#Blubb

[bluebabysno1fan]

second play date, he loves the little costume I gave him, but he hella dirty now 😭😭😭

YAAAY SILLY I LOVE MY SON LITTLE GOOBER AWWW HE'S GOT A COSTUME CUTIE AWWWW LITTLE BABY MY SON MY GOOBER AWWWWW BABY CUTIE GOOBER AWWWWWWW HI BABY

[leben-bleibt-wirr]

Ich denke, manchmal wünscht man sich, einfach nur etwas zu machen, das anderen gefällt, weil es davon befreit, etwas tun zu sollen oder wollen oder müssen, das man ausschließlich selbst mögen will oder soll. Weil es davon befreit, selbst entscheiden und beurteilen zu müssen, wann etwas “gut genug” und “fertig” ist. Und davon, immerwieder zu viel zu wollen und sich nicht entscheiden zu können... Vielleicht auch, weil’s dem, was man tut, einen Wert gibt. Einen Sinn. Einen Grund.

[iviarellereads]

The Neverending Story, Chapter 1 - Fantastica In Danger

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Neverending Story, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which the story truly begins.

With a full-page illustrated A(1)

All the beasts in Howling Forest were safe in their caves, nests, and burrows.

It's midnight, and a storm is raging. Then, a light sips through the woods. Not lightning: a will-o'-the-wisp(2) that's lost its way, quite unusual even in Fantastica. It carries a white flag, making it a messenger of one sort or another.(3)

It finds a clearing, where three figures sit at a campfire.

There's a giant, who looks like he's made of grey stone and almost ten feet tall. The wotw(4) recognizes him as one of the rock-chewers, who are few in number and slowly eating the mountain range far from the Howling Forest. His vehicle is a great bicycle with two millstone wheels.

There's a night-hob, not much bigger than the wotw, who might have come from anywhere in Fantastica but likely came from somewhere far from the Howling Forest, because his vehicle is a bat.

And, there's a tiny, who live even further away than the rock chewers' mountain, but here he is with a pink snail mount.

The wotw is curious at three such different creatures sharing a fire, until it sees that they all also bear the white flags or scarves of messengers. It approaches, and is greeted warmly. They exchange names: the wotw is Blubb, the tiny is Gluckuk, the night-hob is Vooshvazool, and the giant is Pyornkrachzark.

The wotw really shouldn't stop for too long, as it carries a secret message for the Childlike Empress. The others say they're sure they carry the same message, and some discussion is had, describing how something ominous is happening in the far reaches of Fantastica. Objects, places, even whole features like lakes disappearing, leaving nothing, not even a hole, behind.(5)

Still, the wotw doesn't know the way to the Childlike Empress's tower, and the others won't share what they know unless the wotw will light their way. The wotw refuses and takes off, and the others decide to make their own way as well.

In the school attic, the clock strikes nine, and Bastian is a little confused to come to awareness of his surroundings, as he'd immersed so deeply into the story. He usually likes stories that are exciting, or funny, or make him dream. He can build such a story so vividly in his senses that he completely forgets himself until it's over.(6) He's glad he's up here reading instead of in his classroom, as this is just the right book for him.

In Fantastica, a week later, the night-hob arrives first, or believes he does because he's flying. He circles his bat over the great garden of the Labyrinth, designed entirely to amuse and delight, since no one known in Fantastica would ever dream of trying to harm the Childlike Empress. He continues flying over it until he reaches the Ivory Tower, her residence.

The word 'tower' might give someone who has never seen it the wrong idea. It had nothing of the church or castle about it. The Ivory Tower was as big as a whole city. From a distance it looked like a pointed mountain peak twisted like a snail shell. Its highest point was deep in the clouds. Only on coming closer could you notice that this great sugarloaf consisted of innumerable towers, turrets, domes, roofs, oriels, terraces, arches, stairways, and balustrades, all marvelously fitted together. The whole was made of the whitest Fantastican ivory, so delicately carved in every detail that it might have been taken for the latticework of the finest lace.

The night-hob landed lower down, at a stable, where his bat is taken and he's offered a ceremonial welcome cup. The ritual is observed, and the bat is taken to a stall, where it falls deeply asleep. In fact, not a single animal in the stable is making a noise.

The night-hob is also pretty exhausted after the trip, but hears a voice call out to him: the tiny arrived first, after all. And, he says, to see the Childlike Empress one must put in for an appointment, as so many messengers have come from all across Fantastica. The night-hob is unconvinced, so the Tiny takes him out to the High Street, where people and creatures of all sorts are in discussion. The menace of the nothing has broken out everywhere, and the Childlike Empress is ill, which could be the cause or a symptom.

Soon, the wotw and the giant also arrive.

