#I have no idea how I’d go about the final imprisonment tho

[mothdotz]

Drew this guy again! Its design is very much inspired by The Weeping Angel design made by @arcadeology

Think the fun little thing about it is that its “cloak” can consume whatever were to go inside of it, reducing that person/thing to nothing. Basically a void in there! I also imagine that Null is “trapped” in the school (the basement maybe?) which causes the place to become a feeding ground for akumas.

(I have no idea if this was expanded on, but I think it’s be neat if—as a parallel to Null imprisoning Tikki and Plagg in jewelry/an object— Null got trapped in some jewel at the end of the storyline for this AU).

[lesbow]

i wanna talk about claire & douxie

so im on episode 4 and just got to the scene where claire uses her shadow magic to create a portal for them to go see the lady of the lake. this scene is claire’s moment of development and i loved it for her. i dont wanna take away from that but i also loved it because of claire and douxie’s bond during it. im sure there will be several other posts about how awesome this was claire bc it really was, so i guess just take this as another perspective on the scene.

before i start i would just like to say: this post is about their strictly platonic relationship. i dont ship them and honestly dont know how i feel about them as a ship in general since douxie is significantly older than them (”college aged”) and i dont really think its right. especially bc on the wiki it says claire is only 15-16 (im guessing 16 since its been A Minute since s1 of trollhunters lol) and in the show douxie canonly says he’s 19-esque. so pls dont go reading this in ya know that kind of lense bc thats not my intention.

alright so now that i’ve got that out the way

from the start douxie has obviously gravitated towards claire because of their shared understanding of magic. when they first drop in camelot, he confides in her the most and whenever she gets upset he takes it strongly, seemingly as a personal hit. like when he tried to talk about the brightside of jim being imprisoned and then claire bursts into tears (bc obviously lol it really wasnt a great situation to be in). but i really wanna talk about the scene in episode 4 when claire starts to become more comfortable with her magic. 

douxie comes up with the plan in the first place because he has full confidence in claire’s abilities. he starts off by talking about how amazing her powers are and that she shouldn’t be afraid of herself. he expresses not one ounce of doubt abt how strong claire is and fully supports her, even when claire refuses to herself. 

seeing morgana die and knowing they share the same magic was an understandably awful thing for claire to witness, and she is obviously traumatized from it as she still has nightmares and visions about morgana’s death. but then douxie, who has complete & utter faith in her, encourages her to use her magic. so she tries just because he asked. claire tho who still feels uncertain asks for his help in return, and douxie is completely shocked by it. i have expressed several times how much i hate merlin and i am NOT afraid to do it again bc i 100% blame his constant degradation for douxie’s low self esteem. 

which also leads me to believe that douxie connects with claire, not only bc of their use of magic but because he also sees himself in her. they both have little confidence in their powers that stem somewhat from their predecessors. douxie vs merlin’s nonstop insults and claire vs morgana’s seemingly inevitable evilness. he sees himself in her because he was her (and still is) and subconsciously, as most of us do, wants to become the support he wish he had. 

but helping those younger than you/who were in your shoes also has a way of making you reflect on yourself too. which is why, even tho he was fully prepared to give claire emotional encouragement, he was blindsided when she asked for his teaching. he wants to help raise claire’s confidence, but has yet to work on his own. 

when the rock.... wall...... thingies.... insult douxie and agree on him being subpar, claire (and archie but this aint about him) immediately fires back at them to cool it. and while douxie didn’t disagree with the rockwallthingies, he clearly appreciated claire standing up for him and smiles about it. her sticking up for him helps give him the boost he needed to teach her what he knows. 

while attempting the portal, douxie gives her constant words of encouragement. and when claire, who is gradually becoming more and more unstable, confesses that she is afraid, his tone changes and becomes softer. he is still confident in her abilities, but also knows how overwhelming they can be and doesn’t hesitate to switch from determined support to warm reassurance. 

things turn for the worse tho when claire ends up giving into her fear and the shadow portal swallows her. 

(i tried my best to gif what happens bc i dont think a screenshot would do it justice)

once claire succumbs to her fear and her magic swallows her whole, douxie hyperventilates. i’d even say he was panicking bc this was the one thing neither of them wanted to happen. its both of their fears happening all at once. douxie’s initial fear of being a bad teacher/influence/magic user in general and claire’s fear that her magic will overpower her, both being proven right in the worst way possible. 

what douxie doesnt realize yet is that his teaching didnt fail. while claire is in the shadow realm, she sees morgana’s corpse again and freezes up. but then she pauses as soon as she remembers douxie’s words “dont let fear control you. stay true to yourself.” and with the help of his previous support, she gains the courage to finally face what she’s been afraid of and brings herself back to them. while douxie is terrified that he’s failed claire, it’s actually his words that help her succeed.

once claire comes back, douxie is immediately up and grabs her face to check for injuries. he crowds her so much, archie even has to tell him to relax and give her space. douxie is skilled in magic, but he has no idea what shadow magic and all it entails is actually like, so it isnt unreasonable for his imagination to have run wild with all the dangers claire could’ve been exposed to.

claire rambles about what happened (rambling claire is the most adorable claire) but douxie misreads her curiosity as anxiety and goes to comfort her again. “we understand if you dont want to go back in” its just constant constant support from this guy! (which is funnily enough the exact opposite of what he received from merlin.) he sees her eyes are glued to morgana’s spell book and gently pushes it away. in his mind, what happened in the shadow realm was most likely a bad experience and instead of trying to force her to do it again, he tells her to not feel rushed to go back in. he gets that what he thought was encouragement might’ve actually been pressure and doesn’t hesitate to make sure claire knows that they, and he, will support whatever she wants to do. 

claire quickly tells him that’s not the case and that she’s fine. and whether or not she’s aware of his insecurities yet, she lets him know his influence was actually a great help. 

the positive words surprise douxie and make him smile. once again, claire’s kindness has uplifted his spirits. 

between these two its just a back and forth of nonstop support. douxie helps claire not be afraid of her own magic, and claire helps douxie not fall into self deprecation. as the show goes on i think they will grow to have a very strong sibling-like bond and i cant wait to see it.

[whetstonefires]

I have wandered into your tumblr and I want to know absolutely everything about your ideas for Earth 3 Impetus and Motion. EVERYTHING. Possibly the least relevant part of that is the family line, as Earth 3 often has really skewed versions of the characters. Would the first Johnny Quick even have a speedster grandson when he was killed and his blood used to power his successors?

Oh, cool ask! Thank you!

😄 I’m very happy to talk about this but I’m afraid you may be disappointed, because I’m Doing It Wrong. I’ve been working off and on on a bespoke Earth-3 for the past…several years. Production has slowed but not stopped. It’s up to over 300,000 words on AO3 at this point.

The issue that set me off was that tendency to skew; I didn’t like it. I found that, most of the times DC had built into Earth-3 before rebooting again, there were two countervailing currents leading writing decisions. On the one hand to make things As Wrong As Possible compared to the main timeline, and on the other to just make them…arbitrarily different.

Lois Lane is Superwoman, evil counterpart of Wonder Woman, for some reason, woop-de-do; this fits under both categories.

