#so not really a watsonian explanation SO FAR

[mossmx]

(writing here bc reddit thread is archived and I need to write to elaborate my own thoughs)

I am at episode 8 「Echo」 of 16bit Sensation: Another Layer.

The "sparkly eyes" moments confused me and I went to reddit (always bless). This post really brought it into focus to me!

When E.Two sees Mamoru coming to find her and she has the "realization moment" I was mistaking it for her realizing *her own* feelings.

This helped me reframe that she realized that Mamoru cared and that *his feelings* where what made imagination work.

The following scene is a bit more confusing because she puts on an outfit Mamoru had given a high rating to (possibly to cheer him up?) and he, being very tired, gives it a zero.

The low score makes E.Two "break" (black eye moment) which I assume it means she was not happy of that, and she seems confused (probably didn't understand at first why the different score and why it made her feel different) and then the "eureka" moment because at that moment she herself realized what *caring* was.

In parallel, E.One journey was much more simple and straightforward to me because he was able to make a game that had energy (which imo equates passion) because he pondered "what would Mamoru find interesting".

In OP's framework, *caring* about the result was what made the game finally have the spark E.One was looking for.

I don't know if the rest of the anime will follow the phylosophycal route of this one, but it would be interesting to see what more conclusions or interactions the Echoes would have and if it confirms our reading.

[tsaomengde]

The Villeneuve Dune(s) can be broadly interpreted as one of the two possible futures Paul sees in the original novel

Spoilers below for Dune Part Two. (And for the original novel, but that's been out since the 60s.)

He had seen two main branchings along the way ahead--in one he confronted an evil old Baron and said: "Hello, Grandfather." The thought of that path and what lay along it sickened him.

The other path held long patches of grey obscurity except for peaks of violence. He had seen a warrior religion there, a fire spreading across the universe with the Atreides green and black banner waving at the head of fanatic legions drunk on spice liquor. Gurney Halleck and a few others of his father's men--a pitiful few--were among them, all marked by the hawk symbol from the shrine of his father's skull.

"I can't go that way," he muttered. "That's what the old witches of your schools really want."

Obviously the Doylist explanation for why there are differences in the new films is that the original book is 60+ years old and has certain elements no longer in cultural vogue that were adapted out or altered to better fit modern sensibilities, and I'm all for that. But I did find it interesting that there is an explicit moment at the end of Part 2 where Paul confronts the Baron, utters the "Hello, Grandfather," line, and kills him.

This isn't necessarily because there is any one choice that Paul makes throughout the course of the two movies that leads here instead of to the jihad. In point of fact, most of the changes that drive him here are caused by choices made in the adaptations of the films.

The causal chain that leads to Paul undertaking the spice agony is his failure to predict the attack on Sietch Tabr, rather than his failure to predict Gurney's attack on Jessica; this is, of course, necessitated by the omission of the Harkonnen scheme in part 1 to impair Thufir's Mentat efficiency and potentially drive a wedge between Leto and Jessica by framing Jessica as the traitor. The final push that causes him to make the decision is, of course, the vision he experiences of an alternate future in which he didn't have to kill Jamis, with Jamis counseling him to climb as high as possible before the hunt so he can see as far as possible. (In other words, he ignores Stilgar's advice of not listening to the djinn.)

Similarly, his killing of the Baron is necessitated by the adaptational choice to keep Alia as a fetus so the audience doesn't have to deal with a two-year-old talking like an adult and killing the Baron, which they probably did because it would have been distracting.

However, I might argue that a Watsonian explanation for the film omitting the two-year time-jump lies specifically with Paul's decision to explicitly disavow the prophecy when Jessica undergoes the spice agony, and to explain to the Fremen that her survival is because of her Bene Gesserit training. He then attempts to secure his position with the Fremen through secular deeds, rather than letting Jessica carve a place for them with the BG prophesy.

This disagreement between the two of them causes her in turn to take a more active approach in cultivating Paul's status as Lisan al-Gaib, which accelerates the timeline of the Fremen being ready to submit to him. In turn, Paul focusing more strongly on guerrilla war against the Harkonnens accelerates the timeline of Feyd-Rautha being put in charge of Arrakis and cracking down hard in the north, leading to the aforementioned crisis point of Sietch Tabr being attacked without Paul's foreknowledge.

Notably, while we do see the shrine of Leto's skull in the film, we only see it in a vision; there is no moment in the movie where Paul explicitly finds his father's remains and enshrines them. Hence, going from a strict interpretation of the film's "text," this is not the future in which the legions are marked by the shrine, because the shrine doesn't exist. It is the other future. The compression of time means that Paul and Chani's relationship is much newer and more fragile and doesn't survive the strain of his apotheosis, and that's what sickens him most.

Of course, the "Hello, Grandfather" path also leads to the jihad, because Paul's tragedy is that his very existence was always going to lead to it, regardless of what he chose to do.

And Paul saw how futile were any efforts of his to change any smallest bit of this. He had thought to oppose the jihad within himself, but the jihad would be. His legions would rage out from Arrakis even without him. They needed only the legend he already had become. He had shown them the way, given them mastery even over the Guild which must have the spice to exist.

Obviously none of this passes explicit, close scrutiny, and is more of a fun "if you squint and look at it a certain way it kind of makes sense." I expect that the line was put in as a nod to the original book, no more or less, but making up head-canons like this is fun for me and if even one other person finds it edifying then I consider sharing it time well spent!

[immediatebreakfast]

Welp people, happy fucking day to the recently deceased Mrs. Westenra, who did this shit:

the whole estate, real and personal, was left absolutely to Arthur Holmwood. When he had told us so much he went on:— "Frankly we did our best to prevent such a testamentary disposition, and pointed out certain contingencies that might leave her daughter either penniless or not so free as she should be to act regarding a matrimonial alliance. Indeed, we pressed the matter so far that we almost came into collision, for she asked us if we were or were not prepared to carry out her wishes. 

And left Lucy technically homeless, and without a single penny to her name. I still try to wrap my head around the watsonian explanation for this move (because the doylist explanation lays on Van Helsing getting an easy access to Lucy's personal papers in a non suspicious manner while also not leaving any kind of loose plot threads) because good lord, this old woman really trapped Lucy with the suitor she chose.

Mrs. Westenra really put Lucy in the position of either marrying Arthur even if she had changed her mind, or living in the streets without anything to her name.

Thanks all the stars that Arthur is one of the best loving men in all of London because this legal situation; that was heavily discouraged by the solicitors, may as well be the perfect set up for an abusive relationship if Lucy had survived, and if this was another kind of Gothic novel.

The underlying infantilization of Lucy by her mother, and how she chose to plan the will reveals how this woman never thought of her daughter as a young lady ready for marriage, but as a child passing from one caretaker to another. If so, why not leave anything to Lucy? Mrs. Westenra may be moved more as a plot device than a character through the course of the novel, but her character is very consistent in how she treated Lucy, and how Lucy answered to her ubtil they died.

