#so many thoughts can be summarized by this image

[godsfavoritescientist]

when you and your brain demon have matching brain issues <3

[yume-fanfare]

childhood friends to lovers. is real. goodnight

[mimicha-arts]

Person in the shadows

Hello everyone! I don't know if this can be called a theory or something like that, Probably someone has written this before me, but I just want to write down somewhere my thoughts about one character that relate to the main plot. These are just theories! I have too much free time and I like to have fun, don't take it too seriously.

Possible spoilers! I think many people get the feeling that behind everything that happens there is a person in the shadows, whose goals and motivations are still unclear. And given that the plot leaves us with a lot of speculation, clues…Lets talk about Liu Xiao! Most likely, given the huge number of connections to story details, he may play a key role in the plot. 1. Who is Liu Xiao and his direct mention. Liu Xiao (刘枭) is a young man, the son of Liu Jing, who owns the Quede company. He is also the younger brother of Liu Min. So far, we don't know anything about his personality, but in his father's eyes, he is much better than his older brother, so we can definitely say that Liu Xiao is very promising and different from Liu Min. Considering the little clue given to us in s2s1, when Liu Xiao's father is talking to his business partners, Liu Xiao did not appear on the "main stage" because he was abroad. But, probably, we will soon see him in the frame.

Thus, for now, it can be summarized that the side that opposes our protagonists not only maintains Liu Jing (and Quede company), his lawyer Qian Jin with his subordinates and twins, but also Liu Xiao. The plot itself has already given obvious clues that this "side" is not a united one, each one twists intrigues and has their own motivation, because of which I dare to express the idea that in fact Qian Jin, who has already shown himself to be not the most loyal subordinate, actually works for Liu Xiao, not for Liu Jing's interests. 2. Posters & Liu Xiao in the "current" timeline. Have we already seen Liu Xiao? Quite possibly. Given the connection of the characters through the side of the antagonists and further information, I will speculate by referring to the posters.

It is quite possible that the young man in the hat, the only character who has not yet appeared in donghua directly, is Liu Xiao. We remember that on the poster it is the man in the hat who stands next to Qian Jin, which is his "shadow" on another poster of the character, which, it seems to me, can be a serious justification for assuming on whose behalf Qian Jin really acts.

Talking about any color coding, his design is centered around black, but his hair, although dark in color, has some kind of a purple tint.

In addition to the fact that this character covers his eyes with a hat, there are several other interesting details in his appearance.

1. The first is an accessory on his neck. I'm not sure what this sign is, but I saw that people suspect it is theta (death) symbol. 2. The image is quite small, maybe it's just a shadow or line of the collarbone, but I think it's a tattoo on his neck (maybe V letter or something). 3. Flashbacks, Li Tianchen From the last episodes, we learned that in childhood, Li Tianchen had a friend who greatly influenced the formation of his character. This boy from flashbacks deliberately does not show his face and eyes, and his hair is black with a purple tint. Of course, this is still speculation, but it is likely that this color coding, especially the purple tint of the hair, may be a hint that the boy in the flashbacks is the man with the hat from posters.

We have already seen that it was his words, the "the strongest survives" ideology, that influenced the actions of Li Tianchen (and probably the entire personality of Li Tianchen or even both twins in the future). Сonsidering that both boys are kids that time, the words of the boy with purple hair sound so out of age and kinda terrifying. A few days ago, Billibili also released a clip of this entire moment, which makes it pretty obvious how much this "idea" and character himself will be driving the plot to the future events. His voice actor is Zhao Lu, he cannot be a minor character.

After the death of the twins' parents, their case 7 years ago passed into the hands of Qian Jin, as we know from the last episode, but information about the case has disappeared, as well as the children themselves, just in accordance with the time when Qian Jin left the police. There are still many questions (his age, whether he has any abilities). But if the three characters I mentioned before (the boy from flashback, Liu Xiao, the man with the hat) is actually one character, his connections with Liu Jing, Liu Min, the Quede company, the twins and Qian Jin look too matched to be a coincidence. Probably. Another interesting detail that connects the two parts of the story is that Qian Jin calls "manhunt" what happens in episode 7 , and (in my opinion) this is very resonant with the words from purple-haired boy in flashbacks.

4. Speculations OK! Let me remind you again that this is all one big guess, and maybe I'm thinking too much about certain details. At the moment, I kinda assume that Liu Xiao is the one who manipulates all events from the outside. And maybe while Li Tianchen's hand is grabbing Cheng Xiaoshi, Li Tianxi's hand is grabbing the toy fox, he is represented by the hand from the shadow behind her.

About possible motivation: assuming that Qian Jin is acting in Liu Xiao's interests, maybe he is genuinely interested in destroying his own family because of his story or unknown background. At the same time, taking into account his words about evolving and hunters, it seems to me that he is pursuing far from material, but ideological goals, related to people with abilities.

Keeping in mind how it all started, I can assume that he also may be an unknown client from the first case, who gave a tip on Quede's financial manipulations and launched a case with Emma, dragging Qiao Ling, Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi into the maelstrom of events (if this moment of the plot does not turn into loop). There is also someone who collected information about the three main characters before the main events of the series even began (some earlier dates on documents, a few days before the start of the plot), so there is room for thoughts too.

Let me remind you again that all this is empty theory, and I play bingo. It will be interesting to come back to this post after a while and see how badly I guessed wrong, haha. In any case, thanks for reading, I was glad to share my thoughts ~

[darkkbluee]

What are your lawlight headcanons?

Oh, an ask? In my inbox? It took a while to realize there really was something in the inbox and it wasn't a bot this time. Anon, this is my first real ask, I'm so touched <3

To the topic! Lawlight headcanons! I have so many, I don't even know where to start. Some of them are AU genre specific, some are based on which arc/timeperiod it is. So many thoughts, how to summarize...

Warning: Below is a long ramble of a few headcanons and why I think that way. They're headcanons, and don't need canon or authorial proof to exist, thanks. Some of them might be AUs too, oops.

For AUs set in the early 2000s, where Light is first arc age. L realizes he's in love first. Not because L's older. Because of the circumstances Light grew up in.

Light is the eldest (and only) son of his family. He had his life figured out since childhood and never doubted he would do anything other than follow that path: Become a detective, chief, and eventually director. Get a girlfriend, buy a car and a house, marry said steady girlfriend, have two kids, the whole traditional family thing. You can even see hints of that in second arc.

When I first read the manga, I could see it in manga!Light. It seemed that way to me because it is sort of a common cultural thing between some Asian countries. Not anime!Light though, which is interesting, but not the point here.

So, Light does not realize he's in love, because he's never had the question of whether he's gay, because he never thought the reason he can't keep his eyes off L is because he's attracted to L, because 'attraction to L' is a non-existent concept in his consciousness.

Light is not dense, nor homophobic or anything. He recognizes when other men are attracted to him, he accepts that people can love whoever they want. He just never superimposes that image on himself.

It takes a whole long while for his brain to cook enough, to separate himself from the image he has in his mind. Then, he questions his sexuality and realizes he is, indeed, attracted to men as well. Or rather, one specific man. He has no sexual and romantic interest in anyone else and by that age, Light has experimented enough to know that.

Between Older Light and L, Light would be the first one to figure it out. But between 18 - 21 year old Light and L, it would L.

2. L is very specific about textures. His favorite, the one he discovers when he meets Light, is Light. Light takes very good care of himself, his face and body being as much a resource he uses as his brains.

Cue touchy L. L likes to run his fingers through Light's hair, he likes it when he can touch Light skin-to-skin, likes it when Light touches him back with his fingers.

As much as L likes watching Light (because L will freely admit he is a shallow creature and Light is very attractive to watch indeed), L loves touching Light more. He may or may not miss body language cues if he's too close to observe the full picture, but the trade off is worth it to L.

3. Light's long list of ex-girlfriends and admirers has stumped L many times. Especially when Light admits they all knew about the others. And that they don't begrudge Light for not committing 100%. And that they still happily help Light with whatever he wants them for even decades later.

Sometimes, it makes L wonder if he is just another victim of Light Yagami's charisma. Then he discards that thought because it doesn't matter. He has Light and Light is just as obsessed with him right back. L is the eventual winner and it doesn't matter who caught whom when they're both in it together.

4. They're both highly competitive. It translates over to board games as well. It's a Rule TM, posted on the fridge, notarized, signed and stamped by their friends and family, that they are never allowed to play Monopoly. And Uno. And Catan. And- [an increasing list of trade focused games].

Addendum - Twister should only be played in personal space, behind closed locked doors! — Sayu and Mello

Addendum 2 - Light is forbidden to play Jenga with Near. — L

That's all for now! If I continue, I'll never stop XD

Thanks for the ask, Anon!

[jack-pseudonym]

A Love Letter to Herobrine

So, fun fact: that screenshot that I'm using as the thumbnail is not the origin of Herobrine as a piece of Minecraft mythology. This image was first posted on 4chan around August 31st, 2010, and the character had been floating around the Minecraft forum for a while before that.

The earliest description of a character resembling Herobrine was posted around July on a general creepypasta thread. The Minecraft wiki calls this story "White Eyes." It was posted by a user named Flaky and you can read it here. The post doesn't feature the iconic Herobrine design, but it's the origin of a lot of the beats that keep coming up in Minecraft horror stories.

To summarize real quick: a Minecraft Alpha player is so creeped out by the weird noises and phenomena in a cave under their base that they seal it up and move elsewhere. Eventually they discover a dungeon with a single broken music disc inside, which causes the cave noises to return louder than before. To play the disc, they need resources from their old storage room built directly above the cursed cave. When they return to their base, the player has an encounter with a pair of glowing white eyes. Eventually they go creepypasta-insane from listening to the music disc and (I think) die.

The contents of this post are not as important as the fact that the author provides us with a screenshot of the cave, which should be right next to the famous Herobrine image in the history books.

(If you're not seeing it, check the bottom left.)

