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#so here's another attempt
l-a-l-o-u · 2 months
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Capucine 🌼
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starry-bi-sky · 1 month
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this just in: danny fenton is just as much of a mask as Brucie Wayne? - another danyal al ghul au
Turns out, being placed in a civilian family who have no knowledge of your background is actually detrimental to the health and development of a child assassin due to lack of proper support! Surrounded by strangers in a foreign city, Danyal Al Ghul does as assassins do best. He hides. Espionage is one of many teachings one learns in the League, and it only takes half a day for Danyal to construct a new persona to hide behind: Daniel Fenton.
By the time dinner rolls around, Danyal al Ghul is safely and securely tucked behind the face of Danny Fenton; brand new adoptive child of the Fenton family who came from overseas. A shy, quiet little boy with a thick accent and curly hair, with brown skin and blue eyes, and an avid interest in the stars. The best fictions are always cobbled together in a little bit of truth, it's some of the only truth he ever lets through. He apologizes in a meek voice for his behavior early, he didn't mean to be rude, and he watches the three of them eat it up with coos.
Lies roll like silk against his lips, he struggles to meet their eyes and offers them his weakest, shyest smile. It's too easy. It's easy to go from there.
Danny Fenton, adoptive son, shy and awkward and unconfident but friendly. Who struggles in his classes and isn't the brightest, but tries his hardest. He makes bad jokes and has a quick tongue and a sarcastic mouth. He wants to be an astronaut. He's got the best aim in school, and is a terrifying dodgeball player. He's one of the least athletic kids in his grade.
It's like playing two truths and a lie, but there's only one truth, and the rest are lies. It's easy to pretend when he knows it's insincere.
Danyal Al Ghul, grandson to the Demon Head. Deadly, trained assassin. Has spilled blood, has had blood spilt from. Environmentalist, animal activist. He loves the stars. He owns a calligraphy set. A sharp tongue, an even sharper blade. He's clever, quick-witted, he would be top of his grade if he tried harder. He purposely doesn't.
He misses his family. He misses his mother, and he misses his brother. Mother visits a few times a year, so few times that he can count it on both hands. He cherishes every visit, as brief as they are. It helps remind him who he is.
Sam and Tucker are Danny's best friends. They've never met Danyal, but Danyal's met them.
It becomes routine to become Danny Fenton. As familiar and as easy as pulling on a shirt in the morning. Danyal wakes up and is always first to the bathroom in the mornings; stares at himself in the mirror until he can finally see Danny staring back at him. At night, he locks his door and sheds the mask.
Dying throws a wrench in his mask; splits a crack straight through the porcelain. He's able to smooth it over with sandpaper and liquid gold, but it's a little hard keeping his ghost form under wraps. It instinctively wants to shift to show his true self. Danyal can't have that, he's spent four years as Danny Fenton, he'll spend another four as him as well. Even if the feeling of the hazmat suit in his ghost form feels restrictive, like a too-small shirt suctioned to his skin that needs to be peeled off.
He'll live. Er-- well, you know what he means. It's frustrating however, trying to keep his Danny Fenton mask up even as Phantom - fighting in the air is something he needs to get used to, and the sudden propping of powers throws him off. But he is nothing if not adaptive, and he hates that he needs to slow his own skills down in order to keep pretenses up in front of Sam and Tucker.
The first time Danyal summons a sword when he's alone, is one of the few times Danyal gets to grin instead of Danny. He's fighting Skulker, and from an invisible hilt he draws a katana from thin air. It startles them both. Skulker takes a step back at the smile that spreads across his face.
They're both silent as Danyal examines his new sword.
"Do you know what people like me do to people like you, poacher?" Danyal finally asks him, the accent he began to hide a few months in slipping through. He drops all pretense, dragging the flat end of the blade slow and appreciatively against his palm. It's a good make, and when he cuts it through the air, it slices through like butter. He looks up at Skulker with a smile; "are you ready to find out?"
When Sam and Tucker ask about why Skulker seems so skittish around Danny now, Danny shrugs at them and says with a playful smile; "I don't know, I guess I kicked his butt too hard after our last fight." and he watches as Sam rolls her eyes exasperatedly, and Tucker snickers with his own joke.
