#is it any wonder that their relationship is so important to me.

[sinofwriting]

Insane Person - Max Verstappen (I ❤️ MILFS verse)

Words: 667 Summary: Max wants to be sure he can give Pan kids. (Part of the I ❤️ MILFS verse) Note(s): Takes place during the original I ❤️ MILFS fic, before Max finds out Pan’s age. Max is insane btw, this has been a blurb idea since I wrote the original fic and finally it has been written so enjoy, lol.

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“I’d love to give Logan a sibling or two.”

The words so soft had made his heart speed up as soon as he heard them and now thinking about them, letting them play on repeat.

It’s early in their relationship, though they haven’t yet talked about it yet, no matter how much Max is dying to do so. But Max wants to be the one that she gives Logan siblings with.

Which is why he’s sitting in front of his computer and looking at medical studies.

A lot of it is going over his head. The most schooling he sat through was the first four or five years of it. He can grasp engineering, anything to do with cars and their data, but medical terminology goes over his head.

He powers through, he doesn’t know Pan’s exact age, his mother would smack him over the head if he even thought to ask her age, but she’s got to to be mid to late thirties if not early forties considering Logan is twenty.

The studies say she’d be fine getting pregnant, shouldn’t have trouble conceiving, and his cheeks burn at the word, at the image it puts in his mind. They haven’t quite got their, but they’ve gotten close. They throw out the term geriatric pregnancy which makes him flinch because forty wasn’t old, at least not if you weren’t a driver and to see it be called something like that felt harsh, rude. Another one calls it advanced maternal age which really isn’t any better, but it’s just relieving to see that’s still possible. And then a study mentions that if people are having trouble conceiving that not only does the person birthing need to get checked, but both do and a new panic takes over his brain.

What if when it came time to try, he was the problem? It would really be his luck. Things had been going very well for the past few years, it would be his luck that he couldn’t give the woman he loves more kids.

And Logan wanted siblings, the panic grows as he remembers Logan chiming in that he’d love some siblings. Oh god, what if he failed in giving Logan siblings? He wanted the younger driver to like him, to really like him.

His fingers act quickly, wanting to know how he can know if he can have kids and the results make him blink because it couldn’t be that easy.

He just had to provide a sample in a cup?

Max’s brain struggles to compute that after just reading everything that women have to go through to get their fertility checked.

His hand goes to his phone, he rarely if ever called his doctor, but this was important.

He goes through the motions of confirming he is who he is, wondering how weird it must be for other people to do this for him before he finally gets asked why for the purpose of the appointment.

“I want to check to see if I can have kids.”

“Okay, are you and your partner having trouble conceiving?”

His cheeks burn, “We aren’t trying yet. I just want to make sure that it’s possible on my end.”

“Okay, it’s a simple procedure at our clinic and we could see you in the next three days if that works for you at any time we are open.”

“That’s perfect.”

“Alright, we’ll see you in a few days, Mr. Verstappen.”

He gets the results back five days after his appointment, an email sitting in his inbox, and he forces himself to take a deep breath before finally opening it.

There are words he doesn’t know, ones he doesn’t really want to think about, but there at the end, a note from his doctor that says everything looks great, and he shouldn’t have troubles getting someone pregnant and his fist goes in the air, a quiet but excited yes leaving him.

He could give Logan siblings and Pan more kids, thank fuck.

[thydungeongal]

out of curiosity, do you know of any games you’d consider legitimate ‘elf-kissing games?’ you know, high fantasy games that engender drama with mechanically explicit/reinforced relationship building systems?

besides d&d, of course. /s

Sadly I haven't found a perfect example of such a game: to me Monsterhearts is the best example of a TTRPG that centers romance and it is a perfect urban fantasy teenage monster romance game, but that disqualifies it on account of it not being high fantasy. Also, Monsterhearts' mechanics are very much about melodrama and like very petty, jealous, teenage romance, so it would not be the best for it.

