#like technically you have this knowledge. but also it's a completely separate thing it's not part of the twilight franchise

[dolokhoded]

NOOOOO THE TRANSFORMED WIFE i had literally erased her from my memory until i just read your tags 😭

she comes to me in nightmares occasionally and i think it's a figment of my imagination but then i remember than no actually that's a real person those things really were said in real life and i want to explode the planet earth

[thestargayzingetherian]

She-Ra In He-Man Revelations/Revolution

So it's been a few days and I wanted to put this post out there to basically publicly give my thoughts on some... recent developments concerning He-Man Revolution. Before I go into this, MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING FOR THE SHOW!

And also, and this is probably MORE important than the spoiler warning. Do not, and I repeat, do not take whatever speculation I put in this post as gospel or something that is GOING to happen. I may be a bit more knowledgeable than a lot of people about this stuff, but I don't wanna consider myself an expert. This is just me speculating and giving my thoughts and I don't want to get anyone's hopes up because there's a good chance, that what I'm saying turns out to be completely wrong and I don't wanna be responsible for that, so please, take all of this with the smallest grain of salt possible.

With that out of the way...

So the new season of He-Man ends with the reveal of this lady, Despara. For those who don't know... she is Adora. As in She-Ra Adora. In the DC He-man comics, Despara was the name Adora was known as when she was raised as Hordak's daughter. Her name is often used by Catradora fan artists and fic writers who really wanna just make Adora a hot evil lesbian, usually with a hot butch hairdo. It is likely that if/when another season of this show comes, Despara will be the main focus.

Now this raises the obvious question... how are they going to handle the She-Ra stuff. As I have made posts about before, the She-Ra rights and He-Man rights have been separate for a very long time and apparently, the last thing I heard, Mattel themselves can't use any of the She-Ra characters in animated form due to Dreamworks owning them now.

So naturally, you might be thinking that Despara here is just a placeholder because they can't use She-Ra. Except... there are a LOT of She-Ra references in this season that are way too numerous to be just references.

For example:

They recreate the exact scene from the 80s She-Ra movie where Adora is taken as a baby by Hordak in a flashback scene. They also mention Horde Prime existing as well and they EVEN imply that Shadow Weaver exists in this universe as well and Hordak's new robot second-in-command, Motherboard is a replacement for her.

So yeah, all signs SEEMINGLY point to some sort of She-Ra-inspired adaption being the next part of this show. Now, considering the very complex rights issues... I can see this going one of two ways.

Mattel and Dreamworks did a deal like the one Sony and Marvel did with Spiderman to temporarily get the She-Ra rights back for JUST this next season. Despara is revealed to be Adora and her arc will be her learning her true family AND eventually becoming She-Ra to fight Horde Prime with her brother and possibly all the other She-Ra cast are there too. This I feel like it would be the ideal solution to all of this.

2. Despara is revealed to be someone else OTHER than Adora under her helmet because her face is obviously not seen in her brief scene when she takes her helmet off. Technically, Mattel would own Despara outright and not Dreamworks and they could easily make Despara her own character. This was also how they planned to include her in the second season of CGI He-Man. HOWEVER, considering all the foreshadowing and knowing how many people working on these shows loved SPOP... I feel like it'd be really unsatisfying if it wasn't Adora under the mask, both as a fan and from a creative standpoint.

As for my personal theory of what Despara's whole deal is, I think she's ruling Etheria on the other side of the galaxy with Catra and serving personally under Horde Prime. Basically SPOP but a bad ending. The plot will be He-Man and his friends finding out about Etheria and going there to free the planet and Despara will redeem herself and she and Catra and whoever will join team good guy.

But that's just my personal theory. I really don't know what the hell is going to happen here or even IF more episodes will even be coming and I don't want to get people's hopes up. There's a reason I myself have been working on my own She-Ra and He-Man crossover extended universe stuff for the last while so, at the very least, there'd be a fanfic that would satisfy my hopes. I am prepared to be very wrong here.

But even if none of this speculation pans out, I still highly recommend this show to She-Ra fans. The second season definitely fixed the few issues I had with the first one and I hope more comes out of this version of He-Man... then again, it wouldn't be the first time a He-Man series was cancelled.

Hope you find this post informative!

[oz-posts]

Almost certainly unnecessary, A!smp is probably completely separate, but when has that stopped us?

So I've been thinking about what Hera's nickname for asmp! Sunship would be. And have thought of a few possibilities. (Conclusion at the end feel free to skip)

If we go by a more leocoptera style of naming it could be anything but that seems to be the exception not the rule and so I shall focus on Greek/Roman heroes for now.

The traits I am using to narrow this down for asmp! Aimsey are:

. Royalty (preferably princehood)

. An association with space or the moon

. Possibly violence as an associated trait

. Association with knowledge and/or insanity

3. Theseus (Θησέυς)

This is not a particularly good one if only for how damp!Tommy has already claimed it.

However it does work a bit.

He is a prince, and a lost one at that. His father abandoned him in an attempt to protect him and (depending on how things go down at those coordinates this could really fit or really not) his father nearly had him murdered. Similarly, if in the future his relationship to Asmp!guqqie devolves it could perhaps mirror his relationship to Ariadne (who I may go over as a possiblity for Guqqie in a later part)

Sadly, after this it falls apart. He is typically considered quite noble,retains his sanity (I think) and his nature as more of a trickster contradicts A! Aimsey's more desperate panicked violence. Similarly, there is no association with space whatsoever.

2. Odysseus (Οδυσσευς)

By far the most famous on this list, I quite like Odysseus for the ways their stories mirror each other. The Odyssey is typically agreed to mainly symbolize thought and the nature of humanity, which to me feels similar to Aimsey's nature as a seeming human ending -however I understand this is a stretch. Similarly, their stories are both about a desperate struggle to either find or establish a home.

Odysseus was also royalty, the king of Ithica and had a connection to knowledge himself. Being originally allied with Athena before pissing her off. And had several moments where he struggled with the isolation her experienced on his journey. However, he has no major association with space and was mainly sane and if not peaceful his violence was carefully considered and controlled.

1. Asterion (Αστεριον)

While this will get all the bg3 nerds confused I think it really fits. Asterion means "starry" ( space association check) and is the name used by the citizens of Crete for the minotaur. As the step son of Minos he would have been considered a prince ( royalty, check) although not technically in line for the throne.

Immediately, the minotaur is associated with senseless violence and insanity as it was said to have a craving for blood and was locked in a maze by his stepfather to "protect his people". Similarly, even if sane at the beginning, all those years in darkness and solitude would have lead to desperation and insanity anyways.

However, even in the contemporary period this was understood to be not entirely accurate. Asterion was demonized by his father as a bastard - with a literal bull no less-and used as his own personal monster to threaten his enemies with. The famous labyrinth and human sacrifices were used as a punishment for Athens after their king killed Minos's son. This to me could perhaps mirror how humans are automatically assumed to be evil and how this has become a self fulfilling prophecy as they kill and steal out of fear

Anyways, this is my opinion and may not be entirely accurate. If you disagree or I got anything wrong please correct me and don't get mad please.

[sanddusted-wisteria]

I have a crack theory that has absolutely no bearing on the story whatsoever: Qi never got his doctorate/PhD.

[Put the rest under a read more in case you don’t want to read like 3 pages of straight up speculation over nothing holy shit]

(to preface, getting a PhD is basically what separates a student and a professional researcher in academia. You most likely can’t be a professor without one, and research jobs in non-academic labs aren't likely to take you either. Getting a PhD also earns you the title of "Dr.", same as an MD.)

Even though Qi is referred to as “Dr. Qi” by several people, when he’s actually called that in his earshot, he insists on being called “Director”.

The way Qi speaks is very “technically correct” and literal, according to one of the writers.

[taken from an Ask the Dev segment on the Pathea discord.]

So maybe he insists on being called “Director” because it’s technically the only title he actually holds. Your college professors have doctorates, but you can probably call them “Professor” or “Doctor” interchangeably and it’ll still be okay with them. So why doesn’t Qi also operate like that?

PhDs also typically take 5 years to complete (and that’s assuming nothing goes wrong…). You’ll probably be in your late 20s by the time you’re done. But…how old is Qi? He hasn’t been assigned a canon age yet, but we can make a few guesses.

There’s a photo of his family in his room that is dated from year 80. MTaS starts at year 98 (or 97, I have to check). Considering that adult Qi is about 5’11”/180 cm, he’s definitely younger than a teenager in this pic when we see his relative height here. I say he looks around 8-10? That means that by the start of MTaS, he’s around 26-28. It should be around this time that he finishes his doctorate and has a successful dissertation defense. But he’s in Sandrock… There’s also this line from one of the main missions (no spoilers) that implies that Qi’s been in Sandrock for around 7 years. So he potentially left Vega 5 and came to Sandrock when he was in his early 20s.

But when did he graduate, then? It’s a bit more possible that he got his Bachelor's degree super early. Maybe he skipped a few grades, maybe he sigma grindsetted his degree plan. With the more course-based and structured nature of Bachelor’s programs, it probably would’ve been easier to speedrun. A big research effort like a dissertation takes more time to properly do and can't really be sped up that much, since it's intended to be a culmination of all the knowledge you've gained on a particular subject.

But then what happened after that?? He started work on his PhD, but then…his dissertation work got stolen. In The Assistant, Qi says at some point while he was at uni, his work was stolen.

He doesn’t specify what it was, but it was bad enough that he refused to work directly with anyone else since. Losing your dissertation is…bad, to say the least. It could’ve been stolen, you’ve might’ve lost it, or someone else just happened to do the same thing you were doing and publish it first. Whatever the case, if that happens, at worst, you need to start from square one. Years of work, straight into the garbage. It’s also a matter of money, too. Do you have enough to pull you through a couple extra years of tuition? Can you renew your assistantship? Considering his parents are humble fishermen, Qi probably couldn't secure the funds to keep going. So he threw up his hands and quit school, and tried to find research work on his own merit. Without a doctorate, though, he probably was only able to take low-rank or assistant jobs. Instead of being assessed on his talents as is, his lack of a title barred him from making any advancements. So he left. It would explain this line, where he talks about leaving Vega 5 due to “bureaucratic pedantry”:

Qi’s the only researcher in Sandrock, and is therefore Director by default. He might be in Sandrock to find the Olympia, but is he also there because that’s the only place he has any authority? Is Sandrock the only place where people will take him seriously? Is he clinging to that? Is that why he insists on people calling him Director…?

…Well now I’m sad. I’ll end this on a higher note with an even crackier theory: Merlin from MTaP was the one who stole his work. There is absolutely NO evidence for this, I just think it’d be funny.

Merlin was “the most promising apprentice” at Vega 5, but was kicked out for performing an experiment so egregious that even Vega 5 wanted nothing to do with her. What if she had a rivalry going with Qi while they were in school, and it culminated in her stealing his research? Whatever the hell Qi was planning to do was so off the cuff that she took the fall for him when she actually did it. And Qi was planning on leaving Vega 5 anyway, so he’d be free to continue his mad scientist shit elsewhere. Alternatively, Merlin stole his work, he saw that she got kicked out, and he decided to skedaddle knowing that he’d probably be next if he kept going.

okay that's enough spitballing thank u for coming to my ted talk

[astercontrol]

Latest news from the Asterbrain Pattern-Recognizer: How a butt joke led to a religious analysis of the whole TRON 1982 cast.

So, today, for… strange and mysterious Aster-specific reasons… I was looking for a character who could be written as Catholic.

And because Tron is always on my brain, I went straight for those characters.

Now, though I was technically raised Roman Catholic, my own family's faith and customs were pretty secular, and I certainly never developed any notion that I could know other Catholics on sight.

And, while TRON leans heavily into religious themes from the Program viewpoint, the Users don't say or do much that would indicate their own religion. All I can think of, offhand, is a few references to Christmas-- so brief and vague that they might not even be enough to imply anyone being Christian.

So, we might just have to go by character names... and the associations that an audience familiar with stereotypes and archetypes would have with them.

Alan Bradley: Both given name and surname seem to be British in origin; could be coded as Anglican or Methodist or some other form of Protestant, but in the absence of other clues I don't think viewers would give much thought to his religion or his ethnic background. He's basically designed to look like 1980's American audiences' idea of the most normal, standard everyday guy.

Lora Baines: Probably also of British origin, though that spelling of the first name is uncommon. Like Alan, there might be some vague assumption of Protestantism, but not a whole lot of thought given to it.

Walter Gibbs: Last name, again, seems to come from England, and the actor's accent sounds to me like maybe it's attempting to be British… but that might just be how older Hollywood actors had been trained to talk, back then. I hear similar voices in old movies a LOT. Again I'm not sure audiences would immediately think anything about his religion (although his line about programs and their "spirits" ties very closely into the… animism of the whole digital-world side of things).

(Wow, so far lots of names from England, and lots of reinforcement of the idea that those names are so default as to go unnoticed. Probably says something about society, and/or about me and my viewpoint on it. ...Moving on.)

Ed Dillinger: that surname seems to have originated separately in both Germany and England; going by his accent it's clearly England, so audiences would probably guess Anglican. (If they thought anything about that name at all beyond the 1930's gangster connotation.)

Roy Kleinberg: very unambiguously Jewish name, thank you Legacy and The Next Day! (as of 1982 we only knew him as Popcorn Coworker, which could have been anything, since there is, to my knowledge, no religion with dietary restrictions against popcorn.)

Kevin Flynn: ...okay! this is the most Irish name I have seen in a long time! We may have our Catholic-coded character, folks. (Although he might be primarily "luck of the Irish" coded, LOL.)

(they found him under the rainbow, like a leprechaun on his pot of gold)

And, completing this analysis, I've found that it felt much more worthwhile than the joke I had in mind when I started.

Truly, the journey outweighs the destination here.

Yes, my idea did require a Catholic and someone else unfamiliar with Catholicism-- the joke itself remaining agnostic on which of them, exactly, was being made fun of.

But it was such a silly, throwaway joke that could have been a two-line shitpost, and certainly did not NEED to be about Tron characters.

My mind, though, will go off on whatever tangents it wishes.

....the butt joke, in case you wanted it:

"So, you Catholics only listen to the Pope when he is… talking out of his ass?" "His seat, man. Cathedra means seat."

[ihavedonenothingright]

So thus far into TOTK (I haven't finished the game, but I got the instruction to go beat the final boss), it really does seem like TOTK and BOTW are completely separate lore-wise from most every other game in the series except for maybe Skyward Sword. Zelda travels all the way back to Hyrule's "founding," which she is fairly familiar with, and there's a comment one of the researchers makes about mentions of a "Zelda" in the ancient past confirming that perhaps the name doesn't originate from their princess. He's unaware it's the same Zelda, which means naming every princess of Hyrule "Zelda" is not a thing. This Zelda is, as far as she knows, the first (though that doesn't eliminate the chance others existed).

This (and some other stuff) leads me to believe that the founding of Hyrule in TOTK takes place after all the old games. I highly doubt that all historical records of the name Zelda would have completely disappeared between the ancient past of TOTK and TOTK's present if that space was occupied by all the other games. And that is ignoring the weird time stuff and the required presence of two Ganondorfs simultaneously. On top of that, Sonia, the only Hylian we see much of in the past, resembles Skyward Sword's Impa more than Zelda and Gaepora. We don't know for sure that that Zelda founded Hyrule, but the reincarnated spirit of Hylia is blood-related. So I'm solidly shunting aside the idea that this is the first founding of Hyrule.

Now because the name Zelda has apparently been forgotten, even by TOTK's ancient past (Rauru and Sonia don't exactly go "Oh! Zelda! That's a famous name"), and no one seems aware that Hyrule existed before, I'm going to say that pre (or post...) the arrival of the Zonai, Hyrule goes through something like a Dark Age. Their history is no longer preserved and retold like in older games, and so eventually, you end up in a place where there is no Hyrule, and no one knows about the Triforce and the cycle. But that's really odd, right? Like, scarily odd. How do you forget the Triforce exists? It's the big war-causer in Hyrule's history, this thing that grants you the power to completely remake the world. And no knowledge of Zelda or Link or Ganon? No knowledge of the epic cycle? Clearly Zelda is still inheriting the memories of her prior reincarnations since she recognizes the name "Ganondorf" in a flashback, so what gives?

