#but there's one in particular that I remember very well

[teaboot]

One time my mom took me to a hibachi grill with a bunch of her friends and if you've never been to a hibachi grill basically the draw is that theres a bunch of interactive performance stuff done by the cook who cooks for you at your table, and one of the tricks they did at this one was take a squeeze bottle full of liquor and shoot it into your mouth across the table (with permission)

And now at our table my mom explained this because it was my first time going, and she wanted to make sure to warn me it was liquor because she knows I don't drink- she just said "if he offers to shoot at your mouth, say no because it's alcohol".

And so the chef does his thing and it's all very impressive, but the time does come where he pulls out this squeeze bottle of booze and asks me if I wanna try

I of course say no, because I really don't do alcohol, so he moves on to someone else

And I watch, and slowly come to understand that this is some sort of game, because once someone is drinking from the continuous flow the chef starts counting "ONE! TWO! THREE!"

I realize that we're trying to see who can keep drinking the liquor from three feet away without choking or spilling, and its a bummer cause i kinda wanna try and I CAN'T

But he goes around the table with everyone there, and I think my mom makes it to three, one friend makes it to five, I think my brother got to three as well, and he comes back to me

And I'm REALLY bummed out now but I will not drink alcohol, so I sort of sadly repeat that I can't when he pulls out a SECOND BOTTLE and grins and goes "juice?"

And Im like FUCK YEAH LET'S GO and I'm a bit worried he's gonna spray it into my eye or something but he doesn't, it hits me right at the back of the throat, and I start drinking while the whole fucking table counts "ONE! TWO! THREE!"

And like

It just sorta

Kept going?

And Im looking at the chef and he starts freaking out by the time we get to six, and at around seven I kinda start looking around and my auntie is staring back in shock, my brother is laughing his ass off and my mom has her face in her hands

And then at like nine or ten it gets like. Super tense and quiet, and only the chef is still counting

And I guess it got too much for even him cause we're at eleven and I don't believe in quitting early and it is almost painful how awkward it's getting

So he cuts me off at twelve and raises his hands in the air and everyone else cheers and claps like a dumb movie

and I just sit back in my seat to look back at my mother staring at me surrounded by everyone she knows, bright fucking red in the face and choking with honest to god tears in her eyes and she puts her face back in her palms and starts chanting "I don't want to know. I don't want to know. I don't want to know"

So I give her the biggest, proudest grin and tell her, "I won."

So now every time something suggestive happens in a movie, or in conversation, or something shocking happens around us and she goes to jokingly cover my ears, I just ask her, "Remember when I won?" And she goes face-down and groans, because I know EXACTLY how she thinks I trained to develop that particular skill and she HATES knowing that about me

The truth is though, I'm a whole ass 28 year old virgin. I've never so much as kissed anyone in my life. I had no idea I could do that trick until that exact moment

But she doesn't know that, and I'm never gonna tell her

[livefromtheelephantsfoot]

I've had this sitting in my drafts for over a week bc I AGREE and I have SO many thoughts abt this.

I think one of the underlying reasons is a failure to engage with the fact that, to a lot of people at least, eugenics makes intuitive sense. I remember as a kid when I first had natural selection explained to me, and it didn't take much for me to wonder "huh, what does that mean for humans? does that mean it's a bad thing that we've insulated ourselves from stuff like disease?" (Obviously 8yo me wouldn't have said it like that, but I did wonder.) I'm almost afraid to point it out, but I really don't think it's just a me thing.

Later I learned abt Eugenics, that it was this bad evil thing that lead to genocide, and I was horrified. If I could empathize with the proponents of it, at least early on, what did that say about me? But it didn't actually answer my question. So now I had this first idea, evolution, that was obviously true and explained so much about the natural world, and this second idea that still seemed to naturally follow from it but was Bad. And I didn't know what to do with that.

And I started to notice how common the second idea was, too. The most pervasive thing I noticed was how common "Darwin Award" jokes are-- the joke, of course, being that people who die doing something stupid are making a positive contribution to the human gene pool. I don't really like those jokes. I ended up with the impression that eugenicists were right abt the human gene pool being a thing that we ought to be concerned about damaging, but they just went Too Far. You'll notice people who think this way disagree on where Too Far was. It made me uncomfortable that there could be an idea that was right, and if ignored would cause problems down the line, and at the same time acting on it was morally wrong, and everyone agreed it was a bad idea but only when called by a particular name--otherwise it's just common sense.

I don't think it was until high school that I started to understand that eugenics was, in fact, bad science. It makes sense with a surface level understanding of evolution, but the more in-depth you go, the more it falls apart. Artificial selection in dogs is such a great way to point this out. "It worked so well in dogs, why not try it in humans? Oh, wait..."

Eugenics requires the assumption that natural selection is at once a great and powerful force worthy of abandoning all morals in order to worship, while being so fragile that human civilization is at risk of overthrowing it within a couple hundred years.

Of course, the truth is that eugenicists weren't and aren't abandoning their real values in favor of what their understanding of natural selection would suggest. Eugenics was built on racism and ableism, and there is no escaping that. People latch on to ideas that validate their preexisting beliefs. You know what we can say, pretty confidently, about what's "healthy" genetically, for dog breeds and for humans? Variation. You'll notice that you don't see a lot of eugenicists advocating for interracial marriage. Even setting aside the (very important) ethical considerations for their methods, if eugenicists had their way, humanity would be barreling toward an artificial bottleneck that would REALLY fuck us over genetically.

Even that is missing nuance, though-- we're still in the realm of stick figure drawings. Genetics are really complicated. All this requires you to pretend that we fully understand what all of our genes even do, and we just don't. And that's ok! We do not, in fact, have to base public policy on whether G exists!

Natural selection is still happening to us, and if its slown down lately then I'd chalk that up to a global civilization mixing up our gene pool (which, again, is unambiguously a good thing from a genetic perspective) more than modern medicine helping disabled people have kids (which is not a new thing! we have been helping each other for millions of years). The human genome is not at risk of collapse.

We haven't even touched on poverty being a structural issue that requires people to exploit (ie, if all the poor people disappeared poverty wouldn't end, the next group up would be moved into their place) or the question of what mental health issues even ARE (I'm a proponent of the idea that, of the disorders/cases that are primarily caused by genetics, most are just the extreme ends of traits that are necessary to the general population and can't actually be removed-- extremely simplified example: everyone needs a sprinkle of neuroticism to function, sometimes someone gets a heavier dose and winds up with clinical anxiety, and every once and a while someone gets way too much and had OCD. even if environment weren't a factor at all, and even if anxiety were such a simplistic trait that we could track it with a very high degree of confidence, keeping the person with OCD from having kids wouldn't stop OCD from existing. they might be more likely to have kids with OCD, but them not having kids does nothing to the fact that OCD is a product of inherent variation that it would be a VERY bad idea to try to eliminate), or delving into IQ [even longer rant redacted].

