#a Lis theory

[antivan-sprig]

I thought this might be a fun way to interact with other Rooks for Lis 🫶🏻 🔥

I love the tinder profiles going around, but much like the kiss prompts, I haven’t been able to interact much since Lisel doesn’t like kissing or much physical contact (unless you’re very close to her or have already seen her inevitable “I’m overwhelmed” cry aka every Davrin fic I’ve ever written.)

I don’t think I've talked about it- but since her role as a hearth keeper is ceremonial, I totally HC that Liselath knows how to do fun (sometimes deep) magical games with fire. I think there was a time when she fully believed in the possibility of prophecy of these little rituals, but now mostly treats them as something to do at parties to facilitate a conversation. In certain ways, she thinks this preserves some small part of their sanctity, since it’s bridging a connection.

Anyway! Lisel is doing some readings so if you want me to write one for your Rook just comment: what your rook does with the fire (explained in the intro below) and anything else (fun facts/memories/ past interactions/random thoughts they’re having) you want. You can write a full on rp-y response or just explain in 3rd person- whatever is more fun for you.

No promises on the accuracy of her responses though 😉

✨ Me setting the scene 4 you ✨

Much to Rook’s surprise, the courtyard balcony was illuminated by the glowing of a fire. The light arched across the wall of the building, with a familiar crackle. Against the complete darkness of the sky each light and shadow accentuated the texture of the stone, exposing every imperfection. It was odd to see the divots and peaks laid so bare, you’d never have noticed them in the daylight.

Rook approached the fire. The warmth it put out was palpable, and the way the heat absorbed into the stone wall was divine. Rook laid their head upon the stone for a moment, enjoying the warmth and feeling like a cat laying in the sun.

“Ah, good. You’re not late.” An even voice came from beyond the fire.

Rook startled, the figure sat directly behind the fire, her back pressed up to the statue of Mythal. The brilliant flames of the fire obscured her until you forced your eyes to see past them.

“Sit down. This will be fast.” She added, “Promise.”

Rook got the impression she was assuring herself just as much as she was assuring them. They pulled their head up from the wall and slowly walked towards Lisel, the note she’d slipped under their door still in their pocket.

“So- can I divine for you?” She said inauspiciously, and motioned her hand towards Rook, “with the fire.”

Rook stared at her briefly, wondering if she started every reading like this, then pressed her for more information.

Liselath squinted in concentration, “I can read any part of it. The flame, the smoke, the ash. Anything.” She thought for a moment, “Throw something in and watch how the flame reacts. Extinguish it, and I’ll read the ashes.”

A hint of mischief punctuated her face, “You can even put your hand in if you’re stupid enough.”

[sonchop]

okay, just hear me out!!

since cheng xiaoshi's mother is also a time traveler and wants to save her husband by changing the past, WHAT IF her actions GREATLY influenced the development of events? i mean, of course they did, but what if cheng xiaoshi WASN'T SUPPOSED TO DIE in THE VERY FIRST timeline?

what if it was his mother's attempts to prevent her husband's death that led to this series of events??? to xiaoshi's death??????

JUST IMAGINE. it's the first time she's changed the past, SO liu xiao & co start looking for her AND cheng xiaoshi's father (because SHE is looking for him)

is that why they find cheng xiaoshi and everything leads to vein killing him?????? AND THEN lu guang jumps in time, trying to stop it.

WHAT IF he doesn't succeed precisely because cheng xiaoshi's mother dives in a few years before him and changes events there, condemning him to failure in advance???

WHAT IF THE ONLY WAY to save cheng xiaoshi is to give up saving his father??

imagine a conversation between lu guang and cheng xiaoshi's mother. she proves that if her son and lu guang don't interfere, she will save her husband and everyone will live happily, and lu guang tells her about cheng xiaoshi's death. aaaaand they both understand HOW to prevent it. a choice between a husband and a child. and it seems to me that she would have chosen a husband (seriously, it feels like both parents consider their goal and each other more important than their son..)

