#i'll probably reblog this tomorrow for the morning crowd

[lestweforget5]

Hi love Sunward I’ve climbed. It’s so good and I really wish that I found it when it was finished, because it’s so annoying having to wait! 😂 Love the idea of a Curt and Dickie live au and Johns perspective of Millie arriving at Stalag Luft! (I’ve got a bit of an head cannon that one of the 100th saw her fall, so they all really think she is dead). Also I cannot get the AU idea out of my head of Curt and Dickie surviving, making it back to England, and moving into more non combat roles because they refuse to leave the war without Millie. Would love to see there reaction to Millie’s return, her closeness to Bradys crew and the rest of the 100th and especially her and Brady.

Hello, Nonnie! Thank you so much for sending me these wonderful ideas. When I got up this morning and saw 2 asks in my Inbox, I was expecting questions from the emoji ask game I reblogged the other day, and as much as I love those ask games, I was especially delighted by what I received, and they made me go 🥺🥺. I'm pretty sure that both asks are from you, so hopefully I'm correct and not conflating 2 very nice Nonnies together.

I'm really glad you're enjoying Sunward I've Climbed, and as an avid consumer of other people's wonderful stories, I completely understand your reaction when you have to wait for the next chapter. And hopefully, you'll enjoy the upcoming stories in the wider Sunward Verse just as much.

I'm definitely going to geek out about your ideas at very great length, so everything else is beneath the cut.

And given the time, I'll answer the other ask tomorrow. I'm going to have lengthy thoughts about that, as well.

And please--🥺--I love these AU ideas of yours, so please share more if you're comfortable doing so. I think they're genius.

As to your headcanon:

The sheer angst potential of this brilliant headcanon of yours is extreme, and I love it. Given the battle of survival all the other ships were undergoing simultaneously and that I don't think that any other forts went down in the TV Show right where M'lle Zig Zig did, it would probably have to be one of her crew that sees Millie's chute get strafed and then the beginning of what they would probably assume was a long, quick, and terrifying fall into oblivion.

The question would be WHO precisely would have seen her chute get strafed, and WHO saw it happen would influence whether that was behind their belief (as Murph notes) that she'd died at Munster.

So Millie was third out of the plane AFTER Hafer (the radio operator) and Gangwer (the ball-turret gunner). There was a long enough delay with McCusker (who came forward from the tail and did not bail from his assigned hatch) and Petrohelos talking about what to do with Clanton's body that Hoerr and Hambone could have easily been the next two out of the plane.

Say for the sake of the story, it was Hoerr and Hambone who went out next and thus would have been closest to Millie when her chute got strafed. Hambone was already badly injured and had to get free of the escape hatch, too, so he might not have noticed.

Hoerr, however, would have, I suspect. He was co-pilot, so he was probably scanning the skies, trying to count chutes like Brady was in the cockpit. Hoerr would know the standard order in which the crew was supposed to bail and from what exit, but there were irregularities with how the crew bailed that would have thrown off any guesswork of which of his crewmates was he watching die.

Hambone went out just before him; Solly, Brady, and Bucky all bailed after him, so with Clanton being dead, Hoerr could narrow it down very quickly to the enlisted (Petros, McCusker, Hafer, Gangwer, or Millie). But which one of them was it? If he could get a full chute count, he'd probably discount McCusker and maybe Petros, as well.

That leaves Hafer, Gangwer, and Millie. Gangwer was injured, and Hafer yelled over the radio that he was coming to help, and that probably, he might have thought, thrown off bailing order and who goes from what hatch. Moreover, normally, Millie would be first out of the bomb bay, but I could see him wondering if she might have delayed bailing to try to help.

“Eight-and-a-half,” Millie corrected, because she was tired and feeling a little ornery. “And like I’d stand bein’ left behind after what happened the last time my crew went up without me.” Tomorrow would be a month since Regensburg. One whole month. One long month. Sometimes she still thought she heard a snippet of Curt and Dickie’s voices in a crowd, saw a flash of their faces out of the corner of her eye. (She hadn’t touched gum in a month, even when one of the other girls had kindly offered her some. The last piece she had had, Dickie had given her.) “That wasn’t your fault, you know,” he said with a frown. “They‒”

So Hoerr could have concluded that it very well MIGHT HAVE been Millie's chute that he had witnessed being strafed and her resulting fall, but he could not have known for certain. But would he have said anything to Brady then? Hoerr knew how close the two of them were, and I could see him telling Brady out of full-disclosure, but I could also see him keeping this to himself because he doesn't know for sure, and then the news is like this festering secret inside him.