I think sometimes people think eugenics is bad but its still true, like thinking that if people with certain traits have children it will change society for better or worse based upon what traits are promoted. I think its important to emphasize that eugenics is not only wrong morally it's also fake and stupid bullshit

Like eugenics was supposed to be based on the idea that "If it works with animals to select only the best ones to breed, why wouldn't it work with humans?"

well it doesn't work with animals, that's the thing. applying the eugenics ideas to domestic breeds of animals hasn't made better animals it's just made animals with more extreme expression of certain traits. turns out that when you decide which traits are the "best" and become obsessed with the genetic purity of the animals that have the "best" traits, you might well end up with some sad suffering creature like a Pug, or the Persian cats with the smashed faces that are in constant pain because their teeth and airways and brains are getting crushed by their skulls, or those meat chickens that grow so fast they can hardly even stand up after a few weeks old, or inbred race horses with tiny feet and fragile toothpick legs

like almost all traits are neither "good" or "bad" they're way more complex than that. a long tail or a long snout or a stubborn, independent personality can be good or bad depending on the situation. Who gets to decide what is a "good" trait or a "bad" trait? It's arbitrary and selecting for traits that are "good" in your opinion will often have both "good" and "bad" outcomes because the "good" and "bad" are part of each other and not separate its just part of being alive

Obviously oversimplifying everything but you get it. we did eugenics with dogs and how did that go? not very well

[windmaedchen-oceanhorn]

Meet my new (old) AFK Journey OC Erin!

I thought of her half way through the Song of Strife Season, but then refocused on Lavinia instead, whose story I have already shared. I am not entirely sure what made me think of Erin, but at some point the idea of a "good" Hypogean crossed my mind. Possibly the fact that Talene's flames can distinguish between good and bad, which I read as being pure Hypogean or not... and so what if there is a truly good Hypogean? Would her flames hurt them?

And only THEN I learned of a certain other Hypogean, who is into Esperian stuff and doesn't really wanna fight them at all. xD *cough* Eugene *cough* So you may take the well educated guess that Erin is... simply his sister now. xD So let me share some facts about her below the cut:

Name: Erin

Sex: Female

Family: Eugene (brother)

Summary: Erin is a lively and outspoken personality and she much enjoys hanging out with people. Erin is extremely curious in everything Esperia has to offer and is most of her time trying to learn the various crafts and arts it offers. Since years don't mean much to her, she would spend a good amount of decades as master of her craft before moving on to the next thing. She hangs around Merlin a lot for they share the same chosen fate and she aims to remind them of the things Dura has tasked Merlin to do.

Early Life

Erin is Eugene's younger sister. She shares her fascination about Esperia with him and together they would roam the lands instead of trying to fight alongside their brethren. Being the younger sister, she enjoyed much protection from her brother, especially as she has a knack of getting into trouble (not quite unlike him, actually).

Eventually, Erin runs into Merlin and they become very good friends. Merlin actually is able to fulfill her wish of becoming more human, by enchanting a necklace that would hide her Hypogean form and aura when worn.

As creatures of great magical composition, both Celestial and Hypogeans do not really have to sleep (and eat). However, if they wish to retain their memories, they must take rest every couple of decades or centuries, for a nearly equal amount of time. Then they will retreat into the Leylines and the Realm of their kind.

Both Erin and Merlin are the only ones that have decided to forgo their memory, in favor of being more constantly in Esperia in order to help those in need. They trust, that they will remain the same person at core, knowing they could never do harm to Esperia. The downside of this method is that in regular intervals they will forget what they have done previously.

Usually this memory wipe is done voluntarily, so both, Erin and Merlin, pick moments where it's convenient to them. 

The reason that Merlin suffers from sudden memory-lapses could be two things (or both): they might have overdone it in the recent centuries and pay the price now by unexpected resets... or they perform many short resets now in order to be fully ready for the task ahead of them.

Since Erin will also forget her family, she and Eugene have prepared magical bracelets that are impossible to remove, always making sure that they know of each other (even if Erin doesn't remember anything about him after they part for the first time).

Prelude

Erin and Merlin become friends with Hogan and they join him in battle against various foes. One particular such battle forces Erin to reveal her true nature in order to save her friends. She is badly injured (probably by Scarlita) by loosing one of her wings and she is forced to retreat into her Hypogean Realm to heal herself. 

It takes her about 20 years to heal fully. She returns a little later than Merlin, just after the Song of Strife Season.

She is found by Valen in the streets of Holistone, as she was reported missing merely a day or two previously. Back at the Heroic Order building she reunites with Hogan. They consider her being reported missing a ruse and so Valen joins her to visit the one who brought up the case.

Of course this is a trap and it becomes clear that the Adamant Syndicate is behind it. They want something she possesses: "The Amulet of Life", a legendary necklace that would promise its wearer an eternal life.

This hunt goes on for a while until eventually Erin gets into the situation of having to show her true form and save the lives of others.

To make things more complicated, the current Celestials are also on the hunt for her, in particular Scarlita. Since Erin walks around in her human form, she is able to have plenty of conversations with those around her, including Talene. About the nature of Hypogeans, Celestials, prejudices and justice in light of actions and not factions.

It ends with a major showdown between Erin and the three Celestials of that time (Scarlita, Dionel and Talene). Erin only defends herself in frustration. Again, Scarlita manages to cut of the remaining wing and nearly kills her. Valen is ready to shield Erin from a lethal attack by Scarlita, but gathering up her last strength, Erin not only parries but also counter attacks the Celestial, blasting off her two arms, rendering her incapable to continue the fight.

Being at the end of her powers, she is ready to be permanently destroyed. However, both Talene and Dionel do not wish to do so anymore. Being too weak to heal herself (and others being unable to heal a Hypogean) Erin's last chance is her brother.

So Merlin and Talene venture out to wake up Eugene from his slumber. Since Merlin was there when Erin and Eugene parted (to protect the place of his slumber) only they can find it again. They manage to get Eugene, who travels with them to help his sister recover.

So Erin and Eugene become permanent residents of the Mystical House.

In theory, Erin's wings can grow back but it would take decades, so she might become mortal before she can regain them (though the fun she could have with them....! )

Future Events

Erin and Eugene will naturally have a look for Gavus and the kids, as they too decided to rest, but weren't there when Eugene awoke.

Eventually Erin is by Merlins side when they are put into the situation of a specific sacrifice having to be made to unlock a secret, or a spell or weapon. The sacrifice asks for an immortal life to be given away, and Erin is actually rather happy to do so. She emerges from the sacrifice as a humble human being (one of those things maybe even set up by Dura for this moment, similar to how Dura left clues to Merlin about how to deal with Phraesto).

