#it was much clearer in person

[freepassbound]

Bits & Bobs (Pt 1.)

Lighting up the mist (plus skylines).

The most over-the-top concentration of tourist-hunting absurdity I have ever come across (and I say that with sincere fondness).

The Gorge - look at the blue of that water!

Of course I had to mix in some history - an interesting 18th Century French fort-disguised-as-trading-post (though not $19 worth of interesting); ft. a familiar-looking safe that I did not test for secret panels, and a very blurry Toronto taken from the opposite side of the Lake.

[crowsgrudge]

fionna's world being represented by a dandelion makes so much sense ... they're weeds. yet people make wishes through them, changing their whole meaning from something meant to be destroyed to something hopeful.

dandelions are also resilient and it makes sense that something associated with them would. you know. perservere despite the destruction caused by the scarab.

but ultimately i think what REALLY made me tear up over this is that dandelions are really boring plants. when you're a kid you blow on them and make your wish but they're not eyecatching or anything but still, fionna's final wish was for her old world to still exist as it was when she left it (> plain and simple. boring even).

like the moment she realized she would lose her friends, and that her friends might forget each other if the world got its magic back, she immediately decided she didn't want it and I think that ties back to the dandelion metaphor so well... like, do you really need magic to be real to find it everywhere? or can you turn something boring into something magical?

[icewindandboringhorror]

Pages from trying to keep a little sketchbook-scrapbook type thing going for two weeks lol. I gave myself specific rules in hopes they might all end up more cohesive/consistent seeming, but alas, scribbly chaos reigns, it seems

[unexpectedbrickattack]

smorch...

[scribbledquillz]

Say what you will about Origins being outdated, clunky whatever - but their designs for the darkspawn are MILES better than the following games IMHO.

[greenfiend]

Will is Superman…

[fromtheseventhhell]

"It's powerful, it's visceral, it's dark, it's like a Shakespearean tragedy. There’s no Arya — a character everybody's going to love. They're all flawed. They're all human. They do good things. They do bad things. They're driven by lust for power, jealousy, old wounds — just like human beings. Just like I wrote them."

Seeing people debate which grey characters can still be considered "morally good" and somehow Arya never makes the list, so it's the perfect time to bring back this quote from George which shows exactly how he views her character 🫶🏾

[lieutenantselnia]

Because my new f/os made me wonder about this ...

If you have an f/o who's not usually referred to by their first name, but instead their last name, a nickname, or something like a title or honorific, how to you refer to them? This can apply both to how they are addressed in-universe in their source material and/or how they are commonly referred to in the fandom.

[kuruna]

I need to start actually organizing it... 😭 So I'm just stating that my personal ''''rewrite'''' of pkmn xy is going to be tagged "abundance & equilibrium (au)"

[starheirxero]

I'm one again here to ask you for more headcanons about

✨The toxic yuri lumini✨

PUTS MY HAND ON MY HIP JERMA STYLE. AND I WILL DELIVER MORE HEADCANONS ABOUT TOXIC YURI LUMINI ^_^

You left a tag on one of my Gemini design posts a bit ago where you mentioned the idea of Lunara breaking off one of Gemini's antlers and I have not stopped thinking about it btw. Could you imagine being an entity made of space, stars, light, and unfathomable power and some little rat bastard mortal who you have weird feelings about comes long, bests you in a fight, and breaks off a piece of your antlers?? breaks of a piece of your HALO???? THATS INSANE. /POS

I can just imagine the initial shock after it cracks and snaps right off and there's just a long moment where Lunara is staring at the horn in their hands and Gemini is staring at Lunara while loosely palming the area where it broke off. Once it settles in though, I think Lunara would be absolutely thrilled at what they've done. They'd laugh and they'd taunt Gemini by holding the piece up to their own head and going "look, now we match! <3"

Gemini on the other hand would be... less than pleased LMAO. I think they'd be a mix of humiliated and angry for taking such a hit from this random robot, but they'd also be like aoaughh oly shit. they overpowered me, how did they even,,, theyre . i can be normal about this(< is experiencing the classic "i can't tell if i want to kiss or kill you" dilemma).

I also think that, from that point forward, Lunara would probably wear that piece somewhere on them and they'd get more much comfortable just grabbing Gemini by the horns whenever they felt like it. You know that "how to talk to a short person" meme? That, Imagine that but the "correct" answer is of Lunara grabbing Gemini's antlers and yanking them down so they're at eye level <3