It seems awfully convenient that no one knows about the Triforce, especially since there's evidence Zelda carries it. The symbol shows up when she uses her sealing powers, and it's definitely still associated with the royal family's crest. Now the second part is really weird since we're at a second founding of Hyrule and no one seems to know what it is. But just focusing on Zelda's powers: for the Triforce to be the source of them, that would have to mean it somehow ended up in Zelda's bloodline. How would it do that?

They mention that she seems to have inherited Rauru's light power and Sonia's time power (which implies they had kids, I know people are skeptical and I am too, but it seems like they did). So, does Rauru's power also derive from the Triforce? Did she get it from him?

Well if he did have it, founding a Hyrule where no one remembers the Triforce, the cycle, or old Hyrule would be much easier.

There's a lot of problems with this theory: namely, Rauru isn't technically dead (I think) until the beginning of TOTK, so wouldn't the Triforce have stayed with him that entire time if he had it? But there's also evidence in the games that the Triforce is a one-use kind of thing, so I can see him getting one shot with it and then passing it along via bloodline like a lot of Zeldas have done with the Triforce of Wisdom. Something about Rauru strikes me as very sinister, and some other people have done a really good job looking at that in more detail (check out @golvio and @betterbemeta's posts), but yeah the vibe of Rauru's inner circle and his Hyrule overall is strange. The representatives of all four races (though we never see the Sheikah in the past, so we can't verify what's going on with them at this point; they might not be Hylians yet) cover their faces with these large, clearly Zonai masks to signal their fealty to Rauru. Practically, they serve the same purpose as the champions' blue clothes, but it's so much more uncomfortable. They don't have faces! They aren't individuals! The only people in the past whose faces we see (who aren't Sonia, Rauru, Zelda, or Mineru because even the ancient Hylians in Rauru's employ wear masks) is Ganondorf and some of his Gerudo. Rauru, Sonia, and the royal line get to walk uncovered, but everyone else depicted as loyal and righteous is faceless.

So I would hazard that the reason BOTW and TOTK are so cut off from the other games lore-wise is not just distance, but because Rauru, when he came down to become king, used the Triforce to completely reforge Hyrule in his own image. It's possible he was told to do this by Hylia, and sent down by the gods as a representative of theirs, but I think it's also possible he was sent for another job (fixing the chaos that is the three way timeline split) and chose to stay and set himself up as a king. He doesn't seem to have been a particularly notable figure among the Zonai; Mineru notes how well he's done for himself on the surface which leads me to believe he had far less power where he came from. Whether or not his intentions were benevolent is a "who knows?" sort of question. Maybe they were! But I think Rauru is a good case for the idea that Ganondorf's reincarnation cycle isn't some cosmic punishment, but rather a natural reaction of balance. Rauru builds all his shrines of light, doesn't appoint a Sage of Shadow (no Sage of Shadow is weird, right? I'm not the only one), forces hegemony on Hyrule, and in the process of trying to make a completely clean society, births an opposite of chaos to his order. TOTK Ganondorf is a little obscure in terms of motive, but in his first few cutscenes in the past, he's fairly composed. He wants Hyrule to bow at his feet; he wants to humiliate Rauru. All the comments he makes towards him are pointed. This is a Ganondorf who resents the idea of becoming another faceless mask. Eventually he morphs into a being of pure chaos, perhaps in response to Rauru's more frantic attempts at control. But if the objective was balance, Hyrule does end up there: by the time of BOTW, the races that were faceless under Rauru seem to be mostly independent. Zelda doesn't exactly force the champions into their divine beasts, and their positions aren't predestined or divine in nature like the sages.

And this isn't even touching on the Sheikah (though their forced assimilation into Hylians might be completely separate from Rauru) and the idea that the Rito, Gorons, Zora, and Gerudo exist solely to aide Link and Zelda. There is a lot of stuff in this game that is absolutely fascinating (and a little frightening) from a world perspective. Most of it isn't new to Zelda either, just more explicit.

(Also I've seen some people say that the masks might've been because Nintendo was lazy with the modeling, but regardless, it's fair to analyze a work as it exists and leave the creators' intents out of the picture.)

[zonnemaagd]

Phei of the Wind | Update

Hej everyone! As promised earlier this week I wanted to post a general update regarding my darling dearest Phei of the Wind. As noted I recently passed the 50% mark of the story in this draft! I've separated the story into four acts, and the first and second one have been completed. So far it's 55359 words spread out over fifteen chapters, which feels fitting for the 100k goal I set out to reach.

The third draft is very different from the previous one. The first thing is that the second draft ended at an important plot point where a sequel would tell the rest of the story. That has been changed, however, as I added a whole lot to the end of the story in order to tell it in just one book. The other bigger change is that Phei is a lot more knowledgeable about her role as a Sage, even if she has only been trained while she was a child. This allows the spirit / sage part of the story to roll out more quickly. This new dynamic, especially with Aspen's general anti-magic stance are interesting to write, and it allows Phei to connect more quickly with spirits like Selia. Generally I'm feeling optimistic about this version of the story.

That said, having written so much of the story also feeds a lot into my insecurities. Once you have written something it is truly out there. A story in your head isn't a finished one, and thus isn't good or bad. But a written story? That is out there, and you are very tempted to attach some sort of value onto it. So then the regular evil thoughts pop in, thoughts that the story is terrible, that my writing is terrible, and that it will never convey the emotions I need it to. It doesn't help with the loneliness that writing can bring, but I'll keep writing, don't worry about that! This story is going to be told, kicking and screaming if I have to. You can decide if I am talking about me or the story with that one~

There are still a lot of things I am changing even though I've made a proper outline. I have like twenty different things scribbled at the bottom of the doc that I will have to include later. I've also moved around some scenes near the middle part just to pace everything a bit better, which sadly comes at the cost of delaying Phei's meeting with [redacted], but since they technically are a character that has been introduced in chapter four already, it will have to do. That said, I am on pace to reach 75k words before I go back home to the Netherlands, so I'll keep working hard! I'll leave you with a little snippet from the last part of chapter fifteen, where Lyra offer Phei a choice: Help her out and receive passage east, or leave with no method of crossing the ocean that separates Phei and her destination.

Much love Katrielle~

-x-

“If you do manage to seal those rifts as you call them we would be most grateful. Having our villages back would be a lifesaver, even if only for the resources we could gather and to give everyone a spark of hope. Which brings me to my next point, what do you want? Why are you here? What are you looking for?” “I am only travelling through Dalen to go further east.” Lyra’s eyes narrow, the wasteland east beyond Dalen just that, a wasteland. “And how do you intend to cross the water separating those two?” That is not something Phei has paid attention to. She has seen the water on the map, but it had been so far away it didn’t seem necessary to plan for. “I can arrange passage, if that is what you want. If you promise to help us.” “I don’t have time to go around Dalen closing rifts, if that is what you are asking of me. I just can't.” Lyra shrugs, the issue of time not something she concerns herself with. “If you can clear the rift, we can continue to discuss things. Or if you wish to leave to try your luck at the coast you are free to do so, although I’ve heard the ferry services in Sundrop have closed down due to a lack of tourists these days.” Phei bites her lip, feeling her muscles tensing, her spirit growing wild. The sound of nails scraping into wood catches her attention, as she finds her own claws digging into the chair she's sitting on. She jumps up, the chair falling back onto the ground with a loud thump causing her to flinch.

-x-

Taglist for Phei of the Wind :

@ink-fireplace-coffee | @write-the-stars-and-shadows | @henrike-does-writing-sometimes | @ladywithalamp | @chazzawrites | @writingonesdreams | @generalblizzarddreamer | @peepos-prose | @writing-is-a-martial-art | @dahliaornelas | @ofbloodandflowers | @magic-is-something-we-create | @ettawritesnstudies | @47crayons | @writing-with-l | @strangerays | @snowinks | @the-orangeauthor | @waysofink | @houndmouthed | @midnights-call | @phantomnations | @teriwrites

[lunanoc]

might as well throw in some pingxie thoughts while i’m at it

i have. many things to say about pingxie. but on the subject of reducing relationships to one dimensional tropes specifically, it does them just as much of a disservice.

my favorite variation of pingxie is in the books (very shocking i know, although that’s technically the original them and not a variation), and by comparison to what’s shown in the dramas (which are fun and self-indulgent don’t get me wrong), the books are the slowest of slow burns. never forget we see everything in them from wu xie’s pov exclusively (at least the main entries), so we can only infer xiaoge’s own growth and development from what wu xie sees of it, but it very much exists.

wu xie has a complicated opinion of xiaoge in the earlier books, mostly because he doesn’t quite know what to make of this man who looks younger than he is and completely blows him off on their first meeting (blows everyone off in fact) much to his displeasure, which leads to the initially derogatory nickname ‘menyouping’, and yet is also vastly competent and knowledgeable. he’s cold and indifferent, yet wu xie feels safe around him and trusts him more than he likely should from the get go, mostly because wu xie’s good at reading people’s intentions and character on an instinctive level he doesn’t always manage to rationalize early on. he’s fascinated and would like to know him better, but also finds him deeply unfathomable, even incomprehensible.

and then you have xiaoge, who it merits saying, is repeatedly described as largely indifferent to most things (and he genuinely is), doing what he deems necessary but otherwise not bothering to involve himself with other people or social niceties. this is a man who spends his time off to the side sleeping or contemplating the sky, and yet in the space of four books he goes from not giving two shts about wu xie (or more than he would the average person) to voluntarily interacting with him, siding with him in quiet ways, helping him through unspoken little acts all the way up until a turning point wherein he first tries to keep his distance from wu xie en route to tamutuo in an effort to keep him from getting further involved than he already is in dangerous things he has no concept of, except by then he’s shown enough uncharacteristic interest in wu xie that wu xie notices he's being cold and distant. this all culminates in the infamous moment where xiaoge eventually lets himself act on thoughts he’s likely never fully analyzed himself, let alone shared with another person, leading to the “if i disappeared no one would notice” moment. 

and from there all the way until post ten years later and into things like yucun biji, the reality is that pingxie were never the serious immortal and the dorky clumsy mortal boy he adopts, nor are they the vulnerable strong one and the eventual protector, or any other trope variation really. pingxie are two people who at the start stand on opposite sides of a line neither of them were ever meant to cross, and to all intents and purposes should never have met for how very different the worlds they come from are. they’re people that circumstance threw together who chose to stay together, and keep choosing each other. they don’t need each other to exist, and could have gone their separate ways had they wanted to, but the importance of their relationship lies in that they stay together by active choice, and that in doing so, they meet in the middle.

wu xie matures and comes to understand a number of things through hardship while xiaoge is behind the gate that untether him just enough from the world that xiaoge isn’t quite so unfathomable anymore, while xiaoge comes down from his imposed pedestal just enough that he tethers himself to wu xie (and pangzi) and learns to live rather than exist

neither of them became a different person for the other, and the core of their relationship (and the beauty of it) is in the harmony and understanding they eventually achieve. reducing all of that to archetypes is honestly a little tragic

[jetsteelyourheart]

I've been working on this for more time than I'd care to admit cause I've been formulating like... 4 separate Fan Casts, but when @easily-distracted-ivashkov posted an ask about Casting I had to submit something. Then it got too large for an ask so here I am.

I'm not done with my TV/Film Fan Cast, but welcome to...

The Bloodlines Musical Theater Fan Cast

*Complete with vocal part & music samples

*all casting has purely been based on my completely mid level of musical actor knowledge and voice. Like 90% of this is all voice. I can't stress that enough

I also have two separate casts for this because its changed over the years. I call them the "Fancast 1.0" and the "Fancast 2.0 - Its Gayer This Time." And of course like with any good casting situation, when you use a couple different actors you need basically a whole new set for everyone else so... Please find them below:

Fancast 1.0:

Adrian - Tenor : Aaron Tveit

Think old school Aaron

-> Gabe in Next to Normal Aaron

-> Fiero in Wicked Aaron

-> Roger in RENT Aaron

And you know... maybe think some more recent Aaron...

Sydney - Mezzo: Barrett Wilbert Weed

Now, I don't want to start anything because Broadway Tumblr is notoriously... dramatic... but this is my fancast and frankly I think if I was a broadway actor people would get mad at me too for having boundaries and less than perfect vocal health so... give the samples below a chance

-> Wildflowers from Fugitives Song Cycle Barrett

-> obligatory Veronica from Heathers Barrett

-> Winnie from Everlasting Barrett

Jill - Mezz/Soprano: Joy Woods

-> Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors Joy

-> Cathy from The Last Five Years Joy

Eddie - Tenor: George Salazar

-> Grover in The Lightning Thief George

-> Obligatory Michael in the Bathroom George

-> Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors George

-> Where do the Lonely souls go George

Nathan Ivashkov: Brian Darcy James

-> Something Rotten Brian

-> Dan Goodman in Next to Normal (with bonus Aaron as his son for direct comparison!)

-> Barrett from Titanic (for something different)

-> Shrek from Shrek because I just like reminding everyone he was in Shrek

Tatiana Ivashkov - Caroline O'Connor

-> Countess Lily in Anastasia

-> Velma in Chicago Caroline

Trey - Everyone is a Tenor Now: Dan Domenech

(sorry for the closest thing I could find to a gif of him without heathers text)

-> speaking of have some JD in heathers Dan

-> Joanne in RENT Dan

Angeline - Is Sassy technically a vocal type? (Sop?): Andrea Macasaet

-> Obligatory Anne Boleyn in SiX Andrea

-> Mimi ... in RENT but like... in concert with Anthony Rapp as Roger?? Andrea

Jackie Terwilliger: Eden Espinosa

-> Elphaba from Wicked Eden

-> Cassandra from Tangled the Series (Her vocals tho)

Brayden: Matt Doyle

He's got it. I don't know what it is. But he has it.

-> Jamie in Company

-> Hanchen in Spring Awakening. Look its not singing... but its Brayden

-> Jasper in Jasper in Deadland to be nice because its a character that isn't annoying and he's a good actor

Micah: Alexander Brightman

-> Cut You A Piece Alexander (but also I just fucking love this Sydrianesque song to death)

-> A Little Bit Alexander

.......................................................................................

Same in Both Casts:

Jared Sage: Patrick Page

Ok but like, how could I NOT.

-> Frollo in Hunchback because Frollo is one of Jared Sage's past lives

-> Hades in Hadestown Patrick

-> Green Goblin Patrick because its on the same level as Brian D'Arcy James Shrek

Abe: Ricky Rojas

Listen, I've never seen him do scary, but I believe he could do it. He's definitely got fun and cheeky down. I'd love to see him dress like a mobster. And look how expressive he is. I fully believe Abe can Tango.

-> Ricky (and Aaron) Singing Tennessee Whiskey because listen to that man siiiing

-> Santiago from Moulin Rouge but just the audio cause youtube aint got any videos

Marcus Finch: Alex Joseph Grayson

Tragically Tumblr has no gifs and thats a travesty

-> Hercules in Hercules

-> Jim in Parade (THOSE RIFFS)

-> Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar

Zoe Sage: Sophia Anne Caruso

But literally exactly in the vocal tonality of Beetlejuice. I don't make the rules

-> Obligatory Beetlejuice

Sheridan: Orfeh

This might be a surprise. Maybe. But like. Imagine all of Sheridan's war crimes. All of her actions that raise the Geneva convention to the ground. Now picture those words coming out of the mouth of someone who sounds like the Nanny Named Fran mixed with some kind of Bostonian Dolly Parton. JUST IMAGINE IT.

-> Paulette from Legally Blonde

-> Orfeh Singing from VOTE!

-> Audrey...2 in Little Shop

Donna Stanton: Natalie Mendoza

Ok so it almost more her acting than her singing, but hear me out: Natalie Mendoza does an amazing job on stage portraying that she's keeping her real thoughts hidden. Its almost a waste to make her Donna stanton because her comedic timing is top notch and underrated. Also she can sing.

