#{Just... thinking aloud here-}

[orobeori]

I was going to add more panels of a synchronized strangle attack by team broppy, but decided that enough was enough...

Anyhow here's how I think the battle at Mount Rageous should've gone, with the lovely happy trolls using the hair as weapons of destruction </3 I know that Branch is in his healing era but I still think he would've resorted to his more violent methods somehow (this time with Poppy's full support).

Also, the reason why Viva's still using the sticky hands is because of this one hc I saw that the Putt-Putt trolls lost the ability to stretch their hair due to malnutrition :D

[bethiewhimsy]

i think the saddest part about the husk shaking from fear because of alastor scene is that he never seemed afraid of him until now. he felt comfortable enough to talk to him, to offer advice and even to bite back when alastor started picking on him. there’s scenes in which they tease each other. husk knows a lot about alastor that nobody else (not even the audience) knows, whether he was purposefully trusted with this information or not, neither seem threatened by it. before that, husk simply seemed regretful to be indebted to him, like alastor was just a burden to bear. i think that’s why his reaction to alastor in that scene was so intense. alastor had perhaps never treated him so harshly before. and that scared the shit out of him. and probably felt akin to some sort of betrayal or something. like being reminded of the awful truth (that alastor OWNS him, that he COULD kill him, that he’d be happy to)

[batcavescolony]

A Batfam AU where instead of going to get Dick to be Robin again Tim uses necromancy to bring Jason back from the dead. He just leaves Jason on the Wayne doorstep with a 'do better this time' sticky note. Batman can't find out who did it and Tim stays his little latchkey self with semi ok but distant parents (cus canonical they weren't really abusive just not there which isn't good but they could be worse). His parents bring him along on trips but again they love him but they just leave him to do as he pleases. so in Paris he ends up still getting trained by Lady Shiva. This keeps going and Tim just keeps reviving batfam members, if they fake their deaths and Tim tracks them down to check on them. They still have no idea who their shadow is, they can't find him, Tim likes it this way. Bruce goes MIA and Red Robin happens just minus Tim actually being Red Robin. The JLA doorstep gets a passed-out Batman with a 'I can't believe I have to keep doing this shit' sticky note on his head.

[streetcorner-2inthemorning]

Thinking about how in season 2, the Doctor asked Rose "How long are you going to stay with me?" He could have asked her that in so many ways. "How long do you want to travel with me?" "When do you want to go home?" But he chose those words specifically. And Rose could have answered in just as many ways. "As long as I live." "As long as you'll have me." But instead she said one word. "Forever."

And the sad thing is that her answer was truer than any other answer she could have given. Because whether she realized it or not she wasn't saying how long they would be together. She was telling him how long she would be with him. As a memory, as a ghost, in his hearts. No matter who the Doctor is or how old they get, somewhere deep inside their soul, Rose will remain. Forever.

[suudonym]

stream of consciousness thoughts about jp>en translation as it pertains to closeness in demon society, etc.

it's no mystery that when iruma asks azz and clara if he can think of them as friends, the word he uses is 友達/tomodachi. it's a casual word that denotes... you know, a friend. someone you like to spend time with. very straightforward.

there's also a more formal word for friend, 友人/yuujin, but to the best of my knowledge this one doesn't get used in mairuma, and this may be because it seems to strictly avoid using the 人 kanji (hito/jin/nin/person). it's often said that the way 人 is written makes it look like the two strokes are supporting one another, implying that people are things that live with the support of others. to my understanding this isn't the actual origin of the glyph, but it is a fairly common saying - and so it fits the worldbuilding nicely that the highly egocentric demons don't have 人 in their language. they do use the word "hito" sometimes, but I can't recall seeing it written in kanji

speaking of words demons do have, we see 仲間/nakama quite a bit, but while there are plenty of situations where it's valid to translate nakama to "friend," you don't actually have to like someone to consider them thus. someone is your "nakama" when you're united under the same banner, so to speak. it could be a classmate or a teammate or a coworker - anyone you share circumstances and goals with. the fact that this is one of the most friend-adjacent words demons have is also very like them.

demons also have 仲良し/nakayoshi and 仲が良い/naka ga ii, both of which describe getting along with and having a good relationship with someone. so demons do clearly have the concept of friendship, even if they don't have the word for it.

