skummell

[artkaninchenbau]

People keep on asking for more Baby Robin and Papadile so here is more Baby Robin and Papadile. Now never ask anything from me ever again

[pikechris]

yeah the doctor hasn't kissed a man since 2005 but they also haven't kissed anyone on screen since missy in 2014. ten actual years. do you understand the significance of this

[fablewoven]

Sometimes, I'm reminded that Yennefer was 13 in the books when she became a sorceress, and it really makes me feel bad before because like...she was a child, and already had been abused by her parents and put through the sorceress training. At the same time, Yennefer was written to semi mirror Geralt, so who better to raise Ciri than the two people who went through such traumatic childhoods, who never want to let Ciri go through similar, even though that's out of their control? I just...I just love Yen so much...

[romanticatheartt]

People always be like "we want complex female character" but you bitches can't even handle Feyre, who has different sides and just because she's a mother now, you think she's completely disable to wield a sword...

She was a fighter long before turning to fae. She killed a fae wolf, 2 nagas, trapped a suriel several times (the very suriel Rhys tried to trapped and failed), killed an ancient wyrm and broke a 49 years curse all the while being a human. She has all the seven High Lords power and managed to kill many of Hybren soldier just to save Rhysand. She's mated to the most powerful High Lord and we all know 'like calls to like'. She went to the Summer Court and fight side by side with The Morrigan and never backed down.

But sure... she can't wield a sword now.

[wishesofeternity]

The thing about HotD is that it while it absolutely minimizes the agency and ambition of both Rhaenyra and Alicent, this is specifically used to glorify Rhaenyra and frame her as righteous while condemning Alicent and framing her lacking. That's the key difference in both their textual portrayals that has directly led to 90% of the fandom hailing Rhaenyra as the second coming of Christ while spewing the most hateful vitriol at Alicent just for existing. But y'all are not prepared for that conversation.

[eats-a-berry]

ngl its wild seeing people say toshiro's reaction to chimera falin was because she was not longer "palatable" to him like yeah i would be freaking the fuck out if my former party members' attempt to save someone important to us turned her into a murderous chimera on a rampage who just killed all of our party members in front of us and only barely had any traces of herself left in her. i WOULD want to, y'know, let her rest instead of attempting to defy death by further mangling her beyond comprehension because these people have shown they have no idea what they're doing and have apparently caused a fate worse than death for her. it's pretty much just the flip side of the coin and "letting falin go" is, in fact, a lesson the crew has to learn by the end

i don't think faligon is falin's "true nature", i think it's an extreme end consequence of her issues: one where she has little free will, is on complete autopilot, and is controlled by another person.

[statementlou]

Tbh i am not surprised that a person who openly talked about having drinking problems since 1d days, because of how crazy 1d worked has been agressive. What surprises me is people being surprised (they never seriously saw drunk person?). But i am also confused about this whole book. Apparently Maya said that that book is not fully bout Liam but compilation about her exes and some of the worst parts are not about him. But recently she said that the book is “ofc about him” so what is true then? Or did she meant it that ofc some parts are about him or that whole book is about him?

Sorry, just confused

I also am not surprised- we've learned so much more about the real stories of things and about the guys' actual lives over the last years, and the story that has unfolded around Liam has been totally consistent throughout if you've been following it, and so the information Maya is telling us is shocking and upsetting but not difficult to believe. I got an anon yesterday saying they were worried about getting similar revelations about the other boys, like "if Liam could be doing this we just don't know, any of them could", and while in a way that's always true I guess, anyone could be doing anything in private like... that doesn't really concern me. Because none of these Liam revelations are coming out of nowhere, there have been many MANY steps along the way leading us here if you've been watching, and he has talked openly about both his mental health struggles and his addiction issues. So to answer that anon... to find out something similar about Louis would in contrast contradict everything we know about him and no I'm not worried about it. Is he probably very irritating, absolutely, but an abuser or a loose cannon, well that news would shock me. But anyway as for the book I don't find it strange that she was nervous when it came out and treading lightly and later decided, fuck it. In the absolutely on point tiktok she dropped today (YES👏GIRL👏FUCKING TELL THEM👏) she even mentions attempts to keep her from publishing the book, presumably by Liam's team, that I am riveted by and cannot WAIT to hear more details about actually- like I said I don't find it at all strange that she was nervous and downplayed it a bit then. But if she says now that it's just about Liam, well, I would say it's been clear from the beginning that the book is their story. Maya herself brought up the parallel of songs being written about stuff and I think it's the same thing; it's true (she was in an abusive relationship that involved certain kinds of events) but maybe not 100% literal (I'm sure details were changed to make the story work, it's not like a word for word timeline of their interactions or whatever).

