#OH also its interesting that the three entries that feature it so far all end in 6 oooo spoookyyyy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

teacupfulofstarshine · 3 years

Text

LOVELY, DARK, AND DEEP CHAPTER 10

PLEASE HEED THE CONTENT WARNINGS!!! this chapter features Evil Scientist Lady and her Fucked Up WorldView a LOT, and there are also some Major Plot Events that involve Violence. i will put a summary in the end notes if you decide at any point that this particular chapter is too much - that's super valid! i will also mention here that no main characters are going to die in this story and no one dies in this chapter either.

huge huge thanks to @flamingfawkes for beta’ing!

CW: extreme disregard for human life, mentioned human and animal cruelty, toxic workplace environment, violence (both imagined and actual, mildly graphic), gun mention, minor blood, death threats, extremely unethical character, unethical science, stalking

chapter 1 // chapter 2 // chapter 3 // chapter 4 // chapter 5 // chapter 6 // chapter 7 // chapter 8 // chapter 9 // read it on ao3!

“This is the same result we’ve gotten the last twenty times -”

“I don’t care, Steven, run it again!”

Steven sighs, punching at the keyboard to run the statistical analysis sequence again. “This is ridiculous! I’ve run this sequence so many times it feels like my eyes are going to bleed. Why can’t we just turn in the results we have and -”

“Because she’ll behead us,” James snaps, “and then she’ll destroy our reputations and our families and they’ll get no severance. I have three young children at home, Steven, I need this money.” Steven softens a little, fingers running smoothly over the keys as he combs the data again. Next to him, James has a computer screen full of frame-by-frame stills of what little data they recovered from the probe before it was destroyed; Penny across the room is surrounded by ancient texts a mile high and at least three laptops.

“Why is she so interested in this, anyway?”

“It’s beyond me. Since when do we question the whims of what we’re told to do?”

Steven squints at the screen, pushing his chair back and rubbing at his eyes. “If I have to stare at these numbers for one more second, my brain is going to explode. I feel like my eyeballs are going to melt out of my skull. I wanna scream.”

James pulls up another image, staring at the blurry image of the merman before him. Steven pushes away from his own screen and squints at James’s. The merman in the photo looks young, not much older than his kid brother, but they don’t know anything about the lifespan of these creatures. He looks confused, squinting at the camera. As James flicks through the stills, the merman transitions from confused to angry to enraged, and then he attacks.

“He’s not happy about the camera.”

“Would you be happy about someone spying on you and your family?” James says, switching to the next still.

“I wouldn’t be happy if I thought someone was doing anything we do in this lab to me or my family.” James elbows Steven, but luckily no one else seems to have heard.

“This lab isn’t the most ethical place I’ve ever worked, but it pays the bills,” James mutters. “And we’re not even in the experimentation lab. We just do data analysis. We’re removed from the situation.”

Are we? Steven wonders. He sees James reach out and touch the framed picture of his daughters, and keeps his mouth shut. He turns back to his computer, watching the little spinning color wheel of his mouse as the program calculates the same numbers again and again. The results come up identical to the previous ones, and Steven clicks “Run Program” again wordlessly.

They work in silence for a while, the three of them, broken only by James’s muttering and the occasional thud of one of Penny’s books and the clicks of keyboards and mice. If they weren’t so reliant on technology, Steven thinks, there would be an enormous corkboard spanning three of the four walls, covered in pushpins and handwriting and red string connecting images. He debates actually building one, if only to increase the levity in the room, but decides against it.

He’s seen people punished or fired or who-knows-what-else for far less, after all.

Instead, after his program tells him for the twenty-third time that his results are the same (and didn’t someone say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?), Steven scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms and opens the data entry window. Maybe the problem with the results has to do with the entry of the data; did he input something wrong? It’s possible . . .

Here he goes again, he supposes. He stands up, stretches, and leans back to crack some vertebrae. “I’m gonna grab a coffee, take a short screen break, and go back to the beginning. Maybe there’s something in the input that I missed. You want anything?”

James groans, thunking his head against the desk. “I want something with enough caffeine to kill three elephants, please.” Steven nods, looking over at Penny. She shakes her head, and he heads for the shitty coffee machine a few doors down.

Several floors below, a young woman pulls her lab goggles up to rest on top of her head with her perfectly-pinned protocol-compliant bun. “The latest round of tests is completely done, ma’am. I think you’ll find the efficacy . . . striking.”

She takes the clipboard, glossy perfectly-painted nails pinching the sheets of thin paper and flicking between them. “I’m afraid I don’t do so well with the scientific side of things - Kathleen, was it? Explain this to me, would you?”

“Certainly, ma’am. As you know, the kill time for the most effective neurotoxin currently available, tetrodotoxin, varies from thirty minutes to four hours. Average time for symptoms to manifest is seventeen minutes, and from there the symptoms progress through tingling of the lips and tongue, headache, vomiting, muscle weakness, ataxia, et cetera. Death occurs as a result of respiratory or heart failure, and the poison is nearly undetectable if you do not specifically test for it.”

“The untraceability is a plus, but that is far too wide a range of times, and too slow a time even at its fastest.”

“Of course, ma’am, but as far as naturally-occurring marine poisons go - actually, as far as naturally-occurring poisons go, full stop - it is the most effective. Until now, that is.”

“Oh? What are your findings?”

“Which trials would you like to start with, ma’am?”

“The human trials, Kathleen. The only ones that matter. I hardly intend to go around killing mice and hoping that no one traces their deaths to a novel neurotoxin.” She laughs airily, and Kathleen nods along.

“Certainly, ma’am. The most recent data points indicate an average efficacy time of thirteen minutes for our compound neurotoxin, with a full range between nine and seventeen minutes passing before subject death. Subjects began to show symptoms around five minutes, give or take twenty-five seconds.”

“And those symptoms were?��

Kathleen flips through the document. “Seizures, vital organ failure, blindness, painful muscle spasms, suffocation from the inside out.”

She hums, tapping a manicured finger against the report. “Well, Kathleen, that is certainly impressive, especially for a preliminary human subject trial. These results . . . I must say, they are not nearly as disappointing as I anticipated when I came down here.”

“Ma’am?”

“How long have you worked for this company, Kathleen?”

“Almost five years, ma’am, but I’ve always been an assistant. This is my first time as lead researcher and biochemist on a project, ever since you . . . laid off the previous lead researcher.”

“Kathleen, let me be frank. These results are not what I hoped for. The efficacy time and symptom onset times are both far too long for my liking, and the range of efficacy time is too broad. By all accounts, I should consider this a failure.” Kathleen swallows, but remains poised. “However, you’ve managed to shave off a considerable amount of time from the tetrodotoxin readings. The range of symptom onset time is an acceptable breadth, and your results are far beyond anything your predecessor ever accomplished for me. This is truly impressive, all things considered.”

“Thank you, ma’am. How should I proceed?”

“I want the efficacy doubled - tripled - I want it upped by anywhere between four and five hundred percent. I want the pain increased, too. Feel free to increase your requests for test subjects, but get me the results I want. You said the original tetrodotoxin was untraceable?”

“That’s correct, ma’am.”

“Can you keep that feature intact?”

“As of right now, it is intact, ma’am. I will endeavor to keep it so in future experiments.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Welcome to your new position as head of this research division. Don’t let me down.” She holds out a slender hand, and Kathleen takes it, trying not to seem too eager.

“I won’t, ma’am.”

“How soon can you start this experiment up again?”

“The cleaners should be finished by tomorrow morning, ma’am, and I can tweak chemical formulas until then.”

“Excellent.” Her watch beeps, and she lifts it, pursing her bright lips as she examines the message she’s just received. “If you’ll excuse me, I have another matter to attend to. Someone will drop off your master access key for Lab Three within the hour.”

She steps into the elevator and lifts her watch up to her face, swiping through the messages from her secretary. One finger reaches out to press the button for the digital analysis labs floor, and the other taps away at her watch.

When she steps off the elevator, her secretary is waiting. “Ma’am.”

“What do they have for me?”

“Unclear. They said it was something they wanted to report directly to you and you alone, but it seems to be something big.”

“Hopefully it’s a big step in the right direction, or they’ll be taking a big step out of a job.” She relishes in the way the employees she passes all unfailingly flinch and then snap to perfect attention when they hear the sharp echo of her heels against the floor. She lifts her head and walks faster, striking the tiles with her heels like a gavel, sharp and precise against a judge’s desk.

The computer labs are disorganized when she enters, but there is a string of promising-looking numbers on the main display monitor. There is a woman surrounded by books and a man pulling up photos on his computer, and there is a third man standing in front of her like a toy soldier. She focuses on that one.

“I hear you have news for me? Make it swift, and make it good.”

He swallows, hard, and her eyes idly trace the line of his throat. If he disappoints her, perhaps she will drive her heel through it, to make an example of him. That would be far too messy; perhaps his dominant hand will do.

“I have narrowed down the location of the missing net, ma’am. I believe it to have washed up somewhere around these general GPS coordinates.” He fiddles with a remote in his hand, and the image on the screen changes. It shows an aerial satellite view of a secluded strip of beach, framed by rocky cliffs with larger rocks studded out into the open water. “It should have washed up somewhere in this one-point-three-seven-mile strip of beach. The whole area is property of one Doctor Thomas Sanders.”

She snarls. “That man. He won’t let us on that beach willingly until hell freezes over.”

The other man, the one scanning through photo stills and video footage, jumps up, knocking his chair backwards. “I found something!”

She turns towards him, and his excitement freezes and sputters into something much more controlled and terrified. “Show me.” He clicks something and pulls up video footage from one of their surveillance drones, zooming in on a particular patch of ocean along the stretch of Sanders’ beach. Her eyes widen when she sees what he’d noticed - a hump of red-and-white tail arcing above the waves before a pattern of ripples streaks off towards the cliff. He pauses the footage, rewinds it, uses a laser pointer to show an opening concealed in the cliff face.

“There’s some kind of grotto in there, hidden by the cliff. It’s on Sanders’ property, he has to know it’s there. And it looks like the merman from the destroyed drone knows it’s there too. Which means -”

“That must be where he’s keeping them.” Something burns in her chest, brilliant and terrifying and all-encapsulating, like wildfire. “We’ve found them, at long last.”

“What would you have me do?” her secretary asks. “I can arrange for a recovery squad at your earliest possible convenience, ma’am.”

“Assemble the squad, but do not have them move out. They will wait for my orders. When they go, you are to go with them.” Her secretary nods, once, sharp and sure. “Dispatch a crew to Lab One and clear it out. I want it prepped for containment, vivisection, chemical tests - the works. Get at least three tanks set up and one strap-down human table.”

“A human table, ma’am?”

“Yes. We have to deal with Sanders once and for all to ensure that he does not ruin any future experiments.”

“Will we be taking him as well?”

She hums thoughtfully. “No. Pull up the file we have on his known associate?”

A few swift clicks and flicks and a photo appears on the large screen: a young man with brown-and-purple hair, sleeves rolled up, carefully lowering a perfectly viable specimen into the ocean and letting it go, like some kind of fool. “His doctoral student, ma’am. The longest one he’s ever kept - this one has been with him a few years.”

“Excellent. When you raid the lab, take him.”

“Should we kill Sanders?”

“No. Rough him up a little, but leave him alive. Taking his protégé and leaving him alone, helpless to rescue him, will be the highest form of torture for such an insufferable person. The agony will eat him alive until his dying day.”

Her secretary nods, taking the notes down dutifully. The other employees look vaguely horrified, but she pays them no mind. No sacrifice is too great to be made in the name of progress, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a weakling who will never get anywhere in life.

She refuses to be one of those weaklings.

*~*~*~*~*

Logan wakes up confused.

He’s warm, warmer than he thinks he’s ever been in his whole life. When he stirs, he moves farther than he meant to - he must not be underwater. That’s enough to send a jolt of concern through his sleep-addled brain. Why isn’t he underwater? Why was he sleeping if he was above the surface? There’s no way his dad is here, and Roman hates surfacing, where are they? Where is he? But he’s so comfortable . . .

Someone shifts beside him, an arm draping across his waist, and Logan forces his eyes open. He shifts his lower half, confused when two things move instead of one, and there are layers upon layers of thin, flat, soft things wrapping around him. What is happening?

Slowly, slowly, his mind clears, and he remembers the events of last night. He grew legs - he was a human, once, before he was mer - he couldn’t sleep underwater with Dad and Roman - Virgil was teaching him to walk - Virgil put “clothes” on him - Virgil was embarrassed that he didn’t have those “clothes” on him - Virgil took him out of the lab to sleep - Virgil agreed to cuddle him since his pod couldn’t -

Logan feels the strange burning in his face again as he shifts. He can’t see well in this new human form, but when things are close enough to his face they’re relatively clear. And Virgil, still sleeping, is close enough that Logan can smell him - he smells like salt water mixed with something sharp and something sweet and something else that Logan can’t quite identify but finds addicting nonetheless. Sunlight streams in and pools around Virgil’s face, illuminating the tangled mess of hair spread around him and flopping into his face, the small puddle of water leaking out from his open mouth onto the soft thing he’s resting his head on, the way his chest moves slowly with every breath. His arm is wrapped around Logan, pulling him close. Logan thinks he might explode if he focuses on this any more, so he rolls from his side to his back as carefully as he can, not wanting to wake Virgil. Virgil tightens his arm around Logan and mutters something indecipherable in his sleep, but he doesn’t wake.

Rather than focusing on his very confusing feelings for the very pretty man next to him, Logan focuses on what he can see of the room around him. He makes a list in his mind of things that he plans to ask Virgil about later today, including:

1: There are many draws attached to the small, smooth cliffs surrounding them. How do they stay there?

2: There are lots of “clothes” scattered all around the floor, and there were several on the bed, too. Is that normal for humans?

3: Last night, Virgil did something that made the room light up with trapped sunlight! How did he do that?

4: How did Virgil get ice to stay in those big frozen sheets in such a warm place to let the sunlight in?

5: How did Virgil make ice into that weird shape that he filled with water and drank last night?

6: How did Virgil get the water to come into this place?

7: Do all humans have a specific area set aside for sleeping? Logan and his pod usually just sleep wherever they can, but Virgil seems to have this soft slab set aside with all of these soft things to be comfortable and sleep in every night. Is this a Human Thing or strictly a Virgil Thing?

Logan looks out through the sheet of ice that protects Virgil’s area from the outside and gasps. He can’t see well, but there’s a glittering expanse of blue that shifts and moves and oh, is that the ocean?

He’s spent his whole life (well, his whole remembered life, anyways) in the ocean, and he’s seen some truly wondrous things. He travels around the world with his pod, he knows the ocean is big, but seeing it spread out like this is . . . awe-inspiring. Logan has never seen the ocean like this, and now that he has he doesn’t think he can ever not see it like this again. It’s like a perfect sheet of sea-glass, rippling and unbroken but dynamic in a way that he never really gets a sense of when he’s beneath it.

He knows that there are waves, of course. There are smaller swells out on the open ocean, and larger ones when the Second Goddess dips her fingers down from the Upper Ocean and swirls the storms to a thundering burst. There are waves along the shoreline, ones that he frolics in with Roman and batter him against the shoreline. There are waves created when he or his pod members surface. But watching the movement of the ocean from up here is . . .

Even with his imperfect vision, he is completely at a loss for words as he stares at the ocean.

Eventually, Virgil stirs next to him, and Logan turns away from the ocean to stare at him. Virgil is close to him, arms wrapped tightly around him, face pressed against him. Logan’s eyesight is not great, but Virgil is close enough that he can pick out little details of his face. There are brown face scales scattered all over him, but they seem to cluster on his nose and his cheeks. Logan has wanted to touch them for a substantial amount of time, and he can’t stop himself from gently settling the tips of his fingers over Virgil’s cheek.

His face doesn’t feel like Logan was expecting. The scales don’t give texture to his face the way that Logan’s do; the skin is smooth and flat. There are little bumps all over, but the brown scales aren’t raised off the skin like Logan expected. He lets his fingers trail along Virgil’s face. His bone structure seems to be exceedingly similar to Logan’s, at least in regards to his head. Logan’s finger rests gently on the curve of bone under Virgil’s eye, and Virgil exhales warm breath onto his palm.

Logan wonders what it would be like to have this for longer than just his recovery period. He wonders what it would be like to wake up next to Virgil all the time, to get to run his hands over Virgil’s face and arms and chest and examine the differences between their anatomy. He wonders what it would be like to learn to walk without falling over, and he feels a sharp, unexpected twinge in his chest as he realizes that getting better at walking means no more closeness to Virgil.

His chest feels strange, like there’s a school of small fish swarming around and tickling his insides and making him feel all foamy, like the froth churned up by a windswept sea. He feels like he does when he’s underwater - free, weightless, mobile, limited by nothing except his own imagination. He feels unstoppable.

Virgil makes a sudden, sharp inhale, blinking his eyes open slowly. Logan thinks that, perhaps, he might not appreciate being studied unknowingly - he hadn’t appreciated Virgil doing it, before he understood what was happening, when all he knew was the loss of his pod aching like a scraped-out seashell. As Virgil wakes up, Logan shifts, turning his gaze to the rest of the room.

Virgil makes a sleepy grumbling noise, opening one eye. Logan chances another quick glance at him, and when his eye slides open Logan is struck by its beauty. He doesn’t get much of a chance to admire it, however, before Virgil is jolting backwards like Logan’s struck him with lightning. Logan is confused, reaching out and gently touching his shoulder. “Virgil?”

“Wassat?! Wait . . . L’gan?”

“It is me,” Logan says softly. “Are - are you upset with me?”

Virgil yawns, jaw dropping to his chest, revealing a flash of teeth and a soft pink tongue. (Logan wants to lick it. Why does Logan want to lick it? Why is Logan thinking about Virgil’s tongue licking his tongue - why is Logan thinking about Virgil - what in the Seven Oceans is happening to him.) “Wh - no, no, ‘m okay, I just - woke up, forgot I had you with me, got confused about another person in my bed.” Before Logan can start to feel bad, Virgil adds, “S’okay if it’s you, though,” and the foamy, floaty feeling is back.

“Did you sleep well?”

Virgil laughs, low and rumbling, and Logan can feel it in his fingers where he touches Virgil’s skin. “I never sleep well.” He sits up, and the fabric of his pajamas shifts to let Logan see stretches of soft, supple skin that he usually doesn’t. Logan wants to touch it. He very determinedly keeps his hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “Gotta admit, though, last night was . . . better than usual.”

This appears to be the point where Virgil first notices their position - pressed together, arm slung over Logan, basically cuddling the way that Logan normally would with his pod. (No tangle with his pod has ever felt this . . . electric, this charged, this important to Logan before.) His face flares a brilliant red, and he shifts like he wants to move away but -

“I’m sorry,” Virgil says. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No!” Logan blurts out. Virgil blinks at him a little, and maybe he was a little overly enthusiastic, but - “I sleep in a tangle with Dad and Roman all the time. I have extreme difficulty sleeping without contact with someone else. It . . . helped me greatly.”

“Oh,” Virgil says, face turning redder still, smiling shyly. “That - makes me feel better. Thanks, Lo.”

Logan smiles, and Virgil smiles too, reaching up to gently move a piece of hair away from his face. Logan thinks that, as far as deaths go, his chest exploding (which seems to be getting more and more likely every fifteen seconds he spends in Virgil’s presence, only accelerated by all this skin-on-skin contact they’re having right now) seems to be the most pleasurable.

Virgil opens his mouth to say something, but whatever it was is interrupted by a Ping! noise from across the room. “What is that?” Logan asks. Virgil, sadly, untangles himself from Logan and the blankets, sliding out of bed and heading over to one of the other structures in the room (what did he call it last night? Dex?) and picking up a flat glowing rectangle.

“Is everything alright?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, I - Thomas sent me a text, it’s a little weird.”

“What is a text?”

“It’s a kind of human messaging system, it allows us to communicate when we’re far away from each other.”

“Like a pod call?” “Kind of? I’ll explain more later, I promise, I just - I gotta go down to the lab real quick.”

“I’ll come with -”

“No!” Virgil snaps. Logan flinches, and Virgil softens, crossing the room and gently touching his shoulder. “Hey, no, Logan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just - this message, there’s something off. I think something might be wrong, and I don’t want to put you in any unnecessary danger. Just - wait here, okay? Wait in my room, where it’s safe. It’s probably nothing, he’s probably fine, but on the off chance that he’s not, I want you to stay hidden safely up here.”

Logan isn’t sure why this makes his face heat up slightly, but it does. “Okay. I accept your apology, and I . . . trust you.”

Virgil smiles, soft and heartwarming, and Logan is beginning to give more credence to his “chest explosion is fine, actually” theory. “Wait for me here, okay? I’ll be right back. I promise.”

He leaves, shutting the door firmly behind him, and the foamy feeling in Logan’s chest dissipates a little. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but there’s something . . . off. If Logan didn’t know better, he’d think that he was sensing a predator approaching.

But that can’t be right, he isn’t underwater. His danger senses are likely just overreacting to his disappointment at Virgil’s absence.

. . . Right?

*~*~*~*~*

Thomas is beginning to regret letting Roman and Patton (specifically, Roman) out of the large tank before finishing his first coffee of the morning.

“I want some!” Roman complains.

“Do you even know what it is?” Thomas says. Roman pouts sulkily at him.

“. . . No,” he mutters, rolling his eyes. Thomas gives him the deadpan, no-nonsense, I-am-your-direct-superior-take-the-damn-samples-Virgil stare that he has perfected over the past few years. Roman wilts a little more, and Thomas feels slightly bad.

“It’s called coffee,” he says. “It’s a hot drink that lots of people have in the morning. Some people drink it plain, and some people add things to it to change the way it tastes. It helps me wake up more and get focused to start my day, and sometimes I drink it late at night to help keep me awake.”

Roman looks less like a kicked puppy and more like Logan, eyes wide and curious. “I want some!”

Thomas, taking a sip of his own two-seconds-of-cream-five-cubes-of-sugar coffee, nearly spits it out. He looks at Roman, eyes the very sharp, very detachable, very toxic spines covering his body, and says, “No.”

Roman’s demeanor changes entirely, switching from “curious toddler” to “toddler about to throw a temper tantrum” in a heartbeat. “Why not?!”

“Because when people drink coffee without being used to it, sometimes it makes them a little crazy.”

“I’m not crazy!”

“Do I need to recount to you how many times you’ve threatened me and my assistant since we met you?” Thomas says, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not giving you coffee until I know I can trust you not to stab me with your poisonous spines that cover your entire body and can be fired at people.”

Roman pouts more, dropping under the water and letting out a gratingly harmonious string of mer that Thomas is pretty sure translates to Roman bitching about the coffee situation to his dad. Based on the pattern of Patton’s response, he’s pretty sure Patton is laughing at Roman.