-> Ok I couldn't find any examples on youtube... but trust me on this. She's fantastic

Malachai Wolfe: Chris Sullivan

Yeah, that guy. He also played Taserface. Do with this information what you will, but also hear him in the Off-Broadway Hadestown

-> Hermes from Hadestown Chris

Lee: Jeremy Jordan

Listen, I know its a small part for Jeremy, BUT he goes from 0 - 100 on the little nerd man to deranged murder man and Lee needs that

-> Seymour from Littleshop (again) but this time Jeremy

-> Clyde from Bonnie & Clyde Jeremy

-> Light from Death Note the Musical Jeremy. This is not a joke. (second singer)

Clarence: Danny Burstein

-> Adolpho in The Drowsy Chaperone

-> Tevye in Fiddler

Carly Sage: Christy Altomare

-> Freedom Inside MV

-> Wendla in Spring Awakening

Rowena: Rachel Zegler

-> As Maria in West Side Story

Emma: Taylor Lauderman

-> Little Miss Perfect

Duncan: Derek Klena

-> Jagged Little Pill

Alecia: Sam Pauly

-> Obligatory SiX Katharine Howard

-> Come From Away

-> The Wild Party

Lissa: Ashley Loren

The Sparkling Dragomir ~*~**

-> Satine from Moulin Rouge

-> Belle (with cats) from Beauty and the Beast

-> Elsa from Frozen

Rose: Anna Uzele

-> Catherine Parr in SiX

-> Francine in New York, New York

Dimitri: Christopher Jackson (circa In the Heights Era)

I don't like Dimitri, but if he's gonna be there, I'm gonna get an Actor that makes me like him. He better have killer fuckin pipes

-> Benny in In the Heights

-> Obligatory George Washington in Hamilton

-> More Benny because I'm obsessed

Neil: Jamie Muscato

He's like the musical theater Hugh Grant of the west end. I'm gonna get flack for this, I know, but the guy is like the watered down British polite version of every character he plays. Its a whole vibe on its own, and frankly, its very Neil.

-> Evan Hansen Jamie

-> Enjolras from Les Mis Jamie

Chantal: Ariana DeBose

-> Tony's Opening Number

-> I MEAN SHE EARNED THAT OSCAR IN WEST SIDE STORY

Keith:

[yoinkschief]

totally random question man have you heard about this thing called the markiplier cinematic universe (mcu for short)

I'm going literally obliterate you I know where you live (I'm currently entering in you coordinates to the president's nuke)

I wanna try and say this shit without getting wildly off topic and I'm praying that Tumblr doesn't have a word cap but also low key hoping it does to put an end to this because I'm not sure I have a stopping point, but be warned, underneath the cut is my LONGEST rant yet

Starting with some background knowledge of "the birth" or Darkiplier versus "the birth" of Wilford Warfstache

Darkiplier was truly born from an internet meme of edgy people seeing people like Markiplier and Jacksepticeye and such making "edgy jokes" and "acting deranged" because at the time on youtube that was seen as funny and comical (similar but not the same as when Pink Guy was around and people thought he was the height of comedy at the time but the skit being retired by the creator because "it's not funny anymore, get over it", except Mark brought it a different life rather than killing off the character entirely, instead of retiring the character he gave it meaning, think like how you make an edgelord OC as a kid but later think of a really good backstory for it and end up revamping the entire OC instead something not even remotely related anymore)

So the community latched onto that idea and started calling him "DARK iplier" because we as human are incredibly creative

I say, knowing "markiplier" is just Mark and Multiplier combined

Which brings me to how Wilford Warfstache was created, actually

Wilford was created for the express purpose of things like "The Slenderman Interview" and "Wilford Plays: Slender" (warning: very early YT jokes that wouldn't fly today lol), he was created to do funny skits for games Mark would play as Mark's reason for naming his channel "Mark Multiplier" is because he wanted to make skits of the characters in the games he would play, making his channel a half gaming channel and a half skit channel which was honestly ingenius ingenuity, he had the fortune of taking a chance with two genres that ended up being VERY successful on early youtube and that is one of the biggest reasons why his channel is so big today

which is also just incredibly insane to think about that he has managed to have very little if not any controversies within his channel and community, at least not any GENUINE concerns he hasn't already alleviated

And for the most that's all these characters were: completely separate parts of Mark's channels where are Darkiplier would only appear in Mark's more "edgier" videos and Wilford purely in skits

That is until his video "Don't Blink", whic was also featured in his much later series: "A Date with Markiplier" where we see Darkiplier in his own video rather than some edgy joke made online and his first "official" appearance and is around the time when people began to refer to the different personas Mark had online as his "egos"

In the video we see Dark slowly fade in to the dark background of the picture that's posted on screen (and this is why I get kinda upset when Lixian, Mark's editor, is attributed to the image alternation horror of Mark's series as this has ALWAYS been a staple of Mark's channel - Lixian fucking hits it out of the park with his editorial and atristry stills, don't get me wrong, he's a true artist when it comes to that kind of horror, but he didn't create it on Mark's channel, it's always been a thing and you can always tell who is new to the channel with this)

But we don't see much of Dark's actual attire and how he looks anymore than he's a one to one comparison of Mark just a creepier, edgier version of him, I mean, he doesn't even get his iconic grayscale self yet ! "Don't Move" is technically the first time we see that but I don't count it since the entire video is in grayscale, I would kinda attribute the first "Dark is in Graysclae" sighting to the "October of Terror" video he did explaining his charity event but I wouldn't say it's officially attributed to him then, I think it was more of a "putting him in grayscale brings out the drastic lighting contrast and makes it look spooky" versus it actually being apart of his character design, because I don't think Dark was "officially" introduced until "Mr. Kitty Saves the World" where he actively brings up Darkiplier as an entity and not just him being edgy to get views (but also is being edgy to get views lol)

But what I find interesting is in that video it says "Containment Breach" which is because this was roughly a year after Mark started playing SCP: Containment Breach and suggests that Darkiplier was originally supposed to be an SCP !! That's super fucking cool to me that Dark went from being edgelord to being an SCP to being "I'm super tortured but like mentally and physically my body can't even stay in one piece" (which is funny cause Antisepticeye, which yes I'm bringing up cause they're intertwined just by the nature of Mark and Jack being friends and their egos happening at the same time and in tandem with each other thanks to the "Darkiplier VS. Antisepticeye" video, went from being edgelord jokes to I'm fucked up an evil to SCP but different flavor,, which like yeah it's a joke video and is seen widely as noncanonical but it still applies to how they are connected if just by similarities between them)

But within the community, Darkiplier isn't officially an ego or real character until "Best Friends Forever", which is widely hypothesized or accepted to be Dark in the video because, again, edgelord humor, though in my eyes it's not until "relax" is released that Darkiplier is officially considered a character because this video shows that he is a different entitiy than Mark and he's also given an official outfit,,, plus it's his 14MIL milestone so I figured this would be the perfect time to canonicize Darkiplier as an official Markiplier Ego :)

I also think this was another video featured in ADwM (A Date with Markiplier) if I remember correctly

The "relax" video is also when we see him trying to torture Mark and not just other people or being generally edgy and this later is Dark's main character plot point is to kill or hurt Mark (specifically "Actor" Mark, or otherwise Mark's characterization on screen, the character seperate from the creator,,, which is why I now have grown away from Septiplier (DO NOT ASK I WAS FUCKING ELEVEN) because "Actor Mark" is the characterization of Markiplier in my eyes, and that man does not deserve to be in any relationship, I like seeing him blue balled for all of eternity thank you) so that in my eyes is the best point of "yes Dark is an actual character now"

But this video is also why I don't think the earlier installments of Dark being in grayscale are when that officially becomes a character trait, as in later episodes after the previously mentioned with that characteristic are just heavily saturated photos or clips of Mark and aren't grayscaled, it's not until his ADwM series that Dark is oficially attributed this trait as whenever he's seen onscreen and the screen (and later just himself) switches to grayscale

Now, the introduction of Wilford Warfstache is wildly different but is the last Ego I'll be giving a timeline of (at least a very detailed one) because all the others are usually one off or are more recently added into the series and only show up fully fleshed out when they're first mentioned so I don't have to do a deep archive dive for them lol

Wilford, like I said earlier, was always a character, always supposed to be seen as such at the very least, and isn't just some "silly voice Mark sometimes does" but is definitely where his voice comes from, as it seems vastly different for the purpose of trying to differinciate the two of them and why it's a lot easier to do so versus how it was with Darkiplier as Dark and Mark, until more recently, sounded - and even looked - very much the same

Wilford is first seen in his Amnesia Series, the video of which I can't QUITE remember and I'm not about to search the entire fucking series just to figure out which one was his first appearance, but one of the earliest times he's name dropped is in "Amnesia: Rain - Part 6", but even then he's fully kitted out with his pink mustache and all (I think this video was supposed to be an April Fools video, but that's too on brand for Wilford Warfstache for me to think it wasn't more than just "it would be funny teehee", it definitely was but I feel like Mark was also thinkin "it would also be perfect to show off this kooky character" because like I said, Wilford was low-key planned from the beginning of Mark's channel,,, not specifically but his concept was)

But me personally I wouldn't see him as an official character until "The Warfstache Affair" which is one of the funniest fucking videos to me, even to this day and is such a silly video all on it's own, but this is his first appearance in my heart of hearts because, like Dark's need to torture Mark, this becomes one of Wilford's key character plot points later down the line

And when I say that Mark truly turns these characters from funny skit plot points to full fledged, series bingeworthy characters you want to see have a happy ending, I MEAN IT

His love for the creative process and writing shows through in his "official" series or skits, in his "official" MCU, it's literally insane. You can tell he loves these characters and truly wants to write a story and is the sole reason I think that, bias aside for the nostalgia and special place in my heart that FNaF has on me, Mark's Iron Lung movie is going to be SO MUCH BETTER than ANYTHING the FNaF movie could do

I love FNaF's storyline (and it's crazy how long it took me to mention FNaF in a MARKIPLIER related rant but it was bount to happen) and I think it's incredibly intricate, and it's very similar to Mark's MCU where it started off simple but get deeper as it gains more traction, where it's different is Scott Cawthon rushed a lot of his games and whatnot due to popularity, because of the fear that if he didn't pump it out fast enough it would lose traction and he'd lose his fame, whereas Mark not only had the security of that not happening, he also does not care if it did happen - he doesn't do these skits to appease people, he does them because he enjoys it, something's he's said a hundred times by now. Yes, because of the support he has he's able to make the story look very good, but fans or no fans the story would be the same, it would just look a lot different

Back to the timeline of events in the MCU, we don't techincally see the other Egos "introduced" or "canonicized" until "Markiplier TV", which even that can be argued due to both the irrelevantness and obvious of how one off of characters they were as well as Cyndago's unfortunate attempt at ending his own life and Mark taking it upon himself to not continue the characters he created so as to not disrespect Cyndago's legacy or "take away" those characters from him

But this is the first time we see Wilford and Darkiplier actually interact with each other, and is where that "Darkstache" ship REALLY took off

It's hard to say is people really shipped it beforehand, and if they did it was definintely considered a crackship or rarepair due to that exact fact of these characters never interacting up until Markiplier TV

I will always hold Markiplier TV in my heart, I remember frothing at the mouth when it came out and it was 100% what got me so autistically attached to Markiplier, I mean besides FNaF, but that was more of a "I can't wait to come home from school and watch my favorite YouTuber!" thing, and MTV (which yes I see the joke in that) was more of "OH MY GOD IF HE DOESN'T EXPLAIN WHAT THIS MEANS AND WHY DARK ONLY USES A NICKNAME ON WILFORD I'M GOING TO CLAW OFF MY SKIN OH MY GODDDDDDD"

Which by the way that happens, he calls him "Will" and that's NEVER EXPLAINED ???? I DON'T THINK ??? But this is the only person he refers to in any endearing way

(side note I wanted to add: intro to MTV has a Lantern reference in there,,, I know you (Shran, the person who asked this) is the only one who will understand that joke, but if you ever end up watching it: timestamp: 0:16, truly a blink and you'll miss it moment tho)

Also this series is the introduction to a character who later becomes canon: The Jim Twins,, though we're not sure if it stops at just twins as the joke is like all of the news anchors, castors, camera men, weather men, etc. are all named Jim,,, and because they occur again as an easter egg in "Who Killed Markiplier?" (not directly in,, but there was a website you could go to when WKM was airing and you could see them post extra, joking, content that also lowkey gave hints to the story but didn't directly interfere with the actual show so you didn't need to watch it) that I think made them canon as they're shown to be on set at the same time as canon characters (because ALL of WKM is canon, unlike MTV)

Also also MTV is where the popular headcanon that Wilford cries bubbles comes from ! (I can't not bring my other hyperfixations into this - Tom has a similarly popular headcanon where his tears are either black and/or smell/taste like pineapple juice)

MTV is 100% where I get my "random noises" stim that I do, by the way, where I just do the tune of songs I know with wildly incorrect words,,, and now that I think about is probably why I'm able to so clearly remember my friend's meme parody of "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" but every other word is rat: "I Rat Sins Not Tragedies"

Fucking hell Middle School was a different time I'm not sad to be gone from it

In other news the gag joke of Wilford casually pulling out a gun and shooting someone with it kills me every fucking time (literally I'm currently dead on the floor unmoving he's shot me sendf an damnbuclance)

Anyway back to the actual plot of MCU, this is also where we get the actual first introduction of Wilford's character trait of being beyond the screen he's played on, as he's seen manipulating text on screen shown to not really be "all there" for lack of a better term, being an enigma who doesn't understand the concept of death, and personally that was why I originally started the enjoy their character dynamic because it made sense to me that Dark would want to befriend someone who didn't care for murder when he wanted Mark to die so obviously Wilford is the natural choice, but I didn't think for Wilford to have such a FUCKING MESSED UP REASON BEHIND IT MARK I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU MADE ME WANNA THROW HANDS WITH A FICTIONAL VERSION OF YUOR PERSONIFIED EGO I'M GOING TO RIP YOU APART !!! I WOULD NOT LIKE TO APOLOGIZE !!! I STICK BY IT !!!!!!