This process worked neither according to the ‘timeline that diverged into a Bad Timeline at some point in the distant past but somehow contains versions of the same people in the same place’ premise of the original Star Trek ‘Mirror, Mirror’ episode, nor does it work according to any direct cosmic principle of inversion, although some of the early versions claimed to.

(See: Mirror Christopher Columbus discovered Europe and then later Evil George Washington conquered England for the American Empire, what even guys. 😩)

Also Earth-3 so transparently existed almost every time it was reinvented as a place to get villains from, and to look bad in comparison to the main timeline, without any attention to making it work internally, which I thought was a damn waste of a cool concept. ‘A damn waste of a cool concept’ drives a lot of fanwork lol.

So for my world, I had the slightly conflicting goals of working as close to that amorphous thing ‘canon’ as possible, and of making the setting stand on its own, as a superhero setting, with internal causality and more or less the usual sort of hero-versus-villain logic. So I inverted the alignments of only superheroes and supervillains, and kept as much as possible of their backstories intact.

This means my stuff doesn’t map onto any canon Earth-3, especially not the one from Forever Evil because that came out after I’d already gotten all the big things pinned down. 😅 Some people get upset about this and come yell at me about how i.e. Owlman is Thomas Wayne Junior. But since I always saw that particular concept as a huge cop-out from looking at how few alterations it takes to turn Bruce Wayne into a spectacular villain, I was like ‘nuts to that’ from the start.

If you’re cool with my relationship with canon, on we go.

-&-

So, Impetus and Motion! I don’t remember what I said on that one post where I remember blathering about it, so forgive me if I repeat myself. ^^

Lineage is the same as canon, technically. I’ll go over it; if you don’t care just skip ahead to the next subsection. 😄

Mirror Barry Allen, the Dash, got his villain name for his signature kill technique of grabbing someone, hyperaccelerating them, and then letting go at the right moment that they get dashed against something immovable and go splat. He dashes people against things.

(His eventual sidekick, Blaze, got his for liking to make things combust by accelerating their molecules. The combination makes them sound like a pair of racehorses, which they did not intend and are very annoyed by when it’s pointed out.)

The Dash is pretty scary, especially because most of the ways he abuses his speed for profit are so low-key nobody even notices (i.e. screwing with the stock market) and he doesn’t need to be a supervillain. He just likes it.

His public villain profile is relatively low for the level of danger he poses, tho, because his town is infested with really dumb superheroes who beat him embarrassingly often, when he actually turns up to fight or is successfully ambushed. And with the occasional exception the scale of his crimes is fairly small compared to i.e. Ultraman.

Keeping him imprisoned is ridiculously difficult, tho. He can’t be completely depowered (because the Speed Force is external to him and all the power dampeners that are used assume they’re trying to shut off something generated internally) and he’s really smart, so it took years of battles to keep him long enough to transfer into a proper cell even, and longer to get an unblurred look at his face.

His secret identity survived so long that Barry Allen was there to comfort Iris West after she was targeted by the Dash on several occasions, and they were married by the time he got ultimately unmasked.

She left him after that and moved back to the future, which she was still from because that’s hilarious, but he eventually tracked her down and promised to reform if she’d take him back. This obviously fell apart eventually, but not until after the twins were born.

I haven’t mapped out the mirror Thawne line. I assume the Thawnes with healing powers who inadvertently adopted Barry’s twin were much nicer in this timeline but idk if he ever became Cobalt Blue or what. I hope he lived to old age. Apparently there have been multiple Cobalts Blue? Idk idc, Flash continuity what even are you.

Everyone thought Eobard Thawne was nuts, but he actually did go back in time and stop the Dash from destroying the world with nukes in a fit of rage, his historical analysis, method of giving himself speed powers, and time machine were all successful. He may additionally suffer from some degree of psychosis, but he wasn’t wrong. (His little brother still exists in this universe because good!Eobard wasn’t the type to manipulate time to erase inconvenient family members. He also doesn’t have the title Professor because he never got tenure, so he just goes by Zoom.)

-&-

Bart is still Don and Meloni’s kid. Frankly I don’t understand those two in the normal timeline, so it’s hard to construct their mirror versions in any depth or even decide whether they should get mirrored. (Probably not tbh.) But I don’t exactly need to, because the resulting Bart is very much the same and thus doesn’t really know them. He was still born with his weird speed glitch that caused him to be raised in a simulation, and eventually time-traveled to un-glitch him.

The difference is that he’s not a nice kid. He’s a two year old who looks twelve and has received all his socialization from reasonably good AI in a world that was not real. Where nothing had consequences. Where nobody was real.

He’s very frightening, is Impetus. Impetuous, wildly powerful, selfish–oddly sweet, occasionally, in the ‘gay and innocent and heartless’ way of Peter Pan, but probably even more likely than Peter to knife someone. He’s so delighted the first time he eats actual ice cream, as opposed to a simulated version, but the ice cream stand is now on fire.

Mirror Bart isn’t so much cruel or even un-empathetic as solipsistic. He’s arrested in the state of an intellectually advanced toddler playing, what’s that game called, the one where the objective seems to be getting in car chases a lot? When was the last time they made a new one, I feel like I haven’t heard it mentioned in ages, it’s a dead franchise isn’t it I’m old. Grand Theft Auto! That’s it. He doesn’t just not understand that danger is real, the way Impulse started out. People aren’t.

Impetus is easily bored and surrounded by NPCs. It gets ugly, sometimes.

He also time-travels a lot more frequently than normal Bart, because he doesn’t really get attached so he doesn’t try to maintain a normal life of any kind, so he pops up all over the timestream.

Jason Blood hated him personally long before Bart had any idea who he was; they have a villain rivalry plagued by causality issues and closed time loops that is alternately epic and stupid as fuck.

And then there’s Thad. Thad’s had a less awful time than he did in canon, I think–President Thawne is not technically a supervillain so he’s probably about the same as in the original timeline, but even assuming Meloni and Don are still out of the picture (probably it’s Barry’s fault in this dimension?) raising a kid as a ‘defense mechanism against a supervillain’ calls for less extreme brainwashing fuckery than raising one to hunt down a superhero.

So he probably behaved a bit more like a reasonable grandparent, simply because the context incentivized him to emphasize concepts like duty and loyalty more, and hatred less. He might even have been able to go public with Thad’s existence, depending on the spin he came up with. Among other factors.

But it was still a depressing, isolated, dehumanizing way to grow up, and it went on a long time, because as per canon Thad has the opposite problem from Bart in terms of how he passes through time. Motion is a 40-year-old man with a 12 year old’s body and approximate life experience.

Thad was already So Tired when he finally got out into the world on his own, and once he encountered Impetus he learned pretty quickly to both pity and fear him.

Even when Thad tries to avoid Bart and just have a life, Bart always crashes back into his existence again, and in the meantime he feels guilty. Because even if he could completely shake off having been raised to see countering Impetus as his whole reason for existence, he’d still feel a lot of personal responsibility to try, because he has the ability to stand up to him in a way almost no one else does, and he knows Bart’s out there resulting in casualties.

