#I just wanna know what y'all think!!!

[tampatom12]

Asking this because I was going through my flash drives and found it again...!!

[bunnyboy-juice]

NO MORE ASSOCIATING THINGS WITH FEMMES ONLY BECAUSE THEY ARE PINK!HYPERFEM FEMMES ARE GREAT AND I LOVE YOU CAMPY FEMMES WHO EMBODY PINK BUT ALSO JESUS CHRIST CAN YOU GUYS NOT GO MORE THAN ONE DAY W/O TRYING TO SHOEHORN FEMMES INTO BEING ONLY PINK UWU BABIES. I AM FEMME AS IN GRASS AS IN DIRT AS IN TREE BARK AS IN WEEDS SPROUTING THROUGH THE SIDEWALK CEMENT. FEMME AS IN GENDER NONCONFORMITY AS IN FUCK YOU MY FEMININITY IS WHAT *I* SAY IT IS. FEMME AS IN DEPTH AND DARKNESS AND WARMTH AND TERROR. FEMME AS IN CAVES. FEMME AS IN LIGHTNING. FEMME AS IN AN AMALGAMATION OF TRAITS THAT I HAVE DECIDED ARE FEMININE REGARDLESS OF WHAT SOCIETY SAYS. FUCK IS IT THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND?!???

[shrews-art]

The child queen of a world born anew!! What will she do!

[wtttquestionsdaily]

if ben were to EVER knowledge the ships in wttt what ship would be the most likely go canon?

[softichill]

You put sans jevil and spamton in a room who makes it out alive?

PS: spamton does get [[Power Of Neo]]

(My own reasoning in the tags)

[pitske]

I think you need a Software Upgrade!

[echosong971]

...do y'all think P knows how to read sheet music?

Like, he can play the piano—and he ends up being very skilled at it—but I also know people who can play piano very well that have NO idea how to read sheet music

And (unless I'm blind) I don't see sheet music on the piano while he plays...so....

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

favourite twdg villain?

I'm a fond enjoyer of the St. John's as villains. I don't know if they're my favorite just because they're only in one episode, but I love the concept of this family almost immediately jumping into cannibalism toward the start of the outbreak, dealing in human flesh to bandits, and casually feeding this group their friend's legs.

Like... what the hell was this family like before the outbreak that all three of them were like, "Hey now listen... nothing should go to waste, the dead are eating people so why shouldn't we? We gotta survive and in our defense, we only target those who were gonna die anyway... like y'all."

Dude, Mark was shot in this shoulder with an arrow. He wasn't going to die from that injury. It's so fucked that these seemingly friendly people took the group into their home and then fed them Mark's legs.

If we take the idea that everyone is infected and have the capacity within themselves to become walkers, to become monsters, then the St. John's were infected long before the outbreak, y'know? Not literally, but something was wrong with them and the outbreak just further spread that infection and changed them.

But again, are they my favorite? I dunno if I can say that since I have a lot more appreciation for Lily now. Yeah, some of her writing gets a little wonky in ep3 of TFS when she goes on her monologues and shit, but y'know what? I'm into it.

You have to remember who we're talking about and the fact that she's the antagonist; Lily isn't some anti-hero in TFS who secretly has a heart of gold that's brought to light because she reunited with Clementine... she's a fucked up woman who did fucked up things in the name of survival. She's full of rot now. She sees kidnapping children and turning them into soldiers to protect her home as a means to an end, but she doesn't actually give a shit about the people she's taking. They aren't people to her, they're as the episode title suggests, toys in her game. The only one she sees as a person is Clementine, and while that makes her hesitate at first, she sees Clementine's a prize to bring back.

She remembers what happened in S1; her father had a heart attack and as she tried to save him, Kenny smashed his face in with a saltlick and then expected Lily to just stand up and help him get back to his family because "he did what he had to, he made the hard choice." Yes, Larry was a piece of shit. No one liked him, and you can even question Lily on him and she'll tell you that he has a lot of pain. Yes, it makes him an asshole, but he's still her dad and he's all she has. I mean... the simplification is daddy issues, but in all seriousness, I don't doubt for a second that many of Lily's issues stem from Larry being a shitty father to her.

