SO. TO KICK OFF THE WEEK OF SPECULATION BEFORE THE UPDATE DROPS.
last night i had a bit of a Revelation. literally. i borderline woke up in a cold sweat with this realization. the way i lunged for my laptop to scream at friends... ough. lets get into it
so. i do believe I've made a couple of theory posts about Barnaby not being quite as receptive to his and Wally's "forced" best friendship as Wally - since the show wrote them to be friends instead of it happening naturally. i thought it might be a point of tension for Barn. i thought a lot.
YES SO I'M TOSSING (almost) ALL OF THAT OUT THE WINDOW!
the bios state Barnaby as Wally's best friend multiple times over. it had to be regularly reinforced. their colors were chosen to mark them as friends.
but Barnaby - presumably - can't see the bios, he wouldn't know the scripts. the friendship would be natural from his perspective. how would he know otherwise? even if the relationship started out synthetic, i don't doubt that it became genuine. in the context of their world and perceptions, realistically speaking Barnaby probably wouldn't sense anything wrong.
the reminders to be best friends weren't for Barnaby.
they were for Wally.
i'm starting to suspect that Wally is Barnaby's best friend, but Barnaby isn't Wally's. i think that Wally's "best friend" is Home - or at least Wally has a closer connection to them / Home is more important to Wally than anyone else is.
i remember reading this livestream trivia (from theneighborhoodwatch's doc, if you haven't their resources yet what are you even doing?):
and i assumed it was for Barnaby's side of the relationship. but it's not, is it? it's Wally's? and it makes too much fucking Sense! it fits! i can see it perfectly! i can feel things slotting together in my mind due to this shift in perspective, and i'm scared
Barnaby probably thinks the relationship is natural, just like how he thinks he's a real person in a real world. Wally probably knows that the relationship is a role, just like how he knows he's a puppet in a false reality.
that leaves me wondering how much of it is genuine on Wally's side. i don't doubt that they really are friends, but how deep does that connection go? in the interview, Wally sounded excited/proud about having a best friend, but how much came from a place of feeling, and how much came from a place of Fulfilling The Role? how much of it is performative? how much of it is a mask?
i've been seeing everything differently. Barnaby poses for Wally the most because he has good balance and is good at staying still, not because of favoritism or because he's Wally's best friend. in the 14 (15 including the hidden halloween) audios, Barnaby consistently seeks out Wally and checks in on him. Wally seems more casual about their relationship than Barnaby is.
i'm worried that Wally values Home & You/Us over Barnaby. that Barnaby is second or third place in Wally's heart. that Wally means more to Barnaby than he means to Wally. after all, only one of them needed their relationship to be reinforced on a seemingly regular basis.
i'm confident that Wally cares about / loves Barnaby, but the question is how much? to what extent?
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I say this with all the love in the world for Ashton, but of course they were gonna take the shard and ignore the warnings. He does believe in fate- he doesn’t believe fate applies to HIM. This is someone who has repeatedly been through things that should have killed them and they didn’t. What didn’t kill them made them more powerful- both the earth shard and dunamis came with their own consequences but it made them stronger and that’s the lesson Ashton has carried in them and discovered.
Ashton is a superiority and inferiority complex blended together. If he dies taking the shard, oh well, he won’t suffer the consequences- the Hells will, everyone who loves them will. If he succeeds, he’s going to hold unimaginable power and be even more of a rock-solid support to his team (pun intended).
So Ashton makes Fearne promise she won’t stop him, he makes her promise she will call for help if he needs it, and they take the shard and put their trust in the people around them. They go through one minute of ancient power trying to sunder their very being, they feel their arm fall off, they are blown to smithereens before reforming, and they hold on until they wake up moments later with a magma arm. But none of those things matter, because his friends were there, his friends were healing him, the ring on his finger from Deanna brought him back to life from certain death.
There are consequences to your actions. No reward without the risk, right? And sometimes it pays off, sometimes you pay a steep price, you bet on 00 and you win, and you think you made the right choice. Until you look up at the people who watched you shatter in front of their eyes, the same people who healed you that also tried to stop what was happening, the same people who believed in the risk and would have rightfully fought you had you had the spine to tell them your crazy plan that was doomed from the start.
Sometimes inevitable probability is the consequence of your actions. Sometimes the consequences are the friends you made along the way.