By the time he reunites with Damian before their 15th birthday, Danyal is buried beneath so many layers of Danny Fenton that his brother will need a shovel to dig him out. He's not sure what he'll find.
#dpxdc#danny fenton is not the ghost king#dp x dc#dpxdc crossover#dp x dc crossover#danyal al ghul au#danyal al ghul#dpxdc prompt#dpxdc au#dc x dp crossover#dp crossover#demon twins au#so turns out putting an assassin child in a normal family does not actually fix the child. it may just make them worse. had this thought#today and had to extrapolate. i have a whole ass post in my drafts explaining my idea for this lmao. my thought was basically:#'damian would be the better off twin because he'd have actual proper support compared to danny bc the bats know damian's background and +#+ as a result can actually address the league's teachings properly and help him dismantle the lessons that have been ingrained in him +#+ as compared to danny who would be with a random family - regardless of affiliation - who would only be able to help with surface level +#stuff if danny even ever lets them see that. danny would need to dismantle his own mindset on his own if he even thinks he has to.'#jazz is not a reliable or licensed therapist. that is a child. she's not even implied to be a good one. psychoanalyzing people doesn't make#you a good therapist. it just means you can psychoanalzye people. and therapy only works on those who think they need it. danny would not#think he'd need it and any attempts from jazz to psychoanalyze him would just result in him shutting her out and doubling down on his belie#tldr: starry made another au exploring the psychological effects of growing up in the league and he calls it:#'whose the more adjusted twin? Damian or Danny? Lmao Damian ofc. Danny got screwed over'#rip to damian you have your work cut out for you trying to peel back all of your brother's protective layers. that's an iceberg waiting to#be explored. o7 to you champ your brother got the short end of the stick. danny has so many things to unlearn that i didn't go into here#its an actual demon twins au too! would ya look at that.
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amaranthdahlia · 8 months
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...now lives within me.
artist/art this was based from
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heaveniowa · 9 months
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... and we'll never get through customs, let's just take off again instead.
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cupidle · 1 year
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zazie
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dawnthefluffyduck · 2 months
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Scribble with a piece of chalk I found on the floor lol
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treasureplcnet · 11 months
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also quite obsessed with karl being as detached from the story as he is. there's nothing that makes him have to be the detective that has to be involved, but he unknowingly dooms himself by agreeing to work with the KYAL cult. every other detective basically deals with elias head on except weissman, who only meets him right before he kills him. like he's right when he says "by my choices" because everything that leads him to being mixed up with the mannix cult is himself. it's the gambling debts and the choice to do the dirty work for an organisation he knows nothing about. he's the only one that doesn't encounter that body doing police work and it's specifically because he's told to cover it up. he gets himself into the mess and eventually fixes it but the fact that esther always dies in the doomed timelines and he's always too late even if he starts wanting to change things ("till this child. esther.") it just makes me very ill
#sorry jane who heard this on her dms but now im posting it to tumblr cause im having a category 5 woman moment. AND ALTERNATIVELY:#i am also EXTREMELY obsessed with how its a time loop and the idea (so sorry tumblr user whose post i have lost and was inspired by)#weissman was just so fucking hard to deal with that they made sure that he was in their pockets. i just like the idea of the loop--#--having like. fixed points that elias would need to ensure the dystopia (body is covered up/the investigation closes/etc) but#how they get there is a slightly slower process and the earliest loops were the messiest/most unpredictable#and what we see in the show itself is like. the most streamlined version over hundreds of loops and attempts#so karl specifically. lonely that he is and determined to survive. AND with a cruel streak against people he doesn't like#kept nearly blowing their operation so they began to incorporate him in it instead#there's also another tragedy in there if /esther/ is what they realise works best against him..#just love and kindness for a girl that weissman comes to see as family and they immediately exploit it after learning during an early loop#im ignoring specific plot points here (polly seemingly panicking when esther shows up at the station) but I DO NOT CARE.#THERE'S ANGST HAPPENING RN. IM CREATING SCENARIOS TO HURT ME#now if i could write coherently this would be written as a fic but im stuck writing too long textposts#karl weissman#bodies 2023#bodies netflix#sorry to the other detectives. weissman in particular is my babygirl who i devote most of my brainpower to#personal
