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#i wasn't originally going to include explanations but...
illumalux · 2 months
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Life Series Victors as Tarot Cards
A presentation on why we’ve got it all wrong when it comes to grouping life series victors.
This post will continue on with the implication that ZombieCleo is a Victor, simply because she is. She won real life, therefore she's a victor. Argue with the wall.
Now, I see your celestial trio of the first three winners. This should never change. This feels the most apt, it centers perfectly, and each of the things it represents are present in multiple different categories. Obviously in space, as everyone has adapted to, but also in a Minecraft world, and what I see as more important: in a tarot deck.
Think about it this way.
The Watchers, in whatever form you think they (or we) take, are collecting these Victors. Each one means a different thing, survived a different landscape. While I understand the celestial motif of the first three Victors, and how it fits into their characters, I would argue that many others are far too grounded for that.
It’s a collection, remember? What is better for assembling a set than a deck of cards? Especially ones that meddle in Fate, something the Watchers seem to adore.
So here are the cards each Victor represents, with card meaning and my defense as well. This will go in chronological order of the seasons.
Before I continue, I just want to give a disclaimer. Every tarot deck has a slightly different explanation for what each card means. The definitions I use are a mix of three of my decks and the official Rider-Waite-Smith deck's explanation, so if there are inconsistencies with what your deck says or what you know, please don't come for me.
Grian, Third Life:
XIX. The Sun
Beyond the obvious desert motifs (a whole extra post in and of itself), the Sun is representative of not only Grian's gameplay, but also how the Watchers (those collecting this deck) feel about him. Grian is one of them, so he naturally starts out in their good graces, with a greater level of respect.
Rider-Waite-Smith defines the card as one of success. Of course the Watchers will gloat when their baby wins. Even if he wasn't meant to, it did inevitably mean that throughout his game, Grian was inarguably one of the largest sources of negative emotions, second only to the Red Army. Again. Extra post on its own. When he won, it saved anyone the satisfaction that might negate their negativity, alongside the delicious outpouring of grief that was the final duel of Third Life.
Reversed, the Sun is a card of depression. As I just touched on, one of the most defining moments of Grian's game was his final victory. When the ending came down to himself or his greatest ally, he went about it in the way that caused probably the most pain to both parties involved. It pushed him to the very brink, ending in him defining his own ending just moments after winning.
Scott, Last Life:
XVII. The Star
Even ignoring the starborne origins and headcanons, as well as the crown of stars included in his skin (Void below, these posts write themselves) this one looks like a super simple explanation, but actually requires me pointing out something that may not be obvious to some Watchers: Scott, in every game and Iteration has made it a point to rebel against the rules in whatever way he can. I could go into full detail, but thats a lot of words and I don't need anyoen to get bored. (Void, this series and side tangents that require other posts)
In third life, a game about death and destruction, and the originator of factions, Scott took a very different route: he got married and built a house in a flower field. When grief finally found him, he refused to give the Watchers any satisfaction, literally crystalizing his grief into a part of his character design (and one that would remain for two to three more seasons, depending on your thoughts on the coral pieces). In Last Life, he is the singular person in all five seasons (technically two, but shhh this is more dramatic) to withstand the Boogeyman curse, something the Watchers installed purposefully to make people kill allies. Double Life, obviously, as Scott rejecting the soulmate the Watchers gave him. Limited life, in which kills gave more time, Scott did not die a single time without giving life freely, either to an ally or a temporary ally.
That got long. Anyways. Scott's game has always been one of hope, spreading positivity and refusing to be pushed around by the Watchers. And that's exactly what the Star means. Upright, this is a card about hope and perseverence, pushing through challenges, which is exactly what Scott does. He refuses to let the Watchers' actions upset him and continues to play the game for his friends and for the future and nothing else.
Even reversed it still fits. Reversed, the Star means loss or abandonment. I've already used up too much time on Scott here, so I'll let you pick your favorite instance of that.
Pearl, Double Life:
XVIII. The Moon
This one is far and away the easiest. Like the previous two Victors, Pearl's story connected her with her symbol even before she won. But blood moons and wolf packs aside (as that's a whole different post for a whole different day) when you take a look at the definitions provided, it becomes even clearer.
The Moon is a card of transformation and change, as well as revealing one's inner self. Rider-Waite-Smith attributes hidden enemies, darkness, and terror with The Moon. While I'll happily analyze every single one of Pearl's actions as the Scarlet Pearl, I think this one is plenty self explanatory. After her rejection early on in the game, she immediately isolates herself and latches onto the night motifs, leaning in to what everyone expects her to be.
The reversed meanings also explain Pearl's arc in Double Life perfectly: confusion, mixed messages, and disbelief. This perfectly encapsulates Pearl's feelings at the very beginning of the game via her rejection by Scott and subsequent abandonment by Martyn in an attempt to get back into Cleo's good graces. Her instinctual reaction is one of shock, not understanding why Scott would choose to pick a soulmate when she was right in front of him.
Martyn, Limited Life:
XVI. The Tower
One of my favorite cards, the Tower is instantly recognizable. While most of my analyses aren't about how the card looks, I feel like it's important to share this time around. The most common image consists of a tower and one or both of two elements: lightning, and people falling. As a card, it represents sudden change, destruction, and chaos.
If anyone here is not yet convinced that I'm correct, please go rewatch Martyn's last LimLife episode, then come back and argue.
You're back? Great. We agree? No? Fine, I'll explain.
This fixates mainly on his winning game, but I'll touch on the rest of his games as well. LimLife ended with a huge betrayal on Martyn's part, one characterized by being so insanely sudden. (Of course it's the Watchers meddling. But the Tower isn't always about your own choices being your downfall.) He quite literally snapped as if hit by lightning (see description of the card), and this spells the beginning of the end for him.
Similarly, in all of his other games, Martyn finds himself with one pivotal moment that spells his downfall. The Red King, Betrayal at the Southlands (and honestly his worst move in DL was abandoning Pearl to try and beg for Cleo's forgiveness).
Funny enough, the reversed meaning of this card is almost a perfect match. I don't think this needs too much more explaining.
Scar, Secret Life:
X. The Wheel of Fortune
I adore Scar in these games. Every single season seems absolutely plagued by chaos. The worst season, obviously, was the one in which he gained his crown. Poor guy was just trying to make friends, and it seemed like every new secret was the exact opposite of what he wanted.
The Wheel is just what it sounds like: it's the card of luck, destiny, and fate. I won't add a new paragraph for the reversed meaning here either, as it means the exact same thing as upright, but with negative connotations in the form of bad luck and misfortune.
Scar is plagued by the whims of luck left and right. It seems like, more than any other player, Scar is unable (whether by others, fate, Watchers, what have you) to take full control of his own story and take actions that he wants to take, instead limited to where the current takes him.
But in the end, that chaos is what gives him his win. The lack of alliances and freedom that the game forced on him was what eventually lead him to be unmoored and able to volley his pain wherever he wanted, leading to a mostly painless win.
Cleo, Real Life:
XIII. Death
A little on the nose, I know, but which of these choices aren't? For a series entirely based on improv, there are a stupid amount of coincidences present.
Now, I know this is far and away the shortest series, so I'm going to analyse Cleo as a player across all of her seasons, not just her winning game. Sorry Real Life. You should have been longer.
While the meaning of the Death card may seem obvious, it's twofold in actuality. In some historical decks, even, the card is instead named Rebirth. I know how ironic that is that the zombie is the one who stands for death and rebirth, but again. Blame the stupid narrative, not the poor me trying to make sense of it.
In what my lovely mutual Honor called "phoenix behavior", I'm going to focus specifically on her deaths and rebirths, specifically BigB's betrayal in LastLife. Cleo takes her death hard, as anyone might. But her rebirth comes with change. The minute she respawns, it's with a different understanding of the world around her. She immediately embraces the change that has been given to her, burning down the Fairy Fort and ditching her alliance for a new one.
The reverse captures Cleo as a character over her seasons better than anyone on this list. While the upright meaning of the card is change, reversed it signifies stagnancy, obsession, and immobility. This can be seen almost perfectly with her thoughts on alliances. Scott remains forever in her good books, even over the course fo multiple seasons, simply because he has never wronged her. Even when they aren't direct allies,she still cooperates with him whenever, simply because she retains her previous feelings about him. The same can be said for BigB, but in the opposite direction. From the moment of the betrayal onwards, she refuses to trust him, going so far as to warn Pearl away from allying with him in LimLife.
Bonus: Jimmy Solidarity, the Canary
XII. The Hanged Man
But Moon! you shout, throwing your complimentary bucket of popcorn at me. Jimmy isn't a Victor! He's the exact opposite!
Yep.
That's why he's so soggy and why he goes on this list. You wanna argue that he doesn't have the same lore impact as a Victor? Too bad. Can't hear you. Jimmy gets his own card.
Initially, I was kinda sad that I already used the Tower, because that's the portent of doom and gloom or whatever, perfect for a canary. But then I spied an even better, even more Jimmy card.
The Hanged Man is the card of sacrifice. While I could go on a whole rant about the Fool's journey and how it is represented in the Life Series, that is Extra Tumblr Post Number IDK Anymore. Instead, today I'm going to stick to the basics. To specify sacrifice, the card doesn't just mean giving up. It signifies self sacrifice specifically. And what is Jimmy if not a semi-willing first sacrifice to get the chaos rolling?
How many times has he gone out to stop his friends from being the one who has to herald the change? The canary knows that he will sing the final notes, but so long as he can ensure the miners don't have to, he will descend once more.
Conclusion:
Now. Did I spend more time on this post than I ever did on an English Lit essay? Maybe. But as much as I love the space motifs this fandom has, I fundamentally disagree when we get to the latter winners. Come on, guys. Tarot decks are right here.
If I missed anything, or I misrepresented a player's game, please tell me. I can't be everywhere at once, and I'm always happy to learn more about some of the players I don't watch as regularly.
Anyways, this was way more fun to write than I expected. If anyone wants to see me give cards to the rest of the players who have yet to win, or an analysis of anything a mentioned in my tangents, please let me know.
Special thanks to @honorsongs who kept me company through this whole process and gave me many a suggestion when I lost my train of thought.
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lloydfrontera · 3 months
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okay hold on shut up everyone shut up i have something to say
so it should be no news that i think the ending is bullshit. i think it's cheap as fuck that the solution to the resolution of fate is that lloyd came back in a different body and therefore the world had no problem with him coming back despite being previously hellbent on not allowing him to remain in it because of his status as a protagonist. like. i think that makes little to no sense and i think it's stupid. what do you mean fate is faceblind. that's the same fucking guy it's been trying to kill for almost five years now just because he now looks korean doesn't change that he's the one that disrupted the flow of the plot so hard he turned into an unauthorized main character. i think it's cheap and stupid and not that good of an explanation.
HOWEVER
i was just thinking about how it kinda sucked that the way the ending is structured means that javier was never really freed from the narrative. like yes his tragic fate changed and he's no longer beholden to the original plot of tkobai but he's still very much the protagonist. lloyd dying didn't free him from that role, it just meant that javier was now the only main character in the world and so fate was no longer gunning for him or his loved ones. but then i went and reread the way the jewel of truth described what would happen once one of them died and let the other as the sole protagonist.
[Once one of you disappears, the world will finally choose the remaining person as the rightful protagonist and perceive there to be no more error to fix. That is only when the incomplete reset plan to carry put the restoration of destiny will come to a halt and the story will develop around the existing hero.] -Ch 328: You or Me (3)
that last bit. the story will develop around the existing hero. once one of them disappeared fate would give up with the original story and just make a new one around the one protagonist that remained. which by the end of tged is javier.
javier. javier whose main priority at some point shifted towards keeping lloyd safe. whose main goal became keeping lloyd alive at almost any cost. this javier:
There was no more sign of life from the mischievous smile on the face of his lord. The young master he had sworn to serve breathed his last as his head dropped. He had died. "... No way." This wasn't supposed to happen. Javier was in disbelief. He refused to believe what he saw. This was not the ending he had desired. -Ch 398: Last Resort (3)
I never, ever thought once about life without Master Lloyd, not even right now. -Ch 400: Farewell (2)
this javier is the one the story is meant to develop around now that he's the only protagonist in the world. this javier is the one the plot is meant to be built around.
do you understand where i'm getting at
i think that it was javier's status as protagonist that allowed lloyd to come back without getting backlash from fate anymore. i think javier's resolve to keep lloyd safe, to have a life at his side, was what allowed destiny to accept lloyd back into a world that had rejected him before. i think that when the story tried to develop around javier "i never thought of a life without lloyd" asrahan it couldn't do it in a way that didn't include lloyd in it and so lloyd was allowed to come back without fate retaliating against him.
javier was the one that accidentally brought lloyd into his world, he was the one that purposefully brought him back to it and he was the one that unconsciously allowed him to remain in it. he's literally the reason that lloyd is there at all in any capacity.
do you get what i'm saying. i feel like i'm going crazy.