Due to all the time travel involved, even having just defeated Impetus doesn’t mean he’s not still out there at an accessible point in the timestream, needing to be stopped.

Impetus results in Motion the way Inertia resists Impulse. They’re very much locked into an action-and-reaction framework that does not even a little bit help with Thad’s clone identity issues.

Except for how the amount of time Thad spends saving people from Bart has slowly created a fairly large body of people over the course of history who know them as distinct entities, and like Thad a lot better. 

Good feels good. ^^ It’s not necessarily the case that this happens, obviously, but with their alignment swap they also ultimately exchanged who’s defined by isolation. It takes Bart a long, long time to even understand that he’s lonely.

[theartfuldodger26]

For the prompt I'll be predictable: Harry Potter, Bellamort and Bellatrix 😁

Thanks for the prompts, @bellamort1993! Feel free to answer the same :) 

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my:

Favorite character:

 Bellatrix Lestrange and Voldemort.

 Bella is the closest to my heart, but apparently I waste the most         brainmatter on Tom/Voldemort, so *shrugs*

Harry is my favourite light character, he’s an admirable person.

Least Favorite character:

Umbridge, as is universally accepted.

Favorite ships (canon or non-canon):

Bellamort (which is canon, bitches)

Delphi/Harry (it will become canon, you just wait for TCC part3)

Tomarry but not Harrymort (nearly counts as canon judging by how often Harry gushes over handsome Tom’s face)

Drarry (I’m human and susceptible to fandom mainstream, plus there’s some fantastic fics out there)

Delphi/Victoire (cause two pretty, hot-headed ladies are my cup of tea any day)

Character I find most attractive:

Bellatrix, hands down. Then Voldemort can do things to me too, but Bella would be my first choice.it’s so nice being bi, isn’t it.

Character I would marry:

No one, I’m happy by myself.

Delphi can be my angsty fuck buddy with whom we meet every once in a while, bitch, get drunk, cry and fuck.

Character I’d be friends with:

Harry, tho I’m not the best of friends and he does bring an unappealing high mortality rate to any occasion. It’s fiiine. 

a random thought:

The wizarding world makes zero sense in so many places. They haven’t had an Industrial Revolution, meaning they haven’t known first hand the new ideas that came with it, and they seem to be stuck in the Middle Ages in many ways, even if they dont seem extremely Christian as these times actually were. We know little about the political system and their beliefs are so random. It’s really confusing.

An unpopular opinion:

Idk what’s unpopular these days. Aside from Albus’ name, I actually liked the Epilogue.

It showed what we needed to know: that Harry and the rest made it out okay. They found the courage to face their destroyed community and rebuild, even though they had gone through enough during the war. I think JKR said it herself in an interview how important rebuilding is after a catastrophe, how it can daunt even the bravest people. The miracles of Japan and Germany bouncing back and better after WWII are relevant real-life examples here. 

A married Harry, enthusiastic about hugging his kids goodbye on their first day of school, a day that to him symbolises a new beginning, is the greatest gift and it does not erase the pain he might feel every day for going through hell in his early life. In fact, it’s this snipet of normalcy what he craved as a boy and refused to daydream about because its weight would be too much,and now he gets to have it. Along with the nightmares and the PTSD and the new challenges yes, but now, in this moment, as he waves to the new generation that he helped create, he’s safe, loved and happy. He deserves it. 

Second unpopular opinion: I don’t give a damn if McGonagall’s timeline is screwed up by bringing her to life in the 20′s. Didn’t really matter to the story before and she’s a freaking badass and comic relief, which is the best combo ever. Is it fan-bating or whatever it was called? Sure. But if she makes the story better with her presense I give minus two fucks about when JKR originally said she was born (also, newsflash: people have the right to change HC’s, especially people who don’t shit about maths, like our dear creator) 

My Canon OTP:

           BELLAMORT

Seriously, I have screenshoted the details of TCC where it shows they’re canon.

My Non-canon OTP:

            Harry/Delphi

I know, I’m sick, it’s fine. *insert dog sipping coffee in the flaming house meme here*

Most Badass Character:

Bellatrix, handsdown.

McGonagall for good people.

Most Epic Villain:

Voldemort, we’d have no books without him. He can be dumb, but it’s cute. 

Pairing I’m not a fan of:

I’m not huge on non-canon Hermione ships, and anything with Snape is gross.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another):

…Snape? Not his character, but the positive light she gave him by naming Harry’s kid after him. It appeared she was clear on him not being an admirable person, but then he’s the bravest bloke ever? No, ma’am.

On a Fantastic Beasts note, I do hope they handle the backstories of all characters well. We’ll surely get back to this after the FB series are over.

 Favourite Friendship:

The Golden Trio, they work as a three-man-group better, I won’t devide them. Also, as a part-time writer I have to admire how the writing and dynamics were handled, it’s so hard to think as more than one person, not to mention three!

Character I most identify with:

PostAzkaban!Bellatrix feels she’s letting her master and herself down, and so do I. I keep looking for my former self. Who wasn’t much after all, but had some qualities I should recultivate.

Character I wish I could be:

… I’d like to have some Bellamort qualities that I lack, but in general I’m fine working on myself.  

002 | Send me a ship and I will tell you:

When I started shipping them:

After I finished the books, so that’s since 2007. 12 cool, angsty years. 

My thoughts:

I love them, they’re my evil babies. In fact, I don’t even have reasons for loving them, as most shippers do, I’d just die for them, end of reasoning.

What makes me happy about them:

That they’re complicately made for each other in their unique goth way. And that in the end they had a kid, which I think helped Voldemort out a lot with his issues with intimacy and emotions.

What makes me sad about them:

That they died *sobs hysterically*.

Also in the books they have like two scenes together. (HE SCREAMED THO)

Things done in fanfic that annoys me:

Seeing Bella’s character butchered down to a snivelling, slavish idiot, though these aren’t Bellamort fics usually.

In Bellamort fics, it feels like a cheat when it says Bellamort but it’s just Bella pining and Voldemort really not caring. I don’t have a problem with the POV, but it needs to be tagged as unrequited. Otherwise I’m open to perspectives.

Things I look for in fanfic:

Good writing, mostly.

I’m also a huge fan of Muggle!AU’s, so if you have that, I’ll read it, no questions asked XD

My wishlist:

On Amazon? :P Fine, I’ll show myself out

I presume this means wishlist on fics/art with these two, but do correct me if I’m wrong. I dont have one, since I write myself, so whatever I want to read, I write. Right now I’m eager to finish the following Bellamort fics:

1. Harry finds out about Bellamort via looking through Voldy’s stuff.

2. BellaDiesButVoldyWins!AU

3. Voldemort discovers his breastfeeding kink

4. A therewasonlyonebed!fic 

5. Tomarry turns Bellamort in Easter setting, Muggle!AU, Harry wets himself in the process

In general I’d say I’d like to see more classic, tropy fanfics with these two, lighter ones, you know. Angst is great, but let us enjoy the coffeeshop!AU too.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

Alone and miserable.

I guess Bella would have been okay with Rodolphus, had Tom/Voldemort never been born.

And Voldemort/Tom would have been fine too with some nameless pretty woman he did not love but had to marry to keep face.