The next Herobrine sighting is the famous one. It's pretty much a compilation of all the ideas about the character that were floating around the Minecraft forum at the time. The main thing it introduces to the canon is the idea that the "Herobrine" account was owned by the deceased brother of famous Minecraft dev Hatsune Miku. The obvious implication is that Herobrine is his ghost. It also gives us the classic "fog hill" image, of course.

The third "canon" sighting was concocted by an early Minecraft streamer named Copeland. This is the highest effort of the three and probably the first Herobrine Sighting Video ever recorded. The first thing Copeland did was edit Herobrine into a few wide screenshots of his base to create hype for the stream. This resulted in the third member of the triumvirate of famous Herobrine screenshots, and honestly maybe the creepiest.

In order to get Herobrine on video, Copeland changed the texture of a painting. He went live shortly after, playing like normal for a while before “encountering Herobrine” in a dimly-lit room, screaming, running out of the room, and turning the game off. He continued to stream for a bit after that before declaring he would delete the world.

Why is Minecraft scary?

It's important to keep in mind that Minecraft at this point had exactly one full-time developer and no marketing department. The only reason a given thing was added to this version of Minecraft was that the developer thought it sounded interesting. This had two major effects on the state of the game that enhanced its creepypasta factor substantially.

One: the game is very bare-bones. Minecraft Alpha's infinite replayability comes from its core concept rather than a depth of additional features. Even some basic quality-of life fixes like the ability to stack most food items are absent from this version of the game. This resulted in the features that were present being scrutinously analyzed and theorized about by hundreds of people at a time on the forums, because once you had diamond armor and a big house there wasn't much else to do except dig into mechanics.

Two: many of those mechanics and features that did exist in Alpha were bizarre, and several of them seem like the developer was going out of their way to create a creepy atmosphere. Let's take a look at the mechanics I'm talking about and examine how each of them contributed to the Herobrine mythology.

Fog and light

One thing the White Eyes story and the famous Herobrine post have in common is a focus on low view distance. The second post even specifically mentions that they were playing with their render distance set very low since their computer didn’t have the specs to run anything higher, which most people in the 2010 indie gaming community could probably relate to.

This is relevant because Minecraft cuts off your view distance really sharply. If your render distance is set close to you, everything beyond the cutoff disappears into a thick bank of fog. This is probably best illustrated by looking at the same hill from the famous screenshot with a higher render distance.

In the Herobrine screenshot, this entire back half of the hill is completely cut off. Literally anything could be inside the fog and it would be totally invisible until you got within a few dozen blocks.

On top of that, this hard cutoff of visibility happens the same way with darkness. Walking just a few blocks into a cave leaves you completely unable to see anything until you place a torch. And, of course, if that torch were to be somehow removed, you would be instantly plunged into pitch blackness. Just look at the White Eyes screenshot up above.

The simplistic lighting engine of Minecraft Alpha is obviously not intended to make the game scarier. That said, as someone who’s become totally accustomed to modern Minecraft’s smooth lighting mechanics, it’s really remarkable how much more eerie the game is when you’re consistently forced to walk into total darkness and thick fog to get anything done. Without smooth lighting, when night starts to fall it looks like an enormous shadow passing over the whole world.

If you've heard of the classic Internet creepypasta Ted the Caver, there's a bit where Ted is stuck inside a similarly cursed cave with no light. Earlier in the story, the writer points out that darkness in caves is different from darkness above ground - there is straight-up no light to see with. Your eyes never adjust. Something could be literally inches from from his face and he would never see it. These older versions of Minecraft feel like that.

(If you want to experience the horrors yourself in the modern day, turn smooth lighting off, brightness down to Moody, and crank your render distance down. I seriously recommend it.)

Dungeons

Dungeons are the only place in this version of Minecraft where you can find naturally generated cobblestone. The normal way to get cobblestone is to mine stone and place it back down, and it was the go-to strong building block for quite a while. This gives dungeons the distinct feeling of having been built by someone.

But this is contrasted with the monster spawner, which is one of the most alien blocks in the game. It’s not obtainable in survival mode in any way, it’s destroyed if you try to pick it up, and the floating image of a monster inside the cage is still probably the least blocky thing in the game.

Dungeons are also extremely rare for some reason. You could easily spend weeks in the same survival world and never find one, especially if you didn't enjoy caving for the sake of it once you had all the diamonds you needed.

All this is to say that if you were a Minecraft player in 2010 who’d never encountered one, someone on the forum describing finding a dungeon would sound exactly like the intro to any other creepypasta you'd read recently, right up until it happened to you. It's hard to convince your subconscious that an eerie forum story is completely fictional when things like dungeons are real.

Music discs

Okay, I've been writing about the eerie side of Minecraft for like a thousand words, and I somehow haven't brought this up yet. We need to talk about Discs 11 and 13.

The vast majority of music discs in Minecraft are electronic music tracks composed by German musician C418. They’re basically lo-fi beats to relax / play Minecraft to. There are two considerable exceptions to this genre. Let’s talk about 11 first.

The first thing you’ll notice about it is that the colored portion is black and the outside of the disc is cracked and broken, which is one of the most creepypasta things to ever be in a real game. And then, when you pop it into the jukebox and turn it on, instead of lo-fi electronic beats, you get this.

The track opens with heavy breathing and footsteps on stone, as the recorder of the disc runs through what is pretty clearly a cave. They sound terrified of something, but after a few seconds they stop and catch their breath. Soon, though, there’s a sound like faraway music and the recorder breaks into a run, faster this time, terrified again. The speed of the footsteps increases until the sound changes from stone to dirt, a sign that they’re almost at the surface, until there’s something that sounds like a growl and the sound abruptly cuts off. The last few seconds of the recording are static.

This is probably the most overtly horror-themed Minecraft ever gets, and this disc features heavily in a lot of Minecraft creepypasta. It makes sense. In the middle of an album of chill, electronic music, there’s one disc that’s a found footage horror short film, complete with the person holding the recorder meeting with some fate at the end. Imagine you’re going through your friend’s old VHS collection and there’s a copy of The Poughkeepsie Tapes in the middle of it with no explanation.

Also, this is the only time there’s any real physical evidence of another person existing in this world. Villages weren’t added until the release of Beta months later, and even then, this doesn’t sound like a villager. It sounds like us.

Disc 13 is less infamous by comparison, but it’s still jarring compared to the rest of the soundtrack. 13 consists mostly of slow, reverberating ringing sounds, and at this point I’m going to bring in the last weird Minecraft feature, because they sound like cave noises.

Cave noises are maybe even more infamous among the community than disc 11 as “the thing that makes Minecraft scary.” The most common of these noises are either relatively realistic, like wind or something, or eerie but obviously musical, like part of the soundtrack. Every so often, though, you’ll get one that sounds like footsteps, or the sound of a minecart traveling down a distant track. There’s obviously nothing actually there, but it’s another piece of evidence that even if you’re the only person in this world, there are things here that you didn’t make. This is not helped by the fact that the criteria for a cave noise occurring include darkness.

Conclusion 1

If you take all of these things together - the fog, the darkness, the weird signs that you’re not necessarily alone in this world - it’s easy to see where the sheer amount of creepypasta about this game comes from. It would not be unbelievable in 2010 that something like Herobrine could actually be in the game, and even if you were an adult and didn’t buy that he literally existed, Minecraft Alpha is still a nearly perfect game for scaring the shit out of yourself after just having read a bunch of horror stories.

(I know this because I scared the shit out of myself several times while revisiting Minecraft Alpha for this essay.)

Why Herobrine?

Surprise! There's more.

So we know where the Herobrine story comes from: a bunch of people playing an old, weird sandbox game that - intentionally or by accident - also functions surprisingly well as a survival horror game, and scaring themselves because it’s fun.

Now I want to talk about why the Herobrine story specifically resonated so hard with people that it still exists while hundreds of others have been basically forgotten. Keep in mind, the White Eyes story originated on a thread for a completely different creepypasta that no one has ever heard of. So what’s special about Herobrine?

To start with, we need to take a look at the specifics of Herobrine that set it apart from other creepypasta characters. The Minecraft wiki has a definition of “canonical” Herobrine that includes the first forum posts and images, like the famous 4chan post, as well as the Copeland streams. These are, quote, “fundamental to the creation and popularization of the character.” So let’s look at the commonalities between them.

Herobrine apologism

The most interesting thing these stories have in common, especially compared to more modern Herobrine, is a complete lack of aggression from Herobrine in game. The narrator of White Eyes does go crazy and maybe die, but that happens due to influence from Disc 11. The actual entity with the white eyes only appears once, and it never personally acts on the player.

In the original 4chan post, Herobrine is explicitly stated to run away and disappear if the player tries to approach and get a clearer look at him. The Copeland saga begins with Herobrine watching him in the corner of a screenshot, and even during the close encounter Herobrine doesn’t chase him out of the house or even follow him. He just stands there.

Just looking at the original Herobrine canon, there’s almost no reason to even conclude he’s malevolent at all.

So if Herobrine isn’t out to get you in the original canon, what does he do? Aside from watching you from the edge of your vision, there are a few consistent things to watch out for in the oldest videos. The most famous Herobrine signs are pyramids made of sand, trees with the leaves removed, and tunnels to nowhere, almost always lit with redstone torches.

The thing that strikes me about these signs is that they’re almost player-like, except with no internal logic to them. Building structures, cutting down trees, and digging tunnels are core to the gameplay loop of Minecraft, except in the Herobrine versions there’s no productivity. The pyramids are uninhabitable and the tunnels are never deep enough to find ore. It’s like what someone would do if they knew what you were supposed to do in Minecraft, but couldn’t understand why.

By far the most common explanation for the origin of Herobrine is that he’s a ghost. The most famous herobrine story says that he’s the dead brother of Hatsune Miku, and that part of the mythos is considered basically canon now. Even if you don’t like that element (can you tell I don’t?), a lot of posts from this time period describe him as the ghost of a miner. This is probably because the game literally has inexplicable mining sounds programmed into its caves. Either way, it’s hard to avoid the idea that Herobrine used to be a normal guy. Someone who lived in this empty world before you did.

