#IT TOOK ME 4 HOURS TO WRITE THIS

[blorbingqls]

"We accept the love we think we deserve" - seeing this quote in terms of love and control as subjects in Only Friends

With @tomatoland 's brilliant post on TopMew on the above quote here , i think that with 7 eps in, we have understood that love and control are very well linked with ephemerality as a subject.

As i have previously linked epheremality with control here, i would like to talk about how love also makes us lose control with the impermanence of life. This is a long overdue post for 4 eps now.

linking the ephemerality squad here so that you can also share your opinions on this @waitmyturtles @lurkingshan @slayerkitty @respectthepetty @ranchthoughts (anyone else i am missing, pls tag, i really appreciate it)

TopMew

As Tomato (@tomatoland i hope you're okay with that nickname; i really tried to find a name on your blog for you) has referred in their post, Mew left his bubble of insecurities and got his heart broken. Completely legible and correct on his point. Top really loves Mew but now Mew has no reason to believe him anymore. With the play in their power dynamics, both of them loved each other and lost control of the way they wanted the relationship. Yes, if Top and Mew has stuck to their original plans - just reaching to the point of ideality and sex, then, this relationship should have ended after they got their goals. I dont think that sex was a goal for Mew as much as it was for Top, but, we can say it was in the secondary.

But as they fell in love, they, especially Top understood how the love he received from Mew is so much more than he thought he deserves (taking into account his trauma and past experiences). So , even though Mew is projecting his hurt by doing things that literally are asshole-ish as fuck on his accord, Top is willing to let go all of that since even he knows he is in the wrong this time and he is willing to lose all control he has on his life - of fame, money and insecurities in order to have Mew back. Top is willing to be as obsessive as Mew said he would be in a relationship in order to get and accept the love he think he deserves from Mew, even if it won't be good.

But, I also feel, the concept of love as explored in the series so far, not just runs along with TopMew because of the books, but also with all the remaining couples in the show. I won't discuss P'Yo and her partner, CheumApril in this segment, because I want more angles on this from the coming episodes in order to validate my point. But, I'll discuss this point with our other views on the couples: RayMew, TopBoston, SandRay, and BostonNick.

RayMew

Now, RayMew is a pairing that is being enforced on the viewers for the past 3 episodes now and the last episode shows a pretty good view of how as characters, Mew and Ray view each other.

For Ray, his love is unconditional for Mew because it correlates with that fact that Mew was the only reason who made him stay in this world - who made him believe that he deserves the love from his friends, the love which he didn't get from his parents or any potential partners. But potential partners were never in the scene because Mew was Ray's emergency contact. Their relationship runs deep and however much you may think, even if Ray thinks Mew's love for him could be more as a friend, he also believes that because as he is so damn shitty and a fucking burden to society, he can't ask for more from Mew for the sake of their friendship and his esteem. He keeps entertaining the idea of them as partners several times, but, until ep 7, Mew has never entertained the idea that his love for Ray will be any worthy of more than a friend. Because, Mew wants to continue making the boundary and keep the control, according to me.

Now, as Mew has entertained the idea, i am interested how it pans out in the next episode (not very promising tho). just linking this out here because its so fucking interesting.

TopBoston

We will mainly take here Boston's viewpoint since Top gave up on this since the very beginning and became firm with it post ep 3. He gives no flying fucks about the possiblity of it. Top considers Boston to be a one night stand and a one night stand only.

Boston, as has mentioned so many times, considers Top to be top tier; the person who gives him something as close to love because as an Machiavellian prince (refer here) Boston considers Top to be the only worthy competitor in his reign. And he really doesn't care if he hurt others feeling. Mind you, Boston has been the most truthful to himself, maybe not to others. And as a prince, his love speaks volume through keeping them in their reign because ultimately Boston wants power and control in his arena. That's the fucking politics of it. And Top is the only worthy contender who can damage his reign. Hence, he wants the top tier power as much as possible, and only Top can give him that. Him fucking off to America, that can easily happen through Top, because he is a very well known hotel chain owner/manager. So, Boston wants his loves, because he very well thinks he deserves it and he accepts it as much as he can. But, he also knows that for him, he can't make this love into a weakness, because that will be out of his control.

Boston however, as Mew so incredibly pointed out, is gullible. Ray couldn't see through him, but, MEW FUCKING DID. That is why even though Boston didn't consider Mew as his competitor, he was fucking jealous of him because Mew got Top and was chosen over eventually by Top. Mew has the power that Boston didn't think he had, till now. And tbh, Mew is now winning the game, despite his insecurities with his relationship with Top.

THE WAR HAS BEGUN, MY FRIENDS.

SandRay

God, I have so many feeling for these babies. Where to start? Okay so, you know in second episode, Sand built that boundary with Ray regarding friends with benefits? Well, it has backfired on him. COMPLETELY.

As ep 8 preview says, I love how Sand realised the fact that they were never friends to begin with, for even to have made that boundary to make sense. Sand is a pathetic little man, as so many of you have pointed out, but, why is he the way he is?

His incredible nature to be so caring of others around him has made him feel like its his responsibility to take care of everything. His mother, his business, his money and job, his style and even his fucking roommate. Now, Sand is so emotionally attached to this damsel in distress, pathetic burden to society (affectionate) Ray, that even before they became friends, he made Ray his responsibility. Sand has no right to ask for love from Ray, because they are not friends, lest friends with benefits to ask for any care towards himself. But he selfishly asks, for the first time.

Because, as a person who keeps on taking care of others endlessly, it is harder for them to ask for the care and love they expect and deserve from whom they love while keeping their self esteem intact. And for Ray to completely shut him down at that time, and him still following Ray while he was drunk, makes him so much real because you feel responsible for that person. You are their emergency staff, even if they don't consider you to be.

While Ray comes from another perspective itself. He initially wanted to know Sand more as a person, because he is a person who wanted to explore the life beyond what has been given to him. He is a spoilt brat, and when he realised that he can't buy Sand's love, he explored it with him.

But because I think Ray believes that Sand will always be for him, even when he does asshole-ish behaviour (because thats where everyone leaves) he has taken Sand for granted. The backup option. Anything goes wrong with his ideal relationship, he can always go running back to Sand, because Sand has become his addiction.

Apart from drugs and alcohol, Mew and Sand are the only people he can keep coming back to. For Mew, it is only at a cost. At some conditions, only for something personal. While maybe Ray wants explore that possibility with Sand, but he is afraid. He is afraid that Sand will go away. just as Mew did. A person who can only consider him a friend and nothing more. Even if he wants to explore that possibility with both of them, loving them at the same time, he can't make people his priority, because he doesn't know how to do that. Nor does he think he's worthy of it. So, he accepts whatever he thinks he deserves off Sand's love and care.

I am interested to see how it pans out for these idiots once his relationship with Mew falls out. I am concerned for Ray so much. Give him access to therapy and rehab soon pls. Sand and Ray's father I think are going in that direction, with this speculation by @prapaiwife.

BostonNick

Now, our final pair has been the most interesting couple in this show so far. Why do I say that?

Well, for Nick, Boston is one of the top-tier gays. As pointed out by Boston, he likes bad guys. And lets be honest, Boston, most dishonest, cunning bastard out there. So, Nick believes that he will be that gay who lands the top tier dick and fix this problem. Right?

Wrong. Nick very well knows this won't happen. Still he keeps hoping for more as Boston doesn't know how to not be a hypocrite as a prince. He keeps giving some here and there false hope through his actions, not words which makes Nick believe he's special, but he's not. He takes whatever love he thinks Boston gives him, despite him not being his number one, despite Boston cheats on him over and over again. He just wants whatever of love as actions that Boston can give to him because that proves wrong all of his low self esteem. So he accepts whatever he thinks he deserves because he can't ask for more in a bed friend relationship. With Boston's guard so up and his will to leave the country, Nick knows he can't do anything but try to make him stay. Even if that's a 99% chance of not happening. He tries because he doesn't want Boston to hate him. He only wants him to love him. Because for him, thats enough.

The sadness keeps on piling up for these outsider, hard working roommates, doesn't it?

While, for Boston, he is nothing but a rebound from the angst of not getting Top. He wants a serious relationship, and maybe, he does look for it in Nick, maybe not, but he doesn't love Nick. He doesn't love Top either. For Boston, Nick is a toy he wanted to play with.