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averlym · 1 year
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"now, doesn't that look nice?" [insp]
#*chanting* skask skask skask skask-#vincent aurelius lin#adamandi#hello. let's talk about what's going on here! i've been tossing the idea about here wrt skin translucency ever since that post came out#(it's linked above fyi. but to quote it.) 'attempting to pursue this unachievable white ideal of the young academic; maybe leading to gory#representations of mimicry; replacement; taking on someone else's skin; altering the self'#this is primarily key in vincent and the skask; in the actual show iirc they used a jockey mask or smth? but i was thinking about the#delightful way skin is semi-transparent. and so a literal layer of skin alone would be unlikely to provide the whiteness pursued-#the under layer of the original tone would be there. so smth about the failure and unattainable.#additionally; at this point of the show the skin would have been likely yellowing or greying due to post-mortem development? so even more#Not white. from observations (as a kid;comparing skin tones?) white people have a pinker undertone (this might be. a generalisation but.)#here the lighting is yellowish to further push the difference + give the super harsh lighting that if you suspend disbelief has some hair#appear as blonde to further the ambrose-ness.#also the hair- messier on the non-ambrose side; a reference to the whole monologue about the haircuts they got#we bring to you also another episode of <i like drawing fabric folds> in the jacket symbolism! from bottom right to top left; it tracks#vincent throughout act two: the initial long jacket for standing out (nonchalance?) at ardess is removed; the yellow coat is put on- aided#here by ambrose's ghost which is represented by the hand! (it is very very slightly transparent- you can see the jacket pattern through it)#(if you look close) and then the satchel goes over it; this mimics the clothes in <oh ms reporter>#and then the Actual Ambrose jacket goes above along with the skask; following the outfit from the pyre scene at the end.#the spark/star thing is partially foreshadowing for the upcoming stabby eye trauma thing (@quincy) and partially just so i could highlight#the eye of the mask/ the place where vincent's eye probably is Behind the mask. because i liked the idea of merging faces; intersection.#back to the translucency of skin - you can kind of make out where the rest of his face is from the darker bit? aka it's not the same colour#as the skask. smth smth limited effectiveness...#tldr? face skin. jacket skin. altering appearance over time; unfeasibleness#when i was doing this i suddenly remembered covering my skin in talcum powder as a kid... hm. i'd forgotten about that.#anyways! when i posted my first ever adamandi thing i had the thought of 'this musical makes me want to paint' and surreally enough#that has proved to be so so true. and ngl i am really enjoying it? love it when the motivation to create is there haha#i will add as a disclaimer that i'm literally chinese and if the colours look off.. i did not mean to make a caricature. please be nice#that said because stage lighting tends to shift colours about a Lot i essentially used my own skin as a reference under yellow light?#so hopefully that checks out. <disappears>
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anominous-user · 1 year
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HOOOOOH it's finally done - this was supposed to be for kevinsu week day 7 (free day) but i ran a little late as you can see so consider this a late submission. this whole thing has been on my mind since last year but its only until a few months ago that i actually thumbnailed and june/july that i sketched and rendered all the panels... BUT what matters is that i finished it so (salute emoji)
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birdcatt · 7 months
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2 of my pmd ocs, scylla and vanya
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every (fen)rose has its thorn. join the rooks today.
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atopvisenyashill · 3 months
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Bran The Time Traveling Toddler
Yes that IS a reference to the Tyrion the time traveling fetus theory. The thing about MY insane theories is that they actually make sense and I’m right. Follow me please down the worm hole!!
There’s very clearly Someone Influencing things when it comes to the Starklings and even the overreaching plot in general - there’s enough weird magic surrounding them, whispering in the wind, that it’s a no brainer they’re being watched over. The question is WHO and WHEN. For me, personally, I think it’s Bran, and I think it’s an older Bran from the future (whether it be Bran In TWOW and ADOS or Bran post canon) trying to lead his siblings to safety.
