#but I mean if not there no other explanation for her not having any relatives on eart cause I think she’s alien and the doctor picked her up

[faretheeoscar]

OMG NO BUT YOU ARE SO RIGHT

I NEED ANSWERS RIGHT NOW

Mrs Flood yeah? You know what causes floods? Rain. You know what rain is an anagram for? Rani.

(also someone picked up the master in the toy maker's tooth. You know who's worked with the master in the past? Rani.)

[malachitezmeyka]

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t 12 when I came up with Suiren and Midori cause why the fuck do both of them have Japanese names

[not-freyja]

New Zelda Game!

Okay cool, cool cool cool cool, I am calm, I am so fucking calm. Looks like Nintendo is staying true to their word that Wild is not getting another game, so now the questions are, what Link is this, where are we in the Timeline, and what information about the game itself can we pick out of these crumbs?

Whose Zelda is it anyway?

So two options:

New boy.

Legend. It’s fucking Legend again sucks to suck bro

Case for new Link and Zelda:

Less messy for the Lore

That’s it, that is the only argument

Case for Leggy boy and Fable:

LA animation style! While it can be fun to bring back older styles of animation for nostalgia/artistic reasons, that seems like a poor choice for *LOZ* games, which are always on the edge of what a game can do. Moving “backwards,” so to speak, in any aspect, would be a disservice to the franchise. However, doing it to maintain consistency for a particular character, and to use the animation style to make sure the audience knows this is the same character from LA is a very simple but effective tactic.

The map! So that shot was so BOTW and so fun, but the view we got wasn’t just recognizable as “Hyrule,” is was, down to the relative heights on the mountain cliffs against each other, the map from ALTTP/ALBW. Nintendo has never repeated a map without it being the same Link. So! Checkmate motherfuckers.

The character designs. That… that was just Legend and Fable, come on. Look at the dress. Every Zelda has a slightly different costume design, and that was hers. Look at Link. Baby boy!

I want this. Let me have it.

Timeline positioning

Okay so if we assume that this is in fact Legend, the next question becomes, “When is it?” Leggy boy currently has 5 games that are canonically his. (Triforce Heroes could be a random other Link, so while we like to say 6 we can’t *prove it.*) So. Let’s break it down.

ALTTP: canonically his first game, can’t be before this one.

Oracles: canonically happen after ALTTP, and he is very much still a child in here.

LA: the game this one is artistically modeled after. Narratively this fits nicely right after Oracles, and in the canon timeline, fits between Oracles and ALBW, so I think a whole new game being crowbarred prior to this one would be… not great for the narrative.

ALBW: This is trickier. No canon time between LA and ALBW is given, it could be a week, it could be years. It is entirely possible that Echoes of Wisdom occurs prior to ALBW, which would make it a direct sequel to LA, which makes the art style make even more sense. It could also be after?

…hang on a fucking minute, lets get the fucking map.

Left, ALTTP. Right, ALBW

Basically the same map! Duh, it’s the same Hyrule. But. BUT. Bottom right, in the lake. Do you see that?!

ALTTP: no log bridge. ALBW: Log bridge. Now, let’s look at the pretty picture from the EOW trailer.

NO FUCKING LOG BRIDGE!

This is before ALBW. Therefore, the game order for The Hero of Legend is

ALTTP, OOS, OOA, LA, EOW, ALBW, TH(maybe)

*cue manic laughter*

Lore Implications

Ganon.

There being a Ganon at all actually has me pointing my finger at the Oracle games and screaming. The TL;DR in those is that there was a plot to resurrect Ganon, each game Twinrova gets closer, but Link stops them. Now, there were also supposed to be three of those games, which means that it is entirely possible that the third unseen Oracle plot—please Nintendo let Link and Farore hang out, I am on my knees barking like a dog—could have resulted in his resurrection. This is the only explanation I have that doesn’t break the Lore or involve Time Shenanigans.

Also, Link does KO the bitch in that opening scene in the trailer. His presence is either just that—a set-up plot point—or him and Link are currently duking it out in the hole. Fun!

Link and Zelda

Now this game is going to put their relationship in the front in the “I have to save them because I love them” way that we usually see from Link’s POV.

Getting it from Zelda’s POV is going to be very interesting. We might be getting a look into her head, into her feelings and thoughts about the whole ordeal of the Legend itself. I hope so. But also, this isn’t just Link and Zelda, this is *Fable and Legend* specifically. The two that were meant to be be siblings but the dialogue that established them as such was cut from the final version of ALTTP. So. This game has the possibility to do three things

Canonize the Prince Legend thing, like they were going to do in the nineties.

Not address the topic at all, leave it nebulous.

Zelink.

None of these are bad choices, but option two is definitely the safest. Both options one and three will cause an uproar from part of the fan base. I can already see the ship wars. Please don’t do this people. Please.

The Holes 🕳️

What are they? Where did they come from? Ganon’s Trident Where do they go? No actually, where do they go? The Dark World (doesn’t make sense in the Lore)? Lorule (that would be a choice)? The Twilight Realm (I am convinced that Lorule and the Twilight Realm are the same place actually and you cannot change my mind)? Some new never seen before parallel dimension? A non-place, like a gap between realities (sexiest option)? I have no idea!

Fun!

That fucking “Fairy”

Tri? Don’t trust it. Will not trust it. Never trust that a companion in a LOZ game is what they first appear to be. Who does Nintendo take me for? A fucking amateur?!

Anyway, I am about 40% convinced that’s Link. I have evidence, but it is circumstantial.

I AM HANDLING THIS NORMALLY.

[enteringdullsville]

I got bored so I made a thing. Modern Nick AU featuring a handful of the child protagonists, a chibified SpongeBob being their chaperone? A summer camp setting, perhaps? With everyone save for Danny, Jenny, and Dora having their ages fudged to be closer?

Sure, why not? From left to right:

Sanjay Patel

He may or may not have snuck Craig into his cabin, and Craig may or may not have started charging people for “sage advice from the talking snake”

Sanjay’s a relatively good kid but kind of a hellion. Manny spends much of his early life in a moral dilemma. Having them be partners seemed like a logical decision

His bowling pin head was really hard to adapt to my usual style without utterly mangling his face, but I think I did alright

Manny Rivera

He’s wearing the boots and scarf from his El Tigre costume

Bessie thinks he’s the coolest thing, but his and Danny’s egos clash almost immediately

This presumably takes place after he’s settled on heroism, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a troublemaker

April O’Neil

She’s quite possibly the only person getting any actual work done in camp

She’s ostensibly the least insane person in the group, but she’s prone to egging on the others’ antics and starting bets on how much things will escalate

Her age has been dropped a couple of years, so she’s often with Lincoln foiling Dora’s whole escape artist routine

Tommy Pickles

Still on his filmmaker career from All Grown Up! He has a lot of footage of a lot of things in a lot of places

Normally mild mannered and agreeable, but being given “strict orders” instantly makes his good mood vanish

His mind tends to wander when he’s bored, and it has no regard for its curfew

Lincoln Loud

He’s a weeb canonically, so he’s been given a vaguely animesque appearance

Whatever camp this takes place at, I can guarantee at least one of his sisters had been there prior. Since most of the characters here are the Everyman type, Linc’s cunning and trickster attributes are played up a bit

Has no regard for the fourth wall. Tommy has no clue what he’s on about and thinks he’s insane

Aang (Just Aang)

Whether or not he can bend is based purely on what’s funniest at the moment, especially since he and Dib make it impossible for this to be canon compliant

He’s definitely living in an AU with a less horrific backstory. Less responsibilities, less issues

Wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he’d definitely give a wasp a warning shot if it was being a jerk

Danny Fenton

Danny, and only Danny, is actually a little older here. He and Jenny are the counselors. Lucky them.

Doesn’t even bother with the secret identity since Bob’s the only one dense enough to not connect the dots

Being able to turn invisible is really helpful when Dib has questions he doesn’t feel like answering

Jimmy Neutron

There he is, officer. That one’s the ringleader

Aang’s existence is a constant source of frustration for him since he can’t come up with a scientific explanation for all…that

He’s right off the heels of Nicktoons Unite and is wondering when and why SB became so serious

SpongeBob SquarePants

The only adult we see at the camp for some reason, and the only nonhuman besides Jenny

I messed up his scaling, he was supposed to be small enough to fit in someone’s hand, hence his overly simplified design. That’s the height he is in-universe

Ironically and disproportionately strong. Not Jenny’s level, but about as strong as he is in Unite…without being adjusted for size. In other words, he can easily pick up and throw the campers like rag dolls

Jenny Wakeman

The only nonhuman kid at camp, as well as the oldest/youngest at 16/5

She’s the one thing stopping land bears from tearing the camp apart

She’s justifiably a little wary since she’s not exactly nature proof, but all the kids think she’s the coolest thing

Timmy Turner

A closer look at him reveals three familiar looking trinkets shaped like a wand, wings, and a floaty crowny thing

He doesn’t need magic, anyway. He’ll make everything possibly go wrong his own way

He and Bessie butt heads almost immediately; Timmy’s fine with one hypercompetent overachieving Girl Scout in his life, but he does not need another

Ginger Foutley

Usually found with fellow artsy types Rudy and Lincoln

Riddled with anxieties and restless leg syndrome. She comes of as brooding, but she’s just introspective

Since April’s a menace, she’s the actual least insane camper

Eliza Thornberry

It took her a bit to realize SpongeBob could actually talk to begin with and that everyone else didn’t have the same power as her. In fact, there’s a non-zero chance there are a bunch of animals from assorted Nick shows that are screaming in the background constantly and it’s messing with her head

I gave her just the one braid to make her distinct from the other Elizabeth in the cast

She slips in and out of her father’s mannerisms. SMASHING!