And, if he kept it to himself, maybe after Hambone arrives with news about Gangwer and NO news about Millie, Hoerr was working himself up to telling Brady, and then one afternoon, Millie arrives ...

I need to think about this headcanon of yours some more, but I very well might make it canon.

As to your AU idea:

That twist on Curt and Dickie surviving is fascinating and very plausible. I've already got some prison camp ideas for them, so I'm going with the other possibility: evasion.

I can't remember where Escape Kit went down in the show, whether it was in German-occupied territory or in Germany, and while the farther you get into occupied Europe, the harder evasion likely is, it's not impossible...

Especially with Dickie's injuries, it would probably be quite late in 1943, if not early 1944 before they returned to England. There were some evasion routes that would take escaping airmen down into Spain before they could be taken to England, but there was also an evasion route that crossed the English channel by boat. I'd have to check dates and maps to see what evasion route would be most likely for them in this scenario.

So according to Red Bowman's diary, Thorpe Abbotts knew Buck was alive by December of 1943, although they didn't know the same about Bucky by then as far as I know. It would have been like twice as long since Escape Kit had gone down, so Dennis and McKay, Curt's navigator and bombardier, would--I suspect--have appeared on the POW's list well before December, but with Curt and Dickie not on any lists, Thorpe Abbotts very well might have assumed them dead or MIA, which would only add to everyone's surprise when (A) they either show up on base one day fresh from debriefings in London or (B) Harding gets a call that they are down in London and the news spread around base.

I can't imagine Curt and Dickie's horror upon their return to Thorpe Abbotts to see the sea of unfamiliar faces (> replacement crews) and hear of the full losses sustained at Regensburg. And then to hear about Bremen and Munster on top of that, the sheer scale of losses from those two missions, YIKES. And to hear that not only Buck and Bucky went down, but that Millie went down, too--their favorite engineer and close friend--it's like 😱😭.

And depending upon when they got back to base, they might not have even known whether Millie was alive or not--and for Curt, whether Bucky was alive, as well. And that hurts. And then to hear from Kenny how hard she took their deaths and how she half-way blamed herself for what happened, wondering if things would have been different if she'd been with them, that really hurts. (Because I think Millie would have said many of the same things to Kenny later that she said to Brady in Algeria, which really makes her comments to Kenny about Our Baby "Do as I say, not as I do.")

And then even once Millie is known to be alive and at Stalag Luft III, it's not like Curt and Dickie could write to Millie. The situation would be even more impossible for them than for Kenny because they evaded capture by the Germans. It was slow, but Fonda could pass on news from Kenny in her own letters. It would probably be too dangerous to even mention Curt and Dickie by name.

I think Curt and Dickie would be relieved that she had another good crew to look out for her, but I can imagine Curt still being a bit proprietary over her. She's her own person and VERY capable at what she does, but still ... she's his engineer ... in the vein of what Curt shouts up to Brady in Stymie before Regensburg (“You’d better bring me my engineer back in one piece!”).

Curt and Dickie would also be absolutely horrified at what happened to her post-Munster and pre-Stalag Luft III. Even if she weren't their friend and their engineer, what was done to her was horrifying and wrong (and violated the Geneva Convention, I'd think) on so many levels. And given his personality, I could almost see Curt going red in the face, blowing smoke out his ears, and being like "Let me at 'em!"

I think Curt would be surprised by Millie's relationship with Brady but not disapproving, though I imagine there would be some vetting and an ... intense ... shovel talk involved. Sort of the overprotective big-brother vibe, especially since Curt was like 7.5 years older than her. Dickie--I think you could easily go either way on whether he has an inkling about Millie and Brady even as far back as the trip over from America in June 1943.

“Once she’s done dancing with Brady …” Dickie added mischievously. Talking with the two boys was like interacting with older brothers. One of them was always as happy to side with her to tease the other as they were to turn right back around and tease her if they had half a chance. Turnabout’s fair play, and what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and all that.   “Now don’t go puttin’ it like that, Dickie,” Millie protested, infinitely glad that the three were just talking loudly enough to be heard over plane noises and not using the interphone. “Makes it sound like he’s sweet on me or I’m sweet on him or somethin’. He’s nice. He’s a gentleman, and his hands don’t wander, and we like talkin’ about music, and when we’re done dancin’, he buys me a coke, and that’s that. Nothin’ to write home ‘bout.” The last thing she wanted was any rumors starting about her friendship with a lieutenant. “I’m just teasing,” replied Dickie, slightly apologetically.

