#i just realised the parallels of jack holding them all in their last moments and felt like i had to curse everyone else with this as well

[screaming-sparrow]

the vocabulary of torchwood

#you can check out any time you want but you can nEVER leaveeeee (alive) #that last one might be the worst thing ive ever created im sorry #i just realised the parallels of jack holding them all in their last moments and felt like i had to curse everyone else with this as well #torchwood #jack harkness #gwen cooper #ianto jones #owen harper #toshiko sato #john hart #gray thane #towen #janto #sparrows memes #sparrow has emotions

[chilly-me-softly]

Every Little Thing’s Gonna Be Alright • Chapter 15

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14

Evelyn opens her eyes with a sigh, it's 6.43 according to her phone and she would have gladly gone back to sleep if she didn't have to go to the bathroom. Puffing, she forces herself out of bed and especially out from under the covers, and the moment she puts her feet on the floor, they touch a soft surface.

She flinches at first before looking with her own eyes at what is on the floor. It's the pillow she had placed on her daughter's right side when she had brought her into bed with her a few hours earlier. A sense of panic suddenly runs through her body as she remembers, looking for the baby quickly across the room and leaving just as quickly when she finds no trace.

Evelyn suddenly stops once in the living room, when her eyes focus on her brother and daughter lying on the couch. A sense of relief runs through her as she brings a hand to her still racing heart and she approaches the two. Ben is murmuring something to the little one and smiles at her when he notices her.

"Look, mum's woken up too"

"Ben you can't do that. I was scared to death" Evelyn runs a hand over her face watching Ben sit up and then doing the same, a small caress to her daughter who sighs in her uncle's arms.

"Sorry. I just came by to check on you and she was awake, I just wanted to let you get some more rest"

"And I appreciate that, I just... I don't know I got scared. I thought she had fallen or something" Ben chuckles lowering his gaze to the little girl and gently stroking her back.

"Besides, I wanted to say goodbye to her before I have to go"

"You won't even be gone two days" she rolls her eyes sarcastically, but the sweet smile on her face says otherwise.

"It makes me nervous thinking of you two here alone" Ben shrugs as if to justify himself, after two consecutive home games it was time for Ben to travel for an away one. Getting away wasn't in his plans, a part of his brain had completely erased every away game for some reason. He wanted to give his sister all the support he could at the moment but still he knew she would be in good hands in his absence. Or so he thought.

It had turned out that Deb wouldn't be there, a seminar booked long and long ago that she had to attend; their parents wouldn't be able to join her, a gathering that Evelyn had insisted they go to anyway because she would be fine. He had no doubt of that, but that hadn't stopped him from worrying anyway. He'd been on the verge so many times of calling in sick or just making up a last-minute emergency, but he knew deep down they'd be fine. He just had to convince himself of that and focus on something else, the game for example.

"Ben I appreciate your concern but it had to happen sooner or later and we need it. No mum or dad, no you or Deb. Just me and my little girl"

"And if anyone shows up uninvited by me, they will be kicked out. Clear?" Ben nodded with a sigh under her glare, leaving a kiss on the top of the little one's head before leaving her with Evelyn and getting up to gather his things.

"I didn't know you were a separation anxiety kind of guy" his sister teases him to distract him as he glares at her.

"I wasn't, until I met her" he admits and the two exchange a smile before Ben goes to get his suitcase from his room.

"Just be sure to call when you get there. And don't think too much about us, we'll be fine" she murmurs hugging him and leaving a kiss on one of his cheeks.

He nods before bending his knees slightly and coming face to face with Cece and grabbing her small hand, "Don't let mum get too tired, I know she'll always be there for you" he gives her one last kiss on the forehead before grabbing his suitcase and closing the door behind him.

"We'll be fine, promise" she murmurs leaving a kiss on the baby's little head who must have sensed something as she starts to whimper slightly.

-

She's travelling in a parallel universe where she is witnessing what her life would have been like if she hadn't decided to come back. Not a single person in sight, the television on but the volume is almost non-existent, the silence within the walls of the house is broken only by the little one's cries and she is trying to understand why, having eaten and with a fresh nappy, those cries are increasing rather than stopping. No one to call, no one to disturb, just her to do everything and to remember to take care of herself and feed herself. Or she has the feeling that she'll start whining like her daughter at any moment.

"What do you say, can mommy eat something?!" she coos but doesn't even finish the sentence that the doorbell rings. "Apparently not"

And she sighs before staring at the door wondering who it is, she swears if Ben really did send someone he better not come home. But when she opens the door, she's just as stunned.

"Hi"

"What are you doing here? Wait he didn't send you, did he? Ben" Jack chuckles, shaking his head, a confused expression on his face.

"Why would he?"

"I'm alone, he's worried" she cuts it short, suddenly realising he's still outside. "Please, come in" she quickly moves away from the door so he can come in and not let the little girl in her arms get too cold.

"Got it. Anyway no, I can assure you I knew he wouldn't be there but he didn't mention anything else" she nods as she leads him over to the couch where they sit not far from each other. Evelyn settles Cece better in her arms and she smiles slightly, which makes her smile too.

"She's grown so much" the girl looks away from the little girl to bring her gaze to Jack, for a moment their gazes meet before Jack is totally captured by the little girl absentmindedly bringing a hand to her face. "Everything looks different from the pictures"

"Yeah, photos don't have sound" she jokes as she removes the hand from the little girl's face for the umpteenth time, she's already scratched herself enough with those nails.

"Do you want to hold her?"

"Can I?" he responds immediately, almost incredulous that he was asked. As if somehow he wasn't trustworthy of having a baby, that baby, in his arms.

"Yeah. Come on" it's not the first time he's held a baby in his arms but it feels like it. They're all so fragile, he's afraid of hurting her maybe by using too much force and not realizing it. But at the same time that feeling of omnipotence when she doesn't complain but lets him hold her is priceless. And so as soon as he has her in his arms, as soon as she settles down and seems to study him with those curious eyes, he can't help but smile at her.

He looks at Evelyn for a moment as if to say 'look at that smile, she's not crying! She likes me, she likes me!' before letting the little one tightens her small hand around his index finger. And Evelyn watches them, trying to capture every little detail of that scene in her mind. From the smile on Jack's face, to the way he seems to wrap his arms around her, to the way her little girl looks at him curiously. If she had gone blind at that very moment, she would have been glad to have been able to see that as her last real image.

"Can I take advantage of that since you're here, to go make some food? I'm starving"

"Yeah, yeah sure"

"Do you want anything? Have you eaten yet? Of course not, you're here"

"Oh don't worry about me, I'll get something when I get home"

"Uh-uh no way. The least I can do since you're here is making you lunch"

"Okay then... what should I do?"

"Just stay there, watch some TV I don't know...make yourself at home. All I need is free hands and a few minutes" and Evelyn disappears into the kitchen so fast that Jack can't retort or say anything else for what it's worth. In a moment it's just him and the little one in his arms and all he can do is focus his gaze on her again taking his time to study her as well.

-

"Um I don't know if it's good but she fell asleep" Evelyn turns around startled, Jack had been so quiet she hadn't heard him come in. He seems to notice and apologises slightly but she shakes her head as she moves closer and notices with her own eyes that indeed Cece is sleeping placidly in his arms and won't wake up if they put her down.

"Can you take her to her room?" she murmurs before walking past him and letting him follow her in there even though he knows the way. She watches him gently place her in her cot and cover her with the blanket placed just beyond and continues to have her gaze directed there even as Jack approaches her with the clear intent of leaving the room.

"What? I thought you said that-"

"It happens with Ben too, that she falls asleep pretty much in no time when she's in his arms. And it makes me think that well... that maybe she needs a male figure?"

"Or that she doesn't like you" she instinctively pokes him in the chest and he laughs and they inevitably make a bit of a mess but the little girl doesn't seem to care. Jack waves her off anyway and they walk away from it.

"Don't do this to yourself, I mean it. Children are in charge. When they want to sleep no matter who's holding them, they fall asleep"

"You mean you guys don't have any tricks?"

"I mean it's more your problem than hers at the moment, she certainly doesn't make a distinction"

"I know" she sighs lowering her eyes for a moment, "Come on, let's go eat something"

"Hey" Jack stops her by the arm making her turn towards him again, "I know what your worries are and probably with Cece here now they've only gotten bigger. But that little girl still doesn't know how lucky she is to have you as her mother, Ben, your parents back in the picture... she won't miss anything because she'll only be surrounded by the people who really love her"

And me. If she ever needs anything she can count on me too. He would love to add that but can't as he looks into her eyes, the hand on her arm going to position itself along her waist. His other hand goes up higher instead, stroking her cheek lightly with his thumb. One of Evelyn's hands is immediately on his, he feels her thumb make the same movements on the back of his hand. And he smiles slightly before pulling her close to his chest and holding her close. When her arms tighten around his figure as well, Jack sighs.

"Come on, I seem to remember someone was starving" Evelyn almost moans before pulling away from his chest, taking his hand and dragging him into the kitchen.

-

It's all so beautiful, magical she would dare say. They had eaten, chatted, bickered because Jack had insisted on washing the dishes - Evelyn had gotten the better of them and so Jack had gone to check that Cece was still asleep. It all seemed so normal, so ordinary.

But a small voice in Evelyn's brain had been fighting to come out ever since she'd opened the door hours ago and found Jack standing in front of her. She'd managed to push it aside until that moment, letting Cece steal the show or just enjoying the moment. She'd held back because she hadn't wanted to ruin everything, Jack had driven till there to visit her - again - and she hadn't wanted to risk it all ending before it had even started. But the more time passed the harder it became to ignore that voice, needing a few answers to silence it.

"Can I ask you something?" and sitting on the couch not far from each other, the question couldn't help but be asked. She doesn't know when Jack plans to leave and doesn't want to take the chance frankly.

"Yeah sure" Jack is quick to nod as he looks at her, his elbow resting on the back of the couch making sure he can support his head on his hand.

"What-" Cece's sudden cry startles her as she glances at the nearest clock, ending that brief moment of courage. "Ugh forty minutes. I should have called her clock" she comments sarcastically making Jack chuckle.

"I'll go if you want"

"Ah no, she'll definitely be hungry. I'll be right back" she stands up then quickly disappearing from his sight.

Jack sighs. He knew sooner or later that moment would come, he has come to know Evelyn over those months, he knows she has to try and explain everything. Keep everything under control on the outside to try and give an explanation on the inside too. And indeed he is almost surprised that it didn't happen sooner.

However, he doesn't know whether or not to thank the child at that moment. He is certainly aware of what he's doing, but unlike her he does not think much before doing something. He acts more on instinct, guided by his feelings, and then stops to think. And it can go right, it can go wrong, but he's learned not to live too much in his head and he's never had to deal with any major consequences up to that point.

He gets up from the couch, trying to shake off that sense of sudden agitation, and starts wandering around the room, stopping in front of those framed photos that represent good times in Ben's life and for which his friend has inevitably earned lots of teasing. Jack stops in front of one photo in particular, a picture of Ben and Evelyn as children. The two siblings have their arms around each other and are smiling happily. He remembers the laughter that came out when he saw it the first time, his mother would have loved a picture like that. She had promised them who knows how many ice creams to be still and quiet just for the moment of a photo, but in the end on the wall had ended up the one in which one of his brothers was intent on jumping on his shoulders, his sister facepalming herself. A photo that was certainly imperfect to unfamiliar eyes, but it had always been his favourite because despite everything there wasn't a person portrayed there without a smile on their face.

"You want to know why I'm here?" he speaks pretending for a few more moments to study those frames as he sees the reflection of her looking back at him.

"I just- you come to the hospital late at night, you show up here knowing Ben isn't here... and please don't get me wrong, I'm so grateful that you're here or about everything else. But I want to know what you're doing. What we're doing. I put myself in it really because I don't know what I'm doing"

"Why didn't you tell Ben about us?" he asks instead and the question catches her by surprise.

"Us?"

"About the fact that we talk almost every day, that we're...friends"

"I-I don't know. I guess it never came up" she says absentmindedly, placing the baby in the carrier next to the couch and then sitting down and looking back at him not far away. "I guess I didn't want to be asked many questions"

"It's the same for me. I just- I don't want to explain too much just yet"

Somehow during all those months they had implied they wanted to keep everything to themselves. Texts, conversations and everything. They had kept their relationship hidden as if it were forbidden, almost as if someone might have objected to whatever that was, with the true and only intention of savouring it without intrusion as much as possible. They might have already been aware of it or continued to pretend they didn't understand, but by the end of the day they had done the same thing unconsciously.

"I want to do what I feel. But I definitely don't want to push you into doing something you don't want to do" in a moment he's on the couch, sitting across from her. He reaches out with the intention of placing a hand on her leg and giving her some comfort but he thinks better of it and stops it just before he can actually touch her, withdrawing his hand and placing it on his own leg instead.

And then it's a moment, he feels his shirt being tugged slightly and his lips against Evelyn's. It doesn't take him long to realize and return that kiss, his hands going almost automatically to wrap one around her waist and one at the base of her neck. And that's what makes her wince and pull away. When their gazes meet again he can catch a sudden flash of panic in her eyes when what she's done finally sinks in. And he already inevitably understands how it will end.

He's not surprised in fact when she stands up putting even more space between them, when she asks him to leave.

"No" he thunders in a firm voice, "I don't want to. I can't just leave you like this Eve"

"Please" she murmurs running her hands through her hair and tugging at them slightly, "god I wish I had never met you" she thinks aloud and something inside him breaks even though he knows she's talking out of panic, even though only moments before she said otherwise.

He tries to move closer but she reaches her hands forward putting space between their bodies, "Please, please Jack. Just go. I'll be fine" she pleads softly and he stays in place for a moment pondering what to do before giving up.

----

It took a whole week and something more for me to finally be satisfied with this chapter. In fact, I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise in advance if I miss any appointments from now on, I have run out of chapters and it's not exactly the most ideal time to write at the moment. But I'll try. Anyway hope you like it! x

Tag: @alexajanecollins @emwritesfootball @rosie7703

Chapter 16

#every little thing's gonna be alright #original #my writing #football imagine #football imagines #jack grealish #jack grealish imagine #jack grealish imagines #ben chilwell #ben chilwell imagines #ben chilwell imagine

[estoniacobaltpayne]

Judgement Day

Chapter 3: Temptation

Summary: Desperate, a force user bargains for her freedom; if she acquires the ‘asset’ deemed top priority, she would be free from the life that has enslaved her. Years of training has prepared her, but she’s stubborn and unlucky and more often than not she’s biting off more than she can chew. Maybe pulling the long con is the only path to freedom, but if it is, there’s a Mandalorian blocking it.

Warnings: language, sexual themes

Parirings: Din Djarin X Reader

Prologue: Here!

Chapter 1: Here!

Chapter 2: Here!

The air filling the cockpit of the ship is somehow both hotter than Arvala-7, and stuffier than Sorgan. The only sounds were the faint beeping from the dashboard, and the child’s playful cooing. Ragna sat in the copilot’s seat behind Mando’s left, and mulled over why she would bother to save him from the AT-ST walker back on Sorgan. What was the point? She just hindered her own damn plan! What the fuck is wrong with me? She thought hopelessly to herself.

Mando, in the pilot’s chair, was mulling over similar thoughts, and was just as confused. If Ragna was plotting against him, why would she bother saving him when she could have just as easily let him die? He wanted so badly to ask her why she helped him; to talk about the last few weeks and the child and her father and everything in between. He had to, really. He was going to. Yeah, he was going to.

“(Y/N)-“

But that’s as far as he got, because all of a sudden, another ship jumped out of hyperspace behind them and immediately got to work on shooting them down. Mando was quick to engage and fight back, but the abruptness of the engaging fighter caused all three of the them to be lurched from their seats. As Mando warded off the aggressor, Ragna leaped up to strap the child into the other copilot’s seat. She could hear an incoming message claiming that Mando’s insubordination to the Bounty Hunter’s Guild was to soon be his demise, but she paid little attention. The two hunters continued to converse, and after Ragna strapped in the child, she turned to help Mando. As much as she wanted to see him dead, if she didn’t help him take this other bounty hunter out, they’d both be nothing more than a waste of and in space. And then where would she be? She did her best to hold their opponent still using her abilities, but he was a slippery little bastard.

“I have an idea,” Mando declared. “I’m going to break. When I do, he’ll jut in front of us. You hold him still, and I’ll shoot. Brace yourself.”

And he did just that. (Y/N) braced herself on the dashboard, but the force of the manoeuvre was so strong, it threw her back onto the Mandalorian’s lap; she had no time to pay it any mind, because all conscious thought went into using the force to hold the other bounty hunter’s ship still. Once she knew their attacker had been terminated though, she began lamenting the fact that it was a random bounty hunter that was vaporised out of existence and not her.

Because being strewn across this man’s lap was bad enough, but looking up and meeting his visor’s gaze was worse. Instinctively, he had wrapped his left arm around her shoulders, and his legs had been spread further apart to make more room for her form. The two were unable to look away from each other- all reasonable thought had been thrown out the window, and they were stuck in time, once again. It wasn’t until the warning sirens blared out in panicked shrills that they pulled out of their trance. (Y/N) quickly stood up and moved back to the vacant copilot’s seat.

Not another word was said until they reached Tatooine.

Mando landed and exchanged quick words with the owner of the hanger before making to exit, off to find work. Ragna rushed out of the ship.

“Shouldn’t I come with you? You might need my help?” Ragna stated, realising that the Tatooinian dunes would be the perfect place to leave a Mandalorian corpse.

If that’s even what I want now. She was quick to push that thought aside.  

“No, stay here and make sure nothing happens to the child,” came the Mandalorian’s response.

She tried not to let her face drop in earnest annoyance. “Yeah, I suppose that’s my job anyways!” she responded, trying to appear lighthearted.

Well, she could make that work too, she supposed. As soon as the ship was stable enough to fly, she’d take the child and leave. It didn’t matter if the bounty hunter was left dead or alive after his excursion. She’d be gone, ship controls in one hand, and child in the other.

Gods, please let this work this round, she thought. She was starting to get the feeling that if she didn’t end this soon, she’d never gain her freedom from the Empire. Or worse- she wouldn’t want to gain it if it meant bringing harm to the Mandalorian and the child. Whatever happens to the Mandalorian and the child is not my damn problem! she kept reassuring herself. But the repeated mantra was quickly beginning to lose its effect.

——

Mando had found that his guard was slipping throughout this whole ordeal in bringing in Fennec Shand. Catching her shouldn’t have been so hard, and he knew for damned sure he shouldn’t have entrusted Toro Calican with jack shit. And yet here he was, moping on the back of a damned dewback. But it wasn’t even that which contributed the most to his mood.

It was (Y/N).

The sight of her strewn across his lap had been nearly too much. It had been a while since he’d been able to… take care of himself in any way, and an even longer time since he’d been able to do so with someone he cared about in any capacity. He tried to reason with himself that he didn’t hold a single iota of deeper feelings for (Y/N), but he was beginning to realise that he couldn’t keep pushing these feelings back, no matter how terribly they were conflicting with the logic that he usually kept on autopilot. And, oh, was the ingrained image of her looking up at him from his lap interfering with that autopilot. She was becoming a problem.

More than anything, she perplexed Mando to no end. She had had several chances to slip behind his back and betray him in any number of ways, and yet, she hadn’t. But then why had both Cara and Omera been unable to trust her? Sure she had been caught in the middle of some weird situations that she had been able to explain away as mere extenuating circumstances, but if she had been attempting to betray him this whole time, why did she bother to save him not once, not twice, but three times now?

And why did he like it so damn much when she feel into his lap earlier? Oh, man. That was going to a persistent little reoccurring thought, wasn’t it?

——

Meanwhile, Ragna was beginning to realise that enacting any part of her grander scheme was going to be easier in theory. While conning the Mandalorian was proving to be easier that she originally anticipated (or so she liked to think), it was the detail in the plan of finding a moment of solitude that was really bearing problems.

The mechanic who owned the hangar, Peli Motto, was yet another of such obstacles in her plot. She was always around; always shouting at her droids, insisting that Ragna help her with the ship, and then there was the incessant talking. Oh, the talking. Ragna’s patience was beginning to wear thin. If she spent half as much time focusing on fixing the ship as she did talking at me, I could have left already! Ragna found herself thinking more often than not.

It wasn’t until Ragna was reporting back to her father the next evening where she began to grow restlessly desperate. His words had been particularly harsh that night, more so than usual, and it caused an untameable panic to rise in her throat, and her mind recalled the fear she felt when she was taken as a child, and paralleled it to her hunt for freedom in the present. Ragna could do nothing but helplessly watch the images flash by in her head.

A younger, though still just as terrifying version of Ragna’s Imperial father dragged away from a burning city. Though just a child, the severity of the situation had visibly wised her up instantly.

“I don’t want to go! Leave me be!” the young girl shouted.

“Quiet, girl! You’d do well to learn your place!” the man spit back.

“No! I won’t go with you! I won’t!” she pleaded, tears running down her round, adolescent face.

The older man sneered and let out a cynical laugh. “Oh? And what, pray tell, do you intend to do to stop me?”

“I’ll fight! I’ll never be one of you! I swear it!” she thrashed in the man’s arms as he led her away from her burning home. She thrashed and thrashed until she tired herself out.

She remembers being awake as he carted her away. Across the galaxy. To the Imperial Cruiser she would be forced to know as home. She was awake to witness this, but she was numb.

She was numb when her new ‘father’ laid her down in her new bed and told her this was her home now.

She was numb when he took her to a wrinkly old man who had the same powers as her. The same powers that her family had died trying to shelter her from.

She was numb when the wrinkly old man told her he was the Emperor, and, lord, was she thankful she was numb when he tortured her into using the force that her family had kept her from using.

