#ado reference!

[six-eyed-samurai]

A/N: Very late request for Zanka fluff from my crusty baguette mootie @kduynz <3 I HOPE YOU PASSED YOUR EXAMS GIRLY HAVE THIS AS A REWARD!!

Flowers were basically non-existent on the Ground, so the precious few you’ve ever seen remained ingrained in your mind and you spent years trying to recreate that.

Fake flowers weren’t the same, disappointingly, but since they were all the Ground could offer you accepted the meager imitations in cracked vases and leaves that would never wilt. You’re not exactly the best at art, so your attempts at recreating them were…embarrassing crayon messes even Dear would cry at. When Rudo arrived you switched from pestering Delmon to bugging him to describe all the plants up there, frustratedly tearing out sheet after sheet on your sketchpad when you just couldn’t match the drawings to the images in your mind.

They’re supposed to symbolize so many things, right? Amazing how such a small thing could represent love, happiness, luck, gratitude, regret, life, death, just with a few stalks and leaves and petals! They’re all so unique as well, all adapted for their environment in such different ways - colourful florals, cacti, carnivorous…you devoured all you could find out about them eagerly. To think they were common on the Sphere!

At least, that was what you were excitedly yapping about to Zanka…he didn’t really know what the whole fuss was about. They’re just…green thingies. Sure, they’re pretty…but hey, if you like them so much, he’s sure he can too.

At any rate this is the fifteenth-seventeenth time he’s heard one of your flower rambles already and Zanka has come to the conclusion that you don’t actually need him to answer and just nod along, listening and asking the occasional question, which is good for him because the first few times he tried to be “attentive” and “participative” he ended making a fool of himself because “yeah I guess the grass is really…um…greening” isn’t really a…well.

The point is, he’ll hear you out. No matter whether you’re just comparing poop fertilizer efficiency or just trying to articulate how much you liked a particular color on a flower. Even if he doesn’t look like he’s listening. “Ah, sorry, I must be annoying you with all this boring talk.”

“Nah.” Zanka brushes imaginary dust from his uniform. “Keep talking. What about ghost flowers?”

“Oh, they’re called that because they look like they’re floating off the ground - and oh, oh! Did you know they rely on fungi instead of photosynthesis to-”

He’s not romantic enough to tell you “I like the sound of your voice” or stare at you soppily with a chin in one hand like you hung the moon and the stars while you talk, but if you pause to take a breath in the middle of your speech to properly look at him you’d see the softened look in the way he pays attention to you and whatever you like, hear the concern when he asks if you’d like water once you finish and remark your throat is dry from all that talking.

“Just asking, since you talk about flowers all the time, what’s your favorite?” Zanka asked abruptly when the both of you make to leave, just before you reach the door.

“Um…actually, I don’t know, I never thought about it. Uh…I like them all, it’ll be too hard to choose.”

“Ah. Okay.” And that was that.

Looks like Zanka would have to find some other way to make your birthday present, if you didn’t have a favorite flower - slapping together any old flower just because ‘you like them all’ would be lame. Unappreciative. The behavior of a scuzzball who did not know how to treat their partner right.

So obviously the next best thing would be to write a message in the language of flowers! You’d totally get it, because all his flower knowledge came from you in the first place. Zanka bites down on his lip to prevent his proud smirk (he came up with this by himself!) from showing but after Riyou made a comment on him looking constipated he muttered an excuse to leave in a huff.

He’s got all the flowers planned out! The ones that reminded him most of you - not too flashy but big and pretty enough, the “happy” that he’s come to associate with you: daisies and sunflowers. No way is he getting you fake ones, because a) you have enough and b) it’s not special. Again, scuzzball behavior. Zanka can do better than that.

“Then just make them yourselves, duh.” Enjin flaps his hands like it’s obvious.

Zanka’s beginning to wonder if Enjin was a good choice…even if his choices were limited. Gris only spouted the usual “gifts from your heart!” nonsense and Semiu often said Enjin was a womanizer, so he should be good at romance-y things, right? But with the way Enjin is staring at him through the cigarette smoke, like what he said was so obvious a baby could get it, Zanka feels like he’s missing something. “What?”

“Make it yourself, duh,” Enjin repeated, emphasizing the duh to dUh.