[suzannahnatters]

I'm so obsessed with how SOFT Adar is to Galadriel, not just in ep6, but in 4 and 5 too. Like, when she captured him for interrogation, she tied him up, held a knife to his throat, threatened his children, and vowed to kill him. When he captured her for interrogation? He addressed her in Quenya by the name her husband gave her. He kept her safe from his men. He offered her roast rabbit and fresh berries. He promised her an alliance. When he DID chain her up, we even got some PRIDE AND PREJUDICE hand flex level tenderness. Adar didn't have to do any of that. He's an Uruk, for heaven's sake. He could have tortured her into giving him what he wanted.

Instead he chose to be soft. Why? Well, the Doylist explanation is that the writers of this show fully understand their assignment, to be kind and merciful and respectiful to their characters: if Adar is to get what he wants, it must be softly, not harshly. Bad things happen in the Tolkienverse, but we don't get dragged through it in explicit detail.

But the only Watsonian explanation my brain will tolerate right now is that he misses the flowers of Beleriand because he first met this woman dancing among them, and when they first joined hands they fell out of time while the stars counted out the centuries above them. And he's not that person anymore. He doesn't WANT to be that person anymore. He's chosen his new life and his new children and his new enemies.

But he still knows her better than anyone else ever could. More than ever now that Sauron has wormed his way into both their minds. And he can't resist the victory of showing her how much more alike they are than she's willing to accept.

A friend says that "there's tension, but it's not romantic tension". I agree that this doesn't HAVE to be romantic tension - but it is precisely what you would see if you WERE creating romantic tension. Because the fun of every enemies to lovers situation is this precise thing: a person who has every reason to want to hurt you instead chooses to show you tenderness, and that tenderness results in a trust far deeper than any hostility.

I don't know where this is going. After all, the tenderness in ep5 doesn't result in greater trust - it results in a betrayal, as Adar shows that his primary motivation was not an alliance, but information. Maybe he really did just want to show the elf that he was also a person, and not just a monster, and that's all there is to it. OR MAYBE HE'S REALLY CELEBORN. Because this Softness (TM) is exactly how I would be writing this season if he was.

I cannot WAIT to see where this is going.

[creative-clawmarks]

Longass Vampire AU Loredump

I feel I should preface this with the most important fact of this AU: supernatural beings are not actually a part of this world.

What I mean by this is there is no secret society of vampires, there is no chapter in the medical books on lycanthropy, and ghost hunters still have not found conclusive evidence. As far as you or I or anyone else knows the cast of MH are the only things like them in existence.

Because the Operator did this to them.

It's a parasite, and its strategy is to make people into predators then mop up the trail of bodies they leave behind.

As for why their monstrosity takes the specific forms it does? The Watsonian Explanation is that we will never really know, such things are beyond people's understanding. The Doyalist Explanation is that I have taken the character's metaphorical roles and made them literal to give myself an excuse to draw sharp teeth.

With that out of the way, here's what these freaks are actually capable of:

Alex (Vampire):

Standard package of fast healing, unnatural speed, and unbeating heart. Probably immortal but I guess now we'll never know.

Drinks blood, of course. But I like my vamps fucked up so there's a good dose of gory cannibalism for flavor.

He won't combust in the sun or anything, but his skin is especially sensitive to heat and his eyes are especially sensitive to light.

Heightened senses, especially hearing. He could hunt someone down with his eyes closed just by tracking their heartbeat.

Venomous, specifically paralytic toxins. Once he's bitten you there's no running away, you're basically screwed.

Fangs and claws are retractable. I also gave him a forked tongue because he's like a terrarium snake to me :)

"Once more I have seen the director go out in his lizard fashion."

He can purr. Because I know what the people want.

Tim (Werewolf):

Standard package of fast healing, unnatural strength, and canine features. Would rather not think about whether or not he's immortal.

Does not hunger for human flesh. If given the opportunity he might maul a deer tho.

Burned by the touch of silver. He also personally thinks wolfsbane is gross but that's unrelated.

When in human form he's mostly that, human. Sure his senses are sharper and he can grow out his teeth and claws a little bit but otherwise he's normal.

When in wolf form, on the other hand, he is DANGEROUS. I'm talking bite through steel tear you in half only thing that can stop him is a silver bullet dangerous.

The wolf form is analogous to Masky in this AU, as in he turns against his will whenever he's threatened or misses a dose and he won't remember much whenever he eventually turns back.

The only time he can change under his own power with his mind intact is during the full moon. He looks forward to it every month because without the threat of loosing control being a wolf is rad actually.

If you scratch him under the chin he goes boneless. Doesn't matter what form he's in.

Brian (Ghost):

Standard package of walk through walls, disappear, and fly. I don't think the term immortal applies to this situation tho...

You know the excuse that ghost don't just physically manifest cuz they don't have enough energy for it? Yeah he's so incandescently pissed that he's tangible more often than not.

Its actually kind of the opposite conundrum where he has to focus and calm down to actually use his ghostly abilities.

Salt circles will totally work on him, but good luck catching him first lol.

Even if you can't see him you can still sort of feel his presence, the room will get colder and the shadows will get deeper.

If you catch him on a bad day he can pull some Poltergeist TM level shenanigans.

Can't really communicate like he used to, his mind is too broken and detached from what it once was. That's why all the ToTheArk videos look like that.

If you were to put a spirit box in the room with him all you would hear coming out of it is his death screams on loop.

Jay (Mortal):

He's just a guy lol, poor bastard doesn't stand a chance.

Why yes, he has read Twilight. Why do you ask?

[schafpudel]

What Kind of Duck, is Duck?

OK. So first, let's get this out of the way:

Duck is not real. Duck is, first and foremost, the vague idea of a duck. Duck... is not strongly based on the reality of ducks as an animal.

She is extremely stylized, a blobby little chibi-mascot in a world of anime humans and realistically rendered animals and animal-people. She has contradictory traits - the yellow coloration of a duckling, on the functional flight feathers of a bird that's entered its adult plumage. Her thoughts and actions are noticeably less bestial than those of Mr. Cat or any of the talking-animal students, not beholden to instincts.

When asking what kind of duck our friend Duck is, we must first admit to ourselves that this is a silly question. Ducks like Duck do not exist. She has little candy-cane legs, for god's sake. God bless her.

(If we want to get real meta, perhaps we could speculate that she isn't a real duck because she is a story-duck: escaped from her narrative like the prince and the raven, and the wilis maiden, and the ghost knight, oblivious to her origins. It would, if nothing else, provide a fun watsonian explanation for some of her oddities.)

But fandom is all about getting fucking silly with it, and building elaborate though exercises about shit the creators didn't think about. And I'm an animal nerd. So this is how I choose to have fun. Let's go.

Analysis of the Birb

Duck can be safely assumed to be a Anas platyrhynchos domesticus, or domestic mallard, as this is the typical barnyard duck throughout Asia, Europe, and... really almost the entire world. I say she must be a domestic mallard, and not wild, for one simple reason:

On the left is the typical appearance wild mallard duckling. On the right are various domesticated ducklings. That's right; the solid yellow color we associate with baby ducks? Specific to domesticated ones! Solid yellow is a sign a duckling will grow up to be a white duck; ducklings that grow up to be other colors have darker fluff mixed in.

