#and probably not explained properly

[gin-juice-tonic]

I deleted that last post because frankly I got embarrassed. But ultimately, I really would like to know if the new journal pages are suspicious on purpose.

Them being fake pages made by Bill is a theory I believe quite heavily in, and in my opinion there's a decent amount of evidence for it. It feels percentage-wise very few people agree. But I guess I just want to say, it's not that I'm just out here grasping at straws to discount a book I didn't like. What we know Ford to be like, what we know Bill to be like, and most importantly what we know journal 3 to be like, those are what the theory is driven by.

When I first looked at TBOB for myself, I got to the second page of the journal pages and the perception that I was reading pages written by Ford himself was shattered instantly. It was not repaired through the entire rest of the pages. When I was sitting around at work later, the next day after I had finished reading, I was struck in my mind by a bit in Ford's final message. "He's making it all up as he goes along." I know people have different readings of the meaning of that line, but for me that's what made me feel like maybe there's something to all this.

Suddenly it wasn't just "This book sounds nothing like Ford..." But rather "Maybe this book sounds nothing like Ford... because it isn't supposed to." And I started realizing stuff. Like "Hey... wasn't Ford drawn super incorrectly here?", or "Could this part really have happened?", or "Does this page make sense to even exist?". "What is it that creates such a strong sense of dissonance to these pages?" I have kept digging into more and more of what felt wrong ever since.

If you read through them without feeling like anything was off, or if there was it wasn't something you felt to be important, it makes sense my theory would not be for you.

But I believe in it.

And if I had my own chance to ask Alex, I would.

(Update: if you haven't seen the additions I made to this post, I ask you read them too)

[cacturnia]

Chili Bean!

[mechanismmadness]

Drumbot Brian regularly takes out his spine and just cleans it with a brush (like those big brushes for,, horses? I think they're for horses)

[stardustamaryllis78]

One thing I was thinking about is how reserved Aaravos was in the past. It seemed for a while that he became very charismatic after his trauma but like I've stated in a previous post, I think a lot of that is masking his true "self".

In season 7, when Aaravos has his guard down around Claudia, I've noticed a lot of the time, he's very quiet and reserved as a person. And as an added bonus, he's very dorky too! He's that perfect mixture 💖 Its just a shame that Startouch baby boi is extremely depressed and on a mission of taking down an unjust order/vengeance because that masking is overshadowing the fact he's a real sweetheart deep down 😭💖🙏

[zero-aves]

Ashswag & LifestealLord (or just Lord as my brain calls them) autism creatures

[pestilentbrood]

VERY long Ramble incoming

honestly now that I'm looking at the auraboa lore situation, I'm just disappointed. There was such POTENTIAL in the idea of the Loop and the horror of a new generation inexplicably being disconnected from it, forcing the newly hatched children into a world totally separate from that perceived by their parents (I mean, hell, they perceive TIME differently!).... but then the writer(s?) just fell ass backwards into Icky Tropes.

I feel like I can see what the idea was, especially with the recent alterations to the Encyclopedia entry... It seems like staff fundamentally understands the true Horror potential here, but... Instead, through the short story, they proposed it through the lens of a condescending outsider character, turning the fears of the older generation into something trivial. And also weirdly demeaning the Auroboa's situation by portraying them as overreacting.

Why... why would you do that? Like, from a storytelling perspective? What's gained from that? Why not embrace the true horror and even Emotional significance of that disruption? Why instead go for "ohh we NEED outsider help we NEED to be saved because we are so helpless and it is so Silly that we, creatures who have never experienced such things, do not know what sleep is"????

And if they WANTED to have a condescending outsider, I feel like they COULD have done that, but it would have to have that character realize the horror at some point. And make it obvious that their attitude towards distressed parents and children facing Eldritch Shit and the Sudden Deconstruction of it was not cool!

(or at the very least be a bit more...idk. Consistent with said outsider character? Juniper just goes from "omg I am so honored that the fascinating creatures of the behemoth have chosen me to speak to" to "oh their wasting my time because they don't know what sleep is. I'd rather be sleeping!! 🙄" like girl... c'mon now. Why are we trivializing it like this. Do you want me as the reader to be invested in their plight or not.)