anyway, soulmates. the word iruma uses to describe what azz is to him is 親友/shinyuu, which is... I mean, it's really hard to translate this as anything but "best friend." it's a very close friend and/or someone you've been friends with for a long time. however, there's two reasons it's hard to translate 親友 to "best friend" specifically in the context of mairuma, both of which are summed up in this exchange:

it's a word that azz doesn't recognize. demons have the word "best" and azz knows the word "friend," so why would he have to ask what a "best friend" is? shinyuu sounds completely unlike tomodachi, so to have the same effect, the english word used to translate it also has to sound completely unlike "friend"

iruma's kind of embarrassed about it. "best friend" is usually a rather light term in english and not one we'd typically get flustered talking about. your best friend might just be the person you like spending time with more than anyone else. you could be talking about the past and say someone "was your best friend back then" and it doesn't necessarily suggest that you had a falling out or anything, you might have just kind of drifted apart or met someone else you got even closer to or something similar. I don't know if I'm explaining this completely accurately but from what I gather, "shinyuu" is more of an intimate, time-tested friendship. there seems to be a certain level of emotional vulnerability associated with it that "best friend" doesn't always convey by default.

if absolutely pressed for an alternative translation, I might posit "kindred spirit," but that doesn't quite feel like as natural a thing to say as "soulmate." I do think it's a shame that it has that automatic romantic connotation, but honestly that's society's failure. embrace the concept of platonic soulmates, you cowards.

anyway, them's the thoughts.

[queenlucythevaliant]

There was a park a few blocks away from Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta’s home in Cambridge where Lucy would often wander that summer when she wanted to be alone. She’d tuck a book under her arm and call to Edmund, “I’m going!” and then she’d go find herself a tree.

Branches waved gently, like fingers against the sky. Lucy would settle herself on her favorite bench and try to read, but sometimes she just found herself gazing at those branches. When she was sure the park was empty, she’d succumb to her most fanciful impulse to get up and walk among them. Wake, she’d think, and imagine the faces that each kind of tree would have.

Lucy knew it was fancy, but it wasn’t delusion. She could tell the difference. After all, it had been truth that first set her on the path to Narnia, dismissed as both delusion and fancy.

At school she read Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. She painted Prospero with Coriakin’s coloring, high wiry brows and sun-wrinkled skin. She gave him long fingers, an imaginative touch—Coriakin’s had been rather short and stubby—and heard the poetry in her own voice. She read aloud to her friends sometimes, just picked up wherever she was and read while Marjorie and Josephine curled up under blankets with mugs of hot tea.

“It sounds better when you read it,” Marjorie mused. “Even if it is musty old Shakespeare.”

There were glimpses of gold in puddles on the pavement, and Lucy found herself glancing up as though she expected to find Aslan in her periphery. He wasn't there, of course, but the sunset shot light into the street and made it shine. Aslan wasn't in the chapel at school either, but the bells pealed golden every hour. He wasn't stalking beneath her dormitory window, but there were fresh footprints in the snow.

Lucy was sure that if only she could remember the spell for making hidden things visible, she'd find her whole world cloaked in tawny, velvet gold. Aslan in the kitchen, Aslan in the sky at dawn. Aslan in the faces of her friends, who laughed when Lucy said fanciful things but who listened rapt when she read aloud.

"I swear, you and your read-alouds, Lucy Pevensie," grinned Josephine as the cover fell shut. "Why, it's almost as though you believe in all the stories! You're not theatrical, just credulous." So Lucy leaned back and taught her friend how to tell if someone was lying, or delusional, or if they had a marvelous truth to tell.

On lonely weekends, Lucy begged Professor Digory to take her with him to Oxford to see the great stone halls and the towering cathedral and she loved the way the angels’ sloping wings looked against the sky. Wake, she whispered as she passed by graves and monuments to those long dead, and imagined that she might see Aslan pacing behind them, ready to breathe them back to life.

[buckleysdee]

if I say part of why buck will be upset about this breakup up is because he was using tommy to ignore....other feelings....

[prideprejudce]

the whole ariana grande and ethan slater mess just proves my ongoing theory that even though everyone assumes that it’s attractive men you have to worry about trusting in relationships - in reality it’s the medium ugly ones that you have to really look out for. medium ugly men will live with you, marry you, have a baby with you, and then as soon as another woman throws him even a crumb of positive attention will gladly drop you like a hot potato with zero remorse or second thoughts

[lossisyours]

Spotted at the Palace Hotel: S. and B. having a heart-to-heart.