(That's right. She'll have white plumage like a swan...)

Many white ducks have orange bills, legs, and feet; other white ducks, especially as ducklings, have orange legs and pink bills. Duck's bill is far more pinkish than her feet, but it's still noticeably orange-y, putting her in sort of a middle area. (By the way, have you ever noticed that Duck's hair color as a girl is the same as her bill color as a duck?)

If she's intended to be anything in particular (which I doubt she is), it might be the German Peking - native to the area, and the creamy-yellow tinged adult plumage of the German Peking compared to other white ducks seems to be reflected by the tint of the duck-feather quill Autor provides as a substitute for Drosselmeyer's swan-feather quill.

However, let me provide my personal baseless headcanon.

Come and see the humble Call Duck

The Call Duck is a Dutch breed, speculated to be descended from a variety of duck imported to the Netherlands from Japan. Call ducks are a smaller-than-average breed, with a note-worthily "cute" appearance compared to other ducks, even as adults: large forehead, round cheeks, short bill. They're also noteworthy for being sociable and friendly with their human keepers, making them great pets compared to other ducks... as well as very, very noisy and talkative.

(Nobody's perfect.)

There's also a certain... symbolism, I think, to the Call as a breed.

Call ducks are friendly and talkative because they were bred not for eggs, or for meat, but for hunting. Not that they themselves hunted! But their innocent, friendly talkativeness, their cheerful noisy voices, were shaped as a siren song to lure wild ducks into funnel traps. Unwittingly bringing the demise of its own kind, the Call duck's sweetness is exploited by hunters to draws other ducks to their doom.

Duck is kind, and sweet, and wants to be friends with people, and wants to help them. She saw the Prince on the lake, like a wild swan, and wanted to help him in any way she could.

In Drosselmeyer's eyes, this made her the perfect person to become Princess Tutu, to set the story back in motion... and through that friendly kindness, send every "character "in the Story to their doom.

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Expectation

Your Sanders Sides fics have meant so much to me. I really love the h/c AND ALSO the goofy little ones like the being stuck in a (not) broken elevator. I saw a prompt which was that that Strictest Interpretations of the canon sides meet the fanon versions of themselves, which honestly could go either way (angsty self-reflection or they all have a snowball fight in the imagination). I would honestly love to see your take on it! Thank you for considering and I hope you have a good day/night/whatever time it is where you are :D – anon

Read on Ao3

Pairings: none

Warnings: none

Word Count: 1331

We all know that the canon and fanon differ; from the wild AUs to the canon-compliant, there are variations. What happens when some of these versions come face to face?

 

"Oh, so you're what the fans think I am!" Patton tilts his head to the side. "Your glasses are different!"

The other version of him giggles and fiddles with the glasses. They're almost cartoonishly big, round frames that make him look even more like an anime character. "Yep! I think it's to differentiate us from Logan—you know, 'cause he's more the serious, square-glasses type and we're the fun-loving dad Side."

"That makes sense!"

"This is so interesting!" The other him claps his hands excitedly. "There are so many things I want to talk about with you!"

"Really? Like what?"

"Well, how much we love our kiddos, to start with!"

"That's an excellent thing to talk about, 'cause you know, you don't wanna smother them—"

"—but they're so cute, they might as well be bagels looking for that Crofters jam in the morning!"

"Oh! Good one!"

"Thanks!"

The two of them laugh as Patton waves him over to the couch. "I gotta say, it's so nice to talk to someone who's obviously on the same page as I am. It's been—whoo! It's been a little stressful recently, but this? This is nice."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear it's been stressful, kiddo! Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Aw!" Patton holds a hand to his chest. "Aren't you just the nicest?"

"Hey, right back atcha, pal!"

2.

Logan squints at the person in front of him, who bears up to his scrutiny remarkably well. They have a very similar disposition to him, except of course for the difference in glasses shape and the, well, the quite badly concealed amusement at his situation.

"To separate us from Patton," the duplicate explains wryly, adjusting the frames.

"I see." He crosses his arms. "Are there any other meaningful differences I should be aware of?"

"Unknown at this point."

"Are you aware of what the purpose of this—" he waves his hand— "exercise is?"

"The Doylist explanation is something along the lines of improving Thomas's metacognition, if I had to guess. It can be a useful course of action for any creative to see how their audience is reacting to their material and how it differs from their intended results."

"I see. And the Watsonian?"

"Perhaps something along the lines of a self-reflection day."

Logan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, looking up in surprise when the duplicate chuckles. "What?"

"Self-reflection doesn't have to be scary," he says in a far gentler voice than Logan expected.

"I know that!" The duplicate gives him a knowing look, which is still too soft to be all together familiar, and it makes him hunch his shoulders. "What?"

"You don't have to lie to me, Logan. I'm hardly going to tell anyone else what happens here if you don't want me to."

"…you won't?"

"No. You have my word. Now," and he gestures to the desk nearby, "what is it you would like to talk about?"

Logan glances at him, at the desk, and slowly moves towards it. Perhaps…perhaps he shouldn't waste such an opportunity.

3.

"Oh, this is marvelous," Janus groans, stretching across the pillows underneath the heat lamp the Other him has in the corner of his room—something he wasn't going to be investigating the moment this was over.

The Other him chuckles. "Tell me about it. I wasn't surprised when you said you didn't have one."

Janus muffles a snort at the memory of the affronted expression the Other him had made when he'd seemed confused as to why they couldn't go lounge under his heat lamp for this conversation. "Well, unlike our beloved fans, Thomas hasn't spent the time creating all of our rooms for them to see, so it makes sense they've taken certain liberties with them."

"I see."

He frowns at the slight melancholy he can hear in his own voice—not a bizarre experience at all—and turns his head to see his own face staring off into the distance. He nudges him. "There's certainly a reason for you making us look so upset right now."

Other him gives himself a shake. "Sorry. I was…lost in thought."

"I can see that."

"I was thinking about our introduction," Other him says, far too soft and sweet for this moment, which sends a prickle down Janus's spine, "and how it…well."

"'Well,' what?"

Other him turns, the snake side of his face glistening in the light of the heat lamp in a way that doesn't make some of the scales look suspiciously wet. "How it could've gone better."

Janus scoffs, closing his eyes and luxuriating under the heat. "Speak for yourself, then. I'm not sure how the fans think everything went, but it's all worked out pretty well in the end, hasn't it?"

A pause, just a moment too long. "You don't regret anything, then?"

"What would there be to regret?"

"Perhaps how some of our dear friends were treated? How hurt Thomas became by the end of everything?"

"Do the fans really believe I'm this sappy?" He shakes his head. "They're all bigger fools than I imagined."

Another pause, long enough for him to drift into a sort of daze under the pleasant light of the heat lamp, but not long enough for him not to notice the way Other him shifts subtly away from him.

It doesn't sting, not even a little bit.

4.

Virgil stares at his clone. The clone stares back.

"This is weird."

"Yep."

"I don't like you."

"That's fine."

"Wanna sit in the same room on our phones and not acknowledge each other at all?'

