#a thread unraveled

[youareunbearable]

I made a spotify playlist for one of my fav Silm fics of all time "A Thread Unraveled" by ScribeofArda on Ao3 or @theheirofashandfire here on tumblr

Summary of fic: "Maedhros wakes up again, on the first morning of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Of course, nobody calls it that. For them, it hasn't happened yet."

The paylist follows the general vibe of the narrative: Maedhros' realization of the cycles, his struggles, his saving grace, and his determination to succeed in battle with his loved ones alive no matter how many times he has to get back up and try again. The songs genre is mostly: indie, folk, with some musical numbers thrown in because honestly, its not one of my playlists without a musical song or two

This is a brilliant fic so if you havent read it already i would reccomend! It's also an ongoing series and I've probably read the entire thing over a dozen times, its really become one of my favourite comfort fics/series of all time.

[silo1013]

salvaged from the office fire in 1998

[darklinaforever]

Tahereh Mafi says fuck the cliché of the dark-haired villain / anti-hero, give way to these blonde and red-haired beauties instead !

Aaron Warner, from the “Shatter Me” series :

Cyrus, from the “The Woven Kingdom” series :

[its-leethee]

What kind of magic does the Jailer use, and what is her connection to the Key of Aaravos?

I have thought for a while that perhaps the Jailer is neither a primal nor a dark magic user, and that she utilized the Key of Aaravos to serve an important role in his imprisonment. Now, there isn't a lot of overt evidence for my hypothesis here; this is a ramble of pure speculation. I'm going to do my best to present the dialogue and canon-consistent logic to support my thoughts. Here goes:

The prevailing opinion in Xadia is that "human magic" is akin to trickery and sleight of hand. When confronted with Callum's claim of being a primal mage in 5x07, Nyx dismisses his boast reflexively: “I’ve seen ‘human magic.’ Fake ropes, false doors, birds and rabbits stuffed into clothing.” To her, it's common knowledge that humans can't use real primal magic, and her derisive attitude shows she doesn't have much respect for human magic either. As for dark magic, Nyx doesn't even mention it at all; as Lujanne said in 2x01, "we do not call that practice magic. It's an atrocity."

But human magic has one more specialty: creating and solving puzzles. The mechanical devices and riddles guarding the secrets in Kpp'ar's labyrinthine house and the rock-stone puzzle hiding the staircase to Viren's dungeon are story-significant examples of the types of innovations created by human magic. In 1x03, Ezran solves the rock-stone puzzle to reveal the staircase hiding Viren's dungeon. Callum answers the riddle posed by Rex Igneous in 4x08, "having knowledge isn't knowing knowledge…. He has a map!"

So neither a primal mage nor a dark mage would resort to puzzles and riddles, the gimmicks used by magic-less humans. So let's now consider the Jailer.

During the post-season four Discord Q&A, Aaron Ehasz states that the Jailer is a "mastermind of prisons and puzzles."

In episode 5x05, Archmage Akiyu tells the story of how she met the Jailer and introduces her as "a human mage." Akiyu goes on to explain:

"The archdragons had given the Jailer a daunting task, to design a magical prison that could hold a Startouch Elf. She needed my powers to craft the prison itself." (emphasis mine).

It stands to reason that a competent dark mage, with the notoreity to catch the attention of the archdragons, could bring that kind of power into her grasp on her own. So why would the Jailer seek out the powers of primal archmage, unless she couldn't wield that power herself? Furthermore, knowing the prejudice that the archdragons hold against dark magic--all of humanity was driven out of Xadia for refusing to forswear its use--I don't believe the archdragons would ever condone cooperating with a dark mage, even to quell an existential crisis like a demi-god bent on world destruction.

Akiyu tells us one more intriguing thing that the Jailer said:

"'The puzzle is the real prison,' she told me with a proud smile," (again, emphasis mine)

There's another word besides "magic" that we can use to describe the practice of creating and solving puzzles: cryptography; the art and science of creating and breaking codes and ciphers. The terms code and cipher are often used interchangeably, but their meanings are technically different. Basically, a code uses arbitrary substitutions while a cipher uses an algorithm.

Now, if you wish to solve a puzzle, you're going to need all the pieces - and if you wish to solve a cipher or code, you're going to need a key.

More than one use has been hinted at for the Key of Aaravos. We've heard Rayla refer to it several times as a toy and a game piece (1x04, 2x07). In the book two novelization, Callum notices that the Key left marks on the ground that appeared to point toward Xadia (we get a glimpse of those lines in early episode 2x07). In 4x07, we get suspiciously up-close framing of the Key when Callum asks, "is there no primal gem for star magic?"