"REAL HEROBRINE SIGHTING 100% PROOF"

There’s a Youtube playlist that I come back to a lot. It’s called “The Oldest Herobrine Sightings Ever (In Order!)” Most of the videos are either clearly faked, made by a 9-year-old, or clearly faked by a 9-year-old, but they still have a vibe to them that totally captivated me when I was younger and half buying into it.

They still give me a similar feeling years later, which is obviously partially due to nostalgia, but I don’t think the feeling is actually the exact same. It’s not quite nostalgia, and it’s not the the fear-slash-fascination I felt in 2012, glued to these videos while ready to run out of the room at any time in case something too scary happened. It’s closer to a good kind of melancholy.

And if you go back to The Oldest Herobrine Sightings Ever with the idea of feeling some empathy for him, it makes them hit a lot harder than if you just assume he's a murder ghost who’s coming to get you. I know I’m pretty far into Death of the Author territory at this point; I’m projecting an amount of emotional complexity onto fake cryptid sightings made by internet babies that almost definitely wasn’t there to begin with, but that doesn’t make this reading of the story any less impactful to me.

In order to make this point of view more believable, I’ve cherrypicked a video from the playlist for us to look at. The video is, naturally, called “REAL HEROBRINE SIGHTING 100% PROOF” by CreeperAssassin87. It's only five minutes long and I recommend watching it so you can determine for yourself if I'm making shit up.

In the video, CreeperAssassin heads out of their (pretty impressive) base only to find themselves face-to-face with the man himself. What happens next is probably the best example of my point in the whole playlist, but if you watch the other videos closely you can notice this pattern.

CreeperAssassin says very confidently that Herobrine started “chasing” them, but look at what he’s actually doing. He’s not running at the player or even really looking at the screen, and he’s not armed with anything more dangerous than a pickaxe. Remember, at this point in history, Herobrine wasn’t believed to have any magic powers to attack you with either. There’s nothing actually threatening going on here.

After that jumpscare, CreeperAssassin naturally spends the rest of the video running away and hiding, with Herobrine following close behind. My favorite part comes after the player has sealed themselves inside the wall of the castle. Herobrine breaks in, and once he has CreeperAssassin completely cornered...

...he doesn’t do anything. He just stands there and stares. The narration claims to have “luckly escaped” [sic], but I genuinely find it hard to see any malice in his behavior here.

One of the last appearances of Herobrine in the video is him watching CreeperAssassin through the window of their base after they block off the door. At this point, the video has firmly established that he's able to break blocks, and CreeperAssassin is completely cornered again. If he wanted to harm the player, he could do it easily. But once he's shut out, he just resigns himself to it.

Again, this video is probably the strongest example, but this observation holds pretty well for the vast majority of Herobrine sightings from this time period. If you shift your perspective a little bit, his behavior is not far off from what a normal person might do if they encountered another player for the first time.

Oh, hello. Who are you? It's nice to finally meet someone else. I thought I was alone out here.

Of course, nearly everyone he meets runs away and shuts him out. Eventually most of them either abandon their haunted worlds or delete them entirely.

Conclusion 2

For a lot of people on the Minecraft forums in 2010, Herobrine may have been an introduction to stories like this. I obviously doubt that a tragedy about a ghost doomed to wander alone forever was what any of the people involved here intended to make. That said, those emotions are still present, and strongly enough that they inspired me to write this entire thing.

I believe this contrast between the fear created by reading a scary story about an eerie game and the inherent sadness of the Herobrine figure is what made this story stand the test of time. Compare Herobrine with his more one-dimensionally hostile imitators, and then compare him with other creepypasta hall-of-famers like Ben Drowned. All the greatest urban legends make you feel something more complex than "afraid."

One last thing that I thought made a really good anecdote to conclude this vibes-based essay.

One of the most successful post-canon additions to the Herobrine lore is the idea of a Herobrine spawner, a structure you can build that will let him in to your world. The materials needed to do this are pretty consistent between stories, involving a base made of gold, redstone torches, sometimes some mossy cobblestone, and a netherrack pillar on top. Lighting the netherrack on fire is what activates the structure.

(There are some pretty obvious parallels here with real-life rituals meant to summon ghosts or spirits, especially the lighting of a fire.)

The origin of this structure, as far as I can tell, dates back to one of the first ever mods meant to add Herobrine to the game, a server plugin released in 2010. This plugin not only introduced the spawner, but Herobrine’s behavior in it is really interesting. He’s much more docile in this plugin than in the substantially more famous Herobrine Mod released the following year, where he directly attacks the player and summons zombies and whatnot.

The keystone here is the name of the plugin, the file you have to download to let him into your world. It’s not called “Him,” or “WakeUp,” or “WhiteEyes.”

It’s called “iLoveYou.”

[unfortunately-obsessed]

Episode 5, Season 1 | X-men 97 spoilers/theory below cut

(If I knew how to make gifs/good quality scs I could analyze the different openings so far (up to episode 5) of X-Men 97 and backup my meta with images)

Disclaimer: I have many thoughts on what's going to happen forward this is basically a word vomit.

So a summarized version of my theory is: obviously time travel will happen. They didn't keep the original opening for nostalgia only. That's why The Brotherhood + Magneto keep going against the X-Men in the opening, even if they're on the same side since the beginning of the season.

That's why Xavier and Bishop keep showing up in the opening too? I don't know if they'll bring Xavier back but eh ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Plus, Cable came back trying to prevent the massacre from happening, failed at it, and now Madelyn is confirmed to be dead. I don't think Cable will just let his mother stay dead.

So yeah. Madelyn, Gambit, Callisto, etc are dead. For now. Plus you know how it happens. Nobody stays dead in that damned universe, especially if you're a popular character

This might cheapen the blow episode 5 was, yes. But I don't think it will if they play their cards (heh) right

NOW! It still would be interesting as hell for them to be permanently dead.

Especially since Bishop comments that Gambit is not remembered in the future. I'm not totally convinced Magneto is dead even after the "omega-leve threat eliminated". I didn't see a corpse 🤨

Gambit had a hero death tbh too cool to undo like that

I also, somehow, think the Genosha genocide will stick as a whole to force mutants as whole to fight against humanity. Maybe this can even radicalize Scott

So maybe Gambit, as the popular character he is who is destined to marry Rogue, will return as a horseman for Apocalypse. Callisto and others will stay dead because they're not nearly important. Madelyne is fridged so Scott stays with Jean.

Oh we can even have that plot line where Sinister convinced Rogue to help him out with waking up Apocalypse, yeah? Nice too. Rogue, blinded by grief, going anti-hero for a sec.

Or maybe Sinister himself will bring Gambit back simply because he wants his otp to stay together, just like he did with Madelyne and Scott lmao

[batbeato]

Started going off about Sayo's gender AGAIN to my partner and they stopped me midway through to tell me to tumblr again. "sounds very tumblrish go on tumblr". Okay then. Yes I'm going to start every post like this I'm salty about it

Anyway. I was looking around places to see other people's thoughts on Sayo's gender identity and saw some takes that had me. Well. Taken aback.

Generally just this idea that Kanon is, without doubts or room for other interpretations, Sayo's expression of self-hatred, gender dysphoria, de-transitioning, etc. He is only a sign of Sayo's gender dysphoria regarding their transition to femininity and not so much a sign of anything else.

...If you saw my previous post, you know that I heavily disagree about Sayo's gender being canonically confirmed to be this or that identity, and that I believe there is room for trans woman headcanons, various nonbinary headcanons, genderfluid headcanons, and so on.

Back to Kanon. Gender dysphoria. Well. (For the record, I headcanon Sayo as genderfluid, so I may be biased.)

Kanon has this general thing where he is the outlet for much of Sayo's negative emotions. Because Beatrice is a witch, and thus not a part of the Rokkenjima dynamics, Beatrice cannot directly voice Sayo's frustrations with their life. Beatrice is a witch who has everything she could possibly want with magic (except Battler, whose return she is patiently awaiting). Therefore, Beatrice cannot be the one to voice Shannon's mundane troubles - the other servants bothering her, her bosses mistreating her, etc. She can play pranks on them, but she cannot be rude to her coworkers or bosses for Shannon, or be more personal. This is part of why Kanon was created - Shannon cannot be negative because she is meant to be bright and positive and adhere to patriarchal standards of how good, feminine women must be.

This line from episode 2 summarizes how Kanon is Sayo's persona that can truly express the 'filthy' and human feelings they have.

Kanon was also created to ease Shannon's loneliness - to pretend that they had an ally always by their side - and to experiment with their gender expression. If their body wasn't able to fulfill the expectations they had of it (periods, breasts, hips - the expected puberty for a woman), then perhaps they could fulfill a different set of expectations.

(...I have some issues with Confession - primarily centralizing Shannon as Sayo's main/real self, which is very often contradicted by the rest of the series - but this series of panels sums Kanon's role up well.)

I think Kanon's role - the boy who expresses discomfort that the girls cannot express - is part of why he is so often seen as a personification of dysphoria and self hatred. I believe you can interpret Kanon as such, but I also believe that it is a matter of interpretation, rather than a very clear-cut canon-indicated matter.

In many cases, Sayo's dysphoria seems to be far less about their lack of womanhood in particular, and far more about compulsory dyadism (“the instituted cultural mandate that people cannot undermine the sex dyad by possessing intersex traits”, according to Dr. Celeste Orr).

...Sorry for the image spam. But this small collection should show what I mean: saying that they aren't "capable of love" because of their body, and agonizing over not being able to have children. Beyond that, both Shannon and Kanon are mocked by Beatrice for not meeting masculine or feminine standards (their status as furniture).

