#but yeah this ep was… a lot

[jemmo]

ive just been lying in bed, thinking about the eighth sense, this whole morning, trying to figure out and put together my thoughts and my conclusion is I just can’t do it. bc everything i read, all the dream theories and hallucination theories and meds and alcohol and when does it stop being real, I just can’t figure out in my head what I do actually believe. bc that’s not far-fetched, I know it. I mean look at that sequence in blueming where dawon has that whole imaginary sequence with his parents and siwon. that was all very clearly a dream sequence, like with the context of the scene prior and how people interacted, I could tell it wasn’t real right away. this, i just don’t know. bc I believe very easily that this is something jaewon would do. after the conversation with his therapist and his night of drinking and what taehyung brought up, how angry it made him, Jihyun’s words of comfort and then what happened in the morning, the camera breaking, his father. all of that is reason enough for jaewon to snap and do something spur of the moment and kind of crazy but actually seek out that escape and relief he needs. his emotions are so heightened, this isn’t just something he can just cover with a mask and get on with, he needs release. and jihyun’s words are a lifeline that he clings onto hoping their genuine.

i love that scene where jihyun is bringing up the logical things about having no clothes and not preparing to stay over and jaewon just reiterates that line. you said when I’m having a hard time, i can contact you. he is so used to being nice to everyone and never wanted to cause a fuss or upset or disagree. He doesn’t want to be a burden, but the way he then says that, kind of pathetic and kind of desperate and kind of defensive yet he states it so clearly. Bc so often when someone may they go about their trip and decide what to do next, sleeping on the beach only to then get a hotel room, surfing then sleeping together then surfing again. it’s all very erratic bc i think that’s how jaewon feels and is acting, and jihyun is just along for the ride. idk how to judge how jihyun feels in all of this bc if we take everything at face value it kind of is a lot to take in and to then be intimate while jaewon is in this headspace feels fast and not smart, but then again jihyun doesn’t have to be smart. he has been shown to want to do crazy stuff, to try things, to get out of that country bumpkin bubble and when he loves and cares for jaewon, i don’t think anything he does on this trip either is out of the realm of possibility. and I think that plays very well into the ending. they are both being kind of reckless, especially jihyun bc it’s established he can’t swim, or at least can’t swim wellc, so an accident could easily happen, and no matter how bad the accident is, it’ll be horrific to jaewon. a person he cares for getting into an accident with him in the sea, it’s a perfect, horrid mirror, and for him it’ll only reaffirm what he already believes. idk what that thing is yet, whether it’s arbitrary ‘bad things happen around him’, or he’s irresponsible or can’t trust himself to do something or powerlessness that he can’t do anything or feeling inadequate bc he can’t help, nevertheless he puts all the burden of the accident on him. After all, he was the only person there. He was the only person that could’ve done something, could’ve changed the outcome and he didn’t, or more likely, wouldn’t.

But with these kinds of accidents, what jaewon needs to see is that that burden is not his to bare, at least not alone. so many other things and factors lead to things happening, and ultimately an accident can be just that; an accident, something he can do nothing about and has to deal with grief but not guilt.

All this is to say, I do ultimately think this happens. Choppy cutting and dreamy looking camera work is all something that yes while you can analyze it for meaning, is also an artistic choice and can be read a number of different ways, one of them being that jaewon does see this time with jihyun as a dream. it’s closed off and private and secluded and quiet and he’s with someone he loves, he can see that as perfect, as dream-like, and then that final scene is a sudden, terrifying change that is amplified to him. and I think it actually happened bc I think it needs to happen for the story. the most natural progression of this plot is for an accident to happen and for jaewon to distance himself because of it. And it bodes well that this is happening at the end of ep 6 and not ep 8, bc nowthe aftermath and and the repercussions of this and an eventual reconciliation can be given the time it needs and deserves. this isn’t just about a thing getting between jaewon and hugging only for them to overcome it and be together as happens in many other shows. if anything, the relationship is secondary, it’ can now only be a result of jaewon making progress mentally in whatever form that will take.

[mydarlinglaszlo]

never gonna stop losing my mind over this scene i fear

[scooterscoob]

[a moment of solace]

[mindibindi]

"𝙳𝚘𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚛 𝚆𝚑𝚘" || 𝚃𝚎𝚗 𝚡 𝙳𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚊 𝚃𝚎𝚡𝚝𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚜 [pt. 1] [𝚙𝚝. 𝟸]

[pharawee]

I guess it's time for some more punishment.

