#I see that is a popular theory here. Love learning about everyone's different hcs. That one is just not compatible with how I view grimm

[littlebittyhollowbugs]

Grimm/nightmare heart theory

It's the Halloween season, so I thought it would be a good time to share my take on Hallownest's very own vampire clown nightmare demon, Grimm!

~

The nightmare heart is all that remains of an ancient god. In order to keep itself from completely fading from existence it made a contract with it's worshipper, Grimm.

Grimm gave his body up as host for the dying God, to keep it alive.

Basically he is the vessel of the heart. (This is stated in canon.) And gained immortality through means of the nightmare hearts ritual.

The flames which I would guess represent nightmares/fears or death (Sort of like essence which represents hopes or wishes, for nightmares rather than dreams) Feed the heart, and keep Grimms body growing and immortal.

Grimm is reincarnated into Grimmchild everytime the lantern is lit. With outside aide. Bugs who aide in the hearts perpetuation (such as Brumm) are forced to serve the heart for eternity. I imagine this would have eventually happened to little Ghost. (Had the endings not played out as they did.)

Why is he a circus troupe master? Because Grimm and his servants, a large group of especially peculiar bugs who travel the world, fit in best under the guise of being travelling circus performers. Basically it's their cover.

And maybe even before giving up his body to the nightmare heart Grimm was some sort of performing type.

Anyway Brumm's dialogue here and here

Implies that it is truly the best outcome for Grimm for the ritual to end and for him to be separated from the heart. Not only for Brumm's sake but for his own.

(I did not do this in my game, because I love my Grimmchild too much but narratively this is the ultimately good ending for everyone.)

[strunmah-mah]

So I saw this interesting post discussing the bashing of otome heroines, and the person i saw it from had some tags comparing the OBSCURA and Touchstarved mc's and the different fan response to them. Which go me thinking, but reposing to it there felt like it would have derailed that post, some I'm putting my thoughts here instead.

Basically the tags were an observation that OBSCURA's mc gets treated as their own character (Vesper) whose popularity is comparable to that of all the different love interests. Meanwhile Touchstarved's fandom doesn't seem to rally around one singular MC with everyone having own OC instead. This despite the fact that their both gender neutral blank slates you never even really see.

I'd noticed that too and got thinking of why that is, so here's my theory.

Name. Notice that I referred to OBSCURA's mc as Vesper, but didn't give a name to Touchstarved's mc? When asking what your name is OBSCURA auto suggests a name. There's a not insignificant number of people that when given an auto suggested name won't go to the effort of changing it. (ex My first time playing a Legend of Zelda game it didn't even occur to me to change Link's name despite it definitely being an option.) And despite still being a reader insert just the act of giving them name makes Vesper feel like a more defined then Touchstarved unnamed MC does.

Origins. Vesper is Vesper. Who they were before the start of OBSCURA doesn't really matter, no matter what you might hc they were like before the start of the story, they still enter the mountain with the skill set no matter what. Touchstarved's mc is deliberately fluid. They have three different possible backgrounds and which one you pick does effect the mc's skill set. Make your own oc is literally built into the game.

Presentation of information. Touchstarved is very upfront about their mc's motivations. You are cursed. It's very isolating and has caused you to hurt others unintentionally. You are looking for a cure. What your curse is is never really a question. That's a very different experience from playing OBSCURA. The games hook is "people don't go under the mountain unless they have a good reason, unfortunately you have a great reason" it does not say the reason, it's a great hook. So you play the game, you go under the mountain and you find out what you're looking for is . . . blue moon ichor. You have no context for what that is, it's not initially explained, but it makes people pity you. It's not until you meet one of the LI's that it's revealed you want the ichor. You only only learn about Vesper's motivations as they chose to reveal that information to others. It's an interesting story telling choice. For me, it was more engaging to have Vesper being just as much of a mystery as everything else, than Touchstarved approach of giving that information upfront, but it comes at a cost. The MC's are both supposed to be self inserts, but hiding that information puts distance you and Vesper again making them feel more like their own character than a self insert.

