#this is the series that people just assume I love bc of my other interests

[thehalfbloodfreak]

I may or may not be reading LOTR for the first time

[13eyond13]

.

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

I've come to the conclusion that when it comes to new characters I have the same attitude as a poorly socialized dog. I swear every time new content comes around and we get the news of new characters my instant reaction is to just. Dislike them. Hope they have little to no importance in the plot. Even when the design looks nice and the characters seem interesting. They're taking screen time away from my faves and my heart tells me to Bite

[newtmastime]

the exhaustion over being around someone judgemental is on a whole another level. i can keep up with physical activities to an extent but having to hear someone endlessly yap about something that doesn't concern them and judge literal strangers they've met on sidewalks for an assumption, drains the life out of me completely.

[rh3maji]

Lil rant abt Caine

Caine is just a lil guy, despite it all. From a design standpoint I thought I was gonna absolutely fucking hate looking at him because those chattering teeth toys make my skin crawl- but the art direction really helps make him look more appealing and whimsical than a disembodied pair of talking dentures sounds on paper.

The thing with Caine is I didn't initially like him that much after the pilot. While his interactions with Bubble were quite funny, that one episode left me feeling like he'd just end up being kinda one note or at the very least one note in a way that'd get on my nerves. Then everything changed when Pomni Wake Up Time to Go On an Adventure! attacked

The comedic timing throughout that announcement video was so fucking funny and thanks to his line deliveries and animation/model [?] upgrades- CAINE LOOKED AND SOUNDED SO ADORABLE!!

Legit it wasn't until this came out that I realized I actually could be on board with Caine as a character and it's been uphill from there. Episode 2 was better than the pilot not only comedically and visually but also in terms of showcasing just how actually unsettling Caine can be as an antagonist. Not because he's vengeful or malicious, but because he's so oblivious to how people work. His mind's always buzzing with terrible ideas and he's so so eager about these adventures, but at the end of the day he really really doesn't get the circus crew. Try as he might to include them, keep them engaged [ZOOBLE WAIT!], or even give them what they want [Exit doors] he doesn't realize how traumatic and distressing their current situation can be. The very nature of being trapped in a digital world is bad enough but it's especially rough here bc not only does its god have limited capabilities, you also are very well acquainted with him, and he can't fully understand your pain nor can he truly save you from it. He won't mourn your abstraction. He will not attend your funeral. He will not understand the distress of your arrival, nor the weight of your departure.

This isn't just sad from the pov of the circus gang, it's also very sad for Caine- not because i think he'll ever feel sad about it himself necessarily, but instead because the situation is sad. New members appear over and over, you craft adventures and games and distractions like [i'm assuming] they'd asked you to, but over and over, one by one, they abstract. They stop laughing at your jokes. They don't like you. They want you to leave them alone. It's confusing and maybe even inconvenient.

Where I'm hoping the series takes Caine is that this dissonance between Caine's intentions and the distress of the circus gang gets worse and worse and worse until something's got to give. I'm hoping that maybe at some point a character will try to sit down and talk with him and for it to either sorta get through to him but completely backfire in some form because he misinterprets what the others want from him OR i'd also be down for him to listen, but not understand any of it and proceed as tho nothing happened. I don't want Caine to come around really, it'd be interesting to see how Goose would go about having him come around to being a better host that empathizes more with humans, but personally I do prefer him to keep on keepin' on being this oblivious and eager antagonist.

My favorite Caine lines/line deliveries so far:

"You, my friend, stumbled into an incredible world of wonders, where anything can happen!…e-except for swearing."

"And here we have THE GROUNDS! Drown yourself in the digital lake, or engage in ridery at the digital carnival!"

"What do you think of XDDCC? You're right, terrible, LET'S TRY THAT AGAIN!"

"Kaufmo abstracted? Why didn't anybody tell me?"

"Bubble you can't say that"

"-ZOOBLE WAIT!"

"Why are you all just standing there?! The- The Canyon- C-Candy Canyon Kingdom needs you now!" [according to his VA, this was an actual line flub but hoo boy am i glad they use it bc it's hilarious]

"I know you guys love your NPCs, but if I start losing track of who's a human and who's an NPC, who knows...what. could. happen..."

That last line there specifically surprised me the most because up until he said that I was under the impression Caine was linked to every single NPC. I even thought he could see through their eyes if he so chose thanks to his "hundreds of all seeing eyes" line in the pilot. Him saying this here implies lots of things. Has Caine forgotten before? Is someone in the circus secretly an NPC ooooooooh~

"Who knows what could happen..."

Honestly, when Caine first said this I did immediately theorize Jax as being an NPC but now that it's been *checks calendar* three months since I watched episode 2, I don't think this is the case anymore. Jax being an NPC would be...something. Jax not knowing he's an NPC would be interesting [i like it when ppl's realities get shattered], but honestly I think this line was a way to telegraph to the audience that no Caine isn't actually all knowing. He didn't know Gummigoo was coming through that portal until he saw him with his own two eyes. My theory is that Caine is only able to teleport, create, censor, transform, and destroy the world around him, but isn't able to see all of it at once unless he tries to. I think Caine's default state is one where he only knows what he sees directly in front of him/what he himself has left waiting for someone else. And rather than implying someone in the gang is an NPC, I think that line in episode 2 was mainly implying Caine can be tricked, that it's possible to hide something from him, to surprise him even. Though I'm not opposed to an NPC we haven't met trying to join under the guise of being human, it'd potentially create some fun tension assuming the audience was given enough reason to care about them.

Jax is actually my favorite character in tadc, but i couldn't fill an entire post with things to say abt him. Caine seems to be- at least as of right now- the easiest of all the characters to try and wrap my head around. I'll probably have a lot more to say about Jax as he exists in canon as the episodes come out [EPISODE 6 MY BELOVED]

but uhhhh yeah, that's all the things i had to say abt Caine. Pls go watch/listen to the fansong Digital Land bye!

[wikitpowers]

What’s your opinion on Julian and Kit’s relationship?!

I feel like I see a lot of people head canon or think they had a sibling like relationship but IMO I don’t think Jules really cared for Kit/didn’t mind him. Like not a hate or a dislike but just as someone who’s there

What do u think!!! I’m curious since your like the Kit expert 🫡😉

oh this will be interesting!

side note: U CALLING ME A KIT EXPERT ACTUALLY MADE MY DAY! UR SO SWEET! THANK U SO SO MUCH, LOVE 🫶🏻

as for kit/julian relationship, i share the same thoughts as u! i don't think julian hates him or anything extreme like that, but i definitely agree that (especially in tda) he's kinda indifferent to him. tbh when u are out there raising 4 kids, u really don't stop to think about another strange kid entering the household. baby had a lot on his plate, so we gotta give him the benefit of the doubt here :')

but i think julian does like kit despite their few interactions. like during the car scene in lm when kit tells julian that ty isn't weird, he's just autistic, i think julian starts to respect him in that moment. he sees that kit won't judge his brother. and honestly, i think he probably felt more at ease when he saw kit, ty and livvy hanging out because of it. i think julian sees how happy the kiddos are with kit around (especially the twins). i bet julian's thoughts are just "he's a good kid" (<- because he's a dad).

i think their relationship is kinda different in sobh. like the scene where kit assumes that jules doesn't want to see him bc he's "on ty's side" broke me in ways u cannot imagine. atp, i think julian knows that something (whatever it may be) went on between kitty and he realises that both of them had something special together, that ty was happier with kit around. i hc that in the back of his mind he's like "we gotta help fix this, i can see that kit is suffering just as much as ty is." i think he genuinely does want kit to be happy :(

so in general, i think they respect each other. like kit wants to do good, to show julian that he isn't a threat to the blackthorns, that he can be trusted. he knows that julian is super protective so he wants julian to trust him and i think he does. honestly, i think julian acknowledges and appreciates kit efforts and sees how easily he fits into the blackthorn's everyday lives. so, they might not interact much, but i think they still truly care about each other <3

honestly though, i think twp will be the series where we see kit and julian's relationship shift more when julian realizes that his brother is in love with our little blondie. and it will be crazy <3

[atopvisenyashill]

Bran The Time Traveling Toddler

Yes that IS a reference to the Tyrion the time traveling fetus theory. The thing about MY insane theories is that they actually make sense and I’m right. Follow me please down the worm hole!!

There’s very clearly Someone Influencing things when it comes to the Starklings and even the overreaching plot in general - there’s enough weird magic surrounding them, whispering in the wind, that it’s a no brainer they’re being watched over. The question is WHO and WHEN. For me, personally, I think it’s Bran, and I think it’s an older Bran from the future (whether it be Bran In TWOW and ADOS or Bran post canon) trying to lead his siblings to safety.

