#if you would like me to ramble about some of the mentioned interpretations and headcanons I'm rotating I would be glad to btw. but its a lo

[gophergal]

I know fuck all about tf2 except for character names. Most I got is you and a few other mutuals posts, and they're 10/10. How does the game..... work exactly? Like is there plot? Is it first person shooter sort of thing? Is there a tf1?

I could google it but that's not nearly as fun

OH BOY GET READY FOR THE B I G R AM B L E

WHAT THE FUCK IS TF2?

It's a team based first person shooter published by Valve (of portal and half life fame) in 2007 with nine classes to choose from, each with strengths countered by other classes (for example, the Spy is often a counter against the Sniper and Engineer. Respectively, by picking off the Sniper with a quick, stealthy backstab or by destroying the Engineer's machines). The game has been free to play since 2009 (i think. grain of salt please), and has a healthy playerbase to this day, aside from the bots. But not every tf2 fan actually plays the game. I play sometimes, but mostly just rotate the characters in my brain like a microwave burrito.

It is ALSO, however, a multimedia franchise. Aside from the game, which shows off worldbuilding and characterization through the environment and character dialogue (as well as the update announcement flyers on the official blog), there are also animated shorts and comics created by Valve that further flesh out the world and characters of TF2. Frankly, I think you should give the Meet The Team shorts a go if nothing else. They're iconic. It's hard to pick favorites, but I'm partial to Meet the Medic (obviously), Meet the Engineer (which I can quote verbatim), and Meet the Sniper.

Broadly, the world and aesthetics of TF2 are based on 60's/70's cold war thrillers and spy movies. Think James Bond and the Manchurian Candidate. These impeccable vibes are then wrapped neatly in a cartoony artstyle that wasn't common at the time (and arguably still isn't. I'm pretending that fortnight doesnt exist, as is custom). On a related note, the soundtrack FUCKS SEVERELY. Like. They just DO. They have influence from Jazz, Funk, and miltary marching songs, with more specific influences for individual characters (ex: country western for engineer, polka for medic, and bagpipes for demoman)

An important thing to note is that every class is a play on some stereotype from the movies that inspired the vibes:

Heavy Weapons Guy is a husky ruskie and a man of few words, but he has hidden depths. He's a family man, most importantly, and has been supporting and protecting his mother and younger sisters since his father was killed when he was a teenager. He has a close bond with the Medic and speaks highly of the Engineer ("Engineer is credit to team!"). In a debatably canon piece of dialogue from TellTale's Poker Night At The Inventory, he is revealed to have a PhD in Russian Literature.

Engineer is a texan with 11 PhDs in hard science. He exudes southern hospitality and seems like the most sane man on the team. He also takes great joy in the death and destruction his weapons cause, and ALSO helps the Medic in performing deeply unethical experiments that go against the laws of nature for curiosity sake. He's the third in a line of engineers, btw, and his grandfather basically conquered death. Which isn't super relevant, but I feel is a good lead in to some of the wackier elements of this world I would like to mention.

And every character is like this to some degree. Some more so than others- Soldier is basically just "how american can a man be before it starts impacting his mental health" and Pyro is unknown in terms of nationality, gender, and background

TF2 has a plot by the way! Yes, there is a reason for these many dudes in funny hats to be fighting. They are fighting over gravel. Yeah. So, these two brothers are fighting over land willed to them by their father (who died in the 1890's) which is largely useless aside from having a lot of gravel. Their names are Redmond and Blutarch Mann, and they're the ceos of their own corporations. Reliable Excavation & Demolitions (RED) and Builder's League United (BLU) respectively. They each hired mercenaries to fight a proxy war for them with the goal of owning it all. All the while, a third party, The Administrator, has been playing both sides of the Gravel War to keep it going as long as possible. Why? It's a mystery...

RAPID FIRE TF2 WORLDBUILDING BULLSHITTERY BE UPON YE:

(most of this is just stupid shit that was made up for Pure Random Funny HaHa and has very little bearing on the plot, but tells you a LOT about the tone of the franchise)

Rocket Jumping (that is, shooting a rocket propelled grenade at your feet and crouch-jumping at the same time to launch yourself into the air) was a technique pioneered by Shakespearicles, the STRONGEST POET TO EVER LIVE. He also invented the concept of a Second Floor in a building

Btw, stairs were not invented when the second floor was invented. I want you to take a wild guess how people got to the second floor before stairs were invented. (hint: it involves explosives)

Stairs were invented by Abraham Lincoln. He died due to rocket jumping up said stairs which caused him to accelerate rapidly into a wall. He was also the first Pyro in the 1890s.

New Zealand sank below the ocean sometime in the 40's. By which I mean it was intentionally sank because a Jor-el knockoff believed that the world was ending and that going underwater was the only way to save the nation.

CisMpreg exists. This fact is Medic's fault.

OK But What About Team Fortress 1?

So, its. Not complicated but it's not exactly simple. Quick answer, the original TF game has nothing to do with TF2. Team Fortress was originally a mod for the game Quake and has the same basic gameplay premise as it's successors (team based FPS with 9 classes) and quite a few maps have actually been remade for TF2. It was released in 1996, so, as TF2 was taking A Very Long Time to complete, Valve released a sort of... updated version that was meant to hold fans over. It uses the half life 2 engine, I believe, and was released in 1999. It is called Team Fortress Classic and it's only a LITTLE confusing to research I swear.

TFC takes place in the same universe as TF2, but in the 1930's instead of the 60's. Ignore the scifi/modern looking tech. Don't worry about it. This has no bearing on TFC, really, because it was only confirmed in one of the comics released in 2014. The TFC team matters to the comic plot, but is otherwise kinda just. there. Like, they only exist in the Mann Co No More story line and otherwise just exist.

Fun fact: TFC (the game) was updated to change the ingame class models to more accurately represent the appearance given to them in the comics.

For example, look at the glow up given to the TFC Medic! (original on the left, updated on the right)

In Conclusion:

I will be surprised anyone actually reads all of this, but that is my rambling summary of what in the fuck TF2 is. To be fair, the game is richly detailed but also kinda sparse at the same time. Its all vibes and interpretation my dude. Honestly I think what has made TF2 so popular and long lasting (lore wise) is related to what early FNAF games had going on

[iamnmbr3]

Let me start by saying that I adore your meta. It's some of the most thorough, well-reasoned hp analysis I've come across & you have a talent for tenderly mining and polishing canon connections I've never considered. You've put into words so many of my feelings about drarry, hinny, and the characters as a whole -- why I love them, why I struggle with them, and why they still compel me after all these years. I'm slowly chipping away at your blog and won't stop until I get to page 1 I've found myself very taken with the Slytherins lately--especially characters like Millicent and Daphne, who are either offhand names or caricatures, as well as some of the older Slytherins we see mentioned, who seem to stay largely out of the war (or at least aren't important enough to it for a mention). There are a lot of widely accepted fanon personalities/interpersonal dynamics for the Slytherins, and they're always fun to delve into. But I often find myself struggling to separate canon from fanon. Do you have any thoughts on what we can extrapolate about the Slytherins in canon (apart from "mean, ugly, & stupid/vapid" as jkr describes nearly every Slytherin but Draco)? And if not, do you have any blogs/posts to recommend on the topic?

Wow. What can I even say. I've been staring at this ask since I received it feeling so warmed by your words. Thank you very much for such high compliments. It always thrills me to hear that people get some enjoyment/mental stimulation out of this blog and that my little ramblings are of interest to others.

To some extent, since the other Slytherins aren't that well developed (due to the fact that Harry was too busy constantly staring at Draco to notice anything about them - I mean he literally doesn't even know Theodore Nott's NAME till he sees him spending more time with Draco) there's a lot of room for people to come up with their own interpretations of their personalities.

That said, there is some info in canon we can go off of. For example, we see Pansy hanging out with Draco a lot more than Millicent or Daphne. We also know that none of their parents were Death Eaters. And given that Millicent and Daphne seem to stay away from Draco more later, maybe their families aren't quite as into the whole blood purist stuff as Pansy and her family are. Especially Daphne does not seem to really participate in any of the bullying we see a lot of the Slytherins take part in.

Personally, I always headcannoned that Daphne never liked Draco very much and that while she did hold some anti-muggle and anti-muggleborn biases (similar to those held by most of the wizarding world), her attitudes were more on the level of those held by Fudge or Crouch and she never actually went in for any of the really extremist blood purist beliefs or supported the Death Eaters or even had attitudes as extreme as Walburga Black (who thought the Death Eaters mostly had the right idea even if they went about it the wrong way). I also think she didn't much like the pettier behaviors Draco engaged in - the boasting, the bullying, the mockery, not to mention the weird Potter obsession - (or that the people Draco hung out with engaged in). I think she probably found him stuck up and arrogant and vaguely unsavory and tended to avoid him, even if she wasn't as horrified or enraged by him using slurs like Mudblood as someone like Ron or Harry would be.

I like the idea that after the war she and her sister changed their minds about their beliefs about muggles and muggleborns - even if they were never quite as extreme to begin with as those held by some. I headcanon that they two of them were both back at Hogwarts during Draco's 8th year - and that they actually ended up striking up a friendship - once the realized that he'd changed. After all, they were housemates for years. Plus they ran in similar social circles. And they all changed their minds, so that's a common bond. Daphne tells Draco point blank that she always thought he was a stuck up twat and Draco agrees that he was, which breaks the ice.