NOW IMAGINE she apologizes to lu guang and promises to save cheng xiaoshi as soon as she saves her husband and then disappears, and Lu Guang now has a certain enemy. not the whole flow of time, but the mother of the one he is trying to save. aand now he knows who needs to be stopped in order to achieve his goal.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS?

[myjetpack]

Conspiracy Theory Book Club.

(My latest cartoon for Guardian Books).

[99thpercentile]

places where the audio distorts

image ids under the cut

tmagp 4:

tmagp 5:

tmagp 7:

tmagp 8:

the audio distorts when people lie.

I imagine this knowledge will come in handy later.

[id: ALICE: This is not something you go poking around in. Not if you want to keep your job… or your neck. SAM: (a little amused) Okay, okay! I get it. Consider me scared straight. "Consider me scared straight" is highlighted. end id]

[id: LENA: Now, while I understand your concerns, you need to understand that Colin has held the IT Manager position for some time without incident, and although he is somewhat… frustrated with his current assignment, he can request help from the central IT team at any time. I am certain that should he find his responsibilities unmanageable, he will request assistance. Or resign, of course. Either way, the problem will resolve itself. "Or resign, of course" is highlighted. end id]

[id: CELIA: Is there any way to look up specific files? ALICE: Like what? CELIA: Oh, I don’t know. Every case about… being buried alive, or meat, or… whatever. ALICE: Well, there’s a search bar, but it doesn’t actually do anything. You’d have to dig through them all manually. (suspicious) – Why do you ask? CELIA: Just figuring it all out. Ah well, I guess I’ll need to find Bigfoot on my own time. "Just figuring it all out" is highlighted. end id]

[id: GERTRUDE: I see. Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t think Gerry can help you – GERRY: (casually) Yeah, I barely remember any of it. "I don’t think Gerry can help you" is highlighted. end id]

[id: GERRY: Oh yeah, but I was pretty young. I remember filling in a bunch of forms and questionnaires, then some old men asking me questions about what books I liked to read, who did I look up to, that kind of thing. And then I left. SAM: (disappointed) That’s all? GERRY: Yeah, afraid so. Other than just sitting around with a bunch of other kids in a room that smelled like old books. "Yeah, afraid so" is highlighted. end id]

[id: CELIA: I’m trying to look into… Weird physics stuff: time travel, other dimensions, teleportation, all that good stuff. Freddy doesn’t really do searches, so you could keep an eye out and let me know if any come up in your cases? SAM: Uh, sounds a bit sci-fi compared to our usuals. What’s this for? (amused breath) You’re not doing research for that podcast you were on, are you? CELIA: (surprised) You know about that? SAM: I might have given you a quick Google. CELIA: Then… yeah. I’m doing a favor for Georgie. "yeah. I’m doing a favor for Georgie" is highlighted. end id]

[with-my-murder-flute]

the hunt for enneameter: new and completely unprecedented levels of alectopause brainrot

Elseweb I was trying to explain to someone why I felt that Ortus had a strong formative influence on Gideon and Harrow. And the reason is: They don't speak like normal humans. They speak like people very accustomed to recitation, especially reciting metered poetry. (My brothers and I grew up in a youth group that did a lot of memorizing and reciting old-ass fancy talk, and oh boy is there a difference between the two)

And the person said they guessed they could see it with Harrow but they didn't get it with Gideon. So to demonstrate, I pulled out Gideon's "the only job" speech from early in GtN. Which is where my troubles started.

As Harrow promptly tells her, it's structured in a set of three unnecessarily long and punchy descriptions. That's a remarkable level of rhetorical flourish and suspicious all on its own.

And then I started trying to explain how I thought it scanned in iambic pentameter, and some of it is long strings of iambs, but not all. Then I remembered that I hate doing this crap because what feel like very natural stress patterns to me are not how people from other accents or countries would say it. And anyway, I gave up on explaining the scansion, and just tried to break it into what seemed like natural lines to demonstrate the similarity to something like Shakespeare. I included syllable counts as I saw them in parentheses at the end of the line. Not all the lines were iambic pentameter, but 10 absolutely was the mean and mode number of syllables per line.