[demigod-shenanigans]

I originally mostly made this post based on silly thoughts, but you made me think about the concept again so here’s my thoughts on some of your questions:

The claiming is a very good question. Reyna would obviously have her tattoo, but would any of the Greek demigods even recognize it? Also, Annabeth and Reyna don‘t have showy, obvious powers the way Percy and Jason do.

Barely anyone at Camp Jupiter even knows what Reyna’s powers are. Her being unclaimed would be an interesting issue, since that’s not been a thing since the Titan war. Leo and Piper got claimed immediately, and everyone assumes so will Reyna, but then she’s not, and people have a lot of feelings about it. Does she go in the Hermes cabin like kids used to? Maybe Hestia, assuming she got a symbolic cabin like Hera? Percy was already fuming but he’s even madder now. Obviously something is weird about this particular demigod but that the gods aren’t claiming this girl is a really bad omen.

Because Minerva doesn’t have kids but Annabeth is such a good battle strategist, I feel like she’s probably presumed to be a child of Mars or Bellona, but since claiming isn’t as important at Camp Jupiter (at least not for placement like at CHB), it’s probably not a huge issue. She carried Juno across the Little Tiber, so they know she’s important, and who exactly her godly parent is isn’t that much of a focus. People definitely react strangely when she insists her mom is Athena.

The Octavian situation would be interesting because as mentioned above I’m not sure Jason would have handled the whole solo praetor thing nearly as well as Reyna did. Thank the gods for Annabeth honestly. She can and will go over every single one of New Rome’s legal texts in a few days so she can find the most strategically sound way to wipe the floor with him.

Hazel adores Annabeth. There’s also immediate kinship between them based on them both having difficult relationships with their mortal parent and partially raising themselves.

Also I love the concept of Reyna finding familiarities in Thalia and Annabeth finding ones in Jason. Excellent thought, 10/10. Reyna obviously wouldn’t remember Thalia like Jason does because that makes no sense whatsoever, and Hylla isn’t relevant to the lost hero quest like Thalia is, so if she remembers anyone, it’s probably Jason. (Not sure Jason ever mentioned Thalia, but the child of Zeus combined with the Grace last name doesn’t exactly make it very hard to figure that one out)

This means the wolf encounter with Reyna might be how Thalia finds out her brother is alive. She’s terrified to let herself hope, but also even more motivated to find the roman camp now that she knows both of her little siblings might be there.

Percy probably keeps the curse of Achilles in this scenario also, which is super interesting to me.

Reyna getting her memories back would be very messy for a bunch of pretty traumatic reasons. Her remembering her childhood and Bellona’s prophecy would probably not go over great. She was raised to believe the future of New Rome was on her shoulders, and now she a) cannot even remember where New Rome is and b) the prophecy of the seven definitely isn’t helping

And she feels incredibly guilty about how much of a relief it is to be at CHB and free of all that responsibility, at least for a little while. For all the issues she has with how disorganized and chaotic CHB is, the amount of pressure on her shoulders is different. And these are just a bunch of kids, especially during the winter when only the year rounders are there. There isn’t a whole vast city looking to her for guidance.

And dealing with Aphrodite’s prophecy on top of that, trying to figure out if she meant Reyna wouldn’t find love with Jason or that the feelings she’s starting to develop for Piper are doomed to end in a failed relationship… yeah, it’s messy. She’s sort of convinced there’s something fundamentally broken about the way she loves because it seems so different from how it works for everyone else (pushing my demiromantic ace Reyna agenda here too because I can)

Piper really wishes her mom would stop meddling in her love life for five seconds. (Meeting Aphrodite again in Charlestown when that was where Reyna originally got that prophecy would be super messy, too)

Reyna misses her dogs like hell. Jason is probably dog-sitting and hanging out with them whenever he misses her. I wonder how he’d deal with Reyna being changed by her experience at the other camp? Because he doesn’t have romantic feelings for her the way she did for him, so I don’t think he’d be bothered by Reyna dating Piper, but I do think he’d be hurt by the fact that she abandoned him for other people. It’s not her fault she doesn’t fully remember everything (assuming Jason not fully remembering everything would also be true for Reyna), but seeing that she’s apparently happier with Piper and Leo than she ever was with him? That still stings.

Thinking about a concept where Juno swaps Annabeth and Reyna instead.

Annabeth and Reyna are fine, because they’ve always been able to handle just about anything the gods threw at them. Piper accidentally has her gay awakening via fake memories of a relationship with Reyna and is really confused why her girlfriend is acting so weird. Reyna and Leo bicker non-stop because even without her memories Reyna knows what she’s doing and she’s very used to getting people to listen to her but Leo will not be serious for even one second.

Percy would start fist fighting the gods in the first week. Jason has never been more stressed in his life because he never even wanted to be praetor but it was manageable while he was doing it with Reyna and now he’s alone. What the hell is he supposed to do.

By the time Annabeth shows up at Camp Jupiter, Jason is so relieved someone knows what they’re doing that he immediately asks her to be praetor, now if she’ll excuse him he needs to go have an anxiety meltdown in a corner somewhere

[slightly-sigilant]

I feel like the thing that the Fallen London fandom knows me for is Correspondence, and indeed, I love the squiggles. But in truth, the part of the setting I think about most is Parabola, the world behind the mirror. The land of the Is-Not; the realm of dreams.

I've had some flavor of chronic fatigue throughout my life. Without getting into the gruesome details, no doctor in a decade-plus of searching has been able to diagnose or treat it. At this point, I've more or less moved on to trying to accept it, work around it, and not linger on the looming dread I feel whenever I think about being disabled in This Society We Live In. I'm fortunate enough to have a remote job, one that mostly tolerates me working weird hours and sneaking off now and then to nap, so my days are something like a patchwork. Irregular swaths are cut from my life for sleep, and for lying in bed trying to muster up my energy, with the things that I need to do packed into the periods in-between, the precious moments where I feel well and truly awake.

At some point, I decided that if sleep was going to take up over half my life, I might as well make the most of it. I wouldn't call myself an expert on dreams - I've read Some websites on lucid dreaming, and One (1) book. But I do have vivid dreams on the regular, and I try to engage with them with my own particular means.

(It looks something like this: I let myself sink, and then, at a place between waking and dreaming, I float. I focus on my childhood room - a place my dreams have taken me, again and again, as of late. I brush my fingers along the walls, asking them to keep the terrors out, rather than trap me within. I speak to the ghosts that haunt this memory-place, inviting them to truce, to rest. I remember my present - of being an adult in a household that respects and cares for me - and breathe it into my past. With luck, the next time my dreams take me here, this place will be a sanctuary, not a prison.

