#so that the mystery would be intriguing and keep the aesthetic alive?

[ghostthetown]

Comparing characters from THS and IWWV because I'm that petty

The Greek Class

“They worship the fucking devil.” - The normal people in the school can see they’re a little weird.

The school feels alive, people go around and do things, live their lives, not just stare and whisper about the Greek students. We don’t get to know many people or things outside of what we need, but what we know doesn’t feel excessive, it feels realistic, things a normal student would notice and remember and deem important.

Kill their friend, even though he doesn’t deserve it, and the book knows he doesn’t, the other characters are in a mindset that makes murdering him logical.

So much left unanswered, in the shadows, keeps us wondering but everything feels completely intentional.

Richard

loves making pinterest boards for everything, bitch for aesthetics

the quiet onlooker, the outsider, the bystander and he knows it, so much is kept from him

started studying ancient Greek so that he can sleep in on Mondays, enrolled to med school because he didn’t know what else but then saw a pretty flyer and transferred to Hampden

becomes fascinated with a random group of students and manwhores his way in

sleeps like 20 hours a day

will take any pill, drug, substance just to get his mind off the real world

accidentally joins a cult and becomes an accomplice to two murders, easily goes along with everything, but, you know, the aesthetic goes hard

has an amazing gay-dar, himself is definitely straight and not gay at all

loves Camilla, her boyish hairstyle, boy-feet and all

“Henry is a god amongst men.”, “Francis is just the most intriguing person I have ever met.”, “Charles is so beautiful, just like an angel.”

lies all the time and tell us he lies all the time, lies about his upbringing, disgusted by his parents

almost died just so he didn’t have to confess to being poor or going home

might as well just written a y/n fanfic about him joining the mysterious student group and committing murders with them

idealises everything but doesn’t hide the ugly thigs, even the ugly are mesmerising but remain ugly

gets shot and no one notices

was fine with murder, but draws line at his friends having sex without him

Henry

tall, cold, scary guy

cool blue eyes behind glasses

insanely rich, doesn’t have to work ever in his life, wants to buy a house somewhere nowhere and become a hermit

committed his life to the studies of classics, loves Homer

doesn’t live in this world, his mind is very abstract, didn’t even know the Moon Landing happened

probably a sociopath, manipulates everyone into being accomplices to the murder he commited

takes his famished, drugged, drunk friends to the forest to have an orgy so that they can enter a higher state of mind and see Dionysus

so offended Richard asked him if he actually saw Dionysus

kills, probably, maybe, a farmer by beating him to death while high

writes about an actual murder in a journey, in latin, and proceeds to be surprised that Bunny, also a latin student, can read it as well

decides that the only thing to stop Bun, his old friend and possibly a lover, from going to the police is to kill him

takes up a cute little hobby in Persian mushroom poisons

has horrible headaches

throws his old friend and possibly a lover Bunny off a mountain while looking for ferns, rubs the dirt from his grave on him at his funeral

is only having problems with his passport and is late for an appointment

Bunny

always happy, annoying, lound, shabby, stupid rabbit

finds people's biggest insecurities and uses them against them

chews gum, wears some old jacket and glasses

slightly homophobic, pretty sexists, hates hippies (throws shoes on them as a hobby)

the only one that has connections outside of the group, has a girlfriend Marion

the fastest to take Richard in, quickly becomes the outsider after he joins

dyslexic, has asthma, better artist than scholar

his parents are pretentious pasty white people, all blond, has like five brothers that all look like him

uses his friends as ATMs, has expensive tastes, loves food

didn’t deserve to die, but it makes sense for them to kill him

wasn’t the greatest person ever but he was still lovable, as much as you hate him you can’t just throw him away (both characters and readers), he was insufferable but it’s sad when he’s actually gone

probably was in a romantic/sexual relationship with Henry

excluded from orgies because Charles saw him eating a cheese sandwich and that was the last straw

more angry that Henry didn’t tell him about the murder that the act itself

knows, indeed, how to type

Francis

fiery mop of the reddest hair Richard has ever seen, cross between a student prince and Jack the Ripper, wears pince-nez just to be cool

also insanely rich, his mum is a daughter of some wealthy Bostonian people that got pregnant with random band member

experienced the best of private European education

moves like a shadow across the campus, talks to black cats

his aunt has a summer house in the country that she lands him for the weekends and he takes his friends there to have pagan orgies

dramatic gay, kissed Richard even though he “wasn’t his type”, keeps coming back to Charles even though he knows he doesn’t love him

kisses Camilla because he felt like it, invites Richard to his bed the first time they talk

hypochondriac, develops panic attacks and no one takes him seriously

smokes every minute of his day, has nervous hands and thinks he’s dying every second but that has nothing to do with smoking

tries to kill himself for attention

marries the most insufferable girl because his grandfather is homophobic and wouldn't give him more money

too weak and lazy to stand up to anyone and ends up being a criminal

loves cooking five course dinners for fun

Charles

twincest enjoyer (we can’t be sure he’s the instigator, though he’s more “open” with it, or just a receiver) when he’s drunk even Francis will do, but then he doesn’t remember it so he’s not gay or anything

very jealous of his twin sister for stealing his men

drinks a lot, they all do, but he does even at breakfast

always steals cars when he’s drunk but somehow never crashes them

has anger issues, punches and slamms tables, throws stuff at Camilla, beats Camilla, burns Camilla

but he totally looks like a pretty little angel, all in white and stuff

stays pretty quiet in the beginning, after the murder the worst in him comes out, the guilt makes him spiral, can’t hold it in while the others don’t seem as affected or don’t show it

the only one who shows actual remorse to killing Bunny and says is outloud, stands up to Henry and eventually even wants to take a real action (though if it is actually more guilt or jealousy we may never know)

adopts a random feral cat and refuses to be parted from it, for a while at least

Camilla

also twincest enjoyer (very classical), to what extent we don’t know, no indication of it being pushed on her or her being the one pushing it

wears white all the time

the only girl in the group (very classical), loves Henry, leads Richard on (according to Francis)

Richard romanticises her, probably forgets many unflattering things about her, which leaves her the biggest mystery of the group

secret weapon, spy for Henry, secret phone code, she’s as smart as him

neither purely the victim nor the manipulator

there are subtle hints at her being more involved and playing a bigger role, hiding her true full personality, witch either Richard doesn’t want us to see, he doesn’t see himself or she’s just that good of an actres

at the end we can see she’s still choosing Henry, siding with him, be it her being so brainwashed his manipulation works even after he’s gone or her really believing in the things they did and acting on her own

-

Julian

their teacher, their cult leader, their icon, their god

mysterious, ominous figure working in the background

did he drive them to madness on purpose or did they completely misunderstand, twisted his teachings and took them to a whole new level?

a strange relationship with Henry, definitely that beyond a teacher focusing on a gifted student, maybe even romantic/sexuall one

encourages his pupils to take drugs and have orgies in the woods

knows a lot of powerful people

amazing cook

immediately after he learns about the murder he disappears

Judy

Richard’s neighbour and dealer

party girl, costume design student

doesn't like the Greek students, threw a drink on Camilla at a party, almost got beaten up by Henry and Charles

end up as a Tv aerobics instructor

Cloke

resident stoner, frat guy kind of

old friends with Bunny, into Camilla

ends up a lawyer working with Bun’s brother

Marion

Bunny’s girlfriend

studies something like teaching/taking care of kids, works in a kindergarten

wears flower dresses and cardigans

ends up marrying Bun’s brother and nicknaming her daughter ‘Bunny’

---

The Thespians

Fourth-year theatre major at Dellecher elite conservatory in Illinois. The only seven students that managed to get to the senior year despite the school’s high standards.

When they walk around the schools or do literally anything, they are suddenly the centre of everyone’s attention, local celebrities, everything they do is hot gossip.

Live and breathe Shakespeare, use his quotes in casual conversations, sometimes whole dialogues.

Are supposed to be a very tight knit group, but even with the casual closeness we are occasionally shown and the fact that they spent more than three years together, they don’t feel like more than strangers. There is no real tension, negative or positive, between them at any point of the story. They feel as if they were put on a stage, were told “now you are friends” and that’s it.

Neither of them has a good relationship with their family, for no other reason than to make them “leftovers” and give the group a false sense of found family.

Each of them is given an archetype at the beginning of the story and never becomes really anything beyond that.

They kill their supposed long time friend just because he became a bully.

Oliver

“the loyal sidekick”

from Ohio, his family doesn't appreciate art

a selfish, bratty, insensitive, jealous little asshole, but we’re supposed to think he’s actually just a nice guy

makes everything about himself

hates his parents for basically no reason

is awful to his sisters for no reason at all

hides that he has to clean The Castle from his friends, that are also classmates and roommates

super pretentious - “Sex, drugs, and Shakespeare. That was our life.” “Omg, Alexander, are you doing cocaine?!”

forced to love James, horny for Meredith

probably talks in cursive

goes to prison for his boyfriend even with no evidence pointing to him

Richard

“the tyrant”

apparently from London

always plays the main character, teachers favourite

is nice for like two scenes and then suddenly turns into a bully

big, tall, strong, intimidating

killed for bruising a guy and shoving two girls

Meredith

“the temptress”

from New York City, very rich family, leave her alone on Christmas

sexy, hot, sensual, feminine and soft, redhead

is dating Richard (so that Oliver can take her over)

is there to be occasionally slut shamed, ogled on by everyone, the object of Oliver’s desires when James isn’t around

holds her liquor better than the rest

tipps of Colborne through just James’s drunken twaddle

Filippa

“the chameleon”

very mysterious, doesn’t like talking about her family, her father is in prison

probably doesn’t have emotions

cast in male roles most of the times

helped to get rid of the murder evidence

ends up dating their choreographer

Alexander

“the villain”

from Philadelphia

does drugs and is gay, has an urge to turn first-years gay, and is also into Meredith

convinces others to let Richard drown with very a weak argument

overdoses

Wren

“the ingenue”

also from London

cute, sweet, sensitive, little, blond

Richard’s cousin

doesn’t talk very much, not in a cool or shy way

mostly just stands in a corner and cries and has a breakdown

James

“the tragic hero”

from California, his parents wanted him to be poet insted

the twist villain (no one was surprised)

supposed to be in love with Oliver

kills Richard in self-defense with a boat hook

recites Shakespeare when he has mental breakdown

let’s Oliver take the blame and go to prison, later “drowns” himself

-

Colborne

apparently the only detective in town that things bashed in skull and twisted limbs are maybe not just a drunken accident

is so enchanted with this case that its been on his mind for ten years and is the last thing he wants to solve before he retires

gets tipped of by Meredith, goes to apprehend James but believes Oliver when he falsely confesses

Frederick

literature teacher

nice to them I guess

Gwendolyn

drama teacher

thinks she’s got everyone figured out

bosy, scary, extravagant lady

Camillo

school combat choreographer

ends up with Pip

Colin

“look, there are other people at this school”

talented third-year

turned gay by Alexander

---

I believe I'm being fairly good faith and putting in information we get from the books. So I hope now I'm understood when I say that IWWV's characters aren't much of characters.

#dark academia #aesthetic #the secret history #light academia #if we were villains #m l rio #donna tartt #books & libraries #book review #bookblr #books #novels #novel writing #novel

[leftover-starlight]

blink and she’s gone - wip intro

genre: romantic thriller

pov: first person, limited, w/flashbacks

status: (UPDATED) first draft complete ! editing/second draft begun

setting: an unnamed town by the sea

includes: lgbt+ characters, lbgt+ characters of color, lesbian main character, lots and lots of yearning, mostly poetic prose, suspense

synopsis:

the day she disappears is not one to remember. it’s calm, monotonous. normal.

but she leaves no trail to track, not even a footprint in the sand, and so the partner she leaves behind can do nothing but piece together the life they would’ve had. should’ve had. could still have, if only she’d come back.

a case builds, slowly but surely, and as the missing woman’s story spreads, her partner finds herself pulled further and further away from shore.

characters:

“i”: a woman left reeling after the sudden disappearance of her partner. desperate for answers, for something, the smallest sign that she will come back. she wanders the house she and her girlfriend shared, mind flooded with ghosts. every seven days, a call to the police station. ‘have you found anything new?’ always the answer is no.

“she”: missing. gone without a trace. taken or dead or just wandering, nobody knows. she is an enigma, personified only by the memories and the dreams of the partner she left behind.

#did i say partner because girlfriend/lover did not have the right Vibes? #perhaps #did i leave them unnamed on purpose #so that the mystery would be intriguing and keep the aesthetic alive? #also perhaps #wip: blink and she’s gone #wip intro #work in progress #author #novel #writing #tumblr writing community #writeblr #writing community #signal boost #character introduction #wip introduction #character intro #lgbtq #lgbtpride #lgbt characters #lesbian characters #poc characters #im just tagging everything i can think of tbh uhhhh #work in progress introduction #romantic thriller #thriller #romance #first person pov #poetic prose

[irenadel]

So I recently read the short story “An Unwilling Apprentice” and found it all sorts of unsatisfying and intriguing, mostly because in canon we are given completely contradictory hints in regards to how old exactly Maul was when Sidious took him and in what circumstances he was taken.

1) Maul seems to remember nothing of Dathomir. True this can happen both if he was taken as a baby too young to remember or by sheer, ornery self-defense against remembering something less shitty that current circumstances.

1) a) Maul’s name: Maul says in Rebels that he used to have a name long ago, that was forgotten, which is just... I’m... it kills me okay? That just outright destroys the fuck out of me. Because it means he’s acknowldging a Dathomir he doesn’t remember, but now knows existed (thanks to Savage and that bitch Talzin, whom I stan), a Time Before Sidious. And also because... I don’t think “Maul” is actually a sithly soubriquet. “Maul” sounds too much like other nightbrother names, which sure, all sound sithly but that’s because Dathomir is neck deep in Dark Side Aesthetics. It’s entirely possible that “Maul” is his actual birth name. Talzin and Savage never call him anything else, though Talzin would have a vested interest in restoring to him any sort of lost name, maybe not in the immadiate aftermath of dragging Maul out of the pit of raving insanity, but at any point afterwards... maybe? a little? Mother Talzin if you named him something less metal please speak up...

2) There is that one depiction of Maul in Son of Dathomir, presumably at the time Sidious just got hold of him.

And like that’s absolutely adorable but he IS too old to not remember anything because of age (then again comic book artists are notorious for drawing weirdly adulty kids), so that means he did not remember because he blocked most of his memories? Well.... my problem with this is that you create a sort of phantom (ha!) preMaul where you have to imagine Maul sans Sidious’s influence and that’s.... strange if you’re not thinking about a baby or a toddler who have just the beginning of a personality. It’s unsatisfactory for me at least, because you strip Maul of all we know of Maul and chase after the shadow of a kid who no longer exists.

3) We have two accounts of how Maul ends up with Sidious, one of them Talzin insisting he was stolen (what does that mean? furtively? or by coercion like Asajj) and the other being Sidious’s account from the comic Son of Dathomir “a not so appreciated gift” or some old sithly nonsense like that. One must consider that both parties are liars, who is the worst liar of the two? who the fuck knows? So it’s entirely possible that both accounts are wrong or one is right or both are bogus.

3) a) Then there’s also that thing where apparently Talzin wanted to be Sidious’s apprentice and like... for what? and how? and why? and how did you think this was gonna come out okay!? You’re already either clan mother or poised to be clan mother, what do you need this shmuck for!? (Wait! did she become clan mother because of what he taught her? Intriguing new possibility) Like with all competent, older dark siders (I see you Dooku) I am always left baffled by how anyone who is both powerful and saavy ever gets roped into siding with Sidious. The dude is like Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The Movie. There is nothing about him that says Trustworthy... unless he actually has the chance to groom you since childhood. Like I get Maul, Anakin and Ben Solo.... but WTF Dooku and Talzin?! You guys knew better!!!!

3) b) This is happening when Sidious’s own master is still alive right? Whether you take that to be Plagueis or else... So, so, so.... is Sidious hanging around Dathomir to find out a way to kill his own master? Doesn’t he say something along the lines of “I was learning from her when she thought she was learning from me”? I dunno, sounds like a shitty Sidious thing to do.

So all this to say “An Unwilling Apprentice” presents us a scenario where Maul is in Dathomir long enough to be a boy taught by his mother, who is sometimes bullied by other, bigger boys, and old enough to understand fishy things are happening between his mom and the creepy dude (Sidious). And the manipulation is spot on, don’t get me wrong, Sidious does that thing he does with Anakin where he tells Talzin to do horrible things to herself to gain more power and all these things do is drive a wedge between her and her son, all the while he is stoking anger and resentment in Maul, so that when the time comes Maul goes with him willingly even though that was not the deal he and Talzin had struck. So it is true both that this boy is being “stolen” but also given as a sort of gift to Sidious...

It’s just that this author does the thing authors in Star Wars always do, where they ignore previously established canon, because we can’t actually have one coherent galaxy can we? Because... one, Maul is old enough to remember everything... and like okay I can go with him just blocking those memories.... but this also means Maul was taken old enough for Savage to remember and Savage doesn’t seem to in TCW. Let’s grant that Maul is an unreliable narrator who may be supressing memories or lying about how much he remembers.... but SAVAGE doesn’t remember him. How much Savage actually remembers of his brothers and life is also up for debate, given the Dark Side Steroids and brainwashing he underwent, but still.... STILL it seems the only one who fully remembers Maul is Talzin.

But then we have this in “An Unwilling Apprentice”:

“Matters, however, were only to get worse, for later that night, having been hauled from the pit, the boy found himself introduced to those his keeper claimed would become his kin: a tall, wiry boy of a similar age and a stocky, broad shouldered boy at least a year older.

‘These two boys had for too long been starved of the love and attention all children crave, for the keeper was a stern and self-righteous man, and their mother had long before been taken from them to join a mysterious order from which she had never returned. It seemed fitting, then, that the two of them resented the new boy as much as he resented them, for he represented another mouth to feed and another who would vie for the keeper’s scant attention.“

Are the boys bullying Maul, Savage and Feral??? What the hell kind of jump in characterization is this? Because Savage and Feral seem to be adorable bros who just bro around being bros and not harming anyone until Asajj shows up to fuck their whole shit up... And like I get people can change a lot growing up but...... come on, you don’t have time to take me through such a radical change in personality, this is a short story! Or maybe these bullies have nothing to do with his brothers. (There’s another brother mentioned as a “weakling”? Is THAT Savage? But then Savage is definitely Force sensitive and not a weakling.... is it Feral? Why mention weakling brother if we don’t get enough information on him to place him or have him do enough to affect the story? AUGH!)  And there’s the line, “their mother had been taken from them”.... So nightsisters grow up with nightbrothers? What? Is this keeper brother Viscus? What is going on? What insanity is this?

This is what I mean by ignoring canon. Dathomir is presented as a society violently segregated by gender. You never see any young boys with the nightsisters or any young girls with the nightbrother. For all intents and purposes they all live apart until Violent Breeding Ritual of Rapey Undertones ensues. Any story where you want Maul to be raised at least partially by Talzin must account for this segregation and in that sense you don’t actually... need.... the bullies.... they are kind of superfluous.... You have a whole caste system beating down on babyMaul and his mother wanting to keep him besides her. But then once more you have to account for olderMaul remembering nothing of this. Which okay, fair enough, Savage seems not to remember either. Neither of them seem to be scared or even wary of women... though by all means Savage should definitely be....

I just think it was a good plot with a weak setup that ignored a super useful canon setting and does not account for Maul remembering nothing of all of this! 

When considering all of this I wonder if the most interesting explanation is that Maul did spend enough time in Dathomir to remember but he does not from sheer trauma. I think adult Maul seems to depend on Sidious a lot but... he also seems a lot more... I’m not going to say rebellious, but I’ll say “aware” than Anakin. He goes behind Sidious’s back much more than Vader and is way more resentful of his position as a subordinate (and ready to lord his masterdom over Savage as soon as he gets it... but.... harmlessly.....like siths but for babies, babysiths).

Maybe the more interesting view is to think that Maul remembers nothing and it is only upon encountering Savage and Talzin that, little by little, he begins to remember pieces of it. It would explain his sudden loyalty to Talzin. It would explain his desire for a long forgotten name that Sidious never gave him... it would explain... a lot...

#Star Wars #Darth maul #savage opress #mother talzin #son of dathomir #Sidious sucks and I hate him #You're not doing much better Talzin #*sighs* #brother viscus #feral opress #is that even his last name??? #dathomir #Dooku and Talzin suck at judging people's trustworthiness #they don't even have Anakin's myriad of excuses

[rainbowsky]

The Wolf Reviewed

Spoiler-free section

My life is divided into two eras: ‘before seeing GG as Ji Chong’ and ‘after seeing GG as Ji Chong’. I will never be the same.

GG is magical in this series, and Ji Chong is among my absolute favorite characters of all time (I am actually in love with this character, which is heartbreaking given the fact that he’s fictional). The show also has many interesting characters and some exciting storylines, and in spite of some of its flaws this series is quite good. Highly recommended.

Of course there’s a lot more to it than that, but I can’t give a full review without spoilers. Here’s the rest for those who have already seen the series.

Spoilers under the cut

OK, where to start?

The Characters

There were so many great characters in this story and overall I found the performances of all of them well-acted and exciting to watch. I especially loved Ji Chong and Yao Ji. Both were complex, mysterious characters who stole the show every time they were onscreen.

Ji Chong was incredible. Everything about him was over-the-top amazing. I can imagine that GG must have identified a lot with Ji Chong because he has a similarly gallant, charismatic and kind personality. Seeing GG perform a character like this was mind-blowing because of the harmony between them in spite of their physical differences.

