#i've been floating the idea for a while but i might actually be in the position to do so rn

[sodafrog13]

hey hlm followers, would u fw a hlm1 soundtrack polls tourney 👀

[conidiophore]

*guy that has a standing budget that he has been on the fence about spending on something specific for several years*

[neopianbiologyproject]

Transparent Pets and the Transparent Chia

for background, Transparent is a cosmetic option one can change their Neopet to. for the mostly mammalian cast of Neopets, this typically shows the internal anatomy of the Neopet as if their skin and cartilage were transparent, displaying their skeleton and visible internal organs.

there are some notable examples among them: the Transparent Lenny has bones in its primary feathers, explaining their hand-like dexterity with those feathers! (other bird Neopets, like the Pteri, do not have these bones).

there's also the Grundo's alien organs, and the Ruki, which is an insect and thus has an exoskeleton, has a much different internal structure from its mammal counterparts

there's a lot we could get into here with the perceived anatomical correctness of these designs; the number of bones and placement or lack of certain organs is definitely not one would expect in a detailed anatomical diagram. but none of that is really important beyond what these designs signify about the species classification-wise, and the one new major outlier: the Transparent Chia

the Transparent Chia is unlike all other Neopets who have received Transparent designs. it is green; it does not have bones; it has unique organs; it resembles a plant cell.

below is my attempt to label the Transparent Chia as if it were a textbook diagram of a plant cell. I'm only an amateur biologist, so I discussed with some friends, including professional biologist @stackedcrates who taught me a lot!

(footnotes are below)

1 - Root Hairs: As I've been told it, root hairs would typically 1) comprise the full green shape of the hair and not just the pink inside, and 2) a cell with root hairs would not have chloroplasts. So if we accept the hair as root hairs, this is either a "novel evolutionary adaptation" or possibly the Chia is comprised of two to four large cells and potentially a colonial organism, which I find exciting.

2 - Vesicles, Peroxisomes, Lysosomes: It's impossible to actually distinguish these things from each other so I labelled them half based on evidence and half arbitrarily. Lysosomes are typically larger than peroxisomes, but both could also be most any other 'some. (Vesicles are not 'somes but they look similar in this type of diagram).

3 - The Endoplasmic Reticulum & Large Central Vacuole: In normal cells, the endoplasmic reticulum would touch the nucleus, so this ER is in a very unusual if not impossible spot. We floated the possibilities that we were wrong about the nucleus, the nucleus was actually what we'd labelled as the LCV, and even that our ER was just the rough ER and the yellow noodles (now labelled "Cytoskeletal Structures") were a very unusual smooth ER. But it seems overly likely that we're correct about the LCV and the nucleus, so I preferred this admittedly unsatisfying option compared to the rest.

4 - Chloroplasts and Mitochondria: You might notice that the chloroplasts as labelled have two different designs: one is striped while the other is simply green. The committee found the two similar enough to group them together, and I'm told it's common for the chloroplast to be depicted either way (I found more than one diagram that this art seems to be cribbing colors and design choices from). As for the mitochondria, it's possible that we have the chloroplasts and mitochondria swapped, and it's just as possible possible one of the three labelled is some other plastid that we didn't consider.

5 - Cytoskeletal Structures: We have no idea what these are. They're not really the right shape to be skeletal structures. Oh well!

6 - Amyloplast: @stackedcrates suggested this was an amyloplast, for storing starch, but that it could be another kind of plastid.

this attempt has many issues, but the real purpose of it is to prove that the Chia very closely resembles a plant cell, rather than correctly identify each part. @stackedcrates also emphasized that biology is full of exceptions, and with the Chia necessarily representing an unusual example, it doesn't behoove us to be beholden to statistical typicality. a few mistakes or professional disagreements are okay! in the end, it matters more that the parts are roughly represented.

I think we did well!

What does this mean for the project?

we'll be hereforth categorizing the Chia as among Plantae rather than Animalia. there was evidence for this before as the Chia is the only Neopet to have the unique Magical Chia Pop colors. the Maraquan Chia is also an anenome, which is an animal, but definitely the most plant-like of the aquatic animals.

maybe one could argue the Chia is a fungus, or even an animal-plant hybrid! where does that go in our taxonomy? I don't know! but science is exciting, isn't it?

[honeyhotteoks]

yunho's fromm messages this morning.......... (and some extended thoughts on this man and his very obvious dom vibes, we've got a brand here at honeyhotteoks and i need to talk about it again before i die)

the messages in question:

🐶: yes, yes, you're such a greedy one (a little selfish one) 🐶: be mine, you're mine. 🐶: yes, yes, i'm yours.

transl credit to @/jyhcomfort on twt, i know there's a few alternate translations floating around that say "i'm greedy" or "i'm a greedy one" / one of my friends said via context it makes more sense to be "i'm greedy" but for delulu purposes..... either way..... my feelings are the same under the cut

cw: nsfw discussions about dom/sub dynamics and various connected kinks. as always, i am not being so delulu about this that i actually think i know him. this is all fun and speculation and at this point he's just my muse for the romance novel version of him. okay.....

i tweeted the below the other day (video link here) but like seriously he just keeps proving me right and i have thoughts i gotta get off my chest before i combust.

so i've just been thinking about this whole thing since someone on twitter made a little joke about him being a bitchless kpop idol, which like... i know people got upset, but i'm sure that was just a joke, and that's not really what this is about i've been seriously cooking on the duality of this man for the past few days and have things to say.

first of all...... i've talked about this a million times, but when i say this man is a dom what i mean is that he has the potential for all this stuff, i have no idea what he's actually doing in his private life. he could literally be waiting for marriage for all i know, but i do think you can tell in someone's personality who would kind of be good at something 'naturally' if they got into it / went that direction.

something yunho's been doing a lot recently is showing more of himself physically / showing more skin / being a little more suggestive overtly in his content which is something pretty new for him. he's always been hot and has been sexy on stage, but as far as his personal content, this is pretty new for him. this to me is classic like.... he's gained confidence in the past few years, gotten into his mid twenties where you start to get a little more self assured with your own body or expressions of sexuality, etc. BUT the way that he's sharing this content i think is interesting and indicates to me that he knows what kind of reaction this is going to get from his fans, and he enjoys it.

he's been burying sexier pictures within his ig albums as not the first picture, with the first one being a little cute or just regular idol style pics. prime examples below --

in both of these cases, these are the "sexy shot" but he puts them in the middle of the albums. then when fans freak out or ask him about it on live/fromm his responses are usually something along the lines of "ohhh it wasn't too much was it? ah, no ofc i'll keep it just to that" etc. it would not surprise me in the least if he enjoyed the thought that we're all losing our shit when we swipe to these pics / our reactions online after not only give him a bunch of compliments but shows how riled up we are. that is CLASSIC dom behavior.

in a sexual context, this might look something like..... a dom casually touching or implying sex to their submissive over the course of a day but not really acknowledging it / playing off their submissive's reactions as cute/funny or in a meaner context, ignoring it all together. at the end of all that teasing though is the dom in control and verbally messing with their sub while finally, finally delivering the pleasure they were hinting at. this is something i am so positive yunho would excel at with the right partner.

that combined with the way he talks to hotteoks in fromm really gives the impression that he knows they enjoy being teased, and i truly don't think he would act like that if he didn't like it. he's been in the idol game long enough, if he wanted to set different boundaries or speak to his fans differently, he absolutely could. meanwhile he's out here playing straight into the delulu trends with birthday lockets and wedding flowers and boyfriend-y pics all the time on ig. not to mention the zayn song.... like he knows what he's doing.

he often teases hotteoks about being so flustered over him, plays into how 'jealous' he can be, and overall just leans in hard to d/s dynamics in a way that tells me it's quite natural for him. even just how often he says things like 'you're mine' / 'i'm yours' / 'you know you're mine right?' / 'yes you belong to me' etc. in his fromms just reads completely as a dominant establishing and reinforcing those ownership dynamics.

when it comes to other parts of his personality, i've talked about that at length in other posts (eye contact, natural leadership, body language, active listening, etc.) but i've really noticed a shift in him recently and can't get it off my mind.

on top of that, there have been a few moments on stage or with other members lately that really ring dominance. i'm very specifically thinking of the way he interacts with mingi and wooyoung, which i've written about before, but...... he's consistently holding eye contact with them lately, teasing them in ways that are platonic yes, but also just part of that natural part of him that wants to mess with someone who will break. like.... did yunho have to hold wooyoung's jaw while they were kneeling during halazia? probably not, but he did it. and the smile afterwards when wooyoung got a little flustered was clear satisfaction with the reaction he got.

generally i think there's an impression that some people have that because yunho's so "nice" or so goofy/dorky/sweet/thoughtful/bashful etc., that means he doesn't have as much rizz or like wouldn't be into dynamics like this or harder kinks. i have to say..... that to me always reads like inexperience, with men potentially, maybe sex, and/or these dynamics in particular. in my experience, it's often the sweet guys who can switch it up in bed, and i would even say they often make better/safer doms because they are caring/considerate/attentive to their partner's comfort and pleasure, not just their own or if they're being perceived as sexy. it's not a hard rule of course, everyone's different, but i'm just saying, yunho being a nice guy doesn't mean he couldn't or wouldn't enjoy teasing the fuck out of his partner.

all of this is to say........................ if hasn't figured out his dom potential yet, i sincerely hope he does because i think it's such an obvious fit for him.

[ronearoundblindly]

Drunk Steve and #8 for your event please!! I will never get enough of Cap finding out the hard way that the Asgardian mead in Thor's flask does not apply to his enhanced metabolism😆 Love confession, forgetting his girlfriend is his girlfriend, taking a swing at some jerk at the bar, I love this trope!!!!

Warnings for drinking, humor (but Stevie being a terror of a dipsh*t), reckless behavior, overconfidence-to-the-max, fuzzy feels (and memory), one awesome horrible line, and some language. MINORS DNI.

Fools Rush In!Steve also had a run-in with the Asguardian booze....

After over one-hundred years, he's still having new experiences, but Steve certainly does not consider going to a bar tonight a 'new' experience. He shows up with Thor and Bucky, looks at the menu, and knows before the words come out that Buck is about to ask what the hell elderflower liquor is.

The prices are what Steve scoffs at, but who really cares if he knows no amount of it will get him drunk? Not these three men. Thor never even brings a wallet anywhere, just a flask, so they pass that special-bewitched-never-empty thing around while ordering food--and lots of it to make sure the waitress says nothing about the foreign silver canteen.

He doesn't usually partake. Every other time, when Steve has taken one polite swig, he's noticed nothing but the normal burn going down. That, and mead is deceptively sweet. He's not worried.

Steve thinks it's the hot food warming his belly, the spice of the jalapeño poppers are what's flushing his cheeks, and the music is getting better.

But it's not.

See, he is actually new to this. When Steve was a teen, his illnesses put strain on his lungs, his heart, his liver, his kidneys, you name it, so any alcohol (that wasn't the base of a cough medicine or mouth rinse) was a bad idea. Nothing improved as a young adult, but he had a cocktail or two at the dance halls. There's not much else to do when you won't dance. Problem is Steve never got drunk; he got sick. Sicker, more specifically. He has--to this very day--never experienced being drunk.

Steve is used to being hit, but only when he can see the fist coming.

Bucky...forgot about this until it was way too late.

You get an S.O.S. text begging you to come to the bar. The message is your only gauge for how the night's gone because Steve hasn't texted in hours. You haven't dated long, sure, but you'd expect super-responsible Steve to reach out in boredom not...

Oh.

Oh.