Because he cares about his reign, his reputation. And, Nick realised that. Hence, Mew contacted him and Nick gave that information to Mew. They will bring Boston down together because Nick somewhere believes he can get him back.

But Nick babygirl, he doesn't love you bub. He doesn't. And, it hurts so much. Because Boston keeps on taking from you, whatever he deserves. And that is your care for him, for granted. He is a leech bub. He is.

Now, how does it all link to ephemerality and control?

Well, love itself is impermanent. It doesn't stay.

The world knows this and still we chase it. And at an age as our characters, we chase love and freedom like anything. In order to gain control. We take up jobs, more courses to learn, experiment with love and relationships, with people because the time is ticking and people say now is the age. We break hearts and get it broken.

As P'Jojo says "This show is Hurt People Hurt People", tell me who hasn't been hurt by love, by control and by living at its time? And also by missing out each of these experiences because you were lonely with your own life and burdens?

We accept the hate and love the life gives us, because this is what we think we deserve out of this. And tbh, these feelings, are never permanent. They keep changing with time, and that's the only thing thats permanent.

Change is the only thing that remains permanent.

[da-birb-writes-sometimes]

hi dove!!! i love your new event, the vibe is so fun and relaxing (⁠つ⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)⁠つ could i request floyd with no.8? for backups maybe leona with no.9 or jamil with no.2? thanks!! as always don't overwork yourself ꒰⁠⑅⁠ᵕ⁠༚⁠ᵕ⁠꒱⁠˖⁠♡

side note: pls no angst the pain from last time is still here(⁠ ⁠；⁠∀⁠；⁠)

Fairytale Scene; Leona Kingscholar

Content; Fluff, gender-neutral reader, some really soft Leona

Word Count; 650+

Author's Note; Had to use your first backup, as Floyd got snatched up, but I hope you enjoy this fluffy scene and soft lion! [Damn, those eels go fast]

As a reminder, do not put my work — or others for that matter — into AI as it steals. Link to Masterlist

An old vinyl was playing slowly on the record player, a slow jazz ensemble letting out low notes. It was pleasant, the calm music mixing with the gentle crashing of the waves coming onto shore, and the filtered sunlight coming through the linen curtains and warming up your skin. There was no rushing, no tasks that needed to be urgently done, and no one to boss you around. You could definitely get used to this. 

“You’re looking right at home there,” a soft chuckle broke you from your relaxed spell. Leona was standing in front of you, giving you a curious look. “Like a house cat sunbathing.”

You rolled your eyes, “Fitting coming from you.” You stretched out, and rolled off of the chaise you were lounging on. 

Leona sighed in mock annoyance, but he could get used to seeing you without the weight of all your responsibilities resting on your shoulders. You looked — and by all the lounging you had been doing since you had both arrived — and felt lighter as well. And in the golden sunlight? Leona swore that you were glowing.

You lazily walked over to him, placing your arms around his neck. “Is something bothering you?”

Bothering me? “No, nothing at the moment,” he said quietly. What was there to be bothered by? The two of you were together, and there was no one around to annoy the both of you. “And you?”

You hummed along to the song playing, “Nope!~” You let out a breathy chuckle and started to gently sway back and forth to the music. “Would you care to join me for this dance… your majesty?~” 

Leona groaned at the nickname; you only brought it out when you were feeling teasing. He didn’t mind though, since it didn’t hold the weight it did at the palace, or the mocking tone that others sometimes used. You just were being a teasing menace and a cute one at that.

Letting out a showy sigh he adjusted your hands so that he was holding one and the other was placed on his waist. “I suppose I can spare one for you,” he said lowly, voice barely above a grumble. 

The two of you swayed gently together to the soft music, gentle swaying, and long, slow, looping circles around the room. You were still humming the non-existent lyrics to the song, and Leona hummed softly from time to time as well, adding to the melody. Never did he think that he would end up in such a scene; dancing with someone he loved so dearly in something that he could only explain as a fairytale scene. It was soft, domestic, tender, and filled with such innocent love. All things that Leona had convinced himself that he didn’t want. But then you came into his life. You threw a wrench into his life, but what a lovely wrench it turned out to be.

The song came to an end far too soon, and the two of you came to a slow standstill, still in each other’s loose embrace. Neither of you made a move to let go, instead you both just stood there, hand in hand, your hand on his waist, and his on yours.

“You make for a good dance partner,” you chuckle.

Leona raised a brow, “And are you surprised by that?”

You bring his hand to your lips, placing a kiss on the inside of his wrist while looking at him through your lashes. “No, it’s just endearing is all.”

Leona had received kisses from you before, both soft and passionate, but this one actually made his heart flutter. He didn’t know how to feel about it, but he did know that the way you looked at him just then… he wanted you to look at him with such adoration again and again and again. It was addictive.

