#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.

[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.

[padmerry]

Stan’s fate in “A Better World”: a darker headcanon

To begin with this meta, I have to first point out that this is a headcanon of mine, not what I think the writers truly intended, and the “evidence” listed here is merely my reasons for thinking so, since I personally like having some canon basis for all my headcanons. I wanted to share it because I thought people would appreciate the angst potential.

And second, that this is not an invite to hate on Ford. I love fictional tragedies, myself, and, as I have pointed out in previous posts, Ford is my favorite character.

I also want to establish from the beginning that the thing that has always caught my attention in Ford’s “A Better World” description in the journal is that not once does he meet his parallel self, and on that hangs my entire analysis regarding the fate I imagine for Stan in this universe.

Ford gives us a reason why they didn’t meet: parallel!Fiddleford explains that he had been leading a portal expedition to a certain dimension, but one of the security officers ran into his parallel self and as soon as they touched hands, the entire dimension started to warp and fizz with static. Fiddleford and his team barely escaped alive!

But that’s the thing: as soon as they touched hands, only! Not as soon as they saw each other, or as soon as they were in the same room together, or as soon as they talked to each other, like you sometimes see in fanfic! No, it very much required actual skin-to-skin contact. You would think that Professor Stanford Pines, celebrated star of the scientific community, founder of the International Institute of Oddology, and our Ford, 12 PhDs (or fewer PhDs at the time) would have enough sense and self-control to... just not try and touch each other? Or, for security reasons, stand at least a few meters away from each other? If they feared an accidental touch so much, they could have talked through a glass panel or some kind of physical divide. I do believe every Ford must be a deeply curious individual, and you’re telling me that parallel!Ford, known genius, wasn’t capable of creating a way to enable himself to interview his parallel selves safely? Wouldn’t you be very curious to meet your parallel self? I think it’s more likely than not that other versions of Ford would end up pushed through the portal, so our Ford might not even have been the first Ford to visit that dimension.

But instead Fiddleford goes so far as to detain our Ford and hold him captive without even attempting to explain things first! A bit overkill, no? You could say, “but Fiddleford just didn’t want impulsive, reckless Ford to go and run to his parallel self upon seeing him for the first time!” But herein lies the crux of the matter: even after Fiddleford explains things to our Ford, even after our Ford understands he couldn’t touch his parallel self... He still doesn’t meet or talk to parallel!Ford. Wasn’t he trusted enough/allowed to do so, even then?

My Doylist explanation (which considers what led the author to choose a certain path) for that is: the writers just didn’t want the two Fords to meet and wanted to leave it ambiguous. It’s really not that deep! Sometimes, apparent inconsistencies are just plot-convenient and don’t mean anything more.

My favorite Watsonian (in-universe) headcanon for that, though, is: Fiddleford didn’t want them to meet.

Now, would Fiddleford ever lie to Ford? Yes. In fact, he already did, in our original timeline! Ford asked him to destroy the memory gun, Fiddleford apparently agreed. “He was crestfallen by my advice, but after some discussion he came to see the wisdom in it. He said that he didn’t want to risk forgetting his wife and son. I ordered him to destroy the gun, and he did.” (“Ordered”... Oh, Ford, never change...) Reality: Fiddleford hadn’t destroyed it at all, and in fact used it on Ford to erase his memories without Ford’s consent or knowledge.

So even though I don’t think this was, necessarily, either Alex’s or Rob Renzetti’s intentions, I like to think parallel!Fiddleford was bullshitting our Ford a bit. To what extent, I don’t know. The thing about the parallel selves touching and causing a dimension to end might very well be true (in fact, according to Alex’s Word of God, it is! he has said on Twitter that parallel selves really can’t meet in their home dimensions, but can meet in the in-between spaces!) BUT because of the reasons I explained above, it’s my headcanon that it wasn’t the main reason why Fiddleford didn’t want the two Fords meeting.

