lyfthemuffinmoth

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

 If you drilled a tunnel through Earth and jumped in, you would reach the other side in 42 minutes and 12 seconds, and your top speed would be 17,670 mph.

:3

omgg so real so real

#lyf laugh love

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

fig should really get sparrow on the complicated women podcast

#dndads #fantasy high

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

So this isn't the lesson I was supposed to take from this episode but. Sparrow is DEFINITELY the older twin.

#u have the best takes oh mmy gooooood #dndads

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

Still can't quite articulate it fully but.

It's seeing this horrific specter that has haunted your life since childhood die. It's an ignoble death. It's violent and messy, a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen kinda deal. Your mother straight up helped beat this man to death with a rock and this is the first time she's ever even seen him before; if that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about how much this one person has influenced your life and the lives of your friends and family so horrifically for the worse, then nothing will.

But it's over.

It's over. Complete. Finished. Willy Stampler is dead on the ground in a puddle of blood and piss. He's not locked away in some pocket dimension, he's just straight up dead.

And the other thing that has overshadowed your life and the lives of your family for generations is gone too. An eldritch pseudo-god almost beyond your comprehension, a thing you have only ever hoped to defeat---although what that defeat means to you has changed wildly since you and your twin were 12--- was befriended by your teenage son and all his friends. They gave it a chance and a choice and the world-ending monstrosity your family has wrestled with for decades chose to go home.

It is everything you have ever wanted, everything in your wildest dreams come true, and you can't help it. There's catharsis and then, orders of magnitude far beyond it, there's this. There isn't even words for everything you're feeling. It's a cataclysmic rush of emotion and it has nowhere to go but here. For the first time since before your son was born, you wildshape and turn into a Love Wolf.

Let what must come after this moment arrive just a little later. There's going to be so much goddamn work after this singular moment, but let this moment exist in its entirety first. Hold space for the inevitable but tell the inevitable to wait just a bit longer.

(Your father has not magically become un-broken from all that has happened. Your wife was tortured then obliterated from existence only to be returned by a true miracle. Your brother will never go a day without feeling the phantom weight of the world he ended on his shoulders. Your mother remains, as she has been, dead, and death has not erased things both said and unsaid between you two. And your children---)

Just a moment. Please. A reprieve before the slog of rebuilding. A moment before you have to visit the rubble of your ruined relationships and assess the damages in their entirety. Just one blessed, beautiful moment to exist in a shape you thought forever lost and barred from you.

The other side of the equation, though?

It's seeing this boogeyman dead on the ground. This person who orchestrated so much death and destruction and you didn't even know he existed less than a year ago. It was a terrible, horrific death. You watched this man murder your mother and erase her from existence just to prove a point. You have always been the perky-peppy-chipper-cheery one but today you were filled with murderous rage the likes of which you can barely comprehend, let alone thought yourself capable of achieving. You were unequivocally ready to kill and, this time, for the first time, you wanted it.

And now he's dead. One of your friends literally pissed on him as he died. It's... a lot. To put it mildly. A year ago the only thing you really cared about was maximizing school spirit. As of three minutes ago, you and your friends became, however briefly, God.

And your father just turned into a wolf. A Love Wolf, specifically, something you've only heard about as a random snippet of Dad Lore, just one tidbit of information in a veritable sea of mind-wiped backstory. It's something he has been unable to do since before you were born.

He can do it now.

He can do it now.

Now, when you have fixed fucking everything. When the Doodler is gone, when Willy is dead, when the biggest fuck-ups of your entire family have been rectified, now is when your father can turn into the fabled Love Wolf. This is what it took, this is the price you had to pay for your father to reach the equilibrium he had before your birth but never after.