He brought your hand to his lips, and returned the kiss, letting it linger so he could feel your steady pulse. Perhaps the two of you should come out here more often if this was what happened… Leona could spend the rest of his life with you in this picturesque moment.

~~~~~~~

Tags: @eynnwwyjth, @inkybloom-luv, @leonistic, @savanaclaw1996, @twistwonderlanddevotee, @xxoomiii

[starrystevie]

eddie's new years resolution is to stop running away from things that are scary, and steve harrington scares him.

steve with his hair and his body and his charm, all the things that everyone knows and admires him for. but it's more like the things other people don't get at a glance that scare eddie. the way he smiles softly when he's endeared by the kids or the way he subconsciously makes his way to the front of their group to always be the first line of protection or the way he offers up his couch to eddie the second he hears he isn't sleeping.

it all adds up to steve being utterly terrifying because eddie can't control the way he's falling in love with him. his heart beats wildly in his chest when steve's smile is directed towards him. his lungs feel too tight when steve teases him, forcing broken laughs out of him to try and kickstart his chest to take heaving breaths. his skin feels like a live wire anytime steve so much as brushes his arm. he gets lightheaded by the half clavin klein cologne and half steve harrington smell when they sit close on his tiny couch as they watch old reruns.

but eddie isn't running away this year, so he faces steve head on. he flirts with him at every opportunity he gets, pressing up into his space with wide grins and hooded eyes. he lets his touches linger along with his heavy looks and waits for the day that steve will hopefully flirt back.

steve's new years resolution is to stop being such a relentless flirt, and man, is he dying to flirt back with eddie.

it's all robin fault, really. she pokes fun at him enough for sweet talking anything that moves and steve finally had enough, blurting out one day that he'd give it up for new years. he knew it was a mistake the second he said it, but he wasn't going to back down.

and it's easy enough for the first three days of 1987. steve sticks to his guns and only puts on the harrington charm for old mrs. hasslebeck who comes to rent a different fred astaire movie each morning. steve is genuinely proud of himself for not caving and even prouder when robin gawks at him in surprise when he doesn't have a date that upcoming friday.

then eddie munson has to ruin it all. eddie, with his big brown eyes that light up when he talks to steve about anything exciting, his hands flapping around animatedly. eddie, who keeps leaning up into his face with his pretty pretty smile, wide and bright, as he lays the pick up lines on thick.

it makes steve blush, his heart racing, frazzled little chuckles the only response he has when all he really wants to do is press back into eddie. to loop a finger into his belt loop to tug their bodies together with a smirk pulling at his cheeks. to tuck a stray curl behind eddie's ear and watch as it makes him blush in a way that matches steve's.

but he has robin whispering in his ear, like a tiny angel or devil on his shoulder, reminding him of his resolution. so steve grits his teeth and puts up with it all, the looks and lines and touches. he files them all away in the back of his mind and counts down the days until it'll be 1988 and he can give in to his wants and desires and finally flirt back.

if he's being honest with himself, steve made it further than he expected.

it's june and the sun is making it miserably hot in hawkins. the party's all over at his place, kids jumping into pool with cannonballs that splash nancy as she sunbathes and robin as she reads, and eddie's sitting next to steve because that's their new normal. their chairs are pushed close together and eddie's playing with a fraying end of steve's chair's cushion.

eddie's fingers keep brushing over the bit of exposed skin at the edge of steve's trunks and it's driving him insane. he's doing his eddie-typical move where he's leaning in just enough to have his breath tickling steve's face as he tell him teasingly cute things over and over. calling him things like stevie and honey and darling in that sticky sweet drawl that steve loves. letting his eyes linger on steve's lips before flicking them back up, looking at steve with adoration and a hint of mischief.

and he can't help it, okay? not when eddie's looking at him like that. he can't take it anymore.

"you gotta stop doing that, man." steve watches as hurt and confusion flashes across eddie's face before settling into something blank. eddie leans back and crosses his arms over his chest, looking anywhere but steve.

"shit, i didn't mean-" steve starts floundering. eddie's eyes make their way back to his and he feels like he's pleading to get his point across. "i can't."

eddie scoffs and rolls his eyes before leveling steve with a sad smirk, closed off and scared. "i get it harrington. sorry i came on too strong. hint taken."

"no it's not- it's not that."

eddie perks up ever so slightly, his fingers tensing over his own bicep as he resettles in his chair. "then what's the issue?"

steve can't help the blush that crawls up his neck, hopes he can blame it on the hot june sun instead of how he's thinking about eddie's fingers brushing against his thigh just a minute earlier. he brings a hand up to scrub down his face before letting out an exasperated sigh.

"i want," his voice is low enough that only eddie can hear him, "to flirt back so badly, you have no idea. but i can't 'cause i told myself that i'd stop and that '87 would be the year that i didn't flirt with everyone just because it was fun, made it my resolution and everything. but god, eddie. you have no idea how hard that is around you."

and then eddie's laughing. it's loud and sharp, which startles steve into laughing along with him. they're bent over, clutching their sides and the kids and nancy and robin are paying them no mind as eddie slings his arms around steve's neck to drag him into a kiss.

it's messy, teeth clacking and noses bending awkwardly and they're both still laughing which makes it even worse. or better, however one would look at that. steve pulls aways and keeps his hands wrapped tightly around eddie's forearms as he looks at his still smiling face.

"okay, wow. hi?"

"steve."

"yes?"

"we are so stupid." eddie darts in, presses another quick kiss to steve's lips and pulls away just as quickly. "it was my resolution to try and not run away from everything. you know, the scary stuff."

steve's smile is crinkling his cheeks as he furrows his brows to look at eddie. "am i... scary?"

"terrifying."

they push their chairs even closer after that. they wrap their arms around each other and have toes pressing into calves and whisper cheesy pick up lines into each other's ears, ones that steve's been saving up for months. and when robin looks over with a shit-eating grin like she won a bet, steve has no problem untangling his fingers from where their entwined with eddie's to flip her the bird.

[axolotlclown]

So I finished Moominvalley season 4 and here is my review:

Of course, spoilers ahead! It's long. It's detailed. It's a bit much, and I spent hours writing it.

I greatly disliked this season, not just from one particular angle. When Moominvalley first came out, it was advertised as the first narrative-style adaptation. This would imply one concrete story that ran throughout the show. They said the story would take time and required patience, but there was a larger narrative story. What was that story exactly? In the beginning, each character was established with certain flaws that they needed to grow from.

For Moomintroll, throughout season 1, we see him struggle with his father's expectations. He never quite makes his own decisions—either doing what he's told or what other people in his life would do. In the last episode of the season, Midwinter Ancestor, Moomintroll is told by Too-Tikky to not open the closet door. Going against her wishes, he does so anyway. This is the first instance of Moomintroll making a decision for himself. In the end, it was a bad decision, and he regretted it, but it still was a big moment. We understand the importance of this journey when he changes out the picture by his bedside table. It was a baby photo with his parents; now, it's a photo of Moomintroll fully grown. This was meant to denote a journey of independence.

We see him continue with this struggle in season 2. The Hobgoblin's hat adds to the internalized identity crisis. During the lighthouse arc, Moomintroll is mostly doing his own thing, somewhat. Although, I think that cutting out his glade from the book sort of hurt this theme of independence. I hoped that they would revisit that somehow, but they never did. In season 3, Lonely Mountain, we see a sort of regression with Moomintroll. (Ignore how this affected Snufkin, I'll come back to this later.) When Moomintroll unpacks his things, we see a collection of items that represent Moomintroll's past. One of these items was the old baby picture. Aside from this episode, we don't see any notable growth from Moomintroll this season.

In season 4, we watch Moomintroll fall right back into his father's shadow. He continues to struggle to carve his own path. The set up for Comet in Moominland was promising, but ultimately did not deliver. When Moomintroll goes against his friends to make a decision for himself, it turns out to be a bad decision that he regrets later, and someone else has to guide him out of the situation.

Moomintroll ends from the same place he started as a character. All growth is erased and ignored. While this is the most egregious example—with him being the protagonist—he is not the only character that this happens with.

Snufkin probably upsets me the most, as he had so much potential to be the most interesting character in the series. In season 1, The Spring Tune, we see where Snufkin is starting as far as his strengths and flaws go. What particularly intrigued me was his relationship to attachment. We see that Snufkin ultimately fears abandonment, and he copes with this in conflicting ways. He wants to be with Moomintroll out of fear of being left behind, but he is afraid that he feels this way. He tries to create distance between him and Moomintroll in an attempt to ease what he experiences as pain. This is demonstrated further in the next episode, The Last Dragon in the World, when he frees the dragon. We see his struggle with responsibility and commitment in Snufkin and the Park Keeper.