Jacket shrugged off, t-sleeves rolled up so even his shoulders are bare, Steve spots you before the others, suddenly springing to attention and fixing his hair with a rushed sweep of his hand.

Bucky then looks up to wave you over, seemingly unaware of his own floating constitution, holding the drink menu up like a fan for his poor nerves.

Steve is clearly interested and giving you the eyes. "Hey, gorgeous," he blurts with a lopsided grin.

Bucky shouts overtop him, slowing your approach. "Why do you people need to mess with a classic?"

"Explain who 'you people' are in that question."

"HUMANS," Thor bellows.

Bucky points to the laminate page in agreement. "This is not how a sidecar is made."

"Creative license," you offer dismissively, turning to Steve. "How you feeling, big guy?"

"I am spectacular!" Thor leans on Steve's shoulder. "Have a dram?"

Before the cap-full is passed to you, Steve snatches it and downs the liquid.

"Nope." He races to cover his mouth, loosing a belch strong enough to feel as a breeze. "Shit, sorry, doll."

"Not safe for humans," Bucky agrees again. "I've been hoping to order--"

"HOW'S ABOUT--" you announce, forging a path to the bar --"I grab a pitcher of water?! Think that's the best bet right now..."

Good god, he's toasted.

Thankfully, asking for water gets you service super fast, and you're quickly back on your way.

'Quickly' might be an overstatement in the thickening crowd, however, when you can't make it all fifteen feet without being bumped.

The accidental strike knocks you off-course, and Bucky lunges to take the pitcher before it spills. In an attempt to correct yourself, you fall into Steve's chest.

He doesn't notice. He's only seeing red beyond your shoulder.

"Watch where you'r--re going," Steve slurs at the passer-by, possibly burping mid-word.

"Relax, man," the guy drawls, flicking a wrist, uncaring to look at who spoke, and loudly muttering.

"Fucking lightweight."

Sure, Steve has pick fights over the honor of others since forever, and yeah, he's been called derogatory things the majority of his life, but hearing 'lightweight' sends him over the edge. In an instant, Steve is a skinny kid who's ninety pounds soaking wet.

One who swings his fists...and misses.

Thor roars. "Fight!"

"No," you scream as loud as you can while the unbalanced behemoth of current-day-Steve-Rogers regains his footing, shoving you forward.

Bucky apologizes, trying to defuse the situation including Thor's excitement to avenge Steve's honor.

You can't see any of it.

Steve's leaning into you, pinning you between the edge of the hightop table and his strong chest. He looks down with a dopey smile like he didn't just throw a (really bad) punch at some idiot.

"What brings a beautiful woman such as your--" he hiccups "--self to a place like this?" Steve shifts too far on one foot and almost stumbles, slamming his hand on the table to break his fall. "Meant to do that." He's then delighted to notice what his hand landed in.

The tray is produced and exhibited with a flourish. "Fries, m'lady?"

Out of nowhere, Thor pops over Steve's shoulder again. "I taught him that!"

Steve nods.

"He did." Your boyfriend takes a fry to snack on briefly. "He taught me that when I said there was a girl I've fallen in love with."

Steve eats a few more fries, clearly uncomfortable letting that information hang in the air, though he keeps his focus--inconsistent as his vision may be--on you.

You've been on several dates with this man, known him for months and months, talked about taking things slow because neither of you want to scare the other or screw this up. Apparently, he doesn't quite remember that part, though, so Steve bends his head down beside your ear and whispers, "I want to make you drip like that pitcher."

"THE ABSOLUTE SHIT DID YOU JUST SAY, PUNK?" Bucky whips around.

"I did not teach him that," Thor chuckles, still scaring off the last of the club-bros.

Ah, to have super-human ears and dry panties.

Steve steps back, tongue running achingly deliberate across his lips.

"I'm--" he hiccups and shrugs "--trying something new."

When no one responds save for open-mouthed shock, Steve simply announces that he's very thirsty and pins you between his hard body and the table.

"I love YOU PEOPLE," Thor raves, sparking the crowd to join him on the dance floor.

[Main Masterlist; Sleepover Masterlist; Steve Rogers One-Shots]

A/N: Sorry this took so long, nonnie, but I refuse to admit defeat. The sleepover lives on!!

[batlovebites]

oooh ooh could I have headcanons of pitaya and toddler reader that they take in? Platonic ofc!!

I like to imagine pitaya with the “found parent” trope hehe

Ooo, I've been wanting to write some of Pitaya Dragon Cookie actually! You've read my mind, darling! Coming right up!

Pitaya Dragon Cookie & Toddler Reader [Headcanons]

Pitaya wasn't looking to adopt a kid- not before they found you, and not after- not at first, anyway.

But finding a little cookie left alone, practically a baby, no one else in sight? Even if at first, Pitaya had no intentions of raising you, they still weren't going to leave you all alone. Grown cookies were already sssso ssssmall and weak in Pitaya's eyes- a little thing like you? Might as well be made of float glass. Leaving such a pitiful creature to crumble before they even got a chance to live... Not really Pitaya's style.

So they scooped you up- making sure you don't get pricked on any of the sharp parts of their armor- and set out. Pitaya's intentions, at first, were to just get you to some other cookies who they could trust to look after you. Maybe Hollyberry? She's had a kid of her own, she'd know what to do- or at least be able to make sure you're given to good parents.

But Pitaya is far from the Hollyberry Kingdom when they find you, and as they look after you during the long travel there, their heart grows fond.

They arrive and seek a meeting with Hollyberry, but as they go to speak, find the idea of asking Hollyberry for help giving you to someone else... nauseating.

So instead, they find themselves asking Hollyberry for advice on how to take care of you- a baby dragon, they'd have no trouble with, Pitaya insists (not a lie, but only declared to protect their ego in asking for assistance), but a frail little baby cookie? Completely foreign territory.

Pitaya, once they've decided on being your parent (and before they've made the official decision, to be frank), is insanely protective of you. This will loosen up as you get older, but anything that seems to threaten your safety is at risk of being burnt to dust.

As you might imagine from prior description, Pitaya does worry a fair bit about how fragile a cookie as young as you is and worries they might handle you with excessive force; They aren't used to being gentle.

Once Snapdragon Cookie comes into the picture, you two are basically siblings. Sometimes they'll try to fly up in the air while holding you, which Pitaya dragon is amused by up until they drop you- the two of you weren't all that far off the ground, but still, their heart definitely stopped for a moment!

[caldella]

HB S3 Crack Theory: What if its Focus on Addiction is as Much About Loona as it is Stolas?

AKA: We want Stolas and Loona to bond, and this would be a way to have that while HB breaks our hearts as usual. A very long almost 3k post, and a theory based on little show clues which might be very wrong but won't escape my brain.

TW: Alcoholism, binge drinking. CW: Vomiting

So I've had this theory floating around in my head since the HB team said that S3 will focus on family and addiction. I'll admit it is very much a crack theory, so don't @ me that it seems like I'm basing this off really meager clues. I'm aware! That's kind of how crack theories are.

Theory:

Stolas does indeed have an alcohol problem, but Loona has a more concealed, more consistent one and will be the individual in the Stolitz family who actually needs support. Stolas will surprisingly be the one to discover it and get her to open up about it.

Why Do I Think Loona Might Have an Alcohol Problem?

Because HB as a series has a habit of hiding information in small, unaddressed details that have more meaning when you watch them back later. And I've noticed a few things across the two seasons that might be hints...

HINT 1: Past History According to the snotty Hellhound in Queen Bee, Loona has already been puke drunk at parties before, to an extent of being shamed for it. She's already a distant outsider, and it looks like her destructive form of partying made her a laughing stock to some of the Hellhounds. It's also uncertain if her dialogue about being reminded was just trying to distance herself from this asshole, or if she was literally blackout drunk at the previous party and didn't remember it at all.

HINT 2: Brushing Off Self-Destructive Behavior Loona had no concerns with Blitzø chugging the keg of Beezlejuice (which concerned even Bee) and went into denial that he was self-destructing at the party. This could have been just her assuming he was fine all the time - Blitzø always presented himself as bulletproof to the team. It also could've been her usual standoffish attitude, or her trying not to leave the party because she was finally fitting in. OR it could be because she really didn't see a problem with him going this hard, because she's done it before.

HINT 3: Handling Drunks Despite having no current friends and a very loner lifestyle in Queen Bee, she was pretty knowledgeable with how to handle someone extremely drunk. Her previous party experience might've been a one-time thing, or might've been a situation she found herself in more than we knew.

HINT 3: Hiding Alcohol/Casual Day Drinking EDITING IN THIS ONE IN THANK YOU @blitzwhore !!! At the beginning of Ozzie's, Loona was drinking on the job while reading a magazine featuring an article from Verosika, on how binge drinking was sexy.

There was also bottle of booze in Mastermind. This is the one that started the theory for me (because I totally forgot about the Ozzie's one). Loona had a bottle of alcohol hidden in her work desk. She specifically had it in a spot that no one else checks. That drawer was unchecked enough that she had the I.M.P. photo in there where Blitzø wouldn't scribble out his own face. There was no reason for her to have a bottle there unless she planned to drink during the workday (apparently AGAIN, as has now been pointed out to me), maybe when the rest of the crew was out on a mission and wouldn't notice.

HINT 4: Coping with Stress Via Alcohol After the Sinsmas battle, Loona was eager to turn the rest of the Sinsmas celebration to drinking. This could just be her trying to engage in the Sinsmas Hellhound gluttony, or could be a coping method she uses for stress on the regular.

NOT A HINT, BUT HONORABLE MENTION: The concept of Loona being hungover at inappropriate times was an idea they were toying with way back in the pilot episode. The pilot is not canon, and it might be a character trait they decided to scrap. I can't call it a hint. But I can present it as something that was a possibility for her from the start.

If Loona Does Have an Alcohol Problem, Why Wouldn't Blitzø Notice?

There are a few potential reasons:

ROSE-TINTED GLASSES Blitzø insists at basically every turn that Loona is perfect just how she is. He overlooks serious personality flaws and lets her get away with mouthing off to M&M frequently. This love was probably critical to her trusting him as an adoptive father, but it also means he's turned a very blind eye to her genuine faults.

PRIVACY Blitzø is a great and supportive father. He loves Loona unconditionally and wants to be involved in her life. But when he's not slathering her with physical affection and praise, he actually gives her a lot of space. This has probably been critical to her developing trust, but there are entire parts of her life he and the audience never see. We've never seen the inside of her bedroom, which to me is an indication that Blitzø rarely, if ever does either. She's able to go off to Bee's party with little more than a note on her door - no text or anything about where it is - and he doesn't question it. And again, her workspace is respected so much that she has that unscribbled photo of the I.M.P. crew in the top drawer.

Blitzø may have stalked M&M throughout S1 but always gave Loona explicit privacy throughout both seasons. If she has been concealing any problems, it would be a lot easier to do than people realize.

(Personal note, I bring the room and the drawer up because of experience with a close person in my life who hid their alcoholism this way. They would drink at night, hidden in their room, and store alcohol in their closet where it wouldn't be discovered.)

MORE OBVIOUS VS. HIDDEN ADDICTION It'd be dumb to skip over Blitzø's experience with loved ones and addiction. Cash, Barbie, Verosika: he's been around it plenty. But from our limited audience view, these addictions were more obvious. Cash was shown to be drunk and slurring from his first appearance, and Verosika was also drinking in hers. Barbie went straight from rehab to selling drugs from the human world as "honest work." Their addictions/relationship with drugs all show up regularly in their everyday lives.

However, Blitzø in The Circus didn't notice that Stolas had been literally gulping absinthe up until they were face-to-face. He was surprised to see Stolas binge drinking the same way in Apology Tour, as if it was his first time seeing it.

