#I feel like this post sounds a lot more dramatic than it really is bc I'm writing it while I'm kinda tired and bored

[tadpoles-and-daydreams]

break on the free readings

Hey all! If you're not an anon* and you still have a reading request sitting in my inbox, I'd like to be clear that I am currently a bit burnt out so I've taken a short break. Paid readings will still get done if I get any since those are a major privilege to do in my mind and I appreciate the support, but for the moment I'm closing reading requests and will be getting back to doing the last few non-anon readings once I can. The past few days have been this odd, noticeably liminal space for me, and I was forced to recognize that my free readings are off the table for a little bit. Asks are still open and I'm still happy to respond to those, I'm just not responding to any reading requests atm!

(*anons I'm so sorry, you don't get notifs so I'm going to assume that you won't see readings done weeks later. I'll figure out how to combat this in the future.)

[browniefox]

I asked for fic recs so it only makes sense that I provide some.

The Invisible Stan by The Last Speecher (HeidiMelone)

Simple, short, but elegant. You know how hanahaki disease is a trope? I feel like this should be a trope, but idk what you'd call it - Ninny disease sounds bad, but like it's clearly based off of Ninny from the Moomins. Anyway, great fic <3

An Outreached Hand by WDW

Ghost trick au! Love a good ghost trick au! I reread this recently and it still holds up so well, still so good even if unfinished. Haven't played ghost trick since, some of the twists make a hair more sense - especially the twist in the last chapter posted and being like 'OH IT'S *THE* GHOST TRICK'. Shoutout to undead creepiness and cute kitties :3

Retrograde by scrawling_stardumb

Kissing this one on the mouth. Only one chapter and unfinished, but it's a long chapter and really makes you go 'whoa'. It's interesting because the summary *technically* gives you more info than the chapter itself, but it's that kind of dramatic irony that fits the writing so well. A good solid McGucket POV too, which there really isn't enough of. Tbh, it stands okay almost as a one shot? I wish this became a whole popular au like all the others, bc it kicks ass as a concept.

Finding the Right Frequency by impish_nature

A pretty cute one! Ford trying to figure out how to deal with Bill, and Stan having found a stable job, and someow their two worlds intersect. Cute moments between the two, and some good Stans getting to reconnect.

Things You Can't Take Back by thesnadger

Classic by the Snadger! I always appreciate people who take Stan's memory less and make it more complicated, or at least have there be aftershocks to have your whole life erased :D So well written.

like they were a perfect fit by hapful

Stanford Pines and the photo he never looses. A beautiful story about Ford throughout the ages and his opnions on family, specifically Stan.

putting the dog to sleep by parsnipit

Old Yeller is such a sad story, and also some of this made me think of Mice and Men, and ugh just Stan and Ford and beign willing to kill something you love - sometimes because you love it - and it's such a perfect analogy to them I could die.

none of those phds is an md, you dumb idiot by untrustworthyglitch

I always love a fic that acknowledges language barriers. It reminds me of a really old fic where I did something similar, but like, being away from Earth would lead to you forgetting a lot of things, including language.

Too Late, Too Soon, Not Enough by IncomingAlbatross

Ah, gotta love a good fic that shows the missing scene of Ford and Stan switching places. Who came up with the idea? Who needed to be convinced? What swears do they get to use while off camera? Stan I love you so much, and Ford I lov eyou for beig nso complicated.

Raising Stakes by MaryPSue

Mwah! A Classic if I've ever seen one! While I'm partial to werewolf!Stan, Vampire!Stan does have so much potential and MaryPSue puts it to use so well! A great look into what Gravity Falls was like back in taht time period, and I love when people utilize Susan in fics that take place pre-portal <3 Also, Carla! I miss you so much Carla <3 It's drama, it's action, it's everything!

Lost and Found by PengyChan

Tate & Fiddleford have a lot of untapped potential, and while I think going the angst route makes a lot of sense, this one is almost more fluff and catharsis, I guess? I love it, near and dear to me.

Off-Season by anistarrose

Time Travel fic, but not a timestuck au? More likely than you think! A cute oneshot with particular focus on Stan, Mabel, and Dipper. Just a fluffy little thing with a couple strangers helping Stan out through a difficult winter.

Persist and Dwell by fencesit

A bit of Soos's trust in Grunkle Stan, and a mystery that isn't so much mystery as it is simply just not explicitly said. One of the final scenes has still stuck with me, and this is defo a concept I'd love to see explored more.

flee from your ghosts (burn your house down) by thepolysyndetonaddictsupportgroup

While typically OTGW x Gravity Falls crossovers are, like, Pinescone, I'm partial to this version where Wirt is their dad. There'a few details that didn' sit well with me, but over all so incredible and well written. Some of the metaphors are just so evocative I could eat them. The descriptions are to die for. And I love the depiction of a dad struggling to get his kids to open up to him that feels like it's part dads struggle with teens and part those pines twins just won't tell the truth.

If you have any Gravity Falls fic recs, feel free to comment them!

[blue-thief]

ranking bllk ships based on how likely they are to be canon

this is me trying to be as objective as possible. my biases are def gonna shine through though lmao. i'll only be addressing popular ships for the sake of my sanity. also these are just my opinions so i'd be curious to see everyone else's predictions

ryusae - already semi-canon. their relationship probably won't get a lot of focus but i wouldn't be surprised if we got a post-retirement timeskip at the end of the series and it's revealed they got married lmao

reonagi - what even is the point of episode nagi if we're not gonna have a dramatic confession in the rain that wouldn't tonally fit with the main series

kunigiri - canon bi kunigami + the whole princess/fallen hero thing. i'm only 95% certain the development of their relationship will be romantic, but their relationship is def gonna be a core part of their characters as the series goes on

kainess - in my eyes they're already semi-canon ("it's a beautiful blue" sounds a lot like "the moon is beautiful, isn't it?") but i don't think ness's feelings will ever be reciprocated. or even if they are i don't think they'll be endgame for the sake of both their character developments yk

kaisagi - they're my favs so that's why they're this high but if i'm being serious, they won't become anything more than semi-canon. at most, we're gonna have a short bit with kaiser watching isagi clips again and going "wait a minute am i actually gay" and he accepts, moves on, and it's never addressed again

bachisagi - they have a better chance than most other ships but i really don't think they'll be anything more than platonic.

rinsagi - they have pretty decent chances but def not high enough to warrant them getting higher on this list

bachirin - i WISH they could be higher on this list :,)

nagisagi - the chances aren't zero but considering how much is going into reo & nagi's relationship + all the other relationships isagi has going on.... yeah they have no chance

barousagi - i'm literally just adding them bc i wanted a nice list of ten. as much as i love this ship i really don't think we'll be seeing anything from them :,,,,,)

honorable mention: egonoa/noaego - we don't know much about their relationship yet but i think it would be hilarious if they turned out to be canon exes. kaneshiro please

[menlove]

i saw on some of your posts that you say you aren’t an india truther, out of curiosity what do you think caused john and paul to have a fallout? do you think the resentment was more gradual and happened over 68-69? im sorry if you’ve answered this before but i love hearing about people’s theories of what happened in india and the aftermath.

sorry I totally forgot to answer this but for me.... hm. tossing under a readmore bc it got long oops

I think it was more gradual. like the way they act w each other in the get back sessions & just in general speaks more to something more unspoken happening than some big dramatic break up or rejection, at least to me. esp given how john & yoko lived with paul for a while in the summer of 68 (and talk about the world's worst throuple)

I wouldn't say I don't think Anything happened in india, but imo it seems more like.... I saw someone talking about how up until that point they were all on a lot of drugs & india was them getting off them for a minute & they sort of looked around and went "what the fuck are we doing? do I even know these people?" and that rings the most true to me I think.

