#just...again...disparity

[gifti3]

most of those king texts were giving, 'happy valentines day! my gift to you is sex'

[doomdoomofdoom]

you know what, maybe living through historical events isnt so bad if they're fun ones

[undead-moth]

I know I've been on about this for a while now and I'm being a hater but you're telling me SydCarmy was "always meant to be platonic" even though there are two seasons of writing making use of tried-and-true explicitly romantic tropes, themes and writing signals, and SydLuca is going to be romantic because...he was nice to her on screen for a few minutes?

I don't even care if people ship SydLuca, or if they just prefer it, but you can't honestly tell me that you believe Carmy was always meant to be a friend but Luca is an obvious love interest.

Just because Syd and Carmy haven't kissed or confessed their love to each other doesn't mean that isn't very obviously the direction this show is going. The Bear has already shown you who is endgame. It has shown you every episode of the show so far.

Honestly I really don't think The Bear fanbase understands this show or cares about these characters or the story being told here, which is unfortunate because this show is shockingly well-written in comparison to most shows right now, and we should be so grateful for it but all we're doing is complaining that the writers led us on by not making a ship canon fast enough. It's just. Sad.

[sailoreuterpe]

I'm going to have to be OK with never being anyone's best friend.

[tmae3114]

So there's this theory I've had bouncing around in my head for *checks notes* about three years now and, well, it does not have nearly the level of evidence I tend to prefer before I make a theory post - it is, in fact, Predominantly Vibes Based - but it has, again, been bouncing around in my head for three years and I refuse to be alone with it any longer

(...also, if I'm right, I wanna be able to go "I KNEW IT" and have a timestamp to point to XD)

OKAY. So. Basically.

I think Alinua might be a twice-born.

Hear me out:

Firstly:

We know that Cloud Elves live pretty much exclusively on the Archipelago Nimbus and are isolationist (Extra Lore: The Three Elder Races - "The Islands have minimal contact or trade with the outside world, [...]" & "These Cloud Elves are unique in many ways, most notably their isolationism [...]" and Page 1.6.12 "I suppose a cloud elf outside of the Archipelago Nimbus is fairly unusual-") but Alinua has been down on the surface since before she can remember

That suggests unusual circumstances. Isolationist people who have minimal contact with the outside world don't just lose a baby in said outside world

Alinua's theory for this is that her birth parents "probably reasonably assumed [she] had the Chimeric Plague and dropped [her] over the edge" (Page 1.6.13) but, crucially, there is no actual evidence of this. It's what she assumes probably happened but she has no memory of the actual events (Page 1.6.23 "I don't even remember it. I've never met my birth parents […]")

Therefore, it is entirely possible that Alinua is wrong about how she ended up not on the Archipelago Nimbus. And I, personally, think it's pretty likely that she's wrong because we know that the Archipelago Nimbus can sometimes be even higher up than the peak of the Throne of the World (this post) and even with it usually being lower down than that, I find it... somewhat doubtful that an infant (toddler, at best) would survive that fall. Not impossible in a fantasy setting but... doubtful.

Secondly:

We know that the Chimeric Plague was Life attempting to connect with a vessel who could be her eyes and give her perspective (Pages 1.20.20 - 1.20.23)

Even before Life finally broke through, Alinua was incredibly unusual for a carrier of the Chimeric Plague. She didn't even find out she was one until she was about ten (Page 1.6.13 "I had a normal life and family for ten years- and then I learned I was a chimera bomb [...]") when most die before they turn five (Page 1.2.10 "I shouldn't have made it past five years old" and Extra Lore: The Chimeric Plague "[...] it is inevitable in every case that the child will lose total control of their magic within the first few years of their life [...]"). She was twice the expected age of a carrier when she found out.

We don't know why Alinua is the successful attempt that finally worked. Not only do we not know, Alinua herself brings it up while talking to Life (Page 1.20.23 "I… don't know if there's anything special about me that kept you from overwhelming me like the others, or if I'm just the lucky one you finally got right."). The question is open: is there something special/unique about Alinua that allowed her to survive where none of the other children did? And if so, what is it?

Thirdly:

So. Carrion crawlers.

We have not actually met any in the story itself yet, only heard Caliban bring them up in the context of an insult (Page 1.12.10 "Twice-born son of a carrion crawler! You had a plan this whole time?!") but fortunately! the Aurora tumblr exists! so we have additional information!

Carrion crawlers eat dead things and sometimes give birth to baby clones of one of their recent meals, which are called twice-born. A twice-born is a healthy infant, identical in every way to how the original would've been as an infant, and age normally for the species they were produced from. Additionally, they have no memories from their source material (so to speak) and develop their own, unique soul, though if they came from a mage, their soul will develop the same channels (this post and this post)

...now, I mentioned at the start that this theory does not have as much evidence as I would like and is mostly Vibes Based, and we have now hit the point where I run out of evidence and switch to vibes. I do not have any evidence which actually points to a connection between any of this.

However, I do still Have Thoughts

We know that Alinua was adopted had a happy (or, at least, "normal") childhood prior to figuring out she was a chimeric carrier (1.6.13, see above) and seemingly doesn't think about her birth family very often. It's entirely possible that she didn't ask questions about where she came from as a child. It's not been brought up yet how her adoptive family found her but, given that she assumes she was thrown off the edge of the Archipelago Nimbus, the possibility that they found a seemingly-abandoned baby just lying around doesn't seem too out there. And if Alinua is a twice-born, yet clearly doesn't know that herself, her family may also not have known that... or may have known and opted to keep it hidden, even from her, given that twice-born are generally considered "deeply unnerving and grotesque" (this post).