The memories faded with dark echoes of, “you must embrace your potential,” and, “we are the only ones who want you.” Years of this brainwashing had been lost on her; trying to make her believe her family- her real family- didn’t want her. But she knew they had broken her in so many other ways; she knew when they sent her out on her first mission. She was not even eighteen years of age, and yet, she had killed so many so easily. This, of course, was not the first circumstance where she had been made to take another’s life, but this was the first time she had actually enjoyed it to some extent. She liked to tell herself that it was just the thrill of being let out on her own for the first time, but deep down, she knew that that was not the case.

She couldn’t settle after her reverie; her anxiety was pumping her blood through her head too hard. She needed to go. Immediately. The ship, whatever state it was in, would have to do.

She desperately clambered out of the ship to fetch the child, who had been playing with Peli’s droids in the shipyard. But, oh, so conveniently, he was no longer there.

“Kid? Kid where are you!” she whispered around the shipyard, doing her best to not be noticed by Peli or one of her many droids.

She was not expecting another, unknown person to catch her, though.

“The kid’s stayin’ right here.”

So close. She was so damn close to obtaining her freedom. If it wasn’t for this new asshole, Toro-fucking-Calican and his damned existence, she’d have already been out of here. He knocked her unconscious with one of Peli’s wrenches before she even had a chance to turn around and stare him in the eyes.

——

When she came to a few hours later, Calican had Peli Motto held hostage at gunpoint. The child was held in his arms, close enough to gunpoint to be a problem. She reckoned that her best bet was to try and manipulate him into doing what she wanted, but either Calican was smarter than he looked, or his head was too thick to penetrate, because nothing she said was having an effect on him. Eventually, she realised manipulating his mind wasn’t going to work, either.

So, out of options, she pulled out one of her oldest tricks. She hated using it, really, and had only used it a handful of times. It left a sour taste in her mouth, as she was made to use it for the first time at only the age of ten to force a prisoner of war into giving information. When he didn’t… Ragna didn’t like to think about that.

And she didn’t like to think about the world tuning out around her; she didn’t like thinking about how, even though her hand was at least twelve feet away from his neck, she could feel the blood clogging on either end of where the force was cutting off his air. She absolutely didn’t want to think about the panic that was flowing through the areas in his veins that his blood no longer could. She didn’t want to think about the child that was calling to her through the force to stop. She couldn’t stop. This was what she was supposed to do. Designed to do.

Ragna didn’t hear the Mandalorian arrive in the hangar. Neither did she hear him calling out to her. She didn’t hear him the second time, or the third. She couldn’t hear anything outside her head and Calican’s; only his pleading in his head, his screaming, and the screams of her past drilling holes in her sanity.

She was violently ripped from her spiralling when Mando laid a gentle hand on her upper arm and whispered her name, her real name, into her ear. Calican doubled over and sucked in gulps of air. (Y/N) could only spin around and stare into the dark visor. Ironically, it was the lightest thing in her line of sight, the rest of the world still dark around her. He gripped her arm tighter and leaned in, whispering her name again as she began to come back into the real world.

“Your girlfriend’s a psycho, Mando!” Calican exclaimed, regaining his breath. He was quick to aim his blaster again, his aim trying to decide between Mando, Ragna, and Peli Motto.

Mando only shrugged his shoulder nonchalantly, his aim at Calican’s head not once faltering. “Yeah? That’s not sayin’ much coming from you.” Mando’s words were pointed, calculated; their intended effect to sway Calican punctual and precise.

But what Ragna couldn’t stop focusing on was that Mando didn’t deny Calican’s statement about her being his girlfriend. The logical side of her knew that Mando wasn’t going to go into details with this man; he’d be dead within moments anyways, so why bother prolonging the conversation? But another part of her, a part buried deep down, liked that he hadn’t denied it. Which was dangerous, Ragna concluded, and something that should not, under any circumstance, be further considered or dwelled upon.

Mando and Calican only bickered for another second or two before things got messy. Blasters started firing, and Calican dropped the child in favour of an extra appendage. Ragna knew this was her last chance to bolt; with the Mandalorian still preoccupied with a shootout with Calican, she scooped up the child, dashed up the ramp of the ship and ascended in to the cockpit, closing the doors behind her. She had to get this ship in the air. It was cutting it close- too close- with the Mandalorian still in the hangar, but it was what it was.

The blood pumping through her ears muffled the sounds of gunfire outside, which was to her detriment, because just as she was about to finish firing up the ship, the Mandalorian entered the cockpit.

“What are you doing?” he said, pulling her out of her trance-like focus.

Ragna jumped; how did he crawl himself out of that so quickly? Actually, she thought, I really shouldn’t be so fucking surprised, at this point.

She knew she had to get herself out of this one on the spot. She pulled a pleasantly surprised face and turned to face him. “Oh thank the maker it’s you, Mando!” She let out a fake breath she wasn’t really holding. Or at least, not for the reason she wanted Mando to think.

He just continued to stare at her inquisitively. “Yes, but… what were you doing, Ragna?”

She opened and closed her mouth a few times while she thought up a quick lie. “It… it was purely instinctual! I couldn’t let Calican get the child! I…” she called upon every acting skill she could muster to look truly defeated in the chair. “So I ran up here. If I locked us in the cockpit, he wouldn’t be able to get in! I thought that by starting up the ship, I’d have time to get away should he get the upper hand!”

The Mandalorian tilted his head in a patronising manor. “Really? You think Calican would be able to out-gun me?”

“Well, you were the one who got himself out-witted by the novice in the middle of the desert!” Ragna gave him a teasing look. “Perhaps your reputation no longer precedes you. Maybe you’re really just the ‘okayest’ bounty hunter in the parsec.”

Mando only shrugged his shoulders and dismissed her teasing, before ushering her up and out of the pilot’s chair. She was heading out of the cockpit when Mando let out a final, “good job.”

Her head spun around faster than the rest of her body could, leaving her in an awkward, disjointed position. It reflected her shattered inner thoughts quite fittingly, she supposed.

“What did you say?” she inquired. She had heard him just fine, but she was having a hard time believing that he had said it at all. It knocked the air out of her, and it showed in her words.

“You… you did the right thing. If Calican had gotten the upper hand, I would have wanted you to have taken the kid and bailed. And that goes for any situation in the future, too. So… good job.”

Ragna could only let out a pathetic ‘thank you’ as she exited the cockpit. How could he thank her? How dare he thank her after what she had just attempted, and then lied about? How dare he make her feel welcomed, something she hadn’t felt in such a long time, when she was doing everything in her power to double cross him? How dare he make her question every moral, or lack thereof, she was trained to push aside in favour of the advancement of the Empire?

How dare he tempt her out of the darkness she had shrouded herself in for personal security?

#din djarin x reader #din djarin #din djarin fanfiction #the mandalorian #mando x y/n #mando fanfiction #star wars #star wars fanfiction #sw #sw fanfic #baby yoda

[amwritingmeta]

hey! i was just wondering if you think spn will actually make destiel canon by the finale? it seems like in interviews they're trying to let us down gently w/a cas death (which possibly makes it seem like cas's ending might be related to his empty deal?) + all the parallels between saileen and deancas, and it looks like dabb and co (while not rly bringing arcs into conclusion and generally making a mess of spn) are fighting to make it canon, i was wondering what ur take on it was, esp after ep09

Oh, my dear, my heart is swelling with love for those two right now. I just watched the show through from 12x19-15x13 and I swear, that moment they share in 15x12, clinking those glasses and sharing all those smiles was like balm. It’s not even five minutes of screen time, and still it was like, okay, yes, good, thank you for the room to breathe. :D

It seems to be that Cas hearing Dean’s prayer has ushered in some much earned peace between them. They’re shown to be on the same page and taking each other’s side unquestionably. Dean trusting Cas’ judgment regarding Jack without pause. And that’s a good word for it: there’s trust between them, mutual respect, understanding. It’s so lovely, isn’t it?

So, there’s this line that’s sort of stuck with me. Actually, there are two things that have stuck with me (apart from all the gorgeous symbology baked into every episode) and it’s that the word “complete” has been mentioned twice.

Once in reference to Mary in Heaven, and once by Amara in reference to God.

Then we have a line that’s recurred twice: I had to die to get what I want.

The fact that its spoken verbatim twice made my antennas perk up a bit. It may mean nothing, as some things in this narrative sometimes do mean nothing, but it’s still interesting to take these things into account: that we’re searching for completion and that sometimes, in order to get what you want, you have to die.

So. Will Cas die?

I don’t think so. I don’t think so for many reasons that I’ve laid out here (I just posted this) (it was like you read my mind that this was coming today), but foremost because I cannot see how him dying does anything for his character arc, or for his joint journey with Dean.

You know, dark!Kaia (Kaia’s Shadow) going back to the Bad Place (Kaia’s unconscious) and accepting the ending waiting there, releasing our!Kaia back to the world where she belongs, makes me think, more than ever, that the integration of the main character’s Shadows are a necessity. 

The Empty, way I see it, is representative of Cas’ Shadow, his unconscious, all the repressed and suppressed emotions of guilt, shame and doubt that has kept his self-worth down until Jack came on the scene. 

And this is just my reading of this situation, but I’m not sure I can see Cas defeating the Empty in the Empty, if you know what I mean? The last time Cas intruded, the Empty made him suffer greatly. I don’t think Cas holds any sway there, nor should he. 

To me, the weapon our conscious has against our unconscious ruling our decisions, is our ability to grow aware of our own impulses, our own thought patterns, and making choices to break away from them.

I think Cas can only beat the Empty through making a choice and, well, for a long time I’ve felt that choice should be to become human, because by making a final choice of who he is and who he wants to be, he brings himself into awareness, integrating his Shadow in the process, and narratively nullifying the Empty’s hold on him, since humans don’t go to the Empty when they die: they go to Heaven. 

But that’s wishing and hoping and speculation, of course.

Here’s where the Destiel question comes in though.

Do I believe they’ll make it canon?

Personally, I can’t think of anything more a part of our story than the love story between those two, but I know what you mean. You mean a representative, tangible, clear, statement type of making it canon. Textualising it, so that there’s no room for doubt whatsoever. No more arguments, no more queer baiting complaints, just Destiel in plain sight. Undeniable. 

I do and I don’t.

Watching these last few seasons through again made me realise what a different feel to them this last season has, because the emotional stakes for Dean and Cas have everything to do with what they mean to each other. Yeah?

Dean taking his anger out on Cas and it pushing Cas into a turning point where he chose to leave, to move on, which was a moment of clear independence a statement of his sense of self-worth, and it in turn pushing Dean into a turning point where he faced a side to himself that he’s needed to name since forever, admitting to not having any control of himself, which is something he has to acknowledge if he’s to move into trusting himself fully, all of this has been gosh darn breathtaking to get to witness.

And having them land back in this ease, where they work together seamlessly as a team, being kept together more than not, the framing of them, all of this makes me feel like they could give us canon Destiel. I’m not going to say they absolutely won’t. 

I believe the writers want it. I believe the actors want it. But, again, that’s just what I take from the narrative itself, because the subtext is stronger than ever this final season. 

Especially with Sam and Eileen being reunited.

Because it’s been that clear parallel you mentioned, but it’s been that clear parallel to those of us who see it. The echoes of the Saileen romance that trace through the Destiel progression won’t be as resounding to those that don’t.

And because of that, at this point, I also feel quite reserved with my belief that Destiel could become canon. Because there’s so much, but there’s also nothing. There’s so much for us to enjoy, there’s so much evidence they keep throwing at us that the writers support this reading of their story, but still, there’s nothing, really, to let on that they’re building towards these two men, at some point, declaring their love for each other.

There has been zero textual foreshadowing of that.

There have been throw away moments, like the cop flirting with Dean, for example, but he frowned at that, and then got sincerely flirted with by a woman, so that deescalated that very quickly. 

There was Dean at first rejecting Garth’s compliment of “You smell SO good”, becoming uncomfortable, to then, by the end of the ep, tell Garth he didn’t smell half-bad either.

And there was that amazing moment with Cas calling out Sam being “sexually intimate” with Ruby and Dean repeating the words as if he can’t believe Cas even knows how to pronounce them.

So, there’s... you know, stuff?

But it’s not foreshadowing if it can be overlooked by the wider audience.

That said.

This show isn’t about this love story of ours. The fact that it’s so downplayed could mean that what we’ll get is something textual, but extremely subtle. I mean, for me, lingering eye-contact and a shared smile in a context that makes us understand they’re choosing each other would be enough.

If, by canon, you mean do I think we’ll get them kissing, then the answer is I want to believe that we might get that, because they could build towards that on the foundation of ease and trust that they’ve put down over the last few episodes and they could build it effectively, but I just don’t know if the studio (who own the characters) is onboard. 

My hope is that they are, because the topic of healthy representation is so hot right now, and the question of the longevity of Supernatural to the younger generations (you know, you young ones who are proving exceedingly more open-minded and looking for something beyond the superficial brothers-hunting-monsters aspect of the show) would bank on the show opening itself up to the possibilities of solid representation already seeded throughout its run.

But Dean has flirted with more women than men this season. You know? I mean, he hasn’t flirted with any men. So. 

Look, I’m not going to say I don’t think we’ll get it, because I don’t know. 

I watched S15 yesterday and finished it today and suddenly I feel this wave of hope that it actually might happen, because they’ve already changed how Dean and Cas interact, they’ve given them so many scenes with just the two of them, and we have Sam clearly meant to end up with Eileen, and doesn’t Dean and Cas deserve that same happiness? That same sense of completion? That internal peace of loving unconditionally and being loved in return?

Sam and Eileen could be foreshadowing. These writers are subtle and they could be gleefully rubbing their hands together at the thought of springing textual Destiel on the GA, you know? The green light from the studio might make them diabolical. *sadism* And I love that thought.

Because that’s been the point of the love story for me, this slow, slow build to the moment when Dean and Cas have reached a point in their progression when what they’ll have together is a healthy, balanced, loving relationship because they’ve both let go of the past and are looking to the future.

But I won’t expect textual Destiel. If we do get it, I’m going to treasure it as a big cherry on top of an already perfectly inviting and exquisite pie.

What I do believe, more than ever, that we’re getting, though, is closure. Even if it’s only at the subtextual level, I believe that those of us who read the subtext will have Destiel verified beyond a shadow of a doubt. And yes, I will be quite surprised and disappointed if we don’t get that. Because of how these first 13 episodes have been shaped and how strong the subtext is in them.

I believe we’ll end on a hopeful note.

And wouldn’t that just be gratifyingly phenomenal?

(it really would) (honestly I just need to know that they are happy and alive and together and well and finding peace and carrying on) (you know?) (thank you and amen) :)

xx

#answered asks #spn s15 spec #cas #dean #destiel #deancas #canon #oh I have the hopes #just not the expectations #:)

[my-fanfic-library]

Something Different {BBC Dracula x Reader} [28]

Masterlist

~^*^~

Something about lying in a bed made Dracula feel a little more human. After the last few hours, winding down like this was the best feeling ever. It was a shame that peace could never last, not even for a vampire.

The door began to receive a beating from the outside. He thought about getting up to answer it, but then he heard it open. Who the hell was storming in? He continued to lie there, hoping he wouldn’t be found. The sound of mumbling filled the apartment, along with the rhythmic slamming of footsteps. Every now and then, it would stop, and then a door would slam and the noise would pick up again.

Finally, as if saving his bedroom for last, the door burst open and you strode in. Dracula pulled the covers up his chest, lying still, watching as you stormed to the bedside. Standing with your feet apart, arms crossed, you glared at him. Boy, you were upset.

“Well?” You began.

“Well...” Dracula repeated.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“Yes, I am naked right now-“

“No.” You cut him off sharply, “where have you been this evening?”

“Out...” crap. You knew.

“Dracula.” You warned. Your voice was cool and angry.

“I may have gone to visit a person...”

“Would that person have been Daniel?” You questioned. Dracula looked at you sheepishly.

“It’s hard to remember the specifics...”

“Perhaps this little fact will help jog your memory - the only thing they had to identify him was his decapitated head on the sofa with his nose and ears missing!” You bellowed, “how could you-?! How could you?!” Your arms flew in the air with your rage. Your face was purple and your eyes were so dark in anger.

“I-“

“Don’t even start with your excuses! I can’t believe you!” You ran your hands through your hair, making a groan of anger, “how could you do this to me?” Your hands flew out again, fingers curling into fists. You stepped backwards, making some distance between yourself and the vampire. You closed your eyes, and then opened them again, “seriously, Dracula, how could you?”

“After the way he treated you,” he defended, “did you really think I was going to let him get away with hurting you twice?” He raised his head to look at you better.

At his reply you made another noise, turning away from him and running your hands through your hair again. Then, you covered your face, sighing heavily into your hands. You were shaking. You couldn’t believe that Dracula had finally derailed. After a long moment, you turned back to him.

“Is this how it’s going to be?” You inquired, clear hurt in your voice, “every time someone hurts me, you’re going to fly into a frenzy of anger and jealousy and tear them to shreds?” He sat up, as if to get up and move towards you and you held up your index finger at him, “don’t.”

“[First]- he made you cry.” Dracula raised his own voice in a moment of anger. Why couldn’t you see the reasoning behind the anger that had lead to such a destructive act?

“You’ve made me cry!” You shrieked, “are you gonna top yourself bevause of it?! You can’t just- I don’t know how you can justify that! Like I haven’t got a vampire hunting me down, my mother is driving my crazy bevause Mark has gone missing and now this!” You smacked a hand to your forehead, the other resting on your hip. You groaned, “is there anyone else?”

“Sorry?”

“Is there any more of my friends or acquaintances that I should know that you’ve killed?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” He sat up to look at you. His hair was disheveled and a little damp.

“Let’s see, you’ve already killed three people I know. Are there any more?”

“Wh-“

“Zoe, Lucy, Daniel,” you listed the names, counting on your fingers, “is that where the list ends?”

“Are you fucking serious? I go out of my way to do everything to protect you and your feelings and this is how you’re repaying me?” He raised his voice, glaring right back at you. How could you distrust him so much?

“Oh, you’re right, I’m so sorry, Drac,” your voice was dripping sarcasm, “I should just get on my knees and thank you for your noble act!” You were giving him such a dirty, nasty look that for a second, he really did believe you actually hated him.

“Don’t give me that-“

“Don’t give you what? Dracula, you killed Daniel! It doesn’t matter if he upset me, the fact of the matter is that you fucking killed him!” You took in a breath, trying to steady your pounding heart and shaking hands, “I can’t do this, Dracula.”

“[First], please, calm yourself down. You’re just in shock. We can talk about this tomorrow. It’s late.” He tried to reason, but the love your eyes had held for him was gone; replacing that look was a flaring heat.

It sent something rippling through his chest, the look of... no love for him on your face. He had so clearly remembered the way you looked at him. You looked at him like he was your whole world, your everything. Right now, it was like you didn’t even know him. It was like he was the person who had blown that world to smithereens. Since when had you had such a chilling angry look?

You brought your hands together, as if to pray and brought them to your face. Your thumbs rested under your chin, index fingers running up along the centre of your nose and parallel to your face. You inhaled deeply as your eyes shut. Your fingers were hot with your anger and heated the cool skin of your face.

“You need to decide if this is how it’s going to be.” You spoke, suddenly eerily calm.

“How what’s going to be?”

“If you are going to learn some self control. Because if you’re going to kill every single person that’s ever wronged me, then... then I’m going to have to leave. Don’t make me leave, Drac.” You lowered your hands to your sides, looking at him. Your face was beginning to lose all emotion.

Dracula sighed. He expected you to be upset. But not like this. Your emotions were all over the place. You didn’t know what you wanted right now and he needed you to realise that it was him that you needed and wanted. He knew it was what your heart craved.

“I don’t want you to leave.” He whispered.

That was the last thing that he wanted. You were the sun in his dark world. You were the beating heart in his still chest. You made up the rest of his being. Every moment he had spent with you, he had felt alive. If you left him, he would go back to feeling like the undead monster that he truly was. Losing his control like that proved that he would always be that monster; but with you around, he could truly feel human. Domestic moments like watching you wake up beside him, having small conversations about things you wanted to do, driving somewhere for your dates, they gave him meaning. He hadn’t had meaning in so long. You had gifted it to him, along with your love and your trust. How could he be so stupid as to deprive himself of that like this?

“Then why did you do it?” You were tearing up.

“[First], my darling, he needed to go. He was no good for you.” That was the truth. He hadn’t seen you fly off of the handle like that before.

“You’re not good for me.” You closed your eyes. Please, don’t cry, you begged yourself.

Slowly, he finally pushed himself up. The only sound for a moment was his slow padding of his feet on the carpet. He closed in on you. His body was inches away from your own and he interlocked your hands by your sides. You couldn’t hold back the small sigh of feeling him again. Being so close to him felt so good after so long. For just a moment, in the silence, you melted into his touch.

“You don’t mean that.” He whispered.

“Yes I do. You’ve killed three people. How can I go to Daniel’s funeral knowing what really happened to him?” You lowered your head, the first tear slipping down your cheek. Your heart was cracking. Your voice was soft and airy with your despair.

He could feel your pulse in your hands. Your warmth ignited him and he finally felt at home once more. Your heartbeat moved through him and it was like he was alive again. You were giving him the chance to feel the movement of his blood, one of the best feelings of being alive. He was so close to losing it.

Please, he thought, don’t take this away from me.

“You did for Lucy and for Zoe.” His voice’s softness matched your own.

“I can’t do it again, Drac. I just can’t.” You pulled away from his touch, “I can’t...” you whispered.

“You also can’t leave me. Renfield-...” he cut himself off. The thought of anything happening to you was too much for him to even begin to process.

The image of your mauled body flashed into his mind and he shut his eyes, lips pressing into a thin line. It made him feel sick. Something like that, something so awful happening to the purest, only good thing in the world - it couldn’t happen.

“I think that’s a risk I have to take now, Dracula.” You locked eyes with him, “you won’t change. Someone else will come along. I know you hold back with Jack for me. But I don’t know how long that will last. For his sake, for my own, for yours-“ tears were flowing down your cheeks, and you were struggling to keep yourself together.