Anyway, high fantasy intersects a bit with chivalric romances, and for that there's nothing better than Pendragon, a game of Arthurian chivalry in a setting that resolves the ahistoricity of Arthuriana by saying "well, Arthur was such a special guy that chivalry basically was real during his reign as king of Britain." It owns. Anyway, the game has actual mechanics for measuring characters' spiritual attributes, including their Passions, which covers things like strong feelings of hatred and love, so in that sense developing romantic feelings is mechanized and rewarded. Now, while knights doing quests is an important part of the gameplay, the game basically rewards characters for simply doing chivalric things, which means that besides doing quests knights are explicitly rewarded with Glory (the game's big reward currency) for engaging in romantic trysts. But sadly it isn't quite there because it is very heavily tied to a place and time, and I feel just transplanting the game into a fantasy setting would be doing it a huge disservice.

Which leads me to Mythras or RuneQuest 6th edition: basically the same game under two different names (Mythras is RQ6 rereleased after the creators lost the RQ licence). I won't go into the details but RuneQuest basically is part of the same lineage as Pendragon. Or they're like separate branches of the same tree. Anyway, somewhere along the way the creators of RuneQuest decided to basically borrow the idea of Passions into RuneQuest, and they serve pretty much the same mechanical purpose. The main issue is that while there are mechanical incentives for increasing a character's Passions (which works the same as increasing any other skill or attribute) they don't exactly represent relationships, as much as they represent internal emotions. Basically, a character's Passion of Love (Target of their affections) can be entirely one-sided. That's not to say that the system can't be worked to represent developing romantic relationships, but it's a bit of extra work (having said that: Mythras/RQ6 already is something of a "some assembly required" toolkit game, unlike the more recent RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha which is a very specialized game using the same engine, it's a whole thing). Mythras/RQ6 is a very traditional type of fantasy RPG but notably one where character growth isn't simply through becoming better at combat, and combat is somewhat disincentivized by the game. So it actually is a game that does wonders for romantic fantasy.

There's also Burning Wheel, which is a fun and gritty game, which has a system not unlike Passions in its BITs (Beliefs, Instincts, and Traits), but like Mythras/RQ Passions they are internal.

So I have yet to find the perfect elf-kissing game for myself, but if I had to choose I would personally pick Mythras: it is a very trad type of game concerned with verisimilitude above all else, but it has just enough tools for providing some mechanical grit to romantic relationships. In fact, when I first started reading it one of the first things I realized was "I would so much rather use this to run romantic fantasy than Blue Rose" (a romantic fantasy RPG powered by the Fantasy AGE system which suffers from the Fantasy AGE issue of ultimately being a D&D ass game with some light relationship mechanics on top).

Now having said all of that: there are hundreds of games out there that center romance, which I haven't mentioned here either because I'm not familiar enough with them or because they are not specifically high fantasy. But let me just rattle off a couple of those that I would love to play at some point: Star Crossed. Court of Blades. Eyes on the Prize. Heck, looking some more at the blurb of Court of Blades, it might actually be perfect for this ask, even though it is also like a general courtly intrigue game. Anyway, hope that's something.

[famouscyclenerd]

Mor's reactions to Az and Elain is explained in his BC

this is my opinion btw, nothing's been confirmed.

I've seen both sides use her reactions to "prove" that their ship is endgame in whatever way. We don't have her pov in any of the scenes however.

So as of right now, we don't know why Sarah chooses to highlight Mor's reactions whenever there is an interaction between Elain and Az in her presence, but I have my theories, and ya'll already know it's not going in e/riels favor, SO BUCKLE UP MY DUDES WE'RE GOING FOR A RIDE!👹

I think it's important to note that Azriel and Mor's relationship has been slightly... turbulent throughout all of the decades they've known each other. Don't get me wrong, it hasn't been absolutely unstable, but there is a huge lack of communication on both sides that's been in dire need of resolvement in order for them to have a good and healthy friendship.