And then I noticed that with my pronunciation ('kicked' and 'flipped' as one syllable), Gideon's little speech was 96 syllables long. Not quite the 99 you'd think is appropriate for the Ninth.

...And that recognition of the structure wound up most of the way to spring, needing just one tiny bit more to fully click, led me to remember that sometimes Shakespeare breaks up his speeches between characters, and they make the larger structure together. Like, Romeo shows up in the balcony scene declaring the first part of a sonnet about Juliet, and then she shows up and Uno reverses it on him with the last octave.

So I looked at Harrow's next line.

It was 3 syllables long and completely punctures Gideon's rising bubble of hot air.

I'M GOING TO COMPLETELY LOSE MY SHIT HERE TAMSYN--

G: Nonagesimus, the only job (9) I’d do for you would be if you wanted (10) someone to hold the sword as you fell on it. (11)

the only job I’d do for you would be (10) If you wanted your ass kicked so hard, (9) the Locked Tomb opened, and a parade came out (11) to sing, ‘Lo! A destructed ass.’ (8)

The only job I’d do would be if you (10) wanted me to spot you while you backflipped (10) off the top tier into Drearburh.(8)

H: That's three jobs. (3)

People who are good at cryptography and poetry scansion please help. Before I go off to tear all my pillows apart with my bare hands while weeping, I'll leave you with one last thing:

those who are fit but to hold their blade in the scabbard never to draw it forth for the battle

28 syllables. Harrow says it doesn't scan; Ortus refutes this and says it's "enneameter" (after the Greek word for "eight") and therefore does. Casual reminder that the Ninth is positively shitty with people keeping secrets from each other using complicated codes and ciphers. How does enneameter work?

(Final tidbit if you need extra incentive: He also says enneameter is "the traditional form". This may be a quotation from his own work, or it could be from some other mouldering old book in the Ninth's library. Just how old?)

[adhdevankinard]

Even if the writers bring in a new LI for Buck, no one is ever gonna beat Tommy Kinard. Sorry! But just look at this material:

Tommy personally knows and respects the life of a firefighter and why it’s so important to Buck, something that Buck’s previous love interests found difficult to understand

Tommy can be involved in calls and can help the 118 in a way others can’t (as we’ve seen)

Even before dating Buck, Tommy had strong connections to the main characters — the most important people in Buck’s life

Buck himself said Tommy is his most transformative relationship since Abby (whom Tommy is also connected to)

Speaking of Abby, Buck pined for her, but it was clear that Abby was ready to move on when she left him. With Buck and Tommy, both of them want each other back. Neither is ready to move on. They pine for each other.

Tommy is one of the very few people who call Buck “Evan” and the only one to do so regularly and with such affection. It was only during the breakup that Tommy called him Buck. The worst day of Buck’s life was the day Tommy called him by the name everyone else uses for him. Because Tommy isn’t everyone else. And no one else will ever be Tommy to Evan.

Tommy was a part of the call that ended with Bobby’s death. Tommy was the only one who saw Buck’s grief after losing the person he considered his father. Tommy was a pall bearer and walked with the main characters at Bobby’s funeral.

Speaking of Bobby, Tommy is the only LI of Buck’s that Bobby approved of. The only one Bobby will ever approve of. Bobby knew Tommy and Tommy knew Bobby. Tommy was part of the 118 when Bobby began again. Tommy saved Bobby’s life before Buck met him.

It was Tommy’s decision to transfer that opened the spot at the 118 that changed Buck’s life.

Literally, Buck is the happiest he has ever been when he is with Tommy. He can be giggly during sex and hold funerals for dead cowboys. Buck smiles and looks at Tommy with so much affection. And Tommy shows up for Buck – whether it’s attending the hospital wedding after an exhausting shift or making sure he’s resting after he’s injured or cooking him a literal feast or stealing a helicopter.