Rudy Tabootie

Mysteriously disappears to parts unknown it’stheChalkZone every now and then when he needs to blow off some steam

I find it funny how stylized I made everyone else while Rudy’s just slightly taller

SpongeBob sees a lot of himself in the kid. Rudy doesn’t know how to feel about that

Dora Marquez

Y’know, I added her as a joke, and she immediately became my favorite

She’s the youngest kid at her canon age of seven, so she’s coddled by everyone else. She HATES it, given that she’s been adventuring on her own for the longest time, so she’s a lot more cynical than usual. Easily the biggest departure from the norm

Constantly tries to escape supervision in favor of wandering the wilderness, but the talking cheese won’t let her

Arnold Shortman

He doesn’t know how he ended up as the “cool guy”, but he’s not gonna fight it

Appears detached and aloof, but he’s more likely just dissociating

Always seems to know what he’s doing to the point of parody. As smart as he is, I must reiterate he’s just improvising

Dib Membrane

Eliza, Rudy, and especially Timmy aren’t too keen on hanging around him for very obvious reasons

The fact he’s with people who are reasonably sane this time around means he’s in much better spirits. Lincoln’s probably his best friend at the camp, although Dib’s still a loner

He and Jimmy always run the risk of killing each other if they talk for more than two minutes at a time due to differing views on magic

Bessie Higgenbottom

The kid most likely to actually listen to the inane drivel that comes out of SpongeBob’s mouth

Since she’s still working on the whole Mighty Bee thing, she’s all over Manny, Danny, and Janny

There are very few campers that aren’t at least a little intimidated by her

There were a few other characters I wanted to add like Nate Wright (Big Nate), Annie Bramley (It’s Pony), Mikey Munroe (Bunsen is a Beast), but I scrapped them for space.

I elected to only use one character per series, causing me to drop Korra, Sheen Estevez, Ronnie Anne Santiago, and Hazel Wells for being spinoff characters (especially since Sheen and Ronnie Anne were around before getting their own shows). It also forced me to remove Fanboy and Chum Chum from my initial plan entirely.

I additionally wanted to keep SB as the only organic nonhuman character due to the inherent absurdity of having him as the sole adult figure, which is why Dib and April represent their series rather than Zim or a Ninja Turtle and why I chose not to use Harvey Beaks.

[sol-iscus]

Ambessa.......that's another one that felt personal. Probably because my own mom is kinda like Ambessa in her own right (that rigidity and inability to see past the ultimate endgame). But I really wanted her and Mel to.........not necessarily reconcile, but come to an understanding of each other. They kinda started that a bit in season 1 when Mel confronted her, but then it just fizzled out.

Also,you mean to tell me that Ambessa never actually went looking for Mel herself at any point during her disappearance? She couldn't send someone to find her if she couldn't do it herself? The same Ambessa that said she would set the world ablaze to protect her family? Her son got killed. I would hope she would be a bit more concerned about her last and only child being missing without an explanation or trace.

Then Mel comes back and Ambessa doesn't seem particularly phased by that either. If my kid rolled up mid-battle, after being missing for how long, with powers that I know she didn't have before, I would have the world of questions to ask. Especially if I knew she was more or less an active target for kidnapping because of my own fuckery.

Then the way she went out.........I'm shaking,I'm so mad. It felt like such a cop-out. If she was a casualty of the war she started, it would be ironic but poetic. Or if she and Mel had an actual one vs one fight, it could be very master vs student teas. But the fact that she was essentially lobotomized by LeBlanc before her death.......😬. Don't love the real life implications of that either.

(Something,something, mothers and daughters as wretched mirrors of each other.)

I wholeheartedly agree. I’m also extremely dissatisfied with the way Mel’s arc was handled and everything that you described between Mel and Ambessa, so ima complain about it again.

They gave her a man who was hardly ever there for her. His first reaction to see Mel again was not relief that she was still alive and (relatively) okay. No, it was anger and accusations thrown at her under the assumption she could have saved Viktor when nobody knew Jinx was going to blow up the council. Comforting Mel was a second thought in Jayce’s mind, never first.

Her friend Elora is dead, and seemed to be her only friend as well.

Her mom is now dead, and being killed by her daughter was an absolutely foul way for Ambessa to go out.

When is Mel allowed to have a full breakdown and cry after all she went through? Not just shed a few tears, but fully unleash everything she has felt. Jayce had Mel’s lap to lay on whenever he needed her, but who does Mel have at the end of the day? Absolutely nobody. Nothing but painful memories.

A strong, gorgeous black woman cleaning up everyone else’s mess, being moral support, and helping lead Piltover. She deserved more than a few minutes of shedding tears, she deserved to rage.

[ldrfanatic]

Slytherin Boys as Tortured Poets Department Songs

*in perspective of their relationship with you AND their personality. and why*

which ts album should i do next?

(mattheo riddle, draco malfoy, theo nott lorenzo berkshire)

slytherin boys masterlist works

mattheo riddle as Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?

best lyric(s) - "I want to snarl and show you Just how disturbed this has made me. You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me." + "I was tame, I was gentle till the circus life made me mean. Don't you worry folks we took out all her teeth." + "That I'm fearsome and I'm wretched and I'm wrong."

explanation - Aside from the obvious reasons, I feel like it's not really talked about how damaging it would be to have Voldemort as your father. (or brother or any relative for that matter). To me, this song screams the rage of a person who's been judged their whole life for being a bad person, so they became a bad person. (I am what I am cause you trained me). Other students, most wizards, professors even, all look at mattheo like he's a bomb that's waiting to explode and it makes him really sad when he's a kid, but then when he grows up it just makes him angry. They should be afraid.

mattheo w/his partner - Now, with a partner, I firmly believe that he'd be closer to them than anyone. His partner would be the first person that actually tried to understand him and understand why he's as angry as he is all the time. mattheo really opens up to his partner and tells them about bouncing around orphanages after his mother got thrown into Azkaban for a few years and then going to live with the Malfoys where draco's father treated him like a bad seed that was poisoning his son even though he was doing that to draco himself. so mattheo really treasures the bond he has with his partner because they're the only ones that understand him and understand that he never wanted to become the dark lord's son, he just wanted to be mattheo but the world has made that impossible for him.

draco malfoy as The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

best lyric(s) - "I would've died for you sins, instead I just died inside. And you deserve prison but you won't get time." + "And in plain sight you hid but you are what you did. And I'll forget you but I'll never forgive."

explanation - later in life draco feels completely betrayed by his father. he really admired him and looked up to him as a kid (his parents made sure that he knew how important it was to be a Malfoy), but his father abused that admiration and now draco resents allowing him to manipulate him like that. draco felt incredibly robbed that his father didn't get sent to prison following the battle of hogwarts. he didn't wish to cause his mother any hardship, but secretly he was hoping that the defeat of voldemort would be his golden ticket to finally escape his father's dark shadow. also, i like to think that after harry potter defeated voldemort, draco never spoke to his father ever again. he still exchanges the occasional owl with his mother but he doesn't ever want to see his father again.

draco w/ his partner - draco's partner is someone who he can break down with. after years of being forced to mask his emotions under a cool facade, he's able to fall apart in his partner's arms and know that they won't judge him. they're one of only a few people that know that draco isn't just upset with his father because of his actions. he was upset because he felt like he'd been lied to his entire life and just wanted an explanation. later in life, draco feels incredibly self conscious about a lot of his earlier 'achievements' and if his father only doted on him as a child because he was raising him to be the dark lord's lackey. ultimately, draco really appreciates having someone to confide in, and the upbringing from his parents really makes him appreciate the way that you care for him without any strings or conditions attached.

theodore nott as Florida!!!

best lyric(s) - "So you pack your life away, Just to wait out the shitstorm." + "barricaded in the bathroom with a bottle of wine, well me and my ghosts we had a hell of a time." + "Little did you know your home's really only the town where you'll get arrested."

explanation - after the death of his mother, theo is obviously shaken up. he's actually quite fucked up for pretty much forever. he tries to pack all of his emotions inside and drown them out with drugs and alcohol. when he gets drunk, he doesn't have to deal with his mother not being here anymore. that's why it's not all that surprising when he starts hanging around with the children of death eaters. it is a surprise to him however when he returns to italy to visit his grandmother and she wants nothing to do with him.

