#crack meta kind of

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Honestly I understand why Megatron is obsessed with Optimus Prime. Megatron is doing his darndest to run an evil army, but because it's an evil army everyone is constantly betraying him. He tells them infighting is destroying them, heck, he's even tried to be empathetic, and they turn right around and attack either each other or (more frequently) him. Is it any wonder he's almost happy to see Optimus on the battlefield?? At least with him, Megatron knows what to expect--bro will be there to fight him every time. Simple! Consistent! An opponent who's actually in front of him instead of behind his back! What a relief...

In short Optimus is basically Megatron's comfort item and I don't blame him for that

[foursaints]

barty characterization is so troublesome because he is at his most canonical (and most compelling) when treated with utter seriousness & placed squarely in context of an austere, repressed upper class childhood leading to patricide… he is not goofy! his prevailing theme in canon is the violent denial of his bodily autonomy - the living body horror and tragedy of his stint under imperius!

so the fanon version of barty as a sleazy trash-talking fuckboy with a tongue piercing is…. uncanonical. there’s literally zero basis for his fandom treatment as hogwarts’s resident dirtbag and in fact it makes no sense… but it’s such an entertaining direction to take him that i would argue fanon’s reshaping made him more interesting? or has given us more opportunities?

like the fan decision to shove hp canon’s most tortured martyr-machiavel into a thrasher hoodie is objectively hilarious and ripe for exploration. basically my point is that true barty enjoyers can juggle both interpretations at once, explore the inherent contradictions, and decide which better suits their purposes for different scenarios. also i would like to see canon!barty and fanon!barty making out

[amber-laughs]

there is just no universe where catelyn likes jon i’m sorry. she knows about R+L=J? ned made traitors of her and her children, put jon’s safety above their’s and is now an even bigger threat to their lives. she hates him. Rhaegar wins and he’s prince jon? he’s still the product of the event that the entire country had to go to war for and probably got her father killed in the process. at the very least she resents him. maybe even hates him. modern au? he’s just the cousin with the teen mom that gets high with her son in the basement and sneaks arya razor blades or whatever. she hates him!

[tealvenetianmask]

I'm fully convinced now that this is the reason Blitz referenced his therapist calling him gross:

Someone (probably Millie) set him up with a therapy appointment, or multiple- because of his everything- and he agreed to go to humor his friend but spent the whole time messing with the poor therapist instead of . . . you know, talking through his issues. I'm talking false stories, sex jokes, murder jokes, the works.

The rest of the quote here is "If we keep being obnoxious, they'll eventually slip up, and we'll get a chance to get out. Let's just keep fucking with them until they get so frustrated they stop thinking clearly-it usually works."

So what if this is the approach he took to therapy?

[victorie552]

Ok, so Noldolantë, "The Fall of the Noldor" is a lament composed by Maglor about what happened before, during and after First Kinslaying at Alqualondë. It's such a good song that it's played regularly in Aman and Valar listen to it often (I swear, I swear it was in the Silmarillion I just can't find it now).

It's also a more or less common fanon that Maglor continues writing Noldolante through the whole First Age. Makes sense - it's about fall of the Noldor, and Noldor did a lot of falling back then.

Headcannon time: So my first thought was that Noldolante must a long, long, long epic of a song. So it probably has many parts, right? Iliad has 24 books/parts, somehow I think Noldolante would be at least just as long, and there are longer epics. And again, just like Iliad, unless you're a scholar, in the daily life you don't really listen to/read the whole thing, just reread and repeat the most dramatic fragments. What I'm trying to impress upon you all is that the story would have different segments, or chapters, if you will.

And if Maglor continues to write the story during the FA, there would absolutely be a moment in the lament where the OG Noldolante becomes Noldolante 2, and even Noldolante 3. There may be the same musical motif or something, I decided that Maglor IS that good of a bard to keep it all consistent enough so you know it's all the same story, but the style changes a lot - it's been 400 years in the making, let The Music Elf have fun!

So, Point 1: Many, Many Parts, basically Maglor's FA WIP

My second thought was that, while Feanor invented his alphabet, elves learned their history mostly through oral tradition aka songs and spoken stories. Noldolante is definitely a historical record, where a historical event was archived for future generations.

(It was a also a way to deal with grief, guilt and blame Maglor and all Noldor have faced regarding First Kinslaying - free therapy! But that's not what this post is about)

Archived.

My 2.5 thought was that Noldolante isn't just recallings of how pretty and horrified the beach looked during the murdering or how mad and sorrowful the sea was at everyone during the voyage or even how awesome and charismatic Feanor looked during his speeches that every single Noldo was ready to fight Morgoth barehanded in his name - no, this is a record of who killed who, who got killed by whom, and how.