I could go on and on about how much I love Ji Chong as a character but if you’ve seen the series you already know how great he is. I truly fell in love with that man. He was everything I love in a person, and in such a beautiful package. I loved his nimble mischievousness, his rebelliousness, his fierce independence, his devotion to those he loves, and above all, his integrity.  With one exception that I’ll get into later, everything he did in that series was consistent with the image I had of him and it made my heart melt.

And it was pretty insane to see GG go from the thin, twinkish, bubbly and somewhat diminutive Wei Wuxian to the rugged, masculine, mature and level-headed Ji Chong. Not only because of the personality differences between the two characters, but also because of the physical differences. They look like two entirely different people. Ji Chong looks so tall and imposing in the series!

It’s impressive to see GG’s acting ability shine through in these roles. He has such a gift for acting, and for drawing viewers into the hearts of the characters he plays.

Yao Ji was another character that really impressed me. She had so much intensity and complexity, and her character arc was so strong. She was also just incredibly well styled and she looked breathtaking in every single frame she appeared in. The various headpieces and hairstyles she wore were stunning, and her sidekick Zi Shen was an aesthetic marvel.

I also really loved Ma Jing. Despite the fact that she was often used for comedic effect, her character was quite nuanced and multidimensional. I loved her loyalty and strength, and the depth of the love she had for Ma Zhai Xing really shone through in every scene she was in.

The entire Night Fury group was also amazing. I loved them as a team and as individuals, and the trajectories their characters went through were interesting and engaging. I was really invested in what became of them. When Wen Yan died I was gutted, and I was grateful that Hai Die and Mo Xiao had such a satisfying conclusion to their story.

I also adored Butler Shi. What a great character. He reminded me of one or two guys I know hehe. He had such a warm, endearing quality about him.

I’m realizing that I could sit here and name almost every character in this series. Despite some of the problems that I have with it, I’m reminded that the characters are exceptionally well-realized in this series.

The Story

Overall I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the story. It was exciting and engaging, and there were some very interesting side conflicts and intrigues. There was an overall sense of adventure and plenty of action, some really emotional moments and even comic relief.

When you think about it, almost every character had something deeper going on outside of the main plot, and those side/back stories were really interesting and varied. There was complexity to the characters and their motives and experiences without it overcomplicating the plot.

The romances were not my cup of tea. I’ll get into that later on. But despite being the thread that ran through the entire story, they really didn’t feel central to it and it was easy to simply enjoy the show while putting aside the annoyances I had with the romances (I did this primarily by consciously choosing to take the story at face value, and choosing to believe that Ma Zhai Xing really was through with Prince Bo).

The show did a great job of getting me engaged and keeping me interested, giving me a story that was complex without being confusing, emotional without being too sappy (with some exceptions). The action, fight scenes, battles, etc. were exciting without feeling fake and cliche. There were some well-choreographed scenes.

I really can’t complain about much. I mean, there were times when I was watching this series that I thought I hated it, but in retrospect I can see that I really loved it in spite of some of the flaws, which I’ll discuss in a moment.

The Soundtrack

The soundtrack was quite good, even if it felt repetitive when I was bingeing the show. So many songs have stuck with me since I finished the series. I especially like Backflow by Jolin Tsai (second-last song on the playlist I linked). Of course I would have loved a song or two with GG, but the soundtrack we got was memorable.

What I hated

I really struggled with some aspects of this series.

I found Bao Na mostly unwatchable. She was incredibly annoying. As a character she had all the traits I dislike. Whiny, stalker, demanding, emotionally immature, jealous... I really couldn’t stand that character for a lot of the series.

It’s true that she started to redeem herself a bit through the course of the series but she never really evolved into someone I wanted to see more of. I definitely had some moments where I liked her and sympathized with her, but mostly she grated on my nerves.

I also hated Prince Bo through most of the series, and found it insulting that I was expected to view him as the protagonist and cheer for him to win the princess’s heart. I felt that the ‘love-hate’ thing between Prince Bo and Ma Zhai Xing was overplayed to a point where I lost all sympathy with Prince Bo and desperately wanted him to die a horrible death through much of the series.

His behavior didn’t reflect someone who was in love but wanted to protect her. Much of his behavior was excessive and gratuitous, much worse than was necessary to achieve its stated goal. He was incredibly emotionally and psychologically abusive toward Ma Zhai Xing to a degree that was often really hard to watch. Especially his near-rape of her.

This is a man that I didn’t want to see redeemed. This is a man I wanted to see burned alive. No one who truly loved Ma Zhai Xing would be even remotely capable of the actions Prince Bo took.

I will admit that he did begin to redeem himself in my eyes a bit later in the series, but not to where I could ever see him with Ma Zhai Xing. I don’t think that’s the sort of treatment one can ever redeem in a relationship. He might be able to redeem himself, but not the relationship. There are some lines, once crossed between people, that one can never come back from.

I actually felt that Yao Ji was a much better match for Prince Bo than the princess was. They were true equals with similarly difficult pasts, and similarly dark deeds to redeem themselves from. They were in so many ways perfect for each other.

Ji Chong and Ma Zhai Xing were a better match because they were more natural equals in terms of personality, values and life paths. There were tremendous parallels between the two of them. Although I ended up feeling she didn’t deserve him.

So for me, it was really difficult to get invested in the love stories I was presented with. Ultimately I found them all very unsatisfying. The people I wanted to see together were treated as unsuitable for each other in ways that were completely unbelievable, and the people I was expected to want to see together had unconvincing chemistry and incompatibilities that I couldn’t overlook.

Seeing Ma Zhai Xing die in the end was an OUTRAGE. Especially when I read about the director’s rationale for that decision.

“Her thought process on killing off “Zhai Xing” was that “King Bo” had done so much for her that it was time for her to do something for him. “Her character had matured the most in the series. Dying for Wolf Boy is the best ending for this identity of hers. To me, this perfect ending is even more in line with her character’s growth.””

I found that shocking. I couldn’t disagree more with this sentiment. She wasted so much of herself and her life for Prince Bo. He treated her like crap, and he didn’t ever truly do anything to redeem himself from that behavior. He should have been the one to die.

In my opinion, REAL character growth for Ma Zhai Xing would have been to see her overcome the fixation with Wolf Boy and with Prince Bo and just move on with her life.

I will say this, though: By the time Ma Zhai Xing died in the show, her character had already been so utterly and thoroughly decimated beyond all recognition via the Prince Bo housewife trajectory that there was no point in her surviving.

The absolute worst moment for me, though, was Ji Chong ending up with Bao Na. Talk about adding insult to injury. This is the one thing that Ji Chong did as a character that ran against my understanding of him as a character.

You could have done anything at all to Ji Chong, including killing him or turning him into a villain, and it would have been less of an insult to me than putting him with Bao Na.

I do try to interpret his invitation for them to travel together in a non-romantic way (despite the fact that in the world of the show there’s no way that a princess is going to go traveling with a prince without her reputation being ruined unless they are a couple). But when I tell myself that he took her traveling to get her away from court and give her some life experience - as friends only - then it becomes less of a bitter pill to swallow. I could see him doing that for her, and I could see them developing a strong friendship through their travels.

I just can’t see them as remotely romantically compatible. Not on any level.

I found it completely unconvincing that the most emotionally mature, honorable person in the entire series who had the healthiest boundaries and a lot of worldly experience and intelligence, would have any interest whatsoever in someone as emotionally immature, childish and inexperienced (and with no boundaries whatsoever) as Bao Na.

I would have preferred it if they’d framed that whole thing as him being a sort of big brother/mentor figure to her.

I felt like I saw chemistry and compatibility between Bao Na and Fourth Prince Chu You Ze, and I would have loved to see them end up together. They were much more at an equal footing. I was expecting that to be the outcome and it would have been a sweet one. They would have made a cute couple.

Final thoughts

The romances in this story seemed fixated on unhealthy, often misogynistic power imbalances and they were really, really hard to watch. Not just in terms of Prince Bo and Ma Zhai Xing but also the ugly Ji Chong and Princess Bao Na hookup they tried to get me to swallow at the end. I hate that kind of ‘love’ story. I prefer seeing actual equals find each other in the great wide world.

However, pretty much everything else about the series was excellent. Ji Chong owns my heart and I only wish I could see more of him. GG completely blew me away and far exceeded all of my expectations.

Overall, I really love this series and will definitely be rewatching it.

#the wolf #ji chong #actor gg #review #my beloved ji chong

[365days365movies]

January 24, 2021: Speed Racer (2008) (Part 1)

Car Action Weekend Concludes!

Anime! As I’m sure Tumblr is aware, Japan’s most famous television format has spread far and wide, especially in the United States. It started on American TV with Astro Boy in 1963. A few series premiered after that, but one of the series that made the biggest splash was a little show about a boy, his girlfriend, his friend, his father, his little brother, and his little brother’s chimpanzee.

Oh, also cars or something.

Mach GoGoGo, AKA Speed Racer in the USA, was a classic series about car racing, with wacky enemies, crazy cars, and about a year’s worth of runtime. Still, it lasted for YEARS, to the extent that I remember watching it at some point in the early 2000s! But I didn’t grow up with it. The Wachowskis, however, might have.

Oh yeah, it’s THESE gals. Directors and creators of the Matrix, the Wachowskis were looking to direct a more family-friendly movie, and hopped onto a Speed Racer adaptation that’d been in development for years. Since 1992, Warner Bros had been trying to bring the enigmatic racecar driver to life, with Johnny Depp as the lead...in 1995. 

He left, though, and actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shia LaBeouf, and Zac Efron would be considered over the years. For the director, Julien Temple, Gus Van Sant, Alfonso Cuaron, and Hype Williams were recommended. Eventually, though, the Wachowskis would accept the job, and Emile Hirsch was brought into the project, alongside a surprising cast. But, we’ll get there. 

So why Speed Racer for this month? Why not save this for Sports November? Or, better yet, why watch this at all? Honestly...I wanted to do this one. Mostly because in recent years, it’s become controversial with reviewers and critics. Why? Well, lets get into it, rather than explain here! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

Speed Racer - yes, Speed Racer (Emile Hersch), that is his ACTUAL NAME - is awaiting an upcoming race, when we get a glimpse into his past. A distracted kid at school, much to the dismay of his mother, Mom (Susan Sarandon), he’s not doing great at school, thinking only about races and his brother, Rex (Scott Porter).

In a legitimately neat touch, he daydreams being in a race, with the original Speed Racer theme song playing in the background. His daydream is bright and colorful, and looks like it’s drawn by a little kid. Which is funny, because the entire movie has a cartoon aesthetic, it turns out.

We’ll see if I get used to THAT. He gets in the car with Rex, and they go to the RIDICULOUS racetrack, holy shit. It’s like Mario Kart in here. From the track, we transition to the modern day. The world is watching, as Speed Racer tears up the track, and also as I GET A SEIZURE GAAAAAAAAH. This is an insanely colorful world with some very confusing and complicated visuals. This movie is...something, that’s for sure.

During the race, we find out that something happened to Rex 8 years ago, during which Rex set the track record. We also meet his girlfriend, Trixie (Christina Ricci), father, Pops (John Goodman), brother Spritle (Pauline Litt), and...chimpanzee, Chim Chim (Willy and Kenzie, interchangeably, YES I CREDITED THE CHIMPS). Speed Racer. I keep forgetting that this is Speed Racer.

More flashbacks to the past show us how Trixie and Speed met, as well as a STRAIGHT UP MURDER ATTEMPT WHAT

Whoof; cutthroat business, that racing stuff. Rex leaves Racer Motors as a result, and leaves Speed his car, apparently turning to the dark side by taking out other racers with increasingly dirty tactics. This lasted until a brutal crash that apparently killed him. But, if you know your Speed Racer mythos even a little...

Back to the race, where Speed is about to beat his brother’s record, but purposely slows down just enough. In any case, he wins the race, as a shadowy figure that totally isn’t his alive brother watches on.

The next morning, the family, Trixie, and road manager Sparky (Kick Gurry) are having breakfast. They’re interrupted by E.P. Arnold Royalton, esq. (Roger Allam), an executive who’s come to recruit Speed, proposing to act as a sponsor for not just Speed, but for Racer Motors. While Pops isn’t inclined to sign up with a big company, Royalton’s offer is intriguing enough for them to go to MY EYES!!!!

OH CHRIST MY EYES WHAT THE HELL

OK, look, this film is gorgeous, and also looks like Robert Rodriguez’s imagination vomited all over the screen. Seriously, I appreciate the artistry here, but...OW. And this ENTIRE SEQUENCE is an exercise in my visual tolerance for 2008-era graphics and ridiculously bright colors.

The Racers are taken for a dizzying journey through Royalton Industries, and my entire brain is melting, God. After the tour, Pops tells Royalton that, while his money intimidates him, he’s open to an alliance between RI and Racer Motors. And then, we transition from the bright and poppy world of Royalton Industries, to - 

YO WHAT??? Talk about a complete opposite tone! This crime boss, Cruncher Block (John Benfield), is beating and torturing a driver, Taejo (Rain), and he’s pretty obviously bloodied. Before feeding Taejo’s hands to his pet CGI piranhas (yes, really), they’re interrupted. Also, did I mention that this office is INSIDE OF A MOVING TRUCK WHAT.

The intruder is the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox), who takes down their battle truck with his car’s weaponry. And I gotta say, this is a neat, if extremely wacky, battle sequence. Cruncher throws Taejo out of the truck, only for Racer X to save him and try to recruit him to stop Cruncher. He might be a bit of a vigilante, it would seem.

While Speed and Trixie have a romantic getaway - which is spoiled by an intruding Spritle and Chim Chim - a shady deal between Royalton and a competitor is taking place, revealing that he isn’t entirely on the up-and-up. The next day, Speed meets with Royalton, thinking on signing the contracts. He decides not to, citing an interaction with his father from shortly after Rex’s death, and stating that he couldn’t abandon his family like that.

Royalton’s not very happy about that, though, and taps into his inner Tim Curry something FIERCE. He monologues on the invention of the modern racing league, as well as the financial implications of races through history. In other words, racing’s about power and money, and he reveals that races like the Grand Prix are rigged from the get-go. And SMACK-DAB in the middle of that villain monologue:

A sugar high. The editing of this film is hyperactive, I swear. Forgot to mention that Spritle and Chim Chim snuck into RI with Speed to steal candy - yes, really - and discover that the cars being built by RI have dirty tricks literally built in. Speed turns Royalton down, and Royalton tells him that Speed won’t win or even place in the next race, which we cut to immediately.

Taejo from earlier is racing, and gets in a crash that he somehow survives? Speed also crashes and loses, as predicted by Royalton, which destroys the Mach 6. This leads to Racer Motors being sued for copyright infringement, disgracing them in the media. He also speaks to Ben Burns (Richard Roundtree), one of his racing heroes, and finds out that his classic race was indeed rigged in his failure. This, of course, breaks Speed’s racing spirit.

After a pep talk from Mom, Racer Motors gets a visit from Racer X and Inspector Detector (Benny Furmann), who ask Speed for help. Taejo’s asked them for help, but only if Racer X and Speed help. Unfortunately, the race is on the same dangerous track that Rex died on. However, if they win, it will cause trouble for the crime boss Crusher and his secret ally, Royalton. While Pops fiercely objects, Speed goes in secret, with Trixie as support.

Speed finally wears the classic Speed Race outfit while in the classic car, they go to the race track, and I STROKE OUT AGAIN GODDAMIVWHBROVQJQ

And somehow THIS IS ONLY HALF OF THE GODDAMN MOVIE. See you in Part 2!

#speed racer #the wachowskis #lana wachowski #lilly wachowski #speed racer 2009 #emile hirsch #christina ricci #john goodman #sarah sarandon #matthew fox #roger allam #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #user365 #mygifs #my gifs #action january

[theteapotofdoom]

Can I just say, i love like all of your aus and headcanons..... i just binge read the majority of your blog. You said in the prince shiggy and knight dabi thing that you had more aus you haven't told us about??? Could you maybe, If you want to, tell us your favorite au you haven't talked about before???

No, no, no, that’s okay!!!

I don’t know how I phrased it, sorry if it sounded definitive or aggressive! I really want to write these stories someday and I know that if I talk about it too much on Tumblr I might end up never write it all (my brain be like that) so I’m to control myself. 

But still, I don’t mind sharing at least a little bit! I can at least mention most of the ideas I have! To be honest, most of them are still at the “bullet points in a notebook” stage, so there’s isn’t too much to spoil, I can talk about it freely :D

My two priorities are to finish the two ongoing shigadabi slow burn I have, Something Good and Sunrise, but after that there would be:

Bodyguard/Mob Prince AU. It would take place in a dark Noir AU. Dabi is a lonely criminal who escaped his powerful family (Enji might be a corrupted politician or something) and is trying to make a living through jobs (mostly as a hitman). But he is hired by the powerful and mysterious mob king All For One, to be his adoptive son’s personal bodyguard. Shigaraki is going to be AFO’s successor in this criminal empire, and so a lot of rival families and policemen are trying to take him down, so Dabi has to be with him practically at all time. I’m very excited about this one because it would be a slow burn with tired and snarky Dabi and spoiled brat but still traumatized Tomura. It’d also have the rest of the LOV also being part of AFO’s gang, and probably Overhaul as Tomura’s ex Tomura’s rival.

Pirates AU. I just think that pirates are really sexy okay? In this AU, Dabi is a chaotic nobleman who keeps wasting his fortune and bringing shame to his family. As a punishment, his father is sending to work on of his boats to teach him real life and hard work. But Dabi has been on this boat for less than a week when they’re attacked by a pirate ship. The crew is led by a surprisingly young man, named Shigaraki Tomura (the LOV is the crew of course) Considering that Dabi didn’t show much resistance during the attack, Shig is intrigued and spare him. When he learns who Dabi is, he decides to keep him alive either for a ransom or for leverage against the Todoroki family. As Dabi is forced to become part of the crew ... well, FEELINGS BLOSSOM MAYHAPS? And there would be a whole subplot with Enji and the heroes going after them, but also with AFO still manipulating Tomura from the shadows. I really like this one but I would have to do a lot reserves about the Japanese pirate history first!

Shigaraki Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde AU or just straight-up gothic victorian AU. I just ... love the Penny Dreadful aesthetic. Gothic, horny Victorian era. It wouldn’t exactly be Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, but a variation of it. It all started when I got really thirsty for the concept of young victorian doctor Tomura. Tomura is a noble young man, ward of All For One, one of the richest and most powerful men in the country and student in medicine. Although he has to be the perfect son whenever AFO and him are making public appearances, he feels he has a lot of darkness and feral energy in him, and so he tries to create a potion to separate the two. By day, he is the perfect son, soft and polite, very popular in balls and social events, and by night, he is a violent chaotic criminal who goes out to drink, fight, have sex, and even kill sometimes. This one is more Shigaraki centric, but it would also be shigadabi and even chishig. By day, Tomura is often seen with his classmate Chisaki, another med student and also part of a rich powerful family and the two might even be married soon to join their family (yes i know it DEFINITELY wasn’t a thing in the victorian era, but they also didn’t have quirks, so this is a massive AU where things are really different). But by night, Shigaraki often meets up with this young criminal names Dabi who is just as restless and crazy as he is, and whenever they are together it just ... feels right.

Those are the main three that I’m actively thinking about right now! I also have a lot of other ideas for one-shots and shorter stories, but they’re not as developed yet so I wouldn’t have much to say about it. (There like ... a Jane Austen AU somewhere in my brain ... why am I like this).

I’m sorry, I feel like I talked a lot even though I said I was gonna keep it brief, I hope that’s okay!!! I still love these ideas and I can’t wait to have the chance to develop them more! :D

#shigadabi #nightangel1107 #shigaraki tomura #dabi #my hero academia

[aislingxashling]

( SAOIRSE RONAN + CISFEMALE) — Have you seen AISLING ORLA HOLLAND ? This TWENTY-FOUR year old is a/an MURAL ARTIST who resides in BROOKLYN. SHE/HER has/have been living in NYC for THREE MONTHS, and is/are known to be ENDURING and INQUISITIVE, but can also be SUBMISSIVE and SELF-CRITICAL, if you cross them. People tend to associate them with PASTEL COLORS and FLOWER DRAWINGS

Name: Aisling (ash-ling) Orla Holland

Age: Twenty-Four

Birthday: June 22, 1996

Sign: Cancer

Neighborhood: Brooklyn

Home: Hostel

Occupation: Mural Painter/Artist - works in a local bookstore to supplement income

Character Quote: “At any given moment you have the power to say this is not how the story is going to end.” ― Christine Mason Miller

Pos. Traits: Enduring, Inquisitive, Kind-hearted, Creative

Neg. Traits: Submissive, Self-Critical, Withdrawn, Forgetful

Likes: buying fresh sets of paint, going to art galleries, re-stocking shelves at the bookstore

Dislikes: her parents and soon to be ex-husbabd, plain colored rooms, litter/people who litter

Aesthetic: pastel colors, flower-drawings, paint streaked clothes

~about~

Aisling was born into an extremely devout, Catholic family. They walked to church multiple times a week, with all the Holland siblings being enrolled in Sunday school from the time they could talk until they turned eighteen. Prayer was said ritualistically before all meals and at bed time.

Growing up, she was unaware that not every household was as strict as hers when it came to both chores and religion. Household chores were divided into women’s and men’s work, with Aisling, being the youngest and a girl, in charge of doing the washing and other traditionally feminine tasks.

Her favorite childhood memories are ones spent doing arts and crafts both in church activities and at school. Art was her best subject, followed closely by English. It was through art and expression that she began to realize not everyone thought the way that her family did, and that there were forms of self expression other than religion.