Then everyone thought she was losing it when she insisted there was a traitor in the group, which she was right about, but she was unstable. She was unwell, but how do you help someone like that when you don't have training to go about it? Then Lily ends up killing either Carley or Doug and the group turns on her, and either she's left behind or she steals the van and runs away.

Then we don't know what the hell happened to her until we see her again in TFS, but like... a lone woman with decay festering inside of her joining the delta? Exposing her to their methods? I mean, what else did she have to lose? She had nothing, she lost everything, and she has a lot of issues. Survival is easy when you're numb, when you don't care about the individual; they're all just cogs churning to make the system run, and if a piece doesn't cooperate, you get rid of it and find a new one.

Plus I think there's something to say about Lily not wanting to be perceived as weak again. That whole display she put on in the cells? Telling the story of what happened to Minerva and Sophie? I get the criticism that it feels like Lily did a 180 between episodes but like... yeah dude, because it's a performance. It's not just her and Clementine anymore. It's a display of power and authority. She's playing the part and thriving in it as she ensures everyone else is terrified of her.

But then when Clementine and AJ get the upper hand? Again, she's not afraid to play up the pleading to earn enough sympathy to spare her- hell, just to let their guard down enough to strike and get the upper hand again. I mean, she's got nothing else to lose, right? If she doesn't go for it, she'll be killed and sure, you can kill her anyway but at least she tried.

Honestly, I look at Lily in TFS and still see that scared little girl playing the tough bitch, just like Carley said in S1. It's just now escalated from "tough bitch" to a downright vile person. She's so... lost? I suppose? Lost within herself and the monstrous means she's taken to survive.

I get the criticisms of how she was used in TFS, but for me, it's like when people complain about Minerva not getting the redemption arc she supposedly should've gotten, y'know? There's no saving her. Lily was never on our side, and there was no getting her on our side. She wasn't ever going to redeem herself. Even if you spare her and she drifts away on her raft, can someone like her actually find redemption? Or will she just find another group that'll feed into her rot?

Truly, I say let her be horrid. Let her be the piece of shit villain with a few fleeting moments of humanity. Let her drown in the blood she's spilled.

[xcziel]

has anybody else thought about how jk could easily manage sofia's parts of slow dance or is it just me?

[creachiergh]

anyways. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT.

[hopesallwegotleft]

Chapter 11 — Bloodbath

[whomeidontknowthem]

There is something very amusing in discovering the word whump, learning just how much it describes your interests, and then in the next review of your memories just tagging parts of your life 'whump' with a delighted giggle.

Like yep. Yep. That's a scenario I'm seeing described as a fantasy of some person on this wonderful site, and guess what! It happened to me in my life! (It sucked in the moment but the memory of it somehow is simultaneously traumatizing and makes me feel the same giddy satisfaction fictional sufferings do.)

[finnpeach]

Hunt

(T/HRONE OF GLAS$ SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVEN'T READ PAST Q/UEEN OF SHADOW$ BE WARNED!)

My love for R/owan is boundless, and the series would be infinitely better if he was sick.

This is a multi-part fic of A/elin and R/owan training on a mountain and YEAH! HE HAS A COLD!

not much sneezing yet but it will come I promise

likes comments reblogs always loved and giggled over <3

****

Aelin stalks through the underbrush with lethal silence. Leaves covered with dew from the early morning mist streak across her face, dotting her cheeks. Her prey, a mountain hare the size of her head, nibbles on the sparse grass a few yards away.

She knocks her arrow, slipping in a breath. She can’t wait to see the look on Rowan’s face when she brings back a hare this size. Slowly, she pulls the bowstring back, kissing against her face. The hare turns, startled, breaths coming fast. Now or never–

“hh’rZzSHHh’uh!” 