Although Sarah hasn't confirmed it, moriel was supposed to be endgame. PERIOD! I still can't believe there are moriel deniers. Reading ACOMAF, moriel was the plan and that's a !fact! (TRUST, I was there when MAF realeased and the couples were feysand, elucien, nessian and moriel) and it became evident in ACOWAR that she changed her mind on them for unknown reasons.

So what do we know about them and their feelings for each other? In MAF Feyre noticed Azriel reactions towards Mor. I honestly find that so fucking funny when "Beautiful, but near-unreadable." and "His skin was as cold as his face." is how Feyre first describes his face, yet she clocks his feelings for Mor almost immediately.

"It was almost enough to distract me from noticing Azriel as those shadows lightened, and his gaze slid over Mor's body (...) A wisp of shadow curled around Azriel's ear, and his eyes snapped to mine. I schooled my face into bland innocence."

"Mor patted Azriel on the shoulder (...) The lurking shadow vanished entirely as Azriel's head dipped a bit (...)"

This was the very first scene where Feyre observed Mor and Az together.

"Yes - Azriel, who kept a step away, whose shadows trailed him and seemed to fade in her presence."

I find this interesting since some of you can say: "GOTCHA! His shadows vanishes around Mor like they do with Elain and moriel was supposed to be endgame in MAF" but I don't think this is good for the e/riels at all, as Sarah kept this going even after she decided that they weren't going to be together. This basically established e/riel to be moriel 2.0 and it didn't work out the first time, so why would it work a second time?

I find it interesting when Feyre, Rhys, Cassian and Azriel leaves to go see Elain and Nesta for the first time - Azriel decided to leave behind his shadows.

"(...) No shadows trailed us, as if he'd left them in Velaris."

Why? Because he didn't want to unsettle the sisters as they were there to convince them to work with them.

"Then I shifted to the right, grateful those shadows were nowhere to be found (...)"

"But Azriel's attention was on my sister, a polite, bland smile on his face. Her shoulders loosened a bit. I wondered if Rhys's spymaster often got his information through stone-cold manners as much as stealth and shadows."

How sweet! First meetings :D

To speed things up a bit, we have Mor finally telling Feyre more about their relationship. How she's aware he wants her, but doesn't see himself good enough to be with her.

“He might have defied and proved those Illyrian pricks wrong at every turn, but it won’t matter if Rhys makes him Prince of Velaris—he’ll see himself as a bastard-born nobody, and not good enough for anyone. Especially me.”

This is very crucial and something I'll circle back to later!

Then we have the cauldron scene that seemed to be what would finally make a change in their so far static relationship.

"Faster than any of us could see, Jurian fired a hidden ash bolt through Azriel's chest. Mor screamed."

"Mor was shaking - trying hard not to, but shaking as she stared at the protruding end of that arrow, visible between the gap in Azriel's wings."

"Jurian's sword was already out - and he was looking at Mor as if he was going to kill her first. Azriel's blood-drained face twisted with rage as he noticed that stare."

"Azriel cried out in pain. She froze."

"Mor looked at Azriel and there was real fear there. Fear - and something else. She didn't stop moving until she kneeled beside him and pressed a hand to his wound. Azriel hissed - but covered her bloody fingers with his own."

I've said this before and I'll say it again. If you know SJM terminology, you know what the "something else" means. This was the mating bond snapping into place for Mor. We were all waiting for it to be adressed in ACOWAR, but clearly that never happened.

As of WAR and FAS, Azriel's feelings for Mor doesn't waver. He continues to stare after her with longing, hunger, sadness whatever - even with Elain in the room fyi. But Mor's feelings for him has been changed irrevocably - as Sarah decides to sink the moriel ship once and for all by telling us Mor is not romantically interested in men, something Az is not aware of, as far as we know. And she continues to sleep with men, which makes him confused and hurt. Their relationship remains the same as it always has been.

So with this out of the way, let's take a look at Mor's reactions to e/riel!