“You can’t grow-”

“Not real ones, make it out of something else. Origami or something.” Enjin thoughtfully nodded. “Girls like that kind of cute things, right? Hey, now I know how to get her attention!”

Zanka chooses to ignore Enjin’s hasty excuses before he runs off, no doubt off to bother the poor woman he was currently mooning over, but his words stick in his mind. Make you a flower? Out of paper? He’s not sure he has the skills to do that…he’s not exactly the artsy type. Neither is anyone he can think of.

But Riyo is good with scissors, so he approaches her with paper scraps and glue, making up a reason to explain away his disappearances to you.

Your birthday rolls around and he finished it just in time - now all that’s left is for him to pull out his gift for you at the perfect moment. Not while everyone else is giving you their wishes and presents, certainly not the first thing in the morning…it just, well, he’d know it when it’s meant to happen, and it hasn’t happened yet. Zanka patiently trails behind you for the rest of the day, a slight trickle of dread niggling at him that your birthday will be over soon and he still hasn’t given you his gift.

Oh, wait. You’re spouting off one of your flower tangents again. Hmm. “Hey, Zanka, what kind of flower do you think you’d be if you were one? Probably something blue…morning glories? No, doesn’t match your vibe…”

“Blue?”

“I know! Clematis?” Your thinking face is so cute, Zanka almost forgets the topic. “No…actually, you kind of remind of forget-me-nots. So you better forget me not!”

“Haha, bad pun, not funny.” Zanka flicks your forehead. “I know what flower you’d be though.”

“What?”

‘He’s not romantic enough to-’ but Zanka is head over heels enough to wow you once in a while; if he had a camera, he’d waste all the shots on how delighted and shocked and did-you-really-do-this-for-me your face looks like when he pulls out the bouquet of carefully folded daisies and sunflowers, wrapped with paper and ribbon, and hands it to you. “Sorry, I meant flowers.”

(Ironically he doesn’t mean to sound flirtatious…he’s just literally correcting himself.)

“Happy birthday.”

“ZANKA - !”

BONUS:

“Uwa ~ Zanka has grown up indeed, giving flowers to girls now.”

“Is your girl working out for you yet, Enjin?”

“…no.”

[fromthedeskofcripslock]

Be still my beating heart. “Serve God/Love me/And mend,” in That Voice.

[krittanica]

Who wanna Genzimibruh later? /ᐠ˵- ⩊ -˵マ

Rumour says, they be using apple juice as floor cleaner. YOO!!! text ya mom this.

She hath risen once more

Daisy daisy daisy daisy daisy daisy I LOVE DAISYYYYYYYYYYY KITTYYYYYYYYY

[shalomniscient]

[recommended song: albireo by rokudenashi.]

you love her.

it’s something you’ve always known, really. you’ve loved her since you were kids, sitting on her roof and looking at the stars. you loved her and she loved the stars. they flickered in her eyes every time she would point them out—cassiopeia, orion, pegasus, leo, among many others. she spoke of them like they’re old friends, sharing their stories with you, but most of the time you would get too lost in the sound of her voice to pay attention. you would wish she’d speak your name in that tone.

it’s on a clear night, both of you still in your school uniforms, when she tells you about binary stars. “they’re caught in each others’ gravity,” she explains, grinning, golden eyes as bright as the fiery red of her hair, and you remember thinking it feels familiar. you remember relating. you’ve let yourself get pulled along by her orbit for years now—so much so you think that maybe, without her gravity, you might just fall apart. thne she tells you about albireo; a binary star. points it out to you amongst all the other little lights that hang from the heavens. the glint of albireo’s component stars overlap with each other just like how her fingertips brush yours, and the heat expansion of the universe pulses forward with each beat of your heart. your world gets bigger for every second you spend by her side.

but you learn she’s more like a comet than a star. upon the scale of a human eye, a star is stationary. unmoving. permanent. and she is anything but. there’s a restlessness in her, a longing, but it’s different from yours. the gravity she moves along is not from another—not from you—but from the stars beyond even what is known. she wants to dance from system to system, to know the warmth of a star as she passes by but never to stay. and so you find that part of you isn’t surprised when she says she’s leaving, to venture forth onto the starry rail and the path of a god long gone. “i’ll miss you,” she says, her golden eyes warm with sincerity as she takes her hands in yours, and you want to tell her you will too, but the words lodge in your throat stubbornly. you can only manage them after she’s gone, nothing but a shining light in the sky, but the words burn up in the stratosphere before they reach her.