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flamingpudding · 5 months
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Cassiopea and Orion #3
#1 #2
A/N: Finally got some time to continue working on this... to be honest this was pieced together through a bunch of different lunch break writings... sorry if that shows. Also @kizzer55555 totally love your addition on #2! Honestly I squealed when I read it! You were nearly spot on on what I had in mind to where I wanted to go with this story line. Tho I hope you don't mind that I took a bit of inspiration from you while writing some parts of this.
A/N2: Also you guys *sigh of fondness for the dpxdc fandom* originally I wasn't going to tag it just yet but I guess I will now, even if I have no experience writing it and only tried to sort of hint at it a bit for readers interpretations: Spirit Halloween 👻
Ellie frowned watching these people, still sitting on her spot on the railing. Once their initial excitement quieted down and the seriousness of the situation took over, she was left with nothing more to do than to watch the situation unfold before her. A part of her was surprised about the amount of information the big bad bee had on Danny. Some of which she thought was information that previously only Tucker, Sam and Jazz had. But apparently Ellie had been wrong.
Massively wrong by the amount of information she was seeing here. How long had Danny truly been in contact with this guy? There had to have been more than just the occasional phone calls she had caught him on. Did that mean this guy also knew about Dan? About the GIW? About the Infinite Realms? If he knew about all this why, why didn't he help sooner? Why hadn't Danny made contact with this guy sooner either? She did notice him pausing at certain points before continuing like nothing was happening. It didn't look like the onlookers minded, but to Ellie it was an indicator that big bad bee knew more.
She stayed silent the entire time, only muttering a correction ever now on then when she did note that the guy's information was outdated. Still something bothered her the entire time. Ellie didn't know what it was exactly, but the grim faces of the onlookers and the stoic nearly cold sounding explanation of big bad bee rubbed her wrong.
It was only at the end of it that she realize what it was exactly that had bothered her so much.
"What about family? Does she have anyone else left?" One of the onlookers asked and Ellie's head snapped up towards them. That sounded like... no, they weren't...
"According to her, Phantom lost his haunt. Including the code she gave to Robin, we can assume that there is no other safe place left. Unless..." Armored furry turned towards her, and Ellie stiffened only slightly as it appeared that they were finally going to address her again. "What is the status of Plasimus."
"You know about him too huh..." She muttered, not looking at any of them. "Castle is gone, whereabouts unknown, Mom was worried that he was one of the first after the first one of no contact, but that's not confirmed. Nothing turned up to indicate that."
Ellie didn't look up to see the reaction in regards to this information she shared but her head did snap up at the next words she heard. "And your brother?"
Wide eyed she stared at the man that had moved and was now before her, hands carefully placed on her shoulders as he bended down slightly to be on her eye level. Her mind was racing. He knew! This man knew about Dan. Distantly she heard one of the onlookers complain that in all the Infromation Bee had given them he had not mentioned about Ellie having a brother. She didn't react on that, instead searching that man's face despite it being half covered by a bat shaped cowl.
She wasn't sure what she was searching for but she wasn't finding it. Now she wished she had paid more attention to Grandma Pandoras lessons on Aura reading. Dan was in Far Frozen, put into stasis and protected and cared for by Frostbite and his tribe. The other ghosts were looking out for him too, they would do the same for her if she had a way into the Ghost Zone but both portals were gone and Danny, Wulf and Cujo were the only ones currently able to open portals. She wasn't even sure if they knew what Danny had done to protect her.
As her mind wandered Ellie did not realise that the people around her took her silence as some kind of answer. She did not realise how those she doubted onlookers shared grim and saddened looks. Nor how the man before her squeezed her shoulders ever so slightly as if afraid that she would brake any moment.
"Do not worry. You will be safe here with us." The armorer furry reassured her, drawing her attention back to the current moment. Suddenly her earlier suspicion came back to hit her in the face as her eyes once more widened.
"What do you mean?"
"We will take you in and you will be safe and won't have to fear them with us."
She was sure that was meant to sound reassuring but it wasn't. It made her stomach sink. With a moments use of intangibility she pushed away from the man floating backwards and putting more distance between her and these people. Danny gave her the code, told her to use it in a dire situation. That she would get help with that code. That they would help! This didn't sound like the help she wanted. She hadn't even gotten to explain the situation from her side. All they did was apparently assuming something all because of that stupid code Danny, her mom, gave her.
"What about mom?!" She didn't scream but by the faces she might as well could have. "The code was to get help! Mom needs to be rescued! Why are you acting like you won't! Danny promised I would get help when I use it!"
"Danielle." She halted and froze. That tone was stern and it was missing the gravel she had previously heard in that man's voice, it sounded the same way Danny or Auntie Jazz sounded when they needed for her to listen.
"Wait B! I don't think-"
"The code Danny gave you. It's his last resort code, personalised to you. It is one of our many codes we both came up with for our children. One only for situations we did not believe to come back from alive."
"W-what?"
"Aquila, Apus, Phoenix, Cygnus, Columba, Grus, Pavo and Corvus. Each of them has one specific Code personalised for the exact same situation you are in. I am sure Danny has mentioned them to you at least once." Ellie blinked finding a familiarity with these words but also frowned with the realisation that set in with that. Her eyes unintentionally wandered over to the onlookers, no birds, these codes belonged to. She couldn't really tell which belonged to who but she knew Danny must have come up with them as some sort of inside joke.
"B! You can't just-"
"But Mom..." Her voice sounded small even to her own ears.
"I am sorry. But you will be save with us. I promised Danny that years ago."
She knew that her de-aged body was probably influencing her emotional state as she slowly floated back into reach. Before she could sit back onto the rail like she had done the entire time before she felt herself getting dragged to the side and suddenly warm arms encircled her. Ellie blinked confused until her brain caught up. The bird in blue was hugging her. The warmth felt comforting, just like when Danny, Jazz, Val or Sam hugged her and for a moment she let herself enjoy it. Dropping her guard just for a little bit to draw comfort from this warmth.
While Nightwing distracted the little girl in his arms, he made distinctive eye contact over her head with his siblings, before indicating his head towards Batman. Red Robin and Signal nodded before moving towards the man, Robin trailing behind them after he shared one more glance with him. His eyes turned towards Red Hood. The other wasn't even looking at any of them as he was already on his way stomping right out the cave, ignoring everyone around him. Nightwing was going to make sure to send any additional information they would get from Danielle his way later too. Black Bat and Spoiler stayed close to him.
It was moments like these that Nightwing really appreciated the silent understanding he and his siblings had among each other and if Batman was to much into his own head with these stupid codes and apparently already grieving. Then they would step up and if they could give the little girl in his arms the kind of help she had clearly hoped to get from them. It wasn't a promise of safety that the Danielle was looking for or even needed, rather she was hoping for people willing to help her rescue Phantom, her parental figure, her mother, her family, when she had no one else left.
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the-cat-and-the-birdie · 10 months
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There are two different versions of ATSV in theatres - and the only difference between them in Hobie Brown.
Okay ya'll I came across something so bizarre.
So I've seen Across the Spiderverse twice now, and my theatre was going to stop showing it this weekened - so I went to see it one more time.
Originally, I had seen version one. I knew there were two out there, but I had only heard of version 2. This time I saw it. And the ALL the differences has to do with Hobie Brown.
My man really hate consistency, I guess.
LOOK: This is the shot of Hobie saying 'I quit' that's most used. - THIS is version one
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But when I went this time, this is what I saw:
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THIS IS VERSION 2. (omggggggg!!!!)
As you can tell, instead of his normal colors - in this shot Hobie is a violet-pink instead, with a lot more texturing on his model.
And these are common throughout Hobie's screentime!
If you saw the top photo - you saw version one.
If you saw the bottom photo - you saw version two.
Chances are if you watched the movie early in it's release (first week or so), or you watched a fancam you have seen version 1.
I was able to capture most of the changes on camera - and it's kinda jarring to see but omg i find it so interesting!!!
I took photos of all the differences and compare them down below, including an explanation of why this happened.
Please let me know which version you saw, and when you saw the movie! Have you seen both versions? I'm so curious!
For the first half of Hobie's appearance the two version are entirely the same - except for what seems like either a different take or wording of his 'Gwendy, how much have you told him-' line. However, the changes begin at the end of Hobie's scene with Miles.
I spoke here about how in some versions Hobie says 'Don't enlist unless you know what war you're fighting', while others 'Don't enlist unless you know just who you're fighting'.
But the biggest differences are his last scene.
Last week I used THIS screencap that was taken from a Version 1 fancam. In it, Hobie is in full color:
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In Version 2, he's pink. Also - it's extremely faint in the photo, but if you look closer you can see there are also red spiderwebs behind the blue ones in Version 2:
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You can see his pink color better here:
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Later in the scene, Hobie changes colors. In Version 1, he maintains the same normal color scheme for the duration of the scene, however in Version 2 he's changing back and forth - even turning black and white at one point.
Version 1:
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Version 2:
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And can I just say -
This is to show how Hobie is literally the only one in the room who is 1) Literally and physically 'in Miles' corner, (literally) standing 'in the right' - to the right of Miles,
and 2) the only one being honest to Miles (why he turns black and white, he also turns black and white while talking about Miles' parents.)
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As the scene goes on, Hobie stays this color - which leads to one of my favorite differences:
His last shot.
In Version 1 - Hobie is white & black for one shot, as he says 'Here we go'. This is the same.
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However - for version one, he returns to his natural color for his final line of the scene - 'Good'. And for Version 2, he turns purple.
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So why did this happen?
According to the ATSV there are two (and only two) versions that were released in US theatres. Version 1 was released when Sony shipped early copies to translators so they could translate the script for international viewing. The version sent was about 98% done, and made to give the translators a jumpstart prior to release.
However, that version ended up being released.
Afterwards they swapped it out with the full, correct version - Version 2.
It seems like Hobie wasn't meant to be natural colored for the duration of the Canon-Events scene, and that in the whole film, he was the final thing they were putting touches on.
There are other small changes in version 2 - including when Miguel calls for backup - in Version 1 Lyla points at Miguel, however in Version 2 she takes a selfie with him on a AI cell-phone.
In Version 1 - Miles says 'No, no no!' at Pavitrs chai scolding, and 'Sorry, sorry' in Version 2. There are other small adlibs, and they said they removed Gwen's voicelines when she was searching for Miles and the child in the rubble (?? don't know why).
I also think - and I DON'T KNOW, I haven't checked my recording but I did record it - I THINK the watercoloring in Gwen's scenes have different colors in some shots, or different strokes, but only subtly. It just looked more detailed and vibrant to me, but idk. But the trans colors remain completely untouched in every way.
However, it seems that your best and most obvious way of telling which version you saw is by looking at Hobie's lines and coloring in different scenes.
Mans really hates consistency, damn.
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Outside of some split-second shots and ablids, He's the only things that's largely changed, and when seeing it in the theatre today I was literally shocked as HELL. When he said 'eh, what of it?', I was like 'mfer WHY R U PINK'. I hadn't noticed until right then. But I'm literally over the moon I got to see both, I feel like I found something secret.
Maybe being Hobie obsessed and Neurodivergent pays off.
Oh - and here's two more shots that were also changed that I didn't get footage of. If you have a photo or footage of these shots from Version 2 - PLEASE post or send them to me. Thanks!
Version 1 - 'What of it?' / In Version 2 he is a BRIGHT pink color
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Version 1 - Standing behind Miles while talking to Miguel / In Version 2 he is black and white with newspaper around him (also doesnt he look so cute look at that slutty waist ugh)
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SO uhhhhh yeah Idk if anyone else finds this interesting but I DO and I enjoyed it so much and I WISH I could get better footage of Version 2.