[happyk44]

Jason who immediately loses respect for people who don't own up to their mistakes vs Annabeth who would rather die than admit she made a mistake

[boopiyu]

WoL question!

Are there parts of the game's story that your WoL didn't understand? Aetherology, time travel, clones? Politics? Other characters' motivations? Have they come to understand any of it better in retrospect?

[jjsanguine]

It's reasonable that the general public might be pissed off that Judge Kang is weirdly lenient but has noone other than Da On noticed that all the people she apparently gives just a slap on the wrist to get tortured and brutally murdered, a much harsher punishment that what is legally permissible

[starry-bi-sky]

Stillborn? No, still born au -- Dani Phantom! Clone girl herself. :]

She can't exist in this au. And it's not that I don't want to add her -- although I'll be blunt, I don't, I'll be the first to admit that I think she's more often than not nothing more than a narrative deadweight used to prop up Danny and I don't like adding characters as props -- but her existence quite literally goes against and muddies the Vlad and Danny dynamic I have for this au. Ellie's existence in canon itself states that she was created -- and Danny's other clones too -- because Vlad gave up on trying to convert him to his side and decided to just make a son instead.

Something that just, doesn't happen in the stillborn-still born au. See, for folks who are only just hearing about this au or didn't see my post about Vlad in this au, he and Danny have a complicated love-hate relationship where they mutually want to adopt each other, but their morals and way of doing things -- mainly Vlad's insistence on getting revenge against the Fentons -- gets in the way of them being able to do that in full.

Vlad knows Danny wants him to adopt him, and is only fighting him on it because he refuses to let Vlad kill the Fentons for essentially killing the both of them. He's succeed in 50% of his goal. Canon Vlad never even made it to 1%. With that in mind, stillborn Vlad has no reason and sees no reason to clone Danny, he has his son. He just needs to convince him to let him avenge them both.

Dani simply has no place in the stillborn-still born au. And in fact, if Vlad did decide to clone Danny -- for whatever reason, -- it would damage his relationship with Danny damn near beyond repair. That's because Danny would view it the same way he views Damian's existence; as a replacement for himself. He would become beyond furious and hurt, and not for the typical 'I can't believe you cloned me, you creep!' reason, but for a 'I can't believe you cloned me, you said I was your son!' reason.

I am not pulling any punches here when I say Danny wants Vlad to be his dad just as much as Vlad wants Danny to be his son, there's just a lot of factors getting in the way. They are, as the french say, ✨mentally unwell.✨ Danny has a ton of abandonment and trust issues due to his experiences in foster care. He would immediately become jealous, insecure, and incredibly furious and hurt. He'd despise her on principal and want nothing to do with her, or Vlad for that matter. He'd just fucking haaate her. It's not her fault she was made but Danny doesn't really care, he's lashing out and pushing people away because he's been betrayed yet again.

The only way they could get along or for Danny to actually like her in any capacity would be if it was his idea to clone himself. Which is like, kinda obvious but considering most clone plots tend to be non-consensual it's kinda gotta be said. He has to have a hand in creating her, that's the only way I can see him liking her in any way. Or if someone other than Vlad created her. If Vlad clones him though, all bets are off the table and he'll despise her.

TL;DR: Dani can't exist in this au because she goes against the narrative I've got for the two most fucked up half-dead could-be-father-son duo in existence, but if she did exist Danny would despise her.

[samanthamulder]

THE X-FILES (1993-2018)

SEASON FOUR — The truth will save you, Scully. I think it'll save both of us.