In season 2, The Hobgoblin's Hat, Snufkin is explaining to Moomintroll what the King's Ruby is. The ruby functions as a metaphor for love throughout the season. Moomintroll imagines that the Hobgoblin must love this ruby, while Snufkin argues that he only wants to possess it. While both may be correct in their own ways, they fail to understand each other. As a result, Snufkin decides to leave Moomintroll out of fear of being possessed himself under the false pretense that he is helping with the hat (he did not). We never visit this plot point again.

Snufkin has some large developments in season 3. In the Lonely Mountain, we see Snufkin break down his walls and let Moomintroll in. He acknowledges his responsibility to him and his longing to see him. Unfortunately, this aspect of his character is completely abandoned in season 4.

Back to season 1, Snufkin and the Park Keeper, we get a flashback in which Snufkin is enjoying a party with Moomintroll until he is overwhelmed by the presence of others. He winds up abandoning Moomintroll and the valley. He does this again in season 2, The Hobgoblin's Hat, as discussed above. In season 3, Snufkin and the Fairground, Snufkin chooses not to abandon his responsibility to Moomintroll or the valley. When faced with an uncomfortable challenge, he chooses to stay and support Moomintroll.

In season 4, The Great Cold, when faced with a crowded challenge, Snufkin abandons Moomintroll again. While he appears later in the episode, it felt disingenuous to me. The original problem had already been solved. In Comet in Moominvalley, Snufkin does not abandon Moomintroll. In fact, he makes an active effort to stay by his side. But it feels strange, almost undeserved? We saw so little of Snufkin this season, and when we did, he spent his screen time backtracking his progress.

In season 3, Lonely Mountain, Snufkin has a small monologue about listening to the campfire as the sparks dance and fly. Well, the whole episode was about listening. Anyway, that was a call back to the season 1 episode, The Invisible Child, in which Too-Tikky tells Moomintroll that there are many lost souls in Moominvalley that needed to be heard. The screen then cut to Snufkin leaving the valley. It would have been really cool to find out what that meant!

His abandonment issues never really get addressed. Refusing to let Snufkin meet his father was just baiting the audience. It was also just bad writing! What's his deal—where's his lore?? Who made him like this? Why is he so afraid of intimacy? Why are basic fundamental questions about this main character being left unanswered?

It really is disappointing. Every adaptation (and the books, if we're being honest) treat Snufkin like a stoic hero. He doesn't want to be looked up to, yet he's always painted as a character that you should. This is the first adaptation that gave him flaws. He felt like a character that needed growth and time. He was never given either.

I won't spend so much time on Snorkmaiden, even though she was robbed, too. She never grew to be more independent apart from Moomintroll. In the same vein as Moomintroll and Snufkin, her character ends exactly the way she started. All of her character growth vanished in seasons 3 and 4. I love this version of Snorkmaiden. I certainly prefer it to her other portrayals. But the writers screwed her over so bad, it's heartbreaking.

None of the characters actually learn or change. Everyone sort of becomes a static character, which makes any semblance of a plot impossible to write. For the fun of it, I will try to decode a plot, anyway.

So, you're not crazy. Moomintroll and Snufkin were set up to be endgame. There was a way to make Moomintroll and Snorkmaiden endgame in a satisfying way, but the writers chose against it. It's a very suspicious backtracking that reeks of queerbaiting, but let me explain the narrative romance angles first.

I feel unsatisfied with the ending Moomintroll and Snorkmaiden got. Throughout seasons 1 and 2, they would frequently lie for each other's approval, and jealousy was a common player. They would ignore each other when someone more interesting came along. Ultimately, what led to the break up in season 2, Farwell Snorkmaiden, was the understanding that Snorkmaiden was just more mature than Moomintroll. In her own way, she was ready for a serious committed relationship, and Moomintroll was not.

However, there was never a formal conversation of them getting back together. They just sort of were? And all of the problems in their relationship were never resolved. They still lied to each other and ignored one another for something shinier all the time. It was irritating. These two became no better than Sniff in the end. I'm standing on business with that.

I'm also not convinced that Moomintroll and Snorkmaiden can have a healthy relationship after the finale. They will definitely break up again. They haven't resolved any of the issues that led to their original break.

Okay, so Moomintroll and Snufkin. Let's chat about that for a while. The first three episodes establish Moomintroll, Snufkin, and their relationship together (in that order). We, as viewers, are led to believe that their relationship (either romantic or platonic) is the key to understanding the story. Throughout seasons 1 and 2, every single motif for love (lanterns, fires, the ruby, etc.) that is introduced is done with Moomintroll and Snufkin. Regardless, different expressions of love and intimacy were the focal point of the show. That was almost completely abandoned in seasons 3 and 4. While turning the focus on the greater community could have added depth, it ultimately detracted from the close personal relationships that were driving the narrative.

So, the Groke. She does not just represent fear, she is a reflection of each character's own fears. I loved this! I thought it was a really cool concept, and the ways that she was portrayed in seasons 1 and 2 were excellent. Here's the thing. In her introduction in season 1, Night of the Groke, we are also introduced to lanterns/fires as a motif about love. The Groke is chasing love and craves acceptance. It's not quite something you can catch, and trying to is a failed endeavor. Brilliant episode. We saw what Snufkin's greatest fear was earlier in the season (loving Moomintroll), but we needed to pay more attention to see Moomintroll's fear. I think it was complex. On one hand, with the lanterns, Moomintroll could also be afraid to love Snufkin. However, as we saw at the end of Moomintroll and the Seahorses, he needs to learn independence before he can love someone. This was also reinforced through Snorkmaiden in Farwell Snorkmaiden. The fires and lanterns were constant reoccurring motifs (not just for Moomintroll and Snufkin, though that's where the focus is right now). Rewatch the season 3 episode, Lonely Mountain, and that one monologue that Snufkin gives will start to make sense.

By abandoning these important motifs, the Groke's conclusion feels unfinished. It just felt wrong. In the end, she did just represent fear. This completely erased the layer of depth that she had to start.

For Moomintroll to learn to be more independent and self-reliant, he needed to learn from Snufkin. For Snufkin to learn to accept love and responsibility, he needed to learn from Moomintroll. They were the keys to each other's growth. When they were together, the plot moved. When they weren't, the episodes felt like filler for the most part.

Also, small detail, despite the change in one photo (the baby photo to grown Moomintroll) the photo with Moomintroll and Snufkin never changed. Which narratively makes no sense.

The writers originally set this up for them to be romantically involved. Which, given the context of their dynamic in the books and comics, makes sense. It's not as much of a stretch as people are trying to gaslight themselves into believing. These characters were originally heavily queer coded. However, the original text is sort of a tragedy. No matter what happened, Moomintroll and Snufkin could never truly be together—no matter how much they tried. This mirrored Tove Jansson's relationship to her first fiance Atos Wirtanen as well as her relationship to her own queerness. However, it looked like Moominvalley wanted something different. Queer people had enough tragic stories told already. This one would tell queer kids that it was going to be okay, and that they were going to find love. Tove Jansson's original message about love and freedom was finally going to be understood.

Instead, not only was this potentially beautiful story abandoned, it was mocked. In the season 4 episode, Midsummer Meddling, there was a scene I found quite shocking. Sniff had convinced himself that he was to fall in love with somebody. One of his "love interests" was a male scarecrow. This is the only openly queer semblance of romance that we got and it was played off as a joke. In the final season. They didn't even backtrack Moomintroll and Snufkin, they just completely ignored everything that was set up.

In the final episode, Comet in Moominland, there was an incredibly brief exchange between Moomintroll and Snufkin about who looked up to who. This would have been a fantastic place to give these characters some sort of conclusion, but we don't get that. In all of the 45 minute special, the characters are never prioritized. In the whole season, even. Really, not a single character got a satisfying conclusion, but Moomintroll and Snufkin were the most important.

This is a powerful and historic piece of queer media. Tove Jansson's queer legacy was so iconic that she was directly cited as an influence in the legalization of same sex marriage in Finland. Her work proved to further the queer community. Despite sodomy laws and fear of incarceration, Jansson continued to do what she could to tell her own queer story. That is what Moomin is. That is its legacy.

I was prepared to defend Gutsy if Snufmin didn't go canon. At the end of the day, it's usually TV execs threatening to pull the whole show off the air. The show was too costly to risk any interesting writing. However, the writers didn't recover, and some of the writing just felt downright melicious at times.

Anyway, if you love slice-of-life content, you probably loved this season and the show's conclusion. It is such a shame that the creators promised something completely different from what the show turned out to be. It's no surprise that viewers are disappointed.

I do have one more thing to say ☝️😀. This is going to hurt Moomin's mission to expand to the US. It's been very obvious that they have been trying to expand to North America. Brave and bold writing would have caught the attention of new viewers. Instead, few Americans are going to recommend this show to others. Aside from that, the next logical move is to make an American adaptation. Good luck trying to find a competent YA cartoon creator that won't threaten to walk off the project if they can't have Snufmin. That being said, they'll have better luck making that canon here anyway. (Everybody say, "thank you Rebecca Sugar and Pendleton Ward.")