More sulky chalkboard-violin music, and then Roman resurfaces grumpily. “Dad agrees with you and says no consuming strange human foods.”

“Did he laugh at you?”

Roman squints suspiciously at him. “You can’t speak our language.”

“Yeah, but I know what it sounds like when a dad laughs at his kid.” Roman, continuing to pout, sinks back into the tank, presumably to sulk some more. Thomas takes another very long sip of coffee that is definitely too hot for his mouth and turns back to his desk.

Virgil should definitely be awake and in the lab at this point. The samples he’s supposed to be analyzing are sitting in their little tubes, each neatly labelled with locations and dates and times and what, specifically, Virgil is supposed to be looking for. Thomas considers going upstairs and waking up Virgil, who’s almost never been late for work in this way, but he decides against it. Virgil is upstairs with Logan, and Thomas knows that there’s something building between them. He’s not sure how advisable that something is, but he trusts Virgil to make his own decisions.

Besides, he could probably use some practice. His water sample analysis skills are pretty rusty, he’s had Virgil doing them for years. “Virgil, you owe me big time for what I’m doing for you.” He carefully shifts the samples over to his own desk, slides his earbuds in, picks up a pipette, and gets to work analyzing the bacterial and algal concentrations for any abnormalities.

Thomas accomplishes about forty-five minutes’ worth of work before Roman interrupts him by flicking water at him and soaking the back of his neck. “Hey!”

“I tried your name, but your little ear bug things were keeping you from hearing me,” Roman says smugly. Thomas, not for the first time, considers retreating to the closet and throwing beakers until he feels better.

“Can I help you?”

“Dad wants to go hunting and bring back breakfast, but we can’t leave without you.”

“Are you not going hunting?”

“I’m going to stay here and observe you,” Roman says.

Thomas blinks. “Do I . . . need observing?”

“How do I know you won’t sell us out to your little human friends the second you get a chance? If I’m here, I can stop you. Plus, what if you do something to Logan while we’re not here to protect him? No, no, I’m staying right where I am and you can’t make me leave.” His spines ripple; Thomas steps closer to a whiteboard in case he needs to duck.

“I’m not going to do that, and I don’t want you to stab me.”

“Still! I’m staying here! Also, Dad’s bigger than me, and he’s a better hunter cause he’s faster and he’s been hunting longer.

“Does he need something to help him carry all those fish?” Thomas asks. Roman opens his mouth like he’s going to say something snarky, pauses, and stops.

“I . . . usually we just eat what we catch when we catch it. We make a pile of prey and take turns guarding it while the other two hunt. Then we make a sacrifice to the Seven Mother Goddesses and eat what’s left.”

After some debate, Thomas is able to fashion a sling of sorts from some waterproof tarps and leftover anchor rope to tie around Patton’s body. “You can put the fish in this pouch and carry them back here. Will you be able to navigate your way back to the grotto?”

“He will,” Roman says. “Dad knows more about the ocean than any human possibly could.” Another discordant song from the tank, chastising, and Roman huffs. “Dad wants me to reassure you that he’ll be fine.”

Patton settles into the mobile tank easily, and Thomas gets him down to the grotto leading towards the sea. “When you come back, let out one of your pod calls and Virgil or I will come and collect you and your catch. Take as much time as you need, okay?”

Patton reaches up and gently pats Thomas’s arm with one large, damp hand, and Thomas takes that to mean an agreement. “Alright, off you go.” There’s a whoosh and a rush of water as it flows from the tank into the grotto in a clean arc, carrying Patton with it. Thomas waits for a moment, letting Patton disappear into the open ocean, before returning to the laboratory.

Roman, for the most part, ignores Thomas. He asks the occasional question, which Thomas tries to answer in a way that he’ll understand, and leans over the edge of his touch tank, eyes guarded. Every time Thomas sneaks a glance, when he thinks Roman isn’t looking, his expression is wide-eyed and wondrous, like Logan’s usually are, but the moment he realizes Thomas is watching him his entire face closes up like a clamshell.

Thomas wonders what it’ll take to get Roman to trust him, trust Virgil, trust any human. Granted, he doesn’t know Roman’s history with humans, but he and Patton are both fairly scarred, and Thomas might not know the whole story but he’d bet a not-insignificant amount of his monthly income that the giant starburst scar taking up the majority of Patton’s chest isn’t the result of a clash with a marine creature.

He works quietly, fielding the occasional question, keeping one ear on the grotto tunnel for Patton’s return. He’s not sure how long he expected Patton to be gone, but he hears movement in the grotto tunnel far sooner than he’d expected.

“Thomas, what’s -”

“Shhhh,” Thomas says. He stands up, pushing away from his desk, but before he can say anything else, there’s a flood of movement coming from the tunnel. Bodies pour into the lab, swift and strong and carrying weapons that they immediately train on Thomas and Roman.

“What is this?” Roman snaps, bristling. He sounds betrayed, like he thinks Thomas is behind this. Thomas picks up a heavy glass beaker, fully prepared to shatter it upside someone’s skull if necessary, but something heavy and hard strikes the back of his skull and he feels his knees crumple. Roman cries out, and Thomas struggles to push himself up. A hand fists itself in his hair and yanks him upright, sharply. Thomas exhales sharply through his teeth, but before he can start struggling, something cool and round rests against the back of his neck, shutting him up and shutting his brain down.

Roman is puffed up like a hedgehog, apparently fully prepared to defend Thomas despite his strong and inherent mistrust. Before he can begin to attack, Thomas hears the click-click-click of shoes on the hard stone floor. Whoever’s holding his head yanks him back again, and he is forced to watch as a woman walks into his laboratory.

(It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke - a sick, horrible, twisted joke.)

She has black heels, black tights, a black pencil skirt, a black blazer, and a blood-red blouse. Her hair is scraped back into a tight bun, pulled so taut it must hurt, and is held in place with a pitch black stick. She carries a - clipboard? tablet? Unclear - held against her chest, and there’s a sleek silver weapon in her right hand.

“The one from the video?” she asks.

“Affirmative, ma’am,” says the person holding Thomas’s head. The woman nods, lifting her weapon, and fires at Roman. Thomas tries to scream a warning, earning himself another painful yank from his captor, but the projectile lodges itself in Roman’s shoulder anyway.

It isn’t a bullet, but something that looks like a small syringe. Roman swats it out of his shoulder, swaying a little, but it doesn’t stop him from swiping at the - mercenary, they must be - who tries to grab him with his elbow spines. The woman frowns, lifts the weapon - some kind of tranquilizer gun? - and fires again.

Roman screams, inhuman and animal, and tears the newest dart from his arm, throwing himself out of his tank and clinging to the nearest mercenary. His teeth tear into the man’s shoulder, spines piercing through his camouflage clothing and flooding him with neurotoxin. The man collapses against the concrete, alive but unconscious, and Roman snarls at the next man as though daring him to approach. He sways, weakened but awake, and bares his teeth.

“Of course,” the woman says, tapping something on her tablet. “His naturally produced neurotoxin must be providing him with some level of natural resistance. Unexpected, but not a limitation.”

It takes three more tranquilizer darts before Roman finally slumps down into his tank, unconscious. The mercenaries look hesitant to approach him, but the woman reaches for her tablet and they scramble to action at once.

“No - no, stop, let him go, he’s not an animal for you to cart off to your lab -” Thomas starts. The man holding him knees him sharply in the back and he cries out, coughing.

They wrap Roman in thick leather bands, roughly shoving his spines flat and binding them against his skin so that he can’t attack them again. The woman nods, once, short and sharp, and they drag Roman away, letting his head bang mercilessly on the ground. Thomas catches a glimpse of a logo - emblazoned on the back of the jackets, on the back of the woman’s tablet, on the side of her tranquilizer gun - and commits it to memory. He’s going to need it, if he gets out of here alive.

“- your phone,” the woman says, and oh, when did she get in front of him.

“My what?”

His mouth runs dry as she places the tranquilizer gun under his chin, barrel pressing against his throat, and tips his chin up. “I said, give me your phone.”

Thomas blinks. “My - the desk. It’s on the desk.”

She sets her tablet down, picks up his phone, and shoves it in his face. “Open it.”

“I - wh -”

“Unlock your phone, Dr. Sanders. Must I repeat myself a third time?” She rolls her eyes. “Doctorates are wasted on people like you.”

Thomas numbly punches in his passcode, and she swipes through to his messages app, frowning before turning the screen towards his face to reveal a message thread with Virgil. “Is this your assistant?”

Thomas glares at her, he’s not going to give her what she wants, he’s not going to just give her Virgil but then the - gun, it must be a gun, what else would they be holding against his neck like this - pushes into him harder, and it’s probably bruising, and he can’t get himself killed here because then he definitely won’t be able to take care of Virgil and -

“Yes,” Thomas says, hating himself for giving in so easily. “What do you -”

She turns away from him, nails clicking against his phone screen as she sends a text message - to Virgil, presumably, and that makes his heart sink like a stone - before dropping it on the floor and stepping on it to shatter it. “I have a message for you.”

“A - what?”

“Did they really hit you that hard, or were you this stupid before we came here?” she says coldly, picking up the tablet again and tapping at the screen. Thomas groans as the man yanks him to his feet, shoving him onto his chair and pulling a roll of duct tape out of one of his multiple pants pockets. He tapes Thomas’s wrists and ankles to the chair, keeping his weapon trained on Thomas’s temple at all times, before pressing it roughly against his head and gripping his hair again.

The woman sets the tablet on his lab table, and the screen flickers to life, and then there’s a woman in front of a dark black backdrop, smiling at him like a cat who’s caught a canary. “Thomas Sanders. How long I’ve waited for this day.”

Thomas recognizes her. He knows he recognizes her. She used to be his classmate, before . . .

His head hurts, so badly that he can barely keep his eyes open, and the memory slips away. “You . . . why are you doing this?”

“Why? Because I am a real scientist, unlike you. You refuse to do what is necessary, what must be done for the progression of the species. The sacrifice of some worthless animals is necessary for humanity to reach its zenith. You would really hinder the entire human race for the preservation of lower life forms?”

“Wh - I -”

“You think that ‘preserving the ecosystem’ and ‘keeping animals alive’ makes you a good scientist, but it makes you weak. You are weak, Thomas Sanders, and if the world was left in the hands of people like you, the human race as we know it would die out in a few centuries. Fortunately, there are people like me, who understand what must be done.”

“Caring about other people and things - it doesn’t - it doesn’t make you weak,” Thomas says, chest heaving, and the woman just laughs.

“One of many logical fallacies to which you subscribe, Thomas. They really gave you a doctorate? Of course caring makes you weak. All emotions make you weak. They corrupt your data and make your experiments worthless. You must be ruthless. You must be willing to do whatever it takes to pursue your goals and achieve the height of success. But no.” She rolls her eyes, face hardening, twirling a pen in her fingers. “You insist on ethics and principles and letting emotions cloud your judgement, and that makes you a failure as a scientist. It makes you weak. Your attachments will be your downfall.”

Thomas’s eyes slide shut, head pounding, and the man behind him yanks at his hair so sharply that he knows some has been ripped out. He forces his eyes open in time to see a smile slide across the woman’s face like a knife, teeth gleaming white as sun-bleached bone.

“You won’t - get away with this,” Thomas manages. He grinds his teeth together and curls his hands into fists, digging his nails into his palms to keep himself awake. “If you leave me alive -” Thomas, stop talking, why are you reminding her that she has the option to fucking kill you “- I will not rest until I find you. I’ll - you can’t -”

“You’ll what, Thomas? If you call the police, you’ll expose those creatures you’re so intent on protecting to the world. Are you really willing to take that chance?” Before Thomas can even begin formulating a response, she steamrolls him. “It doesn’t matter. Even if you were, I’m going to take some . . . insurance, shall we say.”

“Why not just kill me?” Thomas spits. Excellent idea, Doc, poke the murderous lady with a stick like a god damn hornet’s nest, the tiny Virgil in his brain hisses. Her smile, somehow, only widens, and that’s . . . that can’t be good, can it? Smiles are supposed to be good! They’re supposed to make you happy, but all Thomas feels is creeping dread and pain, so much pain, and -

Yeah. He’s . . . pretty sure he has a concussion.

“Because if I kill you, you get to take the easy way out. Your suffering will end. But unlike you, I don’t put limits on my science. I know how to cause you the maximum amount of pain.”

Thomas eyes the toxin gun, but the on-screen woman just laughs. “Not yet, Thomas. We need something from you, first.”

“You already took Roman,” Thomas says. “What more can you possibly take from me?”

“You named it? You’re even weaker than I thought.”

“He told me his name, he’s not an it, he’s not a thing for you to play with and - and I -”

There’s a strange sinking feeling in Thomas’s chest as the woman onscreen laughs. “I knew you were emotional, Thomas, but I can’t believe this! It looks like I’ll have more hanging over your head than you thought.”

“You -”

“Say, Tommy-boy, have you heard from your precious little assistant recently?”

Thomas’s entire body flushes ice-cold and then white-hot, immediately struggling against his duct tape bindings despite the man tearing at his hair and shoving the gun into his neck and snapping at him to shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up before I do something we’re both gonna regret -

“Don’t you touch him!” Thomas snaps. “If you hurt him, I swear to God -”

“You’re not in a position to be making demands, and if you don’t calm down, I’ll paint your boring little lab bright red.” Thomas freezes, holding his entire body tensed like electricity is running through his blood.

There are footsteps on the stairs. “Doc? I got your text, what’s -”

“Virgil, run!” Thomas chokes. Virgil comes around the corner, holding his phone, staring at the screen in confusion. He looks up, eyes widening in horror as he takes in the scene.

“You know what to do,” the woman onscreen says. The other woman lifts her tranquilizer gun, and Thomas is sure that he’s screaming, his mouth is open and sound is coming out but his blood is rushing through his ears and his heart is pounding like waves against a boat in rough sea and he can’t - he can’t -

Virgil turns to run, but the tranquilizer dart hits in him the back of the neck and he collapses like a sack of bricks. The woman lowers her gun and jerks her head at the two remaining conscious, unoccupied mercenaries, who step forward and grab Virgil.

“Let him go!” Thomas screams, and his throat feels raw and his chest feels raw and his wrists are rubbed raw and his soul feels hollow and raw, like he’s been scraped out with a jagged piece of metal and only an empty shell remains. Virgil’s head lolls against his chest as they drag him down the grotto tunnel, and Thomas struggles and screams and stares after them until Virgil is out of sight.

His face is damp, and his eyes are burning, and he isn’t sure if it’s blood from his head wound or tears or some strange, morbid mixture of both.

“The greatest torture of which I can conceive,” the woman onscreen says, and it takes him a moment to realize that oh, she’s talking to me, “is to leave you alive, knowing that your precious little protégé is with me, and that there is nothing you can do about it.” She leans forward, and any trace of a smile is gone. “If you try to come after me, I will kill him. If you call the authorities, I will kill him. I already found you, Thomas. Don’t think I’m not watching. If I catch so much as a whiff of you planning something, his blood will be on your hands. Do you understand me?”

Thomas, numb and shocked, can’t even respond. “Knock him out and bring the specimens back to me,” the woman onscreen says.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He doesn’t even feel the tranquilizer dart hit his neck, but he welcomes the sweeping darkness.

(Summary: Evil Scientist Lady has been spying on Thomas and she finds the entrance to the grotto where our mer friends have been hiding. She sends her assistant and several armed thugs to invade the lab, they drug Roman with tranquilizers and kidnap him. Thomas gets knocked around a lot and is mocked for being an ethical scientist and caring about people by Evil Scientist Lady and she gloats at him through Evil Facetime before kidnapping Virgil in the same way they did Roman, knocking Thomas unconscious, and leaving him tied to his lab chair. During this whole scene, Patton is out in the open ocean hunting and Logan is safely hidden in Virgil's room.)

#starshinewrites #lovely dark and deep #romantic analogical #sanders sides #platonic TLAMP

169 notes · View notes

whitewolfofwinterfell · 3 years

Text

Harry Potter re-read: thoughts and ranking my favourite books

In 2020 I completed a full re-read of Harry Potter for the first time since I was a child. It was a rollercoaster experience of highs and lows; excitement, nostalgia, frustration, joy, boredom and everything in between. It took the whole year (in between reading other books) and I hit a wall in the sumer, but I’m glad I persevered and made it to the end. This series will always hold a special place in my heart and as much as I love the movies, there’s so much detail that is missed from them. I didn’t realise just how much my memories of the HP universe had been shaped by the movies until I read the books. I feel like I’ve reconnected with the universe and characters in an authentic way and lots of my opinions have changed as a result.

Before we get to the ranking, some disclaimers:

If it wasn’t already obvious SPOILERS BELOW FOR THE HARRY POTTER SERIES (at this point I’d be surprised if there’s anybody that needs this warning, but better safe than sorry!).

This ranking is completely subjective and very changable. I love all of the books and I’ve based the ranking solely on my enjoyment of reading them.

In writing this post I am in no way supporting or endorsing J.K. Rowling’s works. Her ignorance and hatred is intolerable and abhorrent. I discuss this more in the conclusion of this post.

None of the images or gifs featured were made by me, all credit goes to the creators.

7. The Goblet of Fire

One of my favourite movies, but my least favourite book. This one hasn’t aged well for me. It’s too long, there’s much too filler and it has the disadvantage of coming after The Prisoner of Azkaban. I like the idea of the Triwizard Tournament in theory, but the execution is dull. We spend chapters upon chapters upon chapters with Harry and Hermione researching and preparing for the tasks and the tasks themselves are very anti-climatic. It’s also difficult to ignore the fact that the second and third tasks take part underwater and in a maze, and the audience can’t even see what’s going on. Apparently there’s no spell that can allow the audience to see underwater or inside a maze, not even those Muggle inventions called cameras *face palm*

The sub-plot with S.P.E.W was equally dull and didn’t add much to the story. I also found it deeply uncomfortable and upsetting to read about the enslavement of elves and the way that slavery was portrayed in general. The one positive I took from it was seeing Dobby with his crazy jumpers and socks. Dobby is The Best.

(credit to xbirdyblue on DeviantArt for this wonderful fanart image of Dobby)

The reactions to Harry’s name coming out of the Goblet of Fire is what infuriated me most in this book because it doesn’t even make sense. Firstly, does anybody really believe Harry’s capable of overcoming such powerful magic to put his name in? Secondly, why the fudging hell would Harry want to put his name in the Goblet? He’s a 14 year old child who has endured endless trauma; he’s spent most of his life living in an abusive household and the 3 years he’d been at Hogwarts fighting against Voldemort. He doesn’t want fame or glory, he just wants to live a normal, peaceful life and hang out with his best friends. Ron’s reaction is particularly annoying because he of all people should know Harry wouldn’t put his name in the Goblet. I understand why Ron felt that way and I love him but...

The one thing I did enjoy about this book is the evolution of Harry’s friendships with Ron and Hermione. Hermione is fiercely loyal to Harry and devoted every waking second to helping him succeed in the tasks. Despite Ron’s silly tantrum and their divide through most of the book, their falling out really does cement Harry’s love for Ron.

"He thought he could have coped with the rest of the school's behaviour if he could just have Ron back as his friend."

Harry liked Hermione very much, but she just wasn't the same as Ron. There was much less laughter and a lot more hanging round in the library."

"The thing Harry Potter will miss the most, sir!"

"Harry didn't care, he wouldn't have cared if Karkaroff had given him zero; Ron's indignation on his behalf was worth a hundred points to him."

What can I say? Ron is Harry’s platonic soul mate. That is all.

Barty Crouch’s escape from Azkaban and transformation into Moody is more cunning and intelligent than it was in the movies - this dude switched places with his mother and left her in Azkaban in his place!!

Fred and George were by far the highlight of this book for me. Their characters are great in the movies, but in the books they’re just--

Their antics, wit and banter are top notch. I’d actually forgotten that Harry gave his prize winnings from the Tournament to Fred and George, and it seems like such a huge injustice!! This act of kindness and selflessness on Harry’s part is largely why Fred and George are able to set up Wizard Wheezes. It’s a testament to Harry’s love for Fred and George that he gave them his winnings. Harry may not have needed the money but he could’ve done literally anything with it, and chose to give it to the twins because he believed in their ideas and wanted to give them the opportunity they needed.

GOF was always one of my favourite movies because of this moment:

Voldemort’s return was one of the most chilling, terrifying and shocking moments for me as a kid. The scene in the graveyard still stands out as being one of my favourite scenes from the movies. In the books, it didn’t have the same impact, unfortunately. In fact, this is what was noticeable to me all the way through reading this book - I like the movie more. The movie cuts out the filler, takes the interesting aspects of the book and does them better.

Overall, despite being at the bottom of my list, I still like GOF. It’s a huge step up in world-building and is an entertaining book with a great premise; I loved the Golden Trio’s friendship, the appearances from Dobby and Fred and George’s antics. Unfortunately, this book is let down by the sheer amount of filler, the underwhelming execution of the main plot and too much focus on sub-plots like S.P.E.W.

6. The Sorcerer’s Philosopher’s Stone

It was really difficult to rank Phliosopher’s Stone, because it holds a special place in my heart because it’s where the series began. This book does a great job at introducing Hogwarts and it captures those nostalgic, magical Hogwarts vibes unlike any of the other books. This book is all about the wonder and the joy of Hogwarts, and Hogwarts lives in my heart, so stepping into this magical world with Harry for the first time again was a joy to read.

I love the time spent in this book on experiencing the smaller wonders of the magical world with Harry - Platform 9 3/4, Hogwarts Express, Diagon Alley, Ollivanders, the Sorting Hat, Great Hall feasts, ghosts etc. It’s exciting and fun to read about, and truly a gem of a book for children.

Seeing Harry go from living in a cupboard and suffering abuse and neglect to an incredible world full of wonder and people who want to get to know him and show him kindness was a joy to read. I love the development of Harry, Ron and Hermione’s friendship and how, despite how short the book is, it’s developed properly. Their friendship with Hermione doesn’t happen overnight, but by the end there’s a genuine bond and trust between them.

But of course, as the first book in the series, the plot is lacking and the writing isn’t at its strongest. Also, despite how short it is I did feel a little bored reading the second half. It’s a great entry to the series and does a wonderful job at establishing the world, main trio and other characters, but in the grander scheme of the series it’s quite bland a forgettable.

5. The Deathly Hallows

Now this one came as a big surprise to me, because before my re-read I considered The Deathly Hallows to be my favourite book, but I just didn’t enjoy it this time around. The first 50-60% of this book got me like:

I was bored as hell. The travelling, the hunting for Horcruxes, Dumbledore’s backstory, the bickering between Harry, Ron and Hermione...it was tiresome. Fortunately, amongst that there were a lot of isolated things that I enjoyed.

Firstly, I adore the Tale of the Three Brothers, it’s interesting and I love the depiction of it in the movies - it’s just so cool!

Secondly, Ron and Hermione are very cute in this book, and for the first time I appreciated them as a romantic ship.

