this episode! But still good pacing. I liked it better after viewing it again but it comes in 3rd from the episodes we've seen so far. Episode 2 is still my fav so far. So many new questions arose and its soo painful waiting week to week for these episodes!

#no pain #amc iwtv s2 #liveblogging #iwtv liveblog #amc iwtv

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alexsfictionaddiction · 2 years ago

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Review: Saving Neverland by Abi Elphinstone

I am pleased to announce that I have read and thoroughly enjoyed my first Abi Elphinstone book! This beautiful re-imagining of Peter Pan was a lovely, magical adventure, which I know Elphinstone is known for, so I’m intrigued to read some more of her work now.

Martha Pennydrop is ready to grow up now. Since the Terrible Day, when she nearly lost her little brother Scruff, she knows that she needs to give up her silly make-believe games and imagination. However, there seems to be some strange gold dust in their bedroom and neither Martha nor Scruff know what it is. Years before, the Darling family lived in their house and it seems that an old friend of the Darlings has returned to look for new adventurers to save Neverland from a terrible curse.

I adored the illustrations from Geraldine Rodriguez because they were truly stunning. They fit the whimsical, ethereal vibe of the book so well and they certainly brought the characters to life in my mind. Their presence also reminded me of an old illustrated version of Peter Pan that I had as a child, so reading this book was almost like time travel for me!

Martha feels that her double digit age means that she needs to leave childhood behind. Frankly, I was astonished that she had come to that conclusion at such a young age but a certain event has prompted her to grow up quickly. I think that the decision to make Martha a young girl rather than a teen was the right choice because it meant that she really does have a good excuse to continue enjoying her childhood, which is really what the story is all about.

The Pennydrops have a Norwegian Forest cat called Fluffington, who is this retelling’s version of Nana. He is a thoroughly incompetent babysitter but a fantastic addition to the book. Although I know that Nana didn’t join the Darling children on their Neverland adventure, I was hoping that Fluffington would accompany the Pennydrops on theirs. If only for more cat content!

The idea of Neverland appearing differently to whoever is looking at it is something that I don’t remember from the original story. However, I love that it’s included in this version because it gives the place a personal touch. It feels much more dream-like than a fixed real place in the sky. It means that everyone who visits can attach things that are familiar to them to it, giving Neverland a homely comfort that was missing from the original version.

Peter’s arrogance is amped up in this book and while I know that he has always been something of a complex, grey character, he is definitely an irritating brat here. The Lost Kids mention his loyalty and commitment to his cause several times but I found him to be completely unlikeable. It didn’t really matter because the story wasn’t about him. The focus was on Martha and Scruff’s relationship, which thankfully Peter wasn’t involved in.

Ultimately, Saving Neverland is about remembering the things that make life fun and the joys of using your imagination, even when you’ve grown up. It’s about treasuring family and friendship while overcoming evil and realising that you’re never too old for adventures. It was a really magical, heartwarming read with plenty of fascinating creatures and beautiful imagery in this re-imagined vision of a land that we’ve all been to before but never seen it quite like this.

#saving neverland #abi elphinstone #middle-grade #fantasy #fairytales #book review #review #books #bookworm

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not-wholly-unheroic · 4 years ago

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Viewing Disney’s Peter Pan Through the Eyes of an Adult

Recently, I’ve seen several posts floating around talking about how Disney’s Hook is difficult for people to take seriously and is much too comical for what Barrie had intended. I grew up with Disney’s Hook. He was my first introduction to the character and the reason why I became interested in reading classic literature, writing fanfic, and seriously delving into the analysis of complex villainous/antagonistic characters, so he has a very special place in my heart and I’m prone to be quick to defend him. Rather than writing a long-winded reply to these individual posts, I decided to just make my own explaining why Disney’s Hook can be viewed as just as tragic and sympathetic as any other version. (You can also read some of my earlier posts defending Disney’s Hook here and here.)

*takes a deep breath* *cracks knuckles* Buckle up kiddos! You’re in for a long ride!

My view of Disney’s Hook as a tragic character lies primarily in my sympathy for him when he switches from a proud, elegant, dangerous character to a shivering mess of a man when the crocodile comes around. Let me attempt to elaborate--but first, a bit of a necessary digression.

Every film/book/play, etc. can be viewed from several perspectives. Typically, there is one character that we are meant to like and who becomes the primary focus of the story. Anyone who opposes that character is automatically an antagonist, if not a villain. Usually, even if the point of view is omniscient, we can still tell that it is not, perhaps, entirely objective in its portrayal of certain characters. This sort of situation happens all the time on the evening news--the interviewer is, in theory, supposed to be a neutral reporter on an incident, but it is often obvious that they favor one side of an issue over another, and as a result, the public's view of the situation and those involved is skewed. The lens through which we view a certain character tends to do the same thing. For instance, in Les Miserables (another favorite story of mine), Javert is viewed as an antagonist because the book is primarily concerned with the redemption story of Valjean; however, if the story was flipped and instead focused on the inspector's character and his transition from a strict legalist to a man so broken by the idea of morality that he commits suicide, he would, perhaps, be viewed instead as a tragic HERO instead of a tragic ANTAGONIST. Javert likely does many GOOD things in the name of the law as well during his career, but we don't see most of them because he isn't the main focus of the book. Similarly, I think Disney’s Hook can be more greatly appreciated as TRAGIC instead of COMICAL when we consider the lens through which we are viewing him.

Disney has always been geared toward children, so naturally, when they tell a story, they want the material to be attractive to a younger audience. This means not only that certain more frightening or upsetting elements of a story may be left out, edited, or altogether changed, but also that WE VIEW THE CHARACTERS THROUGH THE EYES OF A CHILD. (For example, in The Little Mermaid, King Triton's opposition to Ariel going to the surface world is presented in such a way that he seems extremely harsh when, in reality, he is father trying to keep his daughter safe. True, he DOES overreact, but remember, Ariel is only sixteen--not even LEGALLY an adult--and wants to run off with some guy she hasn’t even had a conversation with. But kids can relate to overbearing parents who, in a moment of disagreement, seem like they are being "mean," so that is how the audience sees Triton.) Peter Pan, especially, with its protagonist(s) as a child/children, really magnifies this perspective to the point where, unfortunately, some of the characters become almost caricatures of themselves. When children are legitimately afraid of something, they react one of two ways: Either they run from it/avoid it altogether, or they make-believe that whatever is frightening them is actually a lot less terrifying than it is so that they appear brave. I remember when I was younger, I used to be TERRIFIED of Monstro, the whale from Pinocchio. I couldn't watch the film without getting nightmares. But I didn't want to be afraid of watching the movie, so with my overactive imagination, I decided that I could fix that by turning him into a less scary version of himself and making him into an imaginary friend who more closely resembled Willy the anthropomorphic opera-singing whale from Make Mine Music than the terrifying creature we see in Pinocchio. Anyway, getting back to the point--I overcame my fear of the character by choosing to imagine that he was less scary than he was. This is what a lot of children do, and I think it's why Disney's Hook comes off as being comical.

The first time we see Disney Hook on screen, he actually comes across as pretty terrifying. He literally shoots his own crew member just because he didn't like the guy's singing! Rarely do we actually see Disney villains successfully kill another character on screen, but Hook does not even five minutes into his introduction. Immediately, we get the impression (or at least, a child should get the impression), that Hook is a genuinely dangerous guy. He also seems to regard his loss of a hand as "a childish prank," which further gives us the impression that he apparently has a pretty high pain tolerance and isn't afraid to do horrible, gruesome things to his enemies. If chopping someone's hand off is "childish," then what sort of serious damage does he inflict on his victims? However, this is Disney, and rather than having Hook gut someone or do something else which might scar a kid for life, we soon see he has a weakness...the crocodile. At this point, the Darling kids have been watching Hook for several minutes from their perch up on the cloud and are, probably, starting to have some second thoughts about fighting real pirates when they seem so scary...so what do they do? They do the same thing I did and turn him into a less-scary version of himself. They find his weakness and latch onto it. And since we're viewing things primarily from their perspective, that's how WE start to see Hook too. Hook's fear of the crocodile becomes comical for the audience because the Darling kids are trying to focus on that aspect of him so that they are can forget how terrifying he really is. We see this more frightening side of Hook come out a few more times, such as when he plans to blow up Pan's hideout...and at this point, we even catch a brief glimpse of the more sinister part of Smee when he asks Hook if it wouldn't be more humane for them to slit his throat...AND THIS IS SMEE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HERE!!! The LEAST frightening of the pirates in ANY version. But I think Disney throws this in just to remind us that Smee is still a pirate, and if HE'S willing to do something THAT bad, Hook is a thousand times worse. However, for the most part, Hook still remains a rather softened, comical version of himself because we are viewing him through the child-lens. Remove that lens, though, and things become more complicated.

Forget, for a moment, that we are supposed to be rooting for the Darling children and Pan, and look again--not as a frightened child who is trying to laugh in the face of danger but as an adult who can feel Hook's pain. I remember one time when I was driving back from the airport in a busy city in the dark and the road was icy...I'm not used to driving in ice, and I'm a naturally nervous driver...At one point, I skidded into the next lane... I literally spent about the next hour hyperventilating, practically rocking myself back and forth, praying, and trying not to cry because I knew if I did I wouldn't be able to see the road. It was horrible... Take that sort of feeling, and I believe it's what Disney Hook is experiencing when the crocodile shows up. Through the "child-lens" it may be funny to see a frightening character in a vulnerable situation, but viewing it as an adult who understands just HOW helpless and terrified one feels in such a situation, you can't help but empathize with Hook. Every move he makes, every tremble in his voice, every look of absolute horror in his eyes tells you that he is not mentally or physically really functioning at the moment. He's on autopilot--he's in survival mode like a wild animal that freezes in hopes that it won't be seen by the approaching predator. Take away the crocodile's obviously silly "theme-music" and Hook's slightly overdone expressions, and you're left with something similar to what we see Hook experience in the novel near the end of the chapter, "The Pirate Ship." ("Very frightful was it to see the change that came over him. It was as if he had been clipped at every joint. He fell in a little heap...he crawled on his knees along the deck as far from the sound that he could go...'Hide me,' he cried hoarsely.") Now we can start appreciating him for the tragic villain that he is supposed to be.

Viewed through the eyes of the Darling children, Hook represents all that is frightening and bad about the grown-up world. If Peter is ice cream parties and summer vacations and catching fireflies in the dark, then Hook is cancer and broken dreams and being worried about being able to make enough money to put food on the table. Barrie, however, tells us that there is much more to both characters than that. Peter has a dark side--a selfish streak that forgets all pain at the cost of never learning from the past, never growing from his experiences and becoming a better person. He is stagnant not only in physically growing up but also in mentally facing reality, which is just as damaging as Hook's attitude of regretting a childhood apparently gone too soon. Hook, too, has a lighter side that loves soft music and flowers and other such things (representative of the good things about being an adult--falling in love, pursuing one's passions in a professional sense, having children of one's own). Disney, of course, doesn't quite do this to the same extent as Barrie since we're given a skewed view of the characters, but it DOES still make a few points which, when stripped of the "child-lens" effect, gives off a similar impression. Peter, for instance, brags to the mermaids at one point about cutting off Hook's hand and feeding it to the crocodile. Though we never get to hear him finish the tale, it is rather unsettling to think that Disney's Pan is capable of such horror. (Personally, no matter WHAT the circumstances of the situation were, I think any real-life child who took such great pleasure in slicing off a body part of another person and then having the presence of mind to feed said body part to a dangerous wild animal would probably be considered a psychopath in need of some SERIOUS counseling.) Disney, of course, glosses over this little inconvenience by having Hook show up before he can really get any further into the story. Again, the child-lens is going up; Wendy doesn't want to see this side of Peter, and neither does the child-based audience, so they choose to look away. However, we see a brief glimpse of this side of Pan again at Skull Rock. First, we see it resurface when he hands Smee a gun and then flies up directly in front of Hook--knowing that he can move out of the way in time. Again, through the child-lens of the audience, it seems funny to watch Smee doing his best (and failing terribly) to aim at Pan...but when you think about it from an adult's perspective, it's actually pretty disturbing. Peter legitimately wants Hook dead and doesn't care if it happens to be at the hand of one of his own crewmen (and arguably, in the Disney universe, Hook's only real friend). When Hook "dies," Peter simply takes the hat and says nonchalantly, "What a pity, Mr. Smee. I'm afraid we've lost the dear captain." It doesn't even phase him that a man might have just died and poor Smee is probably feeling absolutely HORRIBLE because it was (sort of) his fault. Even Wendy's child-lens falters a little here... While Peter is celebrating Hook's death, she at least, has enough of an adult's heart to have compassion on their fallen enemy and turn her face away with an, "Oh, how dreadful!" It happens again a few moments later when Peter is getting ready to kick Hook's hook off the ledge so that he falls into the waiting jaws of the crocodile. (The captain, at this point, is of course, squirming like--to use Peter's phrasing--"a codfish on a hook.") Again, Pan has no sympathy, but Wendy, who is starting to gradually open up her eyes to the truth that maybe staying a child forever isn't all it's cracked up to be and maybe adulthood isn't entirely bad, is losing her "child-lens." Not entirely. Not to the point where she doesn't continue to view Hook as comical to keep from being afraid. But enough to know that what Peter is about to do is wrong. She expresses this verbally when she shouts, "Oh, Peter, NO!"

It is at this point, shortly after the crocodile chase, that we start to see Hook become more of a legitimate threat (and a legitimately sympathetic character) again. Why? Because Wendy, as the protagonist and the one whose eyes we are looking through even more so than Pan, is starting to grow up and face reality for what it is--scary or not. As she sings "Your Mother and Mine" and tells her brothers that they NEED a mother--that Neverland has been fun but they NEED to go home--Hook is throwing Tinkerbelle in a lantern and planning to kidnap the kids and blow Pan to smithereens. And then we get the "slit his throat" reminder (mentioned above)... Also, as a side note, when Hook is ill after the crocodile chase, we hear him lamenting how Pan has made him look like a fool yet again. This is also something that I think we can appreciate more as adults. All Hook's crew wants is to go back to haunting the Spanish Main, but Hook refuses to leave Neverland because he feels that he has to remain there until he can regain his pride...which in and of itself is admirable, since many people who have been played the fool simply hang their head and walk away in shame. Here's this guy who has been bested by a child no more than twelve or thirteen--and possibly much younger... How must that feel? I have been in an emotionally abusive relationship where I was constantly reminded how I couldn’t do anything right, and it felt SO degrading. I literally just wanted to go hide away in my room and cry because I felt so incompetent and useless and just plain stupid. So how does Hook feel? Probably the same way. But he doesn't give up. If there's one thing we can say for sure about Disney Hook, he's a fighter. So, I guess you could say that, in part, one reason I find Disney Hook so sympathetic and tragic is because I can identify with him in his crippling reaction to fear and admire him for his bold attempts to reclaim his pride.