Had I not watched his scenes everyday for weeks and wrote out a dissertation about every one of his lines I might not have noticed lol
If you're not normal about Hobie Brown and found this interesting like me, thanks! Let me know if you read this far and please tell me what version you saw and when you saw it! Ok thxs again bye :)
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chirpsythismorning · 1 month
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Fun fact: In the original pitch for Stranger Things, El had a little brother.
After being rejected by almost 20 studios for the Montauk pilot, the Duffers were finally green-lit by Netflix. It was at this time that they began casting and then writing the first season officially, which included reworking a lot of that first episode.
This led to the removal of the brother reference, and with it, removing any sort of arc El could have had about her apparent brother.
But the thing about this moment, is that it might not have been scrapped entirely...
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Going into the final season, no one can explain why or how El recognized Will back in 1x02. And while there are plenty of things on the show that are left unexplained, with a small portion likely left that way with the intention to uncover it later, what sets this moment apart from the rest is that there are very few possibilities here.
Because for starters, the story presents El's ability to see people in the void in s1 as requiring either a picture of that person for reference, or having met that person before.
But when El see's this picture of Will, she's never met him before. Or maybe she has, but we wouldn't know because they never showed us. They could have just not done this scene at all, given that it's clearly a copy/paste/edit of something scrapped from the pitch. Or they could have even still included it, but explained it.
One explanation could be that the lab had shown El a picture of Will before, similar to what they did with the Russian agent they wanted to spy on. But then that begs to question, why would the lab show El a picture of Will? Why would they want to see what he was doing? That alone is incriminating in and of itself, implying that Will is more connected to the lab than we realize.
The only other, and frankly most likely explanation, would be that El stumbled across Will at some point on her journey between escaping the lab and Will going missing. This is actually something that happens in The Other Side comic, which explores all the things Will may have experienced during his time in the Upside Down.
Though it’s worth noting the comics aren’t technically canon, and I highly doubt they would outright spoil everything in relation to Will’s time there, years before it was intended to be revealed. But still, let's humor this for a moment given that I do think Will's time in the UD is going to be very relevant in s5, which means it's highly likely they will finally address how exactly El saw him.
Basically, in the comic, Will see’s El walking through the woods, almost apparition like, glowing as she passes by, while also sporting the Benny’s burgers shirt. This means they would have crossed passed within a short span of time, between when El escaped Benny’s when the agents arrived, but before she was found by the boys.
Though it’s worth noting that we’re seeing this all from Will’s perspective. This means from the UD, Will was capable of seeing El on the other side, despite them being on different sides. And not only that, but she also looks back at him.
What confuses me about this, is that it doesn’t make sense for El to be in the woods, only to randomly decide to pop in to the void for a moment. She was trying to escape the lab and everything that came with it. I doubt she had any desire to lurk back there for some reason, not until someone encouraged her to. Not to mention, it would make no sense for her to go there and see Will if she wasn't even looking for him in the first place. And so this would mean Will and El could see each other, with Will being in the UD, and El being on the other side.
While it does seem pretty far off, given that you would think Will and El wouldn't be able to see each other from different sides, it is true in the story that El not only recognizes Will, but knows that he is in danger. She mentions that he is hiding specifically.
Which means she has likely seen him within the last 24 hours regardless.
This, in combination with Will being able to respond to El in the void at the end of the season in Castle Byers, when no one else outside of Terry and flayed-Billy have been able to, seems to imply that there is indeed something special about Will that makes him capable of communicating with El from the UD. Not only that, but El also seems to have an ability to be in this constant knowing state of how Will is doing, without even checking again to confirm. She's just certain of it. And she seems terrified about it.
Going forward, El never uses a picture of Will to find him. She never did. And more often than not, they don’t show us what she see’s either, not until the very end. And that’s the moment they reveal that he was able to communicate with her.
Again, there was really no reason to have El recognize Will. If anything it complicates things. But the fact that they chose to introduce this concept, with a scene from the original pitch that was related to El’s younger brother, with her pointing at his name cryptically, startling Benny, only to revamp it and have El not say anything at all while pointing at the picture of Will, startling Mike… It just really makes you stop and think.
Which brings me to the other aspect of this that might have people doubting, which is that El’s brother was originally younger than her.
We know Will is not younger than El, so how could this apply to him?
Well, it might be helpful to consider that in the original script, El was actually 10 years old, while the boys were always 12. Meaning that for some reason, they decided to age her up to the age of the boys, aka the same age as Will…
Ever since @erikiara80 shared this brother discovery with me, I have been sort of reeling. It then led to other little discoveries of changes they made between Montauk and Stranger Things.
It’s important to understand that the Montauk bible and the original script precedes what we ended up with in the final product, with it finally changing and evolving months, maybe even a year since that original vision. Even casting occurred before writing started for the first season. We know this because casting announcements were made in June and August of 2015, with writing not starting until August going into early 2016, simultaneously while they were filming.
And believe it or not, what I've discovered is that a lot of the changes they made between their original plans and what we see in the final product, have to do with not only Willel, but also Byler.
If you've read the original script for Montauk, you'll know that Mike's crush on Jennifer Hayes was focused on right from the jump, along with the birthmark on his face being focused on, which was the main cause of the bullying he experienced.
This has actually been talked about recently, and some of the claims people make do fit with what I am genuinely starting to consider here, which is that the initial plan for what makes Mike an outcast shifted.
I think when they completed casting, and started actually deep diving into what they wanted this world to look like, both from a short-term and long-term standpoint, they were presented with some pretty interesting discoveries, arguably already hiding in their initial plans without realizing it.
And this is where it sort of becomes a 'chicken or the egg' situation. Because which one came first? Byler or Willel?
I can't say for certain, because obviously this is all just speculation. But in the case that Willel came first, I think Byler would come very naturally after that.
The Duffers themselves are twins. Then they hire Noah, who is a twin. Then they're thinking and planning for El's past and how her family all fits into this, and they're thinking... wait a damn minute... We could totally Star Wars this bitch!
And then when they think it couldn't get any better, they uncover another layer that they hadn't planned or really considered in their initial plans.
While Will was always going to have sexual identity issues according to the Montauk bible, meaning that the writing process for him likely involved sitting down imagining scenarios that encapsulated this arc for Will from the beginning, they were simultaneously now finding very interesting aspects of Mike's character that made it hard not to at least consider the possiblity that Mike is not exactly straight.
Just think about it. The Byers and Wheelers are basically polar opposites on the spectrum of what a family looks like. While Will's discovery and acceptance of his queerness is interesting to explore because he comes from a low-income, single-mom household, all while having been bullied for years based on his perceived queerness, he also has a mother and brother constantly reinforcing that they will accept him no matter what. They've been sort of hitting us over the head with it for years, and so it wouldn't be very satisfying for his entire arc to merely lead up to something we've known all along. It's pretty much a given at this point.
On the other side of the spectrum, Mike comes from a more upper-middle class family at the end of a cul-de-sac, more aligned with what a nuclear family looks like. Mike's family is also presented as being more conservative, and while Karen does give that very queer-coded speech to Mike in s1 (I'm convinced they only wrote this after deciding to explore queer-coding more heavily with Mike), it also comes with comments from Ted and even still Karen that hint that they are probably not as open-minded and accepting as Will's family is to him. Which means Mike's arc would be a lot more about acceptance around him from his loved ones who we have been led to believe might not be as accepting of his queerness in contrast to Will.
And so as they're putting this story together, and they're being presented with something very interesting. Two similar experiences that play out in different ways because of the characters circumstances.
Will goes missing, and his twin sister with a buzzcut pops up and has the ability to help them find Will.
This leads to several moments where El is being compared to as not only a boy, but Will as well.
Now suddenly, their initial plans to have Mike's arc be about having a girl be interested in him and to hopefully have his first kiss and feel like less of a loser, starts to look a lot like what the experience a queer kid in his position might encounter growing up in the environment that he did.
And if you don't want to take my word for it, just hear the Duffer's themselves hinting at what they initially planned for Mike and the fact that it changed.
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The changes don't stop there.
Believe it or not, 'It was a seven', did not exist in the initial pitch. When the boys went outside bickering over Nancy, they leave right after that.
Another thing that changed from the first script, was Scott Clarke's introduction:
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And so you might be thinking, who cares? What does that have to do with anything?
Well, it's interesting because the line we end up with on the show is arguably one of the most on the nose Twelvegate proofs to date. Mind you, this is from the first episode:
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Why chuck the original version, which was arguably more interesting and fascinating in terms of it hinting at the mysteriousness surrounding this story, only to replace it with him listing off tips about their upcoming test?
Well, I think it's the irony of it all. Here Mr. Clarke is practically telling us where to look to figure stuff out for ourselves what is going on, with all the kids filing out and ignoring him...
I relate to Scott a litttle too much in this shot here, any time I try to drop Willel evidence.
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And the changes go on, as they obviously would.
Things like Terry Ives not even being El's mom, but actually a man who more so aligns with the characterization of Murray.
And one very interesting one I almost overlooked was in Hopper's introduction, where instead of a kids drawing done by who we assume to be Sarah, we actually see a picture on the wall of him and his wife and daughter... Interesting that they decided to switch it something that is a lot less definitive in presenting what Hopper's past looked like...
If you've made it this far, congratulations.
If you still think I'm out of my mind, just remember that El was going to have a brother in the original script, but they scrapped the scene and gave a near identical one to introduce her connection to Will instead 😘
#byler#stranger things#willel twins#twelvegate#montauk#as you can see#i am out of my mind#and i'm okay with that#i've spent the last couple months trying to make a video going over all the willel twin evidence#and i can't decide if it's even possible to do without going over an hour#like there is just so much shit that fits too perfectly into this family being ripped apart by mind control and time shenanigans#i hope to have it done soon#trying to make it less than 20 minutes#but it's probably going to end up being closer to an hour#especially with this stuff from the montauk pitch being added to the mix now#anyways#willel and byler are the curtain behind the curtain#if you are open to one of them#you are bound to stumble across the other#and they don't want that to happen#stay tuned for the inevitable twin imagery to continue in s5 related to willel leading up to the big reveal#bc it's arguably the most consistent thing about this damn show#and tbh this all just makes the queer-coding for mike in s1 a lot more concrete to me#them exploring will's queerness through his dad's expectations for him to do more 'manly' things like play baseball#and jonathan saying he shouldn't like things just bc people telll him he's supposed to#how they connect that narratively with the boys being at a baseball field when mike's being pressured about his supposed feelings for el#with the bullies showing up and literally being homophobic seconds later#the fact that jennifer hayes did in fact exist in the original pilot and was the girl mike had a crush on#only for them to scrap that and just make it about her having a crush on will...#never once introducing this idea of mike liking her...
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otomiyaa · 7 months
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nice.png
(literally how I named the image, couldn't think of something else)
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Hi guys :') To my followers and tumblr friends, I'm really sorry if my sudden disappearance scared or upset you. It wasn't quite... planned. And today was a busy day and I needed some time to consider what I wanted to do.
Short version of the story:
My tumblr account got terminated for copyright infringement. A certain Mr. Green got me in unlucky trouble (ref 1, 2).
I won't get it back, or try to get it back. It's gone.
Needed a moment to consider 2 options: ask Mia to extend my dramatic farewell letter and stay gone, or make a new blog.
Not planning to post new writing here. I won't be using words like 'never' or 'forever' because I'm a known clown with things like this, but the intention is to no longer post fics. I will finish Tickletober on AO3 and then take a break from writing. So yes, I cancel the swiftscribbles event too, sorry!
When I opened my laptop, I could see my old blog in its final hour lmao (I found out about the loss on my phone). So that's what the snap is from on a fitting grave. It was fun while it lasted!
Long version of the story:
Losing my blog(s): My Tumblr account with main blog + sideblogs got terminated overnight, it was quite the surprise! I've either been reported or tracked by bots. The posts are a bunch of numbered URLs I can't open, but the message is clear: for including anime content, genshin impact or media from other sources (whether it's videos, screenshots, official art, gifs or even fanwork) you technically can get a strike. Upon googling the claimer I quickly found this first, and knew it was a lost cause. Although it feels shitty and unlucky, I am in no place to appeal. It's like when I used to make AMVs in the past, you never knew whether a song or even anime footage was going to give your YT account a copyright strike or even a ban, it was a gamble. I have lost YT accounts before, and now I lost the Tumblr one. With 7+ years of tickle trash content and a bunch of sideblogs. But oh well, moving on!