Well, in the end, I don't think the fight to make Snufmin a real, transparent queer story ends with Moominvalley. I can say, though, that the prioritization of profit over respect and love for others is not at all what Tove Jansson would have wanted.

Seasons 1 and 2 were peak, and season 3, episode 8, was batshit insane. That is all.

[the-one-who-lambs]

When you're a mortal leading the "shipping the two immortals" pack but the three-eyed ex-god of death has the intrapersonal emotional intelligence of a piece of toast

Based on my fic, the Risen Lamb and the Fallen God lmao

[goldensunset]

so like. what is majora's mask about (is one of like 3 people who's dodged it on the internet somehow)

ohHO you’ve made a mistake

the basic gist of it is that the moon is about to crash into the earth and you have 3 days to stop it. nevermind being physically or cosmologically realistic that’s not important right now but Moon’s Haunted. not normal moon evil moon. it’s all the work of this like chaos deity or w/e named majora who’s working through this little imp kid known as skull kid bc of the haunted mask he’s wearing. how do you stop the moon from falling? easy. awaken four giants and get them to literally hold up the moon. push that thang back into the sky. did i mention it’s freaky and scary btw. not normal moon.

btw there’s a clock at the bottom of your screen perpetually ticking and at the start of each day you hear a bell tolling which is fun. it’s where these memes come from!

here’s the thing though. you cannot possibly realistically do all of this in 3 days. not unless you’re a hacker or speedrunner who’s built different. so what can you do? well as a matter of fact you can play a magic song on a magic instrument that resets time to the beginning of the 3-day cycle. and you can do so anytime! so yay you can just reset infinitely!!

except that comes with a price. only certain parts of your progress get saved through your time-meddling. you lose most things- money, common items, dungeon quest progress, npc questline progress- when you reset time. if you’ve completed a dungeon or earned a mask (collectibles which you put on to unlock special abilities) those remain in the new timeline but other than that a reset is a reset. so you have to be careful you’ve seen a quest all the way through before going back through time. if you find yourself running short on time but you aren’t done with something you’re either going to have to scrap that precious progress and play the song and try again orrrr let the moon fall and game over lol. so it’s really like. your time is simultaneously infinite and limited.

^uh oh sisters!

you can help the people around you, all of whom have rich inner lives and great characters (in reference to both the main quests and the many incredible side quests which this game is known for), and you may get to keep the fruits of your labor from each endeavor (the magic masks you get, or weapon upgrades, or like. the giants being awakened), but then you reset time and their problems come right back to them. and you know that there’s nothing you can do for them because you simply do not have enough time to do all of this in 72 hours so one way or another you have to abandon almost everyone. you get all the material progress you need but in terms of the underlying story you just have to move on through life with the knowledge of all that suffering…

oh and did i mention the part where the moon is falling??? yeah that’s like. on top of the other personal problems people already have, some of which are related to skull kid’s other mischief and some of which aren’t. the moon. it is always hanging above you

yeah people around town aren’t ignorant of that. some people panic. others are in denial. some people are convinced that if they just do this and that it’ll all be fine. there’s a somewhat political aspect to the arguments in clock town (the heart of the game’s map) where some people are insisting they’re in danger and the mayor needs to order an evacuation and some people saying hey shut up don’t be silly! are you really gonna distract us from our super special carnival we’re about to host? you’re just trying to control people with your conspiracy theory! it feels a lot like a sociopolitical commentary on how different people react to crises. panic, acceptance, denial, trying to take control, drinking away your sorrows, embracing it, still holding onto hope, etc

but by day 3 nobody is denying it anymore. there’s just pure dread. not even evacuation is gonna save you because let’s be real the entire planet is done for. straight up it is the end of the world and there’s nothing anyone can do. you can’t fight the moon. the giants are the only hope and link is gonna fix everything but it’s not like the people of termina know that. so like the apocalyptic, despair-filled atmosphere is heavy. masterpiece of storytelling tbh

a few more things to mention:

-most of your masks are just optional quality of life upgrades or stuff for one very specific sidequest or just a trophy etc. but the main mechanics of the game involve transforming into the other races of hyrule- aka you can become a little tree guy, a fish guy, and a rock guy, by equipping the proper mask. as a matter of fact you start the game by having skull kid mug you and then like curse you into becoming the tree guy so you get to have a body dysmorphia moment for the entirety of the first 3-day cycle before you can break the curse and change freely. oh but fun fact about those masks. yeah those are inhibited by the souls of real actual people of those races who died tragically and their loved ones don’t know they’re dead and they’re convinced you are them. yeah.

oh btw if you get all the masks you can trade them in at the end to unlock a new transformation mask (implying you’re channeling some new mystery spirit. oh boy) called the fierce deity mask and it’s insanely powerful and makes short work of the final boss and we know nothing of the fierce deity’s lore which is a little scary. yippee!!!

-just in general both games (this is strictly speaking the second of a duology) very much have the recurring juxtaposition of childhood vs adulthood and the traumas of both. the plot of the first game involves being suddenly aged from 10 to 17 (you’re put to sleep for 7 years instead of being oh idk trained or something) and you just have to adjust to life as a child in an adult’s body. (and they’re like ‘wow cool congrats on being a grownup! :D’ as if that isn’t horrifying) then at the end just as you’re getting used to it you’re forcibly returned to being a child and now you’re an adult (kind of) in a child’s body. as a child you’re belittled and as an adult you have people making demands of you that you aren’t ready for and you’re both and neither. but now you’re definitively a child and get to have your childhood back right? yeah no. there’s no going back home anymore after everything that has happened. also one of your last remaining friends just left and now you’re trying to find her desperately. that’s the context going into majora’s mask.

-skull kid himself makes me sad because he’s not even evil he’s being controlled by majora. he is mischievous absolutely and it’s still partially his fault of course but the real him would never do all this. he ultimately just wanted friends and attention and fun and it manifested itself in a bad way (kinda reminds me of ventus in khux with about like 20% more culpability…). you get to be his friend afterward plus his two little fairy friends so yay! gotta say goodbye though.

-the two fairies are a brother sister duo. the sister (tatl) gets stuck as your companion bc she took the time to stay back and bully you extra hard at the beginning of the game and accidentally got separated from the others lol. by the time you catch up to them she wants to stay with you anyway. her brother (tael) stays with skull kid but like he isn’t evil he provides valuable intel to you but he’s just loyal to his friend. anyway tatl warms up to you which is nice and i adore her… but of course you have to say goodbye to her too :(

^child link and tatl the fairy (tatl and tael together sound like ‘tattletale’ referencing the theme of childishness)

^skull kid (wearing majora’s mask) and tael the fairy

so in short to summarize the vibes:

what if you were a terrified lonely child experiencing layers upon layers of dysmorphia and trauma searching for your last friend and a giant moon with a face was about to fall and crush the earth and you alone were the only person who can save everyone by reliving the same three days over and over again, racing against the clock each time, making new friends and solving problems only to have to toss most of it down the drain with each reset, witnessing the fear and dread around you, feeling the weight of the world on you… just. man. lemme share some music too

. x this is the clock town theme. bright and cheery on day one, kind of hollow on day two (it rains that day), by day three it sounds frantic with an ominous undertone. denial and panic etc

x this is the theme that plays between midnight and 6am on the last day (fourth day i guess? the cycle starts at 6am on the first day so the last 6 hours before the dawn of death are technically a fourth day). at this point there is no denial in the world and this track plays everywhere in the world at that time. the world is ending. this is such a masterpiece of a somber track i found the best version i could that included the clock tower bells

x theme that plays when you finally summon all four giants to epically stop the moon after heaven knows how many cycles. no more smug skull kid no more despair it’s time!! baby!!!!!!

x this is the song of healing, another magic song that helps undo corruption in various forms throughout the game (it’s taught to you by a shady weird fellow known only as the happy mask salesman. love him.) it’s such a beautiful track that really kind of symbolizes the heart of this game- yeah it’s dark and scary and chaotic but at its core it’s about healing and hope, recovering from trauma, learning to live again… link manages to do it!!! he saves the world! and while he doesn’t stay in clock town he has a good time with his friends while he’s there. he gets to breathe for a bit. not every problem can be fixed but there is a new tomorrow nonetheless. acknowledge the hurt and work through it. gorgeous

have i said enough words yet. (watch someone) play majora’s mask please