Tired of being so controlled, Aisling began sneaking out at night just to do art. For the most part it was just tag work done around the small town on abandoned buildings. A few of her pieces were even featured in local news articles, the press intrigued by the mysterious person leaving their art around the city.

When it came time to further her studies what she really wanted to pursue was art, but upon trying to have that discussion with her parents she was berated to the point that she decided to major in English Lit, just to make them happy and keep them off her tail.

It was during college that she met Oswald. The two began to seriously date during her sophomore year. She had been introduced through her parents of course, who had just happened to know his from their time spent visiting another church while on vacation. He was the approved deal.

During her senior year of college they suffered a pregnancy scare. Aisling, who had been raised to wait until marriage to have sex, had decided that was one rule she would willingly break, and Oswald was all too eager to help her. After the scare the two decided that they should marry before any other unfortunate events happened. It was not necessarily what Aisling wanted for herself, but as a recent college graduate who’s world was still rather small and sheltered, she didn’t really know what she did want either.

During the two years that they were married, Oswald changed. He began working in politics and government like her father. The long hours meant he was tired and irritable when he came home, oft talking down to her and belittling her for not being the perfect housewife; and his rage when he came home to a cold meal due to her ‘unnecessary and frivolous arts and crafts’. In the beginning he had supported her art, coming home with gifts of special paints or perfect drawing paper, but as his mind was warped by the men around him, he began to view her art as beneath him, as a waste of time and money.

Aisling was also forbidden from working; her degree meant to be merely a symbol that she had grown up in a ‘proper’ family. As her marriage wore on her husband became even more controlling. Only allowing her to leave the house if she was going to church or to do the shopping. Eventually, she began feeling claustrophobic as she was so crunched into herself, so controlled. Art was the only thing that made her feel alive, and so under the guise of joining the local churches women’s group, she began sneaking out of the house just to practice her art. When Oswald found out, his wrath was a sight to behold. The beating she received at his hand for her ‘insubordination’ left her so devastating injured that she had to be taken to hospital.

Once there she reached her parents, begging them to take her back into their home; stating she wanted to leave her husband, that she was afraid of him. Her parents, however, had already been told the whole sordid tale by her husband and were siding with him. If she had only been behaving, they told her, acting as a good Catholic wife should, none of this would have happened. Their fury with her was such that they compared her to a brother she never knew she had, as he had been sent away mere months before she was born. Her mother mentioned he lived in New York, and it piqued her interest.

The idea of having a family member not like her parents made her heart soar. She knew she needed to leave Oswald, and New York seemed the perfect place for a young artist at heart to thrive. Through the help of an online women’s support group, with one girl in particular going above and beyond to help her. While still in the hospital Aisling booked a one-way ticket to New York. With only the clothes on her back she boarded a plane before anyone would know she was gone and headed to New York.

Her new friend greeted her with open arms, helping her to obtain a work visa and a place to stay. It might only be a hostel, but the freedom of not living with those who would try and oppress her made it heaven. She still struggles trying to fit into the American culture; especially when handling currency. Luckily, the job she has achieved at the local book store when she isn’t making art has been incredibly kind to her.

Intrigued by the beautiful street are she has seen, Aisling has begun her own blog following her progress as she too paints her way through the city, bringing art to otherwise dull buildings. She details her process on the murals from beginning to end, and also does commission paintings to help bring in extra cash. The young woman has also located her brother, but has yet to work up the courage to go and meet him, as she is still trying to find herself and who she is after having been so oppressed for so long.

#tw abuse #tw violence #tw spouse abuse #bio #about || aisling orla holland

[aion-rsa]

House of Dark Shadows: The Craziest Vampire Movie You’ve Never Seen

https://ift.tt/37TdnN3

This article contains House of Dark Shadows spoilers.

In 1970 House of Dark Shadows flipped the vampire subgenre on its head. While certainly a B-horror in the Hammer mold, this chiller wasn’t satisfied with one bloodsucker, or even two. Instead Dark Shadows would turn nearly its whole cast into the ravenous undead, indiscriminately slaughtering beloved heroes and heroines, not caring for a second that they were also the stars of a daytime soap opera—one that was appointment TV for millions of kids across America.

Clearly it was a different time. And therein lies its charm.

When the television series Dark Shadows premiered in 1966, it wasn’t an instant pop culture phenomenon. Creator Dan Curtis was savvy enough to see the appeal in a daytime melodrama draped in a Gothic aesthetic, but he didn’t yet have the necessary hook for his central character as she stepped off a train in New England. Sure, mysterious Victoria Winters (Alexandria Isles) would meet the Collins family, who more or less ruled over the town of Collinsport from their ancestral home of Collinwood, but the reason to stick around only came about a year into the series’ original run.

That eureka moment turned out to be the dapper and effortlessly suave Jonathan Frid. Cast as Barnabas Collins, the Canadian theater actor was initially hired for a single storyline (a set number of episodes) as the heavy: Barnabas was an ancient and forgotten vampire, who’d been buried alive like the family’s dirty little secret after a curse condemned him to drink blood in 1795. Now he was out and wreaking havoc by feasting on the locals and obsessing over Maggie Evans (Kathryn Leigh Scott), whom he was convinced was the reincarnation of his lost love Josette—a fiancée who threw herself off a cliff in the 18th century rather than become Barnabas’ corpse bride.

It was morbid, obviously, but also romantic at a time when vampires were defined by the coldness of Christopher Lee or the goofiness of Scooby-Doo. Instead here was the most pitiable of creatures, one who doesn’t wish to be a vampire, and through impeccable manners and courtesies revealed a soft love for the Collins family, even when he preyed on them. Rather than create a great villain, Curtis inadvertently invented a tragic hero who audiences flocked to, both the typical daytime target demographic and also, surprisingly, kids and teenagers, who’d rush home from school to be lost in a melancholy land of eternal loves, ancient curses, and of course fangs.

Thus Dark Shadows became a blender for all things Gothic. Following in the success of Barnabas’ introduction, the series would go on to add ghosts, werewolves, séances, multiple stints of time travel, and one particularly devilish 18th century witch named Angelique (Lara Parker). It also appropriated every classic horror trope from Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, the Brontë sisters, and Edgar Allan Poe, and synthesized them for an audience that was now consuming it along with kid-friendly board games and trading cards.

So why not a movie, too? As early as 1968, Curtis began pursuing the idea of making a Dark Shadows movie, even while the series was still going. Eventually, House of Dark Shadows was the result. Released 50 years ago this week, this toothy amusement was the chance to do everything Curtis wanted with the series, but was prohibited from by Broadcast Standards and Practices censorship, budget constraints… and maybe even audiences’ good taste.

“Blood flows,” actor Roger Davis observed in The Dark Shadows Companion: The 25th Anniversary, which was edited by Scott. “It’s not like the serial. You have a few dabs of blood and the network brass have apoplexy. TV does a mock-up on life. This is in living color. And the vampires really bite.” 

Whereas Dark Shadows, the television show, was appointment TV for those still in middle school, House of Dark Shadows was aimed directly at the drive-in crowd with its emphasis on blood gushing from neck wounds and stakes violently going into almost every character’s heart. As Scott’s book surmised, the film was “entirely the child of its creator,” who would at last have his evil Barnabas. And at a glance, it is an American riff on what had already become kitsch by 1970 thanks to Hammer Film Productions’ seemingly endless line of Dracula movies, plus the knockoffs.

And to be sure, House of Dark Shadows is in many ways a Dracula movie. It’s also insight into how Curtis originally viewed the Barnabas character before Frid went on a charm offensive. Playing almost like a CliffNotes version of Barnabas’ first several storylines on the show, the vampire is awakened during the film’s opening moments because of the foolishness of groundskeeper Willie Loomis (John Karlen). Barnabas then forces poor old Willie to become his living slave and creates a fictitious narrative about being a distant cousin descended from the original Barnabas Collins, whom family lore claims sailed away to London in 1795, never to be heard from again.

Bringing back the “original” Barnabas’ family jewels to ingratiate himself, the Barnabas of 1970 is free to attend family gatherings, fix up an old ruined house on the estate, and even feed on cousin Carolyn (Nancy Barrett), a dear relative who becomes a dead ringer for Lucy Westenra in Bram Stoker’s famed novel. Even so, Carolyn cannot displace Maggie (still Scott) in Barnabas’ eyes, who he is sure is the reincarnation of Josette.

It very much has the narrative beats of a traditional vampire movie, but the charm that lingers a half-century later comes in part from seeing these actors, who are intimately familiar with their characters, going through the paces with better production values. That quality also manifests in Curtis’ sense of atmosphere, now liberated from the stage-bound quality of daytime drawing room drama. I would even argue House of Dark Shadows is one of the more satisfyingly atmospheric vampire movies to come out of the 1970s.

Curtis filmed in the upstate New York’s Tarrytown area, mostly on the actual Gothic Lyndhurst Estate, built in the 1830s, and shot much of the exteriors in the legendary Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Whereas Hammer films tended to rely increasingly on sets during this period, and most B horror movies had no budget for evocative locations, House of Dark Shadows was filming its sequences in between tours of the Lyndhurst Mansion and in the same atmospheric cemetery that helped birth the myth of a Headless Horseman.

Regarding the filming location, screenwriter Sam Hall remarked, “It’s a wild house. I’d hate like hell to live in it.” 

This is only accentuated by the fact Curtis knows how to drain a spooky location dry. Images like vampire Carolyn standing in a window, draped in white, beckoning her lover to become one of the damned is a better use of Lucy iconography than any Dracula movie made before House of Dark Shadows. And the film’s ending sequence reaches an operatic opulence rarely seen, even in vampire cheapies. Barnabas, bathed in a blue light and shrouded in inexplicable fog in the interior of his decrepit home, beckons Maggie, now in a wedding dress, toward him as the famous melody of Josette’s music box twinkles, only now in a weeping minor key.

The corruption of that wistful melody is intriguing. An original part of the Dark Shadows television series, Josette’s music box, and Frid’s soliloquies about it, is what first gave Barnabas his soul, distinguishing him from the general depravity of other pop culture vampires. One could even say Barnabas is the first significantly sympathetic male vampire in fiction. In House of Dark Shadows, he has a more sinister mean streak, but the pathos remains.

Hence why the film plays at times like a gonzo delight. It may feature the original, more wicked Barnabas, but it is still derived from the genteel series, and many of those elements carry over. Take Dr. Julia Hoffman (Grayson Hall) spending half the movie trying to cure Barnabas, a subplot that eventually ends happily for the pair on the show, but less so here. It’s soapy pulp, yet it’s given as much stone-faced gravity as the Collinsport Police Department unquestioningly agreeing to patrol around town with standard issue police crucifixes. One might ask if they keep silver bullets in every squad car too?

The overall effect is bizarre, but endearingly so. It’s also fairly influential, as confirmed by what happened after Dan Curtis dropped Barnabas in favor of another vampire.

Read more

TV

Dark Shadows’ Witch Was As Influential As Its Vampire

By Tony Sokol

Movies

Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Seduction of Old School Movie Magic

By David Crow

In 1974, following Dark Shadows’ cancellation, Curtis wrote and directed a Dracula TV movie for CBS that within its opening titles billed itself as “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Far removed from Stoker’s novel, the little remembered television film nonetheless starred Jack Palance as the vampire, and introduced several significant elements to the story by overtly making Dracula an undead version of historical figure Vlad the Impaler (which he is not in the novel) and turning Lucy into the reincarnation of his great lost love.

Curtis was in essence trying to recast Dracula as Barnabas Collins. Like House of Dark Shadows, Curtis even sought to build a Gothic atmosphere by filming in real locations, albeit now Eastern Europe. The result was effective in those scenes, even if the rest of the movie failed in no small part because Palance could never wear the tragic cloak so well as Frid.

In spite of its shortcomings, many have fairly speculated on whether Curtis’ Dracula influenced James V. Hart, the screenwriter of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Hart was certainly more successful at turning Dracula into a lovelorn prince, and Coppola made that idea permanent in the pop culture imagination. Yet, at the end of the day, they were still remaking the pop culture image of Dracula so as to be closer in line with Barnabas Collins, instead of the other way around.

I would even argue that Coppola’s film is closer in tone with Dark Shadows, at least in its romantic moments, than Tim Burton’s big budget Dark Shadows movie was in 2012. Burton of course attempted to avoid some of the mistakes of House of Dark Shadows, namely by keeping Barnabas as the good guy who is trying to save his family instead of ultimately destroying them, as well as retaining the other fan favorite character, the witchy Angelique (who like all other non-vampire elements was omitted from House of Dark Shadows). But Burton also played her and the whole concept as pure camp, making the Collins’ a subject of ridicule, and their problems a punchline.

Admittedly, there is something faintly camp about the 1960s daytime series and its ‘70s drive-in remake; plots turn on ludicrous developments like Julia falling in love with Barnabas, and then intentionally sabotaging his vampire cure when she realizes he loves a younger woman. But they were sold with absolute sincerity, and in the case of Frid, a palatable conviction.

House of Dark Shadows continues that conviction, no matter how batshit things become. Thus the ending where, accepting he’ll never be cured, Barnabas transforms family patriarch Roger Collins (Louis Edmonds) and even the film’s version of Van Helsing (Thayer David) into vampires. And we get to a finale so madcap that it turns “Renfield” into the last remaining hero. Madness, indeed.

Ironically, House of Dark Shadows was blamed by some for the eventual death of the series. Every character in the film, including Barnabas, had to be written out of the show, for some weeks at a time, so the actors could go shoot a movie upstate (another reason Angelique and other significant characters were left out). This correlated with some of the series’ weaker storylines that lost audiences’ attention.

Additionally, it’s believed parents who went with their children to see the movie in October 1970 were appalled by the amount of blood and sensual subtext in the film. As a result, some may have forbidden their kids from watching the series further… with the show getting cancelled in April 1971.

“The TV ratings fell after the movie,” Scott’s The Dark Shadows Companion revealed. “It has been suggested by some that House of Dark Shadows led to the series’ eventual demise. Perhaps it was the audience’s reaction to seeing their hero Barnabas in an evil light. Perhaps it was because parents attended House of Dark Shadows with their children and, seeing the amount of blood spilled across the screen, discouraged their children’s choice of television viewing material.”

Star Frid was even more unsparing in his final analysis.

“[The film] lacked the charm and naivete of the soap opera,” Frid said. “Every once in a while the show coalesced into a Brigadoonish never-never-land. It wasn’t necessary to bring the rest of the world into Dark Shadows, which is what the film did.”

Nevertheless, both the series and movie left a few marks on the throat of pop culture. The series certainly paved the way for more multidimensional portraits of vampires to be explored, opening the door for, yes, the Coppola Dracula movie, but also Anne Rice and True Blood. In fact, even if House of Dark Shadows might’ve been considered too brutal by parents in 1970, decades of pop culture refinement would find a way to make the sympathetic vampire archetype much more tolerable when instead of drinking from his cousin, he sparkled in the daylight and told his prey they needed to wait until marriage.

Without Barnabas, his series, and his slice of bananas role is House of Dark Shadows, we may never have gotten Lestat, Edward Cullen, or Gary Oldman’s Dracula. At least not as how we know them. Fifty years on, that’s a bloody good legacy for a daytime drama and a B-movie you’ve never seen.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post House of Dark Shadows: The Craziest Vampire Movie You’ve Never Seen appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/35Mgq6X

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[imagine-organization-xiii]

Hey!! Can I get the org as youtubers?? Love your writing!!

Xemnas

Internet cryptid. Rarely shows his face. Uploading schedule is random and everyone is always surprised and excited when he decides to post a new video.

Everyone flocks to his channel for his voice. Most of his videos are of him reciting poetry or short stories. Has the perfect voice that makes you feel as though you’re listening to an audiobook. That being said, he goes pretty far into the ASMR thing, usually with his low voice reading to you, but everyone loves it so he doesn’t really want to change.

Doesn’t go to conventions or events, partly because he wants to keep the mystery of his appearance alive and partly because he doesn’t like meeting people.

Xigbar

Literally posts whatever the hell he wants, maybe once or twice a week depending on how busy he is. His channel is very Jenna Marbles-esque in the sense that he goes off the rails all the time. He’ll video himself trying a new workout routine, attempting and failing to cook a meal, going to a gun range another day, getting Xion to paint his nails in another video, telling stories about why he wears an eye patch that get more and more ridiculous as he goes on, etc.

Chill with fans. He’s super casual and actually likes meeting fans. Will be cool with you if you’re cool with him and don’t treat him as some big celebrity. He’s just a random guy who makes a few videos on the internet and that’s how he wants everyone to see him.

Xaldin

A workout channel, of course! Does a series of different types of workout routines that are good for different people with different body types and different levels of energy. A very body positive channel! Also has a series on different types of diets and the positives and negatives of each - more in regards to living healthier lifestyles than losing weight.

Went viral during a collab with Lexaeus about healthy food and organic versus non-organic fruits and veggies.

Will definitely talk to fans if they meet on the street or by chance, but doesn’t really go to conventions. He does videos because he finds it fun, not because he wants to be famous.

Vexen

Has a Bill Nye the Science Guy type of channel where he teaches people about the wonders of science and how science can answer nearly every question you might have about the universe. Did a whole, scathing series about climate change that went completely viral and caused quite a few stubborn conservatives to condemn his channel, but he’s fairly well-liked throughout the entirety of the scientific community.

One of those rare Youtubers that actually has a day job as a scientist for some fancy laboratory or university.

Doesn’t really like meeting fans because he doesn’t know how to talk to people, but will happily talk if someone strikes up a conversation that happens to be particularly intriguing.

Lexaeus

Honestly, this man has a cooking channel, but the actual cooking content varies. He has a whole series about cooking tips and hacks, as well as good tools to have in your kitchen. Videos concerning food range from beautiful aesthetic baking recipes for cookies and cupcakes to an Epic Meal Time level of food insanity.

His fans are intimidated when approaching him because he’s so large and intimidating, but they soon realize that he’s actually a sweetheart and is happy to answer questions and give tips to his viewers when he meets them.

Zexion

Mostly does reviews about things. The majority of them are about books, but he’ll sometimes do movies if they were book-to-movie adaptations. His reviews are fair, brilliant, and well-thought out, so he’s actually been approached by several movie studios that wanted him to review scripts before they start production.

Feels like he’s awkward around fans but they don’t think so. Gets exhausted by social interaction so he’ll talk to people, but he has to take some time alone afterward to re-charge.

Saix

Makes How To videos and educational videos. Saix’s channel is something you stumbled across when looking for tips for writing a resumé or for tips when going into a job interview.

Fairly informative in his videos, if a bit long-winded. The videos are worth the full watch, though, because he has some scathing, dry humor that you enjoy.

Did a whole series on his channel about politics - the important of voting, explaining governmental processes, explaining impeachment, giving information about various candidates, etc. This is the series that really made his channel fly up in subscribers.

Awkward with fans and doesn’t know how to interact with people fawning over him. Stopped going to events after some girl groped his ass because he felt too uncomfortable.

Axel

A travel blog! He goes all over the world - worlds - exploring the sights and local favorite spots. He gets a little extreme sometimes because he likes to try everything, whether that’s scuba diving with sharks, sky diving, riding camels through a desert, rock and mountain climbing, etc., but he likes to have the full experience.

He also does gaming, mostly group games like PUBG or Overwatch or Gary’s Mod games that he can co-op with Roxas.

Absolutely loves meeting fans. He really cares about his fans and loves making conversations with them - everyone finds him really easy to talk to, so they flock to conventions when they hear he’s going to be in attendance.

Demyx

A music channel! He writes his own music, does covers of popular songs, experiments with different instruments, does online lessons and teaches how to tune certain instruments.

He also does some travel stuff with Axel, depending on where Axel happens to go. They always have a lot of fun together so they like to collab whenever they have the chance.

Adores meeting fans and gives some really awesome hugs!  Gets super excited and flattered whenever anyone recognizes him in public.

Luxord

Does a little bit of everything. Got popular with doing unboxing videos for different types of subscription boxes. Also does a follow-me around where he goes to different sights around his hometown and explores things. Has a series of videos about classic foods and snacks from England.

Surprisingly, he first went viral for a video explaining what Brexit was and why it was important to vote.. Everyone was super impressed with the resources and information that he gave in the video.

Doesn’t mind meeting fans but doesn’t go to conventions or events. He’s usually pretty busy, so he’ll probably stop for a picture and a handshake and be on his way.

Marluxia

Marluxia’s channel is a mash of makeup tutorials and gardening tips. He has the most phenomenal garden that people love to look at and makes videos about soil pH, fertilizer and composting, and which plants go well with different types of environments and weather.

But then he also has his beauty guru side where he makes these incredible makeup tutorials that people can’t understand how he can possibly have such a steady hand when doing his contour and eyeshadow.

Viewers are a combination of 60 year old men and women looking for gardening tips and teenagers looking for makeup tips. Is fine with talking with the teenagers but will absolutely have hour-long conversations with anyone who starts talking to him about his plants.

Larxene

Self-defense, particularly for women who need to protect themselves but they could be applied to men, too. Good friends with Xaldin and has him on her channel a lot, usually when she needs a test dummy to try out new moves on. It helps her viewers to know that even though she’s small, she can still take out guys twice her size - and that her viewers can, too!

Sometimes does makeup tests with Marluxia because she can make some wicked sharp eyeliner wings.

She’s pretty cool with meeting fans as long as you’re cool with her. Do not hit on her or think you have a right to monopolize her time just because you’re a fan. You will regret it.

Roxas

Roxas is first and foremost a gaming youtuber. He loves video games and would play them all day every day if he could. Sometimes does charity livestreams on Twitch and he’s raised a lot of money for good causes!