As for Pansy, I actually think she was more of a hanger on than a true friend. I think she and Draco drifted apart in 7th year. I don't especially like characterizations that whitewash the bad things she did - either the bullying or the bigotry or the "trying to hand harry in to Voldemort" thing - or that turn her into some ooc mary sue girlboss with no personality other than being a genius who is great at everything and also gets to be mean with no consequences because she's so cool so no one cares I guess. That's not to say I don't enjoy fics with Draco/Pansy friendship if it's done right. But yeah, based on actual canon I see her moving on to the next person once Draco's fortunes were shown to have irrevocably fallen by book 7. Plus it's arguable that she always expected to marry Draco since he was the best match (thru book 6 anyway) but that she always secretly harbored feelings for Blaise. And after the war she got to act on that. After all, in the train scene in book 6 she seems awfully interested in what girls Blaise likes.

For Millicent we have even less. We know she was a bully. I don't like seeing that ignored or seeing her girlbossified. I do like the idea of her going thru her own little redemption arc and trying to make something of herself. I also imagine that she and Draco kind of drifted apart though. I think she ever became a completely nice person, but I like the idea of her apologizing to Hermione and them ending up at the Ministry together and kind of tolerating each other - just one of the many instances of strange, uncomfortable relationships that pop up in the post-war wizarding society as it tries to put itself together.

As for Crabbe & Goyle, I really hate how often fandom seems to forget or gloss over the fact that both of them were actively participating in torturing other students and seemingly very into it. I think the way Draco treated them - as henchmen/servants - always grated on them but they accepted it due to the relative statuses of their families. When the power dynamic between them shifts though, starting book 6 but really post book 6, they seem to revel in Draco's degradation and fall from grace (and we even see hints of that earlier, like them laughing when Draco gets beaten up by Harry in book 5 and not intervening). I find that super fascinating, and I think they are darker, more twisted characters than people tend to give them credit for. Given all this, I don't see Draco and Goyle staying friends post war and I never get why Goyle having been an enthusiastic participant in the Death Eaters' crimes (in a way that Draco never was) so often gets forgotten. Usually post war he gets reduced to a simple minded sad boi who Draco needs to look after. And I'm just like ??? Where?? Especially given that the alternative provides so much more interesting story fodder.

[2hoothoots]

So I was going through your blog (again) and found some of your stuff mentions fsau Raz having ADHD, as somebody with adhd I’m intrigued, may I have some of those headcanons (canons??) related to that? Also, I would give “a penny for your thoughts” but I’m out of pennies, so here’s various images of a drawing of ur blorbo I put next to my animals, note that a rock had to be added in one picture to keep him from flying away (BONUS: his now permanent place with the wifi guardian frog)

NOTHING brings me more joy than seeing physical drawings of these guys, like, out and about. in situations. thank you for this gift, and ALSO for the great ask because it's a perfect chance to ramble

so first of all, canon Raz having ADHD is very real to me. he's constantly fidgeting and moving around, getting distracted by sidequests and scavenger hunt objectives, always talking to himself out loud, gotta write everything down so he remembers it because there's so much to DO!, running away from home because his dad yelled at him one time and now Raz assumes he must hate him forever... i could go on, but i think there's a lot of room for interpretation there!

in my headcanon, he never got diagnosed as a kid. maybe there were some notes about it in his reports each year, sure - but a little hyperactivity and distractability never seemed to slow him down. he excelled in lessons and on missions, and when he was with his family their performances gave him something to focus that energy into. it was only really when he turned 18 and graduated to a full agent that the cracks started to show.

because there's a big difference between the responsibilities you have as a minor, and the responsibilities you have as an 18-year-old living away from home! one who's expected to cook and clean for themselves, and take care of adult life stuff, and also work the 9-to-5 office job he's just graduated into that involves sitting in front of a computer and write reports all day.

short-term, he found he could get himself to power through a deadline with energy drinks and psi-pops (a lot of psi-pops...)

long-term, something had to give. he was working himself to exhaustion, constantly stressed, swinging between days spent staring at his computer screen doing nothing and all-nighters desperately trying to finish his paperwork before the deadline. it just didn't make any sense to him. he'd finally started his job as a Psychonaut, he was living independently like he'd always dreamed, he'd gotten top surgery after planning it for so long. he should have everything he ever wanted. why wasn't he happy?

following a deep post-surgical depression, about a month before his 19th birthday Raz was living out of his car, couch-surfing or sleeping in his office. he got kicked out of his apartment after falling behind on bills and rent. it wasn't that he didn't have the money, it was all just too much for him to stay on top of.

he'd probably have stayed in that misery hole for a lot longer if Frazie hadn't marched into his life and demanded he let her help him move into a new place, or she was telling mom that he was homeless. together, they sorted through all of his possessions from the last place - everything that had been hastily shoved in his car, or tossed in a box in his office, piled in a heap that was giving him anxiety even looking at it.

things do get better for him from there.

when he eventually explains things to Hollis, she gently suggests that he should get a roommate. he ends up moving in with Phoebe, and they become pretty good friends after a couple months! something about having another person around to help do the chores and wash the dishes and share the space helps, even if it takes him a while to admit it.

he gets his ADHD diagnosis, and finding the exact right medication and dose is a journey he's still on years later - but they're a huge help in getting him to actually knuckle down and finish his work on time. and the whole thing ends up being a chance for him to take a step back and really think about what he wants to do with his life. he'd always assumed that being a Psychonaut was his dream, but he'd never really reckoned with what that dream would look like before.

in the end, he sticks with it, but also decides to follow Lili's example in branching out. he applies to study a part-time Bachelor's in Psychology on a remote course, and gets accepted. juggling missions and paperwork and study and relationships (because the whole thing made him realise he also wasn't setting aside any time for himself, and wow, dating is a thing) is a lot - but he manages to figure it out, day by day.

(Lili comes back to the Psychonauts after graduating. she and Raz have both changed a lot over those four years, but on their first mission together they hit it off like a house on fire - and the rest is history!)

[attyrocious]

cross posting yesterday's rambling thread for posterity and because tumblr lets me edit things. anyway this is a sorta long thing and i might add things i forgot to mention in the twt thread

i tend to draw on-model canon because im a coward + just personal preferences. but the way i convert the canon designs into my artstyle is that i take the distinct features oda gives them and then combine it with personal headcanons to complete what should look like a unique human. Starting with Trafalgar Law, who is unfortunately a bland-ass conventionally pretty boy

someone commented a while ago the law hat drawing tutorial i made a while ago didn't make much sense and i realize its bc of the specific way i draw law's face: heart shaped (ba-dum-tss). That meaning, a narrow chin widening into a mild defined jaw, wide cheekbones, and up to his know-it-all brain dome.

given that, the pudgy guitar pick shape of his head i mentioned here should make a lot more sense.

i don't think this design point is unique to me, as most conventional pretty anime boy gets given jaws like this. a lot of law artists tend to veer into this head shape. just how life be sometimes. other points: flat, thick eyebrows is bc im a hairy gal and i need to feel better about myself.

Killer gets to be more interesting, because he shouldn't be considered conventionally attractive. my idea behind killer's is that those individual features is smth he would be insecure with enough to hide himself in a helmet but i draw him with all the love in the world actually. i'd like to think its how kid sees him or yknow, law, bc he's my kin assigned blorbo and maybe you ship lawkill as a guilty pleasure too i mentioned before (and ruined people's days) when i said whenever i draw killer he looks like griffith before i put on his goatee. the upper half of his face is distinctly feminine, with the lower half kinda over compensating. other than that uhh...idk. stan killer

Kidd is the bane of my existence, i feel like i can never draw his face consistently. yet at the same time he's so damn fun to draw everyone gotta try it.

my problem with kidd is that this mf does have eyelids. most kidd painters out there interpret this as him having deep set eyes (think Matt Smith or jeffrey star) . and yeh skill issue on me i should practice that. other notes, i try to make him younger than canon makes him look. he is my babygirl and he deserves to look cuddly. my band au kidd version has the honor of being allowed some chubs. he's just tries to look older and more menacing with edgy makeup. also i try to give him dimples when i can because, well i can.

Rosinante last bc i lost steam after kidd. the thing abt cora is that aside from not having eyebrows, everything is structured with the generic one piece man template. which means i gotta do everything myself doffy is there bc the way to figure out how to draw these two is to give them minor differences from each other, that being doffy gets slightly sharper features. in canon, these two are also rly wide boys (more of an oda style feat tbh) but i make them long. though bigger brained donquixote artists know that of these two brothers, doffy should be the wiry-er built. anyway that's it. in conclusion, i need to draw more girls actually i feel like im becoming misogynistic by osmosis from oda's style and now i draw girls all looking the same too.