Anyway, getting back on track with the storyline... As we near the end of the film, Hook once again appears to lose face at the final showdown. At first, this doesn't seem to make sense if Wendy is, in fact, beginning to lose the child-lens. However, although Hook is defeated, we are never actually shown that he dies (and obviously, from the second film, in the Disney universe, he doesn't). I remember reading somewhere that when they were originally working on Peter Pan, Walt Disney chose to keep Hook alive and just have him "going like hell" rather than actually dying because, "the audience will get to liking Hook." And by this point, we have...those of us still looking through the child-lens love to hate him as a character we can laugh at, and those of us who are more grown-up love him for being just like us--an adult who is STILL growing up, in some ways, who is STILL afraid of certain things and hasn't always learned his lessons and isn't perfect but also isn't willing to give up even when everything is against him and everyone is laughing at him and nothing seems to go right.

Now, I said that at first, it doesn't seem to make sense for us to view Hook in a comical light in this scene if we are viewing the movie primarily through the eyes of the Darling children--particularly Wendy, who is starting to grow up and realize that adults are supposed to feel things like compassion for one's enemies. However, Wendy is still a child. She IS still afraid of growing up. In fact, she's terrified. And that comes out when the kids are all mocking Hook. He's still frightening to them. They still need the security blanket of pretend sometimes, of focusing on his more comical, vulnerable side...but they don't defeat Hook by killing him in this version, and I think that's significant. As representative primarily of the "scary" parts of growing up, Hook is temporarily cast aside and shoved to the back of their minds, but he IS NOT DEAD. The kids (and even Pan) know he may come back. They know he isn't gone for good. One day, they will have to face adulthood. One day, Hook--in the guise of mortgages and taxes and wars and sickly older parents--will return. But for now, they have defeated him...not just by pretending but by choosing to accept the responsibility of growing up eventually, in their own good time. Even Peter starts to reflect this theme by beating Hook, "man to man" without the use of flight. Wendy, who wants to be the good grown-up but who isn't quite ready to let go of childhood, warns Peter against it, thinking that it may be a trap. She even goes so far as to shout at him to fly when he has the chance even though he has promised not to. But Disney Pan is a bit more mature than some (maybe Wendy's better judgment is wearing off on him), and he keeps his word. He beats Hook "like a man" NOT like a boy. Pan's victory here symbolically reflects the Darling children's decision to face adulthood by going back to London. Thus, Hook is defeated because adulthood is no longer an obstacle which causes a fear is so crippling that the kids can't face it. When Wendy returns home, we get one last glimpse of this truth in Mr. Darling--the real-world representative of all things frightening and frustrating about growing up and, as I'm sure you know, also (significantly) voiced by Conried--who has done some "growing up" himself. Mr. Darling, it seems, is willing to allow Wendy a bit more time to enjoy life as a child, remembering his own childhood fondly, even as Wendy has chosen to accept the responsibility of growing up. Mr. Darling, who much like Hook, was viewed previously by the kids (and by extension, the audience) as a bit of a bully and an object of ridicule, is now the object of Wendy's affection as a mutual understanding is reached. Adulthood is frightening in many ways, but Wendy has also come to realize that it is necessary to take responsibility for one's actions and feel compassion for others just as Mr. Darling has realized that sometimes, it's okay for kids to be kids and enjoy the moment. Essentially, what I'm saying is--borrowing the idea that Hook and Mr. Darling are two sides of the same coin--Hook in Neverland, chased away by the crocodile, appears as comical in the last scene only because he effectively gets one last serious scene through his London counterpart, staring wistfully out the window with a loving wife and child by his side. Wendy isn't quite yet grown up, so she still sees through the child-lens on occasion, but she is learning, gradually, to embrace that which she once feared. She no longer needs Hook, an imaginary figure, to personify that fear. She now has her father back, and though she now RESPECTS what he stands for, she is no longer so terrified of growing up that she can't appreciate the GOOD side of the future (such as having a husband and a family of her own someday) and look forward to it.

#peter pan disney #disney peter pan #captain hook disney #disney captain hook #disney #disney villains #captain hook #james hook #captain james hook

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pixiibells · 4 years ago

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United States of Tara reaction fic!

Guys this was in my drafts from line 2014-15 and I never posted it. Here we go!!

Okay, so this episode aired allll the was back in 2009, but my husband and I found it on Netflix last week and we like it. I saw "Possibilities" and I thought Marshall and Jason were freaking adorable! Then we watched "Betrayal" and I really liked where it ended, prefect for a fan to pick up where it left off. I wrote this between that episode and the closer for season one.

Title: Revived

Author: Pixiebells

Fandom: United States of Tara, Season 1

Genre: Reaction fic to “Betrayal”

Pairing Marshall/Jason

“Did you do this?!”

Marshall looked up from his novel, as he read placidly on the lawn. The fire was out, and Kate had gone inside. The shed was now a burnt-out stub in the ground, with ash and papers soaked in water, little memories floating around, soon turning to garbage. “Oh, yeah, sorry about that. Something just came over me.” He glared at his mother.

“Oh, don’t you dare do that!” Tara growled at him. “Don’t you fucking condescend me like that!”

“So you’re mad about this?” He shot back, annoyed.

“Of course I am! You burned our fucking shed down, Marshall!”

“Oh, so you get to make irrational, stupid decisions with little to not consequence but the second I act out, it’s wrong.”

“We’re wrong either way!” she shouted. “But in my defense, I wasn’t fully aware of what I was doing. You, however, are.”

She sighed and sat down on the edge of his chair.

“Look, we both screwed up, okay? Do you really think I’m happy about all this? Do you think I like making a mess of everything I touch? Barely able to keep a job, or get through a weekend of in-laws? Or have a normal afternoon at the spa with my sister?”

“Back to self-pity, again. You’re shameless.”

She grabbed his book and threw it on the lawn, aggravated. “I’m sorry, I didn’t order extra snark with this conversation. What is your problem?”

“Right now? You. You are my problem. I really liked him, and maybe, maybe he likes me back. Do you think I was happy putting myself through that disturbing production, just to spend time with him? What kind of origin story would that be for our adopted children? ‘Your father and I met because I thought he was cute, and he thought pretending to burn in hell for perfectly valid feelings was a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.'”

“Oh my God, you’ve already imagined adopting kids with him?” she chucked good-naturedly, despite herself. She didn’t want to insult her son’s feelings, but that was one hell of a crush.

“Well, yeah. I’m like a wolf, or a clown fish, or whatever animals mate for life. Point is, I like one guy at a time. And when I like him, I really like him. And Jason’s not shallow like a lot of people my age. He’s rare. He’s kind of special. And he’s grown up in this totally controlling, unhealthy environment and maybe now he’ll let his guard down a little.”

“Aww, sweetie. I’m sorry.”

Tara’s anger melted away like the magazine clippings T had plastered on the walls of the shed last summer. She’d found every image of Justin Beiber she could get her hands on, and wrote “PUSSY BITCH” and “FUCK BELIEBERS” and the semi-political “DON’T TALK ABOUT ANNE FRANK LIKE THAT!” In red Sharpie all over his stupid face.

She hugged Marshall, and his anger melted just like his bike had. “I promise I’ll never make out with boys you like again.”

“You better not.” He replied in her ear, finally relaxed. They parted and he spoke again: “I’m sorry too. I know that was kinda your…place.” His guilt finally caught up to him.

“It’s fine. You know, maybe it needed to go. Maybe that was just cosmic timing. You know, my therapist basically dumped me today.”

“Really? Aww, I was trying to think of some puns or a catch phrase for you guys, like a reference to Ocean’s Eleven or something.”.

Tara smiled in appreciation. “I love how creative you are. I’ve always loved that about you. But hey, maybe it’s a chance for a new start, you know? Maybe I should get this new therapist, or go back on the meds.”

“No, no, don’t do that just for my sake. That should be your choice, my melodrama notwithstanding.”

“Thank you. And I’d do it for us. All of us. It’s just something I’m tossing around anyway. Come on, why don’t we go inside?” she mended fences, picking up his book and handed it back to him as he got up.

“Just one more thing?”

“Yeah?”

“Was he at least a good kisser?”

“Oohh, details!” she squeaked. “Why? You wanna kiss him?”

“Already did, actually.” he beamed, content with his conquest..

“Oh, well done, playa.”

“And then he kissed back.”

“Ooooh!”

“But it was so quick I wasn’t sure. So…”

“He was all right. Not terrible, not great. Not much experience. Well,” she teasingly looked to him, “not yet.”

“Mom.” he blushed, looking away.

They had reached the kitchen by then. Kate was back up in her room and Max was washing his hands.

“OK,” Tara breathed a sigh, “I’m gonna go change, get cleaned up. Start helping out with dinner.”

As she went upstairs, Marshall sat at the counter and struck up a conversation with Max. “Dad?”

“You and mom work things out?” he asked, pulling a roast pan out of the cupboard.

“Yeah, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. Just, don’t do it again, okay?”

“Okay. I am sorry.”

“You’re fine, it’s cool. Not the first fire I’ve put out today,” he remarked with a smile.

“I have kind of an important question. About Mom and her alters.”

“What’s that?” he asked, while rummaging through the freezer.

“When she’s T, and she’s hitting on some other guy, or, making out with someone half her age. How do you get over it? You guys have been together for almost 20 years. Doesn’t at least a little part of you get insanely jealous?”

“On some level, yeah.” Max agreed, sticking a bowl of water in the microwave. “But I remind myself of a couple things. It’s temporary, it’s meaningless, and it’s not really her. To be honest, when she’s…not herself, I actually don’t really, uh…”

“Oh,” Marshall was taken aback. “So when she’s not herself, you guys don’t…”

“We agreed it was weird. So it makes it easy to disconnect.”

“That makes sense. Sorry if that was a weird question.”

“Aw, come on. We both know that’s the tip of the weird iceberg around here.” Max winked at his son.

Marshall chuckled, relived. Just then, there was a knock at the door.

“I’ll get that, you’re starting dinner,” he said, rising from his seat. Max thanked him and turned back to the microwave, hot water now ready for thawing.

He opened the door and Jason was there, looking a bit anxious.

“Oh,” Marshall’s mood immediately cooled off. He was square with his mom, but Jason didn’t exactly fight her off, and he was still hurt.

“Sorry, my mom’s not available right now.” He contemplated closing the door, but settled on giving him an icy glare instead.

“Look, I’m really sorry. And believe me when I say I’m not interested in any…version of your mom. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. If it makes you feel any better, it was weird. And I’m not into labels or whatever, but I really do like you. And your family’s kinda cool. Hell of a lot better than mine.”

“OK, OK,” God damn, he was so cute...he couldn’t throw him away after one weird afternoon, “you’re off the hook. I might have gone a little overboard…”

“Holy shit, that was you?” Jason’s eyes widened. “Whoa…I hope I never piss you off.”

“I…got…jealous.” he stammered. “Sorry if that’s weird for you.”

“I’ll take as a…compliment.” Jason said with a shrug.

They shared a smile, relieved at last.

“So…maybe we can hang out later on?” Jason suggested. “I mean, if you still want to.”

“I do want to.” Marshall quickly replied. He still had a shot! “We’re gonna have dinner in a little while, but maybe...” he reached over and tucked back a lock of hair that has fallen over his eyes, “we could go for a walk first?”

“Sounds good to me.” Jason agreed, grinning.

“Okay.” Marshall said quickly, voice teeming with excitement.

He bounded inside and let his dad know they’d be out.

“I’ll be back for dinner,” he promised.

“No rush.” Max smiled back, reassuringly.

Marshall waltzed out the door, and they walked off, together.

THE END.

#united states of tara #season 1 #marshall/jason #what could've been #omg so cute #old post #fanfiction

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5-seconds-of-asses · 4 years ago

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love, river > draco malfoy shortstory

Title: love, river

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Original Female Character

Word count: > 2500

Warnings: Character death

Summary: ❝i will always believe in you. love, river❞

draco malfoy was never evil. only too blind to see that he was so much better than what he was taught.but river... river opened his eyes. or so he thought.

______

❝fate could never bear her smile, for it was happier than anything else in the world❞

Draco Malfoy grew up in a mansion, with only his parents and one house elf.

He had a giant room that never quite felt like his own and meals with people he sometimes couldn't recognize as his parents.

They were often gone, and whenever they were, Dobby would hide, unless Draco called for him.

It's easy to feel lonely growing up with so much space and so little company.

That's why Draco loved Hogwarts. He would never admit it (it didn't fit the picture that had been painted of him), but the castle was more his home than Malfoy Manor ever was.

He loved the loud chatter and the warmth and the laughter that echoed through the halls.

But even in Hogwarts things weren't perfect. They couldn't be - Draco never had really friends. All he had were friends of his name, and their company hollowed him out, left him with a broken spirit and a lost, wandering mind.

There was one girl, though.

Her eyes were the deep colour of the sea, and they were always wide with wonder; her voice was soft, like a flowing river or the wind and there was a spark inside her that caught everyone around.

Not Draco, though. Never Draco.

Or so he thought.

But no one could escape River, not her, in her weird beauty and her warmth and her silent smiles - not even Draco. Actually: especially not Draco.

***

He didn't want to admit it at first, but he slowly lost himself in her.

He stared at her whenever he got the chance. River always noticed, but never said anything. She was good at observing - she knew exactly who Draco was, and who he could be. But she always knew that it wasn't the time. Not just yet.

It was a stormy evening in October when they first spoke. It was raining and the wind was tearing and pulling at Dracos cloak as he made his way back up to the castle.

There she was, standing in the rain, her head pulled back, doing absolutely nothing.

She must have been there for a while already, because she was soaking wet. But she wasn't moving; she just stared at the sky with her stormy, blue eyes and a smile, and she looked like she was where she belonged, and yet so lost at the same time.

Draco's breath was taken away.

Soon though, he found himself shaking his head, and he walked towards her.

"You're gonna catch a cold if you keep standing here!", he screamed through the rain.

It took a few seconds, and at first he thought she hadn't heard him, but then, finally, River looked at him.

She smiled; it was the softest smile Draco had ever seen, and he thought he would die of it, before she spoke. "That's okay," she assured. Her voice was warm and soft, like a pillow one wanted to cuddle and never let go of.

Draco sighed deeply and looked at her for a moment. He considered just leaving, but no thought in his entire life had felt so wrong to him. "Cmon, let's go inside," he offered her his hand.

River looked at him for a long moment, then at his hand. Her smile widened and then she took it. "Okay," she said, really quietly.

Draco blushed, and they just walked towards the entrance, River following close behind him. The big doors of the castle weren't far, and soon they fell into their locks behind the teenagers, and they were left with an almost eerie silence.

River slowly let go of Dracos hand and smiled again. "I'm River," she introduced herself.

Draco wanted to huff, and say 'As if I didn't know'. But he could imagine that River wouldn't want to talk to the mean, evil Slytherin guy. So he smiled as well.

"I'm Draco"

***

She made him whole - filled his hollow heart up, with wonder for the world and happiness and maybe even a little love.

River was everything Draco never had.

They spent more and more time together, and the boy started questioning everything he had grown up with.

River was muggleborn. And strangely enough, Draco had absolutely no problem with that.

It was warm outside; warm enough for River to wear a long, flowing dress. It made her eyes shine even brighter, and her laugh sound even lighter.

Draco acted like he didn't want to, but when she asked to go to the lake, he immediatley agreed. And for whatever reason he didn't care that everyone could see.

"It's not about who you're born as, you know? It's about who you aspire to be", Rivers voice sounded absent, as she suddenly stopped reading the book in her hands. Her eyes darted towards the sky.

