#thinky bits

[collateraldamage-old]

// The idea of writing an AU Homelander where he's raised in a sorta Truman Show way while Vought waits for his powers to happen, it's been chewing on me, though mainly as a twt thing.

Like, he's certainly brighter than most kids and a little bit more durable, but he doesn't really develop powers that can be easily marketed, so he's just placed in a fake home with fake family and constantly monitored to see if maybe he's just a late bloomer.

But he goes through school, goes to university, becomes something really fucking boring (to most people, but he's brilliant at it--corporate lawyer or something to do with money), winds up going to work for Vought, probably snaps when he does find out his life for the past 40 years has been engineered in the hopes that the company hasn't completely wasted their time.

His powers manifest when it's least convenient and freak him the fuck out.

John would still develop into an asshole, I'm pretty sure it's genetic, and he's also the kind of guy who has the shittiest luck. Like, TRYING to be a good person (because his family are also assholes) keeps blowing up in his face.

(Also because I'm nasty I thought "oh god what if meeting Aurelia before her accident and the rage at the supe that caused it winds up triggering his powers ohgod")

I have been rotating this in my head for days like a rotisserie chicken

[oniliae]

if ithink abt them toomuch I throew up . 💞💗💓 ough. ft tim cameo ily tim

[dedfly]

Aw he is having his moment

[dizzybizz]

can u please draw bailu and blade interaction :3 i love to hc them like father and daughter dynamic

bailu babywrapped, blade girldad 💖

[stagefoureddiediaz]

I keep coming back to the fact that Eddie and Chris were playing boggle - both in Bucks loft and in the Diaz house in ep 1. Because boggle is about finding the words in a mass of letters - the answers are in plain sight- literally staring you straight in the face.

Eddie is the one who wins the game - because he is the one who needs to find the answers, not Chris - and it suggests he will in fact figure out what’s been in plain sight all along.

But I love the idea that Chris does have some of the same answers as Eddie. Not all of the same answers and he’ll perhaps have found some different words to Eddie, because they both ultimately want/need different things from their respective relationships with Buck, but that there is cross over in those wants and needs.

[pinkysberg]

twitter is mad at me but none of them will actually give me a legitimate reason outside of quote tweeting me on private accounts bc one person claimed my video about dutch demonized bipolar disorder but listed off a bunch of things i straight up never said or did in that video. so. that's interesting.

[averlym]

no one would notice if i ever vanished // if bodies could sustain // this never-ending army // like blood pumping through a vein

(click for better resolution!)

:OOO hello. anyway since these are all posters i'd have in an ideal world or smth and i'd like to store the high res versions somewhere,,, here's the google drive folder for them? hehe ''

close up!

[mayoiayasep]

i may not like ohshc as much as i did when i first read/watched it but god one of my favorite things about that series is how much everyone in that club loved tamaki so much and was so. upset about doing so

[rooolt]

The concept of lark finding out “what the doodler wants” and then shattering it before anyone else can know is sooooo fascinating to me because the way I’ve always read it the doodler doesn’t want anything. To me, the doodler was horrifying because it was not an all powerful malicious entity with goals or wants, but a faceless brainless force of nature that was so strong it’s mere presence in the world spelled destruction. Like never once in the podcast has the doodler shown any agency or intent, every action in service of it even in amod seemed entirely motivated and verbalized by its acolytes. We know from amod that the doodler thrives of the concept of randomness and to me that’s all it ever was. It was so heavily entrenched in the random and chaos that it physically could not have wants or desires for power because it would so be against its very nature. That’s why the doodler was scary to me, because it could not be manipulated or tricked like a person could, it was simple raw destructive horrifying power, and I don’t think the lark stuff disproves that. What if that is the truth, what if the doodler doesn’t want anything? If you’re lark, a person who feels crushing responsibility for this disaster and you find out that it is no different in intent than a hurricane, does that not terrify you? Does that not instill in you a fear that if anyone else found out they would feel so powerless against it that they would just give up? They’d give up and the world would end and it would be your fault. This was not the all powerful creature 11 year old you thought it was, the one he wanted to fight to prove his strength, this is pure entropy and chaos and randomness and destruction and no one else can know lest they stop fighting? Is the fighting fruitless, who even knows, but at least it fools you into thinking you’re making a difference.