I just love, love the vibes of A Better World. I love how utterly smitten with that world our Ford is. He describes himself as “drawn” towards the Institute “like a moth to a flame,” and mentions his desire to “revel in [his] parallel self’s success.” He’s utterly smitten it with it despite never once meeting his parallel self. He imagines his parallel self as the happiest man on Earth despite never once meeting his parallel self. He leaves that dimension sighing wistfully despite never once meeting his parallel self. I love how parallel!Ford is just... shrouded in this very ambiguous mystery. It all sounds a little bit ominous to me. Is he happy? Is he satisfied? Does he like what he accomplished?

Our Ford, of course, imagines that he is. Our Ford doesn’t seem to wonder about parallel!Stan, at least as far as we know. If he did, he didn’t write it down, and Stan certainly wasn’t the focus of that journal entry, because that’s who Stanford Pines is: self-centered as all hell, hahah. He has many qualities, but that in particular in one of his biggest flaws. His brother doesn’t even cross his mind, since he’s dazzled by his apparent great success and the fulfillment of his dreams. I think he subconsciously assumed parallel!Stan must have been fine, or else he would certainly have been worried—he loves his brother very much, as I have dedicated a whole meta to point out.

What’s my usual headcanon re: the fate of parallel!Stan? Oh, well, he’s very much dead, or at least missing and believed to be dead. And parallel!Ford, the man Ford believes to be so lucky, is actually miserable. Fiddleford was merely protecting our Ford from the truth.

If you want to get a bit darker, just look at this excerpt from the Not What He Seems script:

Meanwhile, in the Lost Legends comics, specifically Comix Up, Ford is saying shit like this:

We stan an insensitive king who is utterly and blissfully oblivious to his brother’s dangerously low self-esteem and borderline suicidal thoughts...

Before TBoB, I might have been reluctant to think something so dark could happen in GF, since it still is, after all, a cartoon for kids, and Stan’s a main character!

And true enough, supervising producer and story editor Rob Renzetti’s own headcanon for A Better World, asked of him in a HanaHyperfixates’ interview, seems considerably more light-hearted than mine, with Stan blackmailing Ford (adapted a bit for better readability):

I think, maybe, I’d like to think that Stan gets his shit together. Not that he comes back and that him in Ford are reconciled, probably that never can happen. But probably that he extracts some price from his brother, especially when his brother becomes a success, that like, Stan gets set up in some way, in that Ford is maybe happy to do it. [...] It’s more transactional. Like, “well, you hid the Journal for me,” and Stan’s like, “unless you want me to bring that back and unearth that thing, how about a little daily allowance for your brother here?” [...] You know, like, maybe Stan opens his own, a different Mystery Shack somewhere else. Who knows? [...] I don’t know. I think Stan, in that world, is probably doing better than Stan in our world does until they’re reconciled, you know, because he can hold something over his brother’s head.

But then TBoB went and revealed to us that Dipper and Mabel died horrible deaths in all the other timelines, and while I do take that with a grain of salt because it was revealed to us by Bill Cipher and Bill is not trustworthy at all but a professional liar, just the fact Alex acknowledged and played with the possibility of the two protagonists dying horribly in official GF material is already pretty telling in and of itself...

I think that once parallel!Ford called Stan after a decade, unwittingly gave him hope, and then ripped it out from his hands... yeah. We know how important Ford is to Stan. Reconciliation with Ford might very well have been what was pushing Stan forward. Stan can be very, very stubborn—working on a portal for 30 years—when Ford is involved. But having no Ford at all, that’s something else. I think it’s quite believable that Stan might have lost his will to “go on” in such circumstances. Perhaps not by actively killing himself, perhaps he couldn’t bring himself to do that; but by passive lack of resistance against the many threats that came his way. Parallel!Ford might have planned to call Stan back after his issues were solved and the danger of Bill was fully neutralized, but by then it was probably too late.

There’s no way that a Ford of any dimension would react well to the disappearance or possible death of his brother. It’s not the kind of thing he can easily move on from, as even his relationships with other people in his life were shaped by his need to replace Stan (and not due to Stan’s death, but Ford’s own rejection of an alive Stan), like Alex’s commentary on Society of the Blind Eye lets us know:

Ford as somebody who lost Stan is kinda looking for—even though he rejected his brother, he kinda needs, he needs that other person, and he tried to find that in this kinda sweet prodigy and he just pushed him too far.