[atopvisenyashill]

hey! i’ve been sort of lurking on your blog for a while, lol, but seeing you answer one of your recent asks abt some of your main theories got me curious enough to finally start a convo. so for the record, i was kind of ambivalent about sansa before reading some of your metas, and i’m still not really a jonsa believer, but a lot of things you’ve catalogued on ur blog did a lot to solidify sansa being lady of winterfell as a new member of my ASOIAF Endgame PredictionsTM, and seeing u answer that recent ask w all your separate bits of evidence collected together really sold it for me! quick question, though: i tend to skim-read long posts, so maybe i missed something, but did you say anything about why sansa would specifically end up as QiTN, rather than just lady of winterfell (still under whoever the next major ruler of westeros is)? i mean, especially if we do go ahead and assume that bran will end up as king in harrenhal, i don’t quite get why sansa would want to establish the north as a separate kingdom by seceding from her own brother? i suppose there’s the angle of wanting to honor what robb fought for, which certainly isn’t a bad motivator… but i think the remaining starklings, of all people, would be more likely to recognize (and focus on the fact) that robb’s main motivation in participating in the Wot5K was mostly just to avenge ned and secure the safety of the rest of his family. and even if the idea of finishing what robb started is a motivating factor, considering that asoiaf’s endgame is almost certainly going to be post-apocalyptic in some senses, i feel like whoever’s making these big decisions (even if that group does include some of the starklings, though it definitely will) would be more likely to prioritize trying to kind of return the world of westeros to something most resembling the previous status quo, which committing to splitting the kingdoms would maybe not really help with?

interested to hear your thoughts on all of this, thanks for reading :D <3

First - thank you for the compliment!!! I love to spread the gospel of Sansa As Ruling Lady In Winterfell lol, and it's nice to know I've convinced some people about some aspects of it! I have got to get better about adding a tldr at the ending though bc I too will sometimes just skim a post and queue it alsdjfla. (also validating each other on "the ending is going to be post apocalyptic" - YES that's what I've BEEN saying omg I do sometimes feel like some of the endgame predictions leave out that imo the last half of ados is going to feel very much like a post-apocalyptic type rebuilding!). Also sorry if this is kind of meandering, I wanted to organize it a bit more but that didn't work out lol.

But honestly okay - I go back and forth a LOT on whether Sansa is ruling lady of Winterfell or straight up Queen on the North. I’m still very undecided on it! I think it makes sense, narratively and just like logically that if Rickon is found he’s Bran’s heir in the South (both as a parallel to the Aegon/Viserys ending of the Dance and as a kind of neat bow tie on their story as brothers - they start the series being left behind in Winterfell and end the series choosing to stay behind but together in Harrenhal), then the girls are in the North as the Starks in Winterfell. Again, I think this is a parallel to Sansa/Serena & a play on the she-wolves of winterfell, but also, being the two oldest Starks, makes sense that Sansa is ruling lady and Arya is a sort of Hand (and like Rickon, potentially the one their line descends from but again - call me Sokka because I love to waffle!) But Queen in the North specifically? I think that's less clear than Sansa being ruling lady of Winterfell (which imo isn't just clear, it's the obvious answer for her story arc) though I still think there's a high probability of it.

First, let me get into the more conjecture side of it. Basically, I think part of the reason the kingdoms are going to split is because there will be some population and geographic changes after the Long Night/second war for the throne - I think I've mentioned it before I believe the Neck is going to "break" ie become flooded the same way the arm of dorne was "broken" and flooded and became the stepstones. This would make the North a lot harder to get to, geographically, which could further isolate them and want them to have their own monarch who is In The North and can make more snap decisions as they rebuild than Bran could all the way passed the Neck in Harrenhal.

I also think the Iron Islands are going to get fucked and Asha will lead a lot of her people to the mainland to settle, probably in the North due to them needing more population because they also got fucked - and two groups of people who are notoriously kind of isolationist coming together might prefer to stay partially disconnected from the main kingdoms. Which isn't to say they won't have contact with each other - I guess I was picturing like....idk a sort of EU thing lmao, or maybe a Narnia thing of like, open borders between the 2-3 kingdoms who are all allies and work together due to being on the same continent.

Of course, the breaking of the Neck (which is something I'm a lot more confident on - I think it's a guarantee tbh) could also drive the North back into the arms of the other kingdoms, as they need more help recovering from the Long Night and can perhaps offer help to the South as the South recovers from their wars. But anyways that's my geographic/logistical reason why I think the North might stay separated from the rest of the Kingdoms, even with a Stark King on the throne.

Now, in the previous ask, I mentioned her parallels to other Queens and some of the Queen imagery surrounding her - there's the abundant Naerys/Sansa parallels, and the Cersei/Sansa antiparallels. There's a bit of talk about how ~Sansa is good at queenly things~ and ~Joffrey was foolish to set her aside that feels (to me) like setup for her being a ruling Queen - no one can set her aside or disrespect her then, like Naerys and Cersei go through. Of course just paralleling a few Queens doesn't inherently mean she'll be Queen but I do think the emphasis on comparing her to queens is pointed - then again, imo there's also a lot of parallels between her and Princess Rhaena Targaryen of Dragon Twins fame, and Rhaena does not wind up a queen!

(there is also some parallels to historical queens there, most notably to Elizabeth of York, Queen of England and wife to Henry VII. Notably their marriage ended the War of the Roses, but I don't claim to be an expert there but I have reblogged some meta on that here and I'm sure there's others floating around).