Doesn’t really have a particular kind of game he plays - has a fondness for Nintendo, but he’ll play a little of everything. it really depends on what kind of mood he’s in at the time.

Gets really shy around meeting fans but he loves his fans to pieces! He thinks that they’re all super awesome and give great recommendations for new games he should try.

Xion

Craft videos! Xion loves arts and crafts so you can bet that she’s going to be showing you how to make different projects in an easy and fun way that doesn’t cause too much stress. She also dabbles in trying different types of painting, sculpting, sketching, nail art, etc., and makes awesome tutorials that are easy to follow.

Gets embarrassed around fans because she’s super flattered that anyone would love her videos enough to watch them consistently.

Xion gets the occasional fan that’s a little… too familiar with her, but she usually has someone with her when she goes to cons and events, so they happily act as her bodyguard.

Collabs with other Youtubers a lot, particularly Lexaeus, to everyone’s surprise. They usually do videos together when Lexaeus makes some kind of sweet dessert.

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts headcanon #organization xiii #organization xiii headcanons

[adastra121]

The Arcana Magician AU

Fake magic AU, anyway. Or is it?

Asra

A master illusionist who specializes in card tricks, close-up magic, and fortune-telling

He travels very often, never staying in one place too long. No one really knows where he’ll show up next.

So he holds a lot of surprise performances across several different places around the world. His fans love it. They can never expect where his next performance is going to be, he just pops up and performs.

It usually leads to a brief period of trending on social media.

Asra has a very mysterious but calming presence about him during his performances — it pulls you in until you can’t look away.

He uses effects sometimes — fog, lights and water, for instance — but unlike other extravagant and flashier performances, *cough cough* lucio his effects are always done very elegantly. It looks as beautiful and natural as if he wields actual magic.

He is a magician to hide the fact that his magic is real.

Sometimes his assistant, Faust, might make an appearance and help him out. He might also get his volunteers to interact with her, though sometimes it takes some warming up if they have a fear of snakes.

I feel like he’s the type who would use magic tricks to flirt. Something sweet and a little corny, like having you check to see all the cards are there, shuffle the deck and pass them back to him, only for him to reveal that somehow, all the heart cards have moved from the deck and into your pocket. Because you have his heart (I’m not sorry).

Julian

Professional escape artist

Manages to get out of literally any deadly situation — safes? Cages? Chains? You name it, and he’ll get out of it alive.

Most of the time, his brush with death is not even the most shocking part of his acts.

People are often more amazed seeing him fit into the tight, cramped spaces required for some of his tricks, what with his ridiculously long limbs.

He’s got a signature flair for the dramatic. He can decide to keep his audience in suspense.

He’s also got a knack for story-telling. His are acts usually built to follow a certain narrative he’s written for the show. So the audience isn’t just watching daring escapes from harrowing situations — they’re also listening to a dramatic story about murder and intrigue, or haunted memories or swashbuckling pirates.

His fans love the story-telling aspect, especially when volunteers get to play a part in the story.

Bird aesthetic costumes

He’s also someone who would try to do romantic things with magic tricks. I can see him using what basics he knows about sleight of hand to randomly produce flowers out of thin air (I mostly see this because of that one CG with the flower, it was beautiful).

Nadia

An elegant mentalist who easily captivates her audience, most famous for her mindreading.

She also performs hypnosis, though she is not as well-known for it. However, she did once convince two volunteers that they were a hare and a deer, a fan’s video of which briefly went viral, so...

At her shows, her mindreading acts are quite simple. Like locating a ball — the colour chosen by the audience without her knowledge — out of multiple different coloured balls underneath several identical cups while blindfolded.

Or having an object randomly tossed into the audience and having her identify which audience member has it without seeing where it was thrown or where it has landed.

No one knows how she does it. She might just be highly observant or skilled in pattern identification.

She is probably just scarily intuitive and she uses her career as a magician to cover up the fact that she actually has powers

She isn’t just a performer. She also owns a few established venues for magic shows and volunteers for charities in her spare time.

Her fans see her as a goddess for her regal and elegant demeanour — and for the flawless execution of her magic tricks.

She’s good friends with Portia, having known her since she was still performing with her brother.

Nadia would probably use her mind powers skills of observation to tease a special someone about their attraction to her, only if she knows they aren’t bothered by it.

Portia

One of the newer magicians on the scene, but her popularity’s steadily rising

Used to be Julian’s assistant for a while until she developed an interest in performing herself. They’re very supportive of one another.

Now she and Pepi perform their own shows — yes, she does the hat trick with the cat.

She’s still exploring, still seeing what she likes best, so every show brings on a different challenge for her and something new for the audience. No complaints from the people watching her performances, though. They end up amazed no matter what.

Her onstage presence is warm, charming, and incredibly exuberant. It’s like she never runs out of energy and the audience is her friend.

It’s hard to leave her shows without a smile, hence her rapidly growing fanbase.

She performs most of her shows in her home country, but she expresses an enthusiastic desire to do shows in other countries as well. Maybe sometime in the future, after she’s gained more popularity.

The audience loves Pepi, she’s a fan favourite who gets along with everyone.

She seems the type to use small magic tricks to flirt — small and sweet things like pulling a coin out of your ear. It’s an excuse to gently brush her fingers on your face or hair.

Lucio

A famous magician who performs grand shows in grand venues

One of the flashy magicians who always use lots of special effects (like fire, for example), light shows, fog machines, all that standard pizzazz.

He also incorporates swords and a sharp metal gauntlet in his acts to add an element of danger.

Tickets for his shows cost a small fortune, but the performances are always worth it.

They might be a bit over-the-top, but they’re never boring.

He throws those afterparties that you’d need a special pass to get into. All sorts of celebrities and rich people show up to these things.

Somehow these parties manage to be even more extravagant than his shows.

Neither is for the faint of heart, that’s for sure.

He definitely has an attention-grabbing presence onstage, whether you find it fun and bold or just loud and ostentatious. Love him or hate him, you won’t be able to turn away from the show.

And yeah, he would definitely use magic tricks to impress someone special, only he’d probably do something a lot bigger than just making flowers or gifts appear in the palm of his hand. He’d use special effects and make it a grand spectacle — people nearby would think it’s a proposal, but he’s probably just celebrating a one-week anniversary.

#there’s a bit of romance but not too much #i can’t really imagine muriel being magic performer for crowds #so i’d welcome any add-ons! #not just for muriel but for everyone else too! #the arcane game #the arcana game #the arcana #asra alnazar #nadia satrinava #count lucio #portia devorak #julian devorak #magician au #au #headcanons

[shireness-says]

A Drowning Soul Will Clutch at Any Straw

Summary: Though this is far from Killian Jones' first encounter with a mermaid, he's never met any quite like this blonde siren. Together, can they break a cruel curse? Rated T for language. ~13.3K. Also on AO3. 

~~~~~

A/N: It’s here - my entry for @cssns 2k19! Thanks to the mods for organizing this again, my beta @snidgetsafan, and ESPECIALLY to @hollyethecurious, who’s created this lovely photoset for the fic. It’s posted on her page as well - definitely go check it out and give her some love. 

Tagging my usuals and those who showed interest in the sneak peek: @kmomof4, @teamhook, @snowbellewells, @scientificapricot, @winterbaby89, @mythologicalmango

Enjoy!

~~~~~

It’s agreed upon on every shore of this realm’s oceans: Killian Jones is one hell of a captain.

He’s not just saying that either, as vain as it sounds - he’s proved it, many times over. After all, who else can boast of having not only evaded every nation’s navy for as long as he has, but outrun curses, cut through the most treacherous of waters, and even discovered every secret way in and out of Neverland? No, in this case, as in all others (a pirate he may be, but he still prides himself on being a true gentleman), his word is worth its weight in gold.

Yes, Killian Jones prides himself on being the best captain this realm has ever seen, able to handle everything fate and the sea has thrown his way for well over a century. This storm, however, is testing every moment of his vast experience and all the seafaring instincts he possesses.

It had arisen suddenly and without warning. This isn’t a corner of the world Killian or his crew have ever visited before, a remote island he’s never even seen on any of his maps. Smee had heard a rumor though, in a seedy tavern in a seedy town while the rest of them had been more concerned with finding spirits and female companionship, of a glorious treasure hidden on a secret island. In all his years, Killian has never been one to turn down treasure, and this rumor is no different. Sure, it might not lead anywhere, but at this point, what do any of them have to lose? With the Dark One long since disappeared and the king who killed Liam even longer since overthrown, they’re only in this now for the thrill of it all. Treasure hunting seems just as good a pastime as any.

The rumor had neglected to mention whatever magical enchantments are protecting the island, however - because mark his words, there’s something unusual about this storm, something otherworldly. Killian has been around for a long while, and has seen a lot of things, but a storm spontaneously forming in a matter of minutes from what was a cloudless sky and calm seas is not one of them. He’s been around long enough, too, to recognize magic, and the air here practically reeks with the stuff. Something more is a play here - something sinister. And until they can identify it and defeat it, he and his men are left clinging to drenched ropes as the Jolly tilts precariously from side to side.

“Turn us into the waves, Mr. Smee!” He yells over the crush of noise. “Let’s work with this storm instead of against it!”

“Aye aye, Captain!” The stout man yells back. His red hat is obviously drenched through, but for some unimaginable reason he still insists on wearing the stupid thing. Frivolities aside, he’s a good first mate, able to get the other men to follow orders quickly and efficiently, leaving Killian free to scan the waves for whatever might be causing this. He’s got his suspicions already, based off his long experience in Neverland, and if he can just spot something amongst the waves —

— There. A flash of silver, too bright to be just the light on the waves, and a lilting feminine voice he shouldn’t be able to hear over the storm around them.

“Prepare the nets, Mr. Smee!” He calls. “There’s a merbitch in the water, and I’ve got a mind to go fishing!”

With a target in mind, the men cheer before scurrying to man their stations, guiding the ship into position as Killian directs them to capture their quarry.

He’ll give the scaly cunt this much: she fights back. Hard. For the first time in decades, Killian is genuinely concerned that the Jolly Roger will capsize as the waves rise higher and higher all around them. It’s easy to miss the flash of her tail amongst the squall, but Killian and the crew do their best to keep her in sight, teams of men working with nets to trap and entangle her. And eventually, their efforts succeed.

Killian expects the mermaid to be spitting mad when they haul her aboard - he certainly would be, in her position - but he’s shocked by her… acceptance isn’t quite the word. There’s still too much defiance, too much fire in her eyes to truly call it that. But she doesn’t fight back either, or curse them all to a variety of watery hells even as lightning strikes dangerously close to the ship. Instead, she tilts her chin upwards as Killian approaches, his sword drawn and resting against his shoulder in a contradictory move between threat and casualness, making sure to meet his eyes. All the while, she continues singing, her words melodically wrapping around them both - and almost certainly controlling this storm, like the sirens of legend. She’s dooming them with her very voice.

“Anything to say for yourself, siren?” he sneers. He almost hopes she does - would welcome the chance to rid them of such a predator, even one wearing such a pretty face.

The singing doesn’t stop, though, even as she stares boldly into his face. With her arms still tangled in the net, it’s her only means of defense, and she seems intent on using it. If it wasn’t obvious how she was summoning the storm before, it is now as a bolt of lightning cracks down dangerously close to the ship as her singing crescendos. He may have the weapons, but in this fight for their lives, it’s obvious who’s winning.

It’d be so easy to just gut the fish-woman where she lies, dispatch her like the monster she’s currently behaving as, but something makes him look closer, push past the noise echoing in his ears to really examine the creature in front of him. Her expression is a careful blank mask, only the bold set of her chin betraying any emotion or personality, but her eyes… her eyes are brimming with emotion. Horrifically human. Confoundingly pleading.

End this, they beg. End me.

Killian raises his sword to strike.

———

He shouldn’t have done it - left her alive, that is.

He’d been fully prepared to end her, for the sake of his whole crew, but at the last moment he had knocked her out with the hilt of his sword instead. Something about those eyes… he couldn’t do it. They’d been a little too human, a little too female, and he’s always prided himself on being a gentleman.

(There’s also the fact that after decades, centuries, he’s bloody bored, and he can’t deny that there’s something intriguing about the mermaid who asks for death. She’s a mystery, a pleasant diversion, and he can’t bring himself to kill the first interesting thing to happen to him in ages.)

Regardless of method, the storm had abruptly stopped as soon as the mermaid had been knocked into unconsciousness, black skies giving way again to the rosy colors of a sunset at sea, which had been the goal all along. Killian had just taken a slightly different path to get there. After that, they had located the largest tub they could find and relocated it to the brig, where it had been filled with water behind the iron bars before their unexpected guest was deposited in it and locked up. It’s true that Killian Jones may be a pirate, but he’s not a cruel man, not without severe provocation, and it seems a bit much to beach the siren, so to speak, if she’ll be with them for any amount of time.

For now, she’s still unconscious, and Killian is left playing the waiting game. He’s got a fair few questions for their piscine guest, after all. He can’t help but examine her form in the meantime, driven both by boredom and the desire to be there the very moment she wakes up. There’s something more intimidating about waking up to find the captain present, after all, as if already waiting to dole out judgement and punishment. He could tell himself that his examination is just precautionary, sizing up the enemy, but the truth is that his appreciation is much more aesthetic. The mermaid is, in a word, striking - a little too dangerous to be pretty and a little too real to be otherworldly. She could be the very source of all the tales of sirens’ dangerous beauty. The lantern’s light reflects almost blindingly off her silver-scaled tail in the darkness of the brig, though with this closer proximity he can pick up glints of blue and green amongst the metallic sheen where it hangs lazily over the edge. Her hair is blonde and tousled by the waves, the wet locks drying before his eyes into a mess of curls. A smattering of small braids twines through the strands, though he can’t tell from here whether they’re simply intended for looks or as a small effort towards taming the way it must all billow around her head underwater. Her breasts are covered by some contraption made of seaweed and shells, which strikes Killian as a bit odd; he’s spent a good amount of time with mermaids during his many years in Neverland, and they’ve never been particularly known for their modesty. Her skin, apart from her shimmering tail, is pale - pale in a way that betrays how rarely she must seek out the surface. Again, odd - most mermaids sun themselves on the rocks like lazy cats and pick up quite the tan for their efforts. The paleness of her skin makes her seem more dangerous in a way he can’t quite put his finger on - the remoteness it suggests, perhaps, or the way it displays the scars collected on her torso and arms. Perhaps the business of turning ships into toothpicks is more dangerous than he gave her credit for.

Killian realizes he’s wandered closer than he intended at the same moment that he hears her breathing minutely change, and hurriedly takes a step back. Only moments later, her eyes flutter open, scanning her surroundings with brows furrowing in confusion before settling on where he leans faux-casually against a wall.

“It’s rude to stare, you know,” she quips, rolling her eyes - also unlike any other mermaid he’s had the questionable pleasure to meet, who were all vain creatures who revelled in any form of male attention. Sarcasm and cheek were not in their vocabulary - just jealousy, pettiness, and a simpering vanity he’d quickly tired of.

(He notes, too, that this mermaid’s voice is all gravelly, like she hasn’t spoken in a long while. And who knows - way out here in this forgotten corner of the world, that just might be true.)

“Can you blame a man?” he asks, pushing off the wall to saunter closer again. “It’s not often we have such lovely ladies on this ship. Or any ladies, really. And when I’ve got one so alluring in front of me… well. I’m only human, lass.”

She makes a noise that might almost be a laugh, something that might almost be a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth, before sobering again. Killian doesn’t like that nearly as well. “You should have killed me,” she states. Matter-of-fact. Looking right at Killian, as if to best drive her point home.

It doesn’t work.

“Ah, well, you see, about that. I didn’t.” It’s probably - definitely - too lighthearted for the subject at hand. “I am, however, quite intrigued as to why you’d want that in the first place. I’ve been sitting here asking myself, ‘What kind of mermaid creates the storm of the century, almost sinks our ship and kills the entire crew, only to ask for death when she’s caught instead of smiting us all to smithereens?’ Don’t think I didn’t notice that very impressive lightning, love, because it did not escape my notice that you could have doomed every last one of us in a second.”

“The cursed kind,” she fires back. “The kind that doesn’t want to kill anyone in the first place.”

“Seems a little far fetched,” he comments, because it does. Even in a land bursting with magic, it sounds like the plot of a tall tale. A mermaid - a woman? - cursed to do terrible things against her will. How ridiculous.

“Well, it’s the truth.”

“And how did you get cursed, pray tell?”

“The usual way,” she replies, smiling like she knows just how much this crypticness is irritating him. She probably does. Finally, some way she’s like every other mermaid of his experience.

“And for those of us less experienced with curses?” He almost certainly sounds exasperated, and couldn’t care less about it.

“There was a witch. I’m sure you can piece together the rest.”

“Gods, but you are maddening,” Killian mutters under his breath. It must not be that quiet, though, as he can spot the mermaid’s mouth twitching back towards a smile. “So let me get this straight. You were cursed by a witch for some reason - I assume you won’t be so courteous as to tell me why?” She shakes her head on a smirk. “Of course not. So you’re cursed by a witch, and spend the next gods know how long forced to sink any ship that comes into your territory. Is that about right?”

“That’s the gist of it,” she agrees. “I haven’t had legs since Stephen the Second of Misthaven, if that clears matters up at all.”

Killian does the math in his head - once, then again when his first result seems too absurd to be believed. “That’s over six hundred years!”

She shrugs. “I’ll trust you on that. There’s not much way to track time, down below the surface. I’m sure you can imagine, the years all start to blend together eventually.”

He does know - better than she could have guessed. After all, he’s an almost three hundred year old man who just met the only person in existence older than him. It takes a swig from his ever-present flask to really move past that.

“So you’ve been cursed for six centuries,” he reasons out, “and not once have you tried to do anything about it? There’s no way to break your curse? No mortality clause?”

“You think I haven’t tried?” she scoffs. “I know this curse better than anything else in this realm, or any other. I know exactly where the boundaries of my bay are, the markers I can’t cross without swimming face first into invisible walls. The singing is beyond my control. I don’t need food to survive, or air, or daylight. The only way out of this curse is death, and I can’t even manage that.”

It’s horrifying to hear her speak so callously of her search for a way out of her curse by any means, but Killian supposes he can almost understand it. She’s had her free will ripped away for hundreds of years; having lived through that particular nightmare himself as a slave in his youth, he can understand how it would drive a man, or woman, to madness. The longevity of this curse really is striking; Killian doesn’t consider himself an expert on magic by any means, but he does know that generally, curses don’t last past the death of the person who cast it. It suggests other, just as impossible things - namely, that this sorceress is still alive somewhere.

“What about the witch?” he asks. “Did you ever attempt to track her down again?”

“Did you miss the part where I couldn’t leave my territory?” she shoots back in her dry, sarcastic voice. “Doesn’t leave much opportunity for searching for witches, even if I wanted to. She used to come to the island, it felt like to taunt me, but even that stopped ages ago. Decades, perhaps even a century or two.”

She had mentioned her barriers before. Killian feels like a little bit of a numbskull for not retaining it, honestly. “Aye, well, consider this my cordial invitation to assist you in such a quest,” he declares pompously, sketching an elaborate bow towards the barrel. It’s only mostly an attempt to save face - he would have offered anyways. He’s always had a soft spot for damsels in distress, after all.

She doesn’t seem to take him at his word however, snorting and rolling her eyes at the offer. “Be serious, Captain. It’s not nice to tease.”

“I assure you, milady, I’m deadly serious,” he returns.

“It’s a terrible idea. You don’t even know my name, you just think you’ve heard some sob story and want to watch it play out,” she argues.

“Killian Jones,” he replies, introducing himself as a counterargument. “Feared pirate of the seven seas - though many are more familiar with my more colorful moniker. Hook. And you are…?”

“That still doesn’t answer what you expect to get out of this.” He’s not sure if it could be considered a true deflection, but it’s definitely a blatant avoidance of his question - whether to protect herself or leave him in the dark, he’s not sure. Maybe a bit of both. The mermaid certainly seems to enjoy annoying him.

More to the point, it’s a good question she poses, as Killian isn’t quite sure what he actually expects out of this. He’s not usually given towards such generosity - rather against the pirate code, and all that. He’s not operating a charity. The mermaid in front of him though… he couldn’t tell you why, but he keeps coming back to the word interesting. He’s never met anyone quite like her, on legs or fins - an intriguing mix of danger and allure and just a touch of tragedy. Killian has been a bit at loose ends ever since he discovered that his Dark One problem took care of itself, and like it or not, hearing about the problems of cursed mermaids is a welcome diversion, as ridiculous as that feels to admit. The truth is that he wants to help her if only to see all this play out, and maybe try to figure out the woman in front of him a little along the way.

(There’s also the fact that he dislikes witches even more than he mistrusts mermaids, but she definitely doesn’t need to know that.)

That honest reason is a little too personal, however, so Killian quickly spins a different excuse. “A clear path to whatever treasure is hidden on that island would be nice,” he offers, smirking in a way that he hopes will sell his facade of being just a greedy pirate. It’s a good enough excuse, and he’s not so intrigued by their finned guest that he’s already forgotten how he and the crew stumbled into this mess in the first place.

The snort is back. Again. It seems to be his guest’s default reaction - sarcasm and completely rejecting whatever he has to say. It’s a bit off-putting, but he supposes allowances have to be made for those who haven’t had proper human interaction in hundreds of years. “If you’re searching for treasure, you’re going to be disappointed,” she confides. “There’s nothing on that island. Never was. Ages ago, witches used to meet here for coven meetings or some shit - that’s why I’m here, to protect the island from any meddlers - but that dropped off ages ago. It’s just a bunch of rocks up there - no gold, no jewels, no buried treasure. Nothing. So if that’s your reason for offering to help me, it’s not worth your time. Kill me now, or toss me back into the sea, but I can’t give you what you seek.”

