#GIANT || Thread

[amischiefofmuses]

@riiese from [This starter prompt]

Dipper is no stranger to the weird and wonderful, he likes to think he's well acquainted with it now that he's spent a great deal of time in Gravity Falls, exploring the many secrets of the town - but that doesn't change the fact that it's dangerous. Going out into the wilderness is dangerous enough alone without the knowledge that monsters could crawl out of any crevice, ones he had no idea how to deal with. It keeps him on edge, listening for movements, for skittering. In fact he's so focused on his surroundings, braced for anything, that he doesn't notice the giant until he's pretty much right in front of him - looking up at the towering figure that had been obscured by the trees until he stepped out into the clearing. He takes in a shocked gasp that he manages to half muffle with his palm, clapping it over his own mouth to shut himself up. Carefully and slowly he starts stepping back tentatively, as though his movements might make up for the way he'd noisily stumbled his way through the underbrush. Sure, not all monsters are bad but he's really not wanting to take any chances and certainly not with one this size!

[small-witch-big-hat]

Got a new picture of Slagheap courtesy of the wonderful @cadhla182!

She's not ALL armor and fire and violence. Sometimes she likes to show off the body she's got.

Might even let you touch, if you're not too visibly afraid of her.

[marxism-tribadism]

stumbling upon this pic as a younger teen online fundamentally changed me as a person. i can't imagine my life without sachiko's work because it was her artwork that put me on the path to realize i was transgender. and that i was attracted to women in a very strange way, queer sure but not exactly lesbian. i was feeling things i had no language to describe and it would be a little while longer before i even realized i was queer and wouldn't try to hide it anymore. i didn't realize until after finally medically transitioning how impactful some of the stuff i saw online as a kid was for my journey. and the art of kaneoya sachiko is no different, i would say her pictures with this theme even in specific were core to my online formation. also this picture is just hot as fuck dude i want to be a little stupid guy and get dommed by a furry woma

[nikutsuneart]

sora in his way too small clothes and riku in his way too big clothes

[satanfemme]

tagged by @voughtcorsair thank u

This picrew and the last song I listened to:

tagging @3dfangs @felidthing @knifesxedge @sleevesareforlosers if u want to do the tag game. and whoever else wants to do it

[blorbocedes]

'i'd rather have a redbull' - ferrari driver sebastian vettel 😼 you can take the boy out of the team but not the caffeine addiction bond

[slurmdog]

a post made in the dilf bingge steals his daughters boyfriend au (bc his Precious Daughter #3442 is was* dating shen yuan) cinematic universe

[branwyn-the-half-witch]

The Wall and the Waning of Magic: 1/2

(this was originally a Twitter thread; re-posting here for ease of reading)

The Wall is an edifice created, best guesses conclude, some 8000 years prior to the events of A Game of Thrones; it was constructed by some combination of the First Men, led by Bran the Builder, those they called ‘Children of the Forest’, more rightly known as those who sing the song of earth (hereafter ‘singers’) and giants. It is patrolled by the Night’s watch, who protect the realms of men from what lies beyond; notably the Others, although this mission has been forgotten until very recently, with the so-called ‘Wildlings’ (Free Folk) taking the place of the great foe.

It is commonly accepted that the Wall is a net good, both in-universe and without, and that any distaste we may have about the necessity of the Night’s Watch pales in comparison to the horror that will occur when the Wall comes down.

I propose differently; I propose that the Wall is sickening and weakening the world, and it coming down will be one of the greatest moments of the tale – and moreover that the Wall was potentially always intended by its makers to be thrown down.

Magic Lingers

ASOIAF takes place in a world where magic is waning, to the point that learned men will insist magic is gone from the world entirely – and many of them consider this a good thing. The disappearing of magic is largely attributed to the death of the last dragons, and the revival of magic following Daenery’s miraculous rebirth of dragonkind seems to be proof of that.

However, the truth is more complex; we learn from several sources that magic is not entirely gone from the world, even prior to the dragons’ cradle-pyre. It is simply gone from the west of the world following the Doom of Valyria – further east, we are told, magic still exists and its practitioners endure, and even thrive in places such as Asshai.

More intriguingly is this from Maester Luwin, that supposes magic was fading even before the Doom, describing Valyria (a magical empire lasting thousands of years) as merely an ‘ember’. It cannot therefore solely be the death of dragons that caused magic to fade in the West.