He's also had a long streak of convincing himself other people in his life were 'fine.' Until Apology Tour, it was easier for him to engage with Stolas believing that he couldn't be physically/emotionally hurt. He convinced himself that his shitty breakup tactic with Verosika was excusable until she forced him to realize how much it hurt. While he's been good at hiding his own struggles and self-hatred, he's not been good at recognizing when other people were doing the same.

If Blitzø Wouldn't Notice Loona Had a Problem, Why Would Stolas?

TAKING OVER HER SPACE In taking over Loona's job at I.M.P., Stolas is now using the desk and anything else she previously had. If there's more alcohol stashed, he will run into it. He's also sharing the apartment with her and Blitzø. If there are spaces that have quietly become "Loona's" over the years that Blitzø doesn't touch, he won't realize it. Stolas is also accustomed to everything he does being judged and unaccustomed to taking up space; I'd envision he'd want nondescript places to store items like his diary/smut journal. If Loona had any more alcohol stashed away in places Blitzø doesn't use, it's quite possible Stolas will discover it by accident.

FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCE If Stolas discovers alcohol being hidden around the office or apartment, he'll probably figure out pretty quickly what's going on. He himself is working with a binge drinking problem and knows the signs.

Stolas not only knows what it looks like to have private struggles, but he knows what it looks like when someone is hiding them. He hid his abuse, his depression, and possibly his binge drinking from everyone, even Via, for a good 17-18 years. He's accustomed to being overlooked and concealing personal issues so loved ones don't have to deal with them. He also has very recent experience on how that mentality does more damage in the long run.

Wouldn't Stolas Also Need Help With His Drinking?

Maybe. Recovery is a very individual process based on a person and what options are available to them. With Stolas, his drinking will likely be something he actively struggles not to slide into for a long time, if not forever. But it's uncertain whether or not he will continue the binge drinking. It is obvious going back over episodes that Stolas has an individual drink in hand frequently, so he might have a problem with daily consumption. But his binging seems to only come up specifically as a coping method. He starts by portioning with a single glass/cup and transfers to chugging the glass or a whole bottle when his stress reaches a tipping point. He's accustomed to not being part of 'the fun' and coping with emotional pain while no one else bothers to notice.

However, it seems like he already went between Mastermind and Sinsmas without alcohol. Going cold turkey while also going without his powers or his anti-depressants must have been one fucking combo, but the bottom line is he's likely been sober for weeks or a month as of the end of S2. And when Loona brings out the drinks at the Sinsmas party, he silently excuses himself out of the room. Given his emotional state, he likely knew he would end up binge drinking, so he left to avoid the temptation.

None of this means he's 'over' his alcohol problem or will never fall back to it or need help. Actually, one alternate I'd considered is if HE would try to hide alcohol somewhere and discover Loona's already being hidden. But either way, he's shown awareness that he doesn't want to binge around Blitzø and the I.M.P. crew. Loona turns to alcohol to de-stress in this moment, but Stolas knows it will make him worse and avoids it. Whether or not Stolas will need help in the form of counseling or rehab, he's taken the first steps of recognizing his problem and removing himself from situations that trigger it.

If Stolas Figures Out Loona Has an Alcohol Problem, Wouldn't He Tell Blitzø First?

I really don't think so.

Blitzø is Loona's father, but again, Stolas knows what it's like to conceal issues and how frighteningly vulnerable it makes someone to potentially have them. He's also lived for a good 18 years with Stella, where he had to walk on eggshells and word himself carefully to avoid her anger. His personality approaches situations with scripted wording and attempts to be as unassuming as possible. After the post-Ozzie's conflict with Blitzø, he sent texts trying to talk about what went down, only to back off and assure Blitzø that he was just worried when Blitzø brushed it off. He doesn't like to press issues or make decisions for someone.

He's also used to choices he makes 'for the better' blowing up in his face: the trip to Loo Loo Land, the Full Moon situation, the divorce, the accidental hurt he caused Via, etc. He wouldn't trust himself to make choices for Loona. I'm sure he would want her to tell Blitzø, if his opinion comes up. But if anyone in the Stolitz family would be able to quietly, unassumingly discuss this with her without her feeling like she was being judged or pressured, it would be Stolas. Loona tends to close off at the first sign of judgement or pressure.

And I think Loona would be nervous admitting her problem to Blitzø.

Why Would Loona Be Afraid to Tell Blitzø?

Again, Blitzø is a great father. Despite Loona's anger issues and distant personality, his affections never wavered, and it's clear by the end of S2 the trust between them is basically unbreakable. Blitzø has experience with loved ones having addiction problems and even them needing rehab. He would know the obvious signs of addiction and the treatment process, and he'd want Loona to get better. So, why would Loona hesitate to get him involved?

BLIND AFFECTION Blitzø's unwavering love for Loona might make her uncomfortable opening up about this with him, out of fear that he might blame himself for missing it. She pushed him away a lot in the first season/early S2, but she's always felt she could act however she wanted and they'd be fine. But this is a serious problem, and he could think he failed as a father by missing it and blindly believing in how 'perfect' she was. Loona might have an attitude, but she does love Blitzø. And she's afraid of being abandoned, even if she logically knows Blitzø would never actually abandon her. She could be afraid of being the daughter who failed Blitzø despite his unconditional love, and she wouldn't want him to feel like he let her down that severely.

OVERPROTECTIVE Despite the privacy he gives Loona, Blitzø is prone to overreacting and treating her as younger than her age. If she did have a serious problem like alcoholism, Blitzø would potentially blow his reaction out of her comfort zone and try to enforce drastic steps that she would resist. She has trust and some defiance issues, which would make it difficult to be open to counseling/outside help. She would likely need gentle reassurance to go forward. "Gentle" is something Blitzø is capable of, but not when he's panicked about his precious Looney-Tooney.

And I absolutely can't see Loona doing inpatient rehab, which Blitzø might jump to since his ex-girlfriend and sister went that route. Rehab facilities feel too similar to her isolation at the adoption facility and could dredge up old trauma. We saw how difficult it was just to get her to the hospital for her Hellbies shot. Adult Loona is only as functional as she is because Blitzø gave her a stable home life for the last 5 years. I think a rehab facility would feel like being locked away again: literally the worst thing for her.

PREVIOUS TREATMENT OF ALCOHOLISM Spring Broken was the first time we saw Blitzø interacting with someone facing alcoholism. And it just so happened to be his ex, who he had an antagonistic relationship with. In multiple parts of the episode, he used Verosika's drinking as an insult and shamed her for leaving rehab. If this stuck with Loona, she'd be afraid to open up. Blitzø would never approach her this way, but she could fear that he'd pressure her into rehab until she was "better enough," despite inpatient care being a nightmare for her specific forms of trauma.

Why Would Loona Potentially Discuss This with Stolas?

Again, Stolas has experience trying to word things more gently and privately. And he's typically a follower, not a decision maker. If Stolas discovered that Loona had a drinking problem, his first step wouldn't be to plan what needed done. He would likely ask her what she thought she needed for help. Whether or not they brought the problem to Blitzø would be up to her. Again, he concealed his own abuse and mental health issues for years. He would want her to open up to Blitzø about it, but he doesn't have any room to demand it or decide to tell Blitzø on his own.

Drinking is also a specific issue he's struggling with, and I think he would be willing to divulge that to her, so she doesn't feel so alone. Their backgrounds are drastically different, and hers has more in common with Blitzø's, but she and Stolas have similarities. Both of them know what it's like to grow up friendless, the odd one singled out at events, the subject of derision among their entire social class. If Loona took up drinking to cope with her lasting stress or trauma, Stolas would understand it personally. He also knows firsthand how important Blitzø has been to becoming a better person after that, and how Loona would be afraid of hurting him.

Also, Stolas would likely feel invested in helping. He's probably going into S3 struggling with a feeling of uselessness: he's lost most anything he feels gives worth to anyone else. He doesn't know how to function in normal working reality and probably feels like a complete failure and dead weight. But this is a situation where he might not be useless: where his specific cheering-on-from-the-sidelines support would be exactly what was needed. As stated, he knows the longterm damage that comes from burying personal problems too long. He would not want Blitzø's daughter to go down that route.

It would also be a parallel to Seeing Stars and the end of Sinsmas: Stolas reassuring Loona to keep trying would be a reflection of Blitzø convincing him to keep trying with Via. It would be a reflection of how Loona herself reassured Octavia that Stolas was trying, too. Stolas is someone Loona would be able to open up to without judgement, without drastic emotional responses, and knowing he wouldn't divulge the information to anyone without her permission. Stolitz family bonding, but in that uniquely heartbreaking Helluva Boss way.

Conclusion:

This is just a crack theory and based on admittedly not huge evidence. This could be making a mountain out of a molehill. I'm an expert at reading too much into things. But at least now it's out of my brain! Time will tell what comes for Season 3.

[dunmeshistash]

I've been having a bunch of ideas kinda float around my mind like little screensavers that I didn't feel like putting on paper, but one of these ideas just so happened to hit a corner, and it gave me an idea for what might perhaps be a bit of a silly (and oddly specific) question, but one I was very interested in asking nonetheless. Especially after reading your long post on the Demon's perspective of Laios' backstory. I really hope you don't mind.

While my memory's a tad blurry on how the scene played out in detail, I still find Laios' confrontation with the demon to be one of my favorite scenes. Definitely top 5. It's the one where Laios secretly orders Izutsumi to execute him at the slightest hint of suspicion. That one. I think that scene is among my favorites because it's both a perfect demonstration of Laios' remarkable cleverness hidden underneath all that lack of social skills, but it's also the perfect demonstration of how utterly terrifying the demon is.

At first I was under the assumption that Laios had it all under control, but the Demon's frighteningly gentle with how he twists Laios' very thoughts in a way that frames him as some sort of misanthropist, and the Winged Lion's words seemingly foil whatever plan Laios may have had. It made me think that Laios had failed, and Izutsumi's orders to lob his head off may have been a fail safe because he didn't know if he could successfully thwart the Demon's plans.

However, after finishing the story, extras, etc; I started thinking that perhaps failing was all part of Laios' plan, too. At least partially. Perhaps he realised that the only way to outsmart and ultimately best the Demon, was to let the Demon win. Perhaps he concluded that the only way for him to stand a chance against the Demon was to lose, to be at the Demon's mercy, to have his words utterly twisted; because he couldn't just make the demon "think" he had won. The only way for the Demon, the embodiment of hunger, to think he had won, was for him to actually win.

Maybe he ordered Izutsumi to… how do you put it… "artificially shorten his lifespan" because he knew the Demon would use his love for monsters against him, and would manipulate him into wishing to become the Ultimate Strongest Monster. His recent addendum (that the Ultimate Strongest Monster can eat desires) seems to support this theory, if I remember correctly. However, I can't remember for certain. Maybe his plan was to trap the Demon in his body and kill it that way? I genuinely can't remember.

So, I was wondering if you'd be interested in answering this oddly specific and mildly stupid question: How much of Laios' interaction with the Demon was planned, and how much was him fucking around and finding out? I'd love to know your thoughts on this!

PS: Laios rocks the swag he dons as king. Would happily serve under him. PPS: I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, Mr. Morbius! Thank you for this awesome blog. You're cool.

Hello!!!!! Yeah!!!!!! The question Kabru himself would rather not know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Same as Kabru I decided not to think too hard about but Kui definitely gave us hints that this could be the case, I don't think Laios "planned" to fail from the start, he strikes me as a very optimistic guy (as you can see with how he first thought the confrontation with Thistle could go and how he STILL tried to talk to him instead of fighting) but I think he did "prepare" somewhat for the worst case scenario, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst?