Aelin gasps at the sound that echoes around the mountain. It cracks like a whip, scaring even the crows nesting in trees. The hare takes off and she desperately releases the arrow after her prey. The point finds its home in the thick trunk of a tree rather than the soft neck of the hare.

There goes breakfast. Her stomach growls pitifully. Seething, she rises from the brush and goes to retrieve her arrow. 

Five minutes later, Aelin stalks back to the makeshift camp she and Rowan had assembled the night before. The Fae prince had forced her to run from the castle to these distant mountains, shifting in and out of her Fae form to master control, where he then informed her they would be camping for a week out in the elements. And she was to hunt their every meal in between training.

It was a pathetic time, especially with the rain that has settled across the mountain. Damp and cold to her bones, Aelin approaches their campsite. Rowan, appearing much drier than she, sits by the fire she had sparked earlier that morning. He looks oddly run down, like he hadn’t slept much the night before.

Aelin is sure he hadn’t. The mountains were too misty to sleep outside without waking up damp, so they had packed just one tent to keep their baggage light. Lying beside Rowan, last night she had been the private audience to his tossing and turning, grumbling, and finally his snoring. 

“You fucking bastard. You scared off breakfast,” she hisses as she approaches, throwing her bow and bundle of arrows down by the tent. Rowan does not look up from the dagger he cleans in his hands.

“And how – snf! – pray tell, did I scare breakfast from here?” He grumbles. Aelin catches the way he sniffles thickly, his nostrils twitching up with the force of it.

She drops her satchel, full of only a bundle of pathetic berries.  “You sneezed.” She tries not to give in the warmth that pools in her lower stomach at the memory of the sound. It’s the first time she had ever heard him sneeze, and she was not disappointed. “For someone so keen on silence, I expected you’d know how to sneeze more quietly.”

Rowan doesn’t even grace her taunting with a reply, or a snarl. He just continues rubbing a cloth down the length of his dagger. Strange. He must be feeling really tired if he didn’t bother to punish her for such a remark. 

She sits down across from the fire, on a log they’d rolled over so they didn’t sit on wet grass. Feigning interest in destemming the berries she’d picked, she studies him through the crackling flames. 

His white hair is loose around his shoulders, creating a curtain that shields the dark tattoo running along his tan face. The tips of his Fae ears poke out just behind the white strands. After weeks of training with him, sleeping out in the elements beside him, she’s learned that he prefers to tie his hair up. It’s so rare to see him with it down.

“More hand to hand combat training today, or magic training?” She asks, breaking the silence that is only marred by the crackling flames.

Rowan sets the dagger aside. “Your job was to hunt. And since you still haven’t caught anything, your job is still to hunt.” He settles his sharp green eyes on her, brows set. If he didn’t piss her off so much, she might actually tremble under his gaze.

She raises her palms in defeat. “Fine, fine. But if you sneeze and scare off my prey again, I won’t be sharing the catch with you.” Even if she’d very much like for him to sneeze again, she’d rather eat first.

In one swoop, she picks up her bow and arrows and satchel again before setting off. With her Fae senses, she could scent a herd of deer in the southwest. Now that would show Rowan. Perhaps she’d bring back a buck, and spear him with its antlers.

As soon as she leaves the camp, nearly out of earshot, she hears the same thunderstrike from before. Perhaps Rowan had been waiting for her to leave.

“hhzjHSHHhieWw!”

A shiver runs down her spine as more startled crows caw in the trees.

****

Two hours later, Aelin returns with a small doe slung across her shoulders.

It’s mid afternoon. She had been lucky a herd was still grazing so late in the morning down by the clearing. She’d been even luckier that Rowan had either gotten his sneezing under control, or learned how to be quiet, because nothing had startled her catch this time.

“Lunch,” she declares to Rowan, dropping the deer to the grass. He hasn’t moved from his spot by the fire. “Is served.”