The Sad Fate of the Singers

Westeros was once home to a large number of magical beings; unicorns, mammoths, direwolves, ‘great lions’ and, of course, the giants and the singers. All of these are now believed to be extinct, as per Maester Luwin above. Those who venture or live beyond the Wall know that this is not the case; these beings cling on, albeit in scant numbers.

We know that the singers fought and lost a terrible long war with the First Men, and that they retreated to the deepest forests upon the Pact that saw the end of the war. We know also that they were still present in the South in some numbers when the Andals arrived.

However, common wisdom says the singers have been extinct for thousands of years; we know they still linger beyond the Wall...but why? The North remained a bastion of the Old Gods, yet even the northmen believe them gone. Why did they not remain in the deep forests of the North? Why did their numbers continue to decline even after the wars? Why go beyond the Wall, closer to the Others?

The Evil of the Wall Magical and Mundane

The Wall is made of ice. This is an obvious statement to make, but its curious to consider what it means in the context of this world, where cold is the enemy and ice represents death, darkness and crucially – the Others.

If we take as given that Bran the Builder built the Wall, why was it made of ice, when his other claimed works are all of stone? The magic of the singers likewise is in earth and tree and water. So why is the Wall made of ice, the very symbol and strength of the enemy the Wall was built, allegedly, to keep out?

The Wall has its own collection of spooky, disturbing myths that have grown up around it, many of them centring around the Nightfort, formerly the seat of the Night’s Watch. The one that concerns us here is that of the Night’s King, allegedly the 13th commander of the Watch who took to wife a woman commonly been believed to be one of the Others – and from the description of her, that’s highly likely.

However, observe that the Night’s King brings that woman back beyond the Wall to his fortress – it does not keep her out, any more than it keeps out the two wights that awaken in Castle Black in AGOT.

But the Wall was created to keep the Others out, no? Coldhands indeed asserts that he, almost certainly some kind of dead man, cannot pass beyond the Wall due to the spells it is imbued with, presumably those created by the singers; but there is a gate.

The Black Gate, situated beneath the Nightfort, is itself a source of much theorising; it is magical, made of weirwood, and a sad construction that sheds a tear as Bran passes beneath it. The use of weirwood – and the face especially – suggest that this is the work of the singers, who made a door that only the Night’s Watch could open.

It seems unlike that the singers, aiding in the building of an anti-Others defence, would create a door that an Other could pass through; Bloodraven’s cave seems thus warded, so far successfully. But why is the Gate blind? Why is it described as resembling a corpse? This could be a function of the sheer age of the Gate, but I believe it to be more significant than that.

Of Silverwing

Queen Alysanne Targaryen made a visit to the Wall and visited the Nightfort in particular. The castle gave the Queen such bad vibes that she arranged it to be abandoned – immediately – paying for the replacement herself.

That’s quite a reaction, and one that should be contrasted with Stannis, who plans to make the place his seat (and note that Sam considers the possibility that the Black Gate is not permanent – which is very intriguing).

More interesting than Alysanne’s reaction to the Nightfort is her dragon Silverwing’s reaction explicitly to the Wall itself. She is disturbed by the winds from it – and I reject the notion that this was solely the cold, as the cold at Winterfell makes Vermax ‘ill tempered’, not disobedient and disturbed.

It is suggested that the Wall is anathema to creatures of fire – and yet Melisandre is seemingly stronger at the Wall than she is Asshai!

It is also suggested that Silverwing feared not the Wall but what lay beyond – but the Others had not yet begun to stir, so what was she sensing? I posit that the Wall was drinking in the magic that Silverwing generated, effectively draining her.

Also pertinent is the fact that Jon Snow loses all sense of Ghost when the Wall is between them. An unbreakable powerful bond that endures over great distances is rendered inert due to the Wall. This could be a matter of inexperience on Jon’s part, but it is worth bearing in mind.

Waning of Magic

Taking everything together, I propose that the Wall is draining the magic from the world. The magical peoples and creatures of Westeros exist only beyond the Wall, having died out everywhere else, notably the singers who have disappeared even from presumably safe strongholds.

Dragons, whose mere existence makes magic stronger (and possibly what is actually empowering Melisandre), mislike and possibly even fear the Wall, to the degree that Alysanne was deeply disturbed for long after. It needs must be noted also that the dragons of the Targaryens did not reach the size and strength of their forebears in Valyria, dwindling ever more with the years. Perhaps this was due to the Dragonpit, to the betrayal of the house’s women, tied so completely to its dragons. Perhaps it was something more insidious.