[crazylittlejester]

You should totally yap about Warriors and his journal!!!!! 🫶

@taddy-cat @amateur-ace @hero-of-the-wolf

*breaks knuckles* okay okay okay

SO: I have this headcanon (which I cannot remember for the life of me if it’s something I completely made up or if he has a notebook in LU/his game-) that Warriors has a journal that he carries around with him pretty much everywhere. It’s not his first one, he has several he’s already completed filled out that are locked up somewhere secret back home, but these journals have EVERYTHING in them

These journals started out as places to take notes when he’d first joined the army and was getting a little bit of an education, he didn’t want to forget anything so he wrote it all down. Then they were just PAPER, something he could use to write letters to home, but as everything started happening the things these letters contained weren’t things he could tell his family and they never got sent or torn out of the journals. They didn’t necessarily contain military secrets (not at this point), just things he couldn’t tell another soul but he couldn’t continue to keep in his head. He needed to get it OUT, so he wrote it down in his native language that no one around him really understands so that information and those thoughts were safe. If anyone DID get a hold of those books they’d never understand it, and they’d at the very least be significantly slowed down because they’d have to take the time to translate it. The writing is cramped and frantic and the pages are tear stained in his more letter like entries and it’s damn near illegible at times, but its a way for him to just get it OUT so he can shove it away

Some of the journals from the war have pages torn out, completely or with just enough page left to read a little of the words on them. Those missing pages were burned and forgotten, they held memories Warriors himself can’t recall anymore. There’s a reason they’re gone

These journals are something he’s always kept on him, since the age of 16, and eventually he started using them for MORE than just to write letters that would never be sent, he started using them once again for notes. For strategies and plans and details of war. Battles planned out, notes for fellow soldiers, what worked what didn’t, documentation of battles won and lost. Some of these pages were translated and written out in neat, perfect handwriting and turned over to Zelda after the war to be preserved in history books, others to be used to better the army

Every page is dated, but the journals arent sectioned into “letters” and “notes”. If he wants information he has to scroll through and look for the date it was written, everything’s mixed together, separated by quick, harsh lines of ink between blocks of text

These books contain the hopes and dreams of a teenage boy, detailed analyses of the hyrulian army, the rage of a young man, ramblings of someone who felt truly broken, burned memories, meticulously sketched out fields with hastily drawn troop positions, a doodle or two from Mask

But more recently: In addition to this, one he keeps on him currently contains notes on the others. At first their weak points and important information about them ranging anywhere from “Wind has a peanut allergy” to “Don’t mention goats around Twi unless you have time to listen to him yap”. In those first weeks these notes could certainly be interpreted as him planning to do wrong, but that was never his intent. He has notes on his fellow soldiers weaknesses from his own era because he’s so used to studying people and helping them grow. He SHARES these notes with them, not that they can read them, but he tells them what he notices in a kind way and helps them improve and marks their progress

These books ARE his brain, he’s a damn genius who can’t organize his thoughts. He needs to see it all in a physical way in order to process it, though he’s not so stupid as to mention anything in these books that could be used to take down the queen, even if they are in another language. He’s not going to risk it

anyways thats my headcanon lol

[callsign-rogueone]

cuddles - b.s.

Brennan Sorrengail x reader words: 565 🏷: no book spoilers, just thoughts about cuddles with Bren [re: this ask]. gender neutral + no pronouns used. brief mentions of the following things, but they aren’t described in any detail: reader and/or Brennan being injured or sick, having nightmares, stress, and worrying about your partner / being afraid of losing them again. one (1) implication of sexual activity at the end but it’s incredibly mild and left up for interpretation. not edited, just a ramble / headcanons. posting this from my bed, wishing I had a brennan here with me right now :(

Bren is absolutely a cuddler behind closed doors, when it’s just him and his partner around.

it’s definitely a stress reliever for him to just be held and relax with you, to take his mind off of preparing for war. everywhere else, he’s the stern, responsible Lieutenant Colonel, but inside your room, he’s just your Bren, and he likes to be babied sometimes. he deserves it! hold him. massage the stress out of his shoulders. be the big spoon for him sometimes (even if you’re shorter/smaller than him, he still loves it). let him lay his head on your lap / chest / etc and play with his hair and read aloud to him from whatever book you’re in the middle of. warning you though, he’ll probably fall asleep and trap you there for a good hour because he’s so tired all the time.

you’ve both been through so much, and sometimes he just likes to have you close, feeling the warmth of your body and your heartbeat and your breathing, as a reassurance that you’re still alive, still here with him 🥺 especially if one of you has a nightmare, or something scary happened to either of you that day — if you were seriously injured, he’s mending you immediately, obviously, but then he’s not letting you out of his sight. he’s taking the afternoon off and taking care of you, and that includes hours of cuddles. 

and he’ll do it as a reassurance for you, too. if you’re crying / injured / overwhelmed, etc., he’s scooping you into his arms and holding you close while he figures out what’s wrong and how to fix it for you, because that’s what Brennan does, he fixes things. but if it’s not an immediately urgent issue, he’s happy to cuddle you a while to help you feel better first.

and it’s a subconscious thing for him too. even when he’s asleep, he’ll reach for you, curling into your side when he finds you. he just wants to be close to you, as it’s a comfort to him. he falls asleep a lot easier and stays asleep longer when he can feel that you’re around. if he’s sick or recovering from an injury (like in the last six years), you need to be close to him — not just for your own reassurance and because you want to take care of him, but also because he’ll drag himself out of bed to find you if you leave. 

on nights where it’s too hot to cuddle, you have to settle for falling asleep holding hands, which works for a few minutes — until one of you wants to roll over — but it’s good enough for him. 

also, I stand by the fact that he’d have the most comfortable bed. he’s the top commander of the revolution, so he’d theoretically have the nicest room, and because he’s so tired from running the army and mending people and teaching a class now, too, I think he would value having a nice soft place to sleep when he can. a big mattress that you can stretch out on, lots of pillows and some very nice blankets.

and I am legally obligated to make this suggestive, because it’s Brennan: cuddling is a requirement after ~certain activities~. and also, cuddling tends to turn into ~certain activities~ quite often — when you’re not too tired, that is. 😉

[wc-confessions]

the discourse about people shipping Darkstripe and Tigerstar is so stupid.

anons before me have made big long eloquent posts about how so much of the fandom is too strict about shipping, and this ship in particular comes up as an example pretty frequently.

i just want to add some thought to this conversation about this ship specifically —

in general, yes the fandom needs to unclench a bit and realize the family tree is irreparably messed up and sometimes things get a bit muddy. but if two characters aren’t explicitly mentioning their familial ties in the text, don’t seem to acknowledge them whatsoever, and have potential, and aren’t in a weird power dynamic (ex. mentor/apprentice), then for gods sake just let people have fun and ship whoever they want. have some sense of whimsy and mind your own business.

obviously, Darkstripe and Tigerstar are related according to the family tree - but it is never once acknowledged by them or any character in the books a single time - so for the sake of the point i’m leading up to, let’s extend our imagination a bit and consider them unrelated.

well, this ship is still problematic you might say because of their mentor/apprentice relationship, and the “abuse” Tigerstar puts Darkstripe through. there is an age gap, an imbalanced power dynamic, and unhealthy behavior aside from that. so clearly, this ship wouldn’t be healthy, family ties or not.

but, hear me out, a healthy relationship is not the point of this ship. i honestly don’t ship them, but in my mind it’s basically canon that Darkstripe is obsessed with and in love with Tigerstar. do i condone that? no. do i enjoy it? also NO. but the point of the ship isn’t romance or healthy love or enjoyment!!!!

they are evil and toxic and would be a terrible couple!!!! but that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to ship it or headcanon it in some way!!!

if anything, IT MAKES SENSE. like - yes they would be toxic and abusive, but they are also murderers??? they are absolute freaks????? they are evil monsters condemned to hell???? of course they’re relationship wouldn’t be healthy - power dynamics and incest or not?????

Darkstripe developing a ROMANTIC and unhealthy obsession only makes sense though - Tigerstar groomed him CANONICALLY to be the perfect henchman and to put his wants and needs before his own always. Darkstripe thrived on Tigerstar’s approval and praise and it was his main motivator even after death. CANONICALLY.

I don’t think it’s far fetched to add a romantic attraction on Darkstripe’s part. that very often occurs with grooming victims. it’s not implausible.

just because it’s bad and weird and toxic, doesn’t mean it’s not possible or not okay to headcanon.

just because something is “bad” and you headcanon it anyway or it’s just how you interpret the text, doesn’t mean you’re condoning the “bad” thing.

i really think a lot of the fandom needs to learn to think more deeply and more critically, and not immediately villainize anyone who says they headcanon something that isn’t “safe” or “correct”.

i rambled a lot i hope this makes sense.

.

[daandyli0n]

hm. have some headcanons about Jill and Anna from Petscop.

my weird ramblings are probably just gonna make sense to me, but i don't really. care. y'all are getting them anyway.

(warnings for discussions of abuse and child neglect)

the very oversimplified tl;dr of this is basically: having Shitty Families and/or Having Something Really Bad Happen In Their Childhood kinda contributed to how they Severely mishandled what happened to Care/Paul (not that it Excuses what they did. just explains How The Fuck Things Even Got As Bad As They Did in my interpretation).

i'm gonna start with Jill because i can like. summarize my thoughts on her quicker and because Her Bullshit connects back to Marvin.

in my headcanons, Jill and Marvin are actually half-siblings. same mother, different fathers. Jill's father was Horrible, to his wife and his kids. but Jill's mother always basically preached to her children that "Family forgives family." you give second chances, third chances, so on and so forth, because blood is thicker than water, after all.