Beyond that, Kanon's portrayal in many areas seems to suggest that he is on equal footing with Shannon and Beatrice: for example, being pitted against Shannon on equal footing in the Episode 6 duel, and the important part he plays later on in teaching Chick Beatrice how to become Beatrice once more. Chick Beatrice is only able to regain her true self by coming to understand the other sides of herself, including Kanon.

I didn't write all of this to try to disprove Sayo as a trans woman who primarily experiences gender dysphoria through Kanon theory, but mostly to show how it's not so heavily implied through text that it can be considered canon, haha.

...You might have noticed that I take people describing their headcanons as canon, thus implicitly denying others' interpretations, to be very, very... irritating.

[laurellerual]

Arya Lady of Harrenhal during the Long Night

At the bottom of my inbox there's an anonymous message from months ago that says “could you do Arya with Nymeria during the long night? Fighting together?”. I haven't replied yet and the reason is that when I think about this scene, the image of GOT 8x03 pops up in my mind. Will Arya fight through the Long Night, sword in hand? I'm not that sure.

Then the other day I came up with this idea that I proposed to you in a survey: “Winterfell falls, the northeners have to escape South, Harrenhal is the main citadel, Arya as lady of Harrenhal during the Long Night”. And I must say I'm surprised with the result. It won "I see where you are coming from, and I like it" with 33% of the votes.

But many, rightly so, have chosen "I'll wait for you to elaborate", so here we are.

A role

So Jon and Dany are the ones with the army and the dragons, Tyrion is the smart one with the experience and Bran is the one with the magical powers (sorry I'm simplifying, just to summarize). It's not hard to imagine that they'll find their place in the White Walkers storyline.

And Arya? Use the valyrian steel sword she doesn't have to slay the undead? Will Jon allow her to be on the front lines? Is Arya really stupid enough to think she can do it?

She will be at most 12/13 years old and the only sword lessons she has received are those of Syrio, she is not a great swordswoman, especially if she has to face adults on a battlefield. The things that the FMs are teaching her don't seem suitable for this kind of situations. I guess she could contribute by warging Nymeria and leading her pack, but if that is the case it wouldn't be necessary for her to be physically there.

Whatever this role is it must be relevant 'cause Martin counted her among the five key characters, one of the first to be created and then decided to waste a lot of ink by telling us about her.

Harrenhal

I start with the assumtion that the Battle for the Dawn will take place in the Riverlands, that it will not be possible to stop the White Walkers at Winterfell and consequently there will be an exodus of people from the North to the South. If you don't agree or you want an explanation about it, you can read my last post: Harrenhal during the Long Night.

And which of the main characters has a strong relationship with Harrenhal?

Thematic connections

The girl has a long and complex relationship with her mother's native land and a strong thematic connection with water that you surely have read about in other metas. Most of the major events in Arya's life take place here.

Not only the Red wedding, meeting Jaqen, the Weasel soup, the separation from Nymeria, but also Mycah's death in which she realizes for the first time that her father is not as powerful as she thinks, that the injustice of the world is deeper than she thought and that especially for the nobles the suffering of the smallfolk is totally irrelevant.

Harrenhal is the castle of which she becomes the ghost. And she really is the ghost of Harrenhal, standing in front of that Heart tree, probably like her late aunt years before, as she hears a voice from the trees reminding her of her real name.

Useful knowledge

Arya knows these lands directly, crosses them, lives them, knows their inhabitants, their opinions and sides in the war. It isn't a theoretical knowledge but a practical one. As Jon Snow recalls "The map is not the land, my father often said".

But it's even more intimate than that because Arya dreams of those lands every night, she sees them through Nymeria's eyes. The wolf is currently the only undisputed ruler in that lawless place. Do you remember the image of Harrenhal tormented by the tremendous howl of the wind and wolves outside the walls?

Arya also knows Harrenhal on all its levels. She physically scrubbed the floors of every floor of every tower and she scoured all the walls in search of an unguarded gate.

She has experienced the classes and roles that exist within the castle and its management. She had to deal with armigers, cooks and blacksmiths. She has worked her way up the chain of command from the humblest of servants to cupbearer and lord's messenger.

Skills and leadership

In the books we see her many times in positions where she is the person who has to make decisions, lead a group, organize little plans.

One of the main themes of her journey is justice, mercy, power and its abuse.

Then there are more or less direct parallels such as the one between Arya and Aegon the unlikely or the list of things that would make Aegon/young Griff a good ruler according to Varys.

Let's see some quotes in the books that tell us about these aspects of the character:

The one thing Arya could do better than her sister was ride a horse. Well, that and manage a household.

His father used to say that a lord needed to eat with his men, if he hoped to keep them. “Know t

he men who follow you,” she heard him tell Robb once, “and let them know you. Don't ask your men to die for a stranger."

Arya had loved nothing better than to sit at her father's table and listen to them talk. She had loved listening to the men on the benches too; to freeriders tough as leather, courtly knights and bold young squires, grizzled old men-at-arms.

Whenever her father had condemned a man to death, he did the deed himself with Ice, his great sword. “If you would take a man 's life, you owe it to him go look him in the face and hear his last words di lui,” she 'd heard him tell Robb and Jon once.

Can I be lord of a holdfast?

And here I stop because there are many others. If you are interested in this, there are meta only on this topic around tumblr.

An interesting that that connects Ned's teachings and those of the FMs is the concept that power and service are closely related.

Now let's see what FM training consists of: the ability to blend in with people, listen, gather information, learn many languages. We can add her natural ability to make friends and allies of all kinds.

This seems like the perfect package to manage a castle full of frightened people from all over the world (there will be people arriving with Dany as well), from every social class, every side of the war, who have nothing in common but the hope to survive.

Disconnected thoughts and possible parallels

This would be a very poetic situation that completes the parallel with historical Nymeria by placing Arya at the head of a group of refugees fleeing their destroyed home. In addition to giving her the possibility and the power to carry out the reflection on justice in a place that has seen so much injustice.

It's also funny how Lady Whent is introduced with great expectation right into Arya's chapters, where she thinks she can ask for her help. Yet she will never meet the Lady of Harrenhal.

And isn't it funny how she decided to name her direwolf after "some old witch queen in the songs"?

From the Alys Rivers wiki page: In 132 AC during the regency of Aegon III, a number of broken men and predatory outlaws began to gather at Harrenhal under the rule of a sorcerous witch queen. Mmmh interesting… this sound familiar, the Brotherhood without banners?

There is also Sharra, another witch queen of the Riverlands from the Age of Heroes.

Conclusions

In this place where Shagwell the Fool sang about Weasel soup maybe in the future there will be songs about Arya and the ten thousand wolves.

Thanks for reading. Mine doesn't want to be a theory that speaks of the character's endgame, but of its role during the Long Night. Let me know if I've given you something to think about, if I've convinced you, if you have other ideas on what this role might be. Or if you want to write a fanfiction with this plot.

Edit: I just discovered an old thread with a similar topic. I haven't read it yet, but I'll leave it here for the record.

[pumpkinsy0]

"IM not speaking up about what's happening in Palestine rn bc minot very sure what's happening" well then sit down n buckle up cause ill tell u in the most summarized way possible

israel has been attacking and killing Palestinians for about 75 years. After world war 2, the US and the UK thought that jewish people should basically have their own place, and are using Palestine to achieve this. Since 1948, israel has been killing off Palestinians for land, and through this, basically an open aired concentration camp called Gaza was formed. If you look up the land Palestine has lost all throughout this genocide, you'd notice that there's israel in-between Gaza and the West Bank, and israel's defense forces called IDF has taken to, cutting off water, food, and electricity, even internet, from the Gaza strip, essentially making an open aired concentration camp. Because of this conflict, a resistance movement from Palestine, called Hamas was formed. The IDF has bombed, hospitals, homes, fucking bakeries, in Gaza pretty much everyday. The IDF is not attacking Hamas, theyre actively attacking innocent civilians, dehumanizing them, calling them things like "terrorist" and "human animals", using the Hamas attack on october 7th to justify literal war crimes. The IDF is backed up by the US military (which let me remind you is one of if not the most powerful military force out there). Over 8,306 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and a good chunk of the population in Gaza are CHILDREN. As far as I know, 45 families have been ABSOLUTELY WIPED. Their bloodline is gone, theyre never ever coming back. The media has been pushing support for israel and many israel acts are posting fake images and straight up lying for more support.

If you wanna support but dont know how, you can start by boycotting McDonalds, Disney, and Starbucks. They support the IDF in one way or another. The boycott has been pretty successful and if you wanna look for yourself, their market has been dropping significantly and they been trying to get ppl back with deals but it hasn't been working.

What's going on in Palestine its an active genocide being done by an apartheid state.

Also this isn't your question to be antisemitic, not every jewish person supports whats going on, its zionist

PS there's a website called the canary mission literally doxxes ppl for speaking up for Palestine, so dont be quiet, but be careful

free Palestine, fuck israel

[nightcrawlerzincorporated]

I'm curious about what your opinion on dtamhd is?