Choice. Atleast as far the demos go Vesper's choices matter more. Your choices change who you meet, if you get a partner to help you face the future, or if you fail to achieve your goal chapter one. The Touchstarved mc makes choices too, it gives you slightly different dialog and you then you move on with your day. The TS MC is a vehicle to meet that game's LI's, your choices change what side of them you get to see. In Obscura your choices affect Vesper first and fore most, which again gives Vesper a stronger sense of character.

Just to be clear, I don't want this to sound like me dunking on RedSpringStudios and say they can't make good characters. Boy can they! All five of their love interests are full of character and intrigue. It's like I said in point two, the "build your own oc" approach seems very purposeful. It's a fan response they've encouraged, even releasing bio templates that match the official bios of all the LI's. This is what they wanted.

What amuses me is that RottenRaccons did not seem to realize what they had done. They seem very surprised but pleased by how much fans are latching onto Vesper as their own character.

[urmomsstuntdouble]

ooh, care to share your thoughts on some characters you like but don’t talk about ?

thanks for the ask! and yes i would care to share some of those thoughts

one character i really like is poland, but i dont like the way theyre treated a lot in canon or in fanon (also i hc them as using they/them pronouns). i think it would be easier for me to interact with poland the character if there was less..weirdness around them being so overtly queer, if that makes sense? i know a popular headcanon for poland is that they’re a trans man, but i actually dont really vibe with that. i mean have your headcanons if you want, you do you, but something about trans man poland makes me a bit uncomfy..like you take a guy who crossdresses and is generally super fem and campy and say ah yes he’s trans..idk its got weird vibes. like he’s a man but he’s not like the other men, who don’t crossdress and don’t talk like valley girls and all that. thats not to say i dont think poland is like cishet or whatever (nobody’s cishet on this blog ;)) theres just something about the fandom portrayal of them that irks me a lil. i also find them a bit of a difficult character because everyone seems to love the angst about like. points in time when poland didnt exist (russian empire days) and they’re portrayed as being so different than they were previously. i also think that poland as a character is one of the more contradictory ones (partially due to my own perception of poles, which is largely predicated on a certain type of immigrant grandmother), because they really are trying to be positive but shits hard when you’re a queer jew and the year is 1600- speaking of them being jewish, i do have a historical reason for that, and it’s the theory that jews had a big role in saving poland during the black plague. basically there were a lot of orthodox jews, and its a thing for orthodox jews to have 2+ sinks in their houses. iirc cleanliness is super important. anyway, there were a lot of orthodox jews in eastern europe at the time, much of which was controlled by the polish-lithuanian commonwealth, and that also happens to be one of the areas least affected by the plague. a ton of christians still died, although it was considerably less than in other areas. anyway i also have that hc because of the warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943, and because poland was one of the first countries hitler invaded. though poland today is v catholic (and it always was very catholic) it has a strong presence and one could say that poland is the cultural center of ashkenazi judaism. of course, during the russian empire and the holocaust, many polish jews were murdered or driven out, so there aren’t quite as many there today, but in the past, poland was something of a haven for jewish people in europe. anyway that was a tangent. but yeah, poland. theyre a very good character but i feel like they get misinterpreted a lot. i think they’re quite similar to italy veneziano in that way, because poland is definitely a very traumatized country- all the partitions, for one, and then the pat 2-300 years would have been very rough for someone who’s jewish. anyway i have more thoughts but ive distracted myself with the judaism thing, so yeah. 