[nanabansama]

In this post I touched upon how Amane's quote in Ch. 111 matches what his mother says about Tsukasa in Ch. 79. I thought this was interesting, but wasn't completely happy with my conclusions about the two scenes.

While I like the idea that Amane is quoting his own mother to some extent, one thing I undermined is that Amane seems to realize there's something different about Tsukasa before even their mom does.

While the readers can see a giant, unnerving hole in Tsukasa, it's likely that Amane didn't. That said, I think it's meant to represent something to Amane in this moment, that being a sense of unease he can't place. His reaction says it all really: he's not overcome with joy that his brother is back, but looks surprised. Like something is off.

I think there are a few possibilties here. First, it's possible Amane did echo his mother's word because it resonates with how he felt: that his brother had been replaced by something else on the inside. He just didn't have the right language to express his thoughts beforehand.

Second, I think it's fun if Amane is saying this completely coincidentally. We never know if his mother mentioned her misgivings about Tsukasa to Amane directly, after all. She gets extremely upset at the temple but that doesn't mean she acted like that at home, in the presence of Amane who is still a young child. I do find it highly unlikely Amane never knew something was up, but it's totally possible his mom never directly told Amane about it and talked about it where he couldn't overhear.

I could swing either way really but I enjoy Amane being swayed by his mother's opinions since I think it adds an interesting thread to the story. Being a "tsukasa is still tsukasa" truther myself I also like that Amane could tell something was off but came to the wrong conclusion, perhaps influenced by outside forces like their mother.

Either way you swing it's a pretty minor difference overall, and personally I don't think Amane is any kind of authority on Tsukasa anyway and has in fact been shown to be wrong about him several times, but it's still important to remember he's always known that something was amiss with Tsukasa regardless of what their mom thinks.

[pfhwrittes]

what if... what if valeria tells you to call her Papí.....

[connecting-the-stars]

I’M EXCITED!

I’m gonna jump into the boat of choosing to believe in the writer’s vision. I do want these characters to get out alive and well and have this family be restored, but a story without struggle isn’t nearly as fulfilling. I want to believe that this squad of soldiers, constantly pulled together and apart, will end up where they always should have been - at their family’s side.

I feel a lot of us are under this storm cloud thats about to release all hell, and I cannot blame anyone. This is dark season, I thought season 2 with Crosshair’s torture was terrible but s3 has put on the pressure.

But I have prediction :D

I’m on the team that Emerie will make the leap: hand over a giant red button and thundering music behind her. There’s something different about her, that unquestionable obedience and restraint gone. Her red lenses at her feet. The looming vat of blue in front of her, a monstrous shadow stretching over her. The button beeps, an alarm booming to life as the liquid in the tank lowers, a long arm twitching to life. Cuts to a poisonous green eye snapping open.

The scene cut to black as glass cracks, a monumental growl echoing into the dark.

That’s how episode 14 will leave and where the final will leave off.

[rozecrest]

thinking about brnine and gucci’s partizan baggage is so fascinating. brnine’s call sign was markup bc they overcharged repairs on gucci’s secret rebel force. gucci sent brnine flowers in prison. brnine’s never spoken love died killing the mother of gucci’s childhood friend that she’s been orbiting her entire life. gucci naming the other factions of the cause in thematic relation to the blue channel. one really gets me… gucci was in fort icebreaker. she saw brnine and valence together; she knew brnine was their fervent campaign manager and valence got them that space ship. did she ever realize what was between them? did she know that the blue channel meant more than just a way to travel and brnine couldn’t have stood for it being renamed? there’s so much to read into here……..

[gracieblood]

shout out to stan for being accidentally written as the only decent human being in the entire fic

[great-tusk]

ughhh I need to stop having mental breakdowns over little things.

[voidpacifist]

wait hang on actually i love how ii, iii, and iv have different masks and how much that implies for i guess like...lore?? like their individuality (other than stage antics) is beginning to make a visual appearance. AND on top of the fact that we've been watching vessels mask recede bit by bit over the eras...oh i am insane about this what does this mean for the next era !!!!!!!