Starting a new blog: It was a serious consideration whether this was my ultimate chance to do what I've always said I wanted to do eventually - quit my blog. My first thought was to ask Mia to share my explanation and literal goodbye with you guys, and stick to my chaos of a Twitter account to indulge in fandom stuff. But then I thought of how happy Tumblr made me, even without the fic writing, but just.. reblogging things, getting random asks, shouting about life and of course, about tickles. I decided to make a new blog after all, but also decided the following:
The 7K+ milestone swiftscribbles event is cancelled, for which I apologize! The follower milestone, together with the motivation to write the fics, and even the asks with the requests I got, all died with my former blog.
I will see how long I can survive without posting a new fic or drabble. A loose headcanon or two might fly around sometime. And if necessary, a link to a new fic on AO3.
Tickletober? Hell yes I'll finish it, I would cringe in bed for 49 days at least if I would stop. I just won't post the fics here, but on AO3.
Reposting/reblogging my old works? Undecided at the moment but I'm tired and lazy. I don't feel too upset since most of my fics are still on AO3 at least and not completely gone.
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Anyways, I'll see what happens and how long I can enjoy this nerfed version of blogging.
Surprisingly I'm not upset about losing my other blog, there were a lot of memories but it was also very cringe. I'm gonna be just as cringe here, but at least I feel cleansed.
For those who choose to follow me again, thank you, but please know that there won't be much original content coming from me, for now!:)
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Hey man, yeah, that's really cool how you and a couple friends you made along the way helped break that giant that was being kept locked away in a government facility out of their restraints so that they could have the freedom to go home. No, sure, I bet it really was an epic adventure defined by friendships and risks and ended with complete success, it's just...
Do you maybe think the giant was locked up for a reason?
How many innocent people had to die during your escapade, or did they deserve it simply because they wore a little uniform? Do you know how many people had died previously in their attempts to first wrangle the giant, the constant bloodshed that very nearly overtook them before they could wrangle the monster? But, oh, you saw intelligence in its eyes, life in its soul, you could tell it wanted so badly to be free and away from these cruel treatments. Everyone else knew these things, too; your observation wasn't unique. In fact, its the fact it was clearly so smart that made it all the more dangerous.
It played you like a fiddle, didn't it? How can you be so certain that it regards you the same way, how can you be sure you even understand what its trying to convey and vice versa? What makes you think it views you as a friend, an ally, a surrogate, hell, a pet? You were nothing but a means to an end, a key to be discarded once all the locks had been open. You're worthless to it, just another tiny pest like the others. Do you really think it would be able to tell you apart from the other 8 billion people on this planet?
And now it's free. You let it out. You let it continue the rampage it was originally hellbent on. The environment destruction is unimaginable. The knowledge that such a thing exists is now being spread globally, along with the stories of destruction that accompany its wake. Suicides and family annihilation is through the roof because people are terrified of living in a world that will inevitably be razed, if its merciful. That blood is on your hands. Never mind once the giant is able to communicate to its real friends, its real family, its real companions, and bring them down for the slaughter and maximum efficiency. Are you hoping you'll be spared? Is that even a world you want to live in if you are?
Why do you think it came here in the first place? You think just because it left, it won't come back? You think that with all the brilliance it has, it's ignorant to the concept of revenge? You seem so sure that it's innocent, but you've never asked for an explanation about its purpose, just as the lambs never question why they're being led to pens rather than an open field today. What implication could it possibly have given that made you so certain it wasn't here with cruel intentions, or did you simply want to feel a moral superiority of freeing a caged animal and thinking it owed you gratitude?
Everyone told you it was dangerous and needed to stay confined, but you didn't listen. You thought you knew better. You thought you were so much smarter than the hundreds of other people working around the clock to ensure the safety of everyone outside the facility. You ruined so many lives, including that of the people closest to you. What, you thought you'd be able to walk away from this scot-free? That you weren't going to be immediately detained as well as your loved ones and labeled a national, actually global, terrorist and security threat? You broke in to a high clearance area and effectively doomed the world for destruction. For what, because you thought it looked a little cramped in that cell?
Are you not aware that your actions have consequences after the story ends?
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yuri-is-online · 2 months
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hi, i'm not the same anon but i would like to hear more about the fyuuture kid au 👉👈 especially about riddle!!
hello new friend, you picked someone who is having a real bad time in this au (゚ω゚;)
I am going to give some general information about Yutu and then move on to some Riddle specific stuff.
notes: they/them used for Yuu, general au explanation can be found here, and the posts can be found on my masterlist under the series section.
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General Yutu Facts
"Yutu" is supposed to be a fake name fyuuture kid is using to help hide his identity, but I am open to suggestions on that. Originally he didn't remember his name and Crowley picked it out for him, but I like the idea of "Yuu two" being a nickname he had in both your world and Twisted Wonderland and picked as his alias to honor his parent. Yutu really admires Yuu, he has nothing but empathy for your situation and respect for your strength, and while he certainly fought with you from time to time (some Yutus more than others) he wants to be like you.
That desire was very much cemented when he heard about how you won against the overblot phantoms. Yutu's unique magic changes depending on who his dad is, but all Yutus have extensive experience in combat magic and have fought a lot of monsters. Including overblot phantoms, same as you. His fights didn't go as well though... he's extremely afraid of the Great Seven's phantoms and has regular nightmares about them.
Back to the names... I didn't have names picked out for every version of Yutu, but Riddle does happen to have been one of them. His real name was supposed to be March, yes like the march hare but if I'm honest I was more thinking about the saying "in like a lion out a lamb" because I thought that described Riddle's temper pretty well.
The other ones I picked out I still like are Merrin (I swear I found it on a list of mountain themed names??? But it means sea born or pearl of the sea), Laurie (yes like little women, his unique magic was supposed to something to do with painting), and Roland (I have an unironic love for French peerage ok please do not judge me).
Some of the Yutus were meant to have older siblings who stayed behind in Twisted Wonderland (Riddle! Yutu wasn't one of them), but that was very much an idea I didn't develop extensively since it was more left over from Fire Emblem Awakening. I wanted there to be a Lucina type older sibling character who was very protective of Yutu and wanting a future where he gets to stay in Twisted Wonderland and they get to be a happy family. But again I didn't cook this idea extensively so idk how to feel about keeping it as a part of the ayuu.
Anyway on to the Riddle specific stuff ¬‿¬
So that bit about Yutu's real name coming from a description from Riddle's temper: I like to leave what Yutu looks like up to the reader, but Riddle! Yutu if nothing else took two things from his father, his (lack of) height and his temper. His facial expressions when pouting and angry are eerily similar, and they both have a strong affinity for fire. Riddle! Yutu is a lot like Riddle Tsum now that I think about it? Very high energy and likes to jump around all over the place, but determined to be at least somewhat dignified.
Since traveling back in time Yutu has been "studying" with Grim to try and get his flames hot enough to burn blue to flex on his dad and to bond with the monster. He usually just ends up watching him though, the mental image he had of Grim vs what the little guy is actually like is really wild.
Back to the temper, unlike Riddle Yutu wasn't home schooled so he got into a lot of trouble for losing it on other students. He had a chip on his shoulder about not having a dad, having a parent with amnesia, and especially about being short oh god he is so spiteful about that. He got sent to detention a lot, and shamefully it made him fight with Yuu a lot too. Not that he hates Yuu, he was just very emotional and not always the easiest to deal with. His last few interactions with Yuu before they died were very strained, and he is filled with remorse for a bunch of stupid things he said.
When he gets to the point where he has to admit to Yuu who he is there is going to be a lot of crying and begging for forgiveness. He was a stupid, angry kid who just wanted to know who he was and didn't feel like he belonged lashing out at the one person who he knew wanting nothing but the best for him. He doesn't really feel the need to ask for forgiveness from his dad (yet)... by the time Yutu was isekaid into Twisted Wonderland Riddle had been corrupted by his overblot phantom and was wrecking the Queendom of Roses so he never really met the real Riddle until he traveled back in time.
He also got compared to Riddle a lot, Yutu isn't stupid by any means but because of all that time spent in detention he is a bit behind on the fundamentals. Not to mention all Riddle has done up to this point is practice magic and Yutu only just found out it was real so of course there was going to be a skill gap! But still, he's Riddle's son and Riddle was a very memorable student for Crewel, so Yutu was guaranteed to hear some comparisons. It didn't help the daddy issues though...
Speaking of Yutu's time at NRC, he did get placed into Heartslabyul by the Dark Mirror and he does know all 810 rules of the Queen's rules. He's not as obsessed with them as Riddle is but he still knows what he's supposed to do and tries to be on his best behavior. He was not interested in being dorm leader and wanted to instead focus on the things Yuu always encouraged him to do, like controlling his temper and getting good grades.
I sort of like the idea of his unique magic being the ability to grow/shrink because in the book Rule 42 of the Queen of Hearts says “All persons more than a mile high to leave the court" and I like the idea of him trying to use his spell to get out of arguments with his dad.
Riddle has no idea that Yutu hates him... at first. This is partially because Yutu is usually very polite to him and partially because he is utterly unaware of how much people are afraid of him in general, but he starts to pick up on it when he tries to interact with Yuu. He wants to have a private tea party with just Yuu? Well Yutu immediately starts acting like this is somehow scandalous and calls him out on his feelings in front of the prefect and he wants to lose it so badly- Yuu agrees anyway and Riddle immediately gets unreasonably smug while Yutu pouts. Take that sucker! He's going to study with the prefect all alone and since it's Riddle you know you really are just going to study.
I don't think Riddle really considers Yutu a rival for Yuu's romantic attention, partially because he isn't fully aware of what it is he feels for Yuu, but even if he was. Riddle knows that Yuu sees Yutu as someone under their care similar to Grim, they actually talk to him about it quite a bit and he has no issue with that. He is actually sort of grateful for Yutu's existence since it has given him an excuse to talk to Yuu more and let them know how he respects them.
Yutu's academic struggles are something that actually bring him closer to Riddle ironically enough. Riddle has created study guides for Yuu and Grim before, he has no problem doing that for Yutu and inviting himself over to give instructions.
"Did you not get a lot of help from your parents?" Riddle sounds nervous, and he should it's an invasive question to ask. Yutu wants to be angry, but when he looks at Riddle, he just feels sad. "Not that it is any of my business really but well. I just noticed you never really talk about them, even to Yuu."
"My dad wasn't really around." He forces himself to look at Riddle when he says it, but it doesn't make him feel any better. If anything it makes Yutu feel worse, he knows about as much about Riddle as Riddle knows about him now that he's forced to look at him. "And my other parent... they tried really hard. But I wasn't always willing to accept it."
"I can't say I understand what that would be like." Riddle looks like he is trying to and that should be what he wants, right? "My mother home schooled me so it's hard for me to understand that someone's parents wouldn't be a constant figure in their schooling."
"You were home schooled?"
Yutu didn't know anything about his grandmother, it didn't even really occur to him that he had one and once he learns about her... well it certainly makes things make a lot more sense. He doesn't want to meet her, but he is curious about what she thought about his parent. What would she think about him? Does he even want to know?
My last concrete thought is that Yutu doesn't really get the whole horse girl thing. He is sort of afraid of horses actually, but I can see him maybe wanting to ride with Riddle once their relationship gets a bit better just to do something with him.
I like the idea of Riddle! Yutu being very into baseball for some reason and there's no way he's going to convince his dad to do that with him ha. Well not in this timeline anyway, I can see good timeline Riddle doing a bunch of research on baseball so he can talk to his kid about it. And showing up to all his matches to scream in support of his kid instead of at the coaches. He is breaking the cycle we love to see it.
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technovillain · 8 months
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~PSYCHIC GENETICS~
So I keep trying to think about how genetics would work regarding someone being a psychic or not. It's obviously not super common to be a psychic but probably more common than people might expect in the world with stigma against it. I'm thinking like left-handed type percentage maybe which is around 10% of people.
But I'm using blue eyes as a reference point regarding looking into genotypes for psychic brain activity and I think I can make that work with that headcanon because around 8-10% of people have blue eyes.