i also really like sweden, although i don’t know enough about them (sigh. my nonbinary headcanons. he/they sweden.) to do a real in depth historical analysis of their character. i think an underused piece of comedy about him is that sweden has been neutral in all military conflicts for the past 200 or so years (on paper. they were involved in the congo crisis in the 1960s and have recently stationed more troops in foregin countries). like..sweden used to be a powerhouse in northern europe and now he’s just. trying to be a dad or something idk. anyway my interest in sweden’s character is relatively new, so i would have to go seek out more sweden content, but i think they’re generally super interesting and im a bit sad to see their potential wasted by being like. finland’s husband/sealand’s dad. dont get me wrong i love some good sufin content but there’s more to his character than that he’s in love with finland. 

i also think china’s pretty neat just because i love dads, and i also think he’s gorgeous. long haired men are hot, what can i say? i like him being a crotchety old man who’s a bit out of touch with the Youths tm, although i think he would be too powerful if he learned some modern slang and then decided to misuse it around his kids. i also want to look deeper into the fandom interpretation of his relationship with hong kong and taiwan, mostly because i havent before. there’s also this chinese restaurant that no longer exists that has been described as making the food so spicy that whatever went into the wok next would still be hot enough to make you cry. i feel like that’s a very yao thing to do- like come on, it’s not that spicy- meanwhile, he’s had thousands of years to develop an iron spice tolerance and something that’s spicy enough for him might kill a regular human. perhaps thats hyperbolic, perhaps not, idk. anyway i also do think that he’s the most human out of all the nations, just because he’s been alive so long. i might just be incredibly fascinated with immortality, idk. i think its fascinating the toll that would take on a person, mentally speaking. like all the nations are weird but china must be super weird. anyway i feel like my fascination with how old he is might be a lil weird, but also one of my favorite doctor who characters is ashildr, so i digress. anyway this post is getting super long so i think im gonna cut it off here. hope that was snazzy!

[kendrixtermina]

Thoughts regarding the Nolofinweans

One interesting thing to note, to me, has always been the slight contrast between Fingolfin and his kids. 

They’re like him in the sense that they’re described as brave, valiant badasses - Fingon & Argon being huge war heroes for example, but unlike him, they are also explicitly adventurous, which their father is not; he was explicitly in the “stay” faction but went along out of obligation (both to the people, but also because he gave his word, and because revenge) - meanwhile Fingon & Aredhel couldn’t wait to be gone, the former is noted to have marched at the very front during the departure. From how he’s described as very impetuous & heroic, we can assume that Argon was probably the same as his sister and oldest brother. 

The possible outlier here is Turgon, who is probably the most like his father out of the bunch. Pretty responsible & noble, tough not completely without some pride of their own. The way in which they go down is certainly very similar: “I have miscalculated & failed to protect those I was responsible for! Clearly all is lost and I must atone for my folly with my life, so let there be fireworks”

So, do the other three just happen to take after Anaire? They probably do in the sense of being very loyal friends like she was to Earwen (especially if you hc that Aredhel put her own adventure plans on hold to help her then-newly widowed brother with his kid) 

However, I wish to float another idea: 

Consider Fingolfin. What do we know about him? Though he’s the middle child, he seems to have been the most popular of the princes, at least in Tirion proper. That might well be because he was the one who was most often in Tirion, doing actual prince things, so the people of the city would have known him well - whereas Feanor was always traveling or working as an inventor; We’re told he had some influence with the scholars, but he probably wasn’t at the palace that often, and Finarfin noped out of everything & chilled out in Alqualonde - and why wouldn’t he, he was the youngest. It’s not specified what Findis did but it doesn’t seem to have been politics, it seems like the resonated more withthe Vanyar anyways, and Lalwen, like Finarfin, was one of the younger ones. 