(More on their codependency here.)

For further dramatic irony, I like to imagine that parallel!Ford would be, ironically, so, so jealous of our Ford’s happy ending with Stan. Actually, as I type this, the funniest (and by “funny,” I mean fascinating, if tragic) idea occurred to me. Perhaps Fiddleford wasn’t only protecting Ford from the truth, like I said, but from a very unstable, grieving, self-loathing man. Perhaps the real reason Fiddleford didn’t allow the two Fords to meet is that parallel!Ford, upon listening to our Ford praise his accomplishments and mildly shit-talk Stan (“I can’t believe Stanley listened to you! He’s so stubborn, so selfish, he never listens!”) would disregard all reason, all training, and all self-control just for the precious chance to punch himself in the face. Dimension ending catastrophe? A minor detail.

[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!

[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 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?

[hollowed-theory-hall]

I just finished going through Tales of Beedle the Bard and I have a few notes

First: There's a weird timeline discrepancy with the Tale of the Three Brothers as a whole and it bothers me

In Dumbledore's notes, he traces the first historical reference of the Elder Wand to Emeric the Evil:

The first well-documented mention of a wand made of elder that had particularly strong and dangerous powers was owned by Emeric, commonly called “the Evil”, a short-lived but exceptionally aggressive wizard who terrorised the South of England in the early Middle Ages

(Tales of Beedle the Bard, Dumbledore's notes on the Tale of the Three Brothers)

Now the period referred to as the "early Middle Ages" is between the 5th and 10th centuries. Way before Beedle wrote down the story (15th century).

We also know (thanks to irl history) that the name Peverell is one that arrived with the Normans to England, meaning the story of the three brothers could only have taken place after the Norman conquest in 1066, which usually isn't referred to as "early Middle Ages" and it's kind of odd to do so. So, someone has to be wrong here because Emeric couldn't have had the Elder Wand before it was made.

It's possible Dumbledore is referring to the 11th century as "early Middle Ages", which would make the timeline make more sense if we assume Emeric is the wizard mentioned to slit the oldest brother's throat to steal his wand in the story (possible, but doesn't sound like Dumbledore, so I consider this unlikely). It's also possible Emeric didn't have the Elder Wand at all, but a different powerful wand (also unlikely). Or that the Peverell brothers weren't the brothers in the story (even less likely). Or that the Peverell brothers arrived in South England before the conquest (possible, maybe, not super likely either).

I don't really have an answer for this discrepancy so I'd be happy if someone has an idea how this could make sense... (looking for a Watsonian explanation, not a Doylist one)

Second: Why are we all saying the Gaunts are descendants of Cadmus Peverell?

I mean, Marvolo says this:

but then realized that he was showing Ogden the ugly, black-stoned ring he was wearing on his middle finger, waving it before Ogden’s eyes. “See this? See this? Know what it is? Know where it came from? Centuries it’s been in our family, that’s how far back we go, and pure-blood all the way! Know how much I’ve been offered for this, with the Peverell coat of arms engraved on the stone?”

(HBP, Ch10)

From this we know two things:

The Deathly Hallows symbol was known as the Peverell Coat of Arms at one point in time, at least among UK purebloods. Which, makes sense with the same symbol being carved on Ignotus' grave.

The ring was in the Gaunt family for centuries, but that's hardly a clear timeline, neither does it indicate dependency, even though, it's what Marvolo is implying.

Now, why do I doubt the Gaunts are actually related to the Peverells? Well, I'm not. They might be distantly related since all purebloods are, but I think they might not be the descendants of the second brother. Why is that?

Simple, it's implied he died without children.

The tale of the three brothers literally says he asked for the stone to summon the girl he wished to marry who died before they married:

To his amazement and his delight, the figure of the girl he had once hoped to marry before her untimely death appeared at once before him.