Or like this: holding still, careful and quiet, in the moments before a dream dissipates. This one had been suffused with a powerful, yet curious melancholy. I hold onto the feeling as best as I can, studying the curves of its sorrow, the angles of its longing. I realize that it is a feeling I have taught myself to no longer feel in the waking world. The realization cuts, like a scalpel.)

It started as a necessity. A tendency to have nightmares doesn't mesh well with a life riddled with opportunities to have them. But it also became a quiet passion. Small wonder that it would be Parabola that would be my hook into Fallen London's world. While I only became an active player a year ago, I spent much longer than that reading the wiki. I remember combing through Wikidot for every scrap that I could on the mirror-realm and its inhabitants. I remember being elated to find out that you could become a Silverer (or "Glassman," as they were once called) and that you could set up a Parabolan Base-Camp of your very own. When I made Lukas, my current main, I planned for him to become a Silverer. His character arc took him down the path of a Correspondent, but Rafael would take up the cosmogone spectacles instead.

My readings are not the only valid ones, of course. But it never appealed to me to treat Parabola as just a wacky otherworld, and the Fingerkings as just sinister. My personal experience has been that dream logic is logic, something to work with rather than against, shown respect rather than bullied into submission. It is reciprocal - in order to shape my dreams, I allow myself to be shaped in return. They yearn and I yearn; I feed them and they feed me; we move together in ever-shifting dance.

This is the kind of perspective I try to weave into my interpretations of Parabola. I would like them to live somewhere other than just in my head, and I've thought at some point of creating some kind of compendium of My Personal Parabolan Headcanons. But that format doesn't really sit right with me - it's a vibe, not a set of rules. I think I would like to write some kind of playable fan-Exceptional Story, but it's really hard to beat the feeling that It Has To Be Perfect. The perils of writing about something that you're passionate about, I guess.

For now, I daydream and I doodle and sometimes I inflict my thoughts on my friends via Discord. But someday! Someday.

[izanna]

Great huge theory post for elriel/gwyn 

I'm going to start this off by saying, these have been curated from many people, not just me, i will try to credit all of them at the end, a lot of this was sourced from tumblr's large elriel community. and lots of rereads from the reddit community.

first theory:

The potatoes

You remember that scene wher Elain is coming out with potatoes and azriel takes them form her?

Yes, what beautiful scene, we love it.

Well one of the tumblr communities nicest elriels (credit at bottom) made a post in the our very own elriel tumblr community (PM me if you wanna join~!) ! it goes as follows:

" Call me crazy, but 🥔🥔🥔

Ok. We know Elain reacted to Azriel taking the dish of potatoes out of her hands by kind of freezing and staring at the place where the dish used to be. Interesting that SJM focused on that in so much detail.

Now that could be coincidence, could mean totally nothing. But! What if…it’s foreshadowing something? Like Elain offering food (maybe potatoes or something in that dish?) to Azriel to seal their mating bond? Either the “real one” that the cauldron is covering up by giving her Lucien instead, or a symbolic one they make after she breaks her bond with Lucien and chooses Az?

Maybe she even reacted that way because she’s seen it? In a dream/vision?

Maybe I’m grasping at straws, but the potato scene will always have me in my feels, one way or the other. 💕"

(end of quote)

Now when i brought this to other friends in the community we started buzzing because we have been doing some amazing research and re-reads of the elriel moments, mentions and vibes.

one in particular has done a good amount of research of mor and her interactions with elriel moments, because yes we know it's weird how she acts.

but if this was the moment azriel and Elain did infact make their bond accepted, it would explain quite a few things. the steam from the potatoes being likened to azriels shadows in this moment as well as

mor only started reacting negatively after this scene.

before this scene she reacted worried once. over cassian because he was knocking back drinks. and the only other mention of elain and azriel is the truth teller moment with feyre, and all she does is hum while talking about it which gives the vibe of "hmmmm" or hemming and hawing at the scenario.

afterwards we start getting things like "her mouth agape green beans practically falling out."

or "she stiffened" when azriel walks to elain.

also azriel starts becoming more protective socially of elain after this immediately

another key thing to notice is after this moment elain starts wearing only amethyst colors. only purple which is as we know a mixture of blue and pink. az and Elain's colors.

now haters will say "that's impossible she already has a mate and it's Lucien, Elriels are reaching again blah blah blah." Okay okay,

i direct you all to the scene with nesta putting elain's rose under the mother in the shadows.

the rose is now one with the shadows under the mother.

when did elain's bond with lucien come into knowing? only after she was pulled from the cauldron.

now we know two things form this.

the cauldron, and the mother make bonds.

the acceptance of a bond is food.

elain has shown absolute discomfort around lucien and any mention of her bond, and no mention of her giving him food, infact she goes out of her way to glare at people for trying to get her to talk to him, and or avoiding him by watching water boil.

my best theory right now is there are two bonds, one mother made, one cauldron made.

elain might be the first person to ever have two mates. and it explains so much of the foreshading, the questions and azriel and her behavior toward eachother.

and i question you this, why would elain ever accept anything cauldron made after what the cauldron did to her, her family? and her life?

"well why can't they feel the bond if it's so obvious?"

well what if they did but didn't understand it?

elain stared at her hands after the potatoes were taken, making a undistiguishable face.

why? why would she do that?

AZRIEL HIMSELF QUESTIONS IF THE CAULDRON WAS WRONG.

(foreshadowing again.)

well the cauldron is magic, it is made of magic, magic can conceal things. the cauldron has also been tampered with as a great many of us know from other SJM books, which does carry into Acotar world.

and what if the mother created this bond against the cauldron? i can't imagne the mother and the cauldron get along very well,

seeing as one is to protect, create, give life

and the other is chaos mischief, mayhem and destruction/ death.

now this theory was also from Tumblr (credit below at the end)

Now, gwyreiels might ask "Well what about gwyn!, she had her moment with Azriel in the bonus chapter!! it's obvious foreshadowing."

oh yes it is, but not in the way you think

lets visit one of the gwyriels FAVORITE SCENES. shall we?

""your'e the new ribbon AZ"

gwy nodded her farewell, again facing the ribbon. A warrior sizing up and opponent, all traces of that charming irreverence gone."

A lot of gwyriels stake their houses on this one scene saying it's foreshadowing.

okay, but what? does it give off nay romance vibes to you?

no it's a challenge.

and what is Azriel to gwyn now? A ribbon.

here's the next quote

"Gwy stare the ribbon down like an enemy on a battlefield. IT rippled in the wind, dancing away, it's motions unpredictable as any foe."

oh yes. it did bring some foreshadowing indeed didn't it?

dancing sounds familiar? i wonder why...