"Works for me."

5.

"Kinky." Remus squirms in the arms of the giant Kraken—a little cliche, sure, but cliches are cliche for a reason and this beast is incredible— "are you going to hold me prisoner now? Take over my role as the One True Remus?"

"No." The fanon him sits down on the Kraken's head with an—ugh, serious expression. "We're gonna talk about how we treat our brother."

"Oh, for the love of Lucifer, I only beat him over the head once in canon! Why're you so upset?"

"Because you've not been sticking up for him? At all? When you know how easy it is for him to get hurt!"

"That's Roman's job in most of those stories anyway, he's there to get all huffy and bruised, like any Ego—" the arm squeezes him tightly— "ooh, harder!"

"That shit won't deter me and you know it."

He pouts. "It was worth a shot. Works a treat with the troublesome teacher."

"Logan would be far more receptive to an actual contract than just innuendo, but we can talk about that next. But let's start with the fact that you're still too insecure about your place in the canon to do anything other than harass everyone else."

"What? No, I'm not!"

"I might not be Janny but it's not a good idea to lie to me."

"Ooh, why not?" To which he promptly gets dunked under water and cleaned off. "Hey! Stop that!"

"Are you ready to listen to me now?"

+1.

Roman stares at the fan's idea of him. He stares back, before a slow and sad smile comes to his face and he opens his arms.

He barrels forward and collapses, sobbing into his arms.

"Shh, shh," he hears distantly, "it's alright. You're safe now. It's okay. I'm right here."

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[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

So I know you think Tom didn’t kill his dad, does that mean you believe he never met him? If so, why do you think Tom didn’t go to confront his father that night?

The time @therealvinelle and I said that Tom didn't kill his dad.

You Can Think Whatever You Like

Most people think Tom killed his parents, it's the accepted explanation by far in canon. I don't happen to as detailed in an hour long podcast episode, but that's just me and @therealvinelle.

Also worth noting is that this is a Watsonian blog, not a Doyalist blog. What that means is, given what we see exactly in the text, I try to figure out what happened even if it's not the authorial intent.

Given what we saw, it's unlikely Tom killed his father (far more likely it's Morfin). I don't know his motivations for doing one thing or another, that's not something I can really infer when we know so little about him.

Do I Think He Never Met Him?

Possible he did, if we take Frank at his word, he does see a dark-haired man go up to the house.

We don't really know though and I'm inclined to think probably not given that no one cites the strange boy who looks like Riddle walking across town to get to Riddle Manor from the Gaunt shack.

Instead, Frank is the only witness to anything and only when he's right at the house, and his description of what may or may not have been Tom is... strange and suspect.

But Alright, Why Wouldn't Tom Meet His Dad (And Therefore Kill Him)?

Trains.

While it's possible laws and such have changed, in HP canon, Harry only learns Apparition in sixth year. Further, we know the age of majority/allowed magical use stays the same as Dumbledore cites this when Harry asks how Tom did the magic to murder his family while he was under the age of seventeen.

It's possible Tom had been taught Apparition or else learned it on his own, but he had no way of knowing it wasn't tracked by the Ministry not to mention it's highly dangerous if unpracticed and Tom would likely be wary of trying it.

We also know Tom still would have had to have taken some form of transportation to get to Little Hangleton, since you can't Apparate to a place you've never been.

It's possible Tom took the Knight Bus, except that Dumbledore did an intense investigation into what had happened and didn't cite a Knight Bus dropping someone off or picking them up in Little Hangleton or any nearby area for that matter.

Most likely, Tom took the train.

Now, we don't know where Tom lived during this time period. It's possible he stayed in London during the war (not being evacuated with the other children because he was off in school) but it's also possible that Mrs. Cole came through and Tom managed to get relocated somewhere during the summers.

Regardless, wherever Tom's at, he's probably going to have to take a decent train ride to get there and a decent train ride to get back. That train's going to run on a strict schedule and if Tom misses that last train then he is thoroughly fucked.

Now, Tom arrives in Little Hangleton and it's extremely doubtful he had any idea where he was supposed to go. The Gaunts live in a very out of the way little shack that Tom would not simply stumble across. It probably took him some time to find Morfin. Tom also probably didn't realize until he met Morfin that his father was even in this village/even in the area, as it's unlikely people would say to him "oh yes, that big manor up there is Riddle Manor where they all look just like you" without prompting.

What I'm getting at is Tom probably eats up much of his "in Little Hangleton time" just finding and dealing with Morfin.

It's not inconceivable to me that he felt he had too little time afterwards to meet with his father, not to mention he'd just be showing up at the doorstep "hello father, remember me!", and this is a very rich Muggle family and it would be a seriously weird meeting that would take time.

After Morfin, and after stealing his ring, I can see Tom just not having enough time and not really having the emotional capacity to deal with his father on top of dealing with Morfin. He's got to get that train back.

[cantsayidont]

While this ranks relatively low on my overall list of complaints about STAR TREK: DISCOVERY and STRANGE NEW WORLDS, something I find annoying about them is that they've really built up the size and strength of Starfleet to something closer to what it is in STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, which contradicts TOS in ways that have far-reaching story effects.

TOS repeatedly indicates that in that period Starfleet has only a handful of ships in the Enterprise's class, presumably because they're resource-intensive to build and operate. As Kirk and John Christopher discuss in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday":

CHRISTOPHER: Must have taken quite a lot to build a ship like this. KIRK: There are only twelve like it in the fleet.

That plainly doesn't mean that Starfleet has no other ships, but ships of what TOS describes as the "Starship" class ("Constitution-class" is a later coinage) are uniquely capable. As Merik, former commander of the SS Beagle, explains in "Bread and Circuses":

MERIK: He commands not just a spaceship, Proconsul, but a starship. A very special vessel and crew. I tried for such a command.

This special status is a central part of the premise of TOS: It's the reason why the Enterprise is assigned such a diverse array of duties, and why what the Enterprise does is so important to the plot. Even into the TOS cast movie era, we're frequently told that the Enterprise is the only ship in the sector capable of responding to a problem or threat, and the crew is rarely in a position to call for reinforcements even where that would be tactically or strategically advisable.

While that makes duty on one of these ships very risky (as evidenced by the number of the Enterprise's sister ships that are lost with all hands in TOS, including Constellation, Defiant, and Exeter), as Merik's remark indicates, it's also a plum assignment, and one for which there's obviously fierce competition. The TOS bible makes much of the fact that Kirk is the youngest person ever to command one of these starships, and he also appears to be one of the lowest-ranking. (Many of the other starship captains we see are fleet captains or commodores, as well as being older than Kirk.) This comes into play at a variety of points: For instance, it's at the root of Ben Finney's animosity toward Kirk in "Court Martial" (and presumably why Kirk's peers are quick to give him the cold shoulder when he's charged with negligence in Finney's apparent death), and it's part of the tension in "The Doomsday Machine," where Kirk and Spock have to maneuver around the fact that Matt Decker outranks Kirk and is clearly the senior officer.