(of course, one day her father woke up violently ill, and died later that day. her mother never shed a single tear about it.

even her own mother's forgiveness finally had a limit.)

even as her mother remarried, and Marvin was born, she still pushed that idea. but even as their other siblings grew to understand the...shakiness of her logic, Jill and Marvin held onto it.

albeit, for very different reasons.

(or, i always found it interesting that we like. never hear any mention of Marvin going to prison. like you'd think that there would've been Some sort of indication of that. but if Petscop were made, at least initially, for Marvin, then why would Rainer have added stuff in there that would've happened right before Marvin would've gone to prison? like, to me, it seems like there are At Least three copies of Petscop that we know of: one that The Family had that Paul then got ahold of (aka the version of Petscop we see in most videos), one that Belle seems to have, and one that Marvin seems to have. and one that he seems to have had since, at least, late 1997, if we want to go by the idea that he was also given Petscop around Christmas. he also seems to have been playing it for just as long. but then that begs the question; how does he have it, and is playing it, if he should've gone to prison?

my personal explanation for this, at least in my own interpretation, is as follows: Marvin was initially arrested for kidnapping and child abuse a couple of days after Care made it home. Jill kinda freaked out about it, because Holy Shit, and her feelings were all over the place. on one hand, What The Actual Shit, Marvin, but on the other hand. y'know. Had Really Fucked Up Views On Abuse That Got Drilled Into Her. so she tries to push Anna into dropping the charges, which. She Understandably Didn't Want To Do. Jill then basically goes "fine then, let's ask CARE what she wants to do."

problem: Care is the LAST person they should've asked to help settle this dispute.

Care, local child who knows how horrible it is to be stuck in a scary place while unable leave from experience, basically responds with "No, I don't want Daddy to go to jail :(" and like. Jill goes "Okay, that's that, either get a restraining order or have me tell him to fuck off, your choice." to Anna. so y'know, there's that. i think both scenarios happened, but Anna sort of knew that the restraining order wasn't really gonna do shit. after all, if Marvin was willing enough to break into her house to kidnap her daughter, it's not like some piece of paper telling him to stay away from said daughter would really do anything.

but Rainer made sure to tell Marvin about what Care said in his letter that he sent with the game:

"I want you to think about that long and hard.

The only reason you're a free man right now is because your own daughter, the very person you hurt, that you practically broke, didn't even wish for you to go through something even remotely similar to what you forced her to go through. She wouldn't even wish the pain she went through on the same person who put her through it.

I sincerely hope that fact fucking HAUNTS you for the rest of your life.")

now...onto Anna. because Boy Oh Boy i have some thoughts.

the way i generally envision her is that she does love her son. really does. feels horrible about what happened, feels like it was her fault (she was...kinda at work though, was the thing. but y'know. Maybe Let Your Kid Spend The Night With Jill, Thomas, And Rainer? Let Her Stay At Their House Instead Of Yours? but y'know. just some thoughts there).

but...she's also dismissive of A Lot, mostly under the pretense of "Well, of course I still love you! We all do! You're still the same person we know! Why would you think we stopped loving you?" only for that to create A Spiral of sorts for Care/Paul (who has basically been abused into believing 1) that no one loves him, and 2) that he's Not, in fact, the person people know. it also doesn't help that he also feels bad that he's making other feel bad, so it just feeds into that whole "Nobody Loves Me, And I Can't Really Fix It" thing that he has going on. it's a horrible cycle that Anna and everyone else don't Fully understand that they're feeding). she just really, Really doesn't know what to do about Any of this. you don't exactly get a handbook for "What To Do When Your (Ex)Husband Kidnaps And Abuses Your Daughter So He Can Turn Her Into Your "Dead" Sister (Somehow)." she wasn't prepared to handle any of that. i view her as more or less going along with Jill and Thomas' nonsense with the channel, because maybe either they've convinced her that this can help her make up for everything that happened, or she's convinced herself of it.

long story short: she cares deeply for her son, but Is dismissive of some of his feelings (not all of them; she fucking Despises Marvin for what he's done, that they both agree on). but Boy Oh Boy she does not understand at all what the fuck to do here. like Jesus Christ.

but there's other stuff that complicates things.

so like. she and Marvin were both there when Lina "disappeared," and in that way, Anna feels like Marvin is the only person who really understands. she clung to him for years because she was convinced that she wouldn't be able to find anyone else who understood.

and Marvin took advantage of that fact.

like. i've seen people compare Amber (the Ball Pet) and Anna, because they're both represented by the color blue. and y'know. something something "She’s afraid to leave home. If her home is good, this is not a problem." something something Amber was given a trophy for not leaving her cage. something something the fact that Amber even views the cage as "good" in the first place.

in my post the other day where i rambled about Lina, i briefly mentioned that Lina and Anna's family weren't...great. to expand on that a little: their family was really neglectful, leaving the kids to fend for themselves a lot of the time. they just kinda shrugged when Lina went with Marvin and Anna, only for the latter two to come home without her. they didn't get concerned until two days went by and she wasn't back yet.

there's a reason Lina didn't tell the hikers that found her who she was, and just let them take her home with them. why she let them adopt her.

Anna stuck by Marvin for years, and vice versa. it was codependency, albeit much stronger on Marvin's end.

Anna stayed as long as she did, even as Marvin grew more controlling over her and Care, because she was scared of losing the only person who understood.

her final straw was when she walked in on Marvin plucking Care's eyebrows out, while her daughter was sniffling and crying. it was more the fact that he hid it from her, and that Care clearly seemed distressed about it, that did it for her.

she ignored Marvin's ramblings about Lina and "rebirthing," and just harshly told him to get the fuck out.

so you can only imagine how badly Care getting kidnapped must've retraumatized her, if we keep in mind the Windmill Incident with Lina, and how that might've traumatized her already.

even through it all, even as she came to hate her ex-husband for what he'd done to her, to their fucking daughter, there was still those feelings. of feeling incomplete, of feeling like she was missing something still.

she hates him, but she misses him.

so it results in this sort of...directionless feeling for her. she just doesn't know what to DO. hence why she also got involved with the Petscop stuff.

(so yeah, Anna's not...the greatest mother, to put it lightly. but like...y'all can't sit there and convince me Marvin was exactly a great husband. like. You Know What I Mean?)

hope that literally any of this makes sense. it does to Me in my brain.

[tamsiblings]

okay the saylee conflict in the Message Hoo Boy.

i have So Many Thoughts about this, so possible warning for even longer than usual rambling? we'll see how the post ends up. (i copy + pasted + deleted some of it because i realized they deserved their own posts. but still pretty long)

so before i say any of this, i also want to be clear: none of this is me saying that kaylee doesn't have a right to be upset! the joke simon makes, while not made with malicious intent, is (innocently, but even so) insensitive and in poor taste. i understand why she would be mad at him for it.

okay that preface out of the way:

i think it's natural to assume that the conflict in this conversation starts here:

(note: another scene of the the firefly creators being so unbelievably unafraid to really let an audience Stew in how awkward a moment is. i feel like some shows Want to do this but are afraid of letting it go too long. firefly was a lot of things but it was Not Afraid Of Making The Audience Cringe. lmao. (i'm not immune to this. simon buddy ilu. but if nothing the Look on her face should maybe tell you to stop grinning through this as you're saying it.) (my read/interpretation/headcanon/whatever is that he is having that thing where he is Becoming aware of how awkward a thing is even as he's saying it but can't seem to make the words stop and is trying to keep the jovial momentum going in the hopes that it will not explode. it does not work.))

anyway, i think it's reasonable to think that the conflict starts here because it's what causes the blow-up, but what it would argue starts the conflict (or the reason for the conflict), is when kaylee asks simon to "tell me more good stuff about me", and simon tries (and does pretty well at first!) but gets stuck, too nervous, and he says "i don't know how to [continue describing kaylee's eyes]".

because he is nervous. the above ^^ is, yes, truly not what any girl wants to hear lmao, the idea that he might only be interested because she's essentially 'the only option', but i maintain that is a joke he makes specifically because he is trying to combat nervousness.

there are a fair number of signs simon is pretty nervous throughout the scene. he's embarrassed and tries to make light of it when he's like "and i'm out 12 bits... i sure know how to show a girl a disgusting time." jsshsh. he laughs nervously a lot, he gulps when kaylee asks him to continue saying good things about her, her rubs at his eye and has to break eye contact with her at at least one point. also the fact that directly after, he acknowledges to zoe he's Aware he's not very good at talking to girls in a romantic capacity. as i mentioned before, i don't tend to view simon as having no relationship experience, but i do think he has likely had less overall dating experience than her (or than she assumes) and that is very heavily contributing to his nerves here.