Draco blinked. "No," he said, "I didn't know"

***

River smelled like all the best things Draco could imagine. A little like books and a little like fresh air and a lot like a flowing river.

He realised this first when they sat up on the platform of the astronomy tower, and she sat close beside him because she was cold. They were staring at the stars, and it was silent. Up there, no talking was needed. The universe was smiling at the two of them, and that was enough.

But then, suddenly, River was standing, and she smiled down at Draco. "Sing something", she said, and even though Draco hated his voice, he could never say no to her hopeful, bright, blue eyes.

"Your's is the first face that I saw," Draco started singing, slowly and a little quiet. He had a little trouble remembering the words, but he did his best. "I think I was blind before I met you"

Rivers eyes widened and she chuckled when she realised Draco was singing one of her favourite songs - one from a muggle band, in fact. "Now I don't know where I am, don't know where I've been, but I know where I want to go"

And then she was dancing. Draco forget to sing for a little moment, and she chuckled at that again. She was a little clumsy, and she tripped every once in a while, but all that did was make Draco laugh a little louder.

"And so I thought I'd let you know, that these things take forever. I especially am slow," by now, the boys voice was a little lighter with happiness and no restraint. He allowed River to pull him up, and they were close once again.

He could breath her in as he continued his singing a little quieter. "But I realized that I need you"

Draco stopped singing. He was awfully aware of how close she was, and how her scent was everywhere.

"You do?", she asked, and it was a honest question.

"I do"

River smiled, and her blue eyes sparkled with happiness.

Before Draco knew they were kissing, and it felt like a whole new world.

The universe was smiling down at them, though it knew fate wasn't with them.

***

As the days and weeks and months passed, Draco realised that he hated growing older. He could see it in his face, how it changed. But he wanted to stay young, to just keep living like this, reckless and happy, with River by his side.

It reminded him of the story River had once told him. About Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. But Draco was no Peter Pan, and he could never be.

During the holidays, when he had to leave his little dream bubble, he realised this with a painful force. For his parents reminded him that he wasn't going to stay a little boy forever.

They made him go back to being the mean person they had raised; full of hate and anger.

On these days, he couldn't recognize himself.

Where was the boy that fell in love with River? Where was the best possible version of himself, that was almost worthy of being loved back by her?

He couldn't fight them. He wasn't strong enough, and their words confused him, made his mind wander to places it hadn't been in a long time.

Draco hated going back to Malfoy Manor.

He hated the person he was there, and he hated not being strong enough to fight.

Draco hated growing up. He hated that this meant making choices, deciding and living with those decisions.

There was one thing Draco hated the most: that he could never truly be the person River had fallen in love with.

And, that this meant he was going to lose her, eventually.

***

A long, long time ago, before any humans walked the earth, the universe fell in love with fate.

Both knew that this was unfortunate, because they could never be.

Fate wanted to love the universe back, it really did, but fate couldn't love, for it was destined to control the way things went one day.

Though the universe was never loved back, its feelings made it happier than anyone or anything ever before, or ever after. And so the universe made good things happen to good people, and it created happiness wherever it could.

Fate, in its anger for never being able to love , destoyed this happiness whenever it had the chance, unable to see people smile when it itself had no reason to do so.

And so, universe and fate never stopped destroying what the other had created, and their back and forth went on for milleniums.

For the universe was good enough to love when no one loved it back, but fate was too angry with itself to ever feel happiness.

Keep in mind, my children, that the universe will always try to help you. But fate can't let anything good be.

That's the way things have always been.

All that is left for us to do, is hope, that one day, fate might find love, deep somewhere within itself, and that finally, it can be happy.

And by that, allow us to be happy.

***

It was when they were up on the astronomy tower once again, that Dracos worst nightmare came true.

"I can't believe this," she mumbled and looked at the mark on his arm. She backed away from him, and her beautiful eyes were filled with pain, and anger, and something that looked like hatred. Draco's heart felt heavy, and he reached out for her.

"Don't touch me!" She screamed.

"River... River, don't do this, please," Draco slowly lowered his hand.

"You did this" She was crying, and so was he.

There was rage filling him; it was anger at himself, for losing her, for not being strong enough. But he tried to blame it on her. "I was never the person you fell in love with!", he cried out, "that was an idea, and you created it. Could you not see my weakness?"

"I believed in you, Draco! Do not dare blaming me for believing in you" River sounded betrayed, and they both knew that she was right.

His anger slowly faded, and he went back to begging her to stay, to forgive him. But when he took a step in her direction and reached out for her once again, River closed her eyes and winced.

"No," Draco sobbed. He couldn't say another word, because knowing that she was scared of him was worse than anything that could ever have happened.

River's eyes were wide again; Draco couldn't read them, but suddenly, she turned around, and she ran. He watched her disappear, and then he broke down.

"But I realized that I need you, and I wondered if I could come home"

***

Draco couldn't find River anywhere the next day. He knew that talking to her wouldn't make sense, for she had fallen out of love with him, and words would just cause him more pain. But he wanted to look at her. Even if it was to make sure that she didn't need him to live a happy life.

Days passed, but River was nowhere to be seen. Draco started getting worried; at first he had thought she was just avoiding him, but after talking to a few other students it was clear that she had disappeared.

There were whispers about her leaving Hogwarts, and some rumours about her death. Draco chose to believe that she had left the school, for it was so much easier to think that she had found a new live, a new beginning somewhere else.

Draco did what was asked of him, and he hated himself a little more with every moment. River never left his mind, nor his heart, and he broke a little whenever he remembered their fight. Their end.

He was so hopeless, and not one thing in the world could make him smile.

Draco hated himself, because he was a coward and an idiot, and he had hurt his one love and broken her trust. She had believed in him, and in all that was good about him, but in the end, it was all the same.

That was what hurt the most; knowing that loving someone as good as River had made no difference at all.

***

Many years later, after the war had ended, Draco learned that the rumours were true.

River had died, only a day after their fight.

The boy allowed himself to grief; not for his sake, but for hers.

Her grave was just like her; it was special and tragically, it was also beautiful, and it made you wonder what was within it.

River Dawn, the gravestone said, Dreamer, daughter and beloved friend.

Draco cried, and as his tears met her gravestone, he thought he could smell her once again.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and it was almost like the wind answered in her sweet voice. I forgive you.

It was a little comforting to know that she lived on, in the hearts of the people that loved her, and in the world around them. The universe liked her a little too much, and so her spirit was allowed to wander the earth.

***

Draco tried to be a good person, to help where ever he could, for her sake. It was a letter that made him believe that was what she would've wanted.

It came on a sunny day in May, and it was dated the night of their break up.

❝i will always believe in you. love, river❞

Were the only words it contained, and there was no explanation as to why he received it only now.

Maybe it was the universe, doing it's last good deed for her, who should've been.

River was everything Draco never had, and everything he lost. Fate could never bear her smile, for it was happier than anything else in the world, and so she had to leave.

All that is left for us to do, is hope, that one day, fate might find love, deep somewhere within itself, and that finally, it can be happy.

And by that, allow us to be happy.

#harry potter #draco malfoy #draco fanfiction #slytherin #hogwarts #love story #short story #gryffindor #ravenclaw #hufflepuff #slytherpride #sad #bellas storys :)#character death #singing

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skylights422 · 5 years ago

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@ace-and-aro-wlw-positivity created a Q&A for aspec authors/writers, and as an aspec author, I am excited to participate and answer as many of their questions as I can. Under a cut since it became really outrageously long.

1. What was your inspiration for your character(s)? Are they modeled on yourself, a person that you know, or a character that’s already been established?

Typically I’d say my characters are a mix of general inspiration from other stories/characters and then bits and pieces taken from myself. I try not to make any of them like a clone of myself or another character, try to mix it up, possibly with mixed success but that is the goal.

2. How much, if any, has your character(s) changed since they were first created? What caused this change?

Oh wow, okay I have characters I still use from grade school and middle school, and those characters have changed/grown a lot. Most notoriously (to me) though are my two fellas Euphranor and Kadri. I created them while daydreaming in middle school while watching those science videos in class about how I could make a more parody-like version of said videos, Kadri being the energetic and comically sadistic teacher and Euphranor being the constantly irritated and foul-tempered student. The core of their designs and personalities haven’t totally changed (Euph is still a hot-head and Kadri still likes to troll him), but they’ve become far more nuanced as characters as their story become more involved and serious. They’ve also become softer characters, with Euph having a Heart of Gold and Kadri being a bit morally grey but generally compassionate and friendly. I think the cause of this change and others comes from a mix of things, for one I simply got older and what I wanted out my characters changed a bit. But also I think it’s because I spent so much time with those characters in my head that I couldn’t help but develop them more fully, which in turn made me want to give them a good story. Also, everyone is definitely more queer now then how they started, largely because I became more aware and comfortable with my own queer identity and spent more time in queer spaces (though with Euph I actually just realized he had to be gay because I every het relationship I envisioned for him fell totally flat and yet imagining him as having crushes on guys just seemed to work better/make more sense, and that was an earlier decision).

4. Do you intend on publishing your story one day? Why, or why not?

I definitely do! I have many, many stories I want to publish, as books or comics or tv shows or films. I’ve always wanted to publish some of writing since it’s one of my main passions and have always taken inspiration from the stories I consumed. I just love writing and would want to be able to do it as my main career, the key will just be figuring out how to focus on one project long enough to finish it. xD

5. Surprise fact! Give a random fact about your character(s), whether it’s their favorite color, food, or even song!

Euphranor loves to sing! He hums to calm himself down and even full on sings to vent his feelings sometimes. Kadri loves literature and video games, and blackberry pie is his favorite food.

6. Admit it, you have a folder on your computer of the various types of picrews you’ve created for your character(s). Would you mind posting a few (or five)?

*VIBRATES* MY TIME HAS COME. I absolutely have way too many picrews of my fellas so I won’t post them all, just two each for the core four of my main novel project. First, Euphranor:

(yes he is a Hufflepuff)

Kadri:

(also since I dragged the Hogwarts houses into this Kadri is Ravenclaw)

Ena:

(I put her in Gryffindor)

And finally, Fiera:

(Right now I have her in Slytherin. She could also be in Ravenclaw though)

7. Time to get serious for a bit. There’s been heavy debate on having non-human characters identify as ace, aro, non-binary, etc., but never actual humans. As someone who’s aspec, how would you explain to someone who’s allo why this can be and is seen as hurtful?

I mean, as a sci-fi fan I definitely love if the non-human characters are queer coded, but it’s definitely important to include human representation as well, and I think there are a few simple reasons for that. One is that queer people are, in fact, humans, and therefore our stories deserve to be told as they are in reality as well as how they could be in fiction. The other is only writing us as inhuman implies you consider our identities as fictitious or too strange for a human to have, and queer people already have to deal with other forms of erasure and invalidation in real life. (Also, not everyone is a fan of sci-fi/fantasy, and they should still be able to read stories where they can see themselves)

8. It’s a sad reality that many stories in mainstream media don’t have characters that are aspec, not to mention without resorting to harmful stereotypes. Besides there being nothing wrong with IDing as aspec, why did you choose to have your character ID as such? What would you tell other authors who’re interested in writing characters that are aspec, but are afraid of offending the community?

I have a huge list of aspec characters, which definitely started happening more once I was aware of my own asexuality (and later, aromanticism), since I realized that I could make my own aro and ace characters and then just went wild with it lol. It’s also easier for me to write since I can actually draw from personal experience somewhat for it. Beyond representation having aro and ace characters also allows you to explore more facets of human emotions/the human experience, so that’s always fun.

As for how I would advise allies looking to write a-spec characters, my main advice would be to remember that we are an incredibly diverse group of people, and so while no one a-spec character will resonate with every a-spec reader, an a-spec character written in good faith will definitely speak to some of us. Write them as an character first, and when it comes to things like how their attraction does or doesn’t work and what they want out of relationships, figure out what works best for them. Really, if you’re concerned your character would be offensive in some way you can always make a post asking about it, many of us are happy to offer constructive advice and appreciate that someone is wanting to put in the effort to write about our experiences. Reading or listening to anecdotes from an array of a-spec people is also a good way of getting ideas of how to portray us, and there are various resources for that (the tags, AUREA collects anecdotes from arospec individuals, and probably more than I can think of offhand)

9. If you’re comfortable with sharing, what is your characters’ identity? Do they use any microlabels? Does theirs reflect your own?

Unsurprisingly I have many characters who are aroace (Fiera is one of them), and Ena is bisexual and gray-aromantic. Kadri was originally supposed to just be bi/pan but has become increasingly aspec, will they end up gray-aro as well as grey-ace? Will they end up as a pan oriented aroace? I don’t know yet, but they sure are a pan a-spec. My most recent project has exclusively aro-spec protagonists, Valentine is aroace, Cedar is demiromantic, Raelene is cupioromantic, and then Clematis and Hadyn are presently just Aro and might stay that way. My aroace characters are often styled after my own aroace experiences, while other a-spec characters aren’t as much.

11. Why do you think that not just representation is important, but GOOD representation? Can you offer any examples?

Well, I think there are a few ways to make ‘good rep’. There is the ‘this character helps bring awareness/educate about the community’ and then there’s ‘this character just resonates with certain a-spec people a lot’, and the main reason I think it’s important is because rep should be for the people they’re representing. So if rep hurts the community or totally fails to be relatable to anyone who’s actually a-spec, then it missed the whole point and is doing just as much to leave the community feeling left in the dust as no rep. Of course things do get complicated when the community is divided on whether the rep is good or not, which I imagine will be a common occurrence, and many examples of rep probably fall into the grey area between Good and Bad, but generally people should aim to tell stories that will help more than hinder the people you are telling your story about. (Although I also think that the long term end goal is to get to the point where there is enough representation that it doesn’t matter if some of it is ‘bad’ or not, since I feel like that is the true state of normalization, but that is sadly not yet the case)

12. What’s the genre of your most recent story? Do you always write in this genre? If so, what other works do you have? If not, why did you pick it?

My most recent story (with Valentine) is fantasy, inspired by shoujo style anime series like Cardcaptor Sakura, while Euph’s story is more dystopian urban fantasy? His exact genre has shifted around a lot and will probably continue to do so. In general, most of my works are fantasy in some way or another. A few are more sci-fi or horror based, but definitely the majority are fantasy whether that be magical girl type stories, urban fantasy, superheroes, or dark fantasy.

14. What’s a brief biography of your character? Is their history, personality, and/or looks similar to your own?

I’m going to go with Fiera here. The short version of her backstory is that she and her older brother were born to neglectful parents, and while their grandmother was attentive emotionally she also lived far away. Her brother discovered magic, long thought forgotten, but killed himself shortly after, leaving Fiera alone and confused. She then made a point to dedicate herself to studying the theory and history of magic in the hope that she may someday understand why her brother would take his own life so suddenly like that. She has a down to earth personality and is very observant, and has a great deal of ambition and focus for tasks. She naturally has a more lighthearted and curious personality, but has become more somber since the death of her brother. While she always struggled with sustaining personal relationships, it��s only recently she started using her power of observation to be more manipulative and always keep a cool, pleasant demeanor. She has a love for fashion and sewing, as well as an interest in chemistry.