He wouldn’t loose control again. He knew that. It had been the way he knew the pain Daniel had put you through for so long. It had haunted you for so long. Jack hadn’t ever hurt you - Dracula just didn’t like him. It was different. He wouldn’t snap again. But, he didn’t know how to say it. He didn’t know how to promise you without it feeling fake. Maybe he couldn’t promise. Maybe there was always going to be that risk...

You never wanted this day to come. Dracula had made you believe such thing as love again. It was stupid to think that you could love a vampire without consequence. He was looking at you like he was going to break down at any moment. Your mind was screaming at you to leave. He was too dangerous. He had killed in an act of revenge, in an act of jealousy. You couldn’t go through the death of another person close to you. You couldn’t allow Dracula to hurt someone else.

God, why did this hurt so badly?

“Please,” Dracula begged, taking a small step towards you, “don’t do this.” He softens his voice, trying to coax you back to him. His voice broke. Was he holding back his own tears?

“I think... I need to be away from you right now. Please don’t follow me out of this room.”

You turned and Dracula watched as you slipped out of the door. How could you do this to him? How could you so dramatically change your opinion on him? How could you change your heart...? Just like that...?

What was the feeling aching in his chest? Was it heartbreak?

There was a deafening crack as his fist went through the wall. The front door hissed shut and you pressed your back against it, shaking as a loud sob racked through your body. You couldn’t help sliding down the door.

This couldn’t be the end.

Dracula wasn’t about to let you go without a fair fight. You couldn’t just leave him like that. You couldn’t walk away from him and straight towards your doom. This couldn’t happen just because Dracula finally lost control.

How could he let himself loose control like that?

~^taglist^~

@vampiregirl1797 @avalanet @bunnyreese12 @nerdonpluto @teamceleries @grifffins @hitbythunder @winterseoul @mymagicsuitcase @angeli-fucking-cat @benedictethegoddess @bloodhon3yx @nifflersravenclaw @writteninthestars288 @labelladrama @frankcastlesgrunts @angelicdestieldemon @quakerlasss @aliisa-jones @wolverinexmenn @clairedragonessbaker @cryiner @mitsukatsu @piratewhore @your-pixels-are-showing @tardisnesss @ladydovahkiin180 @catwomom @god-of-dramatic-death-scenes @th3rah @viper-queen @mephdcosplay @greghouse7 @faeprinces @kokoro-no-yami @trishaferdream @therealmoni @crazytxgradstudent @sansthelonelypunster @crowley-needs-a-hug @girlonfireice @wasntpriscilla @ivanna6026 @savebensolo-ordie

#pls dont kill me #something different #dracula #bbc dracula #netflix dracula #dracula x reader #bbc dracula x reader #netflix dracula x reader #claes bang #claes bang x reader

[lordeasriel]

I really care about your opinion, how do you feel about the bbc show and the way it's going?

I feel like before I give my take, I need to say that I understand the show is its own thing, and while I do wish they did a better job adapting certain things, I understand that sometimes there is a need for radical change or cut, especially when your budget is not super high (which HDM does have a lot of money into it, still is not a super big budget production, so they have to worry about these things). And I do enjoy many things about the show, but my overall vibe is mixed, to be honest. I’m stating this now because people often question whether I like the show or not, becaus I do criticise it a lot, and I simply have a critic view of the things I like, which is why I discuss them a lot and it can be overwhelming.

My main issues with the show are these 3 things: (which I’ll put under the cut because this got a bit longer than I wanted to lmao sorry)

Lack of worldbuilding and loose lore: I’ve been talking about this since day one, and this mostly applies to season 1 because I can’t judge season 2 yet because it’s not fully aired yet, but the show suffers from lack of worldbuilding, especially in Lyra’s world, which is the world that sets everything in motion. I still dislike the fact they introduced Will mid-NL, I don’t think he needed all those episodes to establish something that easily could’ve been done in S2 and because they gave TSK a lot of time, other parts of Lyra’s world suffered considerably, mainly the witches and the Magisterium.

The show doesn’t really expand on those two groups, especially, and I think that’s not good, especially the Magisterium (which they have over simplified by making it one big baddie, or so it seems at least, not to mention that implying a single leader for them practically ruins Marcel Delamare’s arc in TBOD and I’m very mad about that lmao). A lot of the Magisterium plot has that infighting aspect, which creates tension on their side as well as against their enemies, but the show doesn’t really explore that or the nuances of the Church, and they also don’t explore how varied the witches are, and I feel like this is a serious mistake. (The portrayal of the witches is by far my least favourite thing in the show, if I’m being honest).

Dull parallel world (and lack of daemons): this ties a bit with the worldbuilding aspect, but this is mainly about design choices. I think the show doesn’t make Lyra’s world as unique as it should be. On its own the world looks pretty and the outfits of most of the cast are great, but when you realise that Will’s world is intertwined with that, you don’t really feel like these two worlds are vastly different.

There is an odd situation in which Marisa’s fashion feels 30s/40s, but most of the men from her social circle (not fair to compare with the gyptians) just wear plain suits and they look much more modern. And while I get that they went for a timeless vibes, with different eras and styles, Lyra’s world feels like a caricature and it doesn’t feel believable. The colour palette is mostly the same for both worlds (even in s2, it’s hard to tell much of the difference because either the scenes are indoors or at night.) This, paired with the lack of daemons (which has been discussed many times in the fandom) kinda bums me out.

Marisa’s oversimplification: I’m mentioning Marisa, specifically, because she is the one that suffers the most due to this writing issues, but other characters like Lord Asriel, MacPhail, the general collective of the Witches, they all suffer from the writing trying to take away the nuances of them and make them flatter than in the book. Marisa is the worst because without her complexity and her flaws, she simply gets dull and boring and flavourless, and it’s kinda what has been happening in the show in my opinion. All she does is weep and she has no strength that doesn’t rely on a random fit of rage that dies out and she gets upset. There’s some great moments, like when she mimics the Monkey, but most of the time she’s just a shadow of who she is supposed to be.

The show tries really hard to make her a Scorned Mother - right from the get go, they try to makes us see how she wants Lyra, how she struggles with her “bad nature” and how that affects their relationship. There is this lingering implication that Lyra was taken from her against her wishes; they make it seem like being a mother to Lyra is her driving force, the only reason why she seeks power and influence. And that is the opposite of Book! Marisa, who is a force of nature, ruthless and ambitious, with not an ounce of maternal instinct.

She does eventually decide to help Lyra, instead of harming her, but even that action comes from a narcisistic place: Lyra is to her a possession, something that belongs to her, and that she wants to preserve. The show just handles her badly, falling into overused, boring tropes that struck far from the book version.

These are usually my main complaints about the show, and they upset me every episode to the point I’m practically ignoring them now lmao The show does a lot of good things too, making Will less of a prick, restoring Lyra’s personality from the first book into S2 Lyra (so far, please keep it that way), Mary is looking great too. They have mostly a great cast, and they did improve the daemons this season (except uh, there are far less daemons to show because of the other worlds - and the Ruta Skadi daemon change pisses me off tbh).

They do have a lot of interest in the show, but the writing (the main issue to me) feels clunky and childish, with the show toning down most of the themes that make His Dark Materials so special, especially to me (which frankly I expected them to do, but it still stings a bit). They make the Magisterium a single bad entity that feels more Authoritarian-Fascist, than a theocracy (even if they sneak in the religious symbols and rituals and garments, it’s just not a good portrayal, it’s very tame and shy); and they try to justify Marisa’s actions (especially in current interviews, there’s lots of talk about how her background will play in the show to “explain why she is the way she is”). The fact the Magisterium is portrayed as pure evil makes it looks less familiar than it should be, and therefore they don’t look scary, they seem like a caricature, a joke.

A lot of the essence of the characters get lost, and the core message of the story too, like when Iorek and the Gyptians tell Lyra she can be one of them, to support her lack of “proper family”, when that is the opposite of the books message. It doesn’t make sense for them to change that, other than maybe Jack Thorne wanted to because it makes the story feels less hopeless, but it’s why he fails to adapt these character - he doesn’t capture the essence, he tries to write these character with gaps in them.

However, the thing that annoys me the most is how they portray Asriel. It’s just... it’s bad. Really bad, which is a shame cause James is talented as fuck, but he had little time to film for season 1, and then they portrayed him very poorly. That scene when he addresses Roger in episode 7 is ridiculous, Asriel would never behave that way; there was relief in him finding Roger was there too, yes, but not to that extent and not in such a cringe way. Asriel is not deranged or irrational, he is a man on a mission, and Roger was a tool (there is no pleasure in Asriel taking his life and no excuses - it needed to be done and he did it); they just needed him to sound creepy in the show for whatever reason.

I hated how they handled the bridge scene for Asriel, Lyra and Marisa, but that’s long and complicated for me to explain here. In S2, there has been some mentions of him so far, including the implication he might have ruined Cittàgazze himself and I frankly don’t understand where did they get that idea. But the cherry on the top was Thorold telling Marisa that Asriel was gonna kill Lyra and that’s just-- that’s so dumb. That’s genuinely dumb writing, because Thorold knows Lyra followed Asriel to the mountain, and while I do believe Asriel would have killed Lyra if Roger wasn’t there, there is no way Thorold should know or consider that Asriel was gonna hurt Lyra, because Roger was there. In fact, Thorold’s interactions with Asriel in episode 8 already disprove this, so either Thorold was lying in S2 for the sake of, I don’t know, chaos or whatever, or the person who wrote this was a five-star, solid gold, fucking moron.

I’m not gonna mention the lost episode because that was no one’s fault, but the fact that they discarded an episode that all information we have on imply that it was important to set up the backstory of the angels and the city, it’s... concerning. It means they wrote something parallel that should’ve been woven into the season.

The truth is, I still watch the show on Sundays, and I still like some stuff they do (especially Mary’s stuff, so far), and despite me slandering the show per your request anon lol (cause unfortunately my honest opinion is mixed, I just don’t try to overfocus on the negative on Tumblr, I mostly talk about it on discord or private), I do think anyone who has read the books should watch the show.

For me, personally, everything I love about HDM is barely on the show - complex characters, the philosophy, the oppression by religion, the interesting world - and the vibe I get is that they’re adapting a coming-of-age love story, which is the last and - being fully honest - the least important message these books give us, but unfortunately they were set to making a family show from the start, and my expectations were high and unmatched, and a family is what we’re getting: toned down, cute, pretty visuals and soulless (heh, pun intended), philosophically speaking. I expect a certain pattern going into S3, but I always like to hold out hope that they will hire better writers (apparently Jack Thorne already wrote 4 scripts, so there you go lmao), and try to give HDM the adaptation it deserves. The truth is, if you’re a picky, canon reliant person like I am, the show might be a struggle, but if you just like the story for the teen romance, or if you don’t care about overthinking a show/book, then most people can have a good time with it.

#asks #effie watches hdm #sorry it took me a while and sorry for the gigantic critique #but i wanted to be honest about my take on the show so far #Anonymous

[incarnateirony]

In what season and episode did you realised that Destiel went from subtext to actual text?

Difficult question really. I don’t exactly have a magic switch of some weird personal set goalpost I have, and frankly, wasn’t even really a shipper, just defended shippers, until... 13.5/6. I think I started slipping after 12.19 because I’m not a moron, I don’t live under a rock, I have eyes and know what the fuck a mixtape means to Gen X. But I kept it at arms reach because even Carver era was so totally subtextual-- atop all the stuff that got cut S10 after the S9 blowout, I didn’t exactly want to invest myself as much as point out shippers weren’t crazy for seeing what they saw, especially S8/9+ and even prior the resonance of the hero’s journey over our entire human civilization and historical othering of queerness made earlier readings or notices of it completely fair even if not really like, directional by the crew?

But to begin, Carver era was when I saw /intentful and meritful construction of the body of text, via subtext, to subtextually tell a story with classic queer coding./ Because a lot of what this fandom calls queer coding makes me want to hide my face behind a quantum hole of facepalms and is often like, pretty much the reverse of what should be advocated or considered. All those retro old “he’s been written as queer from S1″ make me want to kick puppies or something because oh my god it’s Not Good, most of the content there is Very Bad And Hugely Problematic, and it’s an attempt to retroactively prove what old canon was doing without any substance.

Carver era was the shift to substance, but silent substance. Subtext that’s genuinely thematically scaffolded into the storyline in a way that while the events themselves were largely cued on subtext, consideration of that subtext was critical to understanding the full body of text and people that refused to grow into and adapt with that text as the tone shifted are the ones that got more and more confused and angry.

Dabb era was the threshold crossing into (often low-visibility) text. Fandom intentionally arguing points that require complete removal from social structures (which is everything from regional meanings of major symbols, social codes, language, or why-letters-mean-things) doesn’t mean shit doesn’t mean what it means. A mixtape isn’t subtext any more than getting on one knee and popping open a box is subtext even if they don’t verbalize the words. We know what these fucking things mean and anyone who doesn’t is in DESPERATE need of going outside and experiencing the real world before making any kind of social commentary on a body of text.

When it comes to dialogue text, Last Call is where Bi Dean or at least Queer Umbrella Dean was textualized. Again, it doesn’t matter if people don’t understand the long argued history that was put to bed about repeat sexual encounters with men, it doesn’t matter what the gender of the other triplets were, literally none of that matters. It doesn’t matter if the person understands it. It doesn’t matter if they know their queer culture enough to know their arguments were already buried. It is what it is.

There’s this disillusionment that unspoken physicalized shit like kissing or sex, or verbalized ones like “I love you,” but “I love you, in a gay way, specifically and only you, and want to be romantic with you” because every other statement of the like so far has people crying or arguing about it as not enough either. 

These things are nice, but it is not the only way to deliver a textual romance. These are things we want and deserve, and people aren’t wrong for wanting them, the only wrong comes in deleting other text because it isn’t the style of text they want. 100% unhelpful.

Text in AV is complex. No matter how decontextualized people try to pretend this all is, throwing pasta at the wall and calling it an argument worth validating, AV media study doesn’t just incorporate social codes on shit like dialogue -- though anyone that applies those social codes wouldn’t be arguing anyway, as per my old post on that -- but visual language and TV literacy are a long studied topic and are just as relevant as understanding of textual/verbal language and having textual literacy. People trying to eschew these in the interest of favoring fanspaces to try to keep them equal within the canon, which is NOT what fandom space equality is supposed to be about, is just... lol. 

When that soap opera reporter that doesn’t even watch the show wandered in commenting on the full mise en scene of the 15.03 breakup being classical “Dark Point in the Romance” framing, that’s not subtext. In a book, characters aren’t running around on a blank canvas. Their environments are the text. 

What people may draw symbolically out of an environment varies, and if someone’s /interpretation/ holds up, that’s fine. But being able to digest the entire presentation of a work, that is to say, to read an entire scene in a book and understand their setting and the relevance of that setting is simply a form of text. And when literal fucking randos can spot classic cinematography, it’s time to consider what the full cinematic framework is telling you both in incremental minutiae of texts and in the full body of work.

So basically, I acknowledged lowkey text based on the most basic understanding of social codes, by 12.19, even if I was still kinda eyerolling about it. By 13.5/6, Castiel returned to Dean in something later echoed by Eileen for the zoom shot, but the rest of the arrangement was verbatim identical to the original ending of Swan Song with Lisa, with the only difference being “Never too late” wasn’t a verbal line, but an entire sound track they applied to highlight the scene.

Despite the Swan Song parallel ending reactives went up in arms about the fact that they weren’t having big romantic moments anymore and kinda failed to wrap braincases around the fact that the endgame reunion that was literally the ORIGINAL endgame shot, which ALSO didn’t include physicality (in fact, the text read, “this isn’t sexual at all. He’s a lost soul, and she’s his home” in the script for Lisa), and this dumbass fandom would go “SEE PROOF THAT MEANS THE TEXT MEANS IT WASNT SEXUAL AND HE JUST BECAME BEST FRIENDS THAT WAS HER BEDWARMER MAYBE SHE HAS COLD FEET AT NIGHT” and that’s not how this fucking WORKS. Common sense is NOT removed from fucking discussion and what sense is applied needs to be levelly-- again, social codes.

So at 13.5/6 I had considered it textually paramount to the original endgame arrangement. S14 was just... blatant ass domesticity. Dean got his happy ending. He had his family. He got his win, his everything. They spoke frequently in the kitchen -- only vaguely over cases, more slapping around idioms, eyerolling over barbarous eating, and occasionally discussing how to raise their son. In fact, if you look at non-research-non-casework S14 kitchen scenes I’m gonna let you sit there and map out what all those domestic moments in the heart of the kitchen was, minding 13.5/6. 

It was something gained. It was their life. And it was something to lose. 14.18 already advert framed it, we all saw it. Troubled family. People delete history of what is connected where to pretend “we” is vague or makes the romance any less of a canon piece and lmao guys 

And season 15 is their year long run where they’re spearheading a huge part of the plot and will be a critical final resolution.

Speaking of 13.5/6 and social codes, anyone remember that Jack hadn’t met Dave Mather and looked at one nonphysical picture of them and recognized “he’s her boyfriend”? SOCIAL CODES MEAN SHIT GUYS.

So there’s no magic moment. There’s S8/9 coding and subtext. There’s S12′s tape and other elements -- tape is just the easiest to nail down but several through the year tbh -- there’s S13′s Never Too Late, and all things that followed that in waterfall. There’s S14′s established domesticity with Castiel having essentially moved into the bunker, something that wasn’t even entirely established in S12 yet even if he was more frequent there than Carver era.

Without social codes, I could argue that “Dean loves pie” doesn’t actually mean he loves pie. In fact, I could argue those letters mean nothing, because basic social codes are what even give words meanings. Without them these are just squiggly lines on a screen. If I eschew social codes, I could take a “love me some pie” line from Dean and say it means he fornicates with children and make long convoluded excuses around it instead of the observable fucking fact that Dean fucking Winchester likes goddamn pie.

Waiting for your perfect personally dreamed magic moment for a landmark to call text generally disregards the full body of the text and merit of the work. The amount of time and effort this FUCKING shipping fandom has put into -- even Destiel shippers -- bashing down and calling blatant ass text subtext because it’s not the text they want -- just because they want to argue with people that threw the logic baby out with the destiel bathwater they thought was dirty -- it’s fucking embarrassing tbqh. Imagine if people’s competitive fandom BS was muted how anyone here would be addressing this body of text.

Like. “After Carver directed Misha to play Castiel as a jilted lover in season 9, Cain through S10 escalated it into Castiel as Colette, which was confirmed by both the author and actors, seating him as a lover, as Sam was Abel the brother; by season 11, pining and connected hearts becomes the driving theme of the show, repeatedly denounced both in text and showrunner commentary that it wasn’t Amara that was that romance, and instead, a different one rose; by season 12, domestic arguments were many, mixtapes were shared, coming into rooms and playing people for things secretly stashed under pillows were a hinging plot moment, by season 13 he was the Never Too Late Big Win as a far more powerful version of Lisa, by season 14 Castiel moved in, by season 15 their giant sacred marriage euchartist ceremonies on repeat are driving the entire body of the season while overtly making the straight pairing a secondary parallel to the primary Dean and Castiel pairing by 15.09 such as the AU scene, or the ending where they mimicked the same phrase, truncated by physicality. But anyone viewing this text is an adult not competing for their preferred fandom playbox to be considered in the text, and had eyeballs, saw Sam and Eileen were clearly courting, flirting, and/or romantically engaged for a long time before this.”

Can we hope for the equality in that, sure.  I want that, sure. That doesn’t erase all the other modes of text before that though. 

But there, I just addressed 4 consecutive seasons of storytelling as its stands in the critical themes, without breaking down the dozens of independent scenes themselves that have already been analyzed to death and yall have scorched in your eyeballs by now like angels have prophet names. 

I’ve seen people desperately, desperately try to reinterpret this text, or this story structure, in inconsistent ways that fall short. They’re never held accountable for their entire shit falling flat on their face, they just keep building new shit that falls on its face too and keep using it as a base. People can *interpret* ~text~ however they want. Anyone that tells you that “true text is inarguable” is either an idiot or selling you something for your subscription to their blog. Anyone CAN make any jackass interpretation of anything they want. 

So sure. You can make some nonsensical explanation around every core theme their relationship is shadowed by, removing all social codes and context from basic elements understood by adult human beings natively, whatever. You can take 200 pages writing around it and degaying it. Generally when I see this, I see unhinged, incomplete writings with no central thread, just a thousand disembodied excuses that don’t even make a story. They’re just that. Desperate excuses. Years of it at this point. And they’re free to /interpret the text like that/ if they want. But that’s their /interpretation/ of a /text/ and as-above generally in /intentional, willful, conscious denial and erasure of the basic social codes we all understand./

Just because they /can/ warp the most left field interpretation doesn’t make it not text. If I pulled an “I don’t know I can’t english suddenly” and threw those codes out the window that doesn’t mean that the shit doesn’t mean the shit it means just because it’s inconvenient to me lmao

And this isn’t necessarily at you, Nonnie, I just feel the need to expand on this because any single time I don’t nail down these conversational stakes, someone breezes through and intentionally hotboxes the conversation to go down these very predictable manipulations and extremizations of the conversation that I really am far too tired to repeat the arguments raging in my mentions again, so I head ‘em off before the shit ever reblogs.

[jurijurijurious]

A snippet of Barbossabeth...

Here’s a sample of the Barbossabeth fanfic I found. The story itself only exists as lots of unfinished chapters that need threading together. I’ll hopefully give it some love when I find time, I think it’ll be worth the effort and a bit of fun, but I’m a bit rusty with my PotC fics - this draft is over 10 years old in itself.

It seems I had the idea to have a narrator begin or interrupt the chapters, then told the rest as a regular third-person narrative. It was also written pre-Potc4 and PotC5 but they might even help inspire an AU-type parallel story.

Anyway, you’re welcome to message me with comments if ye feel so inclined.