(Tales of Beedle the Bard, the Tale of the Three Brothers)

Unless he fathered some child outside of marriage before (which I don't think is the case), then Cadmus died before he had any kids.

Now, the tale as we see it has some inaccuracies (such as Death being a character) for the sake of embellishment or due to time. After all, Beedle wrote the tale down in the 15th century and the story of the Peverells happened in the 1070s-ish or earlier. By the time Beedle wrote down the story it's been long enough that the story could've gotten corrupted. Also, Beedle seems to take some creative liberties in his stories even if there is likely some truth to all of them (like in Babbity Rabbity). But I feel like the creative liberties had more to do with Death giving them the items and less to do with the fate of each brother, considering he was correct about the cloak and how it passed from father to son and the violent transfer of the Elder Wand. Like, why would he be wrong just about the second brother?

I mean, all we know is that the Gaunts had the stone for a few centuries and were clearly unaware of its actual power and purpose and we have the implication from the tale that Cadmus had no children. So, why are we assuming Marvolo is correct about being a descendant of the Peverells from a millennia ago?

It's possible a Gaunt received the ring from Cadmus, or that they are descendants of an unnamed Peverell sister, but I don't think they really do descend from Cadmus himself. Like, the tale mentions him killing himself to be with the girl he wanted to marry, idk, to me, this implies he didn't have kids, so I feel this assumption (which was confirmed by JKR) is kinda weird.

Anyone else was bothered by this or is it just me overthinking things?

[thecreaturecodex]

Glasgavlen

Detail from "Mythical cattle 3" © deviantArt user Cyclone62. Accessed at her page here.

[The British Isles are full of monster dogs and monster cattle. This might be what happens when you spend more than a millennium systematically destroying any trace of unmanaged natural environment from your island. Or simply because dogs and cows are the animals most likely to be encountered in the day to day, and so stories about them spread, especially when they don't behave "right". This entry started under the name Hedley Kow, which isn't particularly cow-like and is more akin to any other British road bogie. The Glas Gaibhenn of Irish mythology, stolen by Balor as a quest Macguffin, did what I wanted my fairy cow to do: act as a Watsonian explanation for fey feasts having dairy products when tabletop RPG fey don't include "stealing milk" as one of their major pastimes. So I ended up mashing the two ideas together, a rare bit of lumping for me as far as my monster philosophy goes. But really, how many different fairy cow monsters could I write and make mechanically distinct?]

Glasgavlen CR 3 CN Fey If not for the intelligent and puckish gleam in its eye, this could be mistaken for an ordinary cow. That is, it could be if its fur wasn’t a mossy green.

The glasgavlen goes by many names: fairy cow, goblin cow, dun cow, hedley kow, bull-beggar. This panoply suits these fey cattle just fine, as they thrive on chaos. Glasgavlens often have wildly divergent activities and personalities, alternating between benevolently providing food by day and maliciously pranking and scaring people by night. Although their natural form is that of a cow with a slightly shaggy and very colorful pelt, they can change colors at will to blend in with ordinary cattle. When in trickster mode, they often disguise themselves with illusions to appear as humanoids, fey or even inanimate objects.

Glasgavlens are supernaturally skilled at converting food into milk, and a single glasgavlen can produce around fifty gallons a day. Many glasgavlens come around to offer their milk to various households in the area in the guise of a mundane cow, sometimes with a confederate to speak on their behalf, but often just as a seemingly random bit of good luck. While being milked and grazing near people, they listen to conversations in order to suss out bits of local gossip, personal insecurities, or other information to tailor their pranks for maximum impact. They often harass the same people they help, giving them the necessities of life but making said lives full of exciting and bewildering incident. Glasgavlens are especially fond of punishing greed, and people who try to take more than their fair share of milk are likely to get the most savage pranking, up to and including violence.

Glasgavlens provide their services to the fey free of such strings attached, and often sweeten the deal by magically transforming some of their milk into more shelf-stable products like cheeses, butter and yogurt. They are often on good terms with house fey like brownies and domovoi, who might know the bull-beggar’s secret identity as a local nuisance (whether or not they share that information is based on the house fey’s personality and relationship with their mortal clientele). Some fey even ride glasgavlens into battle as steeds, but the hedley kows make sure that such arrangements are viewed as even partnerships, and turn on riders who don’t respect them.