I talked about it a bit when the episode first came out, but I'll summarize my thoughts for the new folk. This is all just my personal opinion/interpretation, feel free to disagree, etc etc

I really like DTAMHD! Dennis is my favorite boy and I enjoy being with him for 20 minutes and watching him bop around trying to keep his cool and be kind to people while he slowly loses his mind. I fuck very heavily with the idea that Dennis actually does try to be calm and kind most of the time, he just gets overwhelmed by his own emotions and lashes out because he has no healthy outlit or healthy coping mechanisms. And he refuses to accept help from others because he doesn't trust anyone but himself with his mind and body because growing up every adult in his life that we know of abused him in some way. So when he has a problem, like high blood pressure, he keeps it all inside and tries to deal with it himself, which just makes him more stressed and miserable. I really like all the little things in his fantasy that actually do highlight parts is his real life, like him having to be on Frank's family plan, forever tied to him and relying on him even as an adult, or him crying "nightmare nightmare please somebody help me". We love to see a man suffer on this blog. But that's the aspect of the episode people usually don't have a problem with. Let's get more controversial

My interpretation of the ending is that Dennis did not actually lower his own blood pressure, he's just so stuck in this fantasy version of his life where he has control and where things can't hurt him that he blocks out the negative information and replaces it with positive. I don't see it as a "win" for Dennis because I don't think he succeeded at all in actually changing anything. I think the fact that the gang's phone call at the end is the exact same one that's explicitly a fantasy is supposed to clue us in that this is fake too, the difference is Dennis isn't aware that it's still a fantasy because he's so wrapped up in his own idea of himself as someone who CAN lower his own blood pressure and someone who the gang needs and relies on. So he has these purposeful fantasies to help him cope, but those fantasies still bleed in to real life and color his perception of himself and the world even though he thinks to himself that he's in control of the fantasy. But much like how he can't actually control his physical health, he can't control his mental health either, and this constant fantasizing that he can do all these things has led him to see a distorted version of reality where he doesn't have to change or grow or learn. Which is kind of the core of the whole show if you think about it. I do agree completely with the criticism that Dennis actually having the ability to lower his own blood pressure is stupid, so I get hating the end if you see it as him returning to reality and being successful in his endeavors, but that's not how I see it, so it's not an issue for me.

I can also understand why people could see the heart eating scene as a serial killer Dennis thing and dislike it because of that, but that's not how I saw it at all. It's really goofy and cartoony and obviously not real when he rips the guy's heart out and eats it; it's not about killing someone (the guy doesn't even look hurt at all, he just stands there watching Dennis—I think a real murder fantasy would focus on the pain and dying but it’s not about that, it’s about defeating a metaphorical evil, not a literal man) it's about oversimplifying the world. There’s so many fun different ways you can interpret the CEO, like that he represents Dennis’ relationship with himself or with the world or with his parents, etc. I think if you detach yourself from the literal image and look at things in a more abstract, metaphorical way it makes the scene and the episode as a whole more enjoyable—but I understand that’s not something everyone is interested in doing.

That’s why it doesn’t just feel like a retelling of Glenn’s real life experience to me—I think there’s a lot of Dennis-specific ideas and systems (lol) throughout the episode that give it more symbolism and weight and makes it into a good (imo) narrative.

And I get why, if you’re the type of person who feels a Sunny season should end with a story about the entire gang, or about the gang helping one of them do something big, or something similar, DTAMHD would be disappointing, but I personally have no expectations for what a Sunny finale “should” be, so I wasn’t bothered by the fact that Dennis never opened up to anyone or had any real growth. I was just along for the ride.

I really enjoy the fact that the episode has a lot you can read into and a lot that’s open to interpretation, but that’s also the exact reason different people came away with such different views of the episode. I love when Sunny takes risks and makes unique episodes like this. And I like watching Glenn Howerton smear blood all over his mouth

[julietasgf]

first of all I love long answers, so no apologies in fact I'll apologize because I plan to ramble on.

I also love the movie but I have so many problems with how little we were given of the Plinth family, that they didn't fully exploit Marcus and Sejanus relationship and the sandwich scene (no ironically I have so much to say about that I may do another post explaining in depth why I hate how they executed that scene) so I feel you buddy

Yes I also think it was a bit of an unnecessary change in that regard, I'm not complaining at all about a scene of Coriolanus crying while looking at a picture of him and Sejanus together, it's cute to see him that pathetic crying and my heart was broken bc we could see again that Coriolanus means the world to Sejanus and yet that happen, but still I think it's more interesting, dramatic and hilarious to witness Coriolanus frustration at seeing that there's a picture of Marcus, of all the people.

Is someone else and NOT HIM, THE ONE THAT INSPIRE SEJANUS. Like as a snowjanus fan Im more into that shit of Coryo in denial screaming and thwroing bc ITS NOT HIM. But thats probably only me /j

You summarized very well many of the aspects in Marcus and Sejanus relationship that drive me crazy. I also belive they had such an unique relationship in the saga, Im so angry bc the movie dont fucking explore them in depth.

AND I AGREED WITH EVERY WORD YOU SAID ABOUT SEJANUS, THAT MOMENT OF KIDNESS IN THE END IT DEFINED HIS CORE, YEARS LATER HE MADE THE CONSCIOUS DECISION TO BE GUIDED BY THE ONE MOMENT WHEN A STRANGER OFFERED HIM HELP AND COMFORT OUT OF COMMUNITY AND EMPATHY.

Yeah it's obvious that much of his character is ultimately shaped by his mother, but he makes a very conscious decision to live by that interaction, to decide that if no one else is willing to make that selfless gesture, he'll be the one to take care of it. Even if the world tells him he's crazy and wrong for going in that direction.

About Marcus I agree that he probably thought that and it makes me so sad because I can't help but wonder what it was like for him, again I know in the book they mention they were more classmates than friends but I don't know, childhood in itself seems to me a stage where you tend to connect deeply with others as you are not yet fully aware of the barriers, and while I can see some classmates already having reservations towards Sejanus because of what Strabo had done and what their parents told lf Plinth family, it seems to me it shows that Marcus was not one of those kids.

So I like to think he thought in his own way about Sejanus. About how nice he was despite the nasty reputation that was forming of his family until finally Sejanus moves in and people tell Marcus that the Plinth's are traitors and other terrible things.

How to reconcile that image with that of the scared little boy he helped and thanked him deeply for it? I think it takes years (and the games ultimately help deepen the rift because Sejanus is safe and they in the district aren't) for him to come to that conclusion.

Then Marcus is reaping and it must have been painful and horrible to see Sejanus standing behind a fence, in an expensive and extravagant uniform, trying to offer him a very hearty sandwich. We know it is a gesture of help and comes from a place of compassion but god I can also see how it is at the same time a kind of cruel mockery.

Because Marcus is going to die and he doesn't need a sandwich, or an apology, he needs to be taken out of there, he needs to do not be killed and forced to kill others. So it makes sense his resentfulness will grow, also the image of Sejanus in his memory as his classmate who did wear a nice suit more expensive than others yes but still was from district 2, still live and suffer the war with them, was destroyed, now he can only think of this Sejanus totally capitol from his eyes, a fucking traitor in a red like blood uniform.

Marcus must have been totally hopeless... We know the people in the capitol saw him as a possible winner but I don't think this was his vision. Like the rest he was a scared kid, probably resigned to his death.

He could not give in to ask for Sejanus' help, to take his hand because what would that mean? That he too would become a traitor, that he was not loyal enough to his family and community? He did not want to die with that weight on his conscience and also facing Sejanus sounds anything but helpful.

He doesn't even know from the sandwich act if Sejanus is the same. He already looks different. What if he turned into one of those whimsical, conceited children? Will he be able to stand talking to him? And what could Plinth do for him? Give him a better weapon? Give him a fucking cake?

There was no point in saying anything. Nor to do it.

I believe the bombing and when he sees a way out is the only time Marcus regains hope and we know what happens to him because of that...

I love recommending caifanes songs that reminds me of Sejanus too much what can I say... And I love even more that you listen to them and see the vision. Im out of caifanes songs for now but if you can handle the trigger warning of spain spanish I can give you:

From the treasure planet the spanish dubb version of Im still here / Estoy aquí by Alex ubago. Its so Sejanus CODED. I choose the spanish version bc its a more youthful voice than the original.

I always apologize for answering too long answers, I genuinely fear being annoying for it 😭

yessss!!! in the movie, I have the feeling that excluding so much of the plinths didn't really show the impact of how fucked up it was what coriolanus did by the end. he stole a boy's whole life. he knew his parents, he knew his mother, and still, he got him killed and stole his life anyway. it's so disturbing when you stop to think about it, but since we don't really see much from the plinths in the movie, I feel like it weights much less than it should (ALSO, YES, THE SANDWICH SCENE WAS A CRIME, it was really poorly executed and another point where it seems to make coryo better imo)

it's so funny to me that scene in the book bc coriolanus says with all his chest that it shows "where sejanus' loyalty laid with". bro really came to the conclusion JUST NOW that maybe, and just maybe, he isn't the center of the world and neither is the capitol 😭 while reading I though of him turning to the camera like a the office episode plssssss (and I absolutely AGREE HELPP, coriolanus screaming crying throwing up because sejanus has a pic of MARCUS, of ALL PEOPLE)

the movie had so much potential to explore their relationship in a more visual way. I absolutely understand why storytelling-wise they would rather to explore of sejanus and coriolanus' relationship.... but marcus and sejanus are so important and interesting and UGHHHHH (and plus, they remind me so much of katniss and peeta, I've seen some parallels that DRIVE ME INSANE and I would actually kill for a 4 hour cut with scenes of them together)

AND YESSSS!!! everything regarding the districts in tbosas, everytime we see something about their lifestyle, is about community. marcus and sejanus were not even friends in his words, they were classmates, and marcus went and helped a child that was probably left out and despised by most of his classmates, and he didn't want anything in return (another thing that drives me insane is how coriolanus is quite the reverse of this; he helped sejanus out of interest, pure interest, and how this is pure capitol, while marcus is pure district).

at that point of the rebellion, the plinths were probably so despised at D2, because the way sejanus cherishes that memory is just so important to me. it's the kind of thing you'd probably forget, but he remembered marcus' name, he kept his pic and everything, and he probably talked about it at home enough for his father to know about marcus and. yk. do what he did at the games to "teach sejanus a lesson". marcus' kindness was THAT remarkable. another thing that I think abt 24/7: what was marcus thinking all this time? we never even see him talking. what were his thoughts? I would actually pay suzanne collins just to KNOW.

during the zoo scene, I felt physical pain because I could only think about how OFFENDED marcus probably felt. because, in his place, I at least would feel extremely offended. because let me get this straight: after your father betrays our district, you leave for this fancy town, with fancy clothing, and now I'm about to die, and then you come here offering me a sandwich? (also, this sets another interesting thing about marcus, he's so proud, and I'm just mentioning it bc it seems like a common trait between people from D2 in the future) and plus, he probably saw coriolanus going to talk to lucy gray for the first time at the train. okay that coriolanus' intentions weren't pure, but how marcus felt that sejanus actually KNEW HIM and didn't go to see him, but this boy who never met this girl actually went to the train station? and then his first interaction with sejanus is him offering him food as if he's an animal?

one thing I read once, and I really can't recall from where, was an interpretation that marcus never even spoke to sejanus (not even to curse him or tell him to fuck off) because it was much better to die with the little boy he knew still on his mind, kind and gentle, than to talk to the boy he doesn't know and discover how he actually changed into something marcus despised.