That would be the key passage for judging what Dickie knows. Is he teasing her just because? Or does he suspect something, gently tease her over that, and then back off when she doesn't respond how he might expect?

Regardless of whether he knew or not, Dickie probably leaves all the loud reactions to Curt, on whom he is generally a steadying influence, but he probably gives Brady his own shovel talk, and given what they say about the quiet ones, that might be the scarier of the two ... discussions.

[authenticcadence18]

ok so. I’m gonna talk about a certain non-canon PnF ship I dislike for a bit.

(and by a bit. I mean for far longer than I intended.) 

And. Ok. I’m just gonna preface this by saying:  I am not seeking to tear down the ship in question. If you ship it, if it makes you happy, I am not trying to step on your toes and make you feel bad at all!!! I’m sure there are plenty of great reasons to ship these two characters, I just don’t agree. And that’s fine! 

I simply want to talk through a certain scene in Phineas and Ferb that fans of this ship usually point to as a pivotal moment between the two, point out another scene between a DIFFERENT ship that is often overlooked, and compare the two. 

analysis/rant will be below the cut

(this post is about Ferb*lla, btw. in case you hadn’t guessed.)

Ok so. Recently I watched a video where someone talked about shipping Ferb and Isabella and why they did so. (I’ll also say I did NOT seek out a video about this specific ship, it just happened to be a brief topic of discussion in it. And I stopped watching the video after this.). I don’t want to say which video it was because I’m not trying to attack any given person here! But I wanted to give y’all context for why I’m writing this. 

Anyway. The infamous “hand-holding” scene from “When Worlds Collide” was used as the main evidence for this ship. The person in the video claimed that “Isabella instinctively grabbed Ferb’s hand” and that they looked at each other and “had a moment” and went on about how they shipped Ferb and Isabella because Phineas was just “so oblivious.” 

Now. I understand being frustrated with Phineas’s obliviousness. Been there, done that. And I understand how some would want Isabella to be paired romantically with someone who registers and reciprocates her feelings.

But this take on that scene is just, well, not right. (I suspect the maker of this video had not viewed said scene in quite some time and it was just a vague memory.) In this post, I’m going to go over what actually happens in that scene, compare it to a Phinabella scene with a similar vibe, and then just talk about Phineas’s treatment of Isabella in general and how their dynamic is so much more than “pining girl/oblivious to a fault boy.”

PART 1: “When Worlds Collide” 

(you can run! wait...wrong show) 

Ok so. In this episode, there is a scene towards the end where Isabella reaches out for Phineas’s hand but ends up grabbing Ferb’s instead. Ferb pats her hand and assures her that everything will be alright, and Isabella immediately pulls her hand back and curiously glances over at an aloof Phineas. 

In the video in question, the speaker claimed that Isabella “instinctively” reached out for Ferb. 

But that’s not what happened. 

Isabella deliberately reached out for Phineas’s hand. You can tell by the way the shot prior to the handholding bit is staged. 

Phineas is clearly on Isabella’s left while Ferb is on her right. (From our perspective as audience members.)

In the very next shot, Isabella smiles and reaches out to the left, where Phineas should be

In any world other than that of a cartoon, she’d have grabbed Phineas’s hand. But because of cartoon shenanigans, Ferb is inexplicably standing directly to her left in the next shot, so she grabs his hand instead.

As SOON as Isabella realizes she’s holding Ferb’s hand and not Phineas’s, her smile disappears and she pulls her hand away before glancing over at Phineas, confused.

CLEARLY this scene is just a gag. Isabella wants to hold Phineas’s hand, but whoops! she holds Ferb’s instead. Phineas being oblivious isn’t even a part of the joke, it’s just 100% the universe being against Isabella 🙃. And Isabella shows no romantic affection towards Ferb whatsoever in this scene.

Now, one could say Ferb’s reaction to Isabella holding his hand indicates at least a one-sided crush on his part. But I disagree. From Ferb’s perspective, Isabella grabbed his hand because she was worried, and he reassured her like any good friend would do before returning to his former position once Isabella pulled her hand away. He wasn’t offended by her pulling her hand away, and he didn’t make a lovestruck/disappointed face when she pulled away.