Now, like my Harrenhal meta, I don’t think I’m saying anything new so much as compiling what people have said scattered across the interwebs. There’s a lot of theories about whether Bran can time travel, time travel in general in the series, how george has dealt with time travel before, and about the three eyed crow’s identity and I agree with bits and pieces of what other people have said - preston jacobs is a more famous example of this theory for example. But I don't want to get caught up on things like time travel paradoxes because, like, i don’t care about that, and george has talked about how time travel is more fantasy than scifi bc it’s just not really scientifically possible. do you know what that means? it means there’s no weird physical paradoxes because it’s ✨magic✨ and Bran isn't literally going through space and time. It's as Jojen says-
With two eyes you see my face. With three you could see my heart. With two you can see that oak tree there. With three you could see the acorn the oak grew from and the stump that it will one day become. With two you see no farther than your walls. With three you would gaze south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall
Through his greenseeing abilities, Bran can see the whole of a lifespan, from conception to burial, and can pop out at any point in that lifespan, because a span of 100, 1000, or 1,000,000 years is all the same to the weirwood. So I don't think it's in the realm of Crazy Ass Theories to say that Bran is capable of a more magic based form of time travel. That he can whisper in people's dreams, on the wind, taking on the voice of the old gods themselves and doing his best to nudge things the way he needs them to be in order to keep the people he loves safe.
I also don't think Bloodraven is Three Eyed Crow (though I do think he also uses this metaphor of "flying" wrt magic, and that's why Euron also has a comment about flying in his dreams - I just don't believe that metaphor originates with Brynden himself. Rather, I think he picked it up from somewhere else), but instead, it's Bran, using the weirwood network to get all the pieces on the board he needs where he needs them to be for the endgame. Notice that Brynden doesn't seem to know what Bran is talking about when he mentions the Three Eyed Crow-
"Are you the three-eyed crow?" Bran heard himself say. A three-eyed crow should have three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek, and into his neck. "A … crow?" The pale lord's voice was dry. His lips moved slowly, as if they had forgotten how to form words. "Once, aye. Black of garb and black of blood." 
Brynden mentions the watch, but doesn't mention the three eyed crow. Everyone simply refers to Brynden as the greenseer, not the three eyed crow, except for Bran himself, who simply assumes Brynden is the three eyed crow (and we know magical assumptions in this series are generally wrong!).
What’s double interesting to me about this “bloodraven is the three eyed crow” assumption is brynden himself makes his “a thousand eyes and one” comment - but doesn’t mention a third eye. Meanwhile, Bran’s narrative is obviously filled with bird references and the opening of his third eye from Bran feeding the crows on the towers before he falls then longing to go back to the crows afterwards, of a crow sending Jojen to “the winged wolf,” of his dreams of living as a bird in maester luwin’s rookery with his siblings - Jon Snow even compares him to a bird in their final scene face to face when he thinks bran has “fingers like the bones of birds.”
And notable that though both Rickon and Bran have a greendream where they talk to Ned in the crypts of Winterfell just before Ned is executed, Rickon makes no mention of a three eyed crow, but Bran explicitly sees him-
The mention of dreams reminded him. "I dreamed about the crow again last night. The one with three eyes. He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did. We went down to the crypts. Father was there, and we talked. He was sad."
"Shaggy," a small voice called. When Bran looked up, his little brother was standing in the mouth of Father's tomb. With one final snap at Summer's face, Shaggydog broke off and bounded to Rickon's side. "You let my father be," Rickon warned Luwin. "You let him be." "Rickon," Bran said softly. "Father's not here." "Yes he is. I saw him." Tears glistened on Rickon's face. "I saw him last night."
What that says to me is that the Three Eyed Crow has the ability to speak directly to only Bran and can only otherwise appear in a more ephemeral way to others. With the established rules about not being able to communicate properly with the past, I think this makes sense - being able to use the weirwood hivemind/greenseeing powers to appear in a different form to yourself but unable to appear in a concrete form to anyone else.