theo w/his partner - theo and his partner give enemies to lovers (wild since I dont think i've ever written theo like that) but i firmly believe that he hates his partner in the beginning. why? theo's partner reminds him of his mother. their personality, their soft smile. it's all very reminiscent of his mother and he fucking hates it. At first. He doesn't like the way that being around you brings out the old theo. he doesn't want to lose you in fear that it'll feel like losing his mom all over again. but when theo finally does give into his feelings for you, he starts to cherish the ways that you remind him of his mother (and of course the ways that you don't). he often tells you about how he and his mother dreamed of escaping his father but were never able to.

lorenzo berskhire as Fortnight

best lyric(s) - "And for a fortnight there, we were forever, run into you sometimes, ask about the weather" + "and I love you, it's ruining my life" + "thought of calling you, but you won't pick up"

explanation - lorenzo spends his whole life desperately trying to escape his family. (i think he'd actually be one of the slytherins that fought against the death eaters in the battle of hogwarts). i think that lorenzo would have run away from home multiple times as a child just trying to escape and get some sense of normalcy. but i don't think that it ever would've lasted any longer than a day or two at most before he was found and brought back home (where his uncle was all too happy to try and beat lessons into him). because of this though, lorenzo would be the kind of person who's always trying to protect others.

lorenzo w/ his partner - because lorenzo is always trying to protect you and knows that his family would ruin you just to get at his emotions, when the death eaters take control of the ministry, he breaks up with you. he actually stays away from you for years following the war as well. all he has are his memories of his brief but happy moments with you. his love for you haunts him for this entire time. and then, he runs into you one day in diagon alley. it's a little awkward at first but the two of you actually rekindle the love that you once had and this time, he's all in.

---

4.23.24

wc 1.2k

---

taglist

@moonlightreader649 @svt-dk97 @thatdammchickennugget @helendeath @fandom-life-12 @bouquetolegoflowers @maryvibess

[demodraws0606]

TW/ Slightly heated (no hate to those i'm talking about, i just need to rant about it a little) (also it's definitely just me ranting about a drawing of a character in a fanganronpa keep that in mind LOL)

I'll be honest, people who are handwaving Whit's creepy expression as just "oh he's just finally caring" slightly...irk me ?

It feels on the same level as people who said back then that the tape disappearing was just an "animation error".

The story makes it so clear at every turn to not have Whit express anything towards the execution or the deaths around him. If this was him being unable to save Levi and having to watch him die...then why does he react nonchalant to the execution ?

In fact Whit's reaction to Min's execution more so sounds like Whit is trying to have a normal reaction and failing but that's like another thing.

The way his sprite is drawn as well just is not like other "breakdown sprites" we've seen, like it's straight up factual, his eyes just straight up are drawn similarly to David and Xander's sprites (I checked there aren't other expressions that depicts it). He also doesn't sweat which is very common for a lot of stressed sprite.

And i'm not even talking about his arm suspiciously being behind his back.

We KNOW sprites end up foreshadowing things in the future, we quite literally saw it with Arei with her reaction to the murder secret.

The idea of Whit just being stressed just is not in character with what has been shown of Whit's character thus far and it doesn't fit the expression that's drawn on him or the suspicious hand behind his back.

"You're just thinking too hard about it" "It's not that complicated" Then why am I fan of DRDT at all, like why am I a fan of a fan series based on a MURDER MYSTERY series if everything can just be handwaved by the magic words that are "you're just thinking too hard about it !".

Just because an explanation is simpler doesn't mean it's more accurate or more likely to happen, people who make more complex theories aren't "overthinking" things they are simply trying to make a prediction that works unlike the more simple interpretations that are riddled by contradictions.

I've technically fallen victims of "overthinking" at times like my Hu theories however Ace being the culprit answered a lot of my issues with mostly just one exception that is relatively minor in context of everything. Ace being the culprit also still was given very nice foreshadowing and hints to munch on.

The point of red herrings is that they surprise you with more fitting and compelling twists. Brushing off Whit's entire suspicious behavior as a red herring is just lazy analysis because I could do that with pretty much any theory ever. Sure Whit could be a mastermind herring however his behavior itself can't be a red herring, he has something going on and that's what's setup, what that will be will only be discovered later on.

I made my fair share of very wild theories but this isn't about Mastermind Whit or Timeloop Whit, this is about Whit's character and how he's been written thus far. People are trying too hard to woobify him into the "happy go lucky character actually is secretly sad" even though DRDT has made sure to often counterarc very overdone tropes (Nico for exemple).

Like my girl Eden was given more suspicion for WAY LESS.

[goodqueenaly]

Not to be too "true crime" about, but it you think Jaehaera Targaryen was actually murderer and if what she had survived her fall?

Spoiler alert: it was Unwin Peake.

I don’t find any of the alternative explanations (other than the rather obvious one above) for Jaehaera’s death very convincing. While Jaehaera was certainly a very traumatized child, the proffered explanations as to why she would have chosen that moment to end her life seem rather thin: at no other point does Jaehaera appear to express sympathy for Rhaena (such that she would be so traumatized at the news of the latter's miscarriage), or jealousy of Baela (over the latter’s continued pregnancy), and the idea that Jaehaera “loved the king with all her heart” and mourned that he “paid her no mind” and “showed her no affection” appears at odds with the queen who was “loath to leave her chambers” where she “had seemed content … with her maids and ladies, her kittens and her dolls”. Likewise, Gyldayn himself acknowledges that while rumors abounded blaming the king, or Cassandra Baratheon, or one or more of the queen’s servants for her death, “[w]ith hindsight, we can say for a fair certainty that none of these played any role in” Jaehaera’s death. This is not, I think, an inaccurate take from Gyldayn either. Aegon was definitely withdrawn and gloomy, but he was certainly no child sadist as young Maegor the Cruel had been, and his lack of interest in either his queen or partisan vengeance argues against any role he may have had in killing her. Cassandra Baratheon may not have liked Jaehaera, but the rumor that she had had the queen killed seems to stem more from antagonistic scheming by Unwin Peake, the better to promote his own daughter, rather than any real motivation on Cassandra’s part (and you might think Cassandra would have admitted, alluded to, or been questioned about any role she might have had in Jaehaera’s death during the unraveling of the poisoning and treason conspiracy). 

By contrast, the means, motive, and opportunity behind, as well as the overall general character of, Jaehaera's murder all fit far too well with Unwin Peake. The Kingsguard posted at the door of Jaehaera’s chamber on the day of her death was Mervyn Flowers, a man whose connections to Unwin Peake were both natural and explicit: not only was Mervyn Unwin’s bastard brother, who was put on the Kingsguard by Unwin himself (along with another Peake relative, Set Amaury), but Mervyn would also continue acting in Unwin’s barely disguised name thereafter: colluding with Tessario the Tiger and Cassandra Baratheon to murder Daenaera Velaryon, arresting the Hand Lord Rowan, and being named alongside Peake’s other co-conspirators by George Graceford. Nor, as Gyldayn admits (albeit rather reluctantly - more on that below), would Mervyn Flowers have had to get the queen’s blood (metaphorically) on his hands: as Mushroom alleges, Tessario, the unscrupulous and mercenarily violent captain of Unwin Peake’s personal guard and as much a co-conspirator with Peake as Mervyn himself, might easily have been allowed into Jaehaera’s chambers to throw her to her death. That Unwin Peake confronted Aegon just one week after Jaehaera’s death with the news that the young king was already betrothed to his, Peake’s, own daughter demonstrates Peake’s naked ambition, and his motive for removing the sitting queen; even Gyldayn acknowledges that the hasty fait accompli-style betrothal acts as its own sort of proof of Unwin’s guilt in Jaehaera’s death. Moreover, Unwin’s vigorous bias against the succession of either one of Aegon’s sisters or Baela’s then-unborn child - caustically referred to, presumably by Unwin himself, as “the whelp of a wanton and a bastard” - supports Unwin’s motive: eager to secure the succession of his preferred line - that is, not just a child of the only surviving male-line male Targaryen, but also one through the Peake family - and concerned that he would achieve neither if the king acknowledged the unborn child carried by Baela as his heir, Unwin I think had all the reason he needed to make the Queen’s role vacant, the better to push his daughter into it.  

Too, I think Unwin arranging Jaehaera’s death as such aligns with Unwin’s other murder plot - that is, the attempted murder of Daenaera Velaryon, which actually resulted in the murder of Gaemon Palehair. In both cases, Unwin’s goal was the same: the elimination of Aegon III’s wife and queen so that his own daughter could be slotted into her space. What’s more, in both cases Unwin seems to have utilized a clumsily obvious framing narrative for each death, the better either to excuse himself and/or to work against his enemies. In the case of Daenaera, Unwin I think specifically used the “tears of Lys” in order to fuel his anti-Rogare conspiracy - of course, Unwin I think tried to suggest, those no-good-very-bad Lyseni would use a poison whose very name advertised their origins to try to kill Aegon III. Likewise, In the case of Jaehaera, her death is deliberately paralleled with that of her mother: just as Helaena is widely (and I think correctly) assumed to have thrown herself to her death toward the end of the Dance, so I believe Unwin wanted onlookers to believe that Jaehaera had, quite literally, followed her mother to the grave. (Of course, when it then became profitable for Unwin to undermine other young women ahead of the Maiden’s Day Cattle Show, he was also quite willing to shift the parallel - blaming Cassandra Baratheon for her death, just as Rhaenyra had been blamed for Helaena’s.) In both cases, however, Unwin all but gave himself away through the ruthlessness and obviousness of his ambition: just as the king and Prince Viserys sniffed out the Peake conspiracy through the tortured false confessions of Thaddeus Rowan, so the unseemly, peremptory hastiness of the king’s betrothal to Lady Myrielle revealed Unwin’s hand (no pun intended) in brutally moving Jaehaera out of the way for Myrielle’s sake. In both cases, moreover, Unwin relied on his known, unsubtle agents Tessario and Ser Mervyn, whose later guilt only I think highlights their guilt for the earlier murder. 