Also I think it's very funny that MTV canonicized that Santa is, in fact, still dead from when Wilford killed him in I think a charity live stream ?? I may be getting my memory mixed up but I think for one of Mark's Christmas Chairty Livestreams he had Wilford kill Santa Claus as a milestone reward ?? I'm not quite sure but I have a very vivid memory of Santa with his face blurred out for "security reasons" being suddenly executed by Wilford as like an interview thing,, but that could've been made afterwards as a joke reference to this clip lol, either way Santa is canonically murdered and Christmas is ruined forever by Wilford and I think that's fucking hilarious

For those who watched MTV or are watching it after this rant to see what I'm talking about let me explain every ego shown in the boardroom scene of this video and it's got nothing to do with me wanting to flex my obscure knowledge I have of Markiplier's channel:

Wilford and Dark don't count I've talked about them before

Googleiplier (Seen with in a blue shirt with the Google logo on it): comes from a skit done with Matthias called "Google IRL" in which Google comes out with an android version of Google Home to help with every day assistance, but what Matthias fails to know is that Google IRL is actually incredibly evil and is trying to kill Matthias

Ed Edgar (cowboy with the world's least flattering mullet,,, and that's saying something): Cyndago's character from the "Ed Edgar's Adoptallott's Baby Bulk Buy", where he tries to sell his son

Bim Trimmer (other guy in the suit also yes his name is a joke on Bum Trimmer): Another one of Cyndago's characters from the "Hire My Ass!" skit where Bim brutally murders and cannibalizes his contests (surprisingly unsurprisingly a fan favorite character)

Silver Shepherd (the alien looking motherfucker): Yet another one of Cyndago's characters from the "Super Infidelity" skit, where you can assume what happens; superhero marital affairs (this character is not be confused with how Jacksepticeye's Jackie-Boy Man came into creation, that was from a superhero maker (? ish) game)

Dr. Iplier: Heavily debated if it's Cyndago's character since it was posted to Mark's channel, I'll call him a Cyndago character since it's under the pretense of being a "Cyndago Original", even though people say he comes back in "In Space with Markiplier", he kinda really doesn't because that's Porniplier (LET ME EXPLAIN- PLEASE I TALK ABOUT HIM MORE LATER), but he gets first introduced in the skit "Worst News Doctor" with the same running joke as seen in MTV of "I'm sorry but... you're dying" to the most mundane of ailments

The Host (the guy with the bloody bandaged around his eyes): One of my favorite Cyndago skit characters, he comes from "Danger in Fiction", a skit parody of "Stranger Than Fiction" (at least the name is,,, I haven't actually seen Stranger Than Fiction lol), where he's first introduced as "The Author" (insert Gravity Falls joke here)

King of the Squirrels (Guy who runs in with peanut butter smeared on his face): Joke ego who came around in the same vein of Tiny Box Tim but instead it was introduced somewhere in Mark's "Don't Starve" playthrough, again, not watching the entire series again to remember where he first mentions him

The canonicity of the TV show though is flimsy at best as there is a Septiplier joke where he's begging to be killed and like 90% of the heads of the table are Cyndago's characters, but I think it is important to bring up because this, in my eyes, is the start of Markiplier actually trying to give his characters some depth to them and wanting to explore them more than JUST skits, or at the very least this is the last time they're seen in skits and treated as just egos and not seperate characters

When we ACTUALLY see the timeline somewhat officially begin is in "A Date with Markiplier"

Yes it technically airs before Markiplier TV but it didn't really have Wilford in it, and I wanted to get that last Wilford knowledge out there because Markiplier TV marks where the skit Timeline ends and the for realsies time line begins, the reason ADwM comes after this despite airing before it is because it technically wasn't supposed to be canon, and only became canon once "A Heist with Markiplier" come out because this is when Mark creates his "Adventures with Markiplier" series, canonicizing ADwM

With that out of the way, ADwM is where we see a lot more of Dark's character specifically, because again this is kinda not super canonical but more canonical than MTV, as it was made as a Valentine's Day joke post (Fun fact: The whole "Movie" portion of the date where we see Mark do a one man play is to make up for all of his broken "Markiplier Promises" to Ethan CrankGamePlays/Ethan Nestor and Tyler Apocalypto_12) but it IS the first time we get introduce to "Actor Mark" as a seperate character who becomes very important later on in the timeline with the next installment:

Who Killed Markiplier

My precious

My Favorite

Right after In Space but we'll get to that

Speaking of Reoccuring Characters introduced in ADwM: The Chef !! He comes back in WKM AND A Heist ! I fucking love this guy

Okay before I continue I need to preface something:

This is not where the actual timeline technically begins,,, it really begins with In Space but to explain that I need to explain this first because... by technicality this entire series? Like the entirity of the canonical MCU? Time loop. Thank you Mark for making me want to [REDACTED]

For the ease of me not jumbling shit together, I'm going to give a brief synopsis of every Chapter of WKM,,, I have no idea what I'm gonna do for Heist and Space but we'll see

Chapter 1

Another Lantern Reference at 0:14

We enter the fray as Y/N or better known as the District Attorney (DA for short), as we see on our invitation letter, meeting our main characters:

William J. Barnum, "The Colonel"

Damien Doom, "The Mayor"

Abe, "The Detective", and

Mark, "The Actor" and "The Victim"

Other noteable characters are:

The Chef and The Butler, played by Robert Rexx and Tyler Schneid respectively (Side note again: Why is every butler ever in the history of forever always gay?)

The time period in which this is set in is the 1920's, no specific date I don't think, but the 20s no less, (because of the time period you're offered a seltzer with cocaine in it to help subside your headache, I fucking love Mark's humor jesus)

The reason we're all gathered in the manor is because the Mark Iplier (Canon Last Name I believe) has invited us all to a celebratory party at his manor, in which we are all to get absolutely shitfaced and party, during which we have the most banging music playing in the background, we learn our beloved Mayor is King of the Keg, we get the first tease that William and Abe have history and don't rather like each other, at least in a one sided manner as Barnum playfully puts Abe in a headlock and Abe is NOT having it, we see William has violent tendencies trying to swing at the Butler now acting as bartender, William is also seen playing Russian Roulette, before we pass out in bed at 1:30 AM before waking up seven hours later only to find that our beloved friend, Mark, has died. But not only died - but has been MURDERED ! So says the detective

Thanks to a convenient lightning storm trapping everyone inside the house, which also seems to only strike anytime someone says the word "murder", Abe take it upon himself to take charge with you as his assistant and quarantines everyone inside the house until he can figure out what happened, and after rectally taking the corpse's body temperature Abe is able to determine Mark was murder just as you went to bed: 1:30 AM.

Later we see Damien and William fighting, Damien suspecting William of being the one who murdered Mark or at least being suspicious of him as they've had prior disagreements and seem to hate each other, though William swears he didn't do it and instead suggests Mark slipped and fell because he's a dumb idiot

It's also revealed that the Chef's "Little Buddy" is actually a security camera and has recorded the entire night, showing that Abe and Mark talked earlier, discussing the fact that Abe was invited to do background checks on Mark's staff conveniently at the same time as when the murder took place,,, hmm,,, at 1:13 AM, seven minutes before the murder

And then suddenly, we end on Abe announcing that the body had just suddenly disappeared

Also I'd love to add the bonus contents of what happened on the WKM website but it was taken down like shortly after the last chapter of the series aired, so I can't exactly give a play by play of what happened. Just know like how I said earlier it's just the Jim Twins being goofy (I vividly remember them playing with a oujia board rug going "S-U-B-S-C-R-I-B-E-T-O-M-A-R-K-I-P-L-I-E-R" which is still really funny to me but that's basically all the substance they gave,,, save for giving up a better look at the manor layout and rooms we didn't get to see much of in the official chapters) but like I said they're very inconsequential the main story so there's no harm other than me having one less thing to talk about which at this point is doing more good than anything

Chapter 2

We reiterate that the body's moved, seemingly on it's own, as we have the house residents find out one by one in the same (or at least roughly the same) order as they found out that the body was dead. Also William is revealed to believe in zombies (it IS the 20s) and also makes a "The Most Dangerous Game" reference (it IS the 20s,,, also in the outfit he was wearing it and who his character is it was bound to happen) before offering to kill Actor!Mark again if he truly is a zombie and justifies it with "well back in the war"

After Abe makes his nth homoerotic joke of the series he poses the question of: why? What's the killer's motive ? What do they gain from Actor being dead ? He reiterates that we were all invited here for a celebration but it was never specified what kind of celebration, not even Mark's grand "what we're celebrating" speech he didn't actually explain what they were celebrating, just that it wasn't about any in particular or himself which, obviously at this point, was a lie because he's dead so he was always going to be the main event

We also get that, after Abe probing Actor's ass, he found out that not only was he stabbed 37 times, Actor was also poisoned, beaten, strangled, drowned and shot - in that order. This is my favorite thing about this entire series because I remember making a ton of theories about this and what this meant because there's no way the killer did that in one night and it heavily suggested that Mark had died multiple times, on account of the fact that he was "drowned" and then later "shot" but the corpse we see is dry and isn't asphyxiated at all like he would be if he were strangled or drowned

And then my theories were blown out of the water when In Space came out so fuck me I guess

To be fair they weren't totally solid and at best were headcanons lol

Back to the main events of the story: we're introduced to Actor's room which is a MESS, truly it looks like a hurricane went through it, and as much as it seems like that would be the place he died within a struggle, Abe quickly dismisses that and urges us to continue looking when we find that he has multiple pictures frames of the friends in vairous amounts... First it's the three of them: Mark, William and Damien. They all seem super happy and in the photo they're laughing and causing a rukus. next there's suddenly four of them: Mark, William, Damien and Celine (I will get to her later), and they look less happy, well, for the most part. Damien and William and standing like the man emoji and it could be because William came back from war is like whoo boy do I have trauma and Damien could getting a little more stressed with mayoral duties but it's never quite clear, all we know is that Damien and William are straight faced whereas Celine and Mark and Celine are chatting it up like old friends. Continuing we see a third photo of just Damien and Mark together, Damien looking like he's giving his best customer service smile and Mark maybe looks anxious ? It's hard to tell, there's a glare on the glass of the frame for most of the shot

However, the last one we see is turned over and the glass is smashed, revealing a picture of William alone.

But the scene continues and William reveals that Mark has quite the amount of enemies, it's not just him who has a mysterious gripe with the bitch before Damien pulls us away to discuss who the murderer might be, instead bringing to the metaphorical magnifying glass to the Detective who we've been following around

Throughout the entire series we have fingers pointed at Abe and William the most, William with his violent tendencies and hatred for the victim, and Abe for the fact we know the least about him (within the immediate friendgroup but because he's also just kind of a reclusive guy)

Before he can continue with eluding to the idea that maybe there was one more person among them we hear a gunshot and glass break, revealing Abe and the Colonel pointing guns at each other and screaming. We hear that William was trying to use Abe for target practice as they are accusing each other of being the murderer, making their way to the door where we get a late arrival:

Celine.

Chapter 3

I said I'd get to her and I've gotten to her

Whoo

Fucking

Nelly

Listen before I continue this I will say I have a bias cause I AM HER BIGGEST HATER I HATE HER FUCKKKK

As an actress, she played phenomincally, Pamela Horton does a fantastic job playing her

As a character, beautifully written, I enjoy occult like characters and her title as "The Seer" is perfect, brings that mist of supernatural and mystery that surrounds Mark's untimely death wonderfully

As a person

As someone I could meet on the streets

I want to [REDACTED] until [REDACTED] so that she [REDACTED] and I won't stop until [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] or so help me.

That aside let's actually get the synopsis/play by play

The house guests fill Celine in on what happened and the fact that Mark's dead, but also she is the first person to bring up the fact that the lightning strikes everytime someone says the word "murder", what passed as a running gag is now pulled into question for possibly being supernatural as she proclaims it to be "powerful dark magic" for lightning to strike EVERYTIME someone says the word "murder"

Also William canonically was sucked into the board game Jumanji so via the pipeline he's connected to Dwayne the Rock Johnson which I think is pretty funny

Celine then proposes that they all hold a seance to speak with Mark beyond the grave to get an answer as to why this is all happening where she shuts down Abe and the Butler makes another gay ass remark to us before Celine proclaims we're trustworthy and have a "far greater part to play" which is hella suspicious, thank you Celine, and everyone pretty much agrees with the Detective that it's suspicious that Celine suddenly wants to take us on alone to get more answers and take the investigation further. Well, everyone except William.

Simp.

But it doesn't matter cause we end up going with her anywhere where Damien tries to talk to her about this and offer comfort but also wonders what she's doing getting mixed up with the muder, but the way he phrases it: "I just didn't think you were the type to get mixed up with all this" makes me think that he's actually talking about the occult and medium stuff she's been doing or at least suddenly announces that she's doing, where she argues that there's more to this world that he could ever understand and then continues to run off with us to seperate room of the house

There we see her lay out tarot cards and whatnot before making a "Series of Unfortunate Events" joke, and before anyone asks I don't think the layout of her cards and what cards are where means anything - I know in Tarot that that's like SUPER IMPORTANT but I do not think Mark poured hours of research into tarot for this one scene. But also because there's a magic eight ball there, as a joke yeah, but I mean c'mon

Shockingly enough though, as we're sitting in the room with Celine we start to have visions about what's happening, what's happened, and what's about to happen, or the past present and future, so she asks us to draw it down where we meet our second late arriving gueststar:

The Groundskeeper.

But she doesn't seem pleased with our answer and orders us to go back into our visions before she's interrupted by Abe and Damien where Damien seems very concerned with her affiliation with the occult and the fact she's become very volatile before Abe rushes us out and leaved Damien to try and calm down Celine

The Chef reveals that the Groundskeeper, previously thought to only work on weekends, actually has been living on the grounds secretly, so naturally they go to him to investigate where he was during the murder - except they get interrupted by the only reason he'd ever go into that house after he says "You'd better pray to god that that reason never comes to pass" before it happens, all of them rushing inside to see red and blue light shining onto Celine with the most ominous Debbie Ryan smirk known to man before they close the door on her

Chapter 4 - The Final Chapter

We see the groundskeeper lock the door to the room Celine and Damien were both last seen in before William runs in asking where Celine is where the groundskeeper explains that "she's gone, and so is everyone else"

PAUSE

I feel it's important to note that in order to keep true to the timeline as we are OFFICIALLY in the timeline now, I have to talk about "DAMIEN", because as Mark explains, DAMIEN, although premiering after the WKM series, does happen DURING it, specifically after Celine and Damien disappear, but before we see them again later (which I will be explaining later after this cause duh in my Chapter 4 analysis)

We open in on being stuck in a dead winter, trees barren and their roots buried deep under snow, following the sound of a tree getting hacked into, before finally crackling and falling to the floor where we see a heavily breathing Mayor Damien, hair long and dressed in a thick winter coat

After he's done sledding his chopped down logs back to a cabin and chopping them into fire wood we see Celine in the house with him where they start bickering and this is where we see just how truly different their personalities are:

"I saw a flower today, shouldn't be long before Spring is here"

"OR there's still a few more weeks of Winter and that flower will die COLD and ALONE."

There's more bickering, mainly from Celine's side, before she goes out hunting for food now that Damien's back home but there is a moment of tenderness before she leaves, where she asks if he really did see a flower where he says "yes, a little pink one... though it's probably dead by now" and she wishes for him to get some rest

Just as we see Damien head to bed, we watch the window panes freeze and the screen glitch, watching Damien's body from the outside of the window before the next morning starts and we see the pink flower again

If you wanna know it's a Sweet William and that is the loudest part of this entire series as Damien goes "Huh... Well you don't die easily, do you?"

And we begin to hear the echoes of "Wilford Wilford Motherlovin' Warfstache"

I'M NOT GONNA PAUSE IT AGAIN I PROMISE

Wilford Motherlovin' Warfstache, while heard in DAMIEN , doesn't technically happen until AFTER Chapter 4 of WKM is done, Wilford is just a fucking enigma to time and space so he's heard throughout the echoes of time

Also DAMIEN was shot after Wilford Motherlovin' Warfstache so they had the audio lol

But according to the timeline WMLW doesn't happen until AFTER the events of WKM and DAMIEN happened DURING the events of WKM so, continuining on

Damien continues to hear the voices of Abe and Wilford peaking through the vast forest, growing confused, concerned and anxious before he just decided to keep on chopping, chalking it up to "just another day in the life of me" I guess

As Damien comes inside for the second day, we hear Celine say the same line of "Don't slam the door, Damien" and Damien continues the similarities with proclaiming how he saw a flower and it "shouldn't be long until Spring" before he trails off, realizing he said the same thing yesterday

He mutters along with Celine as she says the same line as she did yesterday, furthering the notion that they've been through this before, so he breaks the chain with Celine like how the voice broke the chain with him, claiming he heard a voice today which instantly gets Celine on edge before she says she's going out "hunting" again, with a much different tone

Instead of going to sleep right after Celine leaves like he did last time, Damien stays up long enough to watch as the window panes freeze over, a voice whispering Damien's name before he jerks his head to the left, noticing a mirror on the wall to his left, noting how he can't see himself in the reflection of it, and when he manges to make out the outline of himself in the mirror, it reveals itself to be a rotting version, telling him that it's time to wake up (directly opposing what Celine's been telling him to do: go to sleep)

When he opens his eyes again he's back in the woods, confused on how he got there - he was just in his cabin and now he's in the middle of the woods where he hears Celine calling for him

In distress, he immediately runs after the voice, trying to find his sister only for the snow to get thicker and the wind to get stronger, like it's actively trying to keep him from his sister as they keep yelling for each other

He makes it to a frozen lake when the voice stops calling for him, noticing foot prints on a lake he's never seen before leading to a bright light in the lake where he reaches into a hole, fishing Celine out of the lake where he sees that face again that he saw in the mirror with the words taunting "it's not fair, is it?"