I think it's even likely we'll see Bran doing some of this nudging and whispering on page in ADOS or maybe as early as TWOW, but it won't be the exact same sort of "Bran can literally reach out and touch someone in a weirwood dream" that they had in the show with the later scenes. It'll be more like that very first scene in the show where we see Bran influence the past slightly - you know, when he calls out "father!" and young Ned turns around, having heard a voice on the wind-
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And there's a direct parallel to ADWD here, where Bran is certain Ned heard him speaking in the godswood but Brynden says it's not possible (not possible for Brynden perhaps!)-
Lord Eddard Stark sat upon a rock beside the deep black pool in the godswood, the pale roots of the heart tree twisting around him like an old man's gnarled arms. The greatsword Ice lay across Lord Eddard's lap, and he was cleaning the blade with an oilcloth. "Winterfell," Bran whispered. His father looked up. "Who's there?" he asked, turning … … and Bran, frightened, pulled away. His father and the black pool and the godswood faded and were gone and he was back in the cavern, the pale thick roots of his weirwood throne cradling his limbs as a mother does a child.
It's not quite time travel. It's like the acorn and stump metaphor - Bran can't appear in his physical body in the past but he can make a bit of noise, perhaps even be mistaken for one of the old gods.
As TWOW and ADOS go on, I think we'll see Bran's powers grow (likely in ways that frighten him and horrify the reader), and we'll see the very beginnings of him influencing the plot that happens during the previous books, showing up in scenes we've already experienced, similar to the Ned scene above. I think this because, well...he's already done it!
Now, as for What Time Traveling Bran Has Already Done - it’s tricky because we have a LOT of magic users waking and shaking. I’m not including every single instance of weird whispering or funny birds here, just the moments I think are more likely to be Bran than anyone else because I think Bran mostly deals with his siblings. I imagine they're easiest to reach out to magically because they already have the ability to access magic, and they're also the people he cares most about. The most obvious to me is in A Clash of Kings, when Jon hears a voice on the wind, very similar to the young Ned scene in the show-
Jon VII in A Clash of Kings
The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong too. Can a shout be silent? He turned his head, searching for his brother, for a glimpse of a lean grey shape moving beneath the trees, but there was nothing, only … A weirwood. It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother’s face. Had his brother always had three eyes?
Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow. He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.
Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him.
This moment was when I really started paying attention to Weird Shit Bran Might Be Doing because of that line "not before the crow." Now, we know Bran mentions talking with Jon later on, in the very last chapter of the book, here-
 He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that.
But I think it's both Bran in the present and Bran in ADOS speaking here - brothers reaching out to each other in their fear, and future Bran piggybacking off that connection to send a warning (this is back in Jon VII, during the shared Jon-Bran dream as before)-
Then he realized he was looking at a river of ice several thousand feet high. Under that glittering cold cliff was a great lake, its deep cobalt waters reflecting the snowcapped peaks that ringed it. There were men down in the valley, he saw now; many men, thousands, a huge host. Some were tearing great holes in the half-frozen ground, while others trained for war...This is no army, no more than it is a town. This is a whole people come together.
Bran warns Jon of the wildling army headed their way because he needs the Night’s Watch to stop fighting the wildlings, get them safely out of the True North (so they can’t be reanimated as wights), and focus on the Long Night. When you read the passage, it seems as if Bran is trying to awaken Jon’s third eye - something present baby Bran isn’t concerned with, because he barely understands his own third eye awakening. But a Bran in ADOS or beyond would know exactly what to say and do to get Jon and himself to wake up! Not just because of the paradox, but because of his connection to his brother and his vast understanding of his own magic. Similar to the idea that “who would know how to motivate Bran better than Bran himself” who would know how to motivate Jon better than one of his beloved siblings?
Arya X in A Clash of Kings
In the godswood she found her broomstick sword where she had left it, and carried it to the heart tree. There she knelt. Red leaves rustled. Red eyes peered inside her. The eyes of the gods. "Tell me what to do, you gods," she prayed.
For a long moment there was no sound but the wind and the water and the creak of leaf and limb. And then, far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. Gooseprickles rose on Arya's skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy. Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father's voice. "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," he said.
“But there is no pack," she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. "I'm not even me now, I'm Nan."
"You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you."