Now, after everything you have been through to get to this point. After always being the odd man out in your group of friends. After a drunken, rambled, I'm not proud of him that has never stopped ringing in your ears. After piecing together the past and all its gory secrets bit by bit. After a betrayal by one of your new (and only) friends and a jagged reconciliation forged in the heart of a house fire. After witnessing the implosion of your other friend's relationship with his father. After escaping death time and again. After watching people die. After watching your friend's dad murder your other friend's stepfather right in front of all of you. After befriending an unknowable eldritch horror because you have to help it. After burying someone you loved. After learning that you opened a door when you were six and your father had no choice but to end the world a second time over on your behalf trying to fix it.

After everything your father and your uncle put your sister through because of a bullshit made-up prophecy written by Scam Fucking Likely, now is when your father can at long last become a Love Wolf again. He is, finally, happy. All it took was everything you could possibly give and then so much more.

Do you remember how this started? Do you remember being assigned detention over a stupid fucking mascot costume? Do you remember when your problems were that small? You only had to become God to fix things, to earn love and pride that doesn't secretly ring hollow to you.

Your father, the Love Wolf, wags his tail.

You know that your problems will never be that small again.

-------------------------------

More rants about other characters

Sparrow

Glenn

#OUGHHHHHH #dndads

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

Anthony Birch choking up as he narrates the end of his second campaign that spanned over 2 years, with 50+ episodes, carrying a story through 3+ generations, cultivating a following and a community of love and support and silliness, with his four friends and phenomenal players that helped elevate an already amazing story and concept…

just… that last episode. Those tears in his voice. It was like his child grew up before his eyes and is now going off into the world…

#dndads #anthonys emotions always get me man #he cares so much

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

Not to mix together two hyperfixations of mine that have literally nothing to do with one another but to me Sparrow is a very good character to analyze through the "without love, the truth cannot be seen" framework that Umineko presents. Your understanding of his actions and words is framed entirely by whether you feel love for his character or not, which might sound obvious but what I mean is that to understand his relationship with his children, especially Normal, it is necessary to keep the circumstances of Sparrow's own childhood in mind - only then can you see the full picture. This, however, implies a level of care and nuance that is probably only granted by those who already have an attachment to the character, and that's why some listeners have fallen into the belief that Sparrow didn't love Normal (at least, not as unconditionally as he could've) despite canon evidence pointing to the contrary. Without >taking the time to analyze Sparrow in-depth< (Love), >his real feelings for his children< (The Truth) cannot be seen.

And, ultimately, I think this is why Sparrow and Normal's relationship is unfixable from an in-universe perspective. Still (validly) stuck with the image of his father telling him he's not proud of him, Normal sees Sparrow's support of him as limited and conditional, which biases his perspective against him - in other words, Normal does not truly feel loved by him. In turn, and whether it's subconscious or not, this makes Normal perpetuate the vicious cycle by being unable to view his father through a lens of Love due to his resentment. He interprets Sparrow's words and actions in unfavorable manners because he, himself, is depriving them of nuance and context. Because of this, he will never be able to reach The Truth.

Umineko also proposes the idea that if someone believes in a lie too fervently, it stops being a lie and becomes The Truth. Sparrow and Normal cannot find connection because they now fundamentally exist in two different realities, each one with a different Truth. And The Truth for Normal now is, unfortunately, that it took risking his life multiple times and losing people important to him for his father to be proud.

#dndads

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

I have a lot of Thoughts about Sparrow Oak-Garcia-Swallows that have been rotating in my mind all season...

(under the cut, it got a little long oops)

Sparrow was my favorite kid in s1. he & Lark were v funny at the start, but the story got really interesting when their personalities diverged. Sparrow had to keep the peace between Lark & Henry. Sparrow had to reconcile that he and Lark were both changing as people, different worldviews while being inextricably tied to each other, always. Sparrow chose love.

he changes as an adult. obviously that makes sense, and I can see the logic to it at the start of the season. he wants to have a normal life, for himself and for his family. he makes compromises constantly. he marries a centrist, and says "It's fine" when she cheats on him. he loves Normal, but he's not proud of his son, in the same way that he's not proud of his own life. that's an engaging development for someone who used to be a happy kid.

