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tartsinarat · 1 day

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Pip: “…I know you will never think so, but I have always hoped that in another life, you had ran away with me that night.”

Hunter: “…”

Pip: “We could have actually been finally free from this gilded birdcage.”

So I’ve never actually posted anything deeper into how Hunter and Pip think about each other/ their dynamic other than silly sibling dynamic but it’s actually a lot more interesting than that.

Pip and Hunter actually have a complicated relationship that somewhat is like funhouse mirror on what Philip and Caleb may have been like as they both flip flop between the two roles but ironically Hunter predominantly takes Philip’s role while Pip takes Caleb’s. Which uh caused a lot of disagreements.

In the au canon, they see themselves as actually being siblings rather than cousins because the fake story that Belos made is a lot different from the og canon of the show.

So rather than being Belos’s nephews like how Hunter is in the show, instead they are his actual children that he had with a human when he supposedly visited the human realm. This is what Hunter believes is the reason why he has no magic but pointed ears and why Pip thinks he has magic but round ears.

The story that Belos created in order to explain why their mum mysteriously missing is that a group of wild witches killed her and the rest of their family. It’s also the fake explanation for how both Pip and Belos got cursed.

This also adds credence to why Belos hates wild witches to the public and why the day of unity is so important because they’ve all been told it’s going to properly unite the human realm and the demon realm.

I also find it much more interesting that instead of Hunter just knowing that his “family” died in a mysterious way like in the show canon that instead Belos actually created an extremely detailed false family history so those two wouldn’t go snooping around searching for any missing details

it makes it even more fucked up when these two later learn that everything was a lie because to further solidify the illusion Belos even implanted false memories so uh these definitely two struggle with the consequences of figuring that out.

But yeah properly onto Pip and Hunter, both of them were basically inseparable as little kids but ended up drifting apart because Hunter had started working as the Golden guard and Pip was too young to help out (and also Belos didn’t want to have to go through the long and tedious process of cloning himself again) so Pip was often left behind bored and alone.

This boredom has consequences because when exploring the castle Pip found out about something he really shouldn’t have…He inadvertently ended meeting the collector who was also really bored and wanted to play with someone who’s not old and boring like Belos. Uh safe to say Pip straight up almost died when Belos walked in on him and the collector chatting about titans.

Hunter also ended up eventually getting involved to try and protect Pip but ended up getting that wound across his cheek. They obviously both survived but they were both punished by not being allowed to use healing magic on their wounds and to be locked in their rooms for the foreseeable future.

Pip sneaks out and attempts to convince Hunter to escape the castle and run away because it’s not the first time they’ve been almost killed for a mistake but Hunter believes that they had both deserved it for disobeying authority and refuses to come with Pip.

Pip just ends up escaping by sneaking on to an airship but almost gets caught by Belos but just escapes in the nick of time with just a scratch across his thigh. Luckily the airship was being piloted Lilith who had no idea that there was a stowaway onboard as she was too busy planing on how to finally convince Eda to join the emperor’s coven.

Oh yeah Eda straight up slams the door in Lilith’s face and tells Hooty to eat any intruders, Pip sneaks out of the airship as it’s about to leave and while trying to get a grasp of his surroundings, Hooty sees him and its on sight. Eda saves him and ends up with a new roommate along side King and Hooty and patches him up because she felt bad for the little guy.

I’ll talk about Hunter and Pip’s familial relationship in the modern times in another post as this one got really long TwT

But yeah that’s the origin to this post of small Pip and why him and Hunter have bad blood until they met again like 7 years later.

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yasmimkilleruwu · 3 days

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your headcanons about toby? :D

Some hcs about Toby ^^

Connie, Lyra and Toby wore a matching lanyard, they each had one, but Toby ended up losing his and ended up without it, he actually looked everywhere but couldn't find it, after Lyra's death Toby's mother gave it to him Lyra's necklace for Toby, so he would always remember her and have her close by.

Under no circumstances touch Toby's cord.

He tried to take his own life several times, but Slenderman didn't allow him to do so, but Slenderman doesn't stop him from hurting himself.

Eyeless Jack helps Toby stop cutting himself, he knows how many and where each scar is, so when Toby gets a new cut, he tries to prevent Jack from touching it.

He lived in the mansion, but after a while he started living in a cabin with the Heartless and the X-Virus.

Toby goes days without sleeping, so X-Virus, Heartless, Kate and Eyeless Jack try to make him sleep more, because even though he doesn't have missions, he can't sleep.

Toby was a little homophobic because of his father's influence, but Lyra told him that he shouldn't listen to their father, as it was a bad thought, so he didn't care so much, but his father ended up contaminating it a little his head.

Because of Toby's father's influence, Toby suppressed his feelings for Eyeless Jack and ignored Eyeless Jack for a long time, only going to Eyeless Jack if he really had to, but that didn't last long.

After Toby's father's influence passed, Toby started to wear more extravagant clothes, but he only wears this type of clothes sometimes, he started to accept the clothing suggestions that Nina suggested for him. {Jack liked this change .}

He convinced Eyeless Jack to wear more extravagant and elegant clothes too, as he wanted Eyeless Jack to wear clothes that showed off his body more.

Also influenced by his father, Toby repressed all the feelings he had, his father scolded him when he was crying, saying he was weak and several other things.

Toby is the type of person who forgets everything he's supposed to do, but Eyeless Jack is almost always there to remind Toby of everything.

He gets distracted very easily, so Kate or Hoodie give him missions separately from the other proxies, so they can explain everything so he doesn't get distracted by others.

He used to bring hidden animals to the mansion, so he could have some kind of company, but he stopped when he saw that Slenderman killed them all.

He and the X-Virus are afraid of spiders, this fear got worse when the Heartless caught their attention saying that she had something to show, and when she opened her mouth a spider came out of her mouth.

He's very flexible, he does a lot of crazy poses and of course he doesn't mind as he doesn't feel pain.

It is very common for blood to come out of his nose, as he is almost always stressed.

Sometimes he hurt himself on purpose just to see Jack, because there was a time when he could only see Jack if he was hurt.

Toby's favorite birthday was when, in the afternoon, he had a big party thrown by his closest friends and in the evening Eyeless Jack made a big dinner for the two of them, he received several gifts that day.

He hates being called Ticci, he doesn't know himself or actually doesn't remember why, but he really hates being called that.

Toby is one of the most agile and fast proxies, he is very dangerous if you really irritate him.

He is demiromantic and pansexual. {He is also asexual, but he still feels sexual attraction, but very little.}

{I have several hcs about him, I already said some in another post I made talking about him and Eyeless Jack.}

{And I'm sorry for any writing errors.}

#ticci toby #eyeless jack #ticcijack #creepypasta

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madame-fear · 1 day

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Okay, so. Yesterday I received a rather extent anon message blaming me for, apparently, “not being neutral in the drama” because I’m mutuals with someone that had little involvement in the situation I think, and as I found out today, my mutual already clarified things and apologised.

I left my answer to the ask in the drafts, but today I opted to ignore the message and remove the drafted answer. I did this not only because I wanted to drop things already and not stir up any more shit, but also because I have a condition where I constantly tremble, and any extreme emotion — whether it’s good or bad — makes my shaking worsen to the point I can barely function even for basic things and I feel sick in the stomach.

It wasn’t worth going through that. I thought it would be better to answer ask messages of people ranting, or asking things about it that were within the reach of my knowledge.

Until today, that a burner account named @/quillantrophy (which, they accidentally exposed their real account @/wewereforever in one of their screenshots and now they both deactivated), thought they could do a “call out” post... Posting my answers to anon asks & basically treating me as a hypocrite over nothing?

And they said I should explain things because since I wasn’t commenting on anything they said on the post, I was “adding fuel to the fire” (that exact quote). I didn’t have time to explain things at the moment, but I do now and I will answer bit by bit. I will do this just to avoid possible misunderstandings.

I want to clarify that I don’t feel comfortable getting involved in things that I’ve never been involved in— and if I receive more messages about the drama itself, those messages will be deleted. I feel kind of bad about this since people have only been coming to my ask box asking thing about it confuses, or seeking comfort from the moment, but like we’ve been saying, it’s better to drop things already, and focus on the good things inside the fandom.

The answer to the post is below the cut. It’s going to be long, sorry, but I prefer to clear any misunderstandings. And I will highlight something extremely important down below, besides apologising deeply for any misunderstanding. And this is the last time I will be talking about it

“there’s no issue with this, but she claims to be neutral and is currently explaining/advocating on the situation whilst adopting this stance.” I am neutral on the situation. I will eternally remain neutral because as we’ve seen, neither side is good.

As I’ve said before, Cal had little to do with all of this huge mess. From what I learned today, she already clarified and apologised about the situation. Cal was dragged through the mud by both of the groups out of nowhere, and she also fell for their shit so she was fooled by them just like lots of other people— she told me herself.

“This is bullshit, there’s no transparency” huh? what does that even mean,, I just… Literally don’t have any involvement at all? What can I say or do about it? Both groups of people were already on my blocklist since last year lmao.

“She has connection to the drama purely through this even as she apparently didn’t participate — allegedly.” I’m sorry but the allegedly part is killing me too. I wasn’t even on their Discord groups, nor talked to any of the people involved, explain why the word ‘allegedly’ was even added?

also, how the hell am I supposed to be connected to the drama if, as you said, I didn’t even participate in it, only because I’m mutuals with someone who was named in it? What kind of sense does that make?

As I stated above, I am, and always have been a neutral onlooker about the situation, who explained the situation to the confused people, even posting the links with the full info and proof to not spread incorrect information accidentally.

“Does @bucknastysbabe even know or care you’re slamming her on main and then love bombing her the next?” Cal knows about all your post, and all my answers to each ask regarding the situation.

She knows I hadn’t seen her apology/clarifying video until today. She even cheered me up when I had an anxiety attack after this person made this post, only to then delete it and deactivate the account. So, yes, she knows pretty much everything and she knows it was a mere mistake of mine.

Then, the person posted this. I will show the screenshots of what they said, and what answered ask they were referring to using their own SS.

(sorry if the screenshot pics are switched of their right places) I had no idea that was a direct quote from Cal’s apology video, because I OBVIOUSLY HADN’T SEEN IT. I don’t know how else to stress this, but I’m not chronically online, and neither I see everything my mutuals post.