some of the bigger reasons I have my doubts abt india being some huge thing where they fucked for the first time and paul rejected john are a) they still got along after that. things were weird but not much weirder than they'd been after brian's death b) paul wrote "i will" in india and I've talked before about how I'm 100% convinced that's about john and to me "will I wait a lonely lifetime, if you want me to I will" doesn't sound like the words of someone about to do any rejecting c) the infamous blowing the mic scene in get back is way too lighthearted and makes paul blush and giggle like they're just referencing fucking as a part of their relationship that happened enough to not be disarming. doesn't seem like john is being bitter or trying to egg him on and paul isn't reacting like someone that got called out for fucking john and then rejecting him. it reads more, to me, like just two lovers slyly joking around about a time they fucked that no one else can know about

which brings me to d) I'm also a "they had a sexual relationship" truther (which would be a whole other essay tbh) and so For Me Personally that just doesn't jive w smth big and dramatic happening in india. I just don't think they ever talked about what the fuck was going on between them, whatever it was, and then the typical band breakdown reasons coincided w a breakdown of their personal relationship as well. like just sort of dying out without much fanfare which can honestly be worse than some big rejection or breakup. and then ofc john goes full in with yoko and paul flounders around trying to settle down with a woman and marry her in such a weirdly frantic way. like that quote where he asks if he was supposed to be a 26 year old queer that never got married....... I would wager, imo, that things breaking down w john & then jane would've lead him to a bit of a Crisis about all that. but he found linda and went all in w her and she wound up pregnant so there you go.

which would lead them to a really weird place by the get back sessions, which I at least feel like is reflected pretty well- this awkward tension, paul's nervous desperation, nostalgia for the old times, lingering sexual tension. but not the attitude like they hated each other yet or had some big breakup or rejection. they're still joking and flirting, it's just awkward. the Big Moment would've been something else after that imo, probably john announcing he wanted a divorce but could've also been something more private that would go a long way to explaining why they were basically not on speaking terms at all by the abbey road sessions

again this is all Purely Speculation. mostly based on my more conflicting view from the fandom at large that they did have a sexual relationship and paul isn't as repressed/clueless as he puts on. so w those Two Beliefs in mind, this is sort of the trajectory that would make the most sense to me!

of course, without those two Core McLennon beliefs of mine I can see why people would point to india as the game changer if they think paul is a repressed bisexual who thinks he's straight while john pined over him. like it would make sense in that scenario if that's where the tension snapped & it was just a mess after that. but I very firmly and adamantly don't believe that so it's just hard for me to see the india theory as anything solid when there's a lot of other explanations for why india was such a shitshow

but all that is just me personally! don't have shit to back it up beyond what I can bring up about the evidence of a sexual relationship and paul being closeted that then lead me to these speculations based on that but yeah lmao

(and fun fact lmao whenever we publish it this is gonna be like half of the story of "i need you" so yall will get to see my fully baked opinion there mixed w just what I think would be fun or angsty dbshsjss)

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

so howd you like it what are your thoughts

Anon, I hope you don't mind it but I'm going to use this ask as an excuse to do my Full On Rambling post about my honest thoughts. I'll try to keep is as coherent as possible, but I can't actually guarantee it :')

Also putting it under a cut because some of it is going to sound negative (as I said, I want to exorcise any critiques I have so I can go back to Vibing asap) and I know many people (undestandibly!!) won't want to read that, and I don't want to burst anyone's happy bubble :) . And also because of s3 spoilers. Bear in mind that it's not a rant post, I still had tons of fun with the season. But since I'm going to be talking about the things I enjoyed forevermore and gonna try to keep all my 'didn't really like this :/'s contained in this post, it may come out sounding like I enjoyed it less than I truly did. Here we go, get ready for some Thoughts

-> Content

Okay, listen. This season was fun. I had a nice time watching the newest shenanigans. New characters (with one notable exception) were a joy to watch (yes, even the thing. We're in a toxic situationship) and I was greatly amused by their adventures; most of them kept me on the edge of my seat.

(ok, here's where the negativity begins. Please don't take me for someone who wanted everything to be done for Their Specific Standards or who thinks they know more than the professional and extremely skilled team that was behind the series. I'm just throwing around thoughts about how I feel, but in the end, the only thing that matters is that Luke Pearson and the team got to tell the story they wanted to. If that was achieved, I'm happy regardless)

However, I couldn't help but think that some of it felt... like it was "thrown" at us, in a way? To be fair, I think most of the negative points I'll discuss in this post are a consequence of this season being 6 epsidoes short of what the writers originally planned because, as I've mentioned before, I do think the show's writing is great and that the team puts their heart and soul into making this the best cartoon possible. Anyway, what I mean is that at times I thought the episodes seemed so worried with delivering all the information they could that a lot was left behind and some stuff didn't really tie together with the rest.

For example; I still cannot understand why aunt Astrid and Anders had to be these big surprises that had never been mentioned before if Hilda, the character who we see this world through, already knew about them? Don't misunderstand me, I am well aware that these nitpicks of mine are subjective and only my personal opinions that may very well simply be a consequence of not understanding what the writers were trying to achieve. I just feel like Johanna's family and Hilda's father are topics that have been discussed so at lenght in the fandom, precisely because they'd been so carefully skirted around in the previous seasons, that the reveal that nothing really dramatic had happened (between Johanna/Astrid and Johanna/Anders, at least) feels anticlimatic to me. It just feels (again, to me, personal opinion) that if this was going to be the case all along they could have mentioned these characters before, and it would have made the narrative make a little more sense.

(This is especially true to me in Anders' case. Bc it felt to me like they had been trying to highlight how irrelevant Hilda's dad was to the story in the first seasons by not bringing him up at all, by not even pointing out his abscence. But I can't really see the point in that if you're gonna bring out the man either way)

Ironically, at the same time I felt like some of the arcs were a tad overachieving, especially the Johanna's parents one. I just felt like it was Too Much Too Quickly, which once again is likely because of the season having been shortened. I feel like if they really wanted to do that arc, and that way, it would have been helpful to cut some other storylines so they could begin fleshing out this one earlier. They way it was done I just personally (can you tell I'm terrified of being taken as a hater?) felt like there was no time at all to get either used to the idea of Johanna being half faerie nor to get attatched to her parents. Like. I know the episode was the season's emotional peak, but it just didn't hit me the way I know it should.

Not sure if this was a me problem, but I felt like the audience wasn't given enough time to process what had even happened when they got stuck in the fairie island, nor to even consider that they'd truly be stuck there forever, much less to fully process the sacrifice Johanna was making when she left it with Hilda. I didn't get to get attached to Johanna's parents or to the dynamic they have with their daughter. I didn't suffer the way I wanted to when I saw them having to part ways, because I couldn't become invested in their bond when I was still trying to wrap my head around what their backstory even was and pay attention to the action heavy scenes that were to come.

What I'm gonna say here is way meaner than the people behind the show's writing deserve and I know, I can absolutely tell it isn't the case because you can see some of the foreshadowing once you have the benefit of hindsight, but it felt to me like some of Johanna's backstory was written for shock value alone. Which, considering the previous components of the season that I have already mentioned felt underwhelming, was even more jarring.

Another thing is that I feel like a lot was sacrificed in order to do these overachieving arcs. This maaay just be the side character lover and change hater in me, but I do feel like in order to present to us all these new concepts that would be necessary for the backstory to make sense, we were deprived of some elements in Hilda The Series that are arguably what the show does best. It felt like they all but scratched all of their previous stories, characters and components to switch them up for new ones. Pikablob has said it better than me, tbh.

However. I do feel like saying that none of the fears I had for the season came true. No character feels ooc, no one was left with an incomplete arc, and though I can't see how Anders contributes to the story, if he had to be there I feel like the way that was it done was the right one.