[critter-wizard]

ep 43 had me tearing up in a fucking shopping centre ‼️‼️

b+w alt version that I truly couldn't decide if I liked it more . Also I included a lot of thoughts in the tags but they're somewhat incoherent<3

[turtleblogatlast]

“Haven’t You Noticed (I’m a Star)” from Steven Universe works so ridiculously well for Leo

[welcometogrouchland]

Also I am. Constantly forgetting how fucking funny Hunter is. We never give him enough credit for how funny he is because his life is so fucked up but I swear 90% of his lines are just bit after bit after bit. He's not even trying either. Anytime he actively tries to make a joke it falls flat but if you just put him in a Scenario he'll find a way to be so over invested and yet out of touch/at odds with whatever's going on. He's so autistic

[say-hi-intrepid-heroes]

a few minutes later:

[spooksier]

new year, same freaks

[queerofthedagger]

i'm re-reading the hobbit (aka it's my current falling-asleep audiobook) and there is something to doing that after having just read the silm and the great tales and (almost) the entirety of HoMe that just hits me in the sense of. so much of the great tales talk of great heroics and incredible deeds of valour. and yes of course their mode is different and that's why they feel like this, why they are a little untouchable sometimes, bigger than life, almost. but there still is something so poignant to returning to scared, terrified, shaking-in-his-boots bilbo baggins who faints at the notion of a dragon and baulks at the idea of an adventure and then goes anyway.

i don't have a very coherent conclusion about this yet beyond, it keeps making me think of the 'courage is not absence of fear, it's being scared and doing it anyway' and how on one side it says so much about bilbo, about how he goes, and keeps going, keeps growing with each new step on the road, without ever quite stopping being scared out of his mind. and how on the other side it is also a reminder that regardless of the tales painting them great, we should not forget how often all the great heroes must have been scared, too. how they went anyway. perhaps finrod did not faint at the prospect of facing sauron, but he went anyway. perhaps hurin did not quail in the face of morgoth, but he must have been terrified for himself and his family anyway. how he kept resisting anyway. perhaps luthien did not try to convince herself just to stay home on page, but how hard the road regardless. how she walked it anyway! like!!

[babacontainsmultitudes]

I'm not the first person to bring this up but, I do feel that the general response to the gun range scene has mostly failed to acknowledge the context that would call for such extreme levels of self-defense training in the first place. We know from episode 23 that even just a few years after the release of the doodler (when Lark and Sparrow themselves are still just teens) things are already pretty bad (to the extent that in Lark's case the stress of it all has already begun to take a physical toll on him- don't forget that he and Sparrow too were once kids who had the world placed on their shoulders), and one need only look at how quickly the situation with the mayor has degraded to imagine how bad things would have gotten by the time Hero was 12. Training your six-year-old to use a gun in a normal or at least mostly normal world? Batshit crazy. Training your six-year-old to use a gun in a world overrun by an eldritch horror where danger, death, and the possibility of corruption from said eldritch horror are around every corner? Still intense but, much easier to understand the reasoning behind.

oh oops it's a long post woops woops woops

In Sparrow's case in particular, we know that he behaves quite differently under alternative circumstances, and that Normal (Hero too for that matter) lives a pretty different life in a post code purple world:

Not that it hasn't been Sparrow's intent and priority to mitigate the extent to which Normal was caught up in everything from the get-go, as evidenced by his namesake. Recall what he had to say on the matter:

In some ways this extreme self-defense training is a "two sides of the same coin" sort of deal vis-a-vis Grant's extreme isolation of Lincoln for his protection, a major difference being that Lincoln still deals with this in a post code purple world (to the extent that he literally had to pretend to starve himself to get his dad to let him go to public school), whereas Normal and Hero get the chance to live mostly normal lives and do as they please (the disapproving words of a drunken and partially-doodlerized Sparrow aside), now removed from the immediate threat of the doodler.

Hero's case is, at least from what we currently know about the prophecy, more complicated than Norm's. It is easy to reprimand Lark and Sparrow as being the worst parents (and/or uncles) whilst forgetting that their circumstances are fundamentally different from the other kiddads. The first half of this lying in their shared responsibility (and guilt) in releasing the doodler. Grant and Nicky can retreat to their respective homes on the basis that this is the best they can do, resolving to put their energy into protecting their closest ones first and foremost. At the end of the day, they aren't really any more responsible for dealing with the doodler than any other bystander. The same cannot be said of Lark and Sparrow, who can't exactly look away from the fact that they were the ones who brought the doodler into the world. At least from their perspectives- of course Lark (and Sparrow by extension) in reality was a child that was manipulated into doing what he did, which as some people have pointed out is not dissimilar to what happened to Normal at the end of this episode (and if Sparrow felt the need to rid Normal of his memories of this event in particular, perhaps it was to spare his child from feeling guilty about it for the rest of his life).