But I think that they would have never been truly happy with anyone else. especially Tom, he’d never be really comfortable with anyone.

My happily ever after for them:

VoldemortWins!AU, they conquer Europe, Bella is Minister for War, Voldemort the Emperor. Maybe they have a kid, maybe a couple more or none at all, who cares, the point is they live and fulfull their dreams of revolutionising the Wizarding Wolrd.

I also have a sappy afterlife!AU where for a while Bella is imprisoned at the family castle for having a halfblood little bastard, goes half-insane as Voldemort seacrhes for her (they had a spat right after they got there), and Delphi kills herself and goes to find her dad in small-child form. They finally get tgether and live deathly ever after in some Norwegian fjord in the frozen tundra. (it’s also my personal happy ending, only it’s cats and snakes)

003 | Give me a character & I will tell you:

How I feel about this character:

I love Bella. She’s a bitch and a sadist, but I love her.

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character:

The one and only, his majesty the Dark Lord himself.

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character:

Rodolphus, he’s her only friend.

Also, sad HC: Bella was very close to Andromeda until she got too involved with Voldemort and his cause, and they drifted apart. No one wept harder than Bella after Andy left, and it was her who spent days banging on the Tonks’ door to let them speak to her. Voldy could squeeze tears out of his shirt after she fell asleep on him crying about it.

My unpopular opinion about this character:

Again, not sure about what’s unpopular.

I believe she suffers from genuine mental illness that tortures her a lot and makes her life (and her shared life with Voldemort too) very hard. Also I find her more self-doubting and reserved than most authors, hard working and largely indifferent to people who aren’t Voldemort.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

Actual romantic scene would have been nice, but HE SCREAMED after all. Let’s not ask for too much.

Favorite friendship for this character:

Rodolphus and Andromeda. Recently I’ve started Brotp-ing Sirius with Bella too, before they parted ways.

My crossover ship:

I don’t really have any other fandoms, sorry.

Well, that was fun! Thanks again!

[tokidokifish]

THANK YOU EVERYONE that asked me dragon age questions for my birthday, i will now start answering them, tho i am always ready for more. [waggles eyebrows]

@audrey-scorne asked for 1, 9, 10 for surana/amell, @falsecargo asked for all ten for casrien, and @zwierzodudle asked for 3 for everyone so imma start with the brat because of course i am.

1. Did Surana/Amell have any memories of their life before the Circle? If so, what of? If not, how did they feel about not knowing where they’re from?

hahaaaa oh yes. i mean casrien was not young when his clan was wiped out, so he has like… the majority of a childhood being the happy son, and then first, of a keeper in a dalish clan. he still remembers the elvish that he was taught by his mother and managed to train himself in a form of magic the circle denies even exists (shapeshifting) because he started learning it before he was brought to the tower. i’m sure there were times, when things were very, very bad, that he wished he didn’t remember a time before, when he was happy and free, but it’s not like he’d actually trade those memories for anything, especially when that’s all that’s left - besides him - of his clan.

as an aside, i’ve integrated the idea that minaeve’s assertion that her clan abandoned her in the woods because they had too many mages wasn’t actually (just) a bullshit retcon to demonize the dalish and was instead propaganda fed to her by the circle until she believed it herself with casrien’s backstory to adopt the headcanon that minaeve was another survivor, and suffice to say he would be fucking HORRIFIED to learn what she thinks happened.

2. What was Surana/Amell’s relationship with Jowan like? What did they think of the revelation of him being a blood mage? and 9. Did Surana/Amell decide to help Jowan and Lily, or did they tell Irving of their plans? Why?

i’ve talked about this before - casrien didn’t particularly like jowan anymore than he liked anyone else, and he doesn’t even think jowan particularly liked HIM all that much in return, but jowan remembered what everyone else had forgotten about casrien: when casrien was first brought to the circle, he actively set things on fire. he escaped every chance he got, and was dragged back screaming, and he only stopped because they had started talking about things like tranquility. jowan didn’t particularly like casrien, but he asked for casrien’s help because casrien had the access jowan needed, and jowan was banking on him agreeing out of sheer, simmering resentment - which is exactly why casrien agreed. that’s why he always agrees, whether or not it’s a universe where duncan is around to bail him out when they get caught. (he also doesn’t particularly care about jowan being a blood mage, either, because as far as he’s concerned there’s no such thing as “evil magic”, simply evil people, and jowan is many things, but he’s not evil.)

as for why: when Irving puts on the disappointed grandfather voice and asks why casrien did it, casrien laughs in his fucking face. “you stole me from my people and trapped me here and you’re asking how i could I betray your trust? i may have learned how to pretend to be meek and submissive, but i am dalish. i do not forget, and i do not forgive.”

3. How prepared was Surana/Amell for their Harrowing?

i’d say as prepared as one could be for a secret test they literally don’t tell anyone anything about. i’ve always said that casrien thinks he’s a better mage than most of the other members of the circle, and in most cases is correct in thinking that, simply because he was brought up not fearing his magic, so it wasn’t like he was ever scared of it.

4. What was Surana’s/Amell’s reaction to first entering the Fade?

considering dragon age 2 shows the dalish have their own ritual that can send people into the fade, i imagine it was actually one of the first things his mother did when she took him on as a first, as an introduction to the nature of spirits and magic. it probably only happened the once, but i imagine his reaction to entering it during the harrowing was probably something to the tune of, “oh, of course this is what they would play up to be so dangerous.”

5. Did Surana/Amell believe in “Mouse?” What did they think of his story?

casrien didn’t believe he was a trapped apprentice, no, but he didn’t think he was a demon, either. apparently since inquisition made it clear that mortal expectations shape how spirits appear, there’s this idea that mouse wasn’t actually a demon but simply appeared that way because that’s what a scared apprentice would expect to face in the fade, and i’m down with that, so i imagine the conversation at the end of the harrowing actually went quite a bit differently, considering casrien wouldn’t have come into the situation with those expectations. probably something to the tune of “so is this the part where you turn out to be the actual demon testing me?” “well, that’s usually how it goes, but it doesn’t really seem worth the effort, if i’m being honest.”

6. How did Surana/Amell feel about living in the Circle?

well, i used to say casrien has mellowed out since i made him, but i recently realized i’ve just been figuring out what he’s actually like as opposed to the personality that formed due to, you know, the whole fucking imprisonment and abuse thing, so suffice to say he wasn’t super happy about the situation.

7. Did Surana/Amell favour a particular Fraternity? What did they think about Circle politics in general?

if he had any stake in the conversation, he would have probably been a resolutionist. fortunately for the chantry, however, casrien considered himself an elf first and a mage second, so he was always more interested in getting out of the circle and preferably back to his people than he was in the freedom for mages cause.

8. How did Surana/Amell feel about working with tranquil mages?

he… avoided it. there was actually a rumor in the circle that they had tried to make him tranquil, but something went wrong, and that’s why they had to keep letting him come to classes, but the fact is he just… numbed himself emotionally so he wouldn’t act out and risk ACTUALLY being made tranquil. there’s literally nothing he hates more than tranquility, nothing about the circle that infuriates or disgusts him more, so he avoids working with tranquil mages because there’s few things that test his carefully constructed facade as much, and he can’t afford that.