Thirdly, Harry looking through Sirius’ room and finding a letter from Lily broke my heart. This moment is so touching and completely unexpected, since I’d forgotten about it over the years.

(credit to alessiatrunifo for this stunning fanart)

Fourthly, LUNA LOVEGOOD. You know what? I have no qualms in saying Luna is one of my new favourite characters since my re-read. I always liked her, but she never stood out to me, and that’s changed. It’s not just that she’s unique and wacky, but that she’s fiercely independent, moral, kind and loyal. Luna has such a strong sense of who she is and she doesn’t let anyone or anything contradict that.

Can I also admit that I might slightly ship Harry and Luna now? 🙊 Luna seeing through Harry’s disguise as “Barney Weasley” based on his facial expressions alone and their reactions to the possibility of the other being in danger touched my heart.

"'She will [survive],' said Harry. He could not bear to contemplate the alternative. 'She's tough Luna, much tougher than you'd think. She's probably teaching all the inmates about Wrackspurts and Nargles.'"

"Oh, no, I didn't want you to be caught!"

They’re cute, okay?

Finally, Kreacher! This was perhaps one of the biggest surprises from reading this book, because I’d completely forgotten about Kreacher’s story. And boy, oh, boy did this pull on my heartstrings. Kreacher has one of the most tragic backstories in the HP universe and he absolutely deserves the redemption he got in this book. I loved seeing him develop a genine relationship with Harry, Ron and Hermione, and the fact that they never went back for him made me so sad. Poor Kreacher!

I enjoyed all of these elements of the first half of the book, and then I got to The Sacking of Severus Snape and it was like:

This is where the book finally took off for me (unfortunately, it took 30 chapters to get there) and as soon as Harry, Ron and Hermione are back in Hogwarts I couldn’t put it down. There are so many brilliant moments and things I loved that all I can really do is bullet point them:

The character reunions.

Percy finally redeeming himself!!!!

McGonnagal being the most badass to ever badass.

Neville Longbottom owns my heart ❤❤❤

Neville's grandmother's response to finding out Neville was fighting in the battle - "Naturally [he is]. Excuse me, I must go and assist him."

Ron and Hermione's first kiss!! and Harry’s reaction to it - "Is this the moment? OI! There's a war going on here!"

Percy handing in his resignation whilst Stupefy-ing his boss - "Hello, Minister! Did I mention I'm resigning?"

The Forest Again was such an emotional chapter. It got me good.

"You'll stay with me?" "Until the very end." 😭

"Harry, you wonderful boy. You brave, brave man."

"Perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those, who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well."

Did I mention that Neville is bloomin' amazing?

Kreacher!!!!!! "Fight! Fight! Fight for my master, defender of the house-elves! Fight the Dark Lord in the name of brave Regalus! Fight!"

Reading The Flaw in the Plan was soooo much more satisfying than watching it play out on-screen in the movie.

In many ways DH has some of the best, most satisfying moments of any of the books. It’s a strong conclusion to the series and there’s so much that I loved about it; so many memorable and emotional moments (Dobby and Fred’s deaths still hit hard 20 years later). Unfortunately, it was dragged down by the first half of the book and the epilogue. I tried so hard to keep an open mind about the epilogue, but the truth is it still BLOWS. And the more time that passes the more I resent the decisions that were made about character deaths. I understand that the stakes were high and we needed to lose characters close to our hearts but Fred?? Dobby??? Remus??? NO! Just no, okay? I don’t accept that.

4. The Order of the Phoenix

Now, The Order of the Phoenix had similar issues as DH for me - it had a very slow start but a great ending. I did take a couple of months break in the middle of reading this one and distinctly remember slogging my way through the first half and devouring the second half.

I’ve made no secret over the years that Sirius and Remus are two of favourite HP characters, so I expected to enjoy OOTP a lot for that reason. I did really enjoy all the smatterings of Sirius and Remus we go throughout this book. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough for me. This book really highlighted for me how limited Harry’s POV was, because I wanted more of an insight into the Order but Harry was kept in the dark the entire time which was frustrating.

One of the main character highlights of this book is the legend Minverva McGonnagal. Her sass, strength and determination to defend Hogwarts and its students against Dolores is astounding. Here are some of my favourite McGonnagal moments:

"Well, usually when a person shakes their head they mean 'no.'"

"Can I offer you a cough drop, Dolores?"

"I should have made my meaning plainer. [Harry] has achieved high marks in all Defence Against the Dark Arts tests set by a compotent teacher."

Defending Hagrid against Umbridge.

And of course:

(Still can’t believe the movie robbed us of this!)

Time for a less popular opinion - I loved Harry in this book. In general, this book made me feel very protective of Harry, because Harry is bloomin’ incredible and deserves so much better than what he gets in this book. He’s always had a bad rep in OOTP for being an annoying, angsty teenager, but in my opinion, this is Harry at his most relatable and lovable. After everything Harry went through, he’s entitled to be angry with the world. He endured everything that he did and took the responsibility of the world onto his shoulders with little complaint, and in OOTP he reaches breaking point. Honestly, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. The adults in Harry’s life are glaringly irresponsible in this book. Not only do they force him back to the Dursley’s after the hugely traumatic events of GOF based on some bull about “blood magic”, but they purposefully hide the truth from him even though that puts him at greater risk and adds to his emotional distress. Everyone around Harry expects him to be mature and act like an adult when he’s fighting against the darkest wizard of all time, yet don’t give him the courtesy or respect of telling him the truth about significant things that impact him and the people he loves. Sirius os the only person that refuses to belittle Harry, but in some ways, his behaviour is just as damaging as those that tried to shelter Harry from the truth, because he expects too much of Harry and projects James’ personality onto him. The adults around Harry fail him to such an extent in this book that he establishes the DA because he can’t even rely on the adults around him to keep him and his friends safe. Harry’s emotions in this book aren’t only understandable, but justified and I felt an even deeper connection to him as a result. His vulnerability shows his strength and courage more than ever before. This is the point where he goes from the Chosen One to a true champion, because even when he reaches rock bottom and wants to give up, he doesn’t walk away. I love Harry so much.

The Department of Mysteries is by far one of my favourite sections from any of the books. I love the friendship dynamics, Luna, Neville and Ginny are given the chance to really shine, the stakes are high, the action is great and despite the trauma of Sirius’ death, that moment is so hard-hitting and memorable. This section of the book just took it to a new level for me. It was really great.

The emotion of Sirius’ death was captured so perfectly, and is such a huge turning point for Harry. Like I said above, choosing to go on even after losing Sirius proves that Harry is a true hero; that he isn’t just doing what he was doing out of obligation or has been told to but because he believes in doing the right thing. I best move on before I continue to speak about how amazing Harry James Potter is.

Now we come to Neville. Can you believe that I’d actually forgot the details of Neville being the Chosen One? It was a blast learning about that again and how he’s connected to the prophecy. I also loved that we got to see his family and not just be told about it via dialogue. Neville is by far one of the most loveable and interesting minor characters in the series. He has so many great moments in books 1-4, but he really shines in OOTP.

The more I write about this book, the more I find things to love. It’s just a shame that the first half lets it down, because overall, I think there’s a lot of great material here in terms of plot and character development.

3. The Chamber of Secrets

I know that The Chamber of Secrets is generally ranked low amongst most fans, but I love it. At this point, the books were more simplistic and just fun, and I like that. I also have to acknowledge that I have a deep affinity for the COS movie - I grew up watching it over and over, and of all the movies it’s still the one I know best and always come back to (still can’t believe the “Why couldn’t it be follow the butterflies line?” wasn’t even in the books!)

I love all of the different elements in this book:

Dobby

The Burrow

The flying car

Whomping Willow

Moaning Myrtle

This idiot

Gilderoy Lockhart is one of my favourite antagonists in the entire series, because he isn’t intentionally bad, he’s just an arrogant fool. His primary concern is his image and reputation and he was willing to go to any lengths to maintain it. He’s a bad person in a subtle and hilarious way.

Generally speaking, there are too many fun and entertaining moments to count in this book. I love the childish-ness of this book in comparison to the darker tone the series adopts from POA onwards. For me, COS still has the silliness and merriment that I really associate HP with. Entertainment value aside, the plot in COS is actually well executed.

As a short, concise and effective plot, Tom Riddle’s diary and the Chamber of Secrets works incredibly well. I liked the mystery and suspense of the culprit of the Muggle born attacks, and the big moments connected to it - finding out that Hagrid might be the perpetrator, Ginny being possessed by Voldemort, Hermione being petrified, Harry speaking Parceltongue. The stakes are high and this plot is strong enough to keep momentum going between the more light hearted moments.

Overall, COS is a quick, easy and fun read. It may not be the best written or complex book in the series, but I’m a huge advocate for it. Not only is it highly entertaining, but it also introduced a lot of great and important aspects to the series (Horcruxes, Tom Riddle being the heir of Slytherin, Harry being connected to Voldemort, polyjuice potion and Dobby), and built very well on what was established in PS.

2. The Half Blood Prince

The biggest surprise of this re-read was how much I bloomin’ loved Half Blood Prince. It has the perfect balance of plot, character development, mystery, humour and emotion. Out of the bigger books in the series, this was the one I finished the fastest (2 days), because it was quite literally un-put-downable (yes, that’s a word).

First, let’s talk about the plot, because wow, it’s a good ‘un. In my opinion, it’s the strongest and best written plot from any of the books. There’s Voldemort’s backstory, the development of Harry and Dumbledore’s relationship, Snape’s backstory, the mystery of the Half Blood Prince, Harry’s rivalry/suspicion of Malfoy, hunting Horcruxes and Dumbledore’s death. This book feels like an incredible pay-off for things that have been built up in the previous 5 books. We learn so much about certain characters - Dumbledore, Snape, Malfoy, Voldemort, Ginny - and regardless of whether I liked those characters or not, I was invested. The clues that Snape is the Half Blood Prince are cleverly interwoven within the narrative and the mystery keeps you guessing, even when you know who it is.

The last part of this book from Chapter 26 onwards was just explosive. Although I knew what was coming, I was surprised at the level of emotion I felt when Dumbledore and Harry were in the cave and when Dumbledore died. My heart was racing and I had tears in my eyes.

This book just doesn’t let up for a second. If we aren’t learning more about Voldemort, we’re following Draco to see what he’s up to or unravelling mysteries around the Half Blood Prince or trying to get information from Slughorn about horcruxes. Even the down time is enjoyable to read in this book (Chapter 9 was one of my favourite chapters to read) and the friendships and banter are stellar.

In terms of character development, this is also one of the strongest books. Dumbledore is finally developed beyond the omnipotent Gandalf-esque archetype and we learn bout his past and his flaws.

"I have already proven to you, I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being - forgive me - rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger."

The focus on Dumbledore also sets it up for his death, and you know what? It works. If we’d lost Dumbledore prior to HBP, I would’ve been shocked and upset, but losing him at this point hurts that much more because we learn so much more about him, see how important he is to Harry and how vital his guidance is in defeating Voldemort. Dumbledore’s death feels like all hope is lost, and so soon after losing Sirius it feels even harsher.

Insight into Snape’s back-story finally explains some of his motivations and actions (though it does not condone them).

Although Voldemort’s backstory doesn’t necessarily add to our understanding of him, it’s interesting to see how he came into the world, and learn about his family background. What this demonstrated most to me is that a lot of the time there is no reason for evil. Voldemort didn’t really have any motivations for what he did. Sure, he didn’t have the perfect, happy childhood but there isn’t really enough substance there to try to explain how or why he became the monster that he did.

More could’ve been done with Malfoy, but I enjoyed him having a bigger presence in this book and how the idea that family shapes who we are isn’t always true. Draco does what is expected of him from his family, but ultimately, he has his own conscience and inner turmoil that forces him to question things.

As for Harry...he goes to a dark place in this book. OOTP has always been cpnsidered as the “angsty Harry”, but HBP takes Harry to new places. Harry feels more ruthless, reckless and determined in this book than any other. There’s an underlying sense of apathy that lingers from Sirius’ death. He obsesses about his mission to extract the memory from Slughorn and his lessons with Dumbledore, and fixates on his hatred for Draco and Snape. The fact that Harry uses Sectumsempra on Draco is honestly the most alarming thing that Harry does because it shows how dark a place Harry has gone to. He knows the spell is going to inflict serious harm and yet he uses it anyway.

Generally, Harry abuses the potions book and manipulates, lies and takes advantage of almost everyone around him. I really see his dependency on that book and his choice to exploit it for his own benefit as adverse effects of the grief and trauma he endured. For once, he has the upper hand and I’d even argue that despite the Half Blood Prince being anonymous stranger to him, he relies on him as a mentor or parental figure. Yet despite it being a dark book for Harry, he also seems to get some genuine peace with Ginny. Although I’m not a Hinny shipper, it was so nice to see Harry experience some normality and contentment. No matter what he goes through, he remains kind hearted. I actually feel like this book more than any other emphasises that point - Harry could just as easily have gone down the same path as Vodlemort, but he made a choice not to.

“In spite of all the temptation you have endured, all the suffering, you remain pure of heart, just as pure as you were at the age of eleven, when you stared into a mirror that reflected your hears desire and it showed you the only way to thwart Lord Voldement, and not immortality or riches. Harry, have you any idea how few wizards could have seen what you saw in the mirror?"

Plot and character development aside, the comedy in this book is gold and I appreciate the movie (and Daniel Radcliffe) for maximising on that to create some of the best and funniest scenes in the movie franchise. Chapter 18 in particular was hilarious.

Now I have to speak about one of my favourite moments from this book:

Since GoF, Fleur was grossly mistreated and discriminated against by the Weasley’s (Molly and Ginny in particular). The way they treated her was sexist and xenophobic pure and simple. They had no reason to dislike her and all of their reasons seemed to be built on some flimsy notion that she was full of herself (why, just because she was beautiful? and even if she was, what’s wrong with confidence?!) and that she was annoying and loud because she was French. Seeing Fleur finally stand up to their bigotry was fantastic. It’s a moment I’d been waiting for for so long and I’m so glad we got it, because frankly, Molly and Ginny’s beahviour towards Fleur needed to be addressed because it was disgusting.

Overall, HBP demonstrates the strengths of HP as a series. In comparison to the other books, I don’t really have anything to crituqe I enjoyed all of it from beginning to end, which is why it almost took the top spot in this ranking.

1. The Prisoner of Azkaban

It was really close between first and second place, but Prisoner of Azkaban just managed it. This is where the HP series truly takes off and starts to shine. In comparison to what we got in PS and COS it’s richer - the plot is complex, the world building is more developed, the characters are great and it’s generally an entertaining read but with added complexity in comparison to its predecessors.

I like that POA allows us to spend so much time in Hogwarts hanging out, but that the plot comes to the forefront more. We’re all so familiar with HP at this point that it’s easy to forget the impact the plot-twists must’ve punched the first time we read them. But for me, it’d been so long since I’d read the series, that it really was like reading them for the first time and POA was one of the ones that surprised me at various points.

I’d forgot details like:

The Shrieking Shack got its name and reputation because Lupin locked himself up there during transformations; The Whomping Willow was planted to hide the secret passage to the Shrieking Shack and prevent Lupin from escaping and hurting people in his werewolf form

Crookshanks was Sirius’ ally

Sirius escaped Azkaban in his dog form

Unsurprisingly, Remus and Sirius were the highlight of this book for me. I know it’s basic but I really love them and the two of them having such a focus in this book really makes it.

Remus truly shines in this book. He’s a lovable character – a great teacher, a supportive mentor and a loyal friend. His tragic backstory only adds to his character. Snape tries to villainise Remus for being a werewolf, but the reality is that he’s a victim. He was an innocent child that was bitten by a vicious, cruel monster and has to live with the consequences of that for the rest of his life. He carries so much self-loathing, fear and insecurity because of what he is and he doesn’t deserve it. Dumbledore is the only one that separates the man from the wolf and takes Remus on his merits. He knows that Remus is a genuinely good person and a talented teacher, and he’s willing to make the necessary adjustments to enable Remus equal opportunity. Not only does it benefit Remus for Dumbledore to do this, but the students too, because let’s face it, Remus is a bloody damn good teacher.

Remus is arguably the most decent and responsible adult character in the entire HP universe. He respects Harry’s agency but also acknowledges that he’s still a child that needs protection and guidance. Instead of lying to Harry or throwing him into dangerous situations, he does perhaps the most helpful thing any adult ever does for Harry – he teaches him how to defend himself. I love that Lupin and Harry’s relationship in this book foreshadows the formation of the DA in OOTP; Lupin is the only one that teaches Harry practical DATDA skills and in the absence of Lupin as a teacher, Harry then takes on that role as a mentor and provides his friends with the skills to defend themselves.

Now we come to Sirius. Introducing Sirius as the enemy – a dangerously, mad criminal who is conspiring with Voldemort and wants Harry dead – and then revealing him to be the complete opposite was genius. Part of me wished I could completely forget so that I could experience the utter shock of finding that out for the first time. The fact that Harry saw his parents in the Mirror of Erised in PS and then finds Sirius and Lupin in this book touches my heart. Sirius is a direct link to Harry’s parents unlike anything he’s ever had. Although on the surface, their bond develops too quickly, considering that Harry is 13 years old and all he wants more than anything is to have parents and/or a connection to his parents, his quick attachment to Sirius makes sense. The thought of living with Sirius makes Harry so happy that he used it to power his patronus!!! Likewise, Sirius clings to Harry knowing that he’s the son of his best friends. He spent the entirety of his time in Azkaban knowing Harry was still out there somewhere without James and Lily and in danger from Voldemort. Immediately, Sirius provides Harry with the type of comfort about his parents that he’s never received before.

“You think the dead we have loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don't recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself most plainly when you have need of him. How else could you produce that particular Patronus? Prongs rode again last night.”

One of the highlights of this book is the scene where Snape catches Harry with the Marauders Map. That quote is just legendary.

"Mr Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business. Mr Prongs agrees with Mr Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git. Mr Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a Professor. Mr Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball."

Admittedly, the time travel in this book is problematic as hell. I’m grateful that Harry and Hermione were able to save Buckbeak and Sirius due to time travel, but if it was up to me, I’d remove time travel from the universe completely. It doesn’t fit, it’s too complicated and creates too many issues. McGonnagal condones the use of time travel for Hermione to attend extra lessons and yet won’t use it to tackle real, important problems, like I don’t know, war, death, disease, disasters etc. Not to mention the entire Voldemort problem and Harry becoming the Chosen One could’ve been resolved by going back to the night of James and Lily’s deaths.

One of my favourite elements of this book was seeing Ron and Hermione’s friendship with Hagrid. A lot of emphasis is placed on Harry’s friendship with Hagrid. but this book shows how devoted Ron and Hermione are to Hagrid. They both spend a lot of their time comforting him and helping him to prepare for Buckbeak’s trial.

This book has a great balance – it’s still on the shorter side but it doesn’t suffer for it. and here’s plenty of plot and character development. Ironically, whilst HBP is my favourite because of the emphasis on the main plot, POA is my favourite because it takes a break from Voldemort. It’s refreshing to take a step away from Voldemort and put the focus onto a new villain in Sirius, and then for the twist to be revealed that he’s not actually a villain but Harry’s godfather. The time-turner is the biggest draw-back in this book, but I can overlook that because there’s so much more to love in this book. It’s definitely the most re-readable book in terms of the length and plot. This book is a happy medium which incorporates the strengths from all of the other books in a smaller package than HBP - it’s fun but expands on the universe, introduces brilliant new characters and has a depth and complexity that the first two lack whilst not having the filler that books 4-7 have.

Conclusion

It’s hard to read these books without it being mingled with childhood nostalgia, so that undoubtedly informed my ranking. Despite being a children's series, the books still hold up reading them as an adult. I enjoyed rediscovering the smaller details I’d forgotten over the years and feel much closer to the universe as a result. The characters and their dynamics are by far my favourite thing about HP. I also enjoy the whimsical magic and how this is offset against the darker tone later in the series. However, in light of JKR’s hateful rhetoric, my attention was drawn to the problematic elements of the books such as the portrayal of slavery in addition to:

Lack of major/well-written characters of color

Anti-semitic caricature of goblin bankers

Cho Chang’s name (which many consider offensive), stereotypical placement in Ravenclaw (the smart house) while being the only East-Asian character in the books, and she functions almost exclusively as a love interest

Ableism all-around

Nagini, an evil snake who gets chopped in half, is actually an Asian woman according to Fantastic Beasts, making her the second of two named East Asian characters in the franchise

“Magic in North America,” a history of magic in North America published on Pottermore that grossly misappropriates and misconstrues Native American cultures

Anthony Goldstein, retconned token Jewish character, also stereotypically named

General stereotypical naming of non-Anglo-Saxon characters

Remus Lupin’s werewolf status as an AIDS metaphor while depicting his condition as making him monstrous, and the man who bit him goes around biting people for kicks

Declaring that Dumbledore is gay with exactly 0 in-canon references, and no other LGBTQ+ representation (article credit: Separating Art from Artist - Thoughts on J.K. Rowling written by Melina List on Medium)

This is the last time I will read these books, partly because I’ve outgrown them, but mostly because I can’t, without a heavy conscience ignore the relationship between JKR’s hateful views and her works. If you want to learn more about this, I’d recommend checking out a post from my_weird_bookish_heart on Instagram which explains why we couldn’t and shouldn’t ignore the problems in these books by adopting a “art is separate from the artist” mentality (if you would like the link to this please message me and I’l be happy to share it. We can all still love and enjoy HP, but we all have a moral duty to acknowledge and take responsibility for this and not feign ignorance. Views like JKR’s directly harm individuals and groups, not just in the trans community but also the Jewish and LGBTQIA+ communities and people of colour. I can’t and won’t accept that in silence. No matter how special HP was to me as a child, the lives of real humans are unquestionably more important.

Thank you for reading.

#hp #harry potter #hp books #harry potter books #hp review #hp book review #hp meta #mine #my meta #reposting from my sideblog cos i spent legit HOURS writing this and adding gifs and don't wanna lose it when i delete the blog

13 notes · View notes

thewalkingfanfictions · 4 years

Text

Softly, Barely a Whisper -- Daryl Dixon x fem!reader (part one)

Softly, Barely a Whisper — Daryl Dixon x fem!reader (pre apocalypse) (part one)

Part One/ Part Two/ Part Three

Description: (Name) moved in with her uncle, the Sheriff of a little town in Northern Georgia, to escape an abusive household. While living with her uncle, she meets Daryl, a redneck with a heart of gold and a life very similar hers. Fluff and angst and awkward shy Daryl Dixon ensue.

⚠Warning⚠: great amounts of bad language, past mentions of abuse, past mentions of rape, there's probably more, this'n's kinda a mess. Don't read if you get triggered easily.

Genre: angsty fluff?? Hurt/comfort?? I've no idea. Is awkward Daryl a genre?