[sapphire-weapon]

I think Eagleone is canon because in the game something really happens between them and it’s very noticeable, but I’m wondering why you consider them canon?

Because the romantic nature of their relationship is baked into the thematic framework of the narrative. In order for RE4make to achieve what it's trying to do with its storytelling, Leon and Ashley's relationship has to be read as romantic.

Resident Evil 4 Remake is Resident Evil 4 re-imagined as a fairy tale. Survival Horror is the genre of the gameplay of RE4make, but Horror Fantasy is the genre of its story.

RE4make contains fantastical elements that were not present in OG, including but not limited to:

Leon and Ada's plaga hallucinations (Ada's especially looks like it has a magical effect)

The magical blue fire that keeps the Armadura at bay

The cursed black water in the castle (irrespective of whether it's tied to the mold in RE7; it's still attributed to turning men mad and is treated like a magical reagent during the ritual)

Ashley getting possessed -- not Saddler using her plaga to manipulate her body (which he also does in OG) but actually physically possessing her and speaking through her mouth and seeing through her eyes

New enemies that invoke the imagery of Minotaurs

On top of that, one of the major themes of this story is: folklore, story books, and fairy tales. We see it show up not just in the characters but also in the lore of the world itself. Just to name a few examples off the top of my head, we have:

Luis's parallels with and direct verbal references to Don Quixote

The folklore of "madness" spread around the villagers that Mendez tried to quell panic of

Historic folklore from when the people of Valdelobos thought of Las Plagas as demons

Salazar's invocation of Pulgarcito (which is a Spanish fairy tale)

Literal storybooks that you find throughout the game, like the one in Mendez's house and the holy scripture (complete with a colored illustration like a child's picture book) in the castle

And, most of all -- and, most importantly for our purposes -- "The Knight and the Princess Fair" allegory that gets repeated over and over throughout the game centering entirely on Leon and Ashley.

And it's not just Salazar being a crazy asshole, either. Luis also refers to Leon as "Prince Charming," beckons him to the ballroom, and tells him not to be late for the dance.

The story itself also has an element of "true love conquers all" in it, as both Leon and Ashley literally pull off the impossible. Leon manages to fight off Saddler's influence (something that we've seen no other character manage to do -- and Leon's plaga is very advanced at this point) while he's holding Ashley in his arms. And tiny little 120lb Ashley manages to heft all 200+lbs of Leon and his gear up onto Luis's surgical chair all by herself in order to remove his plaga. They saved each other for each other and only got through this ordeal because the other person was there with and for them.

This narrative is then reinforced by overtly romantic imagery, like Leon appearing to Ashley bathed in moonlight, and Ashley wistfully looking to him off towards the horizon, hands clasped to her chest, as embers float around her like fireflies.

It also invokes the imagery of classic romance stories and fairy tales, including:

Several literal princess carries

Prince Phillip about to break the spell on Sleeping Beauty with true love's first kiss

The Prince approaching Snow White's altar

Leon kneeling before Ashley like a knight does his queen

Romeo and Juliet's very famous balcony scene

Leon extending a hand to Ashley as though he's asking her to dance, not once but twice

And in case all of that wasn't enough -- if you somehow still didn't catch it, Capcom included a set of matching alternate costumes for Leon and Ashley literally called "Romantic."

I don't know how much more explicit they could've been about this, short of having a big, sweeping kiss scene -- especially when you consider that absolutely none of the above was present in OG. None of those scenes happen in OG at all.

And this isn't even taking into account that the devs restructured the plot of OG to follow the story outline of a romance novel beat-for-beat -- nor the overt sexual imagery associated with specific lines of dialogue between Leon and Ashley. And even if you ignore the fairy tale aspect all together, Leon and Ashley's relationship is intrinsically tied to the theme of teamwork, and there's a romantic element about how that is portrayed, too.

So, sure. You could look at RE4make as a story about a man who's just doing his job and saves the president's daughter because idk he's a badass and that's just what he does. And he overcomes his trauma about Raccoon City because he actually saved a person's life finally, and it wouldn't have mattered who it was; it just happened to be Ashley.

Sure.

You could.

But you miss the fucking point of what the storyteller(s) were trying to do.

You miss the intention of the developers paying homage to RE4OG being such a huge part of so many people's childhoods by turning the story into a fairy tale.

You miss the parallels of Leon becoming a broken husk of a person because of failing re: Ada, and Leon finding his smile and his kindness again through Ashley.

It leaves you with a shallow story where shit just kind of happens and Leon's a cool dude who overcomes the odds all on his own because he's so cool and strong.

And you'll never be able to convince me that that's how the devs wanted their story to be read. Not with the deliberate layering of themes and imagery and allegory that they've folded into the narrative.

And you'll never convince me that all of this was just a coincidence, either.

Eagleone is canon -- just not canon in the way that most people tend to think of it.

Because the one thing missing from RE4make's fairy tale is that Leon and Ashley don't live happily ever after. They don't end this game a couple, and they'll never be together in the future.

Because while RE4make was a fairy tale, it was the nightmare horror version of one.

And horror stories don't get to have happy endings. That was true for Ethan and Mia in the literal storybook that was RE:Village, and it's true here for Leon and Ashley.

But that doesn't make the romance between these two characters any less real.

[disposal-blueeee]

VARGASTOBER - day 6 : fear

[kirabasai]

are there any good fics about unreliable narrator stalker obito? plese hlep

OH MY GOD u’re my first ever ask im SQUEALING okok give me a bit to actually take a look around ao3

ok one hour in i hav nothing yet but i DID find a consolation prize in Till The Dream Do Us Part. abt 1k words, rated t; its possessive obito making kakashi’s corpse a rinne doll. yes, really. ok back to searching

two hours and i’ve found a stalker obito pov fic. its a part of a series i think but i read it standalone and it seems fine without series context. if u just want stalker obito trying to fuck with kakashi this is it, i guess? sadly not unreliable narrator. cognitive dissonance. rated t. back to searching!

three hours and i’m a failed man. browsed about,, 120, 130 fics? across abt 7 tags that might have gotten me what we’re looking for. gona double check my bookmarks as well

ok that onky took me a bit because i apparently only have 50 fics bookmarked w obito as a character, this is honestly a trajedy, im a fake obito fan. i’m rlly sorry i couldn’t find anything!! i don’t normally do this because i Never finish writing anything, but as apology i’ll offer u some snippets of my take on unreliable narrator stalker obito for one of my wips under the cut.

one of the main things that inspired my take on stalker obito was this post my friend made abt how he's a freak. in addition, there's kamui blues where obito is pretty much openly a freak to kakashi and the earlier chapters where he doesnt really seem to hide the fact he's watching kakashi. and whatnot. yeah he's a fucking freak.

[hood-ex]

Brain is malfunctioning bc I'm looking at a 23k fic, and the author said they wrote it in 4 hours... 4 hours?? What do you mean?? Your mind has really gotta be in the roughest draft of rough draft modes to be able to churn that out within that time.

How many words per hour can y'all get out? I mean, if I'm booking it and don't have to consider what I'm writing, I could probably get 2k in an hour, but that's generally not the case. I hem and haw over the details so much that it could easily take me 4 hours just to get 2500 words or so. Maybe even less words if I'm really struggling.

[whatudottu]

If I thought the Transformers (Aligned) timeline was convoluted, god the Trollhunters timeline is fucked beyond all hell, and worse of all because they use Merlin - bloody MERLIN - as a character that created the amulet there's an upper limit of time Trollhunters have existed before, heck even Myrddin Wyllt his welsh name (and canonical alternate name in the show), Merlin stops being the Merlin from human myth and starts becoming Merlin a similarly named folkloric character in troll myth-

I wonder if I, a fan coming in at minimum 2023, am arriving to this a little late but- if this isn't going to be a timeline rewrite then let me complain about how specific canonical details contradict with one another, including the glaringly obvious issue of Wizard's addition to the timeline, making Deya the Deliverer the first Trollhunter and thus practically erasing most of the historical Trollhunters or conforming to fit them all in a timeline of 900ish years.

I'll address the elephant in the room when we get to it, but let's set up the basics, both for me and any viewer not already in the know (given that my audience is mostly from transformers and ben 10, I'd say it's a lot of you).

Trolls and humans got off to a bad start, humans living on the surface and trolls having originated from a realm called the Darklands, accessible from a bridge (a gateway) Kilahead bridge. Like with any civilisation there are good and bad trolls, the baddest being Orlagk the Oppressor, leader of the Gumm-Gumms. Having been introduced to the surface, trolls fought with the humans who already lived on it creating the War for the Surface Lands, and their fighting lead the first Heartstone (a gigantic magical gem that serves as the centre of troll caverns, healing them and providing power) to corrupt and birth Gunmar. This war lasted for millennia, Gunmar taking over leadership of the Gumm-Gumms after slaying Orlagk at some vague point, up until the Battle of Kilahead Bridge where the Gumm-Gumms were sealed away in the Darklands again thanks to the Trollhunter Deya the Deliverer.

