#setting: lark setting

[miidown]

nark as teenagers sketches!!

[macksartblock]

Back to my roots (drawing over images that amuse me)

[human-sweater-vest]

okay so we’ve seen glenn and ron so far in season two and they’ve been kind of what I expected.

glenn is pretty much the same as he was season one. it makes sense, he’s set in his whole thing, he’s vibing in hell with morgan and is sporting the same chill stoner vibes as before. the notable thing with him was that there wasn’t really animosity between him and nick (which also makes sense given their whole deal in season one). he’s always been far removed and it makes sense that in season two he’s still rockin with it.

ron then was a really touching surprise because he continued to grow as a person (insert beth may snickering here). he connected easily with scary and hit me like a fucking freight train with the line about him being sorry that she didn’t realize that losing terry jr. was her loss too. he’s this strange intermediary between the men in their family because willy took advantage of her needing someone to validate her pain, terry jr. was seen as a cause of it and therefore couldn’t help ease it truly (until things were too late), and then ron is here being his odd little self and extends sympathy to her because he also lost terry jr. and can understand. kudos to beth for ep. 41 because she rode the line between comedy and genuinely heartfelt and deep emotional moments like a champ.

and now here’s where we turn to speculation:

I’ve seen a lot of folks saying they’re worried about henry (and I feel like he’s probably going to warrant that because duh, it all comes back to the oak family when it comes to the doodler). however! my first point here is that we shouldn’t ignore darryl.

I feel like we see the most thought going into the oaks (and again, rightfully so, will and anthony are serving us trauma and drama on a platter) and I think one of the sacrifices with that comes at the extent of the wilson boys. the darryl/grant arc was the first time I really, truly got what dndads was all about. specifically, matt’s incredible line where darryl is replying to the other dads saying that he should showcase vulnerability to grant with darryl snapping and saying that he can’t be fully honest because he’s putting on a brave face because he doesn’t know if they’ll make it out and if he and carol will even stay together if they do. that line then contrasted later when he says that if grant asks him a question he’ll do his best to answer truthfully which allows for the big emotional connection they were lacking.

the wilson father/son relationship hinges on the idea of not being able to love the pain away and we see that extend into the next generation in a deeply tragic way. grant can’t make his mental illness magically disappear by loving his son despite how badly he clearly wants to. he can’t “we’ll talk about it later” his way into a healthy relationship where he’s able to offer his son both stability and truth. he’s fucked up and traumatized and never fully dealt with things and he’s dealing with the ramifications.

so how do we think darryl feels about that? how do we think darryl would feel knowing that he couldn’t love away grant’s mental illness (which isn’t something you can do, but he feels immensely guilty about in season one) and seeing the disastrous effect it had on the relationship between his son and grandson to the point where linc no longer refers to him as a dad? I personally really do think that he’ll act as a balm between the two and finally provide that space for them to become father and son again.

there’s truly so much I could say on the wilson family because I’m fascinated by the transition between the most stereotypically masculine family dynamic to a queered one (in both senses of the world) and how the thru line for the generations is this idea of not being able to 1. disclose the truth out of a sense of protection (see: frank hiding his marital and monetary issues, darryl hiding his martial issues and fear of not surviving faerun, and grant hiding who he is and what he does) and 2. love away the pain/illness.

and now we turn to the oak boys. I’m operating on the assumption that henry will be the last dad that they seek out because 1. glenn and terry jr. are in the same spot which means we get a two for one combo deal in hell 2. lark and sparrow clearly have a bad or at the very least strained relationship with their dad and will be less likely to jump on seeking him out and 3. the oak family started the whole doodler thing in this show so it makes sense that they’ll end it.

and for the sake of transparency: here’s where my bias comes through. henry was my favorite season one dad. normal is my favorite season two kid. will campos if you’re reading this, I want you to know that if I could simultaneously give you an academy award and sue you for emotional damages, I would.

the oaks have the most literal device explaining their generational trauma. hildy was ripped from her world after her companions were brutally killed in front of her, barry is a piece of shit, henry has the weight of both his father and having to be a father despite not having a role model, lark and sparrow are fucked up beyond belief in a manner of ways that starts at fucking their twin’s spouse and ends with starting the literal apocalypse. and then there’s normal. bearing the brunt of it all when he wasn’t even given the support to. he’s been carrying the weight of expectation since birth. his sister is hero, he’s normal and yet he’s anything but. that’s a whole other essay (catch me writing that when it’s not 2am).

back to the twins and henry though. from their view it’s bad right? lark hates his dad and destroyed the world. sparrow was an accomplice. I can’t imagine that things were easy after the doodler was released in the oak-garcia household. ESPECIALLY — and this has had me uncomfortable since we learned it offhand in episode 29 of the season — because henry and mercedes had another kid. first things first (and this might just be a me and my cultural background thing), but a minimum decade age gap between your first and second kids is A Lot. especially given the context here that henry struggles with being a father for the aforementioned reasons and his children literally Ended The World. I dunno about you but I think that I’d avoid having more kids at pretty much all costs at that point. but he and mercedes don’t. and hey maybe birdie/birdy was an accident. but my suspicion here (and I very much might be reading too deep into something mentioned in a literal “see you again” parody) is that birdie was a second chance kid. which would fucking blow if you were the aforementioned dad-stabbing—eldritch-creature-releasing child because it would look like your dad had gone “okay well that didn’t work out I can’t find a way to make these kids work so let’s try another one” which would justify the distance and dislike of henry from both of the boys.