The limited number of starships also provides a useful Watsonian explanation for the dichotomy of a capital warship (which the Enterprise unequivocally is) being used for scientific research and exploration missions. Although TOS is reluctant to say much about civilian life within the Federation, we can probably assume that such costly starships are the subject of a lot of political wrangling, and the different roles the Enterprise plays probably reflect those tensions: The Enterprise's scientific duties may be a concession to those who (like David Marcus in STAR TREK II) are wary of Starfleet's military role, and perhaps an effort to extract a greater civilian return on the Federation's obviously substantial military investment. It might also be a diplomatic ploy, or an attempt to maneuver around arms control treaties with rival powers like the Klingons and Romulans. (Arms-limitation treaties are probably the most plausible explanation for the Enterprise-A being so hastily decommissioned and its entire class apparently being mothballed shortly after STAR TREK VI.)

DISCOVERY and STRANGE NEW WORLDS pay lip service to the specialness of ships of the Enterprise's class while undermining the point by indicating that Starfleet also has hundreds if not thousands of other, slightly smaller starships with 80 or 90 percent of the Enterprise's capabilities, carrying out a similar range of missions. I can see why they've gone that way, and there's obvious precedent for it in the TOS cast movies, which depict several other classes of Starfleet ships, but interposing that into the TOS era inevitably weakens the premise of the original stories, and renders many of the conceits of TOS unintelligible. (If it were up to me, I would attribute the expanded range of ships to changes between TOS and the era of the movies, which are set years later and have different narrative priorities.)

This retroactive Starfleet expansion also exacerbates the increasingly jingoistic militarism of modern STAR TREK, which is uncomfortably pronounced in both the Abrams films (which got money from the Pentagon for it) and in the recent shows (which I suspect are also getting DOD money, although I haven't seen that specifically confirmed). The large-scale fleet maneuvers of the finale of PICARD, for instance, are frankly terrifying, and would be even without the contrivances of the plot. A Federation that celebrates "Frontier Day" with a massive display of military power within the solar system, obviously aimed at awing and intimidating citizen and adversary alike, seems like a pretty harrowing "post-scarcity socialist utopia," even by the standards of a show that's always been about the crews of a spacegoing navy doing interstellar colonialism.

[disniq]

i havent read all of the comics post urban legends to gotham war with jason, but as far as i remember between them jason didn't really kill anyone? tfz is on my mind (he tried to kill 'bane' but didn't). i suppose he couldve been murdering off screen as well but i also have no idea if that's hinted at

anyway with tmwsl and the beast war stuff having him kill it means:

urban legends -> stops killing

gotham war -> is brainfuckedup by bruce. cant do shit

tmwsl -> joker unbrainfuckedups him, he proceeds to go ham and kill some goons/tries to kill the jokers

beast world -> still killing in larger amounts

so if bruce had left his ass alone would he still be in a holding pattern with the bats? way to fuck it bruce (though im happy. so.)

obviously the doyalist explanation is they probably realized jason was in a bit of a limbo atm and decided to shake it up again. but watsonian is soooo funny to me. good job b

Thank you for bearing with me anon, I'm finally free from work and mostly compos mentis at the moment, so!

My initial instinct when I got this ask was to disagree, because I didn't read Jason's behaviour in the last issue of MWSL as any more or less violent than he was in the earlier issues, I don't think he ever actually killed anybody in that run (though do correct me if I'm wrong on that), and I'm extremely reluctant to take the Beast World characterisation into account because it's a, uh... reductive view of Jason, at best.

But.

BUT!

As I was turning this over in my head, I realised why it was pinging at my brain.

It's because this exact thing *has happened*, back in RHatOs Rebirth.

Pre-rhato 25 my beloathed, Jason had been consistently using less-lethal methods in exchange for Bruce's implicit approval and regular interaction with the batfam. He specifically says this on panel in The Trial of Batwoman, this is a choice he chooses to make against his own beliefs;

Detective Comics #975

This holds until six months later, when Jason shoots Penguin. And then Bruce famously snaps and beats the everloving shit out of him in a brutal and notably one-sided fight.

After which, Jason changes up his outfit, swaps the guns for a crowbar and a katana, and becomes significantly more lethal again.

RHatO (2016) #25, RHatO (2016) #26

And when I thought about it, well. I think you could argue that each of Jason's more lethal spells are proceeded by an altercation with Bruce.

Brothers in Blood, where Jason plays a murderous, knife-wielding Nightwing to annoy Dick, is the first Jason story after the infamous Under the Hood showdown wherein Bruce chooses to cut Jason's throat instead of... doing literally anything else instead.

Batman: Under the Red Hood, Nightwing (1996) #118

And after working relatively civilly with others throughout Countdown, Jason goes full murder gunbats in Battle for the Cowl after Bruce's delightful little "you're broken and you'll never be fixed" hologram speech.

Battle for the Cowl #3 , Battle for the Cowl #1

Now, I absolutely do not want to come across like I'm saying Bruce is responsible for all Jason's more extreme actions at all, because I'm not about that lack of agency shizzle at all. Obviously Jason was already very much down to kill prior to his final confrontation with Bruce in UtRH, and I think he does genuinely believe some people deserve to die.

But I think this pattern of Jason reacting to Bruce's outright and often violent rejections by escalating the very behaviour that has Bruce repeatedly rejecting him is super interesting as a facet of their continuous cycle of abuse.

So regardless of Beast World, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Jason does lilt more lethal for a hot minute before he inevitably makes consessions to get back into Batman's good books.

[tossawary]

Watching "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is a lot of fun. I want to be clear that I'm enjoying myself, perhaps especially because the show suffers from many of the same issues as all previous "Star Trek" shows and I like picking at Doylist versus Watsonian explanations for things.

In one of the episodes of Season 2, all of the characters on the ship are suffering from this supernatural memory loss. They don't remember who they are or what they're meant to be doing. This issue hits the Enterprise over the course of many hours, enough time for senior members of the crew to become aware of the issue and decide that the Enterprise needs to get away from what's probably causing the issue. As a precaution, Spock even hands out datapads with personnel files to remind people of their own identities.

Unfortunately, this doesn't work out, because the memory loss apparently includes the ability to read. And I was immediately like, "Why didn't they ask the computer to periodically remind them of the situation? Why didn't they go into lockdown and set a looping announcement to keep everyone calm?" And it does turn out later on in the episode that the day is saved because the helmswoman accidentally prompts the ship's computer to remind her of who she is and what her role is. And I immediately pointed at the screen and the person I was watching with laughed.

The episode was fun and fairly solid. I find a lot about this show to be comparable to all previous "Star Trek" shows. But it IS amusing that this episode hinges on the idea that the senior officers of the ship who are supposedly pretty good on-their-feet problem-solvers, including a logically-minded Vulcan science officer, would not develop SEVERAL background plans in the event of further memory loss. Like, uh, carrying around datapads with personnel files is a single point of failure? And far less reliable than asking the computer to herd the crew and make announcements? What if someone drops their datapad? Should you not immediately strive to take a variety of precautions for everyone's safety? Your backups should have backups!