but, perhaps more importantly to what the conflict actually becomes about, simon's nervousness gets in the way of him saying how he actually feels. he Does have trouble being as open and honest and forward as kaylee, and while he makes a pretty good effort here (and i feel like because of how bad the Last thing he says is sjshsh which is admittedly More Memorable, people forget that the first several things he says or tries to say (that she's a genius, that she's always says what she means, that her eyes are pretty) are honestly very sweet. like he makes an earnest effort but when he starts to get overwhelmed, he veers into making a joke that is hurtful not just because it suggests he might only want a relationship with her out of convenience, but because he goes from being honest, open, and communicative with her to shutting down and making a joke that sort of callously intellectualizes something good about her. likes, yes, it starts out as a very specific issue of him saying this thing that hurts her feelings, but i think is ultimately about one of the broader frictions between them, which is that where she's open with her feelings, he functions differently, and sometimes that looks like not caring to her.

which, in turn, is actually a little bit hurtful to simon because he's Not a cold and emotionless robot, he has different ways of expressing his care, and sometimes that can be stumbly and awkward and cause obstacles, but sometimes his way of being caring or emotional is just different than she would express it. in the last two screencaps, she's calling him a robot because she thinks it's callous for him to offer to do tracy's autopsy without being asked - but to him, it's offering to help in the only way he knows how, and being useful is his way of showing he cares.

and really, i do think that openness vs. not and contrasting ways of reflecting what they feel is what the conflict is actually about, because while kaylee is initially very upset by the whole "only option" idea and that back home he must have had many more options, what this is what they really focus on in the above comments. nd the later implicit contrast to tracy is about simon not showing emotion (at least as kaylee perceives it) or how he feels vs. her interest in tracy (even before he turns out to be alive) is because he is seemingly very emotionally expressive, leaving this heartbreaking but eloquent messsage behind. and later he is pretty Direct in his interest for her, outright asking her about her own dating situation, telling her he'd be real unhappy if anything were to happen to her.

which is why i would also point out that while there is certainly a clear romantic point of interest with kaylee and tracy - he is very direct about his attraction right away - i'm not entirely convinced that kaylee was actively considering tracy as a romantic option. i think she was enamored a bit with his charm and his seeming openheartedness and desire to help his family, sizing him up a bit, considering someone who was such a stark contrast to simon and wondering if maybe tracy is more like who she wants to be with. but even before All Hell Breaks Loose (which happens a lot on this show), i think it's worth noting that kaylee has very little to say that indicates an interest in tracy specifically. she praises his desire to help his family and is a bit blushy when he's showing interest in her and they're in close quarters together. but we don't get a lot about what she thinks of or may like about Him. granted, they knew each other for a VERY short time (less than a day, i think), so it's possible that if that hadn't been true, she could have grown a more specific interest in him over time. but tracy is the kind of character who is written to die; he was never being considered as a genuine love interest for kaylee. he's instead there (in this part of the story; obviously there is a lot More going on with him when it comes to mal and zoe) as a representative of someone kaylee thinks it would be simpler to have feelings for - someone who is charming, a smoothtalker, relatively open with his interest with her and open with emotion. but ultimately, he's also someone whose charm can read as a bit performative, who may be open with attraction to kaylee but actively endangered her when the chips were down. and the interest kaylee Does show in him is in a direct response to being at odds with simon.

simon, who is Not a smoothtalker, has trouble conveying his interest in her for a variety of reasons, can be closed off awkward in trying to convey his emotions, and who functions very differently than kaylee herself - but when all is said and done at the end, he is steadfast, and there to hold her hand when things are Bleak.

[rocksibblingsau]

"Death is tragic, but sometimes living can be so much worse."

So..... same anon that send the rant ask that this come from and I just have to say how good this is. Like unbelievably so and everything from your response as well, I cant say this enough I love your writing and how you interpret trolls and their world

Honestly, you're so right that they likely had that "hes in a better place now" (pun not intended), it fits so well with what we know about pop trolls mentality and life-style. The same trolls that erased and forgotten everyone that was lost during the escape, including the heir, would also accept a little brother as dead and go on without checking so they can better ignore the grief of losing him. Thinking about it, thats a way better and in-character reason why Floyd never came back

People say that he was out partying or he forgor or whatever, but the thought that some 3-5 years later he stopped to think and realized "oh... hes probably dead by now", and now having to choose between confirming the "reality" that his brother died waiting for him or just moving forward, be happy and never think about things that upset you (that just pop trolls second nature at this point)

There is a part of me that still wants to write Brozone facing that grief either by having to save Floyd without him or reuniting some other way, now with the added against of "everybody including you forgot your brother ever existed, isn't that fun!". Thinking about it, I may even write that Branch died in the woods or something instead of the bergens. He didn't die because they left him in the tree, he died because they never came back for him. And the same mentality that "helped" them "grief" (read: ignore) his supposed dead is the same mentality that caused the pop village to ignore and ostracize him (that being what actually killed him). Tragic, gut-punching, hope they surfer and cry about it :)

But for my actual headcanon of the brothers mentally during those 20 years, I can only imagine your view of the situation is just that good and accurate. Thank you for entertaining my thoughts and sorry for the rambles lol

Thank you! I love overanalyzing things, and Trolls is a very fun subject to work with!

It's very in line with Pop mentality to just accept that and move on. Bruce especially lives on Vacay Island where "every day is a vacay". I could see a bit of that mentality existing there. Maybe not the 'sugar coat everything in glitter' degree but 'why worry?' type of ignore your problems.

Branch dying on his own rather than in the tree I think is a way more terrifying reality. Hundreds of Pop Trolls were eaten, and that's seen as the Bergens fault. Branch getting injured and having no one to check in on him so he passes is on the village. It's been mentioned in Rock Sibblings but the fact is, that was a reality Branch faced. Poppy likely would've come by EVENTUALLY but she was younger than him.

In Rock Sibblings the truth is if not for Poppy deciding to follow after him, no one would have ever known what happened to Branch. In Techno Branch and Classical Branch, no one actually does until 15ish years later.

With his brothers, it's sad to say that with an alive Branch, there's very little that could have them initially realizing that Branch is hurt. I mean look at him in Trolls Band Together. He's not fully grey but he's very drastically darker than they all are despite initially all having the same skin tone. Yet none of them react or mention it. They're fine to ignore the situation at hand.

Never apologize for rambles. That's what we do here.

[lisa972kdlz]

(It's translated from French, I hope there aren't too many syntax errors ^^" In any case, enjoy your reading !)

Dreamtale Theories:

Here's a list of a few theories about the Dreamtale Lore, this story leaving some very interesting gaps to try and fill. Philosophical and scientific thoughts helpt me to concretise these ideas, but although I've been inspired by them, it's not with these points of view I'm going to develop, but rather a purely artistic point of view. Little by little, philosophy and science have been lost in my ramblings, giving way to imaginations that seemed to fit together. Artists imagine. They cheat, they lie, they don't care much for concrete realities. In the end, the only science I get into position on is the elements of the Dreamtale canon, at least those I've managed to pick out. Perhaps I've missed some information that would disprove these hypotheses, in which case it would be courteous of you to let me know.

On a more chill note, say I'm just a teenager with a overflowing mind who loves to come up with crazy theories with whatever I can get my hands on, and I write this mainly for fun ^^

In fact, I don't think for a second I'm right, so I don't know if I can call those theories... Maybe speculation ideas about Dreamtale I wanted to share? Almost headcanons, but still based on concrete elements of the canon.

So let's go, first theory!

☁︎ Canon/Fanon:

For starters, why do I insist so much on canonicity? Because when it comes to Dreamtale, the boundary between Fanon and Canon is not always well understood, given that there are a lot of preconceived ideas on the subject.

The fact is, I see Dreamtale's Fanon and Canon as two completely separate worlds. And yet, understand that I hate adhering to variants of this and that for anything and everything. The idea of viscerally separating the Canon and Fanon sides of an oeuvre makes no sense to me, especially in an open world where each universe is a piece of a larger puzzle, where the world we're presented with is meant to be a huge playground.

And at this stage, if we do that with this universe, we could do the same for all the existing stories, no? Nevertheless, for THIS world and this world in particular, I think it's important.

For there is a crucial difference between C!Dreamtale and F!Dreamtale, a difference that completely alters the interpretation of the oeuvre. Fanon doesn't just make a few interpretative changes... He changes the very nature of a character: Corrupted Nightmare. And that, well... It's a bit complicated not to separate the two, especially when the Fanon version is so popular... Canon, he is dead and his body belongs to another character who has his own personality and background. Fanon, he's alive. Trapped, imprisoned, manipulated, split into two personalities (Night and Mare) or fundamentally evil, depending on the case, but alive.

Night is experiencing a bit of Asriel syndrome: it was because Undertale fans couldn't accept his death that the first AU's were created. And for Dreamtale, there was such misunderstanding about this (Because reading the Prologue, everyone agreed that Corrupted Nightmare was...well... Nightmare), that the majority think this is official. (It has to be said, it wasn't evident let me reassure you...)

To this we can add the fact that most of the time, in very fanon fanfics and fancomics, the other two trees don't exist or are never mentioned, that Corrupted (I refuse to call him "Nightmare" simply because he isn't Nightmare) isn't a real person or doesn't exist at all, that Dreamtale is an AU of Undertale, so made up of codes like the other AU's, but all that still depends on people's interpretation and knowledge of the real Dreamtale.