but the direction that Anthony took with him as the show progressed... honestly disappointed me. in the few times that Sparrow is there, he is impatient with Normal, talks over him, acts as though he always knows better. Sparrow never genuinely listens to Normal in the way that Henry did with him. there's a point where he Yells at Normal, unhinged shouting that Anthony usually reserves for Willy. Normal adds onto it - "My family yells at each other, then apologizes after, as if that makes it okay."

so Sparrow turning into a love wolf in the finale... falls flat. only at the very end does Sparrow show real pride for Normal, and it took him saving the world through gratuitous violence.

the way that Will runs with it makes complete sense to me. "This is what it takes for you to be proud of me?" OBVIOUSLY that fucks with Normal's head, and stays with him into adulthood. there's no easy way to resolve the fact that Sparrow treated him poorly.

Will worked with what he was given, and I think he did a fantastic job. I just think that, for someone whose central theme in s1 was choosing love... Sparrow's actions in s2 felt out of place.

#i completely agree like!!! #everytime there was glimpses of somwthing there it was just undercut like!!! #every single family got a resolution for their daddy magic moment #except sparrow #because willy imitated him #we never actually get to see normal and sparrow talk!! #i am so positive that the conversation would have gone the same would it have actually been sparrow #and the way that will replied made it seem like a genuine approvement could he made with #it was just disappointing for it to not be resolved #dndads

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

Sparrow: You know what we do after we save all of reality, right? Normal: What's that? Sparrow: Take a shower.

#dndads

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

Just...Scam probably knows all the shit that happened because of his made up prophecy and thinks it's hilarious. Like, I love Sparrow, but I don't think Sparrow under non-being-prophesied-to-have-the-chosen-one-who-fixes-everything circumstances gets married and has a kid straight out of high school. Feel like Hero was a pressure of, the sooner we have a chosen one, the sooner this can all be over, type thing. So Scam is, in a sense, responsible for two kiddad marriages, and two kiddad children (what with the whole Titanic helping convince Grant to go through with marrying Marco and oh, they have a Titanic baby now! thing) I am just going to believe that Scam snuck in and poked holes in Nick and Cass's condoms at this point.

#dndads

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

Also... Post-canon lovesong... If you even care... "Is Sparrow still with Rebecca?" that part is a choose your own adventure babeeey~

#thinking about this in the. #what if rebecca wasnt brought back #all the complicated emotions to come with that #grief and love and guilt and comfort and all the pressure #like #OUGH #id kill for that ill be so real #dndads #sparrow oak #nicky foster #lovesong #lovesong dndads

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

Overall the finale was good and great but. God I would've killed for just one conversation between Sparrow and Normal. They literally haven't spoken since the Code Purple reveal and. There's so much tension between them still. While I love the love wolf moment for sure I feel like. Ough I don't know I would've loved to hear that conversation where they just talked it all out y'know.

#SIGNED SIGNED SO HARD #dndads

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

Normal saying that he hated his dad for the decisions he made but now he understands what's it like to feel like to feel the fate of the world on your shoulders FUCK i'm rooting for them so hard

#that line dude #like #OUGH #dndads

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

awoo o7

Was gathering clips for something else but here is one of my favorite dndads moments ever in case you needed a little pick-me-up hehe

#dndads #sparrow oak

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

sparrow oak garcia swallows. i cried for a minute. happy tears. howl on sweet prince.

#dndads

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

Me when they started singing together

#dndads

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

Overall the finale was good and great but. God I would've killed for just one conversation between Sparrow and Normal. They literally haven't spoken since the Code Purple reveal and. There's so much tension between them still. While I love the love wolf moment for sure I feel like. Ough I don't know I would've loved to hear that conversation where they just talked it all out y'know.

#dndads #dndads spoilers #dndads s2 #lyf laugh love #dungeons and daddies #sparrow oak #sparrow oak garcia #normal oak

[lyfthemuffinmoth]

God. Dear god. Oh my dear lord. Catch me sobbing at that outro rendition fuck.

#dndads #dungeons and daddies #dndads spoilers #dndads s2