I mean come on. They're beings connected through one networked hivemind-like system, yet each still maintains a silver of individuality that allows them to move freely throughout the Behemoth that they care for. And they've got an eldritch understanding of time that no other dragon could understand. They're seeing the future, past, and present unfold simultaneously. They're witnessing the birth and death of the world at the same time, and have no way to communicate it to other dragons. The best they can do is maintain their home, and even then, they see its roots spread and decay all at once.

And then the newest generation is suddenly disconnected. An inherent link between parent and child and all dragons in-between, that has existed since the creation of their species, is just suddenly GONE for the newest births. With NO explanation for it. The children have no easy way of communicating with their parents. The children are experiencing time in a way that was not meant for their species. They've forcefully been shoved into a circadian rhythm that they are Not! Built for!

The only way a parent could communicate properly with their child would be when the latter is sleeping, something that is also completely foreign to this species. It would be terrifying for all involved!!!

They are literally experiencing eldritch horror from the perspective of the eldritch being forced into the mortal.

Like why WOULDN'T there be panic!!! And why would that panic be trivialized! Why are we only shown the perspective of an outsider who looks at this situation and goes "Oh the silly tree beasts are being so silly over nothing, it's no big deal!"

That and the way the auraboas talk to outsiders. Like. There was such potential there. Real opportunity to explore how ancient, time-bending beings would communicate to someone who couldn't even BEGIN to understand the intricacies of it.

Instead we got what feels more like baby talk (even described as though they were hatchlings enunciating their first words, which... I dunno man, maybe we don't want to compare them to children like That) and less like... Beings that experience all of time at once. I mean, the hatchlings and the adults speak the exact same way, and that doesn't make any sense given the literal time barrier going on.

I totally get why people thought there was just a language barrier and that auraboas had their own language, thus causing the disjointed speak, and not that it was because They Do Not Experience Time Like We Do. And I feel it would've been far easier to get it across by just... I dunno. Do anything else?? I saw someone on here suggest they speak in the "wrong" tenses, or using multiple tenses in the same sentence, which I think would've been far more clear.

Like, as opposed to "saplings wilt! saplings silent!" just "the saplings will wilt in silence, they've wilted in silence, they are wilting silently." Said all at once like all things are true simultaneously. And if we're going for hivemind, have each auraboa speak in a different tense, all at the same time, and have them switch it up every time. Have our outsider get confused and be like "which is it? are they wilting now, or have they already wilted?" and the cluster of auraboas respond in a cacophony of yes's, no's, and maybe's all at once.

Would've probably gotten across the "alien" vibe they were supposedly going for far better than wide-eyed desperation for an outsider's guidance conveyed through disjointed, in-world described as baby speech.

And also maybe would've had less accidental connotations. Because as it stands, I completely see why people have made the connections to the real world where they have. This doesn't read like eldritch timey-wimey intrigue, or even a respectful look at how younger generations can become detached from their families' cultures over time and the struggles that come with it. It reads like a culture being perceived by an ignorant outsider who (despite supposedly respecting these dragons) scoffs and rolls their eyes because the tree beasts with their funny words are being silly again, and that Hey, isn't it actually a great thing that the children are fundamentally different in all manners now? Because now they can join the rest of us in the "real world."

Yknow. Ick.

(I Personally think it would've been better to have the perspective be one of the Auraboas themselves, especially one of the children, to really understand what was going on here. Give us the full brunt of the mind of a creature experiencing all of time interwoven as one shape. The waters fall and the oceans crash with waves. They've now fallen to drought. The ocean has yet to be born. Caves have been carved out through the waters' currents. And when I break from this timeline, I open my eyes to see a child, the child not yet born, the child born now, the child born yesterday. Why can't I hear it? Why couldn't I hear it? Why won't I ever hear it?)

I dunno. People more qualified than me to speak on this matter have already torn the lore apart, I'm just... dropping my own two cents. Potential got weirdly squandered and we ended up instead with unfortunate implications and tropes that could be connected a liiiittle too awkwardly to irl situations.

*Also, before anyone points out: Yes, I know the hatchlings aren't COMPLETELY detached from the Loop and can join it when they sleep. But the fact is, these thangs never had to sleep before. That wasn't in their species' nature. So that's still weird and foreign for them on both sides. And since the hatchlings now have a circadian rhythm, they can't stay connected to the loop permanently. And also Also, seeing as the previous generations aren't experiencing time linearly, who's to say they even recognize when their child joins the loop? They'll speak with an echo of their child when that child was last asleep ages ago, not knowing that it's not them presently, because there is no 'present' for the older generations.

