#buy only a one shot

[d8tl55c]

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Replenishing the Nonfiction Stack; or, We're Calling the Book Buying Ban a Wash, Officially.

I am not, apparently, immune to coupons for niche nonfiction that's directly up my alley (octopus minds and RUSSIAN OWLS, hello??? Thanks, bookshop!).

I thought perhaps the BURGLAR'S GUIDE would also be covered under said coupon, since it was publisher-specific (alas: it was Not, but we might as well bundle for shipping purposes). And then while I was shopping IRL for gifties I found a copy of ROOM, which has been on my list for...ever? So! Hopefully these will hold me over on the nonfiction front for a minute!

[wildstar25]

MiqoMarch Day 23 - Midnight

With their intended voyage into the void only a few days out, Arsay thought it the upmost importance that she steal her partner away to Kugane, that they might share one more fond memory together should things not turn out the way they plan in the thirteenth. It was as they crossed the very same bridge the miqo'te had once sat on together two years prior when Arsay gifted Y'shtola with a bracelet matching that of her own. A token of endearment which, Arsay confessed, she would have given to her fellow scion back then, had nerves not gotten the best of her. While their relationship has undoubtedly changed since the initial purchase of the jewellery, the sentiment remained the same. Y'shtola was someone who Arsay loved dearly and she will forever be grateful to have the seeker's life intertwined with her own. No matter where their free spirits took them, they would always hold each other in their hearts. A promise Y'shtola was more than willing to keep. She slipped the the string of beads around her wrist without a second thought. They were never to come off, not even when the two decided to delay their return to Radz-at-Han in favour of a private bath at the dead of night.

[backpackingspace]

Young odysseus convincing everyone Ithaca is nothing but a poor island with rocks and goats to avoid any raids/conquerors/so he doesn't get murdered for talking to Helen bc "it's not like he's a real choice"

Young odysseus falling in love with Penelope at the same event: wait. Wait shit I fucked up hold on just hear me out

[cosmicrhetoric]

oda is like not good at designing women (and the fits for the girls get worse as the series goes on) and its really frustrating bc of how good he is at designing random lackeys like one piece's lackey/henchman game is off the charts. BUT. but. robin's water 7/enies lobby look is the cuntiest thing to ever come out of this series like no notes. no notes. she said if im going let my friends forcibly pull me out of a 20 yr suicidal spiral im gonna do it in the latex thigh highs

[roychewtoy]

shots from simons flickr account

[hannibalismos-jaaneman]

sometimes i think about what would have happened if richard had died instead of henry and the rest of the book had been narrated the song of achilles style and it hurts

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

Honestly don't know why Williams didn't just take Carlos for the reminder of the season, considering everyone and their mother have had to hear how much James wanted/wants him

[sophiethewitch1]

It's very strange being an adult, but by all definitions of what being an adult is I am not. Im 20 years old but I have no independence. I can't go out on my own. I don't have responsibilities because I can't handle them. I've dropped out of school multiple times and will likely never finish high school or go to university. I have alters that are littles, and when they're around in my head it feels like I really am just ten years old or something. The autism, the physical and mental disabilities, the multiple personality disorder/DID. I know everyone feels this way but idk. I really am just a child in an adults body sometimes. I don't know if that makes me a freak or not.

[sampilled]

seeing ethel cain live in like 40 hours

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Mmm

Ugh. Writing is on the wall for this one folks. I'm trying to remain positive but I will be surprised if Adams stays on the Flash series after the Flash #800.

[blujayonthewing]

why are their stats so good??

