#both of which are resolved

[lucabyte]

i feel like people are sleeping on the occam's razor situation of how buckwild it is to outright accuse a guy of being a clone of your friend even if you DO have a lot of circumstantial evidence. there's other options is what im saying. they could just be like. a guy. that's a sensible deduction. you should explore that deduction. ignore my shirt that reads I <3 RED HERRINGS.

i still think odile has the correct theory on lock but she's smart enough to know it needs like... a real smoking gun to be able to bring it up without sounding insane.

anyway. (mirabelle voice) i know its rude to speculate but has anyone else noticed the grieving? they seem to be grieving. does anyone have any thoughts on the grieving? i have some thoughts on the grieving.

[felassan]

What kind of spirit do you think Felassan waz?

Swag

[bixels]

Be honest, what are your thoughts on appledash? Do you hate it or its more of not a big deal

Not a big deal to me. I like it, I see all the appeals, I just personally like Rarijack more.

[nenoname]

stan twins the canon cptsd brothers i will always think about all your unaddressed issues that would make perfect plot fuel for your spinoff

and also the whole 'stan getting that poem by bill via a website which contrasts with bill getting one from the axolotl via a website' foreshadowing thing

like idk i would love something like su future but like more optimistic, aka not an accumulated breakdown that has to be mostly resolved off screen at the end :/// but something thats being kinda addressed throughout? (although would love to see one of them turn into a monster thats always fun lol)

stan having severe issues from his dad and those years of being homeless that we keep on getting more info on but never really getting confronted on (the drifter catalogue and tijuana incident...), him being completely alone for like twenty years when running the shack before soos comes along to the point that 1998 is noted as his low point, and him not really learning about bill+what he did to ford until ages after he killed him if he ever did get the full context

while i think amnesia and everyone seeing him as a hero actually helped with stan's 'i'm a worse version of my brother' thing its still a lingering issue too and we now got him being insecure over his own hands

ford being immediately thrown from 'being tortured by bill' to 'being stuck in the multiverse and being chased by bounty hunters constantly', him fully expecting himself to die when destroying bill, and him only now being safe for the first time in 30 years ....relatively safe, he's still in constant danger because of course he is

idk in the end the series wants them to be happy and they deserve it, its why i wasn't too worried about the book being like 'ooh bill is back!! and the book is haunting ford' thing cos i knew they'll be ok

[fire-on-fuel]

a less talked about contextualization for why the null arcs do more interpersonally damaging things like stalking and disrespecting privacy to people they care about is something I tentatively call fulfilled paranoia thinking. essentially when you expect so completely for the other person to be doing the same, planning to do the same, or likely to do the same under pressure that it doesn't cross your mind at all that what you're doing is crossing any lines or a new problem that you're the one introducing. sure obsessive urges, anxiety, posessiveness can all provide the motivations for follow through, but I get the feeling for the nulls it's more often pattern/habit based. and growing up as black ops spies and objectified units with no rights and a very tight knit family in-group all at the same time does a terrible job at not reinforcing that headspace into a default

[aelswiths]

Aelswith x Alfred + Hand Holding (& killing me 😭😭🥺🥺)

[chiropteracupola]

You had to have the last word, last night / You know what everything's about / You had to have a white hot spotlight / You had to be a big shot, last night!

[sleepyvib-es]

idk man the thing about the series post pjo is that it wants you to be aware of all the fucked up traumatic childhoods and systematic abuse all the characters experience but it doesn't want you to be too aware to the point that you're hung up on it and are calling for fundamental changes to the system.

if you dare call out all these issues the response you usually get is "these books are for kids :) what did you expect" "what you want out of it won't happen because this is children's media" .. but like dude look at all the heavy topics we're dealing with here lol. my bad for wanting all these issues acknowledged to the point where there's genuine resolve for these characters

[mohntilyet]

i’m having illario dellamorte thoughts. what if instead of knowingly betraying lucanis he did it like, unknowingly. idk how this would work but i’m intrigued by what it gives us. illario ‘i accidentally caused my cousin’s death & can never tell anyone’ dellamorte. genuinely grieving. blaming himself. does he take advantage of the year before lucanis comes back?? does caterina still ignore him the whole time?? how different is the canon plotline once rook shows up with lucanis post-rescue…..

anyways i would love your thoughts!!