I do also think it notable that while Gyldayn does show a rather baffling (to me, at least) level of favoritism toward Unwin Peake, even the maester-author has to concede the likelihood that Gyldayn was responsible for Jaehaera’s death. Though he adds the exculpatory parenthetical that “there is no shred of proof of that [i.e. that Jaehaera was murdered]”, Gyldayn names “the only truly plausible culprit” as Unwin Peake; too, after explaining the reasoning behind this possibility, Gyldayn concludes that “[i]f murder was indeed the cause of her demise … the man behind it could only have been Lord Unwin Peake”. Further, as noted above, Gyldayn also states that “without proof, none of this would have been damning … [sic] if not for what the Hand did afterward” - that is, betrothing Aegon III to his daughter.  If even an author who spends multiple paragraphs praising the Peakes generally and Unwin specifically admits the high likelihood that Lord Peake was behind Jaehaera’s murder, I take that as pretty conclusive evidence of where we as readers are supposed to lay blame for Jaehaera’s death. (Nor, indeed, does that other maester-author, Yandel, quibble about Peake’s guilt: Yandel simply states in TWOIAF that “[t]hough we will never know the truth of the events that day, it now seems likely that Jaehaera's death was somehow instigated by Lord Peake”.)

To that point as well, I think that GRRM wants us readers to compare the murder of Princess Elia (and, relatedly, those of her children at the same time) to that of Queen Jaehaera. While neither Tywin nor Unwin put their own hands on Elia (and her children) or Jaehaera, respectively, their guilt behind the scenes is made very evident: these two similarly named men, sometime Hands with vindictive streaks and a desire to see their daughters made queens (and, incidentally, a penchant for stealing dead men's Valyrian steel swords), sent their personal, violent agents against a royal woman and her children or a royal female child herself, with the expectation that those agents would see to the murders of these people (something I've talked about specifically with Tywin). Therefore, despite the unwillingness of biased in-world scholarly sources to commit, in whole or in part, to placing the blame on these men - recall Yandel’s weaselly statement “[i]t is tragic that the blood spilled in war may as readily be innocent as it is guilty, and that those who ravished and murdered Princess Elia escaped justice”, and his laughable attempts to blame Aerys II or even Elia herself for those deaths - I think GRRM himself makes clear that both Tywin and Unwin were responsible for their respective royal murders. 

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

in an interview a while back, vivzie compared stella to beatrice horseman from bojack horseman. if you haven't seen it, beatrice's childhood AND adult life were awful but at the exact same time it's also very clear that nothing about it justified how she treated her son bojack - much like how bojack's own abusive childhood didn't justify the way he treated people. it just explained it.

we'll have to wait and see if viv can actually pull this off (signs point to 'no' atm tbh) but stella being written with this particular comparison explicitly in mind is giving me a little hope she'll at least try.

Hey, Anon! Thanks for the ask!

I’m really glad you brought this up because I had actually been planning a post comparing Beatrice and Stella because I find it kind of fascinating that the writers say Stella is similar to Beatrice Horseman. Because so far they’re really, really, really not.

In fact, the way Stella and Beatrice are introduced and developed as characters are inverses of each other. (Explanation below)

Beatrice is introduced to us as being unambiguously the one in the wrong—she’s so ridiculously abusive towards Bojack, her own son, that it sometime crosses over into pure black comedy. Bojack is clearly the wronged party here, as he was a literal child. He depended on Beatrice for everything and was met with abuse.

Even when Beatrice’s abuse becomes so over-the-top that it’s almost comedic, the audience still understands she’s in the wrong. We understand even though it’s played for black comedy, Bojack was clearly very negatively affected by the abuse, and that her treatment of him was horrific.

During the flashbacks to Bojack’s childhood in earlier episodes, the audience has no further details or information as to why Beatrice would act this way, (not that there’s any excuse regardless) so it seems like there’s not a lot of depth to Beatrice because of this. Season 1 Beatrice Horseman is a very flat character.

But after season 1, the writers of Bojack Horseman continue to develop Beatrice. In the beginning of season 2, we learn that Beatrice is aware of her abuse and how it affected Bojack and, in her own messed up way, tries to apologize to him. She acknowledges that she is a deeply flawed person, and acknowledges her own part in Bojack’s terrible upbringing.

We learn that she regrets the way she acted, that she thinks of herself as being broken, and she sadly admits that Bojack inherited this broken-ness from her.

NONE of this makes the abuse okay for course, but we’re given more insight into her as a person. As Bojack Horseman progresses, the audience is continually given more and more information about Beatrice that explains her in depth. We learn why she acted the way she did, how she coped (and failed to cope) with the intense trauma from her childhood, and how everything that happened to her affected her behavior and outlook on life, and how that in-turn affected Bojack.

The writers develop her from being a flat character to one with depth, one that feels like a real person.

In contrast, the VERY first thing we learn about Stella, before we know anything about her personality, or how she usually talks, or what her relationships are like, is that Stolas cheated on her. She is literally introduced to us as someone who has just been wronged, and presumably, hurt by her husband’s cheating on her.

I don’t think it’s unfair to assume that audiences immediately understand why Stella acts the way she does around Stolas in season 1. Being cheated on sucks. It’s a breech of trust, and extremely hurtful.

Unlike Beatrice, Stella is introduced to us as the wronged party.

Again, that doesn’t mean her actions are warranted or should be excused, but it’s very easy to understand why she is acting the way she is.

Due to this, while Stella still starts as a relatively flat character to b/c we don’t know much about her (other than how she acts directly after being cheated on) she has a lot of potential. The writers could have gone in lots of different directions in her character development.

So naturally, in the first episode of season 2 of Helluva Boss, we learn that Stella strangled puppies as a young child, was always mean to Stolas all the time even before he cheated on her, loves “tormenting” Stolas, and is physically abusive. We learn that since she was a young child she’s always been terrible and evil.

Any potential for some further depth to be added to Stella at the beginning of season 2 is fucking steamrolled by this writing decision.

Since S2E1, The Circus, Stella has been written consistently as being mean, rude, vindictive, and stupid. The audience has been given no further information on her, other than that she has brother who is smarter and than her, and that we should hate her for standing in the way of Stolas and Blitzø’s relationship.

Due to all of this, I have absolutely no idea how HB’s writers could possibly develop Stella to be even 1/8th as nuanced or “real” as Beatrice.

At this point, I think it’s too little too late for Stella’s backstory. Why would I care about her upbringing now? What important bit of information could the writers possibly give us about her past that would make her behavior understandable, or develop her character further??

I’m not saying it’s IMPOSSIBLE. But I can’t think of anything they could do to build upon Stella’s character after they already cemented her so firmly as a one-dimensional villain.

So. To summarize (TLDR)

Beatrice Horseman started out flat, and was developed over time until she felt like a fully realized person.

Stella started out flat, but with the potential to be developed into a more nuanced character.

Instead of being developed more gradually, like Beatrice, starting in season 2, Stella was written to be as evil as possible in all her appearances.

Due to this, the writers have made it incredibly difficult to go back and give Stella a backstory that will matter or explain her behavior in any meaningful way.

[yuri-is-online]

I'm asking this question because I find it an interesting topic. It relates to the criticism the Tokyo Debunker MC receives.

It's not just TD's MC—it's a common theme in otome and gacha games. Genderless MCs in games like *Obey Me!* and *Twisted Wonderland* face less criticism than female MCs. Even though the genderless MCs get some hate, it’s nowhere near the backlash female MCs receive. For instance, *Twisted Wonderland* had debates about a female MC being unsuitable for an all-boys school, despite the presence of monsters and robots. This debate ended with a female MC in the *Savanaclaw* manga.

Another example is *Tears of Themis*, where the female MC is well-received in my opinion due to her having a character. I am very happy that she isn’t a self insert and people seem to agree.

In contrast, female self-insert MCs like TD's MC and *Love and Deep Space*'s MC get a lot of hate for what seems like trivial reasons. TD's MC is often criticized for being ordinary, while LADS's MC, who is strong and brave, also faces backlash, with some claiming she's rude despite evidence to the contrary.

In conclusion.

woman mc in this day of age can’t have flaws now….wait no they can’t be prefect either! As then they are Mary sue! What do you mean that LI are grey sue as well? No that not true Leo having a backstory would justify his actions don’t you get it? What do you mean we should hold the male characters as same standard? Jin treating mc as a servant is her fault as she didn’t say no…..😐 

... so I have two lines of thought about this particular topic, it is something I have thought about for a while because I am working on my own game/games and pay a lot of attention to what people think.