Either way, I literally re-read my own response to check what I had answered, and this was terribly misunderstood. The only response I had about Cal’s statement was “why am I not surprised?”, and in the rest of my response, I tried to be as neutral as possible— in the rest of my response, I was referring to the general situation of the drama, and in fact I was mostly referring to the things Bel, Fae, Em and Ange said + did.

But nothing else, thats it, because I wanted to speak about the situation in general and I was referring to the group of people— I didn’t name names and neither I referenced Cal’s statement any further. I deeply apologise for the misunderstanding, but sometimes I explain myself awfully mostly because English isn’t my native language.

if this was considered with any possible ill intention at all, I offer once again my most sincere apologies. I never had any bad intention, and the only thing I’ve been doing was answer the asks of the people who came to my ask box inquiring about what had happened, try to offer comfort to those who felt disappointed and heartbroken, and in general just try to provide as much positivity as I could amidst the terrible situation.

Some believe I was trying to gain attention from the situation, and that I was stroking the flames of the drama. I at no cost even thought of ‘getting attention’ from it, or that I was actually getting attention, I simply answered the messages I was receiving to interact with my own followers— I mean, it didn’t feel good to leave them hanging.

I do have to take responsibility that perhaps my actions continued to keep the drama up, but again, I never had this intention, and I’m terribly sorry if that’s what my answers and interactions caused.

Please I do hope you guys understand my point of view, and that I never intended for any of this to be understood in the wrong manner. I have to admit that despite all the lovely people and fun moments I had/have in the fandom, it’s also responsible for worsening my condition the 90% of the times due to the unnecessary drama, and this situation today made me feel extremely bad physically as it automatically involved me in a situation I didn’t want to be involved in, nor have anything to do with it.

And that’s why, from now on, I won’t be answering any message related to the drama anymore to not keep mentioning the things that happened. As I said all the way above, we should currently be focusing only on the good, positive things of the fandom— and hopefully, we will all learn to not be rude or gossip about other people over mere fandoms, or fanfanfiction.

Then again, thank you for reading and understanding. If I expressed myself wrongly anywhere in here, please feel free to ask me about it and I will glady re-explain it. I hope this can clear everything, and please, I don’t want to be involved any further in anything.

#fandom rants #I hope this cleared everything out. I am as polite and as clear as I can be about the situation.#important #✧.* amiraverse #hotd drama

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warcorrespondence · 8 hours

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You've probably seen that post that goes around, you know the one: It's all fun and games in hbowar until you want to see two women have a conversation.

Well, @mercurygray/mercurygray set out to fix that. The Darkening Sky is full of women having conversations about real things.

fandom: band of brothers

pairing: Dick Winters/OC

mature, 220612 words

This epic asks the question: what would it be like if women went to war with Easy Company? No, but really though?

There are a lot of OCs, and a personal challenge I have with reading OCs is that I already love the canon characters. So for me, OCs have more work to do in fanfic than they do in novels, because they have to shoulder aside my blorbos. (This is me - there are a lot of OC writers and readers in this fandom and bravo to you all! I’m simply explaining a barrier I have).

But fairly quickly, they established themselves, and over not too long a time, I grew to love them.

The main relationship is between Joan Warren, niece of General Pershing and society gal of Nixon’s ilk, and Dick Winters - she’s flirtier than he is, and more outspoken, but just as driven and in essence just as private. It takes them A WHILE to get going, because it would - these are two serious people with serious things to do, and they take love seriously too.

And all right, I’m just going to put it out there - was it a challenge, as a card-carrying winnix girlie, to hop on board that train?

…not really?

It helps that Nix ships it (which, like everything here, is shown and not told, and with delightful subtlety). It helps that Joan is awesome, a fully-fleshed out character with flaws and frustrations, narrative drive as well as personal drive. It helps that this is just another world where the Nix-Dick friendship didn’t develop that way, from Toccoa onward. There is no "We'll go to Chicago, I’ll take you there." It’s not what happens.

(This fic also doesn't straightwash - there's not a ton of focus on m/m or f/f relationships, but they're there).

But Joan and Dick, much as I love to read about them, are not the only focus of the story. POV shifts all the time, sometimes to Shifty, sometimes to minor characters like Aldbourne residents or land girls, and we get an idea of what the war is like for them, as well as their perspective on Easy Company in all its camaraderie and complexity.

It probably goes without saying that in a fandom full of heavily researched fics, Merc’s stands out as being the most meticulous. She knows her shit, and I knew that going in. But there’s a difference between throwing in facts and details for the sake of it, and doing it to further the experience of the reader. I felt like I learned things, but never like I was being taken to school - when I learned something it was because I was gaining context about a beloved character or understanding more about how the world would work for women in these circumstances. And they don't all have the same experience! Life for Lieutenant Joan Warren, reluctant media darling, is very different than it is for Sergeants Billie Mitchell or Marj Gordon (just to name a couple of my favorites).

These women never stop being women, and being treated that way, for better or worse (often worse). And there's something heartbreakingly frustrating but also beautiful about that.

Marj’s new haircut looked good on her - Doris wasn’t proud of a whole lot, these days, but any time she caught sight of Marj with her helmet off she had to smile. I did that. And she looks damn good. Marj’s honey-colored pageboy was starting to get a little long at the edges, but only enough to make Doris regret not bringing her scissors so she could do everyone else’s. Her fellow sergeant looked…free, without the hair, released from some burden of responsibility to look like she belonged somewhere else and might well be there soon. Why didn’t we do that earlier? Doris wondered to herself. It’s a war, not a beauty pageant. We’re not winning awards. Because we’re still women, and we still want beauty. Because it’s hard to change something like that. Because we all want to go right back to the way it was when this is over - even if we know we can’t. The way it was. The phrase made Doris want to laugh. They weren’t those women and men any more, the kids who’d arrived at Toccoa, and it was foolish to think they might be. Look at any of them, bruised and scarred - look at Marj! And even if they hadn’t changed, the people at home would have. (Look at Marj, again - and fuck Allen, while they were looking.)

#band of brothers #nikkirecs #200-250k #dick/oc

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slotumn · 1 day

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Some notes on how I personally like to write the lords + Rhea+ Shezleth wrt sacrifices and deaths and moral dilemmas they face when they make decisions

Basically,

Edelgard: People will die because of my decisions, but it must be done in order to bring change and ensure more don’t die in the future under an unjust system

Rhea: People will die because of my decisions, but it must be done in order to maintain stability and ensure more don’t die in the future under chaos and turmoil

Dimitri: People have died because of me and my decisions, I know it’s unforgivable no matter what and I will atone for it by avenging them (feral mode)/saving as much as or more than I have killed (post-feral clarity)

Claude: People have died because of me and my decisions, but that was the best I could do in my situation, and as long as I/we stay alive thanks to that I/we still have a chance to turn things around for the better

Byleth: People dying is people dying and nobody knows if any of your decisions will be “justified” until it plays out. I’ll help you get the results that will hopefully “justify” your decisions because I love and support you, but honestly, all that shit you're saying is just cope

Shez: Cool cool, where’s my fucking money

As you can tell the main foils/contrasts I like are Rhea <–> Edelgard, Dimitri <–> Claude, and Shez+Byleth. More rambling about it under the cut

For Rhea and Edelgard, I like to focus on them being similar people at different points of life/the project they’ve dedicated their lives to. I’m sure people have already made the analysis about parallels between them, from losing their families/conquering the continent/etc etc but basically, they have very similar philosophies/attitudes/outlooks, and the difference is whether the current system and dominant ideology is what they like or not.

I think that a young Seiros, fleeing a genocide and recruiting allies in the south, would have had faced similar objections Edelgard did; Nemesis may not be the most benevolent ruler, yes, and we don’t literally believe everything his regime preaches, but at least things are manageable and stable if we play along, especially down here in the south. Do we really need to risk everything we have to go up and fight him? Your ideas hold appeal, but some of us don’t find it appealing enough to die for it.

And similarly, I think Edelgard, if she grew old enough to see her system really take root in society, would say a lot of the same things that Rhea would've liked to say, when younger generations complain; look, what we have isn’t perfect, but you really don’t want to see what it was like before, and the fact you can have these complaints at all are a testament to the system I’ve made working. And if you try to burn all this down out of youthful passion, it’s more likely that we will regress instead of progress.

For Dimitri and Claude, it’s about how they deal with guilt; on a personal level, specifically. Politically I think they’d take or dodge responsibility as is necessary lol

Dimitri is straightforward, almost too straightforward. Not great at coming up with excuses, or rather, excusing himself. His way of facing the guilt is very one on one; taking blood for blood, while he's feral. Saving life for life taken, post-feral clarity. And even then, deep down he feels like ("knows") it's will never be enough. And he takes on all that guilt head on even in places where it's not his fault, a.k.a. survivor's guilt.

Claude, meanwhile, dude is a mental gymnastic gold medalist (affectionate). It's not that he doesn't feel guilt, but I think he's very good at seemingly minimizing it, excusing it, and convincing himself that he's better off focusing on other things. As for survivor's guilt, I'm not saying Claude wouldn't ever feel it, but he'd focus on the fact he survived, rather than the guilt.

Finally, Byleth and Shez. Honestly I think they have pretty similar outlooks, it's just a matter of how they explain it lol. The role I like to give these two is reality checkers; because the lords and Rhea can have their debates about Ideology™ and The System™ and Morality™ and Responsibility™ of it all they'd like, but in the end, it's people like Shez and Byleth doing the dirty work and dying on the field for the decisions.

And when people die, the physical, material reality is that they're fucking dead. Attach causes and justifications and obligations and excuses to their corpses as you want, but at the end of the day, it is a corpse and the person is dead. That's the reality they've always lived in, and not just as a one-off incident, either; the thing they do for survival is fighting and killing. They have a "It Is What It Is" type of attitude as a baseline, because, well... it is. Doesn't mean they don't feel things about it. Doesn't mean they don't want to save people where they can. Nonetheless— they know all too well that what happens is what happens.

For this reason, I like to think that grand moralistic judgements are not their thing, no matter the route; they don't even think the lord they sided with is fundamentally more correct/better. Like, come on, when they were asked to choose a house upon arriving at Garreg Mach, they probably weren't weighing their options based on who'd be the most "objectively" "morally" correct if a war broke out between the three (+the Church).