"The wolf blood." Arya remembered now. "I'll be as strong as Robb. I said I would." She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth.
Once again, we have a voice - it seemed as if it was her father's voice - telling a Starkling to do something specific, reminding that Starkling of their ties to Winterfell, the north, and home. The voice she hears, speaking her true name, is the kick in the pants Arya needs to grab Gendry and Hot Pie and get out of Harrenhal. There's something interesting, engaging, heartbreaking, that when Arya is at one of her lowest points, lamenting the loss of her pack, and out comes the voice of one of her pack urging her to keep faith, and helping to inspire one of her best moments - I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth. Again, we have a voice trying to get the Starklings to wake up and face their reality!
Sansa in A Storm of Swords
That night Sansa scarcely slept at all, but tossed and turned just as she had aboard the Merling King. She dreamt of Joffrey dying, but as he clawed at his throat and the blood ran down across his fingers she saw with horror that it was her brother Robb. And she dreamed of her wedding night too, of Tyrion's eyes devouring her as she undressed. Only then he was bigger than Tyrion had any right to be, and when he climbed into the bed his face was scarred only on one side. "I'll have a song from you," he rasped, and Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. "I wish that you were Lady," she said.
To be clear I think there’s a large change this is nothing. BUT. Considering Bran seems to be reaching out to his siblings, I like the idea that Bran, and magic in general, is trying to talk to Sansa but she can’t quite hear it. Winterfell and it’s magic and it’s family is calling it’s daughter home, even torn from her magical guide as she is, still trying to reach out through her dreams and through the animals around her. I’m desperately hoping that at some point in Sansa’s early TWOW chapters, we’ll start to see birds acting and speaking funny around her as Bran tries harder to reach his lost sister.
Theon Greyjoy in A Dance With Dragons
BUT. I don't think it's just the Starklings that get these messages from Bran - it's everyone he cares about, everyone he loves or will love. One of the other more obvious examples of this is Theon Greyjoy, himself clearly capable of some degree of magic, just like the Starklings-
The night was windless, the snow drifting straight down out of a cold black sky, yet the leaves of the heart tree were rustling his name. “Theon,” they seemed to whisper, “Theon.” The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name. I was Theon of House Greyjoy. I was a ward of Eddard Stark, a friend and brother to his children. “Please.” He fell to his knees. “A sword, that’s all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek.” Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. “I was ironborn. A son … a son of Pyke, of the islands.” A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. “… Bran,” the tree murmured. They know. The gods know. They saw what I did. And for one strange moment it seemed as if it were Bran’s face carved into the pale trunk of the weirwood, staring down at him with eyes red and wise and sad. Bran’s ghost, he thought, but that was madness. Why should Bran want to haunt him? He had been fond of the boy, had never done him any harm. It was not Bran we killed. It was not Rickon. They were only miller’s sons, from the mill by the Acorn Water.
“he had been fond of the boy” please allow me this moment to contemplate killing myself thanks.
okay back on track but this is very self explanatory - we know Theon has some sort of capacity for magic because he had a vision of the Red Wedding in ACOK and unlike Jaime who just fell asleep on a weirweed tree, Theon was just up in bed. We see it again here, where Theon can hear a voice on the wind and then seems to see Bran’s own face in the face of the weirwood tree. Once again, the voice on the wind is trying to help a loved one of Bran’s find their way back to themselves, back to home. And Theon, for all the harm he has done, is still so so loved by Bran, and loves Bran in return.
Samwell Tarly III in A Storm of Swords
Sam made a whimpery sound. “It’s not fair …” “Fair.” The raven landed on his shoulder. “Fair, far, fear.” It flapped its wings, and screamed along with Gilly. The wights were almost on her. He heard the dark red leaves of the weirwood rustling, whispering to one another in a tongue he did not know. The starlight itself seemed to stir, and all around them the trees groaned and creaked. Sam Tarly turned the color of curdled milk, and his eyes went wide as plates. Ravens! They were in the weirwood, hundreds of them, thousands, perched on the bone-white branches, peering between the leaves. He saw their beaks open as they screamed, saw them spread their black wings. Shrieking, flapping, they descended on the wights in angry clouds. They swarmed round Chett’s face and pecked at his blue eyes, they covered the Sisterman like flies, they plucked gobbets from inside Hake’s shattered head. There were so many that when Sam looked up, he could not see the moon. “Go,” said the bird on his shoulder. “Go, go, go.”