"Azriel's hazel eyes churned as he studied my sister, her too-thin body. And without a word, he winnowed away. Mor watched the space where he'd been standing long after he was gone."

This is... an interesting reaction and something that Sarah obviously wants us to notice. So why is that?

"Az said nothing. No, he just moved toward her. Mor tensed beside me."

Ah, the lovely potato scene! As I was re-reading it, there really was nothing romantic about it whatsoever. Rhys explaining why, as this was more to highlight Azriel's ptsd than show any romantic indication between him and Elain.

However, Mor's reaction is certainly something to note on. She tenses as she watches them. And in here comes my reasoning as to why Az's POV is so important to her reactions. Because previously, we see Elain and Az together through other people's eyes, and it can come across as very sweet and innocent, ♫the start of something new♪ perhaps. But the BC really just threw any sliver of a chance for e/riel out the window, imho.

There was simply nothing sweet about Azriel's inner thoughts as he was interacting with her. His self worth is at an all time low around her, meaning it has most likely always been like that whenever they've been together.

He is so aware of his own flaws, his status, his looks etc and basically comparing himself to her. She is so flawless and good and he is this ugly monster.

"Az tried not to look at his scarred fingers as they took the gift."

"His shadows skittered back at the sound. They'd always been prone to vanish when she was around." ← as they do with Mor

"Letting his scarred fingers touch her immaculate skin."

"Wrong - it was so wrong."

"She looked up at him, her face so trusting and hopeful and open that he knew she had no idea that he had done unspeakable things that sullied his hands far beyond his scars."

"Such terrible things that it was a sacrilege for his fingers to touch her skin, tainting her with his presence."

"He hadn't gotten that far with his planning, certainly not beyond the fantasies he pleasured himself to." ← this is straight up diabolical💀

Although we have never gotten Az's POV when he's around Mor, I imagine it to be very similar in terms of how he views himself and them. And I think Mor understands this. When she looks at Elain and Az, she sees herself and him. And I think her heart breaks for him as she watched history repeat itself, likely knowing that there isn't much she can do but watch as he self destructs again and again.

As I mentioned, this makes me look at e/riels interactions differently when knowing how Az views himself around her. I believe this made every interaction between them, that could carry hints of potential romance, into something much darker than what it seemed like on the surface. And I think Mor sees this, as well as Rhys.

This kinda leads into a post I was planning on writing, but couldn't be bothered. But it was about Az and Rhys and how as of SF, the character that knows Az the best is Rhys. And we see Rhys shut down any e/riel interaction known to man. Feyre: "how handsome they could be together" and Rhys: "Azriel has been preoccupied with the same female for five hundred years" etc.

With the bonus chapter in mind, I have a headcanon that, like Feyre did to Lucien, Rhys used his daemati powers on Azriel and essentially read what we read, leading to him interrupting them as he (like many of us) did not view what was happening as something romantic. If you read on a surface-level, what Rhys did could appear mean, but to me, he did this because he cares for his brother and that particular kiss would not make Azriel feel better about himself. At all!

"What of Mor, Az?" Azriel ignored the question." ← He is not completely over her, even in SF.

If my headcanon is true (which we might never even find out) I just have to point out that Feyre found no ill will when it came to Lucien's regard for Elain, only concern, sorrow, longing etc. Compared with Rhys and Az, where good intentions was not on the table, but simply lust and self-hatred on Azriel's end at least.

I'm not sure why Sarah decided to toy around with e/riel except because Azriel was suddenly available after she decided to ditch moriel, but I do believe that they've turned into nothing but a red herring for gwynriel and elucien. And it worked, a little too well maybe.

See I could pull in my girl Gwyn and her scene with Azriel to compare and show the contrast of it, but I'm not going to..

"The young priestess smiled - and he thought it might have been directed at his curious shadows."

This is already... so different to what we've seen with the other two.

"He blocked out the bloody memory that flashed, so at odds with the Gwyn he saw before him now."

He thinks about her and how far she's come compared to when they first met.