That being said, I think they definitely have a sense of what's good. But it's not the philosophical/abstract type of good you might hear the other four get into debates about. Shez and Byleth's idea of good is, in many ways, very small and inconsequential— but grander concepts of morality can't exist without it. And I like to think that the reason why Shez and Byleth become so important to the side they picked isn't just because of their powers, but also because the constantly they remind others of those small good things.

"Good" to Shez and Byleth is having enough to eat; having warm clothes and bed to sleep in and a roof over their heads; spending time with the people they care about and seeing them safe. It's quite animalistic, in a way; interesting, considering that Agarthans belittle their enemies by calling them beasts.

But I don't think those two would be particularly affected by being called animals for that reason. "These beasts are happy— what about you?"

#fe3h #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem warriors three hopes #few3h #rhea #rhea fire emblem #rhea fe3h #edelgard von hresvelg #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #claude von riegan #byleth #byleth eisner #shez #fe3h meta #slotalks #meta #shezleth #when i bring up shez and byleth as a set just assume it's me pushing shezleth ok

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llumimoon · 5 months

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TFW ur shitty dad decides to prank ur whole school to teach you to be more chaotic but instead you just realize how attached you've become to certain people. This is the EAH AU's version of Spring Unsprung!!

Gotta give credit where credit is due, @silverlistenstothings really helped out with this arc !!! So many good Hermie thoughts as always ough <333

We decided this happens like right before the Big Plot Shit happens in the AU and instead of being a festival it's Hermie's Birthday !!! The cursed riddlebook is a gift from Scam that Hermie gives to Scary instead bc he doesn't rlly care about it, which . turns out to be a very bad idea. The curse quickly spreads throughout the school reversing everyone's personalities and causing Normal to try and pretty much end the world.

This arc is Hermie and Taylor focused !!! :D Although it is really fun to think about the reverse teens running rampant NWVEGWHAAHA reverse norm is a little treat for me <3 but reverse Link is SO INCREDIBLY FUNNY . shoutout to this message from @happi-tree bc it's been burned into my memory and I cant stop laughing about it

When it comes to the curse we decided that bonds and skills stay the same but the personalities are inverted, which means reverse Scary being sooo attached and clingy to Hermie is just her personality changing the way she decides to communicate her affection for who she sees as her best friend. Its cute <3

Herm is SUPER on edge due to being incredibly irritated with his dad and feeling insecure about his friendship with Taylor, who's having a bit of a crisis on his own about his feeling about Link. Toss in their shared homesickness for Wonderland, a realm they can't go back to, and Taylor panicking over a gift his mom left him going missing, well it's not good for anyone. How are they gonna figure things out enough to save Ever After from destruction?

(EAH AU is by me, @rindomness & @kaseyskat !!)

Image Description is under the cut

[ID: Image 1: Normal smirking evilly with a hand up to his chin and the other on his hip. His eyes are a light purple and he's saying "Hey." To his right is Scary happily waving while smiling, her eyes similarly a light purple. She's saying "OMG hiiii Herm!! <3"

Image 2: Hermie with a stunned and mad expression on their face and trying to pout tea from a teapot into a teacup but missing the cup by a lot. Their cat ears are turned downward and tucked against their head while their tail behind them is stuck straight up with fur sticking out in all directions. They have a thought bubble that says "I'm gonna KILL my dad." there's text in the bottom left that has an arrow pointing off the canvas and is labeled "Scam giggling off screen."

Image 3: Link doing the fuck boy expression, his eyes half lidded and biting the corner of his lip with a pointed hand on his chin, with his other hand with the thumb tucked into the top of his belt. His eyes are similarly a light purple and he's looking at Taylor. There's text with an arrow pointing at Link that says, "turned into a shitty fuck boi liar because of the curse" To his right stands Taylor who has his arms by his side in a dinosaur like pose and a grossed out and devastated expression on his face. His bunny ears are sticking straight up. There's an arrow pointing to him that says "Fucking Appalled" in all caps.

Image 4: Scary smiling with her eyes closed and hugging Hermie with one of her legs posed upward behind her. Hermie is standing still with their eyes obscured due to the shine of their glasses with a neutral expression on their face and their cat ears turned downward and their tail puffed up and sticking up. To their right stands Taylor with both his hands up to clutch his face and his bunny ears pointed downward. Scary is saying "Haha yaaaay besties forever after!!" with flowers and hearts drawn around her. There is an arrow pointed at her labeled "still cursed". Hermie has a thought bubble that says "MY DAD IS A DICK." and an arrow pointed at them that's labeled "so touch starved". Under that is an arrow pointing at Taylor that is labeled "having a gay crisis" and he is surrounded by question marks. He has a large thought bubble that says "Why am I so jealous that Link is flirting with everybody ohmygod do I have a crush on my best friend forever after holy shit what"

Image 5: Normal looking down with an evil smirk and light purple eyes with his hand out to hold something. Hermie looks up with a frustrated expression on their face and their pupil's sharpened and is clutching Normal's arm as his hand holds Hermie's chin. Normal is saying "Shame you've decided to get in my way kitten, I really did like you. Well whatever. It's not going to matter in a moment, nothing is. You're too late." the word "nothing" is underlined for emphasis.

Image 6: A discord screenshot of 'willy KILLER MAIMER DESTROYER' saying "Link: babe you’re being so fucking silly but hey at least you’re also hot. Wanna kiss maybe. That’s gotta fix you or whatever

Taylor: ???????????????? OK ACTUALLY I FORGOT I WAS GETTING LUNCH WITH HERMIE GOTTA GO under his breath wtf wtf wtf"/end ID]

#dndads #dungeons and daddies #dndads s2 #dungeons and daddies season 2 #cal draws #eah dndads au #normal oak #scary marlowe #hermie unworthy #lincoln li wilson #taylor swift dndads #THIS ARC IS SO VERY FUNNY TO ME IM NOT OVER IT LMAOOOOO #i could explain more but the post was getting too long #we've actually created a goofle doc timeline for the events that happen in the au #i gotta organize and add more to it but maybe we'll release that later to explain the plot LMAO #there's some writing going on behind the scenes that im eating upppp hehehehehehe #never recovering from reverse Link jusy being a fuck boi gaslighter it's ridiculously funny to me . Help.#also never recocering from normal calling eah au hermie kitten. points. gay .#Scam is the cheshire cat btw. thats the implication #lmk if i want me to explain all the reverse teens personalities btw . bc i will i thought abt them a lot #described

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godsfavoritescientist · 11 months

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Biting the bars of my enclosure about autistic ford tonight. There's something about him using vocabulary and turns of phrase that seem "outdated" or "pretentious" that feels so painfully genuine to me. When people say he talks like that just to "try to sound smart" I wish I could explain what it's like to be so ostracized from your peers growing up that you spend all your time reading instead, to the point where you pick up your way of speaking from books instead of from people. And then what it's like for people to call you out for "talking weird" over and over again, not able to wrap their heads around why the fuck you would choose more archaic or technical or formal words than the simpler ones that surely come to everyone's minds first. What it's like to have to dedicate a sizable chunk of attention to filtering through every single word you say out loud in real time before you say it, to make absolutely sure that it isn't a word people will judge you for using or make fun of you for using, just so you'll have a chance of being taken seriously. Learning through trial and error how to filter out the words that other people don't think are normal or casual enough for the conversation, even though for you, the word choice that's "natural-sounding" enough for them is the third or fourth word you came up with when searching for the right way to phrase something in your head. I wish I could explain just how long it takes to say fucking anything after spending a lifetime doing that during every single conversation, and how repetitive and long-winded you end up being when you spend so long coming up with alternative ways of saying every little thing you ever think. And I wish people realized that, at the very least for autistic people and autistic-coded characters, speech that's seen as pretentious is really just the way they talk when they're not putting in the extra effort to filter through every word they say just so others will take the time to listen.

#ford meta #actuallyautistic #everyone go read the wikipedia page for 'stilted speech' right now #long post #ford isnt very good at masking. he doesn't have the kind of (unintentional) autistic coding that is Palatable To Neurotypicals.#definitely looking-too-deeply-at-a-kid-cartoon right now but in *some* ways. a world where the majority of people think its easy to like an #-understand ford is a world that would feel safe for me to unmask in.#i truly truly hate that fully explaining my thoughts on ford requires me to say so much about myself. but god is it such a crime-#-to use a fictional character as a lens through which to try and explain to people how to be more understanding and accepting-#-of things like this.#making fun of stilted speech is so normalized that people don't even realize they're making fun of someone for being weird.#people think its Someone Thinking They're Better Than You but its something people lay awake at night wishing they could stop doing.#and yet they still end up using the Wrong Words and being labeled a Pretentious Asshole just for talking differently than the norm.#maybe there really are people out there who deliberately use big words to try and sound smarter than everyone else. I don't know.#all I know is. in a world where its pretty obvious that people who use a discongruently complex vocabulary get made fun of for doing that.#why would someone deliberately trying to impress people do something that would only get them laughed at.#sorry for being genuine on main. as if its my fault </3

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pandoratheprocrasticreator · 9 months

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idk im glad they didn't give us any actual details about caleb and evelyn beyond belos's memories and like. fifty-sixth-hand information from masha's story so audience members not paying attention would at least know who they are.

whatever nitty gritty details the audience comes up with on their own for what happened to these two would be infinitely more satisfying to them than what the show would have been able to depict in a flashback. especially working within what's appropriate for children's television.

caleb the person isn't important to the story anymore. the MEMORY of caleb, which belos has never let himself get over in 400 years, is the important thing. and you don't need to know much about caleb for that to work. and while i loved the parallels between the wittebanes and hunter and luz, as well as the clawthornes being a descendent of evelyn, i'm glad they never confirmed it, and it remains situational irony purely for the audience.

hunter's only connection with caleb is his DNA, which also ties back to belos's feelings. him befriending luz is something they did of their own volition. it's not because hunter is fated to play out every beat of caleb's life by virtue of being his clone. similarly, while i love a good hunter clawthorne, dell taking hunter as an apprentice and eda showing care towards him in s2 are because eda is kind to children and hunter independently had passion for palisman carving. it's not because they found out they were related, because the whole show is about found family.