95% of what i do with illario operates on the idea that he is frighteningly competent so you can see why the way the crows plotline plays out in the game might frustrate me. it’s also this reason why i don’t actually think too much about “illario got lucanis killed, but didn’t mean to do it”, because i like the idea that everything illario does in his life is planned to the second and that he’s too well trained to mess up this badly, if that makes sense. with that being said. 5% of my brain power does sometimes go towards “and what if he just sucked actually” and it was a theory i enjoyed before the game even released. so i have in fact been thinking about this anyway LOL . maybe he tries to honeypot zara, accidentally actually reveals lucanis’ next assassination job, and zara gets rid of him as a ‘gift’. illario is horrified and that gets even worse when lucanis’ body shows up, and he assumes this must be because he spurned zara by leaving her and not having the guts to seize power.

i think we could make his inferiority complex worse. illario’s worst fear confirmed: he is as worthless as his grandmother believes he is, botching something so badly that he accidentally sentences his cousin to death when what he wanted was lucanis just… out of the way for a bit (maybe while he kills caterina. LOL. i still think his resentment of caterina trumps his jealousy for lucanis though those two things are very intertwined its hard for him to differentiate them). so incapable that he got the only person who actually supports him killed, and now he’s dreading the idea of becoming first talon. he doesn’t want first talon without lucanis backing him, and now the only person left is caterina which is suffocating and makes him even unhappier. at least he hadn’t lived through her alone, and now through consequences of his own decisions, illario has no choice but to.

i think that would affect his plans for talon because of how horribly he’d fucked up, and tries to mask it because if he suddenly actually doesn’t want to be talon that would be a red flag for everyone. lucanis coming back would delight him (talon is within his sights again if lucanis comes back!) and freak him out. i think the plotline would actually be pretty similar because of this freak out, so he still shows up to zara’s fight to cover his tracks. lucanis can never know, caterina can never know, because what little faith they have in him will be lost. like he committed fratricide and didn’t even MEAN to😭 ...corpse whispering still happens, and zara is like “ohhh that coward. he can never finish what he started, can he?” + “elaborate.” + “i gave him what he most wanted in the world and instead of being grateful, he ran away.” so lucanis finds out about what happened but feels a mix of “illario, you idiot” + pity because turns out he didn’t even mean for it to happen, and keeps his secret for now, otherwise he’d probably have to kill him.

i also think not meaning to kill lucanis would sour his feelings towards the venatori, who are a reminder of how badly he failed, so the alliance wouldn’t happen. this does mean if the story goes on as it does in canon, he has to take desperate measures another way and kidnap caterina for some other reason but i can’t think of why….. maybe a thing where illario is like “ok. lucanis is distracted by the elven gods. this time i just have to kill nonna for real and then nothing is in my way” and recruits disgraced houses or houses that don’t like caterina to do so? not sure tbh but i don’t believe caterina made it so far without making enemies lol. this would happen post bloodbath + corpse whispering— lucanis leaves his cousin unchecked because while he knows illario didn’t mean for him to die, he has no idea how far he would go to have caterina dead. teia could find out about this and send word to foil the kidnapping and assassination attempt

so ‘murder of crows’ is still about saving caterina, the illario-lucanis fight still happens, but it’s a little more hesitant and lots of “why won’t you just let me kill her? i’m doing this for the both of us”. he’s had to live with being the un-favorite, but never would have thought lucanis would actually pick caterina if it came down to it. with all of his missteps here, i think the final decision (and i think it should be like this in canon anyway) would be to imprison illario or kill him. imprisoning him is just a lot of “i can’t kill illario as much as he couldn’t kill me”, vs killing him as is expected from him as talon, and what he knew he would have to do after finding out about illario's failures. unlike canon, where illario is actually meaning to kill him and can be seen as a 'good crow' despite the sloppiness, here he's like. just bad at everything. the allied traitor houses that went against caterina would also have to be imprisoned or killed. no happy ending at all here, and lucanis still becomes first talon. now that i’ve written it out this is actually probably the worst ending LOL