Pairing: teen!Daryl Dixon x teen!fem!abused!reader

A/N: hey, sorry I've been gone for forever, I suck at commitment. I also suck at naming things, hence the title. I wrote another long motherfucker of a "oneshot" and therefore am breaking it into chapters like I did with Impromptu Cuddles, so look out for the other chapters soon enough. Enjoy.

Words without A/N: 3242

<—————————————>

"Sure thing, Daryl. You can use whatever ya'd like, just make sure you put it back afterwards. The doors unlocked and yer more than welcome to go in for a drink or anythin' if ya need it." Bill Coleman, or Sheriff Coleman, as most knew him by, called out as he moved to open the door to his cruiser.

The Sheriff was an interesting character to the youngest Dixon. He had hardened features and a voice like a gravel truck that immediately implied a harsh disposition, his eyes were constantly squinted into a look that resembled judgment, and the vibe he gave off was just generally unpleasant; but, in all reality, Bill Coleman was probably the gentlest man Daryl had ever met. He understood the workings of the Dixon household without ever having to be told, and did what he could to make life any bit easier for the teenager. Whether that be arresting the senior Dixon whenever he found possible, or offering Daryl a place to stay in his home over the weekend. Bill was, all in all, a genuinely kind human being. Something, Daryl found, was rather rare in his life.

But, even though the Sheriff had his trust, and he knew the Sheriff trusted him the same, it still came as a bit of a shock to him to see the officer willingly let him, a Dixon, have open access to his house while no one else was home.

Everyone knew not to trust a Dixon. Nobody in the town was willing to make eye contact with him, let alone trust him to their house and belongings while they were away. Will, his father, had done a fine job of destroying the family name in his drunken escapades, and his brothers addictions did nothing to help. This, combined with the confusion and disbelief that coursed through his system, explained the gawk the boy's eyes held as he stared in awe at Mr. Coleman's retreating figure.

This had to be some kind of trick, right?

"Oh," the Sheriff called. There it was, the part where he'd laugh it off and say "just kidding. Like I'd let a freak like you into my home without supervision."

Once again surprising the young man, his expectation was the farthest thing from what the greying man actually said.

"I fergot ta mention my niece, my sisters kid. She'll be here soon enough, gets off work in a half hour or so. She's been stayin' with me since, ah–" he trailed off a bit, one leg up in the cruiser, the other still planted firmly on the ground as he looked at Daryl over the door's window, looking mildly uncomfortable "–well, she's jus' stayin' with me. She's real sweet, you'll prolly get along with 'er. Jus', eh, just be soft, ya hear? She's a bit skittish, and real shy, too, so don't be too offended if she avoids ya, she don't mean it rude like."

And what on earth could he mean by that? The avoiding that he'd done when describing why she was here, what had happened that he didn't want to talk about? Daryl had a few theories already.

"'Till later, Daryl. Take care, and remember what I told ya, boy." With a wave and a caring (or warning, he could never quite tell with the old man) smile, the grizzled man pulled out of the small driveway and onto the road leading out of the trailer park to go do his civic duty, leaving a still heavily confused, and now slightly concerned, Daryl Dixon standing outside of his garage.

This man, knowing his family's history with bad habits, was not only willing to let the teenager into his home without a watchful eye, but was also perfectly okay knowing he'd be there, alone, with his (skittish and shy) niece?

Maybe the old man is finally losing it, he thought.

Still in shock, the young man turned on his heel, and began the short trek back to the shedd to continue working on the pickup that he had been working on fixing up. Though it was really nothing but a shell sitting on bricks right now, he knew that someday it'd be his pride and joy.

Some uncounted amount of time later, Daryl was finally pulling himself out from under the hood. His throat itched with dryness, and he was covered in sweat from the never-ending harshness of the Georgian sun, but, nonetheless, he couldn't help the little spike of pride that ran through him as he looked down at the beginnings of the new-made guts of his pickup. Allowing himself the luxury of a small smile, he decided he'd finally take the old Sheriff up on his offer, and moved to head into the house to grab something to wet his throat, and maybe even a rag to wipe off his face, if he was feeling risky.

He found, upon entry, that the house was relatively clean. Cleaner than it had been the last time he'd been in there, at least, and only as clean as an old trailer house could really get.

Still, where before there had been newspapers scattered, now there were none, and in place of the cluttered kitchen was a clean countertop and a basket of fresh apples. He didn't dwell on it a whole lot as he moved to the sink to fill up a plastic solo cup, though he did wonder if Bill would mind if he stole an apple. The young Dixon couldn't really remember the last time he'd eaten.

Filling his cup, he was quick to chug it down, the cold a dramatic (but welcome) shock against the harsh dryness of his throat. He let the water run into the sinks basin as he filled the cup up again, again, and then one more time, and only on his fifth return to the water did he realize the difference in sound. A few inches of water was backed up in the bottom of the sink, refusing to go down the drain like it should, and completely changing the sound the water pouring from the faucet made as it headed downwards.

Quickly setting the cup aside and turning off the faucet, he watched the water make its incredibly slow decent into the drain, and decided he needed to pay back Sheriff Coleman's hospitality. It was the least he could do, after all.

Opening the doors that lead to the plumbing beneath the sink, Daryl set himself to work.

~~~~~~~~~~×~~~~~~~~~~

"Good night, (name)!" Mr. Sennet's overly cheery voice called to the young woman as she moved her way through the front doors of the diner.

Calling out a quick goodbye to him as well, she hurriedly climbed into her rig. A shitty little Honda though she was, she still got the young (name) from a to b, and (name) would be forever grateful to her uncle for gifting it to her.

Dusk was just beginning to settle as she took off towards her new residence, and she worried slightly if her uncle would be angry that she was out later than usual. The diner had been busier tonight than normal, and instead of getting off at seven, as per usual, it was now closer to nine.

Taking a calming breath, she reminded herself aloud:

"He's not like they were, he won't be mad at you. He's not like them, he won't be mad."

Though she really did believe it, she still repeated it aloud to herself the entire way back to the house, as if she thought she could will it into existence if she hoped hard enough.

It was silly, she knew, but she didn't really care. After all she'd been through, she thought she deserved a little self reassurance.

The drive to her new home was short lived, though she didn't much mind. She hated to be alone now, it gave her too much time to think, and far too much time to overthink. A regular pastime of hers, it seemed.

It was odd, really. Before, when it was just her and the chromed glass house and the bruising voices, before she was taken away by her uncle, she loved to be alone. She cherished the times of peace she had between the hurt. Now, if she was alone for more than thirty minutes, it was likely she'd be found having a mental breakdown in a bathtub.

But, enough of the depressing stuff.

As the scarred girl pulled into the driveway, she didn't notice the second pair of tracks that accompanied her uncles, as she was far too wrapped up in her head. Something she'd be sure to kick herself for at a later date. She didn't notice the single light that was on in the kitchen, either, nor did she pay mind to the tools that lay neatly around their box as she passed the shedd that functioned as a garage, and she simply put the shell of a pickup truck that sat just outside off as another of her uncles pastimes. Opening and stepping through the front door, she didn't even notice the smudge of mud off the sole of someone's shoe that was left on the carpet.

She did, however, definitely notice the way the hair on the back if her neck stood to attention at the sound of a voice that most definitely wasn't the Sheriffs cursing angrily from the kitchen. Metal clinking to the ground and a tapping on something that echoed like tubing followed behind the exclamation, and (name) felt herself seize up in fear.

"It can't be them," she reminded herself silently, "it isn't them, it can't be."

Swallowing her fear, trying desperately not to let the tears that branded the backs of her eyes build enough to fall, (name) forced herself to move farther into the room, grabbing the aluminum baseball bat that resided behind the door and dropping her bag by a table near the door as she did.

Thinking back to the little bit of self defence that Bill had taught her upon her moving in, she pulled the bat to her side to keep it close enough that no one could easily pull it from her grasp, but could still cause some damage if shoved forwards hard enough.

Sneaking around the corner of the refrigerator that hid the person from view, she took a deep, calming breath before poking her head around to take a peek.

He was young, she could tell, likely not much older than herself. Shaggy, brown-blond hair nearly reached broad shoulders, and even though he was hunched over beneath the kitchen sink, she could still tell he was much larger than her. Muscles flexed under a sleeveless button-down shirt as he twisted a wrench against the plumbing under the basin, grunting lightly as he did.

He didn't seem like he was there to cause trouble, she figured. Who in their right minds broke into a house just to fix their backed up sink? Oh dear, maybe he's not in his right mind? What if they sent him and he's here to kill the girl? What if he was there to bring her back to them somehow? But they were away, they couldn't hurt her, could they? Even from the depths of prison, or the entrapment of the psych ward, the girl didn't really doubt that one of the two could get a word out to have her hurt (killed?) for getting them put away. She was going to die now and she wouldn't even be able to fix the meatloaf that she had planned for tonight's dinner. She felt her body begin to tremble (or perhaps it was already, and she only just then noticed) and her eyes glazed themselves with tears, to her dismay.

Could she swing and knock him unconscious? Could she at least discombobulate the man long enough to escape? Could she really even hurt somebody like that?

Before she could come to a decision, however, the decision came to her.

Away in the living room, a phone rang. The shrill tlrrring! making both bodies jump slightly, and causing the boy bent beneath the kitchen sink to take notice of young (name).

Blue eyes widened as he caught sight of her, baseball bat clutched in hand, and he threw himself backwards and away, slamming his body into the ovens door. Instinctively, his arms moved to guard his face and torso.

"Fuck! Fuckin' hell, girl!" The loud exclamation startled the girl, and she jumped again, shoving against the refrigerator hard enough to make it rattle dangerously.

~~~~~~~~~~×~~~~~~~~~~

Fixing the plumbing turned out to be far more difficult than Daryl had originally assumed. The bits holding the stuff to the things was rusted on, making it difficult to loosen the thingy mabob and clear anything clogging the that thing.

Putting all of his focus into wrenching the bits away from the stuff, Daryl completely failed to notice the other presence in the room with him, and when the phone in the other room shocked him out if his thoughts, he found his mind immediately assuming it was his father standing there with a weapon in hand.

As his back hit the oven and his arms moved to guard his head, he caught full sight of the person, and quickly came to realize his mistake. His heart beat harshly against his ribs, and he couldn't help but exclaim his dislike for the situation.

"Fuck! Fuckin' hell, girl!"

At his shout, the girl flinched away from him so harshly that he thought the refrigerator was going to come crashing down on top of him, and he immediately felt guilty, for some odd reason.

She looked absolutely terrified. (Eye color) eyes big as saucers, glazed with fear and glossy with tears, shaking hands gripped the metal of the baseball bat so hard her skin turned white, and her entire body was shaking like a leaf. Her eyes never left his form as he slowly stood up from the ground, one hand still held out in front of him, whether to ward off an attack, or to show he meant no harm, neither really knew. The girl was down right terrified of him, and he hadn't so much as said a word to deserve it yet.

This had to be the niece the Sheriff was talking about, he decided. The scared look she was giving him as she slowly backed away from him made him feel downright awful, and he knew he needed to do something to show her he meant no harm. So, remembering her uncles words, Daryl worked to make his voice a bit less gruff than usual, and tried to keep the edge out of his tone.

"Uh-uh, I ain't here ta hurtcha, girlie–" she took another quick step back "–I'm a friend of Bill's. I was jus' comin' in ta get a drink, I ain't here ta hurtcha."

There was far more that could be said, he knew, but words never really were his forté, and he wasn't sure how much he could talk before he made her more uncomfortable. However, the little bit that he had said, mostly naming her uncle, he thought, had made her shoulders un-hunch a bit, though she kept her distrusting posture. Smart girl.

Slowly lowering the bat until it pointed at his chest she grabbed it with both hands and hesitantly backed out of the kitchen, beckoning him to follow her. Keeping him safely at the end of the bat, and moved to pick up the still-ringing phone and gingerly press it to her ear, her eyes never leaving him, and the bat never wavering (though it did shiver along with her tremors.)

Her eyes relaxed a bit more at the voice on the other end of the line, and though Daryl couldn't much hear the words that were being said—aside from the mumbled tone—he could still tell it was the sheriffs deep voice that spoke.

"Yeah? Uh-hm, good, I uh, I guess... I did. Of course," as she spoke to the formless voice, Daryl couldn't help the small spike of fear that ran up his spine. What if the Sheriff didn't want him there now that he'd scared the girl? He had warned him, he thought. What if Bill made him go back to his shit-hole house and wouldn't let him come back again? This place was one of the few he had to escape that hell, he didn't want to lose that. What if the officer freaked and called Daryl's dad to come pick him up? He'd have hell to pay if he let that happen. He was sure he'd end up with a few more scars at least if his dad were to find out that someone knew of what went on behind closed doors. The Sheriff, no less. What if he–

His spiraling thoughts were disrupted when he caught the sound of his name coming from the other end of the phone line and immediately tuned back in.

"Uhm, uh, yeah, I–I guess. I mean, yeah, yes, he's still here... Oh, no, he's, uh, he's been nice enough," was she even still talking about the red-necked youth? "Yes, of course it's okay, uncle Bill. Sure-sure thing, yeah, that's okay with me. I was thinking about making meatloaf tonight, anyway, that usually makes enough for more than just you an' me."

Wait, what?

The girl had lowered the weapon, though she still kept a tight grip in it, and gave him a shy, almost apologetic smile, before finally letting her eyes dart away. Daryl stayed frozen in his spot. What was even happening?

"–oh," she suddenly looked dejected at whatever had been said on the other side. Scared, almost. "Yeah, no, no, that's-that's okay, uncle Bill, sure thing. It's okay, promise," she suddenly donned a small smile, and though he knew imediately that it was fake, he still found himself startlingly light-of-breath at the sight.

"Yeah, of course, see you tomorrow, uncle, stay safe." Tomorrow? What? Why was all this so confusing to the youngest Dixon? Why was the disappearance of her smile making him feel so hollow?

The sudden change in the expression that the smaller figure wore was dramatically startling to Daryl. Going from sad and scared and sorry and a bit regretful to blushing and wincing and all together uncomfortable in the blink of an eye, the girl shriekingly exclaimed:

"Uncle Bill! No! Ew, gross! Don–Don't say things like that, ya nasty!" Daryl couldn't help but find her blush and stutter quite endearing.

Even from the few paces away that he was, he could still hear the loud laugh that erupted from the other side of the phone.

"Alrigh–alright, uncle Bill," the girls face was still flushed intensely, "I'm hanging up on you now... Yeah, yes, okay—thanks for that." She winced again at whatever he'd said, and she somehow flushed even harder. In a softer voice, now, "I'll see you tomorrow, then. Stay safe." Her last words were barely a whisper.

Slowly pulling the phone away from her ear, the girl placed it gently on the receiver before turning to glance at Daryl, though he took note that she never once fully looked at him again.

"I'm, uhm, I'm sorry," she whispered, grimacing softly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~×•×~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#young!daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon #daryl dixon x reader #pre apocalypse daryl x reader #daryl dixon x reader fluff #daryl dixon x reader angst #daryl dixon x reader hurt/comfort #daryl dixon x female reader #softly barely a whisper

232 notes · View notes

terramythos · 4 years

Text

TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 32 of 26

Title: The Siren Depths (2012) (The Books of the Raksura #3)

Author: Martha Wells

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Adventure, LGBT Protagonist, Third-Person

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 11/09/2020

Date Finished: 11/21/2020

Moon's past has always been obscure. A winged shapeshifter, he has spent most of his life as a solitary wanderer. He has few memories of his childhood, and only recently found others of his kind-- the Raksura. Now Moon has found a home as first consort to the queen Jade in the Raksuran court of Indigo Cloud.

However, when a neighboring queen recognizes his bloodline, Moon's new life is upended as he's forced to return to a family he doesn't even remember. Seemingly abandoned by Jade and overcome with doubt, Moon has to navigate the complex politics and grave secrets in the court of Opal Night alone. But an old enemy is about to return, threatening every Raksuran court in the Reaches.

The one thing he hadn’t expected to do was miss Indigo Cloud so much. He had been leaving people all his life, to the point where all the turns seemed like an uninterrupted progression of departures, and there had been people he had missed terribly. But this was a never-ending ache in his chest... You’ll get over it, he told himself. You always get over it.

But somehow, this time was different.

Some major spoilers and content warning(s) under the cut.

Content warnings for the book: As always, graphic violence and action. There is a disturbing scene that's... kind of forced cannibalism I guess (I'm not sure how else to describe it). Some sexual content is implied but not graphic. The r*pe plot point from The Cloud Roads is relevant, but is not depicted or described in detail. A romantic relationship with a significant age gap is briefly mentioned (both are consenting adults but it may make some readers uncomfortable).

For the most part, I enjoyed The Siren Depths more than the previous entries. I connected much more strongly to the central conflict, and was pleased to see some deeper character development than in the last two books. This entry also introduces fascinating new settings and characters while exploring some genuinely interesting ideas. It serves as a good parallel to The Cloud Roads, with similar plot beats explored in different ways. I did have one big problem which I will detail further in the review, but let's talk about the good parts first. Moon's conflict in this story, like the rest of the series, has to do with belonging. But The Siren Depths has the advantage of two books of development. From what we know of Moon's past, he sees any home as temporary, and when he's suddenly forced to leave Indigo Cloud (presumably for good), his new attachments and way of life come into question. To some degree, Moon sees this as an inevitable part of his life. Sooner or later, something out of his control will happen and he'll be abandoned. What I found relatable is there's several times Moon knows he is being irrational but still can't stop the negative downward spiral. Like... jeez, just call me out specifically next time! While a depressed protagonist can be a drag to read, I think it really works here because we've grown attached to Moon and know how far he's come. And sure enough, he does get his ass in gear when he realizes this ISN'T like before, and lots of people do care about him. The found vs biological family conflict is interesting as well. I think The Siren Depths does great here because you can see both points of view. Moon always assumed his biological family died, and they assumed the same thing about him. This should be a happy homecoming, but under the circumstances simply isn't. Moon resents being torn from Indigo Cloud because a group of people he barely remembers have a legal claim on him. Opal Night seems strangely hostile until you learn more about its politics and secrets. Even though they're early antagonists, they're not really villains; just a traumatized group of people who see Moon as a missing link from their past. When he's not what the others are expecting, obvious issues ensue, but Moon finds he does care about some of these people, even if it's not really his home. Outside of Moon, several other characters have arcs in this book. While the previous books feature a likeable enough cast, the characters are mostly one dimensional. Not so here; we explore the insecurities and struggles of some of the supporting cast. Jade isn't nearly as self-confident as she appears to be, and grapples with this throughout the book-- for example, wanting to prove to Moon that she is willing to do whatever it takes to get him back. Similarly, Chime's struggle with his involuntary transformation comes to a head here as his strange new powers become relevant again. We see just how bitter he is that he's cut off from his old magical gifts and still holds out hope that they'll return. We even get some indication that while this HAS happened before in Raksuran history, it's incredibly rare. There’s also an interesting hint on what the powers really are, which has some pretty big implications. This is potentially a future plot point, so I’m hoping it gets explored. (Also, I was totally right about Moon/Chime, do I get a prize?)

There are several new characters I found really interesting, namely Malachite and Shade. Malachite (spoiler: Moon's biological mother) is initially presented as the antagonist, and her behavior seems inscrutable. She's a powerful queen who commands respect, yet seems unpredictable and standoffish. All of this starts to make sense as one learns more about her. Turns out unbelievable, extended trauma really fucks with a person. The Fell destroyed her colony, killed her consort and most of her children, and she spent almost a year in full guerilla warfare against them. Yet she adopted the Fell/Raksura crossbreeds and raised them as her own children, demonstrating nothing but indulgent love and kindness towards them. I'm not sure I would be able to do that in her place. In general she's just a huge badass; totally decked out in scars and the first to leap into battle. At least we know where Moon gets it from. Did I say Fell/Raksura crossbreeds? Yup, that plot point is back. Only, it's explored in a different way here. The crossbreeds in The Cloud Roads are terrifying weapons deployed by the Fell. The ones in The Siren Depths, raised in a loving home, are just kind of weirdly pale Raksura. I liked Shade in particular, who we learn is Moon's half brother and serves as an interesting foil. Moon would probably be much more like Shade if the Fell attack on Opal Night never happened. Shade is an earnest and kind (if naïve) man and behaves like none of the Fell we’ve met in the series. I hope we see more of him (and Lithe, the other crossbreed) in future volumes, because I think they're an interesting take on nature vs nurture with the "inherently" evil Fell. Speaking of the Fell, while they themselves haven't changed much, I thought they were more effective villains than in The Cloud Roads. We see their manipulations and twisted views of the world in much more detail. There's a long sequence where much of the main cast is captured by The Fell, and their struggle to survive and potentially escape is harrowing. I also like that Moon isn't their main focus this time, which adds some nuance and perspective to their behavior. They’re also just... creepy as shit. While I do have some issues with the ending of the book, I think the Fell are handled pretty well beforehand.

I'd be remiss to ignore the always excellent worldbuilding in this series. Like in The Serpent Sea, we get to see more Raksuran courts, all of which feel distinct. It’s cool and impressive for a singular fantasy race to have multiple believable factions and societies. The settings in this book are also creative, including a giant half-dead mountain tree, a city carved into a giant statue, and what I can only describe as "Rapture, but make it a solarpunk prison". Wells goes into vivid, loving detail when it comes to the world. That being said, I would like to see more of the sea/sky realms, since this series has largely focused on the earth. The Three Worlds is kind of a misnomer if two of them don't really show up much. Oh well, maybe in future books/stories.

My main complaint, and what drags down the rating, is the ending. It's... underwhelming, confusing, and seems pretty rushed. I'll go into more detail below. *major spoilers for the ending* So... one of the big plot points in both The Cloud Roads and The Siren Depths is that the Fell are crossbreeding with captured Raksura. In The Cloud Roads, this is explained as a ploy to strengthen the Fell with some unique Raksuran abilities; queens can prevent others from shifting, mentors can scry future events, and so on. In The Siren Depths, however, we learn it's not that simple. There's some third party manipulating the Fell and encouraging their actions. The goal is to produce a crossbreed that physically resembles the (unnamed) Fell/Raksura common ancestor for... reasons. We are led to believe the being orchestrating this is in fact an ancient ancestor, though its motives are unknown.

While this feels like a retcon, the discrepancy is acknowledged in the story, and it is explained that the Fell in The Cloud Roads were either lying or those specific ones decided to pursue their own agenda. Which... fine, makes sense based on what we know about them. I'll let it slide. Perhaps it was hinted at earlier and I just don’t remember.