Now, like my Harrenhal meta, I don’t think I’m saying anything new so much as compiling what people have said scattered across the interwebs. There’s a lot of theories about whether Bran can time travel, time travel in general in the series, how george has dealt with time travel before, and about the three eyed crow’s identity and I agree with bits and pieces of what other people have said - preston jacobs is a more famous example of this theory for example. But I don't want to get caught up on things like time travel paradoxes because, like, i don’t care about that, and george has talked about how time travel is more fantasy than scifi bc it’s just not really scientifically possible. do you know what that means? it means there’s no weird physical paradoxes because it’s ✨magic✨ and Bran isn't literally going through space and time. It's as Jojen says-

With two eyes you see my face. With three you could see my heart. With two you can see that oak tree there. With three you could see the acorn the oak grew from and the stump that it will one day become. With two you see no farther than your walls. With three you would gaze south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall

Through his greenseeing abilities, Bran can see the whole of a lifespan, from conception to burial, and can pop out at any point in that lifespan, because a span of 100, 1000, or 1,000,000 years is all the same to the weirwood. So I don't think it's in the realm of Crazy Ass Theories to say that Bran is capable of a more magic based form of time travel. That he can whisper in people's dreams, on the wind, taking on the voice of the old gods themselves and doing his best to nudge things the way he needs them to be in order to keep the people he loves safe.

I also don't think Bloodraven is Three Eyed Crow (though I do think he also uses this metaphor of "flying" wrt magic, and that's why Euron also has a comment about flying in his dreams - I just don't believe that metaphor originates with Brynden himself. Rather, I think he picked it up from somewhere else), but instead, it's Bran, using the weirwood network to get all the pieces on the board he needs where he needs them to be for the endgame. Notice that Brynden doesn't seem to know what Bran is talking about when he mentions the Three Eyed Crow-

"Are you the three-eyed crow?" Bran heard himself say. A three-eyed crow should have three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek, and into his neck. "A … crow?" The pale lord's voice was dry. His lips moved slowly, as if they had forgotten how to form words. "Once, aye. Black of garb and black of blood." 

Brynden mentions the watch, but doesn't mention the three eyed crow. Everyone simply refers to Brynden as the greenseer, not the three eyed crow, except for Bran himself, who simply assumes Brynden is the three eyed crow (and we know magical assumptions in this series are generally wrong!).

What’s double interesting to me about this “bloodraven is the three eyed crow” assumption is brynden himself makes his “a thousand eyes and one” comment - but doesn’t mention a third eye. Meanwhile, Bran’s narrative is obviously filled with bird references and the opening of his third eye from Bran feeding the crows on the towers before he falls then longing to go back to the crows afterwards, of a crow sending Jojen to “the winged wolf,” of his dreams of living as a bird in maester luwin’s rookery with his siblings - Jon Snow even compares him to a bird in their final scene face to face when he thinks bran has “fingers like the bones of birds.”

And notable that though both Rickon and Bran have a greendream where they talk to Ned in the crypts of Winterfell just before Ned is executed, Rickon makes no mention of a three eyed crow, but Bran explicitly sees him-

The mention of dreams reminded him. "I dreamed about the crow again last night. The one with three eyes. He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did. We went down to the crypts. Father was there, and we talked. He was sad."

"Shaggy," a small voice called. When Bran looked up, his little brother was standing in the mouth of Father's tomb. With one final snap at Summer's face, Shaggydog broke off and bounded to Rickon's side. "You let my father be," Rickon warned Luwin. "You let him be." "Rickon," Bran said softly. "Father's not here." "Yes he is. I saw him." Tears glistened on Rickon's face. "I saw him last night."

What that says to me is that the Three Eyed Crow has the ability to speak directly to only Bran and can only otherwise appear in a more ephemeral way to others. With the established rules about not being able to communicate properly with the past, I think this makes sense - being able to use the weirwood hivemind/greenseeing powers to appear in a different form to yourself but unable to appear in a concrete form to anyone else.

I think it's even likely we'll see Bran doing some of this nudging and whispering on page in ADOS or maybe as early as TWOW, but it won't be the exact same sort of "Bran can literally reach out and touch someone in a weirwood dream" that they had in the show with the later scenes. It'll be more like that very first scene in the show where we see Bran influence the past slightly - you know, when he calls out "father!" and young Ned turns around, having heard a voice on the wind-

And there's a direct parallel to ADWD here, where Bran is certain Ned heard him speaking in the godswood but Brynden says it's not possible (not possible for Brynden perhaps!)-

Lord Eddard Stark sat upon a rock beside the deep black pool in the godswood, the pale roots of the heart tree twisting around him like an old man's gnarled arms. The greatsword Ice lay across Lord Eddard's lap, and he was cleaning the blade with an oilcloth. "Winterfell," Bran whispered. His father looked up. "Who's there?" he asked, turning … … and Bran, frightened, pulled away. His father and the black pool and the godswood faded and were gone and he was back in the cavern, the pale thick roots of his weirwood throne cradling his limbs as a mother does a child.

It's not quite time travel. It's like the acorn and stump metaphor - Bran can't appear in his physical body in the past but he can make a bit of noise, perhaps even be mistaken for one of the old gods.

As TWOW and ADOS go on, I think we'll see Bran's powers grow (likely in ways that frighten him and horrify the reader), and we'll see the very beginnings of him influencing the plot that happens during the previous books, showing up in scenes we've already experienced, similar to the Ned scene above. I think this because, well...he's already done it!

Now, as for What Time Traveling Bran Has Already Done - it’s tricky because we have a LOT of magic users waking and shaking. I’m not including every single instance of weird whispering or funny birds here, just the moments I think are more likely to be Bran than anyone else because I think Bran mostly deals with his siblings. I imagine they're easiest to reach out to magically because they already have the ability to access magic, and they're also the people he cares most about. The most obvious to me is in A Clash of Kings, when Jon hears a voice on the wind, very similar to the young Ned scene in the show-

Jon VII in A Clash of Kings

The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong too. Can a shout be silent? He turned his head, searching for his brother, for a glimpse of a lean grey shape moving beneath the trees, but there was nothing, only … A weirwood. It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother’s face. Had his brother always had three eyes?

Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow. He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.

Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him.

This moment was when I really started paying attention to Weird Shit Bran Might Be Doing because of that line "not before the crow." Now, we know Bran mentions talking with Jon later on, in the very last chapter of the book, here-

 He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that.

But I think it's both Bran in the present and Bran in ADOS speaking here - brothers reaching out to each other in their fear, and future Bran piggybacking off that connection to send a warning (this is back in Jon VII, during the shared Jon-Bran dream as before)-

Then he realized he was looking at a river of ice several thousand feet high. Under that glittering cold cliff was a great lake, its deep cobalt waters reflecting the snowcapped peaks that ringed it. There were men down in the valley, he saw now; many men, thousands, a huge host. Some were tearing great holes in the half-frozen ground, while others trained for war...This is no army, no more than it is a town. This is a whole people come together.

Bran warns Jon of the wildling army headed their way because he needs the Night’s Watch to stop fighting the wildlings, get them safely out of the True North (so they can’t be reanimated as wights), and focus on the Long Night. When you read the passage, it seems as if Bran is trying to awaken Jon’s third eye - something present baby Bran isn’t concerned with, because he barely understands his own third eye awakening. But a Bran in ADOS or beyond would know exactly what to say and do to get Jon and himself to wake up! Not just because of the paradox, but because of his connection to his brother and his vast understanding of his own magic. Similar to the idea that “who would know how to motivate Bran better than Bran himself” who would know how to motivate Jon better than one of his beloved siblings?

Arya X in A Clash of Kings

In the godswood she found her broomstick sword where she had left it, and carried it to the heart tree. There she knelt. Red leaves rustled. Red eyes peered inside her. The eyes of the gods. "Tell me what to do, you gods," she prayed.

For a long moment there was no sound but the wind and the water and the creak of leaf and limb. And then, far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. Gooseprickles rose on Arya's skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy. Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father's voice. "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," he said.

“But there is no pack," she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. "I'm not even me now, I'm Nan."

"You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you."

"The wolf blood." Arya remembered now. "I'll be as strong as Robb. I said I would." She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth.

Once again, we have a voice - it seemed as if it was her father's voice - telling a Starkling to do something specific, reminding that Starkling of their ties to Winterfell, the north, and home. The voice she hears, speaking her true name, is the kick in the pants Arya needs to grab Gendry and Hot Pie and get out of Harrenhal. There's something interesting, engaging, heartbreaking, that when Arya is at one of her lowest points, lamenting the loss of her pack, and out comes the voice of one of her pack urging her to keep faith, and helping to inspire one of her best moments - I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth. Again, we have a voice trying to get the Starklings to wake up and face their reality!

Sansa in A Storm of Swords

That night Sansa scarcely slept at all, but tossed and turned just as she had aboard the Merling King. She dreamt of Joffrey dying, but as he clawed at his throat and the blood ran down across his fingers she saw with horror that it was her brother Robb. And she dreamed of her wedding night too, of Tyrion's eyes devouring her as she undressed. Only then he was bigger than Tyrion had any right to be, and when he climbed into the bed his face was scarred only on one side. "I'll have a song from you," he rasped, and Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. "I wish that you were Lady," she said.