[the-elusive-soleil]

My standard headcanon, which I do very much like, is that Elrond and Elros are essentially curse/doom kryptonite because of Luthien mojo, Tuor-blessed-by-Ulmo mojo, etc. But it occurred to me that there could be another possibility, and I don't have time to fully write it, so y'all can run wild with it:

What if, around the time Elrond and Elros have to make the Choice of the Peredhil, they're also told that they have to choose whether to be counted as (half) Noldor or Sindar? (For right now, we'll assume Elros also has to make this choice, even though he's going to be living as a human, because it will affect how he sets up his kingdom and who he can ally with.)

The thing is, ever since they joined up with the Host of the West, they've been confusing the snot out of everybody. They look like Luthien's line. They've been raised by Feanorians for, let's say, the past forty-odd years, and it's in their mannerisms, their clothes, the way they fight. They switch, sometimes apparently at random, between using Earendilion, Nelyafinwion, or Kanafinwion as patronymics. In a camp that is ostensibly all one army, but under the surface is positively rife with different factions, they insist on making friends with people from everywhere.

The Valar are getting confused, too: what exactly are they supposed to do with these two, with their absolute trail mix of heritages?

So Eonwe or whoever finally tells them that they have to choose. Either they can be Sindar and have the friendship of Oropher's people, go by Earendilion (or maybe Elwingion, to be safe) and never speak Quenya or wear the Star of Feanor again, but have the blessing of Luthien...or they can be Noldor, and stay in touch with the people and customs they've lived most of their lives with at the expense of associating with their mother's people. Also, in that case, they'll definitely fall under some kind of doom, but it won't be so bad if they declare themselves as Nolofinwean through Idril, rather than Feanorian by adoption.

Obviously, their first response would be to be stubborn and difficult and rules-lawyering, and not choose at all. And that would be really fun to see. But say they couldn't. Say they had to choose. What then?

Let's say they split the difference. Does Elros choose to be counted as (metaphysically and by origin) Sindar so that his kingdom can thrive, and then quietly keep Elrond and Maglor and (assuming he's survived) Maedhros under his aegis so their doom can't catch up with them? Does Elrond take this on instead, since he's the designated immortal one, and try to find some way to keep in close enough touch with his brother and fathers to pass along some of his luck? How well does this work? What happens to Numenor if its first king is carrying a family curse? What happens to Elrond if he's the cursed one, trying to dodge his way through the successive ages of the world once his brother is gone?

Or let's say they both embrace the Noldor side, just to pull the rug out from under everyone who thinks they'll take this chance to ditch the people who raised them. Presumably it doesn't get as bad as it does for, say, Turin, but how bad does it get? How do they deal with the guilt crises that Maglor and Maedhros absolutely will have over this? How long does Numenor last (or does it fall in exactly the same time and manner as in canon, just with people blaming something different)? Does Rivendell exist at all? What do the Second, Third, Fourth Ages look like now?

Or let's say, for whatever reason you like, that they choose their Sindar side. Maybe because it's a side of themselves that they never got to fully explore, and they don't want to give it up out of hand. Maybe in an attempt to keep the people around them safe. Maybe because they have just a bit of foresight and see that they'll be needed in certain roles in the future and this is the best way. Maybe because Maglor and Maedhros have taken the Silmarils and vanished, and the twins think their adoptive family doesn't want them anyway. What does that look like? How do they reconcile their new lives with their old ones? How many habits do they have to break that they didn't even realize would be looked on with suspicion? How bad is the culture shock, and how long until it wears off?

Assuming they choose, how much do you think they try to fudge it, aiming for a sneaky blend of both? How well does it work? Are the attempts an open, amused secret? Or do they try and fail, over and over again, until they realize that whatever they chose is set into the fabric of reality just as their choices between Man and Elf altered something deep in them?

How will the parent(s) they didn't choose to follow react when, inevitably, they all meet again?

[floydsteeth]

I might draw odilia and leons kids too

[hearts401]

Thinking abt a weird human glamrocks au where the aftons kids are split up when their mom dies and william disappears and mike goes with henry, evan goes with gregory and freddy, and liz goes with vanessa and cassidy

[stagefoureddiediaz]

@evcndiaz ‘s post about Eddie and Shannon and their relationship and being in love got me thinking about Helena and Ramon’s relationship and well anyway it ended up as this rambly mess of a meta essay that would’ve never fit in the tags! I could be totally barking up the wrong tree, but, well

I just wonder how loving their relationship actually is and if we’re maybe gonna start seeing more of the cracks I already think are there, because we often use our parents relationship as a blueprint for our own - be that what to do or not to do. And it’s all feeling a bit like parallels paralleling and threads interweaving.