“Mate, if you choose to lock your heart away, you’ll lose [Elizabeth] for certain.”--Jack Sparrow to Will Turner, PotC: AWE

Chapter [x]: A Divulgatory Mood

Elizabeth followed Barbossa out of the tavern, glad to be free from the acrid aroma of rum, blood and sweat which hung around like an unmovable miasma within.  The night air in the street was not much better, though; the foul stench of alcohol out here mingled with vomit and raw sewage.  Tortuga was the gutter of civilisation, and yet it had a certain appeal to it.  Besides the fact it was the last free port, it was something of a haven, an escape from the outside world of law and order.  It was little wonder that many pirates in these waters rarely made port anywhere else, and spent the majority of their lives out on the seas.

Barbossa seemed to know Tortuga extremely well – far better than Elizabeth – and she wondered where exactly they were heading as he took her on a winding stroll down multiple, dark back alleys, from which out of the crevices they were monitored by wary gazes and hungry eyes.

“Where are we going?” she asked him at length, striding up to his side and angling her head up toward his.  “I’m beginning to suspect you’re taking me in circles.”

He favoured her with a little smile, his eyes twinkling.  “Ye’re as bright as ever, aren’t ye?”

She stopped in her tracks, feet sliding into a thick pile of mud, and she gaped at him.  “You are taking me in circles?” she asked in horror.

“Well, nawt exactly in circles,” Barbossa replied as he turned casually back to face her, placing one hand on his hip and the other on the butt of his flintlock.  “More like back and forth and side to side. Criss-crossing.”

She blinked, a frown creasing her brow.  “Why?”

He chuckled, giving her a once over with his eyes.  “Perhaps nawt so bright, then,” he murmured.

He watched how her lips tautened and her eyes flared at him, infuriated by the insult, which only caused him to laugh some more.

“My dear Mrs Turner, can ye think o’ no reason I’d take ye on a long and winding stroll?”

Her gaze tightened on his person, thinking on this for a moment.  “So that I might not know the way back?” she queried.

“P’raps,” he said before he gestured for her to come close.  Reluctantly, she did, but did not to let her expression waver.  Her face remained frigid and cold.

Barbossa put an arm round her shoulder, and she baulked, but he held her firm as he then whispered in her ear, “It’s more so we might throw off anyone who be following us.”

Elizabeth relaxed as she realised that he was one step ahead of her.  She still had much to learn, it would seem.  And perhaps, even now, he still aimed to teach her.

He released her with a pat to the shoulder and continued on his way, Elizabeth tailing him like a loyal dog shadowing its master.  There were more turns ahead, then a couple of passes through other unsavoury taverns, where they entered through one door and left by another.  Sinister eyes hawked at them both as they passed through, which left Elizabeth in no doubt that they were not welcome– or at least that she wasn’t.

As they emerged back into the streets, Barbossa made a turn to the left whilst overstepping several chickens that were loose in the alley, and Elizabeth, tired of this aimless trek, opened her mouth to protest.  She was silenced before she even had chance to begin, though, as a couple of extravagantly dressed ladies suddenly emerged from a doorway and closed in on Barbossa like lionesses to a kill.

“You in need of a spot of company tonight, sir?” the first asked, a tall blonde in a lush, red dress.  She slinked up to Barbossa and ran her hands up his chest whilst Elizabeth just stood and gaped.

“I thank ye, no,” Barbossa replied in what Elizabeth felt was far too easy a manner, and she watched the charmer in him flare up as he threw the woman a grin and gently moved her hands aside.  He was a clear old hand at this game.

“I have other business to attend to tonight,” he continued, tapping the lady under the chin before turning to carry on his way.

Elizabeth made a step to follow but stopped again as the second woman, this one a brunette garbed in rich purple, walked around Barbossa and took a hold of him from behind.  “Oh, surely you can fit a little bit extra on the side?” she cajoled, one hand sliding over his shoulder whilst she settled the other on the butt of his flintlock and began to rub it.  “You won’t be disappointed.”

Elizabeth could not help but gawp even more.  She wasn’t sure whether these two women were competing for the Captain, or whether they were asking him to come and ‘play’ with the pair of them; either way, she wasn’t sure what shocked her more – their open advances, or the fact that it was this man they were trying to draw some business from.  Surely there were other more appealing prospects on the streets of Tortuga…?

Barbossa, meanwhile, took hold of the second lady’s hands and removed them from his person, before he brought her round before him in a very gentlemanly manner and then bent to kiss her hand.  “Apologies, m’dears,” he said again, “but I can’t engage yer services tonight.”

And it was then that the two wenches deigned to notice Elizabeth who stood a short distance behind him.  Their eyes took in her breeches and jacket, her messy hair shoved beneath an uneven tricorn, and they sneered in disgust.

“You’re not with that thing are you?” the blonde spat.

Barbossa looked back at Elizabeth, face betraying nothing.  “Aye, but fer business, nawt fer pleasure.”

Elizabeth for some reason felt affronted by his choice of words, so folded her arms and cocked a brow at him.  “Then shall we get on to some business, Captain?” she pressed.

She saw the flicker of Barbossa’s brow telling her to keep quiet, but she was hardly in the mood any more.  Elizabeth Turner did not take to being snubbed lightly.  But her attention was drawn aside from Barbossa as the brunette cackled wildly at her.

“My word, look at her!” jested the whore. “I half thought her a youth!  There’s nothing womanly about her.”

Elizabeth glared at the woman, hand twitching for the pistol in her belt.

Barbossa ambled quickly between them, sliding an arm round the brunette and guiding her off toward the side of the alley.  “Like I said, m’dear, I have business with this young lady.  Nothing more.”

“I hope so,” the brunette scoffed.  “Ye be a Captain, right?  And a Captain deserves pleasuring by a real woman,” She ran a finger up his body, fingered the necklace over his chest, then tickled him lightly under the chin.  “Not a skinny wretch of a girl with not a curve or figure to show for herself.”

“What did you say about me?” Elizabeth yelled, fingers curving round the butt of her pistol.

The brunette flexed her fingers as if readying herself for a good catfight.  “You heard me, cabin boy.”

The blonde rounded behind Elizabeth, the pair closing in on her predators, but Barbossa stepped between them all, took a hold of Elizabeth under an elbow, and then put a hand to the hilt of his cutlass, eyeing the ladies steadily.  “I don’t want any trouble, m’dears,” he said to all three, eyeing them each in turn.

The two wenches glared at Elizabeth once more before turning their eyes upon the Captain.  His fierce eyes told them he was being deadly serious and they knew that, with hand upon his sword, he was not a man to mess with.  They backed down.

“It’s your loss, handsome,” the brunette grumbled, brushing up against him as much as she dared as she slid past him and left.

“We’ll still be here if you change yer mind,” the blonde added.  “When you want to remember what a real woman feels like.”

Barbossa watched them both disappear then rolled his eyes and pushed Elizabeth on ahead.  “On with ye,” he said, marching after her.  “We’re nearly there.”

Elizabeth straightened her clothes out with more ferocity than was necessary and kicked up a pile of mud in anger.  “I could have taken those tarts!” she snarled.

“I’ve no doubt,” Barbossa rallied.  “But it’ll do ye no good to be harming the locals, yer Highness.  This is their territory and ye be signing nuthin’ but your own death warrant if ye touch any o’ them.”

“You heard what they called me!  I don’t have to take that kind of talk from any one!  I’m a pirate lord, I’m –”

“Clam up,” he snapped shortly.  “They make their living off o’ men, and they’ll attack anyone they think might be takin’ some business off their hands.  They’re survivors, just like you and me.”

“Well they needn’t worry about me taking away their ‘business’,” she sighed, her fists clenching and anger fizzling within her like a lit fuse, burning through her veins.  She was suddenly filled with a feeling of restlessness and, for some reason, inadequacy, and it did not sit well with her.

“Just because I choose not to flaunt myself in public…” she mumbled on.

Barbossa rolled his eyes again before he realised they were near their destination and he quickly stepped up to Elizabeth’s side, put and arm round her, and turned her into the next doorway.

“Let it go, Mrs Turner.  They were cheap shots, don't take 'em personally. We have more import'nt business to discuss.”  And with a burst of cheekiness, he added, “Ye be married anyway.”

He didn’t look to see her face.

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

The seeds of uncertainty are sown in the most unlikely of places. Elizabeth was unhinged by how easily the wenches had hit a weak spot in her person, making her suddenly very self-conscious.  But why did it bother her?  She had never cared before that she was not as comely as other women – in fact it had often played to her advantage to be otherwise.  Perhaps what had truly unhinged her was how attractive the wenches had appeared to find Barbossa.  Even if they were simply coating their words in honey to get his business, it cut her deep to feel so suddenly alone – even an older pirate was not short of company, but she… she had no choice but to isolate herself, for she was, as Barbossa had reminded her, a married woman.  The man she loved was out at sea, cursed to serve for an eternity aboard the Flying Dutchman, like Davy Jones before him, and was allowed but one day in a decade to come ashore and see “she who loved him”.

Sometimes love is just not enough.

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

The ramshackle building into which Barbossa led Elizabeth was leaning over on its rotting timber frames, as if it were as drunk on the foul Tortuga air as the town’s many denizens.  Inside it was a dark and gloomy place, and had it not been for the man in the corner, sat alone with a bottle of rum at one of the many tables (each of which was nothing more than an upturned barrel), Elizabeth would not have thought this to be a public house.

Barbossa strode over the straw-covered floor with the utmost care, as if he were expecting, at any moment, for an ambush might be sprung on him. His eyes searched the dark and empty interior, studying any gaps in the walls and any doors left ajar, his eyes lingering in particular on the lonely stranger on the far side of the room, but he was ultimately satisfied that he and his companion were safe (at least for the time being), and took a seat at a table right in the centre of the room.  He opened his hand to the stool on the opposite side of the table and Elizabeth, giving it a brief derogatory look, then seated herself before him.

A man in a soiled apron materialised all of a sudden from a backroom, and ambled across to the pair.  Elizabeth felt a little uncomfortable toward him; he was middle aged with greying hair, but it was his eyes, a pair of tiny but piecing black orbs, which really unsettled her.  She almost felt that he had the ability to peer straight into one’s soul.

Barbossa nodded his head at the man before asking for a couple of mugs of beer and flicked a few coins his way.

Elizabeth edged backwards as the man’s hand hit the table, gathered up the coins in a slow, slithering movement, before he pocketed the money and disappeared into the back another time.

Barbossa read Elizabeth’s frown before she even realised she had turned to stare after the man, and he said, “Ye’ve no need to fear ol’ Frank.  He’s a trustworthy soul.”

Elizabeth looked unconvinced.  “Just like you?” she retorted, which made the Captain laugh.

There was a snort from the man in the far corner, which made Elizabeth turn to cast a glance at him, but he appeared not to even have moved. Even more confused than ever, she returned her sights to Barbossa, who leant over the table and said, “Right, let us talk Jack Sparrow.”

“Why’s it your business?”

“Because he has something I need.  That’s why.”

Elizabeth smiled, lacing her fingers together and leaning her chin atop of them.  “Ah, so we’re back to bartering information?”

“Bartering?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.  “And what might we be bartering.”

There was a slosh of liquid as Frank slammed two pitchers of beer onto the table, then left again into the backroom.  Barbossa waited until he was gone, and looked Elizabeth hard in the face.  “Well?”

Elizabeth picked up the mug and sniffed at the contents, wrinkling her nose at it.  “What’s this? Smells like a latrine.”

“So what if it is?  I bought it fer yer so ye drink it.”

“But it might be poisoned,” she rallied jokingly.

“Oh, there’d be no point in killing ye, Mrs Turner. Nawt yet.”

She threw him a sultry smirk.  They were treading again on old boards and it was, for some reason, comforting.  She took a sip of the beer, found it to taste a lot more pleasant than she had anticipated, and then said, “Rumour has it you plan to find the fabled Aqua de Vida. Is it true?”

Barbossa took a long draft if his drink before he said, “Aye.  And whose loose tongue divulged that to ye?”

“Oh, just someone, somewhere.” Her eyes sparkled at him and Barbossa knew she’d be giving no more than that away.  She had certainly learnt well.

“News travels fast, Captain,” she continued, teasingly, “particularly when Jack Sparrow is at the head of the trail.”

Barbossa sat back and regarded her carefully.  She didn’t look like much, it was true, but the greatest danger always lay with those which were easy to underestimate.  Elizabeth had the advantages of not only appearing quite plain, but also of being a woman in a man’s world, and she used these cards against her foes with great skill and zest. He recalled that his initial relationship with Elizabeth had revolved around the pair of them constantly underestimating one another. After Calypso had brought him back to life he had been faced with the task of working alongside Elizabeth Swann again and it seemed that neither he nor the young woman had wanted to make the same mistakes with each other that they had the first time; and so a form of mutual trust had been formed between them, an unsaid promise that neither of them underestimate the other.  In truth, they were equals, and any conflict between them would quickly degenerate into a vicious circle of trickery and deceit.  At least when they were a team, their resources were pooled and their energies well spent, which in turn produced results.  There was no doubt that, had either one of them not been present at their last battle against the East India Trading Company, the enterprise would not have been a success.  A remarkable thought if ever there was one.

Barbossa smiled fondly at this memory before he said, “What interest is the Fountain of Youth to ye?”

“Does it matter?”

His brow rose.  “I guess nawt.  But ye be a pirate lord and pirate king these days.  Why don’t ye go off with your own men to find the treasure, if that be all that interests ye?”

“Because I don’t know how to get there.”

Barbossa’s eyes lit up.  Then there was still plenty left to barter for.  “I see.  Well, fortunately, I do – or at least I will do whenever we get Jack back.”

“So he has the location?” she inferred.

Barbossa nodded. “Aye.”

She leaned over the table toward him, lowering her voice to a whisper as she said, fixing him with a dark stare, “I do hope this isn’t another island which you can only find if you know where it is?”

Barbossa shook his head and chortled.  “Nay, it’s not.  I’d hold no hope of extracting the information from Jack if it were, either.  If he’s got any sense, he won’t likely trust me with such information again.”

“Indeed,” Elizabeth concurred, taking another sip of her beer.  “So Jack has the directions?”

“Aye.”

“On a map…?”

“As is customary.”

“Why does he need the map?  Doesn’t his compass work for this?”

“Oh, aye, I’m sure it works fine if he can set his mind to it.  But if he has the map, then I don’t.  That’s the point.”

Elizabeth laughed – typical men, in constant competition with one another!

“And what makes you think Jack hasn’t gone off to find it on his own?”

“I’m nawt saying he hasn’t, but unless he’s commandeered another ship and got himself another crew, I find it unlikely.  Besides, he loves the Pearl too much.  He’ll want her back sooner or later.”

Elizabeth’s lips slid up into a smug smile.  “Well fortunately for you, he hasn’t got himself a ship or a crew.”

Barbossa laughed, expecting as much.  “Didn’t think so.  So, where be he now?”

“Locked up.”

Barbossa groaned.  “Locked up?  Ye mean we’ve got to spring him from gaol?”

Elizabeth held his eyes.  “It wouldn’t be the first time, now, would it?”

“Not fer some,” he replied.  “And what’s he gone down fer now, might I ask?”

“Oh I don’t know.  You could fill a book with the crimes that man’s committed.  They probably took a pin and stuck it randomly onto a list and charged him for it.”

Barbossa took a couple of swallows of his drink then slammed the pitcher down with a slosh.  “It’s bloody careless of him… especially after everything that’s happened!”

Elizabeth didn’t seem so irritated.  “He’s Jack Sparrow.  You expected anything less?”

Barbossa eyed her sharply.  “I expected never to have ta see his sorry carcass again.  Why is it that I always end up running after him, or him after me?”

Elizabeth made a mocking shrug.  “Maybe it’s destiny, Captain.  Or a curse.”

Barbossa scoffed.  “Don’t dishearten me.”  He then looked over her countenance carefully and said, “So what is it ye be wanting in return fer this generous sharing o’ information?”

Elizabeth sat back, smugness written across her features.  “I want a part of the prize.”

Barbossa blink then choked out a laugh of disbelief.  “Ye want some of the fountain of youth?  You’re still but a girl yeself!”

That didn’t impress her in the slightest. “Am I? Well, this girl might be able to sell her information elsewhere.”  She got to her feet, ready to leave, and was surprised at first when Barbossa didn’t rise to stop her; he wasn’t as easily swayed as the others.

“Ye may walk out that door, missy, but ye ain’t got a clue where ye be going.”

Elizabeth’s expression faded to slight panic.  He was right.  Perhaps this was also why he had chosen to bring her on the most winding, confusing of routes to this secretive little place.  And she knew that more than mere wenches might be waiting in the dark and narrow backstreets of this seedy underworld.  She could handle a sword; she could look after herself; but she was one woman lost in a dark underworld, it perhaps wouldn't be wise to go out there alone.

“You bastard,” she murmured, throwing herself back onto her stool with a definitive thud.

“Takes one ta know one,” he countered before flashing her a toothy grin. “So, let’s be straight with one another.  You get part of the plunder in return for divulging Jack Sparrow’s locale.  Agreed?”

“I want passage aboard your ship, too.”

He looked confused by this request.  “Why, in God’s name?”

“Because I don’t trust you, that’s why.”

There were words as yet unsaid, and as Barbossa lounged back and looked hard into Elizabeth’s suddenly reticent eyes, he thought that he understood what else this might be.

“And ye’re bored, aren’t ye?”

She pulled that face which denied all accusations set against her. “I am not!” she said.

Barbossa’s smile was full of confidence, though, for he knew he was right this time.  “Oh ye are, I can see it.  Not enough going on fer ye back at Shipwreck Island?”

“Enough, thank you.  The East India Trading Company are on to us, you know.  They keep sniffing around like hounds on a scent and –”

“And yer men can go out and deal with them, no problem, right?  Sao Feng left you a good group o’ pirates, did he nawt?”

“Yes but we still have to keep them away from the cove, and  –”

He interrupted again.  “Oh that battle will never end.  It’s always been there – the authorities versus the pirates.  Ye know that ye can fight all ye like, but we’ll never win.  We’ll kill one Cutler Beckett and another one will rise up.  Can’t be helped.  And you know ye can’t waste yer life constantly fighting them, or else ye wouldn’t be here now, would ye?”

Elizabeth scowled at him and folded her arms.  “You’d be the same if you were pirate king.”

“Don’t be so sure,” he rallied, and chuckled into his beer as he watched her puzzled face, trying to comprehend what was going through his mind.

Since she had lost a foothold in this situation, she sought to change the subject.  “So, are you a regular here…?” she asked.

Barbossa was puzzled this time.  “Here? What do ye mean by ‘here’?”

She inclined her head towards the door.  “Tortuga.  The wenches.  You seem an old hand.”

“Ah…” he nodded, comprehension dawning.  “Well, once upon a time, p’rhaps I was more of a ‘regular’, but that all stopped with the cursed gold.  There be no point in paying a woman to pleasure ye if ye can feel none of it.”

Barbossa monitored Elizabeth’s face, wondering if she might blush at such bluntness, but she did not.  That impressed him.  She was more hardened than that whelp she called husband.

“To be frank, Mrs Turner,” he continued light-heartedly, “ye perhaps be more experienced than I in those kind o’ things now.”

She giggled over her beaker at him, which brought a smile to his face. She could be pleasant enough company, if nothing else.

“What makes you say that, Captain?”

He ran a finger round the rim of his mug, looking down into the near empty pitcher before reconnecting his gaze with hers and saying, “I’ve nawt touched a woman since before I was resurrected, therefore I see meself as being a virgin all o’er again.”  He raised his mug in her direction before taking a swig.  “You might have ta teach me a thing or two now.”

Elizabeth seemed sceptical.  “Are you sure? You and Tia Dalma seemed mighty close on occasion.”

“Trifles. One can but have affection fer she who raised one from the dead.  We played around but nuthin’ happened.  It be too dangerous for a man to get entangled in her web.  Not worth sharing a bed with her, I tell ye now.”

Elizabeth laughed another time and shook her head.  “Very well, I shall do my best to believe you.  But I still count myself as rather inexperienced in the matter, so you had better go back to your whores and ask them to remind you how it’s done.”

He finished off his drink, put down the empty mug, and rose to his feet. “Now I can’t be doing that, Mrs Turner.”

She cocked a brow in jest.  “Why ever not?  Isn’t it what you always used to do?”

“It is, but well, but fer one, I’m loathe to part with me money, and two, I think I can do a bit better for meself now.”  He threw her a wink and turned to go.  “Are ye coming or will ye be finding your own way back?”

Elizabeth finished off her beer in one hearty swallow and then got up to follow.  “I’m coming.  I don’t fancy been left lost in the alleyways with all those tarts about.”

Barbossa’s lips parted in another grin.  “Aye. Would be a fine way for Mrs Turner to go, that.  At the hands of Tortuga’s women of negotiable affection.”

They turned as one to go, weaving in between the haphazard array of tables and stools, before suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, the man in the corner shot to his feet and proclaimed at the top of his voice.  “Genesis!  Genesis!  Genesis!”

Elizabeth and Barbossa turned, brows creased as the man continued to repeat the word over and over.  They then watched as Frank the bartender came out of the back room with an oar slung over his shoulder, which he promptly swung into the lunatic’s face.

There was a heavy ‘thunk’ before the man crumpled into a pile over his table, sending his bottle of rum rolling onto the floor.

Frank turned to the departing duo.  “’m sorry, guvnor. He raves, this one.”

Barbossa looked again at Elizabeth then shrugged.  “T’wasn’t raving at us.  T’is no problem.”

They then began to leave, but heard Frank mumble as they went, “Don’t be so sure.”

TBC…

#potc #pirates of the caribbean #potc3 #potc fanfic #pirates of the caribbean fanfic #barbossabeth #captain barbossa #elizabeth swann #geoffrey rush #keira knightley

[superbataddicted]

Writer's Month 2019

Day 3 Prompt: Coffee Shop AU

Fandom: Superbat, Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Superman/Batman

Writer: batzmaru65

(Summary: An AU similar to a parallel universe take. Bruce is a detective in this story, not a vigilante or a billionaire. Clark is still Superman and a reporter. There is slight change in the spelling of Clark and Bruce's surname.)