the above sticks a lot to what is canon to the game (plot points, choices, etc) and i didn’t go very far away from it so it's like canon 3 inches to the left. tho my thoughts on this are not fleshed out* because i think illario works better as an antagonist character that sets things in motion !! not necessarily the villain in a cain-abel story, but a character who opposes lucanis while still not wanting to hurt him. that kind of discipline where he finds a way to get what he wants (first talon) without compromising what he also cares for (family) is so much more fun for me than a man who apparently just loses it and decides to enact a bad plan to get rid of his cousin. if he waited 20+ years to become talon i think he’d be more careful when it came down to it. if i had my way illario would be playing insane 5d chess to rival solas (insert black sails “i once thought that to lead, to be liked was just as good as feared. and that may very well be true. but to be both liked and feared all at once, is an entirely different state of being.”)

[piecanl]

Do you think Tubbo would recognize the path Bad is going down, because it's one he's already walked down on?

This self-destructive behavior coming from a broken heart?

He hasn't seen Bad at his best, before the eggs got kidnapped. He's seen him a victim to grief more than a father. It's why the blue staining Bad's being isn't out of the ordinary.

But suddenly he starts carrying flowers to remind him of the love he lost, suddenly the void calls out his name even louder and suddenly Tubbo sees himself in the older demon.

And it's scary, because suddenly he sees what he has become, how it affects others.

And for the first time of many, he sees Bad walk down a road he's paved. For the first time of many, Bad is the one repeating Tubbo's mistakes.

[jynxedshapeshifter]

i am very aware that this is probably like asking who your favorite kid is but i'm asking anyway

[szilverer]

unfortunately, it was inevitable for my ghostie to marry their brainwashed stalker, but they're still making it a punishment for him.

(ya might be wondering damn what makes someone inflict poor edward on themself? well, to put it simply. you take what you get)

for starters, this ⬇ was the first dream i came across after my 8 year hiatus.

so i was like, oh, ok. love? what love?

guess chasing love is a main theme for them now. good luck rei. you woke up alone, and you have no family whatsoever. you certainly don't care about that right now, but you will, your ambition will make sure of that.

cue a string of unsuccessful crushes/love interests that were either using them, only interested on something they owned, or just. straight up made their heart skip several beats and then left. (i was also focusing on LF so hard i skipped on acquaintances, and didnt start/continue MYN and other storylines that could've given them possible npc friends/platonic interests. i also thought the bewildering procession needed 125 base persuasive, which i didnt have at the time)

i feel like if they had one (1) meaningful connection that wasn't scheduled to move on without them by the end of the ambition, if there was one (1!!) person they felt would consider sticking around by their side. edward would be deadward. 100%.

but they didn't

they didn't have anyone.

this blond weirdo was the only person that would stay by their side no matter what, at least for a while, and that was only because he had no actual choice in the matter.

this marriage represents reisz giving up on chasing love. pure and simple. after months of having people to come back to they'd be left with nothing. truth or not, this was the mindspace they were in. they were just. so tired

so yeah how could they possibly not take this opportunity to assure there would be at least someone out there waiting for them. that might as well have been the only chance they'd ever get to walk down an aisle anyway.

[skull-pun]

These last four pages hit like crack in the 80s

[slightlytoastedbagel]

my brain can't make sense of it rn but please take my hand and ponder the differences between the family structure of the Shiraishi household compared to the rest of vbs.

[aroaessidhe]

2025 reads / storygraph

Love Points To You

YA contemporary coming of age

an artist struggling to get used to the idea of moving in with her new stepmother & stepsister can't wait to go away to art school

when her ipad is destroyed, her rich classmate offers to buy her a replacement in exchange for concept art for an otome game she’s developing, and as they work on the game, they start to fall for each other

while she tries to get used to her new family situation, and the fact that her parents seem to be more invested in her stepsister’s future while ignoring hers

bi ace MC, bi demi LI

[cloudbends]

I was planning on writing my thoughts in the tags about the episode after watching it subbed.... But honestly..... There's just. So much. I love pokemon horizons so much