“It was supposed to be– snf! Breakfast,” he mutters, reaching the dagger at his side from earlier. His voice sounds dulled, like he’s congested.

Aelin rolls her eyes. “Well, it’s not like you helped. And I got us a catch to last us days.” She pats the stomach of the doe proudly. It isn’t very old – there’s still a sprinkling of fawn spots across her back. Aelin feels a twang of guilt for not singling out an older one.

Rowan pinches the bridge of his nose, breathing through his mouth. Aelin hardly has time to prepare before he jerks down towards his crotch, a light mist spraying across his trousers.

“hiHh–... yHhZzSHhhyuu!” A familiar, rushing heat spreads through Aelin’s gut. She swallows, watching as he rubs his nose on his wrist and glares up at her. Is he going to get mad at her for his sneezing?

Rowan chooses not to comment on it, something Aelin is secretly grateful for. “You were– snf! instructed to catch something small. We’re moving camp this afternoon.” He angles the pommel of the dagger towards her.

“What?!”

“Rain is coming tonight and will flood this area. I told you this morning. And now you’ve wasted a young doe’s life.”

A flame of rage flickers to life inside her chest. This is all his fault. “Well, I wouldn’t have wasted jack-shit if you hadn’t ruined my catch earl–”

“Aelin,” he growls, a no-nonsense sound. The tips of his canines poke past his lips. Aelin shuts up immediately. 

He stands, crossing the camp in two strides, and shoves the pommel of the knife against her stomach. She glares beneath his gaze. “You missed the catch because you did not act fast enough. Now you can either carry the doe across the mountain, or… hhH—!” His breath snags, eyes looking off into the distance for a split second. Aelin’s heart hammers in her chest.

He quickly recovers and sniffs again, much to her disappointment, and focuses his gaze on her. “Or you can leave it and realise you wasted a young animal’s life for your pride.” 

Before she can retort, he turns on his heel and she offers a middle finger to his large, muscular back. 

As if sensing her, he says over his shoulder, “And– sNf!– pack up the tent.”

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

i just got my verano joven code cause i thought i might want to get to pontevedra at some point this summer so i can visit the museum and maybe get some books in the shop that might help me with my oposiciones there and um. this is the incredible discount i would get.

[vynnyal]

Y'all, how do I be normal about hollow knight.

Anyways, here's the unofficial 4th installment of that series I started a while ago where I throw together a bunch of random hk theories into one post... this time ordered to make mildly more sense!

So the context here is this:

My friend came up with a cool oc and I was immediately obsessed with the idea. I explained everything relevant... err-- mostly relevant, anyways-- but I extrapolated on a few points here.

It got kinda bloated because I tried to tie-in some of my random tangents. The rest... are just gonna be at the end, lmao.

...

Basically, there are Gods in Hallownest. They mostly fall under the category of "Higher Beings", though not all Higher Beings are gods.

All of these gods are Gods specifically because they use dreams as their life force, which is directly tied to how powerful their influence can be.

The mother of Greenpath, Unn, is the epitome of a good-ol' classic Hollowknight god.

She IS Greenpath. The plantlife came from her and is likely a direct conduit of her power (greenpath lore tablet). The Mosskin Tribe themselves are her dream-children-- they either literally spawned from her or were merely formed in her image.

And now remember, the entirety of greenpath and queen's gardens were her domain. That's like 1/6th of Hallownest.

She was The Shit. And then, for reasons untold, she went to sleep. Though it's hard to pin down when it started, it's implied her slumber predated the Dreamers; Quirrel's dreamnail dialogue mentions her, likely as a memory from the times he was Monomon's apprentice, and even then she was just "something revered" sleeping in the waters.

Which is to say, when Mr Columbus waltzed in to pave roads through their lands (and when his wife laid claim to a decent chunk to be her personal playground), they likely didn't meet much resistance. From Unn herself, anyways. Which makes it all the more shocking that they didn't smite her image completely when her domain was so throughly invaded and remolded to PK's satisfaction.