Oh yes the bonus chapter. Azriels shadows DANCED, around gwyn.

that compared to the way dancing and ribbons were earlier mention, it doesn't sound like a good thing does it?

my guess is we are going to see gwyns powers as a light singer, and i don't think it's going to be good for azriel. they are going to be enemies in a way. and i know the gwynriels hate this, but it's literally foreshadowed right there babe.

"Whatever none of this is canon, it's jsut a deluded elriel theory yet again."

oh it's not canon yet babes, but it's a theory BASED off canon foreshadowing and quotes.

CREDITS:

potato theory origin!: @mck6888

a lot of the work through ont he theory and the connections with mor's behavior came form our very own RoadsidePoppy! thank you so much for theorizing with me!

and lastly the person responsible for the gwyriel theory and foreshadowing is!:

@Elainsgirl On Tumblr

she was responding to a GA anon quote, and came up with this foreshadowing and theory! thank you all so much i hope you can add to it and together we can have fun making theories and see what happens in the next book.

Any rude misbehavior will not be tolerated/blocked

[jynxd]

Okay so I want to point out that while I know I haven't been amazingly active in 2024, there are definitely people I am grateful for. I can't always express how I'm feeling much into words, so lets give it a go.

@shimmerbeasts - Oh man has it been a journey for us! It's hard to believe that over a year ago were barely knew each other. And now here we are being the closer than I could have imagined! I love the bods we have formed in character as well, in particular with the slow burn we had with our fuck up version of time bomb, you know the one most would hate. LOL. And then also what we explored with Wyll and Mizora over on my bg3 blog. I look forward to what we accomplish in 2025!

@valiantthearts -The same applies from Miss T, except it very much took us a bit of time to get things going. And you know what? It was worth the wait, because now what we do write is so amazing, no matter how slow we both can be. I love our cait and vi are with each other. And how even the connection even with Ekko, who usually is percieved as hating Caitlyn but getting such a big bond with her. ( ALSO aylin and isobelllll)

@zigg--muses - So we started working with each other with Silco and honestly? I love what have formed with Silco and Jinx, it has made me love them so much. Like being able to explore something like them being connected the way they are, just ahhh. I also really loved coming up with Flux too!! and let's not forget what we are doing with Viktor, the brotherly love we have is so perfect and I look forward to what we develop going forward (and hello I love you so much as a friend.)

@hexedevolution / @iron-hearts-ablaze - Of course I met you in the bg3 fandom but since then our friendship has gone way past that. (HELLLOO OUR OWN ISLAND.) I love that we have gotten so close OOC. But as far as in character, i love the fact that we have established so much with karlarch and wyll, and howthey have sucha beautiful family! (Which hello lily and cliff for bg3 <3). And i am so in love with what we have for our whole found family here in arcane too.<3

@blackrosesmatron - You have honestly become such a big friend in my life. Yes we may not talk very much because we get distracted, but you are best mom (by one year ago difference) I ever had online. I love our family we have found with lb, jinx, Silco, and now ekko! literally my muses love you as much as I do you and her! (Oriana I look forward to as well.)

@runes-menagerie - Well, you know why you are here, babe. <3

Honoroable mentions because this is already a big enough post: @vandrs ,@restrainedhungr, @strxngertogether , @stcries , @harpershigh , @bangpow ,@jinxcdd, @gaevaer, @minediamonds , @claggrot , @forh3r , @forzaun. (for anyone I don't mention, I can't remember them all but know you are loved@)

I hope 2025 brings you all a happy year!

[doodlewizardry]

ooohhhh long long post!!!! [this is @doodlejoltik's main btw for any of the people I tagged that might not recognise it]

@pillowbugs aww thanks ! i didn't realise/remember that your blog was new at the time :O that's awesome to hear! it's fun seeing your art and writing!

i cannot possibly mention everyone cool that i know on this site but I'll try for a few at least. again in no particular order

@beastkonohaworld BK!!! you've been a great person to work with and an even greater friend :D chemmet is one of the highlights of my merch collection too. here's to another great year!

@protagpigeon KAIT! :D collabs shenanigans silliness you name it, if it's comedic we can do it XD immensely enjoyed all the time we've spent together, may there be endless more fun times to be had

@reestallized hey reestal! fellow Rei fan :D love your art and ideas loads, they're always so great to see !!! especially your traditional art it's something you do that is very cool :O same with the colour palette challenges

@cheesecake801 cheese it's quite possibly your fault that I enjoy volkner so much. it's contagious you spread it to everyone XDDD love the warm colours you use in your art and all the Character Thoughts you have, they're so wonderful <3

@skitter-kitter aka. one of the Lear fans ever. it's Definitely your fault i like Lear so much i blame you entirely /lh thank you for the fun times vibing about writing in DMs together, the community you've organised for us Lear fans, and generally being Very Cool <3

@ursamajorgamma we only met this past year, but it's been a delight knowing you! VC shenanigans beloved all our conversations have been so interesting and/or fun. epic Lear art and other paintings too :OO

@defoozor thank you for the cool art talk and other conversations, the awesome concepts you've made (Lear_Gem and Arc Suit Consequences are iconic) and also the VC fun hehe

@davepeta neppy you're always down for fun and silliness and you appreciate a good Bit! cool writing too, and art, and it's just awesome to hang out with you on chat.

@choochooboss Jun thank you for everything you've done for the community and being an AWESOME person to know! I've gushed many a time about how much i love pokemagma so I won't repeat myself but suffice to say it's one of the best things I've ever been part of. and to borrow from BK: U CUTE also!

@turtwisp we've only been talking regularly pretty recently, but you are very cool :3 love your barries !!!

@grubbin22 you are so nice and so sweet i've very much enjoyed the time we've spent together!!! and I've always admired your art so it's awesome to make your acquaintance

@monvallaria our acquaintance has been short so far but I'm absolutely loving it!!! you're a delight! love all your little doodles with hearts everywhere and much hilarity it's wonderful <3 <3 <3 here's to more fun together

@antihibikase it was super fun to talk and hang out productively, plus it's nice to see you around. i hope 2025 is a good year for you <3

@ultipoter yippee ulti! i love your art so much... such a recognisable and distinct artstyle with some traditional and anime influences that is Very Tasty. awesome character thoughts like that one Volo comic that popped off, hilarious Bits (Volo Cola, our incredibly stupid venn diagram /affectionate) and one of the guys of all time (holds up Jirou like a lil plushie). it's always a delight when you're around! I'm very happy to know you

@scraggscribbs hey scraggs, hope you've been well! i appreciate all the support and amazing comments you've given me on my fics <3 and you make such AMAZING manga with such interesting characterisation, I'm in awe! enjoy all our conversations very much and would love to catch up again :D

@hwpn-gurire I really appreciate all the comments and positive energy you bring to the pokemas community! you uplift everyone and always have a kind word :) plus your art is fantastic - thanks for teaching me that lil trick about offset colour, it's a really fun effect to use!