10.  How did Surana/Amell feel about returning to the Circle, and seeing it in chaos?

to be fair, there are versions of casrien that might be a little upset about the innocent mages that got killed, but warden casrien? the casrien that escaped the yoke of one organization just to be IMMEDIATELY put in another one? that casrien doesn’t have a fucking lot of sympathy to spare.

FINALLY, @wantedplantlife asked what my wardens thought of the awakening companions, so i’ll be answering that for everybody too.

after considerable thought (and, again, realizing what casrien is actually like, under the defensive misanthropy), i’ve realized anders would... probably have been the closest thing to a friend casrien had in the circle, though i SERIOUSLY doubt they were allowed to spend much time with one another, so i imagine he would have been pleased to see him again AND have the opportunity to make sure anders never had to go back to the circle. 

on the other hand, i bet casrien and nathaniel had a BIG fukkin problem with one another at first, because yeah, nate, he killed your dad, but your dad was a murderous scumbag who was selling elves into slavery so casrien isn’t gonna have a lot of apologies or regret to offer.

it would take a stronger man than casrien to dislike sigrun, and he’s always been more inclined to get along with non-human races, since they never imprisoned him in a tower, so i imagine he’s quite fond of her.

i’ve mentioned before that casrien doesn’t get all... solas about spirits, so i imagine he was just fine with justice, as opposed to like... super close conversation partners, or anything. 

as for velanna, an angry elven first attacking humans? honestly, #mood.

seriously though, casrien would be... so fucking close to velanna. like holy shit. i mean his best friend in origins was morrigan, and this is like morrigan except OH YEAH, casrien and velanna are even more alike. it’s nice to think about.

and oghren is... well, probably the last person from origins that casrien would have wanted to be palling around with again. rip.

[cluebottles]

Consuming Avatar: The Last Airbender for the First Time...

... at 23 years old. 

**Some Major Spoilers Ahead for Plot Lines and the Ending -- If you haven’t seen Avatar: The Last Air Bender I highly suggest you watch it before you read

[Before I begin: I live in America. Currently and since the “founding” of our country, minorities have not been treated as equal -- Black people in our country have been treated as less than human and have been brutally murdered at the hands of the police and the hands of our governing system of racist oppression since the beginning. It’s still happening. It will continue to happen if we ignore this, if we give up, if we push forward without enacting change. Be safe when you are protesting. Educate people who might not understand. Use your platform to speak out, to share information and resources. Donate if you can. Here’s some resources: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ ] Alright, so the spoiler alert is out there in the open and I’ve addressed our current situation, I guess we should jump in with a little back story of my history with Avatar. As a kid, I never watched it. I still pretended to water bend in the pool -- Avatar transcended more than just television. The idea of controlling the elements around you was magnificent enough to bleed into that weird group of kids who never watched it growing up. I also had one Avatar video game that I barely played...because I didn’t watch the show...so I didn’t know what was going on. Trying to watch something and be caught up as a kid without streaming services was just impossible, so I’m lucky to not only have the complete box sets now, but we’re all lucky Netflix has graced us with the story to binge-watch.

I want to first start off and say that overall I highly enjoyed this show. Everyone I knew has praised it as being an important character building experience that made them the person they are today -- and while I can understand that, and some of that is not only important and moving, I’m also here to criticize that, just a little bit. 

Let’s start off with the characters and story-- both of which mostly fantastic. I mean, Uncle Iroh is a phenomenon I’d only heard of and honestly had to think he was overrated until I fell in love with him on screen.   

I think Uncle Iroh is also a very important character because he shows an important and believable character growth -- he was a war criminal. He was pushing forward, killing innocent people as he attempted to conquer the great Earth Nation city Ba Sing Se. His son was killed in the war he was raging, and he gave up and went home and over years has worked on himself to have the wisdom he is known for and astounding character growth. “But didn’t he save the last two dragons?” ...you can do a good thing while also doing other bad things. Lmfao. He is constantly trying to steer his nephew, Zuko, in a more positive direction, while also providing scattered support to the Aang Gang more than once throughout the entirety of the series. (RIP to Uncle Iroh’s original voice actor, Mako Iwamatsu, and I praise the beautiful story dedicated to him in Uncle Iroh’s tale, an episode that made me cry once I realized it was a dedication to him.)

Let’s contrast this to these two -- both having the least believable character growth(s? ses? ???) I’ve ever seen.  

Everyone says “that ZUKO CHARACTER GROWTH ARC THO” and I just... I don’t have the same energy for it. Maybe it’s my most unpopular opinion on this show? But ... it’s just so rushed. I do think this series ended too soon, and I know it goes beyond just this show in comics, but as a consumer of just this show, it was flat to me. “I MUST HAVE THE AVATAR” to “I MUST HELP THE AVATAR SAVE THE WORLD” but a majority of him in this series has been the former while the last season, really, has been the latter. We stan reassessment and learning and bettering the world, but some of the first times he’s helped the Avatar has been for his own personal gain because he wants the glory so he can go home to his abusive family. I wish he would have been given more time to have a more realistic turnaround, because the beginning and the end are there -- it’s just a weird muddled middle that doesn’t make sense to me. The same with the hatred of his father. We’re not given much between “I NEED TO RESTORE MY HONOR AND COME HOME TO MY FATHER” and “I WILL HELP THE AVATAR KILL YOU” and I think that’s a shame. 

Mai... I just... I can’t even.. like I don’t know where to begin on how underwhelming her betrayal of Azula is. Like yes, it has shock value, but besides the shock value, to me, it’s unbelievable. Yes, she has had a crush on Zuko since they were kids, but she’d been closer to Azula than him for most of her life. Even in the EPISODE where she does this betrayal she has very little time alone with Zuko. He tricks her and traps her in his cell, and just moments before this she’s accusing him of going against her and their entire nation. In scenes we see them together before this she’s broken up with him and shouted at him, they’ve gotten into fights, a lot, and she’s seen talking about the perks of dating a prince, relishing in the fact that she gets them too. To me her betrayal is unbelievable. I don’t hate her at all though! I honestly just think she needed more screen time so that we could be shown her doubts about the Fire Nation and how strong her relationship to Zuko actually is. 

I guess it’s time for another unpopular opinion -- I can’t stand Sokka and Yue. They don’t have chemistry. Yue is literally engaged to a dickbag and instead of doing what was best for her, she was going to just go through with it. Also, Yue and Sokka don’t know each other that well nor have they known each other for that long, whereas Suki met Sokka first. Suki and Sokka have a natural chemistry. Sokka takes Suki for granted, a lot, but they’re fantastic. 

Cluebottles’ Top Ten Favorite Character List

Uncle Iroh

Sokka 

Toph

Suki

Avatar Roku

Appa & Momo

Avatar Kiyoshi

Katara

Aang

Zuko

Now, we know Uncle Iroh preaches humility, growth, peace and harmony. And while a lot of the time I would agree, there are some times where I don’t. Here is my biggest criticism of the show: love doesn’t conquer all, and Avatar: The Last Airbender sloppily tries to enforce that it does ‘til the awkward end of the series.