Bruce stumbled into the coffee shop, hair dishevelled, tie askew and suit crumpled. He dragged himself towards the counter where a female barista stood smiling, not at all shocked at the sight of him.

“The usual, Mr Weyne?” The middle-aged lady asked, already starting preparations to make Bruce’s double espresso, extra strong, no milk and just a dash of sugar.

 Bruce did not even have the energy to give a reply. He merely nodded and leaned against the counter, head propped on a fist, sucking in the aroma of brewing coffee as if his life depended on it. But it was not enough to stave off his exhaustion and a huge yawn broke out, bringing tears to his eyes.

“You’re gonna kill yourself one day at the rate you’re going,” the dark-haired woman admonished as she poured Bruce’s order into a takeaway cup and closed the lid.

Bruce smiled wanly and reached out to take the proffered cup.

“Just a little while more, Martha,” he muttered, stifling another yawn, “We’ve finally found something and it’s all going to end soon.”

“That’s good to hear and all the best, Mr Wyene.”

Bruce nodded again and after slipping some bills onto the counter, he dragged himself out of the shop, all attention fixed on the coffee. Distracted and eager to have his caffeine fix, Bruce did not watch where he was going. A careless step, a trip over a flowerpot and Bruce was falling forward, gravity pulling him down a flight of steps. His heart lurched and he gasped, arms flailing, trying to stop the inevitable. The cup tumbled out of his grasp, lid falling off and dark liquid splashed out, sparkling in the sunlight. The ground rushed up and Bruce squeezed his eyes shut, body tensed in anticipation of the pain that would come.

However, instead of hard concrete smashing against his face and body, Bruce fell against warmth and soft strength. An arm had gone round his waist, fingers gripping his hips, holding him steady. It took a moment for Bruce to realise that the anticipated pain was not forthcoming. Opening his eyes, he was greeted by a pair of brilliant blue peeping out from behind a long fringe.

“Are you alright?” the stranger frowned in concern and leaned in closer. Bruce flushed at how intimate their posture was and he scrambled out of the grasp of the taller man.

“Yes I...ah...thanks.”

Averting his gaze from that pair of attractive blue eyes, Bruce froze at the sight of a press pass hanging around the stranger’s neck.

Clarke Kent. Daily Globe.

Narrowing his eyes in suspicion, Bruce glared at the reporter but the ferocity of his glare was without much impact. With his puffy eyes and dark circles, he came across as sleepy rather than angry.

“I’m not falling for your trick and stay away from me and my team!”

Bruce growled before he turned and darted away, berating himself as he made his escape. He had let his guard down, had not checked whether there was a tail when he snuck out. He wished the press would stop hounding him and his team of investigators. They had been hot on their heels ever since they were appointed as the independent committee to look into the Lex’s Charity scandal – a scam that had stretched across America and several countries overseas. The number of front companies and shell corporations, not to mention the complex paper trail to move and hide the embezzlement were so cleverly thought out. Bruce and his team had a hard time cracking the case, misled by false trails which ended up in dead ends. It was frustrating as hell but last night, they had finally found a clue to unravelling the entire mess. Elated, Bruce wanted to reward himself with his favourite drink so tired was he of the awful-tasting coffee the police headquarters had been serving. And look at the trouble it had almost caused him.

Bruce waved a hand in greeting to the few investigators still awake. The rest of his team had fallen into an exhausted slumber, slumped over their desks or curled up on the floor. They had not slept much and neither had they gone home much either. Pressurized by the higher-ups who wanted the case solved as fast as possible, none of them had wanted to waste their time on trivialities.

Opening the door to his tiny cluttered office. Bruce slumped into his chair with a tired sigh, only to jerk up in shock at the sight of his double espresso sitting quietly on his desk pad, steam curling from the cup which was missing its lid.

Didn’t I spill it just now?

Question marks ran circles round his head and his eyes darted wildly around to find no one in the room. Lurching out of his seat, he wrenched the door open, the blinds rattling in protest against the glass.

“Hey, Alfred,” he called to his assistant, still immaculately dressed unlike the rest of them, “Did anyone come in just now?”

“Not that I know of, sir,” Alfred replied with an arch of an eyebrow.

“You’re sure? That a tall, blue eyes, long fringe reporter guy didn’t drop by?”

Alfred stopped his typing and gave Bruce a pointed stare.

“I have 20/20 vision, sir.”

“Oh, okay...okay then.”

Bruce retreated back into his office and rushed to the window, checking it. It was still locked and even if it was not, it would be impossible for anyone to enter anyway. His office was on the 11th floor and there were no ledges or protruding edges near the window. Lips pursed, Bruce flopped back into his chair, legs up on his desk and crossed. He stared thoughtfully at the cup of coffee.

The only culprit he could think of was Clarke Kent from the Daily Globe. But if it was really him, how did he pull it off then? A flash of memory brought the coffee shop incident to mind. Bruce was certain that he was about to hit the ground and then Mr Kent was suddenly there holding him tight.

Who or what are you?

Bruce wondered and then grinned fierce and feral. A mystery to solve. Just what Bruce loved most and why he ended up in this job. Mr Clarke Kent had better watch out for Bruce was going to get to the bottom of the truth no matter what. That was why he was called the “Hound”.

-

If Bruce had opened his window and looked up at the sky with a pair of powerful binoculars, he would have seen an interesting sight. A man was floating way up high, red cape fluttering, arms crossed over his chest where a S-like symbol marked his suit. Clarke was smiling, a mischievous grin, as he watched Bruce’s reaction.

Mr Bruce Weyne had intrigued him for a long while, even though the detective had no inkling of his existence. In this day and age where corruption abounds and money makes the world goes round, crime was the norm and the oppressed was left to rot. Clarke had been fighting a losing battle to address this injustice despite his superpowers. He had been on a lookout for some help. Someone or a few someones who could take on the system and continue the fight from within. His own investigations had led him to Bruce, descended from a long lineage of crimefighters from the grand old days of sheriffs to his late father’s career as a judge. His mother was a political activist and both of them had died in a shootout when he was eight, courtesy of the mafia.

Because of the tragedy, Bruce had grown up with the determination to undo the wrongs happening in his city. However, his recent investigations into the Lex’s Charity scam was leading him towards the same fate as his parents. As the saying goes, Bruce had opened up a can of worms and the current mafia bass, Jack Napier, was aiming to make an example of him, as bloody and cruel as possible, That was why Clarke had been watching over him and he had surged forward, panic constricting his heart when he saw Bruce fall. He had not intended to reveal himself in this manner but since the dice had been cast, he might as well make full use of the situation. Hence, the mystery of a steaming cup of coffee in his office which no one had entered. He knew that that would get Bruce hooked and hot on his trail.

Clarke grinned at the thought of Bruce coming after him just like the nickname his colleagues had fondly christened him with. At last, he need not watch him from afar. He could finally get close and build a relationship that, fingers crossed, would go beyond mere friendship. Clarke liked what he had seen of Bruce and he was not one to deny his feelings. It was nice holding him in his arms just now and Clarke wished for more intimacy between them.

#writersmonth #writersmonth2019 #superbat #clark kent/bruce wayne #clark x bruce #prompt: coffee shop AU #wm: day 3 #Fanfiction #DCU

[elizabethrobertajones]

What exactly qualifies as a “crypt scene”?

It’s a complicated equation that goes like

external influence, causing violence/uncontrollable behaviour, broken by a close friend with unstated but romantic interest on the side of the controlled one, who is not a blood family member, unrequited in interest, just a friend/colleague, or actually an enemy. If it’s a blood family member/otherwise non-blood but obvious paternal/maternal tie instead it becomes a swan song parallel. 

That’s a lot to hold in your head but it’s really important to track how it all works and the patterns established around it. 1x22 set up the Swan Song parallel which Sam had failed in 1x10 when he was affected with the anger ghost affliction and it was all a progress from there to get him to the Swan Song moment where he manages not to kill Dean, as John had done in 1x22 when possessed with Azazel. I strongly doubt the actual plot was plotted, but the themes were clear that this was the long-term arc and the show skates around it from season 1 right through. 

In season 7, Bobby is the last victim of a Swan Song parallel before Carver era, and in 7x23 he is beating the crap out of Sam against the side of a vehicle when he sees his own reflection in the van window and realises what he’s doing and pulls himself back from the vengeful brink and is allowed to move on. 

In 11x14, Cas manages to stop Lucifer from exploding Sam all over the Bunker, but then, curiously, hands back control in order to save Dean, showing a weird distinction in confrontation types. Casifer never attacks Dean in the same way, and their confrontation is staged utterly differently. 

In Dabb era, where things are more kaleidoscopic in parallel nature, Mary also gets a fairly standard one of these in 12x03 which is a much later loop back to the original, and the conclusion of 13x23 is Lucifer failing it vs Jack and his OWN NATURE, which had been the attacking force in 5x22 after all, and it’s a Dabb era level subversion which hands Jack over to his true family (via all the challenging them to kill each other that Lucifer did which took the whole parallel out of his hands in a way and abstracted it into theirs) and reveals that Lucifer is abusive and unredeemable to Jack and I would HOPE now with every member of the blood and non-blood family successfully indoctrinated into it we don’t need any more of these direct Swan Song parallels. 

So why are the crypt scene parallels different and stand out from this pattern? In Carver era there’s a strong side branch of these stories of supernatural control and begging people to stop with a very specific nature which fits this formula from above, where romance is involved in the main parallels, or absence of romance. There are multiple instances where family connections fail to break it, and comments like “I know you’re in there” and other dialogue from the Crypt Scene in 8x17 are thrown around, before and after that moment, where the pass and fail rate is directly connected to whether there is a romantic connection or not. This starts early on in season 8, from Dean being rage-possessed by the spectre and not stopping for Sam, to Charlie being the means Gilda breaks control from the spellbook, through to season 11 where the Soul Eater refuses to let Sam’s “i know you’re in there” stop it when it attacks him as Dean. Other scenes are staged in the same way with other elements, from the 8x16 set up with the Prometheus and Artemis parallel the episode before the crypt scene, through to the fantastically convoluted method of Mick being the one torn with a mental control he couldn’t break and Sam protecting Eileen while trying to talk Mick out of it, or Ishim taunting Dean that banishing him would kill Cas after he was the one who violently attacked Cas with visual framing almost identical to the direction of 10x22 in some respects and getting Dean to back off from that to protect Cas. All with parallels to his own relationship - romantically coded - with Lily.

And then there’s Thomas J Wright, who directed, yep, 12x10, and 10x22 and 8x17 and 11x21 which had its own odd twist on it, and a bunch of other episodes with suspiciously similar framing and attacks. 10x22 stands out because it has the exact same framing as an attack by a controlled Jensen-acted character against a romantically connected character in Dark Angel, which he ALSO directed. 10x22 also by their own admission had a fight scene they changed, with Misha, Jensen and TJW all agreeing to frame it differently, with Cas refusing to fight back, and the stabbing the book while straddling Cas thing clearly came from TJW’s own personal notebook of favourite confrontation ideas given he’d filmed such a similar one early in his career. He’s also added little bits of unscripted storytelling via the direction in his episodes which continue to build up this idea, such as the Amara touching Cas’s heart to contact Dean silent suggestion, and we don’t know if the back and forth in the scenes where they save Lucifer (and by that we mean Cas) later in that episode but again the dialogue between Amara and Dean weirdly parallels what’s going on there as if they broke a connection. 9x23 also directed by him includes the side by side of Cas smashing the angel tablet and Dean falling to the floor with a huge thunderclap after Metatron has stabbed him, perhaps highlighting the irony that Cas did the thing to save Dean seconds after Dean was stabbed, but also “breaking the connection” between the angel tablet, a source of powerful supernatural magic, and Metatron, who was causing violence against Dean, who was not fully in control of himself and about to lose what control he had left as he died and became a demon powered completely by his id, a reverse crypt scene where the reverse was not so much who was a participant but the effects of a failure. Of course the angel tablet was the fought-over artefact in 8x17. And in 9x22, the previous episode, Cas might not have been controlled, but Hannah, dressed like Naomi and sounding an awful lot like her too, challenged Cas between an us and them with killing Dean in the centre of it, to which he said “I can’t.”

We knew the real reverse crypt scene was coming pretty much immediately in season 9 after Dean got the Mark and we were worrying he’d be controlled by it and become violent and maybe attack Cas, who was paired with him by the Colette parallel. In the end Cas asked Dean to stop, as per Colette, and we got the reverse crypt scene where Dean attacked Cas while under the control of the Mark, and only stopped himself killing Cas at the last moment before walking away. Of course, we also knew it was going to happen like that because in 10x13 a trenchcoat-wearing wife pleaded her raging vengeful ghost husband to stop hurting people (while he was about to kill Dean), and her words were enough to let the husband pass on into peace. 

Now Dean’s controlled again, but it’s by Michael, which means we could get a lot of different variations. Dean’s never had this sort of mytharc possession in a way that mirrors Sam being possessed by Lucifer, so a Swan Song flip between them is now a card on the table. But a reverse crypt scene style encounter between Michael and Cas might too. They could look very superficially similar, and Michael could also attack Mary, Bobby and now Jack, who are all inducted into the family via takes on this. The interesting difference is going to be in how it’s told and maybe just even who is directing what encounters, what parallels are offered and what language is used, down to whether it’s repeating things phrased one word or the other difference between conversation from 8x17 or 5x22 or other variations of these 2 thematic trees… If it fits Swan Song parallels it’s about family, but the crypt scene style parallels are the ones written with romantic language, and only used in scenarios where romance is implied, or to show it fails when romance isn’t present, even in encounters between characters for whom a Swan Song parallel would work perfectly. 

(Funnily enough, in 12x22, it’s Toni, the Naomi parallel, who puts Mary and Dean under, after manipulating Mary, but Dean’s speech to her mirrors ones to John in season 2, and a father/daughter mirror in 3x05, but it’s Ketch who wakes them both up and breaks Toni’s control :P)

#Asks #crypt scenes for ts

[almaasi]

reaction post typed while watching SPN 13x21 “Beat the Devil”

okay, whoa. dick jokes and also HEART-DESTROYING PLOT TWIST, what a combination

02:30pm

i’m sure it’s 100% intentional but when i hear the title of this episode i just think of “beat the devil’s tattoo” by black rebel motorcycle club

things i want from this episode:

team free will doing things TOGETHER

no women to die

also i have an inner ear infection so if i pause for a long time it’s because looking at things makes me dizzy and seasick (yay)

-

02:46pm

okay here goes!!!

-

02:48

CAS NO DON’T COMMENT ON PEOPLE’S FOOD

but also wow cute??? his affectionate smile when he looks at dean??

-

04:49

mary: “john and me used to call him our little piglet”

OUR LITTLE PIGLET

;A;

-

also WOW TALK ABOUT FOOD SHAMING

THIS IS CUTE BUT ALSO NOT AT ALL

-

02:50

AND THEN DEAN BECKONS TO THE PIZZA WHILE CAS AND JACK ARE THERE

and cas obliges

THIS IS SO FREAKING PRECIOUS

-

02:52

now mary’s talking to sam and this is probably a dream either sam or mary is having, which makes my worry that they don’t get rescued 

oh no

-

02:54

gabe wants to extract grace “~in private~“

cas: “so i left him alone in dean’s room”

dean: “whAT. noawww.”

i’m just.............this is so cute??

*u*

but also my brain is like “extracting grace = masturbation... cas sees dean’s room as the masturbatorium” (!!!)

but also extracting grace is not like masturbation but ALSO I’M PRETTY SURE BERENS WAS INSINUATING THAT IT IS

which basically means asmodeus was raping gabe? and metatron raped cas??

which i guess makes sense as a sex/grace parallel since removing it without consent is obviously a big no-no even if you never compared the two

wow this cuteness went downhill fast

-

03:00

BUT ALSO WHY DOES SAM SMILE THE SOFT QUIET SMILE WHEN DEAN SAYS “naoww”

that seemed like a “cas usually does everything in dean’s room” kinda smile

or an “eyyyy not my room” kinda smile

-

THERE’S SO MUCH IN THEIR FACES AND THE EDITING IN THIS FIVE-SECOND SEGMENT

I NEED SOMEONE TO DO A SHOT-BY-SHOT ANALYSIS OF THEIR EXPRESSIONS AND EXPLAIN WHAT IT ALL MEANS

SAM’S ALARMED FACE ABOUT THE “IN PRIVATE”.

CAS’ CONFUSED SQUINTING WHEN DEAN OBJECTS TO GABRIEL BEING IN HIS ROOM.

oh shit?? like maybe cas is confused because “i am an angel, i am allowed to do private things in dean’s room. gabriel is an angel, therefore dean’s room is the place to do private things. wait--! *confusion* why does dean say “naoowww” like he objects? is gabriel different?”

and the bit cas doesn’t get (YET) is that CAS IS DIFFERENT TO GABRIEL BECAUSE DEAN LOVES CAS AND WANTS HIM TO DO PRIVATE THINGS WITH HIM IN HIS ROOM

#nailed it !!!!!!!

seriously this is such a small moment but??? SO MUCH SUBTEXTUAL INFORMATION

-

03:07

i only have 480p video so i can’T READ THE LABEL ON THAT YELLOW PACKET THAT’S GOING IN THE BAG

it’s definitely important

-

03:15

60% sure gabe just walked in wearing dean’s clothes

the leather jacket from the time they went to LA??

when do we get to see CAS in dean’s clothes ;a;;a;a;

-

03:17

gabe: “more than enough to get the job done”

preeeeeeetty certain the portal’s gonna close early without enough grace

-

03:18

HOKAY WOWWWWWW yeah THAT’S NOT SEXUAL AT ALLLLL

-

03:20

cas: “well that was....fast”

sam: “very, very fast”

rowena: “one could even say premature”

JESUSVGDG DGJDFGSDGHGJDJGGD

-

03:23

i recall that meta post saying that everyone’s meeting their abusers this season

sam hasn’t faced lucifer yet

(i mean, since last year in LA)

but also dean hasn’t faced john yet and i kinda wanna hold out for that in a weird way?? idk if i want that

-

03:25

gabriel picks up a book called “laying pipe”

is this episode gonna be..... filled with dick

......jokes

but also what is that book doing in the men of letters library ?

headcanon that it’s a secret vintage gay porn book, which dean keeps hidden in places that aren’t his room ‘cause that’s too obvious if someone finds it. at least if it’s in a public place then he can say “uhhh must’ve been a men of letters thing”

-

03:27

gabriel and rowena: SJKFSD [IMPOTENCE] KSJFGJDGH

OH MY GOD.

-

03:28

rowena: “the three amigos? with their bro hugs, pep talks, and melodrama?”

yep that’s them

-

03:29

WOW ROWENA’S THOUGHTS

news flash: gabriel has a butt

-

03:30

ROWENA’S FINGERS ON THE PESTLE AS SHE LIFTS IT UPRIGHT

ME: /CLUTCHES MY FOREHEAD

-

03:32

oohhhhh she’s gonna get more grace out of him

edit: guess not, just some good ol witch/angel hanky panky

-

03:34

I CN’t hnANDLE THIS and neither can cas

-

03:40

that lucifer-catching thing with gabriel and rowena was kinda fun

-

03:40

lucifer: “hey look all the people i love to torture in the same room”

-

03:43

WHOOP.

is it just me or did dean look kind of into it for about half a second

-

03:46

@ rowena i recommend a silencing spell to shut lucifer up

-

03:56

OH NO

PRAYER CIRCLE FOR ROWENA

-

05:57

ruh roh, lucifer’s in the other world

-

03:59

YEEEEAAH GO ROWENA

STICK AROUND AND HELP

ALL THIS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IS GOOD FOR YOU

edit: guess we’ll find out what she did in a later episode

-

04:00

oh right the packet of yellow things must’ve been glow sticks

-

04:06

SAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH NO!!! THE BLOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

;A;

-

CAs: HE’S GONE”

ofhfh

no 

oh no

._.

-

04:08

i feel light-headed

and idek if its because i;m sick or because of sam

i was not expecting this at all and i’m in like... mini-shock

sam looked very much dead

like actual dead

D:

-

04:11

my heart hurts

because mary but no sammy

-

04:12

oh no

;~;

-

...i .. need a minute

-

04:15

i’m just

i can’t???

i

too much

-

04:16

four minutes of processing/mourning later i return

sam: *gasps alive*

WHAT

WHAT

!!!!!!!!!!

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

rowena maybe?

-

04:17

oh that’s not good

-

04:20

lucifer: “i want what you already have. a relationship with my son”

well shit

i just can’t help but think about all the actual real people on the planet right now who are in situations like sam is

given gifts they can’t refuse, blackmailed or threatened, and then forced to offer an abusive person a relationship with their child

aside from all the magic powers, lucifer is very much a real character to be found in real life, and my heart goes out to all the sam-types suffering in his oppressive reign

like as lucifer just said, he took his personal moral high ground here, as opposed to just kidnapping jack. what a shitbag

-

04:25

that moment when you realise that yet again, lucifer is the fucking worst

-

04:31

it’s over

HECK

SHIT

FRICKETTY FUCK

THAT WAS GREAT BUT ALSO HARROWING BUT ALSO FUNNY AND INTERESTING AND  ???

I FEEL A LOT AND IT’S ALL VERY NOISY

given the tone of the start of the episode i did NOT see it going the way it did

really enjoying the team free will + gabe + rowena thing

...........oh man i’m exhausted after that

SAM DYING FOR A WHILE REALLY TAKES IT OUTTA YOU HUH

WOW

um

i kinda wanna lie down or something. just to think about this. and breathe. and remember that sam is okay

jeeeeeeeeeeeeeez that really fucked me up for a while

fuck the writers, but like... in a good, congratulatory kind of way ‘cause they tore my heart out but then put it back but then tore it out a little bit again

10/10 tbh, would cautiously recommend, so long as there’s blankets and hot drinks and post-episode fluff available for immediate comfort

...