To put it more bluntly, and if the boundary's still unclear: F!Dreamtale is a part of the Undertale Multiverse, while C!Dreamtale is its own universe.

Since I like both aspects equally, and in order to get everyone on the same page, I've come up with a mini theory:

Dreamtale Fanon, being the Dreamtale developed by fans based on the belief that Corrupted Nightmare is more or less Night, has strayed so far from its original story (it focuses more on the "broken brothers" relationship of the twins, their mutual development and their relationships with the characters of the Undertale fandom), that over time, by putting down roots in the world of Undertale and through the influence of the creators, Dreamtale would have "split." This double would then have merged with the codes of the Undertale Multiverse, because Dreamtale was so well integrated into it that this version of it ended up becoming imprinted on the very core and codes. That's why, in F!Dreamtale, we don't always mention the other trees, since they never joined the Undertale Multiverse. Even we NEVER mention them in Dreamtale's AU's like Swapdream or the alternative Multiverses like Dreamswap, Swapverse, etc. That's why Dream and Nightmare exist in the alternative Multiverses,AU's and not the rest (Vampireverse, Empireverse, Minuscultale and so on).

The result is two Dreamtales:

The Canon Dreamtale, which belongs to Joku,

The Fanon Dreamtale, which belongs to the Fandom Joku too.

Well yeah, it's still Dreamtale, so it still belongs to Joku, no matter what haters want ◖눈ᴥ눈◗

Duh.

Also, this definitely doesn't prevent fanfics from being based on C!Dreamtale, it's even advisable to give it the prominence it deserves. Hence the idea of completely separating these versions, because fans can make fanfics about the Canon, and although it's fanon, it won't be similar to the F!Dreamtale version at all.

Two worlds taking different thematic paths created on the uncertainty of Night's death (like a "Schrodinger's Night" ͡° ͜ · ͡°).

Next theory!

☁︎ Tree of Feelings/Creators link:

This is a question I picked up when wondering about Dream and Corrupted's various attacks. Where Dream needs a body to hold him together, Corrupted has so many black apples that he can physically hold himself together without a body, and more or less correctly. Do positive and negative energies function differently? Is it because Corrupted has more apples that he holds on better? What is positive and negative energy in Dreamtale's Lore?

At the beginning, I'd started from the principle that Energy with a big E, being what makes up absolutely all existing things, humans and monsters alike, could be used by Dream and Corrupted to be converted into either magical energy or physical energy. As Dream only holds one apple and enjoys a body, he'd mindlessly convert his energy into magical energy, which is why he has a soul similar to human's souls and why he's able to heal as green magic does, or cause damage as white magic does. For Corrupted's part, possessing no body of his own and having amassed enough power from his hundreds of apples, he would have to convert negative energy into physical energy. This would require a great deal of power and would therefore explain why, despite he's stronger than Dream, he's not 999X stronger than him. He already uses a lot of his energy simply... Holding on without melting.

I also theorised that if one of them were to acquire all the apples, not only would it have a stable body, but it would also be able to convert this energy as it saw fit. Corrupted could then generate magical attacks AND have a physical body.

The trouble is... Dreamtale isn't actually part of Undertale. So there's no Magic,Physics duality. And even assuming that Dream converts that energy into magical energy because he's unconsciously copying the way his adopted world works, he's still canonically attacking with positive energy and not MAGIC made from positive energy. Energy comes in many forms, but I don't think he can control it in such a pure form...

All this can still hold together, but what bothers me most is that pure Energy would have... A positive side and a negative side? And what's more, related to feelings? Why not, but I'm not really pleased with.

Dream and Corrupted's energy is material, palpable. Of course, we could stop at the fact that it's just a magical energy like we find everywhere in stories and not ask ourselves any more questions.

But I love wracking my brains to find answers to questions that no one wonder, so I'll keep going èwé–

What kind of energy would this refer to? Not energy in the scientific sense, because that's independent of any emotion, whereas in Dreamtale, positive energy, for example, is directly linked to positive feelings.

Because tree of FEELINGS–

The most plausible thing I found with is that positive and negative energies are linked to the spiritual energy: auras, meditation, etc. Proof of its existence is fairly hazy in the world of creators. But in the world of fiction...? What if? This energy of consciousness exists, whether it's real or not. And if it's not in the real world, as long as there are people who believe in it, then it's in the world of fiction. What if the fruits of the tree of feelings were the material manifestation of this spiritual energy produced by the consciousness of the creators? Just as a world is created by a creative mind, what about Dream and Nightmare were the guardians of the feelings of fiction as the direct embodiment of the emotions that creators instil in their work? This could be the reason why Dreamtale isn't made up of codes, because it's the direct embodiment of a philosophy and not just another fictional universe among many.

I can't decide whether it's too obvious or too far-fetched ^^". It was the concept in Underverse that made me think of it... There are references between what Nightmare implies in 0.6 and creators tearing up their own universes because they're filled with negative emotions. Underverse isn't canon, but there's nothing to stop this idea of the creator,feeling link being applied to Dreamtale.

Especially as it allows us to imagine something even bigger that could work in relation to the three trees...

But before that, a little theory about Corrupted, because the more we learn about him, the more this character becomes... Mysterious.

☁︎ Something is rotten in the state of Dreamtale :

Ever since I knew that the three trees were part not of the Undertale Multiverse but of all the other Multiverses, I've been wondering why it should be Corrupted who embodies absolute Evil and not someone else. After all, we know plenty of evil lords, don't we? Isn't it a bit pretentious to claim him to be above everyone else?

But one detail, one nuance, makes all the difference.

By definition, Corrupted does not embody Evil, but negative feelings. He embodies them because he has become their guardian, their bearer. What I'm trying to say is that black apples and evil are not linked... Black apples are not fundamentally evil. They have no conscience; they are neutral, they exist for balance and have a purpose of their own.

No, Corrupted is Evil for another reason. He's Evil because he's simply wicked. If the personification of negative feelings is evil, it's not because the negative emotions or the apples are mean, but because they are themselves corrupted, alienated by a consciousness that manipulates them irresponsibly. Why would the Entity feel hatred? Hatred and not despair or dread? Because he was already filled with hatred, or because he has a fighting personality that allows him to exploit this emotion for its dark projects. Is it a sign that Corrupted isn't worthy of being their carrier? After all, he's not their basic guardian; it was Nim, then Nightmare.

In this way, that doesn't prevent him from being THE allegory on the scale of all dimensions (or of a large area of dimensions, if you don't like the idea that Dreamtale is linked to all fictional universes) , because the role relating to negative FEELINGS in a neutral behaviour is rather original. He's an allegory of negative feelings that doesn't need to be, and that gives a false image of what negative feelings actually are; the pejorative and common image we have of them. In reality, negative feelings are neither good nor bad; they mean no harm to others. The one who wishes them harm is the Entity, Corrupted.

He's a simple villain who has got his hands on power that doesn't belong to him and is out of control with.

...

Maybe not a 'simple' villain either?

Because, another theory, I think that Corrupted is this fourth guardian that Joku mentioned. Firstly because I don't know who else he could be, but also because he knows about the other dimensions outside Undertale. How would he know if he didn't come from outside? Who else would this fourth guardian be, and why would Joku mention him? What's more, a number of elements fit together with this theory, notably his strategy of manipulating Nim (Nim is far from stupid, and he probably wouldn't have succeeded so easily if he didn't already know a little about her), in order to create Dream and Nightmare, dividing positivity and negativity to undermine the pillars of balance, all with the aim of finding a carnal envelope and taking possession of the Tree of Feelings...

Like a plan that has been fine-tuned for years and years... Add to this the anecdote that the tree guardians are not the original guardians and that Nim learnt something awful about them before leaving for Undertale, and you'd think there was a rotten menace already pulling the strings in the shadows, long before our dear twins were born.

So what is Corrupted looking for? What's his ultimate plan? To spread negativity across all dimensions and reign supreme as a Living God?

A fine programme... But what if we took his ambitions one step further?

☁︎ Feelings, Life, Magic:

Why three trees? Why THESE three trees? Why place them at the centre of the Multiverse? Why are feelings, life and magic at the heart of the worlds? What link can we make between them?

Feelings, well ok, that works... Life and death, logical... Magic? Why magic? Magic isn't a necessary element in the Multiverse, sometimes it doesn't even exist... Why a tree of Magic and not a tree of Souls, or a tree of Virtues and Sins, for example? Undertale is very closely linked to magic, but that's not the case for all worlds...

This is where we come back to the idea that apples are the materialised forms of the feelings creators apply to their work... Does this also work with Magic and Life? Yes, it does. Trees don't just take care of Feelings, Life and Death and Magic... They reflect what creators need to create.

Feelings, as we've said, are exactly what it takes to find inspiration, to feed the imagination like maintain fire. As long as the feelings remain, so do the passion and inspiration.

Life, on the other hand, is quite simply what enables a work to exist, to remain. Life is the nest in which the spirit bathes, gathering together the experiences of the creator, housing and preserving them. You could also say that the more lives there are to witness a work, the more real a work is.

Inspiration, yes... The environment, all right... But what is needed to create something out of nothing? To make the unreal real? The immaterial material?

Nothing more than a little magic ✨ !