That’s not it, though, not really. Yes, treasure and riches beyond all their imaginings would be nice, but his desire to keep this woman on his ship for a little while longer has nothing to do with it. Instead, he settles on bluster. “Like I said, love, I’m a simple man, with simple pleasures, and one of those is having enchanting women aboard my ship.” It must not work, however, as she fixes him with an unimpressed look - or at least, as unimpressed a look as she can manage while in such an undignified position. Still, it’s enough for Killian to quickly cave. “And, maybe, your witch hunt is the most interesting thing I’ve come across in years.”

She fixes him with a searching look for a moment longer, before finally nodding. “Alright, then, you’ve got a deal.”

“That’s what did it?” Killian demands incredulously. “Everything else I’ve said, and it’s boredom that you buy, out of all that?”

“I understand boredom,” she replies simply. “After all this time, it’s an old friend.”

Kindred spirits. He supposes he can believe that.

“In that case, welcome aboard, Miss…?”

“Emma,” she finally smiles, trusting him with her name like it’s her greatest secret. “Emma Swan.”

———

The first order of business is setting the men to work building an even larger tub for their fish-tailed guest. The original had been fine for a prisoner, but her tail doesn’t fit all the way inside, the iridescent flipper at the end obviously hanging over the edge and losing its sheen as it dries out. An invited guest deserves a bit more comfort - or at least to be able to fully submerge her tail. They’d seriously debated just releasing her back into the ocean to swim alongside the Jolly, but there’d been some uncertainty about whether her curse would allow it. After her talk of invisible walls she can’t cross, it seems like that the only reason she’s been able to leave her cove is because they’d hauled her aboard and forcibly carried her away from the bounds of her prescribed territory. He and Emma are both a little concerned about what might happen if she were returned to the water. Magic is so intrinsically involved with all of this; would it transport her right back to where it’s deemed she belongs? The larger tub may still be uncomfortable, but at least they can be sure she’ll stay put.

Somewhat more uncomfortable is the fact that the finished container is installed in the captain’s quarters - Killian’s quarters. Though ruthlessly organized, the Jolly is a small ship, and each inch is precious for storage and housing the crew. Besides the brig, only Killian’s space offered enough room to hold the container Emma would be calling hers for the indeterminable future. Between that and the windowless cell, it hadn’t really been much of a choice. It’ll be more convenient as he and Emma attempt to chart a course anyways - or at least that’s how Killian tries to convince himself.

“It’ll still be close quarters, I’m afraid. Not much privacy,” he apologizes, reaching to scratch behind his ear in an expression of embarrassment that makes him feel like some bashful youth again.

“What, are you the only modest pirate in existence?” Emma asks, mouth twisted into a smirk at his expense. “I’m a big girl, Jones, I’ve been around men before. It’ll be fine. I’ll even cover my eyes while you undress, if it makes you feel better.”

“That’s not —” he tries to protest, before sighing. “Fine. Good. Let’s do this, then.”

He’d carried her before, from the deck down here to the brig while she was unconscious, but it’s a different thing now when Emma’s awake and an ally and someone he has to be careful with. The weight isn’t an issue - he’s carried rum barrels heavier than her, though the pure muscle that makes up her tail is rather heavier than he expected of someone who is otherwise so slight - but with the woman in question awake to wrap her arms around his neck in an attempt to make the maneuver easier, it seems very intimate. One breast presses softly against his chest through her bodice and his shirt, and he’s suddenly very aware of every inch of bare skin his hand is touching along her back. It was easier to ignore such things when she was a nameless enemy - now that he’s seen a little of the woman in his arms, it just feels like an invasion of her privacy and a step in whatever this alliance is that neither of them was ready to take, especially him. The whole thing does nothing to help the blush that’s already established residence across his cheekbones, and he can feel Emma quivering with suppressed laughter in his arms.

“Shut up and watch your head,” he mutters as they begin the trek up the rickety wooden stairs, finally working a full laugh out of Emma. It’s nice to hear, though rough around the edges in the same way her voice was at first. Killian supposes she hasn’t had much reason to laugh in a long while either.

“Aye aye, Captain,” she chuckles as he begins the ascent.

It’s more than a little cramped in his cabin, what with the tub competing for space with all his regular furniture. There’s not even that many pieces - just a table and chairs, the bed, a storage cabinet and a handful of trunks - but the Jolly isn’t a particularly large ship, and the Captain’s cabin is no different; space has always been more a dream than a reality.

“Sorry about the clutter,” he offers bashfully. Embarrassment isn’t a common feeling for Killian; the pirate’s life doesn’t lend itself well to shame. Something about having a lady in his quarters, however - particularly this lady, and particularly knowing she’ll be here for the foreseeable future - brings back that youthful kind of anxiety of wanting everything to be perfect. It almost makes him wonder if he’s been put under some spell, like in the mermaid tales of old, but dismisses it as ridiculous. There’s limits to what he’s willing to believe, especially where this particular mermaid is concerned.

“It’s fine, really,” Emma replies, reclining gracefully in her makeshift tank. “It’s a nice change to be surrounded by such… human things after so long under the sea. The view doesn’t hurt either,” she adds, gesturing widely towards the square paned windows lining one wall, displaying the sea in all her dangerous glory. It’s a favorite view of Killian’s as well, especially now when the sky is just starting to turn all the colors of the sunset, each one reflected between the peaks of the waves. It’s the only thing that really sets the captain’s cabin apart from any others, except for the extra privacy.

“Aye, it’s really something, isn’t it,” he murmurs softly, allowing himself to share a moment of reflection with his guest before snapping himself back to himself. “You said you were from Misthaven? If we’re going to do this, we should set a proper course.”

“Yes, Misthaven. It was just a little village, though, it didn’t even really have a name that I was aware of.”

“If I got out my maps, do you think you could recognize the area, at least?” As Killian asks, he’s already moving.

“I think so. Worth a shot, at least,” Emma agrees.

Grabbing the appropriate map, Killian tosses it on the table top before pushing the whole thing as close as he can to where Emma reclines. As soon as the surface gets close enough, Emma rearranges herself in the tub to prop her arms on the table, splashing a little as she turns in the tub. They’re going to need plenty of towels, Killian realizes suddenly. Oh, what logistical things you don’t consider when you agree to house a mermaid in your quarters.

Quickly, he unrolls the map and weighs it down with a handful of paperweights. “Do you remember anything else? Any starting point?”

“It was on the eastern coast,” Emma replies, tilting her head in thought and squinting into the distance. “There was a little island nearby in the sound, too, but I don’t think anyone lived there.”

They continue like that for the next hour, eventually narrowing it down to three possible sites - all once tiny fishing hamlets, all now sizable towns, and in one case a bustling city. A lot can happen in 600 years, as it turns out.

They’ve got a plan, now, but Killian is left with more questions - namely, the particulars of his companion’s curse.

“I don’t suppose you want to share why you were cursed?” he asks casually, leaning against the cabinet with a smirk.

“Not unless you want to explain how a nice Navy boy became a notorious pirate,” she smirks back.

It immediately throws Killian off whatever game he was playing - probably her intention all along. She shouldn’t know anything about that. “How do you know about that?” he demands, straightening to attention.

“I’ve got hundreds of years’ experience with ships. Of course I can recognize a Royal Naval vessel, even dressed as a pirate ship,” she declares loftily. It only lasts a moment though before she relaxes back into that smirk. “And I saw all the old Naval manuals on your shelf. I figured a pirate who took the ship would most likely just get rid of them, but someone who kept them probably had a sentimental reason to.”

“So a guess,” he concludes.

“Ah, but a good one,” she winks. “So, are you going to tell me?”

“Perhaps another day,” Killian smiles tightly. Truthfully, he doesn’t have any intention of telling her; his memories of the Navy are far too tied up with his memories of Liam, and he’s not sure he’ll ever be ready to share them. “And you?”

“Perhaps another day,” she echoes.

They’ve done more than enough sharing for the day.

———

There’s unexpected things you learn when you’re living with a mermaid, as Killian comes to discover.

He learns within the first few days that she’s a voracious reader, whipping through the adventure novels he keeps beneath the window. It alleviates a lot of the guilt he feels about leaving her alone all day while he goes about the business of leading a crew above decks. She’s meticulously careful about it, too, making sure to never drip on the pages. Killian happily leaves her a stack of books in the morning, and usually she’s completed one by the end of the day - oftentimes more, especially if she picks a short volume or books of poetry. It’s one of the things he hadn’t really thought about - how she must not have heard any new stories in centuries. How lonely she must have been in her corner of the sea, he can’t help but think, starved both for companionship and any news of the outside world.

More surprising are her dining habits - or lack thereof, rather. He’d brought her dinner that first night - nothing fancy or unusual, just some fish they’d caught earlier in the day and a few hardtack biscuits to wash it down with - only for Emma to stare at the plated offerings with an odd look on her face. It’s not quite confusion, and stops shy of suspicion, but it’s definitely not enthusiasm either. As Killian really processes what he’s offered her, he flushes. Again. Gods, what is it about this woman that’s turned him back into some blushing youth?

“I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about the fish thing,” he apologizes, moving to whisk the plate away again. “That would be rather macabre, wouldn’t it? Let me get you something else —”

She waves him off, though, pulling the plate back with her other hand. “Jones, it’s fine. You are aware of how many fish subsist on other fish, right? It’s not an issue.”

He furrows his brow in confusion. “What seems to be the problem, then? I don’t mean to pry, but you seem hesitant about this meal.”

“I don’t eat,” she explains simply. “Or at least I don’t need to. I can, but it’s not necessary for my survival.”

“That seems… odd.”

“It does, until you remember the curse. It’s very determined to keep me alive no matter what - not needing food is just another way to keep me from depriving myself of it.” Starve herself to death, she means, but they’re both tactful enough not to say it.

“So when you say you don’t eat…” he trails off in question.

“I mean that I haven’t in a very, very long time. Longer than I can remember. Kelp and seaweed and raw seafood don’t make for a very appetizing meal, as it turns out,” she teases lightly.

“Then allow me to present you with the feast of a lifetime,” Killian declares with a smile and a dramatic flourish. “The finest hardtack on the seven seas. By which I mean it will still break a tooth if you’re not careful. Shall I pour some wine with dinner?”

“By all means,” Emma smiles, gesturing with a regal air from her tub. Somehow, she still manages to look like a queen, even in such a ridiculous setting.

(It’s the best dinner he’s had in a long time, despite the simple menu, and he thinks it just might be due to his new companion.)

There’s a multitude of other little things he learns as the days pass - like the way that she softly snores if she’s not submerged completely underwater, or how she loves to debate any subject he brings up (and articulately, at that, though her sources sometimes need a little updating after centuries of isolation), or the way she rolls her eyes when he spouts off a particularly clever innuendo. Maybe it’s just his own years of loneliness talking, but it’s nice, having her companionship. Someone he doesn’t have to be the captain with, who he can talk to over books or dinner and who makes him smile. It’s something he could get used to over time, if allowed, even if the idea of that - of coming to depend on someone again - is a little bit terrifying.

As well as they get along, the fact is that Emma is still a full-sized mermaid residing in an oversized tub. It’s not a lot of space, and Killian’s impressed that she’s lasted as long as she has. In her proverbial shoes, he would have long since been driven mad by the close confines - probably have been constantly plagued by cramps as well. So he completely understands when she finally caves and asks to be returned to the open ocean, if only for a little exercise.

“Maybe I’ve been a mermaid for too long, but I’m antsy, knowing the ocean is right there and I’m still here in this stupid basin,” she explains. “I know we still don’t know what will happen, now that I’m so far from where I’m supposed to be, but… I need to try it. You can stay right there to try and pull me back if you like, just… Please. I need this.”

“Of course, love.” She needn’t ask twice.

In case some bizarre magic portal does open beneath where Emma enters the water, they do make the decision for Emma to be lowered to the water in a rowboat with Killian instead of just diving off the rail of the Jolly like he’s sure she could do easily. They almost certainly make quite the picture, the mermaid and the one-handed pirate together in the little craft being lowered to the water, but any absurdity is worth the look of excitement on Emma’s face.

As soon as she slips into the water, still grasping his hand and empty wrist (and that doesn’t send little quivers of some feeling quivering through his veins, not at all), it’s easy to hear her audible sigh of relief.

“Feels nice, does it?” he grins down to where Emma’s head is just peeking out of the water. If he thought her tail was beautiful in the dim light of the brig or in the cramped confines of her tub, it’s nothing to the way that the scales glisten here in the open water, their iridescence reflecting in every color of the rainbow as her tail sways gently back and forth beneath the surface, keeping her buoyant.

“I can’t even describe it,” she admits, smiling right back. “It feels wonderful.” She takes a deep breath before exhaling once again. “I’m going to try letting go,” she announces.

“Aye, alright,” Killian agrees. “Slowly? To be safe?”

Emma seems to be barely listening for the anticipation of it all, but still nods as she removes her hand from his left wrist. With a final exhalation and a nod of determination, she slowly releases his hand as well to float of her own accord, still within reach of Killian and the boat but entirely self-supported in the water.

“I think it’s alright,” she smiles brilliantly, quickly dunking herself under the surface so that her hair floats out in all directions, weightless against the flow of the water. “Better than.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Killian smiles back. “Enjoy your swim.”

He’s fully prepared to retrieve his book from the waterproof sack he’d stowed it in for the descent from the deck, but Emma interrupts him before he can reach underneath the seat. “Aren’t you coming in too?” she asks, face screwed up in confusion.

“Not today, lass,” he replies, forcing himself to chuckle in a manner that hopefully reads as lighthearted. There’s a multitude of reasons he won’t get in the water - most of them relating to the lash scars still on his back - but mostly it comes down to the fact that he doesn’t want to. Well, that and the scars and the elaborate straps of his brace.

(The wenches in the port bars never mind too much that their encounters aren’t anything more than a quick, mostly-clothed fuck, so no one has seen all the damage to his body in years - and in the case of his mangled wrist, no one ever has. It’s a lot of vulnerability to show to a person, and he just doesn’t think he can handle that yet.)

Quickly, he busies himself trying to locate the volume as slowly as possible in hopes that it’ll keep Emma from digging any further. It doesn’t work. Not that he’s surprised - he’s fielded more than a few questions from her in the past days. She’s certainly inquisitive, he’ll give her that - though it’s bordering on nosy at times. This is definitely one of those.

“What, don’t you know how to swim?” she asks, the teasing clearly evident in her tone.

“Of course I do,” he replies absently, still focusing on avoiding her gaze and fishing the bag out from where it’s gotten caught beneath the bench. “I’ve known how to swim since I was young. Liam taught me.”

He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth, but tries not to tense up so much as to immediately give that away. It’d just been a slip of the tongue; he’d been so determined to not say anything about the physical scars he’d wanted to hide, he’d forgotten to guard against the emotional scars he’d already declared himself not ready to talk about. Maybe he’ll get lucky, maybe she’ll let it pass, maybe —

“Who’s Liam?” the silky voice cuts through. Of course she heard and wants to know more - she’s a clever one, Swan is, absorbing and processing everything around her at all times, including the things he’d rather she not examine.

It’s too late for that, though - the cat is already out of the bag, or whatever the proper oceanic comparison is. Sitting back upright, Killian takes a fortifying breath before replying. Perhaps if he answers her inquiries quickly and in a straightforward manner, it won’t hurt so badly. “Liam was my brother. Captain Liam Jones. He’s gone, now.”

Emma’s brows lower as she processes this, before something seems to click. “He was the one in the Navy.”

Killian nods. “Aye. To be fair, we both were. We were sent to find a medicinal plant, but when we discovered it… well. As it turns out, our king has more nefarious aims than we were aware of, and my brother died because of his faith in the bastard. Scratched himself with one of those damn thorns to prove to me that if was perfectly safe.”

“I’m sorry,” Emma murmurs. It almost looks like she wants to reach for him - in comfort, in companionship, in a pure human instinct that can’t be stifled even by a curse - but still doesn’t. It’s probably for the best; she is dripping wet, after all, and he doesn’t have any interest in her soaking him as well.

Killian jerks his head and shoulders into a little half-shrug, like it still doesn’t affect him in every corner of his soul. “What’s done is done,” he finally says. “But, needless to say, I wasn’t exactly eager to continue in the Navy after that, serving that evil son of a bitch. Drastic measures were taken, you might say, and I found myself the captain of a pirate ship. Spent the next several years crippling Navy ships until the king was deposed and replaced with a distant cousin.”

He expects that to be the end of it; he shares a painful memory, they both lapse into awkward silence, and eventually return to their solitary pursuits. Emma surprises him though, taking a deep breath as if to brace herself before making her own revelation.

“There was a man, once,” she tells him. “That’s what led to the curse.”

“You don’t have to —” Killian interrupts, trying to assure her that he doesn’t expect any reciprocity, but Emma shakes her head.

“It’s alright,” she tells him, “it’s only fair. Tit for tat, or something.” Another deep breath, and a smile that seems a little sad. “His name was Neal, he was a sailor, and I was… Gods, I was so in love. That all-consuming kind of love where they’re the light of your days and the center of your world. He was a crewman on a whaling ship, and I’d worry myself sick every time he left on a voyage. I was so convinced that one day, something would happen and he wouldn’t come back.

“But there was a witch in our village, too. Regina. She’d been there for longer than anyone could remember and never seemed to age a day; rumor had it that the apples on the tree in her garden granted her immortality, though I don’t know how true that was. She could do wonderful things, if you were willing to pay. I couldn’t pay, unfortunately, but I’d heard tell that she’d grant favors sometimes, if the cause was good enough. Or she’d find some other price for you to pay with. So I went to Regina and begged for a charm, a spell, something that would keep him safe. I swore up and down that we had true love, and that I couldn’t bear it if anything was to happen to him. And she agreed - with one condition. She’d grant me a little bit of enchanted cord he could wear to keep him from harm, if I granted her a strand of each of our hair so that she could bottle the essence of true love.

“And I agreed. I was so young, you know? And I believed, so much, that what we shared really was true love, the rarest and most precious magic of all. So I gave her a strand of my hair and found a strand of his and she gave me the cord in return.

“She was as good as her word, too; it worked. Not even six months later, his ship wrecked in a storm, leaving only a handful of survivors. Somehow, he was one of them. It was such a small price to pay for his safety, two strands of hair, especially since it worked.”

Killian won’t interrupt, not in the middle of something so important, but he has a terrible feeling about where this is going. It’s all a little too idyllic, a little too good to be true. Sure enough:

“I was so naive back then,” Emma continues with frustration seeping into her tone. “I thought that would be the end of the matter. I thought I was it for Neal, the same way he was for me. But only weeks after he returned, he met someone else. It wasn’t true love at all, and I suddenly hadn’t paid the price demanded. Maybe I had saved his life, but at the cost of my own. Regina turned me into this when she found out, trapped me in that cove, and I’ve been trying to find some way out of her curse ever since. You know the rest.”

“Aye, I do.” It’s an even sorrier tale than he imagined - a young woman, betrayed in love and forced to unimaginable sacrifice because of it. It makes him even more determined to find a way to free her from this, whatever it takes. “Thank you for telling me.”

“It was the right thing to do,” she says, shrugging. Killian thinks they might be alike in that way - two people just trying to rediscover that small bit of good form still left in the deepest corner of their souls, from back before time and circumstances turned them into the weathered creatures they are now. Neither one of them had particularly wanted to share the darkest moments in their long lives, but they’d unintentionally struck an agreement that first day - she’d share if he would - and Emma had stuck to that. Their alliance may have started tentatively, but it’s holding.

He’s more confident that ever that they’ll be able to break this thing.

———

Things shift, ever so slightly, in those days following their afternoon in the water. There’s a new trust between himself and Emma, born of those revelations and fostering a greater familiarity between the two. That’s something Killian hasn’t had in a long time. Sure, he has his crew, but he always has to wear the mask of “Captain” around them; when you’re supposed to be the man in charge, there’s no real room for emotional intimacy. Swan is different though - a guest, really, someone he doesn’t have any authority over and doesn’t need to. It’s refreshing, and offers him something he hasn’t had the opportunity for in years: friendship.

It’s the ease of their interactions that makes this so special, Killian realizes one night as he prepares for bed. Emma is settling down in her basin as well, setting whatever book she’s reading today aside and allowing herself to slide more completely beneath the water’s surface. He’s a little surprised that she’s so ready to go to sleep; she’d been unusually tired this afternoon, to the point that she’d napped in the cabin for several hours earlier. He’s surprised that she could still be tired after that, though he supposes if she’s that tired it would likely persist. Remembering how graceful and peaceful she’d looked that afternoon, one hand delicately draped over the edge of the tub as she emitted a soft whistle with every breath, Killian can’t help but smile - something she doesn’t miss, of course.

“What are you smirking at?” she demands, her own voice teasing.

“I think that seems a little harsh of a description,” he shoots back, sharpening what had actually been a relatively soft smile into a cocky grin. He likes this banter; they’re rather good at it, Killian thinks. “Personally, I think it was more of a dashing smile.”

“Fine then,” she huffs dramatically, even as a smile continues to pull at the corners of her mouth. “What are you ‘smiling dashingly’ about?”

“You, of course.” That part is the truth, even if he knows she won’t take it seriously.

Sure enough, she scoffs in response. “Please.”

“It’s true! What, I can’t smile about having a pretty lass in my cabin?”

“I bet you say that to all the women,” she replies, rolling her eyes.