The corpse ends up grabbing Damien and tries pulling him while we watch the ice crack and break beneath him, images of a Sweet William and various skulls flash on screen before Damien gives a distorted scream, falling into the black abyss of the frozen lake's water

When Damien regains his bearings, we're in a dark void where we see none other than the man himself:

Mark

He taunts Damien and how hard it was to find him, telling him that he's only come to apologize to him where Damien wonders if he even ever knew him, but manages to slowly bring back his memory of what happened, remembering that it's Actor standing before him and everything he's done

Side note, the line "Celine really did a number on you didn't she?" solidifies my earlier comment on Celine wanting Damien to go to sleep whereas Mark is trying to get him to wake up, wanting Damien to stay in the loop

He also makes a joke about "knowing [Mark] as well as he knows [himself]" which is a joke about how he's snatched Damien's body and is now living in it - hence how we see him in the same Tuxedo Damien wore at the party with his cane, except for the fact it's red now instead of black

Mark continues to explain how this kind of went downhill and not how he wanted it to go, that yes this WAS planned from the beginning by him but as the events unfolded it didn't go according to plan, "right people point the finger at the wrong people" as he puts it "mistakes were made"

Also it's eluded that Actor made a deal with the devil to make sure Celine didn't "go around breaking anyone else's heart", but it's not explicitly said, just that he made a deal to make sure that it didn't happen, we're not sure if it's with a supernatural force but we can assume that it is based off everything that's happened

Mark continues his speech about how every "good story needs a villain and a hero", suggesting that he thinks himself of the hero in this story and he needs a vindictive villain to fight against, someone to root for their downfall by the audience, and honestly the scene is beautiful, beautifully written, beautifully preformed, beautifully drawn which yes, by the way, DAMIEN was drawn as an Animatic style video, not live action like how the rest of Mark's content is for the MCU, but oh my gOD it's so beautiful

And in a terrifying scene, we see Damien slowly suffocating as he realizes that he's actually been dead the whole time before Celine breaks past the barrier Mark had put up (the frozen lake, they're beneath it) and ends up killing Actor, seeing his face contort into the Comedy Mask as he's blown away like ash

A third Lantern reference when Damien goes "I'm so sick of being a pawn in other people's games" as he begs Celine to explain what the hell just happened, truly at his wit's end with all of this but she denies it, she claims that everything she's done she's done for Damien, that this whole state of constant repitition was to keep Damien safe and secure but now Actor's come and torn it all apart

There's a really tender moment between Celine and Damien where they talk about how Celine doesn't need to basically give up her life to protect Damien's, that she doesn't need to spend the rest of her life trying to fix the mistakes she's made, where he offers his hand to help her

And she agrees,

On the condition that he "makes sure that bastard stays dead."

Before they're swallowed up by the lake flooding in from the cracks Actor made on their "world", and as the water gushes out of the door is sweeps away the endless Winter and shows the blades of grass fighting to stay alive beneath the blankets of snow, and the countless amount of tress Damien has chopped down in the time he's lived there

After the credits roll we're left with a bonus clip of Damien stepping out from the destroyed house, where there was once snow now the earth burns under his boots before he walks off screen

This video was actually cut for time by the way, there was supposed to be a whole nother day where we see the Sweet William blossoming again to give the sense of repetitiveness and endlessness

But I think that Wilford's cry out in the abyss along with the Sweet William is what broke him from the limbo cycle and was why they were able to break free

UNPAUSE

After this, everyone begins to leave, quitting their jobs and imploring the others to take their leaves as well but William swears against it, threatening to kill everyone unwilling to die with the friend's he just lost in this house

Abe follows after the Colonel because of his threat where we're left alone to have the screen ominously loses it's hue along with the song in the background distorting before we hear a heartbeat and a whisper asking for help that sounds awfully familiar hmm (I'm like 90% sure it's Celine's voice)

We begin to hear distorted talk about "Madness" and how it's "stealing your best friend's wife" before we continue to hear distorted versions of Mark's speech to us in the first Chapter and voice lines from the rest of the cast as we walk around the manor, lead to a room we've yet to enter where we see our screen go back to normal

In the room we find that this filled with news letters of a "Safari gone wrong" with William at the forefront of it as well as a cork coard of red string and loose ends.

Important stuff to note from this room:

A paper filled with the word "colonel" messily scribbled all over it

A layout picture of the house

The aforementioned "Safari Gone Wrong" Magazine cover

^ the top line of this also asks is Mayor Damien is secretly a demon in disguise

Stickynotes saying "DON'T TRUST" "THE SEER"

Not important but I think it's funny: Picture of William with a sticky note saying "Not Marriage Material"

Multiple News headlines proclaiming Mark's death (but previously to this, obviously)

A typewriter filled with speculation against the colonel before it too gets chaotic

After we have a run through of the room we see William walk into the room and is immediately put off by it, exclaiming that Abe's been keeping tabs on us, but mostly it's just him and Celine, we're ambivelant to this, but it suggests that because Abe and him were good friends, he probably was hired as a private investigator on Celine for the express purpose of finding out if she's having an affair on him, hence why he's been keeping tabs on mostly William and Celine (they've had an affair on each other as earlier stated with the voice saying that "madness is cheating with your Bestie's wife" and the fact that Colonel's first worry is Celine which is odd as he's seen tender to her but willing to deck anyone else over less than she's done)

After finding out this knowledge, William blames Abe for this and believes that this was a ploy to ruin him, that Abe had set him up from the beginning where he clearly begins to spiral and he begins searching for Abe to kill him getting increasingly more and more violent until he ends up accidentally shooting Abe right in the chest, and soon after you meet the same fate as you try to calm him down, falling off the balcony

As the screen fades to black we hear that heartbeat again and we suddenly see Mark's dead body once more, signfiying that this is after the events of "DAMIEN", that is until the body of Mark looks gaunt, or at least shift to look like Darkiplier saying "It's not fair, is it?"

We're met with Damien and Celine in their red and blue forms where they explain what happened in DAMIEN (briefly, anyway) that Actor had trapped them in this state of limbo or some inbetween where they were stuck doing the same day over and over with seeminly no difference where Celine breaks that she thought it was the house causing it but it was actually Mark and Damien explains that Actor is walking around in Damien's body

The two of them propose that everyone in this odd state of liminal nothingness can escape the same way Mark did before suddenly we wake up, assumably back in our own body

This is where we get my most gut wrenching scene I HATE YOU MARKIPLIER WHY DO YOU THIS TO ME

We see William sitting in a chair by where our body once was, coat and hat gone while he's anxiously clutching Damien's cane and we see William go from spiraling to downright mad as he convinces himself that he didn't kill you, obviously he wouldn't he cherishes your friendship, and begins to believe - genuinely believe that death does not exist, that there is no such thing and that everyone in the manor was playing some big prank on him, going around calling his friends' names while we stop to look at ourselves in the mirror only to find that we have become Darkiplier

I want this motherfucker dead, I want a ten paragraph apology for the way he changed my brain chemistry because of this how DARE he

But I do I like this series so much because it was my Umbrella Academy before Umbrella Academy was a thing, you know ? And is wildly better because the only incest being shipped is in the dark side of the fandom and not the canonicity of the show, but it has that same feeling of "We only get together for weddings and funerals", because to be frank, no one know why they're here, just that they're celebrating. Before this party they were all estranged from each other with few exceptions and with various reasons

For a good explanation, Damien's line:

"Then again, I'm not exactly sure as to what we're supposed ot be celebrating here. I mean it's good to have the gang back together, but... out of the blue like this seems... anyway,"

LIKE THAT'S NOT SUSPICIOUS AS HELL ???

Also, I feel it's important to note that in Mark's "Who Killed Markiplier" playlist on youtube he does add the bloopers but also "DAMIEN" and "Wilford Motherlovin' Warfstache" which I find very interesting but I think it's just because it's similar to the WKM series rather than the Adventures with Markiplier series even though they do tie in together

Fun fact about Wilford Motherlovin' Warfstache before I get into it: The name of it was originally gonna just be "Wilford Warfstache" in the same vein of DAMIEN is called just Damien's name, BUT when Abe's actor gives the somewhat improved line of "Wilford Motherlovin' Warfstache" Mark changed the title name to that cause he thought it better fit :)

This part of the WKM series is what inspired me to (eventually) write a mock script for a noir crime show surrounding Detective Abe, it was me and my partner joking about it on call together and then I got too much brainrot about it and ended up developing a plotline for three seasons that I need to write out eventually

With that aside, the video opens with Abe who we last saw shot by William, giving an internal monologue as he longing looks out the window with a cigarette in his mouth and Abe's first line already super gay so I'm waiting for the day Mark just goes "yeah Abe likes men" cause he's already confirmed Wilford is Pansexual I NEED ABE TO BE GAY PLEASE MARK

Ahem

Anyway

The monologue is pretty long, it's the entire intro to the video, and it's just a bunch of gay euphamisms and suggestive comments that Abe says as if he's unaware of the interpretations of it which I think is peak old noir films joke, and failing to stab the cork board multiple times - which wasn't planned, by the way, but was really really funny

Also Abe's suggested to be Jewish with the line "just like the clown at my bar mitzvah, I knew he was trouble from the moment I laid eyes on him", which is actually really cool ! Birthday clown terror is an obvious joke but the subtle change from birthday to bar mitzvah is nice, especially since Abe is a character from the 20s and it's easy to just write everyone as white and christian because, well, it's the 20s America, and I like when the cast is diverse (again, Wilford is canonically Pansexual which we were all waiting for with his pink and yellow ensemble, I love that "In Space With Markiplier" confirmed it with Mark explaining that the pink, yellow and blue lights seen in the secret Wilford scene wasn't accidental :))) !! )

Another fun fact: small budget films don't have to be poorly made ! Mark was getting a lot of praise from how the car Abe "drives" looks super realistic and people were wondering how he was doing that it really just came down to good editing and lightly shaking the car, literally they just were jostling the car from it's hood and it cave the illusion of driving on uneven roads which, if you've ever driven a car in america, is every road

As Abe's tobacco of choice keeps changing from cigarette to cigar to vape sticks, he explains how Wilford had gone through multiple aliases (later it's confirmed that he's sticking to Wilford Warfstache, obviously) but no matter how many times he's changed his name he would always fall back his usual dancing, fighting, flirting, and dancing - which brings us to where Abe finds him, the Moonlight Rollerway which is the most 80s fucking club ever

The scene also changes from noir black and white to bright, saturated colors as we see Wilford come onto screen with bopping funk music and a shiny pink shirt and matching afro as Abe gives the line that changes history "Wilford. Motherlovin'. Warfstache." and my brain literally explodes and I'm suddenly obsessed with Wilford for like months after the video comes out it's abysmal

Also, more pink, blue and yellow lights :) and yeah I know that pink and yellow are gonna go with blue because that's how triangles work but like, this motherfucker has been screaming pansexual since "The Ned Affair" which that video still makes me laugh and I kinda miss that outfit,, the entire video is gay jokes and as a gay person it's so funny

Back to WMLW, Abe disperses the party in order to get Wilford off stage and ends up accidentally shooting some electrical box I don't care for the proper term off, causing the music to stop and the saturation of the area to slightly dull as Wilford's dance comes to a stop and no one appreciates Abe's destruction of property when it killed the boogie

As Abe orders Wilford onto the ground, he claims to not remember who Abe was, asking for his name and failing to recall it multiple times while we see a second Wilford appear in the background, despite the fact that Abe is currently talking to the other one (yet another fun fact: the Wilford we see in the background of this disappears behind some tinsil curtains and we find out that this is actually connected to In Space, the room we see him again in directly connected to that which, holy fucking shit Mark what the hell these were produced like so long apart from each other,,, I mean I suppose they were written closely at the same time but what the butt man)

As Wilford claims he's never killed anyone, trying to get a sip out of martini glass he pulled literally out of the air, Abe tazes him and throws him into the back of his seat where we find out that Wilford, ever the enigma, can not only hear Abe's inner monologue but can internally comment on it as well, the both of them having an internal conversation much to Abe's shock and confusion - also Wilford continues to try to get a drink from his glass but never is able to :(

in Abe's panic he tazes Wilford again and next time we see them it's in the detective's office, Wilford bound to a chair in a cartoonish manner while he interrogates him, and it's when he accuses him for the murders he's commited and shows him red string board from Who Killed Markiplier that we see Wilford finally realize who he's talking to as he goes ".... A-.. Abe... Abe! Abe it's been years - how are you? How are you doing? How's the family?" and Abe loses it on Wilford, blaming him for everything that's gone wrong in his life in his pursuit to chase down Wilford (It's hilarious that this aired before my Lupin III hyperfixation because this is literally Zenigata and Lupin III, it's crazy, this video is literally why I had that obsession and it's insane to me - it all leads back to Markiplier, my pipeline is fucking linear at this point)

Wilford basically ignores Abe as he manages to get free from his binds as he refuses the law of nature and physics, staring at the wall with pictures and news paper clippings pinned about, and Wilford begins reminicing about the past and his sorrows - also he makes a joke about how Celine would "carve his heart out" which I think is a parallel to how Actor Mark said the same thing to Damien with a VERY different undertone

Also, we're getting close to the territory of where my absolutely infuriating hatred for how good Mark is at storytelling and leading us on and how well he knows his fanbase so fair warning to that, like how the screen has a rubberband glitch with a frame - ONCE, THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE FILM and it's when he's talking to Abe about how his memories tend to get jumbled and fuzzy from all the years and also probably the fact that space and time don't affect him properly anymore

But also Wilford starts to bring up memories, dismissing Abe's doubting or misremembering as things that "probably haven't happened yet", again, this man transends space and time I CAN'T

AUGHHHH

Wilford is an enigma and I love him for it he's chaotic whimsical

Later Abe, in a jumpscare as Wilford is suddenly in front of him shoots Wilford but it has absolutely no affect on him - we don't even see a gun shot wound or hole on his shirt as he gentle silences the gun and kisses it like it's some poor child, pushing it down to continue talking to a very terrifed Abe who's now questioning everything he knows and believed to be true

Wilford starts explaining absurdism to Abe as he starts questioning reality, the detective blowing up at him again for practically ruining his life but Wilford starts asking Abe about their history - about how long he's been chasing him, how Wilford got away in the past, what their closest encounters were, and as Abe can't seem pin point any specific time besides the time of the WKM party, Wilford dawns on him that "no one can survive a bullet to the heart" and it all seems to click

And in the most infuriating scene of my life, Wilford offers Abe a release, a way to enjoy his life, as figures appear behind him, all adorned in a white mask with a pink mustache on it

I

It

That

WHOOOO

I must've watched that scene a HUNDRED TIMES BY NOW - and Mark keeps teasing it !! In Space did a small thing with it and even in the stream Mark did of explaining WMLW HE SAID NOTHING ABOUT THIS ??? WHY IS HE KEEPING THIS SO TIGHT TO HIS CHEST I'M GONNA EXPLODE

Fuck the FNaF timeline THIS IS MORE CONFUSING IT MAKES ME SO

AUUGHH

[REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED]

Anyway, the video ends with Abe shrugging, giving in and dancing to the end credits music as the color is saturated once again, the cast partying and dancing together with the credits rolling

God fucking damn do I love Markiplier

I wanna try and sum up my different autistic obsessions with the different characters cause I love Darkiplier and Wilford in very different ways

Dark I love in the way of "I want to intimatey know your character so badly that if someone were to ask me how does Dark feel about bowling? I could give a three hour powerpoint presentation on why I think he would enjoy it"

Wilford I love in the way of "FUCKING SCRIMBLO !!!!!1!!!1!!111! THE AUTISM !!1!!1!1!!11!111!1! OH MY GOD !!1111!!!1 FUCK I'M GONNA RIP YOU INTO A MILLION PIECES I LOVE YOU SO MUCH RAAAAAAAAAAH"

Personal headcanons birthed from this series:

Because Celine dabbles in the occult and The groundskeeper had swore never to go into the manor save for one reason and that reason being suggestively demonic or otherwise supernatural on top of the fact that Damien was questioned to secretly be a demon, I believe Dark, having Damien and Celine's soul within one body, might be some demonic force, whether it be a demonic ritual that created Dark or Dark being a different demon entirely, my personal headcanon/theory (kinda ?) is that Dark is a demon or demonic source

More specifically, I mentioned a while back that Tom is a demon of Wrath, well I believe Dark to not only be a demon of Pride, but the demon of pride

But this is more than a headcanon than a theory so I don't think anyone'll bite into this more than me lol

EDIT: The video where Santa has the blurred face did come from a charity livestream ! it came way after MTV though, roughly like two years after during the "Stand Up To Cancer" Livestream as one of many milestone reward skits

EDIT 2: Remember how I said I was gonna talk about Porniplier later? Cut due to time, I cannot go any further than three days to write this my autism may be insane but even it has it's limits

[dunmer-pussy]

the crow for the character ask meme

Send me a character, I'll do the prompt.