Noldor and Teleri knew each other (were friends, even!) before the First Kinslaying, so I'm confident that after a lot of interviews, detective work, and cross-referencing, Maglor could and would create a very good... name list. Practically every Noldo and Teler present during First Kinslaying would get a stanza in a song, more if he killed someone, most if he killed many people. Killers and killed would show up twice, first in a fragment listing the killers and their victims, then in a part listing the victims and their murderers. Basically it's the same thing twice, but from different POVs. With when, where and how included.

(It was seen to be in bad taste to compare kills during Maglor's Regency, when most of his interview-part work happened. People did it anyway. There were a Saddest Kill, Funniest Kill, and Weirdest Kill discusions. There was a Tier List. These were weird times to be a Feanorian Noldo.)

(It WAS in Bad Taste, but at least people talked about it. I cannot stress enough how much free therapy this lament provided)

(Little did they know, when Teleri started getting reembodied in Aman, they had very similar discussions, but more in a "I can't believe he killed me like THAT" way. Long, long, long after the First Age. Noldolante is a gift that keeps giving)

So, Maglor had all the historical grith and no common shame to create a "We Killed All These People And We Feel Bad About It" banger of a song, and every Noldo had a very personal reason to at least remember the fragments they are in. It's a hit on a scale never seen before.

(I'm not sure how to tackle the issue of Nolofinweans and Arafinweans learning about Noldolante after crossing the Ice. But there were discussions. There was anger, there was "????", there was controversy. Basically, the song got bigger and bigger rep no matter what your opinion on it was. By the time of Mereth Aderthad it was an important cultural and political piece and at least Fingon's forces were included in the main song. It had parodies.)

Point 2: Archive Function/Kill count storage. Cultural phenomen, every Noldo included

This is where my personal nonsense begins: Main Noldolante was done, there was nothing more to say about First Kinslaying, all killings and deaths were well documented.

But the Siege started. And the Noldor kept dying.

It was less dramatic than it sounded - between the big battles the siege was maintained, but orc raids also happened and sometimes one to few Noldor died in skirmishes. The legal procedure was to document the death of a fellow elf and send a word to king Fingolfin. The cultural procedure, technically started by Feranorians but adapted by many more, was to send the name, common characteristics and cause of death to Maglor's Gap. After few months, King Fingolfin would send reinforcements, short condolences and financial compensation if they had family. After few months, family of an elf would also receive a personal lament for them and a place for them in a Noldolante.

Yes, every lament Maglor created in that time was technically part of the Noldolante. Noldolante 1.5, if you will. Laments make in that time were very customized, and simpler than Noldolante Main, but were still considered a part of the same song. Of course, nobody was expected to know and remember laments for every single Noldo, younger Noldor born in Beleriand could even only know fragments about their family members. Only Maglor would ever know Noldolante in full, but it was understood that everyone had their place in The Song.

The results of Great Battles were harder to document, but Maglor did that. Of course, Dagor Bragollach was hard on him personally, but he worked his way through.

(High King Fingon forbade creating laments for his father. There were no songs for Fingolfin. Apart from in Noldolante, of course. Of course. Maglor did not share the lament with anyone, but he sat long hours and many nights with a blank paper before him, looking at the candle flame and thinking of the past and the future. The song unsung, but there)

Nirnaeth was... Maglor was never more hated and more approached at the same time than then. Still, Noldolante grew and grew, as if people knew the end was near.

It was Second Kinslaying that destroyed the myth of Maglor's song. Feanorians didn't know the Sindar they killed, but surely, they couldn't just left their names unmentioned like they did with orcs? So, Noldor talked, but the battle happened in caves - it wasn't uncommon to find dead bodies in empty rooms, with no witnesses to what happened. Surviving Sindar didn't want to share any names, even when Maglor strong-armed some into talking with him, and good for them. Maglor made a big lament anyway. Maglor, wild, with no shame and dead brothers, with legacy crumbling around him. Noldolante, with holes.

After Third Kinslaying, Noldor didn't want to talk. Lament for Sirion didn't have any names. Clearly, songs weren't a way to go anymore, it was always about live witnesses. And so Maglor raised the twins.

Lament for Maedhros was sung repeatedly. There was no one to hear it.

Point 3: Only Maglor knows Noldolante in full. But that doesn't matter, because everyone knows the important part: the Noldolante is finished. The Star of Hope rises in the West and the story goes on. The Fall has ended.

[walkingstackofbooks]

So what do we think Ferengi opinions on ear piercings are?