Like I don't think this part of his plan was a misdirection I think he really hoped it could be this simple? So this was plan A (although he realizes this is too optimistic I think he hopes it will work)

This part tho I'm pretty sure was partly a misdirection for his teammates, since he asks them to help him get his mind back only to tell Izutsumi to kill him at the smallest hint he lost his mind, so I think this was plan B as in "If I become the lord of the dungeon kill me so there's no more dungeon lord" which was the original canary plan

Which again is kinda confirmed by this thought bubble

I think this was plan C

He knew he no longer wished for a country where humans and monsters could coexist (because of what he saw) so I guess he had *some* idea that becoming a monster was his other wish and added that as a fail safe if plan A and B failed? I don't think he could have guessed the Demon would use his body but maybe he thought he could use the nature of the demon against him (granting his desire to become a monster even tho the monster can eat him)

As Marcille and Kabru realize tho, that might all be a coincidence and he really thought plan A or B would work lmao. WHO KNOWS Laios' mind is a mystery

I'd recommend rereading chapter 88 if you want to go thru Laios' whole plan and how the demon manipulated him, it's a great chapter (87 too with the demon origin story)

[synthient]

"This is gonna hurt."

It occurred to me today that I haven't seen this very specific, brief BTS clip floating around on here (from about 12 minutes into the Unleashed), but it's actually been influencing my read of Reality War a fair amount! If nothing else, it's an interesting example of how heavily the editing impacts a line read.

"This is gonna hurt." In the episode as aired, I barely registered this line. I actually had to double check today to make sure it made it into the episode, and I wasn't just remembering it from the BTS. There's no breath between it and the previous line. The Doctor leads into it with a big smile, delivers it airily, and we cut away from his face an instant before the word "hurt." 13 is the one who gets the (relatively understated) reaction shot. The editing, the music, and the specific takes used all serve to soften the impact of that line, to keep it safely under a layer of "two geniuses exchanging upbeat technobabble."

But in the BTS, that line hit like a gut punch. It's a quiet, vulnerable admission. Without the shot-reverse-shot, we have to actually watch both actors sit with that admission for a beat.

And I think that interplay of writing and editing - that contrast between the takes and editing techniques that were ultimately used, and the alternate options that (they've made a point of showing us) were available - demonstrates something interesting. I think this episode is trying to thread a needle between not making this regeneration too distressing (especially for the younger and the particularly emotionally-invested segments of the audience), while still not shying away from the fact that this is a premeditated act of self-harm.

This moment is in conversation with the suicide and self-harm themes of the rest of the season. Shaya, the squad leader in The Well, gets very heavy-handed Doctor-coding in the seconds before she makes a futile self-sacrifice. She misunderstood the "rules" of the force she was dealing with. It didn't work, she didn't save anyone, she didn't actually have to die. Reginald Pye sacrifices himself primarily out of grief. There was no reason anyone actually "had" to stay behind to stop Lux, had to throw themself on the pyre (the...Pye, R. If you will). And Adétòkunbo is narrowly talked out of killing himself. The Doctor pleads: "I want you to live! Don't let this be how your story ends."

I've also argued that RTD2 as a whole is in conversation with The Matrix Resurrections. That's a movie that's very interested in asking: how do the earlier entries in this story relate to suicide? How might our cultural narrative around the idea of "Christ-like" martyrdom offer a safe, an irreproachable, a socially acceptable reason for killing yourself? What are the actual factors that make our protagonist's life feel unlivable? What is the protagonist trying to escape? What might help?

And I think this run is turning a similar eye on its own previous entries, its own martyrdom narratives (with 10's exit as perhaps the most on-the-nose Christ-sacrifice). I think Reality War wants its audience echoing the Doctor's plea to Adétòkunbo: "I want you to live! Don't let this be how your story ends!"

And I don't think this is how it ends.

[revelboo]

Stop, we're too full of your delicious meals. We can't take anymore of it. 😫 (still have room for anything masterpiece of a fanfiction you have blessed us for today and more. 🤭) I don't think I've seen you done rodimus or not. Think you can whip him up one? 😗

I did, but also haven’t updated the Masterlist since it’s a pain on my phone. Here’s part two, though

Attractive Today Pt 2

MTMTE Rodimus x Reader

• “Nothing broken, but probably a concussion,” Ratchet grumbles, drawing back from the limp form sprawled on a Cybertronian sized exam table to lightly smack the scanner against his other palm. Like he’s thinking about hitting him with it, even though this isn’t his fault. How can he possibly know what everyone on the ship is doing all the time? Co-captain doesn’t mean watching the crew all the time to make sure no one’s doing something stupid. It shouldn’t anyway. “How many of them are there?”

• Spreading his hands in a shrug makes Ratchet’s servos tighten on the scanner. “Brainstorm was a bit vague on that part,” Rodimus says, attention dropping to the human. They’re tiny, but surely if there were more, they’d have been noticed already. He hadn’t brought up Brainstorm’s vague and oddly threatening ‘not on the ship,’ either. Because he’s not at all happy with the implications of that. “I don’t suppose you might-“

• “Absolutely not,” Ratchet cuts him off, now brandishing the scanner like a weapon. “That isn’t my problem, captain.”

“Co-captain,” he mutters, gingerly picking the human up and trying to not shudder at how disconcertingly limp it is in his hand. Megatron was supposed to be the one handling the boring, responsible stuff. Like reports and making sure stuff like this isn’t happening.

• Whirl had wanted it, but actually handing over a very small, very helpless thing to that lunatic? Almost as bad as the idea of more humans left behind on planets or ships they’d interacted with or passed too near. Or just floating out in space like horrifying, frozen markers behind the ship. That he refuses to think about. Maybe Mags will take it? He likes humans. Possibly. Striding out of the Medbay in search of Magnus, he starts running through possible alternate human sitters. Swerve?

• Head pounding, you squint your eyes open with a groan and lift a hand to touch your temple. Or try to. Your arms are pinned at your sides and whatever’s restraining you is warm, shifting slightly against you. And with dawning horror you remember that awful metal chicken-legged abomination snatching at you with those claws while the other one egged him on. Chasing you. There’s been a third one, right? Right, turning your head you stare up at the red and yellow nightmare staring down at you in surprise. “Hey,” it says, flashing a lot of big teeth in a big mouth.

• And you’re screaming again, and Primus, you have some volume. “Don’t eat me!” You wail, thumping your tiny fists against his servos like you think you can fend him off from… eating you? Well, that explains a lot of the panicked run straight into a wall. But where had you gotten the ideal that Cybertronians eat humans from? Growling under his breath, he tightens his grip as you try to squirm right out of his hand, completely oblivious to the possible fall. Fragging Whirl.

Previous

Next

[itsquakey]

Galacta Knight speculation, theories, and ideas (INCLUDES NEW ART)

Okay so since I've discovered a cute little detail during my SA replay, I've decided to go all in and talk about Galacta and potential ideas I have around the character because I like speculating and making a ton of things up before a Kirby game comes out so I can see how correct I was in the end.

Spoilers for Star-crossed world theories, Star Allies, Super Kirby Clash and a buncha other stuff below:

Why did Galacta Knight get sealed away? We're really only told that he was sealed in "fear of his great power" and Hyness' rant might imply some things or two (and looking back on it, that rant feels like it could be Galacta saying it in certain areas honestly...) but we really don't know what event caused this sealing to happen or the little details of it. Was Gala still the hero when he was sealed away? Or did he become something more malicious? I'm aware of a theory that's been around for a while, I believe since Star Allies? That the reason Galacta acts the way he does is because he somehow became possessed by a Jamba heart or Void Termina itself.

We DO see a Jamba heart floating around space in Super Kirby Clash with Aeon Hero Dark/Galacta Knight AND some little detail I noticed is that Meta knight, when under the influence of a Jamba heart has almost the EXACT same eye color of Gala when we see him later in an extra area of the game.

From what I've seen, the tones are oh so slightly different but are pretty much the same overall color which is very interesting to someone like me, especially because Gala's original design had red eyes, but then in Star Allies and onward his design changed, and his eye color was one of those things.

Perhaps, Galacta knight, one of the heroes of yore, helped seal away Void Termina. In a last ditch effort to continue its reign of destruction it managed to grab hold of Gala, either straight up possessing him or using a Jamba heart to put him under its influence. Galacta then went on a rampage and ironically fell to the very same fate as the thing he helped seal away.

Perhaps-like Meta when he was under the Jamba heart influence-Gala's eyes AREN'T this pink color naturally. Maybe they're that crisp red color like before? Or maybe they're teal to match the bestie known as Elflis who has some teal/magenta colors in its design. Maybe they're blue like Kirby or yellow like Meta. We likely won't know until this theory is proven right at some point.

Now, I've kept my eye out for more information since the DLC's trailer first came out so yes, I know about the starrie gacha figs.

Creatures capable of sealing away great evil, but at the risk of them sealing themselves away is interesting to say the least. If we're going with the "starries = Gala's soul" theory it could imply that this is all talking about Gala himself who helped seal away Void termina; but if he ended up getting possessed in the end he had to be sealed away to prevent the evil from spreading.

OR

Perhaps these starries were responsible for sealing away Gala, and work tirelessly to keep the seal unbroken as best they can. Perhaps when Gala's crystal was freed from being in another dimension and crashing into the forgotten land caused the starrie's power to wane and the seal be semi-broken.

I actually have a very sketchy story-boarded concept for the 'final cutscene' of Star-crossed world, with Kirby being responsible for freeing Gala from his possession which then gives the starries a reason to free the warrior from his crystal seal:

IF Gala is a potential character we get to see more of in this DLC, and we get to see his personality I'd be curious to know the type of person he would be. Would he have a naturally jolly disposition like Kirby or a quiet stoic one like Meta knight? Would he be angry at the world for what it did to him like Hyness or be accepting and understand? I also wonder if he'd speak entirely in the ancient tongue and not understand us nor us understanding him (maybe like the forgotten land language they'll give us some hints to decipher it?). Maybe he can talk, which would be interesting because we could scope his personality through it.

Perhaps when we fight him he's coked up on the Jamba heart influence AND whatever crystalization he may be under. Maybe he has phases where he switches to Aeon hero light and then Aeon hero dark which vastly makes the fight more difficult and adds new movesets to the fight. I wouldn't be surprised if the colosseum gets one or two new challenges and those forms are present there if Gala is DLC endgame. I wonder if Morpho would show up though maybe not. It already tried to eat Elflis it might be not interested into going after a mainline Galacta knight.

That's all I'll chatter about now! My next update might be another reblog to the DLC theory post when I get a lot more information to work with.

[buckets-and-trees]

Alright, Aspen! Here is the first of possibly many (definitely more than one) Viking!Steve asks inspired by my vacation through the land of the Vikings.

I've learned that Viking women had the right to get a divorce. Do you think our poor reader ever contemplated it? And what would Steve do to stop it???

Kris, I'm so envious of your chance to go on an adventure/vacation in the viking lands! I think I am yearning to/want to put that on the list of trips I want to take in the next five years...

I've thought through this quite a bit, since you left it last week, and I'm confident now that the answer is no.

While our viking warrior King Steven has been brutal and rough, and enacted prima nocta/raped the reader the first night, then made the trade for her life to spare her village in perpetuity, and forced her to marry him... He has never been and will never be violent to her. Really once he takes her out of the room with her first husband, I think the horror ebbs.