you still love her.

a year after she departs, a discovery is made. albireo is a false binary—its component stars are light years apart, made to seem close by the illusion of spacetime. you don’t know if you want to laugh or cry at the irony. a binary star that never was, and a love that never was. close enough to taste, far enough to miss. you want to ask her for your heart back, but you don’t even know where you’d put it. she’s had it for so long, even if she doesn’t know. it’s always been hers. so you swallow down the ache in your throat like a burning star, and pick up the phone with a smile when she calls.

(in the distance, albireo shines down on you, alone.)

[shegeekery]

Edit: Because people with very poor reading comprehension are still finding this post and accusing me of jumping to conclusions rather than just *worrying* about people jumping to conclusions (I was right, BTW) I guess I need to put this in simple terms… I was not accusing TH of anything at all. I posted this on the day the video started making the rounds with no context whatsoever and the lack of context was what concerned me. I thought I had made that clear enough, but when people are looking for a fight just so they can feel self-righteous, they tend to see only what they want to see.

———————————

Been seeing THAT video of Tom Hiddleston with the cardboard cutout of Peggy Carter's Captain Britain floating around and I'm getting concerned. Given what we know of Tom's personality and integrity, I'm inclined to believe that he probably talked it over with Haley Atwell in advance of doing that. Unfortunately, I can totally see other parts of Tumblr and the rest of the internet taking that and trying to cancel him over it without even bothering to wait for more information.

[atopvisenyashill]

Bran The Time Traveling Toddler

Yes that IS a reference to the Tyrion the time traveling fetus theory. The thing about MY insane theories is that they actually make sense and I’m right. Follow me please down the worm hole!!

There’s very clearly Someone Influencing things when it comes to the Starklings and even the overreaching plot in general - there’s enough weird magic surrounding them, whispering in the wind, that it’s a no brainer they’re being watched over. The question is WHO and WHEN. For me, personally, I think it’s Bran, and I think it’s an older Bran from the future (whether it be Bran In TWOW and ADOS or Bran post canon) trying to lead his siblings to safety.

Now, like my Harrenhal meta, I don’t think I’m saying anything new so much as compiling what people have said scattered across the interwebs. There’s a lot of theories about whether Bran can time travel, time travel in general in the series, how george has dealt with time travel before, and about the three eyed crow’s identity and I agree with bits and pieces of what other people have said - preston jacobs is a more famous example of this theory for example. But I don't want to get caught up on things like time travel paradoxes because, like, i don’t care about that, and george has talked about how time travel is more fantasy than scifi bc it’s just not really scientifically possible. do you know what that means? it means there’s no weird physical paradoxes because it’s ✨magic✨ and Bran isn't literally going through space and time. It's as Jojen says-

With two eyes you see my face. With three you could see my heart. With two you can see that oak tree there. With three you could see the acorn the oak grew from and the stump that it will one day become. With two you see no farther than your walls. With three you would gaze south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall

Through his greenseeing abilities, Bran can see the whole of a lifespan, from conception to burial, and can pop out at any point in that lifespan, because a span of 100, 1000, or 1,000,000 years is all the same to the weirwood. So I don't think it's in the realm of Crazy Ass Theories to say that Bran is capable of a more magic based form of time travel. That he can whisper in people's dreams, on the wind, taking on the voice of the old gods themselves and doing his best to nudge things the way he needs them to be in order to keep the people he loves safe.

I also don't think Bloodraven is Three Eyed Crow (though I do think he also uses this metaphor of "flying" wrt magic, and that's why Euron also has a comment about flying in his dreams - I just don't believe that metaphor originates with Brynden himself. Rather, I think he picked it up from somewhere else), but instead, it's Bran, using the weirwood network to get all the pieces on the board he needs where he needs them to be for the endgame. Notice that Brynden doesn't seem to know what Bran is talking about when he mentions the Three Eyed Crow-

"Are you the three-eyed crow?" Bran heard himself say. A three-eyed crow should have three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek, and into his neck. "A … crow?" The pale lord's voice was dry. His lips moved slowly, as if they had forgotten how to form words. "Once, aye. Black of garb and black of blood." 