And a few months back, one of the TDP creators shared on Twitter about a season 6 scene that was eventually cut. In the scene, Callum holds the Key up to a symbol on a wall and says, "I'm gleaming the cube!" (if anyone remembers this twitter convo and can provide me a link to this, I would be so grateful)

This is the Key feature we're all most familiar with: its glow. When exposed to a source of magic, the corresponding primal magic symbol on the Key lights up. This is why I think one of the potential functions of the Key of Aaravos is as a cryptographic key. If it were held up to a magic-infused symbol, the glow effect would reveal the primal magic source - and in this way it could be used to decode a secret message.

In cryptography, a key is the series of words, symbols or phrases that contain all of the basic information you need to decode or understand a specific coded message. Both the sender and receiver of the coded message need to know the key in order to create the coded message or decode it into plaintext - to lock or unlock the meaning behind a cipher or code.

I can't speculate on the exact nature of the secrets that she encrypted with it, but the Key can literally shed light on the solution! It was a toy that was repurposed by a the Jailer, magicless human mage and mastermind of ciphers and codes, to protect the secrets of Aaravos and his prison.

Exactly what secrets it will be used to reveal remains part of the Mystery.

if you're interested in learning more about cryptography, this page has links to a lot of my favorite resources

Recommended reading for more Key of Aaravos and the Jailer theories:

the post that initially enabled my crazy train of thoughts, thank you @beautifulterriblequeen

super rad analysis of the Jailer's unique character design by @kradogsrats, who also authored one of my favorite alternative hypothesis for the real function of the Key of Aaravos

an amazing thorough and detailed Key analysis, by @raayllum and another very interesting conversation about the Key here

Special thanks to @raayllum for answering my random Akiyu and Jailer questions, and to @self-spaghettification for giving me the push I needed to bring this essay together!

[clintbartoncore]

unstoppable force (clint flirting on comms) vs immovable object (coulson’s consummate professionalism)

[thy-valhallen]

Guys... who owns the copyright to Batman's appearance and branding in-universe? Who makes merch and allowed BatBurger to exist?

It's not the Justice League. We all know Batman runs the business side of the League, and he would never let them put his face on special Bat-Cherrios. So who is it?

[spiders-in-the-valley]

i should join a whaling crew

(ty gina coleman for the patterns in the sdv cross stitch guide, im just stupid. the guide is pretty good albeit hard to see the colors in the patterns sometimes)

[somecunttookmyurl]

joining a new colour without leaving a starting tail to weave-in

yarn over and pull through the new colour to join as normal, leaving a long tail. enough to work several stitches + a few cm/an inch or so.

do a few stitches crocheting over the tail, trapping it inside the stitches, to move away from the initial join location. in the case of c2c, just one square will do

now grab both the tail and working yarn, hold them together, and work with it held double until there is no more tail. this will only be a few more stitches

if there's a teeny tiny little bit at the end that still sticks out just give it a haircut

those few stitches will be a bit thicker. this is also, in most cases, not at all noticeable

[crystalsncats]

RIP to my cardigan, it was nice while it lasted 😔

[twinsarekeepers]

Reading some of the critiques of pjotv and now I know why y’all are on tumblr and not in the writer’s room 💀💀

[prskcards]

[Don't Push Yourself]- Momoi Airi (trained)

[jessicas-pi]

Some people kill their darlings. Me, personally? I mortify my blorbos. sounds like a very interesting fic that would probably vaporize me with secondhand embarrassment easily, so im very curious about it

YEEEHAAA

Okay okay so this scene, which I have temporarily dubbed In Which Tristan Steals Half A Letter And Mandalorian Sibling Rivalries Get A Little Violent, is from the very beginning of Paint Bombs, Pixie Cuts, And Elopement, and it is only the first of MANY increasingly mortifying situations!!

---

Sabine had been so distracted, she hadn’t realized she was no longer the only person in her library.

Tristan had breezed in, settled down in her abandoned spot on the lounge, and picked up the letter from Ezra.

“Hey! That’s personal!” she snapped, jumping up and snatching it from him.

Her brother looked up at her and raised an eyebrow.

“What does that mean?”

Sabine stomped back over to her desk and sat down, pulling out a second sheet of paper. “It means that it’s my business, not yours.”

“As your older brother, I think it is my business. After all, you’ve been sending a concerning amount of letters to him, and you won’t let anyone else see his replies.”

“Because it’s personal,” she repeated, not bothering to explain that out of the last six letters she’d sent, he only bothered to reply to the last one, and not very nicely, either.

“Which is exactly why we’re all worried.” She hunched her shoulders and focused on writing.