[off-the-rails-raccoon]

Any clingyduo headcanons? Or any duos in general

I can't think of much of anything currently but I have been thinking of the fact I don't know how to tie a tie so I just went with that lol

Whereas cTommy had cWil to teach him basic necessities like how to tie a tie for a suit, cTubbo only ever had a negligent, drunkard father before he and cTommy met. Hearing this, cTommy took it upon himself to be the one to try and teach cTubbo how to tie a tie always help him when he struggled, which was often.

Eventually it became a routine for them to put on their suits in the same room so cTommy could get help with the small buttons—which he struggled with because of his perpetually shaking hands—and cTubbo would get help with the tie.

This routine abruptly ended both times cTommy got exiled. Luckily cTubbo could pass on not wearing a tie the first time around, being not too high of a position in the office to worry about looking that professional, but the second time he wasn't so fortunate.

When cTubbo would come into office with a loose, messy tie the week after cTommy was exiled everyone assumed it was due to his grief. The next week it was shrugged off as stress. The next month a rumor had started that the president had inherited his supposed father's drinking habits, and it was this rumor specifically that gave cRanboo enough courage to pull cTubbo aside one day and offer help to fix his tie and properly explain how to do it, or at least better than cTommy could.

thats all i got, im too tired to add more or come up with a coherent ending, sorry !!

[quibbs126]

Something that’s been bothering me, in Cyberverse Season 1 we hear about the Decepticon cause being made because Megatron wanted to fight against and change the corruption on Cybertron

But like, we never actually saw any of that in the flashbacks. Best you can say is Starscream having a high opinion of himself due to being a jet (or at least that’s what I think was going on? It was something about Starscream and being a jet), but you can also assume Starscream’s just being an ass, not that this is a systemic issue on Cybertron. Outside of that, everyone seems to have been doing fine, they got along and everyone was vibing and having fun, going to Cube games and chilling at Maccadam’s, going out to do some racing on a vacation to Velocitron

I do suppose we were limited to only seeing things that Bee witnessed himself, but he was there for other important events before war was declared, we could have seen some more evidence that things were bad on Cybertron before the war and why Megatron and Optimus were so intent on changing things

As it is, it feels more like telling and not showing, and I don’t really understand why the Decepticon cause was needed in the first place. Well I mean I do, but that’s because I know the story in other continuities, not because Cyberverse told me

And if I can pivot slightly, I feel like this is an issue in other shows as well. Earthspark barely went into the backstory of the war at all, only making vague allusions like the “lower-class” remark and Orion Pax getting the Matrix (which honestly I don’t remember why he got at all and if it was related to the war). And yes, Earthspark was about moving forward after the war, but also the show wanted to portray Decepticons in a more neutral light, allowing them their second chances to do better after the war. Not to mention Megatron switching sides due to realizing how far he’d strayed from his original cause. I don’t feel like telling the Terrans the original causes of the war would be out of question, it makes all the sense. Also if we’re trying to portray the Decepticons as not being pure evil, explaining the horrible conditions that drove them to starting it would do wonders. Megatron is here, he can tell the Terrans with all the correct info if the Autobots can’t

Prime also has this problem, but I’m willing to give it a lot more leeway because it was part of the Aligned continuity, which was made up of more than just this one show, and Transformers Exodus I’m told went into this backstory a lot more. So okay, it’s explained somewhere. Though personally, I wish we went into this backstory a bit more in the actual show, because all I know from it was that Megatron was a gladiator fighting for change, Orion Pax met him and agreed, then they proposed their ideas for change to the Senate and it caused them to split. I don’t actually know why they were fighting for change. Again, I know Exodus did and it was around at the same time as the show, but we don’t all have access to Exodus. And honestly it might be the reason the other shows don’t go into it much either, despite it being the only one with an excuse

Like I think this annoys me because it feels like the shows expect you to know the general backstory so we don’t have to go into it. But you’re supposed to tell us this, especially when this isn’t like Batman or Superman’s origins where everyone knows the backstory of the war

I know what the backstory is, but not because these shows told me. It’s because Emperor Kumquat told me in a YouTube video where he was explaining the Aligned backstory from Exodus, while making the point that people who only watched Prime wouldn’t know all of this. How was I supposed to know this information if I hadn’t?

