#daphne asks

[aslov3rsgo]

"Maybe I can help, Daphne..." I said, stepping closer with a grin. "What do you say?..."

Daphne licked her lips as she looked him up and down. "I would be very grateful for some help, Professor."

[marchioness-of-shitposting]

The pure chaos and Bridgerton dumbassery of Anthony walking in on Eloise making out with Cressida is just comedic gold waiting to happen like,

Anthony: You will marry her!

Cressida: Yes, well unfortunately I cannot do so.

Anthony: Have you no shame, Miss Cowper? You have defiled my sister! She is ruined!

Cressida: And I would be happy to make right by her. However—

Anthony: No excuses! You will marry her or we will deul at dawn!

Benedict: Is it not ungentlemanly to deul a young lady?

Anthony: …yes well… you will marry her or… or Kate will deul you at dawn!

Kate: I’m not doing that.

Anthony: Babe, please.

Kate: You’re an imbecile.

Anthony: Fine. Colin will duel Miss Cowper.

Colin: Why must I be the ungentlemanly one?

Anthony: Because someone must!

Daphne: Someone must what?

Benedict: Deul Miss Cowper.

Daphne: Whyever would one of you need to deul Miss Cowper?

Anthony: Because I caught her in the act of defiling our sister!

Daphne: Right… well passion can sometimes get the best of us when we are in love. As long as Miss Cowper does the honourable thing and marries Eloise—

Anthony: She is refusing!

Francesca: Why would you refuse? You both seem so in love.

Cressida: I am not refusing! I am merely confused regarding how exactly I am supposed to—

Daphne: Worry not, brother. I will handle this. *cracking her knuckles* You will marry her or come the dawn our pistols meet and you will take your final breath in the presence of my gleeful victory.

Everyone: …

Benedict: Is anyone else suddenly very afraid of Daphne?

Hyacinth: Cressida and Eloise will make the most beautiful children.

Gregory: Do you think if I ask they’ll name one after me?

Meanwhile

John: Should we maybe… intervene?

Simon: Of course not. When it comes to the Bridgertons it is every man or woman for themselves.

Kate: She must learn to stand on her own. She’ll never survive this family otherwise.

Penelope: Survive this family? Do you actually believe they’ll make it to the wedding before realising two women are unable to wed?

Kate: No. But when love is involved the Bridgertons will find a way and love most certainly is. I called this six months ago.

Simon: Agreed. Though if they are to marry someone must first hunt down Eloise.

John: What are you talking about she's right… where the hell did she go?

Penelope: Oh she’s long gone. She snuck out as soon as Anthony brought up marriage.

[vocallywritten]

Would You Fuck Your Clone? Bridgerton Edition

[channydraws]

Mystery Inc's dynamics?

They all doing their best at what they do... u u

Daphne didnt think Velma would need a leash.

[kiisaes]

Starting to wonder if Daphne mentioning Sunny as knife kid in teh Catholic school au means something

origin of the "knife boy" nickname

[spooksandooks]

can you draw Daphne from scooby doo

[apollosgiftofprophecy]

I saw a couple of posts here and on ao3 where you talked about how TOA Apollo has a stilted view of romantic relationships. Would you be comfortable explaining that, it got me really interested!

OKAY

SO

gonna be putting this under a cut for length

Apollo and relationships. Specifically, ToA Apollo and relationships.

let's see if I can formulate the thoughts into words.

Right off the bat, Apollo does have a hard time avoiding those red flags (hello, Commodus), so much so that he can see them...he just ignores them.

This already tells us that he doesn't have the healthiest view on relationships, or what specifically a healthy partner would be like.

In RRverse canon, these are all of his confirmed, canon relationships/love interests;

Hyacinthus

Commodus

Naomi

Darren

Latricia

Cyrene

Daphne

Sibyl

(I probably missed some asdfhjk)

Anyway, I've noticed that in canon, Apollo's relationships tend to fall into two categories; Sweet or Sour, we'll call them.

Now the majority on the list are Sweet! They are fulfilling relationships with no indication of any bitter feelings- Apollo is not shy about telling us about his love life, and certainly doesn't keep it from us when a relationship went south.

