#Prophetic thoughts

[propheticfire]

Happy Ides of March to all who celebrate

[hitwiththetmnt]

12 Donnie has some words for MM Leo if he’s gonna survive the writing room

[larkspurglove]

One of my favourite moments from watching NPMD with my friends was that one of them always managed to time their questions awfully to the point it was accidental perfect comedic timing.

The funniest one was when Dan Reynolds came on screen and they asked ‘who is that’ and I kid you not Joey sang the iconic ‘I am Dan Reynolds’ line the moment they finished speaking

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

Crowley: that's the trouble with you lot. you tend to see things in black and white. sometimes... you just got to blur the edges. Aziraphale: well, maybe there is something to be said for... shades of grey? *raises glass* Crowley: *clinks glass with his* Crowley: to shades of gay. Aziraphale: what Crowley: what

. . . Crowley: dad please I fucked up cut that part out Neil: but crowley, he already- Crowley: PLEASE. Neil: Neil: *sighs* Neil: shades of dark grey? Crowley: sure anything that works thanks dad bye Neil: you know i can't keep sav- aaaand he's gone. Neil: disaster-coded.

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

The fact that you can play a Samurai in Elden Ring is fucking hilarious to me. Like, you’ve got all these other origins and they’ve got some sort of tie in to the world of the Lands Between. Heroes are descendants of Godfrey, Astrologers, Prophets, and all other sorts directly connected to the world or a faction in it.

And then there’s just... like... a Samurai. They’re not even from the Lands Between. They’re a silent protagonist because they don’t speak the fucking language. They have no idea how they got there. There’s one other person in the entire game who’s from where you’re from and he’s a fucking bounty hunter. You miss your horse.

[crown-ov-horns]

Lottie was right, the baby did change everything. Shauna lashed out at Lottie because of the baby's death. Everyone feared Lottie will die from her injuries, so they made a sacrifice to the Wilderness, unwilling to lose the Prophet. Thus, began the ritualistic hunting and eating of people. Once that seal was broken, they could not go back.

[figofswords]

planning a zelda dnd game with some friends yknow how it is

[cult-of-lambs]

worst part of being an overthinker is that i am usually right. (hate it when that happens)

[thedeafprophet]

1899 neathy world fair. what should be at the show, what are the limits using red science and the corespondence

The 1900 world fair in paris had a 'moving sidewalk' and 'electric train' as well as the Lumière brothers showing off their films. the 1904 one in St Louis had a wireless telephone apparently, and the early fax machine, as well as a showing of the x-ray machine, street cars, and planes.

[chynandri]

Lessons in cuteness 🫰❤️

[propheticfire]

After this is over, tumblr should give us a list of all the blogs you've booped, so you can revisit them. I've booped so many blogs I've never seen before in my booping frenzy and I don't even know if I would've liked to follow them or not. Wish I could go back and see them again.

[try-set-me-on-fire]

Growing up Buck always got parental love and attention when he when he was injured, so when Bobby (in Buck’s eyes) rejects him after the blood clots it was yanking a rug nobody knew was there out from under him…

[be-a-muslim-1st]

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

some facts about nightingales from your Official Good Omens mascot

I don't actually know much about what nightingales symbolise in the show, because I barely remember season 1 from the drug trip of the livestream, and I have no idea if they're also a symbol in season 2. But I do know that they don't usually sing, but uh, Aziraphale miracles them to? Anyway, have some fun facts.

Nightingales are migratory birds. Though they spend the summers in Europe, such as in London where Crowley and Aziraphale would see them, they fly to Africa during winters.

Kind of how Aziraphale left for Heaven, in a strange way. Or maybe... how the show itself left for warmer grounds, leaving all of you waiting, all of us waiting in "the winter of our discontent", as Shakespeare put it, for it to return. Leaving Crowley in the winter of his discontent waiting for his angel. It's not a clear metaphor. It's just an emotion, and they never make sense.

Nightingales return to Europe around April because that's where their mating grounds are.

No matter how many times Aziraphale is forced to go to Heaven, he will return to Crowley, because with Crowley it isn't just about surviving, it's about loving, about living. The nightingale goes to Africa to survive through the winter, just as Aziraphale probably went to Heaven to keep both him and Crowley safe. But he will return to the mating grounds, to home. Because life is a beautiful balance of surviving and living, sometimes all we can do is survive, and sometimes we have to remember to live.

Nightingales rarely survive in captivity. When captured for their beautiful birdsong, those that survived till the winter months couldn't live further. Because they would fly against the bars of the cage, following their migratory impulse, until their wings shattered.