[sanchoyo]

haven’t been on much bc my dog has been sick :( between seizures and an infected tooth we’ve been having a Time trying to get everything fixed (this started around the holidays so our vet has been very booked up…we have been like 3-4 times in the past 4-5 weeks OTL does not help it’s like an hour drive there, so that’s been exhausting) now his new seizure meds are making him sick (was hoping it was like, just an adjustment period thing but he’s been sick for a week and having concerning symptoms…) if I’m not on a ton or slow to replying to messages it’s bc I’m working as much overtime as my job will give me bc Vet Expensive and mentally drained obvi 😞

[akkivee]

ichiro’s new outfit is kinda cute!!!!! 🤭

[bugsbenefit]

okay i'll say it again. i'm personally not a very big fan of the theory that Alice Creel and Karen Wheeler are the same person from a personal perspective. However, looking at the show, i think at this point we should consider it as more of an option because aside from the multiple weird instances about it. i think the most notable is that it's one of the most solid explanations for what Nancy saw in her vision.

Vecna specifically threatening Karen, Holly, and Mike. leaving Ted out. is funny to us from an audience perspective because it allows for the assumption that Nancy just doesn't give enough of a shit about Ted for Vecna to use his death as something shocking.

but this makes very little sense in universe and with the way it was shot:

While Nancy is never shown to be close to Ted it's also clear she doesn't hate him. they're very ambivalent to each other, we rarely even see them in the same scenes. from a character perspective, jumping from this to Nancy not caring if something happened to him is very inconsistent character writing. most people would care if someone in their lives died even if they weren't personally very close. for Nancy to really not care if he died they would require a more negatively afflicted relationship. which they don't have.

the moment is also not played like a joke. the entirety of Nancy's vision serves as foreshadowing to the end of s4 and s5. it's all taken very seriously both by the characters and the audience. Nancy leaving Ted out of her vision is subtle and something we only talk about in hindsight because it's weird Vecna left only him out. causing jokes like "even Vecna says fuck Ted Wheeler" to spring up as an explanation. but the scene isn't shot like a joke and the exclusion of him falls flat. it was just subtle enough to be there and pass by ga's prime focus since no character drew attention to it, or asked afterwards "what about your dad?" "what about my dad?" which would have made it an actual joke and given pay off to this weird list. but none of this happens. Ted is just Missing from the vision and we're moving on. it's not played like something funny to notice, Nancy is crying and everyone is serious.

so. why IS Ted missing from the vision? summing up what we know:

it does not come across like a joke at all. without drawing attention to it the GA misses it, causing the joke to not work. and even more attentive audiences who pick up on it, recognize it's not really a funny haha joke. and while we can try and turn it into something jokey and say it's because Ted is stupid and nobody likes him, that explanation makes much less sense for the characters themselves. Nancy and Ted don't have a bad enough relationship as far as we're shown to justify Nancy suddenly not caring if he died. he's still a person she sees every day, even without a parental bond she would at least have an opinion on him dying.

so if this dialogue doesn't serve the purpose of character development/ exposition or comedy, why is it there?

well like the rest of the vision, it's part of the points that pretty straightforwardly tell us what will happen next season. s5 will have a creature with a gaping mouth, monsters all over Hawkins, and the Wheeler family minus Ted in danger.

Mike being in danger here makes sense since he's already hinted at being a central character in s5. both from a "return to s1" perspective, because of the "love triangle" plot and painting plot that include him, AND the fact that him and Will had a whole scene dedicated to planning Vecna's death as a conclusion to the season. Mike and his relationship with Will and the overall story are being highlighted so him subsequently being in danger because of that is a given. (there's also the whole argument to be made of Mike getting targeted Specifically because of Will as a bargaining tool) still, why Holly and Karen would have that same target on their back is a little bit more unclear as of now.

but the Real question is why Vecna doesn't include Ted when he already lists the whole Wheeler family by name. naming three people and then being too lazy for a fourth is... pointed. again i've made it clear i do believe Nancy would be sad if Ted died. there's also the opposite question to be raised: why does Vecna go to Nancy and show her Karen, Holly, and Mike specifically? there's other people Nancy is close to, arguably even closer with than with Mike for example since the two of them Also have a very minimal bond. Vecna showing her Jonathan dead, or any of the kids, Steve, even Robin by this point. it would hurt her just as bad. if not worse. because Nancy is Not a family oriented character. she doesn't value her family over her friends, the whole blood is thicker than water is bullshit to her and her characterization shows that, she's actively afraid of repeating the suburban nuclear family life her mother chose. Nancy is NOT more scared of her family dying than she is of her friends dying.