-> Pacing

Frenetic. Run for the hills kind of thing sometimes. Which, once again, I can't bring myself to believe was the writers' fault, not when they had other 6 episodes planned that they didn't get to do. I absolutely understand that they had to condense everything they wanted to show us into half the runtime. But it did become an issue (to me) when instead of the trademark Hilda Idyllic Tranquility I usually feel while watching (even plot and action heavy content like TMK), I felt like I was watching a completely different cartoon. Carmen Sandiego, or something like that (please note that I do also love Carmen Sandiego). Many times it just felt like there was no breathing space, which isn't necessarily bad when done well, but I hadn't gone into the season prepared for that.

It wasn't a problem that was all around present, though. I do want to point out that imo "The Giant Slayer", "The Laughing Merman", "Strange Frequencies" and even "The Forgotten Lake" still felt like Hilda to me. Which is where I realize what the main issue I had with the season was. That a lot of it just felt like a different show.

-> ~ vibes ~

I am bringing back the disclaimer that if the team told the story they wanted to, then good for them, I'm pleased as can be. I do enjoy that the series played with some different concepts. The musicality and colours in The Laughing Merman, for example, were absolutely delightful to me. Seriously, I want an entire Hilda musical now.

But some things I just couldn't help but feel were so disconnected from the previous feel of the show that it felt to me like they didn't belong. You can sum the rest of this post up by saying that season 3 would have been one of my favourite ever cartoons if it had been its own thing. But it's not, so I can't help but compare it and try to understand how all of the installments work when together.

The faeries, for example. I was so excited when I saw the trailer and knew it was going to be one of the plots, because I thought it was going to be another adventure of the day type of thing that would span over three episodes max. And listen, I've talked about how much I love Celtic folklore, and maybe this is just my consistency loving brain being annoying, but it felt a bit... clashing? that this season was based on tales and creatures and treaditions that weren't the scandinavian ones that inspired the rest of the series. It just felt like a major shift in tone that I don't really understand (once again, me problem, may very well be a skill issue on my part & I'm not saying they shouldn't have ventured so far just bc I didn't quite vibe with it). It just feels a bit off to me, knowing that Johanna's backstory was likely planned from the start, that there wasn't any celtic lore at all in previous seasons to make this sudden detachment from nordic folklore feel less out of the blue.

You know that joke that Disney movies like Aladdin and Raya take concepts from different cultures and smash them together like they're not completely different? I felt to some extent (bc OF COURSE Hilda is much better researched and has a lot better quality than that /gen) like they did that this season. But with white people. Which, fair, I can appreciate the irony.

Back to the topic of bold storylines, I understand what the Hilda team did with all the Johanna backstory. I understand that it's something that everyone wanted to see soo bad and they wanted it to be great (and it was). The thing I got stuck on is just that it ended up changing the vibe of the show to me. Whereas previous seasons feel like "slice of life in a magical place", I felt like this time I was watching a magic centered fantasy. Especially when they got into trying to explain the origin of magic and everything. Which is ironic, because I enjoyed the concept a lot and will explore it in the future, but it still felt like something that I wouldn't have expected Hilda the Series to tackle. Like there was a giant shift from folkloric to fantastic that isn't bad, but it is different and I hadn't been prepared for that lol.

God, I feel like I just wrote all of that and just to be A Bitch. I just wanted to get these thoughts out but I don't expect you guys to agree or anything. I genuinely liked watching this season, and I will continue to reiterate this in the future. And even if it doesn't beat s1 or s2 in my heart, I'm still grateful we got a final season at all, and everyone who was involved in it deserves all the praise <3

[kuroppiii]

DON’T FILE THOSE DIVORCE PAPERS. but i thought emma was boring i desperately need ur full take geek out plz tell me what I don’t see

i would NEVER divorce you pookie??

(us actually)

everyone gets film freaky in their own way!!! its ok!!!

two film essay posts in less than 24 hrs by ro, someone needs to sedate me or something

( sort of spoilers for emma (2020) under the cut , but nothing explicit , really )

!!! disclaimer i think to really fw regency-ish movies, kind of inherently calls for being into things like their original source material. and trust!! i know its not for everyone!!!

personally, i'm actually a big fan of reading those old and classical kind of books. as in, i have a full, clothbound, BOX SET, of jane austen's novels (emma being one of them). my literature teacher recommended me to read pride and prejudice ONCE and i've been hooked ever since.

yknow people joke that back then that it was all "oh my god you can't show your ankles!!!" and yeah, that's pretty much what it's like when you get down to reading novels from that time 😭 but that's what makes it so entertaining for me! the bridgerton series (which i also really like by association) is an easy example of this. i once saw someone say bridgerton plays out like a kdrama and YES!! that's the level of yearning and pining and slow burn i feed off of

upfront, i liked the movie–even from when its first trailer came out–because its aesthetics visually were just so nice. like yes!!! pastels!! pretty flowers!!! hats with feathers!! tea parties!!! big poofy dresses!!! (and anya taylor joy)

but it was when i watched it for a second time, i found a lot of why i like this specific adaptation of emma is because i think it really got across the vibe of jane austen's writing–especially the humor.

ok now stay with me: i'm not saying you have to read the whole original novel to get it, bc basically i would summarize the reason why the humor is so dry (when usually you would think this rich and old-fashioned vibe of a story should be much more over-the-top and dramatic) is because jane austen was always trying to make fun of all the social constructs of her time. especially for women! (heavy on how her works were ones of satire!)

like it all plays out so bare-bones that you just can't ignore how ridiculous everything sounds, which is what austen felt about all the rules and expectations emma and the other characters were trying to uphold the whole story. i also find that kind of humor from the movie very charming in a simple way, too.

the whole vibe of watching the movie and its characters is very much unserious, and it's a personal favorite in that watching it and listening to the soundtrack makes me feel ok to wallow in my emotions like the characters do. it's very cathardic in that way to me. but yeah by no means is it very action-packed or even conventionally "dramatic", so i get how it can wind up boring.

the character development of emma is always so interesting to me though. it's subtle, especially on the first watch, but it always warms my heart when she goes from thinking she's got everything figured out, to seeing the value of true friendship in harriet and even mrs. bates (MY FAV CHARACTER I CANNOT LIE SHE'S SO FUNNY), and that making her more open to questioning her and her life more, including not being as perfect as she once thought she was.

and that's really why we get that payoff with her and knightley, because he's known her all this time but when she finally recognizes her imperfections and embraces them, that newly found self-awareness us what pushes him over the edge in love. then we get that BEAUTIFUL confession scene under the tree. 🤭🌳

it very much fits the genre of a "romantic" movie, in that it romanticizes everything. but not to the point where it lets you forget what everyone's wants were, and that there were genuine struggles grappling with all those societal rules at the same time.

bc at the end of the day those rules were efforts meant to promote values that could hopefully lead a life of morality, responsibility/duty, and respect to others and yourself (arguably there are rules we face today that try to promote the same things, but they just look much different than rules about showing your ankles lol). i think in emma it's interesting to see just how each character tries to navigate those rules to get what they want out of life from them, and i think it's just a very beautifully-made film overall as well.