To be clear I think there’s a large change this is nothing. BUT. Considering Bran seems to be reaching out to his siblings, I like the idea that Bran, and magic in general, is trying to talk to Sansa but she can’t quite hear it. Winterfell and it’s magic and it’s family is calling it’s daughter home, even torn from her magical guide as she is, still trying to reach out through her dreams and through the animals around her. I’m desperately hoping that at some point in Sansa’s early TWOW chapters, we’ll start to see birds acting and speaking funny around her as Bran tries harder to reach his lost sister.

Theon Greyjoy in A Dance With Dragons

BUT. I don't think it's just the Starklings that get these messages from Bran - it's everyone he cares about, everyone he loves or will love. One of the other more obvious examples of this is Theon Greyjoy, himself clearly capable of some degree of magic, just like the Starklings-

The night was windless, the snow drifting straight down out of a cold black sky, yet the leaves of the heart tree were rustling his name. “Theon,” they seemed to whisper, “Theon.” The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name. I was Theon of House Greyjoy. I was a ward of Eddard Stark, a friend and brother to his children. “Please.” He fell to his knees. “A sword, that’s all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek.” Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. “I was ironborn. A son … a son of Pyke, of the islands.” A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. “… Bran,” the tree murmured. They know. The gods know. They saw what I did. And for one strange moment it seemed as if it were Bran’s face carved into the pale trunk of the weirwood, staring down at him with eyes red and wise and sad. Bran’s ghost, he thought, but that was madness. Why should Bran want to haunt him? He had been fond of the boy, had never done him any harm. It was not Bran we killed. It was not Rickon. They were only miller’s sons, from the mill by the Acorn Water.

“he had been fond of the boy” please allow me this moment to contemplate killing myself thanks.

okay back on track but this is very self explanatory - we know Theon has some sort of capacity for magic because he had a vision of the Red Wedding in ACOK and unlike Jaime who just fell asleep on a weirweed tree, Theon was just up in bed. We see it again here, where Theon can hear a voice on the wind and then seems to see Bran’s own face in the face of the weirwood tree. Once again, the voice on the wind is trying to help a loved one of Bran’s find their way back to themselves, back to home. And Theon, for all the harm he has done, is still so so loved by Bran, and loves Bran in return.

Samwell Tarly III in A Storm of Swords

Sam made a whimpery sound. “It’s not fair …” “Fair.” The raven landed on his shoulder. “Fair, far, fear.” It flapped its wings, and screamed along with Gilly. The wights were almost on her. He heard the dark red leaves of the weirwood rustling, whispering to one another in a tongue he did not know. The starlight itself seemed to stir, and all around them the trees groaned and creaked. Sam Tarly turned the color of curdled milk, and his eyes went wide as plates. Ravens! They were in the weirwood, hundreds of them, thousands, perched on the bone-white branches, peering between the leaves. He saw their beaks open as they screamed, saw them spread their black wings. Shrieking, flapping, they descended on the wights in angry clouds. They swarmed round Chett’s face and pecked at his blue eyes, they covered the Sisterman like flies, they plucked gobbets from inside Hake’s shattered head. There were so many that when Sam looked up, he could not see the moon. “Go,” said the bird on his shoulder. “Go, go, go.”

Whoever this is - it's Bran!!!! - helps to save Sam and Gilly's lives, actively tells them to run for it, and just a little bit later, Sam is around to help save Bran in turn. I think there's also something to be said for the brotherhood connection here. They refer to each other as brothers in the book because of their connection to Jon; that connection to Jon, and therefore each other, means a lot to both Sam and Bran. There's a practical reason for saving Sam here in that he can help Bran in the "present" timeline, will likely help in the future, but more than that there's an emotional bond here and it seems to me that magic runs off emotions just as assuredly as it runs off of other important stuff like blood and and sacrifice and weirwoods.

Jon Snow XII in A Storm of Swords

With a raucous scream and a clap of wings, a huge raven burst out of the kettle. It flapped upward, seeking the rafters perhaps, or a window to make its escape, but there were no rafters in the vault, nor windows either. The raven was trapped. Cawing loudly, it circled the hall, once, twice, three times. And Jon heard Samwell Tarly shout, “I know that bird! That’s Lord Mormont’s raven!” The raven landed on the table nearest Jon. “Snow,” it cawed. It was an old bird, dirty and bedraggled. “Snow,” it said again, “Snow, snow, snow.” It walked to the end of the table, spread its wings again, and flew to Jon’s shoulder. Lord Janos Slynt sat down so heavily he made a thump, but Ser Alliser filled the vault with mocking laughter. “Ser Piggy thinks we’re all fools, brothers,” he said. “He’s taught the bird this little trick. They all say snow, go up to the rookery and hear for yourselves. Mormont’s bird had more words than that.” The raven cocked its head and looked at Jon. “Corn?” it said hopefully. When it got neither corn nor answer, it quorked and muttered, “Kettle? Kettle? Kettle?” The rest was arrowheads, a torrent of arrowheads, a flood of arrowheads, arrowheads enough to drown the last few stones and shells, and all the copper pennies too.

The Night's Watch seem to take this as some sort of divine sign, and Jon's friends take it as an excellent ploy from Samwell Tarly. But when Pyp confronts Sam over it a page later, Sam completely denies it -

“I had nothing to do with the bird,” Sam insisted. “When it flew out of the kettle I almost wet myself.”

Everyone has their theories about people warging Mormont's crow of course. I think what's interesting to me here is that Jon is really wrestling with the idea of leaving the Watch for Winterfell, in which case Janos Slynt was likely to take over command. Someone like Slynt being in charge when the Long Night is coming is a bad idea, and here, Mormont's bird directly contributes to Jon staying where he needs to be - watching over the wildlings and making sure they aren't turning into Wights.

(And this is getting into my other theories here, but IF Sansa as the Girl In Grey is true, I think this is a neat sort of timeline fixing - almost as if Bran is saying “no, not yet, the pieces aren’t aligned, Jon can’t leave yet, Brienne isn’t at the Vale to get Sansa, I haven’t trained enough, Jon still keeps slapping his hands over his third eye so he can’t see, I need to give myself more time here.”)

Bran II in A Game of Thrones

But...it's not just his family and friends that I think Bran is trying to help here, and of course, if he IS the Three-Eyed Crow, he isn’t YET. What I think is going to be a big climactic part of Bran's story is self sacrifice, giving up some of his own power, his own happiness, to save others. Yes, part of this is my absolute refusal to accept Borg Hivemind Fantasy Police State King Bran in that he will say NO to the hivemind, but I think there's something magical here as well!

I think in order to access great power you need to be willing to put your own body on the line.

Jojen mentions having gotten sick with "greywater fever" shortly before his greendreams started

Dany experiences a miscarriage then literally walks into fire in order to hatch her dragons

both Beric and Catelyn have to quite literally be gruesomely murdered in order for Thoros' fire magic to work to bring them back to life

Melisandre has to physically give birth in order for her shadow assassination to work

on and on it goes. In order to be capable of great power, you can’t just have a willingness to throw someone ELSE onto the pyre but yourself as well. But Bran is pushed out of the window instead of willingly jumping. Or...

The wolfling was smarter than any of the hounds in his father’s kennel and Bran would have sworn he understood every word that was said to him, but he showed very little interest in chasing sticks…Finally he got tired of the stick game and decided to go climbing….

The wolf did as he was told. Bran scratched him behind the ears, then turned away, jumped, grabbed a low branch, and pulled himself up. He was halfway up the tree, moving easily from limb to limb, when the wolf got to his feet and began to howl.

Bran looked back down. His wolf fell silent, staring up at him through slitted yellow eyes. A strange chill went through him. He began to climb again. Once more the wolf howled. “Quiet,” he yelled. “Sit down. Stay. You’re worse than Mother.” The howling chased him all the way up the tree, until finally he jumped off onto the armory roof and out of sight.

I think this is future Bran, finally becoming the Three Eyed Crow, inside Summer. Summer shows no interest in the game and it’s only then that Bran decides to go climbing. Future Bran is sacrificing himself for the greater good - but can’t stop his mournful cry of the fate that awaits his own young self.

[knbposting]

reposting a meta i did under someone else's post bc people have been asking me to psychoanalyse aomine or kagami and i think nobody saw this one :( anyway @cemetery14 's original post is here!

jumping on for a second to talk about this bc it's so important to me. i'm not trying to mansplain aomine daiki here but his attitude is one of my fav parts of knb so pls excuse me if i say something obvious HSDHSDJH

just as a preface, i spoke about aomine's sense of security in the people he loves HERE, in the context of my aokaga fics. it's mostly hc because it talks about his parents whom we don't get to see in canon, but i'm fairly confident in this analysis to discuss this angle without referencing to that. i founded the parent hcs on how he acts with momoi.