She isn’t really based on me at all backstory or appearance wise, and only slightly takes after me personality wise. Our main similarity is that we both can be quietly observant and don’t tend to get outwardly angry very often, and that we are both aroace. But I am nowhere near as focused as her, am terrible at lies/manipulation, and have different interests. I’m also way more prone to energetic rants and blunt statements than she is.

15. What are the themes of your story? Is it a lighthearted adventure, or are we talking deep, ocean-sized levels of angst? Why, or why not, did you choose them?

The tone of Euph’s story is kind of all over the place due to how often I’ve tweaked it, but there are certainly oceans of angst for all the protagonists. There’s just also decided remnants of the wacky humor from when the story was predominantly a comedy, and a lot more scenes of the characters just relaxing or goofing off than might be typical in a high tension drama adventure. My story with Valentine is generally much more lighthearted, though there will be some deeper moments for character development (and also because I want it to have a slightly gothic vibe, just Because)

16. How long have you been writing? Has your style changed from when you first began to now? What are some tips you’d give to those who’re interested in writing a story of their own, be it professionally or as a hobby?

I’ve been writing in some capacity just about as long as I can remember, and so my style has definitely taken various shifts depending on how old I was and what I was taking as my main inspiration at the time. Sometimes I went for more sarcastic and whimsical narration regardless of the events happening of the story, sometimes I went for a more quick modern-ish style, sometimes I would focus more or less on descriptions or dialogue. I don’t really know where I’m at right now though.

What I would advise to anyone wanting to sit down and write is to be patient and kind with yourself. Nine times out of ten what sounds epic in your head will come out at first as clunky and all over the place. But that is pretty much the whole purpose of first drafts; the clunky first draft crawls so the second draft may walk so the third draft may walk a little faster so the final draft may run. The other thing I would advise is to absolutely experiment, and see what works best for you. There is every kind of writing advice out there imaginable, much of it contradictory, so really you just have to mess around with styles and perspective and dialogue and see what happens, which stuff you liked and which stuff you didn’t.

17. What’s your process for writing? Do you plan your story out first, write whatever you want then edit later, or both? How might this help others?

My writing process is pretty much a mishmash of writing whatever comes to me, then planning, then writing, then using a bunch of character building exercises to have fun but make no progress in the plot, then neglect the project for months, then write some more or maybe plan. I don’t know how much this would help others, though I have found when I set goals with deadlines and some external pressure (nanowrimo, reward system implanted by friends, etc) I am far more productive, so perhaps that is something others could try if they struggle with staying on track?

18. Your book’s become quite popular, easily reaching the New York Times Bookseller list, and now, you’ve been picked to lead a writing workshop. It goes swimmingly, and afterward, someone comes and tells you that your book not only inspired them to write a story of their own, but also helped them discover and accept their identity. What’s your reaction?

Mostly I would just be flabbergasted, but also extremely pleased and honored to have been able to provide any kind of help or assistance to my readers.And I would feel very happy for the person, since that sort of inspiration is great to come by.

19. Are there any published stories out there that feature aspec characters that you also read? Do you have any suggestions?

Unfortunately not that I can think of! I am peripherally aware of some ace characters, but they aren’t in stories I personally consume. I hope to find more though!

20. Just for fun, write down a paragraph of your most recent writing. It can be an action-packed scene, some witty dialogue, or a colorful description that you really enjoyed. (Be sure to properly tag any possible triggers!)

Well, my most recent finished work would be the clunky first draft of my novel. So, here’s a silly conversation that entertained me to write:

Once they had bought the food, they went back to the park to eat.

“You know, Fiera, I have come to a realization.” Kadri said.

“Oh? What’s that?” Fiera asked.

“Store snacks are not as filling as restaurant food, nor as refined, but they are decidedly addictive.” he said, munching on Twizzlers.

“Yep. That’s what makes them store snacks. Plus, I couldn’t get any really nice stuff. I’m not made of money.” Fiera explained.

“Which brings me to my next question, how exactly are you financing our meals? You don’t seem to work a job of any kind.” Kadri said. Fiera was almost surprised that he knew about jobs, but decided not to ask about it.

“You’re right, I don’t. But my parents leave me about sixty bucks a week so that they can do what they want without me starving to death in their absence. After yesterday and just now, I’m down to like eight bucks, and the next payment comes in three days, so after this stash goes it's dollar store snacks only.” Fiera explained.

“I see. Fascinating. And these drinks you bought us, why are they vitamin drinks?” Kadri said,looking over a vitamin water curiously.

“Because we definitely aren’t going to get any vitamins from chips and candy.” Fiera said simply.

“There is logic to that, I suppose.” he said. There was silence for a few moments.

“Um… Kadri?” Fiera said after a while.

“Yes, Fiera?” Kadri said.

“You know you can’t eat a whole bag of Twizzlers in one go, right?” Fiera said.

“I don’t see why not. If it is not going to give me the nutrients I need, it may as well provide me with the maximum level of pleasure it is capable of.” Kadri said.

“Yeah, but you’ll get sick. And we have limited supplies.” Fiera countered. Kadri looked at the bag of Twizzlers in alarm.

“These are poisonous in large doses!?” he exclaimed.

“What? No, not poisonous, they just make you sick because they’re candy. All candy does that if you keep eating it.” Fiera said.

“Commoners lead dangerous lives, it would seem. I shall never forget this betrayal.” He said to the bag of Twizzlers, putting it down and taking the vitamin water instead.

#Arospec Awareness Week #aromantic #writing #non-fandom #asaw2020

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shadeofazmeinya · 6 years ago

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Solar (10/?)

Chapter Summary:

Gavin gives a faint smile at that, but doesn’t look over from what he is doing. “Thanks, Jack. It’s nothing, though. Just… Bad memories. Or at least like, bad dream versions of memories. Where everything is messed up and weird.”

Jack hums in understanding despite Gavin not being sure that made any sense. “I can imagine you would have quite a few of those to keep you up at night. And you aren’t the only one who gets nightmares around here. If you need anything, let us know. We’re all here to listen if you need it.”

A/N: So sorry again for all the delays. This chapter is mostly edited but I just wanted to get it out to make up for what I’ve missed. Things are also going to start picking up so I hope the next few chapters come out easier. Hope you all enjoy. And as always, reblogs and comments super appreciated!!!

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17319107/chapters/46069378

Gavin is awake when he hears Jack and Geoff getting out of bed with the first rays of the sun, preparing with sluggish movements for another day at the shop. For another day of tension and background worry. Gavin’s dreading leaving the false comfort of blankets and pillows, exhaustion weighing from the nightmares and sleepless night. Nightmares have been on and off since he’s come here. And knowledge that Prome is looking for him has been keeping them on.

But he can’t stay buried in bed forever, no matter how much his bones and his brain beg for it. So he peels himself off after the other two. He finds Jack in the kitchen, starting up food for the house. Gavin watches for a moment, smelling coffee as the machine starts buzzing, seeing the steady figure of Jack humming some song to himself as he grabs a piece of bacon and sets it sizzling onto a pan. He sees Jack pause for a moment and turn to the little potted plants resting on the kitchen counter, a tiny forest that reflects the collection in the actual shop. Jack brushes over them and the plants seems to sit up a little taller, reaching for his touch. The leaves turn a brighter green and shimmer in the overhead lights.

“Morning, Gav,” Jack says over his shoulder once he notices him lurking, his normal soft smile there that always eases some of the worry in Gavin’s chest. “How’d you sleep last night?”

Gavin can’t bring himself to speak just yet, least his shaky voice betray him. So he shrugs, leaning against the counter as he starts knocking around the cabinets for tea.

“That bad?” Jack frowns and Gavin can hear the concern in his voice. “I heard you up in the middle of the night. If you want to talk about anything… You know we all want to help.”

Gavin nods, opening his mouth to insist he’s fine, but is interrupted from answering as Geoff comes in with a big yawn and a stretch as he tries to swipe a strip of bacon off of the stove.

“No, it’s not ready yet,” Jack says, slapping his hand away. “Let the meat cook, greedy asshole. Or it’s going to make you sick.”

Geoff snickers, shaking his hand as he pulls it away before focusing instead on getting coffee. “It just smells so good. You make the best breakfast.”

“It’s no different from anyone else making it,” Jack rolls his eyes but chuckles. “But thank you. Anything you need for the shop today?”

Gavin doesn’t pay much attention to their chatter after, as they discuss plans for the day, things they need to get done. Idle but calming in the reassurance of normalcy. Gavin finishes making his tea, glancing back into the rest of the apartment. He notices Ryan peaking his head up behind the couch, curious eyes watching over them. He looks rough, too. With dark bags and a brief distant look, he looked as exhausted as Gavin felt. Neither of them seemed to have had a good rest.

Michael stumbles out after a little longer, pointedly refusing to look towards Ryan. He swipes a mug and fills it with coffee, grabbing some protein bar as well that he shoves into his pocket. He barely acknowledges any of them, a sour look on his face as he walks past. “I’ll meet you down in the shop,” he mumbles before he heads out the door and disappears down.

Geoff sighs, shoulders slumping and shaking his head. He mutters something quick to Jack and leans over to kiss his cheek before taking the plate and slipping out towards the shop as well.

Gavin blushes at the intimacy, glancing away. He’s caught bits of it before, brushing of hands, long looks, kissing on the cheek. But never more than that, even in the time he’s been sleeping in their room. He isn’t sure what it means and doesn’t know how much he should ask. It should mean romantic love, right? At least that’s what he remembers from movies and books. But he doesn’t think the others have told him that they were together like that.

Gavin ponders asking about it as he stirs his tea, but is taken out of the opportunity as he hears Jeremy’s groan from across the room. He glances over to see Jeremy poking out behind the couch, sitting up from where he had been apparently sleeping through the night. Jeremy groans a bit but stands up and moves to get his day started. He grabs some food from Jack with a bleary “thank you” and heads to wash up in the bathroom.

Ryan ducks his head as Jeremy leaves and Gavin thinks he catches a bit of pink to his cheeks. Or maybe that’s just the sunlight slipping through the blinds. Either way, something about it makes Gavin shift on his feet and look quickly away.

“Are Ryan and I still staying up here?” Gavin says with a cough, looking back to Jack.

Jack gives him a soft look, setting down some bacon on a plate for him. “It’s probably safer to. Just in case.”

Gavin figured that was going to be the answer. He sighs, picking up the plate. He’s missed the sun. “Alright.”

Jack reaches over, gently ruffling his hair. “I’ll let you know how the day goes. For the meantime, we have some paperwork that would be nice for you two to help us with. And we’ll keep a careful eye out for anything like we have been.”

“I know,” Gavin grumbles, leaning into Jack’s touch. Maybe it could be condescending, but Gavin finds further comfort in it. “I’ll help out with whatever you need. Least I can do for everything you’ve done. Just let me know if you see anything more.”

“Will do,” Jack nods. “Enjoy the rest of the food for breakfast. Let us know if you need anything.” And with gathering a mug and a plate for himself, Jack slips down to tend to his plants. Leaving Ryan and him yet again stuck up here. Just hiding from the world.

“It must’ve been something incredibly destructive that you managed to do in order to warrant being banned from the shop.”

Ryan says this as he looks up over a thin, wire pair of glasses he had gotten from one of the other gents, paperwork sprawled over the kitchen table that they’re both sitting and going through, reports on inventory and expenses of the store they need to verify. Ryan raises an eyebrow, as Gavin had been barely keeping his eyes open as he stared at the numbers sketched on the spreadsheets. Gavin had been instructed in what he needed to do, but it’s boring as hell. And Gavin is resenting every moment longer he stays cooped up inside, which also isn’t helping to keep him awake enough to work.

“I didn’t destroyed anything,” Gavin grumbles, dragging his head up from where he had been resting on his hand.

Ryan chuckles, and there’s something soft in his eyes as he turns the page he had been working over. “Well, you’re pouting like a kid who got kicked out of the park for doing something wrong. So I can’t help but be curious. Though, I never thought the shop was that much fun to be in that being away would lead to this much whining.”

Gavin sighs, slouching in his seat. “I just want to go outside. I’ve missed it.”

“Well, you’re a grown adult. You’re not a prisoner here. Go outside,” Ryan shrugs.

“Can’t,” he shakes his head. “The others say it’s not safe. People could recognize me.”

“People?” Ryan says, setting down the paper and pushing off his glasses. “What people?”

Gavin’s face burns a little as he stares down at the table, fingers idly curling the edges of the paper he was supposed to be reading. “Just… people. People who shouldn’t know where I am.”

Ryan sighs, setting his glasses down on the table as he shifts to properly face Gavin. “Are these people dangerous? Dangerous like they are going to stab you and leave you to bleed out and have you running in the street to the any place you could find safety?”

Gavin frowns, sparing a glance back to Ryan, eyes flickering to his bandaged side hidden under his shirt. Jack had said the wound is healing well, but there’s no hiding the way Ryan is slowed and grunts whenever he pulls on that side. “I don’t know if they’re that dangerous. I don’t think they’d hurt anyone.”

“If they’re not dangerous, then maybe we can find away to get outside for a few moments,” Ryan hums back. “So you can stop being so grumpy.”

“Shouldn’t you stay here, though?” Gavin frowns. “You have people looking for you too, right? Those dangerous people?”

Ryan’s jaw tightens. “Yes, I do. But I think they’re off my trail for a little while.”

“Well, the ones looking for me aren’t,” Gavin huffs, leaning over the table. “I don’t know how closely they’re watching, though. But I know they don’t like that I’m out.”

“Out? Where exactly are you out of?” Ryan says, eyes narrowing a bit as he looks him up and down.

Gavin swallows, shrinking under his firm eye. “I’m surprised the others haven’t told you everything yet,” he says, though he remembers how little Jeremy had actually told Ryan the night before. Despite what he felt last night, Gavin would’ve preferred he told Ryan everything instead of leaving it to himself now. Maybe then it would be easier. Then he could’ve left before dealing directly with Ryan’s reaction.

“Part of it’s been mentioned,” Ryan shrugs. “But I want to hear it from you.”

“Well… It’s a long story,” Gavin starts, hesitant, speaking into the table. He’ll just give the bare minimum. That’s all he needs. “But… to make it shorter, I ran away from a research facility I was… sort of raised in? I didn’t like what they were doing. Never really did, I was always bloody stuck there and unable to do anything. And I didn’t want a part of what they seemed to be working on with us. On us. So I slipped out and ran here. Which they don’t seem to like and want me to be back there.”

Ryan nods along, but his face screws in thought for a moment as he seems to work through all the Gavin spilled out at once. Gavin fidgets more as he waits for him to speak, watching every shift in his expression. “I take this explains the business card for Prome Labs I saw.”

Gavin gasps and his heart skips several beats. “You’ve heard of Prome Labs?”

Ryan’s jaw shifts as his gaze drifts distantly behind Gavin. “It’s a name I’ve heard mentioned in passing… I didn’t know what it meant. But I’m not surprised to hear its something bad.”

“Where have you heard it before?” Gavin says, leaning closer to him, scooting his chair along the wood floors. “No one else here recognized it. How have you heard it?”

Ryan scowls, shaking his head. “I don’t know anything for sure, ok? I just know I don’t want to be involved with anything that has people messing with Abilities.”