It's also amusing that the episode hinges on needing the helmswoman to pilot their way out of an asteroid field or whatever, because that really seems like something that should be trivial for the ship's computer. I don't remember if the episode gave us a sci-fi mumbo-jumbo excuse as to why a person needed to do it. But a human being just doesn't have the same reaction time or field of awareness as a computer, especially one 200 years in the future; maybe we don't want to rely on a computer all of the time, but there SHOULD realistically speaking be some background program that allows the ship's computer to plot a course in the event of an emergency. And it's a little ridiculous from an in-universe perspective to think that an organization like Starfleet would not have those backups already.

Like, I come from a background of more scientifically-minded problem-solvers with a handful of memory issues to their names, so we've adapted with techniques to cope with forgetting shit sometimes, and I just cannot fully suspend my disbelief regarding some of the things the writers has Starfleet do for plot reasons. So much can go wrong in space even before you bring glow clouds into it! Good engineers are paranoid fuckers! What can go wrong WILL go wrong.

(We watched the first episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" last night and I found it delightful. It IS set in the era of "The Next Generation", but nevertheless you'd think that Captain Pike and crew should have developed a series of "the entire crew has lost their minds again" protocols by now, and "Lower Decks" is lovingly making fun of that in the same vein as "Galaxy Quest".)

Thankfully, I mostly find this discrepancy for drama's sake funny.

In one of the earlier episodes, it was basically the show doing their own version of / a tribute to "Alien". And I have a great fondness for the original "Alien", so that was kind of fun to see. Nice. But if you do stop to, like, actually think about what's happening, this sequence of events is only really happening because 1a) you didn't send piloted drones in first to try to retrieve any logs about what happened and 1b) search for survivors without recklessly endangering half of the senior bridge crew.

2) None of these people are wearing protective suits or shield generators or whatever. They have BARE FACES when this destroyed ship they're exploring could have been taken down by a plague for all they know. None of the characters are ever even wearing HATS when they go to cold locations, because filmmakers don't like obscuring actor faces or ruining their hair. This episode is, for understandable reasons, prioritizing drama over... uh, indicating that Starfleet has decent safety regulations that include personal protective equipment.

3) They send EVERYONE into the spooky destroyed ship instead of holding various crewmembers back. Like, uh, maybe you should leave someone in the shuttle in case something goes wrong? There's an ion storm preventing transporter use and interfering with communicators again, sure, but... Starfleet hasn't developed a series of communication protocols besides "Aw, fuck, communicator's broke, better wait it out"? There's no alternate radio-esque technology that would allow for short range communication between an exploration crew and a grounded shuttle crew? You don't have a temporary communications machine to drop onto a planet? You can't even have little drones physically carry messages between the shuttle and the exploration crew?

Like, yes, I understand why the writers did things this way. "Star Trek" has such miraculous technology that writers have to fight for their fucking lives every episode to explain why the miracle technology isn't working this time. Nevertheless, when crewmembers start dying because Starfleet apparently doesn't have, like, decent safety protocols and backups, I am going to think in the back of my mind: "Okay, this redshirt's death is kind of on you guys this time. Send in a damn robot first."

[dyenasaur]

I am askthedragonprinceviren! Sorry can't reblog the post because I was blocked for being an anti apparently :) just saying nice analysis! Though why not giving some actual slack to the chain?

Also blitz loves Stolas painfully. I would say, more than the other way around currently.

I don't pay enough attention to discourse generally to understand what is and isn't anti, but I gotta say I dislike untruths and half baked takes being passed around like they're cold hard factual truth.

Why they chose to keep the chain straight? Well, I'm only guessing as I'm not related to the show in the slightest, but the Doylist (IE, the author/the real world/technical limitations) explination is likely that it was cheaper to animate a straight line than bother with the swinging of loose chain, plus it keeps the animation focused on what matters- Stolas and Blitz moving closer and closer together.

The Watsonian explanation (in universe, character driven, etc) is likely either that, as a figment of Blitz's addled mental state, Mind-Stolas is simply interested in drawing Blitz closer, but without force.

I would suggest it's Blitz's subconcious picking up on how badly Stolas wants him in return but that is pretty decent conjecture and hard to base exactly. I will note that Mind- Stolas smiles at Blitz and moves and touches him gently. That he brings Blitz UP with him on the high throne. Even in an addled state it appears that Blitz recognizes that Stolas is putting him at an equal height, something that Blitz blushes over and can't meet Stolas' eyes for.

As far as 'currently loving Stolas more than Stolas loves Blitz' ..... have you ever experienced actual heartbreak? You don't get drunk as hell, go to a party you think is stupid, SING ON STAGE ABOUT HOW YOU MIGHT BE THE ONE IN THE WRONG, and confess that you want that person to want you while crying all four eyes out without feeling SOME TYPE OF WAY.

Is Stolas hurt? Absolutely. Is Stolas continuing to believe that Blitz' answer is 'no I don't want you' and therefore drunkenly smooching on someone else? Yes! Can raging heartbreak and still holding out hope that you will fix things and get back with someone coexist? ALSO FUCKING YES.

Complex characters means complicated emotions. Nobody is ever one thing, not really. Stolas is, during Apology Tour, a bunch of things for a bunch of different reasons. Shame (over his and Blitz' agreement), Hurt (Blitz roleplaying instead of talking, plus a bunch of other shit), Anger (Blitz refusing to leave him alone, among others), and more! In addition to ALL OF THAT, though- He loves Blitz enough to set him free. To recognize that their arrangement wasn't healthy, and to want to do right by Blitz and release him from an agreement that isn't fair.

Stolas loves Blitz so much that he gets trashed and goes to a stupid ass party in a vain attempt to soothe how much it hurts that the person he loves doesn't appear to love him back.

(Blitz does love him though, he's just got ~ISSUES~ and no one in this show knows how to fucking talk. I love them so much.)

[sylvanas-girlkisser]

Crack theory time.

So, one of the big visual differences between Arcane and League is Zauns technilogy glowing purple rather than green yeah? This is of course due to the addition of shimmer as an extension of chemtech.

It's also pretty heavily implied that shimmer is somehow tied to the waters around Piltover, or possibly the creatures therein. Like, to the point where I would go so far as consider it text.

Jinx also has pretty distinct animal theming, more so in League than Arcane: her minigun is a bunny, her rocket launcher is a shark, her grenades are piranhas etc.

So then in S2 we have Sevika's Jinx-ified arm right? And it' also a piranha.

Sure there could be any number of both Doylist and Watsonian explanation (e.g. Jinx had to scavenge for parts) but hear me out.

League tends to lean heavily on color coding to signify the origin of things, and purple/pink tends to be almost exclusively reserved for a certain deep sea themed group.

THE VOID!

I don't think we're gonna do a full deep dive into like, Icathia or whatever, but there was Silco's whole thing about being transformed after bleeding out in the waters of Piltover bay.

And then of course there's the "temple".

I've seen a few theories about who this is supposed to be, including Janna or Orianna, but here's the thing. League tends to be pretty consistent with the hairstyles of their characters... Cause otherwise you can't tell the womens faces appart.