Brynden mentions the watch, but doesn't mention the three eyed crow. Everyone simply refers to Brynden as the greenseer, not the three eyed crow, except for Bran himself, who simply assumes Brynden is the three eyed crow (and we know magical assumptions in this series are generally wrong!).

What’s double interesting to me about this “bloodraven is the three eyed crow” assumption is brynden himself makes his “a thousand eyes and one” comment - but doesn’t mention a third eye. Meanwhile, Bran’s narrative is obviously filled with bird references and the opening of his third eye from Bran feeding the crows on the towers before he falls then longing to go back to the crows afterwards, of a crow sending Jojen to “the winged wolf,” of his dreams of living as a bird in maester luwin’s rookery with his siblings - Jon Snow even compares him to a bird in their final scene face to face when he thinks bran has “fingers like the bones of birds.”

And notable that though both Rickon and Bran have a greendream where they talk to Ned in the crypts of Winterfell just before Ned is executed, Rickon makes no mention of a three eyed crow, but Bran explicitly sees him-

The mention of dreams reminded him. "I dreamed about the crow again last night. The one with three eyes. He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did. We went down to the crypts. Father was there, and we talked. He was sad."

"Shaggy," a small voice called. When Bran looked up, his little brother was standing in the mouth of Father's tomb. With one final snap at Summer's face, Shaggydog broke off and bounded to Rickon's side. "You let my father be," Rickon warned Luwin. "You let him be." "Rickon," Bran said softly. "Father's not here." "Yes he is. I saw him." Tears glistened on Rickon's face. "I saw him last night."

What that says to me is that the Three Eyed Crow has the ability to speak directly to only Bran and can only otherwise appear in a more ephemeral way to others. With the established rules about not being able to communicate properly with the past, I think this makes sense - being able to use the weirwood hivemind/greenseeing powers to appear in a different form to yourself but unable to appear in a concrete form to anyone else.

I think it's even likely we'll see Bran doing some of this nudging and whispering on page in ADOS or maybe as early as TWOW, but it won't be the exact same sort of "Bran can literally reach out and touch someone in a weirwood dream" that they had in the show with the later scenes. It'll be more like that very first scene in the show where we see Bran influence the past slightly - you know, when he calls out "father!" and young Ned turns around, having heard a voice on the wind-

And there's a direct parallel to ADWD here, where Bran is certain Ned heard him speaking in the godswood but Brynden says it's not possible (not possible for Brynden perhaps!)-

Lord Eddard Stark sat upon a rock beside the deep black pool in the godswood, the pale roots of the heart tree twisting around him like an old man's gnarled arms. The greatsword Ice lay across Lord Eddard's lap, and he was cleaning the blade with an oilcloth. "Winterfell," Bran whispered. His father looked up. "Who's there?" he asked, turning … … and Bran, frightened, pulled away. His father and the black pool and the godswood faded and were gone and he was back in the cavern, the pale thick roots of his weirwood throne cradling his limbs as a mother does a child.

It's not quite time travel. It's like the acorn and stump metaphor - Bran can't appear in his physical body in the past but he can make a bit of noise, perhaps even be mistaken for one of the old gods.

As TWOW and ADOS go on, I think we'll see Bran's powers grow (likely in ways that frighten him and horrify the reader), and we'll see the very beginnings of him influencing the plot that happens during the previous books, showing up in scenes we've already experienced, similar to the Ned scene above. I think this because, well...he's already done it!

Now, as for What Time Traveling Bran Has Already Done - it’s tricky because we have a LOT of magic users waking and shaking. I’m not including every single instance of weird whispering or funny birds here, just the moments I think are more likely to be Bran than anyone else because I think Bran mostly deals with his siblings. I imagine they're easiest to reach out to magically because they already have the ability to access magic, and they're also the people he cares most about. The most obvious to me is in A Clash of Kings, when Jon hears a voice on the wind, very similar to the young Ned scene in the show-

Jon VII in A Clash of Kings

The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong too. Can a shout be silent? He turned his head, searching for his brother, for a glimpse of a lean grey shape moving beneath the trees, but there was nothing, only … A weirwood. It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother’s face. Had his brother always had three eyes?

Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow. He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.

Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him.

This moment was when I really started paying attention to Weird Shit Bran Might Be Doing because of that line "not before the crow." Now, we know Bran mentions talking with Jon later on, in the very last chapter of the book, here-

 He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that.

But I think it's both Bran in the present and Bran in ADOS speaking here - brothers reaching out to each other in their fear, and future Bran piggybacking off that connection to send a warning (this is back in Jon VII, during the shared Jon-Bran dream as before)-

Then he realized he was looking at a river of ice several thousand feet high. Under that glittering cold cliff was a great lake, its deep cobalt waters reflecting the snowcapped peaks that ringed it. There were men down in the valley, he saw now; many men, thousands, a huge host. Some were tearing great holes in the half-frozen ground, while others trained for war...This is no army, no more than it is a town. This is a whole people come together.

Bran warns Jon of the wildling army headed their way because he needs the Night’s Watch to stop fighting the wildlings, get them safely out of the True North (so they can’t be reanimated as wights), and focus on the Long Night. When you read the passage, it seems as if Bran is trying to awaken Jon’s third eye - something present baby Bran isn’t concerned with, because he barely understands his own third eye awakening. But a Bran in ADOS or beyond would know exactly what to say and do to get Jon and himself to wake up! Not just because of the paradox, but because of his connection to his brother and his vast understanding of his own magic. Similar to the idea that “who would know how to motivate Bran better than Bran himself” who would know how to motivate Jon better than one of his beloved siblings?

Arya X in A Clash of Kings

In the godswood she found her broomstick sword where she had left it, and carried it to the heart tree. There she knelt. Red leaves rustled. Red eyes peered inside her. The eyes of the gods. "Tell me what to do, you gods," she prayed.

For a long moment there was no sound but the wind and the water and the creak of leaf and limb. And then, far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. Gooseprickles rose on Arya's skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy. Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father's voice. "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," he said.

“But there is no pack," she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. "I'm not even me now, I'm Nan."

"You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you."

"The wolf blood." Arya remembered now. "I'll be as strong as Robb. I said I would." She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth.

Once again, we have a voice - it seemed as if it was her father's voice - telling a Starkling to do something specific, reminding that Starkling of their ties to Winterfell, the north, and home. The voice she hears, speaking her true name, is the kick in the pants Arya needs to grab Gendry and Hot Pie and get out of Harrenhal. There's something interesting, engaging, heartbreaking, that when Arya is at one of her lowest points, lamenting the loss of her pack, and out comes the voice of one of her pack urging her to keep faith, and helping to inspire one of her best moments - I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth. Again, we have a voice trying to get the Starklings to wake up and face their reality!

Sansa in A Storm of Swords

That night Sansa scarcely slept at all, but tossed and turned just as she had aboard the Merling King. She dreamt of Joffrey dying, but as he clawed at his throat and the blood ran down across his fingers she saw with horror that it was her brother Robb. And she dreamed of her wedding night too, of Tyrion's eyes devouring her as she undressed. Only then he was bigger than Tyrion had any right to be, and when he climbed into the bed his face was scarred only on one side. "I'll have a song from you," he rasped, and Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. "I wish that you were Lady," she said.

To be clear I think there’s a large change this is nothing. BUT. Considering Bran seems to be reaching out to his siblings, I like the idea that Bran, and magic in general, is trying to talk to Sansa but she can’t quite hear it. Winterfell and it’s magic and it’s family is calling it’s daughter home, even torn from her magical guide as she is, still trying to reach out through her dreams and through the animals around her. I’m desperately hoping that at some point in Sansa’s early TWOW chapters, we’ll start to see birds acting and speaking funny around her as Bran tries harder to reach his lost sister.