THE CROW

Favourite Thing About Him

This one's another thing to which I'd say his design! I love the bird motif on his chest combined with the monochromatic color scheme.. And also he's cute LMAO

His character's intriguing to me and he's someone I'd love to learn more about!

Now for Uldren because I'm also going to double down and talk about him here too (even though they are technically two separate entities) I don't know enough about Uldren to really say much but I think he's pretty neat. Like Crow I wanna learn more about Uldren too, and based on what I do know Uldren was a fucking victim.

Least Favourite Thing About Him

The direction Bungie is going with him in Defiance. Just. This whole season has been somewhat of a trainwreck to the point where I don't even want to complete the story, just. Gimme my items and cosmetics, my emotes, and let me go. And Crow is especially where the writing for him is starting to fall flat.

As for Uldren, I'm not really too sure because I don't know that much about him yet, and "He killed Cayde" seems too straightforward and reductive of me as someone who enjoys learning about the lore and the characters within said lore.

Favourite Line

I don't know it exactly, but his quote about how he could "Never replace Cayde," and how he wants to see if he can organize the Hunters a bit, etc etc is one of my favourite little morsels from him. He would be pretty cool as a Vanguard I think!

As for lines from Uldren, I haven't been exposed enough to him and his dialogue to really choose one in particular. But what I do know about him is that he was one kick-ass antagonist in his time.

BrOTP

Amanda!! Why ship them when they can be best friends instead?

OTP

I don't have one.

NoTP

Also don't really have one yet.

Random Headcanon

Crow is a regular at all the Last City's goth clubs. He's there whenever he has time, mingling with others with similar interests to his own, or just lurking in the corner. But when it comes to it, when his favourite song comes on, he can absolutely kill it. Want to learn about goth dancing? He would be glad to show you. Ask him for goth music recs he's full of 'em.

As for Uldren, again I don't really have one.

Unpopular Opinion

I think that. Crow/Uldren is unfortunately one of those characters that attracts Really Weird (See: terrible people) Fans. And when I say "weird fans" I'm not referring to the innocence that is shipping OC/Canon, making fankids, fanfic, etc etc. What I mean are people who just. I can't describe it other than they're obsessed with Crow/Uldren but in a way that distinctively feels off. The type of person that likes [x character] and also falls under the demographic of people that are Why Fandoms Suck. (Some other examples of cool characters that attract The Worst include characters like Starscream from Transformers. If you know I'm sorry and you deserve compensation. If you don't, stay ignorant for your own good.)

I know Crow/Uldren isn't the only character within Destiny that has a following of a Certain Group Of People (I.E Cayde-6) but it's still something worth pointing out, and it also Answers The Question. I don't know what's with characters like Crow/Uldren, Cayde-6 and Starscream (among countless others) that very quickly become the black sheep of their respective community because of the behavior of certain fans (either the vocal minority or the majority) but man it's. A problem. To my knowledge Crow/Uldren fans have been chill so far but I've also heard of absolute horror stories LMAO. and i say this because I've seen both "Uldren/Crow Haters DNI" and "Uldren/Crow Fans DNI" about a dozen times now.

Song I Associate W/ Him

For Crow;

another character I need to build a playlist for! This one I think is like. Ugh. I don't know, it feels like something my Titan would send to him on a bad day.

"When we grew up, our shadows grew up, too. / But they're just old ghosts that we grow attached to. / The tragic flaw is that they hide the truth, / That you're enough, you're enough, you're enough, / I promise you're enough, you're enough, you're enough. / I promise you're enough, you're enough, you're enough."

For Uldren;

It's the general vibe and atmosphere of this song that does it for me I think. Another candidate was The Mind Electric.

"All / For nothing at all. / All, for nothing at all, / With something to prove. / I was in the forest looking to see the trees, / But none were there."

An honorary mention is King Volcano by Bauhaus. Another one that's mostly vibe-based.

"King Volcano gave me numbers / King Volcano is clean. / Lonely people burn like candles, / Only we are clean."

Favourite Pictures

For Crow;

LOOK AT HIS FUCKING FACE. HE LOOKS SO FUCKING SWEET. HE CAN TRY HIS HARDEST TO LOOK SCARY LIKE ULDREN DOES (so effortlessly mind you) AND HE WOULD. JUST GKJDNSDKFNLFHND CUTE GUY ALERT!!!! and look. he's an absolute dork in this scene. crow my beloved my DARLING

For Uldren;

this image is cold as HELL. uldren looks so badass so effortlessly. holy fuck. work it girl.

and there's something abt the shot here specifically that. hoo boy scratches something in the back of my brain. i love antagonists that are so effortlessly cool as FUCK

[lacewise]

Alright… Pat Earnshaw’s book Needlelace!

This is an incredible book for people interested in making advanced lace or researching lace but you have to know how to use it! It’s not for beginners though. At all. Every single lace book, even the ones DEFINITELY not for beginners, has an introduction where they tell you how to make the lay down what Earnshaw calls the ‘outline thread’ (and from here forward, I will be doing the same because that’s genuinely helpful, why do I keep forgetting words and phrases I definitely know?), complete the filling stitches (another phrase I forgot!), and finish the cordonnet, which you’d THINK is all you need to get started. Anyway, you would be wrong. Which is why I continually recommend classes or books written for beginners.

Why is that? As a beginner, you have no idea what you’re looking for. Should you stumble across it, you have no idea what you’re looking *at*.

Pat Earnshaw’s diagrams are incredible, but as a novice, they were far, far too detailed for me to understand. And a lot of them don’t have detailed instructions or labels, just companion information to the diagrams. So, if you want to read this book, you have to know how read needle lace diagrams. And… you have to be willing to experiment (but we’ll get to that in the cons section).

What separates this from the transition-into-intermediate Intermediate Technical Instruction is it isn’t confined to *just* technical instruction. She gives the formal names of different laces (only needle laces with grounds, mind you, and only covers French and Belgian laces at that, except Reseau Venise, although she does provide a basic description of the Burano setup).

Pros: You will know more about different methods to work lace, basic details about different kinds of lace (which are named explicitly throughout), and the stitch guide is extensive. Her diagrams (once you learn to read them) are incredible. They will take you from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence. Or even conscious competence. There are really helpful tips throughout, and a lot of them will prevent you from making the mistakes that people often make in their transition to intermediates. The really frustrating ones you have no idea how to handle or prevent. That it seems like only you are doing!!! It is an excellent introduction to which stitches are used in which traditional (French and Belgian) laces and gives explanation and diagrams for very advanced stitches (like the one I adapted for the center of my lily; the stamens were from Catherine Barley’s book, however). Sometimes I keep it by my bed so I can read about the lace or look at the stitches for inspiration. The explanation of things like flat needle laces is very detailed and informative. That kind of specialized knowledge (often taken as a given when you get to a certain level) can help you understand the ideas behind the choices better. It’s useful as a reference, when you want to do your own research, and when you want more information to do your own thing in general. She also spotlights needle lace contemporary artists (from the 80s) and their art in the last chapter.

I personally want to make traditional lace in Alencon, Argentan, and Argentella, and point de gaze and that covers the stitches in all four was a huge selling point for me. (Btw, I will always refer to my own work that uses Alencon stitches or similar design elements by either point de gaze or point de gaze inspired for Reasons, most of which are summarized as ‘I Hate The French’)

Sorry for the terrible picture quality and description, but I wasn’t getting out of bed for this. Maybe I’ll fix it later, maybe I won’t.

Cons: Not all the information is accurate and it’s focused on these specific lace traditions. There are easier ways to make some stitches, although no one has yet tried to replace it with a more up-to-date guide (in English, anyway). The book is Very 80s. While it describes, in great detail, how to make traditional lace, as well as compares with antique patterns, all of the patterns and samples made for the readers are done in contemporary art fashion (as was the way in the 80s). The samples are worked in bright colours, which can make the working method a bit difficult to parse. She also works the lace away from her (I work it towards) so I end up turning the book around a lot (I turn it back to read it and to examine the diagrams). If you work towards then you will probably have to turn it around often as well. Additionally, because there are So Many samples, the tension in a lot of them is Not Ideal and that’s why I have to refer to the diagrams. Sometimes I will have this out with another book (even if no other book addresses the stitch in question, which is fairly common, so I understand the reasoning correctly)

Who is this for: people who want a stitch guide, especially if they want to make more complex pieces or you’re interested in making traditional lace, and extra if you want to design your own patterns.

Overall: this is a reference book (and an out-of-date one). Pat Earnshaw was a researcher as well as a lacemaker (I want several other books she wrote, covering identification and the history of lace) and this book is not meant to be a standalone. Not in the least bit. You know those specialized companion books you see at craft fairs for advanced crafters? That’s what this is. A sort of extremely niche encyclopaedia. As far as I know, she was not a specialist in any of these laces. So, this would also maybe not be a good fit for an expert in their specialty (as most needle lacemakers specialize). It is possible to outgrow this book, it is just very, very difficult. (As you can see because I am several years in and still singing its praises.)

[bandsanitizer]

5SOS5 Lyricism: Part 1

since the ending of bad omens makes me want to scream (/pos) and I’m pretty blown away with 5sos’ lyrics on this album, I have done a track-by-track of lyrics in 5SOS5 that make my english minor brain yell and some analysis. totally open to discussing their lyricism more and I am debating doing a more chaotic, less technical, overall track-by-track!

just a heads up that I refer to the “I” of the songs as the “speaker” and just refer to the subject as “you” (quotations included). this is all in good fun and not meant to claim knowledge of the band’s lives nor intents. additionally, the use of “you” (no quotations) is not referring to you, the reader, but some ambiguous being of hypothetical situation. it is used to avoid confusion with the pronouns I use for the speaker.

breaking this up into two parts and putting it under the break bc this got to be very long (imagine if I put this much work into my degree)

COMPLETE MESS

“this evanescence always fleeting like a flame / but I’m never one to change, am I?”

first off, the contrast of “evanescence” & “fleeting” with “always”. the conflicting ideas of impermanence that is guaranteed to occurred. coupled with the speakers questioned lack of change, is stresses the contrast between the “you” and the “I” of the song. the softer “-scence” and “fl-” sounds that dissipate like the lyrics described in contrast with the second line’s harsher “ne-” and “ch-”

the bridge & breakdown portion being repeated lyrics from earlier in the song

granted the band isn’t known for having the most contrasting bridges, the repetition of the first verse but excluding the question about never changing is a direct example of the lack of change. it’s the song addressing the way the “you” makes the speaker feel and yet we literally encounter a lack of change.

Easy for You to Say

“… it’s coming in waves / a sunrise in Sydney that’s burning for days”

once again! contrast! the first association of waves with water that conflicts with the fire of “burning” but then the association of heat in “sunrise” with heatwaves. the water notion then recurring with “drenched in my pain” later in the verse. which considering the song is about reflection towards the past, the contrast with the Sydney line emphasizes the separation of the past and the speaker.

“a piece of peace of mind”

alliteration and homophones! also the plosives disrupt the sounds present a contrast to the previous lines (even in the choice of singing, the p-sounds are given a bit of exaggeration) which reflect the fear of something peaceful/settled/soft.

“I feel it in moments … / between all the gasping, I finally breathe”

first! anaphora of the first lines of the verses—the change from sight to touch. that instead of just seeing the moments, the speaker is immersing themself in. which we could consider diving into them. that ties back to the first verse’s water allusions and the second line of the second verse relating to the experience of holding your breath in order to go under water. the concept then reflecting the song being of reflection—how it requires immersion in memories to process and learn and move forward from them.

Bad Omens

“can’t help the way I keep ignoring every omen”

in my experience, “omen” typically has negative connotations, despite the word itself being neutral in meaning. this idea applied to this line in the chorus emphasizes the idea of the last line of the chorus “it’s nothing I don’t already know”. that if we consider the speaker has been overlooking all the signs of the relationship falling apart but being aware of them, it’s similar to reading “omen” neutrally when one should be considered the bad thing coming.

“I should’ve known right then and there, you were a runaway / oh, just make it go away / can you help me rearrange it? / I’m still making sense of having nothing left to save”

the contrast of “then and there” alluding to the act of planting oneself with “runaway” being the opposite in action. also the second line’s “it” is likely referring to signs the earlier lines in the verse and song describe, yet “runaway” and implication of the “you” loving someone else creates the exact ending the speaker wishes for. this showcases that the omens and “you” cannot be separated, hence the asking to “rearrange”. that as the speaker comes to realize all the signs and what it means for the relationship, they don’t know what to do with the fact that it’s the relationship they need to let go off in order for both of them to be happy.

“we go around again, we jump back in bed / that’s what you do when you love somebody”

“around again” and “back” referring to the cycle experienced in the relationship also reflected in the repetition of the bridge. also the second line expressing that this repetition—the holding on—is what love is.

“that’s what you do when you love somebody // else (when you love somebody) / else (when you love somebody)”

eNJAMBMENT MY BELOVED! okay but seriously. it’s the plot twisting of the “when you love somebody” line not only referring to the speakers reluctance to let go, but also all the omens the “you” presents to the speaker. it’s the idea of love being the reason why the speaker is blind to the warning signs but also why the warning signs exist in the first place. additionally, the avoidance of ending on “else” reflects the speakers avoidance of the realty of the relationship as well as their avoidance of ending the relationship (enjambment requires the following line to finish the thought -> without ending on “else”, the speaker is trapped in the loop of loving the “you” rather than facing that the “you” loves “somebody / else”.

Me, Myself, & I

overall repetition of the same verse(s)

honestly, there’s not a whole lot going on lyrically in this song. I do believe it is one they wrote primarily with radio play in mind (short, sounds good feels good, lyrics are easy to learn). however! the idea of the song is that the speaker is lonely—perhaps even isolated. that following bad omens, they are essentially abandoned. the repetition, then, conveys something similar to a room full of mirrors—no matter which way you turn, you are left with yourself. no matter where the song goes sonically, the lyrics do not change. also, being trapped in a mindset of “I am alone” can occasionally be a narcissistic outlook (ie: “everyone else was the problem, not me” or “where is everyone?” after you pushed them away), which the idea of room of mirrors & repetition of “me, myself, & I” follows.

“la-la-lie”

this is very similar to the hook in lie to me. which is a song about the speaker wanting to not be told the truth, but what they want to hear. which following up bad omens, it’s almost as if the speaker is putting their comfort above the genuine feelings of the “you”. it’s narcissistic in refusing the “you” their truth and conveys a refusal to escape the cycle described in bad omens, as this song repeats and repeats.

“... me, myself, and—”

interestingly, this song ends with a missing “I” at the end, similar to how bad omens leaves the listener waiting for a final “else. comparing the two songs being focused on the “you” to being focused on the “I” (respectively), it creates a connection between the “somebody / else” loved by the “you” and the speaker that was left behind. the similarity also shows that in the speaker’s refusal to acknowledge the “else” at the end of bad omens, they are also refusing to fully recognize the singularity of themself at the end of this song, despite already being aware as the song itself implies.

Take My Hand (Joshua Tree Version)

“a painted heart on the sidewalk / a bleeding sun on a silver screen”

the similar words to the chorus of comedown from wfttwatf (“bursting sunrise” and “a change of heart and a silver lining down camellia street”) just makes me want to yell. that is all.