Where magic does exist still, it exists in the further East; in Qarth, Asshai and so forth. These places also had a lack of dragons post-Doom, also endured the Long Night, so it cannot be solely these factors. But they are much further away from the Wall; their magic is weakened but endures.

To touch also on the seasons as an aside, WOIAF offers some further credence to the Wall-as-problem. The seasons used to be normal, we are told, only in the most ancient tales. Tales presumably predating the Wall.

If the issue of seasons were solely one of balance between Ice and Fire, when why were there no world-ending catastrophes when Fire was ascendant? The Doom impacted only Valyria, after all.

We must return to the symbolism; where Ice is death, silence, darkness and inhumanity and Fire is life, song, light and passion.

TBC

[dblairlaw]

Owen doesn't usually enjoy going out to eat, much preferring the comfort of his own home. However, the cafe is pretty empty tonight; what harm could it do?

So here he is, sitting at a table in the corner of the cafe, reading through notes for his classes tomorrow, sipping a large hot chocolate that is practically dwarfed in his hand.

@silent-giant

Dex wasn't in the mood to cook. He was tired... worn from a long day of trying to work with a client who thought they could tell him how to do his job. The job that he spent years going to school for. That job.

He wanted something quick. Sweet. And something that could help him sleep easier. And what better than a nice hot chocolate from the cafe a few streets down?

Parking his scooter on the side walk, he walks into the near empty cafe, giving the barista a small wave.

"Dex. Lemme guess, large chocolate?"

"You know me too well."

[hana-bobo-finch]

damnnn I hate it when tumblr doesn’t show me posts from my mutuals and I have to scour through their blogs to see what I missed. How barbaric. Especially hate it when I can tell my own posts aren’t being shown. Listen when I post I want EVERYONE to see it. Like look at this

It’s zasp as a larva 🥰🥰🥰ignore the fact that he is Actively Being Eaten

[discountalien-pancake]

This is the concept for my Zagreus outfit.

Ribbons laid over a piece of black organza to get an idea of the colors. I’m waiting on an order of undyed organza and some beads in suitably fiery warm tones. I also need to dig through my local shop for a tablecloth to use for the slip because somehow i don’t have any appropriate fabric in sufficient yardage.

[luxbrumalix]

@sorrowsick / have you no respect for the dead? / yan to jamie

James chokes around a swallow of his latte, manages to avoid both spitting it out and inhaling it by some miracle. He holds a hand over his mouth, swallows, wheezes for a moment, and then pats himself on the chest.

"Wh--" his voice wavers for a second, so he clears his throat and tries again. "What on earth are you talking about?"

He has to glance around and make sure there's nothing... strange going on. But everything seems fairly normal (no floating little ghosts, and as far as he can tell he isn't dreaming), except that Yan seems more irritated than usual. "I'm.... sorry?" He tries cautiously, "You know, to dead people?"

[pvtjoker22]

I saw Monkey Man last week and all I keep thinking about was how Dev Patel and hijra/trans folks beat the snot out of the villains for working class folks everywhere and revenge, all to a Bloodwood needle-drop.

Also, I need more scenes of Dev Patel using his teeth to kill bad guys. Just all the bad guys.

[wrongarmofthelaw]

" How was it for you when you found out you were...what do they call it...a slasher?"

"What do you mean? I knew I was undead pretty quickly, didn't find out what a slasher was until later. I figured I was just an angry spirit seeking vengeance. But when I found out there were more and especially supernatural ones, things made a little bit more sense. At the very least, I knew I wasn't a fluke. I've gotten along with some of the others, but I still have some conscience. Makes it hard when a lot of them are either nuttier than squirrel turds or sick freaks who like killing as many people as they can." He paused. "Not sure if that answered your question."

[t4tpumpkinduo]

CEE SCHLATT. don't speak to me 🤚

[branwyn-the-half-witch]

The Wall and the Waning of Magic: 2/2

(this was originally a Twitter thread; re-posting here for ease of reading)

Why Do We Build The Wall?