It isn't personality people like it is competence

The love and deepspace MC and Rosa from tears of themis actually have very similar personalities. They are bad at/hate studying. They really love food. They both are sort of dorks and known for being kind. What people like about them isn't any of those things, what they like is that both of them are adult women who you can believe live on their own. They actually have skills related to their jobs, you can believe Rosa is a lawyer and that MC is a hunter, the love interests aren't the only competent people in the narrative. I think this can sort of relate to the target audience for both of these games being working women, but that's for a different post. Right now I really want to focus on that concept of competence: the two other otomes I really love and want to bring up are Amnesia: Memories and Hakuoki. The Amnesia MC makes a lot of really stupid decisions, but as the game title gives away she has amnesia. There is an underlying explanation for why she's a bit dim so I don't see too many complaints about her personality (outside of Toma's route but that is a different story) because you don't exactly expect her to be competent. The same goes for Hakuoki's MC whose name escapes me at the moment, she is the daughter of a doctor so she is never made out to be incompetent in medical matters, but she isn't the best fighter. And she doesn't need to be that's the male love interest's role in this particular story.

The problem with MCs like our dear Luna? I believe you said her default name is, in Tokyo Debunker is that we don't exactly have anything she is stated to be good at beyond boosting Stigmas. The various ikmen games get around this by giving their MCs a job, but we don't have that for Luna so we don't have anything to show some backbone or character so people read her as being a bit of a doormat. Like I have said numerous times before, I don't mind this and think that so long as they keep allowing us to see her thoughts this the writing will be good. A relatively easy fix to this could have been to make her someone who really loves music and constantly talks about it, she was going to a concert at the start of the game so that little bit of character would go a long way for her to be more of a human for people to project themselves onto. Generally speaking, when writing an MC, it is perfectly acceptable to give them certain personality traits and a history. But if you do that you need to make sure the narrative respects that interest and does not use it as an excuse to make the male lead look cooler.

Gender Neutral MCs

*sigh* so you bring up Twisted Wonderland and I uh... have some experience with that fandom! And I have observed the gender wars over Yuu with a weary heart. I genuinely could not care any less about how people identify or the type of o.c.s they make, but some people really really care and if I am honest I find that a bit disturbing. It honestly makes me sad to see fanfic, which used to be a really accepting space, fight over writing... well anything really. m/m blogs screaming about how they don't want fem aligned reading their things, f/f blogs screaming about men, the f/m fic writers feeling the need to defend themselves writing for a female reader- doesn't that exhaust you? Why do you care so much? I do not have the energy to care about people writing fanfic I am not interested in reading, is this because I am anemic or have I managed to be normal about one singular thing?

My personal theory is that the commodification of fanfic and fandom has made people think there is something fundamentally wrong with properties that are marketed towards people who are not them. The reaction to Love and Deepspace not having a male MC option sort of cemented that for me, there is nothing wrong with wanting a game where you can be a man or non-binary and date anime boys. There is also nothing wrong with writing m/m fanfic for a property like lds, or wishing you could play as a man in it. I think there is a genuine market gap in good games for people who aren't fem aligned, but you do not get good games by harassing people or implying they suck for wanting games where you can play as a woman. You get that by financially supporting projects aimed at you! There is a blog I follow on here called @amaregamesdb. They post a bulletin of projects, both vn and if, with an emphasis on making people aware of projects that aren't simply otome (ie male love interests with a female protagonist.) I think the people who run it are also the people who coined the term "amare game" to use for games where the MC isn't necessarily female. They also ran a blog to help people like me learn how to code if/vns so I am very grateful for them, so please do give them your support.

I write for a gender neutral reader because I wanted to write interactive fiction and felt like I needed to practice doing so. I have continued to do because honestly? I really enjoy it. I love seeing how many different people identify with my writing and are moved by it. There are some projects I want to do in the future (original works, not fanfic) that I probably will lock the MC to female for, but I want to continue providing gn fic for people for as long as I write. And original projects too! I have two in particular I am working on behind the scenes. The solution to the problems like "what gender is yuu really," if you will permit me to preach for a second, is to not care. Yana said Yuu was meant to be you, and dear reader I don't actually know who you are! So you can be whoever it is you wish to be in your heart and I will make room for you to sit next to me. I'll even make tea (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

[seliasvault]

The Supermarket

supermarket!simon x reader cw: stalking, dark simon riley

Part two

1 │2 │3

Simon Riley hasn't experienced kindness, so when you show him some, he goes a little crazy.

Simon Riley's had an unarguably difficult life, from his childhood to his current occupation, he hasn't experienced much kindness.

He's been in his line of work for a vast amount of time, been through countless missions, seen all kinds of things, and his views of the world have consequentially been tainted.

But it isn't just the missions that severed his perception of the world, he's been let down time and time again by several individuals, relatives, teammates, strangers. He doesn't believe anyone could truly be good.

With his life experiences, he'd be a fool to believe any act of kindness or show of good would not be followed by an ulterior motive.

Which is why when he encounters you, he's perplexed.

- He's on leave, once again, returning to a so-called "home", barely furnished, with equally less in the fridge.

The smell of smoke and debris following him, he decidedly heads straight for a shower. Rinsing his body of any reminders of his most recent assignment, he gets out clean, in a literal sense. He doesn't think could ever be clean.

He makes his way out, deciding to head to the local supermarket down the street from his flat. Not being in the mood to drive, he thinks the walk might help him unwind. It doesn't.

The fluorescent lights illuminate the space, uncomfortably bright, he goes around with a shopping basket, filling it up with the essentials, some organic shit that Johnny recommended to him, and a six-pack.

He heads toward the lines, numbers of people at each register, some even lined up inside the aisles themselves. He chooses the cashier that looks the fastest, based on the speed of her scanning and bagging.

The line continues to slowly progress and he's lightly tapped by the cart behind him. Turning around to look, he sees the person behind him's been shoved into by the cart behind her. And from the look on her face, it wasn't as light as the slight tap he got.

He's almost sure she's getting ready to blow up at him, the little fuckers got the most shit-eating grin, with no ounce of a sorry, done almost deliberately.

He awaits the forms of screaming, lecturing, anger, but she simply turns around with a hand soothing her back. Almost unphased. Being somewhat surprised he turns back.

But he can't mind his business for too long as an older man approaches you, probably his dickhead father. He once again expects you to tell him off, to control his son. You however are courteous, kind? Offering an understanding look and turning back.

Again unusual, statistically people tend to create a scene, especially when they've been hurt, it's human nature to get angry, and so once again he wonders why you would just take it?

Turning back around he sets that aside, not wanting to read into it, he continues waiting.

-

By the time his turn comes, he's over the noise and the fucking lights. Everything's been bagged and the last step to freedom is to pay the overpriced store. He reaches a hand into his pocket, searching for his wallet, empty. He shoves his hand into the other one, again empty. He searches his sweatshirt pocket to be met with the same fate.

Empty.

Just as he's deciding to forget the entire thing and leave, he's interrupted by a soft voice.

"Hey, y'know what it's okay I got it." a smile followed, one that twists something in his heart. He looks at you, the same unusually calm stranger behind him. He searches your face, eyes for an explanation, did you want something from him?

After a beat he replies, he doesn't need your help, isn't some man to feel bad for. And so he turns going to leave, to escape you. Before he can get anywhere at all you quip back a reply and pay. Claiming it was "No problem.", so fast he hasn't had time to process what the hell this all means.

He's confused, conflicted, turning around to face you, studying you once again.

Searches for something, a hint of an ulterior motive, of frustration at his lack of words, a sign that you'll do something, anything to finally prove him right.

All he sees are innocent eyes, not even a twitch of a brow as you look at him and avert your eyes back to your cart. Acting as if you hadn't just paid a hefty sum for a stranger you've only met. He tries to figure you out, the tired slump of your shoulder, the honey-like voice you use to talk to others, the way you stand with a certain uncertainty.

He doesn't come to any conclusions, snapping back to realize he's been staring too long. He gives you a grumbled thank you, grabs his bags, and leaves.

Walking out the door for the trek back to his flat, he can't stop thinking about you, you've confused him, ensnared him, people like you don't exist. Haven't existed in a while, at least not in his life.

Kind, gentle words, with a hint of something else.

Something inside hims snapped, and he'd be damned if he gave up trying to figure you out. Because you've already embedded yourself into his brain.

-

Simon Riley's never claimed to have a strong sense of morality, never claimed to have any at all.

The lines to cross are practically invisible, especially when it comes to you.

And so what he does next, is nothing short of justifiable for him. Because it’s for you.

had to write a dual pov just to show how different him and reader are, her reactions and behaviour aren’t a big deal to her but to simon, he’s just 🤯

this was a short chapter, but part three is coming! working on the mapping/where to go, if you have any suggestions, things you’d like to see, or anything to say, my asks are open

[casteliacityramen]

Previous post (mini recap)

"Can we talk?"