SO. let's discuss aomine's relationships first and foremost. in the series, aomine refers to THREE people by their first names, and he does it exclusively when he feels comfortable and/or friendly with someone enough that they've earnt it. unlike with some of the other characters, he doesn't do it to get a rise out of anyone by assuming familiarity, and he doesn't do it to make fun.

he calls kuroko tetsu when kuroko proves that not only does he love basketball as much as he does, but that he's a good person and someone aomine feels he can trust. even when they fall out, even when aomine believes that kuroko must hate him, and he wants to hate kuroko for his naive view of basketball, he still calls him tetsu. he doesn't waver at all, not around other people, or shouting his name at the top of his lungs from the back of an arena. kuroko is tetsu. it's a badge of honour.

momoi is his childhood best friend and someone he does not believe will ever leave. she is, and has been for over ten years by the time the show starts, satsuki. in my view, he treats momoi as one would a sister, almost, because he treats her honestly pretty badly with no expectation that she's taking him seriously. he's surprised when he makes her cry (like in the rain when she's suggesting he pull out of a competition due to injury), because yeah he's calling her ugly and telling her to fuck off and all of that, but there's an unbreakable bond underlying his meanness that aomine trusts won't break. he shouldn't treat his friends like this, but i'm just trying to come at this from his perspective. he expresses his love for her quietly, but it's there.

as i said in my linked hc post, aomine does not believe that he has to do anything special in order to earn the love of those he trusts. he does not believe that their love is conditional, he does not think that it's linked to his skill or status as a prodigy. for better or for worse, he feels known by these people, and therefore, he's immature about responsibilities and regularly acts up around the people he loves. he ditches people, he shirks chores, and he genuinely does not care about annoying or bothering people.

and now we come to sakurai. aomine and sakurai have a faaascinating dynamic. they're classmates as well as teammates, but i'd love to know how they started talking. neither of them have the kind of personality to just sit next to the other bc they're in basketball club together. sakurai appears skittish, insecure, wet, pathetic, we love you sakurai but you have a reputation. and it's bullshit. sakurai's "drawback", what makes him look weak in the eyes of those around him, is in his need to please others. he takes it bitterly personally when he does something wrong, or he believes he does something wrong, quickly reducing to tears and the classic "i'm sorry! i'm sorry! i don't want to live! i deserve to die!" spiel he usually descends to. but in clutch mode, in his favourite sport, sakurai can be just as arrogant as the rest of touou. he has the confidence to make threes against strong opponents instead of just passing to the prodigal ace. he wants to score points. he isn't interested in proving himself to anyone, he already knows that he's great.

sakurai's actual personality, rather than his perceived one, is probably what draws aomine to him. i can very easily imagine that they're in a game early on, and sakurai looks like he's about to get into trouble with the opposing team who are picking on him a little. but instead of crumbling, he gives them the most disgraceful look of disrespect, and scores an amazing three. it's a moment like that which would make aomine interested, and as he pays more attention, he'd notice other things he also would like. sakurai is kind, he loves basketball, and he is not afraid of aomine. he's not afraid of his skill, however much he is impressed by it, and he doesn't see aomine is someone to prove himself to or compete with. sakurai honestly doesn't seem like he thinks about aomine much at all. which aomine would like. he's also a great cook. again, my idea is that they were eating together, and aomine is looming because he kinda wants to make friends but isn't quite sure yet, and sakurai offers him a little food. you know, like the neighbourhood cat? anyway. once he's had some, he wants to have more, and so, a friendship occurs.

sakurai's food making is one of his more beloved traits in his team, and everyone is comfortable enough with him to snatch and steal etc. like wakamatsu eating all the fucking lemons so aomine wouldn't get any. my fav team. stupid idiots. there are instances were sakurai expresses that he wishes they wouldn't (like the cursed replace novel where aomine eats all sakurai's food he made for the team during a study session to do aomine's homework, without him knowing, and when he discovers an empty fridge, he starts crying and has to be comforted), but overall his protestations are, in my opinion, coming from modesty rather than actual discomfort. sakurai is a strong enough person not to have people walk all over him, he simply doesn't mind being useful to a team he has grown to love and respect.

sakurai is the third person aomine refers to by his first name. sakurai earns this in his basketball skill, he earns it in how he stares fearlessly and disgracefully at nonbelieving opponents. the food definitely helps, but aomine wouldn't have just stolen a stranger's food. he doesn't view sakurai as weak. he doesn't bully him. wakamatsu may think that aomine is bullying him or taking advantage of him, but aomine isn't like that. he doesn't take advantage of the weak, he protects them. like the lady's bag getting snatched. like fighting haizaki when he knew his friends couldn't (not that he thinks they're weak, it's just that their hands were tied). i don't think i've seen him ever take advantage of anyone like that. he certainly takes advantage of friendships as i've mentioned above, but it feels different to me. idk maybe i'm just an aomine excuser at this point. it'll happen again.

for someone who doesn't sincerely smile much, btw, look at how he is in that scene with sakurai:

sakurai: but... this is... aomine: huh? sakurai: sorry, go ahead!

i think this dialogue is less aomine bullying his way into sakurai's bento, and more sakurai realising that the neighbourhood cat is getting more comfortable with him. would he have told him to get lost? probably not. but he doesn't move away when aomine's near, and he isn't flinching or worried about anything bad happening. if anything, his eyes closing when aomine's draped all over him shows, to me, that he's sort of accepting his fate, bc he knows aomine's not gonna do anything but take the good bits of his bento (not a bully. wakamatsu. please calm down). in fact, look at aomine's reaction when wakamatsu tries defending sakurai, whom he believes is getting kinda bullied here:

first, he checks on sakurai. look, he's fine. sakurai cries at everything, he's calm here. he hasn't overstepped any boundaries. but to me, aomine's first words being a reply to wakamatsu's claims that he should be at practise, and not about stealing food, suggests that aomine hasn't actually considered that he could be doing anything wrong enough to rile wakamatsu up this much. it has gotta be about coming to practise. he stops eating sakurai's bento and tries to leave. i think he'd probably be embarrassed by the idea that he could bully anyone. mean as he is, selfish as he is, aomine's good at heart. he'd definitely think his whole team was stupid as fuck if they believed that aomine would bully sakurai, or degrade him in any way. aomine's just showing that he's comfortable with him in the only way he tends to: by being a little shit.

phew! aomine brain dump out of the way. let's discuss haizaki more briefly because haizaki is a lot of fun, but he's not as fun to talk about as aomine.

i think it's a super interesting, deliberate choice to introduce aomine as a nuisance and then haizaki as a nuisance in a similar setting. aomine's food stealing, to me, looks like it's founded on habit and friendship. he doesn't view sakurai as weak and pathetic, and i think already by that point is calling him ryou, so they're solid friends. aomine is a definite loner and doesn't seem to want friends, but ryou is one of them. one of three, as i mentioned, whom he refers to by first name.

haizaki's entrance in the food hall is different because he doesn't have that base level of friendship with kuroko at all. from memory, he calls people by their first names and it makes them uncomfortable. that's likely why he does it. he is big on disrupting the balance of things. i know he hates the generation of miracles, i know he hates team play and friendship dynamics (likely because he finds it difficult to relate to people like that, and to forgive when someone does something that he finds annoying or weak). haizaki does prey on the weak. he's a menace to women walking around at night, he's a menace to kise in their match (his views on kise are super interesting but i don't wanna get into them now, but he does view kise as weak). and he definitely thinks kuroko's weak. it's no surprise that he targets kuroko's plate (this is all from memory so i'm hoping i'm right lmao).

haizaki's food stealing is a power play. look at what i can do, i can take what i want. you can't do shit about it. when called out for it, he says this:

(mido said fuck YOUUUUU aomine) now, i don't think this is actually haizaki believing that aomine is doing it for the same reasons he is. i don't think haizaki gives a shit, and he just sees aomine making a fuss and wants to cause trouble. (side note: aomine's i only take when i'm hungry is so funny. he's saying i'm DYING before i steal from my friends!!! that's so stupid. he's such a pain. but he's never going to say "i only steal from my best friends" because that is crazy talk, this is still aomine, whether he's 12 or whatever.)

murasakibara complains, drawing himself into haizaki's zone of interest, and then haizaki shows he doesn't give a fuck by talking only of the food. i am SURE there are translation issues to be taken into consideration, but haizaki's word choice at face value is: a) your fried chicken looks good too, b) that's mine now. essentially: the fuck are you gonna do about it? he likely doesn't view mura as weak, i think here he's just willing to fight for it. mura plays defence and haizaki loses interest.

haizaki seeks to remind them that he isn't emotionally invested in any of this shit, he just takes what he wants to because he can. it's a power play, and everyone knows it.

the fact that it's aomine putting up a fight about not stealing food is telling to how different they are. it doesn't matter that aomine thinks he only steals when he's hungry so it's alright, if he even does view it like that at all (aomine has a history of talking shit and lying sooo). aomine sets them apart by making it clear that he doesn't have any ulterior motives. haizaki is very quick to announce that he does. he isn't doing it because he has to, he's stealing and being a general menace because he wants to. and he tends to target either those he views as weak, or those he knows will fight him.

i wonder why he didn't take from akashi? i wonder whether it's a testament to nijimura's fighting skills or that haizaki didn't fight back when nijimura beat him up?

anyway. i'm so sorry i wrote an essay on your post. i love this topic obviously and i'm critically insane.

