From Dublin, Ireland. 24 years. Self confessed Hooker ;) Captain Swan gives me life. JMo is my inspiration. Spends far too much time fangirling. Lucifer, iZombie,The Walking Dead, GoT, Vikings. Will forever love Harry Potter and all things Disney.
Today I was thinking about the fandom assumption that Neal (and later Graham, although on a different level) was the only man for whom Emma had romantic feelings before engaging in a series of one-nighters that lasted until she arrived in Storybrooke. It also seems to be equally assumed that her awful experience with Neal was what hardened her heart and made her shut herself off to love.
I disagree. The truth is that canon hints at Emma having developed romantic feelings for more than just one person of her past. Season 1 canon, to be more specific.
Exhibit A:
In S1, the conversations between Emma and Mary Margaret were the main vehicle the writers used to drop some hints about Emmaâs past. Here she mentions the âmanyâ failed relationships she was in.Â
Exhibit B, and the one that intrigues me the most still to this day (yes, Iâm still bitter Emmaâs backstory wasnât that well explored):
âTrust meâ. Emma says this because she knows it from experience. Which means that, at some point, she did get involved with a married man. A married man she had feelings for, otherwise there wouldâve been no heartache. This makes me wonder: did Emma know he was married, or was that something she learnt after being involved with him? No matter the answer, she came out of that experience knowing one thing: being with married guys is bad news.
Did this experience of hers shape in any way what we watch her say in the pilot?
Later, when she catches the guy, he tells her âyou donât have to do this. I can pay you. Iâve got money.â
And she replies:
I wonder if experiencing first hand what cheating can do to a marriage made Emma even more aware of this guyâs betrayal and of how much he was hurting his family. And how he should put his familyâs interests first.
But besides my curiosity, this also intrigues my Captain Swan heart. Why? Because of this moment:
(source)
Emma immediately gets defensive when she sees the Milah tattoo on Killian. I think in this moment she definitely thinks that he has another woman waiting for him and yet there he is flirting with her, making eyes and dropping innuendos on her. Maybe this bad past experience of hers with a married man is what makes her jump to that conclusion so quickly and sets her alarm off. I mean, look at her glare here:
(source)
This glare screams: âheâs just another guy who is committed to somebody else, but is trying to get in my pants. RUN.â But then Killian opens up to her and she knows heâs telling the truth about Milah. And the rest is history.Â
These pieces of information make me believe that the walls that made Emma push Killian away for such a long time were not there just because of what happened with Neal, Graham or even Walsh. If we take into consideration these tidbits given to us about her past, itâs obvious that Emma was brave enough to give love another chance even after Neal. This married man she was involved with and her âmany failed relationshipsâ are proof of that. It wasnât only what happened with Neal/Graham/Walsh that made her weary of Killian, it was a combination of all the heartache all of these experiences brought her that made her so scared of letting Killian in and of allowing herself to admit her feelings for him. Knowing Killian was able to bring down those walls and that Emma was able to open herself up to him despite all these traumas is one of the many things that makes their love so special.
This is such an underrated meta and a lot of this never even occurred to me. It makes a LOT of sense when you look back on those throwaway lines from season 1 though!
Killer whales able to copy words such as âhelloâ and âbye byeâ as well as sounds from other orcas, study shows.
This is a really cool study - but itâs important to be very precise about what it does and does not conclude.Â
What this study indicates: some orcas are capable of mimicking sounds they hear other animals produce, which indicates a capacity for vocal learning.