[ladystoneboobs]

y’know, whatever the true parentage of aegon vi aka young griff, in a way he is more like rhaegar than jon snow is. by which i mean their attempts to force themselves into archetypal roles, rhaegar as the prophesied hero against supernatural dark forces and yg as the hidden-prince-in-exile come to save the country and restore peace and harmony by taking the throne.

rhaegar’s very existence is owed to a prophecy, when the ghost of high heart said the ptwp would come of aerys/rhaella’s line they were forced to get married by their father. his destiny was decided and agreed before he was born, as just a hypothetical male prince. bc ofc this promised prince must be a son born with a cock, right? no one ever looked for or expected a princess for this. and when he was born during the mysterious tragedy at summerhall, what could be more of a sign that the prophecy was fulfilled? no need to keep waiting for any more kids, anyone further down the line, this baby had such a dramatic entrance he has got to be the specialest boy of all. rhaegar likely knew all of this from a very young age. grandpa jaehaerys ii believed enough to force his kids to marry, so he wouldn’t want this important planning to go to waste by taking it to his grave, now, would he? was rhaegar reading all the time bc his favorite genre was old prophecy scrolls or was he always doing homework to become the hero he knew he already was? does it really matter when either way he never really had much choice in his role in life? one day he finally goes to train with the master-at-arms only bc he realized from his reading that he “must” be a warrior. he became as great at that as he was at anything else, according to ser barry, but he never enjoyed knighthood. 

to me that’s all a far cry from jon, who grew up idolizing daeron the young dragon and dreaming of glory and conquest. jon, who spent most of his waking hours training in the yard even when injured at the end of asos, just bc he didn’t know what else to do and it helped him blow off steam. jon, who had a nostalgic “hunger” in him when hearing the sound of swords in the yard as lc. the same guy who as of acok still couldn’t get why sam would consider old books and crumbling scolls to be treasure. jon, who has nothing but doubts once he does rise to power and herodom as lord commander and can’t conquer them. and most importantly, jon, the hero who chanced into his role as shield guarding the realms of men only bc ned won the fight at the toj after rhaegar died and took him to be raised in the north. if/when jon does return to life and take his place as a heroic head of the dragon, that role can only be his own choice, not one he was raised for his entire life, just as his membership in the night’s watch was ultimately his own choice based on his northern childhood. (jon’s conception may have also been prophecy-related, but beyond that, his path and rhaegar’s sharply diverged.)

know who was shaped for a royal destiny “since before he could walk”, though? that’s right, aegon in essos aka young griff. his destiny was already chosen for him by the schemes of illyrio/varys just as rhaegar’s was by grampy jae ii and other dragon prophecy nerds before him. he studied his scrolls and trained with the royal master-at-arms just as aegon studied in the routines of his entourages and was trained by knights of the golden company.

and, at some point, we know rhaegar realized he wasn’t the ptwp and decided it was his first son, aegon, instead. mostly bc a comet was seen the night of aegon’s conception. i remember seeing a post years ago saying rhaegar must have spotted the comet that night, run naked straight to elia, and declared they had to get babymaking asap bc the comet was a sign too significant to be ignored. a joke post, prob, but i feel like there’s prob a lot of truth to the idea of rhaegar desparetely forcing the signs to add up, concieving a child on that night after he’d already seen the comet rather than just happening to have sex with elia on the same night there just happened to be a comet sighting. i believe this bc why would it all just be lucky coincidence if aegon vi was not the ptwp? lbr now, whether he indeed got his head smashed in by the mountain or was switched out and sent to essos, rhaegar’s elder son was/is not the promised hero. (just like rhaegar himself could not be the pwtp, after all.) a previously-thought-dead-for-16-years newbie with shaky parentage credentials introduced this late in the game is not going to steal both jon’s and dany’s thunder like that, c’mon. so a comet appearing just for his conception feels about as likely as red rahloo actually killing 3 kings just for the sake of frickin’ stannis. it’s even possible that rhaegar later decided aegon might not be the ptwp either and put more stock in dragon head #3 bc of the whole ice and fire union aspect with lyanna. we just don’t have enough info about that part of the story to know for sure. but there’s no suggestion he was unhappy with elia beforehand or that either of them thought she could not bear more children until the maesters actually said so after aegon’s birth. and even if he was “right” about lyanna’s child being the most important one (ew), he was still counting on both aegon and rhaenys to be the other two heads of the dragon, and presumably planned to raise all 3 of them for their destiny together in kl as he had been. in which case his plans utterly failed, because that is just not at all what happened with any of those kids.

in that sense, death is what jon and his bio dad most have in common as they both walked fairly boldly and blindly into their doom. but the circumstances are still a bit different as jon was murdered in a mutiny rather than killed in battle, not to mention his likely resurrection as an actual hero of prophecy. despite being around 10 years older than either jon or aegon is presently, i’d say rhaegar was even more naively overconfident in his plans than jon was in his final moments. to go that quickly and without any known hesitation through each change of plans from simply being ptwp himself to becoming a warrior as well as a weirdo nerd to fathering 3 heads of the dragon to truly fulfill prophecy to organizing a political coup at harrenhal to honoring lyanna instead to eloping with her after aegon’s birth to make her wife #2 and mother of dragon head #3 to riding off to one definitve battle against cousin robert after hiding in his lovenest with lyanna for months, idk, that does not read to me as someone suffering the same questions and doubts jon did in the nw. rhaegar told jaime “when this battle’s done” not “if i return in victory” in their farewell. he had no back-up plans in case of his defeat, leaving elia with aerys and lyanna in the toj, no plans for how to protect either wife or any of his all-important prophesied progeny in the event of his loss, just as he had no immediate plans to deal with aerys yet. (compare that to idealistic young king robb stark, thought to be recklessly honorable and accused of thinking himself invincible in his youth, yet he still managed to make plans for his succession should he die childless in battle, and planned to put his wife and mother in strongholds held by trustworthy (sane) allies who could defend their positions for some time in his absence.) all that only makes sense to me if he always thought he’d still have time for all that later, never truly envisioning the possibility of house targ being overthrown so soon when all his hero kids were still babies. 

after all, whether he was the ptwp himself or only meant to raise the 3 promised dragon heads as heroes, surely their destiny was already written years before and he couldn’t go out in such a mundane way, right? i’d say aegon/yg shows the same kind of overconfidence in going along with all the gc’s changes in planning, from whatever varys/illyrio originally wanted with viserys iii alive to finding dany and marrying her after the birth of her dragons to leaving for an invasion of westeros first to conquer the stormlands himself before wedding dany as equals. he never imagined she could refuse him until tyrion told him so, and imo is still not grasping that his female relation could prove more important than him in westeros with her 3 dragons. rhaegar may have known he was doomed since his tragic birth among so much death and later knew he wasn’t the pwtp, but he likely still expected a higher doom, one as dramatic and magical as his birth at summerhall. he couldn’t imagine his chest being caved in by lyanna’s dumbass ex, his boorish cousin robert, just as aegon/yg can’t know what doom could be in store for him in westeros either. 

[hella1975]

Hi hella!!!

I feel like i always start these off or end them by saying that these things are going to be incomprehensible in some way, mainly bc i have trouble translating whats going on in my mind into written words so i really dont know how much of my list thingies make sense to you but this one is especially probably going to not make much sense. (also bc i send them a lot when im either very tired or not sober, but i am sober and wide awake rn so this might be a different kind of incomprehensible)

I found one of my old drafts for an ask from around a year ago and it was a follow up response to the last chapter you posted at the time, so im not sure how its going to sound without the context of that specific chapter, but i also mentioned in one of my other asks that i add stuff in last minute and that ask i added a shit ton of stuff so i dont have any of that pretyped out so im going by memory.  But im sending it again bc i havent seen you answer it 

(please do not interpret this as ‘why didnt you answer my ask >:/’ or me rushing you to answer asks or anything like that, but like I said its been a year so im assuming tumblr ate it.  If not and you just havent cleaned out your ask box and you find the original, congratulations you’ll know what i originally said.  Bc idk how accurate this will be)

SO

Theres two different ways that you seem to write metaphors (idk if thats what theyre called im not caught up on my literary terminology)

 (im scrolling through your blog rn looking for my other asks and tumblr really did you dirty in your asks system like i started scrolling and the third one down was from 2021 and im fighting for my life trying to find my tag (thank you for my tag btw its very useful to me))

Anywho, most of your metaphors ( to me) can be split into two categories.  Theres the simple ones and the complex ones.  Now this might seem obvious but im going to explain to you how these have different effects on my brain.  