I’m a very big fan of henry. he’s fucked up in the exact way I like my fictional men and also reminds me of guys from the city I grew up in which is both appalling and endearing. however, this is absolutely a move I could see him justifying to himself which morally makes me wanna walk into the sea and from a character/story standpoint makes me wanna jump up and down in glee. I really, truly am hoping that things pan out like that and we see a henry who loves his beautiful boys very deeply, but also gave up on them in exchange for a do-over.

I’m especially excited to see how he interacts with normal because my first instinct based on season one without my fucked up and evil birdie theory is that he’ll love normal and make him feel special and seen while my second post-birdiegate instinct is that he’s just not going to care anymore and therefore do fuck-all for normal. he has the energy of a man who eventually just stops trying because he can’t ever make everything better. will campos, if you deliver on that, I’ll figure out how to sneak the oak family into an academic paper.

finally (for now), I’m predicting that the familial reunions will reflect the how the anchors broke. glenn, ron, and darryl will be love while henry will be hate. I think there’s a lot of possibility there that I can break down when it’s not almost 3am. thanks for reading! lmk what you think, I really want to discuss this with folks and get your takes!!

[daughter-of-melpomene]

𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆… 𝐌𝐘 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐏𝐈𝐄𝐂𝐄 𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑, 𝐇𝐀𝐘𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐈 𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐊

❝ In what she considered to be the ultimate, terrible tribute to her name, Lark had been living most of her life like a bird in a cage. First, her cage had been the mansion in Albatross Town in which she had lived as a child, alongside her parents, the town’s governors, who upon realizing their daughter’s natural talent for singing had trotted her out to perform in front of their fellow government officials from the time she was as young as seven. Then, after her parents had passed away from illness when she was still young, her cage had transformed into the embrace of World Government officials, who, remembering her from those parties in her childhood home, had thrust a guitar into her hands and forced her to travel around all four Blues, singing hollow songs about how good and just the World Government and the Marines were for crowds of the Marines themselves.

And even more than she hated being trotted around the world like a show pony at the Government’s whim, Lark hated the music she was forced to perform - and how she was kept from even learning about the music that truly interested her. From the time she was very young, just starting out in her role as the World Government’s little songstress, Lark had been fascinated with the songs pirates sang, the odes to the horizon and life on the high Blues that they would sing on their ships and in taverns when the moon was high in the sky. She ached to hear all of the pirate songs that had ever existed, to fill the songwriting notebooks she kept in secret with their notes and lyrics and perhaps even write one of her own. But since her Government handlers had always kept such a close watch on her, steering her away from any music that was not her approved setlist for performances, she was forced to constantly escape for a few hours whenever she could and fill her notebooks with whatever scraps of songs she could overhear spilling from pubs or could persuade a sailor to sing for her and kept those scribbled words close to her heart, longing for the day when she could burst out of her cage and finally submerge herself in the music she truly wanted to sing.

Finally, after so many years of waiting and wanting and playing the part of the World Government’s little songbird no matter how much she hated it, Lark was given her opportunity for freedom in the form of Monkey D. Luffy and his newfound, ragtag little crew of pirate hopefuls. After seeing one of Lark’s shows and somehow seeing through her public persona to the desperate trapped bird she was underneath, Luffy had approached her with an offer to run away and join his little crew, an offer which Lark could not do anything but accept. Snatching her chance to escape and holding on tight, Lark had sailed away with the Straw Hat crew carrying nothing but her guitar, a few of her favorite dresses, and her beloved notebooks, more than ready to sail the open water and be exposed to the songs she had been longing to hear for so long.

But, of course, the World Government is not willing to let their prized bird fly free for too long, and in addition to evading angry fishmen, keeping their swordsman from dying after he picks a fight he has no chance of winning, and trying to keep a terrifying clown from sending them to their deaths, the Straw Hats must also deal with the threat of a determined Marine Admiral who wants to arrest their captain and has received orders to bring Lark back to his employers. But what everyone who has ever kept Lark captive has failed to realize is that she is much stronger and more determined than she seems - and if she, her newfound friends, and the charming chef who lost his heart to her the first time he heard her sing have anything to say about it, this songbird will be dead before she will be forced into a cage again. ❞

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[nat-without-a-g]

Solely because I like to hurt my emotions, I want Lark to remember his experience in Oakvake pretty fondly.