What I find interesting is that all three of the Sours can help pinpoint Apollo's more jaded/stilted view on romance.

Let's kick off with Daphne.

First things first, Apollo is quite literally forced to fall in love with her. Like. That has GOT to screw with a guy. What's more, is that when Apollo explains to us how Eros's arrows work;

What people do not understand: Eros’s arrows can’t summon emotion from nothing. They can only cultivate potential that is already there. Daphne and I could have been a perfect pair. She was my true love. She could have loved me back. Yet thanks to Eros, my love-o-meter was cranked to one hundred percent, while Daphne’s feelings turned to pure hate (which is, of course, only the flip side of love). Nothing is more tragic than loving someone to the depths of your soul and knowing they cannot and will not ever love you back. The stories say I chased her on a whim, that she was just another pretty dress. The stories are wrong. - The Hidden Oracle

There's an implication that he and Daphne may have actually been...friends. Or at the very least acquaintances.

It's never stated in canon when Daphne happened, and the mythology itself is weird about the timeline, but it certainly happened earlier in Apollo's life.

Imagine being forced to fall madly in love with someone you know and they are made to despise you.

The self-confidence definitely took a blow here.

What's more...

When she begged Gaea to turn her into a laurel tree in order to escape me, part of my heart hardened into bark as well.

Apollo tells us plainly that what happened with Daphne shook his views on romantic endeavors. Though, it didn't keep him from engaging in romance, either.

Now, back to Commodus real quick. We already covered the No Red Flag Bell with him, and honestly, I won't spend too much time here because I got a whole meta list waiting to dissect these two XD

But Sibyl reveals something else about Apollo and romance- sometimes, he sees it as transactional.

The story of Apollo and Sibyl does differ from the mythology of them- in mythology, Sibyl tricks Apollo into granting her a long life, and he kinda just shrugs and says 'okay, but you didn't ask for eternal youth either so...whoops?'

In ToA, Rick switches it up a bit by having Apollo grant Sibyl a long life after she jokes about it, and when she further rebuffs him, he curses her with no eternal youth.

Alas, I knew what I’d been thinking—that she was a pretty young woman I wanted to get with, despite the fact that she was my Sibyl. Then she’d outsmarted me, and being the bad loser that I was, I had cursed her. - The Tyrant's Tomb

I promised you life, not youth. You can have your centuries of existence. You will remain my Sibyl. I cannot take those things away, once given. But you will grow old. You will wither. You will not be able to die.

Yeah, it sounds like Apollo more or less curses her with no eternal youth here.

(Daily disclaimer that mythology Apollo's love life is actually very good and you should read up on it :3)

Back to the transactional thing-

"You cannot refuse payment." “Payment?” She balled her hands into fists. “You dare think of me as a transaction?” “I didn’t mean—Obviously, I wasn’t—”

Now, do I think Apollo sees all relationships as transactional? No. But let's consider the Olympian influence for a moment here.

Olympus in the RRverse is rather fucked, no doubt about it. The gods do not help without first being given something, and that permeates through their whole lifestyles.

Apollo's not being transactional because ✨misogyny✨. He's being transactional because that's what he's been raised to believe. If he gives something, he gets something back. That goes for all the gods, male and female and everything in between.

Bacchus helps the demigods in Mark of Athena because they paid tribute to him. Whenever a god extends aid, burnt offerings are made in thanks- which is probably part of the reason why Hera got angry with Annabeth when she refused to give her burnt offerings in The Battle of the Labyrinth after she helped her on her quest.

Apollo doesn't seem to be as picky as some (ie, The Titan's Curse, where he helps out to help out. You can argue he got his sister back in exchange but that's not really typical godly exchange lol), but it's clear that mindset has somewhat transferred over into relationships.

Now, I also want to talk about how Hyacinthus affected him- because let's be real, he was the one that affected him the most without outside interference (looking at you, Eros).

Apollo has told us time and again that Hyacinthus was one of, if not his greatest, love. His death really left a mark on him, and I am of the firm belief that it's that mark that made him wary of forming too close of a relationship with others- even when he tries to convince them and himself they are his One True Love™️, it falls flat inside his own head.

Because let's face it- that spot is occupied by Hyacinthus, and the hole he left in Apollo's heart.