[somewhereincairparavel]

🪸 𓇼 ⋆｡˚ 𓆝⋆｡˚ 𓇼 Percy Jackson headcanons starring Elora! (An island and summer girl at heart!) 🪸 𓇼 ⋆｡˚ 𓆝⋆｡˚ 𓇼

Thank you @sequinsnstars for reigniting my interest in this series. It's time I did a remake!

I know everyone is just thinking "why did you have yourself be a camper in camp Jupiter if you hate camp Jupiter so much?" Well. I exist in camp Jupiter because I want to spite everyone who gave Jason a hard time there 😤

Anyways, I had no claiming in Camp Jupiter, the moment I stepped foot onto the campus with the 7, a huge shiny blue trident appeared over my head, the storm clouds were huddling together to form a storm, and all that typical dramatic Poseidon shenanigans. I think that kinda cemented that I was officially a part of camp half blood now??The claiming actually made me feel good? Because Poseidon chose to be extra dramatic and made sure to do it when basically everyone at camp was inside the huge campus, so basically everyone stopped what they were doing to like, stare in curiosity.

Because in Camp Jupiter, I never received any positive kind of attention yk? Neptune was considered bad luck, so I was basically receiving the child of hades treatment, but the Roman version.

As a legacy of Athena and Hermes (thank you to my moots for helping me figure this out!) I naturally get along with them very well.

@gentlehue would SO teach me how to grow plants, and I'll help her water them 😤💅 Cynthia I'd definitely give you potted flowers every time I run into you 🩷

I swear the Aphrodite children are SO superficially judged by people in camp sometimes :/ I'd defend my pretty babies from harassment and gossip any day fr (@sequinsnstars @auroraofthesun)

Also dear Aphrodite children, I love makeup and would spend hours in your cabin with you drowning in lip gloss. Y'all would be the best teachers for my make-up lessons.

Percy and I have beds facing diagonal to each other, while Tyson sleeps in the bottom bunk. We have fun game nights all the time omgg.

I have pictures of my happy times in Rome stick on my board (‘happy times’ translate to pictures w my bb boy Jason Grace since we were kids and he has them stuck too awh 🥹)

Since I'm an Athena legacy, I always tease Annabeth and Percy that “I'm related to BOTH of them” and also, they make me pick sides when they're annoying e/o by saying “cmon family sticks together!”

I would be great buddies with Castor and Pollux (let's pretend they're both happy and alive) and would always reassure them that Dionysus kids don't deserve to be called “lazy and useless” bc THEY DON'T.

Speaking of which, Dionysus rolled his eyes at my dramatic claiming muttering “another useless sea urchin that provides nothing but high attitude to our camp” 😭 bro didn't even Hesitate

I feel like I wouldn't get along with Ares children that much. Neptune children are known for their high temper (with Neptune representing the ‘violent and turbulent’ side of the ocean, unlike Poseidon who represents the positive sides of it) and it would totally clash with Ares kids tbh. Frank Zhang, however, is the biggest exception!

I have these moments where Annabeth is just so used to calling Percy “seaweed brain” and teasing him about being oblivious that she forgets that I'm an Athena legacy aswell and just assumes I'm not that smart. (Not implying that she thinks Percy's dumb, but her teasing kinda gets to her head sometimes) and i have to snap back with some quick smart response to remind her that lol

am considerably close to Nico, because I already knew him at camp Jupiter, and we kinda had a small heart to heart about how terribly we were both treated because of our parentage. Of course, that closeness continued in camp half blood as well.

I'm the closest to Kayla and Will in the apollo cabin because they almost always are the ones who treat my injuries (and @auroraofthesun too because you're an Apollo legacy!)

I have a Pegasus that I took with me from Camp Jupiter, his name is ‘Alga’ (meaning, ‘seaweed’ in Latin) he's steel blue with a grayish tint. I didn't get a Pegasus of my own like Reyna did, but more rather, I came across one who followed me around, and i adopted it without telling anyone but Jason about it while I was at camp. He thought it was sweet and didn't snitch on me or even tell Reyna <3

And Yes, Alga and blackjack are buds. And yes they do roast us, and yes we do understand them.Also, just like how Demeter kids hate when flowers are being plucked from their roots, and how Percy hates aquariums because they confine sea creatures, I hate it when people take too many seashells from the beach. (irl I actually love seashells and used to collect them, but I've heard taking too many spoils the ecosystem in a way, and realistically if I am in the pjoverse, that would naturally make me dislike it)

But I do love making sand castles and attachingseashells on them, because I'm not taking them with me right? It's just gonna stay there. I can have fun in an eco friendly way lolzAnd I prefer keeping fake seashells made of ceramic and stuff as decor to maintain my aesthetic

Me and Percy can communicate underwater, but to other people, it would sound like we are speaking gibberish. He was ECSTATIC when he discovered this new made-up sea language ability lmao

Also, we are both in-charge of cleaning the ocean if it gets too dirty, so we have “chores days” where we dive in, and clean every ounce of harmful algae. And tending to sick sea animals.My nickname is ‘Kelp head’ because I have extremely wavy hair that's shaped like kelp. I've had that nickname ever since my time at camp Jupiter!I'm extremely competitive at capture the flag! Because of that Roman wild war blood in me, I just can't help but take it kinda seriously. I feel like Percy's way more chill when it comes to this lol

[hauntedwizardmoment]

OKAY so: 2, 10, 11, 14, for any oc(s) you wish, but also, assuming you're taking asks about 'em, for jace's former party from blood and turpentine fic series bc I am legitimately obsessed with them and think about them daily

HIII oh my god this got so long i am so sorry but i got carried away:

2. What's something about your OC that people wouldn't expect just from looking at them?

Peregrine: he’s a theater kid! he wanted to be a bard soooo bad or at least multiclass a la Fabian but due to the [gestures at his neuroses around his masculinity] he never did. i think in terms of levels, he ended up a level 20 fighter until he did some paladin training as an adult that put him at like, a 17/3 split between fighter/paladin. in a kinder timeline he’d be doing community theater and taxes with jace. in blood and turpentine. well no spoilers for what im currently writing but it’s not that.   

Dagbert: out of everyone in the group hes the one thats into musicals unironically. and not even good musicals. like picture this massive goliath that’s taller than porter and just as broad, i think i have him as like 7 ft 1, and he just fucking loves Cats. he’s obsessed with fantasy andrew lloyd webber. has a jellicle-sona. 

Ysvelde: she’s somehow got even less of a solid grasp of her identity than jace does. part of it is that she’s an actress, part of it is that she’s never really lived for anything besides the approval of other people (first her mom, then her adventuring party). she has no idea who she is without the approval of others. if you put her in a room alone she’d start climbing the walls instead of sitting alone with her own thoughts. girl who is constantly experiencing The Dread but she covers it up with a winning smile + really cool artsy makeup. 

Aurora: [dan howell voice] one time she had a MESSY night out in [bastion city], kissed a GIRL, and SMOKED A CIGARETTE. no but seriously she has a secret wild side that she rarely lets out, especially as she gets more and more into fundamentalism and what she believes is sol’s true word, the very early beginnings of the harvestmen cult. during their first year adventuring, shes the one that suggested matching tramp stamps while they were all wasted. 

Invidia: she’s a romantic. she really does want her friends to find love. she’s at aurora and peregrine’s wedding as a bridesmaid, and when she realizes that jace and porter are serious about each other, she’s genuinely happy for him. underneath all the cattiness and jokes she’s so glad that everything “worked out” (woman who does not know jace is a dead man walking)

10. What's an AU that would be interesting to explore with your OC?

not to keep talking about this but my infidelity fic which is an au of blood and turpentine? i have so many dramatic scenes from it that i rotate in my head. when peregrine finds out that jace got promoted to vice principal and starts a huge fight about it. dagbert’s father’s funeral. invidia and ysvelde’s falling out. when peregrine finds out about jace’s affair and subsequently gets murdered by porter. aurora’s creepy midsommar-ass family hosting everyone for fantasy easter. 

11. What is your OC's weapon of choice? Have they ever actually used it?

Peregrine: a lance!! by the time he’s a full-time adventurer i’m sure it’s a magical weapon too, probably has like a +2 or something. hes definitely used it before love a martial class. 

Dagbert: his battle axe, absolutely has used it. he’s definitely got a magic weapon too, i think i call out in love’s never meant much to me that it has magic runes on it so yeah let’s call it the same level of magical as perry’s lance

Ysvelde: so she’s a college of eloquence bard and a fiend pact warlock, so i think she probably has a shortsword as a backup weapon but honestly that eldritch blast cantrip is getting her through most of her fights juuuust fine. 

Aurora: circle of life cleric, definitely has a crossbow that she’s used a couple times in a panic early on but she’s more a healer than anything. i picture her spiritual weapon (the cleric spell) as a scythe. 