An example of the ‘simple’ ones is  

““If Nanook’s tone had a note of seriousness, then Zuko’s was the entire orchestra.”” (idk what chapter this is from its been a while)

You have a lot of these kinds of whatever the haick kind of literary technique this is (is this a metaphor i’ve been trying to google it for like ½ an hour and i cant figure it out) BUT these type of things that are simple and easy to process is one of my favorite things about the way you write.  I think this is a very common technique but the way you do it to me is just a lot more unique than the ways ive seen it done before.  Its extremely fluent with the voice of the characters and brings a perfect kind of vibe to the ‘conversation’ (or story, text, whatever) and it paints the picture of what your trying to say perfectly.  I also really like how these types of things arent ever in Zukos pov a lot (sometimes it is, but not nearly as much, I’ve noticed) and its not in the more serious like revelations that you drop these in.  Like I said, it adds to the voice of the characters, bc of the contrast of Zuko constantly having revelations and dramatic archs and stuff, and the other characters just in general being a lot more calm.  Its like when youre listening to a song and you have the lyrics and the like ‘main’ music behind the lyrics, but then when you listen to the song a lot you notice the smaller, like backup music that adds a lot to the song and makes it a lot more enjoyable than if it was just the lyrics and the louder more up front music.  

Then in contrast you have the bigger ‘metaphors’ 

An example of this is ‘You curse in words already invented’ 

THIS IS MY FAVORITE LINE IN THE ENTIRE FIC.  

OF ANY FIC OR BOOK EVER READ

AND THIS IS WHY

When I tell you I could not figure out what this meant for months I am AWFUL with stuff like this and interpreting it my english teachers hate me bc of it.  Id have the question ‘why were the curtains blue’ and my answer would be ‘bc the people who decorated the room like blue maybe theyre interior designers and it goes with the room 😊 and thats so hot of them bc i love blue too’  

But even thought i couldnt figure it out it stayed in my head and i probably thought about it once a day (i mean this literally, i think about that part all the time) and i cant remember the context for that or anything but i do remember that i knew it was a wonderful phrase.  

I’ve mentioned in my other asks how whenever im reading anything at all that you’ve written (whether its tams, or toab, or in the tags of something even if its like 10 words), everything you type comes out so fluidly like a formula or a color wheel or however i put it last time i talked about this.  And this is on the prodigious end of the spectrum of this.  

But phrases like that are another part of the fic, theyre like the lyrics of the song.  Like the phrases that gets all the attention and gets put in fanart and that gets quoted in comment sections because they deserve that recognition and you deserve that recognition and are just a reminder of how incredibly talented you are.  

I mean that in the most sincere way that i know how to express.  

I am constantly in awe of you and your writing style, and i really do think of you as one of the most talented writers of everything ive ever read.  

And something else worth mentioning is that it isnt just your ao3 that portrays that.  Like if I were to just read your ao3 I’d be like ‘oh wow this person is an amazing writer’ But your tumblr persona plays into it a lot more (In my opinion).  Because then you see like more ‘backround’ stuff on ao3.  And more of your system (im not articulating this in the way i mean it very well) and you get privy to the fact that you’re not a 30 year old with a masters in english and that you’ve never had any formal education on writing.  I vaguely remember you talking about a story about a sailor (??? i might be misremembering that) that you wrote when you were a child and thinking ‘oh wow so she’s always been like that’.  And its stuff like that that you dont get on ao3 that kind of reaffirms how incredible of a writer you are.  

And this (to me) makes you a really easy person to admire.  (ik i touched on this in a different ask but i dont remember if it was one of my list asks or not) but as someone who probably isnt going to ever be able to get an education around writing, it kind of reassures me that i dont need that to be great at it.  

(i kind of feel like a lot of the stuff in this ask is too like ‘simple’ or obvious to be given a lot of weight, but this whole thing is about the kinds of things you do that brings me personally joy and the metaphors are one of them so)

Also on an off note when i was looking through your asks to try to find my tag, I noticed that i send you a heavy percentage of your anonymous asks (mainly without my alias) and I thought that was funny.  But also i hope it doesnt come across as obsessive or weird, I swear i do that to a lot of people on here, I’m just a very social person.  .😂

Also Im in your tbos server (lurking in the shadows) and someone pointed out that whenever you do the reaction emojis you always do the white ones, and thats going on the official ‘my favorite things about hella’ list because that was genuinely one of the funniest things ive seen. 

Also the ‘anytime you type its very fluid (im too lazy to scroll up and see how i put it rn) also carrys on to discord.  I think that i could probably block out the user names and be able to figure out that its you talking every time, you have a very distinct way of talking.  

Also i wanted to mention that every time you answer these i read them again and i want to say like 1/3 of what i sasy, i have no recollection of. And i never have any idea what im talking about. so i think thats funny.

LIST ANONNNNNNNNNNNNN BAWLING MY EYES OUT HELLO BABY WELCOME BACK FROM WAR IVE MISSED YOU IM JUST HERE LIKE THIS RN

[dandyshucks]

update on stuff (cw abuse i guess)

hi sorry for serious post but again things keep looking like they're going to get better and then they somehow get Worse instead.

tl;dr my brother will be moving in for a bit, and this disrupts the one space i have in the entire goddamn world where i can relax even a little bit, so I probably will not be around for. a while. unless i figure out how to cope enough to get out of survival mode so i can like... have fun.

brother will be moving in for an undetermined amount of time (hopefully just for a month, but it is hard to find places to rent in town so I feel like it may be longer than just one month). he'll be moving into my section of the basement, and I guess my stress is a little bit my fault because my parents have always told me I should be constantly ready for any siblings to move back home at any moment just in case, but unfortunately I kind of let my guard down on that one so this is hitting me badly.

as scary and unsafe as this hell house is, my section of the basement is literally the One place in the whole fucking world where i've been able to feel like I can just. rest. to some degree. because I do not have to be On and Masking and Hiding Myself from others (because nobody is around when i'm down here usually). so that "safe space" will be taken away from me (this sounds ungrateful and bratty, sorry, i do not know how to word it better and maybe i am being bratty and ungrateful idk) and i will ... have no space to just. let my guard down even a little bit. i can't even go for walks alone like I used to because of wildlife becoming a safety issue around our house.

anyways. sorry this is way more info than i need to give probably but i'm struggling to put any of this into words at all so... shrugs uncomfortably. i am going to step away from here for a bit bc i'm genuinely afraid I'm going to go into some kind of episode and I don't want to freak people out. also I literally cannot do anything Fun rn because i just feel so fucking scared and cut off from reality, so even though the stuff on this blog is literally a coping mechanism, i'm far below the mental ability to engage in that level of coping. the coping we're looking at rn is like... breathing and pacing and huddling and methodical cleaning for the sake of keeping myself from falling apart.

i want to end off with my usual "oh well! life goes on! just gotta keep trucking forward!" type of thing but to be entirely honest i just dont have it in me to do that rn. this also might sound really stupidly dramatic and I am sorry if it comes off that way - there is a lot of abuse and trauma that I do not talk about and will not talk about that is contributing to how this feels for me. i'll do my best to stay safe and all, and again I really do apologize for like. posting any of this. I think part of me wants to reach out somewhere for attention but also I do genuinely just want to sort of ... explain why I'll very likely be disappearing for a while. and as we know i am the rambling rambler and overexplainer :'''')))

[milfygerard]

bouncing off of amanda @yourdyingwish 's post and my tags, one of my favorite games to play with b sides is spot-the-album-track because like, the way I see it b sides are cut for three major reasons.

(there are a handful of other reasons e.g. a track feels too personal for the main album, the artists label wont allow them to add certain songs to the main lineup, the artist thought of a really funny b-side pun for the songs title et cetera, but these are imo the main three)

Number one is that its a great song, but it doesnt fit the sound/mood/story of the album, Like my way home falls into this camp for me in that the song is really good but feels more like something off of revenge compared to any of the tracks off TBP proper or most of the scrapped tracks, though this does also apply to a lot of the living with ghosts demos, which are often great but would fundamentally change the tone or story of TBP.