So here's my concept for the psychic genotypes and phenotypes and how it plays into my character headcanons....(and I guess I'll see if any of my current headcanons are disproved by this theory too I guess lol!) Let me bust out some Punnett Squares and interpret the results. (I know that realistically to explain it better it wouldn't be determined by a single trait for the genotype and that a multi-trait explanation could probably type the phenotypes I created in a much more comprehensive way but I'd rather just go basic for right now ^_^)
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Okay so here's the outcome of a homozygous nonpsychic and a homozygous psychic. All heterozygous outcomes. I choose to believe that the heterozygous outcomes can present in a number of ways, including:
Completely under-the-radar psychic presence that the individual is fully unaware of, functionally nonpsychic
Outright psychic with a psychic awakening from a young age like a homozygous psychic would typically have
"Weaker" psychics or psychics with a more limited skillset
"Spiritual" type individuals with some sort of psychic awareness without the outright presence of psychic "powers"
I personally think that the "strength" of a psychic's power has something to do with lineage, and not necessarily whether the genotype is purebred recessive for the psychic phenotype.
So here's an example with my headcanons for the Aquato lineage.
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Zalto - the more "spiritual awareness" type psychic presence without actual powers
Mithra - fully realized psychic with very strong powers including visions
Lucrecia - fully realized psychic from a young age
Marona - functionally nonpsychic
Lazarus - fully nonpsychic
Augustus - limited skillset psychic / possibly just untrained
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I like to assume that both of Donatella's parents are fully nonpsychic. This puts the kids' respective genotypes and phenotypes as:
Dion [NN] - fully nonpsychic
Frazie [Nn] - outright psychic
Razputin [Nn] - outright psychic
Mirtala [NN] - fully nonpsychic
Queepie [Nn} - psychic with limited skillset, fully unaware of psychic status
With the 50/50 probability, 3/5 kids with psychic presenting traits lines up pretty well!
But touching back on what I said about the intensity of the psychic abilities one may have based on lineage, I would draw it back to the previous homozygous genotype carrier of the family. Letting that person's psychic strength sort of have a determining factor on what the cap of their lineage's power might be. So for example I headcanon Mithra as being a very powerful psychic, and that was passed down to Lucrecia as being vey powerful. Marona wasn't a strong psychic, Augustus had a higher level of psychic activity than her, Frazie has about the same level as Augustus, and Razputin, while having the mixed genotype, meets the same level as his origin point Mithra.
Just for funsies here's some of my other psychic geno- and phenotype headcanons :]
Loboto's mother had the recessive psychic gene and didn't know it as she was the "functionally nonpsychic" genotype. She would be disgusted to know this about herself👍👍 Loboto had the psychic phenotype with a young awakening but due to his procedure cannot reach the cap of power he would have been able to otherwise, and now has a very limited skillset, lending mostly to telekinesis upon his gradual recovery
Morry's father was fully nonpsychic [NN] and his mother had a strange spiritual awareness that occasionally allowed her to accurately predict the future or have suspiciously accurate "gut feelings" [Nn]. Both of Morry's brothers are NN and he is Nn.
Sasha's parents were both Nn and functionally nonpsychic, and Sasha is nn.
Both of the Natividad sisters' parents are the nn genotype and consequently so are the daughters.
(Referencing my headcanon Zanotto family tree) Tia & Teddy were both Nn and functionally nonpsychic, Bob is fully psychic nn, Laurel was Nn and functionally nonpsychic, Jonny was Nn which explained his prophetic visions, Truman is nn, Delphine is NN, Lili is Nn.
Okay that's all for now, if you read my very long and incredible nerdy post then I appreciate it!!! And if you have headcanons about genetics and psychics please tell me abt them!!! Genetics is one of my big burner interests that I will occasionally remember and try to apply to fiction lol! ( I really should do more research on it though because my understanding of it all is still a bit elementary tbqh )
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vinxhwrites · 6 months
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note: this is the result of a crazy writing frenzy I was in last night, I went a bit feral over this idea and I don't know where this story is going. Also I spiraled after I read this. anywayyy hope you enjoy this drabble.
pairing: f!reader x price (x ghost - maybe eventually?)
summary: After going to work in the military you develop a weird relationship dynamic with your captain, and soon you find out you're not the only one.
word count: 2.7k
cw: 18+, daddy kink (!), probably inaccurate job descriptions/situations, pet names, a little bit of angst, a little bit of h/c; reader is kind of a crybaby; not proofread;
NEXT
You couldn't explain the story of how you got yourself in this situation if you tried. You were barely able to understand it yourself. Yet, here you were, sobbing in your captain's arms at his office, way past your working hours, calling him daddy and praying that he'd kiss you.
You had a hard day, as it was pretty common nowadays.
You certainly weren't fit for this work environment and you were painfully aware of it. It didn't matter how much you tried you couldn't get past this fact: you were an academic. You weren't used to the discipline, the hierarchy, and the life-engulfing aspects of the military.
When you had accepted the job 8 months prior, it really was the salary that convinced you, if you were being honest about it. You had been living on scholarships most of your adult life and it was getting kind of tiring. A part of you wanted to refuse out of a moral stance, but you didn't.
You were fresh out of a linguistics PhD program at the time, and you excelled as a student and researcher, but your skills were very specific and not that marketable. Your mom was probably right when she tried to dissuade you from dedicating your time to mostly dead and made-up languages, but you were too stubborn to listen at the time, although her greatest concerns were, as usual, well-founded. Needless to say, the opportunity came at the right time.
It seemed urgent and they tested you relentlessly. It was clear to you from the beginning that no one there was thrilled to resort to a civilian linguist. It was fun, though, and you passed the tests as if they were silly little puzzles you do to relax. And you were the only candidate to be able to decently decipher the completely made-up languages and codes that were used in the telegraphs they gave you.
They hired you on an 18-month contract for two different jobs: translating and decrypting intercepted messages for a task force, and also training their own linguists to do what you did. If you were good at it, you wouldn't be needed anymore.
The task force was nice enough, all four of them treated you well and didn't bother you much. At first, it was a bit disconcerting, but by now you've gotten used to how attractive they all were to the point where it almost didn't affect you anymore.
All of them called you birdie. You liked it, it made you feel included to have a little nickname. Soap was the one to come up with it on the second week you were working with them "Some birds know many languages." he had explained, clarifying: "Bird languages, ye know". The original explanation made you smile, but the addition made you blush "Plus, ye're cute like a little birdie"
The training part though wasn't going so well. You were almost 100% sure that all six of the students hated you. It seemed offensive to them to have to sit down and learn anything from you. In the beginning, you did your best to be pleasant, to do the best job you could, and maybe win them over. But at this point, you just wanted to be done with it and never look at any of those people ever again.
They were building a computer program to do your job apart from the classes. You felt offended at first at how they didn't even hide the fact that you would be used and then replaced by a more efficient machine, but you were now praying that they'd get it done as quickly as possible. The program was really good at pattern recognition, but it still wasn't good enough at semantics, and it lacked any nuance of interpretation.
The only thing that made you want to stay a little longer was this thing with Captain Price. It had started innocent enough, he took pity on you when he noticed you struggling with the new environment. He said some kind and assuring words here and there when he noticed how much the students tormented you, and he'd reprehend anyone who dared to disrespect you in front of him.
Eventually, Price casually invited you to work in his office if you wanted to, being away from other people seemed to ease your nerves a bit. He didn't mind, he assured you, it was nice to have some company. More than that, he genuinely found your job fascinating and always asked you to show him how you did it in his free time.
He sometimes brought you tea the afternoons you spent there, he'd accidentally brush his arm against yours, or touch your leg with his knee when you sat beside him. At first, he'd correct the movement, but it evolved to not correcting it, to then doing it intentionally.
They were simple touches, a little pat on your shoulder here, brushing your hair out of your face there, every single one made you shiver. One day he made a comment about how uncomfortable you looked on the chair and pulled your legs to rest on his lap while he worked. That was the first night you allowed yourself to fantasize about him to sleep.
John had a warm and comforting presence, and you were genuinely disappointed when he wasn't around, finding comfort in the fact that he gave you a copy of his office keys, so you could work there even when he wasn't present.
Ghost was there sometimes, seemingly preferring to work from Price's office as well. At first, he seemed to get disconcerted by your presence, probably a bit annoyed that he had to share the space with you, you thought.
He was never rude to you, just awfully quiet, even when it was just the two of you there. He nodded at you when you greeted him, and often sat on the big sofa on the corner or even on the floor. You offered him the desk many times, feeling a bit guilty for taking up so much space, but you noticed he only accepted when he seemed truly tired. Despite the unsettling silence, you thought he was a gentleman.
You first thought that John had somehow hypnotized you when you noticed the subtle ways in which your heart lost its pace whenever he commanded you to do something. He rarely asked without a smile, a polite inclination "dear, will you please file these reports for me?" "can you please grab me a cup of coffee?". He'd only deviate you from your tasks like this when he seemed to be in a bad mood, you noticed. It was never about anything urgent, and it was always when you were clearly already busy. In spite of it, you were never able to say no. He seemed to derive pleasure from bossing you around like that, but you knew he didn't have to remind you of the power he had over you, as it always hovered on your mind. Either way, soon enough you were painfully aware of the fact that you'd do absolutely anything he asked you to.
But you knew, for sure, that you were in trouble when you realized you got aroused anytime he'd compliment your work. Getting his praise started to be a more important goal to you than anything else. Earning a "good girl" was a rare occurrence, but it never failed to make your day.
One day he found you crying, and you couldn't quite explain what it was with words without feeling ridiculous. After what they called a "successful mission" it dawned on you that the information you were extracting out of those telegraphs really was being used to kill people. Those weren't your silly little puzzles.
"Criminals" Soap had corrected you as you tried to articulate your despair, much to your dismay. He wheezed as if your frame of thought was absolutely hilarious. "Shouldn't be here if you'll react like that, birdie" he had said and you wanted to scream.
"You'll get used to it" Gaz had assured you, sending a disapproving look towards Soap.
Later, the more you tried to express your frustration to John the more you cried, sobbing pathetically. It was the first time he hugged you, shielding you from the world around you for a minute.
"You don't understand..." you tried to explain, but you cut the sentence short at his stern look.
"I do understand," he said frowning, keeping his hand firm on your back. He took a deep breath and leaned down a bit to look you in the eyes "Listen, you do a good job, sweetie. You're doing good things, even if it doesn't feel like it sometimes" he assured you.
You nodded and tried to get the crying under control, suddenly aware that you probably looked terrible.
John cupped your face in his hands.
"Why don't you get the rest of the day off and get some rest, huh?" he suggested kindly "come to me if you need to talk."
After that, he got more and more comfortable being physically close to you. It quickly evolved, as you enjoyed being close to him a bit too much. Sometimes he'd squeeze your hand in his when you sat beside him behind his desk very casually and, sometimes, you'd rest your head on his shoulder while he worked. Saying you were in love felt like an understatement, but you'd never make it real by saying it out loud.
You once made a joke in passing about how your dad left you and your family, but he didn't laugh. He tilted his head and looked worried instead. I'm here if you want to talk he said, and it made you want to bury your head in the dirt.
Price called you many things, at first it was dear, sweetie, birdie, love, and finally, he settled with baby.
"what are you doing there, baby?" he just asked casually one day, and you almost gasped, feeling your heart attempt to leave your chest.
Although your relationship with him wasn't sexual in practice, it certainly was sexualized in essence. To you it was, at least. Oedipal if you were to be honest with yourself.
The first time he called himself your daddy it simultaneously broke and healed something in your brain. He chuckled at your reaction, how you looked at him wide-eyed and full of hope, hiding your face on his chest next.
"thank you, sir" you whispered then, pathetically.
You feared at times that your affection to him was one-sided, that he saw comforting you like this as a part of his job, a strange but effective one as well. You wondered if it made you weak, you didn't even try to be brave and deal with things alone anymore, you were aware of how childish it was to knock on his door looking for daddy's embrace at the slightest inconvenience. But you couldn't help it, it was too comforting to give up.
And that's the exact position you were in now. You had a bad day so you came running to him. He was awfully kind to you, as usual, and you prayed that it was a sign of enjoyment, that he actually liked comforting you like this.
You didn't notice when Simon came in. He froze by the door, and the captain just signaled for him to close it. John still had his arm wrapped around you, a hand stroking your hair.
"Shhh, it's ok now" he cooed at you "daddy's here."