“Only the ones I like,” he winks back.

It’s just a witty little thing to say, a spur of the moment comment, but it gets him thinking later, once all the lamps are extinguished and Emma has slipped below the water. It’s not possible that he fancies Emma Swan, is it? It shouldn’t be. They’ve known each other for such a short while, and even if he does feel a strong connection to the mermaid in his company, that’s probably just because she’s the closest human bond he’s had in ages. Killian doesn’t think that he’s ready for anything more serious, anyways, not when he still remembers all the pain of his Milah’s death. Emma will want to leave once her curse is broken; he can’t afford to get more attached to someone temporary.

Killian forces the matter from his mind. It can’t be anything deeper; that’s nonsense. If nothing else, it’s a matter for later.

With that, he rolls over to face the wall and drops into sleep.

———

In retrospect, they should have been more concerned about the water.

There hadn’t been any immediate, visible reaction when Emma had dived into the ocean, even if she was beyond her magically-imposed borders. All he could see was the relief as she stretched, executing lazy flips and twirls before surfacing again. After they’d moved past the downer of their mutual revelations, Emma had spent hours just swimming around, just because she could. She was beautiful like that, and free in a way Killian had never seen. The rest of the afternoon passed in a lazy haze with her in the water and he in the rowboat, no sign of danger to come on the horizon.

Even in the days immediately following, there’s no cause for concern. Sure, Emma is a little lethargic, but neither of them thinks anything of it; Killian is sure he’d be a little slow too if he was forced to sit in bed all day, every day for days on end.

Emma gets steadily worse as they get closer to port, however, until she’s a shivering, sweaty mess, as if struck by a fever. Her skin still holds that fish-like coldness, however, and she assures Killian that never once in her centuries of cursed life has she ever gotten sick. This is something else.

It’s easy connecting the dots after that. They’d been so foolish to underestimate her curse - after all, what else could this be? Maybe the curse didn’t have the power to magically transport her back to within the boundaries of her cove, but it turns out that it does have the power to slowly poison her should she enter unsanctioned waters, and that’s horrifically worse. Their mission had always been important - striving for someone’s freedom is the most noble cause, after all - but now it’s deadly crucial that they succeed, before the curse completes its own deadly aim.

“I’m alright,” Emma assures him once the Jolly makes landfall and he’s preparing to search out their witch. It’s a lie, and an obvious one at that; she’s sickly pale and trembling. Even an utter idiot could see that she’s far from fine. At least they know they’re in the right place; time is of the essence, but Emma had recognized the landscape and the curve of the coast beneath all the new population and its structure and monuments. “Go, find Regina. Her cottage was on the highest bluff, you should start looking there.”

When Killian reaches that bluff, however, there’s no cottage left to see. A tall stone fireplace still stands tall amongst the wild grasses and flowers, but that’s all that’s left to see. Nature has almost entirely reclaimed the site. Killian thinks he can spot the edges of bricks poking through the low mound that must cover the remains of the house, but even that seems a stretch.

Asking in the village-turned-city for the witch Regina doesn’t help either. No one has heard of a living person of that name and occupation, but they do all know of a legend, peculiar to this part of the world. In other circumstances, Killian might almost have enjoyed the tale: the story of a witch, alive for centuries, who fell in love with a common thief and ran off with him, taking nothing more than a sack full of the apples that had lengthened her life for so long before destroying the tree and letting her home crumble to rubble behind her. Unfortunately, he also knows that the best stories have their basis in truth, and there are just too many details that point to this fable chronicling what has happened to Regina, from the apples that kept her alive for hundreds of years to the house she supposedly lived in on that same bluff. A handful of old ladies even claim to remember her from their youth. It’s her, and it’s a dead end.

“She’s long gone, Swan,” he reports back to Emma, failing to hide the disappointment and sorrow and concern in his voice.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” she murmurs, gazing blankly into the middle distance. Still, she tries to smile a weak smile as she turns to meet Killian’s eyes. “Thank you for trying.” Despite the smile, her voice is resigned. It’s obvious she thinks this is the end.

“I’m not giving up so easily,” Killian fires back. “There must be someone who can undo this.”

“Who?” Emma asks. Her voice is edged with desperation in a way that Killian doesn’t like at all. “Witches can’t alter each other’s curses. Hell, this should have ended when Regina died, but it somehow didn’t. We are out of options.” She slumps back into the water as she finishes, clearly exhausted.

“I won’t believe that,” he insists. “I know a fairy, one whose specialty is True Love. Maybe she can help. Isn’t it worth trying, at least?”

“Fine,” she agrees, “but if it doesn’t work… it’ll be okay, Killian. I’ve lived a long enough life, and if this is how it ends, then so be it.” It’s the first time she’s called him by his first name, and it kills him that it’s in the middle of such a bleak moment.

“I’m not giving up so easily,” he repeats for lack of anything better to say, before moving to order his crew to set a new course.

This has to work.

———

Even if Killian does know every back way into Neverland, all the little cracks between realms and waterways unknown even to Peter Pan himself, he never relishes having to make that trip. He’ll go to his grave believing that cursed island to be Purgatory itself made real in the world. However, the Jolly now makes the journey faster than he thinks it ever has, all for a chance to save Emma before it’s too late.

Talking to Tink is a longshot; she’s technically not even a fairy anymore, having long since lost her wings in an incident she doesn’t like to talk about. Something about trying to help the wrong person find their true love. There’s also the small fact that she’s probably also furious with him after Killian left Neverland for good without taking her with him. In his defense, he had to take advantage of a rare moment when Pan was absent from the island and time was of the essence to escape before he returned. Come to think of it, it will be dangerous for Killian to return to Neverland at all, lest the demon Pan trap and possibly torture or kill him for the transgression, but that’s a risk he’s going to have to take. Tinkerbell knows more about True Love than anyone else he’s aware of, and he’s willing to risk anything, from feminine rage to Pan himself, if it will break Emma’s curse and save her life.

Emma herself has taken a decided turn for the worse, her condition deteriorating with every day and every hour. She’s started slipping in and out of consciousness, her waking moments still dominated by the feverish shaking that first plagued her. On top of everything, she’s constantly parched when she’s awake and aware, and her very skin seems incapable of retaining moisture. A mermaid lives and dies submerged in water, or should; now, it seems to have no effect. He can practically see her shriveling before his eyes as her skin turns rough and tight across her bones, her tail like sandpaper to the touch in places.

Killian has found himself spending a lot of time reading to Emma in her sickness, something that seems to calm both of them. There’s no telling if she hears his voice while she’s unconscious, but their adventure tales are one of the only things that can make her smile even a little bit anymore, so Killian keeps on doing it regardless of her conscious or unconscious state. It calms him a bit, too; he’s frantically worried about Swan nearly every hour of the day, and the reading at least lets him feel like he’s doing something. The depth of his concern had surprised him - after all, he’s only known Emma for a matter of weeks. However, after all the time they’ve spent together, all their talks, the way they were able to reveal things about themselves - hell, he even told her about Milah, the loss of his hand, and all the subsequent years in Neverland after that magical-seeming day in the water - he feels like he knows her, in a way he hasn’t known another human being in a very long time. Time is no hindrance to true emotional closeness and trust, and he knows beyond a doubt: Emma Swan trusts him, the same way he trusts her right back. He never would have thought that would be true after such a rough start, but somehow, it is.

She hasn’t woken at all today, and it scares him half to death. She’s still alive - there’s still a pulse in her wrists and neck. Killian checks periodically, and holds himself back from doing so any more often because of the way she whimpers at even the most gentle touch to her skin. They don’t have much time.

“Captain?” Smee interrupts, poking his head around the doorway and into the cabin. “We need your assistance on deck, we’re about to slip into Neverland.”

“I’ll be there momentarily, Mr. Smee.” As the little man hurries away, Killian leans in to check Emma’s pulse one more time. Still there, and still fighting. “Hang in there, darling, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he murmurs, brushing a lank curl away from her face before heading on deck.

———

Sneaking into Neverland is the easy part; Killian knows how to navigate these waters better than anyone else, and could practically steer them along the hidden currents straight into a hidden bay with his eyes closed. That’s not hard, not anymore, not after hundreds of years. He can handle the wheel with a practiced hand, and the crew knows these routes just as well as he does, moving as one body in a synchronized effort.

No, the hard part is traversing through the dense tropical jungle that covers almost every inch of this accursed island. When Killian had been here and forced to traverse the island regularly, there’d been a set of paths that he made sure to keep cleared. However, even the foliage has a mind of its own in a place so steeped in magic as Neverland, and vines, flowers, and all manner of other flora would quickly overtake even the most established of trails if not regularly traversed and cleared. After an absence of several years, the trails have become nigh on impassable, and Killian is forced to hack his way through the greenery with his sword with every step he takes, doing his best to avoid vicious thorns and especially the variety of intoxicants that grow so prevalently. He knows what each of them induces - vivid hallucinations, unconsciousness, unbearably heightened libido and all manner of other things - and knows he doesn’t have time for any of their inconveniences. Time is of the essence, with Emma’s condition worsening by the minute.

Tinkerbell’s home should be just ahead, if he remembers right, and he’s spent far too much time trekking along this path through the years for him to remember incorrectly. Tink may have lost her wings, but she’s never stopped longing for the freedom she once found in the skies, and her abode reflects that: a series of platforms and reed walls nestled within the branches of the tallest tree for miles around, offering one of the best views of Neverland. It’s only topped by the cliffs of Deadman’s Peak, but Killian won’t go back there for anything - too many memories of Liam collapsing from the Dreamshade’s poison to make even the most beautiful view worse the effort to get up there and the pain, both emotional and physical, it evokes. Tink almost certainly knows he’s here already - Killian is quite familiar with the sightlines the treehouse offers, and there’s a clear view of the harbor where the Jolly has dropped anchor. Hell, she probably even saw him and Smee rowing over, maybe even can spot where the mousy little man waits with the rowboat on the sandy beach. Regardless, he’ll need to be on his guard; he can’t imagine he’ll be treated to a warm welcome from his former ally.

Sure enough, he’s barely stepped into the clearing she so carefully maintains around her tree before there’s the press of cold metal against his throat - a knife point, its wielder seemingly having materialized from the depths of the jungle. “You’ve got an awful lot of nerve coming back here after what you did to me, Hook,” she hisses, venom dripping from every syllable of her words. “Did Pan catch up to you after all? Or are you just back to make nice, because let me tell you, it won’t work. Save your pretty words.”

“Neither,” he croaks in response, doing his best not to move his throat too much. Already, there’s a trickle of blood creeping its way down his neck from where the point of her weapon had pricked him, and he doesn’t relish the thought of that little dagger digging any deeper. “I’m not here for me, or for you. I’m here on behalf of someone else.”

“And why should I believe you?” Tink demands, pressing in closer. “Everyone knows that Captain Hook only cares about his own interests.”

“Because it’s the truth!” He doesn’t have any better answer than that, but somehow, Killian knows it won’t be enough. “Because I’ve told you of my past, and you know I used to be a man of honor. Because I’ve never told you a lie. Because I wouldn’t come back to this hellhole without a damn good reason. Because a woman doesn’t deserve to die because you can’t bring yourself to believe me!” His voice rises with each excuse without his conscious decision until he’s yelling, and it’s only Tinkerbell’s slight step back that keeps him from being stuck like a pig.

“This woman,” she asks, finally sheathing the knife back at her waist, “you love her?”

“Most certainly not,” Killian huffs and crosses his arms into a defensive posture - as if the words of one petite blonde fairy could physically harm him. Fool. “But I do care for her. She deserves to live her life, and a good one at that. Isn’t that enough?”

“Sure it is,” Tink replies easily - though Killian does spot a knowing, almost mischievous twinkle in her eye. Bloody fairy probably didn’t believe a word he said. “Where do I come in, though? You haven’t been particularly… illuminating in this defensiveness.”

“As if I could get a word in edgewise with that damned knife to my throat,” he mutters.

“Like I’m the first one to try that. Now talk, pirate.”

And he does. He tells Tink all about Emma and her curse, True Love gone bad and their failed attempts to find the woman who could reverse the whole thing. He’s barely touched on the illness now causing Emma to waste away before his very eyes before Tink starts shaking her head.

“I can’t do anything for her, Hook,” she tells him, voice dripping with regret. “I’m sorry.”

“Why in the hell not?” Never mind the fact that her tone is honest, sympathetic even, offering no indication that she’s telling anything but the unfortunate truth. “You’re a fairy —”

“ — a former, disgraced fairy —”

“Semantics. This is a curse, brought on by True Love. You’re supposedly an expert in that very phenomenon. And you’re saying that you can’t do anything?”

“Curses aren’t like other magic,” Tink explains. “They’re very specific to the caster, and designed to last. Any meddling that I, or anyone else, would attempt would only make an already bad situation worse. As for True Love… it’s the most powerful magic of all, and any curse infused with it would be doubly strong. I can’t imagine what bottled love gone sour would do, but I can’t imagine anything good. The thing about True Love is that there’s nothing else like it - there’s no substitute and it can’t be replaced. I know you think that I know everything there is about True Love, but I can’t fix this.”

“Well what about fairy dust?” Killian demands, not even attempting to hide the desperation in his voice anymore. There has to be something, anything; he doesn’t want to admit that they’re staring down defeat.

“Fairy dust is… That’s not what it does. It’s a structural thing, a tool; it can enchant objects, or lend extra power to potions or enchantments, but that’s it. It’s useless for the kind of curse breaking that you want.” Despite all the threats that started their interaction, Tink’s voice is gentle as she reiterates her apology. “I’m sorry, Killian. I wish I could help her, but there’s just nothing I can do.”

Killian nods in response, his mind going numb as the reality of those words sinks in. This was already their last wild hope, and all for naught. It’s the end of the line. “Thank you for trying,” he hears himself say distantly. “I’ll, uh… I guess I’ll…”

“Go to her,” Tink finishes. He can’t quite read the odd, soft little smile on the fairy’s face, and frankly, he’s too exhausted to try - both physically and emotionally.

“Gather your things, if you like,” he offers before turning to leave. “We’ll be happy to take you away from here.”

As Tinkerbell bustles off to pack whatever odds and ends she wants to keep, Killian begins to make his way back through the woods along the newly remarked path. There’s half a temptation to move slowly and put off having to convey the full extent of his failure for as long as he can; Killian doesn’t relish the thought of having to crush Swan’s hopes yet again, if she’s even well enough to hear it. It’s a selfish thought, though, and he does his best to push it aside. It’s obvious that Emma doesn’t have much time left, and after all her years alone, if she’s going to die, she deserves someone holding her hand until the very end. With that in mind, Killian forces himself to hurry, rushing through the jungle as quickly as he can without tripping on any vines or stray roots.

As it is, he’s terrified that they’re too late when Starkey, one of his last sailors from the Navy days, meets the rowboat as soon as it’s hauled aboard.

“It’s not looking good, Captain,” he says. “We’ve got the cabin boy down there trying to keep her hydrated, but.. It’s not looking good, Captain.”

“I’ll make that judgement for myself,” he all but snaps. He’ll have to apologize to the man later, but panic and fear has a way of removing the niceties from one’s speech. What’s more important is getting down to his cabin and assessing the situation for himself.

It’s just as bad as he’d been warned, however. Emma looks almost grey in the skin and scales, and as much as young Hawkins is obviously trying to pour fresh water over her skin, it’s obvious that she’s absorbing none of it, every inch of her flesh dry, cracked and flaking. He’s terrified to check for a pulse, half convinced he won’t find anything. He supposes that the boy wouldn’t be trying his best to keep her comfortable if he didn’t still think she had life in her though. Speaking of which:

“Thank you, lad, that will be fine for now,” Killian says quietly, a little afraid to break the quiet that dominates the sickroom his cabin has become. “Close the door on your way out, please.”

“Aye, Captain,” young Hawkins replies, hopping into motion as soon as the cup he’d been using is replaced in the bucket of water next to the tub, but Killian barely hears him, not even processing when the heavy cabin door shuts with a soft thud.

Her breath is just a fluttery little thing now that he can barely feel on the back of his hand held close to her face. Killian is suddenly struck with the sudden urge to hold her close in these last minutes and hours, provide her with some of that deeply human comfort she’s been denied for so long. It’s obvious that the pool of water isn’t helping anyways; she’s dry as a bone, no matter how thoroughly she’s submerged or for how long. Knowing that, it’s easy to cave to the urge.

She’s so much lighter now than she was a mere month ago, the magic and the fever it’s caused eating away at her form. It barely takes any effort to pluck her from the tub and settle both of them on the edge of his bunk, her tail draped limply across his lap. No doubt they’re soaking the bed linens, but that doesn’t matter right now.

“I’m so sorry, darling,” he murmurs, running his hand gently down her arm in what he hopes will register as a comforting touch. “I wanted so badly to help you, to help you live the life you deserve, but I failed you, and I only hope one day you can forgive me from wherever you end up. I wanted so much better for you.” His throat is becoming suspiciously tight. When did he become so attached to Swan? “I think that I might have come to love you, given the chance,” he admits, “but I guess we’ll never know. Whatever happens, I just want you to know that I’m here. I’ll be here until the very end. It’s alright, if you’re ready to rest.”

He holds her for a while longer, rocking her body back and forth and stroking her hair. When her pulse is so slow as to be almost indiscernible, Killian blinks back the tears to try and give her a proper goodbye.

“Thank you for everything, my Swan, all the trust you’ve placed in me. I’ll never forget you,” he murmurs. “Godspeed.” And in a final gesture, Killian leans down to place a soft kiss on her lips - a tender sealing of all the things that might have been.

That’s when it happens.

It starts as warmth, a gentle glow that seems like it’s suffusing every pore and fills him with a sense of peace that he never expected to feel in this moment. That warmth increases and expands, however, until it’s no longer contained just within his body and instead washes outwards over the whole room in a bright flash of rainbow light that he pulls away from Emma’s form just in time to see. Under other circumstances, Killian might take the time to investigate, to wonder exactly what just happened —

— but in that same moment, Emma stirs in his arms.

“Swan?” he queries softly, barely daring to hope.

Sure enough, though, her eyes flutter open, clearer than he’s seen in days and fully alert. “Jones?” She croaks. “What happened?”

“I… I don’t know,” he stammers back, stroking his hand along her cheek in wonder. What had only moments ago been sunken, dry, and grey is soft and warm again, healthily plump in the way that cheeks should be. “I thought you were doomed. I thought it was any moment now, and I —” he blushes, realizing how that kiss might sound now — “well, I moved to kiss you goodbye. But then there was this flood of warmth of light, and you woke up. I don’t know how.”

“You kissed me?” Emma doesn’t sound outraged, like he expected; rather, she just sounds curious. Maybe a little confused too.

“Yes, I kissed you - just a little kiss, mind you, nothing untoward - but then you woke up, and —”

It seems to strike them at the same time - the implications of what those two undeniable facts put together might mean. True Love’s Kiss. Emma’s eyes are blown wide with an emotion he can’t quite name - shock? Fear? Something else entirely? Whatever the case, Killian is certain that he must look much the same, as he knows that his thoughts are racing in a chaotic mess at the revelation. Emma scrambles to sit upright as it sinks in, bracing herself on his shoulders and scooting her bottom underneath her.

That’s when they notice the other revelation.

“Are those…” Killian murmurs in wonder before Emma completes his thought.

“Legs.” She pats frantically - nay, excitedly - at the limbs, beaming up at Killian with her own joy suffusing every bit of her countenance. “My legs. My… naked legs.” That’s another thing they both notice at the same time - her unclothed state. Both flush a furious red, and Killian hurriedly drags a blanket over her lower half.

“That’s better,” he mutters, trying to subdue the bright crimson staining his cheeks like some untried lad with his first paramour. Emma doesn’t even seem to hear him, though.

“I’m free,” she breathes, smiling a brilliant smile like he’s never seen before. It suits her, like a piece he didn’t know was missing in his perception of Emma Swan. “I can go anywhere.”

“Anywhere you want, and I’ll take you there,” Killian vows. Almost as soon as he says it, though, he’s struck with a spike of uncertainty. “That is, if you want me to.”

He almost expects her to say no. He’s a pirate, and he’s acting a bit presumptuously, and he’d understand entirely if she’d rather seek different company or even no company at all.

But Emma surprises him, shyly returning her hands to his chest. “I’d like that,” she declares softly.

With those words, Killian’s heart feels like it’s about to fly right out of his chest in fluttery, hesitant joy and optimism. “Then we’ll do exactly that.”

———

And they do.

There’s things to do, and stops to make, but now, almost a month after Emma’s miraculous cure, they’re finally faced with the open sea and no plans to speak of.

Killian can’t wait.

Things with Emma are… evolving. They’re both fully aware of the power of that kiss, and what exactly it means, but it’s still terrifying to admit that. They’ve both been hurt by love, scarred in physical and emotional ways that they carry with them to this day. This feels different, and Killian will be the first one to admit it - light and hopeful and genuine, all feelings that he’s all but forgotten in the past three hundred years - but he still carries that memory of how deeply love can hurt when it’s ripped away from you. It’s terrifying to commit to that - to hand over such a power to another person again.

Still, they’re evolving. They spend their nights telling stories and searching out different constellations before Emma retires to his bunk and Killian to the cot placed where her ridiculous tub had once sat, now just a bathing vessel again. They’d tried sleeping apart - the crew had gladly cleared out a cabin for Emma and Tinkerbell to share as they ventured back towards a town where Emma could procure new clothes - but had both discovered that they’d come to find a comfort in the other’s presence, even in the short amount of time they’d travelled together on their search for a cure. After that, they’d quickly agreed with barely any discussion to bring the cot in instead. Killian insists Emma take the bunk, even if it’s likely not any more comfortable. It’s the least he can do, especially since he’s trying to rediscover how to be a gentleman again.