Notice how there appears to be some sort of indententation on the statues forehead? You know who else has that side swept medium length hair? The scrunkly:

BEL-BEL!!!

Now I can't see them actually doing anything major with this, without doing some sort of acrobatic fucking pirouette over the shark. I just think its really elegant world building that you get to see this existential thread moving around in the background of the story.

In away, it's like the reverse of Marvel's post-credit "it's me, Plonko" approach to setting up sequels.

[maulfvckers]

OK SO HEADCANNON TIME

Maul was re-alived by the Son. Just like Ahsoka was re-alived by the Daughter.

So we know this for Ahsoka because it's done right in front of you and we have the bird and all that jazz. "In plain light," so to speak.

BUT what happened to the Son at the fall of Mortis? Well if you look at it carefully they're immortal beings that aren't exactly bound by space and time. So the Son being pretty damn powerful but probably not as much as the Father. He decides to live on in a dark sider. So... Who's desperate enough, emo enough, and stupid enough to accept the literal embodiment of evil?

Our boy Maul.

It explains a lot about him. It gives a pretty neat Watsonian explanation for his change in voice, it explains why Sidious literally never thinks of him again and is kinda surprised that Maul's alive, and it even explains his weird behavior in Rebels (again a Watsonian explaination). His voice changes because it's literally the Son's voice. Sidious genuinely thinks he died because, well... He did. And his seemingly erratic behavior and split motivations would fit pretty neatly with two different souls fighting for dominance in one body. It even gives a little insight into how Maul was able to "see" more than the average force user even more so than just having the context of his abuser taking over the galaxy.

But we don't see this right? Well... In line with the "light/dark" dichotomy that star wars loves. The reveal of Maul's possession isn't as straight forward or "hidden in the dark." (Yeah it's simple but *sighs* Star Wars) But we DO see it. We see it with the repetition of "the chains are the easy part. It's what goes on in here is hard," by the Son on Mortis as he talks to Ahsoka and by Mauk when he see him on Lotho Minor. We also hear it in his voice. These choices made by the animators were not mistakes in this sense.

We also can see how this plays out in Maul's general inability to draw from the light side even while not being a Sith just like Ahsoka has a general inability to draw from the dark side even while not being a Jedi. For the both of them, they're more or less fixed in their alignments. It explains how no matter how hard Maul tries to do the ultimately right thing by seeking to destroy Sidious, he's never going to experience the connection that comes from being in the light. It's just like no matter how much she despairs that she'll fall to the dark side, Ahsoka never really does (okay I gotta say Warsonian a third time cos I will lose my shit if I say what I really think).

So what does this mean for the narrative? For those two specifically, I think they're a little less in line with the idea "you can choose to be good or bad" and little more "wouldn't it be fucked up if you were possessed by the literal embodiment of evil/good and didn't even HAVE a choice no matter how hard you tried?" And you get some deep thing about free will and moralizing about how great it is. Cos if there's anything Star Wars loves to do it's moralize about things!

So that's just my take on them and I'm sure I'm not the only one that thinks this, bit I'd love to hear from your frens. Take care!

-♥️-

granmaul

I love this, and I'm going to throw in a devil's advocate "Doylist" thought for the hell of it: Witwer voices both the Son and Maul and has a really good grasp on the lore. I think we can feel his influence in both characters' acting, and those similarities may be deliberate choices in their design so those echoes become apparent when looking closely at the execution:

The Son of Dathomir and the Son of Mortis.

I'm particularly fond of your headcanon because I think there are mirrors between the architects (the Celestials, assuming the Mortis Gods were part of that ancient race -- I like to think so but unconfirmed in canon afaik) and the fruits of their efforts, no matter how far they've fallen from the tree.

Thoughts, frens?

Darth Maul is alive truthers, speak up or forever hold your peace.

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

This is not prepared at all, so it's likely going to be messier than usual, but I was in the shower earlier thinking about the Golden Girls (as one does) and I drew a couple of conclusions on the topic of how many children does Blanche actually have? that I wanted to share with you all.

So, first of all, let me sum up the controversy. The issue lies with one of Blanche's statements in S3E3 Bringing Up Baby, when she's trying to convince Dorothy to keep the Mercedes she bought with the money they'll supposedly get after Baby's death:

"I want that car, Dorothy. I will give you anything. [...] I'll give you one of my sons. I have given this a lot of thought. I have had four kids, I have never had a Mercedes."

Ok, everything tracks so far. Blanche has had four kids, some of which are sons. We meet her two daughters, Janet and Rebecca, a few times during the series, so the natural conclusion is that Blanche has four kids, two sons and two daughters.

Which is great, except... her next line in S3E3 is this:

"What do you say? Which one do you want? Biff, Doug, Skippy? No, don't take Skippy, he's got asthma."

She names a Biff, a Doug, and a Skippy, so... three sons. Which, in addition to the two daughters we see in the show, makes for a grand total of five kids. Huh.

Alright, we know that Blanche wasn't the best mother ever, but I find it hard to believe that she forgot how many children she has, so: what's going on here? The obvious explanation is, as always, that this is a continuity error (although it's a really egregious one!), but you folks know I prefer to find a Watsonian explanation wherever I can, so let's see if we can figure out anything interesting.

One thing that struck me when I first realized this discrepancy is her use of the words 'I have had four kids'. Not I have, I have had. Why does she use the past tense here? The sentence flows better with it, but it doesn't make a lot of sense in-universe -- unless you think that she's using 'to have a child' to mean 'to bear a child'. If that's the case, then what she's saying translates to 'I have physically given birth to four kids, I have never had a Mercedes.'

I'm sure I don't have to point out the implications of this, do I? If the number of kids Blanche has given birth to is four, but her total number of kids is five, then that means that one of her kids is not hers in the strictly physical sense, i.e. one of Blanche's kids is adopted. This would solve the discrepancy without breaking the canon elsewhere (as far as I can tell, at least).

For a while, this idea remained in the back of my head to examine at a later date, because it still has a number of issues to work through. For one, why would Blanche (and supposedly George) adopt a child? They had kids of their own apparently without any issues -- why adopt another child, instead of, well... making another child, if they wanted one more? I guess it's possible that fertility issues might have arisen at some point, but that seems unlikely for a number of reasons; that kind of problem is generally genetic in nature, and it tends to be diagnosed upon first try, not after four successful pregnancies. So, then... why?

I was stuck on this point for a long while, until I suddenly remembered this conversation between Blanche and Virginia, her younger sister, during S5E11 Ebb Tide:

"I remember when you were 16 and didn't come home for Father's Day." "I was away at school!" "Oh, yes. The Good Samaritan Academy for the Knocked-Up. Two, four, six, eight, all us girls are three months late."

It seems Virginia got into a spot of trouble when she was 16, and was away 'at school' for a while to take care of it. While this might imply that she was sent away to have an abortion, there's also space to hypothesize that she was sent away to carry her pregnancy to term and actually have a baby to then give out to adoption. If this is the case... I wonder if this baby is the one that Blanche and George adopted?