Invidia: she’s a circle of the moon druid so i think she’d have a pair of broad claws that do some sick slashing damage, plus obviously her wild shape forms, and her animal companion (a wolf but for funsies ive flavored it as a husky named luna and she loves her so much, she treats her like a child, has little bows to put in her fur, etc. luna is fantasy instagram famous)

14. How does your OC want to be seen by other characters?

ohhhh this is sosososo juicy 

Peregrine: the true driving force in his life is to be seen as a protector, as a provider, as a good fighter and a good man. he will Freak Out if he perceives anything as getting in the way of that. especially if its his own actions that make him look weak or immoral in any way, i.e. sleeping with jace when he and aurora are on a break. 

Dagbert: truly. genuinely. from the bottom of his heart. he could not give less of a shit. he wants to be known as a goddamn professional, unlike the rest of these people, apparently. he’s out here trying to earn a fucking paycheck meanwhile everyone else in his party is ensnared in insane psychosexual drama. he’s angling to get a raise to buy out his ailing father’s construction business from him and let the man retire and this clownshow of a party is fucking it up for him.

Ysvelde: she’s not real unless youre clapping and cheering for her if you dont clap and cheer for her she’ll die. she lives and dies on the approval of an audience. she’s a star. but like for real she needs validation constantly, it doesnt matter where it comes from or how she gets it, she just needs to know that she’s getting a good grade in existing, something normal to want and possible to achieve. 

Aurora: her main thing is being right. she’s a cleric, she receives the divine word from sol, she’s his hand upon the world and she’ll spread his light to the darkest corners of spyre and consecrate it for him, make the world holy. she has her convictions and is firm in them, and she wants everyone to see her as a source of good and truth, both in battle and in spirituality. i think after a certain point she couldnt care less what her party thinks of her, she’s mainly looking for the approval of higher-ups in the church of sol to further solidify herself as a priestess and help shape the vision and direction of the church. 

Invidia: her and aurora butt heads a lot because she also is very into being correct, but in a way that is entirely divorced from divinity. instead, she wants other people to see her as observant to a scary degree. she wants you to know that she sees what you do, knows your habits inside and out, all your secrets, and is taking notes and filing them away for blackmail purposes. and when you slip up she WILL brag about predicting your downfall to your face. it’s why she and jace are the ivy-and-oisin of their party, they both love gossip and reveling in the misery of people they dont like. 

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

I got caught shoplifting a few weeks ago so Im gonna have a court proceeding (? if thats what you call it in english idk) in a couple hours and Im a little bit nervous but the shit I stole was only worth 7€ and it was my first time getting caught so I dont think it'll be too big of a deal. Honestly Im just glad I didnt get caught while I was stealing ~85€ worth of acotar books, because my punishment would not only be wayyyy harsher it would also just be embarrassing, imagine stealing sjm books when theres so many good books you could steal from a bookstore

Anyway, speaking of acotar books, its livebloggin time. Last time, Feyre and Rhysand came to this cabin in the woods/inn in the middle of nowhere and stayed in a room thats so small that you couldnt even have sex in it and then they had sex. not penetrative sex, they just fingered each other. Which is to say Rhysand fingered her vagina and Feyre fingered his wings because god forbid a man be on the receiving end for anything other than a blowjob. Also, I guess Mor, Cassian and Azriel are somewhere else? I didnt wanna say anything about them being gone bc I just kinda assumed they were staying with Feysand but they seem to be gone. whatever I dont care about those guys anyway

Chapter 49

Feyres internal declarations of love and wanting to be with Rhys forever feel very shallow when you consider the fact that 1) theyve only had like 3 months worth of non-traumatic interactions with eachother, and 2) she thought the exact same way about Tamlin and then she DIED FOR HIM and then she left him after barely half a year

'"You know exactly that I would do anything for my people and my family."' 'Your people' consisting of one (1) city

Feyre's pussy feels slightly raw from getting fingered hours ago?? thats not a good sign.

'"I'm not gonna turn away from you. Not from you," I promised him quietly.' honestly, i can believe that, if you can fully forgive someone for physically torturing and sexually assaulting you after like a month or two you can forgive them anything, I have no idea why Rhys would be worried about that

can you imagine if Rhysand got shot with poisoned arrows and he just died right here. Life could be a dream but alas, I live in a nightmare world

I actually really like Feyre going feral over her love interest like this (even if that love interest is Rhys) I dont we're gonna get much more of that in this series so I shall savour it

Yeah, now that she mentions it, how come one ash arrow was enough to straight up kill Andras but Rhysand gets hit by like a dozen and hes just fine after this. I guess it could be that Feyre shot Andras in the eye so it was more lethal than Rhys getting shot in the back and wings but still, afaik there are no longterm consequences from this, like hes not even gonna have to deal with idk, his back hurting at certain points or something

Im not a fan of Feyre being so murderhappy now when she was reluctant to even kill animals at the start of this book, like at a certain point Im not so much bothered by Feyre's character being retconned from ACOTAR but her character from start of ACOMAF

Damn I didnt think the sex would be anything other than a pointless diversion, but here it is, being plot relevant

How come these guys have been torturing him by just stringing him up and leaving the arrows while they whip him, if I was an evil torturer and had just gotten my hands on a guy with wings Im sawing those badboys off immediately. or should i say batboys ahahahha.hahha

Oh, just a splinter of ashwood can he deadly but of course Rhysand is gonna be pretty much fine after being impaled with seven whole arrows

'"And Elain would love [Velaris], I'm sure of it. Although she would probably cling to Azriel the whole time, looking for safety."' smth about that line feels icky to me, I think its the fact that I dont think Elain actually properly interacted with Azriel at this point and also, Velaris is a perfect paradisical city what on earth would she need his protection for there

ughhhh all this bullshit with the dresser is so unbearably annoying

I guess I'll see how this all actually pans out next chapter, but right now I gotta say I dont like the fact that Rhysand's wounds just heal on their own, I couldve used some good whump with him. And Im not just saying that because I dont like him and Im a sadistic little bitch, even though both of those things are true, Im saying this because I think seeing him in a vulnerable position for an extended time would make me like him more

[imaginespazzi]

Ok bestie, anon who followed up on Amoore reporting back as requested ha. I should say we are on a similar page, her & Kitley are very tough to get a read on. And a lot of the online chatter agrees its hard to judge and goes back and forth on whether theres something more going on. For those interested, I suggest watching their youtube ch series for a general sense of them interacting. Entertaining and light vids, not overly long. Really just little things between them here & there that add up. And of course a person can review their socials..

Now onto the tea I came across online. Imperfectly summarized the best I can below. (Allow me to stipulate that I have no way of verifying any of this, so please understand Im not at all sharing any of this to be presented as true or false. Take it as simply passing along the posting of others for conversations sake here in a safe space. Comments/feedback/corrections welcome)

:

Its described as on/off thing, first beginning summer 2020. A VT insider says people are aware that Amoore hasnt been committed, to put it delicately/nicely. Leading most recently to a break of sorts last Dec-mid Jan. (Added pretty sure they are together rn though. And another person did point out if Liz was getting cheated on why would Georgia seem to maintain a good relationship with the Kitley family, which is a fair Q to pose). But notably, a strangely long break in their podcast took place over that period and for the first time in 3 years they didn’t spend XMas together or hang around each other over the holiday and when podcast recording returned they just said “we had Xmas” and didn’t talk about it. It was also pointed out that sometime in winter, Liz had tickets to see an NHL game and went w Cayla King despite her and Georgia talking about how they wanted to go together before. Only sus bc it happened to coincide w the time where Georgia was speculated to have gotten close to Kate Martin. Then suddenly they K & G werent interacting anymore and L & G seem back to being “besties”.

Sidenotes:

Liz’s "2020 love playlist"… apparently someone has screenshots that it used to be titled Georgia. Includes some fav bands/songs of Amoores. And a tune called Australia Street lol. Lots of love songs predictably, but some breakup songs were added to it at one point (the comment seems to insinuate during the time they were going through issues)

They're friends with a married lesbian couple (Youtubers/influencers? The Bellaires) who they once visited alone.

Also, fyi, Kate Martin is apparently recently back w her last ex, whoever that is - per talk re social media activity

You're my new favorite person omg because this is my kinda tea fr! Can y'all tell I love some good gossip?

I'm ngl, I was never the most invested in V-Tech or the girls on the team, so I don't really follow them. And I was pretty convinced Liz was straight so I just assumed her and Georgia really were just really close besties.

But this checks out with what I've heard/read too, that they were in that "undefined" kinda place, mainly because of Georgia and eventually Liz got tired of it. I definitely didn't know about the Christmas or the NHL stuff but that makes sense. Also from what I heard, they were probably done for good now with Liz going to the draft? But still being together also makes sense. I'm so invested in this now omg.

[eepylimes17]

A possible thought for how Aphrodite should be portrayed in the series. Bc honestly, I want her to have a little more depth-character wise then just a pretty little afterthought that is kinda shallow. (I love the idea of multiple actresses playing her, that thought is gorgeous.)

I want her to be a fan girl. A book fanatic.

It’s been confirmed that Aphrodite reads steamy romance novels (see Percy Jackson’s guide to Greek gods) and it’s been confirmed she likes making people’s love lives interesting. (See her conversation with Percy in Book three and I think her conversation with Annabeth, piper and hazel in I think Mark of Athena?)