Okay, sure, that doesn't sound very bad at first, up until you realise that the Battle of Kilahead Bridge was 900 years prior to the series (2016 was it's release date) and thus in the year 1116 AD give or take; the legend of Merlin as a magician, a wizard, was in the 12th century which would've been instead at minimum 1300 AD that's 200 years of difference. Not to mention Angor Rot - a character and antagonist in the show - came begging for magic to stop Gunmar's armies from destroying more and more independant troll tribes, like his own, in 1200 AD at least. Why in the fucking hell would Angor Rot bother to risk his own soul asking for magic, from a sorcerer known as (among many things) the Eldritch Queen, if Gunmar and his Gumm-Gumms were already kept within the Darklands. Gunmar's son Bular, the one Gumm-Gumm to not be banished, is surely not that much of a threat to not one but multiple villages it would send someone to the doorstep of the Pale Lady. In addition, Angor Rot was responsible for killing at least a few Trollhunters, one known and named being Voltar the Voracious, who was the only Trollhunter given an exact year of choosing in 1578. And the fucker is listed BEFORE Deya on the wiki but that alone doesn't mean anything, however she does die in 1620 to Bular, 396 years before the show.

Alright then, so you look at Merlin's mythological existence and go 'now what about the whole thing about millenia' because 12th century doesn't allow the War for the Surface Lands to have a Trollhunter, even with 11 named Trollhunters that come presumably before Deya (Unkar the Unfortunate, despite being trained by Blinky who in human standards - assuming his human body tells us his age - is probably about middle age give or take, fought in the time Gumm-Gumms were still around even if slain by Bular). Given that Trollhunters itself references Merlin's original Welsh name Myrddin (and his in show last name is Ambrosius, which would be Emyrs in the original Welsh, as opposed to Wyllt for 'of the wild), I thought that potentially looking into when Myrddin first came around I would be able to get a better timeline; Myrddin Wyllt was said to have been born - and not just the legend - in 540 AD, which gives between that and 2016 1476 years to work with, allowing the 400ish years ago that Deya died (and the 438 years from when Voltar had the amulet) and the millenia's worth of war the War for the Surface Lands took.

Done deal, right?

Well guess what, some fucker named Spar the Spiteful (not even the first Trollhunter like Deya so proclaims to be) died 5200 years before Jim, our protagonist and first HUMAN Trollhunter, ever picked up the mantle. 5200 years before 2016 is the bloody fucking 4th millenium BC. This period included the beginnings of the Bronze Age, and was the bloody time WRITING was invented! And in Spar's time, there was no DOMESTIC HORSES! HORSE RIDING DIDN'T BLOODY EXIST WHEN SPAR DIED HOW FUCKED IT THAT!?

God FUCKING DAMN IT!

Fine, I can work with this.

Merlin in the show is all the old man we think of him as in myth, but he's also still old when we go back in time to when the Battle of Kilahead Bridge takes place, albeit it without a full head of grey hairs (how does the old man age more than his teen/young adult apprentice) potentially as a young sorcerer/wizard/whatever they use these terms interchangeably, Merlin or Myrddin created the Amulet of Daylight. You could even give more wriggle room between whenever trolls came to the surface and when Merlin made the amulet, because although Orlagk was a figure explicitly older than Gunmar, there is no mention of an amulet without Gunmar simply a time when he was still not a leader. In fact, given that Merlin's original name - Myrddin - came from a riddle designed with the intent to kill Gunmar, a piece informing the Trollhunter teams how to kill Gunmar rather than Orlagk the original leader, perhaps it's befitting to make Myrddin technically younger than the trolls; given that the original purpose of the Amulet of Daylight was not to kill Gunmar but to protect trolls, seeing as how one of the keys to Gunmar's destruction is a Triumbric Stone (one of 3) that resulted in the death of Orlagk, the amulet can date to before Gunmar and have been made after the Gumm-Gumms took out their rage on other trolls instead of humans alone.

The Trollhunter after Spar the Spiteful was Boraz the Bold, named that specifically for taking on 1000 Gumm-Gumms, was killed by Bular who was - as I said - Gunmar's son. While that does not mean that Spar the previous Trollhunter existed before Bular did, it does mean that by the time Boraz was selected after Spar's position Bular was competent enough to slay a Trollhunter, especially one as 'Bold' as Boraz who felled a thousand Gumm-Gumms before falling to 1001. It would mean that his father Gunmar would be much older, potentially tracking further and further back in time and putting Orlagk's death deeper and deeper into the War for the Surface Lands, potentially even aligned Orlagk's death and the Triumbric Stone's creation to a period humans heard of Myrddin, the death of Orlagk potentially landing in 540 AD, perhaps even in 573 AD where an actual battle took place, the Battle of Arfderydd; this details a Riderch Hael, King of Alt Clut (Stratclyde, a Brittonic kingdom in northern... well... Britain, which got annexed in the 11th century AKA 1000 AD to become part of the emerging Kingdom of Scotland) slaughtering the forces of a Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio, Myrddin having gone mad watching that defeat.

The remaining named Trollhunters, ones that weren't explicitly dated and timed, are in a bullshit order on the Wiki that I just have to piece together what is being said to put together a timeline.

Maddrux the Many, he/him in the show and she/her in the comics, was canonically an active Trollhunter before another, Araknak the Agile, was either born or an actual functioning adult; Araknak is the ancestor of the previously mentioned (and assumed to be) middle aged Blinkous Galadrigal and his brother (an older brother or twin depending on who you quote) Dictatious Maximus Galadrigal, the pair being present for the Battle of Kilahead Bridge and still alive by 2016 and idk about Tatious but Blinky appears in 2017 or at least whenever RoTT takes place. To use the term ancestor instead of grandparent or even parent, which technically ancestor can be used on either anyway, means that the exact family history is undetermined. However, we can place Maddrux at the very least on the timeline where Orlagk was still active in, seeing as that was her major enemy in the comics.

At the end of her service instead of going directly to Araknak, a Trollhunter preceded him in Magmar the Molten, the only known mountain troll to be a wielder of Daylight. Interesting to note, Araknak learnt from Magmar a certain combat move so, even before his selection by the amulet Araknak was already preferring the lifestyle of a warrior in comparison to his scholar parents; a trait that outlasted the warrior spirit and descended to the Galadrigals however many years later. Mentioned specifically as preceding not only Araknak but Tellad-Urr, we have another date to place as Tellad-Urr the Triumphant - very soon to be Tellad-Urr the Terrible - was active until 501 CE where Orlagk was still alive; how convientient. It helps that Gogun the Gentle - his immediate successor - would be the only Trollhunter to die of old age, potentially because Gunmar was too busy killing Orlagk and Orlagk too busy being dead for either of them to do anything.

Hopefully Gogun was already an old fart because the oldest recorded troll Chokeenamaga lived to 5352 years and I have no idea if that's slightly above average, notably old, or specific to a troll type (like for example, mountain trolls may have the longest average lifespan of all trollkin), and it's not like I can look at the show for any reference because Draal the Deadly, son of Kanjigar the Couragous and the previous Trollhunter did not age between 900 years yet there are no troll whelps in modern Trollmarket, let alone the fact that the Battle of Kilahead Bridge according to our established Trollhunters could not have happened before 1578 but must have happened between then and 1620. And Draal is an adult in modern day but is rather impulsive and I do not know if that is simply a troll trait or the trait of a twenty something year old that should've had a different design in the past but couldn't because of the limitations of 3D show animation (Prime fans would know or at least see visually that you can't just design a cybertronian version of a bot's root mode without things getting expensive, it's why Skyquake couldn't fly despite looking the same before and after alt mode acquisition).

Speaking of age, this is also the time where Aaarrrgghh!!! was a teenager, which either means that Blinky is actually much younger than Aaarrrgghh!!! or there is another Trollhunter or few between Araknak the Agile and Tellad-Urr the Terrible; 5200 years is a lot of grounds to cover, especially with a Trollhunter dying of age between it. Tellad-Urr has an appearance similar to Kanjigar, and given that it's a book cover rather than a 3D model there may be grounds for him being of the same tribe as Kanjigar if not an ancestor like Araknak to Blinky. It could work give or take, especially since 'ancestor' is less of an official word and more of a footnote for someone's opinion, but it isn't word of god nor anything found in any media.

And keeping with age (last one I promise) Gorgus the Gorgeous, referenced in terms used by modern trolls 'By Gorgus' or 'Great Gorgus', was one of the youngest Trollhunters to be chosen. Whether he was younger than Jim Lake Jr, 16 years old at his time of getting the amulet, depends on what the hell the age of 24 fucking means to a troll. Is it the equivalent of 24 years in troll years? If so then why the hell does he begin training 32 troll years later at age 56 if he wasn't chosen to have the amulet at 24 human years old. What is 24 human years to a troll. NotEnrique, a changeling (troll whelp cursed to change into a human, can do so at will) is canonically a few centuries old, and he is fresh from the Darklands after replacing a human baby Enrique. He at a few centuries old is able to throw and host a troll party at his age, and maybe changeling's age differently and a changeling hosting a troll party would be very new because haha discrimination, but no troll flinches at the concept. And a few centuries could be considered more than 2 (being a few it's already more than 1) so the more centuries you tack on to this college type frat party host the more and more Gorgus' age becomes terrifyingly young like exorbitantly so.