Aziraphale had to leave, for them both to survive. The show's third season will take years to make, for it to remain the masterpiece that is so beloved. Beautiful things take time, and beautiful things cannot be controlled, or captured, or frozen in time. The angels must fly, lest their wings shatter and their songs be lost.

The nightingale's song is a mating call, when it finally returns home.

When the nightingale does sing again, it will mean that the time for surviving is over, and the time for living has begun. There will be nightingales once the danger has passed. Aziraphale will return to Crowley, and his song will be for his beloved demon.

No more nightingales? I think not. Yes, nightingales are endangered, because of captivity and their habitats ruined. But despite all their flaws, I think humans do love beauty. As long as they don't try to own it, and they build a world where beauty can make a home.

We will land safely, find peace, and then a nightingale will sing.

[brookheimer]

the one thing i feel pretty certain about for this episode is that america will not decide the election. a decision will be made, a president will be elected, but america will not be the deciding factor.

succession can’t mimic 2016 or 2020 point blank, that would be boring and have nothing to say. it can’t try to outdo trump because it’ll go too whacky and fall flat like veep’s last season (sorry conheads, no way he’s winning). but what it CAN do is illustrate the immensely corrupt, often arbitrary, and hugely influential nature of news media and conglomerations on political processes. i think probably jimenez will be in the lead, then atn/waystar does something to, i don’t know, discount votes or cast suspicion on jimenez or call the election for mencken early, and the tide will shift, even though the votes are already in. the votes don’t actually matter. the actual result doesn’t actually matter. that’s the power logan (and as an extension, billionaires and CEOs in general) hold. shiv says it herself to logan in s4e2: “just cause you say it’s true doesn’t make it true. everyone just fucking agrees with you and believes you, so it becomes true and then you can turn around and say like, 'oh, you see? see? i was right.'” but it doesn’t matter that logan’s “a human fucking gaslight,” everything he says comes true anyways. not because he was right, but because that’s how it works. he says things and then they happen, regardless of what the truth is or what should actually come to pass. that’s been one of the key throughlines since the very first episode of the entire show when, in response to kendall calling logan out of touch because times are changing and logan isn't changing with them, logan hisses that everyone always says you’re wrong until you do it and prove you were right: “you make your own reality.” you can't miss the bus if you're the one driving it. the election, the votes, the political process? none of that matters. it was always going to come down to the roys and their ilk (allies or enemies, just the top 1%) — that was the whole point of “what it takes” (the mencken episode) last season, after all.

i’ve seen lots of theories about what america will choose and how the candidates will respond and all that and i just don’t think that’s the show’s focus; i think the whole point is to demonstrate the lack of agency, the illusion of democracy. because, i mean, we’ve already seen the fall of democracy via fascist election and fascist election-denial, both in real life and in the countless (usually mid) satires created afterwards. it would be disappointing to see succession use the election to reiterate that same point of 'ohhh alt-right ahhhhh!!!' i don’t think it’ll be about ‘fascism’ at all — at least, not ‘trump-y’ fascism. it’ll be about fascism in the broader sense, the kind that doesn't sport a KKK hood (even when it keeps one tucked away in the attic). it's the fascism that every single roy (very much including shiv and kendall) aid and abet -- the fascism that so many succession fans don't seem to regard as fascism, despite it quite literally being the definition of fascism. trump wasn’t the entrance of fascism into our political process. he wasn’t the lone sign of the failing of american democracy. democracy in america has long been illusory, trump just made it more blatantly evident with his particular brand of hate-speech-ridden masculinist in-your-face fascism.

so i think that’s what this episode will hopefully focus on — america will not decide. corporations, news media, and the roys will. thus, the president will most likely become president not because the country supports his policies the most, but because he’s likely to agree to help block a business deal for a major media empire, and the other candidate is unlikely to. and this will likely come to pass due to said major media empire's interference and influence: they create their own reality. they say it, and everyone agrees with them and believes them, so it becomes true.

[inkdemonapologist]

What are your thoughts on the characterization of the ink demon himself?

In BatDR? Ehhhhh…….

There’s plenty of room for interesting headcanons, especially what with the Ink Demon and Bendy behaving so differently. A lot of folks have imagined it as a Jekyll & Hyde type situation, which is neat, or just an internal Venom-esque “the souls of the innocent/two bagels” dynamic. Or there’s the interpretation that the Ink Demon deep down wants the love and acceptance he gets as Baby Bendy; he’s the same guy, but his emotions have been messed with and he’s being treated differently so he reacts differently, which is a take I actually really like.