I want to see her giggling as she bothers Athena about characters in a book that Athena recommended to her, completely missing the themes and telling Athena about her favorite ships. ( Athena massaging her temples)

I wanna see Aphrodite kicking her feet and squealing when she makes someone use an “who did this to you.”

I wanna see her wearing band merch and going to concerts, dancing and singing along to the music, being the literal manifestation of love in the crowd, for the band, for the fans, all of it.

I wanna see her roll her eyes at other people’s ships and purposefully tank them just because she absolutely hates the idea of it, and then change her mind a week later.

I wanna see her inspire fan artists to do ship art because god she loves this ship and Athena won’t weave her an image of them for her, and then hold it close to her chest and dance around the room—no matter the skill level of the artist.

I wanna see Ares be like doing matinence on his Harley and Aphrodite bouncing up to him asking if he will recreate this scene she read about, and when she’s done describing it—the two of them scrambling off to go be intimate.

Idk, I wanna see the goddess of love, be love you know? I want her to have an actual: “most people assume I’m shallow, and that my kids are too. I guess that’s true in a way. I know what they think of me: and I don’t care. I’m happy, just the way I am and I think that offends them.” I want her to have an actual character outside of just “mmm I’m pretty goddess has little to no personality other then being pretty.”—because that is misogynistic.

And I know that I’m not gonna get all those scenes, I’m very aware of that—but that is the energy I want Aphrodite to have.

[splashstar01]

Love letter to Merthur (11 year anniversary🎉💐) TW: suicide, spoilers for end of the show

Okay so it's been 11 years since Merthur has been my OTP. Since they've entered my life I've literally felt like I've been in a relationship with their relationship if that makes sense. For a little while until I met my spouse, I even identified as aegosexual, which for me meant being asexual except for attraction to other people's relationships such as my OTPs. 

I came into the fandom end of 2013 and became interested because they were all over my tumblr dash. I know, the show ended at the end of 2012.. I'm not sure why Tumblr had a sudden influx of merthur content. Maybe due to the slash tourney?

But I kept seeing the final end scene all over my dash and I kept seeing a ton of articles celebrating that merthur was now canon (imagine my surprise when i found so many in the fandom don't see it that way even tho it was literally confirmed……………………..). 

I knew literally nothing about the show and assumed it was a serious adult show about the Arthurian legends. But I shipped them anyway due to the ending, particularly with Merlin waiting 1500 years (I didn't even realize Arthur was also waiting)!

At the time I had just got into shipping for half a year, so I was super new to all this slash stuff. My slash OTP at the time was very quickly replaced by merthur after I began watching the series bc merthur was just way more touchy-feely and had actual boyish fun around one another, not to mention waiting 1500 years for ea other! That is EPIC LOVE!!!! Their dynamic was the opposite of my previous OTP. 

With merthur I got really, really into my feelings. I've literally bled for them. Rest assured, I have never cut in my entire life. it's only due to me becoming so emotional and hyperventilating in joy that I bit my fingers and bled a little bit. Like, the amount of blood i lost was akin to literally a paper cut from my teeth lol. Because I cover my mouth when I hyperventilate… I think most people cover their mouths when they do this. Lol.

But when I hyperventilate over Merthur, it is EXTREME. like, i have almost out-of-body experiences. i’ve literally cried from being so happy thinking of them having sex. One time in the shower I was thinking about them and I was so happy I nearly blacked out and fell into the shower curtains. 😂 But even when I cry over Merthur/Arthur, im still having fun. Because I know it's not real, so it’s only a pseudo-grief but its NOT psuedo-joy!!! LOL. It's kinda like going on a roller coaster. You’re screaming but you dont actually fear for your life. It’s psuedo-fear. 

At the time, I was severely depressed in my non-fandom life, but Merthur never actually contributed to that hurt, because i could see the lines of reality vs real shit i had to be upset over. Merthur gave me an outlet. With merthur I felt free to cry and fall apart whilst at the same time, as I always tell my ppl, "they're not real, THANK GOODNESS!!" so I can grieve bc I'm not really crying for anyone!

At the time, I wasn’t seeing anyone for my severe depression/anxiety because I thought I could handle it and i was self-medicating with psychedelics since they've been proven to be able to heal mental health issues. LSD at parties healed my c-ptsd, since I had gone to see someone for my ADHD & ended up being diagnosed w c-ptsd! I thought it could heal my other issues too.

But then I took a 7-year break from merthur due to my attempted suicide.

My life was going so well too. I literally seemed like i had the perfect life while in college. Just landed a good-paying 1-yr temp job, I was majorly popular and partying every weekend, I had a long-term partner (we’re now married), I had a 4.7 GPA, was in 9 different school clubs. I seemed to be thriving. But I’d been battling severe anxiety/depression since I was 12.

How the fandom saved my life….. Literally. 

Before I was going to do it, I had to say goodbye to the fandom bc I always felt like the merthur fandom was like my family.

I wrote a goodbye post on Tumblr that I set to queue and I had assumed it would post much later. But ig i somehow miscalculated and it posted too early. So someone managed to find my Facebook which is just insane bc blogs are essentially anonymous. I didn't post any personal info on Tumblr. It should have been impossible but they alerted my sister and I was found 45 min away.

The doctors declared me brain dead and it was this huge thing. I had to relearn to feed myself, walk, etc. It took me 6 months just to have the strength to use a walker because my leg muscles had atrophied so much. 9 months later and I was able to walk again on my own. Now it's been 7 years and I'm still physically disabled but in a much better place emotionally. After my attempt, a limelight was cast on my mental health and all a sudden i was seeing all sorts of therapists. I was medicated for the very first time, and i felt so much better. I’m no longer actively suicidal.

So….. enough about my sob story. 

Merthur will most likely always be my OTP!! I did find book!Drarry 8 months ago, and boy did i go wild for them too. (Like, i stayed up 36 hours straight because i couldnt stop thinking about them and i’m the author of the Drarry Bible, a 98k doc of all the drarry book moments along with meta proving that in their universe, they are in love and soulmates lol. Drarry is such a huge ship that I was honestly so surprised that there wasnt already something similar to it!!)

But even with Drarry, I always knew Merthur was OTP!! I never once questioned that I loved Merthur more even during my Merthur hiatus. ^-^ I’m not sure why i took such a long hiatus after my suicide attempt. But I recently got back into Merthur just 6 months ago due to this video by imaginedragonlords: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4zDknYGf0s. The video reminded me of why Merthur was so amazingggggg. Like i always knew they were but ig the passion was gone after the suicide attempt. (Gone but not forgotten lol! :D)

I wont promise the passion will always be here. Like in any relationship, passion sometimes ebbs and flows (happening rn w my irl partner lol i mean, they’re great n all but they like to interrupt me when i write fanfic 😂), but I’ll always know that Merthur will never be replaced. Because at the end of the day, there will never be another love as epic and with as much chemistry as these two gayssssssss<33333 i did find another ship I love that i feel has a more healthy love for ea other than merthur and also waited a whole lifetime for one another, but they dont have AS much chemistry……………)

I love Merthur SO DAMN MUCH!!!!!! And i love my Merthur fandom. <3 I can always rely on fandom to give me my drug of choice: that MERTHUR DOPAMINE HIT!!! I’ve grieved Arthur’s death way longer & more intensely than any irl person/pet’s, & I blame the fandom for that! Each gifset or post will bring all the feelings of pseudo-grief back in full force, plus I cry EASY when it comes to fandom. I can smile a genuine smile after my grieving session is done, because thank SOURCE THEY’RE FICTIONAL! 

And anyway, they’re so obviously going to end up married with so much sex once Arthur finally returns from training with the Sidhe and being granted immortality so that Albion (Merlin) won’t ever be in such crisis (losing his mind from grief) ever again.

I’ve also cried from looking at a gifset of Leon just being Leon (this one literally tagged ‘literally crying’ & i only use that tag for stuff that has me actually crying with real tears).

And he’s not even one of my fave knights!! This gifset wasn't meant to be sad either. lol. I dont know why i cried. It just be like that on Tumblr.

Back before my hiatus, I literally had a Kleeenix box next to me whenever i went on tumblr bc I’d cry over every little thing. This was bc i was bound to see some sad merthur gifset/post/etc, cry, and after i cried once, anything else made me cry……..

Even gifsets of Leon just being Leon lool. x’D I would get soooooo overly emotional. 

My spouse once said, “All you ever talk about with ur fandoms is ‘they’re so gay.’” YES. THAT IS THE MAIN POINT, WHAT ABOUT IT 😂 like im now in the Harry Potter book fandom & i literally dont give a shit about the book plotlines [I barely remember them], but i can write up a whole Bible about Drarry……. It’s PRIORITIES! I have a very 1-track mind with my ships lol.

Ok this was way longer than intended. 

Tldr;

merthur (fandom) literally saved my life during my suicide attempt by alerting my family,

grieving Arthur’s death is a safe outlet bc i know he’s not real so none of my grief is real.