During the long waiting period, the four so unalike messengers became good friends. From then on they stayed together. But that's another story and shall be told another time.

=====

(1) If your edition doesn't have illustrations for the letters, I'm so sorry because they're very fun. This one, for me, is the giant on a stone bicycle, the tiny riding his snail in one top corner, and the night-hob on his bat in the other top corner, with the will-o'-the-wisp in the triangle of the A. I do plan to describe my illustrations for the book, unless folks find it tedious. There are only 26, after all, one for each numbered chapter. And yes, somehow, at least this translation managed to keep the letters at the beginning of each chapter, which I assume was a thing in the original German text as well. It's so utterly charming, and really drives home that it's a book about books, you know? Bravo everyone involved. (2) These little creatures have quite a storied history. They're related to jack-o-lanterns, the reason we carve pumpkins at Hallowe'en. They typically symbolize an unattainable hope or goal, or the strange and sinister. In German, it would be "irrlicht" or "irrwisch" or, properly, with a capital i, being a noun… (which, side note, if you ever notice someone capitalizing all their nouns, they probably learned German, and in historical documents, it's a remnant of English's Germanic origin that lasted well into modern English usage) and, uh, to wind back to it, Irrlicht is along the lines of a wandering/deceiving light,"wisch" just replaces light for wisp, and it's a shared folklore across much of Europe. All the creatures of Fantastica, I believe, have some grounding in our world's myths, legends, and peoples. (Oh, we'll come back to that.) (3) Is a bearer of a flag of truce not also a kind of messenger? I ask you. (4) It's this or have to copy and paste it 'cause it's a pain in the wrist to have to reach for all those hyphens. (5) Somehow, "nothing" is always scarier than something. (6) My jealousy knows no bounds. I like a lot of books with vivid descriptions, but I process none of it. Aphantasia comes in many degrees, but I grew up believing that people who said they *saw* things were exaggerating or making it up. No, they really do, most people even, supposedly. Sometimes I think I can conjure up reasonably vivid sounds of things I've heard, but not always, and never a smell or taste or feeling.

[calypso2511]

Kind gestures go a long way, especially for someone like me who can easily misinterpret the smallest of things.

I am so often afraid of doing or having done something wrong or not well enough, that just the smallest amount of praise or "you did this well" just makes me super happy

(There was a time where i had a lot of difficulty accepting praise as genuine and still struggle with that from time to time)

(Its getting better tough)

So yeah

Give your friends some nice words folks

It really is a good thing

[ernaehrunghandbuch]

Spinat, Freunde und Schürzen

Kennt ihr den Blubb? Zu irgendeinem, schon lange zurückliegenden Geburtstag bekam ich meine erste Schürze geschenkt. Die beste Rüstung gegen den Blubb :-)

[littlecrow4]

I know others have mentioned it before but I’m seriously thinking the “to gay for Disney” is not about the cops at all cause ngl you’d only have to watch one episode with them and tell that their either married or very gay for each other already 😂 like I don’t know what would’ve been too gay about them for Disney to handle other then them blatantly stating that their married or sum shiz

Bill and Ford on the other hand, with how the book is already I def think Alex would’ve had to tone down the gay for them lmaoo but that’s just me

[mossy-chaos]

Y'know, it's not that I ignored the whole "Bill and Ford" thing when I first watched Gravity falls.

It's just that I didn't know that gay people existed in 2016

[muddysnout]

[xboobayaga]

I usually don't talk about witchcraft or my beliefs much, but there's sth that has to be said: the gods, deities, fae, whoever you want to connect / work with, whoever they are - they get it. they understand every "flaw" you may think you have and they don't love you any less for it. in fact they might even love you a little bit more because they know you need it.

they don't care wether you use the 8000 dollar gucci jar or an old used one you had lying around they don't care that you may not have the time or energy to do fancy rituals they don't get offended if you forget to thank them once or a few times they will not love you less if you ignore them for a while don't have an altar? that's perfectly fine too ( in fact some prefer not to be limited to a place of worship anyway )

what really matters is intention.

[t4tails]

why is he silly

[vertexline]

-DEATH-

[lotus-pear]

am i the only one who couldn't take dazai's farewell to chuuya seriously bc chuuya was too busy gurgling the water in the bg💀💀

[veggiesforpresident]

i think blubbs and durland met at work and durland was immediately like "this is the most beautiful man ive ever seen." and blubbs also was charmed by durland's humor/awkwardness. blubbs definitely like flirted with/complimented durland from the start but durland like didnt pick up on it/was in denial bc he didnt wanna make blubbs uncomfortable

[akascow]

every gravity falls character is so autistic i love it very much so

[cpylashistoriasfantasticas]

El Asombro Circo Digital 🎪 También conocido como THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS 🎪

[mikonezz]

tag yourself i'm mieke