During the first few weeks when she's vacillating on the scale of frightened to wary of him, she wouldn't consider trying to divorce or run away out of duty to her family that remains behind in her old village, and her actual friends, even if she it bitter about being traded away so easily. But even that bitterness is really only at how little she was valued as the wife for the magnate's son. I think it dashed her hopes as the fresh-faced bride, seen as the one worthy/best-suited to marry the man who would be the next magnate. She was forsaken so quickly. AND YET also understands that trading away one woman for the safety and protection of an entire village is not something easily refused.

But in maybe the space of time after that when she still feels out of place, is trying to learn how to be the queen, doesn't feel at home, divorce would still feel like .... to what end? She's going to divorce the king? And go where? Who's going to take her in? Who's going to not treat her like some kind of pariah? She has no means of her own to get on a ship and leave, and who would take her? Even with the king's 'blessing' or agreement to a divorce, I'm not sure many would be willing to go out of their way to potentially risk even a slight disfavor from the king. Steven's people revere him because he is a very good king to them. He rules them justly and protects them. He provides for them, makes sure their economy is thriving, and holds celebrations for his people for holidays and important occasions.

And then she begins to see all these things, too.

She is married to a good king.

She begins to grow in her role as his queen.

And putting aside some of the logic for her circumstances... there's the emotional stuff that just makes it insanely complex.

She begins to make bonds with people in their household, in the village. She's got her adorable, sweet, and feisty cats. She's got this new phase of life that she's growing into as the queen where she has purpose and resources and projects and things she wants to do.

And then she's got him. And he's him, you know?

And his insatiable nature with her? It's intoxicating. Because you have the physical aspects of the pleasure, but also the intensity of being so intimate with someone else so consistently.

So even when the idea might have floated through her mind, it's not something she ever seriously considered. But I feel like she will also get to live a life where she actually never would choose to. EDIT TO ADD: and what would he do to stop it?

A reasonable conversation. An unreasonably unfair seduction to remind her how good he makes her feel.

But it would never come to that.

I know this didn't technically come in for the sleepover, but it was something I was eager to answer now that I've had the time to really think and marinate over it. THANK YOU FOR THE ASK!

[luludeluluramblings]

Hi so I was having some brainrot regarding your small-town-neglected-meta reader and I wanted to share them with you!

One thing I've been thinking about alot is the way readers powers work and what kinds of weather they're likely to create, etc. One thing I specifically thought about is that readers powers definitely have to come from her mom's side. Bruce and no else in Bruce's biological line have powers so readers mom has to have the meta gene. I was thinking that maybe readers mom also controlled the weather a bit, maybe not as strong as reader can but still had some powers.

Like creating little drizzles, maybe some dustdevils, and little snow storms. Because her powers were so weak she never really used them for much, maybe to help out her own parents on the farm but that's about it(using her rain powers to easily water the crops)

In that same line of thinking I also wondered if readers little brother also has superpowers. Maybe the way his powers work or appear are bit different than readers because of they have different dads(I imagine Bruce has really strong genetics. If Damian is any proof of that lol)

One little crank in this little headcanon though is that Nana and Gramps would also have to have superpowers. But then I reread the first chapter and thought about One of the phrases you used to describe how reader got in Bruce's hands.

"but blood is thicker than water in the eyes of the court."

That specifically makes me think that Nana and Gramps are actually readers little brother biological grandparents and not theirs.(what happened to their bio grandparents 🤔)

But anyway, one last thing I wanted mention is how badly I want to see reader using their powers more freely when they're back in small town. Like they aren't afraid to use their powers to make it super windy and have fun with their little brother up on the sky. Or causing a blizzard just so they can have a snowball fight and make snow-men with their little brother. Or even accidently cause a power outage because someone pissed them off! No more suppressed emotions just freedom. (Also reader crying in the middle of the rain they made in front of their parents graves(they wanted to be buried in their hometown) would be so tragically fantasic.)

Anyway I know this is a lot to read and I'm sorry if I seem a bit scrambled but I wanted to send this to you just cause I had so many ideas floating up in my brain I couldn't stop thinking about it all. Thank you for listening to me ramble, I hope your doing amazing🩷

Your call this bain-rot, Imma call it fertilizer. This is long as mess, but I think I addressed everything. Lots of Smalltown!Reader lore and I made a Family Tree to help explain if needed.

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

Smalltown!Reader's Family Tree:

Complicated little bugger, ain't it? I didn't add Stephanie or Barbara because Bruce technically never adopted them or fostered them. This isn't an official thing, I made this and it was composed of little bits of information I found online. So some of this stuff might not be lore accurate.

Also, while I was researching I found out that Bruce's middle name was apparently Patrick, after his grandfather at one point.

Now, time for the pseudo science.

I consider the meta gene to be a genetic trait carried down by a parent. That would be Momma/Adeline, in this case. She carries the gene. Now, the meta gene does not always activate even if one has it. So, no, Momma was not making mini storms for us. She was, however, very encouraging of Reader using their abilities. It takes an event, usually a traumatic one, to activate the gene. (Little Brother could be getting power's in the next chapter, though.)

As for Nana and Grand Daddy we have this:

They don't have the gene, so they don't have abilities. (Which doesn't me their harmless.) They are Reader's Step-Grandparents, but they've grown to love them all the same. Now, in court, it is preferred for a child to go to the nearest blood relative after their parents die. Or, at least, that's what I roughly know from what the court in my state is like. I'm not from Louisiana or New Jersey, where Gotham's located, so maybe it's different. But, this is fiction. This is why Nana and Grand Daddy didn't get custody of Reader, though. Plus Bruce is rich with a bunch of adopted kids, on paper he looks like the best option.

☁︎☁︎☁︎☁︎☁︎☁︎☁︎☁︎☁︎☁︎☁︎

I really love the thought of Reader using their abilities for silly little things while back in Smalltown, at least before things absolutely go to hell in a hand basket. So I'll probably include a bit. (They used to do things like that before moving to Gotham, definitely.) Something I want to mention is that Reader likes to make it rain when their happy. It's their favorite weather, they love it. So a grave scene might be a bit different. (I have to include that now. Thank you for that idea! Frick, Part Eight about to be long af.)

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

If your curious about Reader's other grandparents, they just died from old age and health problems. I like to think that Reader had a close relationship with them. Calling them MawMaw and Gab for their nicknames and having spent a lot of time with Reader and their Little Brother before they died. (I'm sorely tempted to just commit to rewriting this with the OC I based Reader off of so I can include all this backstory to highlight how different their life in Gotham is compared to what it used to be, but I best finish what I started first.)

(Side Note: It's very common in the American south for people to give their grandparents nicknames. I have some for my southern grandparents, while I call my northern grandparents just plain Grandma and Grandpa. The nickname can vary and is usually what ever the first grandchild comes up with.)

Thank you for sending me this ask! Stuff like this actually inspires me so this was wonderful. Hopefully this helps. (Now to get back to work on my writing, I've been draggin' my feet again.)

[calvin-reads-problem-sleuth]

Doctor Who Season 2 Theory: The Davies Masterplan

This post contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Doctor Who "Season 2" / Series 15 / Season 41. If you haven't seen it yet, go do it, because A) it's really damn good and B) this post will make literally zero sense if you haven't seen it.

So I haven't used my blog in a long time, but I feel like I need to in order to share this deranged theory, partly so I can point and scream at it if I get it right and partly to get this madness out of my head. I came up with this idea a few days ago while spitballing theories with one of my friends, and while part of it was originally floated as a joke, the more I listened the more I realized how much actual evidence there actually was for at least parts of it.

Right now, as far as I've observed, there are two big mysteries going on in the season: the identity and plans of Mrs. Flood; and the nature of the weirdness going on with Belinda. Well, in this theory, I'm going to do my best to lay out my IMO fairly plausible guesses as to both of those things, as well as my absolutely unhinged speculation as to how these two might dovetail together into possibly the wildest plot twist this series has ever seen.

PART 1: The Case of Mrs. Flood

Right off the bad, Mrs. Flood is the most obvious mystery of the new RTD era as a whole. She's been present since "The Church on Ruby Road", reoccurred occasionally in Season 1, and now is an every-episode occurrence in Season 2. She also feels... weird in a way that most of the other antagonists in the era- even the more surreal ones like the Pantheon members- don't. She's REPEATEDLY addressed the audience directly, and while the first couple of those could be interpreted as happening in dubiously-canon stingers, the most recent one happens mid-episode, implying her ability to break the fourth wall is in some way a canon ability for her.

So what the hell do we make of her?

I think the most obvious thing we can say is that she almost has to be someone we know. The show isn't going to spend two seasons plus change building up the identity of this mystery character if it's ultimately someone or something we've never heard of. We also know for a fact that RTD loves to bring back antagonists from the Classic Series as big reveals. The Daleks, the Cybermen, the Master, Davros, the Toymaker, and most recently Sutekh... while many of them had their return spoiled by marketing, all of them have been used by RTD as a major plot twist, mostly in a season finale. I would bet actual money this is a returning foe.

We also know that she's almost certainly a time traveler. Her moving next door to Belinda could maybe have been shrugged off with mundane means, but her presence in "Lux" and "The Well" basically rules that out. I guess technically speaking this could be another Clara or Susan Triad situation where there are a bunch of different Mrs. Floods scattered wherever the Doctor goes, but I don't think that's going to be the case; whatever your thoughts on RTD, he's not dumb enough to use the EXACT same plot twist two seasons in a row. She has to be following them- or at least traveling widely within the same range as them- meaning she has a TARDIS or similar method of space-time travel stashed away somewhere.

Most peculiar, though, is the sheer amount she knows about the Doctor. It's not just that she's researched him; she almost seems to know minute details about the activities he is doing right now. When she goes to free Conrad in "Lucky Day", she not only knows that the Doctor just had a conversation with him, but seems to imply she knows what was said. When she shows up in "Lux", she makes a nod to the same May 24th anomaly that the Doctor discovered mere hours earlier, before she could possibly have overheard him. She also ends Season 1 by making a bold declaration about the "end" of the Doctor's story, implying outright foreknowledge. But perhaps most damning, however, is the fact that she knows the device Fifteen is using to get Belinda home is called a Vindicator, a name the Doctor literally came up with on the spot. All this leaves us with a person who doesn't just know the Doctor's past, but also his present AND- to some extent- his future.

So, what does this add up to?

When I first tried to speculate about her identity, for a while I tried to pin her down as the Rani. After all, she's probably the most famous Classic Series villain who has yet to make any appearance in the New Series. And admittedly, I was kind of feeling it when she made her speech about storming the gates of heaven in the Season 1 finale. But... it just doesn't seem to fit, especially after the last couple episodes. The Rani is the prototypical mad scientist character, obsessed with logic and knowledge, ready to throw ethics to the winds in pursuit of discovery. By contrast, there's something... ethereal- almost darkly whimsical in a way- about Mrs. Flood, this kindly-looking old lady who talks directly to the audience while giving ominous warnings about the future. As much as I wanted to jump on the Rani hype train once again, I just don't see that being the answer. Plus, on a meta level, the Rani's stories aren't exactly the most well-remembered in retrospect, and it feels like it would be quite risky to bring her back when by all accounts the executives are already looking for an eject button.

Who does that leave? The Master? Well, I guess we can't rule it out; they do have a habit of turning up where we least expect them, and we did get his return teased in "The Giggle". But it just doesn't feel right; it doesn't answer most of the questions around her, mainly the fourth wall issues and her knowledge of the Doctor's near future. But I think we're on the right track suspecting a Time Lord; after all, Gallifrey may be gone again now, but there was a major gap between its return at the end of Series 9 and its newest destruction at the start of Series 12, and anyone could have snuck off it then. Notably, the subtitles for "Lucky Day" notably capitalize her line claiming to be "the Governor", so I guess it's also technically possible she's just an entirely new renegade Time Lord we've never seen before.