I dont cut, never have, never will—I just hyperventilate way too hard in fits of joy, usually crying “they’re SO GAY!!!” & bite my fingers a tad too hard on accident at times..... i get really super emotional and i love it becos that free dopamine hit is on another lvl fr lol def up there w real drugs, like my out-of-body experience sometimes xD

I feel like im dating them due to being partly aegosexual. and i love them <3 :D So my 11 yr anniversary fr feels like my 11 yr anniversary w an IRL lover lol XD

[cartoonrival]

HEY YOU Hit me with some Julie Su propoganda cuz I'm mostly lukewarm on her character and don't know all that much about her.

OK OK ... well baseline info she's the daughter of dark legion general luger, and half sister of lien-da and kragok, who are twins and both high ranking legion soldiers. when their mother (merin-da) died and luger remarried, ld and kragok hated his new wife (julie-su's mother) (mari-su) so bad they orchestrated her death, info which was they kept on the DL for a long time until js eventually found out about it. memory situation, js is raised by other folks who actually love her and doesn't learn who her blood family is until later. she joins knuckles because she feels inexplicably drawn to him (soul touch) (echidna soulmates) so she defects from the legion to join the chaotix. the soul touch thing sucks and i hate it but this is how it goes. ill talk about my au version of her at the end lol bc things ive built on top of canon are part of the reason why shes one of my fave charas in the series lul

ANYWHO i honestly find it pretty frustrating when people talk about js as just being pink knuckles, shoehorned into the story to give knuckles an obligatory girlfriend, because it really demonstrates that they like. weren't paying a lick of attention to anything because she genuinely has a LOT of personality but since people just go in anticipating anything penders touched to suck they don't even bother to think about her for longer than half a second.

js fills a niche that, imo, could always use filling, especially with regards to girl characters, which is to say shes a well meaning asshole. shes incredibly blunt, she's pessimistic (immediately assumes knuckles must be dead when enerjak returns and they cant find him, tells knuckles not to search a fallen ship that his mother was on because shes probably dead and she doesnt think he'd want to see that). shes terrible at handling interpersonal conflict (knuckles confesses to her that he feels guilty and stressed over all the pressure put on him as guardian and she scolds him and says "this isn't just about you", which results in a minor shouting match when she really had zero intention of starting an argument), she's almost constantly beefing with vector (tbf its because hes sexist he refuses to see past her history as a member of the dark legion). these might suond like cons but i love characters like this LOL and they fit especially well in archie where people love to get mad at each other and make dumb mistakes and it just feels very genuine and interesting and endearing to me. shes rough and difficult but she's also DEEPLY loyal. she'd die for knuckles and the chaotix and the way she interacts with them always makes me soooo ........ im just gonna give some examples i can find.

(knuckles is on the phone with her)

^ this was the genuine conclusion of an argument they had and im obsessed with it because both of them suck with emotions so they both give the worlds strangest apology and know that the other means it and they move on. plus putting her arm in front of SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG while theyre confronting eggman even after watching him CHAOS BLAST, primarily because she feels like this is more her fight than his (its about knuckles).

theres def more and i could find them if i was more on top of archie but unfortunately im #narutopilled rn. BUT ANYWAYS. shes just a very fun character with a messy personality and fun interactions and she loves her buddies sm even tho she bickers with them. shes just very special. she fits well with knuckles in a way that makes their relationship actually feel plausible instead of just forcing him to have a girlfriend (tho ofc the writing is fumbled sometimes like. ITS ARCHIE. bffr. but thats the case with literally everything ever in archie so you take what you can and its amazing). also see below. BASED AS FUCKKKKKKK

and ill discuss my au briefly bc u r asking me my opinion on js and that does play a large role in how i feel abt her, but rly im just expanding on elements of her story that werent discussed as fully as i wouldve liked. her relationship with lien-da is obviously BAD in canon, but theres not a lot of time spent lingering on precisely how lien-da and kragok feel about julie-su as the product of their fathers second marriage to a woman they KILLED because they hated her so much. ive also given her much more internal strife over turning away from the legion, originally joining the chaotix planning to betray them from the inside then being slowly convinced to join them for real after realizing how much she'd been brainwashed by the legion and what its like to have people who truly love and care about you. her story as someone who is trying to find herself outside of her history as a child soldier is something that TOTALLY deserves to be expanded on and its a bit sad that it wasnt explored. but i mean really im not changing her actual PERSONALITY at all because as i discussed shes oozing with it.... im honestly never going to make the full comic i wanted to so at some point im just going to compile all the lore and concept art and stuff into one big post to share. but thats like a spoiler free taste.

she also has a gun. which is fucking awesome because not enough sonic characters have guns. people make shadow the guy with a gun but he hasnt been seen with one since shth. hello....

[the-gayest-show]

Through the Looking Back Glass Thoughts/Analysis

I LOVED this episode. It was very endearing and honestly heartwarming (near the end that is) and overall one of my top episodes in the series!

First off, Sofia leaning on Cedric for help with homework is so fucking CUTE. Their dynamic makes me jump up for joy, and Sofia really trusts HIM to get the job done 🥺 Even when Cordelia appears and offers to help, Sofia is still adamant to only have Cedric do it 🥺🥺🥺🥺

It's a small detail, but I think Cedric's pose changes slightly when his sister is around? Like, he's got that hunch back pose that he had in earlier seasons when she's there, it's crazy. There's probably more screenshots I could gather on this but yeah.

The song that comes up in this scene.... mmmm art. Here's me ranting about it.

I think the saddest part of the episode is really seeing Cedric and Cordelia's past dynamic because I genuinely loved it? Like. When they hugged here it was so heartwarming. The nicknames (Cordy, Ceddy) were so cute as well, I guess when they don't use the nicknames in the beginning it's to show the deterioration of their relationship over time, and somewhere in the end of this episode, Cedric starts using the nickname Cordy again which really cements the mending of the relationship. (I did get taken off guard when Cordelia called him Ceddy in the flashback bc I've always associated it with Calista. Maybe Cordelia said it around Calista and she picked it up? IDK)

Cedric is also shown to be really good at magic here. Bro did a spell that was apparently "too advanced" or something? And let's not even begin to discuss the lore implication for WANDLESS MAGIC. BRO TRIED TO REVERSE A SPELL WITH HIS BARE HANDS. THIS MAKES ALREADY INTERESTING STF LORE MUCH MORE INTERESTING.

I find it so interesting that the incident (despite having no known cause at the time) was quite literally blamed on Cedric almost immediately and everyone went with it? Like Cordelia shouts "he ruined it" and no one questions this??? Not even Cedric fending for himself worked? Whoever said in a Tumblr post that this implies that Cedric was treated like some kind of bungler/looked down upon even before this is probably right. Because why else is it just normal for everyone to jump to this conclusion? His parents don't do SHIT about it, and I'm assuming that Goodwyn holds this grudge too (if eps like Mystic Meadows mean anything). Why are they holding onto this for so long? Literally I get holding a bit of resentment but everyone makes mistakes....

Idk this went off, but basically, oof living in your father's shadow was hard AF especially with one mistake people reference in your presence.

Despite this event happening over 30 years ago, it's still somehow the ONE thing people defined him for for years. This episode really further contextualizes his motivations for wanting to become king before season 4. Imagine being rejected from society for YEARS, being belittled and made fun of, people tearing you apart for a mistake you made when you were 9-10 YEARS OLD, it's crazy. 100% that took a toll on him, something you can see in this episode and literally most episodes. It's just really sad.

I'm glad that Sofia and Calista were able to help the both of them realize that it wasn't actually Cedric's fault (something Cordelia should've realized years ago, but seeing the event happen as it did was more a confirmation for Cedric than anything). Cordelia and Cedric forgiving each other was a bit too fast considering everything but I'm glad their relationship is mending.

Credit where credit is due, she sticks up for him after this and lets Cedric do his thing and lets him help Sofia without any ifs and buts, it's sweet.

Personally, I feel that Cedric and Cordelia probably still have a semi-strained relationship after this ep (your sister being the reason you were made fun of for years, and that reason wasn't even valid to begin with defo is not smth you can recover fast from in a 22 min episode)

Also, it's not hard to believe the circumstances wouldn't have changed if the incident were truly Cedric's fault, but Cordelia needed a wakeup call I guess, that works.

Want to mention King Roland for a second because dude. Why is your first reaction to blame Cedric (again), instead of the 2 other magic users in the room (ESPECIALLY THE CHILD. Look I'm a Calista fan thru and thru but logically the blame would be shifted there to an extent??)

King Roland I thought we were over with this since Day of the Sorcerers?? What happened to being NICER to Cedric and maybe NOT blaming him for every little thing? Idk that kinda pissed me off. The fact that Cordelia was the only thing stopping Roland from interrogating the guy... THIS BEHAVIOUR IS WHY CEDRIC TRIED TO TAKE OVER YOUR KINGDOM!!! ROLAND THE 2ND YOU IDIOT!!!

In conclusion, love me a character focused episode that develops a backstory as well as a slight resolution. 1000/10 would re-experience this again.