And Ferb also misread her gesture. Because Isabella wasn’t worried. She was awestruck, amazed, and wanted to share the moment with the boy she has feelings for. I suspect if she’d grabbed Phineas’s hand, he wouldn’t have misread her gesture.

(Well. Ok. He WOULD have misread it but in a different way. Isabella and Phineas hold hands a lot in the show, so it wouldn’t have been unusual to him. In his mind, Isabella’s his best friend and sometimes they hold hands! I suspect he might have glanced at her for a moment before returning his gaze to the sky, smile never faltering, because who better to share such a special moment with than his best friend?)

I also personally like to think of Ferb and Isabella as having a sibling-like relationship. Ferb teases her about her crush on Phineas AND acts as her wingman on multiple occasions, which are 100% things a sibling would do. And they genuinely are friends! I love their friendship. And so that’s how I characterize this scene, as Isabella being confused and Ferb just trying to be a good friend. It’s not romantic: it’s first and foremost a joke. And on a deeper level, it’s a moment of Ferb expressing platonic affection towards a close friend.

Part 2: “The Klimpaloon Ultimatum”

This episode came out a little less than two years after “When Worlds Collide,” when Phineas and Ferb was a bit on the decline in terms of popularity. Neither episode is a mainstream one, but this one is definitely the less well-known of the two. 

This is a shame. Because it’s a fantastic episode. AND because it contains one of my favorite Phinabella moments. 

Just to set up the scene: the kiddos have been captured and learn of Mittington Random’s nefarious deeds. He’s been conducting inhumane experiments and trying to create “living” swimwear with no success and plans to take Klimpaloon--the magical old timey bathing suit that lives in the Himalayas himself--apart to do so. Isabella expresses distress at his evildoings before they even come across Klimpaloon, and when they DO come across Klimpaloon and learn the extent of Random’s plan, Phineas is right there....

and they REACH OUT FOR EACH OTHER. INSTINCTIVELY. LOOK AT THIS.

They don’t even have to LOOK at one another. Phineas can just SENSE Isabella’s distress, and Isabella reaches out for him to comfort her without even thinking about it and he DOES.

I mean!! LOOK AT THEM. This is Isabella realizing what’s happened! She didn’t reach out for Phineas intentionally, it just happened!! They were totally in sync!

and LOOK HOW CONTENT SHE IS NOW. even amidst the horror of the villain’s plan, just being close to Phineas comforts her. Or at least momentarily cheers her up. (And ok I know this moment is also primarily a gag but IT’S IN ISABELLA’S FAVOR THIS TIME. Instead of leaving her confused and without Phineas, it leaves her with a dreamy grin on her face and in his arms. Bless Season 4.)

And AND. The next shot is of Random speaking for a few seconds, and then we get a shot of all the characters...

AND ISABELLA AND PHINEAS ARE STILL HOLDING ONE ANOTHER. Although it looks like they’ve gone from hugging  to just holding hands, which means even if they didn’t want to keep hugging they DID WANT TO KEEP HOLDING ONE ANOTHER I JUST AHHHH. 

So. Let’s review. 

In the first scene, Isabella accidentally holds Ferb’s hand. She doesn’t need to be comforted, she just wants to share a moment with Phineas and is confused when she realizes she isn’t holding his hand. Ferb comforts her because he’s being a good friend and thinks she is concerned. He misreads her needs. So like, he means well, he’s her friend! But it’s not romantic. And they hardly hold hands at all. (And, come on, this scene is mostly meant to be a gag.) 

In the second scene, Isabella is definitely distressed, and without a word (or even having to make eye contact), she and Phineas reach out to hold one another without thinking about it. Somehow, Phineas knows Isabella needs to be comforted and Isabella knows Phineas will be there for her. And they STAY HOLDING HANDS into the next shot. 

Isabella does not instinctively reach out for Ferb’s hand in the first clip. 

Isabella and Phineas instinctively reach out for one another in the second.

Need I say more? 

Part 3: In Defense of Phineas and the Phinabella Dynamic

So. Yes. Phineas is oblivious to Isabella’s romantic feelings for him. Painfully, painfully oblivious to them. (And he’s painfully oblivious to his own feelings for her because COME ON. “Night of the Living Pharmacists” alone proves he almost certainly had feelings for her when they were kids, he just had no idea.)