having flashbacks to the real caleb and evelyn wouldn't have contributed anything to the story aside from fanservice. what matters is how belos feels about them. belos's ego and the desperation to be acknowledged by his puritan community and God aside, the idea of caleb haunts his every action. not the actual ghost of caleb-i've already discussed here why the idea of caleb's ghost literally haunting belos would be a poor writing decision. belos knew the person his brother actually was, killed him, and imagined a perfect version of him that he chased after for the next 350 years.

the tragedy is that the perfect version of caleb is unattainable, and now belos can never get the real caleb back. he refuses to acknowledge that caleb may have been flawed before the influence of evelyn. to phillip, everything he thinks is wrong about caleb is because he was corrupted by the boiling isles, and that's part of the reason he starts on a quest to kill all the witches. it's also why he makes so many grimwalkers. he desperately misses that ideal version of caleb, so he makes copies of caleb and plays family with them.

and belos loathes the grimwalkers. he kills them because he hates the magic they were made with. because he hates being reminded of his brother and what happened to him. and of course, he hates the grimwalkers for not meeting his expectations of what his "ideal" caleb would have been like. it's a fluid expectation that belos, subconsciously or not, changes as he goes, all in order to take out his anger on innocent children. he seems to recognize his enjoyment of harming the grimwalkers, though it's unknown if he understands the reason-which is that the "perfect" caleb will never exist, and likely never did. phillip's brother is gone forever, and it's all his fault.

and idk maybe in the writers minds caleb was a perfect brother and baby phillip was just a possessive little shit. or maybe it's the opposite and caleb messed up a lot in communicating with phillip on his relationship with evelyn. maybe evelyn was a perfectly nice girl who was perfectly supportive of caleb and phillip's choices or maybe she hated phillip and the other humans and did convince caleb to leave it all behind. it's a fascinating piece of backstory and i love seeing fanworks that talk about it! but anything more about caleb and evelyn that the creators add in canon would give actual context to their situation that we don't need! their story has been over for 350 years and dont affect any of the other characters beyond how it affects phillip!

nothing more about these two can be said that will contribute more to belos's character that isn't already conveyed with the barebones material we got in the show. this story isn't about "forbidden love," this is about how phillip was confronted with the fact that his brother found happiness outside of him, and that someone he's been taught since childhood to hate may not be all bad. it's about how he plugged his fingers in his ears in response to this and went on a 350 year long killing spree to prove to himself that he can never be in the wrong.

basically, i wouldn't go so far as to call caleb and evelyn's backstory "purposefully unexplained," but i definitely think the story is a lot stronger as it is than it would be if they did explain it all. not every detail of a story needs to have a word of god answer as to how it all went down. sometimes adding in unnecessary detail for completionism's sake just distracts from the point you're actually trying to convey. while there are a lot of things that i wished the show could have explored in more detail had it not been shortened, caleb and evelyn's story is not one of them.

#shut up pandora #the owl house #toh #emperor belos #phillip wittebane #caleb wittebane #evelyn clawthorne #shut up pandora indeed lmao this post is way too long #the second to last sentence?#'sometimes adding in unnecessary detail for completionism's sake just distracts from the point youre actually trying to convey?'#thats me writing this post babey!#anyway yeah the whole forbidden love schtick that caleb and evelyn had has been done so much #that the show basically expects you to get the gist via background hollow mind pics and spooky halloween stories #this isnt to say the romance was necessarily dull or bad what i mean is we dont need any more info to know how it turned out #and maybe this is just the way i write stories but if the info isnt necessary for plot or characterization of relevant characters #then including it would just be indulgence #which is great for fanworks but will make an independent story bloated if youre not careful #but anyway this could also be the danganronpa enjoyer in me but i dont think you should go out of your way to explain everything #sometimes canon logical explanations for things that only matter on an emotional and thematic level... are worse

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stormyoceans · 2 months

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hi Monica! is it okay to ask for an little more (maybe indepth) explaining on how puentalay and tesstun switch back to the og universes? So tun dreamt of place and the location ended up been in his film site the next day. So did puen dream too or was their respective switch happen due to tun. And we saw that talay say he dreamt of a place as soon as he wake up but it wasn't some place near by or easy to to reach. Does this have some symbolism or meaning and do u think tess also dreamed the same night too. So did the switch happen cuz of talay and tun

hello, dear anon!!!!

of course that’s okay!!!! as a general rule, please feel free to ask me anything, im always up to help if i can or even just to chat a little!!! tho it might take me a while to reply, as you can see ;;;;;;;

before getting into this, however, i think i should point out that the show doesn't really give a full in depth explanation on how the switching back to the original universe works (probably because the novel itself does not give much of an explanation either), and while i do think the show tried to make sense of it by giving us a few more hints to help us connect the dots (which is one of the many reasons why i think the show is far more superior than the novel btw), the truth is that a lot of it is still up to interpretation. so what i can do is give you my own personal view on the matter, which doesn't necessarily mean it's the right one. im aware i tend to read too much into things and that maybe i've come up with an explanation that it's more complicated than it actually is, but im still gonna try to illustrate it as best as i can and let you decide if it works or not!!!!!

SO. right from episode 1, dol and joob introduce us to the two main rules that are known about traveling back to your universe, which are:

"to return to the old universe, you must first find someone who has traveled between universes like us. there will be something of that person that matches you. once you find that person, you will dream.”

“it will be a place. when you dream about a place, you must go there as soon as you wake up. there's a chance for you to return home."

if we go by these, things seem to be fairly straightforward: talay met puen, he eventually dreamed about the secret island, he went there, he switched back; tun met tess, he eventually dreamed about the pool where they were filming a movie in, he went there, he switched back. simple, right?

however, the more you look at it, the more i think it’s natural to come up with a whole lot of questions like if you dream after you find your portkey, why didn't puen and talay dream right away? did they have to reach a certain level of connection to 'unlock' the ability of being each other's portkey? but then what caused talay and tun to finally dream? did puen and tess dream too? and if talay/puen and tess/tun are portkeys, why didn’t they switch together?

as i said before, all these questions remain unanswered in the novel, but the show adds a layer to the universal travelling that i personally think it helps explain a lot. in episode 6, joob says

"i do believe universal traveling happens for a reason. maybe it's a lesson for us to learn something we're missing."

this idea is brought up again by talay at the end of episode 12, when during his voice over he says

"p'joobjang once told us we travel between universes to learn something. for me, i learned about love."

if we look at universal traveling under this point of view, i think a lot of things start to make more sense, and we can also answer a few of the questions we previously had. after you die, you travel between universes because you need to learn a lesson. for puen, it was about accepting himself and the life he was given. for talay, it was about love. only once you've learned your lesson you're gonna switch back. in this scenario, your portkey isn't what 'unlocks' your ability to go home, but rather it's the person that can help you learn said lesson. and if we look at it this way, puen and talay WANTING and CHOOSING to be each other's portkeys gets a whole new meaning too: puen loves talay, talay accepts puen for who he really is, and by wanting and choosing each other they also accept the lesson they were supposed to learn

here's when things get a little bit messy (and i probably read too much into things ;;;;;;). so you have to learn a lesson. but to go back to your original universe we know you also have to dream about a place and go there. so you learn your lesson, and once you do you finally dream about a place, you go there, you switch back. following these rules, it indeed seems like the switch has been due to talay and tun since they're the ones who dreamed, even if you don't know what tun's lesson was. i definitely think this is perfectly reasonable, and we could stop here and call it a day, however to me it's not so simple, mainly for two reasons: 1) the switch between puen and tun literally happens at the peak of puen's character development, once he's fully learned his lesson and shows it by finally being ready to tell talay his name, so it's hard for me to see it as a simple coincidence, and 2) maybe it's gonna sound harsh, but to simply put it, this is not tun's (and tess') story, it's puen's (and talay's), so on a narrative point of view it's just weird to have someone else be responsible for the switch

so here's what i think (hopefully i can explain it in a way that make sense ;;;;;;): usually, when you're taught a lesson, you will also have to take a test to show that you've really learned it. puen's test is to face his worst nightmare: being back in his original universe with no one waiting for him. talay's test is to be willing to give up everything for love: losing time and energy by having to wait day after day for the tide to get lower. and while i do think dreaming and going to a certain place is necessary to switch back after learning your lesson, the reason i think puen didn't dream is because that would have defeated the point of his test (if he had dreamed he would have known he was gonna go back and he could have prepared himself for it), so tun dreamed (and went to the designated place) for him

im aware it's a reach, but it makes sense to me, especially because of the place tun dreamed of: a pool. this is already long as hell so im not gonna into it as much as i could, but let's just say that in vice versa water is a recurring theme that carries a lot of different meanings. one of those is that it represents puen and talay's relationship as a whole (in episode 7, the tide at the secret island is low because they haven't cleared up their feelings for each other yet; in episode 9, the tide is getting higher because they confessed to each other but there are still things left unsaid; in episode 11, the tide is at its highest point because puen and talay fully love each other with no secrets left between them [and talay has to dive in the ocean, in their love, to get to the secret island and be able to go back]). but water also represents talay and puen separately, with natural bodies of water being related to talay and artificial man-made ones (like a swimming pool) to puen

ANYWAY. there are still some holes in this theory and there's so much more that i could say about it, especially about the water symbolism and how i personally think 'the Universe' is a sort of sentient force in vice versa, but we would be here for ages so im just gonna shut up. if you, anon, or anyone else, even got to this point after reading though this mess you honestly deserve a prize ;;;;;; (i can offer cookies and all my love?)

but yeah, i hope this was at least interesting, if not coherent, and i'll let you decide if this is a somewhat reasonable explanation that could actually make sense!!!!!!