“So you know they’re doing something to people with Abilities?”

“Why are you asking me so much?” Ryan raises an eyebrow. “You’re the one who’s apparently been with them. You’re the one who would know the most.”

Gavin huffs. “Well, they didn’t exactly tell me much of what’s going on. I just know they’re doing more than just studying just how Abilities work.”

Ryan softens a bit, a look of pity but something more that Gavin couldn’t quite place as a stretch of silence surrounds them. “I know that there have been those with Abilities interested in what the labs are doing. And those without Abilities interested as well. I’m heard… murmurings in the past of what people were hoping to come out of the labs. Though, I’ve been separated from those with any knowledge of it for years, so I don’t know what actually happened, if anything.”

“Who else knows of Prome?” Gavin says, face skewing in confusion. “Its research was supposed to be secret! It’s dangerous for the public to learn about!”

Ryan shakes his head. “Nothing as powerful as this is ever really kept a secret. And dangerous people don’t care about other dangers as long as they come out on top.”

“Dangerous like these people you were supposedly with?”

Ryan shrugs. “Dangerous in their ways. Just like I’m dangerous in mine.”

Gavin’s eyebrows furrow, but he’s cut off from asking more, so much more, as the front door opens and Michael is walking in. He pauses, feet faltering as he steps into the apartment, hands flexing into fists as he narrows his eyes at Ryan. Michael pushes in anyway, not saying a word as he moves to grab some food from the kitchen. Ryan deflates, sparing a saddened look before shaking it off and slipping the glasses back on to flip through the reports. Gavin sits, glancing between them with a frown and a tightness in his chest.

The rest of the day passes as they work. Gavin wants to pry a little more, but Ryan turns away or starts talking about something else every time Gavin approaches the subject. Whatever Ryan had been through, its clear he doesn’t want Gavin to know. Which is a bit unfair, Gavin told him about his story after all. But that argument didn’t seem like it’s going to sway the other. So time just moves on with Gavin’s stirring thoughts.

In the end, he’s distracted from wanting to go out in the sunlight, the worry forgotten with this new curiosity. So that’s one good thing.

Night drapes over the home, tucked around, pushed in every corner. The moon is hidden, the city lights glowing on the bottom of the windowsills. The house lay quiet, most asleep though Gavin isn’t as he lies on his bed, counting the cracks and lines in the ceiling. His hands twist the edge of the blankets, tightening and loosening his grip. Sleep isn’t going to come easily tonight either, too many memories and dreams hanging in his head.

He has no idea how long he’s been up, how many racing thoughts he’s sorted through. But he takes a resigned breath, filling his lungs and letting it all out. He shifts to his side, closing his eyes as if just by pretending to sleep his body will follow. Jack and Geoff’s breaths are calming at least, steady, relaxed. A small yawn finally pulls at Gavin’s mouth as he feels his body grow heavier in bed, hoping a dreamless unconsciousness is there to greet him.

As silence coats the apartment, the front door sits in watch. A light, faint, starts to leak in through the bottom, interrupted by a pair of stripes stretching as shadows under. Feet, standing in wait. There’s a click, an echo, a pin drop. Then the handle turns. And the door creaks opens.

#solar #ragehappy #freewood #fake ah crew #fahc #superpowers au #superpowers fahc #i hope you all enjoy #next chapter a lot is going to happen i promise #more action so just hold on #im sorry everything has been so slow #and just #me too in general

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bbclesmis · 6 years ago

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Emmys 2019: David Oyelowo on colour-blind casting, 'Les Miserables' and directing

When the BBC approached David Oyelowo about starring as Javert, opposite Dominic West as Jean Valjean, in Andrew Davies’ six-episode limited series of Victor Hugo’s classic novel Les Miserables, the 43-year-old UK actor was initially reluctant.

But reading Davies’ adaptation – and subsequently Hugo’s 1862 tome – convinced him there was ample opportunity to deliver a more nuanced portrayal of the character than had been seen in the previous high-profile version: Tom Hooper’s 2012 musical adaptation in which Russell Crowe had portrayed the obsessive police inspector.

“I saw how much more meat there was on the bone compared to what I had seen in the musical,” says Oyelowo. “I felt that the opportunity with Andrew’s adaptation was to really give context to Javert’s obsession with Jean Valjean, and to this very violent end to his life at his own hands.”

Premiering on December 30, the series achieved solid ratings during its BBC One run, with PBS broadcasting in the US in April and May; BBC Studios handles international distribution.

Based in Los Angeles for the last 12 years, Oyelowo is now in Oregon for the eight-week shoot of his feature directing debut The Water Man. Emma Needell’s script was on the Black List and follows an 11-year-old boy who moves to a small town with his family, where he seeks out a mythical local with the reputed ability to cheat death in the hope he can cure his mother’s illness. “It’s an adventure story about a boy trying to save his mother,” says Oyelowo.

Increasingly active as a producer in recent years, Oyelowo was an executive producer on Les Miserables, and is co-producing The Water Man with Oprah Winfrey. He is also a producer (as well as lead actor) on the Blumhouse Productions horror Relive, which premiered at Sundance, and the Peter Pan/Alice In Wonderland prequel Come Away alongside co-star Angelina Jolie.

With wife Jessica Oyelowo, he runs production company Yoruba Saxon which has a first-look deal with Madison Wells Media. The couple has multiple film and TV projects in development, some in collaboration with Winfrey’s company Harpo Films, as well as the feature Cyrano The Moor with Disney. The musical twist on Cyrano De Bergerac is being written by Moonlight scribe Tyrell Alvin McCraney with Jeanine Tesori (Shrek The Musical) doing the music. “We are in the trenches with it right now,” says Oyelowo.

If Oyelowo scores a Primetime Emmy nomination for Les Miserables, it would be his third, the previous two coming in 2015 as lead actor and one of the producers of the HBO/Plan B collaboration Nightingale.

What did you think when the BBC and Davies first approached you about playing Javert?

I hope this doesn’t sound like hyperbole [but] it was life-affirming for me. I had grown up in the UK on period dramas, not least Andrew Davies period dramas, but just always felt that that was something that would never be afforded me by way of an opportunity. And so to have made fairly robust and scary choices in order to keep things moving in my career, and 11, 12 years on from moving to the States to find that opportunities were opening up that were certainly not in the offing when I was [in the UK] for me or anyone who looked like me – that was a true indication that things are shifting within my own lifetime.

Colour-blind casting has been gaining traction in UK stage and TV productions in particular. Is that a big win for the industry?

It’s a win when it comes to this underlying thinking that to have someone like me play Javert is historically inaccurate and therefore not permissible. Because I’m so invested in the representation of people of colour on TV and film, I’ve done the research, I’ve read the history books, I know that to have someone like me playing Javert is not outside of the realms of historical plausibility. There were people of colour who were operating not purely as subjugated, enslaved or browbeaten individuals at that time.

But even beyond that, I think we all can admit that when we make a piece of content, whether it be television or film, what makes it relevant is to have people who are going to be watching it represented within the thing itself. Whether that’s emotionally or in terms of the optics of it, you have to speak to humanity and if you are only ever showing one demographic side of humanity, you’re going to run out of stories, you’re going to run out of reasons for a broad audience to watch your show. The encouraging thing about Les Mis is that a much broader audience than otherwise would have watched it, both in the UK and certainly in the States, watched it not just because of me but because across the board, people of colour were a part of that production.

Were you worried about being able to make Javert more than the one-dimensional ‘villain’ of the piece?

That was definitely on my mind from the offset because, in all honesty, I did think that that’s how Javert comes off in the musical. What I saw was an opportunity that even if you don’t sympathise with him, even if you don’t like him, you can at least empathise with why he made the choices he made on the basis of his own familial history – being born in prison, hating that side of himself, somehow transposing onto Jean Valjean that part of himself he hated – and at the end of the story realising that the person he was really trying to destroy was himself. One of the great things I have heard from folks who’ve watched the show is they didn’t like Javert but they felt for him. For me, that’s mission accomplished.

Dominic West said he felt you were avoiding him and turning down his dinner invitations. How did you approach your on-set relationship with your on-screen adversary?

[Laughs] I guess I did. I was so deep in this thing when we were shooting it that I probably subconsciously felt that to be hanging out with Dominic was not going to serve me or the character. We’re great friends now and I love being around him. He’s incredibly funny and jocular and that is not Javert so I felt like I needed to keep that at bay during the shoot.

Dominic has his own theory about Javert’s obsession with Valjean, which is that Javert was in love with him.

Dominic would think that [laughs]. For me, both in relation to [Victor] Hugo’s book and how I played Javert, I felt he was asexual. I can’t imagine Javert in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship. He dedicated himself so totally both to his job and his obsession with destroying this other human being. So you could argue that there is attraction there but I personally didn’t dwell on that because I was just so fascinated by the obsession Javert has to destroy this man. It’s documented that Hugo based the characters of Jean Valjean and Javert on the same man and that was where my head was at.

Did you need to detox from playing Javert after production wrapped?

It was very immersive, it was six months, but I have four children and they would not tolerate hints of Javert in our house [laughs]. So that tends to be a very good way for me to shake any given character. But this did have an impact on me, not only as an actor but also in producing the show. I was buried in it, my work on this show did not end once we finished shooting. It was watching cut after cut after cut of the episodes to make sure that we were landing it, and also the marketing and the rollout – I was very keen to make sure that both the BBC and PBS were doing everything we could to get it to a broad audience. I applaud both companies in doing exactly that.

You’ve become very active as a producer in recent years. Did you move in that direction out of career necessity?

Yes, borne out of the necessity that there are stories I want to tell, there are stories I want to help other people tell, there are people who I would like to see both in front of and behind the camera. And you can either wait by the phone, hoping that other people are going to instigate and initiate that or you can use the degree of notoriety you have to try and be the instigator, and I’ve chosen to do the latter. I didn’t go to drama school thinking I would be a producer – it has been a byproduct of not wanting to be one of those people who just complains but who actually can make things happen.

Oprah Winfrey is an executive producer on The Water Man. Are the two of you close as creative collaborators?

Yes, we have several projects together in television and film. We became very good friends after we did The Butler and Selma together and we see eye to eye on the kind of stories we want to tell and representation in front of and behind the camera. She’s been a part of this project for the four years that we’ve been developing it. We’re producing it independently with ShivHans Pictures who did Captain Fantastic and Trumbo among other films; they’re fully financing it. I’m just putting my head down and trying to make the best film I can.

Is the plan for you to also star in Cyrano The Moor?

For now! We’ll see. Our take on it is rather than it being the size of his nose that curtails both his ascension in society and with Roxane, it’s the colour of his skin. It’ll be set in the 1800s in the UK, probably in the Bristol area.

What’s in store once you’ve completed The Water Man?

I’ve had to keep the acting at bay to give me the time to get The Water Man right in the edit but I have a number of films coming out soon that I’ll need to beat the drum for as they roll around. Relive, the film I did for Blumhouse that premiered at Sundance, and Come Away both come out this year. We just did some reshoots for Chaos Walking for Lionsgate, that’ll be coming out probably early next year. And then I just did Peter Rabbit 2 before I started on The Water Man. I’ve got to get The Water Man right and then I can turn my head back to being in front of the camera.

#les mis bbc #bbc les mis #david oyelowo #javert #Interviews #articles #emmy awards #screendaily #pbs

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comicreliefmorlock · 5 years ago

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So here's a fun game. What are, let's say...10-15 pieces of media (books, tv, movies, whatever) that seem to have been made JUST for you? why?

*cracks knuckles*

Surprisingly, not all of these will be Tanith Lee.

…however…

{And this goes under a cut because this is going to be a very long, verbose post. A really long, verbose post.}

1. “Tales from the Flat Earth” by Tanith Lee

These books are essentially like sitting by a crackling fire on a cool summer night beneath the glimmering night sky while a smiling crone cards wool and tells you the stories that come from a time aeons before your birth. I have never in my life found a quartet of books–let alone one book–that have so completely and absolutely captivated me. From the first page of “Night’s Master,” I was gone.

Not only the language–breaking the fourth wall and referring to “words lost when the world reformed itself in the chaos”–but the characters… Azhrarn, the personification of Wickedness who saves humanity with love. Uhlume, the personification of Death who faces a form of mortality and is forever changed by it. Chuz, the walking embodiment of Madness, who is gentle to those under his domain and understands that he cannot understand why he does what he does.

Ferazhin and Narasen and Sivesh and Simmu and Jornadesh and Kassafeh and Zhirem and Azhriaz and Dunziel… Names I have never forgotten because they all but sang to me. A flat earth that holds the best and worst of humanity, often balled into a single person, with Underearth and Innerearth and Upperearth holding gods that have grown so distant they no longer recall humans were their creation at all.

I have always loved mythology and these books? These are myth.

2. Pan’s Labyrinth -dir. by Guillermo del Toro

I’m not from Spain or know Spanish. I knew nothing about the Spanish Civil War when I first saw this movie. And this was the first film I saw that cemented del Toro for me as the only man I would ever trust to turn Tanith Lee’s books into cinema.

I love fairy tales, mythology and folklore. And when you read enough of it, you see how bloody it actually is. How terrifying it is to realize that you’re not the only one in the world, humans aren’t the only ones, there are creatures on the midnight side of reality that share space with you.

And I never really liked the Disney version of fairy tales with “happily ever after” and weddings.

This movie was literally like watching something I’d imagined for myself. The acting was fucking phenomenal, the sets and costumes were off the hook and the comparison of “fairy tale horror” and “real horror” that overlapped just blew me the hell away.

And Doug Jones… Doug Fucking Jones. I never respected mimes until him and now I give all the respect. Being able to act, to breathe real life into a concept and a costume until it becomes a character you could picture walking through a forest or peering around a corner while not being able to use your own voice OR your own facial expressions is a kind of magic I think does not get enough appreciation.

DOUG FUCKING JONES, LADIES, GENTS AND GENDER REBELS.

3. Fatal Frame - Tecmo

I’m a writer/reader, not a gamer. When I have downtime or I want to relax, I almost always gravitate towards a book instead of a video game. The few games I’ve played purely for my own enjoyment have usually been MMOs and involve roleplaying.

Except for the Fatal Frame series.

Survival horror is my favorite game genre and I lamented when Resident Evil became more “survival action” than survival horror. (Fuckin’ lickers in the original Resident Evil game oh my god.) I wanted a survival horror game that had some meat to it, had something really compelling about it.

And I found Fatal Frame.

I love Japanese mythology. I especially love Japanese ghosts. For some reason–maybe out of sheer novelty because I, being an ignorant American raised near the US-Mexico border, have had little exposure to it–Japanese ghosts are my absolute favorites. Yurei (and the other subclassifications) just have something to them that I haven’t found in other mythologies. I’ve read and reread Oiwa and Okiku’s stories, been fascinated by the concept of the Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai and wanted more of what I found.

Which Fatal Frame provided.

Not only do the game mechanics work beautifully for someone as easily startled as I am, but the story behind each individual game is achingly intense. The intricacy of the interwoven histories, the rituals, the underlying question of “was all this really necessary or was this a priesthood trying to stay in power”… I love absolutely everything about these games.

4. “The Blue Sword” by Robin McKinley

I’m not going to lie–this book took me forever to actually read. The first two pages were so achingly boring that I had no fucking clue why my mother had recommended it to me.