Just looking at the Ink Demon on his own, it’s SO easy to read him as a teenager, thinking he’s so cool and edgy talking about his Dark Kingdom, not looking like Bendy anymore b/c hes decided wanting to look like Bendy is cringy and he’s TOUGH AND POINTY NOW – then making The Dumbest Mistake at the end by letting Audrey possess him because he thinks it’ll make him more powerful, and having no idea how to fix it, but still trying to act cool. The idea of BatIM’s Ink Demon being the equivalent of a frustrated child lashing out, and BatDR’s Ink Demon being a teenager who has internalised that he’ll be harmed if he’s not powerful and has embraced being evil and violent and hated as a shield, is an interpretation that makes sense to me. There was this GREAT fanart I vaguely recall but cannot find again of the Ink Demon with a symbolic birdcage in the middle of his chest where the little Bendy rocked peacefully on a swing – Bendy as the piece of him that’s scared and hurt, a piece he’s pushed from sight more and more in favour of making himself more sharp and cruel, but now can’t always hide, is a REALLY INTERESTING thematic concept.

But the truth is that we didn’t get any of those things --

Bendy and the Ink Demon being the same creature is a really interesting development that is literally never touched on beyond explaining how and why it happened. What does Bendy think of the Ink Demon form? What does the Ink Demon think of the Bendy form? Are they two consciousnesses, or the same guy? Really obvious questions that you’d think would be inherently guaranteed to come up due to the premise, but they don’t! Audrey discovers that Baby Bendy and the Ink Demon are the same entity and seems to feel exactly nothing about this? She still supports ending the Ink Demon, even though he’s the little cartoon devil she made friends with and said she didn’t want to hurt… it just seems like there should at least be a conflicted feeling somewhere. The Ink Demon himself is portrayed as Just Evil, and nothing challenges that, to a level that’s so bizarre that it really feels like the NARRATIVE ITSELF is baffled by the idea that anyone might question the basic idea of "Scary Demon Bad, Cute Bendy Good". And I’ve talked before about how strange Joey’s final speech comes across once you notice this, as he brushes the Demon off as an “evil face” while telling Audrey how special and perfect and loved she is, and the whole moment is framed as though we’re meant to be encouraged by Joey, and not wincing at the way he disregards the demon he mistreated and abandoned.

The Ink Demon has been regarded as a soulless, monstrous mistake by various characters throughout this whole series, locked up and now literally, unambiguously tortured because of it, and it’s easy to imagine the story that assertion suggests – one where the Ink Demon’s cruelty is the result of him being cast out and treated with disgust by humans, like Mewtwo or some kind of inky Frankenstein. But in BatDR, we never see any hint that the initial reading of “monstrous mistake” is incorrect. As if locking him up was the correct, smart thing to do, and creating Baby Bendy to trap him and cause him pain was a good move, and the only problem is that it can’t be made permanent.

I think the closest we get to seeing something more from the Demon is his line to Audrey about being a mistake and a monster, “like me.” I really like his speech in that scene… He could simply be trying to manipulate her, but it’s so easy to read as projection, as if the only way the Ink Demon could reveal his own betrayed feelings is by accusing someone else of them. And then… nothing really comes of it. Everyone continues regarding the Demon as a purely evil monster. When the Ink Demon lashes out at Joey, it’s not framed as a reaction to being rejected so explicitly, it’s just… trying to stop him because Joey’s getting through to the Demon’s intended prey (with bonus points for "the wretch is mine" making him feel particularly scummy). You can still imagine he’s motivated by those things, but I really feel like you have to come into the story with that assumption in order to see it there.

This isn’t saying that the Demon has to not be a bad guy for his characterisation to be compelling – like, for example, Audrey could just have a short moment of realising that if Bendy IS the Ink Demon, there must be more to the Demon than we can see – but decide he’s too dangerous to risk giving up the chance to stop him (WHICH SURE WOULD BE INTERESTING GIVEN THE TRAJECTORY OF HER FATHER’S LIFE, HUH). He can still be a violent monster who is creepy at Audrey, tries to kill her, lies to her, and then eats(???) her. He doesn’t have to behave sympathetically for the narrative to acknowledge that he’s been treated unfairly, and the other characters don’t have to give him a chance at redemption in order to be believably good people. But it feels weird that…. the narrative never seems to notice??? Anywhere???? ESPECIALLY AFTER MENTIONING THE TORTURE EXPERIMENTS??? I think Malice’s writing in this game was incoherent, but the narrative’s treatment of her was humane; she’s violent and cruel and has to be stopped, but the character who keeps having to drive a sword through her torso still feels for her and notices her pain. It’s bafflingly wild that Audrey never really gets a moment like this for the demon.