He had, in his grasp, an entire tribe of people that followed *a different God than himself,* aka the worst thing you can be in the eyes of another God. People are dreams, and dreams are power. More worshippers= more power. If you're a God, you HAVE to actively be thought about by many people to survive. A forgotten God is a dead God. (This exact conflict was, in no small part, the beginning of the series of dominoes that led to Hallownest's downfall, albiet with a different God.)

That Unn herself was left relatively alone, despite this, is likely because Unn/the Mosskin Tribe gave juuust enough to avoid conflict while also keeping their "dream" distinct from PK's (meaning: continue to worship Unn and not PK). I can only imagine he allowed this because if he didn't, both Unn and her people would simply cease to be; the Mosskin needed Unn, and Unn needed them. That, and he was probably pretty busy dealing with the aforementioned other God that was... decidedly less submissive.

Either way, WL took Unn's land and pushed out her followers, inadvertently (or possibly purposefully) greatly diminishing Unn's power and influence. (It's possible this was the event that knocked her out, and she was merely too weak to oppose two entire Higher Beings to begin with.)

The other important character of note is Fierce Dryya. She was one of the Five Great Knights, and WL's personal guard.

After WL birthed and subsequently killed her children, she isolated herself in the depths of her Gardens, presumably "well-protected" from the fate the rest of the world faced.

There, Dryya held her last stand before a swarm of infected mantis Traitors who sought to remove WL from their territory. Sadly, WL doesn't even know she's dead, even though you have to step over her corpse to enter WL's cocoon.

It's hard to think about, but theres an equal chance that she fought off the Traitors for good... and that her death was entirely in vain. She is found next to the mound of Traitor corpses she undoubtly killed, but in the end, she died as well.

Implying that, before breathing her last, she managed to terrify them enough to never come back..

Or that she was just eventually worn down and killed, and the Traitors simply gave up when they couldn't get through WL's own protection.

....Which is to say the time between Dryya's death and events of the game is almost completely unknown!

...

Things I just couldn't fit in:

1, The name greenpath is just because PK put a bunch of roads in it, really. It likely had a different name before Mr Columbus came along.

2, Btw I wondered if there were any actual children in hk. Turns out, yeah, most bugs can propogate (lol), but the only ones referenced in the game that are not directly from a God are openly NOT worshiping ANY God. I'm talking the Mantis tribe, the Spider tribe, the Flukes, the mushroom clan, and weirdly enough, a specific spirit called Joni whose whole thing was being a heretic-- aka not only Not a worshiper of PK, but actively outcast and perhaps outlawed by PK's people.

*I'm disregarding Millybug. They're implied to be childish, but that's all we know.

Other notable characters that were at least a child at one point are Hornet, who was the child of Herrah and PK, and the Vessels, the product of the WL and PK. Grimmchild doesn't count as its not an actual bug, but a vessel created by the Nightmare Heart. The PK's Vessels are unique because they were originally independent, living creatures.

3, This talk about gods and such made me think about what happens after the game. Unn isn't dead, just actively dying because Miss Rad keeps stealing all her followers. She barely has enough energy to be like "hey kid, take this thing and remember me plz."

With both Miss Rad and PK gone, there's nothing stopping Unn's revival. Like, imagine Hallownest getting repopulated by the remaining tribes, returned to their natural glory. The only place left untouched being the city and the abyss-- forever monument to the horrors that nearly killed them all.

4, It just occurred to me that most of the real Godly gods in the game get cop-outs in the pantheons so you can't fight them. White lady just kinda peaced out, Unn's on the respirator, PK is fully snapped out of existence, the Lifeblood entity is chilling out in the basement, and... well I guess you are the void king by then so it's a bit of a moot point. NKG, THK, and Miss Rad are the only ones that're ready to throw down. Good for them!