So Moon and the others follow the Fell to the mysterious source, a vast and abandoned underwater city. Soon they find the creature that's been imprisoned there. Turns out it's not the Fell/Raksura ancestor, but something different. I can only describe it as sort of eldritchy, with a vaguely creepy physical form, and the abilities to speak through dead/dying Fell and to create disturbingly realistic illusions. The Fell/Raksuran ancestors trapped it there eons ago, and the only way to free it is the physical presence of a member of the ancestor species (for some reason). Which explains why it has been encouraging the crossbreeding, since their common ancestor is presumably extinct. It's freed from its prison since Shade fits the "ancestor" criteria based on his physical appearance. Then, in the span of literally one chapter, it attacks everyone, chases the characters through the underwater city, gets hit by some water, then promptly melts like the Wicked Witch of the West and dies.

I had a couple problems with this ending. First, the whole Fell crossbreeding conflict with the Raksura is a huge generational trauma thing. Moon has his own horrible experience with them, of course, but it's also a big issue with both Indigo Cloud and Opal Night. Hell, it's the whole reason Moon was separated from his family and lived thirty-some years in exile without knowing what he was. The series literally wouldn't have happened without this conflict. To have everything explained away by "an eldritch wizard did it" is very anticlimactic. I vastly prefer the original explanation.

Second, we know basically nothing about this creature. How was it able to communicate with the Fell (and Chime)? Why was it imprisoned other than being super evil and stuff? Who knows. And yeah, it's possible this will be expanded on later. Except I'm pretty sure that when this book came out, it was the last one planned for the series. The next two books follow a different storyline and came out four years later. So this was probably the only explanation we were ever going to get.

I'm not totally against the concept, but it needed more time and a more interesting/memorable villain for it to work. Introducing all of this in the second to last chapter of (presumably) not only the book but the series, then defeating it with little effort, feels unsatisfying. Hell, there’s more time dedicated to discovering and exploring its prison than anything involving the creature itself! As it stands, the Fell were much creepier and more memorable bad guys in this book, yet narratively serve as bit players in the end. It just feels off.

Also, a nitpick, but the title of the book is weird. The Siren Depths is obviously referring to this imprisoned being. It's trapped underwater and is calling the Fell to it. But it's never referred to as a siren; I'm not sure that word is used at all in the book. It just seems like an odd choice of title that doesn't really fit the vernacular of the world. Siren has some very specific meanings/connotations in our world that don't translate to The Three Worlds. Not a huge deal, just something I noticed.

*ending spoilers end here*

Despite my issues with the ending, I really enjoyed everything else about the book. It does everything the other books do well while featuring serious improvements. I've heard mixed things about the next two books but plan to go in with an open mind.

#8/10 #taylor reads #2020 reading challenge #BONUS ROUND #*casually posts this a week late*

5 notes · View notes

dragons-bones · 4 years

Text

The White Vault Season Three Roundup

Posting this as the tenth and final episode of the season is now in public release!

So I listened to the early release of the season finale on Saturday, screamed a lot, and immediately sat down and re-listened to the whole season. The following post is being put behind a read more for both length and season-wide (finale included) spoilers and includes discussion and theorizing for season four, which Travis confirmed is the penultimate season. (IS IT OCTOBER YET.) Please DO NOT READ until you listen to the finale!

First and foremost, I was originally a little concerned that season three would end up hitting all of the same story beats as the first two seasons without anything new, particularly on the matter of the mystery: lots of puzzle pieces that still don't quite fit together. Arguably we still don't have any clear answers...but we have a lot more pieces that I think we're seeing the overall shape. There is definitely some sort of centuries-and-continents-spanning conspiracy, one dedicated to keeping the shadow monster(s) and totem monsters fed, or appeased, or something, along with the people and civilization that revolves around these creatures. We don't know the why, we don't know the how, but I am personally surprisingly at ease with not having anything answered at this point--honestly I am having an incredible amount of fun speculating in my own mind and reading other fans' takes on tumblr and reddit. Travis and Katie confirming we have a fourth and fifth season to finish telling the story gives me a lot of confidence, particularly since season four is going to take a vastly different tack than the first three seasons.

The Documentarian confirms in the opening of episode one that she had come into possession of the information she presents to whom we knew as of episode five to be Graham "Fuck You I Have A Shotgun" Casner just a few days ago. Episode ten confirms that the events of season three literally occurred within the last few weeks and Dr. Zhou "Fuck You I Have A Frying Pan" Liu, Dr. Josepha Guerrero, and Simon "Fuck You I Am Getting Off This Mountain If I Have To Tobogan Down It" Hall may still be alive up in the caves. I am practically frothing at the mouth with excitement because this really raises the stakes for next season, and while I'm more than certain the entire cast isn't making it out alive...enough might. And in this situation: the dangers are known by both the rescue party and the scientists; and the scientists are the kind who might be able to begin putting our puzzle pieces together, along with whatever the Documentarian acquires elsewhere.

I want to give an especial shoutout to Peter Lewis as Graham Casner. I remember when I first listened to The White Vault, I was a bit uncertain about his voicework: he has a very deliberate, almost stilted-sounding delivery as Graham. His performance really clicked for me when we got the segue ways of him narrating Russian journal entries into an English translation: his Russian, to my ear, sounds very smooth with no hesitation. My thought is, English isn't Graham's first language, and his measured way of speaking is how he ensures he organizes his thoughts properly to be understood. And just--his performance this season was SO GOOD. Especially in the finale, he sounded so raw and angry and just a little bit broken over the discovery that the body Dr. Liu and Dr. Guerrero found truly wasn't Dr. Ureta (I thought, in episode nine, that they're comment of "that's not Dr. Ureta" was more a metaphoric "that's not her anymore" based on what they knew of Simon's experience so far), but Rosa. Like. Holy shit. 10/10 Peter Lewis, godDAMN.

(Aside: props to all the voice actors this season. We really heard them come into their stride as the season progressed, but special props to: Danilo Battistini as Lucas, who showcased Lucas’s descent into (religious fervor inspired?) madness; Eric Nelsen as Simon, who got saddled with a lot of the technical archaeological talk and made it sound natural (really evident when you listen to the bloopers); and Diane Casanova as Eva, who did a fantastic job showing her dealing with the stress of the situation while still remaining snarky and defiant.)

And now to Rosa--who was, unquestionably, my favorite member of the Fristed expedition, so I was, in fact, yelling like a mad thing while my heart went icy and broken when the body was identified as hers. So, I remember reading in a post-episode speculation thread on reddit earlier in the season that maybe the tunnels between Svalbard and Patagonia were connected and this was the same shadow monster as the Fristed team encountered. I thought this was particularly far-fetched bullshit, but, uh apparently not? Good job, fellow speculator! You called it! Perhaps they're not physically connected (that stretches my suspension of disbelief beyond the breaking point, considering Svalbard and Patagonia are on literal opposite ends of the planet), but maybe it's a space-time distortion, and the deep caves between Svalbard and Patagonia (and Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China, and wherever else this strange civilization has pockets of activity) are linked via supernatural means. And a space-time distortion would explain why to Graham, it didn't seem too much time had passed for him in the tunnels before he found a way out, even though it was weeks if not months before he was located.

(Brief side note: definitely the Svalbard totem monster that got him, that strange walrus-like entity with the super-elongated phalanges. Also features in Artifact. That totem monster scares me and scares me deeply.)

So does this mean the shadow monster at Fristed and Piedra are the same, able to travel between locations depending on which ones have people near them? (SPOILER FOR ARTIFACT: it's implied there's more than one and they can "travel" via the totem animal artifacts END SPOILER) Does this mean we might see "Jonas" again? Oooooh, two shadow monsters, das bad, das really bad.

(Another brief side note, since I didn't do an episode nine roundup: the dark part of my mind that loves the creepy horror elements of this podcast was overjoyed at being slam-dunked right into the fucked-up-edness of the return of the still-beating heart and teeth in a stone box. Just. Good shit, lots of nightmares, jumping at shadows that night, S U P E R B.

...Wait, Rosa's is the first body actually found, even though we know the shadow monster killed her. Karina's, Walter's, and Carito's bodies never showed up, and we know their hearts and teeth ended up in the stone boxes. Does that mean Rosa's didn't? Is there specific significance to this?)

The sites do seem to be very different: China was a mountain village, most of the village open air with their private ritual rooms carved into the mountainside; Svalbard's might be under a glacier, and is an entire underground village, with its ritual sites buried beneath it; and Patagonia is less a proper village and more a winding system of living quarters and open public/ritual spaces. Svalbard is also currently the only one (that we know of, we have no information about the interior of the China site) using teeth to pave its stairs so, uh, take that as you will.

Teeth appear a lot. I have a thing about teeth, and yet The White Vault doesn't ping it? It's rather strange.

RAIMY. RAIMY YOU GO GET YOUR MAN. PROUD OF YOU, PLEASE DON'T DIE. (Honestly, though, I get the feeling if the shadow monster breathes anywhere in the general vicinity of Raimy, Simon will go batshit and beat the thing to death himself. He is injured but he is pissed.)

I continue to have low expectations about Eva's survival. That she got off the mountain is a surprise--stalked by the shadow monster, perhaps hoping she lures more people to the caves?--and that her 'infection' (excuse me as I continue to have flashbacks to Jane Prentiss in TMA Season One and cry uncontrollably because oh my gooooooooood) hasn't, y'know, gotten properly ugly yet. But goddamn I love her spirit, I love that she's so determined to get the rest of the team out. I WANT her to survive, but all the clues are pointing at REALLY BAD SHIT happening to her.

I remain deeply curious about whether or not Dr. Ureta’s previous trip to the Patagonia site is what primed her to be the first victim of the Piedra team. This might very well be something we don’t ever receive a proper answer to--sometimes some mysteries remain so, after all--but I do find it telling that we have very little of her personal thoughts, unlike the other members of the team (aside, of course, from Lucas).

Dr. Guerrero remains the loose end for me: Simon and Dr. Liu have both shown an utter lack of fucks to give about not letting this monster have them, but Dr. Guerrero was so tunnel-visioned on the science of the find that we notes and thoughts we have her don’t give us a conclusive enough picture about what to expect going forward. But we might end up surprised.

I’m very interested to see what Maheer and Dragana bring to the table: Maheer is obviously the Documentarian’s man because of a very nice paycheck, and Graham’s grumbling about Dragana’s prodding for details has me on alert mostly because Graham is my guy and he deserves a fucking nap and a vacation for all the shit he’s had to deal with.

The White Vault: Iluka is coming up this month on Patreon; I’m willing to bet this is what the Documentarian is preoccupied with while Graham and the rescue team head into the mountains. I’m really curious to see whether or not this might have anything to do with the events of the short Acquisition? I feel we’re due for that to come into play...

There is just. So much. So damn much.

IS IT OCTOBER YEEEEEEET.

#the white vault #spoilers #white vault spoilers #white vault episode 3.10

24 notes · View notes

teaandgames · 4 years

Text

The Tea Times - May 2020

Normally, I’d use this little intro box to joke about the events in the news in a lighthearted we’re-all-gonna-die kind of a way, but that doesn’t really feel right at the moment. It’s been a very charged month, with the virus and injustice making the rounds. I hope everyone is keeping safe while they fight for what’s right.

On the games side of things, it's been a little threadbare on the news front, as tends to be the way as we move into summer. Things should hopefully pick up next month with things like the IGN Summer of Gaming kicking in. Oh and if you’re wondering what happened to April’s news, then I forgot. Simple as that. Whoops.

At a Glance

Mafia II and III: Definitive Editions, Maneater, Minecraft Dungeons and Shantae and the Seven Sirens released.

Paper Mario: The Origami King, Sherlock Holmes Chapter One, Blue Fire announced.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon is coming to PC!

Pyramid Head breaks his way into Dead by Daylight!

Rumour mill: The Simpsons: Hit and Run!

Blizzcon officially cancelled!

Ubisoft taking on Apple and Google!

The Releases

A big chunk of the releases in May were remasters or games that had otherwise been packaged together. I wouldn’t normally talk about them but there has been quite a lot of buzz about the definitive editions of Mafia II and Mafia III. I’ve played Mafia II and enjoyed my time with it but I wouldn’t say it was due a definitive edition ten years later but here we are. Unfortunately, the definitive editions have been plagued with performance issues. If you want to wade in yourself, then the Definitive Editions hit Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox on the 19th May.

From the mobsters of the real world to the mobsters (probably) of the sea: sharks. If you’ve ever felt you have too few teeth and wondered how human beings taste, then give Maneater a whirl and possibly seek therapy. Maneater pits you as a shark in a vicious battle of revenge against the hunter who killed your mother. A lot of innocent people will die in the process but that’s nature, baby. It was released on Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on the 22nd May and will release on the Switch later this year.

One of more highly anticipated releases this month was Minecraft Dungeons, the isometric hack’n’slash set in the Minecraft world. Honestly, I didn’t really believe it was an actual game up until release but it is. It seems to be as fun and chill as Minecraft is but with less crafting and more hitting things. One to break out with friends, methinks. If it’s your bag, it was released on PC, Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on May 26th.

I never had much to do with the Shantae series but it clearly struck a note with people because we’re now on to the fifth game in the series, Shantae and the Seven Sirens. Technically it’s been out since last year but on mobile devices and in parts by the look of it. Bit odd, but the whole package is now out if you fancy some more platforming, transforming and… dancing I guess. It came to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and the Switch on May 28th 2020.

The Announcements

In a fairly shocking turn of events, Nintendo announced Paper Mario: The Origami King, which was surprising enough but more than that, it’s coming as early as July 17th. Funnily enough, it features an origami twist as Mario characters are folded into new and interesting shapes. It’s not that unusual for Nintendo to pull this kind of move but I wouldn’t have thought that Paper Mario would have that kind of draw anymore. Still, my fingers are crossed that this is going to be a return to form following the failure lacklustre Sticker Star and (reportedly) Colour Splash. The trailer maybe hints at some turn based stuff! Here’s hoping!

For those that like a mystery, then you may like Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One. It seems that the biggest mystery of all, Sherlock himself, is about to be unravelled. Presumably anyway, I never really had much of a dalliance with the deerstalker detective. Still, the Sherlock Holmes series has gained a firm reputation over the years and Chapter One is still in the reliable hands of Frogware. It will be out in 2021.

On the prettier side of things, there’s Blue Fire. It’s a heavily Zelda inspired game about trekking across a desolated kingdom, poking your nose into all of its secrets. It has a nice clean artstyle, reminiscent of something like A Hat in Time, with some slashy combat on top. It looks pretty good, though I’m less keen on the shadow monster enemy design. It should be coming out this summer.

Dragon Itself To PC!

The Yakuza series has been unfortunately tied to the PlayStation for quite some time now. While the first few in the series have been remastered for PC, entries three to seven are still PlayStation exclusive. My ways of knocking people out with bowls of noodles are severely limited. Hopefully, however, there’s now a bit more light at the end of the tunnel.

The latest in the series, Yakuza: Like A Dragon, will now be coming to PC. It specified Windows 10 but it should hopefully be supported by all operating systems. Like A Dragon is peculiar in that it is turn based, unlike the action focus the rest of the series has, but seems to maintain the madcap vibe. I’m hoping it sells like hotcakes, so SEGA will have more incentive to release the rest of the Yakuza series on PC. It should be out later this year either way.

Unexpected Pyramid Head

If I made a news piece about everyone that got added to Dead by Daylight then you would get mighty sick of it. In this case though, someone notable has been added: Pyramid Head from the Silent Hill series. The physical representation of the protagonist from Silent Hill 2’s irrepressible sexual desires. He’s evolved beyond that nowadays though, arguably being the face (of sorts) of the survival horror genre. Maybe it was only a matter of time until he was absorbed into Dead by Daylight’s roster.

What is notable about this is that the Silent Hill series has been pretty firmly closed. After the much anticipated Silent Hills fell through, so Konami could focus on making pachinko machines and burning money, the series has been stagnant. Let's be honest, it was pretty rough times before that with games like Silent Hill: Homecoming but PT gave us all hope. Having Pyramid Head suddenly appear in the public eye is a bit odd.

He’ll be released next month. His skillset seems to be around map manipulation as he drags his big old sword along the ground. He can also put people in the Cage of Atonement, which is a special hook. Sounds nice.

Rumour Mill: Hitting and Running

Originally there were two rumours this month but then Like A Dragon got confirmed so that leaves us with just the one: The Simpsons: Hit and Run may be getting a remaster. It’s a much beloved game, for good reason as it allows people to Grand Theft Auto their way across The Simpsons world. A remaster for PC and modern day consoles would go down a treat, seeing as The Simpsons still seems to be going strong.

Of course, this should be taken with a grain of salt. Actually, seeing as the rumour came from just a reddit post you can take it with a giant truckload of salt. Still, it would be nice. The same post also comments on a new entry in the Sleeping Dogs series (which would be fantastic), the Far Cry series, Tomb Raider and, rather unfortunately, Just Cause 5. Hopefully they’ve learned a few things on that one.

Oh and Mad Max II, which would be pretty sweet given how the first one was kind of swept under the rug.

Blizzcon Is Blizz-gone

Blizzard’s big convention, Blizzcon, will not be happening this year. As news goes, it’s not particularly revolutionary but it is still sad to see. I know a lot of people would have been looking forward to getting together with likeminded people and playing some games together as well as seeing what’s going on inside the Blizzard skunkworks.

They’re looking into online ways of contacting people, so at least something of the convention can carry on but I’m afraid you’ll likely have to wait until next year if you were hoping to meet up with some friends.

A Legal Assissination

Here’s something that I wasn’t expecting. Ubisoft, purveyors of the finest assassinations and less than fine game clients, are taking on the twin giants of Apple and Google. Sounds like a bit of a self-assassination to me but you’ve got to protect your IP somehow I suppose. The issue surrounds Rainbow Six Siege, Ubisoft’s immensely popular online tactical shooter. A group called Alibaba created a game called “Area F2” which seems to be a straight rip-off of Rainbow Six Siege. Right down to the menu icons by the look of it.

Ubisoft’s lawsuit is therefore directed at Apple and Google for allowing Area F2 to be sold in their stores. It looks like a pretty legitimate claim to be honest, as that’s plagiarism to a laughable degree. Ubisoft did notify them by the sounds of it but they haven’t done anything about it. Best keep an eye on this storm as it develops.

That’s all for May, see you in June!

#Paper Mario #The Origami King #Simpsons Hit And Run #far Cry #Tomb Raider #Mad Max II #Minecraft Dungeons #Mafia II #Mafia III #Just Cause 5 #Sherlock Holmes #Shantae #Maneater #Yakuza Like A Dragon #Gaming #The Tea Times #Tea And Video Games

6 notes · View notes

rayonfrozenwings · 4 years

Text

WAITING IN THE FREEZING DARK: CHAPTER 13 - The Market

Spoiler Alert: Contains references to ACOFAS.

Authors Note: So it’s been a very long hiatus - again.... I tend to have a “writing season” it would seem.

A Nessian Fan Fiction: Characters all belong to Sarah J Maas and her book series A Court of Thorns and Roses. This Story takes place after ACOFAS. The story has Multiple POV’s, taking place in the Illyrian camp, Windhaven, Nesta and Cassian are living together at the behest of the high lord and lady of the night court.

Chapter 13 - The Market. After Nesta took the emotional plunge, awkwardness has returned between herself and Cassian. Cassian tries to find a way to fix the it by taking Nesta somewhere special.

Previous chapters are here: 1, 2, 3, 4 , 5 , 6 7 8, 9, 10, 11 , 12 and Masterlist here.

I have also put this on AO3: Series Link :)

WC 2146

Nesta

Gloved fingers held her book open as she wandered down the gravel path, trees casting dappled shadows on her pages and the birds swooping down low to get a better look at what she was reading.

“You are worse than Cassian” she called back to the birds who continued to stalk her.

She knew they weren’t birds, but she hadn't asked anyone what sort of Fae they were or if she should be wary. It was easier to ignore her surroundings than understand the constant danger she was in, walking from one end of WindHaven to the other. She also liked to think of them as friends, just trying to see what she was up to.

… and he stretched out an arm, grasping for her as she…

A larger shadow passed overhead and Nesta looked up. Nothing caught her attention but she closed her book nonetheless. The bird-featured creatures continued to twitter in the trees and she knew that whatever cast the shadow either hadn’t spotted her or was harmless since it had not sent her feathered friends into hiding.

“Hey.” Cassian called from the trees ahead.

“Hi” Nesta replied.

In the last few days she had been avoiding him when she could. She wasn’t sure how to move on from their moment and now he was here, just waiting on the path, just saying “Hey” like it was no big deal. Like she hadn’t been sent into a whirlwind of confusion.

“So, What brings you to my neck of the woods?” she said gesturing to the trees all around them.

“Just wondering if you wanted to head to a market?” He pulled away from the tree he was leaning into and matched her pace.

Nesta continued to walk straight ahead, placing the book in her satchel as she went,

“what makes you think I don’t have plans?”

Cassian looked down at their matching well-worn boots, a dimple appearing as a smile crept across his face,

“Well this particular market has an assortment of books and clothes and jewellery and other things that you might happen to appreciate.”

His head bowed, hands in pockets and that cheeky grin had Nesta wondering what he had planned, Her eyes narrowed - Cassian was notorious for surprising her. Sometimes good, sometimes, definitely not.

“I see.” She gave him a bland smile, eyebrow slightly arching. “Alright. Where is this market?”

“Ah well, it's not in Windhaven.”

“Of Course not, that would be too easy.”

“But it isn't far.”

“Everywhere is far from Windhaven.”

“I mean, it isn't far for a quick flight.” and he turned those dimples to face her again.

Nesta let out a sigh, she knew she was going to say yes. She knew as soon as he mentioned books. He knew exactly what she liked.

“Is it today?” she didn't have much planned and it would actually be a nice distraction from her episode and avoidance of Emerie.

“Yeah, it's an evening Market, so we should be able to fly there, do some browsing, have some food - they have the best food because the vendor stalls there have been handed down from generation to generation, it's a really old Market. Oh and then do some more browsing?... Nesta?”

Nesta had become distracted as soon as Cassian had said it was a night market. She hadn’t been to a Night Market in Prythian. Velaris - sure - but the city always felt like it was wide awake, the illyrian mountains had a totally different vibe - you did not want to be out too late after dark. Was it like Calanmai? The stories she had heard were disturbing and being dragged into a cave for some ritual wasn't her idea of fun. Was it like the market near home where anyone could come and go - swindling an innocent girl who didn’t know the customs?

“Nesta?” Cassian stepped in front of her, concern on his face. “We don’t have to go? I’m happy sitting on the couch next to you reading a book.”

Nesta looked up at him, her worries fading away as she looked into his warm brown eyes and the concern for her she saw there.

“We can go, just please tell me it's not as long as a flight to Velaris. I will bring back at least three books - no matter the weight.” Her finger raised to poke his chest on the last point.

“Fine, Three books, any extra books we can arrange to come back home later. I am not a pack horse.”

Nesta grinned then. Cassian wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close to him as they walked. The bird-creatures overhead losing interest in them completely.