There's also these two little bits here-

Ahead he glimpsed a pale white trunk that could only be a weirwood, crowned with a head of dark red leaves.

In their midst was a pale stranger; a slender young weirwood with a trunk as white as a cloistered maid. Dark red leaves sprouted from its reaching branches.

The first is from a Jon chapter and I think it could point to Bran or Sansa - dark red hair, pale skin, and a crown. The second one is what makes me think it points to either just sansa or both of them - that comes in a Brienne chapter. Again you have the pale skin (white as a cloistered maid) and dark red leaves acting as hair almost. To be honest, there's a lot with the Tully-Starklings having the coloring of a weirwood that's sort of fascinating in what it implies - perhaps that their roots are leading them back North, perhaps something more sinister re: Bran being eaten by a tree. I digress lol.

There's a few comments from Ned as well that feel like they might be foreshadowing-

“Brandon. Yes. Brandon would know what to do. He always did. It was all meant for Brandon. You, Winterfell, everything. He was born to be a King’s Hand and a father to queens. I never asked for this cup to pass to me.”

"Yet someday he may be the lord of a great holdfast and sit on the king's council. He might raise castles like Brandon the Builder, or sail a ship across the Sunset Sea, or enter your mother's Faith and become the High Septon." But he will never run beside his wolf again, he thought with a sadness too deep for words, or lie with a woman, or hold his own son in his arms. Arya cocked her head to one side. "Can I be a king's councillor and build castles and become the High Septon?" “You,” Ned said, kissing her lightly on the brow, “will marry a king and rule his castle, and your sons will be knights and princes and lords and, yes, perhaps even a High Septon.” Arya screwed up her face. "No," she said, "that's Sansa."

There's a lot made of that last one, about how Ned potentially lays out his kids endgames right there to Arya -

Lord of a Great Holdfast and sit on a King's Council - Jon Snow

Raise Castles Like Brandon the Builder - Bran

Sail a Ship Across the Sunset Sea - Arya

Enter the Faith and Become High Septon - Rickon

Marry a King, Rule His Castle, Sons will be {etc} - no, that's Sansa

Those comments stick out to me because imo Sansa & Arya's endgames will be a sort of mirror to Ned & Lyanna so it seems natural to me that some of Sansa's endgame would be foreshadowed in the chapters of her father the same as Arya's endgame is sort of anti-foreshadowed (idk how you would phrase that one lol) in Lyanna.

tldr i am much more confident in the idea that Sansa will rule Winterfell than I am in what title she will have while ruling. I do think there is some Sansa-as-Queen foreshadowing, in her comparisons to other Queens like Naerys, Cersei, and Elizabeth of York, and the way characters like Ned & Tyrion talk about how ~queenly~ she acts and how naturally leading under stress comes to her.

[majorshatterandhare]

Briar being fucked up about how much they’re like Rose.

They *look* just like her.

Their personality is so much like hers. They’re probably more angry but how much does that count for?

Physically they are her. They have the same genes as her. What’s different was modified to be that way by Hansel and Gretal for Cole.

How can they possibly be their own person?

They’re either Rose or they’re fucked up for Cole’s pleasure.

And they weren’t even a *success*.

How are they possibly supposed to be *Briar*?

Who *is* Briar?

Are they Rose? No, Rose was objectively someone else. But what can they be if not Rose?

Are they the soldier Cole wanted them to be? No, they were a failure. Too good, fought back.

If they aren’t what they are made from and they aren’t the differences what the fuck are they?

Is Briar falling in love with Cinders *Briar* loving Cinders? Or is it the Rose in them? And does Cinders actually love Briar or does she love that she’s almost Rose?

How do you be your own person when everything about you is that way because of a select few people who made you that way?

[yrlocalghost]

crying and sobbing and wailing at the fact that the original concept for the sepia cutscenes with chara and asriel also had them drawing together, eating pie, playing in flowers and looking at the "stars" in waterfall. i am decomposing right now i am in shambles

[milimeters-morales]

okay finally i know what Hobie mentally sounds like when he’s using “summat” in a sentence bc i’m watching this british(?) simmer and she’s just talking casually so she said that, and it sounds like “summin” or “summit” but it just surprised me because i was always reading it with a heavy emphasis on the “mat” part if i ever read a fic about him or i tried to read example sentences that included other british slang. so i would substitute it with “sumn” or “somethin” but now i don’t always have to. basically autism win my curiosity is satiated ^_^

[jackdawsdrawings]

Haven't used the paints that I have much recently so decided to try doing the Stardew Valley title screen!

It also worked as some good practice for painting clouds and doing gradients which is something I've been wanting to get better at!

[caffeccino]

hopefully this doesn't come off as rude; but is Apex Limit on a long term hiatus or is it not being updated? Can't wait to read Mundane Magical Girl when I get a chance either way

Hey there!

Apex Limit is indeed on a long term hiatus. I had always planned on taking a break from it in favor of a second project and to come back to it, though that isn't exactly how things worked out...

I intend to try to go back to it after Mundane Magical Girl, which is more limited in scope.