Whoever this is - it's Bran!!!! - helps to save Sam and Gilly's lives, actively tells them to run for it, and just a little bit later, Sam is around to help save Bran in turn. I think there's also something to be said for the brotherhood connection here. They refer to each other as brothers in the book because of their connection to Jon; that connection to Jon, and therefore each other, means a lot to both Sam and Bran. There's a practical reason for saving Sam here in that he can help Bran in the "present" timeline, will likely help in the future, but more than that there's an emotional bond here and it seems to me that magic runs off emotions just as assuredly as it runs off of other important stuff like blood and and sacrifice and weirwoods.
Jon Snow XII in A Storm of Swords
With a raucous scream and a clap of wings, a huge raven burst out of the kettle. It flapped upward, seeking the rafters perhaps, or a window to make its escape, but there were no rafters in the vault, nor windows either. The raven was trapped. Cawing loudly, it circled the hall, once, twice, three times. And Jon heard Samwell Tarly shout, “I know that bird! That’s Lord Mormont’s raven!” The raven landed on the table nearest Jon. “Snow,” it cawed. It was an old bird, dirty and bedraggled. “Snow,” it said again, “Snow, snow, snow.” It walked to the end of the table, spread its wings again, and flew to Jon’s shoulder. Lord Janos Slynt sat down so heavily he made a thump, but Ser Alliser filled the vault with mocking laughter. “Ser Piggy thinks we’re all fools, brothers,” he said. “He’s taught the bird this little trick. They all say snow, go up to the rookery and hear for yourselves. Mormont’s bird had more words than that.” The raven cocked its head and looked at Jon. “Corn?” it said hopefully. When it got neither corn nor answer, it quorked and muttered, “Kettle? Kettle? Kettle?” The rest was arrowheads, a torrent of arrowheads, a flood of arrowheads, arrowheads enough to drown the last few stones and shells, and all the copper pennies too.
The Night's Watch seem to take this as some sort of divine sign, and Jon's friends take it as an excellent ploy from Samwell Tarly. But when Pyp confronts Sam over it a page later, Sam completely denies it -
“I had nothing to do with the bird,” Sam insisted. “When it flew out of the kettle I almost wet myself.”
Everyone has their theories about people warging Mormont's crow of course. I think what's interesting to me here is that Jon is really wrestling with the idea of leaving the Watch for Winterfell, in which case Janos Slynt was likely to take over command. Someone like Slynt being in charge when the Long Night is coming is a bad idea, and here, Mormont's bird directly contributes to Jon staying where he needs to be - watching over the wildlings and making sure they aren't turning into Wights.
(And this is getting into my other theories here, but IF Sansa as the Girl In Grey is true, I think this is a neat sort of timeline fixing - almost as if Bran is saying “no, not yet, the pieces aren’t aligned, Jon can’t leave yet, Brienne isn’t at the Vale to get Sansa, I haven’t trained enough, Jon still keeps slapping his hands over his third eye so he can’t see, I need to give myself more time here.”)
Bran II in A Game of Thrones
But...it's not just his family and friends that I think Bran is trying to help here, and of course, if he IS the Three-Eyed Crow, he isn’t YET. What I think is going to be a big climactic part of Bran's story is self sacrifice, giving up some of his own power, his own happiness, to save others. Yes, part of this is my absolute refusal to accept Borg Hivemind Fantasy Police State King Bran in that he will say NO to the hivemind, but I think there's something magical here as well!
I think in order to access great power you need to be willing to put your own body on the line.
Jojen mentions having gotten sick with "greywater fever" shortly before his greendreams started
Dany experiences a miscarriage then literally walks into fire in order to hatch her dragons
both Beric and Catelyn have to quite literally be gruesomely murdered in order for Thoros' fire magic to work to bring them back to life
Melisandre has to physically give birth in order for her shadow assassination to work
on and on it goes. In order to be capable of great power, you can’t just have a willingness to throw someone ELSE onto the pyre but yourself as well. But Bran is pushed out of the window instead of willingly jumping. Or...