Theon Greyjoy in A Dance With Dragons

BUT. I don't think it's just the Starklings that get these messages from Bran - it's everyone he cares about, everyone he loves or will love. One of the other more obvious examples of this is Theon Greyjoy, himself clearly capable of some degree of magic, just like the Starklings-

The night was windless, the snow drifting straight down out of a cold black sky, yet the leaves of the heart tree were rustling his name. “Theon,” they seemed to whisper, “Theon.” The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name. I was Theon of House Greyjoy. I was a ward of Eddard Stark, a friend and brother to his children. “Please.” He fell to his knees. “A sword, that’s all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek.” Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. “I was ironborn. A son … a son of Pyke, of the islands.” A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. “… Bran,” the tree murmured. They know. The gods know. They saw what I did. And for one strange moment it seemed as if it were Bran’s face carved into the pale trunk of the weirwood, staring down at him with eyes red and wise and sad. Bran’s ghost, he thought, but that was madness. Why should Bran want to haunt him? He had been fond of the boy, had never done him any harm. It was not Bran we killed. It was not Rickon. They were only miller’s sons, from the mill by the Acorn Water.

“he had been fond of the boy” please allow me this moment to contemplate killing myself thanks.

okay back on track but this is very self explanatory - we know Theon has some sort of capacity for magic because he had a vision of the Red Wedding in ACOK and unlike Jaime who just fell asleep on a weirweed tree, Theon was just up in bed. We see it again here, where Theon can hear a voice on the wind and then seems to see Bran’s own face in the face of the weirwood tree. Once again, the voice on the wind is trying to help a loved one of Bran’s find their way back to themselves, back to home. And Theon, for all the harm he has done, is still so so loved by Bran, and loves Bran in return.

Samwell Tarly III in A Storm of Swords

Sam made a whimpery sound. “It’s not fair …” “Fair.” The raven landed on his shoulder. “Fair, far, fear.” It flapped its wings, and screamed along with Gilly. The wights were almost on her. He heard the dark red leaves of the weirwood rustling, whispering to one another in a tongue he did not know. The starlight itself seemed to stir, and all around them the trees groaned and creaked. Sam Tarly turned the color of curdled milk, and his eyes went wide as plates. Ravens! They were in the weirwood, hundreds of them, thousands, perched on the bone-white branches, peering between the leaves. He saw their beaks open as they screamed, saw them spread their black wings. Shrieking, flapping, they descended on the wights in angry clouds. They swarmed round Chett’s face and pecked at his blue eyes, they covered the Sisterman like flies, they plucked gobbets from inside Hake’s shattered head. There were so many that when Sam looked up, he could not see the moon. “Go,” said the bird on his shoulder. “Go, go, go.”

Whoever this is - it's Bran!!!! - helps to save Sam and Gilly's lives, actively tells them to run for it, and just a little bit later, Sam is around to help save Bran in turn. I think there's also something to be said for the brotherhood connection here. They refer to each other as brothers in the book because of their connection to Jon; that connection to Jon, and therefore each other, means a lot to both Sam and Bran. There's a practical reason for saving Sam here in that he can help Bran in the "present" timeline, will likely help in the future, but more than that there's an emotional bond here and it seems to me that magic runs off emotions just as assuredly as it runs off of other important stuff like blood and and sacrifice and weirwoods.

Jon Snow XII in A Storm of Swords

With a raucous scream and a clap of wings, a huge raven burst out of the kettle. It flapped upward, seeking the rafters perhaps, or a window to make its escape, but there were no rafters in the vault, nor windows either. The raven was trapped. Cawing loudly, it circled the hall, once, twice, three times. And Jon heard Samwell Tarly shout, “I know that bird! That’s Lord Mormont’s raven!” The raven landed on the table nearest Jon. “Snow,” it cawed. It was an old bird, dirty and bedraggled. “Snow,” it said again, “Snow, snow, snow.” It walked to the end of the table, spread its wings again, and flew to Jon’s shoulder. Lord Janos Slynt sat down so heavily he made a thump, but Ser Alliser filled the vault with mocking laughter. “Ser Piggy thinks we’re all fools, brothers,” he said. “He’s taught the bird this little trick. They all say snow, go up to the rookery and hear for yourselves. Mormont’s bird had more words than that.” The raven cocked its head and looked at Jon. “Corn?” it said hopefully. When it got neither corn nor answer, it quorked and muttered, “Kettle? Kettle? Kettle?” The rest was arrowheads, a torrent of arrowheads, a flood of arrowheads, arrowheads enough to drown the last few stones and shells, and all the copper pennies too.

