Fic and Fangirl Babblings

As you could probably guess from my username, I'm Danielle. And as the blog title implies, this is a home for my fic, fangirl babblings, and other things that cross my mind. Current fandoms: Evil and Once Upon a Time. Past obsessions that may make their way in here: Sports Night, Charmed, Supernatural, Titanic, The 4400, Army Wives, Harper's Island. I typically avoid spoilers like the plague but I will occasionally break down and watch a sneak peek, so we'll go with 98% spoiler-free. I always tag the spoilers for blacklisting, though. :) FF.net My Flashfic 

[dani-ellie03]

I may be a grown adult with a job and everything but I am a grown adult who just had a massive fangirl moment at her desk at her job.

[dani-ellie03]

I know, I know, it's been a minute but! I have something to talk about!

I know I've mentioned here that my favorite book of all time is Time Windows by Kathryn Reiss.

I could talk all day about why this particular book is my favorite but I'll just link this old post of mine instead. Just know that the vibe is basically ghost-y happenings, time shenanigans, and solving a decades-old mystery.

Fast forward to present day. I think I have found the adult successor to Time Windows. Meet Turn off the Light by Jacquie Walters.

Now, this is clearly is not in any way, shape, or form the same story. This is part historical fiction (Edith's chapters), part family drama (Claire's chapters), and part horror (the supernatural throughline in both of their chapters). But taken down to brass tacks, you know what the vibe is? Ghost-y happenings, time shenanigans, and solving a decades-old mystery.

You guys. I loved this book. Instant five stars. I loved it so much that I ran out and got my own copy after borrowing the e-book from the library. The way that the author connected Edith's timeline to Claire's was absolute genius and elevated what could have been a simple ghost story to something really special.

[dani-ellie03]

Hi, so if you’re ever in San Diego, do the Crazy About Cats tour at the zoo and get this close to a cheetah.

[dani-ellie03]

Hi so I have become obsessed with the Make It Mini blind balls. I love teeny tiny things and I love making teeny tiny things and these teeny tiny things are just so precious!

[dani-ellie03]

I mean, tell me this itty bitty zen garden is not the most precious thing you have ever seen.

[dani-ellie03]

The most preciousest of koi fish is going to live on my desk at work.

[dani-ellie03]

Hi so I have become obsessed with the Make It Mini blind balls. I love teeny tiny things and I love making teeny tiny things and these teeny tiny things are just so precious!

[dani-ellie03]

I mean, tell me this itty bitty zen garden is not the most precious thing you have ever seen.

[dani-ellie03]

Hi so I have become obsessed with the Make It Mini blind balls. I love teeny tiny things and I love making teeny tiny things and these teeny tiny things are just so precious!

[dani-ellie03]

I shall continue my 9-1-1 rewatch and lalala I can’t hear you all the way until 8x13, when wow it’s weird that they cancelled a show mid season like that!

[dani-ellie03]

9-1-1 and I are in a fight. No, I’m not saying why. It knows what it did.

[dani-ellie03]

You guys. This book is thus far delightful.

[death-threat-collector]

That is not helpful when I have no idea what book.

[dani-ellie03]

Apologies, it was in my tags. This is Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson.

[dani-ellie03]

PSA: OUAT is coming to Rhode Island Comic Con this year!

[dani-ellie03]

I am in complete love with how this came out.

[dani-ellie03]

You guys. This book is thus far delightful.

[dani-ellie03]

Hear ye, hear ye, anyone who has watched both Once Upon a Time and Yellowjackets:

Is the cabin the Yellowjackets girls find Rumple's? You know, the one the Queens of Darkness hid in? Because I kinda feel like it is and it's bothering me to the point of distraction. I know both shows film(ed) in Vancouver so the locations match up.

Why is this bothering me so? I haven't the faintest. My brain kinda just does what it wants sometimes.