But that got me thinking: aside from the Rani, who is the other most famous antagonist from the Classic Series who has yet to make even a single appearance in the New Series? One who would have every reason to know about the Doctor's future in detail, and one who we know is more than willing to dedicate an inordinate amount of time and resources to hunting him down?

The Valeyard. It may seem out of nowhere, but it would neatly explain everything.

Why does she seem intent on opposing the Doctor? Self-explanatory if she's the Doctor's vengeful dark side.

Why does she know so much about the Doctor's present and future? Because she might well have already lived it; we still don't really know for sure how far in the future the Valeyard originated from. In particular, this would explain why she knows about the Doctor's speech to Conrad, because it was a moment where he engaged in his darker impulses (as much as Conrad absolutely deserved it, telling someone the age at which they're going to die alone in prison is still objectively kinda fucked up).

How is she traveling through time? Either the Doctor's own TARDIS at a different point in its timeline or another one the Valeyard used after escaping at the end of "The Ultimate Foe". (Yes, I know that Big Finish made a canon sequel that ends with him defeated for good, but this would hardly be the first time the TV show contradicted parts of Big Finish.)

It would also explain why she was wearing what looks like Romana I's coat- a coat that would presumably still be in the TARDIS- in the ending of "Empire of Death".

And hell, it would be awfully appropriate for the Valeyard's dramatic return to TV to be A) right as the show is seemingly facing the looming threat of potential cancellation again and B) against the Doctor that was born from bigeneration.

"But wait!" I hear you exclaim. "What about the fourth wall breaks??" And yes, that is definitely the weak link. But consider this: as far as I am aware, there are only two sets of characters on this show who have repeatedly broken the fourth wall in the past. One is the Pantheon (and I will revisit that idea later), but the other is the Doctor themself. It's most obvious with his "I thought that was non-diegetic!" comment back in "The Devil's Chord", but that's not the only time: "Lux" not only reveals that he apparently recognizes episode names like "Blink", but also has him shout "Cut!" and then wonder to the audience who he's talking to. And while it may be a stretch- and few people alive today have seen it in person- "The Dalek's Master Plan" famously has an episode end with the First Doctor turning to the audience and wishing them a happy Christmas. What I am saying is, there is precedent for the Doctor breaking the fourth wall... and thus, presumably, the same could potentially be true of the Valeyard.

So that's my first theory: Mrs. Flood is a new incarnation of the Valeyard, and she's involved in an elaborate revenge plan on the Doctor. And buckle up, because the theories are only going to get wilder from here.

PART 2: The Case of Belinda Chandra

Alright, here we have the part of this theory that made me decide I needed to make this post. I might very well be jumping at shadows, but on the off chance I'm right, I want the receipts to point to the fact that I called it.

So, Belinda Chandra. The big mystery surrounding her is, of course, what is preventing the Doctor from getting her back to May 24th, 2025, and why Earth and the human race appear to have ceased to exist on that day. But that's not the only weird thing about Belinda's circumstances; even though it's not as obvious as with Clara or even Ruby, there's something odd about her situation. Though the Doctor agreed to drop the subject, it's still VERY weird that Belinda's descendant 3000 years removed is so suspiciously identical to her as to be played by the same actress; if they had just shrugged it off as "Hey, you look like her" I could have assumed it didn't mean anything, but the fact that they specifically had the Doctor highlight how unusual it is makes me raise an eyebrow. And while I'm definitely not the only one to point this out, it's worth reiterating that Belinda refers to the Doctor's ship as "the TARDIS" before he ever calls it that on-screen in her earshot. Could he have told her off-screen? Yes, absolutely. But that's a weird detail to leave out, considering how much the series loves to show a new companion getting introduced to the TARDIS.

Now, there's no easy way to ramp into what I'm going to say next. So I think I'm just going to get right into the realization I had the other night that blew my mind so hard that the entire rest of this theory materialized almost fully-formed in my head.

Take a look at our new companion's name: "Belinda Chandra". Now rearrange it with the last name first, like you might see in a database or on some kind of form: "Chandra, Belinda". Do you see anything yet? If not, here's a visual aid:

The first six letters of "HARBINGER", not just all together, but in the right order. All it would take would be her middle name being "Georgina" or "Geraldine" or something else with the letters "GER" in that order- or hell, even having her name be said in a context like "Chandra, Belinda, danger"- and you have the full word.

Am I being paranoid? Almost definitely. But in my defense, I am paranoid by design. So far RTD has snuck "Harbinger" past me twice: once with Harriet (which was admittedly kind of cheating because we never knew her last name), and once with the movie sign. I'm not letting it slip by me again. I am laser-focused for anything that could be shortened to "HARBINGER". And I do not think it is a coincidence that Belinda just so happens to have those letters in her name.

To be clear, I do not think that Belinda knows she's a Harbinger. I think everything she has said to the Doctor is the complete truth, and that she has full memories of her life as a human. If anything, I think she's more like the Susan Triad copies: full individuals who have lived whole lives until the moment their deity needed them. (Yes, I know Susan Triad wasn't technically a Harbinger, but she served more or less the same role as one, so I'm counting her.) I think Belinda is a sleeper agent who will be activated as soon as the Pantheon deity who created her needs her. Maybe Mundy was another version of the same Harbinger who never got that chance, or maybe she really is just a descendant of Belinda and the weird genetic stuff is because of her being a sort of divine creation.

So that's the other theory I think is actually semi-plausible: Belinda is unknowingly the Harbinger of an unspecified Pantheon member.

But now that we have both of these building blocks, we can dive headfirst into the TRUE madness that's kept me up at night the last two days, the theory that will be either the most unhinged, off-base thing I've ever said or the most buckwild called shot in my years of theorizing about pop culture.

PART 3: The Case of the Doctor

The more I thought about the fourth wall issue, the more my mind drifted back to the Pantheon. Aside from the Doctor, they're the only characters in my memory to have this sort of relationship with the fourth wall, and it tends to be WAY stronger with them. With the exception of Sutekh, almost all of the Pantheon members since RTD took back over have had some kind of interaction with the fourth wall: Maestro played the theme song; Lux created mostly-accurate representations of the fandom, implying he knows the actual fandom; and while not seen in the episode itself, the novelization of "The Giggle" has the Toymaker get into a whole conversation about the BBC's rights to the Spice Girls song he sings.

Why is it only these two groups? Why only the Doctor and the Pantheon? If it was just one or the other I could almost shrug it off as a recurring gag, but what is the connective tissue there? Why does the Doctor know the names of real-life episodes? How can he hear the background music? Why does he seem to know where the cameras are to say "Cut" to? Why can he do this thing that only members of the Pantheon can do?

Unless... maybe... just maybe... the Doctor is a Pantheon member, without even realizing it.

I know, I know. This feels like an even crazier version of the Timeless Child reveal, the one that ripped the fandom asunder with furious arguments over its handling. But by the same token... that's kind of what makes this possible. Like it or not, the Timeless Child reveal is still canon; the discussion of it in "Wild Blue Yonder" and "The Church on Ruby Road" confirms that beyond doubt. And now we have a great big mystery left hanging from it: where did the Timeless Child come from? What was on the other side of that portal? Sure, Tecteun said during Flux that they came from the other universe she was trying to move the Division to, but she could easily have been lying, or else merely assuming that to be the case. We have no earthly idea where the Child came from, and the EU has already started dropping some wild ideas (like that one novel which implied that they may or may not have been a Great Vampire). If the show is really in such danger, why not go one step further?

This is where we start to get into the realm where my deranged theories are fueled less by evidence and more by pure vibes. It just feels right, like it's what the last couple seasons- hell, last SEVERAL seasons if we count Chibnall's arc- have been building up to. It would explain the fourth wall commonality. It would explain how the Doctor was able to summon the Pantheon into the universe with a simple invocation of a superstition: he's on the same level as them. It would explain how he's apparently able to set rules for the entire Pantheon. Hell, the name "The Doctor" fulfills the same pattern of "The [X]" used by every Pantheon member except Maestro and Lux (even Sutekh spent most of the season under the given name of "The One Who Waits").

And going off of the previous theory about Belinda, it would tie directly into her role in all this. She's not just a Harbinger, she's the Doctor's Harbinger, thrust into his path right as he's about to rediscover who they really are. Hell, an argument could be made that all of the Doctor's companions, on top of their previously established relationships, have unknowingly also served as pseudo-Harbingers, assigned- either subconsciously by him or by the universe as a whole- into the role of a figure who should be there but isn't. They often serve as go-betweens for humanity to interact more comfortably with this effectively all-knowing ancient being.

Of course, that raises the question, what would the Doctor be the god of? That's where we enter realms of speculation where even I don't venture. But if I had to guess, I would say the God of Time. Aside from the obvious connections, we know that the Time Lords reverse-engineered regeneration from the Timeless Child, and regeneration in general feels like a sort of mirror to history itself: the Doctor changes form and personality while remaining the same fundamental person, just like how history rarely repeats exactly but constantly returns to certain recurring patterns, recycling ideas over and over again. And for that matter, it feels a bit odd that Sutekh- a being who we know for a FACT was not originally a member of the Pantheon- is somehow considered their leader and progenitor. Almost as if he stole a seat intended for someone else...

And for those who are still shaking their heads and scoffing at my admittedly insane theory, allow me to make one last Hail Mary pass at convincing you. See, most of the Pantheon members of the last few seasons have been accompanied by a certain sound: that seven-note pattern, rising and falling, rising and falling. The Toymaker had it, Maestro had it, Lux had it... at this point it's safe to say that it's a hallmark of the Pantheon as a whole.

And the thing is, the Doctor has been accompanied by a certain sound from the very beginning. A sound that rises and falls in a rhythmic pattern, just like the Giggle.

Just imagine it. The reveal happens. The Doctor is confronted with the truth of their origins. And as Fifteen and the audience process it, we hear the sound of the TARDIS's engines... except stretched out into seven segments. A rise and a fall. An arpeggio. A song. A laugh.

"Ha-ha-HA-HA-HA-ha-ha!"

That, right there, is my big, bold swing: the Timeless Child was, and the Doctor is by extension, the God of Time. The finale will involve Fifteen being made aware of this, briefly regaining that power, and then sealing it away again because he prefers to just be who the Doctor has always believed themselves to be: a simple traveler in time and space, passing through, helping out.

I'll be honest, that was originally where I was going to end the post. This has already gotten insanely long and taken several hours to write, and quite frankly there is more than enough here to serve as my receipts for if I'm right (and evidence to have me committed if I'm wrong). But while I was working on this theory, I somehow stumbled ass-backwards into another one, and it's too goddamn good an idea for me to let go of now. So what the hell, let's move on to the ACTUAL final section...

PART 4: The Case of May 24th

Okay, so we have a theory outlined for who all the individual major players are. The Doctor is the God of Time, Belinda is his Harbinger, and Mrs. Flood is the Valeyard, which technically makes her part of the Pantheon as well (and thus neatly explains her own ability to break the fourth wall). But I can't help but feel like we've forgotten something. We've failed to address the single biggest, most obvious driving question of the season: why can't the Doctor take Belinda home? What mysterious force is preventing the TARDIS from landing on May 24th, 2025? What has wiped Earth and the human race out of the timeline in the future? What, ultimately, is Mrs. Flood planning- or, if she's not responsible, what does she know?

I'll be honest: what I am about to say is maybe the most unhinged sentence in this post, and I say that in full knowledge of the fact that I just a few paragraphs earlier suggested that the Doctor is a literal deity. Normally even I wouldn't dare suggest something this absurdly out-there, but the more I stare at the evidence, the more plausible it seems. So here goes:

I believe that the event which is preventing Belinda and the Doctor from getting back to Earth is, in-universe, the cancellation of Doctor Who.