The second half of what differentiates them is, of course, the prophecy (right- now we can actually get to Hero lol). We must remember that, as far as the twins knew, the only way to actually "defeat" the doodler permanently was through the chosen one, i.e. Hero (probably- after last episode I'm starting to think that Norm may be more directly involved in the prophecy than previously thought, but that's a tangent). "Continue to let the being you released into the world kill and torture millions (very likely billions) of people, which could wind up including both of your children, or put your ill-fated child through very intense and ultimately traumatizing training to put an end to it, potentially losing her in the process", is essentially the choice the twins were given. Hero isn't made to kill a deer with her bare hands for the hell of it, she goes through what she does because Lark (who likely did not see the same thing that Normal did on the throne- or at the very least interpreted things very differently) and Sparrow had no reason to believe that there was any other possibility. This certainly does not negate or undermine the extent to which Hero was deeply traumatized by it all, but it's not exactly a detail that you can choose to ignore when discussing the ethics of Lark and Sparrow's decision-making.

And yet, despite it all, Sparrow and Lark do ultimately chose saving their children over saving the world. Not before significant damage has already been done (to Hero that is), but they do decide to go through with the one plan that allows both of their children to (hopefully) live a doodler-free life: code purple. Code purple, which ultimately reduces to a trolley problem with a presumably near-equal number of people on both tracks, with the important difference of sparing their own children in one case, and likely not the other. And if we want to talk about Henry's ethical stance in the matter and how it compares to the twins, we need to consider what it says about him if he was *not* in favor of code purple, with all of this in mind. Not to come to any hasty conclusions about Henry either- I think there remains too many unknowns on that front to assume much and... Ultimately it's a complicated matter! But that's kind of my point.

Even post code purple, Lark and Sparrow (and the rest of the kiddads) try to pursue that which they believe (or at least hope) will both put an end to the doodler without involving their children and without the enactment of the prophecy. Is blowing up an entire world with the sun to save all the others a plan I'm gonna sit here and defend? I don't think so lol, but you can't exactly look at it and pretend that Lark and Sparrow don't care about protecting their fucking kids.

My point isn't that Lark and Sparrow haven't made a lot of mistakes and questionable decisions, my point is that their circumstances are so much less black and white than the majority of the takes I see on them make them out to be, and a lot of the conclusions I see people jump to when it comes to the twins' feelings and intentions strike me as... Pretty odd? Tangentially-related: if you don't think Sparrow is someone who is affectionate with and deeply loves his kids despite his flaws, I don't really think we're listening to the same podcast. But even in Lark's case, yes he's more subtle about it and yes, Lark can be quick to anger (not that I personally read him yelling in the last episode as anger so much as panic but all the same), but affection can be sewing bulletproof material into your nephew's mascot costume, or secretly taking him out for pizza, or pretending to be his dad so that you can tell him you're proud of him, or putting your gun down when he asks you to. The twins are anything but perfect but, fuck if they aren't trying (and changing, and improving). And yes, they deserve some damn nuance.

Also, okay, I couldn't really find a neat way to bring this up in the above but, speaking of no-nuance and bad faith takes, can we talk about the locks? Or lack thereof, rather. "How could they be so stupid as to leave the door unlocked?" you're right, that does seem odd, and Anthony made a point to explain that every other door was very thoroughly locked, and Normal seemed to have practically been moved into opening the door against his own will so... Hear me out, maybe, just maybe, the door usually *is* locked??? And something fishy or unusual is afoot? I also wouldn't take their immediate, knee-jerk reactions to a dangerous flesh monster being released to come to any conclusions on whether or not Lark and Sparrow "blame" six-year-old Normal for it. In Sparrow's case, I struggle to even imagine it. In Lark's case, though I wouldn't put him above getting angry over it, my doubts on his deeper feelings are still high. Conversely, if he actually did place some of the blame on Normal, at the very least there is an interesting discussion to be had on how this relates to Lark's own guilt over what Willy manipulated him into doing, and subsequently being denied the catharsis of punishment. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Like I said, a lot of important things are yet unknown.

*breathes* okay end of overdue ramble [insert proper conclusion paragraph here lol], thank you.

[xiewho]

hiii :) i just wanted 2 say i love how u draw gorgug and fabian thistlecaster is such an underrated ship and their interactions are some of the best in fh

HI ANONNN THANK U !! i wholly agree they have such a fun and interesting dynamic i wish people explored more !! here's a silly gorgug + fabian moment from fhsy for u <3 (cause i want an excuse to draw them again hehe) hoot growl baby !!