Not the kind of magic you find in fiction with wizards and pseudo-scientific logic, no... Magic in the sense of believing in something irrational. To believe that these worlds exist, to have faith without needing proof. Accepting imagination. Not in a religious connotation, but in the sense: Magic = Consenting Suspension of Disbelief.

Feelings: The fuel.

Life: The oxygen.

Magic: The spark.

Fire triangle is complete.

What if these three trees were the equivalent of the Triforce of Creation itself? Feelings to stimulate, Life to sustain, Magic to materialize.

What would happen if, by some mischance, an ill-intentioned person managed to seize the power of these three trees? What would be the consequences? In the end, perhaps this mysterious Entity wants more than just the golden apple in Dream's care?

And if these three trees work very well together, what would the fourth guardian be doing?

Would he be the original guardian?

Or the exact opposite of Creation: Destruction and Nothingness?

(Voilà! I hope theses theories will have interested you ^^ And you, what do you think? Do you have theories about what's going to happen in the Dreamtale sequel?)

Dreamtale belongs to @jokublog

[arsprince]

i outlined brief character tidbits here, ages ago... but let me ramble a bit more about the evil bird prince and, specifically, how i approach the show canon. 🦉

with regard to the narrative. i portray stolas as an antagonist, as was intended originally in the pilot episode. i draw inspiration from the gothic genre, with stolas as the morally grey-but-mostly-wicked antagonist that looms as a constant threat / nuisance for blitzø and IMP, tackling themes of classism and the political structure of hell — given that their business only exists because stolas permits it.

with regard to his origins. i will eventually make a detailed lore post on the ars goetia. as detailed in the lesser key of solomon, or the lemegeton, there are seventy-two demons comprising the dynasty of the ars goetia. stolas himself is the thirty-sixth demon and he is ancient. abiding by demonology, the ars goetia, the most ancient of them, are the fallen angels that once served lucifer in his rebellion against heaven, aiding him in his quest against the Lord. (whether this rebellion was a war, as in paradise lost, or rather the mere act of tempting lilith & eve, as in the show.) for their loyalty, they were granted command over lucifer's legions and his magic & grimoires. stolas himself was young during the time of the rebellion / the fall, os his memories are only vague. of the ars goetia & their respective powers, stolas' domain is astronomy. he embodies the pursuit of knowledge, a scholar among demons if you wish to summon him, offerings he might appreciate are herbs, precious stones

with regard to his ambitions. stolas' ambitions have lain dormant for centuries; he had entertained himself by tormenting mortals before but gradually, hell's influence on earth has dwindled and the days of medieval wars and demon summoning are mostly over. with lucifer absent in the politics of hell, and the power struggles occurring, primarily within the pride ring with all the overlords and their turf wars, stolas thinks it's time hell went back to its former glory. he's mostly just bored of lounging around and gossiping with the aristocrats when once he used to command armies. he would like to amass more power, surely. strike a few strategic alliances.

with regard to IMP and the grimoire situation. as mentioned, stolas grants them the grimoire for their business. he does this on the premise that they do his dirty work for him and take out whatever mortals he needs them to. of course, this is kept hush-hush as it is entirely illegal. whatever this means for his & blitz's dynamic, i leave on a per-interaction basis. i'm down to adjust this, especially in light of the new episodes, and plot something out!

with regard to my headcanons. i think it'd be neat to explore some political intrigue with the ars goetia, to have stolas actively engaged in a political chess game with andrealphus. i'd also like to explore more of his & stella's arranged marriage, and their dynamic, for which i'm open to all sorts of interpretations. basically, i'd love to plot out all the canon dynamics and see how we can make it work. also stolas making deals with sinners / overlords for mutually beneficial reasons.

[coff-in]

thank you so much for doing my request!! if you’re comfy with a pt 2 I’d love to read it!! seeing reader cope with becoming a parent and how reader copes with getting raped by andrew … how the dynamic at home changes, andrew as a daddy and ashley as a aunt!! does andrew force reader to marry him? <3 if ur not comfy w doing it as a req then maybe ramble or do it in any other form like a hc! thank youuu 🥹🤍

notes from coff-in: it's past midnight right now where i am (as it it's closer to 1:00am) but i need to write. this is definitely a ramble but thank you for clarifying that i could do that! writing properly for ficlets and headcanons take a bit out of me but i want go give you guys the best that i got, you know? sorry, sorry... on to your ask!

[fem] reader-insert, [afab] reader-insert(?), NSFW, rape, talks/mentions of pregnancy and abortion, incest in the last bits but it's skippable really

the biggest thing that i wonder about is how [reader] met andrew and ashley. how long have they'd known each other? were they quarantined together (was [reader] quarantined at all)? i think i'll leave it up to the reader's interpretation/imagination but these things feel like they should impact the story, you know? um... [reader] doesn't really take to being a mother too well. she doesn't want to be a mother, so it makes sense. ashley wouldn't let her get rid of the child, either. she doesn't like [reader] all that much but she does try to recognize potential opportunities to keep andrew close in this... situation.

the last thing a parent wants to do is to make their child sad. if ashley could get close enough to andrew's child (she'd love the child ofc, it's an extension of her brother) then she could keep andrew close to her, too. any separation of them would also affect the child and until it's born who knows how that can go. ashley doesn't like [reader] all that much. she could come to like [reader], but when i was writing the original piece i sort of didn't write it with ashely in mind... so any relationship they build would be after the rape event.

andrew. andrew andrew andrew. he... he wants the child. it's possibly a new chance for him to have a new life. not necessarily an ordinary life (years of sexual tension between him and his sister build up somehow to him raping a women they sorta kidnap/escaped with from an apartment after demon summoning, murder, and cannibalism) but it could be considered close enough if you squint and tilt your head. again, when writing the original piece i didn't really write with andrew and [reader]'s deeper relationship in mind, just the surface level stuff

andrew has come to care for [reader] to some extent, and the child makes him try to enforce that bond and relationship. he would reflect on his own parents and their parenting and how he raised ashley when it comes to his baby. trying to figure what to avoid (i think putting in the effort would be way better than what his parents did, though. it's not even a battle). he gets touchy feely with [reader]; sleeping in the same bed, holding their hand or resting it on their hip, brushing her hair, etc etc some of the stiff we've seen with ashley. i think he'd also talk to the baby bump, too.

[reader] isn't expected to kill people anymore or to do excessive physical labor. i don't think she takes part in the cannibalism as much either. i'm kinda leaving her vague because i want you guys to really just imprint on [reader] i guess when it comes to this situation. andrew would be a fairly good dad though. uh... sort of dozed off a bit trying to think about him as a dad. he would be way more attentive that his own parents, that's for sure. he's the voice of reason along with [reader] (ashley is that "cool aunt" that the kid loves), but andrew is also still a bit of a doormat or pushover. he can't stay too mad at this kids.

do i think andrew would force [reader] to marry him? maybe. it would probably be good for taxes and other legal documents but i don't know if he'd put such a high value on marriage. i think he'd like the intertwining aspect of it, the legal binding it brings. i doubt ashely would enjoy this but it's also dependent on your relationship.

mixing this idea with incest ideas because i can't help myself right now, fell free to skip this: andrew and a sibling [reader]. especially a younger one. i don't know but i kind of enjoy the idea of him during quarantine (or right after) just... losing control one night. it's not violent or loud or out of hate; it's quiet and gentle and out of frustration. he takes his younger baby sibling while they're sleeping as a way to just let it all out. the tension and stress and repression of his feelings for them... he just lets them go. ashley's dead asleep and so is [reader], as ling as he's quiet there are no immediate consequences to this action. he raised [reader] since they were a fucking baby and what a wonderful adult they had turned out to be (as wonderful as a graves could be).

aaaaahhh, i'm tired. sorry for the weird sleepy rant response. i feel like i should mention again: i have never been raped nor do i know friends or people personally who have been raped. i haven't really read anything scholarly about it so take all i say with a grain of salt and an open mind. thank you for requesting, 'nonnie. i love it when people ask for expansions or explanations in previous posts (reminds me of devious anon, i miss them)

anyway my eye saight is losing focus so i'll end it here. good day/night/evening whatever you are

----

coff-in

[idleglowingpixels]

I kinda realised that Mr Komos' song, True Monster Heart follows the same beat as the Monster High Fright song, but the lyrics are like the corrupted version of the original.

Monster High Fright is about accepting

True Monster Heart is about rejecting

Kinda interesting when you think about it

AHHHHHH WHEN I SAW I GOT AN ASK RELATED TO THIS I FREAKED OUT DFGHNBGVFDSF TY FOR GIVING ME SOMETHING TO RAMBLE SOME MORE ABOUT ANON FOR REAL! (Also sorry for the late response, this post has been developing in my drafts for like at least a week now dfgfhng)

I absolutely agree with the conflicting messages between the two songs! I know the song focuses on the story of this universe's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the main verses, but the main focus of the song is that message of rejection of anything and everything human.

Also, because of the Jekyll/Hyde bits, it could represent the duality of where the story starts and ends in its interpretation of a "true monster heart." Instead of Mr. Hyde's human-ness making his heart "untrue," it was his utter rejection of & research into ridding himself of his Jekyll, as well as his hiding of the truth in the first place that caused him to be found out and exiled.