[hephaestuscrew]

One of the many Wolf 359 script directions that is Important To Me is this bit from Ep15 What's Up, Doc?, which comes after Hilbert has been threatening to tell Minkowski how Eiffel ended up on the Hephaestus:

[sincerely-sofie]

*Skitters up to you on all fours and drops this in your lap, then scrambles up the walls and onto the ceiling and immediately falls asleep*

Comic time! Lucky wakes up in the middle of the night and has a chat with Sen in this one.

[rxttenfish]

merfolk in general are just. horrible horrible polyglots. their brains are already hardwired for language and quick language acquisition that remains active all their lives, further helped by retaining a high neural plasticity for their long lives, and especially enjoy complex language and language-based play and problem solving. but they also tend to have a lot of their society arranged where there's often multiple different languages at play within the same area, and only really stops being so once you get into especially small villages that have below the merfolk norm for outside contact. every merfolk alive today knows at least two languages, but most of them know far more than that, especially because one of those two will be the common-technical language. its been standardized and wide-scale implemented across the merkingdom after their dominance, to help bridge the gap between these different languages, basically as a successful version of esperanto. but its a trade language, and is mostly used for information you might want to reach as many people as possible, such as laws or business dealings or public announcements or the like. most merfolk don't view it as and don't treat it as a language proper, and its not what they prefer to converse in if they have another choice, usually finding it pretty limiting and restrictive, which is why its called common-technical.

miranda, being a royal who is regularly in contact with many different people around the merkingdom and regularly expected to be fully able to converse with them to do her job, knows just. so many languages. i might be changing exactly how many soon, but last time i counted it was in the low teens. like its just a perfect storm of her brain being wired for swift language acquisition and having a job that requires it and a position that means shes constantly around people from all around the merkingdom. not to mention having to know english too, which isn't just not her first language, it's not even her fourth language.

meanwhile, aaravi knows english and a little bit of hindi, less because of her mother and moreso because of her nana... its not that her mother never used it with her, but she was. less focused on using it or teaching aaravi, let's say. nana mishra uses it a lot more and is more interested in teaching aaravi when she asks her, especially in the intermittent period after her mom died and nana mishra was able to come back into her life to help aaravi pick up the pieces (though not after aaravi kind of. got left on her own. for an unfortunate amount of time). its just also fallen by the wayside with aaravi's whole Everything Else and kind of having a hard time accepting her nana's help and kind of being terrified of her (of no fault of her nana's, aaravi's just. she's just really traumatized after Everything, alright. having someone try to offer her help afterwards, especially when aaravi's scared of getting singled out as half human and half monster, is just. it's not something she can bring herself to trust.)

[mswyrr]

This moment shapes how I interpret where they will go in season 3. In the book, Rhaenyra relies increasingly on Mysaria as her advisor as the war continues. Including during some of the darkest chapters of her reign. I can see the seeds of that here - Rhaenyra committing to a path of taking and holding power by any means necessary and Mysaria supporting her in that, believing that it is justified by the kind of queen Rhaenyra will be (and their apparently now shared belief that the gods have chosen Rhaenyra - very significant that they're on the same page religiously in that, or that Mysaria is choosing to say that she shares that view. With Dae/mon's visions and commitment to Rhaenyra as the ruling queen, that makes three people on this "team" who are all in on mystical fanaticism).

I think it's important that, despite Rhaenyra and Dae/mon's reunion in a prior scene, it is Mysaria who Rhaenyra shares her doubts and moral discomfort with. It is her opinion alone that has that weight. This is due, I believe, both to Mysaria's own history as a low born woman who has suffered due to that, her advocacy for the smallfolk, her support and loyal validation of Rhaenyra, and the long-term fractures of trust in his judgment Rhaenyra had with D/aemon over young Jaehaerys' murder and their prior disagreements over who will "rule" in that relationship.

Rhaenyra is Rhaenyra - she has always craved love and will not deny herself any connection that sustains and comforts her. But I think that, going forward, the "lady wife" role Mysaria can play to her [a role that, as I've argued before in this meta, Rhaenyra seems to crave in her life and has since her youthful bond with Alicent] will be vital to shoring her up, intellectually and emotionally, and that Mysaria's strategic thinking will be important to her as well.

Their bond will be an essential one for Rhaenyra going forward, imo, based on s2 and the book info. I hope the studio is brave enough to let the queerness of that bond be clear as the story continues.