Simon watched as you melted in his arms at the words, your breathing easing instantly. Again, you felt as if hypnotized. Your body responded to his words before your mind could catch up with them.
You wanted him even closer, you wanted to curl up on his lap, and have him rock you like a baby. Most of all, you wanted him to kiss you. You craved the touch of his lips on yours and the thought clouded your mind. Just that week you had already masturbated to the thought of him twice. Although you always reprehended yourself afterward, it didn't work to make these thoughts go away.
You rehearsed in your mind the idea of looking up and kissing him but didn't build enough courage to do it. You thought you'd die if he ever rejected you.
"That's it, you're ok," John said when he noticed the pace of your breathing ease, with his cheek pressed to the top of your head "I've got you, baby" he pressed kisses to your hairline. You sniffed, using your sleeve to clean the tears from your cheek.
"Now, be a good girl and go get some sleep," he said and you nodded against his chest, inhaling the warm smell of his shirt and suffering with the upcoming separation already "Ghost will take you to bed".
You raised your head and blinked at him, and that's when you finally noticed the tall figure close to the door, unmoved. You wiped your tears, distressed. For how long had he been there?
"Will you guide her to her room, lieutenant?" John asked him calmly, as if you didn't find yourself in the most embarrassing of situations.
"Yes, sir" Simon responded in the same tone.
The walk back to your room was painfully silent. The corridor around you was dark and empty. Your entire body was tense, and you walked fast trying to keep up with Simon's pace, hoping that he'd just say something and put you out of your angst, but he didn't.
When you finally reached your door, he opened it and waited for you to go inside.
"I'm sorry that you saw that" you blurted out, cheeks flushed pink "I-I don't know what to say. It's really not like that...-"
"It's OK" he interrupted when he noted the despair in your voice. He tilted his head a bit, evaluating your expression "I get it." there was something mischievous in his eyes, and you wondered if he was smiling at you behind the mask.
"Do you?" you asked, your voice was almost a whisper.
He nodded, and you relaxed a bit "I'm sorry you had a shitty day, birdie"
"It's okay"
"Tell me if you need anything." he said before signaling for you to enter your bedroom again, you thanked him quietly and closed the door.
Simon went back to Price's office in hurried steps, letting out a sigh when he entered. He was exhausted.
His captain was seated on the sofa, reports spread on the coffee table in front of him and a cigar put out on the ashtray beside him.
"Come here" John said, his eyes didn't move from the papers in his hands.
Simon took off his boots and mask before curling up on the sofa, resting his head on the captain's legs, and finally taking a deep breath as John started to brush his fingers through his hair.
"Don't know what to do with her" John murmured, more to himself than to start a conversation.
Simon hummed in response, his eyes felt heavy, and he could no longer keep them open.
"She's such a sensitive little thing..." John continued, seemingly lost in thought.
"She's cute" the lieutenant murmured, the drowsiness that flooded his brain making it almost impossible to form a coherent thought.
"Yeah" John chuckled lightly. "Well, don't worry about it." he assured, taking his attention back to petting Simon's hair "How are you?"
"Fine" he purred, getting comfortable on the sofa, even though it was a bit too small for him.
John hummed as he stroked Simon's cheek lightly "my pretty boy"
He watched Simon as he let his eyes rest completely and his body relax, being taken by slumber in a matter of seconds.
John continued to read reports well into the night, only waking Simon up, gently, when he finally decided to get some sleep himself. He accompanied Simon to his bedroom before moving to his own, patting him on the shoulder before sending him to bed. It was easier for Simon to fall asleep on his own then, as it usually was, after he had already been nursed to sleep beforehand.
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avelera · 10 months
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Where the heck is Satan in Good Omens S2?
And could we perhaps find evidence of him in the places where the furniture used to be?
For reference:
Hastur & Ligur, 1.1: "All Hail Satan." "All Hail Satan."
Crowley, 1.5: "I never asked to be a demon. I was just minding my own business one day and then… oh, lookie here, it's Lucifer and the guys."
Adam Young 1.6: "You're not my dad and you never were."
Satan, 1.6: "No, no, no!" (He promptly dissolves into black ash and vanishes. Immediately after, Aziraphale and Crowley look at their no-longer-flaming sword and tire iron as if not entirely sure why they're there.)
Crowley, 2.1: "Do you ever think, what's the point? ... Heaven, Hell, Demons, Angels?"
Crowley 2.2 (circa ~2000 BCE): "Satan and his diabolical ministers..."
Gabriel 2.3: "I remember when the morning stars sang together and all the angels of god shouted for joy.” (emphasis mine. Lucifer/Satan was the Morning Star. Why the heck is morning stars plural??)
Edit: Shax 2.6: “I demand that you hand over both Gabriel and Beelzebub as gifts for Satan, our master.” (Could debunk the whole theory, might not only because she seems pretty low-ranked and could be going through the motions even though he's gone, but we'll see. Including to get all the evidence down.)
... And I think there's some other S2 references to higher ups and "Our Lord" by Shax supposedly, but I'm too sleep-deprived to go combing through for them (I'd be much obliged if anyone else could grab any other exact quotes that mention Satan by name or seem to refer to him in Season 2.)
Let's first get the Doylist explanation for why Satan might not be around out of the way: Satan was the Big Bad of Season 1. He's been dispatched. Furthermore, he's played by the most likely very expensive Benedict Cumberbatch, so he's not likely to be back in a hurry if it at all can be avoided, and alluding to him at all might just create confusion with viewers who will then expect to see Satan.
(Below the cut: but what if there's more to it than that?)
But as others may have seen with the, "Metatron is actively editing the Book of Life in S2 and that's why things are weird," meta, there's quite a bit of speculation going around that something fucky is going on in S2.
However, while I agree that some points in S2 are certainly fucky I'm not convinced on all or even most of the supporting evidence. Most of the explanations have a Doylist counterpoint like "It's just bad writing," or "They just wanted to bring back some actors they enjoyed working with," or, "The film crew just made a mistake," or "They just forgot that bit of continuity." After all, half of the original writing duo is tragically no longer with us, so there's going to be some level of story drift regardless.
While in general I find the, "It's not that deep," explanation more plausible in most instances, I'd be a very poor disgruntled English Major indeed if I made sweeping claims that the wallpaper being blue is always a coincidence. It's muddier with TV because there's so many proverbial cooks in the kitchen and plenty of human error to go around, but I'd equally never claim that I think Good Omens S2 wasn't a labor of love by those who worked on it, and certainly there's evidence that care was taken in its production, so everything that's off being a mistake is also not a sweeping generalization I'd want to make either.
Which is my way of saying that I'm not convinced by the Metatron meta but I think some of the ideas there are on to something. I don't think it's plausible that a writer would in S3 reveal that in S2, the heretofore largely off-screen character of the Metatron was actively editing the story as we went with the heretofore only mentioned once, never seen, and immediately denounced as a joke Book of Life. BUT, there is some fucky stuff happening that I won't say was the result of some Genius Mastermind Writer deciding it was a good idea to actively write badly and provide stories with no payoff, but I will consider that some of the apparent continuity errors might not be so accidental as they seem, because this was a labor of love and at least on this count, I don't think that Neil was necessarily that careless. Or at least, I'm more inclined to look for clues in places where I can see logistical choices being made, rather than in more subjective claims like "This bad writing is meant to be Bad Writing and therefore a Clue." Because writing is hard even under the best of circumstances, especially in TV and having lost the aforementioned half of a beloved writing duo.
Moving on! Thing is, if we're to believe that there's some sort of mystery hidden in plain sight that was introduced in Season 2, then it did not pay off yet. This makes me a little suspicious of the overall claims that there was a hidden Season 2 mystery, because a good mystery really should pay off within the text, and expecting the reader to keep their unsatisfied suspicions in their heads for 3-4 years for a later satisfying conclusion is... optimistic at best and downright sloppy at worst.
Unless, the mystery spans the entire show. If the clues we're seeing are meant to pay off in S3, and we assume some level of competence, then more likely these are series spanning mysteries that will be satisfying when one is able to watch all three installments. And that means, if there is a mystery in S2, we should be checking back with Season 1 to look for the roots of it.
Which is what brings me to Satan.
What on Earth happened to Satan?
Is Satan still around?
Now, my theory would be much more satisfying to me, personally, if Satan's name was never spoken in S2 but alas, there is the Book of Job episode and I believe some other mentions by name, mostly by Shax? I'd love some backup on that. But I very deliberately don't count demons just saying things like, "Our lord" or making vague referrals to the powers that be to be references to Satan because if he's vanished, someone could have easily filled the power vacuum or there could be an empty throne room somewhere and everyone is just going through the motions (or he's become the Sandman Lucifer who fucked off to lie on a beach, which would be delightful. Anyway).
When Hastur and Ligure showed up in 1.1 they specifically said, "All Hail Satan," and Crowley was shown to be an outsider that he did not return this familiar call-and-response. Yet no one in Hell in S2 uses the All Hail Satan greeting. The references to Satan are few, even in Hell. There doesn't seem to be a lot of fear of Satan either, but more around other higher-ups like Beelzebub, Duke of Hell, who appears to be the highest ranking person we see in Hell?
And also interestingly, Crowley and Beelzebub are both lamenting how pointless all of this seems. Kind of interesting for two individuals who still despise Heaven too and, presumably, took Satan's side once long ago when they all Fell. The political fire has definitely gone out of them, which can be plausibly attributed to the Apocalypse failing and/or the two of them falling in love with their Angelic counterparts, but it's also just kind of weird that suddenly they both really don't see the point in any of these conflicts that once defined their existence.
Perhaps, and this is where I go out on a limb or ten, because Satan isn't around anymore?
Is there no longer a hand at the wheel in Hell, reminding everyone of their loathing of Heaven?
Is there no longer someone actively above Beelzebub, telling them what to do, such that they have the freedom to sneak away and pursue a romance with an archangel and not have their boss show up to stop them the way Gabriel's did?
Did Adam, when he made Satan not his father but more importantly that Satan never was his father, undo more than we realize?
Because that's the kind of Gaiman mystery that I can wholly believe is lurking in plain sight, because Satan was a big deal in S1, he was the Big Bad! It's in the text! The damned book series is built on the idea of a satirical Antichrist take on The Omen. All Hail Satan is one of the first spoken lines of dialogue in the book. Satan is kind of central to any story that's going to revolve around a battle between Heaven and Hell!
And yet... he's barely mentioned this season. And demons suddenly don't remember what they're fighting for. How odd.
Maggie and Nina's actresses also played nuns of the Satanic Chattering Order of St. Beryl. If there was no Antichrist, isn't it possible that neither of those women would have become Satanic nuns and might, instead, own a coffee shop and a record store somewhere?
If there was no Antichrist, isn't it possible that through some convoluted series of events, Madame Tracy, a witch, fell afoul of a demon or managed to become one herself?
Isn't it possible that once you open the door to the ripple effects of a Satan who either never existed (though the Fall still happened) or who only existed up until at least Job, but who was never Adam's father, that some other fucky things could happen too, like Aziraphale suddenly not being fond of alcohol? This continuity detail is much more of a stretch but it is such a plot point in the book that Aziraphale loves to drink and S1 that I do find that particular continuity break particularly vexing and it's one I side-eye the most in terms of "not sure if sloppiness or a Clue".
Anyway, point is:
Satan is curiously absent this season and technically, he was unmade or at least unmade as Adam's father last season. If something is fucking with the timeline, I think that on-screen, very visible event deserves some scrutiny over and beyond vaguely alluded to, off-screen fuckery by the Metatron with no in-text confirmation at all.
There's a lot of weird and bad writing in S2, sure, but some of the continuity breaks do, admittedly, feel too big to be simple oversights and I don't think it's entirely conspiratorial to think something more might be going on and if such a mystery is going to span multiple seasons, we should look back to S1 for the seeds.
It is possible that the unmaking of Satan has had ripple effects that explain some of these continuity changes and some of the cheeky casting of S1 actors in new roles as perhaps not entirely without in-story justification.
So in my mind, the question I have no answer to, but that might deserve some scrutiny going into Season 3 is:
How much did Satan never being Adam's father alter the timeline?