And then one day, bereft of anything else to read, I flipped through it. I still distinctly remember the line that made me stop and go “wait, what?” – “…your horse tells me where you’ve been…”

me: wait what horses can talk in this? wtf? *flips to the beginning and sits down to fuckin’ read it*

Slogging through those first few pages? Worth it. Because Harry/Hari/Harimad was the first heroine I’d ever encountered that I could imagine myself being. She was too gangly and not particularly pretty and kind of clumsy. She didn’t draw admiring eyes everywhere she went, spent a lot of time going ‘I can’t do this wtf’ and had aches and saddlesores.

Meeting Harry felt like seeing myself on a page for the first time in my life. And seeing someone with flaws like me going through adventure and fighting and succeeding and failing and getting a happily ever after felt like a warm blanket. Like someone had written a book just to tell me: “It’s okay that you’re not beautiful or graceful or soft-spoken and elegant. It’s okay that you’re clumsy and a goof and your hair is fuzzy as fuck because you can be a heroine, too.”

5. “Whoever Fights Monsters” by Robert K. Ressler

No, I’m not a serial killer. :D Nor am I an FBI profiler.

However, after reading “The Silence of the Lambs” by Thomas Harris for the first time in ninth grade, I was fascinated by serial killers. Like… how did they do it? How did they get away with it? WHY did they do it? What kind of person did things like this? I wanted to know so much more and I started grabbing every book on serial killers that I possibly could find.

And the reaction of classmates and teachers who saw my reading material was… less than stellar. Even my mother was vaguely worried about what I was getting out of reading all…that.

It felt like my fascination with serial killer psychology was a flaw in my character that no one else seemed to share. Until I read “Whoever Fights Monsters” and saw Robert K. Ressler talking about the exact same thing. He wasn’t a “sicko” or a “freak” or a “lunatic” or a “killer-in-training” for being fascinated by the psychology of humans who could treat other humans like a moment’s disposable entertainment.

And suddenly, neither was I.

6. American Horror Story: Hotel - FX

‘American Horror Story’ is entirely my thing. Interwoven narratives of fascinating (and often awful) people combining “American horror history” with interpersonal storylines? Yes, thank you, I’ll take a dozen.

This season in particular, however, is just more for me than any other.

Maybe it’s the vampires that are self-obsessed and not particularly powerful but end up with petty grudges and complaints. Or the ghosts that bitch and whine at each other, find consolation together, use Twitter and spend their long, long days doing little more than drinking, smoking and obsessing over their lives and deaths. Maybe it’s the single location with so many years of history weaving together like a book of short stories.

I love ‘Hotel’ because it feels like Brandenburg to me. I could so easily see the entire season taking place in my fictional city and mentally insert my own characters into the show without losing a single step.

Also Kathy Bates is absolutely glorious and I desperately wish to be a tenth as glamorous as Liz Taylor.

7. “The Butterfly Garden” by Dot Hutchinson

Books about serial killers? Yes, please.

Books about serial killers told by a victim who barely survived and understands what trauma really means? Yes, please.

What especially got me about this book is my thing for dioramas. The first one I ever remember seeing was in the El Paso Museum of Archaeology (yes, I’m from El Paso, Texas) and it always both frightened and fascinated me.

^ This one in particular would keep me motionless for ten or twenty minutes at a time, kind of terrified at a house within a building and then absolutely enthralled at a house inside a building.

And the dioramas mentioned in “The Butterfly Garden” were akin to those in “The Cell” –some terrible, awful glimpse into someone’s mind that was visualized and externalized in a permanent way.

8. “War for the Oaks” by Emma Bull

I love the fae.

And I also have read enough to know that those sprightly little fucks are terrifying and humans are rarely left unscathed by them.

This book was my introduction to “urban fantasy,” much as Charles de Lint was my introduction to what I consider “mythic fantasy” and a city that felt so much like my own.

And what was so quintessentially, absolutely me about this book–other than the main love interest being the Phouka :D :D :D–was the underlying theme about creativity.

It’s a driving force, a magic that humans have. It’s uniquely human (as far as we know) and often the only talisman against the dark that we’ve got. With creativity, there’s magic. There’s a spark of something beyond the mundane realities of survival. Creativity is a sword and shield all in one, complete with a lure to bring others along with you.

Whether it’s through music, art, poetry or graphic design, creativity is the actual drive for immortality that pushes us to reach beyond ourselves and touch those we have no possibility of seeing or speaking to in our own short, real lives.

9. Good Omens - Neil Gaiman/BBC

I loved the book when it came out. I didn’t expect to love the mini-series. I especially didn’t expect to love the mini-series for the #IneffableHusbands.

I won’t belabor the point about why this is on my list. The #IneffableHusbands tag on my OOC blog is enough. :D

10. What We Do in the Shadows - Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi

Vampires who are as absurd, incapable and oblivious as me? Yes. All of my yes.

Having played the old World of Darkness tabletop games for years--and absolutely fallen in love with them--I found this movie and was in absolute heaven. These are vampires I can actually imagine hanging out with. These are vampires (and werewolves) I can envision walking around a city.

Noble creatures of the night don’t seem real to me (aside from the obvious reasons.) The supernaturals in this movie? They felt like people I knew. Like people I could meet or characters I’d written myself.

I like the fantastical being put into the mundane--which is why my genre is ‘urban fantasy’ although I have such an eye-twitch about it being all supernatural detectives chasing various pieces of ass now--and I especially love it when the fantastical doesn’t outweigh the mundane.

Imagining vampires vacuuming and riding the bus fits in nicely with my desperate belief (and hope) that the fantastical isn’t JUST imaginary but actually exists.

{And there, I’m restricting this to 10 or we’ll be here all NIGHT.}

#Asks #Writing is life #Books are life #Here are Angel's specific likes and dislikes #as shown through visual aid

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insanityclause · 6 years ago

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“I’m a meat and two veg kinda fella,” says Kenneth Branagh. “I love my fish and chips, and my English breakfast, and I like my football and horse racing – my dad loved the horses.” His tastes, he admits, such as his signature dessert recipe for melted Mars bar over vanilla ice cream, were formed in his working-class childhood.

For the past four decades, this son of a joiner from Belfast has been living cheek by jowl with that other great scion of the lower classes – William Shakespeare. Ever since Branagh became a stage and film star playing Henry V in the Eighties, he’s been directing Shakespeare’s works, adapting them, playing many of his great characters. Now, at 58, he is assuming the bald pate, sharp nose and very pointed beard of the playwright himself, in the self-directed All Is True.

It’s an unexpectedly moving portrait. Branagh’s Will is entering his 50s, and retiring from London to Stratford-upon-Avon, where he had long owned a house, and where at 18, he had married Anne Hathaway, a 26-year-old already pregnant with their child. It’s 1613, the Globe Theatre has burned down, and the playwright is still grieving the death of his only son, Hamnet, many years earlier.

“For me, it was a sort of time travel,” says Branagh, whose enduring boyishness hides the fact that he is eight years older than the Shakespeare we meet in the film. (The playwright died in 1616, at the age of 52.) Branagh’s Shakespeare is stiff of bearing; Branagh isn’t. He’s playful while having his photograph taken in the London hotel where we meet, and his comfortable clothes – knitwear – mirror a softness in his tone and manner. It masks a seriousness that shows itself often when he speaks.

After all these years exploring Shakespeare’s work, does the think he has a feel for the man? “I have a sense of preoccupations that repeat themselves,” he says. “They came together when I played Leontes in The Winter’s Tale a couple of years ago, because it did feel like a play from a man at the end of his professional life, maybe in the evening of his life – there was such a longing in it for this lost child, such an ache for the reunification of a family, that it seemed to add up with all sorts of longings in the plays, even in the comedies.”

The grief for Hamnet in All Is True is so acute that, set against the way Will yearns for a male heir, and his complicated relationship with his daughters, Susanna and Judith (Hamnet’s twin), it makes you wonder whether Branagh has been contemplating his own mortality. Does he wish that he had had children?

“Didn’t happen,” he shrugs. “It doesn’t seem to me to be valuable to be wishing and hoping for things that don’t appear to have been on your dance card. I go with what we have. I start with, are you healthy, do you have some family, do you have some friends? Anything north of that’s terrific.”

Since 2003, Branagh has been married to art director Lindsay Brunnock. Before that, of course, he was married to Emma Thompson – a celebrity coupling that was so ubiquitous between 1989 and 1994 that they were referred to simply as “Ken and Em”. They acted in a series of Branagh’s films together, such as the history-repeats-itself thriller Dead Again (1991), the rather precious paean to privilege, Peter’s Friends (1992), and a very winning Much Ado About Nothing (1993), before the partnership ended with Branagh’s affair with Helena Bonham Carter. Does he think he and Thompson will ever work together again? “I don’t know,” he says. Would he like to? “She’s a terrific talent, so who knows?”

Branagh is clearly not keen to talk about his personal life, however much of it is already in the public arena. Yet so little is known of Shakespeare’s life that All Is True must make a series of guesses to fill the void. (The script is written by Ben Elton, who has already treated the subject as comedy in Upstart Crow.) But the element most likely to raise eyebrows is the casting of Judi Dench as Hathaway. Dench is 84. It’s very unusual to cast a woman 26 years older than her leading man, isn’t it? “Is she 26 years [older]?” says Branagh, surprised. “Really?” I nod – does he think audiences will balk at that?

“I don’t think so. I was aware that for the past 100 years of cinema that age gap has usually been the other way round. If it felt it was going to kill the story, I would have been terrified; for some maybe it will, but for me, not at all. She’s unique and to have that chance with one of the greatest living actors, the age thing didn’t come into it.”

Is it an example of “age-blind casting”? “Yeah, I guess so. She was the right person for the role.” The film seems to suggest that Hathaway and Shakespeare reunite sexually, too. I wonder if, as a director, he considered having a physical scene between them? “No, it didn’t seem appropriate for this. I wouldn’t have balked at it if it had seemed right, very much not.”

He also shares a seven-minute scene with Ian McKellen, who plays the Earl of Southampton, to whom Shakespeare famously dedicated two poems. It evolves into a duel between heavyweight Shakespeareans when both recite Sonnet 29 (“When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”). “I practised for that scene as I’ve never practised before,” Branagh admits, explaining that he went to see McKellen perform as Lear last year, and rehearsed with him backstage. “I found that pretty intimidating… You’ve got to be up pretty early in the morning to keep up with Dench, but with him…”

It’s one of the pivotal moments of the film, which clearly suggests that the Bard was in love with a man. Is that an unavoidable conclusion from the Sonnets, four-fifths of which are addressed to a “fair youth”? “I think it’s certainly unavoidable not to consider it very strongly,” Branagh says. Is there room for doubt that Shakespeare preferred men? He laughs. He’s weighing his words carefully. “I think it’s a strong possibility.”

Branagh does this a lot, studiedly avoiding sound-bites. Asked if he believes Shakespeare was indeed the author of the plays, he decides: “The other theories are brilliant speculations, but there has been no winning piece of evidence. In the current state of knowledge, I would follow the man from Stratford.”

Branagh’s family moved from Belfast to Reading to escape the Troubles when he was nine. As a boy from the sticks, who arrived at Rada in the late Seventies, then went on to act, direct and try his hand as a playwright, had he wanted to actually be Shakespeare?

It’s impossible to imagine it, he says. He just felt “so at home and happy telling stories in the theatre to a live audience, the itinerant nature of it. Those that were ahead of me – whether it was Shakespeare or actors of the past or directors – I was inspired by them.”

Branagh’s career began in a blaze of glory. But while his stage reputation continued to grow, in film at least there was a mid-period lull. His Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1995) was panned; his run of big-screen Shakespeare adaptations stuttered with the widely derided song-and-dance version of Love’s Labour’s Lost (2000), and even when he returned with a striking As You Like It (2006) set in 19th-century Japan, around the same time as The Magic Flute (2006) and Sleuth (2007), all three “received a pretty rough time”, he says. Yet he’s sanguine about criticism. “Sometimes people don’t like ’em. It’s as simple as that. I put the same feeling into all of them.”

He has always had a phenomenal approach to work that seems to border on mania. Since he was 29, he has been using meditation to ensure that he doesn’t yo-yo between frantic activity – “I wouldn’t characterise it as manic, but I would say, yes, extremely hectic at times” – and its corresponding depressive state.

“I knew I had to work quite hard at all those things that would try to allow you some peace amid the noise and haste. I like to read about spiritual matters and I’ve developed the meditation since then to try to find the way to turn down the noise. When the engine’s revving really high, I think you have to be careful.”

A decade ago, Branagh made the decision to leave the West End production of Hamlet he had been about to direct, starring Jude Law, to take up the reins of Thor (2011) for Marvel. It was a change of direction that opened the door to a new phase in his career, as a director of blockbuster movies. He won’t accept the charge that comic-book films have killed grown-up cinema – “Well I’ve just made a grown-up film, I’d say” – and mounts a strong defence.

“In the best hands you get stories that involve spectacle and, in some cases, depth or wit or creative imagination that allows for a really cinematic experience, they provide stories that make you want to go to the pictures. They ain’t killing grown-up movies.”

His hit 2015 Cinderella, starring Lily James and Richard Madden, will be followed this summer by a lavish Disney adaptation of Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer’s 2001 novel about a boy genius who discovers the fairy world beneath our feet. Blockbusters bring their own set of pressures. Does he fear that if Artemis Fowl bombs, that avenue closes? “No, it doesn’t feel that way, although perhaps it is that way,” Branagh says. “I think if it felt like that it would be quite hard to do the work, but I’ve certainly been in situations where if a movie doesn’t work you’re really aware of the cold winds that blow around you for a while. It’s a commercial business and these are big investments.”

What would he do if an invitation to take on the Bond franchise came his way? “I have absolutely no idea,” he says. “I have Artemis Fowl to finish and I hope we get to make Death on the Nile [the second of his Agatha Christie adaptations, after Murder on the Orient Express, in which he stars as Poirot] towards the end of the year. Ask me the Bond question a picture or so from now.” He leans back.

“I should be so lucky.”

There will be a preview screening of 'All is True' followed by a Q&A with Kenneth Branagh at VUE cinema in Leicester Square on Wednesday 6th February, from 6.30pm.

Tickets are £20 for non-subscribers and £10 for subscribers.

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edream93 · 6 years ago

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I’m Hooked On All These Feelings (Harry of Auradon AU) Part 7

Hello! It’s been a while since the last update! As always let me know what you think either here or on AO3 or FF.net. Here’s the link for Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6 of the story so far. Anyway, I hope you all still enjoy and thank you for your support!

Special thanks to @dxscxndxnts for helping me through another one of my many writer’s blocks and also for just being an overall awesome person.

When Harry was younger, when he had first moved to live with the King and Queen of Auradon and their young son because Neverland’s magic was just too potent for the young sailor’s intolerance, Queen Belle would sit in her plain but comfortable reading chair, feet tucked underneath her comfortably and a book in her lap as she read enthusiastically out loud to the eagerly listening young boys.

Ben’s favorite stories always included forgiveness and second chances, the story of his parents’ being his favorite while Harry’s favorites always included adventures and treasures and sailing, his father’s story, not surprisingly, his own personal favorite.