This isn't to say Apollo loves his other lovers less- heck no! Love is one of his defining qualities. He has much love in him!

It's just that Hyacinthus had a particular impact on him, and how he views relationships.

*vibrates in Hyapollo multific* I have...my own personal ideas...on what that entails...

And we see how touch-and-go Apollo is with other lovers! As soon as Commodus becomes emperor, he's gone. And only comes back in disguise, never revealing himself until he kills him.

Naomi, Darren, and Latricia are all obviously loving relationships from what we can gather, but it's clear it was never long-term.

Cyrene, really, is where I'd argue he got the closest to a long-term relationship with a mortal-ish person, but even so, they aren't in a permanent long-term relationship either.

Hyacinthus, however? I can see he and Apollo maintaining an everlasting romance.

...Also because that is exactly what happens according to the Spartans and who are we to deny what the Spartans declared about their national hero?

The only other exceptions to this I can see are his relationships with the Muses and (hello, fellow Apricity shippers) Boreas.

But even so...the Muses give off like, 'married co-workers' vibes, if that makes sense, and Boreas is more or less a winter fling (fandom forgive me, you know I am a shipper🫡)

Anyway. Hope this rambling makes sense or at least provides a platform for someone to put coherent thoughts together lmao

In conclusion: sometimes Apollo is transactional in relationships because of the culture he was raised in, and he has commit issues because of just how hard Hyacinthus's death hit him :)

have fun pondering :3

[tanuki-kimono]

recently i learned about yuzuriha (d. macropodum) and its symbology of having leaves that don't fall off in winter until its new leaves have fully grown in—and so i'm wondering if you know of any instances yuzuriha has been depicted in wagara?

Hi! I've never encountered yuzuriha as a pattern, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist - just that it would be a rare/unusual one :)

Of what I know of, yuzuriha, with their leaves only falling when the new ones have grown, symbolizes generations succeeding one another, and lineage strenght.

In that spirit, yuzuriha leaves were (still are?) also used as an auspicious New year decor. As a clothes pattern, it would be fitting for that season :)

[hikiclawd]

Perhaps Shaggy and Daphne 1C?

:D YIPPIEE clothes swap . + Scooby too cuz he deserves to be glam...

[aslov3rsgo]

"Enjoying yourself, Daphne?..." I asked, grinning as she bounced on her fingers in front of me. "It looks like you're mighty needy..."

She moaned and nodded at her Professor's words. "It feels good, but it's not filling me up enough.."

[silverfoxstole]

Some random pics from various BF recordings I came across amongst my photos. The Shada ones I scanned from DWM myself and I assume the others (with the exception of the last two) are from the same source. Bottom left is a screengrab from the photos section of the Daphne Ashbrook in the UK DVD.

[doodlegraveyard]

Hello I wanted to know if you defined your version of the nymphs from winx yet

Hey what’s up! JSYK I got your other asks too I’m just saving them until I have something interesting to say/real life is kicking my ass.

As for the nymphs I was interested in the early lore we got about the nymphs of magix and I am treating the Nymphs as an order of powerful fairies dedicated to protecting the great dragons flame and the balance of magic, also kind of taking the spirit of the concept of guardian fairies a little bit?

The original nine would probably be like, legendary figures who aren’t around anymore but the Order of nymphs would have been styled after them. I like the idea that they’re associated with the great dragon and the likenesses are used in temples and state buildings and stuff.

I was working on concepts for the vestments, kind of inspired by how Daphne originally looked but I’m sheepish to do the full bird head thing idk tho.

I think the vast majority of the nymphs were killed during the fall of domino and the order is slightly defunct now, tho I do think it’s a nice if predictable move to make the number of the original legendary nymphs (9) into 6 with the implication being that the Winx girls can kind of be a revival of the concept (or 7 if I include Roxy in that)

[askdaphneblake]

[channydraws]

Scooby without his scarf?

GET THAT DOG BACK HIS CLOTHES

[faraway-monsters]

I just realized we have never seen the bread twins, how would they react to just hero coming in and buying all their bread

He's in a lot. The twins don't really mind, it's good for business.

[truthsinwhispers]

Lookalikes