Edit: And here's one last spooky quote to consider: “I remember when the morning stars sang together and all the angels of god shouted for joy." - Gabriel's weird prophecy / quoting of God
Why single out the reference to morning stars plural? Lucifer is very famously the Morning Star, you can't accidentally allude to morning stars in this context without referring to him, you just can't. So what the fuck is going on with this Biblically sourced quote that sort of alludes to Satan, but not by name, and makes the reference to the Morning Star plural?? And even though it is the original text, apparently, it's still a choice by the writers to really highlight the line about morning stars and give that line to Gabriel to say in the present too. Something is sus.
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1moreff-creator · 5 months
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Happy Birthday Eden Tobisa!
Turns out our favorite clock girly has her birthday on New Year's Eve! What a nice date for such a nice girl! Let's do a character analysis, fun facts, and songs!
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-We know relatively little about Eden's backstory. The most notable thing we know about her life before the killing game, apart from her fascination with clocks, is what is revealed in her chapter 2 secret: "Ever since you kissed her, you were afraid your sexuality would ruin your friendships." Which is pretty straightforward; she's canonically a lesbian and is worried it would negatively affect her friendships.
-Literally the only other thing we know about her backstory is that she lived in Japan for a small period of time when she was younger, before moving back to the US. This was revealed in a Q&A.
(... You know, I made a deranged theory in my Mai post that maybe the girl that Eden kissed was actually Mai. It wasn't very serious, since it was just a silly way to try to explain what the hell Eden's quote in the Mai page could mean. But... we know Teruko was in Japan for a while when she was younger, and it's theorized she knew Mai before being separated from her at some point. Combined with Mai's name being seemingly Japanese, it could imply Mai also lived in Japan at some point. And if that's the case, it's possible she met Eden there? To be clear, that's still an insane possibility, but I do find it a funny possibility, which is why I'm sharing it)
-Apart from that, Eden's defining trait is her optimism and her trust in others. She sticks to Teruko's side even after she starts pushing everyone away in CH 1, and confesses to her that she believes "not caring about others is the worst way to live." She's importantly not naive, she does know their situation is horrible, but still she constantly searches for an exit and tries to build good friendships with the others.
-This includes baking with Min, Rose and Teruko in CH1, inviting Teruko and Arei to make clocks on CH2, etc. Basically, she's awesome and nice and mature.
-Also she loves clocks. Regular Ultimate stuff, she can apparently spend hours and hours working and losing track of time.
-Although for such an optimistic character, her secret quote is quite ominous. "You can't go back, no matter how hard you try." We have zero clue what this means at the moment, but at least it does fit the symbolism of time always moving forward.
-Meanwhile, her quote in the Mai page is "She kept calling the number, even though no one picked it up." This is even more incomprehensible! Eden, what in the world are you talking about?
-Alright, David MV. She doesn't have a color in Color Theory, but her numeral is XII (twelve). Go to 1:48:28 in this video for an explanation. God it's so convenient to have that lol.
Alright fun facts!
-As stated, her birthday (December 31st) lands on New Year's Eve. Maybe representing new beginnings or change, which certainly goes well with her character. How nice!
-Like most of the cast, she's American and right-handed.
-She's one of the only characters with dyed hair. Her hair was originally just brown.
-Her favorite color is daffodil yellow, because it's happy, and her least favorite color is blue, because it's "kind of a downer color." Areden shippers in shambles.
-Her favorite ice cream flavor is honeycomb. I didn't even know that existed but go off queen.
-She enjoys cute fashion, but also enjoys wearing androgynous style clothing.
-She likes food which is fun to make or prepare. How nice!
-She's biracial; her mother is black and her father is Japanese. This is why she spent a bit of time in Japan when she was younger.
-Her name in kanji is 飛佐【とび ・ さ】楽【いーでん】. Gonna leave any actual meaning as homework, but it's worth noting her name was anglicized. I think that would translate to "Iden", but her mother liked the name "Eden", so they went with that instead.
Finally, songs that remind me of her!
-Positive Parade by DECO*27
-Gone Fishing by Ghost & Pals (friendship!)
-Aura by Ghost & Pals
-In Iolite by Ghost & Pals
-Magnet by minato
-Those Who Carried On by Ghost & Pals
-I'm Glad You're Evil Too by PinocchioP
And Happy Birthday! And a happy new year! Well wishes to all you Tumblr peeps. Take care!
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scraftcat · 1 year
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Now that Comiccon is over, I can finally show you all the costume projects I have been working on. (Note - this post may be alot longer than my others- more images, explanations of details, etc...)
Here is a SMRPG group cosplay I have been working on with my family for a while now. We tend to go to Comiccon together, so we thought a group one would be a good change of pace. Originally it was only supposed to be Geno, but we ended up going as a group of Mario, Princess Peach, Geno, and little Mallow.
To start off, we have Mario. The Hammer and Mustash were made from scratch. This costume was the most simple out of the bunch, but I think it turned out quite well.
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Next up we have Princess Peach. This dress was one of the most involved pieces to make. It was made from scratch, and uses a mix of Peaches SMRPG and SSBU design. This dress was made by my mum (who wore it.) I designed parts of the decals, crown, Gems and Frying Pan.
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For the main design we wanted to change it up to tie it in with SMRPG. To do this we made the crown and gem silver/ rose gold. As well as this I added the main story of SMRPG around the bottom of the dress. I wasn't able to fit every element in, but I tried to include as much as possible. I'm quite happy with this and it definitely makes the dress stand out amongst other peaches. Here's a closer look at the design.
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Finally, We have Geno. This costume was completely made from scratch, using EVA foam and various other fabrics and paints. Geno has a range of features as well as interchangeable parts. I wanted to make him diverse for different events and cons.
To start, he has a removable hat and cloak, changeable eyes, a moving jaw (manual.), Bendable curls, A gun arm with LED and sounds, a pocket and photo on his cloak, a little money patch on his leg, and Mallow.
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The gun arm has 3 sounds, two gun affects with LEDS, and a mini voice clip for ♡♪!? (This is made up, I used an animal crossing voice filter as I'm not great with sounds effects/ audio editing.) The first gun is Geno Beam, and the second is Star gun. I tried to match up the LEDS with the in game animation sequence.
Unfortunately I don't have a great shot of the LEDS, but I will definitely get a better shot for the future as I plan to wear him out again! Hopefully this short video can demonstrate one of the sound effects. A huge shout-out to my dad who programmed and wired the LEDS, I am still very new to them, so this was a great help and definitely helped improve the Costumes performance.
Alot of people recognised Geno and the SMRPG group as a who which was great. Especially for their first convention. I will definitely be outing in Geno again at other events. If Anyone is interested in seeing more from these guys please let me know. As well as that, if as anyone wants to see certain outfits/ accessories, expressions, just let me know, I'd be happy to give them a go. (For Geno and Mallow.)
I apologise for the long post, but I hope you enjoy the costumes, and if you've read through all of this, thank you! :V
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mixelation · 7 months
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i am so invested in this chuunin exam. i cannot wait for the inevitable chaos with team 4
and it’s probably been mentioned somewhere but did deidara just leave iwa the minute he could walk or does no one remember him? im assuming he was still born in iwa in the reborn au
nope, in plasticity canon he wasn't born in iwa! i've mentioned this several times but idr if I've posted about it explicitly/by itself.
basically, there's a family of regular-ass Earth country farmers that have mouth-hands. most of them don't have fully formed hand-mouths, but Iwa pays them to have lots of kids because they're trying to get a new bloodline limit, as they don't have very many of their own. a lot of the kids have ninja parents, including deidara, but the ninja parents don't usually stick around. deidara got explosion release from his ninja biological father, but he never met the guy. deidara's family is.... not great? mainly they have too many kids to give them much individual attention, and the adults mostly see the kids as a way to generate money. he wasn't necessarily mistreated, but he didn't grow up very loved or supported
in original flavor plasticity canon, Deidara was the one kid with sufficiently well-formed hand-mouths and chakra that Iwa wanted him. So he was carted off to Iwa at like 6 and prevented from seeing his family again. (This... contributed to why he's Like This.) He never bothered to look them up as a missing-nin either; he doesn't have strong memories of them and it just never really occurred to him
when he was reincarnated, he sort of realized he just.... doesn't like his family that much, and he refuses to go back to Iwa. so he just... left. bye
i haven't decided how much of this he shares with konoha. they'll definitely notice his uuuh very iwa techniques lmao, but "yeah my mom banged a ninja during wartime" is a very easy explanation. AND he was never part of iwa in this timeline, which is one reason minato is receptive to recruiting him. free genius genin???
iwa was mad he disappeared, but they have no concept of how good of a ninja deidara could be, so they're not desperate to get him back. most rando iwa-nin don't know their village is paying select civilian families to try and generate bloodline limits and they don't know to be on the look out for hand mouths. eventually iwa will connect the dots and be mad about it, but minato has a pretty good fake paper trail of deidara being taken from a fire country orphanage (or... whatever cover they decide to go with). bc deidara was never formally a part of iwa, they don't have a real claim on him, although it might look bad to the international community that konoha basically stole explosion release
likely under normal circumstances iwa might attempt to prevent deidara from leaving, but the exam does in fact go completely to shit, so we'll never know what they'd try to do :)
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1moremilgram-enjoyer · 8 months
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Okay hold on you know that name on Kotoko's cap in HARROW? Jacques Roulet?
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I always thought that was just a brand or something, but I looked it up and- it's a story about a supposed werewolf that killed a child?! Kotoko what the fuck-
CW Gruesome murder, werewolves (???), clinical lycanthropy (?), mentions of drugs
Okay so here are the sources I'm using for this:
-WordPress by Jim McNeill
-Monstrous.com
Because this shit so obscure it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.
Here's a summary of the story, though be warned, it's gruesome.
Basically, a few villagers in Angers, France, found the warm corpse of a fifteen year old boy being mauled by two wolves. The boy's father was the first to run up after his screams were heard, apparently. They chased the wolves off, but after they lost track of them, they found Jacques Roulet, half naked. He had long hair and beard, and his hands were dyed in fresh blood, his nails "long as claws."
Roules was "a beggar from house to house", and had been staying in a neighbouring village with his brother John and his cousin Julien, though he'd disappeared eight days before the murder. He admitted to having killed the boy by smothering him, and that the only reason he didn't fully eat the corpse was because the wolves scared him off.
In court, he claimed when he rubbed an ointment given to him by his parents on his skin, he could turn into a wolf. He claimed his hands and feet were those of a wolf when he killed the child, but he wasn't sure what his head looked like. He also claimed to have killed many more children. Adittionally, he said his brother and his cousin were the (other?) two wolves at the scene, but his parents actually proved the two had an alibi. You know, in case anyone was considering whether or not that was true.
He was originally sentenced to death, but he managed to appeal it, and in the end his sentence was reduced to staying two years in a mental institution.
The WordPress article mentions the salve Jacques claimed to rub on himself could have possibly had hallucinogenic properties, or alternatively, it's possible his diet included bread infected by the Ergot fungus, which contains chemicals similar to LSD and can also cause hallucinations. This can serve as a possible explanation for his belief of being a werewolf.
... What the fuck does this have to do with Kotoko.
Like, okay, I get the werewolf thing. She's a furry, we get it. But, she doesn't kill children though. If anything, one would assume the one supposed to be Jacques is Kotoko's victim, the dude that killed ten middle school children. But he's not the one wearing the cap, and he's... okay he's sorta connected to wolves.
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It's always looked to me like his shadow vaguely resembles a wolf's snout, but maybe I'm just going crazy.
I honestly don't really know what the deal is with this. My best guess is that the HARROW serial killer is meant to be Jacques, since Kotoko believes he deserved death (as evidenced by the fact she killed him) like the original sentence given to Jacques. Maybe you can read into something about the murdered boy's father in the Angers story being the first to find the body, if you're inclined to believe one of the HARROW killer's victims was part of Kotoko's family. Or maybe the idea of two wolves scaring off Jacques? Like, Kotoko and some kind of partner in vigilantism?
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?
I got no idea. The issue with that is that the wolves in the Jacques story also ended up mauling the boy's corpse, but maybe that's not 100% off-brand? Seeing her distorted quote in the second trial voice reveal trailer.
[Kotoko] From the beginning I've never asked for your understanding! My actions, one by one, are bringing Earth closer to peace. Useless Weaklings should just shut up and let me protect them!
Uh, yeah, I don't know.