The Night's Watch seem to take this as some sort of divine sign, and Jon's friends take it as an excellent ploy from Samwell Tarly. But when Pyp confronts Sam over it a page later, Sam completely denies it -

“I had nothing to do with the bird,” Sam insisted. “When it flew out of the kettle I almost wet myself.”

Everyone has their theories about people warging Mormont's crow of course. I think what's interesting to me here is that Jon is really wrestling with the idea of leaving the Watch for Winterfell, in which case Janos Slynt was likely to take over command. Someone like Slynt being in charge when the Long Night is coming is a bad idea, and here, Mormont's bird directly contributes to Jon staying where he needs to be - watching over the wildlings and making sure they aren't turning into Wights.

(And this is getting into my other theories here, but IF Sansa as the Girl In Grey is true, I think this is a neat sort of timeline fixing - almost as if Bran is saying “no, not yet, the pieces aren’t aligned, Jon can’t leave yet, Brienne isn’t at the Vale to get Sansa, I haven’t trained enough, Jon still keeps slapping his hands over his third eye so he can’t see, I need to give myself more time here.”)

Bran II in A Game of Thrones

But...it's not just his family and friends that I think Bran is trying to help here, and of course, if he IS the Three-Eyed Crow, he isn’t YET. What I think is going to be a big climactic part of Bran's story is self sacrifice, giving up some of his own power, his own happiness, to save others. Yes, part of this is my absolute refusal to accept Borg Hivemind Fantasy Police State King Bran in that he will say NO to the hivemind, but I think there's something magical here as well!

I think in order to access great power you need to be willing to put your own body on the line.

Jojen mentions having gotten sick with "greywater fever" shortly before his greendreams started

Dany experiences a miscarriage then literally walks into fire in order to hatch her dragons

both Beric and Catelyn have to quite literally be gruesomely murdered in order for Thoros' fire magic to work to bring them back to life

Melisandre has to physically give birth in order for her shadow assassination to work

on and on it goes. In order to be capable of great power, you can’t just have a willingness to throw someone ELSE onto the pyre but yourself as well. But Bran is pushed out of the window instead of willingly jumping. Or...

The wolfling was smarter than any of the hounds in his father’s kennel and Bran would have sworn he understood every word that was said to him, but he showed very little interest in chasing sticks…Finally he got tired of the stick game and decided to go climbing….

The wolf did as he was told. Bran scratched him behind the ears, then turned away, jumped, grabbed a low branch, and pulled himself up. He was halfway up the tree, moving easily from limb to limb, when the wolf got to his feet and began to howl.

Bran looked back down. His wolf fell silent, staring up at him through slitted yellow eyes. A strange chill went through him. He began to climb again. Once more the wolf howled. “Quiet,” he yelled. “Sit down. Stay. You’re worse than Mother.” The howling chased him all the way up the tree, until finally he jumped off onto the armory roof and out of sight.

I think this is future Bran, finally becoming the Three Eyed Crow, inside Summer. Summer shows no interest in the game and it’s only then that Bran decides to go climbing. Future Bran is sacrificing himself for the greater good - but can’t stop his mournful cry of the fate that awaits his own young self.

[cloverzbandit]

I FINALLY bring you an Neo Agent 3 reference! It took 3 tries and this one was the one- Enjoy :3

[miru667]

Hey, this might be a long one (though I'm new to Tumblr so idk how this even works tbh) but I got into the onceler a year ago? I'm still morbidly in love with this guy and ngl maybe I'm just here because I'm feeling sad that all my friends have left him already and moved on- still I knew that you were in the onceler fandom since the start and honestly i admired you a lot for that for staying with him for so long jsjjs- I wanted to ask since the fandom comes and goes every so often, how was it like in 2012/2013? Everyone has told me that now is really tame compared to how wild the fandom was when the movie came out and hearing about it I really wish I was there to witness it (i mean I could've but I was only little kid lol). Another question though how do you feel about the onceler fandom being revived then dying a few months later? Ngl it makes me feel pretty sad for onceler for some reason lol it just makes me think about him rising up to fame and success then falling back being alone again and the cycle continues. Still I know some are still active which gives me comfort

Hello! Aw it's always bittersweet when a friend loses interest in a thing you were both into but sadly it's part of life :,) As long as there were no hard feelings then you can cherish the memories you made together.