5, The story of Isma is perplexing. It's implied the grove she died in is the source of the weird acid ravaging Hallownest, though it's unknown how or why. The wiki presumes this only affects the lower regions of the world, but I personally haven't found whatever supports this*. There's pipework lining the broken elevator pass between Ogrim and the Grove, of which is literally glowing with acid, so...

*there is one spirit in the Spirit Glade that mentions acid as a biological defense mechanism, so acid does exist in some capacity outside of this weird angry stuff.

Besides that, her dreamnail dialogue is "there's no time." Seriously? That's the most cliffhanger-y quote of the bunch, I can so clearly imagine team cherry being like "have fun! No we will not elaborate lol" before they spike the ball into our court.

In any case, while down this rabbit hole I have come to terms with the fact that Ogrim is still the best character in the game. He's literally the "I lie to myself :)" guy. All his friends are dead or missing. His lover drowned in 10 feet of acid. His idol the King was sent to superhell. Everyone else is a shambling husk. But he's still out here like "hey again, I realized you're not dead! Sorry about that, everyone else is so I got confused. Oh you saw my gf after pulling the lever that lowers the 10 feet of acid in her grove? Yeah she's super cool. Yeah no I can't go see her even though she's literally right over there, I got my, uh... oath. Haha. Good luck!"

6, While reading about Essence, it occurred to me that when you dreamnail a spirit, you don't actually kill them. You merely collect them. When the seer speaks to you about how much essence you have, she mentions she sees memories peering back at her. (1200 essence dialogue)

Most clearly don't want to be collected. They are at their final resting place, and desire to stay there, whether they're aware of their current state or not.

...buuut technically, TECHNICALLY, you aren't actually harming the spirits you dreamnail and can totally collect em' all to chill with you instead of lingering, listlessly, forever. You're just kinda rude for it. Also, none of the other spirits can tell what happened to them, so just dreamnail Revek too! He'll be fiiiine. :D right?

7, What really messes with my understanding of the timeline is WL's whole physical situation with what the blindness and such. She's the Higher Being, but within such a relatively short span of time, she has aged to the point of her body breaking down? More importantly, she's not immortal?? There are no mentions of the queen ever having any physical ailments, publically or privately, until you see it for yourself. Meaning that the worst of it happened after the Vessels were born and THK began their training. Perhaps the matter with the Vessels took more of a physical toll than originally assumed?

If we're assuming the pair hooked up after PK turned tiny, then you have to wonder just how old she was at the time. Judging by the rate at which she's aging now, she was likely pretty young. Frankly, I doubt it'd change much either way. She'd have that matter-of-fact, gung-ho demeanor at any age.

This is also why I specified that not all Higher Beings are bona-fide Gods. WL doesn't need the dreams of others, and judging by the weaver's seal she uses to protect her mind, doesn't want others to dream of her. And yet the Godseeker recognizes her as... something. (Third encounter)

So at least she's not just a really old tree. But she's also not a God like PK. She's a weird, third thing.

8, but I'm not letting go of her weird orb cocoon thing. What's that about?? What is it made of? Was it constructed by others and she was sealed within? Or did she somehow create it herself? The architecture seems to imply it's inorganic, but how did she get in there, then?

To top off the weirdness, there's the conveniently ghost-sized hole in the center of her carved face. So I'm leaning more towards "exaggerated metaphor for entering WL's mind" or "easy-to-read entry point for players to go to visit WL that isn't literally there in canon" and not "there's a big glowing hole in this literal rock that inexplicably leads to a tunnel* that then leads to a room very obviously bigger than what's seen from the outside."

There's no way, dude.

I'm leaning more towards there being a large structure she could walk into, that was then barricaded to fully seal her within. The knight, being so small, managed to get their way in through some sort of tunnel.

But then something happened to the plan and the outside of the structure turned into whatever Ari thought that orb was supposed to be.

*Although, I do like the interpretation that the tunnel is actually Ghost slowly making their way through her roots to meet her.

[fluffle-writes]

I wanna. Pick them up in my mouth and shake 'em around like a dog obliterating a squeaky toy