And to go back to Cyberverse, I can make excuses for Prime and Earthspark; both were set long after the war started and Prime especially didn’t have much reason to go into it outside of what it did. But not only did Cyberverse have the means to show us corrupt pre-war Cybertron vis Bumblebee’s flashbacks in Season 1, it had at least a little leaning to making the Decepticons more sympathetic. They are still for the most part antagonistic, but it did make the point that Optimus originally agreed with Megatron, we had bots on both sides getting along during peace talks and Windblade being angry at Slipstream’s killer, had most of the main threats not be Megatron’s forces that had the two sides forced to team up, and by the latter half of Season 3, had Megatron be more heroic, with him saving the day from the Quintessons and wielding his own Matrix of Leadership, and working to stop the other him that he knows is coming to reclaim his Matrix. They aren’t at Earthspark Season 1’s level, but they weren’t making the Decepticons pure evil either. So I feel like we should really see what it is they were fighting for originally

[ballcrusher74]

also uggh sorry to rant here rq ( might delete later if my dumbass dont forget ) but tbh this has kinda been bouncing around my mind where I only restrict having oc art / lore / etc on this blog cus dude it's honestly really demotivating to just have it flop really badly on twt.

yas, ik likes / views shouldn't equal worth but I think you gotta understand that getting a fanart piece to 1.7k, and then posting artwork of ur oc and it barely breaking 100 is actually saddening cus it's like. damn. ( only exception seems to be meiro tho but i kiinda wish my other guys also got just as much love )

idk and honestly the most interest I've seen in my guys is on here ( there are some people on twt but most of it is literally just my friends ) maybe I'm being dramatic about this and this is like. dumb and i'm asking for too much out of randos in my computer screen but idk man

fuck my chud life

[puppppppppy]

who up seeing their disorder in a fictional character but feel like its not their place to put a name on it

[seeminglyseph]

If you are concerned about Polites dragging Odysseus down in "Get In The Water," please know that Shades are not the same as Souls. They are not representations of the complete self. Once a person has died, they do not have their whole self anymore. The scene in The Odyssey, where Odysseus is able to have complete conversations with the dead, is due to magic kind of reviving them a little for a bit. There's definitely like... something there for a Shade to be judged and like... for there to be preferable afterlife options, etc.

But, Shade Polites being part of a mob dragging Odysseus down is not a sign that Polites or Anticlea having ill will towards him in any way. It is simply part of the tragedy of the dead that they don't possess the will or motivation of the living, and Polites did not receive proper funeral rites. His Shade cannot be set at peace, and so it repeats his last thoughts endlessly and reaches out without a mind towards things it vaguely recognizes without conscious intent to cause harm.

I think it's implied Anticlea walked into the sea at the sight of what seemed to be her son dying in a storm just off the cost of Ithica which is why she also did not have a body that could have appropriate funeral rites performed but I could be incorrect.

Funeral rites are really important for this reason, Shades that wander but can't pass on can be... just. Passively fucked up. It also fades over time. It's the stuff haunting are made out of.

[nihilean]

we need to remake that queercoded characters: Gabriel vs Miles edgeworth poll but have Gabriel actually be fucking described properly and WHY he's so queercoded instead of the absolute joke of a description he got against miles fucking "teehee they're kissing and we're soooooo going to hell for this teeheehee" capcom edgeworth who somehow did get a good and exhaustive description (actually anything is better than a description that lasts three mobile phone app lines tops where half of it is a jokey epression)

[ujunxverse]

i got back from seeing ateez yesterday and i think my pre frontal cortex is developing as we speak cos tell me why i felt so disgusted abt writing yn fics like these men are real people rpf suddenly became so weird to me…..

[maxaroniiiii]

echoes of wisdom takes place in the downfall timeline the maps and stuff line up

the zelda team has just added stuff like gerudo and gorons from previous games that werent in alttp because they werent really a thing in zelda yet and theyre probably expected and stuff

[arolesbianism]

I wanna take a crack at making some fake screenshot graphics for my Sif Odile duo loopers au but I do not feel confident enough in my ability to mimic isat's art style and I also have a crippling fear of drawing backgrounds

[infizero]

i cant phrase this well but infinity train book 2 is for the aroace transgenders. lake transgenderism is obvious but nothing in my life has screamed to me queerplatonicism as much as lake and jesse like their qpr readings are off the fucking charts