#I REALLY SHOULD HAVE REREAD THIS BEFORE POSTING IT AND YET. I DID NOT #hope it still makes sense ;;;;;;#and i do hope you're still around to see this anon!!!!!#even if it is. what it is ;;;;;;#LOOK I KNOW IM READING TOO MUCH INTO THINGS AND COMPLICATING SOMETHING THAT IT'S PROBABLY WAY MORE SIMPLE #OR THAT COULD JUST BE EXPLAINED WITH 'THERE ARE PLOT HOLES IN THE SHOW' BUT IT MAKES SENSE TO ME OKAY #the orderlies coming to get me like sure grandma let's get you to your padded room #anyway sorry this took me so long and i hope you're having a wonderful day anon!!!!! 💜#vice versa #long post #m: txt

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tvrningout-a · 9 months

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alright, let's talk about where the heck bronwyn came from!

i've mentioned before that she's based upon the danish myth of a raven that eats a king or soldier's heart, gaining higher intelligence, the ability to make deals ( though it's unclear if they're magically binding as i've made them, but we'll get into that later ), and a more monstrous form. they no longer look like a normal raven, but rather a nightmarish beast. in order to gain a human form and the ability to shapeshift, it's said that they then must consume a child's heart/blood.

well, myth is myth for a reason, and it tends to make creatures scarier than they are and apply rules to them that they don't actually follow. while the myth emphasizes a king's heart, a raven need only eat someone's heart who died to save another -- a life for a life, a selfless deal that the raven then reaps the benefits of unknowingly. they do not have to eat a child's heart to then shapeshift, but they do have to convince someone to give up their heart willingly as part of a deal.

now that that's established, bronwyn was a raven who entered a deal with a sorcerer. he managed to win her trust over time until she was practically a pet; when townspeople discovered he wielded magic, he was strung up and left to die. bronwyn visited him, watched him, and he spoke to her despite how dry his mouth became, how scratchy his throat felt. should she eat his heart, she would become more than she was, and she would gain his power. but only if she found and protected his family afterwards.

of course, bronwyn didn't understand him. she didn't have to, though. the sorcerer set his conditions, made them magically binding. and when bronwyn ate his heart, it was as if she were signing a contract.

when she became aware, she was horrified, terrified. suddenly she could feel everything so intensely, understand how deeply loss could hurt. she felt the weight of the sorcerer's conditions, and she had not the slightest idea what to do about them other than search for his family.

which was hard, considering she now stuck out like a sore thumb.

during the time she spent searching for his wife and daughter, bronwyn did contemplate breaking the deal. she felt angry with the sorcerer for tricking her into something she wouldn't have wished for, especially when she had a family of her own ( oh, where were they? did they worry for her? think her dead? ). her loyalty hung by a thread by the time she found his family.

guilt then struck her when she saw the sorcerer's wife bleeding out on the forest floor and a man seizing a young girl by the hair. fury soon followed, and though frightened and scrambling away from bronwyn and the man's bloody remains, the girl was safe.

the sorcerer's wife knew what she was -- of course she did. her husband did not keep secrets from her ( knowledge is power, he always said ). this had been his plan all along, actually. it was a gruesome plan, but it was always meant to be a last resort if he was discovered. and his wife's last words were not given to their daughter but to the creature staring at her with lost, sorrowful eyes.

she told bronwyn to eat her heart, finish her transformation, and in exchange, raise her daughter as her own. bronwyn accepted. what else could she do?

i'm going to break this up into another post bc it's gotten so long asdf but this is bronwyn's beginning, at least. there's a lot more time between then and who she is now, and i'm gonna have a blast writing about it :' ))

#i...... this is so long ASDFG #i was trying to not ramble too much and get into the feelings a bunch but still properly explain things #but i still feel like i could say more...... but if i do i'll do it in a different post :' )#headcanons | bronwyn

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swingstep · 1 year

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Please drop mrd theatre au lore????

OH HOO BOY so. genuinely did not remember i never explained that au huh ksjdngd its been a hot minute since ive messed with that one, but lets see what i can dig up for it. as a disclaimer, its kind of an... abstract au, very rough around the edges as well. dont expect it to be anything too concrete WAHAHA

anyhow. tldr: the mrd theatre au is exactly what it sounds like: the plot of the game described entirely through the lens of a theater production! alternately referred to as the dance au, because... its a musical! major events are described through dance, each piece pushing the story forward with the power of music and expression. literally-- the story won’t move on without it. starring mad rat as the lead role, rat god as the director, and heart as... That One Guy, Sure!

the abstraction kicks in in its presentation though-- it's told through the framing of a stage-- however, the story itself is Real to the characters. their world is real, and as characters, they see it as such. to everyone else, it's exactly as its namesake: a play. the term "actor" and "character" go hand in hand, practically synonyms. actors are the characters. the narrative is their world. all in all: the theatre au is an inspection of the meaning of Reality and Perception, the meaning of what it is to be a Character or a Person, and a play on Stories and Roles. more under the cut.

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As it does in canon, the narrative starts with Mad Rat waking up, and Rat God telling him his situation. Y'know, he died, she's giving him a second chance, etc etc. However, she Specifically tells him that he is, in fact, a character in a play and, as someone outside of the narrative, she knows what to do and what paths to follow. As long as he followed her, he'd be able to make it to the end of his story a-ok, and finally get the ending he deserved!

In the beginning, Rat God starts out with a whole musical number as she narrates the scene (to both the audience and Mad Rat) to catch him up to speed on where he is, who she is, and why he died. As she finishes, hands off the (metaphorical) mic to Mad Rat to get a word in for his debut scene. Unfortunately, Mad Rat, having just recovered from a terminal case of Being Dead, Does Not In Fact Have The Nicest Voice. Seeing this, Rat God quickly interrupts and redirects to another option: Dance. Which is where a major quirk comes in: every character has a specialized dance style!

Rat gods style is tap/swing, which is what the intro scene Truly is! It's Rat God introducing Mad Rat to the concept of The Show in a duet swing performance. Specifically, in this performance, Rat God takes the lead role in this one for several reasons: 1) She's Extra and Likes Showmanship. 2) She's ensuring Mad Rat goes in the direction he's supposed to-- making sure he's following along. And 3) She's effectively re-teaching Mad Rat how to move after. Y'know. Being Dead. Swing is a heavily motion-focused and improvisational dance: Mad Rat Does Not Know How To Dance. However, Rat God is good enough at it that she can take the lead and turn his stumbles and missteps into motion and flair. It's essentially the tutorial stage!

The narrative is pretty much the same through the first third of the game, more or less. Mad Rat meets Heart, who doesn't really Dance but rather just cheers him on, and they begin "travelling" together, with periodical "intermissions" where Rat God, off to the side of the stage presents recaps, narration, and questions-- but it's never clear if it's to the audience or Mad Rat. Maybe both. What's really important is the Framing, though. Mad Rat (kind of) acknowledges he is just a Character, but doesn't really Understand it.

Despite the knowledge, he still functions through the frame of a Character. He perceives the stage as The World Around Him rather than A Stage, while Rat God is the opposite. This leads to Mad Rat essentially just Following Her Lead. Which ends up just seeming... brazenly reckless and incredibly dangerous-- because Mad Rat doesn't think it will lead to anything. Obviously he's the main character, so he's probably going to just... get to his goal and whatever happens happens, right? Rat God said which way the story goes so... whatever, right?

Which all culminates at Heart's intervention: Heart notices all of this and gets worried. Whatever this Mess about "shows" and "story" and "directors" is, Mad Rat is still being really really flippant about how many Near Death Experiences he's had (not to mention the whole "Seeing Things That Heart Doesn't" thing.) So he decides to step in.

This is the first time we ever see Heart dance! He'd always insisted on being moral support/backup for Mad Rat, not really stepping in in any major way. Turns out, he's really good at a lot of dance styles. It's the first time we have a music genre outside of showtunes and the adjacent. It's heart basically trying to tell him that, whatever bullshit about "Narratives" he's following, Mad Rat is still Here. He's still a contributor to the world around him-- he can affect It, and it can affect him. It doesn't matter what he knows about Whatever This Is because it all wont matter if he gets himself into Real Trouble. Which is a convenient segue to the next arc-- they go off-script.

The following arcs are pretty much just those two figuring out what to do and where they’re going. Mad Rat, up to this point, was just (kind of badly) trying to imitate the swing style from the beginning, but slowly starts figuring out his own specialty on his own. Mad Rat kind of dabbles through a lot, but is Particularly good at breakdance/krump. It’s a bit of a slow process, but he slowly forges his own place in a world he technically does not belong in.

All the while, Rat God is suspiciously quiet. They weren’t supposed to go that way, or do any of that, But she could improvise. She passively tried to mess with them from offstage-- changing the background scenery, tossing obstacles after them-- but they just. Kept going. Mad Rat even began Understanding the nature of The Stage and learning how to use that to his advantage, predicting the way things would move or shift, and using that knowledge to move even faster. It was only after Mimolette’s scene (which was Not supposed to be this early in the script, to Rat God’s chagrin,) that she Really started to get particularly miffed. They’d completely gone off-script, avoided Everything she sent after them-- but there was still an ending that needed to be told, and she was going to tell it no matter how messy it was to get there. Which leads to an intervention of her own.

As the director, she had direct control over a lot of things-- but she herself could never interact with the Narrative. She had no real Hold, as it were. She was barely a concept to the characters in the narrative-- they could not really perceive her. So, she decided to break that rule-- and interact with them directly. Rat God’s scene is incredibly similar to that in canon: Incredibly Chaotic and Hard To Track. She mostly keeps to swing, as that’s her specialty, but regularly switches it up to try and throw Mad Rat off. But things are different than their first dance.

Mad Rat has a grasp on himself and his goals. Rat God’s plan is already off its rhythm-- it was clear from the start that this was a last-ditch effort on her part to kill him. Despite her still trying to take control, Mad Rat was nothing if not stubborn. He was just as good at deflecting and navigating the scene as she was. But it’s hard to truly get rid of something like Rat God. She isn’t done until the Story was done. There was still a story to be told, so here she stayed. She could keep going as long as he could, and longer. So knowing what he did now, and understanding the circumstance, he did the only think of. The two had, to some extent, switched places: Rat God taking the stance of a Character/Participant in the scene, and Mad Rat seeing the full scope of The Stage and how it worked. The show was still going, so all he had to do was end it.

Tricking her into a monologue, he truly exits the frame of the narrative for the first time, grabbing one of the curtain ropes and letting it free, closing the curtains on the stage-- with Rat God behind them. And... silence. In the end, it was just the closed curtains, the audience, and Mad Rat and Heart in front of them. They saw the audience, truly, for the first time-- that larger force constantly watching over him from beyond his view, pushing the show forward not of their own actions, but of their presence alone. This is who it was all for. And seeing this, Mad Rat makes the decision... to ignore them.

They weren’t important anymore. The show was over-- the audience had no more use here. No more power here. They meant nothing to him. Nothing to them. He has one last talk with Heart-- they knew they weren’t alone, not truly-- but all that mattered right then was just the two of them. What they’d seen, what they’d been through-- it all had to come to an end eventually. But not by the hand of someone who had no stake in their story-- in their lives. Mad Rat gets to make his own choice about his future: And with no story left to tell... he gets up, and walks off the stage.