@claitea you have Many character thoughts that we are in agreement on / make me Think. really great stuff, thank you for appreciating my insane tag rambling on your posts LOL frequently pointing like yeah YOU GET IT! your art is great too with many :O comics that live in my brain rent free 👍

@kobandan you've listened to me a lot over this past year, thank you for that <3 your art is awesome, especially love your submas series with all their different pokemon. seeing those less popular combinations get the spotlight is great!

@smashwolfen originator of UPDOG my beloved snorlax.... thank you for the Very Epic name and continuing to stay subscribed to my silly Updog Newsletter XD I promise to continue the saga! also love your art, so much good PLA <33333 the Volo sketch page I remember quite well, phenomenal stuff hahahaha

@raikouswish rei-membering all the good times we've had this year 😁 i always have so much pun talking to you! here's to staying f-rei-nds in times to come >:3

@shibearts U CUTE !!!! love your designs and OCs they are super epic and you always hit me with the nostalgia blast. you've inspired me with your character design! geographyverse collab sometime this year surely

@submastrain it's been awesome collaborating with you! your rendering and colours make my brain light up they're so good :O

and many MANY more people that I've had the pleasure of talking to or reblogging posts back and forth with or drawing with - I'm sorry I can't mention you all!! appreciate all of you, whether we're mutuals or you're just following me along on this ride - both here and with my pokeposting :3

happy new year!

@jumpy-buggy-33 @ollie-arts67 @ashmeertheimp @k4izershasfreakycanon @cyrophobia

[And all my moots becuz I'm supposed to be helping out during party 😋]

[askstormscall]

Raiden gave a passing look over his sister. She stood out too much. She was still very much a rarity among their species. 

“I suggest a compromise.” Mo’o clasped her claws together. “A disguise is needed for such an occasion.” When neither pressed further, she said, “A human one.”

Raiden's snout wrinkled. “A human?” His disgust was apparent. 

“You and your sister stick out like a sore thumb. Myself included,” she said, her voice cheery. Mo'o was having fun with this. This might have been the first bit of fun she had in well over a century. “This invitation speaks of spirits but undoubtedly has a human hand to it. While I believe in giving the humans the benefit of the doubt, who else may come to this party. So I suggest a human ruse.” 

A quick look of worry entered his eyes. What if they managed to get separated? What if she managed to get herself hurt? A thousand possibilities. His breath began to quicken.

I don't want us to be on the run again. 

Not after they finally felt safe. 

A sense of warmth against his neck. He stiffened before relaxing as a gentle purr rumbled through him. 

We'll be ok with Mo'o there, remember. Mariko's mental voice washed over him a soft glow as she pressed close. It was embarrassing that his younger sister was the one to assure him this time but… 

He exhaled. “Fine.” He relented. “You're right.” He caught his sister looking towards the open sea. The look of longing as her eyes searched. He recognized the covetous look because he had it himself before that day-

Mo'o clapped her claws, snapping his attention back to her. “Right I am! Now I know you are quite proficient at it, yes Raiden?” 

How did she know? He snorted. There was no way of keeping a secret from the leviathan. She was aware of every occurance on the island. “Yes…” he admitted reluctantly. He would venture into warmer waters, watching the humans surf upon boards while their Mantine awaited in the wings to watch over them. They called it a sport, riding on the waves with a skill that should only belong to Pokémon in his eyes. 

Sometimes he would intentionally make it rougher, earning the rebuke from the Mantine but they would surprise him, expertly, bravely facing the wave, centering themselves upon the board. Not a single look of fear in their eyes.

One particular stood out to him so he shut his eyes, focusing on the memory. A dim glow enveloped his form then a dark-skinned youth stood where the Lugia once was. His silver hair was unruly, save for a braid tied neatly down his back. He adjusted his jacket, purple gloves brushing against embroidery similar to the rigid feathers along his back. 

Mariko pressed her wings to her jaws with surprise while Mo'o quirked a brow. “Impressive,” she praised. “Were you studying a magazine as well?” 

Raiden purged his lips as he loosened the light scarf around his neck. “Maybe. Now what about Mariko? She hasn't done this before-”

“You're… cool!” Mariko squealed, unable to contain it further. “What did you look at? Let me try! Let me try!”

“Wait!”

She was glowing brightly before he could get the word out. 

A young girl stood in her place. Raiden could hardly believe it. Prim and proper, she clutched at the pearls around her neck, twisted one of the many curls in her hair that matched the mismatched hue of her true self. 

“...Mariko?” He managed out, the sound astonished. 

Her smile was demure but it was hers. Shyness and all. But how did she manage this on her first try? His thoughts trailed into suspicion but were quickly smothered as she embraced him.

“I did it, brother! I did it!”

Emotions swinging towards pride, he hugged her all the same. 

“I knew you could do it.” 

—

When they arrived at the party, it seemed to be in full swing. 

As agreed, Mo'o dipped into the shallows, but not before parting with a few gifts. “The invitation did suggest bringing an offering.” The purest water from the island's center. A yellow hibiscus, a common flower among many. And a blue scale, One of many scales that belonged to Mo'o; it shimmered with gold specks, water reflecting upon the surface. 

“Keep your nose clean!”

The two were left to scratch their head at the expression before looking towards the party goers with looks of apprehension. 

Raiden, Mariko, and Mo'o have arrived at the Magi Event!

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: referenced mind control / parasites / intrusive thoughts (only in the tags) / ]

(This is just a fun “what if” so bear with me-) I know we make mention of the potential for Krang remnants to be stuck with Raph and/or Donnie, but Mikey and Leo also had a moment with the other two where a type of Krang goop was crawling beneath their skin (this being immediately after Raph broke free.)

So I raise you the potential for all four of them to have a bit of that Krang parasite on them…and for that to have unforeseen consequences.

[silverwhittlingknife]

How do you feel about Jack Drake?? What are your thoughts on him and Tim’s relationship?

Anon, I hope you were interested in a novel, because look, I am fascinated by Jack Drake.  He’s key to a whole lot of what I find compelling about Tim as a character, and if I were in charge of DC, I’d bring him back to life.  This would make Tim unhappy but would IMO make for good plotlines.

Jack and Tim’s relationship is Complicated (TM)...

Jack and Tim hug in Nightwing 20 / Jack impulsively yanks a TV out of the wall in Robin 45 / Tim grieves in Identity Crisis

“I could tell the truth.  But I don’t.” - Robin 66

...and it involves a whole lot of Tim lying, and feeling guilty about lying, and thinking about telling the truth, and choosing again and again to keep lying.

And I think that’s great.