I also do think marcus was resigned to his death. the way he doesn't even try says a lot, even though everyone agreed that he was the tribute with the most chances. D2 is big, it's not like D12, which is smaller. what would it mean for marcus to return after accepting help from a plinth? what would it mean for him to return after 23 another children getting killed just so he could get out alive?

also, in some form, I think marcus and sejanus' dynamic as tribute and mentor as some sort of anti-lucy gray and coriolanus. they're the reverse of each other.

it's so tragic, really, that he had hope for the first time just to end tragically like that. now, I'm going to punch a wall and cry for at least two days in a corner, because marcus is genuinely one of the most interesting tributes and he didn't even got to fight in the games to be this interesting.

(suzanne collins really went HARD on creating characters this time, not that in thg she didn't, but how is almost every character in tbosas is special and iconic to me?)

and I love getting recommended songs!!! ☝️ NOT THE SPAIN SPANISH TRIGGER WARNING (spain spanish and portugal portuguese are really cousins, it seems) ☠️ first, omg, I was just today thinking abt the characters as disney songs, I'm kinda screaming that you sent me this!!! specially bc as a kid my hobby was listening to different versions of the same disney song, and I RECOGNIZED IT, but I never actually stopped to pay attention to the lyrics and YOU'RE SO RIGHT, I get amazed bc every single song you recommend I stop and stare at the wall thinking of how, actually, it makes total sense 😭

[arabian-batboy]

So several people have asked me about my opinion about James Gunn making a live-action Batman & Robin movie centered on Bruce and Damian that’s based on Grand Morrison and Tom King runs, I already shared what I thought on twitter, but to summarize it: this is the worst news I have heard while in this fandom and if this movie happens, Damian’s and Talia’s characters will forever be ruined.

As all of you know, movies always have a massive effect on how the general public view comic characters for many years after the drop, even if their portrayal in the movie was a complete 180° change from their usual selfs. I mean look at how much damage the animated movies have done to these characters’ reputation? Now imagine what a live-action Batman movie would do, whatever “The Brave and the Bold” will do to Talia and Damian, it will easily stick to their image for 10+ years and will most likely influence the comics to imitate the movie and change their portrayal in them in a way that align with the movie, again, even if it’s completely different or regressive for their characters.

Then you have all the red flags from Gunn’s statement, first of all he’s influenced by MORRISON’S and KING’S runs? That’s the biggest red flag of them all, because if you like these two characters then you would know that these runs are hands dow the worst possible combination you could pick as an adaptation and somehow Gunn’s managed to choose both of them, seriously all that is left is for him to reference Teen Titans: Rebirth and its over for us.

I have already went on and on about how Morrison’s racist treatment of Talia is the definition of character-assassinations and how till this day her reputation hasn’t recovered yet from it, there might have been some progress lately, but it will all go through the drain if this movie happens because I don’t see Gunn’s, how sings so much praise about Morrison’s run, will bothering fixing the racist caricature that Morrison created, especially since the whole point of Talia in this run is to give angst to Damian’s backstory and portray Bruce as the superior parent compared to her (and don’t let me get started on King’s proud-ex-CIA-agent ass and HIS racism)

So yeah, unless they plan on using another character as the big bad of the movie, which I don’t see happening, because what other character has personal ties to both Bruce and Damian and can be used as an antagonist other than Talia? Then the real Talia is gone forever, she will officially never escape Morrison’s character-assassination (at the very least, they can change her drugging Bruce to her faking a miscarriage like in the original comic, since that part is not REALLY important to story, but I highly doubt it....)

Then we get to Damian......look at all the words Gunn used? Do I need to say more? Some people are actually excited that he claimed that Damian is apparently his favorite Robin, but looking at the way he described Damian here its clearly evident that he likes him for all the wrong reasons, which I would argue is worse than hating him and that he doesn’t understand his nuance or any of his best qualities.

I can already predict what he will do with his character: he’s gonna go look for the whitest White boy in the world, cast him as Damian, immediately drench him in hair gel, then have him act as the most arrogant, stuck-up, obnoxious, disrespectful brat imaginable which in turn will influence the comics to reset his character to that again for the 574th time in a row (and of course you will have fans of other characters going ""look at Damian always being favored by DC per usual!!" without realizing that this is basically a death sentence to his character forever)

Some argue that this is how Damian’s character started out like before he started his development so its alright and to that I say: 1- even in the beginning, his character wasn’t this exaggerated and he still had some redeeming qualities 2- his development happened in a slow and steady pace in stories that mostly had no Bruce 3- he started out as Dick’s Robin and had already established a relationship with every Batfam’s member as well as his place in Gotham City before he got to spend any time with Bruce, which is something the movie will obviously skip.

Also the keyword here is "development."

The problem is that so many people, including Gunn, can't comprehend that Morrison’s Damian is supposed to be Damian at the very beginning of his development, in their minds, Morrison’s Damian is "default" Damian who acts like that all the time and Gunn’s might like Morrison’s Damian just the way he is, so I don’t see him bothering to develop Damian’s character nor do I believe that he has enough time to do so in one movie (lets be real its not like they will dedicate several movies for Damian’s alone) and as an already overly-hated character who constantly get portrayed as a brat that needs to be humbled, a movie based on his fist appearances is the last thing he needs right now.

It will just reaffirm what his haters think, that he was always a rude brat and he will always remain a rude brat and again, this will unavoidably influence the comics to reset his character (which is something the comics have already been doing constantly without the influence of a big blockbuster movie) to the characterization of his first appearance for the millionth time.

Like I said, this is the worst news I have ever received regarding these characters, I know I’m always being dramatic whenever I don’t like the treatment of Talia and Damian, but this is probably it for me. If this movie happens (and I pray it gets canceled/changed to something else in these 3 upcoming years) and it ends up being as bad as I think it would be, then I will probably lose all interest in DC as a whole, my standards were already at rock-bottom, but even I wouldn’t be able to enjoy their characters anymore at this point.

[summersmithlatinxgyatt]

GET READY FOR 2000 WORDS OF YAP

This will serve as a dense summary that supports my previous Season 3 and onward Summer analysis blogs. This shows the basis stemming from Season 1 to 3. I highly recommending reading my analysis blogs, but this serves as a great place to start

Summer Smith is a character that I have not seen anyone pay attention to on the same caliber as Rick or even any other character of the family. Despite the small pool and consistent focus, I constantly see her be summarized as being both a typical teen girl and a badass, as if the latter is all that’s done to make her stand out as a character. Luckily, fans who’ve paid more attention to the narrative and her character can at LEAST pick out scattered parts of her characters through focused moments. I do not want to instantly discredit anyone, especially anyone who has known this about Summer but just never shared their thoughts. However, I still see a lack of any meaningful summary, so I wanted to give my own sort of timeline and summary of Summer’s character. As much as I’d like this to be as in-depth as possible, I will be writing this in one go and whatever is fresh on my mind

Summer is incredibly insecure about her self-image, like many teens her age. The difference is how this plays into being a part of the Smith family. She has no one to talk to about it directly because every member of her family is already involved in their own relationship or somewhat gets over it, which she points out in ‘GoTron Jerrysis Rickvangelion’. Rick’s philosophy was something the show practically revolved around for earlier seasons which is exhibited in every character in different ways except Summer. We don’t really see any moment of Summer burying her fear or getting over it even with some amount of silver lining. Instead, she embraces any caliber of attention and love no matter the ramifications. A great example of this is ‘Something Ricked This Way Comes’, where Summer seeks the attention of Mr. Needful, who Rick aptly points out is ‘literally the Devil’. Despite this, she still works for him, accepts his gratitude, and even saves his life

This is a persistent part of Summer’s character, but in later seasons it is the basis of who she is NOW, not her entire personality. These insecurities can range from not feeling pretty or simply having no friends or partners. There’s also a unique aspect to her dynamic, that being she tends to go along with whatever is happening around her as long as she gains from it or at least survives

‘Ricksy Business’ shows a raging party that Summer hosts solely to have attention drawn towards her and feel popular. Even when Rick invites his alien friends, she doesn’t act like Morty. Morty is shown to be on his toes, trying to stop anything bad from happening and making sure not one thing goes wrong. Summer is neutral to the party while Rick insists it continues on through any means, literally sending Morty out to get drugs for him. In this episode, Summer wanted the party to simply go on for her own popularity. However, it would backfire because of one detail we can’t ignore. Summer isn’t innocent.

She dismissed Nancy as a dork she didn’t want to be around, which later on meant no one wanted to be around her once Nancy talked about how shitty she can be. In Season 4, we see she’s invited her to her house with Tricia at least, but in Season 1, Summer is dismissive of others if they don’t give her some form of attention in return

‘Rixty Minutes’ is an episode that shows that her parents had Summer when they were very young and still in high school. When Summer ties to look into other versions of her life across the multiverse, it’s entirely blank and because these are connected to the versions Jerry and Beth see. THIS IS A CONSISTENT DETAIL! On the TV, we see the version of Jerry that Beth also runs into. That means Summer looked into the same universes, but she was absent. As a result, she blames herself for being a burden and someone holding her parents’ potential back.