The wolfling was smarter than any of the hounds in his father’s kennel and Bran would have sworn he understood every word that was said to him, but he showed very little interest in chasing sticks…Finally he got tired of the stick game and decided to go climbing….
The wolf did as he was told. Bran scratched him behind the ears, then turned away, jumped, grabbed a low branch, and pulled himself up. He was halfway up the tree, moving easily from limb to limb, when the wolf got to his feet and began to howl.
Bran looked back down. His wolf fell silent, staring up at him through slitted yellow eyes. A strange chill went through him. He began to climb again. Once more the wolf howled. “Quiet,” he yelled. “Sit down. Stay. You’re worse than Mother.” The howling chased him all the way up the tree, until finally he jumped off onto the armory roof and out of sight.
I think this is future Bran, finally becoming the Three Eyed Crow, inside Summer. Summer shows no interest in the game and it’s only then that Bran decides to go climbing. Future Bran is sacrificing himself for the greater good - but can’t stop his mournful cry of the fate that awaits his own young self.
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zarlev · 2 years
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hey guys the last Unangam Tunuu speaker on the russian side passed away recently, it’d be pretty awesome to help the folks on the american side keep up their work on preservation and teaching with a donation here if you can please
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ctrl-lupin · 9 months
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wtf is Zeni's badge
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menciemeer · 2 years
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Does anyone ever think that like. One of the central ideas of Hannibal is that human beings are delicious.
Not even just in a cannibalism-taboo way, either. Literally everyone who’s gone to one of Hannibal’s dinner parties agrees: The food is good.
(There’s that confusing moment in Trou Normand where it looks like Abigail is realizing what it is she’s eating--confusing because she doesn’t Figure Hannibal Out until later. But what if she isn’t thinking, This tastes just like-- but instead I haven’t had meat this good since--)
It’s not just the taste, either. Human beings in Hannibal seem to make incomparable mushroom fertilizer and instrument strings. Bees love human bodies. And every artist in the entire goddamn world seemingly has this temptation towards human-corpse-as-artistic-medium. Garret Jacob Hobbs uses human hair as pillow stuffing. He holds his pipes together with paste made from human bones.
Also probably worth mentioning is That One Shot in Sorbet (no, That Other One Shot in Sorbet)--the one with the opera singer’s throat, followed by the lingering shot of Hannibal’s ear. It’s the meat again. Meat is singing and more meat is listening. Hannibal is moved to tears--his enjoyment even of music is physical.
It’s probably stretching a bit to try to fit Self-Actualization Via Murder into this paradigm but well. I’m going to try anyway. It’s not just the corpses but the making of corpses that holds this fantastic power in Hannibal Land. We’ve got Randall Tier and Francis Dolarhyde and Will Goddamn Graham all reaching (for) their truest selves via the doing of murder. Hannibal talks about it like this:
We both know the unreality of taking a life. Of people who die when we have no other choice. We know in those moments they are not flesh, but light, and air, and color.
There’s something magical about that. The moment when a person separates from their (useful! valuable! delicious!) body and becomes something else. The moment itself is valuable, if you are one of the Tier-Dolarhyde-Graham classification of killers in Hannibal’s universe.
I feel like I’ve seen a lot of focus on Hannibal disguising what it is he’s cooking with. How his cooking is so good despite. If this post has a thesis, I guess it is that, instead, Hannibal is a good cook because.
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bitterpngs · 2 years
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*grips you by the shoulders* listen. LISTEN. tsumiki would 100% listen to metal hear me out. im not saying she’d only listen to it, i think she’d also listen to popular pop songs and all but. metal. metal!! first of all it’s energetic!! like pop can be.
second of all. that is a young teen. metal would be cathartic and soothing. she’d feel content listening to metal because she’d burn through her negative emotions by listening to it. the energy of the music would reflect her feelings. it’d be a private way to work through her emotions!!! i don’t know how to explain it!!!! trust me!!!!!!
third-
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