What this study does not indicate: that all orcas are definitely capable of mimicking sounds they hear other animals produce (this is a case study of a single individual, so while it is probable most orcas can do so, this specific piece of research does not prove that), that orcas understand human speech, or that orcas will mimic human speech to communicate with humans.Â
Iâm working on getting a copy of the paper, but for now, hereâs what information we have from the article and the abstract of the paper: a 14-year-old orca named Wikie, who lives in a facility in France, was taught to generalize a âcopy meâ cue she knew previously from the meaning âimitate the other whaleâs actionsâ to also meaning she should mimic noises that other whales or her trainers made. Â
âAfter first brushing up Wikieâs grasp of the âcopyâ command,â the Guardian article says, âshe was trained to parrot three familiar orca sounds made by her three-year old calf Moana. Wikie was then additionally exposed to five orca sounds she had never heard before, including noises resembling a creaking door and the blowing a raspberry.Finally, Wikie was exposed to a human making three of the orca sounds, as well as six human sounds, including âhelloâ, âAmyâ, âah haâ, âone, twoâ and âbye byeâ. (âŠ) Throughout the study, Wikieâs success was first judged by her two trainers and then confirmed from recordings by six independent adjudicators who compared them to the original sound, without knowing which was which.The team found that Wikie was often quickly able to copy the sounds, whether from an orca or a human, with all of the novel noises mimicked within 17 trials.â
While the co-author of the study notes that this may be the first evidence we have that orcas are learning sounds by vocal imitation, there are a number of extant anecdotes that support that hypothesis.Â
A study published in 2014 noted that orcas who had been housed with bottlenose dolphins for a number of years both started using calls types more frequently that were similar to the types of calls made by bottlenose dolphins (clicks and whistles) and used call types less frequently that bottlenose dolphins donât make (pulsed calls). Whatâs more, one orca learned to produce a chirp sequence that had been taught to the bottlenose dolphins before they were housed together.Â
Luna (L98), an orphaned killer whale calf who lived off of the west coast of Vancouver Island in the Nootka Sound, was thought to be making calls that mimicked the barking of sea lions. While researchers were never able to definitively prove that Luna was mimicking another species of marine mammal, multiple calls matching the spectrograms and repetition pattern consistent with sea lions were recorded in the Sound - however, these had a much wider range of harmonics than normal sea lion calls, were included in bouts of calling that included typical killer whale vocalizations, and were recorded in the absence of sea lions but when Luna was known to be present.Â
If you listen to the video, itâs obvious that Wikie isnât actually pronouncing the words sheâs being asked to copy - instead, sheâs mainly mimicking the tone and emphasis patterns of the researcher sheâs copying. The video doesnât show us all six of the human sounds she was asked to mimic, but instead we get to hear her copying different intonations of the same phrase: the same words said twice, once with a rising intonation and once with descending vocal pattern. And we get to hear her blow a raspberry, because who wouldnât want to hear a whale mimic that?
Overall, this is super cool new research - but it needs to not be blown out of proportion. What weâre learning from this is that orcas are capable of learning new vocalizations from the animals around them, and not even just from their conspecifics. Thatâs really important information about how they communicate - it gives more import, for instance, to the fact that matrilineal groups will increase the frequency of their use of calls specific to their family group after the birth of a new calf - but we have to interpret it through an orca-specific lens, not an anthropomorphic one.Â
This study isnât about orcas learning or understanding human language, or the beginning of being able to speak to humans - Wikie is just copying sounds sheâs been asked to reproduce - but the fact that orcas have the capacity for vocal learning is still incredibly important. This type of study is vital for helping humans see the world through the experience of an orca - but to really understand it, we have to make sure we donât interpret orca life through a human lens. Thatâs a building block of language that not a lot of animals have, and it gets us one step closer to understanding how orcas interact with the world around them.
This has been said about a hundred times. Assuming that Riverdale is still following any kind of classic narrative structure, yes, b*rchie would be a step backwards in character development for Betty, but that would be the point and in line with story-telling. Bettyâs development from season one thus far has been her breaking out of her shell and taking charge. As problematic as the âsnake danceâ was in the way it was framed, it still was symbolic of Betty fully embracing the side of herself that isnât the girl-next-door and doing what she wanted (âitâs not your decision to make,â she tells Jughead). Although Jugheadâs intentions and motivations were understandable, Betty still got knocked down on her ass for taking agency of her person. A regression back to safety, doing what is expected of her would make sense as weâre now approaching the part of the character arc that is representing an identity crisis. If Riverdale can still be trusted to tell a story, itâs actually doing what itâs supposed to do. We are going to see Jughead and Betty going back to playing the roles they believe theyâre supposed to play. Weâre going to see Jughead lone-wolfing it and resigning himself to the Serpents. Weâre going to see Betty trying to get back control and cling to her girl-next-door image. Basically, theyâre going to go full shadow of Alice and FP. We saw that in 2.08. We had FP trying to go straight, clean-up and get a job. We had Alice going Serpent. I predict in the next couple of episodes, weâre going to see both couples intersecting. Thatâs woven into the fabric of the narrative. Even when it hits a couple of bumps in the road, Bughead is not going anywhere.
The same is going to be said of Archie and Veronica. Veronica is likely going to have a crisis with her parents, and I predict Archieâs karaoke days will be over as he goes full jock and perhaps recommits to his fatherâs company. The b*rchie relationship (or tease, whatever) will represent this low point as everything goes the way they think things are supposed to be.. the way that will make everything easier for everyone.Â
But thenâŠthereâs still the looming civil war, and the fiasco with the Blackhood, that are two forces hell bent on breaking down those small-town idealisms and showing us that the safety bubble that is Riverdale is a pipe dream. B*rchie is a casualty of that story; the theme that has been circling Riverdale since season one and it actually hasnât diverted from it. However b*rchie will be explored, it will be the pulling back of the arrow before it springs forward into change. The fact that itâs set to happen because both relationships are in ruins right now should be telling of the fact that varchie and bughead are intended to walk it back. This is just a temporary recalibration of the core four. This their low point. This is where theyâre going to make mistakes and figure out what it is they want out of their lives, and this is the kind of stuff that they canât do within the confines of their relationships. I mean, if they were real people not beholden to laws of narrative, they might. But theyâre characters, and unless we wanted bughead and varchie to be the safety nets that the b*rchie relationship is being set up to be (and safety nets are always negative in storytelling â it means that this character or situation must change), the fact that they are getting this kind of conflict is a positive thing.