A glasgavlen can change its biological sex as readily as it does its fur color, allowing all individuals to father offspring, bear offspring or give milk as they see fit.

Glasgavlen CR 3 XP 800 CN Large fey Init +2; Senses low-light vision, Perception +7, scent

Defenses AC 15, touch 11, flat-footed 13 (-1 size, +2 Dex, +4 natural) hp 32 (5d6+15) Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +4 DR 5/cold iron; SR 14

Offenses Speed 40 ft., fey step Melee gore +5 (1d6+3), 2 hooves +3 (1d4+1) Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.

Spell-like Abilities CL 5th, concentration +7 At will—dancing lights, ghost sound (DC 12), mage hand 3/day—animate rope, scare (DC 14), warp wood (DC 14) 1/day—golden guise (DC 15), mind maze (DC 15), veil (self only, DC 18)

Statistics Str 19, Dex 14, Con 17, Int 12, Wis 11, Cha 14 Base Atk +2; CMB +6; CMD 18 (22 vs. trip) Feats Deceitful, Great Fortitude, Multiattack Skills Acrobatics +8 (+12 jumping), Bluff +11, Diplomacy +9, Disguise +11 (+19 as cow), Intimidate +9, Knowledge (local) +8, Perception +7, Sense Motive +7, Stealth +13; Racial Modifiers +8 Disguise as cow, +8 Stealth Languages Common, Goblin, Sylvan SQ adjustable veil, color change, mimicry (animal sounds, voices), transmute dairy

Ecology Environment temperate hills and plains Organization solitary Treasure special (see text)

Special Abilities Adjustable Veil (Sp) When a glasgavlen uses its veil spell-like ability, it may adjust what its appearance is as a standard action. Creatures that have successfully saved once against the illusion do not need to save again, and creatures that witness this adjustment are granted a Will save to recognize the effect as an illusion. Color Change (Ex) A glasgavlen can change the color of its fur at will. This grants it a +8 racial bonus on Disguise checks to resemble a mundane cow, and a +8 racial bonus on Stealth checks. In addition, a glasgavlen can make Stealth checks without cover or concealment. Fey Step (Su) A glasgavlen can teleport up to 50 feet a day as a move action. It may split this teleportation up as it sees fit in 10 foot increments. Transmute Dairy (Su) Three times a day as a standard action, a glasgavlen can transform up to 5 gallons of milk within 150 feet into the appropriate volume of yogurt, cheese, butter or equivalent dairy products.

[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.

[invinciblerodent]

As I'm making my way though the Chant, one thing I'm not sure I quite understand at this point is the Urn of Sacred Ashes.

Like it's more or less confirmed in Veilguard that the Maker either doesn't exist, or at least he's not what that the Chantry suggests he is. Since he almost definitely isn't a deity (because it's starting to look more and more like Thedas is a setting absent of gods), Andraste was also not chosen by a deity, and therefore was not holy.

But her ashes really did seem to heal Arl Eamon from his poisoning, and if this part of the Chant is to be believed, they also healed Disciple Havard from two stab wounds through the chest, well enough that he could then trek from Minrathous down all the way to Ferelden.

Even ignoring the apparitions, the flourishes, Andraste appearing to Havard from beyond death, and all the other garnish that's in the Chant, the core fact remains that there exist ashes (a powder, some substance) that is a genuine panacea, that is somehow capable of healing, even after close to a thousand years buried in a crypt inside a remote mountain.

From a Doylist perspective, it'd make sense to just chalk this up for an inconsistency, or someone changing their mind: that quest was written fifteen years before Veilguard, and the writers having decided on the ✨magic ashes✨ quest before hammering out the intricacies of the world's theology twenty years into the future seems perfectly reasonable.

But I think a Watsonian explanation is almost always more fun than a Doylist one, so I have a couple ideas.

Explanation 1: Spirit Magic Shit.