[moongothic]

You know I have discussed in the past how I think it's quite likely Dragon is just Very Straight and that could've been a key, deciding factor in The Dragodile Divorce, but it is worth also considdering that the entire relationship could've been compulsory heterosexuality for (pre-t) Crocodile too. Like Croc could be straight and be exclusively attracted to women and he simply just... didn't figure it out until he had his gender shit sorted out

And, IDK, Dragon divorcing Croc because he's not into men is absolutely tragic and painfully real, but there is also something deeply sad about the idea of Crocodile being the one to divorce Dragon because he's the one who realized he wasn't actually into men

[leliwardens]

so leliana's type is moronsexual (the warden) but also morally dubious orlesian older women (justinia, marjolaine) so therefor in a non-leliwarden worldstate that would make leliana/vivienne not only possible, but inevitable.

[13eyond13]

I love the way that, in addition to his origin story with his over-sized sword and the scar on his nose, the flashbacks to Guts's childhood show how much of his insane work ethic and reckless self-endangering abandonment in battle were all kinda ingrained into him by his craving for attention and approval from shitty father figure, Gambino.

Random nice mercenary guy: "Don't overexert yourself, kid. Just do what's needed. 'Cause if you die, you lose everything."

Gambino: "It's your first battle. Work hard!"

Guts: [throws himself into battle so hard he nearly dies multiple times, fixating on pleasing Gambino the entire time]

Gambino: "C'mon, hurry up! Work! Work!"

Guts: [gives Gambino his entire earnings, Gambino tosses him back a single coin]

Guts: [more motivated by this one mild bit of encouragement than anything he's ever experienced before in his life]

[ladystoneboobs]

on this week's tully tuesday, ok, i cannot defend the trout sigil, but the interesting thing about their coat of arms is that the colors not only reflect their geographic domain (mud red for the red fork of the trident and blue and white for the tumblestone flowing into it), it also mirrors the family's Signature Look of red-brown hair and blue eyes. what other house has that matchup of banner colors and physical looks? certainly not any of the other great houses. the starks have grey eyes but not naturally snow white hair. the lannisters have golden hair but not crimson eyes. the baratheons have black hair but not yellow eyes like a sith lord or the bully in a christmas story. the greyjoys also have black hair but no yellow/gold eyes either (that we know of. nobody can say for sure what's under euron's eye patch). the arryns may tend to blue eyes like jon arryn and harry the heir, however, i think we'd know, even with so few of them in canon, if any had pure white hair from childhood. the tyrells have neither green hair/eyes nor gold hair/eyes. the martells have neither hair nor eyes that are orange, red, and/or gold. the targaryens had red-eyed (but white-haired) bloodraven, an albino outlier, and black-haired family members favoring their dornish, baratheon, strong, etc. heritage but none of them had red eyes (that we know of), and all those are exceptions not conforming to the Signature Look of the incestuous blood of the dragon with their pale hair and purpleish eyes. that trademark true targ coloring could only be reflected in banners of a violet dragon on a silver field or vice versa.

but no, no, with the tully banners grrm just had to triple the significance with geographic locale, family hair/eye coloring that just somehow matches the rivers where their castle is (did this look only develop after axel tully built his stronghold at that strategic location? or did their banners already reflect their looks before they became associated with that river meeting too? did the present coat of arms come after riverrun was built, or was it just a serendipitous act of destiny for it all to match up that way?) plus all the fish symbolism relating to catelyn. (no, i'm still not really defending the trout bc that part doesn't really extend to the rest of the house the same way.)

[kkoct-ik]

Hey shincest is incredibly based and awesome and I hope you have a wonderful day knowing that your agenda(? if you wanna call it that) is spreading. I am so extremely normal about them.

:333 overjoyed. theyre insane and i like them a lot. happy to spread the good word

[sweetandglovelyart]

It’s a little bit late for Valentine’s Day but here’s the reveal of my cursed Kirby crack ship as promised: it’s Dyna Blade/Captain Vul and I envision their relationship dynamic as being like Donkey and Dragon’s relationship dynamic in the Shrek movies.

[allieinarden]

I love a story where the most startling thing you could ever tell the cast would be who the main character is. For instance, Fry thinks Leela is the main character, Bender thinks Bender is the main character, and Leela doesn’t even know it’s a story.