One detail worth mentioning is that in the other universes, she mentions she’s playing Yahtzee with her family each time. As I keep mentioning and WILL mention here, she values family in high regard. If these universes are focused on successful outcomes, then the happy ending for Summer she didn’t know about back then was bonding with her family. Board games are sometimes used as bonding moments in the show. Two examples that come to mind as I write this include ‘A Rickconvenient Mort’ when Morty originally brought Planetina to the family and then ‘Rickmancing the Stone’ when Beth plays with the robot versions of Summer and Morty, saying she never gets to do this. It’s clearly something the family almost never does but when they do, the times we have seen them pop up is in the context of being too good to be true - the family being together.

We constantly see Jerry reference television and media, it’s clear he wanted to be an actor

Beth mentions she performs surgery on humans instead of horses

And Summer doesn’t realize that her dream is being achieved - having a normal life and a loving family that bonds

Of course, Morty convinces Summer to not run away as she basically realizes someone DOES love and appreciate her in the family. When she says ‘You’re not my brother?’, it also speaks volumes that another Morty was willing to love another version of his sister after the events of ‘Rick Potion #9’. Furthermore, the idea that no one BELONGS anywhere doesn’t mean everyone aimlessly wanders. It just means that Summer wasn’t entitled to any standards at all, standards that she feels the need to abide by that are the entire root of her insecurities and the idea that she is holding her parents back

‘Get Schwifty’ focuses on Summer’s place in the new religion of Headism. She takes it as an opportunity to be seen as perfect in the eyes of her parents. In an episode like ‘Total Rickall’, we see her mother drinking instead of driving her to school, then bruising her eye with a bottle of wine. And of course, the crux of ‘Rixty Minutes’ is Summer feeling like she’s holding back her parents. Her parents didn't show her love and she didn’t know why, which led to her ignoring anyone who didn’t instantly love her back. She was careless and snappy, but in ‘Get Schwifty’, she realized one way to get their attention - ignore her flaws

Whether or not this detail was intentional too, she was following a philosophy her family followed as well, which was ignoring those flaws. Her own unique spin on it and the point of her place in this episode is having a religion to follow that she can not only align herself upon, but as a reference point for others to realize how much she’s changed. This works not only for her parents but for Ethan as well. Summer is shown to be more active and seemingly happy but incredibly devoted to this religion. When she sees the heads, she uses it as proof that she can achieve a form of improvement that is legitimate, which is why she’s so dedicated to it

However, just because Summer goes along with any means to be popular, it doesn’t mean that she will ignore her family. Again, she wants their attention and love. Summer wouldn’t harm her family entirely if she thinks they already hold a negative view of her, except ARGUABLY Jerry. With these next two examples, you’ll see that Season 2 has outliers because her character is fleshed out

‘Big Trouble in Little Sanchez’ shows that Summer cares for Rick’s well being and is frustrated when no one else seeks his safety. She was selfless enough to risk her own popularity when she ‘ratted out’ Rick, she just didn’t know the extent of it. However, she doesn’t cry about it and insists on still saving Rick. This is around the time she begins to hold her family closer. ‘Total Rickall’ shows the family needs to stick together and tries to find a silver lining from how toxic they all are to one another. ‘Rixty Minutes’ shows Morty’s love for her while ‘Something Ricked This Way Comes’ shows Rick’s love for Summer. As a result, she values them for the happiness they bring one another and goes out of her way to save Rick even when he thinks he doesn’t need help

‘Look Who’s Purging Now’ shows how she’s found her place within the family. She gravitates towards Rick and Morty more instead of her parents. Rick entrusts Summer to save them both while Jerry pesters her. The constant character traits are on FULL DISPLAY in this episode and I’m kicking myself for not mentioning it before. She nearly cries as she remembers moments with her father and is insulted that he used family bonding moments to ease her into giving Jerry money. And although it probably isn’t intentional, saying The Purge sucks opposes Jerry’s view of just liking and referencing all movies. This point is also supported when she asks if all interdimensional cable needs to be juvenile violence. Furthermore, this small detail is contrasted when she’s more aggressive and fine with killing in Season 3.

In this episode, we understand more of who Summer favors in her life - Rick and Morty and not Jerry. This branches out from Season 1’s showing of Summer as a careless teenager, as ‘Raising Gazorpazorp’ and ‘Something Ricked This Way Comes’ cement how she holds Rick close too

So we’ve moved past holding people close to just love them and get something out of it. In Season 2, she realizes she appreciates the genuine love her family has for her. At the same time, she’s finding out who she loves and why. The ending of Season 2, however, utterly changes this

I can go on and on for days about how this scene needs to be recognized as one of the most pivotal across the entire show. I consider it the most important scene when it comes to understanding her character. If you want the episode where Summer changes into her more rebellious and strong side, watch ‘Wedding Squanchers’ after understanding everything that came before.

As I’ve said again and again, the reason I regard Summer breaking into tears when Rick mentions the consequences of the Galactic Federation being on their heels is because so little is said and it shows a lot about Summer.

This is a scene where she’s the only one crying and blames herself because her insecurities have played a part in leading to Tammy murdering Bird Person and successfully rounding up any terrorists. And again, she’s so lonely and out-of-place alongside her family that it’s just looked over, ironically by many fans too

I will wrap this up by summarizing what follows

Because Summer holds herself heavily accountable for befriending Tammy to begin with, she holds her family closer than ever. She swears to bring back Rick and hates the Galactic Federation. This is branching off character traits in Summer and removes the idea that Summer will listen to authority or take their word. Even across ‘Wedding Squanchers’, she comes to an ultimate realization by telling Jerry, “You don’t love someone in hopes of a reward”. This single line removes Summer’s old trait where she quite literally loved other people in hopes of a reward, meaning yes, the previous scene IS her ego death and the moment her character changes.

She despises the Federation and is the only one in the family willing to act against them - again, showing her alienation. This is why Summer is fine with acting violently to address an issue, why she doesn’t listen to a form of authority, and is close with her family. Later seasons show she keeps them together. If Summer didn’t rebel, then there’s almost no chance she would’ve convinced Rick to come back (side-note, another Rick holds Summer hostage instead of Morty in ‘The Rickshank Rickdemption’). Her subconscious potential manifested as Night Summer, which is nothing more than Summer being totally brutal and speaking however she pleases. The Night family listens to Summer, because they recognize that she also keeps them together. This implies that even though no one else in the family says anything about Summer’s role, they HAVE thought about it. Night Summer is not inherently evil or a ‘dark’ version of Summer despite the name. If anything, this is identical to Summer playing Yahtzee - finding her place in her family, being trusted, and being loved.

This is meant to be more of an analysis compilation to break down Summer’s character. To oppose what many have said, Summer is actually a fleshed-out and very consistent character.

She is not just a bratty teenager.

She is not just a badass.

She is not just insecure.

Summer Smith began as an insecure teenager because she has never found attention or love that stayed. As time passed, she found shelter by being loved and loving others. However, this all changed when her past insecurities and the need to be loved caught up and she blamed herself for the Galactic Federation. She needed to keep her family close after nearly losing them, she went against any authority figures from now on, and she went on her own accord. The aforementioned descriptions aren’t entire fractions of her character or something that she instantly falls back on. This is always changing and sometimes is erased as time passes. She’s always changing, and that’s why for me, she is the most overlooked character in the show due to how much depth she carries that isn’t noticed. And of course, why Summer Smith has got to be my favorite character. So much so that a ‘short’ recap ended up being over 2,300 words

[artsywriter25]

Let’s talk about Kung Fu Panda 4

Okay, so we finally got some updates on KFP4, the plot, the director and what to expect to see in the film. My reaction to this is….mix.

On one hand, I’m so happy we got something! But on the other hand, I’m just really nervous and I don’t like this deflated feeling. So I’m writing this out to share my thoughts and wanting to hear what the fandom thinks. I’ll try not to make this too long or sound like a rant, I’m going straight to the point and talk about the good and bad about KFP4.

=

So first let’s talk about the director: Mike Mitchell

……Oh boy.

Ok I’m not gonna give the guy any crap, I’m willing enough to give him a chance. Yes I know he directed Trolls, but he also directed Shrek Forever After. I looked back at that movie after The Last Wish and it’s not really that bad. It was actually sweet and serious in some parts. And that’s what I hope this director will do, have the 4th film at least serious in some parts and don’t make it too goofy or jokey where it feels awkward.    

Now on to the story and this is the best way I can summarize this from a few articles I’ve read:

“ Po is getting promoted to be the spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace, but he has to choose someone to take his place as the new Dragon Warrior. He catches a theft fox who he could see potential in their skills but they don’t get along. But Then a Chinese sorcerer known as ‘The Chameleon’, has summon Po’s past villains from the dead. Now Po and his (student?) must journey together and stop this new villain. ”  

So judging by the information that we got, it sounds like many years have passed since the third movie. Po becoming leader actually worries me because it’s probably hinting that Master Shifu may pass away and now Po has to take his responsibilities (This is just a guess so sorry Shifu fans!).  

There is also this fox character they have mention in the articles which they can’t seem to get the name right and they keep flipping their gender. First it was misspelled as Shen, then it was Chen and Zhen so I’m just gonna call them Fox for now on.

I wonder what kind of story arc will they give Fox. What’s their backstory? What kind of lessons they must learn? Does Po see himself in them or are they both different with different views? These are some questions I hope they answer. Giving Po a student to teach was a direction I theorized DreamWorks will go down and I’m glad they did. The trilogy had Po as a student, now taking the role of masterful teacher, it make sense to passed down those experiences to someone. I can really image the funny shenanigans they can get in to, along with the Furious Five. I think it would have been awesome if they each had a student too and they all come together fighting the villains with the skills they were taught. If there’s one thing I’m really worried about is the Five getting pushed aside for this new character or Fox ending up being a perfect character. Have Fox be flawed, have them be a kid we can relate and root for and something that the kids will like too.

Now let’s talk about my most favorite thing of all: THE VILLAINS!!!

OH MY GOD MY FANGIRL IS TRYING TO TAKE OVER! TAI LUNG, SHEN AND KAI ARE COMING BACK!! AND I DON’T KNOW IF THIS IS A GOOD OR BAD THING!!??