As for how Alinua came to be in this theorised scenario, there's two possibilities I've considered.

The first is that an adult life mage cloud elf was outside the Archipelago Nimbus for Some Reason, died somewhere where there are carrion crawlers, and things went from there.

The second, much sadder, possibility is that the "Chimeric Plague carrier baby thrown off the edge of the flying islands" possibility did happen... the baby in question just wasn't Alinua because the fall was, in fact, not a survivable one. And then, just as a twice-born will inherit being-a-mage, Alinua inherited having the Chimeric Plague.

And, in either of these cases, something about being twice-born subsequently protected Alinua from being overwhelmed by Life.

[notasapleasure]

georgia i am so sick with worry for you

[mcybree]

session 5 for both scott and jimmy mirror each other in that they’re dedicated to powering up and preparing. scott gets a full set of protection IV diamond armor together with 30 diamonds in the enderchest to spare. jimmy, however, spends the entire episode trying to get good enchants on his iron set in a way that reminds me of a small bird flying into a window over and over again

[ratatatastic]

mikksy golfing with gaggles of finns vs golfing with the cats

[sysig]

Feeling and looking good 🌈 (Patreon)

[navree]

Dick should be Romani. Jason should be Hispanic. Damian is half-Arab. I don't know where we fall on Tim, I guess he can be the only white boy in the Robins. /shrug

Tim's upper crust New Jersey rich class, he is white as hospital wall paint. Dick just is Romani, that's straight up canon at this point, I don't know whether they've made it so both of his parents were Romani but I know that at least John Grayson has been Romani for some time in canon, which would make Dick at least half. Damian's a bit harder to pin down because DC has flip-flopped a lot on exactly what the al Ghul heritage is, Ra's I believe is half Chinese and half Arab (where exactly? who the Hell knows apparently the entire Arab world is a monolith for this people) and Talia has that and I think her mom was Arabic so Damian is at least half-Arab with some Chinese ancestry and is, in fact, brown, just like his mom and his grandpa (those ugly-ass movies that made him painfully white are the Devil's work). Jason at least needs to be ethnically ambiguous enough that he was able to wholeheartedly believe that the top three candidates for his biological mom are a Middle-Eastern woman, an East Asian woman of mixed Chinese and Japanese descent, or a blond haired blue eyed white woman. I tend to go for biracial Hispanic because I myself am the child of one white parent and one Latin parent and I like projecting, but I've seen a lot of good stuff with Jason as East-Asian or Afro-Latino that I really enjoy. And Cass is also biracial, since her mom is, again, of Chinese and Japanese descent and I don't know what the fuck David Cain is, and she should be portrayed as such as well.

And if DC could just remember all of this and stop portraying them as just Bruce clones physically that would be swell.

[blujayonthewing]

hand on me face sometimes I really can't believe elyss's campaign has had so many situations where some unseen entity was manipulating the party behind the scenes and/or surveilling us and judging us against some inscrutable standard and/or there was An Enemy Disguised As A Friend AND YET not only are themes like fate vs free will, agency, surveillance, and paranoia clearly not being intentionally explored, the DM gets not-explicitly but nonetheless almost tangibly annoyed when our characters attempt to engage with any of those themes in a meaningful way

[m0e-ru]

yeah no theres no favoritism at the gas station

[francesderwent]

I don’t know I just don’t think that letting go is the final form of love, any love! it’s a stage, and it’s a stage we have to pass through—there was a time when “To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go” was an earth-shattering revelation for me. but it’s penultimate, it has to be. because where does letting go leave you, but in a kind of indifference which is the very opposite of love? you let go to release the ache in your hands from grasping. but then you have to extend your hand again. even if the love doesn’t come back, even if you’ve let go of any hope of it coming back the way it was before or the way you wanted it to, you have to extend a hand to it and hope that it will meet you in the end—in the very end, where the good here unfinished is completed and we may laugh together yet. you have to let go, and then you have to hope for the fulfillment of heaven. I do not believe the “noli me tangere” is ultimate; I believe it is a period of fasting before the wedding feast.

[scionshtola]

i consider corishtola to be a sapphic ship even tho cori is not a woman but i cant bring myself to tag fic on ao3 as f/f...i'm sorry to the xiv f/f fans for not putting up the numbers 😔

[raytm]

the josuke & okuyasu transposing from friendship to romance is so subtle & it's very much first adolescent crush vibes. suddenly being aware of the fact that you're always brushing shoulders ? that your knees are touching ?? that you always took up each other's space but now it has a different undertone & you have absolutely no idea what to do about these feelings ??? it's the one day holding hands eventually ?? it's the time it takes to take that step because the friendship means so much ?? and then there's the jotaro and kakyoin where i truly believe ( killing off jobros is not allowed. ) that he spent every moment possible beside kakyoin's bed as he recovered post egypt. like the nurses are ?? mildly terrified of him at first but after a while they greet him and offer him coffee. he studies while in the hospital and maybe talks a little too indepth about marine biology to kak even though he's very much unconcious. holy comes to visit alot too and brings fresh flowers every time ! jotaro helps pick them out but he doesn't openly say that. he very much had feelings towards kakyoin that developed during the events of sdc but didn't have the capacity to express it as eloquently as he would have liked. yes, he did rehease the conversation he wanted to have with kakyoin while he was in hospital in his head 100 times.

[autoandrone]

posting rn because im sad as fuck because i think i need to break up with my boyfriend but i dont want to. but ive been realizing lately that hes insanely self centered and i havent been happy with him in over a year at this point. it really feels like he doesnt even see me as a real person if im being honest and i just cant take it anymore