(For her - all for her. It’s funny how, even at his most hesitant, Emma makes him want to be the kind of man she deserves again.)

As slowly as their relationship is developing, Killian like learning how to enjoy all the little gestures of blooming affection again. Every brief touch sends butterflies into flight in his stomach, every smile carefully catalogued to see how he can elicit it again. They’d had an almost perfect day when they’d stopped in a small village to restock supplies and procure Swan some clothes of her choice, as Killian was able to grasp her hand and twine their fingers together to lead her through the market. When he’d bought her a flower on a whim, a soft pink Middlemist rose, Emma had blushed prettily before taking it with a small smile and gentle fingers. In that moment, he’d finally started to embrace the hope that the two of them could truly become something together. He’d even given her a kiss on the cheek goodnight.

(Tink had teased them mercilessly after that, even more than she already had, but it had been easy enough to ignore her behind his haze of happiness. Still, it’d been a relief to leave the smug fairy at the port of her choice to try and find a way to earn her wings again. Killian wishes her the best of luck.)

With Tinkerbell gone and no more curse or impending death hanging over their heads, there’s a sense of peace about Killian that he thinks Emma feels too, especially now that they’ve reached open waters once again. Privately, he wonders if she’ll miss her tail one day - not the curse itself, but the ease in the water that her scales had brought. It’s far too soon to broach the topic though, and Killian has a plan anyways - he’s heard before of bracelets from Glowerhaven that can grant the wearer the tail and powers of a mermaid for as long as they wish, and he’ll be happy to buy them both such a bauble if that day ever comes.

Emma waits at the deck’s railing, surveying the waves as sunlight bounces off their peaks and glitters in the clear day. She looks so beautiful like this, so human and happy that Killian can’t help but stop for a moment just to watch. There’s still something of the siren in her, with her lovely blonde curls and long legs in soft breeches and boots calling to him, but he knows that now, that’s only because he’s utterly enchanted in the most mundane, non magical way. True Love - if he’s brave enough to grab it. With that thought bouncing around his head, he finally takes the finally steps forward to stand next to Emma, his hand and hook placed on the rail alongside Emma’s. She casually - a little too casually - twines her pinky finger around his, almost short circuiting his mind, especially with the small smile she offers him after he stares in awe at their entwined fingers a moment too long. That brings him back out of it.

“Do you know where you want to go, love?” he asks. That’s another thing to get used to - learning to mean every letter of those little nicknames he’s tossed around so casually with other women again.

“Everywhere,” she grins back, the note of teasing in her voice belied by the fact that he knows she really does want to explore the entire world and somehow try to make up for 600 years trapped in the same place. Maybe tonight he’ll test his luck and kiss her again - it’s hard not to want to when she says things like that.

“As you wish, love,” he replies, moving to squeeze her entire hand.

They’ve got an awful lot of world to see, and ocean to cover, and the rest of their forever to do it in.

#cssns #captain swan #cs ff #my writing #A Drowning Soul Will Clutch at Any Straw #mermaid!Emma

[autisticandroids]

1,4,29,39

1. “who’s your celebrity crush?”

i don’t really have one? celebrity fandom in general is not my scene. I guess i would say that michelle yeoh is talented and sexy in everything. like, i know nothing about her as a person but i enjoy watching her act and i think she’s really attractive, so..... michelle yeoh?

4. “ do you think its ok to separate the artist from the art?“

yeah. this is a weird, complicated question, but broadly yeah. i think the context of art should probably be acknowledged, but that goes way beyond who made it. it includes things like what kind of society was it made in, who was it made for, what was it influenced by, what impact did it have. and i also think it’s not immoral to ignore any of those things. i think good analysis - good as in skillful, not good as in morally correct - should take them into account, even if all “taking them into account” means is acknowledging that one is intentionally recontextualizing the work, or ignoring something about its context. an analysis of art that completely ignores broader context is more likely to be a poor analysis, especially if there is significant space of time and culture between the creation of the art and the analysis being done.

however, because this is tumblr, i think the question being asked here is more along the lines of “is it wrong to enjoy hp lovecraft’s work even though he was a racist” or “is it wrong to like harry potter even though jkr has turned out to be a terf” and the answer to those questions is “no.” like it’s pretty categorically “no.” if you’re concerned about this, and the original creator is still alive, you can take steps to keep your money from going to them, but their art doesn’t have cooties on it. it probably has some of their bigoted ideas but like. most, nay, all art carries within it bigoted ideas. art was made in the context of society and society is bigoted. there is probably bigotry that we don’t understand in those 30,000 year old cave paintings in france. 

29.  “ what quote or inspirational setting do you think is bs?”

i find this question kind of confusing. but i’m also not really one for inspirational quotes. i think a lot of them are pretty sounding nonsense, and a lot of others are true but mainly useless platitudes. but i’m also not generally the target audience for things like inspirational quotes; i’m very much a glass half empty type and we’re not big on inspiration, in general. 

i guess one that i used to see every day on a poster at my high school that always struck me as wise, but then i thought about it and i decided it wasn’t, was that einstein quote. madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, or something like that. because when i thought about it, well. have you ever tried to open a jar, and then handed it to someone else, and they got it first try? i do this all the time, both as the hander and the handee. it works because the first person genuinely does manage to loosen the jar, but not before they tire out their hands too much to get it all the way. the correct solution to the jar problem IS in fact to try the same thing over and over until it works, because every attempt loosens it just a little bit. that’s what i always think of when i see that quote.

39. “describe your aesthetic”

oh man. oh no. this is actually quite hard, y’know. my personal aesthetic? the aesthetic of things i like to look at? how i wish i could dress, sans bodily constraints? what i wish my house looked like? what i wish my life story looked like? the kinds of stories i like to read?

i guess i’ll give you a list of things i like in a very aesthetic way, that reveal a few of my disconnected aesthetic sensibilities.

coloring books where you can color in complex, retrofuturistic cityscapes devoid of inhabitants

Alice (1988) dir. Jan Švankmajer

stories with a lot of intrigue and diplomacy

the like, sexy overalls romper outfit that the android girl wears in star trek tos “what are little girls made of?”

a floor length wine red dress that i own that looks like a ballgown and makes me look like a fancy heiress, but is actually made of t-shirt fabric, so it’s so soft that i’ve slept in it before, and so stretchy that i could theoretically use it as a tent.

stories where some sort of murder or attempted murder is used as a subtext proxy for being gay

the romulan uniforms in star trek tng

the experience of watching lost before they started ever trying to (poorly) explain the mysteries

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)

oldtimey stories about “scientists” who are actually just rich guys who do experiments in their attic, which is actually all a scientist really WAS at the time, going Too Far and blaspheming against god. even better if their punishment doesn’t stick and they don’t stop

the part in tinker tailor soldier spy where ann says “i cough when there are things i can’t say,” or rather the fact that she says it

stories about absolute, poisonous obsession 

my memory of being seven years old watching the scene in the fellowship of the ring where galadriel almost takes the ring, where instead of just going all green and her hair blowing around, galadriel’s face becomes an empty white china masquerade mask, and her body turns to living, swirling ribbons in a whirlwind twelve feet tall

the little doll i made out of my night vale angels headcanon when i was sixteen, and the drawing i based it on

the mere concept of alia, from dune

the bits inside the witches, from madoka magica, where the animation gets all fucked up and stop motiony

stories about absolute loyalty and devotion, whether that’s to a person or a belief system

like everything visual about Mirrormask but especially this scene

the whole like, old fashioned cold war style underground bunkers where science goes too far aesthetic that scp wiki has going on

the first episode or maybe two of this anime, but none of the subsequent episodes, which all suck shit tragically

abandoned buildings, and the impression that if one were to go deep enough into one, one would find a secret inside, like a portal to another world, or a very nonhuman inhabitant

this is a list of some things. i guess

#peace-punch-captainhunch #asks

[chubbyooo]

My onslaught onthoughts :P

warning warning warning big spoilers after the line do not enter ye if you don’t have played the onslaught

so overall it was more or less what I expected a few good moments that made me think yeah I’m stoked but not amazingly amazing or anything

it seemed very clear that this expansion would be an interim one more than anything setting up new plots and developing existing ones and sure enough it was

the missions were fun but nothing we haven’t seen before

I think I would’ve enjoyed a bit more Theron and Lana interaction but the stuff we got was pre good

alright lets go through it bit by bit (this is in the empire story line btw)

So first of all going to the dark council and roasting the shit out of all of them was a blast

no I don’t want my seat back bicc

first Darth Lady loves robots

I did enjoy the savage this kings a moron stuff

seeing Jakarro again was a highlight even if he did kinda break my game

Kyradia very quickly undermined sith lady framing her for the attack being off

legit Kys plan was to systematically weaken the dark council and the republic and she kinda nailed it

Onderon overall was interesting but just another politics plot

Ok Mek-sha

I loved Mek-sha, the aesthetic the design the way they all interacted I knew I’d enjoy the concept

yeah the mysterious guy is clearly scourge duh

Vowrawns apprentice fits him perfectly

also yay more Vowrawn he’s always great

in terms of the actual what goes on plot it’s standard crime stuff which was fine

Ok but when Tau and Kyradia had a stare down I got chills

lastly I’m probably gonna get flak for this but I killed Vowrawn and his apprentice trust me it hurt me too but the plan was to undermine and weaken the council so it’s easier to puppet (rp wise at least in game I’m sure it wasn’t that clever) so I felt I had to. Morally it’s fine cause they evil sith but am sorry Vowrawn but you were in my way

Lastly Corellia

ok first I love that Anri is a gardener It’s just great

second workin with Malgus again I was lookin for the first chance to outsmart him

seeing Tharan again was a laugh especially when they called out the whole Tharan Theron thing

that fight with Tau was dope and the way she won even doper

speaking to the dark council again was interesting considering Kyradia had either undermined or killed about half

although a specter of glitch made vowrawn speak even tho he’d been decapitated

fuk off Acina I aint being your hand I’ll keep my alliance thanks

I’m glad they gave us the decision to keep our alliance

Kyradia fully plans to undermine both factions as best she can

so it was scourge and Kira and I was so worried for a second Vitiate was alive but nah it’s some weird fungus thing

I’m cool with that it’s intriguing and not oh he escaped cause blehhhhhhh

in terms of the scourge stuff I know some people will be furious but I don’t really care enough about scourge to mind

still imma save Satele cause Marr would be mad if I didn’t

lastly I knew Malgus would get free it was only a matter of time 

he gonna kill everyone

as I said overall good but not amazing, some great moments but nothing to scream about

I will say though I’m hyped for whatever content they have like a 50% chance of releasing after this :P (if not I’ll just write my own :D)

#swtor #spoiler #swtor spoilers #swtor onslaught #Onslaught #my thoughts

[badanimereviews]

fall 2019 anime first thoughts

the new season is finally all here! i’m pretty positive about some of these new shows, so i’m very much looking forward to these next months’ releases~

sao: alicization: war of underworld: is it just me who didn’t know this or what- alicization arc takes place immediately after the first season apparently. so where are frickin ggo and etc fitting into this timeline? thanks reki. so far it’s pretty neutral, like this season isn’t blowing my mind or anything. but it’s not unwatchable. this arc might be the second suckiest after all the fairy arcs tbh. i just want smth more like ordinal scale or ggo. bc those were actually p good.

bnha 4: for some reason didn’t see a lot of hype around this new season? like was it not advertised a lot? do people not know it’s airing? idk. bnha is p okay for me, i like the animation and of course todoroki, but i’m no super fan oof and honestly i was more excited for the new releases of kimetsu no yaiba than this lol…

kono yuusha ga ore tueee kuse ni shinchou sugiru: ok honest to god i didn’t have crazy good expectations for tis but it left me surprised. it’s got strong ass konosuba vibes but in a good way, unlike *cough* world’s strongest fkn alchemist thing of last season***** and it’s pretty funny too

shokugeki no soma 4: yass! i finally caught up on s3 recently so yay i fkn love this. i love cooking shows for some weird reason and it’s just so pleasing to see all the creativity and specialized knowledge that goes into this. honestly the whole Central thing rly caught me off guard and im just super excited for this!

assassin’s pride: i thought this would be some dumb romance thing tbh. it is not! the animation is awesome and the world aesthetic is EPIC STYYLEE man like your city is a glass frickin chandelier? i nuttttt. i like the characters like kufa (his whole name is dumbass tho but he hottt) and the blue-haired cousin girl- ellie? maybe? i thought melida would be annoying but she’s alright. a little too flat and 12-y/o looking for me but whatevs. another thing to add on, char designs are rly nice, and the magic system so far is givin me the epic vibes man it’s just super cool and intriguing for some reason don’t judge.

choujin koukousei-tachi wa isekai demo yoyuu de ikiniku you desu: ok first of all i hate this title. second of all, better than i thought. nice animation/ opening theme/ char designs. tbh the whole ‘super genius’ thing is kinda dumb like the CHILD is the PRIME MINISTER and another CHILD kills people in a WAR with a SWORD and anOther CHILD controls half the stocks or smth. stfu ok. i dooo like mr stocks market tho and ninja girl, they cute asf and doctor lady is so pretty. but like. eh. magician boy is also useless and annoying like if ya gonna be a magician type character in a MAGICAL world at least try to explain how his tricks work otherwise he is just useless and a faker. ya i don’t like him. and also it just kinda skips around showing their geniousness at work like how the science girl just makes hi-tech stuff and akatsuki can use his magic tricks when he obvs shouldn’t have any of his magic equip stuff like ughh it would be so much better if it didn’t gloss this over and i’d have more appreciation for the characters’ intelligence too. but oh well.

no guns life: wasn’t originally gonna watch and might drop. don’t like gritty edgy stuff like this but like…madhouse… and it’s kinda funny. i dont rly like the whole gunhead thing. just looks dumb. and it’s got a horrible jojo style look to it which is SUHC a turn off oml.

azur lane: so i started the game after watching the first ep and it’s become a horrible addiction. add me on the game or w/e uid: 69715357 and ma name’s Keikohime. bro i fell in love with enterprise like she is GORGEous and the first super rare i got lmao. it’s fate. javelin is still annoying but whatever the fanservice is enough to keep me alive. loving the fanservice btw. especially now that i can recognize all the different ships! first ep had stellar animation. i was crying. it was beautiful. flawless fight scenes. second ep a little disappointed in the quality but i got through it bc of laffey’s voice. she puts me in a trance. music rly nice and op nice too, very excited for more, i will die when i see my fav super rare/ elite babies uwuuuuu also erebus and hammann best girls

kabukichou sherlock: not what i expected lol! not bad tho. i like a good mystery solvy thing and anything sherlock-related is interesting. and the sherlock character is actually well-written like he’s a good char- love the rakugo part oml that was unexpected but wholly welcome lmao. just wish he and holmes were hotter guys but whatever

#azur lane #shokugeki no soma #anime #soa #mha #bnha #review #sherlock #no guns life

[libertasrpg]

We welcome Regina Grimhilde to the city. She’s 32 years old and is a noblewoman. Gina is often mistaken for Krysten Ritter. She’s open.

→ Background Information

As the daughter of a realtor, Regina wasn’t necessarily from a poor family but they weren’t rich either. It was after watching a film in her early teens that she set a goal of marrying for money. So that’s what she did. Regina found a sad man who’d just lost his wife. This made him an easy target for someone who is already conniving. The fact that he had a daughter wasn’t an issue for Regina. She had her ways, and she planned on getting rid of her eventually. The first step in getting to the White money though was getting rid of Mr White. And that’s what Regina did.

→ Living Situation

It was safer for everyone else for Regina to live alone. She isn’t really a very considerate person, so she wouldn’t have made the best housemate. The first thing she did once moving in was decorate. Regina wanted to make sure that her home fit her own personal aesthetic - Dark, sexy, romantic, mysterious. The majority of the place is decorated in blacks, purples and reds. One of the storage cupboards has been transformed into her own little make-up studio. Regina has so many eye-shadow pallets, lipsticks and highlighters that she needs the space.

→ Relocation Explanation

After getting rid of Mr White, Maria just had to get rid of Maria before she had full access to the White family money. So Regina endeavored to do so. She sent servant, Humbert Hunter, to get rid of her. Humbert was faithful and Regina had every belief that he would follow through on her orders. Unfortunately though, after he eventually returned, Regina heard gossip that Maria Sophia was getting herself set up in a new city. Regina was fuming of course. It took every piece of self restraint to not kill Humbert. But, he was her only loyal employee so she didn’t. You know what they say - If you want something done, do it yourself.

→ Her Personality

An extremely mysterious woman, no one’s to blame for being intrigued by her. She’s always had this allusive air that seems to draw anyone and everyone in. Regina is pretty good at luring people in and getting them just where she wants them though. Even as a child, she was pretty good at playing her parents against each other. While Regina can be fun and friendly on the surface, and might be good on a night out, she’s definitely not the kind of person who could listen to your problems and help you solve them. if anything, she probably is your problem.

→ Her Qualities

Sophisticated, intelligent, calm, alluring

Devious, selfish, ruthless, calculating

→ Her Relationships

Maria Sophia White (Enemy): Regina never has and never will care for Maria. As far as she’s concerned, she’s the last hurdle between her and getting the White family fortune. Regina was enraged when she found out that Maria was actually still alive.

Humbert Hunter (Servant): Humbert used to be a very good servant to Regina. Having previously worked in the army, Regina didn’t think he’d have any issue with taking Maria away to slaughter her. The last thing she expected was for him to fail his mission. The only reason that Regina keeps Humbert around is because 

Florian Henri (Target): If there’s one way to destroy a woman, it’s to destroy the man that she loves. Regina has watched as Maria and young Florian have slowly got closer and closer. While claiming Florian for her own wouldn’t kill Maria physically, it’d certainly take her down emotionally. Plus, Regina loves any chance to flirt and Florian laps up any and every compliment he receives. 

→ Possible Connections

Grigori Rasputin (Acquaintance): Regina will only visit the nicest of bars where she can mix with other high profile people. Grigori has a similar disposition to her - He’s mysterious, dastardly and usually up to no good. For this reason, the pair would likely be drawn to each other.

Eret Bludvist (Acquaintance): One of the first things Regina did after moving to Libertas was hunt down a poacher. Moving to a new city meant she needed some new animal skins to decorate her home with.

Owen Bogie (Acquaintance): Regina takes partying just as seriously as she does her reputation. As far as she’s concerned, Owen Bogie hosts the best parties in Libertas. So, she regularly returns to his events and keeps friendly with him so that she doesn’t ever make her way onto the black list.

Regina is based on the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

#snow white and the seven dwarfs #the evil queen #Krysten Ritter #jessica jones #disney rp #disney rpg #Beren Saat #Megan Ory #open female #open #female #31 to 40

[greetingsfromeboncreek]

BEHOLD the rest of the commentaries. They’re pretty short in comparison to the others, and I wrote them pretty stream of consciousness, so I can’t guarantee how much sense they make, but it’s done, dammit. 

BTW, my overall favorite characters (in no particular order): Arthur, Charlie, Meredith, Alaster, Iggy, Bael, Mara, Junior, Solstice

My thoughts on 33 different characters below the cut:

The New Friends:

Kirk: Like Nick, probably could have been written out and not much would be changed. However, he gets a pass because he was never really meant to be in the main storyline to start with, being born of a short lived prompt based adventure on the MSPA forums, who got phased into the main storyline. However, unlike Nick he has a genuinely interesting motivation (evil goon gone good, determined to avenge his mistreated coworkers). I also love his overall cheery and easygoing personality, he seems like a very nice guy. Interesting backstory- he was apparently in the army reserves, but got hired by a private company, if I’m remembering correctly? That means that he might not have had any family in Ebon Creek- which means there may well be people still out there looking for him and worried about him, orrr they’ve just been told he’s dead, which is a sad thought. Also has an adorable dynamic with Morty- I could easily imagine him with that one gif along the lines of “I’ve only known Morty for 15 minutes, but if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in the room and then myself.” I also liked how he’s the only human member of the “good guys” to have any actual combat training- in an AU where nobody has demon powers or magic, he could probably wipe the floor with everyone else. Overall, very nice dude, love his abilities (cool weapons and shouting out power names is really fun), REALLY liked his aegis design, love his dynamic with Morty, grade A character.

Arrie- Another really cool lady! I really liked how she slowly went from confused but not incompetent, to really taking responsibility for the situation in Ebon Creek later in the storyline. It’s awesome to hear she’s going to get a more prominent role in the reboot, I ADORE her new design, and I’m quietly guessing her treasure chest motif pockets have bag of holding style portals in them. Would have loved to have seen her reunion with Azgrut, but ehn, we can’t have everything. Also love her clever use of portals- I think it works really well with her intelligent personality. I also really enjoyed her dynamic with Sally while they were teemed up- rough and tumble lady with a prim, proper and intelligent young woman, both happily beating up their opponents. Wonderful.

Victus- I’ve always had a soft spot for dry, logical characters, and Victus is no exception. I think as a fellow military dude, him and Kirk would have gotten along quite well if they had had more time to talk to each other. However, above all else I love his relationship with Bael- from how he initially turned Bael’s parasitism around on him, to how he, (in my opinion at least) ended up in a near-father figure position. It doesn’t matter how edgy Bael acts, Victus is there to pat him on the head in a patronizing fashion. Sure kid. You’re real cool. (While also taking into account his mental state and showing sympathy.) And frankly, if anyone needs that kind of support, it’s Bael.