If a few centuries means 'ability to host a party where full grown trolls do keg stands' then 24 probably means whelp, baby, a fucking toddler by troll standards, assuming changelings follow troll aging standards against their human mimicking physical development standards. If a 24 year old Trollhunter is only ONE OF the youngest Trollhunters, who was the youngest? Predestined at bloody birth!? Gorgus started training at age 56, presumably when he was old enough to wield a sword, being trained by none other than Kanjigar himself; Gorgus died during training when a group of Gumm-Gumms attacked, an arrow hitting him in the head. If NotEnrique was an adult, or at the very least on the cusp of it, at a few centuries old - more than 1, probably more than 2 - then what of someone at age 56, less than a few centuries, less than one. Whether Kanjigar was a father at the time or not, loosing a kid under his guidance - to death no less - would've stuck with anyone. Why was this child sentenced to death, and so young too. One can argue all the Trollhunters to failed to live up to legacy, who became their own version of Unkar the Unfortunate, were sentenced to death and fated to die young. Gogun may have defied fate and beat the ticking clock, but Gorgus the Gorgeous - a gorgeous child, a son to parents that will never see their little boy again - proved that there is no outrunning the clock for the bells toll for thee.

If Unkar was before Gorgus, then it is to be presumed that by dying on his first night - after 6 hours of training - that Gorgus the Gorgeous was failed by Blinkous in the same way Unkar had been. The next Trollhunter in line was summoned too soon, so because of Blinky's failure the trolls against Gumm-Gumms were without a defender, potentially reducing the remaining candidates for better trainers by slaughtering them before the Trollhunter was of age. If Unkar was after Gorgus, then Kanjigar needed to step away from training, even as it was his task given to the aging elder Rundle, potentially a younger but very busy Vendel, an elder by proxy of everyone else dying on the edges of Gumm-Gumm blades. He couldn't sacrifice another child to death, and as the amulet falls onto the arrogant overconfident Unkar, Kanjigar could not bare to have stone dust on his hands again. Blinkous Galadrigal (there is no mention of Dictatious despite the presence of Gumm-Gumms in Unkar's time) is tasked to train Unkar, to teach him the tennants of Trollhunter and put to good use his scholarly teachings and pray that the soul of his Trollhunter ancestor guides him. Unfortunately - as Unkar will be enshrined in by title - you cannot let a scholar do a warrior's duty.

However way it plays out, Blinky was young (or at least younger), and his failure marked his reputation for centuries.

There is a Grimbald the Grave, trained with Kanjigar AND Deya, which would definitely place that before 1620 and potentially before 1578; Voltar wasn't mentioned to have been trained by either, but given that he was the last Trollhunter before Deya (at the very least in close proximity), Grimbald most likely came before. Now this seems like a non-issue, if you consider Grimbald against our timeline nothing seems to be wrong, potentially Kanjigar's age since he's been around for a while but his son's an adult in the modern day so he could potentially be older than Blinky who knows. But I have an elephant to address and since it's been so long since I brought it up it's been drinking tea this whole time.

Wizards, the third installment of the Tales of Arcadia series, sequel to Trollhunters, introduces to audiences that Deya the Deliverer was originally Callista the Calamity, a troll who's tribe had been wiped out by humans and had been living in human custody since she was a whelp (or of an age that she had forgotten her name). Deya makes the timeline such a mess, because her first appearance in the comics, she was of an age where Rundle - Vendel's father - was the elder of Glastonbury Tor Trollmarket at the time of Deya, the Trollmarket before Dwoza which is the Trollmarket before Arcadia. Rundle was around in 501 AD, but it was his father Kilfred who was the elder and his son Vendel was of age enough to help in consulting, however old that is. In Wizards however, Vendel was the elder of Dwoza before Deya was Deya and when Callista was still an outcast, and even then he was only the elder by proxy, signs of his father Rundle or of Kilfred missing. Of course however Rundle could have been elder of Dwoza, as his father before him was elder of Glastonbury Tor, simply that he was potentially slain potentially died of old age and that Vendel being one of the few older than most of the Dwozan trolls took over in his father's stead.

The issue with Deya is that I really like the Callista part of her backstory, of being an outsider, an outcast, in the world of trolls that still hated humanity but held a deeper fear of the Gumm-Gumms. Diaspora for trolls, Callista the Calamity is seen as a human pet despite her wanting to find her way home, a home she can never go back to because it had been destroyed long ago; the one place that she could be accepted don't because they see her as too human, a far cry to being called a monster by humans but certainly not relieving. But she had become Deya, and found her footing as the Deliverer, by turning the Trollhunter from a single force to fighting alone to rallying a bunch of... gravellors? (Whatever, I like to think of Dwoza as essentially a refugee tribe given it's diversity in comparison to the Krubera tribe who are only krubera and the Quagawump tribe who are only - save for the generic troll king Angor killed - quagawumps) to fight one last fight against the Gumm-Gumms and ending the War for the Surface Lands.

...SO... that probably means that Grimbald was trained exclusively by Kanjigar after the whole Unkar and/or Gorgus ordeal and eventually got the Trollhunter's amulet himself when Deya was slain, her sacrifice delivering the migrating trolls of Dwoza a chance to get to the New World (or the Americas). Oh and their migration was after Vendel and some king wrote a truce called 'The Pact', which - I mean - it's described as a feeble truce and with a name like that I don't blame it, where they promise to stop eating humans and limited their diet to cats and used clothes which well- they might've broke on the journey to the New World because hiding in the cramped ballast of a 1600s era boat isn't fun nor is it fast. But regardless-

I think for a sense of cohesion, let me pull out an almost timeline for this post.

Trolls who had previously been in the Darklands somehow get to the surface

Tensions between trolls and the already present humans grows beginning the War for the Surface Lands

The intensity of the war corrupts the first Heartstone, giving birth to Gunmar

A young wizard Myrddin creates the Amulet of Daylight and gifts it to the good trolls

Spar the Spiteful gets the amulet. He dies 5200 years ago

Boraz the Bold gets the amulet. He dies to Bular, Gunmar's son.

Maddrux the Many gets the amulet

Magmar the Molten, the first mountain troll Trollhunter, gets the amulet

Araknak the Agile, ancestor to Blinkous and Dictatious Galadrigal, gets the amulet

Tellad-Urr the Triumphant, turned Tellad-Urr the Terrible, gets the amulet. He is killed in 501 AD

Gogun the Gentle gets the amulet.

Orlagk the Oppressor is slain by Gunmar. Gunmar loses an eye

Gogun dies of old age.

Angor Rot makes a pact with the Pale Lady, trading his soul for her magic

Unkar the Unfortunate gets the amulet. He dies 6 hours later

Gorgus the Gorgeous, one of the youngest Trollhunters, gets the amulet. He dies at age 56

Grimbald gets the amulet

Voltar the Voracious, born of two minds, gets the amulet in 1578. He dies to Angor Rot and his soul is stolen

Deya the Deliverer, previously Callista the Calamity, gets the amulet

The Battle of Kilahead Bridge is fought. Gunmar is defeated and the Gumm-Gumms (+ Dictatious Galadrigal) are trapped in the Darklands

Deya dies against Bular, last remaining Gumm-Gumm on the surface, in 1620

Kanjigar the Couragous, trainer of many Trollhunters, gets the amulet. He dies to Bular in 2016

James Lake Junior gets the amulet, and the events of the series take place

So, members of the Trollhunter fandom, how'd I do? If you stuck around this long, welcome to my gimmick, long posts :)

Hoo boy how should I tag this?

[morphestic]

No one asked, but...

Since I can't sleep and I feel like shit this very fine morning, I will be recommending my favorite fics/oneshots for the bsd fandom... and they're all from the same author just because. Their name is Oxalisalis on Ao3 and you can also find them on instagram with the same user. I'll try to keep the list short with my favorites:

Circle of Praise: Remember seeing flustered Dazai in that one Wan! episode? Well this is exactly that. The ADA has a very unique way to lift the morale of their low spirited agents. Atsushi, after being on the receiving end of it, finds out Dazai has never experienced it and comes up with a plan to make sure he does. And it works. Sleep Remedy: You like the Buraiha Trio? You'll love this one. Oda has trouble sleeping, Dazai can help with that. Ango has trouble sleeping? Dazai can help with that too. Whats better than holding hands, amirite?? Note: Sheep Song is the companion piece to this, pure Soukoku shenanigans and hand holding. The city where the wind blows: 22 year old Dazai meets 15 year old Oda. After a time traveling accident, Oda is simply trying to find his way back but he crosses paths with the one and only, Osamu Dazai. Note: This one made me cry at the end. Maybe it'll make you cry too so beware. Revise these lines: For Dazai, living might be far more terrifying than dying, but there are people who will catch him when he falls. A BEAST ending rewrite in which Atsushi makes it in time, Dazai says the right things for once, and things aren’t as broken as they seemed. And finally, my personal #1 favorite: A Trifling Distance: A strange ability manages to bring Odasaku back for one day, and for one day only, Dazai is able to bond him. Note: Oh, this one hurt. This one made me cry. You'll need tissues for this one too.

If you haven't read their works, please do so. I'm not just being biased here, the dynamics between the characters are some of the best characterizations I've seen. They don't water down Soukoku, or really, any pairing. They're all canon compliant (mostly?) and are written beautifully.

[suddencolds]

~

[vanillaflowerstuff]

i am losing my mind!! help

[purplebass]

Kell and Lila + Instagram (enlarge for better reading)

[iamsweden]

Welp, I couldn't wait any longer!

Summary: In between each loop, Siffrin remembers a little piece of the life they forgot.