No gods, no masters, just very powerful magic.

To me, it seems to be a reasonable enough interpretation of the text that the ✨spectral Andraste clothed in starlight and armored in moonlight✨ that appeared to Havard after Andraste's death (Apotheosis 2:16-2:18) was simply a spirit that was drawn to the area by the very intense emotions of the people, and death thinning the Veil. (Central square of Minrathous, probably the gallows were there at the time, and the place has probably seen its fair share of executions even before Andraste.)

It also feels very much in line with canon events that a spirit would/could assume the form and some of the personality of a recently dead person, like the spirit who appeared to the Inquisitor adopted Justinia's form, voice, and to some degree her memories (although that did happen in the Fade). Andraste was also a figure very much emotionally tied to Havard, so him seeing her in even just a vague spirit that couldn't fully manifest outside of the Fade and was holding only remnants of her, isn't far out of the ordinary.

If that is the case, I'm pretty reasonably sure it would be a spirit of Faith (the text of the Chant goes out of its way to mention the "army of the faithful" multiple times) that sort of absorbed Andraste's blind faith in her death, and more or less "became" her. There has been an example of a Faith-spirit "healing" mortal wounds before, in Wynne's reanimation- "spirit healing" used to be the actual name of the discipline while it was still mechanically in the game (which was at the same time the Chant was written in real life), so it having that sort of narrative consistency as well as that ability also checks out.

That though does lead me to wonder what kind of magic can sustain itself for quite literally a millennium, locked away in stasis, outside of the Fade and without its creator affecting it physically.

While there are examples of powerful old magic in the setting (mostly elven), much of it does seem to weaken and falter over time- could the power of Andraste's ashes be sustained by people's faith in her and the Maker? Is the Faith-spirit that may or may not be Andraste, and is responsible for that healing power, still being sustained as a powerful entity by "her" followers' emotions? Does that make the Urn of Sacred Ashes essentially a kind of application of the placebo effect, it works because people believe that it works, only in a slightly more tangible way? Does the Warden "corrupting" the urn with blood do anything on the physically magical level, or does it simply alter the state of it significantly enough that others' faith no longer affects it, either because it's believed not to work anymore (so it's a self-fulfilling prophecy), or because it's no longer the same object? Does any of this make any sense at all to anyone else????

(Asterisk on this one, there's some interesting "storm" and storm-like imagery in the Chant around these parts that makes me wonder about whether the "Devouring Storm" has anything to do with this all, but we don't know anything certain about that.)(Yet? I hope it's a "yet". Trying to remain cautiously optimistic about it being a "yet".)

.... but, I think there is also another, more straightforward interpretation, that is a bit less dialed into the mythology of the setting, but I just like it better:

Explanation 2: It's All Just Coincidence.

The ashes are mere legend.

Havard was always going to survive being stabbed through with spears. The fact is, he did somehow drag himself to the center of Minrathous from somewhere around the Valarian Fields- which is nearby, but still quite an unlikely walk for a man with mortally severe abdominal injuries. In his case, it's possible that either his injuries weren't actually that bad, or homeboy was always resilient enough to pull through all on his own, and him putting ashes into his wounds probably just acted as an antibacterial rub.

He also got there after the pyre had already burnt down, so he had no way to tell which ashes were Andraste's, and which were just wood-ash and charcoal from the pyre itself, so he presumably just swept like five pounds or so of debris into a jug and went on his merry way. Maybe it was milled or sifted to be finer, more "ashlike" later, but what he took from the site probably had bits of wood, as well as bits of Andraste's actual remains in it. (An open-air fire iirc doesn't burn hot enough to completely turn bone to dust, so he could very well have struggled to distinguish between charred wood and charred bone chips.)

And the funniest thing about this is that... in this case Eamon, since he was poisoned, could be assumed to have been healed by the "ashes" because whatever it was that the Warden gave him just so happened to basically act as a piece of activated charcoal.

Which is a non-magical, non-fantastical, very pedestrian solution, but it's almost elegant in its simplicity, and I kind of love it.

It makes for a fun theme, too.