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yeah no im still obsessed with the way frontiers turns sonic's virtue of caring into a flaw that threatens to consume him alive. certainly the execution could be better and there are moments that would hit harder if they had been given more tlc but compared to previous games and especially the slop of 2010s it is unfathomably refreshing to see character exploration to this degree. a kid who chooses his friends before the supposed order of the universe that's due for a restart. same kid who once talked about how everything ends one day and you should live life to its fullest. a kid who tries to be so much more mature than he really is because he cares so goddamn much it hurts him more than anyone else. this is what they call fine dining
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DEEP INHALE i wanted to draw something cool because demon AB activated my neurons, but i did this and i didnt like it and i got upset but i still wanted you to have it, please accept my humble offering, okay byeeeee runs away
YOU—
YOU DREW ART ABOUT WHAT I WROTE??
I QUITE LITERALLY CRIED, I ACTUALLY DID
Oh beloved I’m in complete awe and just absolutely drowning in love right now from this as AN ACTION ALONE?? but your ART?
THE PINSTRIPE SUIT THE CUFFLINKS AND NAILS THE HORNS AND THE EYEESSSS you got the aesthetic and the visual feel down so perfectly it’s like you absorbed the energy I typed down upon my keyboard good fucking lord.
This is literally like one of the best things I’ve ever encountered both as something I’ve received and also just fanart in general AND I NOW CAN SAY SOMEONE HAS MADE FANART ABOUT MY WRITING THATS A WRITERS DREAM YOU DID THAT — YOU DID THAT OH MY GOD
Also what in the FUCK do you mean by humble this is a fancy full course meal but the plates are full size not those tiny ass portions this is humble by no means
(I will give you a firstborn or cook you dinner or both what in the actual fuck)
Link to fic: Insidious Inside Job - Halloween Pt. 2
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We alredy know what's Chilchuck's worst nightmare. What if I told you that it was canon?
His daughters have alredy been eaten. His wife was eaten too. His family are all dead. His worst nightmare has come truth. And he for sure feels like it's partially his fault, because it's the Winged Lion doing, yes, but who helped Laios get here? Chilchuck. And who's daughters and wife are now dead because of it? Chilchuck's. The suggestion of recreating them tells us that they've alredy been eaten. The way he says it makes it feel like it's too late. They're dead. Because of him. Of his actions. Of his job. The irony of it all is actually quite cruel. He makes a union so he can prevent bad things to happen to his race, to his family, and then, and he works at the union. And now, because of his job, he got them all killed.
He doesn't even know how his daughters are until way later, I don't even know if in the manga they send letters to him during the feast, because I know they don't go to said feast. So Chilchuck doesn't know if his girls are alright until, again, way later. We know they don't die because, well, there's this comic of them going to meet Laios, the new king. But if not for that, who could tell us they didn't die on the monster appearances? I can imagine that after the feast Chil went stright to check on them. Because he loves his daughters, and he cares for his wife. He sucks at communicating it, yes, but he does.
He doesn't want to risk his family's safety. But he, unknowingly, unwillingly, indirectly, did. He got them eaten by those demons because he helped his friends achieve his goal. Because he cared about Falin and wanted her to be human again. Because he cared about Laios and didn'twanted to see him loose his sister. Because he cared about Marcille, Senshi and Itsuzumi. He cares so much about everyone and wants to help everyone (in his own way), that he doesn't think that the result would, inevitably so, be the worst outcome for him. The one in wich work and private life get mixed together. His job as a member of Laios's party ended dragging his family in, despite his best efforts. His job ended up, not only endangering the whole word with demons, but his family. His four precious girls. It ended up almost killing them (probably it killed them for some time because getting eaten by those demons works wierd).
Worst part? He didn't have the time to be mourn over what he 100% sure thought was the complete loss of his family. He was in a hurry to survive himself, so he pushed those sad feelings and tried his best to help who he had left. Later on he finds out that the demons spitted out people. And he seems shocked with some kind of surprised relief.
He looks how everyone that got eaten was alive. And he can't quite either believe it nor understand it. He is really confused. So they didn't die? Are my daughters ok? Is my wife ok? Did everybody survived? Are they alive? He dares to hope that they're all ok and pulls into a box his feelings again, saving it up for when he has the time to be overwhelmed about this all. He has a feast, trying not to worry, but worried sick. Then he goes home and checks on them.
Give this poor man a break and a beer...
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