Reason number two is that the song is trimming the fat. Kill all your friends was a victim of this, its a great song that totally could've fit on the album story and sound wise, but ended up getting cut just to keep the album lean and focused. These are usually the songs artists will talk about regretting leaving off the records, and are often fan favorites partially because they got cut for seemingly no reason

Reason number three, and the one i find the most interesting, are the tracks that are cut because their themes and purposes ended up getting split and integrated into other, better and more focused tracks. Heaven help us, while also having elements of point 1 (it feels very much like the inbetween space of revenge and parade even more so than my way home), also falls heavily into this area.

Breaking down the songs main themes, we get a nihilistic feeling of being abandoned by god, a reluctant or bitter acceptance of matrydom (a sort of "someone's gotta do it" energy), and catholic guilt weighing down the protagonist. While these themes could work together, and the lyricism is definitely the best part of the track, on the album tracks proper we can see all of these themes explored either by themselves (sleep and house of wolves both feel like more focused and refined versions of heaven help us) or all at once (WTTBP tackles pretty much all of these and...like...its WTTBP). Heaven help us alone feels almost overloaded with concepts and never really got refined down into one thing which left it feeling more muddled than it should have while also making it redundant within the story of TBP and on the album tracklist.

I love b-sides like heaven help us bc they really feel like they give insight into the process of creation and how style can morph and change between albums, especially for a band like mcr, who often make dramatic artistic changes and developments between each record. All art has the awkward middle stage where you sort of know what you want to do but can't quite articulate it properly yet, and sometimes you end up realizing that the one big thing you're making feels so muddled because its actually several smaller, more specific things that you're trying to duct-tape together.

[psychelis-new]

thank you very very very much for my reply snd so sorry for my very long ramble. I guess I dont know what else to do atp, I couldve done much more had I not felt the need to fit in like everyone else is currently doing even memes are less entertaining as well as a lot fo it relying so much on the internet i just want to escape all of this nonsense i really do. like just yeet me into space then if anything. i dont care anymore for my life really. ik im probs just making excuses or sounding dramatic but it seems many others at leasdt have talents or something that they care deeply about. i just seemed to have missed the chances and since we didnt have any of this stuff when i was a kid

I dont particularly care for wealth yet at the same time that too is everywhere so its like fomo and inability to simply be satisfied in anything i like or do bc someone else has more or better things they are doing and its so easy to fall into the trap of comparisons, like so and so is posting their whole life online or so and so is exceedingly popular online and irl. i dont know lets just simply say that i keep feeling lkke a nobody and all anyone else on here seems ro say manifest xyz things and how age is just a number without knowing peoples past experiences or lack thereof skills and so on. i just dont even know what i want anymore either. its like im just a soulless blob in a pile of other blobs and everyone else is blobbing about stuff i dont particularly care about online.

i regret being born in my generation, i really do, theres almost too much going on at once but itd all digitalised rather than in person. even celebs dont seem to realise their devices can have an off button maybe if they werent online so much others would be inspired to do that as well but even if you go out anywhere people on their phones or go to concert let say people on their phones again how else to gsin connection with others when its all done via a horrid little screen which i regret buying but once again it is much required in todays society. theres certain things i wouldve loved to have done in previous generations or maybe had i been a different person of a different nationality but i still wouldve had to adjust to needing to be online for the most part. even just typing shit into google feels so soulless like i havw a brain but i dont need to think or feel and i dont need opinions cause someone online will end up hating me for it so thats out the window

As I was suggesting you, you need a break and find yourself again. You're too focused on what others do, who they are, and compare yourself to something that doesn't even exist (online world is pretty much like movies these days) and try to act the same as them to fit in (no but fr, who cares what celebs do online or how long they are online? it's their life, let them do what the heck they want -plus, they're often a brand with legs, they're making money that way...). But anyway you cannot fit in something if you don't know who you are and what you're searching for and if you don't know where you want to fit in (and where you actually can fit in without losing yourself -which you probably already did, in order to not feel left out).

You are worthy, your life is very worthy, but your worth is not outside, your worth is inside of you. Same as your talents and whatever good you possess (and don't tell me you don't cause everyone does). You cannot find it online or in strangers online, and for sure you won't seeing if you keep comparing with others and what they seem to have... so stop trying to do so. If others have fun online and have found their own place there, let them. Who cares what they find of so cool there. But if you don't, then it's time for you to find what you find funny by taking a break. Put in effort (the one you were calling for so much in the other ask) and find in yourself and what you want and like. The only way to find your soul inside of your blob is to look in that blob that is you and finding your voice. You cannot let others tell you who you are: only you know.

But it's useless if I keep repeating myself and you can't see you are worthy and not caged (you know it but still, you cannot leave the comfort zone you have created: you feel like you won't ever fit in and you keep finding comfirmations of it out of any interactions you have online. If you don't work on how you see things and yourself, nothing will change for real). You can think with your mind, you can believe other things than what you're told by society or people that only want to sell a product/gain from what they do (I already answered an ask or two on this... were they yours?). You can do what you would have loved to do in any other time: it's not about this generation, it's about you and what you want... don't find excuses to keep yourself out of what you desire to do or how you desire to live. Don't blame it all on this society, where you live and the times we're living in. You still have a choice, you can act differently and who the heck should care about it? If it makes you happy, do it. But if it's really so, if you know you'd feel better out of it, it's not the internet the problem, it's you caging yourself in a cycle that doesn't even exist (but was well created to sell products again)...

For real, take a moment for yourself. Maybe journal about how you feel, what you want and what you're searching for and then go find it. It may take a while and some effort, but you will make it. Maybe your people aren't online but at the supermarket you usually visit, or at the library or they share any other interest with you offlline. Idk. If you need connections, first of all connect with yourself. Then, you'll be able to connect also with others the way you need.

Again all the best! I know you're now writing me cause I am making you feel less alone, but I am not the answer you're seeking. It's only within you.

[ahiddenpath]

Life Talk

Tone summary:

Life

I'm lowkey a wreck???? Is that a thing? I think you know what I mean. I get up and do the things, but emotionally everything is like AHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

First World Problems

So I've been saving for a bathroom reno for... I don't even know how long, years and years. We have a sum that I thought was pretty substantial??? We went to a showroom and I picked a bunch of stuff I didn't like bc that is what they had. My inspiration for my bathroom is sea glass, and the showroom had neutrals only. Like, the kind of bathroom reno you do to flip a house, but on a much nicer scale.

Anyway, we had y money. Our estimate was y + (y*46%). I mentioned that our estimate made sense about 3 years ago, and the designer said, "Yes, 3 years ago your estimate would be about 6% higher than your budget of y." Meaning there has been a roughly 40% inflation of their services/materials over the last 3 years.

Okay, so like, I get it. I have a home, this is a first world problem. But it also isn't? Because like... What if your pipes burst, and you need to redo your bathroom? Now it's 40% more expensive than it was 3 years ago, through no fault of your own.

It's like everything I was saving for, everything I tried to do... The goal post dramatically leaped in a short timeframe. I'm so frustrated. I'd put it off, but apparently the forecast for this type of goods/services is further unprecedented inflation next year, of course.

I've also spent the whole damned weekend on this, because today, my husband made a 3D model of our bathroom, and I picked stuff I actually like. So like- I haven't done any chores or creative stuff or relaxing. My husband just asked me to get on a call with our two closest friends from out of state to plan a meet up, and I just about burst into tears. I just can't handle more mental load. I don't want to be the person who turns down doing things (that I can reasonably afford) because I'm so overwhelmed, but that's where I am.

Work

It's weird because lately, work has been... A bit better? I take lunches. I leave on time, or even half an hour early. But I'm so beyond burnt out from those few months where I worked closely with someone and did my work plus half of his, or more.