Eddie joined the army to provide for his impending family - which mirrored a lot of what we know about Ramon- working away a lot, barely making it home for the birth of any of his children/ turning up after the event. Leaving Helena to fill the role of both parents and being a distant part of his children’s life. I’d love to know how old they were when they had Eddie, because while the retirement party suggests Ramon as being older when Eddie arrived, it feels like Helena is perhaps a fair bit younger (that could just be my reading of it) - perhaps Ramon was pressured into getting married and settling down and Helena was a young pretty girl he was introduced to idk!

Eddie claims his mom is fine and he only has a bad relationship with his father, but his mother is strong willed and pretty forceful - she is the driving force behind so much of what we have witnessed - she is the one who wants to keep Christopher, she is the one being dictatorial about juice boxes etc, it is her who starts telling the less than fun (read traumatic) story about Eddie and the car. Ramon is never the instigator, merely the back up for her plans. It’s almost as if he’s playing along for an easy life and isn’t actually in love with her. I’d argue their relationship is pretty toxic (he kept major heart surgery from his entire family - that is not a good thing non any level!) and that now Ramon is retired and around more - that they’re going to have to spend so much more time in each others company that we might start to really see things not going so great for them - especially if Ramon doesn’t adjust to being in one place all the time and with Helena all the time rather than sporadically. Abuela is there at the moment and perhaps her presence has been helping paper the cracks.

It’s making me think of how Athena described her divorce as being viewed as a failure within her community- that she’s the first one to get a divorce etc. And while the religions (and communities) are different, there are similar sentiments within the catholic community around divorce - especially that generation.

Viewed from the outside with the information we have, Helena and Ramon’s relationship seems much more one of tolerating and accepting the situation because there is no other option than one of genuine love, respect and friendship. Eddie had essentially gone down the same route as they had and because he knew no different was prepared to settle for what he had - for Chris - sacrificing his own happiness (because that’s what you do) and repressing who he is because of the situation he found himself in.

Shannon was the one ‘strong’ enough to step away (not saying her way of doing so was right at all - heaven knows I’m not Shannon’s biggest fan) - the outsider - the one without the pressure of religion and community (community because she is white and not a PoC so community is different. we don’t really know enough to know for sure but she always reads to me as non catholic and as a child of divorce - where is her father and the fact there is zero mention from her mother about wishing her father could meet his grandson etc suggests he’s not dead!) and the one to actually recognise her feelings for Eddie were not those deep abiding love. Had she not died we maybe could’ve seen them developing a co-parenting relationship in a similar way to Athena and Michael, but we’ll never actually know.

It all adds so much more depth to Eddie’s repression and inability to understand his feelings - this isn’t even related to buddie or being queer. There’s this sense that the tangled web of feelings he had in relation to Shannon hasn’t been fully unknotted or detangled and he’s still playing into his family expectations - Shannon was never fully accepted, just tolerated, because she wasn’t from his community and that relationship would’ve ended in divorce - making Eddie a failure once more in the eyes of his family (and community). He was spared that because Shannon died, so Eddie is now choosing to date women (Ana and Marisol) who are from his community - therefore more acceptable to his family.

It’s actually a really interesting thing that seems to be happening in Eddie unpacking himself and his trauma and repression and breaking the cycle. Ana was perfect on paper - but Eddie was ultimately dating her for Christopher rather than himself. He’s unpacked that bit of things and has dealt with that aspect of his trauma/repression.