However, neither boy seemed to really like the stories of princesses under sleeping spells saved by true love’s kiss.

“Why a kiss?” Ben would frown quietly, small face confused.

“It’s so boring!” Harry would moan loudly, flopping himself dramatically on his stomach across the queen’s lap without hesitation while Ben would sit on the arm of his mother’s chair, leaning against her side. “It’s not revenge! I bet Ms. Aurora and Ms. Snow didn’t even realize days had passed while they were just snoring away. Shouldn’t a villain’s revenge be painful?” he asked, calling up the story of how his father lost his hand by the wicked Peter Pan or how King Adam had been stabbed by the loathsome huntsman Gaston.

Belle fondly patted both boy’s heads, lightly removing Harry from her lap and onto his feet on the floor before guiding Ben down as well, both boys standing before her, waiting for her response.

“Sometimes,” she said carefully, “the most painful revenge a villain can ever do is not something done to you but watching as those around you are hurt and your unable to do anything about it. That lost of control can be very scary especially when someone you love is in danger and you feel like you can’t do anything about it.”

Ben looked thoughtful, mulling over his mother’s words while Harry still looked confused as he squirmed to stand still at Belle’s feet like Cogsworth and Lumiere had to constantly remind him to. (“You may not be royalty, Master Harry, but you carry on your shoulders your father’s and your mother’s legacy. You must look the part of the future Hand of the King,” Cogsworth had lectured him just earlier that day.)

“I don’t get it,” Ben said truthfully.

Standing up and taking both boys’ hands in her own, Belle led them back to their room. “Well hopefully you’ll never have to experience that, my dears,” she smiled down warmly at them both confident that neither of them would have to experience something like that in this time of peace…

---

It was a strange feeling. The fog that had kept him trapped in his mind had both departed and grown until it threatened to overwhelm him out of existence…

It was thick and heavy and it felt like even his thoughts were being smothered.

Then, the fog cleared and Harry was in a moldy dim lighted room, filled with equally moldy looking tables. And though he wasn’t sure how he could smell in a dream, the pungent smell of rotten fish and mildew nearly made him vomit, dream or not.

But in the middle of all of it - like a lighthouse in a storm - was Uma.

Or at least, a version of Uma.

(Not his Uma.)

She was just as beautiful as the Uma he knew, breathtaking as she danced with sharp, precise, powerful movements, a group of teenagers, all dressed in worn pirate clothing surrounding her.

She commanded the space around her. Fluid. Unyielding. Fierce.

When she was lifted into the air, sitting on a throne decorated in coral and starfish he found his heart trip over itself, the confident and assured grin proudly etched on her face that he had ever only seen on rare occasions on his Uma’s face.

So caught up in this pirate queen’s presence (because there was no other title he could call this not his Uma), Harry barely realized that his body was moving on it’s own, moving in time to a rhythm that seemed to inspire them all, motivated by this enchanting queen’s presence. The crew (her crew, no, their crew) placed this Uma and her throne in front of a makeshift stage and her dark beautiful brown eyes turned expectedly onto him to play his role.

It was an out of body experience. The crew surrounded him, hyping him up as his body moved, hips swaying in a drunken manner as he made his way down the stage. His lips parted in praise of the queen before him, a pleased look (and something else that made him want to put a little extra sway in his hip rolls) shining brightly on her face. He hopped down from the stage, kneeling before her as he took her hand to help her stand on her throne.

Everyone else looked away as her presence seemed to shine brighter but Harry’s eyes were always trained on her even when she was lifted away from him to dance on another table. He wanted to follow her but Gil was stuck staring confused in the middle of all the movement.

“Get over there!” Harry heard himself growl at the blonde, pointing with an odd silver hook that he had been holding towards where the others were moving. He felt guilty for treating the friendly blonde so roughly even if he didn’t have control over his actions but that was only for a few seconds before his body moved him back on stage, standing next to the enchanting teal haired queen. She was facing away from him but suddenly turned towards him, pinky wrapping around the hook that he held easily as if she knew without a doubt he would be right behind her. Always.

It was such a simple gesture, but it meant so much to the two of them. Only them. Their little secret promise to each other.

(We’re in this together,” her eyes said.)

“Hook me!” she laughed, grin filled with confidence, mischief, and something else that he knew was just for him that made his heart swell so much that it almost hurt. It reminded him of his Uma, how when he had first saw her, he knew that in whatever life they were in together, he would follow her to the end of the world and beyond.

The movement around them seemed to pause, the crew and the grimy restaurant fading away until it was just the two of them surrounded by nothingness. The pirate queen turned around to face him fully, her pinky still intertwined with the hook that he held.

“You gotta go back to her, Harry,” she murmured tugging him gently closer to her with her pinky.

He blinked and for a moment, she looked older...wiser...the queenly aurora around her shining even brighter. A glimpse of what could be. Of what was, somewhere else in a different world. She radiated confidence and mischief...and so much hardwon and rightly deserved love.

“She needs you just as much as you need her. Like I always need you,” this queen said as she tilted her head up invitingly. “In this world-”

“-and the next,” Harry finished before capturing her lips in his, a slow but electrifying kiss that ended all too soon when she pulled away with a gasp.

Harry groaned, opening his eyes only to have to blink several times for his eyes to adjust to the sudden bright light as well as his bodies stiff limbs.

He was awake. True love’s kiss, the queen’s voice laugh faded along with his memory of her until all that was left was flashing foggy images of a dream almost, but not quite forgotten.

While Harry’s eyes were adjusting and feeling was working its way back up his body, Uma felt her breath snatched from her lungs, the world around focused and centered on the dazed but bright blue eyes that she had prayed to every god she could think of, even Poseidon, to see again.

“Y-you’re...you’re awake,” she managed to choke out, forcing herself back into the chair that sat next to his bed.

“And awoken in the best way possible,” Harry hummed, voice deep with sleep. A wide grin forming on his face as he took in the way her cheeks darkened, both of them very aware of what had just happened. Of the implications and possibilities that such a simple thing like a kiss could mean in this situation. “Ye took your time though, lass.”

The corners of her lips twitched upwards, her stomach suddenly filled with weird fluttering that wasn’t all that uncomfortable.

Uma had never realized how much she had missed his voice until now.

‘He’s awake,’ she thought in a moment of relief.

‘He’s awake,’ she thought again in a moment of dread.

He, a hero, had been under a sleeping curse.

She, a villain, had been the one to break the curse with a kiss.

Fuck.

She didn’t realize she was struggling to breathe, only taking shallow breaths until she felt a tug that pulled her back on the bed, Harry’s warm and anchoring hand on her back and his voice in her ear directing her to breath as he pulled her onto his lap.

“That’s my girl,” Harry praised when she was taking deeper breaths. (Uma would never speak about how being called his made her heart feel like it wanted to do a cartwheel out of her chest and into his hands. It was such a sickeningly sweet image to imagine.)

“I-I should go get someone,” Uma began trying to move out of his grasp, a desire to flee, a desire to run away from the one thing that she had always been taught to believe was a weakness. This couldn’t be real, right? It was a fluke. A cruel twisted sour cherry on top of the rotten shrimp smelling sundae that was her life.

“NO!” Harry growled suddenly, grabbing her firmly around her waist. The movement was unexpected, causing Uma to fall back so she was half sprawled over him. Harry let out a breath when her elbow accidentally dug into his side but grinned down cheekily at her surprised expression. “Hi,” was all he could think to say, easily getting distracted by her lovely brown eyes.

“Hi?” Uma snapped in disbelief, still half on him. “I-is that all you have to say? We- I-I-I kissed you and now you’re, you’re awake! And…”

“And now we’re here,” Harry reassured, using their closeness to press a quick kiss to her forehead, another one to the tip of her nose, before a lingering one just a the corner of her mouth before pulling away, taking in her stunned expression and the way that her tongue ran over her lips unconsciously. (She both hated and maybe not so much hated these warm and safe feelings he gave her with even the simplest of gestures. Was she that much touch starved?) “Together. That’s all,” he said interlacing his fingers of one hand with hers, placing them over his heart like she had done earlier. “Don’t overthink it, darling. It’s just you and me. Whatever pace you want to set.”

Ursula’s daughter bit her lip.

“We don’t...I mean,” Uma sighed annoyed that words were failing her.

She pushed back from him so that she was sitting fully up, her hand still interlaced with his. Harry shifted slightly so his back was propped up against his pillows, patiently drawing small circles on the back of her hand before she continued. The repetitive movement seemed to be enough to ground her as she collected her thoughts

“Love,” Uma eventually managed to get out, her tongue feeling strange around the word, “I don’t know what that is. But I do know fear. My mother. Mal…,” she growled out the last name, taking in the way that Harry tensed at the name, confirming Evie’s earlier suspicion that the half-fae was behind his current predicament. “They made sure I knew it well,” she sighed, falling deep into her thoughts until Harry squeezed her hand, bringing her back to the present with him.

“Mal came to my room,” Harry shared after a moment. “Wanted to make a deal.”

“What sort of a deal?” Uma frown deepened.

Harry laughed humorlessly, bringing up their intertwined hands up to his lips. Uma pretended like always that it didn’t have any effect on her but she was sure he could probably hear how loudly her heart was beating in her ears.

“She wanted me to break yer heart. Promised that if I did, she would make it worth my while.” He made eye contact with her, never breaking eye contact with her as he said, “I told her she could shove her deal up her ass. Why take some dark fae’s promise when I have a goddess’s blessing,” he said pulling out the necklace that was tucked underneath his shirt. The magic shell necklace seemed to hummed happily as his touch before it became silent once again.

“I’m not a goddess,” Uma mumbled turning her face away, to hide how much it was burning.

Her face was turned back to face his, the fingers of his free hand tracing her jaw softly. “I beg to differ,” he looked at her reverently.

Uma coughed, embarrassed though it didn’t feel like it did when Mal had threw that bucket of shrimp on her.

She turned her attention to their connected hands, noticing not for the first time how small hers looked compared to his, how they fit so easily together…But then she remembered why she had initially came here. That this was supposed to be a goodbye. That this - whatever this was with it’s fluttering warm feelings that made her feel like she had lost her sea legs in the oddly most amazing of ways - wasn’t meant to last. That she wasn’t the sea goddess he had fooled himself into believing that she was. That he deserved someone better than a seawitch’s poor unfortunate daughter…

Harry reached out, swiping his thumb across her cheek wiping away tears. (She had started crying. When did that happen?)

“I was so afraid when Ben and I found you in your room. Afraid not for me or even Gil initially when I saw his bandana, but for you. It made me sad and angry that you may never wake up again. That it was so obviously Mal who did this to you but that I couldn’t do anything to fix it.” She shook her head, placing her hand over his where it still remained on her cheek even after all the tears had been wiped away. “So I don’t know what love feels like, but I know what it feels like to be afraid of losing something else that I consider mine. Of wanting to protect what’s mine at any cost.”

“Yours, eh?” Harry grinned softly, leaning forward so that his forehead rested against her shoulder. “I like the sound of that, darling,” she felt his grin as he turned his head slightly, pressing soft kisses against her neck, letting out a soft moan when her hand instinctively moved to to run through his dark locks, tugging in a way that felt like he had reached heaven, both their breaths growing heavy.

It would be so easy to stay there and pretend that there was nothing outside of this room. That it was just the two of them. A girl and her sailor.

But Gil’s bright smile popped into Uma’s head and guilt snapped her back to reality. She made a promise to Gil and villain or not, she couldn’t allow herself to let him down.

“Harry,” she began, pulling his face away from her neck where he had slowly been making a path of lazy kisses down. However, she didn’t get to finish because the doors to the infirmary unexpectedly opened, CJ followed by a tall beautiful woman in an Auradon Navy captain’s uniform entering the room.

“Oh! Uma you’re here! I thought-” CJ greeted before she realized that Uma was holding hands with her very much awake (and very much disheveled looking) brother. “YOU DID IT!” she squealed, a blur of blonde hair and joyful tears before she leapt at both of them, embracing them tightly as they all fell back on the bed. “I knew it!” she said through her tears. “You two were meant for each other.”

Uma wasn’t sure how to respond but Harry merely laughed, pulling them both together towards him, tightening the embrace like they both would fly off.

A throat clearing interrupted the reunion and Uma over CJ’s shoulder saw the naval captain watching them, expression closed off and distant. “Calista Jane,” she scolded. “You’re much too close to him right now. We don’t know if he’s strong enough to be around magic due to his intolerance in his current weakened and vulnerable,” she spat out the word glaring at Uma, “state. You can roughhouse our brother when he has been cleared by both a doctor and Fairy Godmother.”

CJ pouted but there was no room for argument with the woman who would take over as commander of the Auradon Navy when Captain Hook retired. CJ pushed herself off the bed, self consciously tugging on her gloves and sleeves to make sure that they were firmly in place and that no direct skin contact had been made with her weakened brother. “Sorry Harriet.”

The captain, Harriet, gave a curt nod before turning her sharp gaze once again on Uma. Like with CJ, it was only due to Harry having already told her about his sister’s and the confident swagger that both Harry and CJ had as well and that still managed to slip through the naval captain’s straightlaced appearance that Uma knew that this was Harriet Jones, Harry’s older half-sister.

“I’m sorry, miss,” Harriet began, not sounding sorry at all. “But only family members of the patient are allowed to visit the infirmary. And since you are of magical parentage as well, I really must insist that you leave now for my brother’s well being, please.”

“Now wait just a minute, Ettie,” Harry growled annoyed. “I feel fine! Better than fine, actually!”

“It’s fine,” Uma said to him softly, squeezing his hand, before turning towards Harriet with a much more guarded look. “I was just about to leave anyway.”

Uma got off the bed, forcing herself to let go of his hand. When they both let go, she instantly missed the physical touch and tried to ignore the hurt look that Harry gave her. She gave a small smile to CJ who looked not at all happy with the current situation before brushing past Harriet on her way out the infirmary.

Uma forced herself not to look back. Not even when Harry called out for her. If she did, she would never be able to follow through with the plan that was beginning to take form in her mind...

#disney descendants #huma #harry hook x uma #uma descendants #harry hook #cj hook #harriet hook #harry of auradon #i'm hooked on all these feelings #what's my name #descendants fanfiction #descendants fanfic #edream93 fanfiction #edream93 fanfic

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writingfulfillment · 7 years ago

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The Overarching Power of Belief

I believe that every story ever told is true because of the creative power of belief of Humankind. I believe that there are not millions of fictional places where heroes live, but one place that houses the collective dreams of all who’ve ever existed. In many of the works of fiction that I’ve read, they speak of the creatures and Gods’ being able to exist because there are still humans who believe in them. And this belief is what gives them their power. There is not one story or belief that reigns supreme over the others because they all share the same origin story: they were created by humans. Whether in one sitting by one author, or if it’s over years by a collection of people, they are all creations of our minds.

In this dream world, the people reflect what we see in ourselves. They are stubborn and have flaws, but are overall good. These people will see what they will expect or believe that they will see, such like ourselves. And this is how this collective dream world functions. Both on the creative power of the imaginations of the humans who fuel it existence, and the ignorance of the reflective humans there.