The Story Is Over.

#pikasks #mrd theatreAU #long post #no fandomtags we die like men #anyhow. thanks for enabling another essay of an infodump ur a real one <333 kdjgnkdjf #this au means The World to me but because its so... [waves arms around.] its very hard to explain in a way that feels Correct.#a lot of it is Vibes alone. feelings and concepts and notions of motion and song. as it is in canon too i think.#as with canon; its a play on tiers of personhood and control-- of who truly gets to choose fate; or if it really exists at all.#its about grabbing on with such fervor that the fabric of the world around you bends to your will.#about the inescapability of Role and Expectation; of Progress and Actions. how nobody in this story; truly; could choose how it ended.#not alone; at least.#rat god is equally bound to her role as director. she has no sway in this world. no matter how deeply she may want it.#the difference between her and mad rat is something tragic; to me.#two people in such similar roles reacting so differently they mirror each other perfectly.#surrender to a role you have no control of and hope it eventually benefits you-- or fight tooth and nail against forces stronger than you.#but these are the tags. im just waxing poetic at this point.#if you want a more clear read of the vibes this was inspired and started entirely by the mrd piano medley by tmsy.#please go check it out it slaughters me. id point out a specific part but its kind of all of them.#anyhow. thanks for reading and also enabling me. have a lovely day !! <33

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truethes · 1 year

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like most things in your childhood, your first birthday is a grand affair.

your mother had insisted as such, the moment she had intertwined the red and gold of the christmas tree with balloons and sparklers. the seconds it had taken your father to push any festively decorated packages behind one giant, out of place box. a blossoming barbara twig is pressed wholeheartedly against your tiny arm and the window for christkind is only opened once they have managed to wrap an extra layer of warmth around the cold that will no doubt keep you up screaming.

they pay no attention to the twinkling lights outside. only sigh fondly at the way krantz finds himself rolling his eyes the moment they choose to play their very own orchestra for your happy birthday.

they only wish to make this special for mien engel, as your mother whispers against the wisps of your first locks: a special kind of thank you to the one who chose to stay back on earth.

───

a few years later, they have you hosting your first party.

you find it makes you uncomfortable, because everything about it feels faked by the children that attend it. you try your best to understand them, to ask them the sort of things that they find fun, but their gaze refuses to meet your own, too busy staring back at the retreating figures of their parents in turn. even if this affair is supposed to be about celebrating you, all of them are only here to obtain the possibility of gaining a companionship with two entirely different beings all together, as if they are no doubt lead by the stars in their eyes over their hearts.

one even goes so far as to skip the hello and ask the question on everyone’s minds: which does the young child prefer, the piano or the violin?

even krantz is not quick enough to stop you from storming out.

your father is the one who finds you first, asking you to explain just what has happened to have you in such a state because: “a héros is not strong enough if he cannot rely on those he trusts ... now, what can i do to help?” it’s the type of talk you’ve heard well, one that never fails to open you up against doubts such as these.

( just as you always would, in the end. the floodgates of your mouth already opening up at the reminder of being strong with/for something else. it does not matter if you cannot save anyone today, as long as your father gets to save someone else )

“i don’t wish to have company if they didn’t want to be here.” you conclude. it’s the first negative thing you say all day. your father raises a brow, gives you a nod and seemingly goes up to disappear.

the house is empty half an hour later, the same three candidates sat on a table for 50 with merely a birthday cake and an elaborately wrapped box sat so calmly behind it. krantz places the party hat on your head as your mother coos her apologies in turns.

( you are five .... turning to six ... already ready to be seven before the clock strikes twelve once again )

───

“---- so what exactly are you planning for your thirteenth?”

the opening sequence to symphony number 40 falls flat before you’ve even begun. your fingers resting so haphazardly against the keyboard that you’re unsure if they should stay there, or if they should go like you wish to despite being prompted with the most simple of questions.

your friend only smiles and nods before raising a brow to prompt your answer once more.

“i don’t know.” you slip your fingers away from the ivory you’re so used to slipping away with, all the more focused on finding an actual answer. “my parents have a concert to attend to, so they won’t be able to make it.”

it’s the first time you’ve announced such a reality, but it fails to make you feel less hurt by it regardless. the orchestra your parents run have concerts that span months in advance, and the one they’ll attend to on december twenty-third is non-negotiable, and despite their insistence that they can definitely fly back to you on time, you know better than to deal with the jet lag between singapore and austria ( you’ve tried it once yourself, perhaps a little too foolishly: there is nothing worse than the tired that comes from an unwelcoming flight, no matter how many hours of sleep you may try to hide despite it )

but a talk like that had ended with a bad taste in your mothers mouth, her words far too forlorn in turn, as though it’s your fault they had to end up almost fifteen hours away from you.

it makes your expression shift far darker than you’d like to admit.

“maybe you could go and visit them?” he suggests pleasantly.

your ring finger slips itself across the keys, a frustrated crescendo. “... you don’t think i’ve tried?”

“maybe they know you like your home more.” he comments, “they want you to put your happiness first.”

that manages to leave your throat dry. you slam the lid of the piano down so quickly ( he only seems to chuckle in response ) and grumble between hissing teeth, “it’s never been about the place, it’s about being beside those i love.”

those you love like the man who sits beside you, accompanied by white walls and a simple piano you no doubt believe is disastrously out of tune. it does not matter the walls you rest around, the concert hall you perform in, a dream is a dream and every one you’ve held is tied to a worldwide ideology that leaves you a free spirit above all. those you love like your parents, whom you want to see smile instead of sigh down on the phone to you.

the silence sticks a little while longer and for a moment you worry you’ve managed to hurt him, too. but he perks right back up before you can even question it. he rests a hand on your shoulder and in reprise: “you’re allowed to be selfish, licht.”

you turn away silently. “an angel would never dare.”

the expression you miss doesn’t shatter, doesn’t allow you to see the guilt that manages to seep in, and you’re both mad that you explained and were not understood and irritated that you no doubt never would.

───

he dies only 10 months later, and his words echo in your head.

it’s a shame, perhaps, that selfishness is never what you’ve wanted that day to be about.

maybe that’s why you bury the rest of your teenage birthdays into concert celebrations / maybe that’s why every celebration comes for everyone else but you.

───

krantz voices his complaints about ... such circumstances on the eve you turn sixteen, sealing a deal with vienna’s own bösendorfer hall.

“have you considered watching someone else instead?”

you shuffle the papers in your hands a little more sternly ( stille nacht is what rests haphazardly on top; nothing more festive than a song that originated from this town in the first place ). your gaze flickering back over to him, and the nervous assistant who hides behind his suit like a child. “their tickets would be sold out by now.”

“not to their stars, they don’t. many young artists would be honoured to have you at their christmas celebrations, especially given your reputation ...”

and with that does he open the consequences that immaculate your existence, the only diffuser and infuser of your dreams.

“there’s no way i would simply take someone else’s seat for my reputation, because ... ”

the assistant behind krantz has the audacity to role their eyes, there’s a twitch in your eye in responce.

“i am an angel.“

and the twenty fourth of december has always been about angels giving to everyone else, just simply for one night alone.

you slam the papers back down, fold your arms in a way that makes your decision final. as if there will be nothing to change your mind.

krantz doesn’t miss such a gesture. you’d be shocked if he did. ever since your parents had placed your tiny body within his arms, krantz had dedicated his whole life to (protecting) understanding you. every unique mannerism, changing temperament, deliberately deciphered like a deliberate ploy to get you to understand him.

he quietly gestures for his support to go, taking a step even closer. “and even angels celebrate, try their best to take a break-”

you turn away, your expression souring. you know krantz is looking out for you like he always does, but you still ...

“the world needs salvation, krantz. who will be there to give it if i let myself go?” you say, and you’re aware that it’s the wrong thing to say and that you sound like a querulous child but you refuse to explain it in any other way.

“others.” krantz argues back, and your fist clenches against the sleeve of your jumper in tow. “and even if we don’t watch any of them, there are always markets we could go visit, decorations we can find for your parents, do some last minute shopping together.”

“backing out of a promise would make me no better than a demon,” you argue.

“and so would forcing your manager to sign something he doesn’t agree with. i will spend the day treating you, instead.”

you turn towards him open mouthed.

there are many times where krantz has reminded you he is the adult. pulling you out of scraps like a cat with his hand around your collar for one, always choosing to put your health and well-being over any declaration of grandeur second of all. and now, thirdly, towards events like your birthday.

you feel embarrassed at the reminder that he can simply do that. ( that he would choose to do that for you, despite it all. )

krantz takes the final few steps closer towards you, reaching to grasp tentatively at the forms you have already signed to chuck them away and you force yourself to bite back any spewed insults because despite the fact that everything was already planned like before and you have never been one so susceptible to change you can recognise that a decade is long but not quite long enough and you admit,

“thanks, then.”

krantz lack of expression breaks into a sunshine of a smile, hands stretched outwide for a hug. there’s a thankfulness behind his eyes that you’re not quite sure you’ve seen in a while, a swab of paper tucked in his pocket in a not so oblivious way.

“but i want a cake.” you demand. “and for it to be us two, just for this year.”

( because there’s something nicer about that reality, something closer to home than any fine tune could make. and if you can make him smile, that is another step closer towards your goal: krantz happiness means your family is happy, a wish you’ve wanted to bring for far too long, again and again and again---- )

“phillipe is not someone i want around for much longer, much alone christmas.” krantz teases as he wraps his arms around you, patting your head like a dog behaving much better. “this birthday will be all about you, you understand?”

and, well, there’s no point arguing against something as strong as that now. is there?

───

krantz introduces you to an actress in the month you are set to turn eighteen.

he labels her as the leading actress of the only movie this year you’ve shown any interest in. someone so deep into her role that she wishes to understand how to play piano from an expert in the making. with the way she smiles so hopefully behind him, it’s hard not to believe it. but when his (drunken) figure walks away, she relaxes so grandiosely you lean away in the realisation that it’s all simply fake.

“i don’t actually need lessons to play my next role.” she says without hesitation. she sounds a little bored at the possibility of even thinking about it, you note.

you don’t have a good feeling about this. “then consider this conversation over.”