/sits quietly

with my face like  ( o______o )

#spn spoilers #13x21 #beat the devil #Elmie watches things #season 13 #post of postiness

[teamfreebees]

thinking about her [The masterpiece that was Moriah, Dean ending the cycle of revenge by refusing to kill Jack. God was never on your side playing while TFW fought off souls. The fact that TFW were together for the first time at the end of a finale. The monster at the end of this book becoming incredibly meta. The set up of the last season. Famous final scene playing while they run through a graveyard. Belphagor. 'bad ghost’. How dean and cas’ relationship was a central arc throughout season 15. Cas finally recognising his worth and knowing when to walk away during a heavily romantic breakup scene. Cas going fishing because he knows how much dean enjoys it. Eileen being brought back from the dead to set up endgame saileen. The obvious parallels between saileen/destiel ‘what’s real. We are.’/’I know that was real’. Sam and Cas being the ultimate chaos duo and nearly killing sam. That deafening silence with Dean and Cas over the map table where they just stare.at.each.other. Michael/Adam relationship. ‘Since when do we get what we deserve’. Going back to where they fell in love and where dean realised how much he needs cas... again. Dean falling to his knees praying to cas. ‘You don’t need to say it, I heard your prayer.’ Future dean giving up all hope because he had to bury Cas in the Ma’lak box with the emphasis that dean did that alone, the significance that dean is impacted in such a different way to cas’ death than sam. Dean tap dancing with a lamp and the amazing meta related to lamps, the Hayes code and the writers rebellion. Dean wanting a partner to settle down with after spending time with garth and his family. Dean and cas bickering like a married couple multiple times. The fact they are arguing at the alter of a church framing them as getting married while sam holds off multiple hellhounds. Dean making Jack a cake showing how dean is forgiving jack. Cas’ resolution to his character arc of 12 years by finding a purpose and being happy with who he is. Amara showing dean that Mary wasn’t just this mythic being for them to die trying to avenge. That she thought he would lose this anger when she came back. But instead, dean lost his anger when his angel told him how worthy, loved, and loving Dean Winchester is and how he deserves to have a happy ending. Chuck saying that cas could never be controlled after he saved dean. The confirmation that in every other universe cas did what he was told but in this one? he fell in love. He was the wildcard on a textual and meta level. When dean is spiralling about nothing being real. The only thing that is? Castiel. The three relationships being paralleled in one episode. ‘the trick is a low flame’. Death coming after dean’s heart but cas’ being the one that broke it. Handprint. Cas’ final moments telling dean how he is so much more than what his father raised him to be. Cas being a celestial being who should be incapable of emotion but fell for the most righteous man who thought he didn't deserved to be saved. The writers pulling off the longest slow burn in tv history. And lastly, the bold move by the writers  deciding that cas’ homosexual declaration of love was the last scene in 15 years of supernatural.]

#yes I've missed things #and no it's not in order #but this is entirely from memory #season 15 was so so good what the hell #long post #sorry #destiel #deancas

[northcountryprimitive]

Putting the Prog Rock and Death Metal Back into American Primitive Guitar - An Interview with Jerry Hionis

This interview originally appeared at North Country Primitive on 24th February 2016

North Country Primitive is very pleased to finally get round to presenting you with an interview with Jerry Hionis. What with family life, day jobs and all the rest of it, we’ve been missing each other for the best part of a year. However, it’s been well worth the wait, as Jerry shares with us his route into solo acoustic guitar, his musical preoccupations and influences and the relationship between his music and his faith. Not to mention, in the light of last year’s excellent (and free to download) Jerry Hionis Plays Genesis set, the new possibilities in the unlikely marriage of American Primitive guitar and classic progressive rock - read on and you’ll realise it all makes perfect sense…

Tell us a bit about yourself and the musical journey that took you to a place where you concluded that playing an acoustic guitar on your own was a good idea… Well, since my mom bought me a guitar for my 11th birthday, I have been very active in both guitar playing and music. By the time I was in high school, I started to play in bands – primarily death and technical death metal. But there was always one central problem: the logistics of dealing with three or four other individuals. Many of my projects since that period had involved doing all the instrumental recording by myself and having one of dearest and closest friends lay down vocals. Yet these recordings - prog and doom metal in nature - were limiting because they could never be played live. A friend and I went to see Sunn at the First Unitarian Church - a famous spot for underground shows in Philadelphia - where Jack Rose was opening with a lap steel set. Since we had never of Jack before, we thought it was odd for a lap steel guitar player to be opening for a drone band - of course, it makes a lot of sense given Jack’s musical history. Needless to say, I was blown away … but then I easily forgot about the whole experience. While in a hospital waiting room where my wife was getting a minor surgery to her hand, I was reading a local paper eulogising Jack Rose. Other names like John Fahey, Leo Kottke and Robbie Basho were mentioned. From there, I picked up a number of Fahey’s albums and was struck by how one person with one guitar could sound like that. After picking up most of Fahey’s and Basho’s catalog - there used to be a great record store in Old City Philadelphia that actually had an “American Primitive Guitar” section - I ventured into the world of country blues and ragtime players. Much of this time of discovery is widely reflected in my first album, Graveyard Stomps And Funeral Rags. After some time, I became a bit bored with the blues structure and wanted to start experimenting more with the music I listen to on a daily basis: prog and technical death metal. Listening back on my second album, Arrakian Circle Dances, this influence was really starting to take hold. My forthcoming album, American Nasheeds, pushes this direction even further. I am really excited for people to hear it! What have you been up to recently? Procrastinating mostly! Haha! Look, I am also playing and writing music. It is a natural thing for me - I know, that sounds really pretentious, but it is true. After releasing a couple of EPs digitally, I recorded another full length that I plan on releasing in mid-March. All that is really needed is setting up the album art and packaging and then promoting it … but I also have a career as an economics professor. That, and my family, tends to take up quite a bit of my time ☺ Let’s talk about Jerry Hionis Plays Genesis (which is a rather worryingly good album, by the way). What gives here? And what’s next - Jerry Hionis plays Van Der Graaf Generator? Gong? King Crimson? Are you on a one-man mission to find the missing link between primitive guitar and 70s prog rock? Ha! I love Crimson and Van Der Graaf - although I was dismayed to hear that A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers was recorded in sections - and Peter Hammill’s solo material is on point! I thought about doing a Crimson cover album, but it doesn’t translate as well as one would think. Possibly a Jerry Hionis Plays Yes could be in the future … I wouldn’t call it a mission, but it seems to be a thread amongst American Primitive players to link the techniques of the country blues players to different musical themes. Fahey loved classical movements; Basho was intrigued by eastern melodies and themes; Rose had an odd background of southern gospel to weird drone music. I have heard others that like to introduce European folk melodies to sea shanties to American punk. Why not prog? In regards to Jerry Hionis Plays Genesis, thank you for the kind words – that album means a lot to me. So much so that I gave it away for free! I just want people to hear it – especially the guys in Genesis! If I could get Steve Hackett to take a couple spins of it, that would be just awesome. Dealing with all the instrumentation and layering on old school Genesis was not easy. It took quite a bit of time to create solo versions of Cinema Show and The Musical Box, but I felt it was well worth it. Look, I really don’t sit around listening to the classic American Primitive players anymore. This isn’t an insult to them or an act of hipster-superiority. It is just that I have listened to Fahey, Rose and Basho so much that I do not get the same joy out them . . . especially once you learn how to play the sounds that used to hit you hard because of the technical mystery. Most days, my phone is playing Genesis, Crimson, Fates Warning, Theory In Practice, Death, Marillion, IQ, Yes and so on. If I could get a band together - and carve out the time - I would be all about creating a prog band. That just isn’t in the cards at the moment – only God knows what the future holds.

What have been your key influences, musical or otherwise? Are there other current guitarists you feel a particular affinity towards? When I get asked this question, I have to separate influences in regards to technique and composition. The technique part is simple: Fahey. Basho. Rose. There are other ragtime folks like Gary Davis, Willie Johnson, Robert Johnson and Son House that have definitely made an impact on my playing. Composition-wise, it is all over the place. Of course, bands like King Crimson, Genesis, Yes, Rush, Marillion, Dream Theater, Psychotic Waltz, Camel, Hawkwind, Fates Warning, ELP, Ritual, Queensryche and many others are constantly working themselves in to my song writing. For example, the interlude section of By The Cover Of Night is take almost directly from The Seven Tongues Of God by Nevermore – my attempt at an Easter-Egg. My songs are also heavily inspired by the Denver Sound scene; bands like Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Sixteen Horsepower, Munly and Reverend Glasseye. The use of the bookending concertina tracks on Arrakian Circle Dances was a direct homage to David Eugene Edwards specifically. Quite a few of the musicians I’ve talked to who were brought up in various Christian traditions talk about the influence of hymnody and spiritual music on their own playing. It would be interesting to know whether as a practicing Muslim, you see any parallels, in intent if not in execution, between the Sufi traditions of devotional music and your own take on American Primitive guitar. I have been very open about my faith as a Muslim and its effect on my playing. As a Muslim, everything I do is as, well, a Muslim. So my playing American Primitive guitar as a Muslim could be interpreted as a blending of the two traditions. Plus, most of the titles to my tracks are rooted in the Islamic faith … or Frank Herbert’s Dune series … but that is a different conversation ☺

There does exist a tradition within some Sufi circles with mixing music into devotional practices, but that really isn’t my gig. Do not expect to see me doing a whirling Dervish routine while playing live - although I am known to wear a fez from time to time. I am a bit more conservative/traditional in my beliefs and really do not mix the two. That being said, I often look at my role as an artist in the same way as the prophet David (peace be upon him), as he was known to write compositions to God. In the same vein, I view my playing as one-on-one concert with the Almighty - again, I know that sounds pretentious and cheesy, but it is the truth. Nick Cave once said that every song he wrote was really a love song to God; he later recanted this statement, but it still resonates with me. Therefore, I’ll say it: every song I write is really a love song to God.

While there is a debate within the Muslim community over the religious legality of music, especially in regards to stringed instruments, there are a number of Muslims involved in music. Many are active in the hip-hop and jazz genres, but others have branched out. To my knowledge, I am the only Muslim in this genre - I could be wrong, but I have yet to hear of any others … if I must be the representative, so be it. I enjoy discussing my faith to other musicians, and discussing my music to those within my faith tradition.

What is the balance of composition and to improvisation in your music?

Wow! Great question! It depends. When I play live, it is almost always improv, although based around a set of structured songs. Beyond that, the hardest part of composing a song is to make it sound as if the structure is random, yet it has been rehearsed some many times that it becomes rote.

Songs From The Bahr Bela Ma is the glaring exception. I recorded that album with tunings and riffs in mind. Beyond that, the recordings were completely improvised. So much so, that I really cannot play those songs again in the exact same way as I recorded them. May be improv was a bad idea!?

What are you listening to right now, old or new? Any recommendations you’d like to share with us?

Literally, I am writing these answers while listening to the new album by Myrath, a Tunisian prog band, that is completely blowing my mind. Rush (Grace Under Pressure and Presto), Mournful Congregation (The Book of Kings), Yes (Replayer), Anathema (Alternative 4) and the new Zombi album have also been in the background while driving as of late. And to be brutally honest, my daughter is really into Taylor Swift … so I cannot lie: 1989 is on my phone and gets played regularly.

As for recommendations, that is always a tough one. Solo player-wise, I’d recommend people picking up anything by Ass and James Blackshaw – both are quite amazing. Prog-wise, I have really enjoyed the new EP by Shaolin Death Squad – very melodic, crazy and full of talent. I am also looking forward to John Carpenter’s second solo album coming out soon.

The guitar nerd bit: what instruments do you play and what do you like about them? Is there one particular instrument you’d save first in the face of a natural disaster (once you’d saved your nearest and dearest, of course!)

You guys are going to hate me for this, but I know nothing about this kind of stuff. I have two six-strings and a twelve-string Taylor; a Takamine nylon; a Gold-tone Weissenborn; and a Deering Banjo. As for make and models … I’d have to look at them. Sorry, kind of dead on this one …

Banjos: yes or no? Favourite plucked-thing that isn’t a guitar?

Yes to the banjo, although there is a funny story about that. Graveyard Stomps and Funeral Rags featured bookending banjo tracks. Then I played a gig at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. Everyone there and their brother had a banjo. I got so sick of hearing that twang sound that I put the banjo down for a good year or so. Finally, I picked it back up and did a couple Genesis tracks on it. Expect to hear the return of the banjo on American Nasheeds.

If I am not playing the guitar, I actually like messing around with analog synths and the mellotron - again, I am Prog Guy – it’s required to like the mellotron. God willing, my next album might have a few mellotron tracks on it …

What are you working on at the moment and what’s store for you next?

Right now, most of my energy is on getting out by latest full-length American Nasheeds by mid-March and promoting it. Beyond that, as long as my kids require me to play guitar to lull them to sleep, new material is always on the horizon.

Any questions I should have asked you and didn’t?

​Yeah, two

“Why are you so hard to get in contact with?!“ Hahaha! I get this a lot. People send me emails and I mean to respond but then forget. Trust me, people: my closest friends have the same complaint. I’d like to blame it on my wife and kids… but it’s just a character flaw. Just keep hitting me up and I will respond … eventually!

“How do you pronounce your last name?” It is pronounced “Hi-Oh-nis”. It’s Greek and means “snow”. It gets mispronounced more than you’d think, but I don’t really do stage-names.

#jerry hionis #american primitive #fingerstyle

[whopooh]

Miss Fisher and the plight of miscommunication – February’s trope challenge

Does this whisky glass imply drinks, or something else, Miss Fisher?

You remember I couldn’t help but write a post about the soulmate trope of January, because it was so much fun and gave food for so much thought. The same really proved to be true for the miscommunication trope, so I decided to write about that one too. I remember that when the trope was announced, @quiltingmom was not the happiest in the fandom, fearing all the angst that would come up with this trope. She even taught me that “smh” means “shaking my head”. So, I decided to do the organisation of this post in a @quiltingmom proof way, by ordering them after their amount of angst, starting with the lightest and going to @ladyroxie. (I’d love some feedback from you about where you draw the line between nicely angsty and too angsty in this line!)

This is actually a very reasonable way to structure the stories. The nice thing with miscommunication -- apart from it fitting Phryne and Jack and their way of behaving rather well -- is that it can take turns in very different directions. The plot itself is usually one of comedy – in that classic sense of the word, which means the ending is happy – since miscommunication really needs to be cleared up for the story to feel completed. But that gives ample opportunity for different roads to be taken -- and very different length of fic -- between the start and the happy ending; I have made a division into humour; humour with an angsty part; angst light; and angst. (Here is the full collection.)

I am delighted that the February fic covered all of these possibilities, and in so many different ways. The wonderful humour part saw @olderbynow’s “Across Frayed Wires,” where Jack gets a message from Hugh over a very bad line. We are given the internal view of a delightfully overthinking Jack that tries very hard to not think about a certain lady detective, but when the message says “alarm” and “Fisher” he cannot help but associate this to Phryne. The message 

made no damn sense at all, but still had Jack’s heart climbing into his throat as his mind helpfully supplied filler words that essentially translated the sentence into “Miss Fisher has done something reckless again and is in danger.” It was the sort of phone call he spent half his days expecting, of course. 

Unfortunately for Jack, when he stumbles into Wardlow he instead disturbs Phryne in the middle of a tryst with a lover, and the mortification of Jack and all his awkwardness and thought-processes are adorable.

More humour and teasing with regard to their sexual relationship is present in @loopyhoopyfrood’s “Mistaken”. This is an original take, set before the timeline of the episodes, and gives us a sweet and fun and mistakenly heated encounter that is completely packed with misunderstandings, and poor Jack gets pushed into doors no less than two times by a very insistent Miss Fisher. A third teasing with the sexual theme is sassasam/@phrynesboudoir's “Miss Communication” that is set after the last episode. Phryne writes from England a rather juicy letter to Jack, that also quotes some of his own not completely innocent phrases from an earlier letter, but puts it in the wrong envelope. The exact look on Aunt P’s face when she reads that scandolous letter we are left to imagine from the line “with eyes almost bulging from their sockets.” Jack, poor duck, on the other hand, receives a letter that talks about embroidery.

A final predominantly humourous fic is @ollyjayonline’s “Nine times out of ten”. It is a delightful story of Phryne deciding to play match-maker and implicating Jack in that, while on the boat back home to Australia. It is rather emma-esque in the way her plan goes rather wrong, the girl Jack was meant to pay attention to suddenly interested in him and not in the original beau she was aiming to make jealous. Suddenly they find themselves in a situation where Jack has to play the role of not wanting Phryne, and Phryne the role of trying to get him – all while they secretly have an established relationship, that is still a bit shaken by the roles they play. It’s a wonderful way of contrasting their true relationship with the fake one and with what the people around them are believing about them. Above all there is a delicious tension – her decision forcing Jack to play a part, and then she herself not being sure when he is playing and when he’s sincere. Phryne faces emotional turmoil and realisations, while the humourous aspect is still the main one.

From this, the step is not far to @flashofthefuse’s “Mistaken relations”, that I decided to label as the first humour with an angsty part. The fic introduces an embarrassing moment when Phryne thinks Jack has asked her to come over, and while she has decided to surprise him with hardly any clothes on, he comes home with another woman. Awkwardness ensues and Phryne is thrown off-kilter a little bit, feeling unsure and a little bit jealous, but at the same time knowing she has no right to be jealous. And incredibly sweetly, what really annoys her is that “he was laughing, Mac. Before he opened the door, I could hear him laughing.” Phryne and Jack are so acutely aware of not pressuring the other that they completely fail in communicating what they want. Jack’s sister – because that’s the mysterious woman – asks him:

“So, you’re not worried about her?” “Because of this? No. I worry about her getting herself arrested, or possibly shot, but this kind of thing? No.

Of course, the readers just want to tackle Jack at this point, but he perseveres, and it’s probably lucky he has a clever sister. She has the same no-nonsense take on things as her brother, at least: “I hope I get another chance to meet her while I’m here, preferably fully clothed.”

In @firesign23’s “As stimulating as black coffee”, Jack has followed Phryne to England just for them to realise that they aren’t working, sexually: 

It’s fine,” he said. “You just surprised me.”  “I’m aiming higher than fine, Jack.”  The man actually pouted. “Well, I certainly wasn’t achieving it.” 

They have a wonderfully ridiculous argument and part ways, which is a very fun turn of the reunion in England -- of course that’s not the end of it though. 

@promisesarepiecrust “Maybe more?” is a lovely short take on the question of Phryne and marriage, as she wakes to a note left by Jack that seems to say “marry me?” Phryne is rattled: “When she’d first read it, she couldn’t help the words that left her mouth: first a curse, followed by “Oh, Jack, no— why would you do that?!”” As the trope is what it is, maybe he didn’t exactly – and it plays out in a lovely way.

Phryne is Very Angry.

The final humourous fic is @jeneenp/collingwoodgirl’s “Licence to Thrill” and its theme of overhearing. Without him noticing, Phryne overhears Jack talking with colleagues, and is appalled as she realises he is talking rather demeaningly about her. Everything she ever thought about him crashes down completely, the betrayal is enormous, and she walks into his office and hits him hard in the face. Jack’s reaction is wonderful – without taking his eyes off her, he asks the other policemen to leave them alone:                                        

For nearly a full minute, there was nothing but silence. All three men appeared to have been turned to stone by the furious goddess that stood before them. It was only when Jack reached up and, unbelievingly, dabbed at his cheek that she was reminded he was still flesh and blood. “Collins—” Jack growled, his eyes never leaving hers. When Hugh didn’t move, Jack barked again. “Both of you! Out. Now.”

And Phryne “found it largely reminiscent of a hostage negotiation. It was immensely satisfying.” What follows is a delicious conversation where he tries to understand her fury, she slowly realises that they had actually been talking about something completely different from what she’d gathered, and an equally delicious making up.

In the category angst light I place three fics. @suigeneris221b‘s “Someone is waiting” gives us Jack finding out through the newspaper’s gossip column that Phryne has married in London. He decides to immediately repress all his feelings until he can go home and have a breakdown in peace. It’s both humorous and angsty, and Mac’s telegrams to Phryne asking what the heck she is doing are great. As the trope is miscommunication, we probably shouldn’t take the newspaper’s story at face value, and we get truly wonderful interactions between the triad of Phryne, Jack and Mac while trying to make it all right again. Something similar can be said about @whopooh’s “I’d know you anywhere,” where the slightly angsty misunderstanding instead stems from Jack being feverish after a knife wound, mistaking people for each other. Again, Mac is a solid rock for her BFF Phryne. In @missingmissfisher’s “A thousand times over”, the misunderstanding evolves from Phryne having received a faulty message, which makes her walk in on Jack having dinner with and comforting Rosie, and this then leads to several disastrous attempts at contact between the two. Finally, in a lovely turn, Jack manages to communicate through the flower language, but it wouldn’t have worked out without the translation help from her solid friend Mac, educated in the natural sciences.

Finally, the end of the spectre: the angst proper of miscommunication, which obviously can be rather heavy. In @rositalg’s “Old Habits Die Hard Holding On” Phryne and Jack have just about started a relationship, and in a clever twist the fic in one single scene explores three things: Jack’s fear of Phryne wanting other men, the fear belonging to the threat of a serial killer in a case, and Phryne’s fear that goes back to her backstory with René. There is a flinch in the fic that is really devastating. Two fics deal with mistaken news of death: comeaftermejackrobinson’s “The tell-tale heart” explores a possible parallel to “Blood at the Wheel” – if it was instead Phryne who at that moment in time would receive a message that Jack had died, and also discovering that he had put her down as ‘next of kin’: “He had listed her as his next of kin and had never said a word about it. She could have killed him for putting her through this, really, had he not been already dead”. @omgimsarahtoo’s “In the Next Breath” explores the Phryne receiving mistaken news of Jack’s death when they are already in an established relationship -- the feeling of loss is acute:

Her head swam, and when she dropped her hand from her eyes, she could see Dot’s concerned face, black spots swimming through her field of vision. Ha, dots on Dot. The thought made her huff out a laugh, and she clapped a hand over her mouth, horrified.