It’s one of the last times he can remember being happy with his dad! He got to do fun stuff like dungeon crawling and running away from his grandma autumn! His dad let him participate in a fight, and in pretty sure he got French fries out of the experience too.

In contrast; I want sparrow to fucking HATE Oakvale because of the fight with Barry and Lark getting literally murdered. I don’t want Barry to be forgiven— maybe sparrow tried, but even as the old half-elf became more and more docile, sparrow still can’t help but see him as the same threat. I also think that he’d be more likely to recognize that it was Immediately after Oakvale that Lark became more cold and closed-off, and that their own grandmother clearly didn’t want them around. The naming scheme of his children was probably one of those “meet in the middle” things Rebecca recommends where everyone leaves unhappy.

“How does this hurt you?” Well, it means that when Henry holed up in Oakvale after essentially going no contact with his sons, he’s gone to the One Place Sparrow is going to want to avoid with his life, and is additionally preventing Lark from going back and maybe learning more from his badass cleric grandma. Sparrow wants to connect with his dad but can’t stand where he went to hide, and Lark wants to learn more about his family but has No desire to see his dad or go alone. Everyone leaves unhappy!

[lex-the-lesbiann]

my most controversial dndads take is probably that i think code purple was the right decision what who said that?!

[kaseyskat]

it is a little funny seeing people come out as twin haters but also it’s like. what are you even doing here? the twins have been in minor antagonistic roles since s1ep3 and their whole Deal in s1 was being able to defend themselves and maintain control of any situation i don’t really know what yall expected of them in an apocalypse setting tee bee aych

[nickclosefoster]

alright but nick still went on the "mission" that led to his betrayal. even after he was told by his closest friends that they wanted to destroy his and his family's dimension in order to save their own. he still went with them. he still trusted them so much that he walked in front of them, unaware that they would draw their guns on him in the next minute. he argued with his friends telling them that their plan would incite a war and that he wouldn't be on their side. and he still went with them. his lifelong friends told him they wanted to trap the doodler in hell and most likely destroy half of his entire livelihood in doing so and he still didn't think that they would hurt him the way they did. he trusted them enough to follow them alone into the woods while knowing they were all armored and heavily armed, he believed in all of them up until the day it almost killed him. nick close foster has always just been a boy with too much trust and faith in the people he loves

[vigilantellie]

Lark says "Hi, dad" and it is cold. Tired. Distant. That's all that's left between them-- "Dad" is a hollow thing. There's nothing there. Or, well, maybe one thing is there: Blame. It's someone's fault, and maybe it's Lark's, maybe it's Henry's, but someone's to blame. Maybe both of them are.

Sparrow says "Hi, dad" but what he's really saying is "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He's begging, pleading, and later, when he finds himself all but CLINGING to his father, he knows his apologies are hollow things, and no one is listening. Because yes, Sparrow is his father's son, but oh, Henry is his brother's father, and both have had enough of begging, of boundaries built and broken. But all Sparrow has are apologies--that's all that's left.

Guilt--that's all that's left between the three of them.

[lesmisscraper]

What Javert Did on His Hunting. Volume 2, Book 5, Chapter 10.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[llumimoon]

me pulling out a whiteboard: okay so here's how us sparrow apologists can still win-

[justlarkin]

Wondering if anyone in Aaru put together the fact that it would've been physically impossible for Seth to protect Ra against Apophis during his journey across the sky since they're the same entity and Ra would've known this since he was present when the alleged altercations happened, so he must've been lying to protect Seth until his family finally outed him as Apophis.

[eleplay]

wizard and sorcerer discuss transformation and choice

[littlecello]

"In the end, I'm just the Moon.

The real Sun...

... is long gone."

[kaseyskat]

also okay i'm guilty of this as well because i was ignoring reality a bit too much for the sake of silly plotlines but i AM curious to hear from the larger fandom about why we all kind of collectively assumed that like. life was Normal after the doodler's release. like, the kiddads being in school, everything functioning as is level of normal. because like... maybe it started out that way and at first it was just like how early s2 was going (with a few incursions/sauced people) but look at how the world is now. in the span of just a few years san dimas is overrun and on fire and that's only partially due to willy most of it was the mayor! and we've Seen the other realm, old earth- it's bad. explicitly so bad that you lose yourself just being in that environment for too long. that was the world that the dads + kiddads inhabited before code purple so like... idk. this is why i think my problem with the twins during last episode's ending was not that they were teaching kids how to fight and use guns because look at the world they were in. it's apocalyptic! there's a reason the kiddads had to get involved in DADDIES so quickly! and like. i do think that gets lost a little bit when we reflect on like. the hellscape that was pre-code purple. it wasn't just your normal day to day life it was actively apocalyptic.

[nolassolace]

I will never not laugh during Odyssey EP 16 when Henry yells in to the purple guys sleeve " lark Sparrow what the fuck is going on where are you guys?"

And Anthony's absolutely amazing delivery of

"dad? Oh dad!?

..

Dad!

Dad?

..

..

..

Dad?"