“wait, stay a second!” her hand grips at your sleeve, and despite you tugging your hand back do you remain rooted by the fear of knowing she could be in danger, that someone could be ogling or chasing her and if he has to he’ll play the role of someones apparent interest to keep them safe---

“i’m asking you for a massive favour, something special i wished to do for my boyfriend.” she continues, rather casually. “but i have to be careful, since my bodyguard will no doubt get jealous if he finds out about it.”

you click your tongue. what a dumbass reason.

“is he a demon?” you say, and you have no clue just who in this situation you are referring to when she only laughs in turn.

“that’s something you’ll have to find out yourself,” iris placates, mouth behind a hand as if to hide the smile that seems to have made it’s way upon her features. ( even if you can still hear it in her voice. )

this boyfriend of hers is a quote-en-quote “mozart obsessive”, already having been through salzberg more times than he can count, reciting his letters like declarations of love. it’s clear to see that she is at a loss for it, so much so that she’s spent all this energy in finding an authentic austrian pianist to make their next christmas even grander.

“you’re performing in boston on the 28th, aren’t you?” she questions, once all explanations are out of the way. “... it was supposed to be on the 24th or something, or so the orchestra were suggesting.”

now that has your brow raising. neither of you are close enough to disclose something as personal as a birthday, but there’s no surprise that the industry finds itself gossiping all the same. licht todoroki does not cancel concerts, not even when sick with nerves or downtrodden with the flu ( a disaster in the making, naturally ).

just what exactly makes this christmas so important to you.

when there’s no answer, she bashfully continues. “i’d like to take you out to meet him personally afterwards.” you recognise this, at least: her dreams / her accomplishment. their shared dream. “and then, if all goes well ... i hope that one day, the infamous mr todoroki will perform in our house, personally, for us.”

it lingers, then, something you’ve never truly known but will come accustomed to very, very soon. above the upturn of her lips, her eyes sparkle with a gold so liquidised you startle in the next sip you take: greed. iris is as full of greed as she was once with passion, impassioned as in full of love, full of love as in ... ravenous.

she’d eat an angel like you whole if she could.

“maybe. i’ll think about it.” you placate, and you think, think, think──

later, when you are what you imagine to be tipsy and full of good food in your stomach do you hand her your only set of tickets. a single set of four, based on a family rather than a couple on a nervous rendezvous.

“do whatever you want with the others,” you inform her. “i hope to see them filled.”

( maybe, just maybe, that should have been the sign that things were about to change.

for better / for worse. )

───

it’s the 28th december and you almost manage to tick off everything you said you’d do. the 24th marked your 18th birthday, in which you managed to spend the time between krantz’ bounds of adventure and the silent grasp of your parents coddling. there was a performance in america this afternoon, hailed as one of the greatest feats you have accomplished in your steadily growing career. there’s even an invitation, and acceptation, between two young celebrities that you find yourself one half of, even showing up first as if to prove a point.

you’re not a changed man, not really, but something about this feels expected. feels like it’s the right thing to do.

you end up in a conversation with her boyfriend for what seems to be like hours first, and it turns out he’s just as fascinated as she is warned. your hands are prodded, fingers imitated in turn, but you manage to keep your composure, to stop the inevitability of them falling straight into this mans face.

the waiter runs in the moment your fingers flex. rushes to a kneeling position between your table, his words are timid, pained even: iris is now dead.

lost in a freak accident, of all things.

it’s - it’s like watching a movie in some traumatic, damning way, the man who had only smiled mere moments ago shifts into a picture of grief you’re undoubtedly unsure of how to take away, and even though there is no way to comfort him ----- to hold his hand would ignite the discomfort beneath his skin, to offer reassurance no good from one so practically a stranger ----- there’s still that apology, that guilt that thins within the silence that is grows between you.

when he buries his tearful eyes into his cupped hands, you take it as your cue to leave, a responsibility so evident it claws up your ribcage with the intention of over-spilling across your chest. but there is no amount of divination you can bring here, not how you had been expected to help, so you swallow it and instead offer a pat on his shoulder before you have to pull yourself away. he asks you to take his number, and you almost bite back how such thing would be inappropriate for strangers to do, but then you see the devastation in his eyes and remember that’s not the sort of angel you can be anymore, and you take it without a hesitation.

you leave without saving it, but he still offers you one small smile when you turn away, and as you walk away, the warmth of such a gesture despite the misfortune of the situation warms your body against the chilling bite of the winters storm.

krantz stands outside without a car when you see him once more, and promptly advises all of next week is cancelled on the misplacement of grief, and with a deep breath do you find yourself thanking him, requesting some time off before you go back to the next plane, and ask for the opportunity to be able to walk everywhere else you might have to travel for the time being.

he doesn’t question it, perhaps knows it’s better not to.

even when you come hand in hand with a hedgehog merely days later, even when you demand that you have to make him a chain to signify such a bond.

( after all, nobody could expect the events of this birthday to make everything else so different. )

#❛ ♡ › licht : 𝗶𝗰.#long post /#drabble tag /#OH ILL WRITE A SHORT DRABBLE---- 3k words later i am CRYING #this took such an angsty turn but like i am very pleased about it #theres so many headcanons ive thrown in which i will probs overthink havent been explained like #hes only had one party which was a sham bc people only came for his parents and his dad basically disowned everyone there bc of it.#lich.t spent the majority of his teenage years performing concerts on his birthday so his parents never felt guilty they had to perform one #too #and tht he just liked giving to everyone else over him. krantz always took him out for nice food / events during the day its just fact #he hasn't contacted iris' ex boyfriend. not because of any guilt or anything but rather because i just don't think he'd know what to do or #really say??? he did spend the majority of the evening uncomfy bc of the bloke so i do not blame him #if i was to write one more it would have been based on the future where lawl.ess and lich.t would have gone to italy to spend the holidays #with nic.colo and il.dio but that one would have been 1k in itself bc i would have been very indulgent in the lawl.icht but also wanted to #include a lich.t and il.dio scene to parallel the lawl.ess nic.colo one we get in canon #i also want to say writing iris was really fun but also made me emotional bc like ... she was a star who just realised she could do little #to get a lot. and honestly? shes not as bad as a person #the lawl.ess mention between her and lich.t was very cute tho 10/10 would write again #thats ur future husband lich.t have some respect--- jk #where was lawl.ess in that scene? probably out there hanging out with other people. i like to imagine when she was with her manager and bc #it was so near the end #he probably was watching over her less and just talking to someone else #if they met it wasn't in a way they'd recognise each other. just passing really #death /#birthday /#ask to tag /#im not sure what other tags are there sorry its 4pm and im screaming FGHDSJHD #ANYWAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY LICHT I JUST (KISSES HIS FOREHEAD)

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iknityounot · 5 months

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(Long post, sorry y'all)

A little more than two years ago now, my grandmother passed away. She and my grandpa had moved down to my home town a few years before so we could take care of them. I brought them groceries once a week, helped them write checks, fixed tvs, and found lost things. I was really close with my grandma.

In addition to her hilarious personality and dry wit, one of my favorite things about her was that she was a painter and a crafter like me! She used to crochet, and I took her to the craft store a couple of times so she could get more yarn and books on crochet. But her arthritis and the shaking in her hands kept getting worse, so she eventually had to stop.

She kept her most recent project, a granny square blanket, safely packed away in a plastic bin. She told all of us she was going to finish it one day.

Her hands never got better, and when she got sick, and we found out it was cancer, she rapidly deteriorated.

After she passed, I went to work helping my mom clean out my grandparents apartment so we could move my grandpa in with her. In our frantic cleaning, I found that bin again:

DOZENS of granny squares, dozens of half used skeins. I asked my mom what she wanted me to do with it, and she said she didn't care. I set it aside and later took it home.

Maybe a month later, that tumblr post about the Loose Ends Project was going around. It felt like a sign--I was never going to learn to crochet in order to finish my grandmother's blanket. But they might be able to help!

So I filled out the interest form. They got back to me SUPER quick. And maybe 2 weeks later, I was paired with volunteer in my state (only 2 hours away!) and the box of yarn, granny squares, and my grandmother's crochet hook were in the mail. That was at the end of January this year.

Over the next couple of months, my "finisher" emailed me regular updates on her progress, and asked me questions on my preferences for how she constructed the final blanket.

At the end of August, the blanket was done!

I had always intended the blanket to be a gift for my mother. So I cleaned it up, put it in the only bag I had big enough to fit it, and drove to my mom's. I gave the blanket to her and she was gobsmacked. I explained to her all about Loose Ends, and how someone volunteered to finish the piece for us. She was speechless. (I was quite pleased with this, because I am not the best at giving gifts, so this was a pretty exciting reaction!)

She said that it was the most thoughtful gift she had ever been given. She said "your grandma would love this". To which I replied, "yeah, I know she really wanted to finish it a couple of years ago". But that was when my mom dropped the bomb of a century on me--she told me that my grandma had started making those granny squares OVER 30 YEARS AGO. She had started the blanket when my grandpa was staying in the hospital, but that was back when my mom was younger than I am now! My grandma had packed them all away, planning on finishing it, when my grandpa was sent home from the hospital. Then it went from house to house, from condo in Chicago to their apartment in my hometown. All that time and my grandma had wanted to finish it, but couldn't. First because she was busy, then because she forgot how to do it, then because of her arthritis, and then because of the cancer. My mom said she had given up on expecting my grandma to finish it.

She said I brought a piece of her childhood with her mom out of the past.

And really, all of this is to say, if you have seen or heard about the Loose Ends Project and have an uncompleted project or piece from a loved one who has passed away--these are your people. They were so kind and treated my project with such care. That box probably would have been found by my own grandkids one day if I hadn't heard about Loose Ends.

Five stars, absolutely worth it!

(From what I understand, you can sign up to volunteer too! If you have time to share, it might be worth checking out!)

#loose ends #the loose ends project #joy knits #text #long post #knit #knitting #crochet #crocheting #craft #crafting #diy #crochetblr #yarnblr #yarn #knitblr

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sophiamcdougall · 8 months

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I am never going to complain about Greek Duolingo again

I mean, I am. But still.