Only minutes after the news, Jack comes home to a devastated household, and acutely heightened from the thought of the loss are Phryne's emotions and the feeling of making love to him.

The last fic is the most angsty one, @ladyroxie’s “Between the Shadow and the Soul”. In this multi-chapter case fic, Jack disappears on his way to England without a trace, and as Phryne doesn’t even know he decided to follow her, it takes time before anyone starts to miss him -- a nightmare in itself. Jack has been badly injured by a person who steals his identity to travel, and when Phryne finally realises he’s gone missing, she investigates, takes help from an old friend in England, and goes to Egypt to try and find him. It is very suspenseful and the question is if she’ll manage to find him, and in time. Jack’s injuries here were so brutal that @221aubrina in “The Library” – which here can serve as a sweet appendix to the trope – wrote a wonderful meta story about the librarians that take care of all the ‘Jacks’ that have been out in circulation among the fanfic writers and have been damaged. After @ladyroxie’s fic, the librarians check the injuries and note:

“Yeah... he'll need a good deal of extra time and care in The Restoration Lab." Norton shook his head. "Huh. Pretty bad then, eh?" Harris nodded to his colleague. "We might have to bring a couple of the other copies out before this edition's fit to be checked out again, if it ever is." "Think he might have to go to the Special Collections Wing?" Norton queried.

Thus we can, even in this journey towards more and more angst, end on a humorous note.

This was the February trope, and I look very much forward to reading stories of March’s trope, “Bottle episode”. 

#mfmm fanfic tidbits #reading miss fisher #miscommunication #mfmm a year in tropes #miss fisher's murder mysteries

[s0022093a2film]

Section 1: Creative Investigation-

To what extent is David Lynch an auteur and how does his style create questionable representations of women?

For my creative investigation I will be exploring to what extent that David Lynch is the author of his own films using a basis of Sarris’s auteur theory to analyse Lynch’s claim to the creative rights of his work. I will also reflect on how the representation of female characters in his films is entwined with his style but could have questionable ethics, using feminist film theory (Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., pp.117-130.0) alongside auteur theory (Grant, B. (2008). Auteurs and authorship. 1st ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.) to consider this. I will investigate if the eccentric mystery of this director makes him the auteur of his eccentric and mysterious films. I will discuss how his origins as a painter and artist, his life outside of his film career and his collaborations affect his film work and his authorship over it. I will consider this in an analysis of three of his focal films. Firstly, ‘Eraserhead’ (Eraserhead. (1977). [film] Directed by D. Lynch. USA: American Film Institute (AFI)) is a horror written and directed by David Lynch starring Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph. Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child. This film was the first definite choice to look at when analysing Lynch’s filmography. It is his first feature film after his original shorts, ‘The Alphabet’ (Lynch, D. (1968). David Lynch the Alphabet. [video]) and ‘The Grandmother’ (Lynch, D. (1970). The Grandmother - David Lynch. [video]). In these shorts he was really testing out his style and techniques but with minimal plot or story, it was his transition from the classical art world to the film art world so was heavily based on image and colour and light. This film is his first foray into feature films, so it is very dark and intense and focused on unnatural imagery to unsettle the audience. It is one of his most complex and non-linear works and something really career defining I believe. Secondly, ‘Blue Velvet’ (Blue Velvet. (1986). [film] Directed by D. Lynch. USA: De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG) is a drama-mystery-horror hybrid written and directed by David Lynch starring Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper. The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child. In my opinion ‘Blue Velvet’ is one of Lynch’s more logical and plot-based films and is more naturalistic than ‘Eraserhead’ for example. I think this is an interesting contrast between his work that is extremely surreal and his work that has more thriller elements. And finally, ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ is a drama-mystery-horror hybrid written and directed by David Lynch starring Sheryl Lee, Ray Wise, Madchen Amick. A young FBI agent disappears while investigating a murder miles away from Twin Peaks that may be related to the future murder of Laura Palmer; the last week of the life of Laura Palmer is chronicled. I chose this film as I am very interested in the Twin Peaks series and film and it is the first work of Lynch’s I saw years ago. I feel it amalgamates a lot of Lynch’s styles and techniques of horror so would be really beneficial to look at. It was also controversial in people’s opinions when it was released as Twin Peaks series fans did not like it, however other spectators struggled to follow it as they did not have the context of the series. This meant it missed its market in some people’s opinions, however personally I enjoyed the film and think it is a good insight into lynch as a director and creator. It’s use of base, family disturbance to hit on key human fears is an important part of Lynch’s style and this film really plays on that.

  ‘David Lynch: The Art Life.’ ((2017). [film] Directed by J. Nguyen. Independent: Absurda) was an invaluable source to begin my research at as it was fully narrated by Lynch himself and spanned his whole life up until the making of his film ‘Eraserhead’ which created a picture of his life and the circumstances that lead to him making the films he did and how he is personally connected to them.  Additionally, further into my research the book ‘David Lynch Decoded’ (Stewart, M. (2007). David Lynch. Bloomington: AuthorHouse.) was a brilliant companion to the multiple different relevant theory (Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.) as it was a discussion into Lynch’s films individually which gave me contextual knowledge of all his work, as well as my focal films.

In the introduction to Stewart’s book he says: “Everybody’s got that moment. If you love film, you had a moment at some point in your life…. It’s that moment when you had an epiphany, you realised what film was really capable of…I went to see a late showing of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks – Fire Walk with Me and I was instantly hooked on film forever. No filmmaker had ever affected me the way Lynch did.” I found this notable because I said the same thing in the initial thoughts of my preparation for this question which suggests Lynch is noticeable, important and stands out to multiple people. This recognisable style is an attribute of an auteur.

Stewart talks about Lynch’s films having interlinking themes, styles, and characters. This is a suggestion of authorship according to one of Sarris’s premises of authorship. “I have come to the conclusion that these characters are connected to each other, that they are connected in specific ways which repeat themselves thematically and visually throughout the majority of Lynch’s filmed works, and that over time Lynch has developed a visual language that we can interpret with regard to these characters and the strange world they come from.” We can see these links in clear duality between the verisimilitudes of Lynch’s separate films, and also, we see the reoccurring use of duality inside films. There are countless examples of duality in Lynch’s films however I think his dual female characters are particularly distinct as it has a consistent and possibly two-dimensional representation of women in his films. Just some prominent examples of dual female characters in the focal films I studied are Laura and herself in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’, Laura and Dorothy/Sandy which are respective characters in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ and ‘Blue Velvet’, Dorothy and Sandy in ‘Blue Velvet’, the Roadhouse singer (Julee Cruise), Dorothy and The Lady in the Radiator from all three focal films. There are many examples of dual events and places in all three focal films which will become clear as I compare scenes, especially ideas of dual realities and dreamworlds which occur in all Lynch’s works. Graham Fuller addressed this in his Sight and Sound article saying, “Lynch had Originally intended to use ‘Crying’ in Blue Velvet but opted instead for Orbison's ‘In Dreams’. Dean Stockwell’s Ben lip-synchs the song with the same baroque affectedness demonstrated by Del Rio, but he too is cut short when Frank rips the cassette of the song from the tape recorder. On both occasions Lynch is Breaking through the dream fabric of the film, reminding us of the fragility of cinema’s hallucinatory power.” (Fuller, G. (2001). Babes in Babylon. Sight and Sound, (12), pp.14-17) and this highlights the links between Lynch’s films and the interchangeability of music, character, and actors. However, I am going to consider the clear and influential duality of female characters between and in the focal films as it does effect Lynch’s claim to authorship over these films. It could be argued that Lynch’s clear use of duality and ongoing style and theme contribute to his authorship over these films as links to Sarris. However, this could also be viewed as Lynch’s subconscious misogyny as his creation of female characters is clearly repetitive and conform to the Madonna/Whore stereotypes which are have been seen through film continuously since cinema began.

The character of Laura Palmer in ‘Twin Peaks’ is the crux of the whole TV series and subsequent film, as they all ask, ‘Who killed Laura Palmer?’ and maybe the more important question, ‘Does it matter?”. Laura’s character is Lynch’s most well-known and she is a perfect example of duality. One half of her personality is the all-American, beautiful daughter, and glowing prom queen, and the other half of her life is cocaine fuelled, sex-filled parties and abuse. The character Donna who is Laura’s school friend is a parallel and representation of Laura’s good side whereas the character of Ronette who is Laura’s companion from the secretive half of her life, reflects dark side. The ‘Twin Peaks’ ring unifies Laura as it appears to her when she is daughter, prostitute, and visionary. This duality of Laura’s character can also be seen by the characters of Sandy and Dorothy in Lynch’s ‘Blue Velvet’ where Lynch is again portraying two representations of women that are creating a narrative that suggest as a female you are either the typical obedient, placid, beautiful, and conservative girl or the dark, sexy, hysterical bad-girl. In ‘Blue Velvet’ Sandy is the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl-next-door that is presented as the ‘right girl’ for a sensible young man such as Jeffrey to date. Whereas the character of Dorothy is the dark-haired hyper-sexualised mysterious woman with a sultry accent that Jeffrey just can’t keep off his mind. These two characters clearly reflect the creation of Laura’s character in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ as she holds both these two juxtaposing traits at once which makes her such an elusive and enthralling mystery. However, the linking female characters continues across to Lynch’s first feature film ‘Eraserhead’ as well, there is even a parallel of three women from all three focal films, being united by a scene where they sing on a stage in front of curtains in a scene with an intense dream-like quality. In many films neurotic behaviour is prevalent in the ‘villains’, with strangely heightened and dangerous sexual awareness in the ‘heroine’. In the symbols of dream images, and the unconscious desires expressed in dreams there is there is key element of Freud’s theories.  As Roger Luckhurst and James Bell said in their Sight and Sound article” The world of Twin Peaks sits in a broader Lynchian universe, which at times can feel like a unified whole- perhaps one could meet Eraserhead’s Henry Spencer in the Black Lodge or run into Dorothy Vallens from Blue Velvet at the Roadhouse. As well as taking cues from and prefiguring other elements of Lynch’s work, Twin Peaks echoes a variety of other filmic influences.” there is a clear Lynchian universe where all of his films and characters and worlds have his auteurs signature all over them. This consistency can be seen in Lynch’ films through his ongoing themes and his representations of women. On very pivotal and important theme running through Lynch’s work is his use duality between his films, in his films, in his characters and his places and events. In considering and discussing Lynch’s work considering duality is vital as it is central to a lot of the interior meaning in his films. Sexualisation of women in Lynch’s films cannot be overlooked when considering his work critically. It is known that Lynch uses the hyper-sexualisation of women in his films and it is picked up by the media and audiences and sometimes lavished upon. However, this itself creates a conversation about Lynch’s knowledge and control behind these representations and the reactions they produce. As Roger Luckhurst and James Bell noted in their article “The UK tabloids went crazy (largely, it must be admitted, for Sherilyn Fenn’s tight sweaters and dexterous tongue)” (Luckhurst, R. and Bell, J. (2017). The Owls are Not What they Seem the World of Twin Peaks. Sight and Sound, [online] (6), pp.18-25.) However, this use of duality by Lynch consistently could be a consideration of authorship, as Fuller said ”Twinning, of course, has been a consistent theme in Lynch’s later work, as witness the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ Dale Coopers in Twin Peaks and the two Arquette characters in Lost Highway.” (Fuller, G. (2001). Babes in Babylon. Sight and Sound, (12), pp.14-17). Almost like Shakespeare moulding and developing characters from Hamlet, to Othello to Macbeth we see Lynch using similar character tropes but building layers of character and meaning onto them

 The second premise of Andrew Sarris’s auteur theory is that a director must have a distinguished personal style, and Lynch arguably fulfils these criteria. One clear stylistic element in Lynch’s work is his use of dream sequences to access a more abstract tone to his films. It can be complex to distinguish between Lynch’s complex and eclectic realities, and the dream sequences within them but there is a tonal change. Lynch’s dream sequences often seem to explore emotional tensions, revealing new information. Lynch’s belief in the Upanishads means he believes in different levels of reality, so Lynch’s dream sequences do sometimes blur the lines of reality and bring into question which reality is real and which is the dream, or both or another. This use of dream sequences link to the early surrealist movements in the 1920’s and 1930’s, in ‘Film and psychoanalysis’ it says they were in a ‘quest for new modes of experience that transgressed the boundaries between dream and reality’ (Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., pp.77-89.). This clearly something Lynch was consciously or subconsciously drawing on as he began in painting and moved onto film as a way of being able to gain more control over his and an express himself more intensely calling film ‘moving paintings’ (David Lynch: The Art Life. (2017). [film] Directed by J. Nguyen. Independent: Absurda.). It continues to say “They were deeply influenced by Freud’s theory of dreams and his concept of the unconscious. To them, cinema, with its special techniques such as the dissolve, superimposition, and slow motion, correspond to the nature of dreaming”. I feel as if this heavily influenced Lynch as his work is very motivated by image and dreams and he also moved onto the world of film to utilise these new techniques.   As the dream sequence in ‘Eraserhead’ (Lynch, 1977) begins we see the radiator open up like a door, letting us into the dream world. Lynch uses a dissolve here to take the spectator from the ‘real world’ of Henry’s bedroom to the dream world. The use of this dissolve gives the effect of when in a dream something absurd begins to happen and new locations and scenarios come out of nowhere, but the sleeping brain makes them seem slick and rationalised. The dissolve moves the scene into the strange dream-world as not to alert the audience, creating the effect as if the spectator is falling asleep with Henry. The first images we see are the black and white tiled floor and the curtains. This referencing other dream world in Lynch’s films such as The Red Room/The Black Lodge in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’. There were also electrical light bulbs flickering into life, which is another example of Lynch using electricity to symbolize dream sequences. Although ‘Blue Velvet’ may present as one of Lynch’s more restrained with a more prominent narrative than most of his work, a lot of dream sequences and alternate realities are alluded to. In the opening scene we have this zoom into a dream world, implying maybe the whole of ‘Blue Velvet’ is a dream. This is different to the narrative style of Eraserhead’ as his first feature film has much stronger ties to his abstract art world and his personal life. To add to the concept that ‘Blue Velvet’ is a dream is also the final scene as we zoom out of Jeffrey’s ear and back into the perfect world we saw at the beginning. We see the perfect all-American streets but then the tension is built by showing the hose pipe getting trapped and quite literately tension building in the water. We then see the man drop to the floor and slow-motion effects are used. The camera then tracks in an extreme close up through the grass to soil and beetles rustling with disgusting animalistic crunching noises. This zoomed in extreme close-up implies that we are going to a dream in world in what is colloquially coined ‘Lynchland’. It is the same technique as used in ‘Eraserhead’ as we zoom into the radiator to the dream world. This scene in ‘Eraserhead’ also links to ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with me’ as the electricity motif is continued and developed by Lynch to be used in this film to represent a dream state again. In the scene where David Bowie’s character Phillip Jeffries arrives after two years of disappearance electricity is used to symbolise another reality or dream world; the electricity flares up and lights flash when Gordon tries to contact someone about Jeffries. In the nightmare sequence we even see an extreme close-up of a mouth say the word ‘Electricity’, it is a man layered in thick white paint with blackened teeth and a long white nose which gives him an eerie look of an 18th century plague doctor. The dialogue is used as another tool of Lynch’s to create disturbance and highlight the dream sequence, as in the Red Room/Black Lodge or when a character is in the alternative reality the dialogue sounds growling and deep and unsettling. Lynch used a technique where he would get his actors to learn their dialogue backwards by learning the sounds the words would make when said back to front. He would then record these backwards sounds and turn them around in the edit, in theory making the words sound forwards and correct again. However, of course this process would distort the sounds in an eerie way as a spectator you understand the words being spoken as they come across normal, but you cannot quite put your finger on why all the sounds coming from the actors sound wrong and distorted. Lynch uses this technique alongside electrical whirring and snapping sounds to create an atmosphere of unease and tension, Lynch wanted to create these altered reality scenes to have this effect because the sound became normal, but just slightly off and disturbing and this is the exact feeling Lynch wanted his dark alternative reality in the Red Room/Black Lodge to have.

Another notable element of Lynch’s personal style is a cleverly manipulative use of family tensions and fear to create a distinct tone of psychological horror. His control of the spectator’s emotions and darkness is intricately manipulative, a most perfect example of this is the character of ‘Leo’ in Twin Peaks who in the film is an utterly despicable character full of starkly dislikeable traits as a domestic abuser and criminal, however by the end of the series of ‘Twin Peaks’ Lynch has the audience feeling sympathy and almost warmth towards this character. This highlights Lynch’s power of manipulation, and almost love affair with it. This power and intense relationship with complex horror stemming from family issues comes from his personal life, despite his own personally described idyllic childhood, he struggled with marriage and children as he his style and art in a film format was developing and solidifying. We see this evolving first in his short films ‘The Grandmother’ and ‘The Alphabet’. The short ‘The Grandmother’ opens with a painting style animation, which comes up throughout the short to symbolise changes or things that are happening between shots. This implies Lynch has authorship because he was a painter before he was a film maker and went to art school, and still to this day paints and has a painting studio. He also has described his transition to film as him wanting to create moving paintings. So, the painted animation style is very personal. We see the use of blurred edges around the shot with a lot of light contrast and chiaroscuro lighting. This is heavily used in ‘Eraserhead’, enhanced by the black and white, to create the sense of it being a dream-world, not set in reality. It also uses soil that is dumped on the protagonist’s bed, which is used in the bedroom in ‘Eraserhead’, this enhances the sense of darkness and unknown and makes the supposed safe space of a bedroom become dirty and unpleasant, this shows Lynch is developing images and styles. There is use of stop-motion animation for some scenes, which is not really used in Lynch’s feature films, but it is in his shorts. However, Lynch does heavily use the technique of using models and lights and sort of animation style scenes in his future films for the dreamy, non-realistic effect. This short uses a lot of red and black colour schemes and Lynch uses these colours a lot in his future films, for example, ‘The Red Room’ in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ (red and black is massively used in pretty much all of this film) or the stage scenes in ‘Eraserhead’. Although when Lynch started filmmaking he had to shoot in black and white, however the black and white shooting style does carry on through his filmography. He uses black and white for effect in Twin Peaks and he uses the noir style chiaroscuro lighting. There is the use of CU on the antagonists faces to show the spectator the fear the protagonist is feeling in ‘The Grandmother’, this use of shot is used by Lynch a lot, for example the close-up of Jack Nance in ‘Eraserhead’ when he is scared of the baby, and the close-up of Bob and Leland and Cooper in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’, and the close-up of Jeffrey in ‘Blue Velvet’ as he watches through the wardrobe at Frank. This persistent use of family situations to create psychological horror highlights how Lynch used his own personal fears to begin to create a style of horror in his shorts and ‘Eraserhead’, and as he progressed as a director he developed, and this style evolved.  

Sarris’s third premise of authorship is that an auteur must have a consistent personal link between all their work and art. The character known as ‘The Arm’ or ‘The dwarf’ from the Red Room/Black Lodge talks of “Intercourse between the two worlds”. The Red Room/Black Lodge is a visual representation of this ‘intercourse’ as it is almost a limbo between the physical world and the fantastical realm of dreams that Lynch depicts. The man then says to the illusive and evil ‘Bob’ character ‘with this ring, I thee wed’ and that could be said to be the ‘Twin Peaks’ ring that is the symbol of the link between the town and the dark realm and this ring becomes Bob’s talisman. The man then says the crucial line ‘Fire walk with me’ and in this moment we see Red room dwarf and Bob create the Black Lodge/Red Room. A close-up of the dwarf fades into a medium shot of the iconic red curtains of the Red Room. In an overhead shot we watch them both walk into the Red Room together and the curtains swing shut behind them. This scene is a critical moment in the narrative of this film and the whole ’Twin Peaks’ saga as we see the creation of the link between reality and other. These two characters literally bind the two worlds together as the dwarf says ‘wedding’ them. This is also an important scene to consider authorship for

The Upanishads are a part of the Vedas, which are ancient Sanskrit texts that contain some of the central philosophical concepts and ideas of Hinduism, some of which are shared with Buddhism, and Jainism. Among the most important literature in the history of Indian religions and culture, the Upanishads played a critical role in the development of spiritual ideas in ancient India, marking a transition from Vedic ritualism to new ideas and institutions. This is a belief system that Lynch is involved in and influences his life. Of all Vedic literature, the Upanishads alone are widely known, and their central ideas are at the spiritual core of Hindus. The Upanishadic age was characterized by a pluralism of worldviews and the concepts of Brahman (ultimate reality) and Ātman (soul and self) are central ideas in all of the Upanishads. So, it is clear that Lynch’s personal involvement with this does affect his beliefs and how he makes his films because themes of ultimate reality and soul and self are massively influences on his work. Brahman is the material, efficient, formal, and final cause of all that exists. The word Atman means the inner self, the soul, the immortal spirit in an individual, and all living beings including animals and trees. I think the fact that Lynch follows these ideas influenced his symbolism and creation of reality in his work. For example, the Upanishads believe the immortal spirit is in a person, animal, or tree and in the film ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with me’ all three of these things bring information from the alternate reality. The people such as, ‘The giant’ bring Cooper information about what is happening in the Red Room/Black Lodge, the owls also are almost possessed by the alternate reality and arrive in the scene when the two realities may merge, and finally of course the character of ‘The Log Lady’ has part of a tree the whispers to her, giving her advice to tell Cooper and malicious intentions of the other reality. Hendrick Vroom explains, "the term Maya [in the Upanishads] has been translated as 'illusion,' but then it does not concern normal illusion. Here 'illusion' does not mean that the world is not real and simply a figment of the human imagination. Maya means that the world is not as it seems; the world that one experiences is misleading as far as its true nature is concerned.” (Timesofindia.speakingtree.in. (2016). Maya (illusion). [online]) According to Wendy Doniger, "to say that the universe is an illusion (māyā) is not to say that it is unreal; it is to say, instead, that it is not what it seems to be, that it is something constantly being made. Māyā not only deceives people about the things they think they know; more basically, it limits their knowledge. In the Upanishads, Māyā is the perceived changing reality and it co-exists with Brahman which is the hidden true reality.” (Timesofindia.speakingtree.in. (2016). Maya (illusion). [online]). Clearly these ideas about Maya link quite directly to Lynch’s work, in particular ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with me’ as the Log Lady even says, “The owls are not what they seem” (the owls which symbolise the alternate reality). The interior narrative of ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ is based upon the idea that the world one experiences is misleading which is made clear by all of the complex characters with many secrets highlighted of course by Laura’s double life. Also, the Red Room/Black Lodge is another reality co-existing with Twin Peaks however you never know which is perceived reality and which is hidden true reality, and I feel this idea is something that Lynch uses through a lot of his work. Even Phillip Jeffries (David Bowie) in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ says “We live inside a dream”.