At this point I have almost certainly (and quite frankly rightly) lost the suspension of disbelief of anyone who, by some miracle, is still reading this post. I know, it's a buckwild concept. This would be EASILY the most surreal, bizarre thing the series has ever done, maybe in any medium, and certainly in the TV show. But pretending for just a moment that someone is still with me, allow me to lay out my evidence:

The date of "Wish World" airing being the same date the Earth is seemingly destroyed seems significant. They could have picked the same date the premier aired- that way it would make sense as the day Belinda left from- but no, they chose to set the episode about two months in the future just to have the date line up with the penultimate episode. Yes, I know Moffat did that too in Series 5 and it didn't lead to any meta shenanigans, but the amount of direct fourth wall breaks makes this alignment feel... different, somehow.

On that front, this would be the perfect culmination of the fourth wall breaking shenanigans that the Pantheon have been involved in. We've gone from the Maestro playing the theme song (something Twelve also did, by the way, in case you needed any more parallels to the Pantheon) to Lux straight-up trapping the Doctor in a room with Doctor Who fans. The Pantheon are straight-up metafictional entities; the Doctor even describes them as "forces beyond this universe" that "look down" on reality, which is the perfect way to describe individuals operating on a higher layer of narrative than the Whoniverse. What better way could there be to top this off than with the Doctor fighting against the very forces of executive disapproval that are threatening to erase his universe's future?

And speaking of Mrs. Flood, she practically spells this out in "Lux". When the Doctor and Belinda disappear in the TARDIS, she warns one of the onlookers that the show has a "limited run" and ends on May 24th. Yes, in context she's doing wordplay about the theatrical setting of the episode and the fact that the Earth apparently gets destroyed on that date, but Mrs. Flood is also a character who is aware of the audience; she would know the potential double meaning there. If a character like her starts saying shit like "the show's ending soon", I start looking for a meta angle.

The erasure of humanity also feels like something very, very odd for the Whoniverse. It's made clear numerous times that humans are practically ubiquitous in the far future. They're by far the most populous of the remaining sapient species by the end of time. They spread out across the cosmos and never stop. Them being erased from history without the Doctor noticing the change simply makes no sense. Sure, we've seen alternate timelines where humanity gets wiped out (Pyramids of Mars), and we've seen incidents where the Doctor arrives only after time has already been changed (The Long Game), but both at the same time?? And such a MASSIVE alteration that would no doubt prevent countless fixed points in time from ever coming to pass?? No, whatever did this is FAR beyond anything we've ever seen.

And finally, this feels like the most fitting possible conflict for the season finale's title: "The Reality War". As in, a war against "reality". A conflict not against an in-universe foe, but against forces within the real world: the forces of executive meddling and fan negativity that threaten to pull the plug on the show just like in 1989. In fact, this is the kind of story that could ONLY be told right here, right now: when the presence of the Pantheon allows the series to tell more fantastical stories than ever before, and when the rumors of cancellation are swirling faster than usual. And hey, if the show is already treading water with the executives, why not go out with the biggest bang imaginable?

And thus, we arrive at the end of my theories. I'm taking a gamble, and I'm calling my shot. If I'm wrong, I will sit with pride upon my throne of shame. But if somehow I am right- if I somehow manage to guess the biggest, most insane twist in the history of the show- then I want you all to remember that you fucking heard it here first.

The season finale will involve the Valeyard, in the form of Mrs. Flood, attempting to get Doctor Who cancelled in order to spite the Doctor, only for the day to be saved by the Doctor, God of Time, with the aid of his Harbinger, Belinda Geraldine(?) Chandra.

And with that, I can no longer justify dragging this post out any longer. Thank you all for coming to my TARDIS Talk.

[1moreff-creator]

Theory: Mai Akasaki’s Sixteen Killers

The theory that everyone in DRDT’s killing game is responsible for the death of Mai Akasaki. 

If you’ve been around the DRDT theorizing sphere, you might have caught sight of a very particular thought floating around; that one way or another, everyone in the killing game is responsible for Mai’s death. It comes up every now and then, so I figured I'd throw in my own take on the matter. Let’s pull a Poirot, and solve this Murder on not-quite-an Orient Express!

CW: Murder, suicide, poison, mentions of religion

The Prologue: Mai is Dead? Who is Mai?!

Alright but maybe I should explain who the hell I'm talking about for the uninformed :v

Mai Akasaki is a more or less secret character, who’s only had nine seconds of screen time in the main series (Teruko’s dream in 1-6), but is most likely Unnamed Classmate from the Bonus Episodes. A full introduction and several important theories I believe about her can be found in my Mai post. Although some parts of that post are outdated, it gives what I consider to be a good overview of everything we know about her. 

But in case you don’t feel like reading 15k words of rambling about this cryptid of a character, here’s quick summary:

-Probably part of Hope’s Peak East Class 27, classmate to most if not all the cast. After all, she’s Unnamed Classmate from the BEs. 

-Really nice girl everyone adored like a god.

-Xander and her fucked around (presumably staging some kind of rebellion against Hope’s Peak).

-She found out (per Veronika’s Mai quote, “A for who didn’t foresee the consequences”). 

-Presumed dead. 

To elaborate on that last point, given it’s part of this post’s thesis, I’ll quickly show the evidence. 

Most explicit. Mai’s numeral XI (and if you don’t know what a numeral means in the context of LGI, or what a "Mai quote" is, I urge you to read my secrets masterpost. This isn't an entry level theory lol :v) shows up alongside “God is dead,” alongside with an arrow pointing at Mai’s portrait when the word “God” shows up on screen. Not only that, this is the only grey numeral in the entire MV.

Then, just one line afterwards, the Kubler-Ross model of the five stages of grief shows up, a model often associated with death.

Even more evidence: the flowers in her tattoo are probably Mai flowers, a discovery by the-fox-in-the-socks. These flowers are associated with the legend of a girl named Mai who, among other things, died. Read their post for full clarification. 

So… yeah. Mai’s dead. But, can we really claim the cast is to blame?

The Basis: Someone’s Fault

There is currently one person in the cast who is heavily suspected to be in some way responsible for Mai’s death, two more who I brought up in my Mai post as likely candidates as well, and even more which have looser connections to her death. 

Teruko - Via Second Anniversary Art.

This gif shows Mai’s gloves disappearing from the top of a frame otherwise containing only Teruko, and in the middle flashes a code that (by rearranging the “rows” of the columns in numerical order) translates to “It’s all your fault.” So, Teruko at least is probably implicated, presumably through her luck if nothing else.

Xander? - Via Sixth Bullet

The LGI MV tells us there are six bullets to find, with the hint that we can’t actually find all of them. Indeed, only five bullets can be found. However, that could lead someone to speculate that the sixth bullet is loaded in the gun. Said weapon is labeled “(not a) prop gun”, connecting it to Xander, and aimed, while not directly at the Mai portrait, still too close for comfort. The idea here is that Xander might be considered responsible for her death because it was his idea to rebel against Hope’s Peak, and that may be what got her killed. If that makes no sense to you, again, please read the Mai post, I've already written too much about this girl to repeat myself too much T_T

Whit? - Via Tetraphobia

When Whit’s numeral XV appears on screen, we also get the instruction “subtract 4, due to tetraphobia.” XV - 4 = XI, which is Mai’s numeral, again “God is dead.” This could connect Whit to her death, with the idea being that he’s Whit so if there’s a way to look suspicious he’ll take it. That is to say, I actually don’t know how Whit could be connected to Mai’s death :p The only way to salvage Whit’s innocence in regards to Mai is to assume the tetraphobia thing is meant to connect him to footnote 11 instead of numeral XI, but footnote 11 is the Diana one, and while there’s ways to make that work, theorizing about Diana is genuinely harder than theorizing on Mai. So, for the purposes of the post, we’re gonna ignore that connection to Diana, and say that this could connect Whit to Mai. 

Ace??? - Via Highlighted Text

This is the most recent allegation to come up, and it’s based on an observation regarding Eden’s dialogue in 2-16.

Eden [2-16]: I never said that I forgave him. It's just that... The Ace I met for the first time wasn't a murderer.

The bolded text is peculiar. While it could just be for emphasis, it’s also possible it’s bolded to bring attention to it because it’s an assumption which is wrong. As in, Ace was a killer since the start of the killing game. If that’s not about Taylor (which it very well could be considering Ace’s dialogue, let's not ignore that), it could be about Mai. 

Veronika??? - Via Mai Quote

Veronika's Mai quote: A girl who didn't foresee the consequences.

Hers is the one that references consequences, after all!

Yep, that's the full connection.

David???? - Via Mai Quote Order

His Mai quote is the only one after Veronika’s in the Mai order given by the source code of Mai’s page, an order which has not been entirely forgotten. This could maybe make him suspicious if you squint harder than anyone’s ever squinted before. Does this one even make sense to anyone who is not me? Who knows.

Min????? - Via Footnote 6

Footnote 6, “[Prayer]”, flashes on screen at the same time Min’s numeral X is there.

Since Mai is a “God” in the MV, the prayer goes to the God, the scene is referencing Min’s murder kinda through the trial… Yeah this is uber weak. It’s kinda similar to saying Eden’s suspicious because her Mai quote makes no sense; just because it’s weird doesn’t mean it can be cleanly connected to the Agenda.

Yeah that’s kinda it. But, if only a few characters are being even tangentially connected to Mai’s death, how is it possible that everyone is catching an allegation? Well…

The Thread: Rule 14 & “Murder on Orient Express”

“Rule 14: All murderers must be held accountable for their crimes."

The strange wording in this rule has been a topic of speculation for a while. You could take it to mean that blackeneds who lose trials get executed, but then it wouldn’t be “all murderers,” it would just be “the murderers who get found.” Thus, the theory that there could have been multiple murderers in the cast even before the killing game properly started was born.

This is especially notable given a recent reveal: MonoTV's purpose.

MonoTV (DefaultTV) [2-16]: But there is no reason for me to punish Ace a second time. That would fail to serve my purpose. Ace: What? Charles: Your purpose? DefaultTV: Naturally. To run this killing game until the death of every participant.

There is no rule that states anything along the lines of "everyone has to be dead by the end," not directly. That is, of course, unless Rule 14 applies to everyone. If all murderers must be held accountable for their crimes, and everyone in the cast is (by some loose definition of the word) a murderer, then it follows that MonoTV would be designed to "punish" (read: kill) each and every one of them.

And this isn’t the only allusion to the possibility. The next topic to cover would be “A Murder on Orient Express.” Uh, spoilers for the book, but it’s a murder mystery where the big twist is that every suspect, every passenger in the train, had a part in the death of the victim. 

How is this connected to DRDT? Well, for starters, it’s one of the books referenced in LGI, with three appearances; one is just a reference to the David reveal, but the other two are more notable, one being attached to Teruko’s numeral XIII and the other directly preceding the “democratic-ly” shot, which directly references the killing game. A connection to the protagonist, the “main antagonist” and the killing game itself could be noteworthy…

If this wasn’t LGI. Teruko’s numeral is also attached to text from “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” the David scene has references to “Dogra Magra” and “No Longer Human,” and if it’s just about number of appearances, Hamlet has a whopping eight showings. If showing up in LGI was all these stories needed to be considered plot relevant, we’d need to figure out a connection to, like, a million other books, a scientific paper and several Wikipedia articles.

No, the more relevant references to Murder on Orient Express actually come from the main series itself. For starters, Teruko references Agatha Christie in 1-1. 