---

“Are we there yet?” Nesta called up to Cassian, she knew that the flight was more awkward for him having someone in his arms but she was becoming very aware of the chill as the sun began to set.

“Nearly, it's over the next ridgeline.”

Nesta looked in the direction they were flying, it appeared they were getting very close to the coast, the trees were thick on the mountains below, the sky turning from azure in front of her to a deep purple behind with all the colours in between in the evening light.

“It's a beautiful location,” Nesta said, hoping to get more out of him.

“We’re not there yet, and anyway - it's alleyways could be full of mud and animals - you don't know.” He said with a grin and she really hoped it wasn't the case, she had hoped there might be somewhere to stay and sleeping with the pigs was not ideal.

They caught a thermal and glided over the ridge, below Nesta could see a clearing with a lake, glistening and perfectly reflecting the sky. The cliff below them poured light forth and the trees glowed with warm light, drawing her attention to the thick forest below.

“Is this it?” she asked quietly.

Cassian began his descent towards the lake.

“They like to be approached from the lake, so we will land there and then make our way up into the Market.”

She nodded into his chest and peeked at the cliff as Cassian turned to land. The closer they got the more she realised this was like nothing she had seen before.

Cassian’s feet reached the ground and Nesta quickly swung her feet around and tried to regain control of the traitorous limbs that appeared to have fallen asleep on her.

“Do you need me to carry you to somewhere you can sit down?” Cassian asked

“I’m perfectly fine, just give me a minute.”

They walked a little way along the lake edge, logs appeared to have been placed in the earth as a type of boardwalk next to the reeds and protecting the many lesser fae from the mud.

“So who runs the Market?” Nesta asked as iridescent wings made of night court jewels flew past her face.

“Not sure if it's one person Nes," he threw her a cheeky grin, "and it's always been here.” Cassian focused on leading as the logs seemed to pull them into the trees and up a slope.

“Always? How do people survive? It can’t always be here? These mountains don’t see many tourists.” Nesta was not like her sister - things had to make sense, even faerie markets.

“Well, it's not always Here, but it has always been here.” he said, pointing to the ground first and then spreading his hands all around. “Come, I have something I want to show you.” he said.

Held out his hand.

Nesta took it.

She quite liked holding his hand, it was like the arm around her shoulder but for some reason this time it felt more like they were partners in crime rather than Cassian reassuring her. A distinction she liked to make in her mind. The faeries around her moved with purpose heading exactly where they needed to go, making Nesta wonder - were they sent a map or did they have some way of tracking the stall they needed. Cassian continued to set a fast pace beside her on the half buried logs and she stayed quiet as she tried to piece together how this Market and her Commander fit. Was he here just for her or for something else too?

“So how did you know the market was on?” Nesta asked

“Ah, well it's always on - but at this time of year it happens to be in these hills.” He looked up at the windows of light and then back to her. “You see - it moves around the Night Court during the year. All the locations have been the same since it first started, so they have made each one a destination in itself. This location is my favourite.”

Nesta absorbed that information and tried to think of what she should ask first.

After much deliberation she asked quietly,

“Why is it your favourite?” the soft glow mixed with the encroaching darkness making her take a step towards intimacy she wasn't sure she was ready for again but made anyway.

He continued walking up the steps that had emerged from the path as they made it to one of the entrances in the cliff face. Turning to look at her he pulled her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “Many reasons but mostly because I get to be me without any expectation here, this place has its own rules and because they have things you cannot get anywhere else”.

Nesta looked deep into his eyes and nodded, words caught in her throat.

They made their way through the archway and Nesta could see the arches and domes in the ceiling cut out of the rock, precious gems breaking away from the white granite walls. The entrance felt like the earth was alive and she was inviting them into her embrace - warm, solid and trapped.

“How, wait, Wait!” Nesta stopped in the entry Hall and looked ahead to the crowds along the corridor, the market appeared to be made of many connecting rooms, each holding a different stall owner and their wares. The walls were carved from the rock and small door shapes in the wall allowed the lesser-fae to move freely along. She couldn’t see any illyrians but perhaps they didn't frequent the clothing stalls that appeared to be along the front of the Cave complex.

“Where are we going?” Nesta asked firmly, feet rooted below her.

Cassian was pulled by her hand which he continued to hold, and picked up the other one. They stood there holding hands. Fae and other creatures moved around them like waves around rocks along the shoreline.

“I have a surprise for you.” he said with earnestness.

“I don’t know if I can go in there, it's a lot of rock, last time…” she looked down at their hands and let out a deep breath, “last time… bryaxis… and…. “ Nesta avoided his eyes and looked off towards the humming wings and chatter of languages different to her own, bouncing off the cavern walls. Movement, light, not still - not like before. She whispered “I haven’t been back underground that far.” she ran her thumb over his fingers, her voice small emphasising her collapsing shoulders under the weight of feelings she didn’t want.

“I see” he replied as if he himself had blocked out the memory.

“I know that it's not rational, I just, maybe, I just need to know how to get out. What if I go now and meet up with you later?” she looked up at him then, hoping her solution wouldn’t hurt his feelings.

He continued to rub his thumb over hers, looking at their hands and avoiding her gaze,

“I love you Nes,” he whispered, “please don’t go. We can do this together.”

In a barely audible whisper she said “I can’t go in there, not yet.”

“But this might be the only time for a long time,” it was then he looked down into her eyes, The ice blue pools lined with silver, the fear in them, that otherness. Cassian pulled her into his arms and held her, kissing the hair on her head. Nesta could feel his breath on her neck and his wings wrapping around them both, removing the rest of the world from the moment. Peace and a wave of calm came over Nesta eradicating the fear that was there a moment ago.

“Cassian.” She took a deep breath, “Tell me about the Market, lets get some food first and then you will tell me about everything. Let me see if I can rationalise my way inside?” Nesta released the words on a quiet breath and Cassian hugged her tighter.

“Okay food first. We have to head back towards the lake.” he unwrapped his wings and kissed her hand.

“I love you, you know.”

“I know.”

Authors Note: This was inspired by a prompt from Tumblr. Ever since the release of the title A Court of Silver Flames, I have had an idea for where I want to take this story that is slightly different from the original plan I had in mind. Hopefully this leads into that. As always - motivation varies, so If I end up having another long hiatus from writing - I apologise now! But I'm already writing the next chapter.

#waitinginthefreezingdark #reneewritesfanfic #fan fic #acotar #nessian #nesta #cassian #acofas #acomaf #acowar

3 notes · View notes

ariainstars · 4 years

Text

The Rise of Skywalker or Well, It Seems Santa Won’t Come to Us This Year

Warning... this is a long entry.

A satisfying ending to such a universally beloved story after 42 years and 9 episodes, in the hands of one of the most renowned and expert film studios in the world ought to look different. As the final chapter and with the way laid out by Rian Johnson, it could and should have been epic. But for some obscure reason, the Disney studios decided to let JJ Abrams f*** it up royally. As if they did it on purpose.

Honestly, what did we expect? Abrams is a copycat, we saw that with Star Trek, too. He can tell old stories again in a rather fresh way, but he can’t think up anything really good of his own.

I admit that at first, I didn’t like the sequels much. They seemed adamant to tear down the past, no wonder so many fans got upset. Besides, I was devastated by Han Solo’s death at the hand of his own son.

But then I warmed up to the other characters, and I said to myself that it’s not wrong to start afresh and give a new generation a chance. The old doesn’t become bad because new things come up. And our heroes Han, Leia and Luke had their happy ending; it wasn’t cancelled. It was interesting to think, “What happens after a happy ending?” (For the record, it seems war heroes do not exactly make good parents / uncles. I guess you need other qualities for that.)

Honestly, I did have a vaguely bad feeling a few weeks before TRoS came out; I couldn’t say why. Anyway, looking back there were a few giveaways that the story would end the way it did.

1. The title: “Rise of Skywalker”. Though the last of the Skywalker blood, Ben technically was a Solo (Organa-Solo to be exact). He did redeem himself, but he did not rise above it all.

2. Kylo’s light sabre is the only one which looks like a cross. Anakin was a child without a father. Both suffered terrible pains and then died - due to other people’s sins.

3. The saga’s themes are many and a lot was set up in Episodes VII and VIII. It was to be expected that one film wouldn’t be enough to wrap everything up. TLJ had a new and fresh approach; but apart from the fact that so many fans hated it, it packed the film so full of new themes and subjects that it took us as fans months to inspect it all. We should have guessed that there wouldn’t be enough time in TRoS to finish the old story, start the next one and wrap that up, too.

4. Circumstances be as they may, Kylo / Ben is still a patricide. He did evil things before, but killing Han definitively damned him. And very many people unfortunately take these films at face value and do not go into depth. If TLJ stirred up a wasp’s nest, I don’t want to know what would have happened if in TRoS he would have been redeemed and had survived, and maybe also found his happy ending. Much as I love him, from a moral standpoint it sounds somewhat ambiguous.

The Rise of Skywalker assuredly is Star Wars-y. But is that really more important than making good and uplifting films?

Rogue One was so Star Wars-y that fans almost went nuts about it; I still remember my shock when I actually watched it and found it a deeply sad, melancholy story, thematically the exact opposite of A New Hope’s joy and optimism.

Rose was detested by many fans because she was a quirky personality and so unlike Leia: no wonder she almost disappeared. And her relationship with Finn, which was set up as perfectly fitting, vanished as well: no, no, no, we always have a trio in the middle of the story. More than three heroes, that’s not Star Wars-y. Rey’s spunky, sassy personality reminds of Leia, so she is seen as Star Wars-y. And fans couldn’t accept that she comes from nowhere because in Star Wars it has to turn out that you’re related to someone: so she had to be Palpatine’s granddaughter (ugh) and Saint Rey at the same time.

Fans were hurt by Han Solo’s death in TFA, but at least got to see him being cool and swashbuckling. Luke died in TLJ, but as far as I know fans didn’t send a petition to Disney asking to take TFA from canon: they only did so after TLJ. Reason? Because as it seems, they could forgive anything that was done to Han, but not Luke’s green milk.

Ben Solo, the last of the Skywalker blood, was judged an unworthy heir to Darth Vader due to his emotionality, that’s why everybody left him to rot in a pit. Who hated him for being a “whiny sissy” at least will be content now.

As for us, who have looked more in depth at the saga as a whole and its themes, we can go home with hollow hearts and feeling numb.

My compliments, JJ. You managed to destroy both the probably most famous and beloved film franchises in less than ten years. And you have spoilt our Christmas.

Worse, you have ruined the franchise for the many, many children who grew up loving Kylo Ren and Rey and rooting for their happy ending together. I have heard that a lot of parents had to bring their kids home weeping. Do you believe they will love the saga now still? They will probably only remember it as a terribly sad story and not want to have anything to do with it ever again. And this from the Disney studios, experts for children’s stories, fairy tales and happy endings. A few days before Christmas. I never would have guessed that making older fanbros happy would be so much more important. At least their heroes had their happy ending, their successes, their friendship. Ben Solo had nothing. And this was the very last episode, so we can’t even hope for the future.

I myself right now don’t know whether I can ever watch anything about Star Wars again. I was so elated, so sure of a happy ending after 9 episodes and 42 years. Now every time I will think about watching something related to SW, I will be reminded of how sadly it all ended. And with no warning, mind you. At least watching the prequels we all knew how it would end.

Rian Johnson had set everything up beautifully. I can’t believe that Disney studios and JJ can have been so blind as to not see it, they’re supposed to be experts and to be paid for storytelling. To me it was abundantly clear that

- Ben Solo’s redemption were the children (an inversion to the Jedi Temple carnage, and a parallel to Leia’s meeting with the Ewoks where she immediately became motherly)

- Rey would fall to the Dark Side something ugly and then understand that she had no right to judge Ben

- Ben and Rey would be together and have their happy ever after

- They would take care of the children together, learning from their own upbringing to be protective and understanding parents

- Ben would be the Good Father opposite to Darth Vader the Evil Father and this would “finish what he started” (excuse me, why choose an actor for the role who has Vader’s stature but whose features are the exact opposite? Who has repeatedly proven that he deals well with children in films? Why not use his potential??)

- They would start a new Jedi training or academy, where children would no longer be taught to suppress their emotions

- Rey would in this way finally find the family she craved

- Balance would mean a rainbow or a prism, not Black against White, or Grey

What I still can’t believe

I guess most of you have read some of my meta’s. They were written after thorough researc of the saga’s themes. And I still can’t believe that I got it that wrong.

Yes, as I already wrote above there still is the fact that Kylo / Ben is a patricide and that having him survive after he damned himself like that might have been a bad message. But I still believed that he was in for redemption and survival, and that he was meant to be a father figure.

What about all the messages in TLJ, which all seemed to point to the future?

- The hand-touching scene with the set-up which was exactly opposite to Anakin’s and Padmés wedding? Why did both couples have to end tragically?

- Why were enslaved children introduced in a sympathetic way, the film even ending showing one of them being a Force User and dreaming of being a Jedi? What about Anakin’s promise that he would come back and free the slaves on his planet? That promise was never kept.

- What will become of new Force Users? The last person who was taught both the Jedi and the Sith knowledge is dead.

- Why did Maz Kanata announce to Rey that “the belonging she sought was ahead of her”? She is on the planet that both Anakin and Luke ardently wished to leave. How is that belonging? She knows who she is now, but she is just as lonely and overburdened as when she started. She has not found the family she sought, and she hasn’t founded one of her own. And where’s the ocean she used to dream of?

- Rey had told Ben that “she saw his future”. What future was that? “You will be a hero for ten minutes, have almost all your bones crushed, get a kiss and then die”…?

- Why did Leia ask Han to bring their son home? He saved his soul, but as for finding home, not a chance.

- Luke had promised his nephew that they would see each other again. Nope. And both he and Leia took Rey’s side, abandoning their nephew and son in favor of the offspring of their worst enemy. This is destroying their legacy, not the green milk. Luke panicking and contemplating to kill Ben in his sleep lasted a few seconds. It is not understandable why Luke and Leia should believe in Rey while they were afraid of their own flesh and blood. Because she’s cooler, I guess.

- TRoS destroyed the Jedi’s legacy as well, respectively proved once more what terrible people they were, ready to sacrifice everything for their victory. All of them spoke to Rey, not one to Ben. As if he didn’t even exist. He wasn’t useful to them, that was all.

- After the victory of the Light Side and the Dark Side, logically Balance should have come. Where and how did we ever see this balance? Oh, the bad guy is dead again, that’s good. If at least his granddaughter was dead, then maybe the galaxy would finally have some peace! But that besotted idiot had to resurrect her. Out of love.

- In the end, who won? The Skywalker Curse. The last of their blood is dead. Their name lives on, together with the flesh and blood of Palpatine. As if all had been for nothing.

- Rey is not the winner in this story. She did not inherit the Skywalker name, tokens, emotional support, memories, lessons: she is a usurper just like her grandfather. Except that she didn’t do it on purpose.

- What is the future of the galaxy now? Rey lives, thank to Palpatine’s and the Jedi’s power and Ben Solo’s love. But what is the political future? What became of the First Order? What will become of the future Jedi, or will there be any at all? This whole mess doesn’t seem at all a reason to rejoice.

- What did Anthony Daniels mean when he twittered that the ending of the saga would contain a message for all of us? Almost everybody dies, that’s great, Merry Christmas? ☹

The Last Jedi was packed full of wonderful messages: you can be a nobody and still carve your way in life, failure is the greatest teacher, war makes unscrupulous people rich, good and bad are made-up words (you blow them up today, they blow you up tomorrow), you have to save what you love not destroy what you hate… and so on. Luke’s lesson explaining that the Force is not some kind of superpower was tremendous and necessary for all fans to hear. His confession of the Jedi’s sins and his decision that they had to end was the right conclusion after all that we learned about Anakin. But alas, the older fanbros hated each and every one of these messages and lessons. Star Wars may be for twelve-year-old, as Lucas once said. But twelve-year-olds are supposed to grow up, some day or other.

The Force Awakens had not promised anything. If you believed that the old trio would be back to kick ass, watch it again. It’s clear from the start that this time it’s up to the next generation. Our heroes had not only grown older, they were visibly tired and disillusioned. And there obviously was a whole baggage of secrets and problems to be unpacked. Did anyone honestly believe Luke would jump right back into the fray, like he was not an exile by own choice but some kind of Robinson Crusoe who simply hadn’t found home again?

The Last Jedi, by comparison, had opened a whole treasure chest of promises for love, hope, future and homecoming. And The Rise of Skywalker spat them almost all into our faces. It almost seems like the petty work of an envious man - like children who mob and publicly humiliate one particular child because it’s more intelligent and has achieved more than them.

So, what’s the moral for Ben Solo at the end - see to it that you’re not in the wrong place at the wrong time? Don’t trust anyone, not even your own family members, not even the greatest hero of your time?

Anakin won the pod race, he destroyed the star base over Naboo, he became a valiant Jedi, he married the love of his life. He once said, “This is the happiest day of my life.” But apart from a childhood that was probably more or less positive, as far as we know Ben Solo had nothing but pain and sorrow from life. He wasn’t torn from limb to limb and burned alive and then had to live on for decades, but he lost his home, his integrity and his life, merely due to… fate. Twenty years of struggle, frustration, loneliness, anger, death, sorrow and destruction. The only glimpse of hope he saw was in Rey’s eyes as they connected in TLJ, and his only moment of happiness when he sacrificed his life to save her (I will never forget that smile). Reylo was canon for a few seconds… and the SW couple with the strongest chemistry did not even get a love theme. ☹

I admit I was doubtful whether it would have been a good idea to let Ben survive and be happy after all the bad things he had done. But the message we got now is infinitely worse; and being an abuse victim myself it is a personal hurt to me. So, if you become the victim of abuse because nobody was there to help you, you are doomed and can only escape through death. And we saw nobody grieving for him, no Force Ghost among the others, no grave, no body to burn as in Vader’s case. As if he never existed. Another unsung, unhappy hero without an epitaph like the ones from Rogue One - it seems that viewers liked that, so let’s give them some more of it. Even if we’re called Disney.

The prequels look positive in this light. At least we always knew they would end as a tragedy, and there was hope in the end. Rey is left with nothing but sad memories. The prequels had a story arc; they told the story they wanted (the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker) in their own way; they were a massive, ambitious project in the style of colossal movies like The Last Day of Pompeji or The Fall of the Roman Empire. In this light they’re pretty good, the OT fans simply didn’t like them because they weren’t Star-Wars-y enough. The sequels tried to patch that up and ironically, the best sequel is the middle one, which was hated by the OT fans for trying to open the way to something new. And maybe the sequels never were meant to make a real wrap-up, to give us a satisfying happy ending; because the more fans protest, the more it will give the studios the chance to explore the possibilities for new stories. It’s in their right, I guess. But nevertheless, it leaves a bitter aftertaste.

And sorry, this whole story proves to me once more that the Jedi were nothing but petty little f***s who cared only for letting Their Side Win no matter the cost and didn’t care in the least about the human lives and happiness involved. Anakin, Luke and Ben all wanted to be pilots, not Jedi! Anakin’s tragedy was that he had to become a Jedi instead of being himself. His grandson’s tragedy was the same. He was targeted from birth not only by Snoke but also by his uncle and his own mother who saw nothing but his potential for the Force - not a young man like any other who wanted to be happy, to love and belong like everybody else. Only exception, Han. To him, his son was always simply his son, whether he was powerful in the Force or not. No wonder Ben loved Rey to death: after his father she was the only one who ever saw and loved him simply for being himself. The Jedi all spoke to Rey encouraging her to stand up against Palpatine; the last son and heir of the Skywalker was ignored by his own flesh and blood, because to them he was officially “Dark Side” and thus not interesting for the final fight. They did not even care whether Rey died after the victory; the supposed “bad guy” had to come and rescue her. Out of love, not because of her power. And the Jedi are supposed to be some kind of heroes and glowing examples. What a terrible sarcasm.

Ever heard of the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?

No?

Try the tragedy of Ben Solo the Fucked-Up Loser Who Just Wanted to Be Himself.

What I hope for…

I want to spend my time in other ways from now on. I will read meta’s and fanfics about Star Wars still, but not so assiduously.

Maybe this entire f***up was a well-planned strategy in order to make us wish and ask for another sequel, so that the Star Wars story can go on like an endless soap opera. And the studios make money while we wait for every single scrap of news.

And yet, I can’t accept that this was supposed to be all. The saga is at its end, but is Ben Solo really finished?

Rian Johnson confirmed that he is working on a new trilogy. I can only hope that he will pick up the themes which he started in TLJ and finally give us the happy ending we craved. The next film starts in 2022 if rumors are right.

In a way, it is understandable that Ben Solo’s arc had to finish here and without a happy ending: after all he is not a Skywalker but a Solo. In the end, it was not his story. Who knows what the Force has in store for us. 😊

I would love for Johnson to come back and give our hearts what we wanted after Abrams satisfied (it seems) the fanbros of the original trilogy who hated TLJ so much. Everybody would get what he wanted; fans of OT could simply not watch / ignore the continuation and we could root for Kylo / Ben to our heart’s content. I figure that would be a fair compromise. And if it is indeed a trilogy, there would be plenty of time to explore the family / father / mother themes, and create a new life and identity for Ben. (Who, I am saying it again, assuredly deserved better.)

However, that is all in the future. I haven’t a clue what Johnson is planning, I only think that it would make sense if he explored TLJ’s themes more in depth and with more time.

I really want to pester Rian Johnson right now to give us Ben Solo’s story and to make it happy at last. (Pretty please with cherries on top. 😉)

If you are interested, there is already a petition: https://www.change.org/p/lucasfilm-continue-ben-solo-s-story

What has actually improved for me

1. In my youth I had to spend a large portion of my life under very disagreeable circumstances and I learned to zone out mentally to this or other “dream worlds” as a meaning to cope. (“Dreams Are My Reality” was my song, growing up. 😊) My life is much better now, but the tendency to zone out is still there. Now I remind myself every day that dreaming is good but that no one ought to spend so much time dreaming that his actual life passes him by. I don’t need to escape into dreams any more, I can just enjoy them. So, I feel more grateful.

2. I have learned a lot about myself these two years. I question my intelligence less and I overestimate other people less. I am less timid. I notice that I am calmer and speak slower and do more small talk. The reason: I have realized that many, many people value “coolness” most of all in fictional as well as real people and that one of my main problems is that I am oversensitive and doubtful, similarly to Kylo / Ben. No wonder he’s hated: not so much because “he did so many evil things” but because he is seen as a whiny sissy. (Vader did much worse things, but his “untouchable” attitude made up for it.) I found out that many people mistake a haughty or nonchalant attitude with strength. I don’t need to feel ashamed because I am willing to learn and develop my mind. Anyone who takes me for a fool because of this, it’s his loss. Vader was over-the-top cool, but lonely and miserable. For happiness, we need other humans. Not superhumans.