And actually I've talked before about how the fandom was in the past vs how I feel in the present, here are a few posts that may interest you: [link] [link] [link] If you want specifics of things that occurred you could check out this post too: [link] and then here is a really good summary of how the fandom evolved in 2012: [link]

^And related to that last link, this is one of the reasons that the fandom seems to "die" every so often I guess? People get inspired and make onceler ocs and then they eventually get deoncelerized and used in other projects, and I don't think that's a bad thing at all. The Once-ler is a fictional character from a book/movie so I don't feel bad for him, it's the real people that are/were in the fandom who matter more and it's really cool and heartwarming to see people have fun and make friendships that last beyond their time in the fandom. So all in all I think it's okay as long as our friends are happy. We can't force someone to like something.

All that said though, I think our perceptions are a bit different currently because I feel like the fandom has been booming for the past year? 😂 Idk it seems really active to me at the moment!

[datsu-rock2763]

Ado fans when the anything has the word "ado"

[kindagastly]

jk, ash’s avatar is a cutesy idol-style one. i think the idea of performing has always appealed to her, so an idol character doesn’t seem too far fetched imo. either way, i think she’s cute :]

[swallowtailed]

just googled "february face" to work out where i'd heard it before, discovered it originated with much ado, pulled up the full text--turned out it's said by pedro about benedick, and when claudio teases him one line further, benedick turns to him and says "your mom cuckolded your dad with a bull", and the reason this is left out of every production i've ever seen is that it's immediately between benedick getting permission to marry beatrice and hero's big reveal. but it's very funny

[susartwork]

English isn’t my first language, sorry in case of misspelling.

-UNDYNE- Age: 28 years old Magic color: saffron yellow Gender: female Pronouns: she/her Orientation: homosexual

Likes: - Soda and turmeric bread with salami - Smoking tobacco - Playing piano and doing pottery - Anime with big swords!

Dislikes: - Whoever doesn't follow the laws, but she's open to forgiveness - Needles

Extra info: - She owns 5 cats after she found them in a box on the street. - She obviously has a huge crush on Alphys, and all her seriousness vanishes when she's around. She basically turns into an idiot /aff - Her rival is UW!Red/Silver, but they're also best friends. - Her parents died at the hands of a serial killer not long after she was born. Many years later that same person stabbed her in the eye and cut off her leg, but Silver luckily saved her by killing him. - Gerson always took care of her but never adopted her. He's like her cool uncle, as is Asgore. - She often feels stressed and gets irritated easily, that’s why she smokes. On the other hand, she will always try to be optimistic. - She's very good at singing but never grew an interest for it. - Voice example: "レディメイド" sang by Ado. - Attacks: Can use green magic on souls. Magic spears and bouncing spears (the bouncing ones are blue). Huge piranha head made of pure magical energy (it's like a Gaster Blaster but instead of shooting it chomps the target). Metal fishing spear that can work as a harpoon. Metal claws.

[veveisveryuncool]

i went insane last night

[worflesbian]

cool down sketches of martok and sirella in the Beatrice and Benedick costumes from the tate&tennant much ado about nothing

[total-drama-brainrot]

need to reupload my 'noah wins the aftermath' au fic but. i can't think of a good title for it that isn't cringe.

[tinyplanetss]

fascinated by this line from much ado (4.1.320) that i've never really noticed despite reading this play a good dozen times. the idea that this concept of chivalry has grown so common that the standard for what is considered to be an above-and-beyond kindness is just the act of dramatically swearing by something, even if it's false or inconstant. the idea that hercules, with his twelve labors, is something a man can consider himself to match by swearing his heart upon falsehoods!! "valor into compliment" the gap between saying something kind of nice about someone and performing an act in someone's name (for example. kill claudio) is HUGE and modern culture (for shakespeare's time) has shifted to conflate them to such a wild degree. oh that a friend would be a man for my sake.

AND THEN ‼️ benedick goes to swear! and beatrice says THATS NOT ENOUGH. and because the others's matchmaking prank made him actually look inward and study/better himself, he looks to her and LISTENS and trusts her!!!!!