I understand that this is a children’s show. However, the fact that it’s about war and multiple people have died during the show (even if it wasn’t always outright shown), I don’t think killing the Fire Lord would have been unwarranted. If anything, it’s another show that pushes “no matter what be the bigger person”, “no matter what, love is the only way”, “you can’t fight hatred with hatred”, which ultimately does not work, and furthers the bullying of people or the oppression of people. 

Aang is supposed to save the world, and when it comes down to it, he can’t kill the Fire Nation’s Leader, Lord Ozai, who is the third in straight succession to lead the assault on conquering the other nations. A war of 100 years ends “peacefully” -- except for all of the people who lost their lives fighting for their family and freedom against the Fire Nation. 

Aang seeks council from his previous Avatar incarnations -- and each of them tell him to take out the Fire Lord for the good of the world. That’s Aang’s only job as the Avatar -- to keep the balance and work for the good of the world. 

Instead of him bringing down the swift hand of justice, Aang learns how to bend energy (wtf?) at the literal last minute from a giant lion turtle so that he can bend the energy (again, wtf?) out of Ozai and take his bending power away. Even when the kid gets the snot knocked out of him and the Avatar state takes over, Aang stops it. And then he bends the energy (wtf x3) out of Ozai successfully even though the turtle tells him it can corrupt him entirely if he does it wrong, that it’s extremely hard to do, and even though he’s never practiced doing it.

Iroh was a war criminal. He reformed himself and helped the community he hurt when he really never had to. Zuko has his own “character development arc” where he goes from being bad to goodish to bad again to okay to bad to finally  good. He’s a kid, he’s still learning, and has changed drastically for the better.  Azula...Azula had been struggling with some form of mental illness/psychosis since she was a small child even into adulthood. She’s hateful and dangerous, but not only is she still a kid -- she should be (and is) locked up so she can’t ever hurt anyone again. 

Fire Lord Ozai is an adult, fully aware of his actions, has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people in his wake trying to take over territories and kill other benders, enslave them, and imprison them. Even when confronted by the Avatar, resistance, and his own son peacefully, not only does he start the violence in retaliation, but he doesn’t learn from being shown compassion. He is literally already a war criminal, there should be no compassion left for anyone to show him. My point being that there’s a stark difference between him and others who may have been like him. 

So in the end, the big message that this sends to me is that you should always show love and compassion. Never resort to violence. Be the “bigger person”, like I mentioned above, and like I said this doesn’t translate to real life. I think a huge reason why I feel I need to criticize this and other children’s shows that push this message is that we are being fed this narrative at a young age while we’re being bullied, while we’re facing hatred from others whether it’s because of the color of our skin, our gender, our sexuality -- we are expected to always be the “better person”. Our problems will somehow amicably be fixed by love. We shouldn’t actively be trying to dismantle a system taking advantage of and killing minorities, all I have to do is be nice. As we grow that feeds into our naive outlook on protesting and rioting, our outlooks on lawmaking and leadership. “Well they just made their whole movement look bad” “You should never resort to violence” -- meanwhile the police have been murdering black people for years and years, and people have been “peacefully protesting” that. Rioting was what got freedoms for several different movements, whether it’s worker’s rights, lgbt+ rights, the "civil rights act”, rioting is what literally got the USA the “freedom” to begin with. 

In the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Aang is gifted at the last moment with the ability to take away Lord Ozai’s power and ultimately, have a peace restored without violence. In the real world, you cannot take away the power of war criminals and oppressors because they have the power in a system stacked against you. So trying to answer such a huge life question, trying to end a war in the real world, trying to take down oppressors -- showing them love and trying to fumble it on your own sense of humility does nothing. 

I watched this show unfold and finish moments before I watched people take to the streets to protest yet another black life lost by the hands of police brutality and systemic racsim. Watching George Floyd die just for being black in America, knowing all of the black lives lost every day just because they are black in America to then look at a show that tries to push a message like “love conquers all”, “violence is unnecessary”, just makes me angry because we live in a world where these sentiments, though nice, don’t exist.

That being said, I’m glad this show meant a lot to people, because it did mean a lot to me too. For some reason, it gives me a strange sense of hope. This is probably my favorite show and I’m watching it again after just finishing it. If you haven’t watched it, there are a lot of lessons that can be learned to positively affect you and make you take a step back and re-evaluate, and maybe implement some of Uncle Iroh’s wisdom into your life.  

[twdmusicboxmystery]

7x16: Non-Sasha Details

Good morning, All! Today I’m going to talk about the non-Sasha related clues I saw in 7x16. (Disclaimer: there will still be some Sasha stuff, but it just won’t focus on the segments I talked about on Tuesday. ;D)

Dwight/Daryl/Tara:

Tara gets in Dwight’s face about Denise saying, “She had a name.” Can’t help but think how much they’re emphasizing that, and of course no one has mentioned Beth’s name since 5x09. Felt kinda on the nose. Like a reminder to us of who isn’t being mentioned. And of course Denise was a major proxy for Beth. And of course Denise, like so many others, is being mentioned in the seasons after her death. Beth, not so much. Very suspicious.

Dwight reiterates that he wasn’t aiming for Tara, which nearly gets him killed. But this is the second or third time they’ve said that in all. They’re really emphasizing it. Dwight using it as excuse makes him sound like a defensive, whiny baby. So I think it’s being emphasized for different reasons. And who else do we think was accidentally shot? Yeah, Grady. The “I wasn’t aiming for her” could apply to Beth as well.

Dwight then says to Daryl, “What I was doing, I was doing for someone else. She just got away, so now I’m here. So are you, because of her.” So just wanted to point out the callback to The Cell. Dwight said this bc Daryl said it to him at the Sanctuary, and Dwight knows Daryl will understand this. And while Dwight’s speech is obviously about Sherry, we know for Daryl it’s about Beth.

When Rosita reveals that Negan has Sasha, Jesus says, “Why didn’t you say anything? He could be our only chance to get her back.” That parallels what Daryl said about Beth in Consumed:

I only point it out because it’s the EXACT same wording. Not, “go get her,” “rescue her” or any other variation. Exact same verbiage.

At Hilltop:

I wanted to point this out, only because I missed it the first time through. It’s not TD, tho. Maggie says to Jesus, “How am I supposed to make this decision?” and she’s holding Glenn’s watch. So then that leads to her speech at the ends when Rick says she made the right one, and she gives that awesome voice over about how the decision was made a long time ago by Glenn. Just some great symmetry there. Not TD, but definitely heart-melting status. ;D

Also, just want to point out that I think Enid just became Judith’s caretaker. Not gonna theorize. Just wanted to point it out. Don’t know if it will be long term, of course, as this was finale.

Carzekiel:

A couple of things I picked up in the scene that was the sneak peek for this episode. Carol said, “Guns up,” which is exactly what Richard said in 7x13. I don’t know if that is to parallel something or just emphasize that the Kingdom is ready to fight. Just pointing it out.

What was really interesting is what one of the Kingdome-ers says when they saw the shopping carts:

“What the hell? He’s dead.”