"Her breath curled in front of her mouth, and one of his shadows darted out to dance with it before twirling back to him. Like it heard some silent music."

"He blinked. It wasn't every day that people took him by surprise, but..."

This is just cute c:

"Azriel couldn't help his soft chuckle."

"(...) rubbing his hands against the cold, grateful for its bracing bite and the distraction of this impromptu lesson."

He is aware of his hands and not thinking about how "ugly" they are when she is around him. He is also happy about this surprising lesson, not at all interested in being alone to mope anymore.

"Azriel laughed."

"(...) something restless settling in him. Even his shadows had calmed. As if content to lounge on his shoulders and watch."

You already know. But Az was in a shitty mood right before this, and it did not take much of Gwyn to calm him down, leading him to feel slightly better about himself and even feeling like he could get some sleep after all.

Compared to both Mor and Elain, his shadows are present and interacting with her and she's paying attention to them as well. Which is a first. And let's not forget the ✨spark✨

Which of these three ladies is better for Azriel? Mor and Elain are basically the same for him, himself and his shadows reacts more or less the same around them. Or Gwyn, which read in a lot more positive note than the previous two?

I think Sarah knows at least🤷‍♀️

[prettyboykatsuki]

if this is too personal of a question, please feel free to ignore! but I was wondering because the way you talk about him is so sweet: did you ever expect to end up with your bf? like, was your relationship something that snuck up on you, or did you just Know at some point and go for it?

WAAHHHHH. it's not no worries!!!

did i ever expect to end up w my bf... it's yes AND no i think.

im not trying to be corny but i usually compare my experience w my boyfriend to like. the japanese term koi no yokan bc i think it's most accurate to my experience. not quite love at first sight but the feeling when you meet someone you know you're going to love them.

its not any exaggeration to me at all but i knew he was going to become someone important to me the first time i met him. ive yet to meet another person in my life who makes me feel like that. i know it sounds corny and made up KDSJKA but i just. knew. right away that he was going to be someone i loved eventually.

this might make some of u laugh but me and my boyfriend we're qpp's (queerplatonic partners) before we ended up dating and we only knew each other for a few months until then and hadn't hung out in person. it must've been four months of that before dating (i was dating someone else at the time we met) forreal

i dont believe in first sight but i did know from the moment i met him he would be someone i loved eventually. so while i wasnt surprised when it happened, the actual dating came as a surprise to me which is why i say yes and no

[protectorcraft]

important that you remember that mirabelle and siffrin both think the other person is one of the coolest people in the world. and don't seem to realize that the other feels that way. very important. remember this.

[hamletisintown]

Eros the god of Love.

Sly Eros is just as much of a warrior as his lover Hemera, albeit a more subtle one. He patrons the less overt kind of wars: the plotting, the scheming, and the revenge. The violence of the weak on the strong.

The wasp god is associated with love, deception, diplomacy, and more broadly, with anything related to feelings and interpersonal relationships. He acts as a counterpart to Hemera, his complimentary partner. He is the poison and the antidote, the knife and the heart into which it is plunged. People pray to him when they require strength and guidance in love, family matters, or revenge.

_______

(Wasps are some of my favourite bugs so i really wanted to make a good design for him, he deserves it.)

[akkivee]

i’m not posting this for any other reason than to cry over ichiro’s voice as he teases kuukou lmao 😭😭😭

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

ON THE TOPIC OF BARNABY. as well as his relationship with Wally.

So. To kick this off - Riv (@funonion) and I were Speculating, and they introduced me to the johari window:

They put Barnaby in the “facade” section, and I entirely agree. To quote them;

“So he’s Wally’s guide, right? He’s the “knowledgeable” one of the two and is always the one teaching him new things. And you know, it’s one thing if you’re just teaching him how to laugh or how to tell a joke. But.