“a few more souls on the bus now”

the bus metaphor! also I know I’m avoiding making implications about the autobiographical nature of the songs, but the idea of “a few more souls” referring to luke finding the rest of the band & muke + their partners.

“young man, look in the mirror / take my hand and don’t you ever let go”

wfttwtaf was about facing the past and so in this lyric, the speaker is instructing their reflection (ie: the person they see themself as) to hold on. to accompany them into the present and the future. it is an acceptance of self. also, the idea of letting go vs. holding on is very prevalent in the album. so where the speaker is letting go/let go of in previous tracks, they are asking themself not to.

“shut my eyes at seventeen” vs “open eyes right at twenty-three”

a cool connection between the two pre-chorus which describes the growth and change that the choruses ask for.

second verse as a whole

imo most of the lyrics in this song stand out in the story-telling aspect/sounding poetic, rather than a technical/clever play of words, use of sound, figurative language. that said, the second verse’s lines all ending on softer/slipperier/drawn-out sounds, gives a lullaby-esque/mirage feel to the song that conveys some idea of comfort (kind of like how holding someone’s hand can be comforting/guiding) and something unsettling false (transitioning from eyes closed to open as if escaping a false sense of security in ignoring some aspect of time/memory/life).

“take my hand” repetition

is it a demand? a plead? I think the latter. which is an interesting idea to want to hold onto oneself, but also in reverse. the question then becomes is the present speaker asking their younger self to take their hand? or the other way around?

CAROUSEL

“I built it from the ground up just to watch me burn it down”

contrast in the song’s first line again! the opposing “up” and “down”. also the fire motif of “burn” returns. an interesting contrast of this song’s destructive burning and the idea of a “burning sunrise” in Sydney being connected to the band’s origins.

“I tried to keep my head above the ocean of my doubt”

more water lyrics! like the previous lyric discussed, this line ties back to some of the imagery in easy for you to say. I think it paints this song to be an expansion of efyts, a follow-up where the speaker begins to try looking forward instead of back. which on a carousel would essentially be the same direction... the idea of cycles/circular motion/repetition continues. (also “spinning”)

“looking for myself in the passenger’s side / driving to the edge til I get this right”

this band and their driving and their cars. calling back to the lie to me music video... a very interesting analysis of being passive in life/lacking direction can emerge but that’s for a different post.

“around” and “now” repetition

yes this is more of the same lines repeating in the song, but either way, it creates a circular motion in the lyrics—no matter what happens, the song returns to a point it has already hit. lyrics are going in circles just like a carousel. in fact many of the songs on the album and most songs in general, reveal a circular motion (whether it’s me, myself, & I or what a chorus is). also the way that “now”s ending sound drags creates this tugging sensation, similar to the way a carousel pushes you through the turn to continue the circle. the present is continuously tugging the speaker along—the one-way ride of life.

Older

“as forever comes closer / hope the world will spin slower”

when I first heard the first line I thought of “objects in mirror are closer than the appear” on car mirrors. this connected back to the driving lyrics in carousel. the second line also connects back to carousel despite being initially appearing to be about time passing -> days passing -> earth’s rotation. while the speaker, in the previous song, wants the ride to continue and almost enjoys the continuous pace, they recognize in this song that the passage of time inevitably ends in death. that there is forever implied with marriage, but this life does have an end (next lives/afterlife differing for different people). the speaker acknowledges that the ride eventually must stop, but wishes for it to go slower as if to extend their time/better experience each moment with “you”.

“the promises roll-off your breath / in your cocaine-colored wedding dress”

on it’s own, I think this is a very clever couplet. “cocaine” is playing off of the imagery of the previous life—it is a great lyric except for the part of it being in this song. I do think it would function better in the context of a song about divorce/strained relationship. the idea of love and drugs is a common trope/theme and in the context of how the high of being loved/loving someone can be blinding, the couplet opens an interesting exploration. that said, it seems the speaker is acknowledging the inevitable end when it comes to their partner, in parallel to the inevitable end of a high. to which I have opinions on the way western media treats drugs as cool, etc. that I can’t really appreciate this lyric fully/unbiasedly. regardless of the context of the song, though, it stands alone as a smart play with imagery.

“my dear devoted delicate”

alliteration! it’s listing terms of endearment as if saying “my love, my love, my love”, where affection simply cannot be contained in one word. also the contrasting harshness of the beginning of “dear” and the last syllable of “devoted” with the softer (more delicate) sound of “delicate”. in the same way this song ties the beauty of the speaker and their partner’s relationship with the inevitable ending, the line mixes harsher and softer sounds in terms of endearment. it’s recognizing both strength and softness, it’s a love that seeks to care for but also must be cared for.

“it’s not worth it if I lose my one-way ticket for two”

first the slsp parallel: “... showed up with a plane ticket / and a shiny diamond ring with your name on it”!!!! second, this is all about commitment! on one hand the loss of the ticket could be death, on the other hand, it’s the speaker accepting the the cost of marriage/said commitment, is that eventually things come to an end. that they’re here for the journey more than the destination.

“I don’t want to get older / without your head on my shoulder”

best years: “I want to hold your hand while we’re growing up” except instead of the speaker seeming to look for comfort as they age, the reverse exists: the speaker wants to be someone that the “you” can lean on as they grow. the rhyme is so good! and the connection of “shoulder” with “older” is cool, where one grows as the get older, thus their shoulder becomes a better place to rest on—they hope to become a better person to depend on as they grow.

“your wicked smile, it says it all / mixed with my sad and cynical / no tragedy at the end / no, nothing shakespearean”

first two lines present the “you” and the speaker as opposites. similar to how the song contemplates the conflict of promising forever and forever having an unknown expiration date, the speaker and their partner represent the love that knows no end and the reality of life that love exists in the context of. the “all” vs “cynical” line endings are also interesting contrasts where having it “all” can be an optimistic view opposed to cynical, and also in that “cynical” ends in “all” except minus an l (it does not have it all).

second two lines are a very specific metaphor which I absolutely love in songwriting, etc.. shakespeare is well-known for his tragedies, so the speaker is asking for the ending (despite being death) to not end sad or tragic, but to fully recognize the beauty of love that they did have.

first and last chorus

starting and ending on the chorus plays on the idea of spinning in the lyrics of this song and the carousel metaphor of life. that tied to how sierra is there on the last but not the first, also parallels the theme of the song, where in life the speaker starts out without their partner, but eventually is joined in life by them, and while eventually there comes an ending, for now they have their partner with them.

HAZE

“got me feeling alright when the feeling’s long gone / got me feeling uptight every moment you’re gone”

the contrasting l-sound of “aright” vs. p-sound and t-sounds of “uptight” create a reflection of the feelings described in the lyrics. the l-sounds of the first line are drawn, they’re lazing, they’re unworried and dissipating. the harder sounds of the second line are stressed, they’re attentive, they call awareness to themselves like the speaker is aware of the “you”s absence.

“ventura was a ghost town, the city broke my heart, heart”

I just love specific lyrics lol but also the idea of a “ghost town” and how the line begins to fade with the “heart” repetition like the line is mimicking the leaving of people from the town

Part 2

[the-mountain-flower]

I came up with smn cool that probably only matters to me but IDC imma share it anyway bc I think it's cool

So most, if not all, reading this will know about the "many people still upset that Pluto is categorized as a dwarf planet when it used to be labeled as a planet" thing. I've got no qualms either way, whether or not it's a planet doesn't affect me. But my ND brain started connecting the harmless "Pluto is a planet fuck you" with the harmful science-denial running rampant rn.

Obviously that's bullshit. No way in hell is the categorization of astral bodies and the emotions people have with it, on the same level as shit like "vaccines are bad" etc. So even tho it's technically a small thing, the fact that my brain started connecting them was irking me, so I thought of ways to get around that.

What I came up with is kinda similar yet opposite to the original idea: "dwarf planet" still has the word "planet" in it.

We still categorize the eight larger planets into the inner rocky ones, and the outer gas giants. This is because even though they are all in the same "large masses orbiting the sun maybe with moons", the two types are different enough to warrant being in separate categories. I figured that "dwarf planets" could be considered another one of those categories, big enough to be on the list of major orbital bodies, while significantly smaller than the ones before the Asteroid Belt or gas giants (according to NASA, specifically ones that weren't able to "clear their orbit of debris" which is where the size thing comes in bc gravity).

Pluto, Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris are in a category of their own that acknowledge their individuality from all other objects. Like coming out as queer, Pluto (and Ceres apparently) was thought to be one thing, then realized to be another. (This is NOT saying "Pluto is a planet fuck you" is equal to bigotry either, one is harmless and the other is harmful. I'm not accusing anyone in the first category of being just as bad, it's not true. It's also of a separate enough subject that my brain doesn't have a hard time keeping them separate, so it's not too counterproductive to my point.)

So both can be true, because Pluto IS a planet, just the same type of planet as Eris, Makemake, Ceres, and Haumea.

Is that completely scientifically founded? Technically no, dwarf planets don't actually meet the criteria of an official planet. But it works bc "planet" is still in the name, and there's a difference between general knowledge of smn and the official technicalities, and the official technicalities are still enough for this one.

Is it just a different way of anthropomorphizing the planets? Yeah.

Does it work? Yup. So long as I'm not accidentally associating something Not Bad with something Bad and it's not blatantly untrue, I'm good with it.

But yeah, I thought it was creative and so figured I'd share. 🤷‍♀️❤️

[myosotis-secunda]

THE REAL ULTIMATE SEAM MANIFESTO

AKA: why the fuck are they like that what’s their deal!!!!

i’ve been a huge deltarune fan since release, and one of my favorites (if not my most favorite) is seam. and, as anyone does when their favorite is a character with not too much screentime and not too much content, I’ve ended up going down my own rabbithole of obsession and analysis of their dialogue and appearances. However, this has led me to a conclusion that i believe to be separate from my own biases and grounded somewhat in evidence:

seam is a deceivingly important character. and the following text is my manifesto on the topic. i am sure some, or even much, of the info presented in this has been documented or theorized on by other people, but i hope this can serve as a convenient summary of seam info, and that i can provide some new bits of info or speculation for anyone reading. i hope you will give it a read! (art below by me)

CHAPTER 1: WHERE IS THEIR OVERWORLD SPRITE?? + FOURTH WALL KNOWLEDGE

so obviously, seam is one of the four main shopkeepers (technically one of the six..) we’ve seen so far in deltarune, the others being rouxls, sweet cap ‘n cakes, and swatch. there’s also spamton, of course, though his functions are.. different than those of the other shopkeeps. regardless, one of the differentiating things about seam compared to the other shopkeepers we’ve seen so far is their lack of an overworld sprite.

as to why this matters: it is my belief that this lack of a sprite is purposeful and intentional. let me explain:

in deltarune, it is a seeming trend for all shopkeepers to receive an overworld sprite either before or after their introduction. this trend even applies to the undertale shopkeeps, though this can admittedly also be attributed to the difference in tone for the light world. all this being said, i’d be completely willing to accept seam simply being an exception to this trend, were it not for two moments:

the fact that seam is specifically excluded from the walk-around after beating king, and that its even brought to the player’s attention via. this NPC, has always seemed strange to me. considering that there’s no shortage of situational dialogue written for seam (as ill get more into later), its not as if they couldn’t have appeared. this can also, of course, be explained as it simply being in their personality not to appear, which makes some sense considering that they express no interest in things like what happens to the Fountain. this brings me to my second point:

“As long as I stay in my shop, these walls won’t change.”

discovering this line was key in figuring out this aspect of seam for me. what it indicates, as far as i understand, is “shopkeeper knowledge” ala. gerson in the genocide route.

compared to undertale, the significance of fourth-wall-related knowledge seems to be a bit more dubious, but considering other aspects of their character such as having been influenced by jevil, i dont think its at all a stretch to think theyre aware of the in-game limitations and advantages being a shopkeeper would provide. whether their use of it here is simply due to them not wanting to go outside and have their seap messed with, or if it has deeper implications, i cant say. what i can say is that its a notable aspect of seam which, as far as i can tell, has been overlooked by most people. additionally, the absence of an overworld appearance SO FAR, based on the trend, does imply the possibility of them showing up on the overworld later on.

FUTURE EDIT: one more thing i should’ve added in this chapter which i did not initially, so sorry for the non-sequitur here. since it goes in with fourth-wall knowledge, though it’s not very related to shopkeeper stuff, i figured i’d mention it.

seam elaborating on their name pronunciation here often goes overlooked just on the basis of it being a silly pun. but obviously, when looking at it from an in-universe perspective, it doesn’t make much sense. when having a conversation with someone, theres no need to tell them how to say your name in this way when you’re saying it out loud for them to hear regardless. however, if you’re having that conversation via. writing or text? THEN it’d make sense to add a note like this about how to say it. from that line of reasoning, it’s extremely possible that seam is aware that they’re communicating via. dialogue boxes here, adding to their awareness of fourth-wall stuff.

CHAPTER 2: FORESHADOWING IN DELTARUNE + FUTURE CHAPTER PREMONITION

to start off this section, i want to clarify that the nature of foreshadowing and characters’ knowledge of the events of future chapters is unclear, and at the point of writing this manifesto (post-chapter 2, for any future readers!), difficult and likely impossible to answer. i will try to go over what i mean by this quickly, though im sure its also been covered plenty by other people.

within undertale, all the allusions to characters who appear later on in the story, like all the ominous mentions of ASGORE early on, make logical sense. its a story which takes place in a single setting (the expanse of the underground), where many of the characters know eachother prior to the appearance of frisk/the player, and so on. so cool, makes sense! this is not the case with deltarune, and specifically, within the dark worlds.

there is some information shared between the dark worlds we’ve seen that makes sense. for example, although the presence of THE KNIGHT is mentioned by both king and queen, this checks out since they’re implied to be a lightner, and would be able to traverse between dark worlds.

SPEAKING of king and queen though, i have to break the semi-academic voice ive been doing for this because they seriously throw a loop into so many of my thoughts about this section. here are all the details about them from around the end of chapter 2:

they know each other and knew each other well enough to have nicknames and banter

queen witnessed king sleeping on his throne, implying she was in the unused classroom darkworld at some point??

queen DIDNT KNOW lancer existed before chapter 2???

 king even has this like joke foreshadowing moment before the queen walks in??

so its like... do the dark worlds function independently of their fountain being up in the light world??? can darkners traverse between dark worlds at will?? were king and queen just e-dating at some point??? how does baby work???? is the future chapter knowledge a specific ability or something granted by, say, THE KNIGHT??? is it even an ability at all or is it just there for plot/foreshadowing purposes??? am i reading into a joke scene too seriously (answer: yeah)??? [EDIT TO THIS PART: someone i know pointed out that since queen is a laptop she couldve just been moved from the classroom to the librarby which makes a lot of sense... so this part might be useless.]

regardless of that. there have only been a few moments, to my knowledge, in which future chapter events are mentioned or known by the characters. these are:

jevil’s post-defeat dialogue. note the line “BUT THERE ARE YET FASTER, YET STRONGER.”

spamton’s mentions of [[Mike]]

additionally, although not knowledge of future chapters, there’s this line implying he knows jevil, which is probably due to them both having direct relation with the mysterious guy who definitely isnt gaster.

THIS whole multitude with seam

although its an admittedly small pool of data, so far this foreshadowing seems to follow the topics of the bonus bosses and future antagonists. with jevil’s, and potentially with seam’s (”And we can toast... to the end of the world!”), theres some allusions to the LEGENDS as well.

what this shows is that seam has many, many connections to the secret bosses as a character. not just in the obvious points like them having known jevil and them handling the shadow crystals, but with their own abilities and knowledge mirroring that of the secret bosses we’ve seen so far.

CHAPTER 3: SEAM AND THE GUY WHO IS PROBABLY GASTER...

in deltarune, every other moment and character seemingly does have references to gaster, whether that be in the OST, random lines of dialogues, or telephone sounds. however, i think most people would agree that, besides the intro, the moments in the game most evocative of him are the secret bosses. by going into the details of this in relation to jevil or spamton id be beating a very very dead horse, so for the purposes of this i’ll be focusing on seam.