The storm broke out right at the time of Andraste's burning? Yeah, we knew it was coming days ago and nobody actually bat an eye, but it made for a great couple verses in the Chant.

Rubbing Andraste's ashes on them healed Havard's wounds? Well, wood ash could have helped the healing process somewhat, and that was perhaps exaggerated into a magical and instantaneous recovery by the story being passed down over a thousand years.

The ashes have incredible healing properties? Maybe, if it's the right thing that ails ya. It's not a panacea, but if you're specifically poisoned, sure, it might help.

And I know this is such a small thing, but it really does crack me up.

(It might raise the question of why the healers at Redcliffe jumped straight to the Ashes and didn't just give him charcoal the moment they learned that it was poison causing the illness, treating poison with charcoal has been a thing since antiquity irl, but then I feel like I should revert back to a Doylist POV, which would make the answer simply "because then there's no quest", so I'm cutting them some slack there lol.)

[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."

[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.

[darkfeanix]

I've got conflicting feelings about the new episode of Vows and Vengeance. Under the cut in case of spoilers.

On the one hand, great to finally have some real Taash content.

On the other hand, it feels like the people behind the podcast had only a passing knowledge of Dragon Age. The way the Temple of the Lost Dragon was handled felt too... religious, for starters. If it was meant to be sacred to the Qunari, I feel like it should have been tied more directly to the Qun, perhaps a site visited by Koslun or something like that? My understanding of the Qun is limited, but I actually wonder if they would even have sacred sites in the way that it seems to suggest in the discussion of it between Taash and the Qunari soldier.

Speaking of the Qunari soldier, there was at least one, maybe even two, that sounded a bit too feminine. I don't know which actor was voicing them, they listed a few for additional voices. It just broke my immersion a bit when one of the biggest things about the Qunari is their extremely restrictive gender roles. Could this soldier have been Aqun-Athlok? Sure. But that feels more like a Watsonian explanation than a Doylist one.

Really, the portrayal of the Qunari as a whole felt just... a little off. The whole "kadan" exchange... I could almost dismiss it as an intentional case of miscommunication, but it really feels like they were writing it to just mean "friend", when we know from past uses that it has a much deeper meaning than a friendly stranger.

Also, saying Taash will be hanged? It feels so un-Qunari like. Wouldn't they send her to the Tamassran to be re-programmed, or if not that, to be subjected to qamek? I feel like executing an able-bodied woman like Taash would be considered wasteful under the Qun, which feels like it ties back to the idea of the temple being "sacred".

Unrelated to any of the above, Nadia is really starting to frustrate me as a protagonist. I'm trying to interrogate those feelings, asking myself if her behaviour would annoy me as much if she were a man... and to be honest, yeah, I'm pretty sure it would. It's a really unfortunate combination of selfishness, self-pity, and angrily lashing out at everybody that is hitting all the wrong buttons for me. I get where it's all coming from, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating.

Also, this is absolutely the nitpickiest of nitpicks, but at one point Drayden asks how Taash knows the Gamordan Stormrider is female, and Taash says it's the "ridges and colouring of her spine". But it's established in lore that only female dragons can grow into high dragons, so it should go without saying that the Stormrider is female, because a male wouldn't have gotten big enough to cause the damage done to the Qunari settlement.

As I said, it was great to finally get some Taash content, and I absolutely loved Jin Maley's performance in the role, but this was probably my least favourite episode so far.

[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.

[vespertin-y]

Songs From A Dead World Pt. 2: Analyzing The Euclydian Anthem

(If you missed part 1, the link'll be in the notes!)

Inputting the code FORGET THE PAST will get you some spooky music and a glitching color code. Not nearly as many layers here as last time, but still suitably ominous.

While we analyzed the lullaby line-by-line, we're going to do this one in chunks. It makes more sense that way!