But. He can’t be blamed for this. He is a CHILD, for goodness sake. When I was younger his obliviousness definitely got on my nerves, but like....he IS just a kid. He was never obligated to return Isabella’s feelings (...that should sound familiar to some of y’all). Phineas just wasn’t thinking about romance relating to himself when he was younger. He was oblivious to it, and that’s okay.

And you know what he’s not oblivious to in the show proper? How much he cares for Isabella as his friend. 

Phineas LOVES being Isabella’s friend. Like. She’s his best friend. (Vincent Martella himself said so!!) 

He goes out of his way to help her earn patches and overcome other problems (like an incurable case of the hiccups!). 

He consistently compliments her athleticism and skills and cuteness (in his own unique way, of course😂). 

Although he expresses distress when Baljeet expects him to go a day without inventing in “Bully Bromance Breakup,” he is more than happy to spend the day alone with Isabella and suggests having a regular ol’ picnic when she mentions being hungry in “It’s No Picnic.” AND he is excited to take that picnic and make it even better for Isabella once Ferb returns (because Phineas probably thinks Isabella would rather have a big picnic as opposed to a small one! He’s doing that for himself but also for her!).

He partners up with her for inventions over Ferb sometimes and is willing to put big ideas for the day on hold if she can’t participate. 

He planned surprise after surprise for her birthday (and presumably for her birthdays before that!) and felt the need to “make it up to her” when the final surprise didn’t go as planned.  

He was DEVASTATED when separated from her in “Night of the Living Pharmacists” and claimed he’d “never forgive himself” if she was infected, and once being reunited with her, he didn’t leave her side and held her hand and made sure she was alright. And he SACRIFICED HIMSELF FOR HER IN THE END. Like. At that point Phineas could’ve let Isabella get infected and stopped the invasion himself. BUT HE DIDN’T. HE SACRIFICED HIMSELF FOR HER. He both cared enough to give himself up and TRUSTED her to save him. LIKE. LIKE. 

Come on. Maybe Phineas doesn’t know Isabella has a crush on him in the show proper. But GOSH. He cares so, so, SO much about her. 

To claim Ferb is a better match for Isabella simply because he’s more aware of romance in general is just a disservice to the close friendship she and Phineas share. 

Did Isabella deserve better during the show? I mean. Yeah. (I wrote a whole fic because of that, lol.) But it isn’t really Phineas’s fault that he never found out about her feelings. So many times, Isabella’s plans to confess or spend time with Phineas were ruined by circumstances totally out of her control (aka: the b-plot’s inator of the day. aka: the writers maintaining the status quo.) If it weren’t for Doofenshmirtz, Isabella would’ve confessed to him in the main summer the show takes place in. 

And you’ll notice! Even in episodes where Isabella is frustrated with Phineas’s obliviousness, their friendship remains in tact. Isabella is TICKED at Phineas during the “do I know romance or what?” scene in “That Sinking Feeling.” But then in the next scene they’re both in, Isabella is at Phineas’s side and smiling! His obliviousness hurts her sometimes, but it doesn’t outweigh the friendship and sweet moments they share. It doesn’t define their dynamic.

Phineas is oblivious. But he still loves Isabella in his own unique way. And Isabella loves him and loves being his friend even though he’s oblivious. 

(And also FERB SHIPS PHINABELLA. He steps away to let them spend time together, he sends them off to get ice cream together at the end of “Happy Birthday Isabella”. He 100% supports Isabella and Phineas and wants them to be together. And there’s no jealousy there either! He’s just supportive and awesome and I LOVE FERB OKAY.) 

So. In Conclusion.

If you ship Ferb and Isabella. That’s great! I do not want to step on your toes, and I’m sure you’ve got your own reasons for doing so. I know firsthand just how wonderful a favorite ship can make one feel, so I’d never want to take that from anyone. 

But just. Please. PLEAAASE. Please don’t belittle Phineas in shipping them. And don’t disregard the moments he and Isabella share. 

Phineas cares for Isabella. So very much. In his own unique, wonderful way. And there is so much more to meaningful relationships than romance. 

Thank you. 

[vvigilante-blog1]

               okay! i’m excited to get the ball rolling over here, so if any mutuals would like a STARTER, feel free to give this post a LIKE. no cap, no limit. you’re welcome to hop into my ims if you want to plot something specific!

[minhoinator]

the epitome of stealth and adorableness