There are three possibilities I would offer regarding the nature of the Wall on the basis of these observations. Firstly, due to the sheer age of the Wall and the scarce-remembered events, one tantalising possibility is that everyone is wrong, and the Wall was not built as a defence against the Others, but BY them as they fled North from the powers of the Last Hero, Azor Ahai, the monkey-tailed girl, the choirs of the Rhoynar and every other half-remembered hero.

This seems absurd, but the Wall is made of ice, and described often in the same terms as the ice-swords of the Others.

It plainly does not keep out the Others or their servants, as we have indisputably seen, but does potentially cut off the magic of a skinchanger, blocks the agent of the 3EC (allied to the singers) and drains and distresses dragons.

In short, it has a negative effect on all those who could feasibly be described as the enemies of the Others. And yet, when Jon Snow sees it, he is seized with the necessity of keeping the Wall up.

He knows that if the Wall falls, the world falls; but what, famously, does Jon Snow know?

This may be a magical compulsion to ensure the Wall remains, whilst the enemies of its makers are drained by it, weakened to the point where they cannot thwart another Longer Night. It is often asked why the Others woke now, why are the dead marching now? Perhaps it was simply finally time; the dragons gone, the singers and giants barely a memory (and forced closer to the Others geographically than to anyone who might help them). The last great greenseer old, fading and unable to flee.

If Azor Ahai took dragons to war against the dark, if the singers aided the Last Hero...those things seemingly could not happen this time.

Another option is that the Wall – which does have foundations of stone, even if it is largely ice by now – was not initially thus but became corrupted. And we have a ready-made candidate for who may have done that. The Night’s King is a contemporary of Joramun, whose horn can allegedly bring down the Wall (more on him in a moment), married an Other (so they must have still been there) and held the Night’s Watchmen in thrall.

Perhaps his great sin was building or infecting the Wall to begin with, and once it began to drain the magic, magic was not strong enough to throw it down. This man, an enemy of humanity in much the same way as Craster and Euron, chose his side and aided it well, if so. And this may explain why the Black Gate, a creation of the singers, looks decayed, has been blinded and appears to be grieving.

Giants and the Horn of Joramun

However, if either of the above were true, then we should have heard of it by now from someone, surely? We have met some surviving singers, and a greenseer who all have access to the knowledge and memories of their ancient comrades. Surely this would have come up?

So suppose the Wall was build as described and is functioning as designed. Does that mean it isn’t draining magic, and this is all just very coincidental? I think it still is draining the world, because such an enormous ward must require something to power it.

But let me offer a solution: the Wall was always intended to come down.

Joramun was a King Beyond the Wall who joined with the Starks in throwing down the Night’s King. His Horn, sought by Mance, is allegedly capable of bringing the Wall down.

Now, Mance found a horn, which Mel burns, but that horn was assuredly not THE Horn. Its suspected that the actual horn maybe somewhere Old, soon with a side helping of squids.

But why was the fake horn convincing? Tormund tells us that this was because the fake horn was found in a giant’s grave – and the Horn brings down the Wall, we are told, by waking giants from the earth.

The ‘horn that wakes the sleepers’ if you will. My contention is therefore that Joramun was a giant, one of the very ones who helped build the Wall, and that his horn was fashioned as a failsafe to destroy what was made when it was no longer necessary.

Perhaps the hope was, with the singers and giants and First Men closer than ever, with dragons in the East and heroes aplenty the world over, the threat would be held at bay and the gifting of their combined magic to keep the defences strong was a willing sacrifice on all parts. But men forget, and war destroys records, and Doom came upon the dragons.

Conclusion

We are shown at length that, from a humanitarian standpoint, the Wall is evil. The Free Folk are demonised in ways that cannot possibly be true, they are hunted like beasts and left in horrible danger when the real threat arises. What are they if not the men the Night’s Watch swear to defend, as Jon comes to ask? What original sin did they commit, other than living on the other side when it was built?

The Wall also dehumanises and destroys those who serve upon it. The world would be better without the Wall, physically and magically. GRRM has said that the seasons will be restored to normal by the end, and whilst we don’t know the details of what is going to happen, but we all agree – that wall is coming down.

JRR Tolkien posits, through King Theoden, that ‘oft evil will shall evil mar’; if Euron Greyjoy, the Night’s Pirate King, does indeed bring down the Wall and lets winter in, perhaps he shall have done a greater good than he would ever had intended, and given us a chance for spring thereafter. Let’s not thank him for it, though.

Original thread here: https://x.com/BranwynHlfwitch/status/1768776863961243700