Marisol (as very little as we know of her at this point) is interesting because she’s been presented differently to Ana - Ana we never ever heard about any of her family beyond a cousin having a baby and the christening being where Eddie (and Chris) would meet the family - which Eddie was less than enthusiastic about when it was revealed. Marisol is different - we’ve seen her brother and heard her talking on the phone to her mother. Yes she was at the Diaz house during Chris’s date but they had zero interaction with one another. The fact she is given less screen time than Shannon and even the fact she appears in the same episode as Shannon (because she didn’t actually need to be there to help ‘chaperone’ in all honesty) puts her in parallel and contrast to Shannon. There’s a couple of interesting things to point out here - Shannon is not present in the places Marisol is (I can’t be 100% sure because the scene wasn’t long enough and it was out of focus) - there are no photos of Shanon on the mantle etc the space Marisol is allowed to occupy - Shannon is completely confined to Christopher’s room. It’s an interesting choice to do this because it focuses the Shannon of it all on Christopher (which is right and important and we’ve already talked at length about the fact they’ve chosen to put Buck into the same position and space as Shannon) but it also implies the Marisol of it all is not connected to parenting. That she is solely connected to Eddie. That Eddie hs actually started dating her because of advice from Pepa plays into this, and the fact we already know more about her family than either Shannon or Anas respective families, to me at least, implies that’s the direction of growth we’re going to see from Eddie - learning that he can follow his own path rather than the path his family expects him to, that he’s going to be learning what love does and or doesn’t look like - getting to do the learning he didn’t before because Shannon died before he got the chance to do that bit of growing (brain won’t let me articulate this fully but you know what I mean)

And some of the things Ryan has said about their relationship - great job of introducing her, figuring how things fit - how and if she fits (I’m paraphrasing massively because I don’t have the mental capacity to go look for the quote right now) - is all just suggesting to me that her purpose is about him learning and understanding he doesn’t have to conform to his family’s expectations etc. Recognising and growing in the direction that’s right for him rather than what’s right for his family, and to bring it back around to Helena and Ramon - recognising that their relationship is not that great of a relationship to seek to emulate.

Shesh! I have zero idea if this makes one iota of sense but it’s been whirring round in my brain since 7x01!

[pinkysberg]

sometimes i see posts that insinuate ppl lack nuance where characters like arthur, john and dutch are concerned and i find myself wondering what corner of the fan space they exist in where that's the case.

[fascinationex]

maybe one day i will join the dratchets on the side of drift being an actual monster who has really, for realsies, just right now decided to curl up on the floor next to some old guy's armchair. and now you're just supposed to NOT shoot him.

i just think i would be more interested in dratchet if there was more emphasis on drift being a shockingly regular nightmare to like 72% of everyone he meets.

just a personal thought.

[hatosaur]

tlou hbo episode two thoughts eheofsflsjf

i like that they’re continuing with the scientific approach, not just as a way to set things up in the very beginning, but as a way to (VERY subtly) inform the audience of info vital to the episode. the beginning was harrowing just in the professor’s fear.

joel’s weariness of ellie is amped tf up and it works great with the change of ellie getting a second (albeit smaller) bite. it was a REALLY neat way to a) provide a juxtaposition between ellie and tess in the immediacy of their bites, seeing as they got it at the same time, and b) very clearly illustrate to joel that ellie was telling the truth. the former was already present in the game, but the way they further emphasize it was pretty clever. it’s especially good for getting the point across to people who are new to the story.

i also liked how they chose to make tess and ellie warm up to one another, as well as ellie’s little shenanigans in the hotel with joel and tess just watching her. cute cute cute. makes me sad each ep can’t be as long as the first because i wanted just a little more “family” time.

CLICKER FIGHT. MY HEART WAS RACING. that whole sequence was so good. IT SUCKS NOT BEING IN CONTROL DURING THESE SCENES.

the one thing i have mixed feelings about is tess’s death. i didn’t quite like the change from fedra killing her. granted, i know it’s meant to be the payoff to the beginning of the ep and the added lore about infected (side note: i think the web thing is really cool! the infected being triggered primarily through sound is good when it’s gameplay but in the tv there def needed to be more), but i feel there was significance to humans killing her rather than infected. it helped along the central theme of humanity but i’ll hold off on that opinion since it’s just the second episode. apart from that, it felt more heroic of her to face fedra, but a fiery explosion works too i guess. it’s just a bit cliche.

the kiss was. uh. a choice. again, it was definitely meant to tie off what the beginning of the ep set up, and it even (very interestingly, i’ll add!) implied that infected recognize infected, but...cmon. i can think of a ton of alternatives to a kiss to get the point across. tendrils reaching from her wound. the stalker’s tendrils just reaching toward tess in general. what ACTUALLY happened was just kinda cheap, but meh i’ll live.

overall, good episode! show’s still going very strong and i’m intrigued as hell on how they’re gonna do bill and frank. i already reallllyyyy like his conspiracy theory bullshit.