Obviously he’s talking about Richard. They knew he’d arranged the shopping carts that way last time, which lead to Benjamin’s death. Of course this time it was Morgan, using Richard’s tactics to try and ambush the Saviors.

So a couple of things:

1. Morgan is in a similar self-destructive mode to Richard’s at this point. Unless something changes soon, this does not bode well for him. Of course the fact that he went with Carol and Ezekiel to fight may already be a step in the right direction. Rather than go back to his destructive, hermit ways, he fought with the group and is back in Alexandria now. Here’s hoping he progresses in S8, rather than continuing to retrogress.

2. The wording here is super suspicious to me. I know in the plot they mean Richard, but it still implies that someone they thought dead might not be. Coupled with all the other parallels and details in this episode…yeah, I’m seriously side-eyeing.

Sasha Stuff:

The pancake scene. First, it’s weird that a mainstream outlet thought it was a deleted scene. Obviously it wasn’t. No idea what’s up with that. I did have someone tell me they thought it was more like a second sneak peek. If that’s the case, then it wasn’t really “leaked” which means the site just messed up. Weird.

I said when discussing it before that there were blueberries, strawberries, and green melons on the plate. On second look, I don’t think they’re green melons. I think it’s a green apple. So more Apple Theory. And both the strawberries and green apples point to Sasha being a Beth proxy.

Alexandria:

The scavengers arrived on bicycles. 

I know everyone is having all kinds of fun with this at the Scavengers’ expense, but this is a very important symbol. (X, X, X,). Remember that it most often represents something to do with kidnapping, imprisonment, being taken from TF, etc. No idea what that means for the future but 1) a great indication that these people will be enemies to TF and 2) they were trying to barter for people, which means if Shiva hadn’t shown up they might have taken some of TF hostage. There’s a good chance that someone will end up a hostage to them at some point. Just saying.

Small detail: Jadis covets Alexandria. And no wonder, given the literal junk heap she lives in. But the way she looked around at the houses, telling Rick she was impressed with what he was fighting for gave me the creeps. This is not good at all.

They used red and green explosives. Once again, life and death hanging in the balance. In this case, specifically Eugene’s, though TF didn’t set them up for him. Of course they didn’t go off and no one actually died, but still.

Tamiel’s smokes a cigar. Not sure what that is about. Someone also asked me if we get a clearer shot of Tamiel’s boots here. 

I don’t know if you’d call this “clear.” It’s not a close up or anything. But you can see the lacey design on them from the post credits scene of 7x08. That should put to bed the doubt about it being Tamiel. I know there are still some theories out there that we actually saw two people in that scene. One who looked through binoculars, and a second who jumped to the ground. But Boots, at least, does appear to be Tamiel, as the spoilers said. Sorry if that’s bad news to anyone.

As they’re setting up, Rick says, “The wall’s gonna hold.” To which Rosita replies, “It’ll hold.” This is a callback to 6a. Rick said it to all the Alexandrians after Operation Lead the Walkers Away went awry because of the wolves. Back then, Rosita didn’t repeat it back to them, but she answered when he said Abraham and Sasha and Glenn would be back. “They will be back.” The thing I most want to point out about this is that it was said after Glenn was presumed dead and right before he was revealed to be alive. Just saying.

Can I rant for just a minute about Negan giving Rick a guilt trip? All villains like to twist things around and this bugged me. He told Rick he was a monster for trying to blow up Eugene, “one of his own.” No, Negan. No. Eugene made his choice, and everyone in TF would have been sad, but the second he switched sides, the decision was made. That doesn’t make Rick a monster. It does make you a manipulative douchebag, but we already knew that, didn’t we? Okay, rant over.

Also, Negan asked for the pool table. Asking for Daryl back was kind of a given. The pool table by itself is a callback to Still, where Daryl messed around with a pool table in the golf club, numerous pool tables since then (X) and of course most recently and relevant to the plot, Spencer. Spencer had all those anti-parallels to Beth’s death. Asking for Daryl and the pool table together? Yeah side-eyeing that. The only time we’ve ever seen Daryl + pool table was in Still. Just saying.

I wanted to kiss Carl here, btw. He was the first one to fire and that’s when I cheered.

It’s worth noting that Negan was truly angry about Sasha’s death. I said that before. Oh, and Walker Sasha ate Roy’s eye. No idea if that should parallel to something. Carl’s eye? Beth getting shot above the eye? Just thought I’d point it out.

There was a bit of a parallel between Rick and Michonne’s situations here. Though the results were different, both were on a high platform with a female Scavenger who attacked them and tried to push them off. (Of course Rick fell and Michonne didn’t.) Both were hurt fairly seriously as well. I only point it out to show that tptb like to parallel the arcs of romantic couples.

Jadis wants people, as I said before. She asks for 12 but Negan only grants her 10. I’m wondering if there’s any correlation there with the 12 melons? Really this was a setup for next season, as we’re not clear what’s going on yet with this. Interesting tho. What does Jadis want prisoners for? It’s not like anyone taken from TF would have come willingly or just did what she wanted.

Lots of parallels between the beginning and ending of the season here. The obvious is the lineup. But there’s more detail than that. Negan specifically goes after Carl both times, and arms are mentioned. (In 7x01, he was going to take Carl’s arm; here he told Rick he would take both of his.) In both cases, Carl wore the sheriff’s hat and Negan knocked it off.

The differences show the growth. Before, Rick melted into a sniveling mess in face of Negan’s brutality. Here, he tells him to do whatever he’s gonna do, but it won’t change that Rick will kill him. And the more obvious difference that before, Negan killed two. Here, none. Sasha died but that was by her own hand. So TF has really won a victory against Negan here by not letting him kill them or manipulate them anymore. This is why the war will begin now. Negan no longer has the ability to control them.

Rick also says, “You’re all already dead” to Negan. He means that because sooner or later he’s going to kill them, they might as well already be dead. Badass line. Also a callback to episode 2x07, Pretty Much Dead Already. That’s the episode where Sophia, you know, the girl who’s been missing forever and Daryl looked for, suddenly showed up. Just saying.

Okay, at this point, when Shiva shows up and the fighting start again, my notes look like someone yelling in caps and with exclamation points:

Shiva!

Carzekiel!

Morgan and Rick!

Daryl!

Father Gabriel!

The sad thing was that I didn’t take notes until the second time through. And yes, I was still that excited. ;D

Some details you might have missed during all the action:

1. “Phalanx Out!” Maggie says this. I noticed it because Richard said it when the Kingdom group stopped for the shopping carts. I looked it up then, but it didn’t jump out at me as anything big. It’s basically a battle formation with roots in ancient Greece. I have no idea what the significance is, other than a battle move, but they’ve used it twice in the past few episodes, so it must be significant. Plus, Richard and Maggie never knew each other and were from different communities. So plot wise, it’s unrealistic that they would use the same word to train their people. 

2. Broken Tail lights. In this scene, the camera focused for like 10 seconds on this car and all of the tail lights being broken out. I need to figure out this theme more definitely. Abraham was given a necklace by Rosita, made of a broken tail light. (Abraham = Beth proxy.) Also remember that before taking off to chase the Grady car in 5x02, Daryl broke out the tail lights of his car. So this is very much a symbol that has to do with Beth. And I’ve theorized about it before (X, X) but I’m not sure I’ve quite hit on exactly what it means.