Teruko [1-1]: Strychnine... I think that many mystery novels mention that sort of poison. A****a C******e uses it as the murder weapon in one of her books.

However, Agatha Christie has written more than one book. In fact, the book Teruko references is "The Mysterious Affair at Styles," which I researched but couldn't find any way to connect it to DRDT (unless the concept of double jeopardy somehow becomes important). No, we need something else to refer us to Murder on Orient Express.

Which gets us to the biggest connection between DRDT and the book itself. And because dev hates me, specifically, it’s of course, in Thrown to the Wolves. 

Like, really, why is this execution in particular the most theory relevant execution in the history of fangans? I take psychic damage every time I revisit 1-12 please save this poor Min fan-

The final question Min receives is “Who wrote the murder mystery novel Murder in the Calais Coach?”. And “Murder in the Calais Coach” is the US’ localization of “Murder on Orient Express.” Notably, this is the only time in the main series (as far as I remember) that a proper noun referring to a real thing isn’t censored with asterisks; TEDtalks, Agatha Christie, and Amazon have all been censored this way. 

Xander [to David, Prologue-2]: You're just as incredible in real life as you are in your T*****k videos!

MonoTV [2-14]: But ever since I ordered 100 tons of concrete blocks from Am***n, I have been blacklisted from all online order companies.

This gives us an explicit connection, at least. Sure, it’s not guaranteed to be important just because it showed up in Thrown to the Wolves (I doubt the Riemann Hypothesis or that one enzyme system are important to DRDT), but combined with the other Agatha Christie reference and the lack of asterisks, it really seems like this could truly be significant.

So we've drawn the link between the book and DRDT. Combining it with what we talked about earlier about Rule 14 and MonoTV's purpose, it really seems like there's a solid argument to say that the whole cast might be responsible for the death of one particular person. And if that's the case, because of what we talked about even earlier, it's very possible that refers to Mai's death specifically.

Further evidence is MonoTV's Mai quote, "It's all your fault." The fact that the mascot of the killing game is saying that on Mai's page already suggests a connection between Mai's death and the origins of the killing game, so combined with the fact the purpose of this game is killing all its participants, it can potentially be taken as further evidence for the "Mai on the Orient Express" theory.

Now, to be clear, even with all of this, the evidence is... extremely loose. Understandably so; Mai and the killing game's origins are series wide mysteries which likely won't even get close to being solved until much later, so any theory which connects them is going to lack any amount of truly significant evidence. However, I feel there's enough there to at least consider it for the time being, and to keep the possibility in mind going forward. That's kinda the thesis of the post basically, "keep this in mind in case it comes up again" :v

As an add on though:

Alternative Theory: Unique Victims

Also known as: Holy shit is that a motherfucking Milgram reference?!!??!?

The idea here is that instead of everyone being responsible for Mai's death in some abstract manner, they all each killed at least one person before the killing game, but they each have different victims. "Killed" by a very loose metric, mind you, where being partially responsible for someone's suicide counts as murder in the eyes of the killing game organizers for some reason. This would be consistent with the previously mentioned Rule 14 interpretation, though the connection to Murder on Orient Express is notably weaker, as you need to generalize "everyone is responsible for the death of one particular person" to "everyone is responsible for someone's death." The advantage it has over the other theory is that we have a better idea of what each person's murder could be:

-Levi killed four people, that one's easy.

-Arturo blames himself for Felicity's death, at least.

-Min poisoned her competition. Potentially non-lethally, but potentially lethally as well.

-Teruko still probably holds some responsibility in Mai's death, or at least believes she does.

-Ace has been implied to blame himself for Taylor's death.

-Charles and Whit have Elliot and Elizabeth respectively. We don't know the full context of those two's deaths, so Charles and Whit could be responsible technically somehow.

-Veronika's done something worse than her motive secret implied, which could be murder. There's no evidence for it, but you know, it's possible.

-We know less than zero about Diana, to the point it's not impossible to make a theory that David caused her death.

-Xander has survivor's guilt... It's really not the same thing but y'know. You can kinda twist it into self-blame for death.

-Maybe Eden tried to kill Xander when she gouged out his eye? (Again sorry if you don't know what I'm talking about, should've read my secrets masterpost :p). If the cast calls Nico a murderer for attempted murder, then this could work. Technically.

-Hu attempted suicide. This is the biggest stretch in history, but there's some way to call Hu her own murderer with the same idea as before, that attempted murder still makes you a murderer. You know, ignoring that attempting suicide is completely different from murder. I'm trying, okay?

-Maybe Arei ruining her sisters' lives can be considered murder? Absolutely not, but again, I'm trying.

-If J, Rose and/or Nico killed someone before the killing game, it's never been implied. So, yeah. We're cooked on that front.

There's admittedly more set up for it than I'd realized before writing all that, but it's still not particularly perfect. I'll point to Arei as a particularly big problem for this theory, because there's almost no way for us to easily learn that she's killed someone now that she's dead, assuming her secret isn't somehow considered murder. Not to mention that Rose would probably have her murder as her secret if she remembers doing it. That, alongside with the Mai theory's closer connection to Murder on Orient Express, is why this post is mostly focused on said Mai theory; I find that to be the stronger possibility.

But of course, that's just my opinion. These theories are highly speculative and very likely to be wrong, but I wanted to get them out there somewhere. Hope you enjoyed them, and thanks for reading! If you made it this far, then you deserve a copy of Murder on Orient Express to read... or something like that. See ya'!

[witchthewriter]

𝑫𝒓𝒂𝒈𝒐𝒏 𝑫𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚

𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐨𝐧 | 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒕𝒘𝒐.

⤷ gender neutral, Valyrian blood (dragon rider), and any size reader. Requests are open, thank you for reading!

a/n: so I realised I didn't exactly go with the 'how they show their love'. Instead, I've changed it to general headcanons w/ your bonded dragon (because I can talk about a whole lot more!)

ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ | ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ ᴵᴵ

𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐅𝐘𝐑𝐄

・Also known as 'The Mother of Dragons', her pale blue scales shone with silver detailing, giving an almost shimmering appearance.

・30% Aggressive, 35% Loving, 15% Graceful, 20% Wise

・A mother hen sometimes; won't fly until you've had something to eat, you MUST have your water satchel at all times

・Her favourite food is lamb, she cannot stand pig. Even if there isn't anything else to eat, she would rather starve. You have no idea why she's like that.

・LOVES the water, absolutely adores waterfalls in particular. That's where she likes flying off to.

・It's mind-blowing to see a dragon swim, a lizard-like head bobbing up and down. Making happy noises as she floats in the crystal-like water

・She's actually one of the dragons who does like to collect things. In can range from precious jewels to gold to shells to things she's found while swimming

・You bring her things if you've been away (she doesn't like when you don't visit her at least daily)

・But she forgives you when she sees the sack full of *things*

𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐘𝐒

・Known as 'The Red Queen,' in her youth, she was the fastest dragon in all of Westeros.

・When she was younger, and being trained; she excelled. So much so, that others wondered if she could become the next Balerion.

・Because it isn't just about brute strength, but understanding commands, connecting with what needs to be done etc. Some dragons learn the art of war, and others just ... participate in wars.

・That's why your father pushed you so hard to train. It wasn't to experience difficult situations, but to understand how Meleys would react to them. And in turn, she learned how you react.

・You and Meleys became known for your victories, for if there is a battle, or even a war, you and Meleys are called in.

・Meleys does not like to be touched by anyone but you - so you're the one who bathes her, who tends to her wounds.

・Meleys is very graceful, and likes to be preened. Especially the crown of thorns that grow from her head. With each year they seem to get stronger and larger.

𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐗𝐄𝐒

・The most unique-looking dragon to ever exist in Westeros. And you love that about him.

・His elongated neck is one of your favourite features about him (he was a bit insecure about it when he was younger. His appearance freaked out not only other people, but the other dragons. Who basically shunned him

・He wasn't allowed in the Dragonpits because too many wanted to fit him.

・But Syrax, she was his only friend. Well, besides you...Well, you're his family.

・Both of you are loners, but intimidating loners. That's how you became the most formiddable pair. All that time together.

・Because then you started to move in connection with one another. Like magnets. Foreseeing each other's decisions, and being able to react; this connection makes it so easy to win battles.

・Even against other dragons and dragonriders, they just don't seem to be on your level.

・Caraxes is very warm, moreso than the other dragons as well. It may be because of his colouring, the fact that his fire is also so hot it melts men in armour where they stand. It might also be because his neck changes how his fire sits within him.

・Either way, it makes for a great help in the Winter when you're shivering, while in the clouds, flying.

𝐒𝐘𝐑𝐀𝐗

・Willful and stubborn, Syrax doesn't like flying unless the weather is nice.

・She LOVES being doted upon. Call her a good girl and she's yours.

・However, she does have a quick temper

・And doesn't like her limits pushed

・Understands when something is important, i.e., when she has to be used as a weapon (she likes using her fire - bit of a pyromaniac)

・She shows her love by flying you to the outlands of King's Landing or Dragstone. You love being near the water, with the sun beating down on you.

・Syrax is impatient though and you have to find a place where she can fall asleep underneath shade

・Snorts when she scares someone

・Syrax HATES when she gets dirty, and demands to be bathed every day

・Training her was actually a nightmare. She has the capacity to learn a lot but just doesn't have the ambition

・She had to be bribed with food, basically all the time.

𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐌𝐎𝐊𝐄

・More of an introverted personality. Doesn't care for warfare, but trains when he has to. But when it comes to you, he will fight til the very end.

・Extremely loyal, doesn't like being away from you for very long

・And is the second best looking dragon in all of Westeros

・But you always tell him that he's the prettiest boi the world has ever seen

・The difference between Sunfyre and Seasmoke is that Sunfyre knows he's a hottie and loves the attention. Seasmoke doesn't care for the cheers of the crowd

・Seasmoke is a lot less self-indulged

・He does love being near the water. Definitely has Pisces energy about him.

・The pink frills behind his neck are very ticklish and once nearly shook you off because you wouldn't stop tickling them.

・He prefers to eat fish over anything

・And you actually made him a pearl necklace from all the oysters he finds while diving into the ocean

𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐅𝐘𝐑𝐄

・The most beautiful dragon to ever grace Westeros.

・Known as 'Sunfyre the Golden.'

・Well that's what the Maesters had written in the history records

・Sunfyre is very stunning

・With gleaming gold scales that seem to create sunspots when the sun hits them

・His wings are pink entwined with gold. Pearlescent white showing here and there.

・Crowds flock to see Sunfyre

・And both you and Sunfyre love flying above those crowds, hearing the cheers as you swoop low and show off

・However, even though he loves being complimented, he mostly just wants to be loved. Adored. He hates being on his own, and absolutely loves when you sleep beside him.

・He will tug on your clothes when he's bored; but one time he accidentally bit you and you were so grumpy with him.

・To make up for it, he had brought back a dead sheep (in dragon language that means " I'm sorry " )

𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐍

・One of the younger dragons, she is known as 'The Blue Queen.' Her name is after a Valyrian goddess. One of power and glory.

・But you just know her as Tess, and she nudges you whenever you do so

・She's your best friend, and you're hers.

・For a dragon, she's very reliable and down to earth (major metaphorical sense for the latter)

・Her appearance is nearly completely blue, with touches of pearlescent white on her horns. Her eyes are a glowing blue as is her flame.

・Very good around children, and has actually allowed one to touch her snout.

・Has a thirst for adventure and you show your love by allowing her her freedom

・Never chaining her in the dragonpit, your only command is not to go too far when she might be needed.

・She actually loves flying at night, and keeps herself steady so you can watch the stars