[meyerlansky]

...some follow up thoughts to this post. does GALE care about rank? inasmuch as anyone in the 100th does, which is a pretty low bar, but i feel like gale might actually give enough of a shit to be an impediment to curtbuck in the way it DEFINITELY is not an impediment for curtbucky.

on the one hand, no, because of the RAF fight. i cannot square "let his lt take on a fight he stepped up for" with "cares about rank like a lot a lot," personally. in which case there shouldn't be a huge issue with OTHER flagrant violations of rank and fraternization etc etc

but on the other hand. gale definitely cares about HIS rank and Being A Leader more than bucky does. again, not a high bar, but gale and jack have THE strongest protective instincts over their men out of all the brass we see, especially early on, and gale definitely has like... i don't wanna say a paternalistic outlook on being a major, but he Cares About His Men in a way bucky just... doesn't, as much? where bucky disengages to cope, gale engages MORE, takes on more of the responsibility of leadership. he checks in with dickie and bosser, he takes losing 350th crews REALLY personally, we all know i'm deranged about him circling the RAF fight like a guard dog, etc. plus they constantly have curt flying with gale, so i assume they did a little adaptational change and made curt 350th instead of 418th, which makes gale curt's DIRECT commanding officer and not just a higher rank, if my understanding of squadron command structure's accurate. so that's an added layer of complication that's not there for curtbucky.

and then somewhere in the middle is the way gale does shit like steal curt food and go against what i assume is procedure to keep curt in the air at trondheim at the risk of at LEAST the rest of the squad, if not the entire formation. and if bucky hadn't agreed with him on dropping back to keep curt safe, i don't entirely buy that gale would've accepted that loss either. which is kind of another point in favor of "doesn't care about command structure," but not respecting up isn't the same as taking advantage down, y'know?

so like... it gets a little fuckier with curtbuck. CURT doesn't care, obvs, but thinking about it i CAN see gale getting twisted up over it, at least a little. maybe not enough to stop him, though? like, this is fanfic, of course it's not gonna stop him, but does that WORK. god why does he have to be such a tough nut.

[1337wtfomgbbq]

Uuuh, I like this too.

Between Mary instilling the daily brushing in Dean and Dean passing that knowledge onto Sam. Imagine lil Dean going, "that's how mom taught me," to Sam while he teaches him his daily brushing routine.

(And that routine may be ideal, may not be ideal. Because Mary may have been taught the best technique by a dentist, and she may have taught it to Dean the way the dentist explained it to her, or a variation of it. And Dean himself, due to the fact that he was a KID🤌 may have taught Sam a variation of what he learned from Mary).

And about this I wonder just WHAT the dentists in question told Mary and/or John. Because I remember between the two dentists I was with during my life (of 28 years) they had extremely different information. (The one I was with during my childhood and teens didn't even tell my mom that kids and teens get two professional dental cleanings per year for free on our insurance until we turn 18🤌)

(Like, flossing for example. I know my mom DID NOT teach us to floss, or more specifically I did not assume that habit from her. I only started flossing daily like 4 or 5 years ago.)

The professional dental cleaning situation is different for sure since we talk about the US. And I have NO CLUE about what insurance the Winchesters had before YE bbq-ed Mary on the ceiling and everything went to shit. Likewise, I have no idea if John kept up the two yearly professional dental cleanings, or if he only went to the checkups, or what the hell was going on.

But for some reason my brain is going haywire about this.

Also, if Dean suddenly had 17 cavities after Chuck takes him out from under his protection... how are Dean and Sam dealing with dental hygiene and checkups in general, because by the time of the Pilot they are 26 and 22 years old. Meaning they are responsible for themselves. So, how often do they head to the dentist? Do they do checkups? Do they only go if they have an emergency (aka aching tooth)?

Yall, I gotta talk about teeth for a second.

Because every time I watch some kind of media and people have exceptionally great teeth I wanna know why (in the context of the media). Like, Pirates of the Caribbean. Why do some of them have great teeth, why do some of them have bad teeth? What is the historical background for dental care here?

And today it hit me about Supernatural. Both Sam and Dean have great fucking teeth. Which means that John must have made sure they take good care of their teeth. He must have made sure the boys get annual check ups with the dentist.

And before yall John haters hit me over the head with headcanons like, "Dean had so horrible teeth he got all of them capped at fucking 26 years old" or, "John wouldn't get either of them braces" hear me out. Neither Sam nor Dean as their younger selves are shown to have bad teeth. Not in Something Wicket (1x18), not in the After School Special (4x13), not in Dark Side of the Moon (5x16), not in Bad Boys (9x7). They are both shown to have perfectly normal, if not exceptional, teeth.

Also, neither Sam nor Dean as their younger selves, seem to have major tooth displacement so I think neither of them would have needed braces in the first place. I could see an argument being made for either of them (though I think Sam more likely) needing a grinding teeth guard to help with nightly grinding of teeth due to stress.

Sorry for the long rant but for some reason dental care lives rent free in my head.

[m4rdb]

imagine if they eventually show shauna's mother after people making up headcanons for years where they already decided her name and her being a nurse and treating jackie like a second daughter and then she comes on screen and she's a bitch