His heart being "untrue" had nothing to do with the fact he was half-human, because if it were, then Clawdeen and Komos's presence in and of itself within the school would've triggered its self-destruction. That was proven as a false interpretation by the story in the movie, so it's self-explanatory. A true monster heart is one of self-acceptance, despite one's flaws or differences. That's what Mr. Hyde, and Mr. Komos thereafter, had neglected to realize before Clawdeen proved the point.

Though, I've listened to both True Monster Heart and Fright Song a few times back-to-back, to try and get where you're thinking as far as the beat, but I don't hear it unfortunately (unless you meant the tempo of the song, then yes they do follow the same 120 beats per minute!).

The closest thing I can think of as far as melodic parallels between the songs is the chanting sections. The Fright Song chant is much quicker in the way it's sung compared to the chant in True Monster Heart, however. The whole of Fright Song's chant goes in 16 beats/4 measures, whereas True Monster Heart's chant takes twice as long at 32 beats/8 measures (I was a band/choir kid lol). It's mainly due to how the song kinda drags out the point, and it definitely feels like a nod to Fright Song for sure. Fright Song's chant is only there because 4/5 of the main ghouls were fearleaders, so it was sort of characterizing the cast before actually showing their characters in the webisodes.

---

Fun little headcanon/ramble that I forget if I ever mentioned about Fright Song, but with Holt Hyde being released in the 1st Signature wave with the rest of the the main ghouls and all, I think it was because he's intended to be the singer of the rap section before any subsequent content with the character was released (No offense but I don't think Holt DJs because he's a good singer sdfgbfds). This would line up with his current crush in canon with Frankie, as well as his former crush on Draculaura from either the diaries or books, maybe both? I forget. :'D Also I feel like Holt wouldn't hesitate to call Cleo vile immediately after saying she's charming either, he's very direct with his words. (I also interpret Jackson/Holt as bisexual because Deuce is included in the rap I DON'T CARE Y'ALL IT MAKES SENSE!)

Also I always interpreted the howl-like sound at the end of the rap as "Holt ran outta time/battery power for his music and transforms back to Jackson as it transitions to the rest of the song." It kinda works with how the beat kinda drops down with the howl, like a TV being shut off or something idk.

Ghoulia also debuted with Signature Wave 1 but she's only in like a second of the music video in the background, I figure it could've been budgetary reasons for the animation, to save on animating an extra character. Also I imagine flame-y hair wouldn't be very fun to animate in 2D, and Deuce's snakes moving on their own were bad enough I imagine to animate, so it begrudgingly checks out as to why Holt isn't in the animated bits with everyone else.

BUT I JUST WATCHED THE MUSIC VIDEO BECAUSE I WANTED TO FOR THE SAKE OF THIS POST AND THE GUY SINGING THE RAPPING BIT HAS, YOU GUESSED IT, A BRIGHT FRICKIN NEON RED LEATHER JACKET. He doesn't have the dual-toned shirt BUT IT'S WHITE AND THIS IS CLOSE ENOUGH FOR ME Y'ALL! XD

If any straws for these dumbasses can be found I SHALL GRASP THEM fr they're my blorbos :'D

[spro-o]

Heey i have question that has been on my mind for some time now, this question is more what I heard not really my own opinion. But anyways is lancelot x tristan/ban x meliodas even good ship? I seen some many talk about how theos two ships are baf because for Lancelot and Tristan they have no real relationship in canon or what so ever. Coming to ban x meliodas they more like best friends. Is that true?🤔 I very cousfed if it rignt to ship or not.

hello!! okay im gonna ramble a bit cuz i love yapping about this kinda stuff and dont wanna clog up any feeds, so ill add a 'read further' here :3

i feel like its not very surprising that i do think both ships are good (especially melban). i think that for both of them- yes, they can definitely be read as just being friendships and nothing more than that, but i guess the charm of shipping and headcanons is that you can add in your own interpretations and additions which you think feel right :3

a lot of the interactions between mel and ban, for example, i read as being pretty homoerotic/gay. thats mostly because, as a gay/queer guy myself, i find myself relating a lot to the stuff they do together when comparing it to me and my bf, and also because they are my favourite characters and headcanoning them as being the same sexuality (and gender) that i am is like a little golden sticker saying "fav character" (godbless projection onto your blorbos).

in general, i think its pretty common consensus, at least in my circles, that ships dont have to stick 100% to what the canon says/shows, and you can always add in your own ideas or headcanons to create a relationship either between your favourite characters, or one which you think would be interesting to see, or just one which you think would provide a fun/interesting addition to the story. and in my case, its all of those - i really just adore the dynamic meliodas and ban have, and in addition to my gay reading of a lot of their interactions with one another, it just feels right and fun to ship them (this applies to lancetris as well, but to a slightly lesser extent/not exactly the same)

so yeah, thats my stance on it!! i really like lancetris and adore melban, and i think (considering how much reconning has happened on the fandom's part towards nakaba's,,,, decisions,,,,) it doesnt do harm to read certain friendships as having romantic or sexual under- or overtones

i also feel like i should mention that i only really ship lancetris and melban in separate circumstances, if that makes sense - like, i ship melban a lot harder than lancetris, so whenever i do make any ship art of them (lancetris), i think of meliodas' and ban's relationship like more of a qpr than a fully romantic one, just cuz i feel like it makes it better??? more likely??? less weird?? idk if im making much sense here, but yeah, so thats sm (i guess i also just wanted to state that to clear anything up, cuz i do know how having ship art of both lancetris and melban could come off as kinda weird to some, but idk, maybe im overthinking it (￣▽￣)")

[patrochillesvibes]

O and I have an other question how do you think Achilles will react once he finds out about the fact that Patroclus had slept Deidameia. Because I do believe Patroclus haven’t to Achilles about it .

<3 <3 <3

Ah, the single plot point in TSoA I disagree with.

🎵How do you solve a problem like Pyrrhus🎶

So if we’re all gonna suck Homer’s dick, then let’s all get on the same page that Deidamia isn’t in the Iliad. Or the Odyssey. You also gotta be careful with any source material mentioning Deidamia as most of this content was part of a smear campaign by the Italians coughDantecough.

Pyrrhus is such a random character if you think about it. Achilles was not married, otherwise Agamemnon wouldn’t keep trying to get him to marry his seemingly endless supply of daughters. Pyrrhus isn’t labeled as a bastard, but what else could he be? Achilles would’ve had to have knocked up some chick.

And isn’t it strange that Achilles would do this? I don’t want to say it’s not in character, but it seems strange compared to his prophecy-focused life. (Also, Patroclus and Achilles don’t have little bastards running around the camp, so do we really believe they’re fucking the slaves? If they’re fucking the slaves, where are the babies? Birth control and abortions were not that good in 1250 BCE. But I’m getting super off topic now.)

This is why I personally believe Achilles found a random baby, adopted it, and had Mother feed him ambrosia.

I’m very passionate about ^this headcanon of mine.

Now back to TSoA…

First off, remember that Patroclus is a LIAR. He is not just full of bologna, he’s made out of bologna. He wants us to believe he’s a feminist? Anti-war? A doctor? Achilles is perfect? Patroclus PLEASE!

But you have to respect the lies because TSoA is essentially an autobiography and lying is like the first law of autobiography writing.

I’d also like to point out the clever literary trick at the end of TSoA. The book ends with Patroclus and Thetis chatting about Achilles. She says “Speak, then” to get Patroclus to share his memories. Thus, the book is not so much an account of his life, but essentially all the memories he had to share with her. He wants to show her how glorious her son was, the side she never got to see, the human nature she shunned, Achilles’ mortality. So of course he’s going to highlight the good, even enhance it as well as downplay or even lie about the bad.

But back to your question…

What happened at Skyros? Patroclus wants us to believe a lot of non-con was going on. I low-key have a very messed up theory about what actually happened and why it happened, but I don’t want to get into it rn a blogger on here might be unhappy bcs of a related ask I coincidentally just sent them. So for simplicity's sake, let’s assume that the non-con did indeed happen. I think he told Achilles a half-truth. Something to the effect of mentioning having comforted Deidamia and given her an official farewell (of the husbandly kind) on his behalf. He used a lot of double-meaning words to allow Achilles to interpret as he pleased.

And how did he interpret what Patroclus told him? First he was relieved that he would not have to deal with her again. Then he was his usual dumb blonde self (Patroclus calls this 'trusting', Pat pls) and took the words at face value. And I wouldn't blame him for it. When traumatic things happen to you, you do what you can to cope.

And please don’t take this as victim blaming or non-con denial, but the last lines of Chapter 13 never sat quite right with me.

Sorry to keep harping on the lying. Part of me thinks the scene with Deidamia was either a hallucination-false memory sequence to reinforce that patrochilles is 2-bodies-1-soul -what happens to Achilles happens to Pat; and part of me thinks this was Pat’s sly way of showing Thetis how she hurt Achilles by enabling the non-con. Sadly, we'll never know the truth, so it's up to you what you want to believe.

I hope this rambling rant answered your question. Thank you for the ask! I LOVE LOVE LOVE The Song of Achilles and am capable of ranting and raving about it for hours at a time 😘