[eliza-the-hunted]

Thoughts b4 bed, this...got ridiculously long..SKIP TOWARDS THE END for my Peri and Dev idea I'd like to personally see if you don't care about my godparenting ramble. 💖 (I marked it with a star for easy spotting.)

Godparenting is self harm (in certain situations). You CANNOT pair a fairy, who has basic empathy, with a child who is being neglected and/or abused, and expect them to NOT get attached or to love them.

Cosmo and Wanda loved Timmy. They were his parents!!

Juandissimo loved Remy. He couldn't move on from him.

It's also horrible for the kids when they get a fairy who doesn't develop that parental/guardian relationship.

Peri failed Dev because he remained distant and overly professional. (I'm not saying he didn't care, that's a whole other debate. I'm just saying he was not what Dev needed. Dev needed a Cosmo, Wanda, or Juandissimo.)

I'm sure other fairies failed kids in similar situations, maybe even worse, because they didn't want to fall into that emotional trap. It's BEYOND hard not to. You would have to be extremely hardened, dissociated, or heartless in order to do that.

At least the kids get to forget their failed experience.

Fairies have to remember. They have to remember for the rest of their lives that they either:

A) Got bonded with a kid and had to say goodbye, a type of goodbye that's honestly like a funeral. You will never see each other again (except in passing. But you can't contact them.) The loss and yearning would be too much for anyone.

B) Have to remember that they couldn't bond with the kid and thus failed them. They failed that neglected/abused child. That child had to grow up with their abuse without any escapism because you had to remain professional and throw away your whimsy. I'm CONVINCED Peri is NOT the only fairy to be annoying about "da rules". I'm actually pretty sure that's the NORM because of how all the fairies reacted to Cosmo and Wanda with Timmy.

Going into fairy godparenting, knowing that you could come out with either outcome, is self harm to me, (SH is doing anything that you KNOW will hurt you physically or emotionally, it can be any number of things! JS this here because people have a VERY narrow view about what counts as SH!) and really makes me overthink about like...

Fairy mental health? How does fairy therapy look like for these situations? I kind of envision it similar to ppl IRL who work with abused kids need therapy, yet they keep going. They keep moving on and helping kids (or doing their best to).

⭐️All this to say my idea for Peri and Dev:

I would love for Peri to learn from his situation with Dev and why it didn't work. I know ppl want them to get back together asap, but tbh I think a slow burn would work best, for Peri's mental health. I think Peri should shadow his parents and Hazel for a bit, and learn/see how they do things, including how they interact with kids. I think Peri needs some self reflection first.

My idea is this:

Peri shadows his parents for awhile and does some self reflection. While he shadows his parents, he watches Dev from afar. Not like, intently like some ppl HC, just in passing. Like Dev will interact with Hazel and Peri will make passing remarks like "he's a good kid", (if him and Hazel are getting along) or "oh, Dev.." (if he does smth rude to Hazel)

Eventually, smth happens to Dev that finally seals it for Peri, he has already been meditating on everything for awhile, but whatever happens to Dev is the final straw. (I wonder what happens??) And he gets permission to be Devs godparent again and then bursts in to save Dev!

(this would all happen maybe thruout the whole season, and this event would happen at the ending of S2? Ik ppl would be impatient for that, but!! I think it would work best AND be a rlly satisfying season conclusion!!) and a rlly good start for S3 (iiiif we got all that lmao, I'm being VERY hopeful that we get at least 3-4 seasons! which I shouldn't when S2 is still up in the air lol. oh well. I can dream.)

Uuuh. Yeah. IDk just some thoughts I've had. Sorry this was so long. If you read it then wow! I'm shocked haha. 💖 (bonus points if u read the tags hahaha)

goodnight. 💖💖

[danwhobrowses]

Well Critters it's Bells Hells Live Show Day! That snuck up on us quickly didn't it? Felt almost like a few weeks ago that they announced it!

Alas, being across the pond (also tomorrow's Father's Day in the UK) I will have to wait for the VOD, sitting here with my usual Thursday night doses of anticipation, imagination and anxiety, but I hope all that are attending have a great night. So much can happen, so much stuff I want to happen too but ofc some things are long shots - anyone who looks at my feed can tell what I want to happen let's be honest, and there'll be dress up and whatever beyond extra entrance Sam has planned to make his anticipated and grandiose return.

So sing the intro loud, tag your live spoilers just in case, do creepy whispers if Laudna performs a Sending, tell them to stop it if they sneeze, and most of all enjoy the show!

[potatobugz]

i feel like im going insane