"That depends if you'll yell at me and take off again."

"Depending on what you say, I just might."

[PART 1 OF 2]

"... Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't know how to, without... that... happening. It was sheer coincidence that led Ingram’s descendants to keep coming here. I didn't think you'd believe me," Ray responded telepathically.

"I still don't."

"I have nothing to gain by lying to you."

She hates that part of him, how he manages to sound so disingenuous while still telling the truth. There's always something underneath the surface, but he never goes there unless she pokes and prods. She could have ended that explanation right then and there, but she continues.

"But not telling me that the Dewott that I've seen every other night was a Matsumoto this entire time? Keeping that to yourself is okay?"

One of the many problems of an infinite lifespan means that there's no longer agency to anything. There's no immediate need to address any personal matters when they theoretically have all the time left in the world.

He figured that he could have talked to her further down the line, when they both settled down and processed all of their feelings... Or so he thought. 

Touchy subject or not, it was starting to sink in that he should've talked about this sooner. Granted, he never would have guessed that the circumstances would have led them to where they were now. Neither of them imagined that today would’ve gone like this.

"Of course not...

... But can you blame me when you reacted like you did?"

"Alright, asshole, I came to apologize but if you’re going to-"

"You scared me."

"Rio, when you were released, when you found me again, you sat on that seat and you said…”

“... Nothing.”

The two of them sit still, time grinding to a halt while Ray’s eyes roamed the space underneath his hands–as if the grain in the wooden countertop was magically providing him instructions on how to organize his words.

Gods, he wished.

"You were so quiet, it was unsettling. You’ve never been one to shy away from talking about how you feel, so I know that something went terribly wrong. A Matsumoto stopping by every now and then seemed so inconsequential at the time. But… the more I thought about telling you, the more I second guessed myself.

So I left it unspoken. I had a feeling you would be angry with me and I was right... But I never thought you'd be furious.

We carried on quietly for the past six months because I wanted you to take the first step. I figured that you’d be ready whenever you felt like it, but I should have told you about this without having to make you dredge up the past by yourself."

I'm sorry."

"This is supposed to be my apology about yelling at you, you prick." Rio telepathically mutters, not expecting this level of genuine introspection from him. "How am I supposed to follow that?"

She watches as Ray visibly laughs off the tension in his shoulders. She lets out a short huff in response, turning back to the counter.

"I thought I was fine. I thought I was better than this–above it all. We went through something like this before, back when we first started. I thought we’d shrug it off like we did last time, but then I snapped like a toothpick today."

Ray watches as her face scrunches up in a cocktail of negative emotions. She seems like she's physically struggling to get anything out, which is an effort that didn't go unnoticed by Ray.

"I think running a ramen stand as a rockruff is exactly how I am now: absolutely useless. I'm not allowed to be useful. I'm not allowed to do my job as a Shepherd.

And that's a good thing, because now I can't stop thinking about all my mistakes--all the people I failed to protect. There's no use in a guardian angel that loses faith in herself."

She turns, facing the street, thankful that it was relatively empty at this time of hour.

“So... I sat here, on this very stool, watching every day as everybody moved on with their lives without a care in the world. Ordinary people who seem to be doing fine without me.” 

Rio shakes her head at the term "ordinary people,” laughing bitterly as she turns back around.

“I know I’m being stupid. A carefree life for everyone is what we work so hard for, yet I feel so… so pissed off at them for being none-the-wiser.

Imagine that: being mad that peace is the new ‘ordinary.’ Angry that these people don't know what it's like to live with the constant threat of death, even though none of them deserve it. It makes me feel like a shitty shepherd.

I thought it'd be easier if I slept through those moments, but every other time I fall asleep, I have a nightmare. When I try to think of anything else, all I can think about is how this all started. I thought about all the things we did to get to this point. I couldn't, and still can't, stop thinking about everything I did wrong back then and now.”

Ray heaves a heavy sigh, partly because he feels relieved that she's opening up to him, but another partly because he knows exactly what she's talking about.

“Yeah.”

She didn’t need him to say anything else. She knows that he knows. She'll tell him the full extent of what she went through and what she's going through, but that's for another day. That isn't the purpose of this specific conversation, after all.

She paws the empty glass around on the table sheepishly for a long moment. Finally, she gathers herself and turns to him.

“I’m sorry I made you cry.” 

“I know.”

“Thanks for putting up with me.”

“You’ve been there for me. I wouldn't have it any other way.”

[Next]

[astrangetorpedo]

Julien Baker Track by Track - An Interview with Apple Music

“Everybody is scared of death or ultimate oblivion, whether you want to admit it or not,” Julien Baker tells Apple Music. “That’s motivated by a fear of uncertainty, of what’s beyond our realm of understanding—whatever it feels like to be dead or before we're born, that liminal space. It's the root of so much escapism.”

On her third full-length, Baker embraces fuller arrangements and a full-band approach, without sacrificing any of the intimacy that galvanised her earlier work. The result is at once a cathartic and unabashedly bleak look at how we distract ourselves from the darkness of voids both large and small, universal and personal.

“It was easier to just write for the means of sifting through personal difficulties,” she says. “There were a lot of paradigm shifts in my understanding of the world in 2019 that were really painful. I think one of the easiest ways to overcome your pain is to assign significance to it. But sometimes, things are awful with no explanation, and to intellectualise them kind of invalidates the realness of the suffering. I just let things be sad.”

Here, the Tennessee singer-songwriter walks us through the album track by track.

Hardline

“It’s more of a confession booth song, which a lot of these are. I feel like whenever I imagine myself in a pulpit, I don't have a lot to say that's honest or useful. And when I imagine myself in a position of disclosing, in order to bring me closer to a person, that's when I have a lot to say.”

Heatwave

“I wrote it about being stuck in traffic and having a full-on panic attack. But what was causing the delay was just this car that had a factory defect and bomb-style exploded. I was like, ‘Man, someone got incinerated. A family maybe.’ The song feels like a fall, but it's born from the second verse where I feel like I'm just walking around with my knees in gravel or whatever the verse in Isaiah happens to be: the willing submission to suffering and then looking around at all these people's suffering, thinking that is a huge obstacle to my faith and my understanding, this insanity and unexplainable hurt that we're trying to heal with ideology instead of action.”

Faith Healer

“I have an addictive personality and I understand it's easy for me to be an escapist with substances because I literally missed being high. That was a real feeling that I felt and a feeling that felt taboo to say outside of conversations with other people in recovery. The more that I looked at the space that was left by substance or compulsion that I've then just filled with something else, the more I realised that this is a recurring problem in my personality. And so many of the things that I thought about myself that were noble or ultimately just my pursuit of knowing God and the nature of God—that craving and obsession is trying to assuage the same pain that alcohol or any prescription medication is.”

Relative Fiction

“The identity that I have worked so hard to cultivate as a good person or a kind person is all basically just my own homespun mythology about myself that I'm trying to use to inspire other people to be kinder to each other. Maybe what's true about me is true about other people, but this song specifically is a ruthless evaluation of myself and what I thought made me principled. It's kind of a fool's errand.”

Crying Wolf

“It's documenting what it feels like to be in a cyclical relationship, particularly with substances. There was a time in my life, for almost a whole year, where it felt like that. I think that is a very real place that a lot of people who struggle with substance use find themselves in, where the resolution of every day is the same and you just can’t seem to make it stick.”

Bloodshot

“The very first line of the song is talking about two intoxicated people—myself being one of them—looking at each other and me having this out-of-body experience, knowing that we are both bringing to our perception of the other what we need the other person to be. That's a really lonely and sad place to be in, the realisation that we're each just kind of sculpting our own mythologies about the world, crafting our narratives.”

Ringside

“I have a few tics that manifest themselves with my anxiety and OCD, and for a long time, I would just straight-up punch myself in the head—and I would do it onstage. It's this extension of physicality from something that's fundamentally compulsive that you can't control. I can't stop myself from doing that, and I feel really embarrassed about it. And for some reason I also can't stop myself from doing other kinds of more complicated self-punishment, like getting into co-dependent relationships and treating each one of those like a lottery ticket. Like, 'Maybe this one will work out.'”

Favor

“I have a friend whose parents live in Jackson, where my parents live. They’re one of my closest friends and they were around for the super dark part of 2019. I'll try to talk to the person who I hurt or I'll try to admit the wrongdoing that I've done. I'll feel so much guilt about it that I'll cry. And then I'll hate that I've cried because now it seems manipulative. I'm self-conscious about looking like I hate myself too much for the wrong things I've done because then I kind of steal the person's right to be angry. I don't want to cry my way out of shit.”

Song in E

“I would rather you shout at me like an equal and allow me to inhabit this imagined persona I have where I'm evil. Because then, if I can confirm that you hate me and that I'm evil and I've failed, then I don't any longer have to deal with the responsibility of trying to be good. I don't any longer have to be saddled with accountability for hurting you as a friend. It’s something not balancing in the arithmetic of my brain, for sin and retribution, for crime and punishment. And it indebts you to a person and ties you to them to be forgiven.”