3. I have spent two very agreeable years exchanging points of view with other fans in this community and I have learned a lot about narratives. I have gone in depth in the Star Wars saga and now I appreciate it much more than before. (I actually consider watching the prequels again to get over TRoS. I never would have believed it if anyone had told me, a few years ago. 😊)

4. I feel closer to my husband. We’ve spent so many evenings apart the last two years because I was elbows-deep in Star Wars! Now we talk more, go out more and watch more films or TV shows together. (BTW, I read many fanfics were Ben and Rey had a playful, teasing relationship. Now I tease my husband more and our marriage is improved. 😊)

5. I used to laugh at who detested TLJ and / or the prequels and to think that who didn’t get the messages was just too lazy to think about them. I do not think that the original characters were ruined in these films at all, but fans who expected them to kick ass until retirement and beyond of course were disappointed. I figured that to make a credible sequel you had to lend more depth to characters and themes and couldn’t just start off again like nothing happened. Most reboots are like this and that’s why they fail: a film is not the same as a TV show. I found Star Wars’ approach more intelligent. But I disrespected other people’s hurt and irritation… and now I find myself in the same situation. I count myself lucky because I waited only 2 years and not 30 years like other hardcore fans.

We are depressed now and feel that Christmas is ruined. Hardcore OT fans must have felt the same two years ago - I remember quite a lot of meta’s and videos where people vented their rage and frustration, some going so far that they declared they wanted to abandon the franchise for good. They felt betrayed. As do we now: we feel that TLJ set up the stage for a brilliant redemption arc and love / family story, and now here we are, looking like fools.

Maybe next time we ought to be more specific with our wishes. Reylo is canon - what did that mean to you? I never hoped for Ben to be redeemed through Rey’s love, that would have been mushy. But I did of course hope for them to have a Happy Ever After. What did Bendemption mean to you? I of course hoped he would redeem himself and survive. The meanest thing about this film is that it gave us what we hoped for only to take it away again... And differently from the OT fans, we can’t say to ourselves, “Well, there’s still one film to be done, let’s hope it will make up.” Nostalgia has won. Not compassion, or the willingness to look beyond one’s nose.

Lessons learned

1. Try not to get so worked up about a film. After all, it’s just a story. It’s not our fault if studios, directors and story writers are little sh**s who like to have us build our hopes up and then deflate us.

2. Appreciate the world around you. It’s more complicated and frightening because contrarily to your dreams you can’t keep it in control. But it’s real. It makes you a more real person, and also the ones you interact with.

3. Make your own happy ending. a) That a hero you identified with didn’t get his happy ending doesn’t mean you won’t get yours. If you are already in a satisfying life situation, be grateful for what you have. If you’re not, roll up your sleeves more and do your best to escape reality less. b) Write stories that go the way you would have wanted them to.

4. Start something new to clear your head. A new project you didn’t have “time” for or perhaps not enough courage. Pour your energies into that.

5. Question yourself. Why did this story, these characters intrigue you so? You do not live in the galaxy far, far away after all. If you identify with Kylo / Ben, why? If you would like a partner like him, why? What can you do to implement your wishes into your life?

If you feel with lonely, misunderstood people, reach out in real life. The prequels were a cautionary tale about a good boy becoming a monster because he was overburdened from early age and left alone with his fears and doubts. Society had created its own monster. Don’t let us contribute to that kind of society.

I was adamant that Ben Solo was supposed to become a caring father figure in TRoS. Ironically, I have no children of myself and I don’t deal well with other people’s: I don’t dislike children, I just don’t have practice with them. If Ben didn’t get the chance to be a loving and caring figure for abandoned children, I think I ought to do something for children myself.

In the meantime, merry Christmas. We will always have each other. 😊

31 notes · View notes

letterboxd · 5 years

Photo

More Foghorn: The Robert Eggers Q&A.

“I wanted to be able to laugh at misery.” —The Lighthouse director Robert Eggers answers your questions and ours about what he’s wearing on Hallowe’en, being cool with memes, and paying homage to Mary Poppins.

The Lighthouse, out now in select US cinemas and opening nationwide this weekend, is the follow-up to Robert Eggers’ feature debut The Witch, one of our highest-rated films of 2016 and the third highest-rated horror of that year.

Similarly, The Lighthouse is firmly in our top ten narrative features of 2019 and is absolutely tearing up the Letterboxd reviews section with reactions like “Eggers holds nothing back in this film. He takes things far past okay and doesn’t apologize for any of it,” (Logan) and “If a bearded, bulging-eyed Willem Dafoe talking like a pirate for one hundred and ten minutes, shot on high-contrast orthochromatically filtered high-resolution black-and-white celluloid that brings out every follicle and pore doesn’t deserve five stars, I simply don’t know what does” (Jonathan).

The film’s success lies in a combination of obsessively detailed production design, singular technical choices (“a black-and-white movie in a stupid aspect ratio”, as Eggers told Filmmaker magazine), the superb acting partnership of Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as lighthouse keepers on a far-flung rock, a borderline-ridiculous amount of foghorn in the soundtrack, and—in spite of the characters’ miserable circumstances—a hysterically funny script.

When we spoke to Eggers’ brother and co-writer Max at TIFF, he told us that the writing partnership was “a perfect fit; we trust each other, and I think that’s the big thing about writing teams is you gotta trust each other”. Their brotherly relationship naturally enabled the film’s dialogue to head into comedic territory, even as the story itself descends into hallucinatory horror. “Comedy is about that. You’ve gotta be able to be honest and trust yourselves. We didn’t know how it was going to play but, thankfully, I think the fart jokes work.”

Not only do the fart jokes work; the poetically trippy 1890s dialogue became instantly meme-able. It was no surprise, then, that when we invited the Letterboxd community to contribute questions for this interview, many of them dwelled on the script. But first, with Hallowe’en fast-approaching, we needed to know what Eggers had planned.

A24 has put out a helpful guide for those who want to do Hallowe’en as a 19th-century lighthouse keeper. You’re in the middle of The Lighthouse promo tour, but have you managed to plan yours? Robert Eggers: Hallowe’en was my favorite holiday growing up and I made many elaborate costumes, but now that I’m doing this, I will agree with Marilyn Manson where he says: “Hallowe’en is my day off”. It’s time for everyone else to catch up!

At TIFF, we spoke with your co-writer and brother Max about your collaboration. Letterboxd members Kevin and MrRabbit7 are interested in what the writing process was like with Max. Does that relationship allow more of an ‘anything goes’ approach? I know my brother, so it’s easy for us to write together. My movie that was leaked in the trades a couple days ago [The Northman] I also wrote with another writer. I’m finding, as much as I like writing scripts on my own, it’s fun to collaborate. It’s actually joyful to pass the drafts back and forth and see how you’re lifting each other’s work up.

We had many questions (including from John, Austin and Tyler) about The Lighthouse’s dialect and vernacular. Can you tell us about the work you did in constructing dialogue in unfamiliar languages, including the sources you consulted? It’s a lot of research and there is some quoting the sources directly. There’s much more of that in The Witch, where sentences remain intact. There’s very few intact sentences from the research in this film. There’s certainly many turns-of-phrase. When I’m looking at my primary source material from the period, I’m writing down vocabulary words in my own thesaurus that I can turn to.

I tend not to write in modern English and then translate the dialect. I try to write in the dialect even as I’m learning to do it, so the thesaurus is organized more [as] moods and ideas. I’m washing my eyes with words and hoping something turns up that works as I’m moving forward. You’re studying the sentence structure and trying to find the rules.

Thankfully with The Witch, because it was written in early modern English, which was a golden age of English writing, there were plenty of books available to teach me what the rules were. In studying the various Puritans, I could find how different people broke the rules and did things their own way. With this film it was much harder to find that, but eventually my brother came across the work of Sarah Orne Jewett. She was writing in coastal Maine dialect, interviewing working people to get their dialect. My wife found a thesis written by Evelyn Starr Cutler where she provided rules for different dialects—where are ‘r’s omitted and where are ‘r’s added, so on and so forth—so we could create consistent dialects for both characters.

“Why’d ya spill yer beans?” “Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?” Everyone—even A24’s marketing team—has taken to the film with meme-able gusto (exhibit A: these goofy Lighthouse emoji). How does it feel to have your deeply researched script torn apart in this affectionate, ironic way by internet culture? Does it make you hesitate in your approach to writing and directing these types of lines? (This question brought to you by those who quoted those infamous questions in response to this AMA.) No, it’s cool with me. The Lighthouse was designed to be a black comedy and not just have moments of black comedy. The Witch takes itself very seriously, but I think that there’s something kind of film student-y about how serious it takes itself. I’m glad that people can make PlayMobil and Lego playsets as jokes. You need to be irreverent, and with The Lighthouse I was exploring misery again but I wanted to be able to laugh at misery. Werner Herzog talked about it like, you’re on the floor laughing, you know?

You and your brother both have deep roots in theater. After listening to your A24 podcast with brother-in-arms and Midsommar director Ari Aster, Solly F wants to know which playwrights you look up to, and who was particularly useful in your approach to The Lighthouse? I like Shakespeare [laughs]. I don’t know if he was particularly helpful for this, but he’s pretty good! Clearly [Harold] Pinter, Sam Shepard, and evoking the name [Samuel] Beckett is almost worse than evoking the name Shakespeare, but you know, they’re good at what they do, and for this two-hander about identity it was impossible not to think of those playwrights.

Many members are curious about the films that inspire you and, more specifically, your most influential Ingmar Bergman films. So, which Bergman were you looking at for The Lighthouse? Also, Evan McKenzie dares to ask, “Given the chance, which Bergman film should you like to remake?” Well, I would not remake a Bergman movie because that’s just insanity! Even though I dared to talk about remaking Nosferatu—which also probably does not need to be done—so I guess, yes, I am insane. Fair enough question. Obviously Persona and any of his chamber dramas would be the ones I would be thinking about here.

There’s a shot where Willem is knitting and Rob is smoking in the foreground, which Jarin [Blaschke, The Witch and The Lighthouse’s director of photography] and I referred to fondly as our Hour of the Wolf shot. Of course we’re using a much wider lens than Bergman ever would have done and had a different approach to lighting than he did, so it doesn’t seem all that Bergman-esque in the end, even though it was our homage.

Youssef asks: which foreign-language films are your favorites, or provided you an entry point into the non-English language arthouse? The arthouse films that I saw in high school were ones that just happened to be in my local video store. Only one of them is foreign language, The City of Lost Children, but that, Eraserhead, and Brazil were three movies that I can think of that made me ask: “Oh you can do that? Wow!” Julie Taymor’s Titus also was another film from high school that made me realize that there was something other than—and not to speak disparagingly—Spielberg and Tim Burton and whatever was more easy to see in rural New Hampshire cinemas.

Robert Pattinson and Robert Eggers on the set of ‘The Lighthouse’. / Photo: Chris Reardon

The Lighthouse has an ambiguity that has led to many of our members questioning its genre. Even Ari Aster wasn’t sure when he mentioned the film in his Q&A, and you’ve referred to it as a black comedy here. But we have to ask, for the sake of our community’s sanity: is The Lighthouse a horror movie? I don’t see it as a horror movie. But I’ve definitely spoken to people who get my intentions that think it is. So maybe? I don’t care what people call it.

It’ll probably make our top horror lists, if that’s okay. That’s fine.

Let’s not tease too many hypotheticals, since this question is based only on your two-feature output so far, but there is significant interest in whether you’ll branch out into other genres, specifically sci-fi, and other time periods, specifically the future. Well again, pointing to the leaked Viking movie, that ain’t a horror movie. And I’ve written other movies that aren’t horror movies. It’s just The Witch and everything that I’ve actually gotten made so far have been horror or horror adjacent. That’s just how it’s been—fine, happy about it.

Never say never because I am interested in sci-fi. I feel like generally when people are trying to ask big questions and challenge current philosophies, to look at things that are bigger than ourselves today, it’s always done with sci-fi. So for me, I’m enjoying doing that kind of stuff in the past just because that’s not how people often use historical movies today.

Writer-director Robert Eggers.

We love asking filmmakers this and Filbert wants to know: what are your go-to comfort films? The movies you’ve seen the most? Anything that could surprise us? The Big Lebowski I’ve watched a lot. We have a little bit of a nod to it in The Lighthouse when [Pattinson] throws their shit off the cliff and it hits him in the face. It’s pretty damn close to the ashes of Steve Buscemi. I think it’s not going to surprise anyone that I’ve seen The Shining a zillion times. I’ve seen Mary Poppins a lot, and we have a little nod to it with our weather-vane shot.

By the way, when I’m writing it I’m not thinking ‘this is the Big Lebowski scene’ or ‘this is the Mary Poppins scene’. I’m just kind of writing and you say, “well, I know where that came from.”

Finally, the 2010s are drawing to a close and many of us, including Max and John, would like to know: what are your essential films of the decade? I’d have to think about it more, but recently I thought Trey Edward Shults’ Waves is great, Hereditary is great, Parasite’s great… I’m sorry, I haven’t seen Parasite [laughs]. That’s a microaggression, I meant to say Burning is great. Anything by Ciro Guerra [director of Embrace of the Serpent and co-director of Birds of Passage] is great. Yeah, there’s a few.

‘The Lighthouse’ is in US cinemas now. All images courtesy of A24.

#The Lighthouse #the witch #robert eggers #max eggers #robert pattinson #rpatz #willem dafoe #scriptwriting #screenwriting #writing #19th century #film #black and white #cinematography #mermaid #a24 #A24 films #a24 movies #letterboxd

49 notes · View notes

jeremyburge · 4 years

Text

What took iPhone emoji search so long?

Every year, the chant gets louder:

oh that’s cool Apple that you added all this stuff but WHERE IS MY EMOJI SEARCH

This year, people are going to have to come up with a new request, because emoji search is coming to iOS 14.

So what the heck took Apple so long?

Emoji search seems so obvious, did Apple just forget to implement it? Did they not know people wanted this?

Here I piece together the most likely reasons this took so long. It’s probably not just one, but a bit of each of them.

(Oh, and if you’re new to my rarely-update-blog here, you can usually find me over at Emojipedia.)

1. 🗓 Timing

The emoji keyboard first came to the iPhone twelve years ago in iPhone OS 2.2.

It took until 2011 for widespread access to this keyboard in iOS, and wasn’t until 2016 that it became clear that frequent emoji updates may be a real thing.

In the early years, there wasn’t much change in the emoji set. iOS 8.3 in 2015 nearly doubled the set, and by the following year it was clear that updates were coming consistently year-on-year.

This isn’t much of an excuse so much as to reframe our minds. It feels like emojis have been huge and growing in number forever but we’re talking more likely 4-5 years here.

2. 🙅 Apple just isn’t good at search

Search isn’t Apple’s forte. Siri and App Store search come to mind as examples that you just don’t have faith when you say or type a phrase, that you’ll get a great result.

You might, but you wouldn’t want to bet your life on it.

It seems reasonable that Apple knows its strengths, and has avoided doing emoji search until it could do a decent job.

Apple has emoji search on the Mac. It’s existed for years. And it has gotten worse over time.

Something happened in 2016 which caused the previously inflexible-yet-consistent emoji search to broaden and accept more terms, but with far less pleasing results.

The good news? Emoji search in macOS Big Sur has improved. It’s also decent in iOS 14 beta.

It felt like in 2016-2019, Apple’s macOS emoji search was either too complex and buggy to fix, and now replaced. Or it has finally been improved.

Whether these tweaks are implemented by hand (by checking the most common search phrases and fixing accordingly), or by natural language processing improvements, I’m not sure.

3. 🔡 Emoji Auto-Suggest

Apple has had emoji auto-suggest for a number of years on iOS.

You start typing a word, and an emoji might be suggested in the list of options. This works relatively well for a small set of results.

Issues with auto-suggest-as-emoji-search:

If you’re already on the emoji keyboard and can’t find an emoji, you need to get back out of the emoji keyboard to try auto-suggest

Only three results are shown at a time. If you have a big group of results like all green emojis, three isn’t enough

If you don’t like the auto-suggest options you have to delete the word you just typed. Or you end up with a random word in your text.

Was emoji auto-suggest intended as the solution, so emoji search wasn’t needed at all? Did this delay the search feature? Maybe, but not necessarily.

Perhaps it was just a good place to get some data on what people are emoji searching for.

4. 😳 Public shaming

The first version of emoji auto-suggest on iOS only suggested one emoji. Damon Beres at Mashable noted the issue this presented, when searching for some terms.

Why should CEO show a man and not a woman?

Having only one auto-suggest option was always short-sighted, as it’s lose-lose no matter which gender is shown.

Apple rectified this in a subsequent release, by showing up to three choices.

Given the public and media interest in emoji, I doubt Apple wanted to roll out emoji search on iOS that was either buggy (ala Mac emoji search until now) or suggested bias (like the CEO auto-suggest option used to).

It’s one thing having bad search results on a relatively hidden feature on the Mac. It’s another to have them on a marquee feature of iOS.

Thankfully the emoji search results on iOS 14 beta are decent. Though they don’t make a particular point of which gender is shown first - it varies considerably, with no specific logic that is clear.

One failing here: you cannot press-and-hold any search result emoji to choose a different skin tone. The same limitation applies to the emoji auto-suggest feature.

5. UI Weirdness

One minor issue that may have deterred Apple from implementing emoji search earlier: it’s sometimes weird having a keyboard shown on screen that doesn’t actually type into your app.

If you accidentally find your way into the emoji search field, there is a new button in the lower-right hand corner to escape back to regular text entry. Or just tap where you want to type.

This same issue exists with third-party keyboards and iMessage apps like any GIF search. It seemed weirder at first, but now I think most users are familiar with a search-within-keyboard option.

As far as I can tell, there is no option to turn the emoji bar off.

Final notes

This is beta software, so I’m not going to review the specific functionality, but my initial notes are:

✅ Emoji search on iOS seems good, shows what an average user would expect.

💻 Compared to Catalina, the Big Sur results are much better. Every issue I raise in this earlier article has been addressed. A general test of other terms seems to show results that are universally better.

🤷 Sometimes the same search shows different results, I don’t know why

🔄 The search results are different to emoji auto-suggest. Typing ‘woman’ suggests 👩 in the auto-suggest bar, but gives a whole bunch of types of women in the search results, well ahead of the base ‘woman’ emoji.

🇬🇧 I performed my tests in English. I’m not sure how the iPhone emoji search performs in other languages.

Are you running iOS 14 beta and have you noticed any major emoji search issues? I’d be interested to know.

As far as I can tell, what Apple has implemented so far with iOS emoji search passes the ‘good enough to not notice anything special going on’ test.

#emoji #emojis #emoji search #ios 14

2 notes · View notes

imdoingthismspaintadventure · 5 years

Text

Worm 2.2 - In which we browse a superhero forum

The run had helped to wake me up, as did the hot shower and a cup of the coffee my dad had left in the pot. Even so, the fatigue didn’t help the feeling of disorientation over just how normal the day seemed as I made my way to school. Just a matter of hours ago, I had been in a life and death fight, I had even met Armsmaster. Now it was a day like any other.

Yeah, I’d be suprised if you pay any attention to anything they teach at school today. The feeling of coming back to normality and routine after that must be something else

I felt a bit nervous as I got to homeroom. Having basically skipped two classes the previous Friday, failing to turn in a major assignment, I figured that Mrs. Knott probably knew already. I didn’t feel relieved when Mrs. Knott glanced up at me and gave a tight smile before turning her attention back to her computer. That just meant the humiliation would be redoubled if and when class was interrupted by someone coming down from the office. A part of me just wanted to miss this class too, just to avoid the potential humiliation and avoid drawing attention.

Ugh, falling out of schedule and/or failing classes because of the bullying is rough as hell. Keeping your grades acceptable can be used as escapism from your own thoughts in these kinds of situations and if that starts falling apart too... what’s keeping you in school at all?

If you start missing classes it can quickly slowball into full-on not attending class at all.

All in all, I felt anxious as I made my way to my computer, which kind of sucked because Computer class was one of the few parts of the school day I didn’t usually dread. For one thing, it was the one class in which I was doing well. More to the point, neither Madison, Sophia nor Emma were in this class, though some of their friends were. Those girls didn’t usually feel the need to harass me without the trio around, and I was further removed from them because I was in the advanced stream of the class. A good three quarters of the people in the room were computer illiterate, being from families that didn’t have the money for computers or families that didn’t have much interest in the things, so they practiced typing without looking at the keyboard and had lessons in using search engines. By contrast, I was in the group that was learning some basic programming and spreadsheets. It didn’t do a lot for my already geeky reputation, but I could deal.

Oh interesting that Taylor’s favourite class is Computer Science! I am studying to be a Software Engineer myself! Nice!

It’s good that those three aren’t in every class, so you at least get some moments of respite from their bullshit. That’s good.

We never had the basic kind of keyboard-training classes and all that. Is computer science taught early in America? Here we basically don’t learn anything until we are like 16 or 17 at the very least.

Mrs. Knott was an alright teacher, if not the most hands on; she was usually content to give us advanced students an in-class assignment and then focus on the more rambunctious majority for the rest of the class. This suited me just fine – I usually wrapped up the assignment in a half hour, leaving me an hour to use as I saw fit. I had been recalling and going over the events of the previous night during my morning run, and the first thing that I did when the ancient desktop finished its agonizing load process was to start digging for information.

Lucky you! Assignments stress me out a lot, generally. I wish I could just do them easy-peasy like that. Although I suspect Taylor’s are much simpler, just because of her age and school education vs college.

The go-to place for news and discussion on capes was Parahumans Online. The front page had constant updates on recent, international news featuring capes. From there, I could go to the wiki, where there was information on individual capes, groups and events, or to the message boards, which broke down into nearly a hundred sub-boards, for specific cities and capes. I opened the wiki in one tab, then found and opened the message board for Brockton Bay in another.

Ok I love this. I love this a lot.

This is one of the most realistic things the serial has done so far. Also one of the most fun. If superheroes were real, you bet your ass there would be forums about them, probably more than one. With hourly threads and a lot of speculation and debate.

I imagine there would be like a serious one with strict rules for talking about world events relating to capes, like if it was the news. Cause they aren’t just a tv show or a videogame, they have a real impact in the daily lives of people everywhere.

There would also be whole fanclubs or communities for each super-group and for each city/country, where they talk about the popularity, newcomers, fights, etc...

I can also see entire pages dedicated to romantic relationships or rumors, fanarts, conspiracies, versus battles (who would win?) etc....

Basically, supers being real would absolutely reshape the whole internet forever.

I had the sense that either Tattletale or Grue were the leader of the group I had run into. Turning my attention to Tattletale, I searched the wiki. The result I got was disappointingly short, starting with a header reading “This article is a stub. Be a hero and help us expand it.” There was a one sentence blurb on how she was a alleged villain active in Brockton Bay, with a single blurry picture. The only new information for me was that her costume was lavender. A search of the message boards turned up absolutely nothing. There wasn’t even a hint as to what her power was.