Below the cut:

Shorter version - key points about Jack

Really long version - my gentler take (vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports) vs. my harsher take (Jack has some major flaws)

Final thoughts

Shorter version - key points about Jack:

He’s a bad parent.  He’s self-centered, he consistently prioritizes his own comfort and interests over his son’s, and when upset, he does things like order Tim off to boarding school.

But he’s never a bad parent in an actionable way.  He’s not like David Cain or Arthur Brown, who are abusive monsters.  Jack’s not a monster!  He just...kinda sucks.

He genuinely loves Tim. If Jack’s aware that Tim’s disappeared or is in trouble, he’s always worried and upset.  He periodically resolves to be a better dad, and IMO he’s always sincere.

And Tim loves him, a lot.  Tim’s protective of him and worries about him when he’s kidnapped or in danger, and when they’re reunited, Tim’s really relieved and usually hugs him (and Jack hugs back!). 

...But they have very little in common, and that’s a problem. Jack doesn’t value the things that Tim values, or respect the people that Tim admires, or care about the things that Tim’s interested in.  Tim lies to him a lot, but that’s partly because he correctly guesses Jack wouldn’t respond well if he knew the truth of what Tim’s up to.

The Batfamily is a surrogate family that Tim’s drawn to because of the ways his real family doesn’t meet his emotional needs…but also he feels guilty about that and disloyal. (And to the extent that his dad recognizes what’s going on, he's jealous and resentful!)

Very long version:

(LISTEN I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS)

Okay!  So first: Jack’s a character who IMO is pretty up for interpretation.  You can interpret him very charitably, and make excuses for the bad behavior, and fill in the blanks sympathetically when situations are ambiguous; or you can interpret him uncharitably, and emphasize the bad behavior. I don’t think either approach is invalid - it depends on what kind of story you’re interested in!  I have enjoyed Bad Dad stories and also stories that redeem Jack.

My personal take on canon is that Jack and Tim’s relationship is in a gray area.  Jack's definitely neglectful, and he does prioritize other things over Tim, but he’s never so bad that Tim can easily reject him, and he's never so bad that Bruce could justify taking Tim away.  He's just...not great.  Tim loves him, and feels loyal to him, but it’s a very mixed-up complicated love.

I have a gentler take and a harsher one which I switch between as the spirit moves me. xD

My Gentler Take (tl;dr: vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports)

Here’s the core conflict: Jack and Tim are very different people with different values.  Tim idolizes Bruce and Dick and vigilantism, and secretly gets involved, knowing his dad will hate it. He gets increasingly wrapped up in his secret world and lies to his dad...because if his dad finds out, he’ll make Tim quit.

This is a great setup for an ongoing comic.  It’s practical, because it provides endless potential for plotlines, and it’s nicely thematic, because it maps closely onto relatable real-life situations with extracurricular activities:

Tim the drama nerd whose dad thinks he’s playing football and not in the school play; 

Tim the closeted-queer kid secretly getting involved in his school’s politically-active Gay-Straight Alliance; 

Tim the choir kid whose dad only values making money and wants him to go into the family business (and Tim keeps promising himself he'll give up choir soon, definitely soon, but maybe he'll stay in just a liiiittle longer, because they need him, you see, the last tenor left town, so...); 

Tim the computer geek with the sports-obsessed dad (this one’s just canon);

etc. etc.  

The extracurricular metaphor works pretty well for Tim’s relationship to vigilantism.  Tim's involved in his "extracurricular" because he genuinely thinks it's important and fulfilling, and he values it and wants to be good at it. He idolizes Bruce and Dick because they're good at it. He's been collecting information about it since he was a little kid, and hiding it from his parents because he knows they wouldn't approve. And mayyyybe there's also an element of low-key rebellion against his dad, and maybe that's secretly part of the appeal. And yet also as Tim gets more and more invested, he starts to daydream: maybe I could tell my dad and he'd be proud of me and supportive. But he doesn't, because actually he knows his dad would be upset and angry and make him quit.

And - again, just like with lonely kids and extracurricular hobbies - one of the things that happens is that Tim starts getting his unfilled emotional needs met ... by people he knows through this secret hobby. And people like Bruce and Dick start turning into a surrogate family. Which Tim feels guilty about. And also as Tim gets more and more wrapped up in their world, he has to lie to his dad even more, which means the distance between Tim and his dad gets bigger and bigger and more and more unfixable.

I love this dilemma. It's simple, it's recognizable, it provides endless sources for conflict, and there's no obvious solution! Tim can't tell Jack: he'll make Tim quit! And Tim doesn't want to quit, because he loves choir / art / theater / whatever.  Yeah, it’s difficult, and there are challenges, and sometimes he has doubts...but at the end of the day, he cares about it a lot.  And everything he values is there, and all the people he admires and cares about are there, and all he wants in the world is to feel like he's one of them and belongs there. So he has to lie, even though he doesn't want to lie, and he feels guilty about it...

...but also he ends up lying more and more.

(Sidenote: I think it's important that Tim chooses to keep lying - Tim's narration often glosses this as "I have to lie to my dad," and that's certainly how it feels to Tim, but this... isn't quite true. He has to lie to his dad, because if he doesn't, his dad will get mad at him and try to stop him, not because he literally has no choice about it.)

Other Reasons Why I Like The "Secret Extracurricular" Interpretation

(tl;dr it complicates not just Tim's relationship with his dad, but also all his other relationships)

Tim's problems have some obvious parallels to Steph and Cass, who both become vigilantes while rejecting their evil supervillain dads. But Jack isn't evil. And that means the Tim-and-Jack relationship is ambiguous and complicated in ways that I like. Steph and Cass can just leave their Bad Dads in prison, and say good riddance, and feel very righteous and triumphant about it! Tim’s more complicated. Tim gets into vigilantism ostensibly out of duty and altruism, but secretly, he's also involved for straight-up selfish self-fulfillment reasons. He's lonely, and bored, and his life feels pointless, but he thinks that Bruce and Dick are cool and amazing and he wants to be a part of the things that they do.  When his dad gets jealous of Tim’s relationship to Bruce, and feels like Tim’s looking for a surrogate family, he’s... not wrong.

And the ways in which Jack is not Actionably Bad complicate things from Bruce's POV.  If Jack was a straight-up villain, it’d be an easy call to keep in touch when Jack finds out and makes Tim quit...but he’s not a villain, not really.  So what do you do?  Do you try to surreptitiously stay in touch with Tim even though you’re ignoring his dad’s express wishes and thus forcing Tim to sneak around?  Do you respect his dad’s wishes and stay away from Tim even though you have a years-long relationship at this point?  