[ABOVE IMAGE TEXT:

Damage to eye similar to a scar

Damage which overlaps the mouth

?: POSSIBLY  the shape of their smiles matching, though this is probably a stretch..]

first off, seam has some vague similarities to the mystery man sprite, which is the most likely candidate for gaster’s canon appearance, and is at the least ASSOCIATED with him due to being a FUN value event. As stated in the above image, this resemblance between seam and m-man is in the scars/marks on their faces. additionally, they both have one open (or in seam’s case, circular? i suppose the button cant close...) and one closed eye. seam’s non-button eye is also completely black, which matches the m-man sprite.

there’s also this line.. which is a pretty clear reference to entry seventeen. (”DARK DARKER YET DARKER”)

so does this mean that SEAM = GASTER!?!?!??!!? is confirmed? obviously, no. considering how chock-full deltarune is with gaster references, i think these are just another egg-in-the-basket, so to say. what this leads into, and what i think is more important, is seams more indirect association with gaster.

let’s go back to the full context for that “darker, yet darker.” line. as a result of meeting a guy who may-or-may-not-be-but-probably-is-gaster (while i will be shortening to “gaster” for convenience), jevil gains the knowledge that he, and everyone else in their world, is in a video game. he is driven mad by this, and spreads the knowledge to seam as well, leading to their current state of nihilism.

what i find interesting about this is that seam is the only character so far who we know has been affected by this fourth-wall knowledge but who didnt directly receive it from gaster. in the case of spamton, he has a few more characters who he interacts with, such as the addisons and swatch. however, none of them seem to have had their worldview significantly affected by their relationships with spamton. for example, in the above pics, swatch seems to think of him as just being greedy or power-seeking rather than having any idea of him being affected by gaster-philosophy.

[SIDE TANGENT: it could also be argued that THE FUN GANG was influenced by spamton in this context, based on their post-NEO dialogue, but the long-term implications of this are unclear. susie is spooked but seems not to be personally affected by it, ralsei deflects the idea of the fight having deeper meaning than it being a corrupted program, and kris is shaken, presumably due to their own experiences with being a ‘puppet’. at this point though, it cant be said that any of them have any relation to gaster, or where their knowledge of fourth-wall shenanigans stands. basically, going into anything related to the fun gang would be a massive rabbithole with not enough information to say anything definitive, and i want to focus on seam. ]

tldr; they very likely have fourth wall knowledge, which furthers their connections to the secret bosses and may possibly play a role in their future appearances in the game.

CHAPTER 4: THEY ARE STRONG + TRANSLATION TIDBIT

before any gaster shenanigans happened, seam tells us that they and jevil used to play “games” together, and that jevil was the only one who could match up against them.

what kind of games these were is never explicitly stated, but considering jevil’s idea of a game, we can infer that it did probably involve battling. considering jevil’s strength, as anyone who’s played against him will know, this on its own shows that seam is likely very powerful.

and since we know they were the one who imprisoned him, this again implies they’re at the same, and likely greater, level of strength as jevil.

i don’t have much to add for a conclusion here... i just find it neat to think that they are very strong, and it’s an important point for my speculation later. just for fun, here’s a little translation tidbit unrelated to the chapter topic!

for a long while, this line confused me on its exact meaning. to be specific, i was confused on whether seam was “forced” as in ordered to against their own will, or whether they were forced as in they were pushed to that limit due to the threat jevil posed.

additionally, jevil never actually blames seam for his imprisonment! he instead blames the kings. so, to figure out the line’s actual meaning, i decided to look at the japanese version of it.

[RAW TEXT: あたしは宮廷魔術師で　やつのたった 　 １人の相方だった。王様の命に従い 　 やつをオリに入れるしかなかった… ]

differing from the english line, this one actually mentions the kings! as a very literal translation, it says something like “I was the court mage, and his only compansion. In accordance with the king’s orders, I had no choice but to imprison him.” so, there’s the answer to that for any jeam lovers reading this, or just for anyone who likes their dynamic.

CHAPTER 5: LIGHT WORLD KNOWLEDGE HUH!?!?!?!?

to start: this is one of the weirder things i noticed while looking over seam’s dialogue for this, and its something where i dont think there’s enough information in the game for me to draw any direct conclusions. still, i thought it was notable enough to include.

when talking to seam after returning from the cyber world in chapter 2, you can get either of these two dialogues depending on how many darkners you recruited. it appears inconspicuous, but after thinking over it for a bit i realized it came bundled with its own odd implications.

considering the way the dark world functions, and the lack of any other mentions i could find, it doesnt have a day/night cycle the way the light world would. additionally, since seam is telling our protagonists to go home, it implies that they mean its growing late in the light world specifically.

but... HOW do they know its growing late in the light world? did they just guess based on the relative amount of time that passed in the dark world? do darkners have any internal clock (like our circadian rhythms)? this is a question i literally cannot answer accurately, because we don’t have that much information on how or if darkners can perceive what goes on in the light world.

though not related to our time-related conundrum, there IS another instance of a darkner* having knowledge of the going-ons in the light world. specifically, its when ralsei gives kris specific directions to the old classroom, which implies ralsei knows about the layout of the school. its hard to say whether this is something special specific to ralsei, or if all darkners have this kind of spatial awareness of the light world. its entirely possible ralsei just uses the proximity of castle town and the chapter 1 darkworld to determine where itd be placed in the light world. however, considering ralsei’s ability to travel to and persist in other darkworlds, without his equivalent object being moved there by a lightner, it’s entirely possible this kind of knowledge is an oddity for darkners. with this in mind, though this is not a definite conclusion, i think it is entirely possible seam’s awareness of time here may be something unique to them.

another weird note about this dialogue is their specific wording. although this dialogue could just be an old-timer telling some young whippersnappers to go home, it’s worded more specifically than that. “You don’t want to get caught when the sun goes down...” is a bit more exact of a warning, though for what I can’t say. additionally, considering this is a character who’s glad to give a group of teenagers access to the prison of a murder-clown, it’s doubtful that they’d care much if this was just a matter of them staying out too late. considering the tone of events we’ve seen happen at night so far, i.e. kris’ nighttime knife sessions, it’s possible that staying in a dark world too late may hold dangerous implications in some way for lightners? that’s entirely speculation though, and as i said earlier there’s just not enough info to draw definite conclusions from any of this. it’s not, however, something i’ve seen widely acknowledged, so i thought it was of note enough to write about here.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: for a long time, i didnt even know about these dialogue lines. the reason for that, as far as i can tell, is that if the player defeats both(or either?) spamton+jevil, this specific dialogue doesnt show up. so, if it doesn’t come up in every route, this may mean it’s not an important line at all, which may possibly invalidate this section’s relevance completely. to know if it matters at all, we’ll just have to wait for more chapters to release!!

[*although him being a lightner is a popular theory, ralsei is almost definitely a darkner. this is indicated by a couple of details, the most convincing of which being his faint animation where he just kind of turns into a pile of robes. additionally, toby has said he doesnt plan on making any merch focused on the lightners in deltarune, and ralsei.. has his fair share of merch. arguments can still be made in favor of this theory, but for the intents of this essay, ralsei is a darker.

CHAPTER 7: SHADOW CRYSTALS

this chapter will be a bit of an unsorted mess, due to what i think is the extreme weirdness of the shadow crystals. seam has a ton of dialogue and interactions on the topic of them, and although this is mainly for game design reasons and facilitating their odd introduction, i still think there’s merit in diving into the details.

for one, seam’s involvement with the shadow crystals makes it incredibly likely that they’re going to end up being the main “authority” behind the secret bosses. by this, i mean that the player will have to go to them to actually make use of the shadow crystals, whatever that use may end up being. and since the shadow crystals seem to also act as verification that the secret bosses have been defeated by the player (since they can be grabbed in any save file so long as the boss has been defeated previously), this will also likely act as a way to advance the secret boss side-storyline-thing as a whole. this is furthered by the fact that they give suspiciously accurate backstory for spamton, despite having no connections to him otherwise. at this point in the story, there’s no way to know for sure what the secret bosses will lead to, but its fair to say that seam will likely be a key actor in whatever it may be.

there’s also the issue of the shadow mantle. mainly, the question of what the hell happened to it! if toby didnt want the player to have it immediately, couldn’t have seam just delayed giving it to the player until chapter 3? say that they still need time to sew it or something? since he didn’t go for that approach, there are two main options i see for what its deal is:

1: seam is being honest here and the shadow mantle was somehow stolen. in this case, the result is straightforward. in some later chapter a character will show up with the shadow mantle or something, we fight against them, get the mantle, cool-cool.

2 (the way more speculative option): considering the evidence that seam is aware of game ui/shopkeeper logic to some extent, there is the possibility that seam is purposefully keeping the shadow mantle from the party. as to why theyd do this i cant say, but its a possibility!

backing away from speculation, there are also two other items that need to be gone over in relation to the shadow crystals. these are both unused items, but ones which have a very real chance of being included later in the game. scroll past if you’d like to avoid (possible) spoilers for future chapters!

the pure crystal, as seen from the flavor text, is likely going to be a shadow crystal purified by seam. (i’ve seen people speculate that the flavor text is a fake-out and that it may be purified by one of the other cat characters, like tasque manager or catti, but... c’mon.) the really interesting thing about this item is that its an ingredient for crafting the twisted sword, the other being the thorn ring. to obtain the thorn ring, you have to initiate a snowgrave route and continue until you can buy it from spamton, and then abandon the route afterwards. as is the case with many things, there’s no way to know the details of what this will entail when done, but it is interesting that seam will end up getting tied into snowgrave shenanigans as well.

the sky mantle is another item likely related to the shadow crystals. i have no idea what it implies for seam or secret boss lore, if anything, but it at least lets us know we’ll likely retrieve the shadow mantle later on. perhaps it’ll be made from the pure crystals instead of the raw shadow crystals??? and considering seam said we’d need the shadow mantle for a specific secret boss, maybe that boss will use elec/holy attacks... in short, IDK!!!!

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS

so i don’t draw this out longer than it needs to be, i’m gonna go straight to my main point: there is a very high chance that seam will not only be a secret boss in the future, but that they’ll be the final one.

there are a few pieces of evidence from the previous chapters i’ll be using to prove this. first of all is the fact that they have no overworld sprite. as i said in chapter 1, them not having one is VERY odd, and i cant imagine there being a reason for them to not have one if its not to have some reveal with them leaving their seap for some reason later on in the game.

additionally, them being stronger than jevil means they’d be at the same strength level or higher compared to the secret bosses we’ve seen so far, which to me absolutely seems like it could be setup for them being a boss later on.

we know that seam will be a reoccurring character throughout the game due to their role as an exposition-er on the  secret bosses, but they also have this piece of dialogue, which i think is more specific than our visits to them at castle town. realizing the futility of our actions? toasting to the end of the world? considering how the world ending is something literally prophecised in the story via. the roaring, it’s reasonable to assume that it will occur or come close to occuring due to that generally being how stories are set up, and that this will likely occur near the end of the story. although it’s obviously hard to know what the circumstances will be at that point, perhaps this is the point where seam’s boss fight would take place? they seem to find amusement in the fun gang’s antics and they encourage them to seek out more shadow crystals, and we know they used to enjoy battles against jevil, so perhaps this could be a final rendezvous for them before everything goes to shit. or, maybe it could be an entirely different situation by that time, [shrugemoji]!

one last bit of speculation i have in this regards is what exactly the role of the shadow crystals will be, besides using them to make/upgrade equipables. in my opinion, since they’re retrievable across save files, their purpose is to be a sort of tally of whether the player has defeated the secret bosses, and how many of them they have. with this in mind, there almost definitely will be some sort of happening once all of them have been collected. because of the amount of evidence i think there is for them ending up as a secret boss, and just due to how intertwined they are with the secret bosses as a character, i think they’re a very likely candidate for this event.

EDIT THAT WASNT IN THE ORIGINAL POST:

^^^THIS FUCKING EXCERPT FROM THE UNDERTALE CROSS STITCH BOOK. SPEAKS FOR ITSELF.

THAT IS ALL I HAVE TO SAY!!! GOODBYE

(by the way... let me know if you see any grammar or other errors in this!!! thank you for reading this far if you got to this point)

[trollocks-in-my-bollocks]

Loved your fanfic! Baby Moiraine is adorable. Any wot recs?

Thanks for asking and sorry for answering this a bit late. I wanted to write a rec anyway, so anon, your timing’s excellent! There are a few things, however, I need to clear up first: I’m not suggesting here, that these are the best fics ever written in the fandom, this is not a hall of fame. This is a collection of my comfort fics as a reader who loves to read intricate and unlikely AUs about Siuan/Moiraine and plotless stories about That weird thing Lan and Moiraine have. I’m 100% sure there are great fics out there about Rand&Mat and the Polycule(tm), it’s not a judgement of value that I’m leaving stuff out. 

Also before the rec, psst here’s my wishlist of the things I’d love to see on AO3: the “How I met your Greenman” story, outtakes from Birgitte’s lives, an entire story from Aviendha’s POV. If you’ve read anything similar, hmu pls (I mean I was desperate enough to write a Birgitte story recently, rip.)

An incomplete list of fics I adore (might write a 2nd part):

Their Dinners by aptasi (T)

A truly in-character piece about Lan and Moiraine: there is no dialogue, they are just having dinner in complete silence and that’s the entire plot. Such a brilliant story, I’d say this is my favourite but aptasi has tons of gutting short stories  and I’m not able to just choose one. aptasi also writes amazing  Rand & Moiraine dialogues, the kind that leaves you staring out of the foggy window, rethinking your ways.

echoes of her dynasty by alittlelesspain (E) There are so many things in this fanfic I still think about every once in a while, just to list a few of them:

- Alric has an actual personality in this story?? he’s the saltiest ace/aro Warder and I absolutely loved how being someone on the grayscale was not depicted as being innocent or clueless about stuff, but “When she looked up, Moiraine was staring at her, not the puzzle. “Oh,” said Alric in a voice of revelation, when Siuan got back to the inn that night, puzzle dangling uselessly from her hand, and brain equally useless to holding any sort of sensible conversation with him. “I understand now. She’s equally pathetic.”

- most of the story is from Siuan’s POV which is a relatively rare thing and it was so amazing to stay in her mind for a while. Technically this story is a Very Reluctant Sun Queen AU where Moiraine re-builds Cairhien with her Dream Team (Siuan, Alric, Lan and Bukama) instead of becoming Aes Sedai. There are also heavy Beauty and the Beast undertones, as the story starts with Siuan encountering the last surviving Damodred lurking in the Royal Library with her stone faced Borderlander bbf

- a battle is won because Siuan loves to chat with Ogier stonemasons and re-uses a centuries-old waterway for her tactics.

- a lot of this fic is about the importance of rebuilding lost knowledge and making education more accessible. The entire thing has such a positive message while keeping the reader on their toes by staying brutally realistic at the same time. Ugh, just make a huge pot of tea and read this.

The Path of Fires and Foxes by LarraineLynch (M)

Time-travel AU from multiple POVs and I loved reading all of them. The first book of this series is already finished, it’s so intricate and masterfully woven that I don’t know how to describe this story, I just want to say that her weekly updates kept me going through a vacationless summer. What I liked best about it was 1. that instead of pitting women against each other the author lets them communicate (or for Moiraine’s part, manipulate, but we love her nonetheless) and plot against the system 2. it felt so gross to read about stilling men then leaving them to go crazy and die alone through the series and finally, this fic addresses this waste of human life and potential and creates an amazing solution.

cause for separation by fuelprices (G)

Delicious long-distance relationship angst and crack! don’t want to spoil the plot, I just want to say I love her way of writing the Siuan-Lan dynamic <3 (+check out the rest if you’re unlike me and can read some good hurt & comfort stuff rn) Fractal by aptasi (E)

Moiraine and Siuan have a debate about the metaphysical nature of time and the Wheel while having sex. I had to go for a 10k run after reading this to be able to function as a person for the rest of the day, thanks.