In ‘The Alphabet’ which another of Lynch’s early shorts, opens with a white flag with orange circle at the centre and this image is replicated in ‘The Grandmother’ (1970) when Lynch outs an orange circle in the centre of the boy’s white bed sheet when he is being beaten on it. The first section of the short film is the sound of someone singing and on screen is an animation of colours and shapes and musical notes and letters. Lynch is a music artist as well, so this means that he is gathering all parts of his life and personality to come together to create his films. There is use of closeups on faces to make you uncomfortable which David Lynch explores in his next short film and the rest of his feature work. For example, there is a close up of a wet mouth speaking and it is unsettling and horrible. There is a moment where there is the sound effect of a baby crying but in an intense unpleasant way which is definitely used as an important part in ‘Eraserhead’ (1977). Also, horror derived from family themes is one of Lynch’s strong stylistic points used in all his work. There is then an animation of what looks very phallic with blood rushing through it, it then turns into a face and breast spitting blood. This supposedly is all linked and imagery of childbirth. It uses chiaroscuro lighting liked Lynch does a lot to help create that dreamlike state where there are no borders of reality. Dream states and imagery are a massive part of Lynch’s style. Another poignant image is a woman trapped on a bed with her arms wrapped in the bars of the headboard, she is writhing about and started choking up blood. This seems symbolic of childbirth. There is a very small production company and wasn’t even released until decades later, this means it was a passion project for Lynch and gives him strong authorship to the film and the styles he has carried through to his other films. These themes are so strongly based on Lynch’s life as he had his first child Jennifer in 1967 with Peggy, who is playing the mother in this film. Peggy even described him as: “[Lynch] definitely was a reluctant father, but a very loving one. Hey, I was pregnant when we got married. We were both reluctant.” (David Lynch: The Art Life. (2017). [film] Directed by J. Nguyen. Independent: Absurda.) So, he has strong claim to the authorship of this film because he worked on every element of creating this film and it was directly based off his life. This could link to his representation of women and mothers in his films as he had a daughter as said ‘reluctantly’ and this created a fear in him of children and women’s power to create life. Freud’s idea of the unconscious is one of the dominant ideologies expressed in horror film- the idea of secret desires that lie hidden from the conscious mind but drive our motivations.

Lynch does have strong claim to authorship over his film as he consistently takes on multiple roles in the film making process, and in his early work it was solely created by him, and the links between his short films and his feature’s is very clear as I have discussed. For ‘Eraserhead’ Lynch was the director, writer, producer, musician, editor, production designer, art director, sound effect designer, special effects designer. For ‘Blue Velvet’ he was the Director, writer, and composer. And for ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ he was the writer, director, actor, producer, and sound designer. So as for Sarris’ being need for an auteur to be technically competent there is no question that Lynch has control over all elements of the creation of his films and is very capable of working in all departments. This alongside his clear style and personal connections to his work would suggest Lynch is an auteur. His sexualisation of women and lacking representation may be a negative to his work, however I have discussed how it comes from an inherently personal place so could to be said what Sarris called ‘élan of the soul’ which is where a director’s personal personality and take on the world is reflected through their work, adding to their authorship. A good example to support David Lynch being a stylist is that he is clearly used to sell his films as they are being advertised. David Lynch’s style is clearly recognised by a mass audience as name ‘Lynch’ has connotations with his own unique style and genre of work. I came across his work consistently being called ‘David Lynch’s…’ (Fuller, G. (2001). Babes in Babylon. Sight and Sound, (12), pp.14-17.) in articles which highlights this.

However, to counter all of this there is of course still a strong argument to the concept of all film making being a collaborative art and there are many examples of influential collaborations in Lynch’s filmography.

Lynch does collaborate which some of his work and this of course could be argued that his collaborators could be called auteurs, or at least they would all hold a collaborative authorship rather than Lynch being the true auteur. One example of his collaborations is the reoccurring actors which has become a feature in his films. It is discussed whether Lynch has favourite actors and the reasons why he chooses to work with the same people. However, this choice does bring into question whether these actors have a claim to authorship over his films due to their performances, how can it be said that Lynch is a true auteur if we have not seen him work on feature films without this talent? Even just considering reoccurring actors in my three focal films there are multiple. Jack Nance who plays the protagonist in ‘Eraserhead’ also stars in both ‘Blue Velvet’ and ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’, Kyle Mclaughlin who plays the protagonist in ‘Blue Velvet’ also stars in a major role in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’, Laura Dern and Frances Bay from ‘Blue Velvet’ also stars in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ and these actors also have roles in other of Lynch’s feature films.  Also, it cannot be said Lynch’s work is not highly influenced through genre and a bricolage of techniques that came before him. His use of noir techniques such as high-contrast mise-en-scène framing. This genres aesthetic influences of German expressionism with the asymmetrical tendencies and dramatic use of light and shadow can be seen throughout noir films in off-kilter camera angles, direct front and side lighting, mysterious silhouettes. Lynch uses a bricolage technique to bring together elements from noir, post-modernism, German expressionism and surrealism to create his own signature style. Despite this, it could be said reoccurring actors be part of his style. He is known to be an unconventional person so only finds a connection with a few people, so is this limited choice of actors is part of his personal style? He does work with the horror/thriller genre however, explores and pushes boundaries, he isn’t conventional and brings something personal to standing conventions. Bricolage means he is pulling elements of lots of styles to make his own so in effect it’s still personal and he is just influenced by everything around him and his way of creating and interpreting through that arguable could mean this does not affect his authorship over his style.

 I think the strengths of my research were that I used different formats to gather my information, so my research was wide-ranging and came from both personal and critical sources. I began my research with the documentary ‘David Lynch: The Art Life’ (David Lynch: The Art Life. (2017). [film] Directed by J. Nguyen. Independent: Absurda.) as this gave me a personal insight into Lynch’s opinion on his work as it was fully narrated by him alone. It also was very useful in considering the authorship part of my creative investigation as I began to build up background knowledge about Lynch himself and how his personal style evolved and developed and the influences that affected him and his work. Also, then moving onto his own documentary called ‘Eraserhead Stories’ (Lynch, D. (2001). “Eraserhead” Stories. [video]) where he just talks about his stylistic influences, opinions and the zeitgeist of his life that came together for him to create ‘Eraserhead’ and make it the film it is. This source was also incredibly valuable because it is where I learnt of his family and personal life at the time of making ‘Eraserhead’ and I began to make connection between his film style and his personal life, as I have utilised and discussed in this essay. I then used a variety of e-journals and Sight and Sound articles which were valuable to gauge a more public response to Lynch’s work at the time and to get an insight into how his work was received by audiences and critically, and what other people analysed from his films. I think reading the book on Lynch ‘David Lynch: Decoded’ was a really useful piece of research before I began my own essay as it brought up different angles and theories on Lynch’s work I may not have considered and therefore reinforced or challenged my own analysis. Since Lynch’s films do fall into the psychological genre and my essay was a consideration of authorship and representation, my research into film theories that were relevant to this proved invaluable in building up my knowledge to analyse the focal films in-depth and with and understanding of the theory behind why and how he Lynch uses these techniques and its wider value and interior meaning. So, my sources from the ‘Oxford Guide to Film Studies’ (Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.). And of course, I felt that looking into some of Lynch’s early art and film work was crucial to understanding his artistic development and his control of audio-visual language, so analysing his early short films ‘The Alphabet’ (Lynch, D. (1968). David Lynch the Alphabet. [video]) and ‘The Grandmother’ (Lynch, D. (1970). The Grandmother - David Lynch. [video]) which he made prior to the focal films I am considering in this essay was useful in linking all of Lynch’s work and personal style. In addition to my research cited here I used this as a stimulus to continue to look into information about Lynch, his work and important facts or ideas that do not feature directly in my work but helped me build up a wealth of knowledge. However, some of the limitations of my research were that I had so much contextual knowledge and information it was difficult collating valuable quotes and being critical on what routes to investigate and write about and what was not completely relevant. It took a lot of time and critical decisions to pick apart the vital parts f information to create an essay and that was focused and detailed and I explored my own opinions and analysis.

Overall, in my opinion and in reaction to exploration and research I would say David Lynch is an auteur of his own films. I believe his representation of female characters can be two-dimensional and misogynistic however it is flawed and complex like Lynch himself and he is so intertwined with his work. Lynch clearly and consistently brings parts of himself, his character, and his life into his work and style and I feel there is links between his intricate use of the audio-visual language and his own personal development as an auteur.

   Bibliography:

1)Newman, K. (2002). Mulholland Dr. Sight and Sound, [online] (1), pp.50-51. Available at: http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/1886 [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].

2)Luckhurst, R. and Bell, J. (2017). The Owls are Not What they Seem the World of Twin Peaks. Sight and Sound, [online] (6), pp.18-25. Available at: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/june-2017-issue [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].

3)David Lynch: The Art Life. (2017). [film] Directed by J. Nguyen. Independent: Absurda.

4)Fuller, G. (2001). Babes in Babylon. Sight and Sound, (12), pp.14-17.

5)Rodley, C. (1996). David Lynch Mr Contradiction. Sight and Sound, (7), pp.6-10.

6)Clarke, R. and Figgis, M. (2007). Daydream Believer. Sight and Sound, (3), pp.16-20.

7) Stewart, M. (2007). David Lynch. Bloomington: AuthorHouse.

8)Lynch, D. (1970). The Grandmother - David Lynch. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p5qEt766ZQ [Accessed 12 Oct. 2017].

9)Lynch, D. (1968). David Lynch the Alphabet. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ_t1eOAipo [Accessed 12 Oct. 2017].

10) Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., pp.67-75.

11)Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., pp.77-89.

12)Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., pp.96-104.

13)Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., pp.117-130.

14)Beckman, F. (2012). From Irony to Narrative Crisis: Reconsidering the Femme Fatale in the Films of David Lynch. 1st ed. Texas: University of Texas Press on behalf of the Society for Cinema & Media Studies, pp.25-44.

15)Ingle, Z. (2017). Authorship and the Films of David Lynch: Aesthetic Receptions of Contemporary Hollywood by Antony Todd (review). 1st ed. [eBook] New York: Centre for the Study of Film and History, pp.82-84. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/543547 [Accessed 5 Oct. 2017].

16) Lynch, D. (2001). “Eraserhead” Stories. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLwtXoyNKgo

17) Grant, B. (2008). Auteurs and authorship. 1st ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

18) Timesofindia.speakingtree.in. (2016). Maya (illusion). [online]

[mythandritual]

Putting the Prog Rock and Death Metal Back into American Primitive Guitar - An Interview with Jerry Hionis

This interview originally appeared at North Country Primitive on 24th February 2016

North Country Primitive is very pleased to finally get round to presenting you with an interview with Jerry Hionis. What with family life, day jobs and all the rest of it, we've been missing each other for the best part of a year. However, it's been well worth the wait, as Jerry shares with us his route into solo acoustic guitar, his musical preoccupations and influences and the relationship between his music and his faith. Not to mention, in the light of last year's excellent (and free to download) Jerry Hionis Plays Genesis set, the new possibilities in the unlikely marriage of American Primitive guitar and classic progressive rock - read on and you'll realise it all makes perfect sense...

Tell us a bit about yourself and the musical journey that took you to a place where you concluded that playing an acoustic guitar on your own was a good idea… Well, since my mom bought me a guitar for my 11th birthday, I have been very active in both guitar playing and music. By the time I was in high school, I started to play in bands – primarily death and technical death metal. But there was always one central problem: the logistics of dealing with three or four other individuals. Many of my projects since that period had involved doing all the instrumental recording by myself and having one of dearest and closest friends lay down vocals. Yet these recordings - prog and doom metal in nature - were limiting because they could never be played live. A friend and I went to see Sunn at the First Unitarian Church - a famous spot for underground shows in Philadelphia - where Jack Rose was opening with a lap steel set. Since we had never of Jack before, we thought it was odd for a lap steel guitar player to be opening for a drone band - of course, it makes a lot of sense given Jack’s musical history. Needless to say, I was blown away . . . but then I easily forgot about the whole experience. While in a hospital waiting room where my wife was getting a minor surgery to her hand, I was reading a local paper eulogising Jack Rose. Other names like John Fahey, Leo Kottke and Robbie Basho were mentioned. From there, I picked up a number of Fahey’s albums and was struck by how one person with one guitar could sound like that. After picking up most of Fahey’s and Basho’s catalog - there used to be a great record store in Old City Philadelphia that actually had an “American Primitive Guitar” section - I ventured into the world of country blues and ragtime players. Much of this time of discovery is widely reflected in my first album, Graveyard Stomps And Funeral Rags. After some time, I became a bit bored with the blues structure and wanted to start experimenting more with the music I listen to on a daily basis: prog and technical death metal. Listening back on my second album, Arrakian Circle Dances, this influence was really starting to take hold. My forthcoming album, American Nasheeds, pushes this direction even further. I am really excited for people to hear it! What have you been up to recently? Procrastinating mostly! Haha! Look, I am also playing and writing music. It is a natural thing for me - I know, that sounds really pretentious, but it is true. After releasing a couple of EPs digitally, I recorded another full length that I plan on releasing in mid-March. All that is really needed is setting up the album art and packaging and then promoting it . . . but I also have a career as an economics professor. That, and my family, tends to take up quite a bit of my time ☺ Let's talk about Jerry Hionis Plays Genesis (which is a rather worryingly good album, by the way). What gives here? And what’s next - Jerry Hionis plays Van Der Graaf Generator? Gong? King Crimson? Are you on a one-man mission to find the missing link between primitive guitar and 70s prog rock? Ha! I love Crimson and Van Der Graaf - although I was dismayed to hear that A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers was recorded in sections - and Peter Hammill’s solo material is on point! I thought about doing a Crimson cover album, but it doesn’t translate as well as one would think. Possibly a Jerry Hionis Plays Yes could be in the future . . . I wouldn’t call it a mission, but it seems to be a thread amongst American Primitive players to link the techniques of the country blues players to different musical themes. Fahey loved classical movements; Basho was intrigued by eastern melodies and themes; Rose had an odd background of southern gospel to weird drone music. I have heard others that like to introduce European folk melodies to sea shanties to American punk. Why not prog? In regards to Jerry Hionis Plays Genesis, thank you for the kind words – that album means a lot to me. So much so that I gave it away for free! I just want people to hear it – especially the guys in Genesis! If I could get Steve Hackett to take a couple spins of it, that would be just awesome. Dealing with all the instrumentation and layering on old school Genesis was not easy. It took quite a bit of time to create solo versions of Cinema Show and The Musical Box, but I felt it was well worth it. Look, I really don’t sit around listening to the classic American Primitive players anymore. This isn’t an insult to them or an act of hipster-superiority. It is just that I have listened to Fahey, Rose and Basho so much that I do not get the same joy out them . . . especially once you learn how to play the sounds that used to hit you hard because of the technical mystery. Most days, my phone is playing Genesis, Crimson, Fates Warning, Theory In Practice, Death, Marillion, IQ, Yes and so on. If I could get a band together - and carve out the time - I would be all about creating a prog band. That just isn’t in the cards at the moment – only God knows what the future holds. What have been your key influences, musical or otherwise? Are there other current guitarists you feel a particular affinity towards? When I get asked this question, I have to separate influences in regards to technique and composition. The technique part is simple: Fahey. Basho. Rose. There are other ragtime folks like Gary Davis, Willie Johnson, Robert Johnson and Son House that have definitely made an impact on my playing. Composition-wise, it is all over the place. Of course, bands like King Crimson, Genesis, Yes, Rush, Marillion, Dream Theater, Psychotic Waltz, Camel, Hawkwind, Fates Warning, ELP, Ritual, Queensryche and many others are constantly working themselves in to my song writing. For example, the interlude section of By The Cover Of Night is take almost directly from The Seven Tongues Of God by Nevermore – my attempt at an Easter-Egg. My songs are also heavily inspired by the Denver Sound scene; bands like Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Sixteen Horsepower, Munly and Reverend Glasseye. The use of the bookending concertina tracks on Arrakian Circle Dances was a direct homage to David Eugene Edwards specifically. Quite a few of the musicians I’ve talked to who were brought up in various Christian traditions talk about the influence of hymnody and spiritual music on their own playing. It would be interesting to know whether as a practicing Muslim, you see any parallels, in intent if not in execution, between the Sufi traditions of devotional music and your own take on American Primitive guitar. I have been very open about my faith as a Muslim and its effect on my playing. As a Muslim, everything I do is as, well, a Muslim. So my playing American Primitive guitar as a Muslim could be interpreted as a blending of the two traditions. Plus, most of the titles to my tracks are rooted in the Islamic faith . . . or Frank Herbert’s Dune series . . . but that is a different conversation ☺

There does exist a tradition within some Sufi circles with mixing music into devotional practices, but that really isn’t my gig. Do not expect to see me doing a whirling Dervish routine while playing live - although I am known to wear a fez from time to time. I am a bit more conservative/traditional in my beliefs and really do not mix the two. That being said, I often look at my role as an artist in the same way as the prophet David (peace be upon him), as he was known to write compositions to God. In the same vein, I view my playing as one-on-one concert with the Almighty - again, I know that sounds pretentious and cheesy, but it is the truth. Nick Cave once said that every song he wrote was really a love song to God; he later recanted this statement, but it still resonates with me. Therefore, I’ll say it: every song I write is really a love song to God.

While there is a debate within the Muslim community over the religious legality of music, especially in regards to stringed instruments, there are a number of Muslims involved in music. Many are active in the hip-hop and jazz genres, but others have branched out. To my knowledge, I am the only Muslim in this genre - I could be wrong, but I have yet to hear of any others . . . if I must be the representative, so be it. I enjoy discussing my faith to other musicians, and discussing my music to those within my faith tradition.

What is the balance of composition and to improvisation in your music?

Wow! Great question! It depends. When I play live, it is almost always improv, although based around a set of structured songs. Beyond that, the hardest part of composing a song is to make it sound as if the structure is random, yet it has been rehearsed some many times that it becomes rote.

Songs From The Bahr Bela Ma is the glaring exception. I recorded that album with tunings and riffs in mind. Beyond that, the recordings were completely improvised. So much so, that I really cannot play those songs again in the exact same way as I recorded them. May be improv was a bad idea!?

What are you listening to right now, old or new? Any recommendations you’d like to share with us?

Literally, I am writing these answers while listening to the new album by Myrath, a Tunisian prog band, that is completely blowing my mind. Rush (Grace Under Pressure and Presto), Mournful Congregation (The Book of Kings), Yes (Replayer), Anathema (Alternative 4) and the new Zombi album have also been in the background while driving as of late. And to be brutally honest, my daughter is really into Taylor Swift . . . so I cannot lie: 1989 is on my phone and gets played regularly.

As for recommendations, that is always a tough one. Solo player-wise, I’d recommend people picking up anything by Ass and James Blackshaw – both are quite amazing. Prog-wise, I have really enjoyed the new EP by Shaolin Death Squad – very melodic, crazy and full of talent. I am also looking forward to John Carpenter’s second solo album coming out soon.

The guitar nerd bit: what instruments do you play and what do you like about them? Is there one particular instrument you’d save first in the face of a natural disaster (once you’d saved your nearest and dearest, of course!)

You guys are going to hate me for this, but I know nothing about this kind of stuff. I have two six-strings and a twelve-string Taylor; a Takamine nylon; a Gold-tone Weissenborn; and a Deering Banjo. As for make and models . . . I’d have to look at them. Sorry, kind of dead on this one . . .

Banjos: yes or no? Favourite plucked-thing that isn’t a guitar?

Yes to the banjo, although there is a funny story about that. Graveyard Stomps and Funeral Rags featured bookending banjo tracks. Then I played a gig at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. Everyone there and their brother had a banjo. I got so sick of hearing that twang sound that I put the banjo down for a good year or so. Finally, I picked it back up and did a couple Genesis tracks on it. Expect to hear the return of the banjo on American Nasheeds.

If I am not playing the guitar, I actually like messing around with analog synths and the mellotron - again, I am Prog Guy – it’s required to like the mellotron. God willing, my next album might have a few mellotron tracks on it . . .

What are you working on at the moment and what’s store for you next?

Right now, most of my energy is on getting out by latest full-length American Nasheeds by mid-March and promoting it. Beyond that, as long as my kids require me to play guitar to lull them to sleep, new material is always on the horizon.

Any questions I should have asked you and didn’t?

​Yeah, two

“Why are you so hard to get in contact with?!" Hahaha! I get this a lot. People send me emails and I mean to respond but then forget. Trust me, people: my closest friends have the same complaint. I’d like to blame it on my wife and kids. . . but it’s just a character flaw. Just keep hitting me up and I will respond . . . eventually!

“How do you pronounce your last name?" It is pronounced “Hi-Oh-nis”. It’s Greek and means “snow”. It gets mispronounced more than you’d think, but I don’t really do stage-names.

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