I am shock, like I never expected they go down this route. Story wise, I understand why the three shouldn’t come back as they served their purpose as villains, but no, they are bringing them all back. A actual animation studio is listening and giving the fans what they wanted??

DreamWorks must be watching their fandoms, that’s the only explanation I can think of. They must have saw all of our fanarts and fanfics and went like “Oh damn, they really love are villains…you know what, let’s bring them back.”

So how will this affect the story? I honestly don’t know, maybe Fox has to learn all body, mind, and spirit in order to help Po and the Five.

Now what I’m really surprised is they choose a chameleon to be the forth villain. I did some research this morning, and there’s not that many species that look intimidating. But if they could make a peacock threatening, I’m sure they can make a chameleon threatening too. I even looked up about sorcerers in China and I think they meant shamans. Chinese shamans are known to be wizards or spirit mediums, this could mean the Chameleon may have some connection to the spirit realm, which I hope they explored more on. I read some of this under Wikipedia, its very interesting.

=

And that’s all I have to say for Kung Fu Panda 4. I am a little worry for this film but I’m not gonna get worked up about it, I’m gonna stay positive that it will work and I’m sure it will. The only thing that could save this film is the animation. I think KFP is perfect for that hybrid spiderverse animation.  

But what do you guys think and are you still excited for the sequel?? If you wanna discuss anything about this I’m all ears. 

[gingeredmink]

what are your age hcs for tatsuki and soutarou? and misc hcs for urotsuki?

Gonna be blunt, head is a cluttered junkyard and I'm a rambler with zero self control when right conditions are met [you ask about Special Interests]. plus am tired and really out of it from work cause we had inventory and i ordered too many lunchables [oscar mayer can go to hell]. Will do best to make this coherent, or at least intelligible, but apologies if it's a bit of a mess.

Age Headcanons [If we're going for what they are in game]

Short answer: Soutarou is late 20s-early 30s, Tatsuki ranges between 15-18. [tho ofc when I draw shippy stuff it's an AU and they're both early 20s]

Long answer: Actually thought about this on and off a decent bit and could never really get more than a vague, "Somewhere around this area" for them.

Soutarou is somewhere between late 20s and early 30s. He's old enough to have experienced some shit, try to get clean and back on his feet and get some manual labor experience, and have that ripped from him. Plus some time to isolate and have those thoughts wreck havoc on his mental state.

Tatsuki on the other hand is messier and harder to really give an age to. They could be a kid escaping into fairy tales to avoid reality, or a young adult [18-20] that was forced to grow up too fast and is now suffering from dealing with their fractured identity [have thought about Debris endings occurring around Tats 18th birthday, because they have the "You're not a child, so why do you hold onto such stupid childish fantasies?" thoughts to go on top of everything else and it sorta just breaks them.]

Misc Uro Headcanons

Big Deep angsty Uro hc/kinda what shapes her core for me

You might've heard the quote, “I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that." by Robin Williams. This more or less summarizes my view of Urotsuki at the core. She may not be weighed down by what other dreamers have gone through, but she knows what it's like to be trapped in darkness and though it may not show, she is doing her best to make others happy because she doesn't want others to go through that. [side note: this is huge part of reason for shipping her with Tatsuki. Feel like they'd be the same, tho Tats is way more introverted. That angsty, "You see through the smiles or notice the little things and softly nudge me to say you understand and are there." sorta thing].

Going off that; for the longest time have hc'd that Uro has struggled with an ED and self image issues in the past and a big part of why she loves food and is okay with being herself, and is so supportive of others doing the same, is because she had to fight to get to where she is and is doing her best to make sure others can simply see the joy in life without experiencing the hell she went through.

More lighthearted/Uro's a goofball hcs

Uro is somewhat lactose intolerant but keeps getting sick because she won't. fucking. stop. eating cheese. Or questionable foods in general. "It smells alright so it's probably fine." [narrator voice: It wasn't fine] sorta things.

Probs mentioned this one before but eh, Uro and Sou are one of few dreamers with a drivers license, and Uro's driving doesn't exactly leave most passengers feeling safe so Sou is constantly stepping in when she offers people a ride. The two bicker at each other like an old couple a surprisingly good bit when eyes aren't on them. This paired with them both being older and able to get drunk makes for quite a scene. [Sabi's laughing, Tats is on the floor trying and failing to hide it.]

She did have a dedicated dream diary at some point, but during a depressive period would start to fill and decorate it with random stuff [silly doodles, poems, stickers , ect], and it's now more like a thought scrapbook or therapeutic outlet for her. Pages that are just her jotting down memories that make her happy have little sticky note bookmarks so she can flip through them when feeling down.

Her head is a mess and all over the place, and her counting sheep is like a ritual she semi-depends on to fall asleep since it gets her to focus on one thing and relax [its a sorta behavioral dependency that if she was somehow barred from doing, she'd probs stress out and not be able to sleep.]

Hope you enjoyed or were at least satisfied with rambling anon ◠⸜⸝◠~

[proton-wobbler]

Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata)

There are (currently) four subspecies within Setophaga coronata:

Myrtle Warbler (S.c. coronata)

Audubon's Warbler (S.c. auduboni)

Black-fronted Warbler (S.c. nigrifrons)

Goldman's Warbler (S.c. goldmani)

Our story (my rambling) begins with Myrtle and Audubon's Warblers being described as separate species, until a study in 1973 found evidence that the two routinely hybridized within a small strip of Western Canada. The Biological Species Concept* defines a species as any members of a population which can interbreed and create fertile offspring, and with the limited genetic evidence of the time, this concept was used to lump Myrtle and Audubon's into the Yellow-rumped Warbler. (*keep in mind there are many ways to define a species, so this single concept isnt a "be all, end all" argument)

This hybrid zone, however, is only 80 miles across, and has been shown to be stable over the past 50 years, suggesting the hybrids may not be as viable as previously thought. This, coupled with a new and overwhelming comparison between the birds' genomes, suggests that Myrtle and Audubon's Warblers are indeed separate species.

So the story goes back even further, because this story is really about bird populations and not our human ability to categorize them. The most likely situation is that the Myrtle Warbler was separated from the other three forms of the species during the Pleistocene glaciation, over the last million years or so. This pattern can also be seen in other "paired" species from East to West, such as Baltimore and Bullock's Orioles, or Rose-breasted and Black-headed Grosbeaks. The glaciers cut off the breeding population of Myrtle Warblers, and only after their receding could they move West to meet in the middle again.

In an interesting twist, the leading idea is that Audubon's Warbler is not only a separate species, but is actually a hybrid species which arose from Myrtle meeting the Black-fronted Warbler once it expanded back West. This hypothesis is supported by mitochondrial DNA of a sedentary population of Audubon's being very similar to Black-fronted, rather than to Myrtle Warblers. There needs to be more study into the genomics of these birds to confirm whether or not Audubon's would stand as it's own species, or if it and Black-fronted are more closely related.

Off to the side of all this is Goldman's Warbler, which makes sense when you take a look at the breeding range of these warblers. Black-fronted and Goldman's Warbler are both non-migratory birds, and the population of Goldman's Warbler is located almost entirely in Guatemala, with possible populations to the west in Chiapas, Mexico. In the same genomics study above, Goldman's Warbler stood out as unique when compared to both Myrtle and Audubon's DNA.

To sum this up: more study is needed between Myrtle, Audubon's, and Black-fronted to confirm previous findings, but a three-way species split from this single species seems to be supported. The International Ornithological Congress (IOS) has already done so, splitting Yellow-rumped Warbler into Myrtle, Audubon's (with Black-fronted as a subspecies), and Goldman's Warbler.

While we're on the topic- hybridization between Setophaga warblers is not unheard of, and Yellow-rumped Warbler has multiple documented hybrids in the Macaulay library. I won't post all the pictures, but the best are linked as follows: Cape May, Magnolia, Palm, Yellow-throated, Grace's, Townsend's, Hermit, Black-throated Green). Other than it's own species-complex, Yellow-rumps are most closely related to Yellow-throated and Bahama Warbler.

Sources Below

Wikipedia (for ease of summarization)

Birds of the World (for the more in-depth story)

Barry the Birder (for the compiled image of all four birds, and for talking about the All About Birds article so I could find and link that)

All About Birds (for the range-pic, and for summarizing the study from The Auk- way better than I did, I may add. Go read their article if this intrigued you.)

Papers cited in Birds of the World:

[on 'lumping' YRWA] Eisenmann, E. (1973). Thirty-second supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union check-list of North American birds. Auk 90: 411–419.

[on the hybrid zone] Hubbard, J. P. (1969). The relationships and evolution of the Dendroica coronata complex. Auk 86:393-432.

[hybrid zone] Barrowclough, G. F. (1980). Genetic and phenotypic differentiation in a wood warbler (genus Dendroica) hybrid zone. Auk 97:655-668.

[hybrid zone] Brelsford, A., and D. E. Irwin (2009). Incipient speciation despite little assortative mating: the Yellow-rumped Warbler hybrid zone. Evolution 63:3050-3060

[on mtDNA between auduboni and nigrifrons] Milá, B., Toews, D.P.L., Smith, T.B. and Wayne, R.K. (2011). A cryptic contact zone between divergent mitochondrial DNA lineages in southwestern North America supports past introgressive hybridization in the yellow-rumped warbler complex (Aves: Dendroica coronata). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 103: 696–706.

[on the 'hybrid origin' of auduboni] Brelsford, A., Milá, B. and Irwin, D.E. (2011). Hybrid origin of Audubon’s Warbler. Molecular Ecology. 20(11): 2380–2389.

[on 'splitting' YRWA] Toews, D.P.L., Brelsford, A., Grossen, C., Milá, B. and Irwin, D.E. (2016). Genomic variation across the Yellow-rumped Warbler species complex. Auk. 133(4): 698–717.