It’s easy to imagine that Fingolfin was very dedicated & dutiful; Maybe there was an element of trying to win his father’s approval to it. There’s a very formal vibe to him, both from the title he ends up using, & some of the dialogue he gets, like, when he talks to Finwe in front of the assembly he adresses him as “my father and king” - certainly this is also meant to show that Fingolfin is considering the politics here, and of course they’re nobility. Maybe they just talk like that. But in the same scene, Feanor refers to Finwe simply as “my father”. Could it be then that this is a reflection of Finwe being somewhat closer with Feanor? Not impossible, but, in that snippet of dialogue where Finwe is discussing the events with Miriel in Mandos (and guessing very wrong about what’s probably going on in his absence) he refers to Fingolfin simply as “Arakano” (or whatever his mother-name was supposed to be at the time) 

So here’s my theory: 

In his younger days, Fingolfin used to be about as adventurous, impetuous and not-the-best-judge-of-character-y as Fingon, Aredhel and Argon, complete with some charley-brown esque conviction that maybe this time, Feanor would not pull the football away; It’s easy to see how he’d get cured of that last illusion with time, but there’s more to that.

He used to love nothing more than to go riding his horse around the landscape with Lalwen and do cool tricks; After Finwe would tell them stories of the great journey, he would go drape a courtain around himself and pretend to be a great chieftain. He’d do all sorts of daring tricks that won him the friendship of many other noble brats and some enduring Big Brother Worship from Lalwen. 

But then, as he grew older, it was inevitable that he’d hear people talking, that there’d be whispers behind their backs, or that he’d come across some documents where it’s referenced that his family was once the subject of legal dispute.

Much excellent writing has been made about what it must’ve been like for Feanor to have his very existence and the characters of his beloved parents be the subject of public debate, but the same would go for Indis’ kids, just in a different way - perhaps this is also part of the reason why Findis kept out of politics & the public eye. There were, after all, canonically people mumbling that they should never have been. At least Feanor would’ve been being a jerk to Indis on a regular basis. 

So at one point, after some humiliating experience or another, a still fairly young Fingolfin - maybe the equivalent of a 14/15 year old human or so - decided that he would have to be the most ideal, impeccable prince to prove everybody wrong, to prove that he was worth the dodgy exception, so to speak. If he were a clear benefit to Tirion’s society, he thought, with a bit of juvenile pride, maybe then people would stop talking bad about his parents, and his siblings would not be subjected to the same scrutiny. 

So from that point on he threw himself into his studies & his responsibilities (”Sorry Lalwen, duty calls. I’ll play with you tomorrow”) and did what he could to be a shining example, so no one would say that his parents were selfish for having him or whatever - and he was good at it, which ironially probably created something of a pridigial-son sort of situation. He was always there, suceeding & not giving anyone cause for worry (until things between him & Feanor started to get heated), so he wasn’t perceived to need attention; He probably felt a bit taken for granted now & then, like his efforts weren’t appreciated, or not good enough, though it was brobably just an occasional bit of subliminal resentment before Melkor came in. 

There’s one snipped that didn’t make it into the final cut, where Finarfin is described as the gentlest of the brothers, but also very learned and also a good speaker... which I’d sort of assumed anyways, because, look at Finrod. But imagine being in Fingolfin’s shoes with two super handsome, super smart brothers. He’s super exceptional himself, but when he was young & had only his family to compare to... 

Likewise, you might look at Finarfin’s super talented kids & conclude that he severely downplayed his own talents because he didn’t want to kick up more of a fuss & felt his father had enough “talented sons” to worry about.

We have to appreciate that the Melkor incident didn’t just result in a rift between Feanor & everyone else, but in strife & discord everywhere; Everyone’s marriages were wrecked, parents took different sides than their children (Finarfin: “We stay!” Angrod: “No we leave!” Orodreth:”No we stay!” ...But Orodreth did not turn back and had a thoroughly bad time in middle Earth more than anyone save Aredhel maybe.) - tough we’re told that at least his sons stayed civil enough to not outright criticse him in public. I think the partings between the children of Indis were probably messy too. Findis probably told the others to go to hell when they left, then Finarfin turned back, with some degree of bitterness over how all turned out - even the pair that was left in Aman might have taken some time to reconcile.  

(As for Turgon, he either simply won the impulse control lottery (ie -  he just takes after Indis), or got all responsible when he had Idril. )