Clown has given us two doors. One says that Barnaby understands Wally in a way the rest of the neighborhood doesn’t, and is willing to do his dirty work so to speak. The other says that their friendship was not a natural occurring thing and had to be enforced repeatedly within the show. HOW THAT’S BEING ENFORCED IS ANOTHER THING ENTIRELY but it is worth it to note.

What is Barnaby willing to keep? What is he willing to bury for his little buddy? I can’t say anything definitively yet, but the fact that I even have to ask is telling. The class clown archetype is usually used as a way to cover up for something else a character might be experiencing”

And my response, (I won’t directly quote because I have little things in the phrasing & elaboration to add / tweak );

Barnaby being a Comic Relief Character immediately raised so many alarms in my head. I love comic relief characters. They’re always so fucked up in one way or another, and Barnaby is almost certainly SO inauthentic. He’s wearing a comedy mask just as opaque as Wally’s own mask. In everything we’ve seen about him so far he’s either Teaching Wally, wisecracking/joking, or… pretty much nothing else. We got that moment of concern in audio 14-14, but that doesn’t reveal anything beyond genuine care for Wally.

Comedic characters have the best disguises. Their poker faces & ability to deflect is always top tier [and practiced], and just look at comedy-focused actors and entertainers - so many of them have severe issues, either with their mental health or life. From what i’ve observed both in that aspect & with fictional characters, they play it off & work hard to entertain/deflect [one in the same] right up until the end. Sometimes it’s a coping mechanism. Usually it’s both. If they laugh loud enough and make people think they’re lighthearted fools w/ nothing underneath, no one will look any deeper and thus they’re “safe”. 

& I’m a little suspicious that Barnaby’s red/orange/yellow spots aren’t naturally those colors. While yes, he could be (in-universe) designed that way to echo Ms. Beagle, there’s a strong possibility that that’s not it. What if he paints them to feel a connection to her, or it’s a physical manifestation of Barnaby covering up his insecurities/issues - what if it’s part of him striving to convince the world that he is what he paints himself as. 

The laidback funnyguy with a loving mom and not a problem in the world. 

And I mean, Barnaby claims to be a natural blue and I believe him! But the other colors? I’m doubtful

(I was going to include the Cast As Lil Kids Designs in this since Barnaby has all blue spots, but given how early in 2021 it was posted and how there seem to be little discrepancies from the ~official~ designs, I don’t want to provide it as evidence.)

& on the topic of Wally and Barnaby’s relationship being both real and not - disclaimer, this conversation happened before my Updated Thoughts On Them post, so there may be some minor rephrasing here from what I originally said - I’m sure that the relationship started out as inauthentic. Wally was assigned Barnaby as a best friend and technically vice versa, but I don’t doubt for a second that it became real to some extent. Clown wouldn’t treat their relationship outside of “canon” WH stuff the way that he does if they weren’t actually friends. They’ve said that Wally & Barnaby would be friends in every universe (which melts my heart <3 platonic soulmates my beloved <3), so then I have to agree with Riv. what WILL Barnaby do for Wally? I touched on this in the Milk Theory, but especially if Barnaby prides himself on “knowing Wally better than anything else”, what would Barn do to preserve that?

This relates to another conversation we had - Barnaby possibly having abandonment issues. It’s such a choice to have him of all characters be explicitly stated as an orphan. That and while every other Neighbor with a mentioned family have a somewhat large one (Howdy and his gajillion relatives, Julie and her three siblings, Poppy and her crowded tree [note: Eddie has a mentioned mother, but that info is tenuous and who knows if there are other Dears]), Barnaby has also explicitly stated that Ms. Beagle is his only family. That’s it. And farm life can’t be a sociable way to grow up, not with all the chores he must have had and how rural he might have grown up. Barnaby jokes that Home is the “Big Apple”, which could just be a joke - but jokes often come from a place of truth, and Home might be the most populated area Barnaby has lived in. Who’s to say!