TWO DIMENSIONS TO AND FRO / YOU ALWAYS (K)NOW WHICH WAY TO GO

Yeah, see, that's IMMEDIATELY weird. Humans don't exactly go around singing about the glory of being three-dimensional. And while of course there's the obvious doylist explanation of this being written *for* a three-dimensional audience...there's also quite a few interesting watsonian clues, aren't there? Obviously the third dimension existed in their universe, there were stars in it. Bill calls his mutation "rare", not unique. He also claims that talking about the third dimension was illegal - and while he's a wildly untrustworthy source, the fact that the eye test has "euclidean department of vision supervision" written on it rings a lot of alarm bells. I hope you can see now why I'm calling this their anthem and not just a really patriotic bar song or something. (Never trust the government, even if the government is made up of tiny adorable shapes in tiny adorable hats!)

IF YOU'RE LOST, DON'T BE AFRAID / IN EUCLYDIA YOU'VE GOT IT MADE

This is pretty normal patriotic bragging for this sort of thing, although maybe a little more condescending than usual.

RUN TOO FAR TOO RIGHT OF FRAME / YOU'LL APPEAR ON LEFT AGAIN / JUMP TOO HIGH, DON'T CRY OR FRET / YOU'LL POP UP FROM THE GROUND, I BET

(...I will not be a pedant about jumping, I will not be a pedant about jumping, I will not be a pedant about jumping...)

Some physics lore! That's fun to puzzle over. When Bill talks about his homeworld during Weirdmaggedon, we see a blue planet with a ring around it - and we see a similar model planet hanging inside his mind in TBOB. If that *is* Euclydia, there's still a lot of options for what it means. Maybe they lived on a flat planet; maybe they lived on a round planet but were unable to perceive its roundness; maybe they lived on the flat ring around the planet. Not one of those options answers more questions than it raises, so why not have fun?

I don't actually think the contents of this verse are the most important part - it's the phrasing. "Frame"? That's like, the eighth time Euclydia has been compared to TV. Every day Bill Cipher gets a little closer to one of those 'what if innocent baby show characters were SECRETLY DEMONS and EVERYONE DIED' creepypastas.

IN THIS SPACE THERE IS NO FEAR / LOVED ONES WILL BE EVER NEAR

Okay, we've advanced from "pretty normal for a genre of song that literally exists to brag" to "that's just a cult, guys". The positivity has gone from charming to setting my teeth on edge. Do not ever, ever trust someone who says things like this. The only way you're going to live the life they've just promised is with an icepick to the noggin. (God, it's so painfully obvious where the idea for Billville started).

ROLES AND RULES (ARE) ALWAYS CLEAR / EUCLYDIA, WE HOLD YOU DEAR

(Hey, that "we" is one of the main reasons I think this is something written by and for Euclideans and not just an outsider POV poem! Neat. Now, let's get to that other line...)

I'm going to get a little personal here. When's the last time you went to church?

More specific. When's the last time you went to an average American Protestant church?

More specific. When's the last time you heard one of those very normal churches talk about women?

There's a tone they like to use. It's not a mean tone! God, no. It's a very nice tone, actually. A tone that says hey, we know this is probably raising some alarms for you. That's alright. We're good people. We'll answer all your pesky, uncomfortable questions.

They do not, after all, seek to degrade women. That's ridiculous! Women aren't lesser than men, they're just different. And one of those differences just so happens to be that they're built to submit to men in all aspects of life. It's only natural. It's not cruel, or uncomfortable - if you ARE uncomfortable, that's just because you have some arrogance you need to sort out. Your natural role is, after all, the MOST comfortable place for you to be. Just fit in. If that makes you unhappy, you aren't fitting in right. Keep going. Keep going. You know what you need. We'll help you.

Bill casually mentions that his homeworld had rhombuses and trapezoids, which he has no reason to lie about, so we can assume it's true. And that's great, genuinely; those shapes would have never been allowed to live in Flatland, so we know Euclydia is less baby murdery than its inspiration. But I see people extrapolating that into "there was no class system" and like, guys...you can put anything into an anthem. They exist to inspire good feelings about a country.

And these are a people who chose to put in that everyone has a clearly delineated role in society.

They're just, yknow, nice about it.

Like poison through a silly straw.

Or a children's cartoon that teaches all the wrong lessons.