She was a few paragraphs in when he spoke again. “And it looks like I was right to be worried, because this, little sister, is a pretty compromising letter.”

Sabine blinked, bewildered. “Compromising?” She turned around in her seat and let out a furious cry. That letter—it had had two pages, and Tristan must have let her only snatch the first page without her noticing, because he had the second one in his hand now. “Tristan!”

“Oh, yes, very compromising. I quote—” He held up the letter and read aloud. “It was so nice of you to use all those tender words in your last message to me—have you been writing love notes?”

What she had been writing was a horribly rude letter where she called Ezra every name she could think of, and he’d got sarcastic over it in his reply, which Tristan had to know because the next sentence of that letter was a few of those phrases quoted, but he was apparently being a very selective reader now.

So, Sabine didn’t explain, and just stood, clenching her jaw. “Give me that, and get out of my library.”

He just reclined on the lounge, grinning and kicking his feet up. “You know, I’ve had a few… ah… romantic escapades, in my time. I can be trusted with a secret. So confide in me. Exactly what sweet nothings have you been writing to your adoring Prince?”

“Give it to me and get out, Tristan!”

“Should I make some guesses?” Tristan asked, jumping to his feet to avoid the sofa pillow she hurled at him. Sabine followed him, advancing slowly, fists clenched. “I bet he sends you long letters about his earnest and eternal love, and you send him back coquettish garbage acting like you don’t understand anything he says, so he’ll say it to you again.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she snapped, snatching at the sheet of paper that he held away from her.

“Oh, no, it happens all the time. I’ve fallen for it myself. I still have the letters I got from my old sweetheart when I was your age, if you need proof. Or reference materials for the next time you write—I’m sure the little minx wouldn’t mind you borrowing a few of her shameless hints for your own flirtation.”

“It’s not a flirtation!”

“My bad,” Tristan sang, dodging around a chair so it was between the two of them, and moving side to side in time with her to keep it that way. “But in my defense, I had no idea you and he were serious.”

“We’re not!”

“When did you two first get an understanding?”

“We don’t have one!”

“Now that I look back—this all started last summer, when we were in Jedha, didn’t it? He must have been trying to win your heart then, and I can only assume you strung him along for weeks like the sadistic little witch you are, before you gave in.”

She cursed at him, no longer cold from the drafty walls but so warm she felt like she was crawling out of her own skin. She didn’t know if it was from the excitement of finally getting the letter, the heat of the fire, or the flustered burning in her face, and she didn’t really care.

“I may regret asking this,” Tristan said without a trace of regret, whatsoever, at all, in a million years. “But how did ol’ Prince Di’kut manage to woo you? Did he act gallant and noble and play at courting you? Or was this a…” Tristan wiggled his eyebrows and leaned in to whisper, momentarily dropping his guard. “A passionate-midnight-meetings sort of affai—”

Sabine’s fist connected with his nose.

[swordcoasts]

actually love the fact that both misty and shadowheart have their memories suppressed/gone. getting to know themselves through the other and such.

[botwstoriesandsuch]

On the plus side though, the AoC timeline Tears of the Kingdom would have;

Mipha with 150 years of battle experience

Purah and Robbie experimenting with sheikah tech without fear of death for the past 100 years

No Yiga Clan / Non antagonistic Yiga Clan

The powerhouse that is Battle-Tested Guardian

Terrako, who has the ability to time travel

You had me until the last point. There is no world where Terrako is a plus. Actual eggs have more use to the timeline than him.

[basilpaste]

me when i can use thread snapping as symbolism.

[rivers-for-me]

It's midnight and i'm awake again, only to be that ethereal nonexistent age i always have been at this hour since i turned 12. Time always stopped at midnight, the velvet lights are the same, the statics noise is the same and i almost try to sing myself to sleep so maybe i'll wake up as a child again. There are no fever dream poems written on my wall with the fear of forgetting my most honest feeling. No unreadable descriptions of dreams i didn't want to wake up from. No pixelate pictures of everyoung actors who already died 40 years before my birth. I think about my father's best friend with different feelings but the same gentle respect. I am every age i've ever been and ever will be. For the first time in years i'm still real even in the dark that felt like drowning in the emptiness of space for years until i lost my sense of directions and i was afraid to speak because i knew i wouldn't hear my voice. I'm painfully unbearably real and the little kid i once was doesn't know it. The bitter denial of my girlhood blooms in the night and i resist the urge to write this down because i'm not 12 anymore and i'd never read it. God is still watching but instead of eternal judgement it's a promise i won't die forgotten, even if i unlearn how to write.