Either way, Barnaby was orphaned one way or another, and I don’t doubt that it weighs on him. Especially if  his birth parents really did abandon him. That added to a possible life of loneliness… I wonder if he’s latched onto Wally emotionally, which would hit all the painful places if it turns out that my “Barnaby is more attached to Wally than Wally is to Barnaby” theory has merit. Abandonment issues could also strongly back the apparent walls he’s plastered over with circus tent fabric

Back to Barnaby & Wally: the fact that, at present, Barnaby and Wally seem to have the best disguises / strongest masks. That. looking at 14-14, i suspect that Barnaby is excellent at keeping his up, but as soon as Wally’s mask cracks, so does Barnaby’s. 

And then there’s the side of their dynamic that we could look at - it seems to be a very multifaceted relationship. The way that Barnaby genuinely cares yet in the 00 Halloween audio Wally was left off to the side and Barnaby was just “checking on him” while socializing (then again, this could be part of Barnaby understanding Wally & respecting his space / Wally wanting a break from that socialization). Barnaby is patient with Wally and yet he seems to sometimes treat Wally as his sidekick / let him fade into the background and yet Barnaby kept checking in on Wally during the 14 bug audios (this last one I could tie into the abandonment issues theory). 

Then there’s how Barnaby calls Wally kid & can tend to treat him like one despite both of them being in the same age group. The way that all of this could, in a way, relate to the infantilization of autistic people (no matter how well-meaning or unintentional) & internalized ableism. 

Note: Riv pointed out that Barnaby does seem to be doing the best with what he has, and that this can connect to the Johari Window’s blind spot / unknown. 

I do agree with this wholeheartedly! And I have to mention that - and making a Very educated guess here - the interactions we’ve seen take place in the very late 60s / very early 70s, so Barnaby’s behavior towards Wally is actually pretty fucking stellar given the time period. We can’t expect him to be perfect or do everything / say everything right. That would be boring I think! And one thing I deeply appreciate about the Neighbors & their dynamics is that they feel like real layered people, not cardboard cutouts being perfect caricatures of what people are “supposed” to be like.

Riv also presented this:

We likely are going to reach a point where Wally asks Barnaby something that he can’t / doesn’t want to / won’t answer. And like.. Ok. This is a slight tangent but I swear it’s related! When I first discovered WH and learned the Wally basics, I wondered two things.

Are we going to watch Wally “discover” new emotions? Because he certainly has them. Clown has said that Wally only ever feels happy, and a lot of people took that to mean that Wally can’t feel anything else. I don’t think we should take that answer at face value, because. I mean. Look at the project & creator we’re talking about. Layers, guys. Indirect direct answers. I think that Clown meant that Wally only ever feels happy in the Neighborhood because he has no reason to feel any negative emotion. Everything is as it should be. Until it isn’t - and I think that’s where he’s going to have to struggle with new emotions as he encounters them through new situations/events unfolding as the “story” starts to deteriorate. We’ve actually seen this a little bit - in Wally’s record audios (i believe the chronological second to last?), the way he says “Let Me In” so insistently. That’s definitely not a positive emotion being expressed. 

How will the topic of death be handled - because it will be handled, it’s stated in the project warnings. I was wondering this even before I read the list, because I was presented with a blank slate puppet character and so went “oh fuck, this dude doesn’t know about death, does he?” Obviously I wanted to know how that would go. I want to know how it Will go! 

How would Barnaby explain emotions that Wally doesn’t know how to convey? How would Barnaby explain death in a way that Wally would understand - given that Barnaby (& all the Neighbors sans Wally) knows what death is  - and would Barnaby be willing to explain such a thing? I have a feeling we may find out.

And in a way, I suspect that if none of them know, Wally will find out himself and have to process it without help. But then again, how can something die if it was never really alive in the first place? Unless the death warning relates to human characters… I’m currently assuming it relates to both humans and puppets. 

In conclusion: Barnaby has a carefully fabricated facade, he's doing the best with what he has but it likely won't be enough, and uh. shits fucked!