This is a weird thing to say, I know, but I had an epiphany when I was talking to my hairdresser yesterday, lmao! I was telling her all the stuff I did this year at work, and she was like- um, that sounds like a lot? Like really amazing?

And it's true. This year, I generated a type of protein that no one in my company has been able to make. I closed out a project my senior has been trying to do for almost the whole year- I did it in two weeks. I've been taking on and wrapping up lingering projects, all of which I had no clue how to do. My boss calls me The Closer.

And through all of this, I've felt like an underperforming idiot, because I didn't know the skills needed for anything and I struggled and asked a million qs and was anxious all the time. But the people who did have the skills and background couldn't (wouldn't?) do it, and I did.

The place itself is still a massive dumpster fire of chaos. But I'm doing well, except... I'm always given tasks I don't know how to do, and often, no one in my group knows, either. It's all brand new stuff or finishing stuff other people couldn't get done. That is so much extra mental load and stress compared to doing tasks I know how to do.

Creative Life

I've been doing Nanowrimo. Until yesterday, I was doing and feeling great. I wrote all of 83 words yesterday, and 0 so far today, lmao! I'll... try.

I still feel weird/unsure about sharing my work. I'm trying not to focus on that, and instead focus on enjoying creating. Right now, I'm really overwhelmed in general, though.

Fearing for the Future

I'm at the age where if I want to have biological kids, it's uhhhh it's at that "clock is ticking" point. But I'm barely handling myself as I am, without a kid, and stuff keeps getting wildly more expensive. I try to remind myself that I have an anxiety disorder, so my fears are augmented, but...

It really feels like, at this moment, this world isn't fit to bring a kid into. It feels like a lot of the stuff considered normal for a middle class person like twenty years ago is just... Off the table now.

Despair doesn't help anyone, you know? No point languishing on it. But also, uh, it feels very real? I'm sure people think about this a lot lately, so I don't want to catastrophize at length. I guess I'm just sharing that it's on my mind.

I hope you're all well and hanging in there. Please try to take care of yourselves <3

[yulechemist]

I just finished up act 1 of the fontaine archon quests and oh. oh my god. SPOILERS AHEAD!!!! PLEASE DO NOT LOOK AT THIS POST IF YOU ARE AVOIDING SPOILERS THANK YOU!!! Also warning ramblings ahead, my thoughts are always completely out of order and also possibly incoherent at times.

Holy shit. Okay first of all I literally almost cried when Childe showed up. I have missed him SO MUCH oh my god. AND HE TRUSTS US WITH HIS VISION????? I'M LITERALLY GOING TO DIE. I'm sad he wasn't around for long but considering he needs to get his vision back at some point I know I'll get to see him again. I'm sorry him wanting an excuse to talk to us again I'm so emotional my HEART.

And LYNEY AND LYNETTE ARE FATUI????? WHAT. That trial was CRAZY but I feel so bad for Navia because I totally want to be partners with her and unfortunately it seems traveler does NOT want that but I'm invested in these disappearances. I get it though, traveler is probably sick of having to help everyone in existence all the time when the whole goal is trying to find their sibling. However. I personally want to help. LOL.

I can't figure out how I feel about Arlecchino knowing what I do now after Lyney told us about his backstory. I really don't trust her but on the other hand she doesn't sound like she's that bad? Maybe? Idk the very idea of trusting a harbinger makes me nervous of feeling BETRAYED because I remember back in Liyue when I realized Childe was actually against us and I felt SO UPSET. Even now like, I love him, but also I cannot for the life of me bring myself to trust him. Sidenote: he mentioned fishing with Teucer and that Teucer said something and I can't be the only one so curious about what it was bc Teucer is such a sweet kid. I can't wait to go to Snezhnaya bc SURELY we get to meet Childe's family. I didn't mean to start rambling about him but here we are. Whoops?

Anyways CHARACTER IMPRESSIONS! I think Furina is really fun and cute. I really like her flair for dramatics, even if it's always a bit much. And Neuvillette, omg? I really really like him too. I was sorta expecting him to be kinda cold, just based off his resting expression and his overall design I suppose, but he was actually really polite and I thought he seemed nice. I'm definitely excited to see more of him. As for Navia, honestly? She's so pretty. Like, wow, pretty. I love her style and her personality and she seems really overeager to work with us and it makes me feel bad because she was just so disappointed. Though with how this always goes I'm certain we'll end up working together anyways. Lyney and Lynette are sweet and I really enjoyed being with them, it's a shame traveler can't trust them after learning they're actually fatui, but frankly I don't blame traveler that much. I hope we'll get to be with them again soon though. I really want to pull for Lyney but one more Benny con and it's over for me, so alas, I must hold off as long as I can. Maybe eventually though, I think he's genuinely very kind and I like that a lot about him. I don't think I've seen much of anyone else, so I don't really have any further first impressions, but I'm very excited to see where this goes next. Now I have to sleep though, I spent way longer playing than I meant to. LOL

[fullscoreshenanigans]

#while i do love the norman ratri theory / hc #specifically james bein his papa #matilda being norman’s mom is my favorite#mainly because . matilda #shirai please never ever reveal who the sister’s children actually are #bc if norman’s mom was someone other than matilda … it would be so over #but i think it’s like 99.9% matilda #because they were drawn together !! (via @sleepyhouzuki)

V compelling evidence (their noses, their brows, much to think about 🤔🤔)

#norman IS a ratri I will not accept anything else at this point #the dramatic irony shakespearean tragedy cycle of abuse-ness of it all is just. too good (via @hylialeia) --- #i Love the norman ratri theory #tbh i forget its a theory a lot of the time lmaooo #been thinking of a url to change to and norman ratri truther or smth like that was one of my ideas haha #maybe this is a sign (via @beachbunnymp4) --- I LOVE the demon world is under the ocean theory. It sounds so ridiculous, but when you look at everything it starts to make sense. Norman Ratri and Emma and Carol being related is not my favorite, but I like to believe those are very probable. (via @zazora) --- #Norman is a Ratri in some capacity - 👍 #(while being somewhat of a cousin of Peter and James though. one of his ancestors being of Ratri descent but not he himself lol) (via @officersnickers)

I'm not as big on James being his dad (opting for something more akin to what Snickers proposes; further propaganda here, here, and here) but we are all Norman Ratri truthers in this Chili's tonight 🤝

While I've mentioned before I'm glad they didn't do anything with it in canon because Norman already has so much going on with him when Shirai was rapidly chopping off story branches in the back half of the series, I always think of this post addition by @bon-nii because it is emphatically captures the sentiment beautifully:

Realest shit, and once he's aware of it he has to absolutely loathe it being one of the key components of it for me lol

#I don't really care for the 'x and y are biologically related' theories tbh because like. I don't care lol #But the others are fairly interesting #Leslie being Zazie would have been cool but Zazie is five years old it doesn't line up #I'm not really a fan of any of these theories I feel like they're grasping at straws hfjdjdj sorry- (via @darklight-owl)

's gucci dfkj in addition to seeing which fan theories I missed, I thought it was also an interesting way to gauge people's affinity for canon fidelity since that's what (most likely) drew people into the series initially, with potential sentiments of "I like the Emma and Carol are biological sisters theory because it would have the least bearing on the plot" to "I voted Leslie is Zazie because it would have been cool as shit," and everyone has a different tolerance of what strays too far for them (similarly, how far removed an AU is from canon before the characters stop being what you consider to be the characters and if that's a dealbreaker or not)

#The 'human character becomes a demon' one would be cool if we had an actual candidate #(Hey- no put season 2 down. I said put it down. Don't make me get the spray bottle) #I picked Adam being Norman but not in the way OP probably intended #I think Lambda might have been trying to clone the kids there and Do Things to them since birth to see what happens #But then again not sure if that lines up with the timeline either unless they took some dna sample from Norman before he was harvested #Unless he was given to Goldy Pond like. Right before Emma got there which is extremely unlikely (via @darklight-owl)

I think that fits into the all along category if I'm interpreting it correctly and we combine the clone theory and Adam = Norman theory, but I am tragically limited by the options limit kdsjf </3

But I think there's enough potential there that mucking up canon a bit would be worth it. (Also I say this all the time but the timeline for this series fucks me up so bad since canonically Adam and Norman could only have been at Lambda together for at max two months. What the fuck)

For humans turning into demons, the most common candidates I've seen are Emma, Norman, and Leslie.