so this raises even More questions now as if the one we have isn't out there enough already. into the question pile it goes:

why does Vecna only show her her family and no one else when it would arguably be equally as shocking for her, if not more so in some cases? why is only Ted missing? and honestly why does Vecna even show Nancy the vision? (there were 7 people present so it was a 1/7 chance it would be her. why didn't he go for Steve standing right next to her? he had to pick one of them but given he had 7 options and seemingly no bias towards any of them we can question this choice.)

as of now we can't answer any of these questions, we'll need more insight from s5 to understand what Vecna is trying to get at here. however, this is where the theory comes back in because as of now it's one of the only things that actually Could explain it.

if Karen was actually Alice Creel and somehow survived that night. (there's a Lot to say about this but this i'll get into it on another post) it would mean Henry's attempt at familicide went even worse than originally thought. not only did his father survive but his sister would have lived as well and even gone on to have a family of her own after the fact. Victor tells us that he fears the "demon" will return, kill him for good, even Vecna himself tells Nancy he's interested in paying Victor a visit soon, so by that we can assume Henry is finishing his sloppy family murder that really only killed his mom next season. (and in all honesty, i don't see Victor surviving it, he's got death flags all over him)

but this presents a new possibility. Alice, now having children of her own, means that Henry's original family he wanted to kill is now extended by a nephew and two nieces he didn't have before. which raises the question: why wouldn't he want them dead too? Henry's murders were never about the people he Lived with, it was targeted at his family specifically - it was about the ideals he hated so much and what their superficially perfect happy nuclear family embodied despite being "bad people" on the inside, according to Henry's perception.

so when Henry finally goes back on what he announced to Nancy and kills his family for real next time, who would he classify as family? just Victor and Alice? or Alice's children who are his blood relatives as well?

because "Mom, and Holly... Mike" would be the exact list of Henry's living relatives according to this theory. minus of course Victor (locked in Pennhurst) and Nancy herself (the one receiving the threat).

and this would also finally give us an explanation of why Ted wasn't included in the vision. being a random well-earning man Karen married years ago he has no blood relation to the Creel family and therefore no significant role in a potential familicide. giving us the explanation that it's not Nancy who doesn't care about him dying but actually Vecna, since he would really just be a Random Guy to him.

this theory would all in all go to explain why:

the 1/7 chance of having the vision fell on Nancy.

Vecna then went out of his way to give her his whole tragic backstory in an immersive dia show instead of us seeing it through El's NINA memories

AND why Ted Wheeler is weirdly missing from the threats known family killer Henry Creel makes.

again, i'm personally not a die hard believer of this theory myself, but at this point there's a lot that would make infinitely more sense when placed with the backdrop of this theory. for this scene alone it's the only solid explanation as of now to really give us a reason as to what could be going on here. of course we're still missing the facts s5 will give us but with what we're working with right now? this theory is actually a lot less crack-y than i initially believed.

(ngl i was pretty anti this theory at first. again, not the biggest fan of the "and they're related" trope in general so it's not my full jam. but I have to consider it at this point because there's just so much in canon hinting at it. it'll either actually be what canon goes for or it's supposed to be a deliberate audience misguide and fakeout to leave people guessing for s5 because there's Too Much going on here. this scene is just the tip of the iceberg too, i'm genuinely amazed how much there actually is both in the show as well as narrative wise)

[alltheangstmygifttoyou]

have I ever shared my linktree here? well I've added to it a lot since then if I have. I've been doing a lot business wise. Have I told yall about my website? Probably. Or maybe not idk wtf ive been doing tbh I'm extremely overwhelmed by duties i've assigned myself

Edit: June! I searched and I mentioned the website in June so its been a minute so I'm not being completely obnoxious hahahahahaha