[xiii-e]

//ooc posting: I NEED to find more fun/silly things to do with my two they are Not meant to be all agony all the time I swear- I just have a penchant for the dramatic and they're a little in the torment nexus o(-< but on god they will Have Fun too

[kh358days2]

ace attorney posting is making me think about nick and maya ouguhghgngng my number one dynamic duo since I was a kid... they have that kind of deep love that transcends all labels. "relationship so close it blurs the line between romantic and platonic" kind of bond. arhgngnghghnnbg

[donnatroyyyy]

When Mitski wrote “I will wash your hair at night/ And dry it off with care/ I will see your body bare/ And still I will live here” do you think she’d been thinking about Donna and Dick while writing it?

[binders-and-beanies]

Pondering bottom surgery in the tags I mf guess

[elenadoeslife]

your first love hits different

[zemnarihah]

btw i think i may be attempting to enter into a long distance relationship w erik.

[lyxchen]

You know I kept buying romance books because they sounded cute until I realized that I don't even like reading romance books..

[oatmealaddiction]

Okay but the weirdest thing about the whole "Brotherhood is better you should skip 03" discourse that's become commonplace now, it sort of forgets the world Brotherhood came out in and why you should watch the original Fullmetal Alchemist. When Brotherhood came out, the original Fullmetal Alchemist was one of the most beloved and most watched animes of all time. Brotherhood assumes you the audience have already seen it because of course you have, everyone has seen it, so it skips important information and speeds the story up because it doesn't want to bore you with things you already know. Have you ever wondered "hey why does the first episode of Brotherhood kind of suck, and why am I being introduced to like 50 new characters, and why are they acting like I know what the hell an alchemist is?" It's because Brotherhood thinks you've seen 03.

The first 7 or so episodes of Brotherhood constitute dozens of chapters in the manga, and the first 25 or so episodes of the original Fullmetal Alchemist. The Nina Tucker episode in Brotherhood, in FMA 03 takes up nearly three episodes. Yoki gets a backstory in 03 and it's genuinely one of the best episodes and taken directly from the manga and Brotherhood glosses over it because: duh, you've already seen it. And so if you skip the original you miss out on dozens of really great character building episodes like Ed and Al meeting Hughes for the first time and getting to spend a whole episode helping him free a train from terrorists, or Ed and Roy having a duel that expands on the relationship they have, or episodes where the brothers just help out random people in towns before the major story gets going.

The original also paces itself quite a bit better than Brotherhood and is more in line with the mangas storytelling. In the manga we don't find out about The Gate until nearly two dozen chapters in, and the same goes for the original anime. Like, that's a twist reveal in those stories, and it's weird that the most watched series is the one where they tell you all about The Gate in the first two episodes because they assume you've already seen the original show.

What's more, people don't know that Hiromu Arakawa helped write for the anime while she was still in the middle of writing the manga, and as a result was inspired to write scenes in Brotherhood that the anime did first. That scene of Edward getting impaled by a falling beam? Directly inspired by a similar scene in the original anime. There's a lot of little instances of that and they're great when you can recognize parallels and things in Brotherhood that are direct references to the original anime, but people don't notice any of that anymore. Because the original anime is just an automatic skip these days, and it's a bummer because people don't realize what a giant it was back before Brotherhood was released. They treat it as *bad,* not realizing it was one of the most beloved anime of its time and the problems people take issue with have a lot more to do with personal taste than any kind of actual flaw in the writing. Brotherhood was never meant to dethrone it, and the original anime was always supposed to be part of the viewing experience which is why those first few episodes of Brotherhood are so fast paced. So like, please stop telling people Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 is a skip, or it's bad, or you don't need it because Brotherhood is better. Regardless if you think Brotherhood is better or not, the original wrote Brotherhood's check. It was huge, it was beloved, and Brotherhood is *banking* on the knowledge you've seen all of it and loved it. And trust me when I say there is so much to love about the original series. It's still my favorite branch of the FMA franchise, and it's worth your time, I promise you.