While an adoption seems a bit out of character for young!Blanche (to me, at least: she wasn't interested in her kids, why would she agree to adopt another one?), I think there's some space to consider it. For one, George might have convinced her! We don't know enough about the man to draw clear conclusions, but he did send money to the one child he had out of matrimony (see S5E18 An Illegitimate Concern), so maybe he feels more responsible towards kids near him than Blanche did -- and, well, if he'd asked, Blanche would have agreed immediately, of course. I feel like Big Daddy might have also played a part in this scenario: he could have wanted to keep the child in the family (a Hollingsworth is still a Hollingsworth!), and asked the youngest married couple among his children to take on the responsibility, to shield Virginia from the shame.

Note that this theory has a few issues anyway. For one, while Virginia is Blanche's junior, according to Wikipedia she's only one year her junior, which would put Blanche at 17 when all this happened -- and we know she met and married George much later, when she was already a university student (see S6E9 Mrs George Devereaux). However, I can't find any confirmation for this difference in age in the show itself, so I feel like the hypothesis still deserves some consideration.

As for which of Blanche's children is adopted, well... we can for sure rule out the boys, since she mentions them all by name in S3E3. This leaves her two daughters, Janet and Rebecca. All throughout the series Blanche has a rocky and painful relationship with Janet, even more than she has with the rest of her children:

I would love to have a chance to raise David. I might make up for the mess I made with Janet. [S1E6 On Golden Girls]

Well, honey, I really do want to see you. I think we have a lot to talk about, Janet. I've been thinking a lot about you, lately. [S2E16 And Then There Was One]

"I just talked to my daughter, Janet, and she and my granddaughter, Sarah, are coming to visit in a couple of days. Oh, I've never been so happy!" "Janet? Isn't she the daughter who hates you?" "[...] She doesn't really hate me, Sophia. We just don't see eye to eye." [S7E23 Home Again, Rose: Part 1]

As for Rebecca, while we know they stopped talking for a few years due to a disagreement, she seems remarkably closer to her:

We were always so much alike, and so close, just like Siamese twins. [...] I have missed her. She's always been my favourite. [S3E14 Blanche's Little Girl]

Although Rebecca herself seems to have a different perception on their relationship:

You're not happy, Mama. You're doing it again, you're telling me how to live! [...] Nothing's ever enough for you. I had to be the prettiest, I had to be the most popular, I had to be the brightest... [S3E14 Blanche's Little Girl]

I think there's two possible theories here, neither of which paints Blanche in a good light (but hey, we love these characters because of their qualities as well as their faults, don't we?). If Janet is the child she adopted, I think it's possible she might have been especially neglectful towards her (especially in her first few years); she might have taken her frustration with being convinced to adopt her out on her, as a lack of affection when compared to her other kids. This would explain why the relationship between them is so fraught (certain wounds last a lifetime, I'm afraid).

If Rebecca is the child she adopted, on the other hand, she might have wanted to overcompensate for her abandonment and sort of one-up Virginia ('see, how well I can take care of your daughter? aren't I the better mom?'). She might have showered her with affection (and with expectations, judging from what Rebecca says!) to the detriment of her other kids, which would explain the issues in her relationship with Janet as well.

I don't know. It's obviously very clear that, for all her faults, Blanche adores her children and is deeply pained by her mistakes as a mother; she often expresses regret for her actions and wishes she'd been a better mother:

I realized, too late, that I'd put myself ahead of my children. I've never made up all the time I didn't spend with them. [...] deep down, I wish you were really mine. So I could try again with what I now know. [S2E16 And Then There Was One]

For all that might have happened in the past, it's evident that Blanche loves all her children equally and considers all of them her own, so she's clearly gotten over any issues she might have had -- but that doesn't excuse her past actions, of course.

There's a whole lot that could be said about Blanche's approach to motherhood, how it connects to the way her parents treated her as a child and to her own internal issues, but as for the question of how many children she has, I feel like this is a satisfying possible answer. It's not airtight by any means, and I'm sure there's other ways to explain the discrepancy (they might have adopted a child from George's side of the family, for one, which would change a lot of dynamics); this is just the one that occurred to me. As always, I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts, so do let me know your ideas about all this!

[kingsonne-zedecks]

Elder Whisper Cradlepost

I want to talk about Elder Whisper, because out of almost anything in Cradle I feel like Whisper had the most potential that wasn't met.

Will has talked a bit about his writing process, how he'll leave himself threads that he might not know exactly what he's going to do with, but gives himself the option to pick up later.

(Which, as an aside is a pretty great piece of writing advice. Not all foreshadowing has to be planned out like a massive scheme. Calling back to something you prepared earlier without knowing where it was going to go will read like well thought out foreshadowing all the same)

Now, we know that sometimes this doesn't pan out at all. Like Lindon grabbing those scripted stones from the Transcendent Ruins that Will had a rough idea for but later scrapped because the story went a different direction on. I really feel like Elder Whisper falls into this category, because pretty much everything about Whisper prior to Reaper hints at him being so much more than he ends up being.

In Unsouled he is getting glimpses of fate that reflect the actions of literal Judges of the Abidan. Like, Whisper can see that the Wandering Titan will destroy Sacred Valley, and he can tell that it might happen in a few years or it might happen in 30. The accelerated timeline was a direct result of the interference in fate of both Suriel and Ozriel, and the resulting machinations of Makiel to try to restore fate.

And Whisper could see it.

Now. The Doylist explanation is that Will hadn't nailed down Fate Reading and it's implications yet. But that opens things up to so much more when it comes to the Watsonian explanation. Why was Whisper able to see so much? When we get to the end of Bloodline, Why does Whisper know so much about the Dreadgods? At the beginning of Unsouled Markuth talks about the sins of the founder of the Wei, is he referring to the human's that Whisper taught? Or Whisper himself? How did Whisper keep open the soul space of a Sage for years after his death?

It gets me fired up. One of the popular theories is that Whisper is actually a retired Judge living under a powerful veil, potentially even The Fox. Which is a great theory and explains a lot of his abilities.

My other favorite is drawn from DaoistMystery's Wei Shi Lindon Arelius Sue on ao3, which is fantastic fic and worth reading even though it's unfinished. I've reread it many times and you should too

But DaoistMystery's Whisper is amazing. So much is hinted at and partially revealed. The idea of some consequence of the fight with Li Markuth that resulted in his ascendance. The idea of a soul oath that limited and bound him. Whisper as this former Sage or even Monarch bound down in his power to that of a Gold and then limited further by the suppression field down to Jade.

And then the idea of White Fox Madra having qualities similar to that of Blackflame, in that it has consequences on the mind. Whisper, who had achieved such heights in the Sacred Arts that his illusions could trick reality itself. To the point where even he can't tell the difference between his illusions and himself.

I love it, and I headcanon it hardcore, and I think that canon justifies it more than what canon actually states. Like, Whisper is fully aware of just how far the Sacred Arts go, he's even aware of ascension and some of what goes on in the Heavens, and you mean to tell me that he's just a Gold? No. He's a liar and Will just didn't have time and space to dedicate to the truth about Whisper, as the main plot moved away from him.