So, as some of you know, my family has been coming to this tiny Greek seaside village for several years. Just over a week ago I came out here with my mum, under the impression that early September, after the height of the summer heat, would be a good time to have a holiday. ANYWAY Storm Daniel had other ideas about that. Locally things are improving (I'm actually really pissed off about the disaster-porn tone of most English-language media coverage, but that's another post). The power is back on, there's running water most of the time, and though the latter is not drinkable, a truck from the government came and handled out free bottled water yesterday. But we are currently kind of stuck. Can't do tourist things. Can't go home. There aren't any local flights out until Saturday and the road to Thessaloniki is still closed.

So this evening, feeling kind of aimless and depressed, I go down to the nearest beach with a couple of binbags and start cleaning up in an effort to at least do something positive. I always try to do this at least once out here and obviously, after the storm, there's a lot more plastic and rubbish than usual.

At some point I find this large, round bit of metal - some kind of machinery part, I think -- that's too big for the bag, so I take it to the bins on its own, leaving the rubbish bag on the beach. And when I come back for it, something among the stones beside it moves.

Specifically, it pulls its head sharply inside its shell

So, meanwhile I've been trying to learn some Greek with the help of Duolingo.

I currently have a 33-day streak and... I have questions. Shouldn't I be able to use the past or future tenses by now? Shouldn't I be able to say "x is like y"? I can't do those things. But one thing I absolutely can say all day long is έχω μια χελώνα : I have a turtle.

This is far from the limit of Duolingo Greek's turtle-related content. "An obsession with turtles" is my mother's characterisation. I can inform you that the turtle is not a bird, and, improbably, that the turtle is drinking milk. I can introduce you to a turtle in company with a horse and an elephant. As far as Duolingo is concerned, it really is turtles all the way down.

Now this, you may be able to see, is not a turtle. It has claws rather than flippers. It is a tortoise. I know there are wild tortoises in Greece: my aunt once rescued a pair of them shagging in the middle of the road -- but that was up in the mountains. I've even seen one myself, but it was also on a road and very dead.

I am 95% certain they don't belong on beaches. There's nothing for it to eat, except, unfortunately, a lot of plastic. Even if it gets off the beach it will immediately find itself on a road where it could get hit by a car. I'm pretty sure it must have been washed down by the floodwater and has been just sitting there, dazed, ever since.

Now obviously the first thing I want to do on encountering this unusual animal is to go and tell my mummy, so I do. The tortoise immediately brightens her day. She agrees that the tortoise is not happy on the beach and needs to be taken somewhere safe. it gets surprisingly wriggly when picked up so we put it in a carrier bag with some grapes and cucumber and go looking for somewhere to rehome it.

We find a path leading up between the houses towards a likely-looking field, but before we get very far a dog in a yard goes berserk and a man's head pops over a fence and demands to know what we're doing. He does this in English, as evidently we're just that obviously tourists.

"I found a tortoise on the beach!" I explain. "We want to find somewhere to put it."

"A what," he asks.

"It's like a, you know," I begin and then to my astonishment I find myself saying... "μια χελώνα"

"Oh! A turtle!" he says.

"But from the land. δεν είναι χελώνα", [it is not a turtle,] I say, as I am worried he will tell me to put it back near the sea where I found it. As it turns out it actually IS a χελώνα, Greek does not distinguish between turtles and tortoises, but I don't know that; I can't even name the days of the week or identify any colours other than pink yet, give me a break.

The man's entire demeanour changes and thaws. He does not worry about my turtle-that-is-not-a-turtle conundrum. He knows where οι χελώνες come from and where η χελώνα μας belongs. He leads us through a gate into a courtyard area.

"[somethingsomething] μια χελώνα," he explains to the assembled onlookers, of whom there are, suddenly, a surprising number.

"ΜΙΑ ΧΕΛΩΝΑ!!!" crows the throng of delighted small children, who are, suddenly, everywhere.

"μια χελώνα!" I agree, accepting that at least for current purposes, that is what it is.

"Μπορούμε να δούμε τη χελώνα σας; [can we see your turtle?]" asks an adorable little girl, shyly, and I understand??

The children fucking love looking at the χελώνα and showing it to them is kind of magical?

I finally put the tortoise down on the grass of this wild area off to the side of the courtyard, and marvel aloud that it is weird that I barely know any Greek except how to say μια χελώνα.

"I think she will soon run off," a kind lady called Aspasia assures me, seeing I remain slightly anxious about its fate. "I don't know why I'm saying 'she'. I suppose because χελώνα is feminine in Greek."

"Yes! I know that!" I exclaim, thrilled.

"Well done!" she says. And also she asks if we are OK for drinking water after the storm and if we need any help with anything and is just generally incredibly lovely and now we know more of the neighbours!

So "μια χελώνα" has just become, by a long way, my most-used and most understood and all-around most conversationally successful phrase in Greek. So I guess I have to admit I was wrong to doubt Duolingo's wisdom: it is correct to be obsessed with turtles. And I concede that prior to learning how to count to ten or to distinguish right from left, the simple ability to yell the word TURTLE over and over again is, it turns out, a crucial element of the responsible traveller's social skills.

(I am pretty fluent in Italian and turtles haven't come up in conversation even once?)

#story time

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todayisafridaynight · 10 months

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FIRST EP OF TSUMA CLEARED... GODDDDDDDDDDDDD WHY IS KEISUKE SO CUTE HE'S GOT ME SQUEALING THROWING A FIT KICKING MY FEET CLAWING AT MY FACE TEARING MY HAIR OUT RIPPING MY SHIRT OFF [<- CUTENESS AGGRESSION] [NOT EVEN EXAGGERATING I DID ALL THAT] [ALSO REGULAR AGGRESSION. CAN YOU STOP SAYING INSANE SHIT IN PUBLIC]

The music is so lovely too... and the direction and set dressing and Overall Production... chef's kiss... ALSO THE LITTLE GIRL WHO PLAYS SHIRAISHI IS SO TALENTED WHAT THE HELL WAS ANY OF THAT... Tsutsumi is amazing though for real, he makes Keisuke seem so much older post-timeskip and it's wonderful to see his old self starting to show again EVEN IF HE IS. BEING A DUMBASS. Huge fan of Tsutsumi playing depressed motherfuckers... I LOVE Takae though... I understand why he was so obsessed with her I get it...

See this is why I can't be too hard on Akira I'm a grown man acting the same way about Tsutsumi😭😭😭I'M GLAD YOU LIKED FIRST EP... THIS IS A RELIEF... Yoshizawa is a nice young man don't worry about him <3

ALSO THRILLED TO HEAR YOU SEEMED TO ENJOY THE MOVIES TOOOOOO ACAB except the team and Ogata nobody does terror|sm like you king... I wish more Tsutsumis could escape prison and/or death But Fair Enough... Oh and this is what Ogata's letter says if you were curious, it's manga only:

Inoue, You weren't crazy at all, in my eyes. You'll make a fine SP. An SP is a police officer in the Metropolitan Police Department Public Security Bureau assigned as a full-time bodyguard to people who don't deserve protection. That job description assumes they are, without exception, willing to throw their life away in a crisis if it means acting as a shield for those people. That's what it means to guard another's life.

ALSO at one point Tsutsumi was at a panel for something else and a couple members of the audience were being unruly and trying to get on-stage to get to his female co-star, but he and another co-star held them off... I think he actually fell off the stage in doing so but he was fine and he joked that SP would start filming that day... I love himmmmmmm

NO THAT'S WHAT I MEAAAAAN HE'S SOOOOOO CUTE IT DROVE ME INSANE I LOVE HIM SO MUCH (;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`) 'tsuma' was the first tsutsumi show i watched and the impact it left on my brain was monumental... i loooove keisuke so much i cant stress that... SO IM GLAD YOU WATCHED THE FIRST EP IM GLAD YOU GET TO SEE WHAT I MEAN !!!!!!!! CUTEST OLD MAN EVER I PROMISE !!!!!!!

nono maida is SO good considering her age, i was so impressed with her performance throughout the show... AND YEAH TAKAE IS AMAZING she really is an epic woman, no wonder keisuke and mai cant let her go (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ) unfortunately 👁️👁️;;

OH BUT YEAH THE SHOW'S SO CUTE SO FAR I JUST FINISHED THE SECOND EPISODE !!!! tachibana looking right RIDICULOUS but its cute (❁´◡`❁)

AND THANK YOU FOR SHARING THE LETTER MAN so real.... i love that..... chaotic good kind of behavior i fucks with him.... he's valid in my opinion for his methods.... nishijima was lame anyway...

poor tsutsumi at that panel tho im glad he protected his co-star and im glad he was able to make light of the situation- im mortified for him but id also be totally mortified if i was one of those rowdy people like please be civil hes a guy just like any other guy (;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)

#long post #snap chats #i could go on a mile-long ramble about tsuma its so cute......#its so funny tho ep 2 onward because its like. its SO awkward because he's the definition of Wife Guy but he CANT be a wife guy cause...#yk..... FUCKED UP but hilarious too #fr tho i was so happy at the end of the first ep when mai and keisuke realized she was telling the truth... oh my god... that was precious.#AND THEN ALL THE KIDS PULLED THEIR EMERGENCY STRINGSLGJRAJLVKAJ STOP THAT WAS FUNNY #LIKE VALID BUT ALSO LMAOOO #if you continue watching i hope you enjoy the rest of the series as much as i did !! it gets REAL good #its already good ep 1 but it gets even BETTER and UGH. i should rewatch it...#OH BUT AtR !!!!!!!! ITS SO SWEEETTT ive never had the experience of having a crush let alone on someone older #but the trope seems cute from a distance-so long as the older party is. Not A Freak obviously #theres a certain innocence in it yk what i mean.. i cant explain it but when It Isnt Freak Shit its cute #so im glad this anime's being cute with the trope instead of weird and gross #KONDO IS A VERY CUTE OLD MAN I UNDERSTAND HER BUTTERFLIES hes so silly..#AND IM GLAS YOSHIZAWA ISNT A JACKASS HE'S FUNNY AND A DORK #he needs to chill but he's just enthusiastic so i cant be mad... Give Her Space but also He's So Ernest #ah but yeah with SP..... ogata's morals are based- when he couldnt protect ohashi anymore i felt so bad...#i also like characters like that- characters that want to do whats right so bad but cant for one reason or another #even MORE based when they start to do Cracked Shit to do good.... amazing.... 11/10....#IN ANY CASE.... EP 3 OF AtR TIME !!!!!!!!!

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