Repeat

“I tried so hard for so long not to write a tour song, because that's an experience that musicians always write about that's kind of inaccessible to people who don't tour. We were in Germany and I was thinking: Why did I choose this? Why did I choose to rehash the most emotionally loaded parts of my life on a stage in front of people? But that's what rumination is. These are the pains I will continue to experience, on some level, because they're familiar.”

Highlight Reel

“I was in the back of a cab in New York City and I started having a panic attack and I had to get out and walk. The highlight reel that I'm talking about is all of my biggest mistakes, and that part—‘when I die, you can tell me how much is a lie’—is when I retrace things that I have screwed up in my life. I can watch it on an endless loop and I can torture myself that way. Or I can try to extract the lessons, however painful, and just assimilate those into my trying to be better. That sounds kind of corny, but it's really just, what other options do you have except to sit there and stare down all your mistakes every night and every day?”

Ziptie

“I was watching people be restrained with zip ties on the news. It's just such a visceral image of violence to see people put restraints on another human being—on a demonstrator, on a person who is mentally ill, on a person who is just minding their own business, on a person who is being racially profiled. I had a dark, funny thought that's like, what if God could go back and be like, ‘Y'all aren't going to listen.’ Jesus sacrificed himself and everybody in the United States seems to take that as a true fact, and then shoot people in cold blood in the street. I was just like, ‘Why?’ When will you call off the quest to change people that are so horrid to each other?”

(x)

[loveririska]

And again, there are many letters. My analysis of Vastaya Zaun and Piltover. Complemented the amphibious Vastaya.

This time I want to touch on the topic of Vastaya in Piltover and Zaun. Attitude to them, types. There will also be a discussion on the type of Steb. But first things first.

And so, let's start with the species diversity of Vastaya in these cities.

1. Amphibious Vastaya.(Jericho, Banter, etc.)

2. Vastaya - bats.(Skar and others.)

3. Vastaya - mountain sheep.

4. Other types are isolated.

If we compare the number of individuals in cities, there are more in Zaun.(Except for the sheep.) Why is that? One of my versions is related to the biological features of the species. Remember where most species of bats live? Where it's humid and dark. Amphibians also love twilight and humid places. And where is it darker?In Zaun! If we recall physics, where is the humidity higher? Near the ground and in the lowlands. Which city is lower? Zaun.

This choice of accommodation is related to the peculiarity of animals. The amphibian, in order to maintain skin hydration, leads a nocturnal lifestyle, since the absence of sunlight prevents evaporation. Mice are guided by sound waves.At the same time, many of these species sleep during the day.

There are more sheep in Piltover, and isolated individuals are found in Zaun. Take a look at the screenshots for yourself.

(If you remember, in the first season we were shown in Piltover Vastaya - the bat. And yes, I found another Amphibian there.)

But let's focus on Amphibians.

I have already said once why I think they are amphibious Vastaya, but now I want to clearly show my guesses.(Although, to be honest, I had a thought that they were Sharks.) Also, let's touch on the attitude of Banter towards them.

Anatomical features.

A. Skin. All Amphibian Vastaya have a greenish skin tone with darker stripes on the head and neck.And there are dark spots on the skin.(Usually the shoulders and forearms.) The skin itself is smooth, without scales or any outgrowths.

B. The presence or absence of hair. Do you know what is the most important difference between Banter and its "relatives"? THE PRESENCE OF EYEBROWS! As you can see from the screenshots, the amphibian Bastards have no eyebrows at all. About the hair on the head, it's debatable. If you look closely at the screen where Isha is, one of the Bastards has a pink mohawk. I don't think it's a fin. And so, yes, most of them have no hair. Let me remind you that only terrestrial animals have hair. It is needed for thermoregulation and protection. (This is how eyebrows protect your eyes from sweat, for example. The hair on the head is protected from sunstroke and burning.Body hair protects the pores.) I would again think that the Banter stands out strongly against their background...IF I HADN'T FOUND THIS. Screenshot from the first season. That Vastaya has hair on her head!

C.) Eyes. Amphibians have predominantly bright blue eyes with rounded pupils.

d.) Physique. In addition to Jericho, the Vastaya of this species have an asthenic physique.

An asthenic is a person with a body type characterized by tall stature, thinness, a long neck, a longitudinally elongated skull, and a narrow sharply defined face.

What a pumped-up asthenic looks like.

And now we remember Steb. I don't think any further explanation is necessary. We remember the amphibian girls. Also. Actually, that's why they have such a physique. It's just great underwater. A well-developed musculature (like that of the same Scar) is not needed underwater, due to the density of the water.You have a foothold for action. You need to stretch it out for swimming, so it's easier to perform maneuvers. Streamlined body and face. Underwater, the density is high, and in order to move, you need to reduce the resistance.Did I notice that the face in the profile of the Steb is more even? He doesn't have a strong protrusion of nose and chin. I'll attach a screenshot, I hope you understand what I mean.

E.) And finally, I ask fins . Amphibian fins have CARTILAGINOUS fins, like our auricles or noses.That is, they are quite flexible and sensitive.Ahem…I'm sorry, I don't think that's why. Do you know what else I noticed? ONLY Steb (of all the Easties that were shown to us from the back) has a dorsal fin. I have a theory based on amphibians that the dorsal fin is an indicator of the age of the species. Until adulthood, amphibians have a dorsal fin, but later it disappears, as the individual uses water only for reproduction.

And by the way, there are SCALES under Steb's eyes. Here, I honestly don't know how to comment on it, that's why I thought he was a SHARK. Diamond-shaped scales - observed in Sharks.Actually, why is it scales? Look at the YouTube moments with him without music, only with sounds. At the moments where the scales are moving, there is a sound like scales. The fins have a more muffled sound. With his scales, he catches and reads the air currents, assessing the situation when he does not see.(Many aquatic species do not see well in the distance, so they have developed other organs of touch.)

Actually, I believe that the Steb is of the same species as the Amphibian Wastaya, but perhaps a different subspecies.No one has canceled evolution)

I still think he's a half-breed, though. At least because of the ears. His auricle is similar in size to a human's and is pressed against his head. At the same time, it is more convex in other amphibians.

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

sorry to ask this stupid question but i couldn't stop thinking about Eleven's living situation in s5 as there will be a time jump of 2 years. Where do you think she is residing in 1987 and 88? Cali or Hawkins?

So far we know, Will is coming back to hawkins in s5 to stay with the wheelers. can we safely assume that Byers lived in Cali during 1987, 88? Hopper has returned to Hawkins in s4, so technically El doesn't have to live with the byers anymore?

It's not a stupid question, not by any measure. I'm afraid I don't have much of an answer for you, though.

We don't know a lot about a lot this season. We have a decent look at some scenes, but we lack the context to really make connections. Our best guess is that El is living in hiding, possibly at the radio station, during season 5. What happens after that is anyone's guess, really. There's some speculation that El doesn't survive, but I don't buy that because it'd be deeply depressing.

However, depending on whether or not she's able to live free of the fear of the government, she may have to fake her death in-universe. Something like this could explain the scene with Mike and Hopper in 1989. They know she's out there somewhere, but she isn't really able to contact them for a while. Maybe she's making a life for herself somewhere away from Hawkins, possibly with Kali (because it'd certainly be nice for her to have mattered for more than a single episode) or with her aunt.

As for Will, we don't really know that he's staying with the Wheelers. That's another assumption. I know there's the set photo of the table in the Wheeler house with extra chairs around it, but that's circumstantial evidence. It could mean there's more people living there, but it could also have other explanations, like they have a meeting there at some point and are crowded around the table. However, I do lean towards it being likely, though, because of the scene with Mike and Will with Holly. Will is going to school, so we know the Byers are not in hiding (which is odd since Sullivan knows El is linked to them). It'd be odd for him to be out with Mike and Holly unless he lives with them or relatively close.

I think it's important to remember that, regardless of what leaks we may have, it's still largely guesswork. Even accurate leaks are still little bits of information that lack context. Think back to the leak of the airport scene in season 4. People were led to believe it was some romantic scene between Mike and El where Will was rejected. That may have been how it looked from Will's perspective, but we, the audience, got to see how that fit into the greater story and how totally unromantic it really was. Let this info get you excited, but don't get too carried away with details.

[witchofthesouls]

Hey, for the other!tfp trio….let's assume that the team remained on really close contact despite the distance after the war (RID 2015 who knows you? Certainly not me). I wanna see a really touching reunion between the bots and their protegees, but here's the twist:

They return to their kids, only to find out that these three are no longer kids, but young adults (maybe late teens for Raf, because our future little Dragon always will be the youngest of the trio) and are no longer humans (cause they have fully embraced their other heritage)

This time-lapse could be explained by either A) the bots spending a bit longer on Cybertron and losing the human sense of time or B) The kids deciding to make a joint trip to elsewhere/the other side after the end of the war, where time doesn't move the same as in the human plane (they went as kids, but elsewhere spit them as grow ups even though this change doesn't make sense to the bots.... because they are seeing things from a human sense of time); now, when exactly these three got lost and then reborn, that's privy to them alone.... I prefer the B) option if you ask me....