Trevor- Always liked this guy! A very useful font of exposition, and a genuinely nice guy. I also really appreciate the fact that he’s not used to the chaos of Ebon Creek, and of horrible situations in general. His moments of vulnerability/near breakdowns (and Eric’s for that matter) remind the audience that everything that’s happening… isn’t normal. He’s the closest thing we have to an ‘audience insert’ in the Asylum arc. Loved his gadgetry based fighting style, would have been interesting to see what sort of demon powers he would have developed, but overall not too bummed about it. Really REALLY happy he got to rebuild his friendship with Azgrut, that was one of the things I was most pleased about with the ending.

Eric- Very similar to Trevor in terms of ‘audience insert’ and ‘nice guy’ and ‘hadn’t been completely traumatized by the start of the comic leading to mental breakdowns’, but rode along with the villains instead of the heroes. Poor thing ultimately ends up suffering more than Trevor though, for obvious reasons. It would have been cool to see someone actually learn how to be a zombie though; Sam and Jericho have been like that for years, and we missed Alaster’s adjustment period, but it would have been amusing to watch Eric slowly get used to it.

Also, he committed the biggest instance of ‘Nice job breaking it, hero’ in the whole comic. Way to revive King Law, Eric. Real smooth. Also very, very interesting in that he was one of the few that SIGVALDI found interesting. Eric’s likely up there on the list of cleverest characters, and I hope he’s doing ok after the end of Suppression.

Assorted Goons:

Grenner- I love this man. I draw him looking perpetually exhausted for a reason. He’s a very good man who blames himself for some very bad things, and while he outwardly holds himself together, is grasping at straws to figure out how to make things better. Is a man that’s plagued with guilt and also the actual plague, but has an INCREDIBLE mental fortitude- it’s been explained that perceiving one’s demonic infection as a separate entity is what kills you, but Dr.Grenner did that… and won. I also love his relationship with Iggy- once pretty good, now strained with Grenner trying very hard to put it back together. I’d really like to see them make up someday. (Iggy takes after his dad a lot tbh, loathe as he is to admit it.) ...Id also like to see Grenner show everyone Iggy’s baby pics. You know he’s got em somewhere.

Kolt- Noooooooo. Probably...my least favorite of the villains. Certainly the one I find the creepiest, for reasons I went over in my commentary with Sally, but also the one I found the least interesting in terms of characterization and backstory. Was really pleased to see his “death” and how he got repurposed into a different character, buuuut it’s less encouraging knowing he was going to come back. Please, you creepy bastard….just stay dead…..

Santris- Changing directions, one of my favorite villains. Unlike Nick, his small number of appearances works in his favor, considering he usually shows up during plot important moments, prodding things in one direction or another. This is a man who KNOWS things, and I love it. What is he up to? What’s his motivation? That’s all part of the intrigue. His power set links into this perfectly, which is to say he doesn’t really have one- he’s the only character that fights without magic or plague powers, leaving his real powers- if he has any- a mystery. There’s only one thing I feel fit to speculate on with this guy, and that’s the fact that he’s PROBABLY an elf, going by his eyes. Even that can’t be confirmed though, and makes things even more strange due to the fact that he seems to mostly work with humans, with little to no contact with Thal’nasia.

Azgrut- Another ‘not technically evil, just a victim of tragic circumstances’ character. Being murdered as a child, brought back as a zombie, and forced to build weapons or else be killed again doesn’t leave a guy with a lot of options. However, the weapons he’s building are his life’s work, and probably the only thing that brings him any real happiness or, failing that, satisfaction. It’s probably why he’s so protective of his work, and why he’s so pissy when anyone comes and bothers him. His magitech based fighting style is cool as heck to look at (And to compare/contrast with Trevor’s), and he has an EXCELLENT general aesthetic to him. Tron line zombie, hell yeah. Overall, his situation was even more miserable and ultimately hopeless than Sam’s, and I’m REALLY glad he got a happy ending. Though it’s a shame that because Arthur raised him, that means he’s still ultimately under control of the Wights, which was his whole goal with the phylactery thing. Wait. Azgrut’s still alive at the end. Which m…..FUCK. ARTHUR’S NOT DEAD, THE CAVE IN DIDN’T KILL HIM. I JUST FIGURED THAT OUT. FUCK

Maggie- Okokokok I’m cool, it’s cool. It’s cool. Arthur’s not dead, fine. I’ll just pretend he’s stuck under a rock somewhere, it’s fine. Ok, Maggie. She’s so. Fucking cool. So goddamn cool, I love her so much. I love her ease and sense of confidence, and the implication that she’s the one wearing the pants in her business relationship with Bartleby, even if the people they work with get the initial impression otherwise. She also probably wears the pants in their romantic relationship too. Which like, might not be a thing, not confirmed for canon, but it’s fun to think about. Also has a bitchin outfit, and the coolest ‘element’ out of everyone in the comic, I think. Gravity powers? There is so much room for shenanigans and cool fight scenes out of that. I’m really looking forward to seeing her in the new comic- judging from the number of stripes on her shoulder, she seems to be the boss in the reboot as well. Keep on rockin, girl.

Bartleby- Look. In almost every piece of media with a lot of villains, there’s always one brightly colored, egotistical and flamboyant one. I think for Suppression, Bartleby is that dude. I’m not even kidding- if you look at the big reference sheet of Suppression characters on Degulus’s Deviantart, there’s only 3 patches of bright color and those are Overload Charlie, Azgrut, and Bartleby. However, unlike other villains of that type, where their biggest flaw is their sense of pride, Bartleby’s motive is that Thal’nasia isn’t proud ENOUGH. He believes that elves are genuinely better than humans, but aren’t acting like it, and that needs to be fixed immediately, by way of violent take over of the government. That is a DELIGHTFUL motivation to have. I’m aware that a lot of Suppression’s villains match up with the seven deadly sins (though it’s not too strictly enforced), and envy is a hard one to pull off. However, Bartleby does it and does it well! (Side note: love this dude’s outfit, and double love the fact that he’s the only character who’s teeth you see on a regular basis… where those teeth aren’t sharp. That’s wonderfully unnerving. A+. )

Tyburn- This dude’s more of an honorable mention because he never actually shows up. You only hear about him in passing, so there’s not a LOT for me to say. It’s some hilarious irony that Azgrut doesn’t know what happened after he died (and neither does Iggy for that matter) so he just lists the completely wrong generals and Iggy just essentially nods and goes “Sounds legit.”. I feel like there’s a lot of mysteries around Tyburn though… like I said, we never see him, so who WAS this guy? Why did he defect? (Is he secretly still alive…?) However, the Blood Red Rebellion seems like it was pretty much a feature exclusive to the original comic, so we’re not likely to get anymore info. I’m fine with that tbh- not everything has to be explained to death. Sometimes a dude is just a dude.

Lexi- First of all. Love this girl’s aesthetic. The cropped haircut? The >:3c face? The goggles? The outfit? Yes, yes, and yes. She’s also the only character in the comic that has a very… ‘big sister’ sort of feel to her. Really she’s just an overworked babysitter who got handed a kid that she is in no way equipped to handle, but she’s doing her best to not mess him up too bad regardless. I get the feeling that she’s a dumb kid who was asked “Hey you wanna do some Villainy (™) “ and she was totally down for it before realizing much too late that. Villainy is not as fun as you’d think and ESPECIALLY not when you’re the replaceable mook.

Junior- Hhhh I love this boy. Look, I love art and drawing. I also love robots n stuff in media. I also have Aspergers, and so I have a tendencies towards anxiety, seeming ‘odd’ to other people, being baffled in situations that others would find normal, and obsessing over certain topics. As a result, those who have seen Junior can see why I love this child so so much. It can be kind of embarrassing to admit it, but I see a lot of myself in this character. I’m glad that he has someone that “gets” him and is looking out for his best interests (you rock, Alaster). We don’t really find out what happened to him, Lexi, Alaster and Maggie after the comic, but I like to think that they all got out ok and are just chilling out there somewhere.

Wight Family

Maxwell- Stern, serious, imposing heads of families are relatively common villains, and it’s pretty easy for it to become a boring, flat stereotype; for a character to become nothing more than, essentially, a villainous rock. Max is not this. Max is trying very hard to be this, but doesn’t always measure up, and that is infinitely more interesting than the evil boulder archetype. His character profile straight up says that he’s only trying to be cool and collected. In reality, he’s surrounded by (what he considers) idiots and is trying very hard to keep this show on the road, and his facade of dignity isn’t nearly as impregnable as he thinks. I love the idea of a cold, collected villain going from complex swordplay to an undignified bar brawl the moment he thinks no one’s looking. Just “Fuck it, fine, I’ll do this the easy way. This idiot doesn’t deserve me at my best anyway.” Unfortunately, while his character is very fun to read, the downfall of having a character that doesn’t go into villainous monologues...means that he never explains his evil plans. Which means I’m STILL not really sure… what it was he was trying to DO. Most of my ideas come from Degulus’s explanations in the comments, which is uhhh probably not the best way to communicate that to one’s audience. I’m pretty sure he was planning on altering the course of the leyline to change the laws of nature, and then controlling the world as an immortal zombie but… trusting Arthur to manage that? Yikes. Maybe not the best plan buddy, but you tried your best.

Arthur- Ohhh this bastard. Who is apparently still alive/undead. This bastard… is actually one of my most favorite characters. Like, irrevocably top 5 (I could never pick a #1, but he’s up there). He is an absolutely terrible person. Lazy and cowardly, but in a way that is loathable and malicious instead of sympathetic. Doesn’t seem to think highly of himself, but...doesn’t seem to have a high opinion of anyone else either. Killed his own kids. Killed his brother (s...sort of. It wasn’t very clear.). And today I figured out he didn’t even get comeuppance for it. (Unless, of course, he’s just trapped under a rock in a caved in cave for all eternity with his phylactery sitting on a desk somewhere. That’s kind of hilarious.) However… despite all that, he is an incredibly fun character to hate. His dialogue and reactions were always funny to read, and there’s something about his desire to just lie down and do nothing that appeals to everyone, I think. In a way, he’s similar to an audience insert or ‘straight man’- the one that says “You realize this plan is stupid and never going to work, right.” and is promptly ignored. In summary, terrible person, HORRENDOUS father, but a GREAT character.  

William- Ok technically not a person, but will still be giving commentary. A golem made of souls is an amazingly clever concept, though probably my most favorite part of William is getting to describe him as a “sack of angry ghosts” to my friends. It’s interesting how William appears to be at least partially sentient though- either that collection of souls does have some hivemind sort of consciousness, or that’s some faaaancy spell coding on Sigvaldi’s part. However, due to the fact that he’s a juggernaut superweapon of necromancy, he’s less a character and more a...almost environmental hazard that the characters have to work around. A unique and interesting superweapon that was a blast to read about how they worked around him, but… doesn’t leave me a lot to talk about in terms of character commentary.

Jericho- Ah, the poor narratively-proclaimed D-list villain. Nobody really likes him. Got waylaid by the events of the story, and as a result never did anything of much significance, but it was lampshaded and he later got a huge upgrade. I feel like that matches his personality quite well though. He takes after his dad a lot more than he’d like to admit; he has pride in being undead, and as a member of the Wight family, expects everyone to cower before him… and it’s really funny to watch how frustrated he gets when people don’t immediately do that. I think the combo with Kolt was a good idea; it gave him a much needed power boost and source of intrigue, being a possessed zombie. I was also really interested in seeing where his relationship with Iggy and Azgrut was gonna go! On an unrelated note though...I found out the other day that he’s only 2 years older than Samantha. However, Samantha’s backstory showed that she died as a little girl, and I thought it was implied by the “go get your brother” comment that Jericho died shortly after… but that would make Jericho have the body of a young teen/preteen at most. Sooo I guess that either wasn’t the day Jericho died and Arthur wanted him for something else, or acid zombies can age. Hmmm.

(PS. If Alastair calls Samantha Sam and Meredith Merry, does that mean he calls Jericho Jerry? Because if so, that’s hilarious.)

Samantha- The undying voice of nihilism, in a travel sized package. Sam didn’t get a huge role or a ton of appearances, but she’s one of the few who got what I considered a complete character arc. She had a problem, finally admitted that problem, got assistance with the problem and got her comeuppance. Her story was sad, but god if that didn’t make it all the more satisfying watching Arthur get thrown around like a toy by King Law. You could almost hear the squeaky toy sounds.

Alaster- I have a lot of respect for this guy. In the beginning of the story, he comes off as one of those mysterious, unhinged villains that gives a dramatic speech and then vanishes. However, the course of the story revealed layers of personality and backstory that made me genuinely feel for this guy. He’s proud to be a Wight, but somewhat paradoxically hates his family- this later turns out to be because his dad and uncle are terrible people, even to their own children, and he’s trying to actually create something resembling a “family” instead of...well, a soul-drowning pit of misery. He’s trying to make the Wight family a better place for the members of his generation. He’s trying to be a good brother, a good role model, and is friendly to Sam even though she doesn’t seem to want his kindness. He doesn’t mind though, he gets it. It’s so nice to see the younger members of “villain” half of the cast have someone in their corner willing to throw down for them no matter what. Alaster is an A+ older brother, A+ babysitter, and honestly probably would have made a good dad if he ever got the chance. Well, except for the ‘teaching kids how to murder’ part. But that’s just a traditional part of Wight education, I can give that the slip.

Meredith- My first thought upon seeing Meredith was “Oh my god she’s adorable.” Since then, my opinion has not changed in the slightest. She’s like Sabrina the Teenage Witch but evil. She wants to make a team of US presidents with chainsaw arms. I want to SEE her make a team of US presidents with chainsaw arms. Honestly, she’s a breath of fresh air in the Wight team. She’s good at her job, but young and enthusiastic. After so many dreary, depressed, gothass villains, it’s nice to see one that’s a straight up ray of bubbly sunshine who also wants to rip out your soul and use you as her cute lil familiar. I bet she can ride that scythe like a broomstick. She’s got the wind powers, it could work. The sad part is though is that...while the old Wights might have survived the cave in, and Arthur definitely survived, Meredith was the only one in the room who wasn’t undead or a lich which means she’s probably. Permadead by the end of the comi- AW FUCK THAT MEANS ALASTER’S DEAD TOO. AUUUGH. Oh fffuck I hope Alaster managed to get Junior back home before he just. Dropped dead next to him.

King Law- Unlike Max, this guy is a lot closer to the “villainous rock” stereotype; he even has an elemental affinity to Earth! While I find him a little more boring than Max though, I’m still drawn to him by his bitchin character design, and intriguing sense of ethics; he honestly has some good points on the nature of goodness and the fact that having a sense of right and wrong is worthless if “right” isn’t being defended. He seems to be the concept of “lawful evil” taken to a reasonable endpoint, whereas Sigvaldi would be the “chaotic” end of the scale.

Nora- Ohhh yes that’s the ticket. This is exactly what I wanted. It’s implied that...terrible things happened to the Wight kids’ mothers. (Ok they’re not really kids but you get what I mean.) However, that leaves a very obvious dearth of Wight ladies, leaving me with a hankering for more. Nora hits that spot so well. She’s elegant, refined, but also has a giant, badass fuckin’ sword (ok well she is the sword but still), and will happily kick the crap out of everyone that messes with her family, despite the drama. Is there a ton of depth and backstory? Nah, she was there for like...10 pages and died (thanks, Charlie), but her very existence is a much needed breath of fresh air. Also I need to draw her in a bunch of fancy outfits starting, like. Now.

Sigvaldi- So, I got one of my friends to read the reboot with me entirely on the off chance that Sigvaldi shows up in it based on the few snippets of the old comic that I showed him, so that certainly speaks wonders for Sigvaldi’s character. Granted, it’s mostly because he’s a lich and this friend loves those, but my point stands. Sigvaldi is great. I love characters with a unique worldview and sense of morality, and Sigvaldi is no exception. He is well aware that he creates monsters and commits sins against the laws of nature, and accepts this...what he truly loathes is those who do monstrous things and try to make it look like justice. Now THATS interesting. I also just generally enjoy his omniscient observer role in the story, popping up to give warnings and make predictions. I should also talk about the end of Suppression, while I’m talking about him, specifically those mysterious voices who’s ranks he joined at the end of the story… I’m not sure who they are, but I sure as hell cant wait to find out! I have a few guesses, but 0 evidence, so I’m gonna hold those cards close to my chest for now.

Other Characters

These guys diiiidn’t get a lot of screentime and also I’m feeling really crappy and sick right now so I might not have a lot to say, sorry.

Figaro- An elf with a BEARD. So good. I like how self aware he is about the nature of his job, and how light hearted he stays about it all. Sometimes, your coworkers are incredibly powerful mages that can control the very forces of nature themselves. And sometimes they’re idiots. And sometimes they’re both at the same time and you just kinda gotta roll with it.

Coin- Had pretty much just one conversation so I don’t have a lot to say about this guy. I like his near-naive dedication to heroics and justice though. That can be interesting in done right, especially if it’s from a character who isn’t actually naive and is instead willing to fight for that ideal. I actually find his family more interesting- he has a last name that’s been mentioned a couple times in different contexts. His family certainly gets around, huh?

Mara- Probably my favorite of the elves. I can understand both sides of peoples opinions of her. On one hand, she’s absolutely a child soldier. There’s definite negative effects to this that she straight up doesn’t have the experience or maturity to understand completely, and even though this frustrates her, the people claiming it are absolutely right. However, I can also understand her desire to be taken seriously as a person, the difficulty in repairing the good name of the Red part of the army, and the massive pressure on her as the last remaining heiress of the Kuin family. She’s got a lot of weight on her, and while I want to see her do well… I also wish she had the opportunity to. Well, be a dumb teenager. Very interesting character, but also very specific to the pre-reboot continuity, so I’m not sure what’s going to happen to her now.

Phylo- This is also a reaaaally good one. I love how much care was taken to write his disabilities- he’s competent and well respected, but his missing arm and blindness are taken into account and addressed reasonably. I especially loved how he has to take his arm off during the winter because of the chill that creeps up it- that shows a lot of thought put in, that not a lot of other comics would. A+ writing on that front. Normally I don’t think I’d like his grumpy, but still managing to brag sort of personality, but in this case I think it works because the other characters mentioned that he was the grumpy one; his behavior isn’t treated by the narrative as being a good thing.

Kevin- Admittedly not a huge fan of this guy. I mean he’s ok, I liked the kamen rider leystone power suit, that’s cool. And granted, we might not have gotten the best introduction to him, considering he was exhausted and it was the middle of the night when we met him. But overall, he seemed to me to be a guy where people kept saying that “he was a nice guy, really” despite being whiny and aggressive the whole time. He kept acting really distrustful, but none of his protestations really affected the plot, so I just spent most of the time waiting to move on from this guy. I get the feeling I also would like him more if I watched any episodes of Kamen Rider, as there’s supposed to be a lot of similarities buuuut I haven’t, so. Still, he’s supposed to be getting a lot of focus in the reboot, so hopefully he’ll be able to stand up on his own virtues.

Roni- Noooot a lot to say about this one. I’m interested in seeing what animal-based life magic looks like in practice though. Plant life magic is easy enough, it’s just plants, but is animal husbandry magic like...being able to control/talk to animals? Or is it kind of horrifying fleshcrafting. I also didn’t think she and Cerene were that similar, but I’m still looking forward to the sister relationship they’ll have! (I’ve also always wondered if that promised hang session with her and Cerene was going to lead up to a meeting and confrontation with Lexi… that would have been interesting.)

Torblad and Esra- Wasn’t a huge fan of these two either. I’m not sure if Torblad was just pretending to have gone crazy, or if he was supposed to actually have some sort of illness from his time travel shenanigans, but overall it just felt weird to me. The tone of his ‘prophecies’ was so different from the rest of the comic that I thought he was a one off joke character or a cameo of some other thing (like how Kirk was a character who was originally from a MSPA fanventure, I thought Torblad was a character from the original RP a lot of the elf characters came from that was going to be a tip of the hat one-off, tonally inconsistent cameo and then we’d more on.). Imagine my surprise when he ended up being responsible for the end of the comic! With Cerene’s help, of course. Overall, he just seems...out of place to me. With the rest of the cast being written well enough in terms of physical disabilities, the effects of trauma, and mental illness, Torblad’s sort of… lolrandom sort of craziness feels cut from a different cloth. I don’t even really have anything to say about Esra- she seems to be there pretty much entirely to interpret for Torblad, soooo I got nothing. Sorry, Esra.

Solstice- Aw yeah, there’s the good stuff. Take this with a grain of salt though; I’m not entirely sure if I’m interpreting her backstory correctly, as we only got bits and pieces of it. She was an excellent introduction to how much things were going to change for our “heroes” when they walked into Thal’nasia- instead of snarky comments and scuffles, they got someone that was spooked, shy, and wondering why the hell they were there in the middle of the night. She’s a bit awkward, but seems friendly and genuine; a much needed change of pace and a breath of fresh air. However, the story is quick to give her more depth than that. She used to be a lot sadder, a lot angrier, a lot more aggressive, and it’s taken time and effort to recover from that. She has a useful, unique worldview due to her golden aura color, but is estranged from society due to her differences and her odd personality as a result. And yet… she’s still become a kind person, with a helpful personality, and I have a lot of respect for that. It’s one thing to become a snarling badass in the face of adversity. That’s cool, and I like that too. Hell yeah, punch those who hurt you. But something we don’t get to see a lot is people recovering, getting better, realizing that while that aggression helped them at the time, it can become self destructive. It’s really nice to see a character that shows that stronger isn’t the be all, end all solution to one’s problems. (Though she could probably still kick your ass if she wanted to. Just sayin.)

#suppression #text post #commentary #oh god im so sick right now but at least it's done