In series like Percy Jackson and Harry Potter, they talk a lot about how the regular people view their secret world. For example, In his first book Riordan notes the differences in how people believe. “But if he’s a preacher,” I said, “and he believes in a different hell…” Grover shrugged, who says he’s seeing this place the way that we’re seeing it? Humans see what they want to see. You’re very stubborn-er, persistent, that way.”[1] This fits with how so many dreams could live together, as well as with the nature of the reflected humans. In the first Harry Potter book, Harry notices the Muggles’ obliviousness.“The people hurrying by didn’t glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big bookshop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn’t see the leaky cauldron at all. In fact, Harry has the most peculiar feeling that only he and Hagrid could see it.” [2] The mundane people couldn’t see it because they didn’t believe that it was there. I believe that in this dream world, the ordinary people are excessively ignorant for the sake of peace between the dreams.

In most, if not all stories, there is an ordinary character who leads a mundane life until they discover a Secret world. Everyone dreams of being swept away as a crucial member of something. We all want to be important and we all want to be remembered. This is why we love to create and read these stories, they reflect the dreams of our childhood selves. All of this imagination and collective hope cannot amount to nothing. This is why the dream world came into existence, somewhere for the dreams to live and for us to visit when we miss them.

The creation of this one world relies on the same desire for acknowledgement that lives in all our hearts. This is where the Hero’s Journey comes in. Joseph Campbell theorized that every story is, in fact, the same story except it is told differently and that every protagonist is actually the same character wearing a different face. In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he discusses the idea of a monomyth that spans genres, authors, and time periods. Joseph proposes that every good story follows a basic plot map that he calls The Hero’s Journey. Since it’s publication in 1949, it has been referenced by creators,(Perhaps the most popular of which is George Lucas, Director of Star Wars) authors, and artists in the telling of their stories. I believe that the subjects of this one story that has been told a million different ways live in the dream world.

The Hero’s Journey, although it has many different versions, is largely made up of 12 stages that the Hero goes through. These can be identified in most popular stories. The 12 are: 1. Ordinary World, 2. Call to Adventure, 3. Refusal or Acceptance, 4. Meeting with the Mentor, 5. Crossing the Threshold, 6. Tests, Allies, Enemies, 7. Approach to the Innermost Cave, 8. Ordeal, 9. Seizing the Sword, 10. The Road Back, 11. The Master of Two Worlds, 12. Return with the Elixir. You can read about them in more detail elsewhere.[here] I will just be focusing on the Ordinary World v.s. the Secret World.

In the Ordinary World, the people cannot see, or do not know about the Secret World, because they do not believe that it’s there. And the same is true for why the Secret World exists, because the Hero and his companions continue to believe in it and its creatures. The belief in the Secret World and it inhabitants in turn give them belief in themselves, increasing their power and existence. There are hints of the belief to power transfer in many popular works of fiction.

In Harry Potter, the most curious aspect of magic is its distribution. There are children of generations of wizards that possess no magic, or very little. (Ariana [3], Neville [4])There are also children of muggles who have great magical powers. (Lily [5], Hermione [6]) In all of these cases the power of the witch or wizard was dictated by their belief in themselves. Ariana was a fine little witch until some boys traumatized her, then she lost the power to control it. Neville had always struggled with magic, partially because his grandmother was always telling him that he wasn’t good enough. As he grew older, he learned that he was worth it and his magic greatly improved. If any muggleborn had the wits and guts to excel at magic, it was Lily and Hermione. From the start they were both know-it-alls who had no qualms about their intelligence.

Despite what you may think, Harry really wasn’t all that great of a wizard. At least when it comes to book learning and memorizing complicated spells. Courage and loyalty, on the other hand, were Harry’s best traits. When it came time that he knew that he had to save his friends, he always came through magically, even though he wasn’t all that gifted. In The Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry saves himself and Sirius by performing the advanced charm Expecto Patronum. He produces an extremely powerful patronus and keeps numerous dementors at bay. A task, that would be difficult, if not impossible for a fully grown wizard, and yet Harry was just 13 at the time. “‘I knew I could do it this time,’ said Harry, ‘because I’d already done it… does that make sense?’”[7] Harry’s personal belief in himself skyrocketed because he’d already done it, thus giving himself enough power to do it.

If their power of belief in themselves was enough to boost their power and self-worth, then who’s to say that our belief in them isn’t powerful enough to make them real? Who says that dreams turn to naught but dust? Humans can do amazing things while we’re awake, why not when we’re sleeping? Isn’t billions of people dreaming each night powerful enough to cultivate something more than dust? I believe that it is enough, and I believe that our dreams become real in the dream world. That there is a place where the characters that we love and dream of exist together.

In all of Rick Riordan’s work, the mythologies that he uses are interconnected. The different Gods and cultures coexist because of the different peoples who continue to believe in them. “‘But Gods can’t die,’ Grover said. ‘They can fade,’ Pan said, ‘when everything that they stood for is gone. When they cease to have power, and their sacred places disappear.” [8] In some instances, such as Pan, the Greek God of nature, when people ceased to believe in him, he faded. But there will always be the Gods that are believed in and worshipped by these secret worlds that might be more connected than we think.

These are taken from two of Riordan’s books, “Lacey had warned me about Drew the first day of school. Apparently the two of them had gone to some summer camp together-blah, blah, I didn’t really listen to the details- and Drew had been just as much of a tyrant there.” [9] “Lacey looked like she might fall apart from nervousness. ‘Oh, well-’ ‘Drew might find out,’ Mitchell explained. ‘I might have to wear the shoes of shame!’ Lacey gulped.” [10] Amongst other evidence, this proves that they exist in the same universe. Also, in his other series, the protagonist, Magnus Chase, is cousins with the partner of Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase. “...I haven’t thought about them in years. I have an uncle and cousin in Boston.” [11] “‘I just don’t want to put you in danger,’ I said. ‘I kind of hoped that you could be my one connection to the regular world.’ Annabeth stared at me. She snorted and began to laugh. ‘Wow. You have no idea how funny that is.’” [12]

Riordan loves the idea that all of the Gods and the different mythologies could coexist. He has even written several crossover stories between the Greek Demigods and the Egyptian Magicians. [13] He has never said anything outright about his belief about why they might exist in the same universe, but I think it’s safe to gather from his books, that he thinks that there is something very powerful about belief. He also makes references to other cultures and their beliefs. In his second series, The Heroes of Olympus, his characters have more diverse background. Frank is Chinese and his grandmother believes in the Roman Gods and Buddhism. [14] Piper is Cherokee and the old Native stories that her father tells her play a part in her success as a demigod. [15] Leo is Mexican and he speaks of Dia de Los Muertos and his experiences with spirits. [16]

He hints that there may be much more than one truth or one belief. Of course, in order for this to be true there would have to be rules and/or magic separating these religions, if you will, from each other. Simply because there would be too much confusion and contention over which one was true, when in fact they would all actually be true. It’s a daunting concept, but simultaneously a very interesting one. They would all be very delicate barriers, easily cracked or broken because of the masses that they are hiding. But it poses an interesting situation for the deities or beings of power in these different “religions”. Of course, being a God, they would know things. And someone has to know the rules in order to make sure that they are kept. “‘The tradition is still strong among … our people.’ ‘Our people?’ I asked, but Sadie muscled in with another question. ‘So you can’t live in Manhattan?’ She asked. Amos’s brow furrowed as he looked across at the Empire State Building. ‘Manhattan has other problems. Other Gods. It’s best we stay separate.” [17] It makes sense that the future Chief Lector of the Egyptians would know the new location of Mount Olympus and Vice versa. It can be very confusing, but the cumulative power of human belief is very strong and I believe that it is strong enough for this. The suggestion that because we can believe in something, it can or must exist? Even if it contradicts other beliefs or laws? But this is very prevalent in works of fiction like Riordan and Rowling. (There are so many others that I didn’t highlight because it would have been way too long, but you get my point.)

It is very interesting when you combine it with the Hero’s Journey. That every story is the same story of the same character but wearing a different face, alongside that they all must be true because someone believes in them. It’s a little mind blowing, but it actually makes a lot of sense. We all would like to think that we have our own story, but in reality, we just aren’t that creative. Everything that’s ever done is something that has been done before. So we must make it our own by creating magical worlds around the old stories to make it seem new. Or at the very least, have us fall in love with the new characters. I believe that all of this exists in the dream world.

You’ve seen the raving fans of books, movies and TV shows, people love these predictable fictional characters with all their heart. How can all of that love and belief accumulate to nothing? I don’t think that it can. I wonder if by desiring these stories to be real because we love them so much might just actually make them exist. Thuss, the existence of all of these beings and stories in the Dream World. The human psyche is a mysterious and powerful place that scientists can only guess at and pretend to understand. Who’s to say that we aren’t more powerful than we think? What defines creation or a creator? What excludes us from creating art, music and emotion? Nothing. What excludes us from creating beings or worlds? Perhaps, nothing. If only the understanding of such a process.

When an author writes a book, they put so much into creating that world, and so do their fans. Thats a lot of collective belief to come to nothing. What if our power of belief is enough to create? Whether in this world or another, what if our beloved stories do exist? How could so much emotion go into art and music, such that it can evoke emotions in us, and not create something more?

Works Cited

[1] Riordan, Rick. The Lightning Thief. New York: Miramax /Hyperion for Children, 2005. Print, 293.

[2] Rowling, J.K. The Sorcerer's Stone. London: Bloomsbury Children’s, 1997. Print, 68.

[3] Rowling, J.K. The Deathly Hallows. London: Bloomsbury Children’s, 2007. Print, 564.

[4] Rowling, J.K. The Sorcerer's Stone. London: Bloomsbury Children’s, 1997. Print, 125.

[5] Rowling, J.K. The Sorcerer's Stone. London: Bloomsbury Children’s, 1997. Print, 53.

[6] Rowling, J.K. The Sorcerer's Stone. London: Bloomsbury Children’s, 1997. Print, 105.

[7] Rowling, J.K. The Prisoner of Azkaban. London: Bloomsbury Children’s, 1999. Print, 412.

[8] Riordan, Rick. The Battle of the Labyrinth. New York: Miramax /Hyperion for Children, 2008. Print, 314.

[9] Riordan, Rick. The Serpent’s Shadow. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2012. Print, 83.

[10] Riordan, Rick. The Lost Hero. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2010. Print, 178.

[11] Riordan, Rick. The Blood of Olympus. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2014. Print, 393.

[12] Riordan, Rick. The Sword of Summer. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2015. Print, 487.

[13] Riordan, Rick. Demigods and Magicians. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2015. Print.

[14] Riordan, Rick. The Mark of Athena. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2012. Print, 492.

[15] Riordan, Rick. The Blood of Olympus. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2014. Print, 384.

[16] Riordan, Rick. The Blood of Olympus. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2014. Print, 68.

[17] Riordan, Rick. The Red Pyramid. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2010. Print, 52.

#harry potter #percy jackson #fan theory #dream world #kane chronicles #everything is connected #the power of humankind

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shoutycatisshoutyworld · 7 years ago

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Baymax Is Not ‘Just A Toy’

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing” - George Bernard Shaw

As I write this, it has been three years since Amy left this world. It feels both like forever and like it was only yesterday and whilst life continues, there are still many times I stop and desperately want to tell her my news.

Next week, Aneurin will be two years old and I still can’t believe that tiny baby I held is now this funny, cheeky, clever little boy who never sits still, prefers running to walking and surprises me every day (If you want to keep up with his adventures, you can find us on Instagram with @tinyboyrunning). A week before his birthday and Aneurin can recognise 1-10, A-Z, can count to 26 and has now started spelling and doing simple addition. I’d like to say it’s good parenting but he’s taught himself! Aneurin sees no point in letting others do things if he can do it himself and we struggle to even persuade him to let us hold his hand as we go down the stairs.

That’s not to say school work is all we do, leaning comes in many forms and I find the best way is always with an adventure. Whilst he’s obviously very intelligent, he is also very much two and it’s trying to find that balance between maths and mud.

Adventure can be found everywhere, you just have to know where to look. Whether that’s in the pages of a book or at the top of Mount Everest, it’s important to still believe in the concept of it. The titular character in J. M. Barry’s Peter Pan declares that "To die will be an awfully big adventure." and I like to believe those we have lost have gone on to that next great adventure.

The Museum of Childhood has the quote from George Bernard Shaw above one of their cabinets. Even the toys I once played with are considered ‘retro’, which makes me feel incredibly old and it’s a weird feeling to see something that once littered your bedroom floor in a museum’s display case. I am very lucky in that the career path I have chosen is the very essence of playing. I may grow older (I’m 30 next year!) but I am still allowed to become like a child and play a very grown up version of ‘let’s pretend’.

For Aneurin, every day is an adventure, every day is filled with things he has never seen before. I envy that naivete, how many times can you now say ‘I’ve never seen/done that before’? Life feels same old, same old; we get up, we have the same breakfast, we brush our teeth, we go off to do the same job and hit repeat at the end of the day. We don’t stop to see what is different as we get stuck in the same routine.

I’d like to say we have Aneurin in a routine. I think I’ve said before that I wish I could be one of those mothers who knew that 9am-10am was sensory play and then everything would be put away for baby yoga. I am not that disciplined and certainly not that organised, I’m lucky if I can find my keys and still have to remove a U, the number 5 and some cereal from my shoes before we can even think about getting going.

Growing up, my family were all very spontaneous and I suppose that has stuck with me. We used to get home from school on a friday and be told to pack some knickers because we were going away for the weekend. Where to? Who knew? But it would be fun whilst we were there!

This Bank Holiday Monday (a set day off that we have in most parts of the United Kingdom), we went to a place Amy would have loved. Haworth (pr: How-ath) is a small town in Yorkshire with a cobbled high street and old fashioned shops, best known for being home to the three Bronte sisters. Like me, they too were vicar’s daughters and probably knew all the trials and tribulations that come with that title, although they probably would have been pretty shocked to learn it was my mother and not my father that was ordained!

They have a steam train that goes to the nearest big town, Keighley (pr: Keeth-lee) and I’ve been on it many times. It’s probably an awful lot quicker to go via modern means but it isn’t half as fun! Aneurin is currently obsessed with cars, planes and trains but was slightly taken aback when it steamed into the station. It’s the first time I’ve seen him scared since the Compare the Meerkat advert! He soon cheered up and spent the majority of his time running up and down the carriage shouting ‘Train! It’s a train!’

Seven years ago, we sat in this exact carriage. I couldn’t have imagined my life now, married to my best friend and watching the love of our lives running a wooden train across the seat.

Whilst we were there, Aneurin won a Winnie the Pooh toy on a tombola and was so proud, he held it carefully in both hands and carried it down the hill like he had been gifted the key to the universe. To anyone else watching, he would just be a little boy and a teddy bear but to Aneurin, at that moment, this toy was everything.

Toys are an extension of ourselves, they can only truly exist because we believe - or else they’d just be an ornament, a decoration. To others, I am a woman holding a child’s toy but to me, Baymax is much more than that. The Children’s Museum made me realise that objects are what we make of them and it is for that reason, we continue to take you reading this and Baymax along with us. Amy never made her great trip to Britain like we’d planned but it doesn’t mean we can’t continue what we started. To die may be “an awfully big adventure” but life is an amazing one too. It’s time we all went out and saw the world like a child, don’t you think?

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