#how to make me choose here because a lot of them are great! ^^' #Emma and Carol are (half-)sisters - 👍 #[Sister] is [Grace Field child beside Ray]'s biological mother - 👍 #voted for *Two other Grace Field kids besides Emma and Carol are biologically related* #Norman and Rossi being half brothers my beloved <3 #look at them and tell me I'm wrong #Rossi's so cute. I need more attention for him and what's the better way than to set him up with Norman as big bro? #some crazy theory - Jessica and Isabella either being half-sisters or cousins #(they look alike a lot I think) #making Ray and Gilda (my headcanon child for Jessica hehe) also related #their attitude your honor. please #another crazy headcanon of mine - Norman and Adam are somewhat clones. experiments. genetically worked on before inserted in a woman #(terrible wording I know) but so is Violet. she looks a lot like them I think and she's somewhat close to Adam. would be fun I guess? (via @officersnickers) --- #Tbh I think the theories where certain characters may be each other's half-siblings are my favorite ones #I like the one where it's about Emma and Carol specifically #Alright how about something a bit different since I also put in the fic I'm cowriting in #Matilda is Emma's biological mother #Mostly just from parallels in Isabella's side chapter #I think I did make a post speculating which kids belong to the 4 Sisters a long time ago (via @thathilomgirl)

If I could only choose one sibling connection between Emma & Carol or Norman & Rossi, I'd probably opt for the former, but with the latter pair both having white hair I've definitely seen that theory floating around too lol

I've never seen anyone put forth as Emma's mom besides Sienna though (mostly because of the hair rather than the irony of their contrasting personalities) so Matilda being her mom instead of Norman's is new. Same with Jessica as Gilda's mom, though I have seen Scarlet as either Don's or Phil's mom a lot.

(Chapter 175)

And I have seen people note the similarities between Norman and Violet before, but never that she was included in the clone shenanigans too, so that's a neat addition.

*Either all along or post-escape **Through being the reincarnation of James, one of his parents being a Ratri, or one of his more distant relatives being a Ratri

Really interested in the Other option as someone who came into the fandom after the series concluded and possibly missed some that were popular for a time and then dropped like a rock in the collective fandom conscience after a certain point.

[sodafrog13]

💉 (this one's just me bein petty tbh lol i'm fine i promise)

[aquato-family-circus]

I’ve posted a lot of misc doodles/drawings of my dear daughter Daisy Fullbear-Zanotto on my Twitter (cosmignon) which I didn’t bother crossposting… until now :))))

We got ourselves, in rough chronological order

- some toddler Daisy’s being dramatic and weird

- a drawing of Daisy meeting my first webcomic protagonist, Anna, after I realized I reused some design tropes for both… bc I think red headed pigtail girls with big noses are a cute lil kid design

- Daisy, having finally brought Helmut back to his senses, and unloading a lot of Issues she has with Bob bc he’s all overprotective and never lets her do anything! Helmut is like :(? confused but hears her out bc like that’s his kid too

- Daisy as seen in Bob’s head, ages 2 and 10… the glass case is a reference to the little prince, Daisy’s the specialist flower of all and needs to be protected… but she’s a growing girl that won’t fit under that glass forever

- Messy doodles imagining the resolution to Daisy finding Helmut’s brain: Helmut gives her a big ol hug in his head, and she goes back into the real world to convince Bob to listen to her and trust that she knows what she’s saying when she’s found something really important and Bob comes along with her and reunites with hubband… all is well

I have rotated so many thoughts in my head abt Daisy it’s ridiculous, I can’t believe I said I’d maybe only draw her once when I first posted abt her. Guess that’s on me for being embarrassed about posting a fankid. Cringe is dead long live cringe ect ect

Full image descriptions under the cut

ID #1: A rough sketch of Daisy and Bob sitting on the couch as Daisy dramatically looks off into the distance, singing the line “sometimes I feel like my only fwiend” with two close ups of her face. Bob is trying very hard to not laugh. End ID.

ID #2: A rough comic of Bob reading a book on a couch while sitting as far away from a scary, eyeless baby doll as possible. He looks over to it and thinks “it’s just a doll… a really freaky doll.” There is a close up on the doll to show it’s scary face, with a neutral expression, bald head, and hollow eyeless sockets. A panel then shows Daisy has put the doll directly on Bob’s lap, which he nervously smiles about as Daisy says “There, now you can babysit.” and Bob responds “Thank you, sweetie.” End ID.

ID #3: An illustration of Daisy Fullbear-Zanotto and Anna Jenkins talking with each other with looks of curiosity. Both girls share similar designs and color schemes, including teal clothing, bright red hair with twin braids and curled bangs, large noses, and brown eyes. End ID.

ID #4: Rough sketches of a conversation between Daisy and Helmut. Daisy says “It’s SO cool that you’re my dad! WOW!”, and Helmut responds “And you’re the raddest daughter!”. Daisy continues “you’re like WAY cooler than my normal Dad.”, which makes Helmut look confused and slightly concerned as he says “I - uh, ok?”. End ID.

ID #5: Rough sketches of a conversation between Daisy and Helmut. On the top of the page Daisy is standing, facing Helmut, as she says “I wish you were my dad instead of Bob.” Helmut looks concerned as he says “What uh,.. Why?”. The two are then sitting next to each other, Helmut has an arm around Daisy’s shoulder. Daisy’s saying “And I just want him to have more faith in me.” On the bottom page Helmut looks away as he says “Geeze. It sounds like so much has changed. But hey, you can’t trade us out, it’s a package deal kid.” Helmut turns toward Daisy as she sighs and says “OK”. Helmut then boops a finger on Daisy’s nose, which makes her smile. He says “I’ll talk to him about it! You’re a good kid, I’m sure he’s doing something right.” End ID.

ID #6: An illustration of Daisy as a young baby/plant hybrid resting in a terracotta pot. She has an old fashioned baby bonnet that resembles the petals of a daisy, and she’s swaddled in leaves. Daisy and her pot are housed under a protective glass case with a small metal handle. End ID.

ID #7: An illustration of Daisy as a child/plant hybrid wearing an upside down terracotta pot as a skirt. Daisy’s head is wreathed in daisy petals, and she’s wearing blue/green/pink glasses meant to resemble seaglass. She has 2 leaves that act as arms, and a third leaf at her front that acts as an accessory to cover her upper body, which is clothed in a teal shirt with brighter teal lead patterns and the previously mentioned pot. The pot has blotches of multicolored paint all across it, and there are cracks where roots from Dasiy’ lower body are growing out. These roots also grow out from the bottom opening of the pot, and some of them have cracked open the bottom of a protective glass jar that surrounds Daisy. End ID.

ID #8: Rough sketches of Helmut, Bob, and Daisy. On the top of the page Helmut is hugging Daisy, then beside that sketch Daisy is shown to be saying something with Helmut’s brain in a jar in her hands. She looks serious, and Bob is shown to be listening to her with a concerned expression. On the bottom of the page there is a sequence showing Bob and Daisy opening the jar with Helmut’s brain in it, an arrow pointing to a psychoportal, and a second arrow pointing to Daisy and Bob reuniting with Helmut. There is also a sketch of Audie-O holding Balance. End ID.