Again: a bit similar to the extracurricular analogy.  Say you’re the choir director and you’ve built this whole relationship with a kid in the choir, and you’re an important mentor to him and you care about him etc. etc. etc.... and then right before a big performance, his dad finds out he’s been secretly involved, and yanks him out.  How would you react?  Well, maybe kind of in some of the ways Bruce reacts.  You replace him. You’re annoyed with him. You miss him. You want him to come back. You’re also worried about him.  You’re upset with his dad.  But also... what should you do, exactly?

Bruce and Alfred and Dick care about Tim as if he were part of their family, but he’s not part of their family, and there’s a lot of interesting tension there.

My Harsher Take

Jack never hits his son.  But his temper is a big deal.

In his worst moments, he takes out his anger on Tim’s stuff - wrecking his room, or ripping his TV out of the wall and confiscating it.  When he’s worried about Tim, he usually expresses that fear by yelling at him / punishing him / sending him away - threatening to send him to boarding school in Metropolis in Robin III, or threatening to send him to military school abroad in Robin 92, or actually forcing him to go to an all-boys' boarding school post-NML.  

This is bad behavior!  It is Not Good!  

And you can easily connect the dots to a bunch of Tim’s terrible coping mechanisms, like the constant lying and or the fact that Tim’s go-to methods for dealing with interpersonal conflict are 1) repress it and pretend it never happened (most of his fights with Bruce), 2) withdraw from the relationship until he can pretend the conflict doesn’t exist (when his friends get mad at him in YJ, he quits the team for a while), or 3) literally run away from home.

Also, Jack is a Manly Man with firm opinions about how men behave vs. how women behave, and he thinks boys shouldn’t be scared and thinks Tim should date hot girls and pushes Tim to work out and wants him to play football and expresses period-typical sexism, etc. etc. etc. ... and though obviously this wasn’t what the writers had in mind at the time, all of that is certainly interesting to read backwards in the light of Tim as a queer character.

More Disorganized Thoughts on Jack Drake

Tim’s our hero, so we’re naturally more sympathetic to him, but it’s also true that relationships are a two-way street, and Tim doesn’t value any of the things his dad values, either.  Jack at various points is shown to care about grades, business, money, boarding schools, archeology, football, a kind of macho bragging-about-dating-hot-women ethos, and a very public and performative kind of caring. Tim tends to respond with discomfort or disinterest or even disgust.  When Jack gets on TV to try to rally the government to save his son from No Man’s Land, Tim isn’t touched—he’s mortified.  When Jack makes some bad investments and loses money, Jack’s deeply upset and his self-image is majorly impacted, and far from being sympathetic, Tim’s annoyed and kind of contemptuous of the idea that this is a problem.  Jack thinks fishing in the early morning and going to tennis matches is a fun father-son activity; Tim finds it exhausting and tedious.  And so on.

This means that Tim often longs to be closer to his dad in theory, but this longing is more tied to fantasy than to reality. He rarely seems to enjoy spending time with His-Dad-The-Actual-Person.  So for example, when Tim’s deadly ill with the Clench, he has an extremely poignant fever dream about telling his dad the truth and getting hugged…even as he insists in real-life to Alfred and Dick that he does not want them to tell his dad what’s going on.

The same is true of Jack, who IMO genuinely wants to be closer to his son and is continually declaring that he’s going to turn over a new leaf and get closer to his son…and just as continually backs out of activities or loses his temper when faced with spending time with his actual son.

Tim and his dad sadly get along best—by far—in Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder situations.  When Jack gets kidnapped or is in danger, Tim worries for him (and Tim grieves him deeply when he dies).  When Tim disappears or runs away, Jack’s genuinely worried about him.  So e.g. they have a really moving emotional reunion and hug when the earthquake hits Gotham, and Tim panics about his dad’s safety and comes running home (and meanwhile Jack’s been panicked about Tim’s safety!).  It’s the day-to-day, regular life stuff where they don’t connect.

Jack's written quite differently by different writers. Mostly, Tim's parents are at their least likable in his early appearances and early miniseries (this is where you get, for example, Jack and Janet being nasty at each other while a pained employee looks on, and Tim disappointed to once again get news of where his parents are via postcard - "I guess that sums them up! Never know where they’re going to be–or when–or even how long!” - and Tim alone on school break, and Bruce and Alfred thinking there's something weird going on with Tim's parents, etc. etc.). Jack's more sympathetic but still often unlikable in most of Tim's Robin solo, and he's almost invisible (but positively treated if he does show up) in Tim's team books.

For obvious reasons, Jack's remembered way more sympathetically after his death. Tim's completely devastated by Jack's murder, which he arrives moments too late to prevent, and he basically never gets over it. We see him grieving Jack again and again in Robin, and also in Teen Titans, and also in Resurrection, and again in the Halloween Special, and again in Batman: Blackest Night, and all the way up to the end of Red Robin. Tim also grieves for an extended time over Janet - he hallucinates a happy reunion with her when he's feverish in Contagion, and hallucinates her in the final issue of Robin, and the reveal-your-buried-emotions song in Robin 102 brings up his grief for her too (meanwhile, other characters dance or laugh or otherwise get giddy).  Tim’s grief over his parents’ deaths is intense and long-lasting.

I'm not going to clip comic panels because this is long enough, but if you're curious, here's a nice and fairly lengthy compilation of comic panels with Tim and Jack.

If you're interested in a Jack-centric story with a softer-but-still-recognizably-canon take on Jack, I really like the way Jack’s narration is written in the one-shots Heart Humble (set shortly before Jack dies) and Never a Hero (Ra's resurrects him during Brucequest, and Jack's archeology skills turn out to be unexpectedly useful).

[kate66s]

Put in the tags how many scars you have and how you got them

[four-eyed-floozy]

So I've been a horror rpg nerd for like YEARS and if you're new and want to get into it, it might be hard to know where to start (in light of my last post)

These are my general recommendations, I also recommend OFF and Ao Oni fangames as well. There's a lot of creativity in some of the fangames. This is BY FAR, not the definitive rpg horror game rec list, but I think I have most of the popular ones.

[mc-critical]

1.10 / 1.09

[i3utterflyeffect]

Gravity would be so weird for resurrected!victim to experience. Like yeah they've seen its influence on others but they haven't felt for over a decade and even then it was for less than two minutes. Also, they wouldn't be comfortable sparring with the others because the first time they fought they lost and were a ghost for a very long time because of it.

oh yeah definitely. i could see them being very good at controlling themself under the levitation effect just because they're so used to it.

also yeah no, i feel like with the sticks they might spar a little (the others go pretty easy on them since it's pretty evident victim is a bit of a coward), but with Alan it's a complete no-go. the first time they get caught up in a play-fight between Alan and the sticks they just curl up and have a trauma attack and everyone just kind of stops

[seventh-district]

7am, eating cold leftover teriyaki stir-fry for breakfast and crying over blorbos