3. The Scavengers climbed over the walls a LOT like the wolves did. I’m just gonna throw this out there. Look at these similarities. I have no idea if that was a purposeful parallel, or what it would mean if it is, but I noticed it.

4. The number 63 on a mailbox. This was very clearly focused on by the camera, but no one is entirely sure what it means. I looked into both episode 63 and comic book issue 63. Both are interesting, but one doesn’t win out over the other in my mind. This may not point to either. The CB issue is the one synonymous with 5x02/5x03. In the CB’s, it was Dale, rather than Bob, who was taken by the Hunters/Termites and his leg eaten. This issue is where they discover he is missing and think Gabriel might have had something to do with it. They then find out Gabriel’s secret about locking the church doors. I just think that’s interesting for several reasons. If this is what the 63 is pointing to, it takes us back to Terminus, which many of us think will come into play again. This is also an example of the lost shoe/foot theory (X) and then in the show, Bob was a major proxy for Beth.

Episode 63 was Remember, which was right when they first arrived in Alexandria. Honestly, this might be more what they’re going for with the number 63. Calling back to all the problems and divisions when they first arrived, vs now when they’re coming together to fight for their home. But I don’t know for sure. Any other ideas about what 63 might mean?

Oh and also, it’ s on a mailbox. Mailbox theory.

I also gotta talk about how much I was crushing on Michonne in this episode. (I tend to do that in MSFs and finales, when she manages to do some seriously badass stuff.) I totally didn’t realize the first time I watched the episode that she was talking while fighting Creepy Blond Scavanger, but she was. She said several versions of “Us! We’re the ones that live!”

It’s a cool callback to her and Rick’s convo in the prison cell. It’s awesome that she’s yelling that at Creepy Blond Scavanger, almost like a mantra. It’s even awesomer that after saying it, she finds the strength to throw Creepy Scavanger over the guard rail, thereby “saving herself.”

And remember that Us was the title of episode 4x15, which dealt with Daryl and the Claimers. And Daryl, um, “claimed” some strawberries. Just saying.

Okay, a few last things. Rick said to Michonne when he found her, “You’re alive,” which stuck out to me. Of course there was the 101 Days Without an Accident sign that most people noticed. (Go you!) Aaron gave Jerry an apple, which I missed. Dwight’s soldier is a callback to 6x08, which was rife with Beth images, dialogue, and parallels.

At first I couldn’t figure out what Daryl was looking at here:

Then I figured it out:

Not sure what the significance of it is. Almost like the Scavengers left a calling card when they went over the wall. Still feels very reminiscent of the wolves.

Finally, Maggie’s voiceover is, of course, all kinds of awesome. Totally got teary-eyed about it, especially the second time through when I could focus on it more. MOST of the words in her speech–trapped, stuck, sacrifice, lots more–jumped out at me. Of course they apply to the entire story and all of TF, not just Beth, but I couldn’t help but see them through somewhat of a TD lens.

Whew! That was a lot. Any other details I missed?

[ziggydageek-blog]

Firewhiskey & Confessions

“Voldemort got it in his head that going after my best mates son was the best course of action. I was made secret keeper of their where abouts; at the last minute, I asked our other… I loathe to use the term ‘friend’ anymore, tho at the time…” Sirius paused. Sorrow clouded his features and he turned his head away. To the wall behind him, he continued his story: “I traded places with the rat. It caused the death of the closest thing to family I had.. when I realized what had happened, of course, it was too late..” when he turned back to face me, a look of determination took him over. “None of that matters tho. I was falsely imprisoned for his murder; the bastard turned into the rat that he is and has been living with a Wizarding family while I’ve been biding my time…” he left off; for every question he answered, several more popped up in their place. As I fixed my lips to ask them, he interrupted with, “that Firewhiskey; did we finish it?” A smile curled the corners of his lips. Brain blurred slightly by the alcohol I had already consumed, I dismissed all that bothered my mind; something told me this wasn’t the last evening I’d spend with my newfound friend. The liter of the alcohol felt significantly lighter when I poured more out between the two mugs. Eyeing me intently, Sirius grabbed the mug I pushed nearest him. After he took a deep sip, he finally spoke, “you know, all this time it’s been me aswering all your questions: how did I get in? Why was I in Azkaban? I feel it’s fair to have the favor … returned.” He drawled the last word and there was a rustling in my stomach I hadn’t familiarized myself with. As I had with much that evening, I brushed it aside. Lightheaded, the only logical response burst forth. I giggled. “What is it you wanna know?” Came from me, tho it echoed in the chambers in my brain, convoluted by the fog that had taken up residence. Sirius appreciated my response; he looked more and more as the handsome man that leered from the wanted posters. A full blown smile broke out across his lips; he himself emitted a chuckle. “That’s the spirit,” the mug he held tipped my way. Following suit, I lifted my own to meet his. “To… confessions,” he winked then gulped. As I sipped, I took joke of how the alcohol had progressively lost its sting. “How old are you? You drink like this sint your first time but you’re still young enough that I can see it effecting you,” he used a matter of fact tone. Had it not been for the buzzing in my brain, I might have felt offended in that moment. Instead, a laugh burst forth. “Are you calling me immature?” I smiled, the temples of my cheeks burning. Sirius smiled back. “Immature? No.. just.. intoxicated,” he glanced at the Three quarter gone liter in front of us. “I started before you,” I reminded him. “Be that as it may, let me just-” and he snatched the bottle from the center of the table. Shrieking in amusement, I feigned an attempt at reconciling with it; the table was too wide and the effort I put forth not nearly enough to make a difference. “Fine,” I conceded. “Fine… how old am I? 23.” Bottle precariously gripped, Sirius tilted his head as tho the words I spoke needed to enter thru a certain angle in order for him to understand. Reminiscent of a - “A pup, huh?” The careless smirk was back in full force. His mug rested lazily in his grip. Staring at me over it, he again dragged from it. “And how old are you, Sirius?” I asked. Swallowing, he leaned back further. “Older,” he spoke after a pregnant pause. “Okay…” I prodded. After he refused to take the bait, I continued, “how much older?” But Sirius shook his head, then reminded me, “Oh no, no, no… this isn’t about me anymore, remember? Now, as a man on the run, this is the first time the uh.. the edge has been taken off. For that I have no one but you and this bottle to thank. That being said, I beg you; let me enjoy this night while it lasts? Morning always comes too soon,” he glanced our the window, his eyes giving away a fear for a moment. I realized the gravity of his situation in spite of the mild inebriation. “Forgive me,” I quipped. He made a motion with his face as thought it meant little to nothing to him. Inspired, an idea made itself known, “would you like a bath? I can draw one up, it’d be warm and just want you needed? I’m lot too good with household charms but I can attempt at cutting your hai-” the bark-like laugh interrupted my sentiments. “Cut my hair? In your condition?” He continued to laugh. At this, I too chuckled. Finally our laughter died off; I asked again, “would you like a bath?” Sirius sipped from the mug one last time, placed it on the wooden table top, looked me right in the face and said, “only if you’d join me.”