Look, Riverdale is very clumsy in many respects and itâs definitely not consistent with all characters, but there is still some semblance of structure. I canât argue that b*rchie is character assassination or that the writers donât know what theyâre doing because it does make sense when you look at character as an arc; if the story isnât over, growth is going to have to happen and growth isnât always a straight line. Itâs a zig zag. Characters, just like real people, always loop back to beginning and retreat to safety when their pursuit of new goals blows up in their faces until they remember why they left safety behind in the first place. Open up any book, examine any movie, look at nearly every fictional dynamic character or relationship that ever existed and once you break it down, youâll see that its true.Â
As painful as it will be to watch b*rchie if youâre a varchie or bughead shipper, take comfort in the fact that itâs actually a stepping stone for the relationships you ARE supporting. That they are the substantive goal here.Â
In the meantime, thereâs fanfiction and ranting on tumblr.Â
This has been said about a hundred times. Assuming that Riverdale is still following any kind of classic narrative structure, yes, b*rchie would be a step backwards in character development for Betty, but that would be the point and in line with story-telling. Bettyâs development from season one thus far has been her breaking out of her shell and taking charge. As problematic as the âsnake danceâ was in the way it was framed, it still was symbolic of Betty fully embracing the side of herself that isnât the girl-next-door and doing what she wanted (âitâs not your decision to make,â she tells Jughead). Although Jugheadâs intentions and motivations were understandable, Betty still got knocked down on her ass for taking agency of her person. A regression back to safety, doing what is expected of her would make sense as weâre now approaching the part of the character arc that is representing an identity crisis. If Riverdale can still be trusted to tell a story, itâs actually doing what itâs supposed to do. We are going to see Jughead and Betty going back to playing the roles they believe theyâre supposed to play. Weâre going to see Jughead lone-wolfing it and resigning himself to the Serpents. Weâre going to see Betty trying to get back control and cling to her girl-next-door image. Basically, theyâre going to go full shadow of Alice and FP. We saw that in 2.08. We had FP trying to go straight, clean-up and get a job. We had Alice going Serpent. I predict in the next couple of episodes, weâre going to see both couples intersecting. Thatâs woven into the fabric of the narrative. Even when it hits a couple of bumps in the road, Bughead is not going anywhere.
The same is going to be said of Archie and Veronica. Veronica is likely going to have a crisis with her parents, and I predict Archieâs karaoke days will be over as he goes full jock and perhaps recommits to his fatherâs company. The b*rchie relationship (or tease, whatever) will represent this low point as everything goes the way they think things are supposed to be.. the way that will make everything easier for everyone.Â
But thenâŠthereâs still the looming civil war, and the fiasco with the Blackhood, that are two forces hell bent on breaking down those small-town idealisms and showing us that the safety bubble that is Riverdale is a pipe dream. B*rchie is a casualty of that story; the theme that has been circling Riverdale since season one and it actually hasnât diverted from it. However b*rchie will be explored, it will be the pulling back of the arrow before it springs forward into change. The fact that itâs set to happen because both relationships are in ruins right now should be telling of the fact that varchie and bughead are intended to walk it back. This is just a temporary recalibration of the core four. This their low point. This is where theyâre going to make mistakes and figure out what it is they want out of their lives, and this is the kind of stuff that they canât do within the confines of their relationships. I mean, if they were real people not beholden to laws of narrative, they might. But theyâre characters, and unless we wanted bughead and varchie to be the safety nets that the b*rchie relationship is being set up to be (and safety nets are always negative in storytelling â it means that this character or situation must change), the fact that they are getting this kind of conflict is a positive thing.
Look, Riverdale is very clumsy in many respects and itâs definitely not consistent with all characters, but there is still some semblance of structure. I canât argue that b*rchie is character assassination or that the writers donât know what theyâre doing because it does make sense when you look at character as an arc; if the story isnât over, growth is going to have to happen and growth isnât always a straight line. Itâs a zig zag. Characters, just like real people, always loop back to beginning and retreat to safety when their pursuit of new goals blows up in their faces until they remember why they left safety behind in the first place. Open up any book, examine any movie, look at nearly every fictional dynamic character or relationship that ever existed and once you break it down, youâll see that its true.Â
As painful as it will be to watch b*rchie if youâre a varchie or bughead shipper, take comfort in the fact that itâs actually a stepping stone for the relationships you ARE supporting. That they are the substantive goal here.Â
In the meantime, thereâs fanfiction and ranting on tumblr.Â
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