Regardless, I think that these three would remain tightly nit, as tight as possible (they could be on the other extreme of the planet or any other plane, and yet they would return to each other...eventually). Cause after all the went through, separation is not an option for them

Reactions and talks/explanations are meant to happen in response to this..... and what roles June, the Esquivels and the Nakadais families had to play in all this

Ohhh, this is interesting. I hinted or understated in some pieces that time can get weird in Elsewhere as a call to the folktales and myths of humans stepping into an otherworldly space to spend a few hours there, and then stepping back to their world to find out decades had passed.

Perhaps it's their heritage, singing in their bone marrow and igniting from the Matrix's influence, June's own presence (haunting and hungry, no matter how muted or how well she hides her own teeth), or a strange combination. Perhaps it's the experiences they shared, forged in fire and blood as Earth's own chaotic nature. But these three are bonded. Intertwined with each other, even across the world.

Distance means both little and much to them now. They ventured onto foreign, alien planets and spaceships, traveled to lands across the world in the blink of an eye, and went on the run from a manhunt.

Miko keeps the Apex Armor and takes it back to Japan. At the right moments and when the urge gets too much to bear, she steps into the sea and goes farther than any of her relatives could go, even the ones that can hold their breath for 20 minutes.

She hasn't been the most filial of daughters, but she is her parent's child. Her sea-blooded mother stole back a human that survived and thrived from Elsewhere and claimed that man as a spouse. Bloodlust and wet works are no distant strangers to her. She's inexperienced but a willing learner. She already cut her teeth on foreign flesh.

Down in the dark depths where there's no difference between going up to the sun and going towards the abyss, but where her steps tread, she meets someone with pearly, iridescent scales across a long, serpentine body and a face so much like her own (and her mother's and her grandfather's and her-) with large, dark eyes with an amber ring.

After meeting the yokai that birthed her lineage centuries ago, Miko finds her way back to the Americas. A blessing and a warning kept in her heart.

(One day, Miko will understand what her sea-blooded mother meant when she told her that her father was a 'good Man.'

Raf's deep fascination (admiration, obsession) with space exploration and technology is taken in stride among the Esquivels. He doesn't raise any suspicion among them because that's how they all are.

He absorbs whatever he can, consuming the hard-earned lessons under Ratchet's care and oft-handed commentary. The Esquivels hunger and Raf is no different as he swallows how Cybertronian theory and application and attempts to further bridge between human and alien equipment.

Raf had found his teeth and his siblings recognized it as their baby brother doesn't disappear on them nor shrink away from their more vicious arguments.

(They are a family whose flesh descended from fire tempered by earth. Raging passion and violent temptations. Wicked protection and immense wrath. Voracious, cruel, and beastly, yet so very kind and vigilant.)

Mama kissed her youngest boy (because Raf will always be her baby boy) on his head and told him to be careful, praying for his safety as he went with Jack.

That protection will save them on a summer trip when Jack retraces his steps to all the places he once called home.

Ever since his mission to Cybertron, Jack dreams of strange, wistful things. An unquenchable thirst, an itch in his bones... he feels bereft for some reason.

He misses Arcee. He misses all of them. But for some reason, Jack still dreams of the timelessness of Cybertron. There's still something that calls to him in that eerie stillness. Not the desolate ruins of alien cities, although they quietly sing between hope and despair, but it's the outskirts that wait with bated breath.

In the summer after graduation, he takes his new-used car and travels across the mainland United States. The windows are down as the radio blares, wind ruffles his hair as Raf laughs and tries to figure out maps since some locations are so off-beat that the GPS can't confirm the coordinates.

Deep in the bones of a decrepit old house he once called a home in his long-distant childhood because June and Jack moved repeatedly, hopping from place to place without rhyme or reason... there are the echoes of a wailing scream buried within it.

A living corpse for a copse of trees that guard the area.

(A mother will tell her son what exactly brews in their powerful blood and what she has done to ensure he grew up safe to make a choice.)

Elsewhere exists in so many ways, shapes, and forms. At one point, the legends and myths had once walked upon Earth and left their marks. Something happened in the unwritten, unspoken past that corralled those legends away.

The trio will venture through the many portals and gateways and have many more adventures as they realize there are far more Cybertronian relics on Earth...

Mermaid queens and Seelie emperors, dignitaries of unearthly shapes painted in enamel and precious jewels, sharp animals with sharper intelligence that speak in prose, the faint imprints in slumbering environments, and empty, the lingering remains of humanity's role among such great and terrible things.

(Humanity was (is) great and terrible themselves.)

(Miko's father is a 'good Man,' and that means something different to such beings.)

"Long ago, Man made peace with Magic." "Long ago, it was decreed that Man would stay."

Time isn't linear in Elsewhere which incorporates so much that a single or several maps would be useless. Time flows in so many directions that it's a constant battle to recognize and travel to and from their own particular section of a river.

Perhaps it's his heritage or a minor blessing from the Matrix, but Jack is more sensitive to flow and can locate the best spots for them to get back to their Earth. To the same week, month, or year they ventured away.

Miko explores her own bloodthirst and prey drive. The singing, thrumming chant in her blood and how the Apex Armor responds to it.

Raf hones his own instinct on his particular guidance to find portals and lucky happenstances. Between him and Jack's instincts for 'shiny' things, little can escape them.

In some worlds, they grow older. Aging and bulking, exploring how to reshape themselves and all sorts of careers. In others, they seem immortal compared to the rapid change around them in a species whose lifespan is a single human year.

"We could be gods here," says a man with a firestorm trapped in his bones and has become a dragon. Not a Dragon because he searches the stars for a mech he once called brother. "Are we not gods already?" The not-man made of shadows and feathers replies. He still dreams of a far-distant metal planet and realizes that it whispered to him back then. "Does it matter," laughs a woman encased in armor that's more like a second skin, tendrils sweeping upon the floor like the gentle motion of a calm tide upon the beach. Pink for her lost girlhood and passion, a warning and a sign from her many great-grandmother. Green as the metal she once called her kin.

When humans are pulled Elsewhere. Three things usually happen: they break there, they struggle or thrive, or they break at home.

"How many times have we done this?" A boy that's not really a boy, who shall become a dragon in so many lifetimes, asks his companions. (Raf keeps his sister's warning close to his heart as she once died in a foreign, strange desert and was resurrected in her own pyre to devour the city that enslaved her and so many countless others. Pilar has become a Dragon and that legacy between mortal and divine shall be her epitaph in a battlefield far sooner than later.)

Ratchet returns. Some things change, while some remain the same.

Jack tastes the grief and repressed anger upon the medic and leaves him be. Raf remembers Ratchet parked in the garbage and keeps the old medic busy between lessons and searches. Miko digs into the festering tangle of emotions, lapping into those wounds as she uses the Apex Armor on the training mats to absorb those fighting skills and grills for information about Cybertron and the rest of Team Prime.

She cares, she really does, but the boys' avoidance of Ratchet's issues won't help anyone, especially if (or when) the medic leaves the planet with no way to contact again.

Ratchet went Elsewhere twice. The first time was a rough pill to swallow as Team Prime never realized its existence. He wondered where the trio had scavenged a considerable amount of Energon crystals and the resources to guard the new base with all the newly acquired. He stiffly apologized to them because he had thrown hurtful words over their travels, calling them "superstitious" and "better than that" and "this is why you never applied yourselves" was the least of the insults. The second time, he realized just how much and fast humans age as he counted each tick on his chronometer as they ventured across new continents and strange seas. Those years and crippling injuries and strange bodies melt away from the trio as they return back to their native Earth and their baseline human form.

June visits them. Ratchet never thought to ask how she found them in Nevada when Agent Fowler would have never told a civilian about them. No one questioned how she managed to bypass all the security with her car.

He tallies all the strange, eerie signs as she leaves hints to solve their challenges, how she seems to appear when food is low and they're too busy to bring anything more substantial than a simple run to the nearest fast food joint or a quick foraging session, how all the security in the world, both Cybertron's and Earth's, cannot track her.

"I am what I need or want to be." The one called June Darby demurely answers.

The only family member of Raf's that Ratchet will officially meet is Pilar whose bones are filled to the brim with rituals, survival tips with monsters, gods, and hostile environments, and formal protocols in so many kingdoms, both dead and alive. She grieves as well. She had given up the Dragon to return home but her memories are bursting full of laughter and people and color when the crumbling ruins the new Team explores are long empty of an extinct people or a fallen kingdom.

"Sometimes I think I carved out parts of my heart and left it there. All I have left are the memories as I'm the only one that remembers the campfire songs and the lessons of all those who helped me."

Ratchet will never meet the Nakadai family face-to-face, but he gets a hint of what they are with all the messages and packages they send their only child. Izumi sends pointers on how to prepare certain sea creatures and how to differentiate the signs of an underwater portal in treacherous waters. Her husband will leave cryptid messages and strange, gold pieces. Sometimes he sends coordinates for Miko to dig up a weapons cache or an informant to cultivate.

Of course, things change when the not-quite-human trio spirit back a Primal Artifact of Quintus Prime...