I feel inclined to point out, regarding that last point, the line that plays when she first shows off the cap is:
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Feeding on food so I don't burn out
Which is- not the greatest line to say as you show off a cap referencing a story about mauling a fifteen year old. (And yes I do think the Japanese lyric explicitly references eating)
To be clear, the cap is in other scenes: at the end of the second verse before the pre-chorus-
[HARROW] Shall we replace the poor soul, and the miserable delusion “I didn’t mean to offend”, “I won’t do it again” How many wins in a row?
-and at the very end, where it infamously lays on the ground right next to the murder scene.
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But it's still introduced with the line about eating, which I find worrying.
I really am not sure what's going on with this one. If any Kotoko scholars out there have better ideas, please let me know, because I am very curious to know what the deal with this is. Take care!
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Triggered by a conversation between mutuals that I wasn't able to partake in because I read it when it was already over but it still left me with a feeling of wanting to talk.
Many of my recent issues with this series and some of the characters in it come from coming to terms with the fact that people like me were never the intended demographic for it and thus many of my expectations and beliefs are unrealistic. I'm very much aware that every person who ever reads a text will understand it differently based on their experiences and emotions, we can see the most clear examples of it when it comes to the eternal debates on whether Jeyne & Sansa really bullied Arya or whether Catelyn's treatment of Jon should be considered abuse, but at least in my case the projection is based more on political situations that have strongly affected me and my loved ones and that are difficult to talk about in the open without feeling like my concerns are exaggerated and are also ruining other people's fun.
This is a fun series that has given my solace written by a white usan democrat who writes orientalist tropes and gives no real personality to any of his fully-canon-not-up-to-interpretation characters of colour and uses a half assed excuse to not have any of the main characters be a not-up-to-interpretation character of colour.
An example that is lighthearted and makes me chuckle could be my perception of the Vale. To me Mya Stone wears heavy colourful ponchos while Myranda wears a sanq'apa, Domeric Bolton played not only the harp but also the charango, maté is a common drink, and at least some of Sweetrobyn's lacking health comes from soroche. None of this is contradictory to the canon but I know that if I were to meet grrm and tell him of these concepts, he would probably think I'm on crack but would smile in false sympathy while Liiiiiiindaaaaaaaaa (and some readers, fans and tumblerinas) would just straight up tell me to go read something from my shithole country instead of tarnishing the beautiful and perfect European-based world of ice and fire./sar
And I am aware that the ironborn are perceived by most and are somewhat intended to be perceived as pseudo-historic "vikings but in the late Middle Ages" but I read these books when I was 12 and still thought that vikings were just a Hollywood invention, like the orange filter they put on Latin America or white saviours.
With this long introduction here are some random headcanons regarding ironborn lore and culture that aren't contradictory to canon but would probably clash against the more common fandom-built conceptions (many of which I do not like), sometimes accompanied by explanations and reasoning, often sentimental or based on personal experiences.
Nagga, the other unnamed dragon and the geographical formation of the islands
Heavily inspired by the myth of Trentren Vilu and Caicai Vilu. In the original real life mapuche myth the two giant snakes were enemies and after Caicai Vilu (sea snake) awoke form his slumber he caused a flood to bring down mankind because he considered them ungrateful brats who didn't appreciate the gifts offered by the sea. Trentren Vilu (land snake) helped the humans escape by raising the hills and turning those who drowned into sea creatures (fish, sea mammals and the mapuche equivalent to mermaids included) and those who were about to be engulfed by the waters into sea birds. Due to the long fighting and constant floods the land developed into thousands (not an exaggeration) islands.
My ironborn version of this isn't very different from the myth narrated above with Caicai Vilu's role becoming Nagga's and Trentren Vilu's being given to another sort of dragon that was it's oponent. The major difference in my headcanons is that said opponent perished, unlike Trentren, and Nagga kept on living and causing havoc until the Grey King finally killed it off. And if I am allowed to reach out even more with all this, the mermaid that the Grey King married could have been one of Nagga's victims saved by the other dragon but, taking into account what we know from Strange Stone this would mean that the formation of the Islands and the existence of merlings and the sea dragon would precede the Drowned God. That would be interesting.
Architectonic decoration
Some of my happiest memories take place in a small and poor fisher town in my home country that was usually damp and covered in fog. The beach was not a pleasant one. A remarkable thing about it was it's architecture that wasn't very particular in it's structure but still remains striking to me. The houses near the coast were all typical colourful, wooden stilt houses, but the further you got into land the houses would change and suddenly you found yourself in small and dirty alleys and streets between concrete houses that were rather plain in shape and old but the walls were covered in sea shells, and sometimes starfish and sea urchin carcasses, that had been plastered on the concrete. When I was 12 and had just moved to another country my class was tasked with making a dissertation about what we associate with the word "home". My teacher was a xenophobe who delighted in tormenting me and she laughed at the pictures and referred to them as tacky, my fellow classmates liked emulating her. I however still find them beautiful and that entire sentiment is something I mildly associate to the iron islands in a way.
It is my home. Flawed and meagre, but mine.
I also think that since sea shells are cheap and common it would fit into their more utilitarian tendencies; giving a purpose to what little they have instead of overspending (gold price) on aesthetics. For some reason this is something I like imagining at Harlaw and Lordsport in particular. Here are pictures
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Music
Feel weird about this because music in the entirety of Westeros is very generic and that makes it a little boring in my opinion. When it comes to Ironborn we are told of two reaving songs ("Steel Rain" and "The Bloody Cup") and it's mentioned quite often by ironborn characters that getting a song about them is something they should strive for. There might even be some religious reasons behind it too but that wasn't expanded on:
The Drowned God had made them to reave and rape, to carve out kingdoms and write their names in fire and blood and song. - Theon I, ACOK
Makes me wonder if Theon's "Let Abel make a song of that, we flew." could have been influenced by ironborn culture too instead of just his usual romanticism and the chivalric connotations of him "saving the girl". I haven't compared this to the other characters so I can't be sure about this but from my notes Theon seems to think quite a lot about wanting to be in/not being fit for a song.
We also have Loron Greyjoy, "the Bard", and we know very little of him except for that he used to have a gay ol' time with Desmond Mallister, but there's nothing that points to him being looked down on by the other ironborn and the nickname "the bard" feels significant but there's no info so what am I to make up with that? Well, I like to think he was a bit of a patron of the arts and maybe even a composer. The two reaving songs have no mentioned origins so maybe he was involved in their creation.
The thralls were pouring ale, and there was music, fiddles and skins and drums. - Theon II, ACOK
I like all of those instruments but grrm you are a bore. Westeros is about the size of South America and yet they have a total of nine instruments named. Loved the mention of kettledrums during the kingsmoot though.
The largest kettledrum in the world finds itself in Bali and serves religious purposes. I like to believe that perhaps the kettledrums during the kingsmoot also had some religious reasons for their use. Perhaps traditional melodies used to announce the different contenders for the seastone chair.
Drums make sense for reaving songs and truth be told I'm not sure to what he was referring with "skins" but I was surprised by the fiddles because they seemed like a wink at the just as anachronistic golden age piracy, even if fiddles have been around since the 10th century. This makes me think of more folkloric oriented music made more for dancing in taverns and harbours than for rowing.
When being deranged I became aware that percussion and string instruments can be played underwater as they don’t rely solely on air to transfer sound (they would still be very difficult to play and the sound would be weird). Dragging a bow across a fiddle would probably be easier than strumming a harp or lyre though. I don’t think the ironborn are deranged enough to try to play music under water but it makes for a fun picture to imagine them being more fond of sounds that can be transferred through it. I’m imagining them trying echolocation with dolphins.
For some reason I can’t really explain I like the idea of them playing the marimba and other percussion wood based instruments.
I like to believe that the finger dance can be somewhat compared to capoeira as in serving aesthetically pleasing and artistic purposes but also carrying a sort of danger and fighting spirit to it. It is something I can see as a pastime, acrobatic exercise and art and I like that.
Some mapiko dancers will bind sea shells in nets to their clothes and they will use them as bells and rattles when they dance. I like to think this could maybe be part of the finger dance when performed for artistic purposes, like perhaps a diplomatic visit or a national festivity, instead of just as a game.
(not ironborn lore related but as I went through my notes I realised that Theon is usually tense when thinking or witnessing happyish heroic sort of songs but he seems to be weirdly at peace/melancholic around "sad" and "soft" songs during ADWD and I find that very endearing. Go listen to Chris Garneau's between the bars and castle time you sad sulking ghost I love you I wish I could have seen you thrive but we are all doomed : ) )
Priestesses of the drowned god
I am heavily against the fandom notion that the Ironborn built a culture out of toxic masculinity that is particularly misogynistic when in canon women in the island (or at least ironborn women) have more liberties than in most of Westeros (with Dorne as an exception and maaaaaybe the North). The only female stewards we see in the series are all iron islanders and Asha being allowed to reave and raid and engage in spaces usually reserved to men isn't the exception to the rule. Theon mentions that women like her aren't uncommon in the isles, Asha is said to have resembled her mother in spirit and Hagen's beautiful red headed daughter, who is so low on the socio-economical hierarchy that she doesn't even get her own name, is not only allowed to behave similarly to Asha, but her sexual freedom is never questioned or criticised either. I honestly think that their most problematic issues come from feelings of ethnic superiority, not a personal vendetta against women.
So, I find it disappointing and lazy that we haven't gotten any female spaces in the faith of the drowned god. I remember someone mentioning on a Tumblr post that on one of the asoiaf based video games drowned priestesses were a thing. Sadly I have never played any of the video games and I can't find any further sources for this so I don't know if I should trust that. But! I like that idea. Drowned priests are restless; they have no home and are made to basically pilgrim their life away; they travel around the islands and also accompany the men on raids. I think it would be cool if the priestesses of the drowned god had a more stable role in ironborn society. During the age of heroes we had salt and rock kings and in a way I could see the drowned priestesses as the rock to the drowned priests salt but with less authority.
Maesters are still somewhat recent in the Iron Islands and I don't think that Septas would have been appreciated by most ironborn women given their teachings and expectations around gender norms so I like believing that priestesses of the drowned god could occupy that space as educators of children and healers. History and religion seemed to be tied together in ironborn culture and their religion at least passed down orally so I can imagine them acting somewhat similar to mande jèli but with more of a focus on religion and less importance on the overall politics. I can also imagine them performing less important rites, like weddings, coming of age ceremonies or maybe fertility related acts. So basically a mixture between Maester and Septa with a lesser standing to their male counterparts.
Rafts as beds
Drowned priests, who have no homes, should sleep on rafts on nights that are more or less calm because that is a magical experience that I think everyone should go through at least once in their life but it's also fitting to their entire suffering theme because you will freeze to death and get a cold.
Dhows
I learnt how to row, sail, fish and use the night sky as a map before I learned how to ride a bike and my personal nitpicking issue with the world building in asoiaf is the nautical terms used. What do you mean longships and galleys that have decks and cabins????? Even if they have two levels of rowers (and most of the described ones don't) this rarely makes sense!
And you know what? I'm not even going to take my time to give them accurate Viking-like ships. In my head, they travel on dhows. "Dhow" is a generic term to refer to certain types of sailing boats that are mostly used around the Indian Ocean and I am in love with them.
They are precious to me and they allow me more variety when imagining the different ships mentioned in relation to the ironborn characters.
Sea Bitch for example looks more like a beden to me than like a typical Viking longship
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but I can still imagine smaller, simpler looking galleys when needed, like a Dhoni. They can carry quite a lot of heavy stuff so they are usually good for trading (and probably raiding) too.
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If I recall correctly, the Iron fleet has been identified by the text as some hybrid between dromonds and longships and I can be content with that definition. Personally I picture them more like Byzantine dromonds with a deck, cabins and more than one set of rowers.
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Colloquialisms
I have always perceived colloquialisms as a subtle type of resistance to colonial and imperial forces, so I assume that the less integrated and maybe more separatist parts of Westeros (such as the Iron Islands, Dorne and maybe The North) would probably have a wider range of colloquialism as region based expressions. This is difficult to convey in fanworks of any sort and I can't think of any time I've made it noticeable in any of my fanworks but I like thinking about it. This could include idioms related to religious or geographical lore or more ambitious terms stemming from perhaps a former language spoken in the region or words taken and adapted from places they have sailed to, like the Summer Islands.
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