[dani-ellie03]

Joe: You may be right about this. She may be fated to die before her time. But what is the point of living – for her and for us – if her whole life is spent chasing a tragedy that we’re not sure is ever really going to happen and which for the time being, we can do nothing about? I will not do it. I will take that bear from her and I will burn it in the biggest bonfire you have ever seen if it will convince you to forget about what you saw for the time being. Just forget about it until it actually happens, if it actually happens. Until there’s something we can do about it. Allison: Do you have any idea what you’re asking of me? How hard it would be for me to just pretend that everything’s fine? I don’t know if I can! Joe: Wait, I’m not asking you to pretend. You’re missing the point. I’m not asking you to pretend. Everything is fine. That’s how life works. Everything is fine until it isn’t, and then you deal with it. Otherwise there is no life. There’s just waiting to die.

[dani-ellie03]

Rewatching OUAT and something that reallllly bothers me about the Charmings (particularly Snow) is how little they believe in Emma. They don't believe in her magical ability, they were all for her getting rid of it, they did something really atrocious to "secure" her goodness rather than just trusting her to make the right choices and they didn't believe she was capable of fighting the Dark One magic. They see the best in absolutely everyone except their own daughter. And maybe you could argue that they are harder on her because she is their daughter but all Emma is going to hear is that she isn't good enough. So much of their behaviour towards Emma after the first curse broke pisses me off tbh.

You know, it's been a minute since I thought about any of this but yes, of the things I wish had been done differently in the show, the way the Charming Family progressed is the biggest one.

The drama inherent in their situation was a writer's dream. How do these two parents, who sent away a minutes-old baby and had an emotionally damaged, grown woman returned to them, reconcile all they missed? How does an emotionally damaged, grown woman learn to let her walls down and accept love from the parents she always wanted but spent her entire life believing they didn't want her? And all of that was kind of brushed aside and only touched on in fits and starts. I found it maddening, which I think is why I wrote so much Charming-Family-bonding fic. Because I wrote what I wanted to see but didn't really get to see to my satisfaction.

In any other situation, their hesitance to believe in her and her abilities could just be seen as the skeptic vs believer dynamic seen so frequently in TV shows. (For instance, I'm rewatching Medium and at least once an episode, someone pushes back against Allison's visions even though at this point everyone knows she's psychic -- it's just easy drama for the characters to have that particular disagreement.)

But with Emma's specific backstory, her parents pushing back against her decisions hits different, as the kids say. She spent 28 years with no one to believe in her so seeing her parents continue that cycle, however unintentionally, hurts.

Truthfully, I think Charming did better than Snow in relating to Emma as a grown adult. (Even though I was a bit angry with him when he was advocating for Emma to give up her magic if that was what she wanted. He should have known her enough to know that this was not a decision she was making with careful thought and consideration. She was scared and panicked and just wanted it to be over.) My headcanon for this is because Charming always knew the next time he would see Emma was when she was a grown woman. His going with Emma was never a consideration. Snow, on the other hand, was supposed to go with her. She only had those few minutes between letting her go and the curse descending to come to terms with missing the first 28 years of her life while Charming had whatever time there was between the plan to send Emma away coming together and the curse descending.

As such, I feel like Snow wanted to mommy Emma when Emma was well beyond being mommied. Charming, on the other hand, seemed to be able to give her gentle fatherly advice in a way that Emma would listen to him while not being overbearing in the way that Snow could sometimes be. And what frustrated me with Snow is that somewhere inside her, she did know how to relate to Emma because she managed quite well as Mary Margeret. It was almost like she couldn't get "I'm her mommy and I missed it all" out of her head.

So yeah, this is a very long-winded way of saying I completely agree with you, haha. Thanks for the opportunity to wax poetic about this again; I've missed it!

[dani-ellie03]

Marley: Tonight you will be visited by three ghosts. Scrooge: … I think I’d rather not. Marley: The first will appear when the clock strikes one. Scrooge: Couldn’t I just take them all at once and get it over with.

~~

Scrooge: I want to look in the window. The Ghost of Christmas Present: It will cost you nothing, which I’m sure is good news for you. Scrooge: Will they be able to see me? The Ghost of Christmas Present: No, which I’m sure will be good news for them. ~Scrooge (1970)

[dani-ellie03]

We watched this today as is tradition and yeah, this song is going to be stuck in my head the next few days.

[dani-ellie03]

The viral tip of surrounding your Christmas tree with aluminum foil to keep your cat away does not work when your little shit of a(n admittedly genius) cat simply leaps over the Sea of Foil to reach Tree Skirt Island.