Any LI after Tommy would pale in comparison. The writers will do what they will but … why even attempt to outdo this ... You simply can’t!

[you-huo]

link click shorts opening and the dance it was inspired by

the animators even got the straight faced unwavering eye contact

[azureandcrimson]

Tears.

Do we think Macaque's forgotten how to cry? In most of the scenes we've seen Macaque in pain or losing in a way. It almost looks like he want's to cry.

Like, I know in these scenes he probably didn't because LBD was there but he was litterly hyperventilating.

But in this scene, he genuinely looks so frustrated and possibly on the verge of tears and he knows what's coming for him because he failed again. But also in Season 5. When Mk and Wukong went and tried to sacrifice themselves. He obviously wouldn't cry because he was trying to convince Mk not to go. But he looks so actually worried and scared for him.

Everyone was crying after that (Except NeZha and Li Jing of course) once Mk was brought back. We know Mk and Macaque aren't as close as Wukong and Mk are but the point still stands on how worried he was for both of them and the fact that Mk was the first person to possibly put faith/believe in Macaque in years. Every time he should/or at least somewhat have hints of tears in his eyes. He doesn't. He's shoved down tears so much sense his death. He's forgotten how to cry. Or he's holding his emotions in so much he's forgotten to. Either way. He holds his emotions in to much. WILDBRAIN STUDIOS. MAKE MACAQUE CRY AND ECLIPSE DUO/SUNDIAL DUO/SHADOWPEACH HUG IN S6 AND MY LIFE AND SOUL CONTRACT ARE YOURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bonus: He looks so genuinely scared/terrified.

[egophiliac]

I love the idea of teenage Malleus hating his new baby brother Silver but slowly falling for him

words cannot express how much I adore that Mal's reaction to seeing a human baby for the first time was "the fuck is this. why does it look like that. gross." (then he immediately got stuck on babysitting duty and the rest is history)

I am SUCH a sucker for that trope of "non-humans being fascinated by normal human behavior", so between that and all the delicious angst going on I was eating VERY well. >:) Malleus being so impressed that two-year-old Silver can walk, because it took him twenty years to stand on two legs! Lilia barging in on the Zigvolts at 2 AM being like "he won't stop crying what do I do"! Lilia trying to feed Silver rats and Malleus being like "...please just stick with what the books say to feed it"! it is all so. chef's kiss.

[violetjedisylveon]

That's where I think Erlang has been through all this, he's patching things up with his nephew Liu Chenxiang and missed his uncle dying, how convenient for Li Jing.

@pillowdrawz drew the last meme, it's very good

[clonehighdoublehelix]

[sonchop]

yk, I think it's really funny (I'm about to cry) that in the s1 ep11 - s2 ep1, when cheng xiaoshi sees lu guang dying, he keeps his mind clear, fights well with the possessed qiao ling, not letting the red eyes guy harm her at the same time worries about lu guang and, as we later find out, also remembers the info (like he was able to tell the most important moments without hesitation). i mean, lu guang does look pretty dead at this moment, but xiaoshi is still holding up well, wow

meanwhile, lu guang, when he sees qian jin hurting xiaoshi... well, he's not just scared af, he immediately, I would even say, mindlessly rushes at qian jin (not even checking on xiaoshi lol (I think he understands that this shoot will not kill him but still-)

usually lu guang is the one who keeps his mind clear and calm in all situations, when cheng xiaoshi very often acts rashly and thoughtlessly driven by emotions (even if in the season 2 he is a little more rational)

but when danger threatens dear people..

lu guang is the one who will be ready to kill for someone who is dear to his heart, aaand xiaoshi is able to pull himself together and act consistently

I think it might also work with the "go back in time and save a life" thingie, like xiaoshi is able to resist his wish to dive back in time and save his bf, even if it kills him inside and all this because of lu guang's words and his own understanding what his actions may entail

(we don't know what he would do if he saw lu guang's dead body, but the fact is that he cannot allow himself to do something so serious with the flow of time)

while lu guang is ready to become the main hypocrite in the world, make irreparable changes in the flow of time, and take this sin upon himself, if only cheng xiaoshi would live.

so I wonder if this is because lu guang has already witnessed several deaths of cheng xiaoshi or is he initially more protective and emotional, but he's really good at hiding it?