Grue seemed the one calling the shots, but I could also see Tattletale as a short of “shadow leader” type, yeah...

Tattletale has almost nothing about her in her page! That’s very interesting. So she’s very secretive or at least good at hiding information about herself...

Heh, ironic that the Tattletale is the one who keeps secrets. I like the name she picked.

I looked up Grue. There was actually information about him, but nothing detailed or definitive. The wiki stated he had been active for nearly three years, dealing in petty crimes such as robbing small stores and doing some work as an enforcer for those who wanted a little superpowered muscle along for a job. Recently, he had turned to higher scale crime, including corporate theft and robbing a casino, together with his new team. His power was listed as darkness generation in the sidebar under his picture. The picture seemed crisp enough, but the focus of it, Grue, was just a blurry black silhouette in the center.

So Grue is an experienced criminal! Somewhat at least. Three years of experience is certainly better than one night!

He was doing low-level crimes until recently, when he adquired his new team, and they seem to be doing big heists now! How did Grue find the others? Seems like a pretty big increase in notoriety and strength in a short time!

Darkness generation....that could potentially be very cool. I wonder if it can be used offensively, like fire with Lung. I always imagine the darkness element (when used as blasts the same way they use fire, in some media) to feel like being devoured by some parasite, like if darkness ravages and devours you. Light on the other hand just scours and obliterates everything it touches. At least those are my headcanons for the more esoteric elements.

I searched for Bitch, next. No results. I did another search for her more official title, Hellhound, and got a wealth of information. Rachel Lindt had never made any real attempt to hide her identity. She had apparently been homeless through most of her criminal career, just living on the streets and moving on whenever police or a cape came after her. The sightings and encounters with the homeless girl ended around a year ago – I figured that was when she joined forces with Grue, Tattletale and Regent. The picture in the sidebar was taken from surveillance camera footage – an unmasked, dark haired girl who I wouldn’t have called pretty. She had a squarish, blunt-featured face with thick eyebrows. She was riding atop one of her monstrous ‘dogs’ like a jockey rides a horse, down the middle lane of a street.

Huh, so Bitch, or Rachel, had never had a secret identity or a secret life! Seems like her cape and normal life are one and the same! She was homeless and running from one place to another, along with her giant eldritch dogs.

I assume they took her into the group and she prefers it to being alone and without a place to be.

According to the wiki entry, her powers manifested when she was fourteen, followed almost immediately by her demolishing the foster home she had been living in, injuring her foster mother and two other foster children in the process. This was followed by a two year series of skirmishes and retreats across Maine as various heroes and teams tried to apprehend her, and she either defeated them or successfully evaded capture. She had no powers that would have made her any stronger or faster than the average Jane, but she was apparently able to turn ordinary dogs into the creatures I had seen on the rooftop. Monsters the size of a car, all muscle, bone, fang and claw. A red box near the bottom of the page read, “Rachel Lindt has a public identity, but is known to be particularly hostile, antisocial and violent. If recognized, do not approach or provoke. Leave the area and notify authorities as to her last known location.” At the very bottom of the page was a list of links that were related to her: two fansites and a news article relating to her early activities. A search of the message boards turned up too many results, leaving me unable to sift through the crap, the arguments, the speculation and the villain worship to find any genuine morsels of information. If nothing else, she was notorious. I sighed and moved on, making a mental note to do more investigation when I had the time.

Damn, can she control her powers all that well? Or at least, at that time? Cause that sounds to me like the type of situation where her newly-found powers go out of control and cause problems.

She had a foster-home, but then had to run away from the people she hurt ,the authorities, heroes and everyone! And she lived two years like that! No wonder she is antisocial now, jesus.

Also she can apparently turn any dog into those boney creatures of death. Wow. Depending on where she is, she could be incredibly powerful in a fight!

She also seems to be the most famous one so far, having even online admirers and fansites about her exploits. Interesting. She seems to be dangerous though, as she is said to be violent to everyone she meets.

The last member of the group was Regent. Given what Armsmaster had said about the guy being low profile, I didn’t expect to find much. I was surprised to find less than that. Nothing. My search on the wiki turned up only a default response, “There are no results matching this query. 32 unique IP addresses have searched the Parahumans.net Wiki for ‘Regent’ in 2011. Would you like to create the page?” The message board didn’t turn up anything else. I even did a search for alternate spellings of his name, such as Regence and Recant, in case I had heard it wrong. Nothing turned up.

Woah, if Tattletale had little to no information, this guy is straight-up a nonentity! Absolutely hidden from the public eye!

We don’t even know his powers, story or place within the group. How fascinating.

If my mood had been on the sour side as I got to homeroom, the dead ends only made it worse. I turned my attention to the in-class assignment, making a working calculator in Visual Basic, but it was too trivial to distract me. The work from Thursday and Friday had already given us the tools to do the job, so it was really just busywork. I didn’t mind learning stuff, but work for the sake of doing work was annoying. I did the bare minimum, checked it for any bugs, moved the file to the ‘completed work’ folder and returned to surfing the web. All in all, the work barely took fifteen minutes.

You at least get experience and speed in doing these kinds of things! And calculators can be fun to program!

Also yeah, having nothing to do and being able to use the internet the rest of the class is pretty sweet!

I looked up Lung on the wiki, which I had done often enough before, as part of my research and preparation for being a superhero. I’d wanted to be sure I knew who prominent local villains were and what they could do. The search for ‘Lung’ redirected to a catch-all page on his gang, the ABB, with quite a bit of detailed information. The information on Lung’s powers was pretty in line with my own experience, though there was no mention of the super-hearing or him being fireproof. I debated adding it, but decided against it. There were security concerns with my submission being tracked back to Winslow High, and then to me. I figured it would probably be deleted as unsupported speculation, anyways.

They are really underselling Lung huh. No wonder Taylor was suprised about how OP he could be! And yeah better not to edit anything in a trackable device, or without any solid source for that matter.

The section beneath the description of Lung and his powers covered his subordinates. He was estimated to have forty or fifty thugs working for him across Brockton Bay, largely drawn from the ranks of Asian youth. It was pretty unconventional for a gang to include members of the variety of nationalities that the ABB did, but Lung had made it a mission to conquer and absorb every gang with Asian members and many without. Once he had the manpower he needed, the non-Asian gangs were cannibalized for assets, their members discarded. Even though there were no more major gangs in the east end of town to absorb, he was still recruiting zealously. His method, now, was to go after anyone older than twelve and younger than sixty. It didn’t matter if you were a gang member or not. If you were Asian and you lived in Brockton Bay, Lung and his people expected you to either join or to pay tribute one way or another. There had been local news reports on it, newspaper articles, and I could remember seeing signs in the guidance counselor’s office detailing where people who were targeted in this way could go for help.

He seemed to want to grow quickly by recruiting every asian person in Brockton Bay, cape or not! And if you were Asian, you would have heard of his band and their threats or extortion.

You are partly responsible for the capture of one mayor threat to the safety of the citizens of Brockton Bay. You did great last night, Taylor!

Lung’s lieutenants were listed as Oni Lee and Bakuda. I already had some general knowledge about Oni Lee, but I was intrigued to see there were recent updates to his wiki entry. There were specific details on his powers: He could teleport, but when he did so, he didn’t disappear. As he teleported, his original self, for lack of a better term, would stay where it was and remain active for five to ten seconds before disintegrating into a cloud of carbon ash. Essentially, he could create another version of himself anywhere nearby, while the old version could stick around long enough to distract or attack you. If that wasn’t scary enough, there was an report of him holding a grenade in his hand as he repeatedly duplicated himself, with his short lived duplicates acting as suicide bombers. Topping it all off, Oni Lee’s wiki page had a similar red warning box to the one that Bitch/Hellhound had on hers, minus the bit about his public identity. From what they knew about him, authorities had seen fit to note him a sociopath. The warning covered the same essential elements: exceedingly violent, dangerous to approach, should not be provoked, and so on. I glanced at his picture. His costume consisted of a black bodysuit with a black bandoleer and belt for his knives, guns and grenades. The only color on him was an ornate Japanese-style demon mask, crimson with two green stripes down either side. Except for the mask, his costume gave off the distinct impression of a ninja, which just added weight to the notion that this was a guy who could and would slide a knife between your ribs.

Oni Lee sounds like a mayor fucking threat! The ability to teleport-shadow clone yourself multiple times to get to a thousand places quickly AND leave behind copies who could stab, shoot you or even blow themselves up seems really really dangerous.

And he’s a sociopath to boot! You were lucky he wasn’t there last night, he could have probably just teleported to the roof and knifed you.

Bakuda was a new entry, added to the ABB wiki page just ten days ago. The picture only showed her from the shoulders up, a girl with straight black hair, large opaque goggles over her eyes and a metal mask with a gas mask styled filter covering the lower half of her face. A braided cord of black, yellow and green wires looped over one of her shoulders. I couldn’t pinpoint her ethnicity with the mask and goggles, and her age wasn’t any easier to figure out.

This was the bomb expert, right?

She looks menacing with that setup, which is probably true! Her powers also sounds really worrying!

The wiki had a lot of the same details Armsmaster had mentioned to me. Bakuda had essentially held a university ransom and she did it with her superhuman ability to design and fabricate high tech bombs. There was a link to a video titled ‘Bomb Threat @ Cornell’, but I didn’t think it wise to play it in school, especially without headphones. I made a mental note to check it out when I got home.

Damn, she was basically a domestic terrorist back then!

It’s probably not a good idea to play a bomb threat at a school IN a school, you’re right.

The next thing that caught my eye was the section heading titled ‘Defeats and Captures’. I scrolled down to read it. According to the wiki, Lung had apparently suffered a number of minor defeats at the hands of various teams, ranging from the Guild to the local teams of New Wave, the Wards and the Protectorate, but consistently managed to evade capture until last night. A blurb read, ‘ Armsmaster successfully ambushed and defeated the leader of the ABB, who was weakened from a recent encounter with a rival gang. Lung was taken to the PHQ for holding until the villain’s trial by teleconference. Given Lung’s extensive and well documented criminal history, it is expected he will face imprisonment in the Birdcage should he be found guilty at trial.’

Huh, so he WAS bested before! Just not captured! He always evaded prison, until now thanks to Taylor and co.!

Or thanks only to Armsmaster, according to the official story, which to be fair, is what they agreed upon.

The birdcage? What is that, some sort of super-prison like The Raft, Blackgate, Impel Down in One Piece...

Is that place safe? Cause prisons and jail breaks are pretty synonymous in comics

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I wasn’t sure what to think. By all rights, I should have been angry that Armsmaster took the credit for the fight that could have cost me my life. Instead, I felt a building excitement. I felt like shaking the shoulder of the guy sitting next to me and point to the screen, saying, “Me, I made that possible! Me!”

Hehe. Excited and happy Taylor is just the best.

With a renewed enthusiasm, I switched tabs to the message board and began looking to see what people were saying about it. A post by a fan or minion of Lung threatened violence against Armsmaster. There was a request by someone asking for more information on the fight. I was given pause by one post that asked whether Bakuda could or would use a large scale bomb and the threat of potentially thousands or hundreds of thousands dead, to ransom Lung back.

Eeash, seems Arms was right about the consequences of this!

That Bakuda threat is really scary

I tried to put that out of my mind. If it happened, it would be the responsibility of heroes better and more experienced than I.

True, you can’t carry everything on your shoulders.

It struck me that there was one person I hadn’t looked for. Myself. I opened up the advanced search page for the Parahumans.net message board and did a search for multiple terms. I included insect, spider, swarm, bug, plague, and a mess of other terms that had struck me when I had been trying to brainstorm a good hero name. I narrowed the timeframe of posts to search for posts made within the past 12 hours and hit Search.

Huh, I don’t think you would find that much honestly. I mean, fight aside, you were pretty stealthy on your way in, and the only people who directly met you are the fire dragon currently going to jail, a couple of mooks without their boss, a group of very cryptic teenage villains and the superhero who was going to keep you hidden sooo yeah.

Also kinda hard to search for yourself without having decided on a name yet!

My efforts turned up two posts. One referred to a villain called Pestilence, active in the UK. Apparently Pestilence was one of the people who could use ‘magic’. That is, he was if you believed magic was real, and not just some convoluted or deluded interpretation of a given set of powers.

Pestilence sounds awesome as an insect-power name. One of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse!

Huh, so there are powers that seem more “magical” and others that are more “technological”. Nice.

The second post was in the ‘Connections’ section of the message board, where rescued damsels left their contact information for their dashing heroes, where conventions and fan gatherings were organized and where people posted job offers for capes and the cape-obsessed. Most were cryptic or vague, referring to stuff only the people in question would know.

That is a nice system to have, to contact people anonymously.

The message was titled, simply, “Bug”

Well damn, seems someone did notice you

I clicked it and waited impatiently for the outdated system and overloaded school modem to load up the page. What I got was brief.

Subject: Bug

Owe you one. Would like to repay the favor. Meet?

Send a message,

Tt.

IT’S TATTLETALE.

IT’S THE TEENAGE VILLAINS REACHING OUT TO HER AFTER THE LAST FIGHT.

This opens up so many possibilites oh my god

The post was followed by two pages of people commenting. Three people suggested it was something important, while a half dozen more people decried them as tinfoil hats, Parahumans.net’s term for conspiracy theorists.

Hah! I imagine a message like that would cause speculation even in OUR reality! Considering Taylor’s the protag, those tinfoil hats may be on to something there...

It was meaningful, though. I couldn’t interpret it any other way; Tattletale had found a way to get in contact with me.

She sure has!

So now both Arms and Tattletale have contacted her, both with offers maybe! Damn, she sure got popular after that one night!

Oh, oooh

What if they offer her to join them?

And what if she accepts?

Oh god the story could go in a wildly different direction now. I hadn’t even considered that in my list of possibilities!

It seems at odd with her desire to be a hero, so maybe not.... But what if?

I’m liking where this is going.

#Worm #worm liveblog #worm parahumans #parahumans liveblog #wildbow #Worm 2.2 #arc 2

19 notes · View notes

swordsandrayguns · 4 years

Text

Riker’s Beard And Family Time: Looking Back At Star Trek: TNG

I write science fiction and fantasy novels… so I am no stranger to things dubbed “nerdy.” The last few months, though, I have been doing something that pushes the boundaries of nerdy even for me. I’m watching all the Star Trek properties in the order of their release. Yup, an epic binge watch covering over five decades of television series, cartoons and motion pictures. Look, I can try to explain and rationalize this a couple ways. Truth is, I travel a great deal and have to fill the time I spent in airports and on planes (preferably with things I can download as oppose to stream). I am also, as an author, studying some of the great examples of “universe building” and epic story arcs. Still nerdy, though; I admit it.

Obviously, I started with the original series and jumped into the animated series. I timed this all so my viewing of Star Trek: The Motion Picture coincided with the the special 40th anniversary showings in theaters. I followed through the next couple of movies into The Next Generation, alternating in movies and even the original series pilot The Cage (which was originally made available to the public as a pay per view offering between the first and second seasons of The Next Generation) as they fell in the original release timeline. I am getting to the end of the fifth season of Next Generation now and very much looking forward to alternating between episodes of The Next Generation, Deep Space 9 and even the occasional film in the near future.

Just in case you are wondering, I am pretty dedicated to sticking to the timeline but I am not strictly adhering to it. As I find myself, for example, in a hotel with channels such as BBC America or the Heroes and Icons channel I will only turn on episodes that have already showed up in my series overview… so no DS9, Voyager or Enterprise (yet) but the adventures of Kirk and company are fair game, as are Next Generation episodes up to season five. On the other hand, I am still watching Discovery’s Short Treks as they come out and I am definitely watching Picard as soon as I get a chance (meaning on my big screen at home instead of streaming it on my laptop over shaky hotel wifi).

Even though I have not finished the complete rewatch, I find that I already have some new thoughts and ideas about I have seen so far starting with Riker’s beard.

Star Trek The Next Generation has generated a basketful of memes from “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” to “I am not a merry man” but undeniably the greatest is “Riker’s beard.” Just as the Internet has given us “jumping the shark,” the phrase to mark when a show is never quite as good again named for a really stupid moment when Fonzie was in Hawaii, it gave us “Riker’s beard” to mark the opposite. To this day, I know people that will immediately turn off an episode of The Next Generation if Jonathan Frakes turns up clean shaven (or if Wesley is in it, but that is a whole different story and, honestly, my harsh view of Wesley softened a bit with this re-watch). My first revelation from my Next Generation binge is that while season two, when the beard shows up, is better than season one, it is not when Next Generation really hits its stride.

First of all, let me defend season one of Star Trek The Next Generation. Twenty one years after the premiere of Star Trek, after three seasons of a pioneering science fiction drama, a year of the animated series and four feature films, Star Trek The Next Generation had to take up the incredibly difficult challenge of continuing one of the world’s beloved stories without a single character from the original series. Even more difficult, the real world had changed. Where the original Star Trek was making a statement by having a Russian, an Asian and an African woman on the bridge The Next Generation would not have made any statements with this type of casting. After all, when Picard met his crew and first face Q at Farpoint the biggest show on television focused on the an upper middle class African American family, something that was absolutely unthinkable when Kirk boldly set forth with his crew.

The first season of Star Trek The Next Generation not only introduced Q, the Ferengi and Data’s not so lovable android brother Lore it killed a main character. Star Trek The Next Generation took a major step that not only the original series never tackled but most shows avoid. Sure, other shows tease it and even then it was usually on a season ending cliffhanger. Even the original series backed away from the only death of a major character they ever portrayed with an entire movie dedicated to reversing it. Star Trek The Next Generation killed Tasha Yar completely out of the blue with three episodes left in the first season. This incredibly bold move cast a shadow on the entire series, adding a real threat to future episodes.

Is season one perfect? Oh, no. Not at all. Not even close, but like I already mentioned it had an amazingly difficult challenge facing it. The fans were expecting… well, everything. Next Generation was trying to stay true to the essence of Star Trek while making itself something new. They put families on the Enterprise to emphasize it was a vehicle of exploration, not a military ship. They made sure there was not a Vulcan to be found and put the odd man in a kilt wandering the hallways. They put a Klingon on the bridge! But then they had to deal with it all.

Season two was better. For one thing, the anticipation and the expectations were gone. The show made it through the first season and when it came back with its second season it was coming back as Star Trek The Next Generation not “the new Star Trek.” Ironically, due to a writers’ strike, season two actually started off with a script recycled from the ill-fated Star Trek: Phase II series. In addition to the first officer’s facial hair, the second season brought Whoopi Goldberg on board as the ship’s bartender and saw Diana Muldaur (in her third Star Trek universe role as Dr. Pulaski) taking over the sick bay from Dr. Crusher. Geordi La Forge also migrated from the bridge to take over engineering. It was always a bit odd, somehow, in season one to not have the chief engineer as a major character, if only because the chief engineer would seem to play as an important of a role in the operations of the ship as, say, the ship’s counselor or a teenager doing his after school work study program as an acting ensign.

While season two was an improvement, it had its issues. Dr. Pulaski, playing a role meant, no doubt, to help humanize Data, came across as abrasive and (in my opinion) mean spirited. Gates McFadden had been fired, apparently because the head writer did not like her, but Gene Roddenberry resisted killing her character so Dr. Beverly Crusher merely transferred off the ship. When the head writer left the popular character of Dr. Crusher returned in season three. Whoopi Goldberg, although an interesting character, was the ship’s civilian bartender which is just kind of weird. Did the ship have a food court, too? The season was also shortened, because of the aforementioned writers’ strike, and it actually ended with (of all things) a clip show. A clip show!

As a final defense of season two, it did introduce the Borg, one of greatest science fiction villain races of all times. But was it really that much better than season one? Well, season two saw five episodes get a total of six Emmy nominations and won two (both technical Emmy awards related to the sound department). Season one’s premiere was the first television episode to be nominated for a Hugo Award in 15 years. Another season one episode was the first syndicated television episode to win a Peabody Award and six episodes gathered a total of seven Emmy nominations, winning three (for makeup, costume design and sound editing). If you place your faith in the numbers, it seems season one might have actually been better (at least if you go by its awards).

So by now, if I may be so bold as to make a prediction, you are probably thinking “This guy has put way too much thought into Star Trek The Next Generation” and “Okay, so if season two is not when The Next Generation gets great, when is it?” First, I said as an author I am studying Star Trek so cut me some slack. Second, I am glad you asked.

Star Trek The Next Generation, in my opinion, really hit its stride is the fourth season. Season four swept onto screens with the second part of season finale cliffhanger The Best Of Both Worlds. The Federation was facing the awesome might of the Borg and the crew of the Enterprise was desperately trying to save Picard, who had been taken and turned into Borg mouthpiece Locutus, so the season started with big action and drama. This quickly led to a series of episodes focusing on character relationships, particularly family relationships.

After he is rescued, Picard is left a broken man and returns to his family’s vineyard in France. Although there had been several stories about Picard’s history, this was the first to address his family and his entry into Star Fleet. Data’s Day not only explored how the android navigated through his duties and relationships, it introduced Chief O’Brien’s new wife Keiko. The O’Briens are the focus in the very next episode, showing not only the natural difficulties they were having adjusting to their new life as a married couple but also O’Brien’s past Star Fleet career and the psychological wounds left by his service in the war with Cardassia. To me, Riker’s beard does not signify when Star Trek The Next Generation really gets good, it is when Keiko O’Brien appears.

Family was a major theme of the fourth season, as Worf discovered he was a father and worked to regain his family’s honor in the eyes of fellow Klingons. Luxanna Troi re-appeared as did the ghost of Tasha Yar when the crew encountered her sister. Data’s brother also made another appearance, as did Data’s creator. Data also grew a great deal, even being shown to try out a romantic relationship with another crew member. The true strength of Star Trek The Next Generation, as of season four, was that it was well established enough as a series to feature stories based on human relationships instead of action or the “alien of the week.”

It should also be noted that season four also brought more episodes which were a part of longer storylines, such as Worf’s dishonor and the political intrigues of the Klingon Empire. There were also many returning minor characters and new characters being set up for multiple appearances. It is only after three seasons Star Trek The Next Generation finally had established enough of its own universe for this to happen. Also, though, by season four plans were in motion for a second live action Star Trek series, one to run concurrently with Next Generation. It could have been that the introduction of multi-episode storylines were a result of the producers consciously attempting to expand the Star Trek universe while starting to differentiate Next Generation from the upcoming Deep Space Nine.

Ironically, season four also marks Star Trek The Next Generation outlasting its predecessor in terms of seasons on the air. While this did not actually influence the formation of my opinion season four is when Next Generation really gets good, it does really make me wonder what Star Trek may have become if it had a season four.

#star trek #next generation #rikers beard #science fiction #indy author

5 notes · View notes