[xofemeraldstars]

bear with me for a moment im going all invisible string theory:

1. so you're telling me we had this dialogue at the beginning of the episode with buck comparing the cruise rescue (subconsciously actually meeting tommy and tommy risking everything for the 118 aka his family) to being struck by lightning and being dead for 3m17s

2. to then have the kiss happening exactly at 3m18s into the apartment scene at the end of the episode aka he was kissed at the 18th second the same second he was brought back to life??

3. not in this episode but another lightning strike parallel when he's wheeled into the hospital and they stop in the ER that's the moment they get a pulse but also the scene where buck kisses tommy in 7x06 after he shows up even tho he fought a fire for the last dozen+ hours cause he promised to buck he would make it!!

[blueberry-ry]

You guys know that you can dislike characters without being fucking weird about it, right 🤨?

[writingescapades]

Omg, you know that theory where part of acknowledging an existence is to give that existence a name? Well in LoP no one actually calls P anything. They refer to him by titles and roles but not an actual name. But the players immediately call him P or Pinocchio and differentiate P from Carlo. We immediately give P his humanity. And if we’re just looking at in game context, what if P named himself? Probably starting as a short form of puppet. But Something he found easier or or cool, either of which indicates his sense of identity?!?

[nenoname]

Details in Stan's letter that still haunt me

(how long will I continue thinking about a two page letter that's technically not even that long because Stan's handwriting is fricking large? .....you don't need to worry about that.)

The bro code only shows up in the Lost Journal pages, and to me Stan's message feels like it purposely echoes Ford's "miss you" in the college photo (and for some reason the message doesn't appear in the website version of the photo?) ....or alternatively Stan simply noticed how distressed Ford was about this entire thing and wanted to support him in a way so he can be sappy but without the kids knowing, or both!

Stan's claim about the Oregon lottery contradicts what the Lost Legends website said about Tate McGucket's ability to predict the winning numbers!! ...but also breaking into the Lottery HQ is definitely a very Stan thing to do and it's not the first time small gags have been retconned

Despite spending most of his letter nonchalantly destroying him, the taunt about ripping a dollar bill in half is the only part where Stan is directly responding to Bill. Maybe it's the two of them having similar ways of thinking but it's rather specific considering Bill taunts the reader about it...

And after Bill spends an entire book calling Ford Sixer despite normally using a pretty wide range of nicknames for him, Stan then spends his letter mainly referring to Ford as Sixer, even though post-Weirdmageddon he tends to use a mix of nicknames. And it's not like he'd gotten to see Bill himself for long, let alone see him steal that childhood nickname (that is only used twice in the actual show btw!). Did Ford tell him what happened or...?

With all this and the website's "still on your mind" message, what I'm getting at is my tinfoil hat theory of Stan somehow seeing some of the pages the irl readers saw, even when it should be personalised to the specific reader, and he's been lying about it for some reason. Considering that the book flat out doesn't make an attempt at convincing Soos, I find it a stretch that whatever Bill was telling Stan via the book was an attempt to convince him either.

Wouldn't be the first time Stan's skimmed through a book and lied about what it meant to him.

(...Now I kinda wanna see a story about the family reading their versions of the book and making fun of it while Stan is improvising every single one of his pages and blatantly ignoring Bill's attempts to mock and taunt him)

But also I'm fascinated by the letters that only showed up on the website (aka the Soos+Wendy+McGucket+Pacifica ones). I'm assuming that Mabel had stuck them on after Stan's letter... but they were basically eaten by the book itself because seeing Stan's letter kick-started Bill's breakdown which takes up the rest of the book