#uhhh meta i guess?

[consultingjedi]

okay so let's talk about the animation choices in tristamp ep 6 and by talk i mean i will ramble on about how good this is under the cut

so first of all the switch from 3d to 2d specifically and only for wolfwood's memories. the fact that they feel less real to him, that the present is 3d and the veil of nostalgia is drawn so thickly over his childhood in the orphanage that it's not just 2d but a wholly different art style.

how the switch back to 3d happens during the experimentation by the eye of michael, when he's science-fuckery-ed into growing up (physically, initially, but also changing how he views the world and interacts with it). wolfwood leaves himself behind at the orphanage. the world outside is terrible and yet colors are more saturated (with blood and experience and a harshness that worms itself into the way he views the world).

the way they chose (whether it was just a creative choice or motivated by other constraints) not to have the majority of wolfwood and livio's interactions voiced. the way the dialogue interstitials are not just evoking a silent film but a silent western.

how, regardless how much chronological time has passed, wolfwood has paged through these memories over and over and over to the point that they're tattered. but they're still what keep him going, as far away as he may feel from the kid he once was.

[starflungwaddledee]

Hear me out…Meta Knight and Starstruck

✧˖°.✧ gravity ✧˖°.✧ ɡravɪti (noun) 1. the force that attracts a body towards the centre of the earth or towards any other physical body having mass 2. the degree of intensity of gravity, measured by acceleration 3. extreme importance; seriousness 4. solemnity of manner

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

cant even begin to describe how much The Good Place's thesis on how to be a good person changed how i view redemption arcs

like it's not about "is this character good enough to deserve redemption or are they too bad to get redeemed" it's about "is this character willing to accept that their behavior is harmful, to make amends for their past behavior if at all possible, and to try and become a better person?"

sometimes for the Drama it's satisfying or cathartic to see a character who's done shitty things get to have a big Sacrifice Moment where they save the day and gets to be remembered as a hero, but that's not actually a good redemption arc. being a good person is not a single task that you can check off once you've finished all the steps, and neither is redemption in fiction. there's never really a threshold of "this character is Good Now!" there's the character learning how to be better and trying earnestly to be better even when they're not immediately rewarded for it

that's why zuko's redemption arc (everyone's favorite, the Gold Standard of redemption arcs) works so well. learning that his worldview was wrong was an incredibly difficult journey for him, and even when he knew he had several missteps along the way. but making mistakes didn't prevent him from being redeemed! and it's not like all the characters unanimously agreed that zuko was good now. the choices zuko made that lead to his redemption all made his life harder, but he knew they were the right choices and he made them anyway

and it's why that one wizard teacher's "redemption arc" (if you can even call a sudden infodump of flashbacks an arc) in that one children's series fell flat: at no point was Alan Rickman's character trying to be better. at no point did he realize or care that his behavior was harmful. we learn at the very end that he was working against the main villain the whole time, but that doesn't explain or excuse how much of a prick to children he was or his made-up fantasy racism or anything.

[quantumshade]

one of my fav things about wwdits is how genre aware it is. not just using vampire lore for laughs, which they do do flawlessly, but also the characters, especially guillermo, seem to know. part of that is the mockumentary structure, of course, which allows for the talking heads that show the audience more of the characters’ thoughts and motivations, but i think it’s more than that.

guillermo being so frustrated with how things never really change, how the cliffhanger of s3 never really seemed to change ANYTHING in the long term, shows an awareness of being in a formulaic sitcom. guillermo himself is an incredibly driven and ambitious character, so of course he’s gonna be unhappy stuck in that loop. it’s almost like if lisa simpson realized she’s been in second grade for thirty years. it’s fascinating.

i’ve seen some fans complaining that nothing seemed to matter, and while i understand that frustration as a viewer, I think it’s intentional. it’s an interrogation of both the sitcom structure, where nothing ever develops long term, and of what it means to be a vampire—immortal, undying, unchanging. the vampires, ESPECIALLY nandor, are stuck in these awful habits of how they treat themselves and others. of course nandor isn’t that upset about his marriage failing. now he’s just back to doing what he was for the last 800 years—where he’s comfortable and unchallenged. it’s easy for him to not care, to sit and read and ignore the world for decades at a time.

i think—or at least i hope—that next season will really come to challenge that. nothing is going to change, unless guillermo himself takes drastic action and changes it. i think he’s gonna force the vampires to confront their apathy, in one way or another.

[formereldestdaughter]

ok wait i need to hear more of your thoughts on peeta owning a bakery....

This is one of those rare times where I’m pretty sure this anon isn’t someone I know personally bc I’ve subjected anyone who will listen to my rant about the Peeta Bakery Headcanon. Anyway, you’re gonna regret asking this anon bc there are fucking Layers here.

I know this is probably a controversial take based on the number of fics where I’ve seen it, but I simply do not think that Peeta would open a commercial bakery after Mockingjay!! Like on a metatextual level, I don’t think it really fits with the point of the ending of the series. It actually sort of fascinates me that it’s just such a common headcanon because the ending of Mockingjay is exceedingly vague. I think that vagueness invites us, as readers, to imagine a better world post-revolution. A world where Katniss would feel confident that her children would be safe from injustice, where she’d feel confident that her children would never know want the way she did as a child. A just world. A kinder world. Can a capitalist society ever be just? Is a capitalist society where a disabled teenager has no other means to subsist himself (or feels like there’s no other way he can be a contributing member of his community) really the post-revolution world we dream of? Is that really the best we can imagine?

(This got so insanely long I’m adding a read more lmao)

I get that showing a better world is not always the point of post-mockingjay headcanons/fics. Like there are plenty of really great post-mockingjay fics I’ve seen where, yeah, part of the fic is that society like ISN’T all that different or all that much better. I’ve seen that really well done! Hell, I’ve written them myself! It’s easy to imagine how a lot of aspects of society would not get an overhaul, a lot of the same structural inequalities would continue to exist. One headcanon that really stuck with me (I can’t remember which fic it was from) was that Peeta sells basically mail order baked goods to people on the Capitol, sending them iced cakes and pastries by train, because there are still people who were “fans” of theirs during the Games. And idk this doesn’t actually have much to do with my point lol but I liked it because it’s kind of fucked up and like! Yeah! It makes sense! If he needed money that would be a good way to make it! War often makes people rich, often for horrible reasons, and often it’s people who already have capital in the first place.

Anyway, more about the hypothetical bakery because alright. I bring up the fact that “yeah society not being all that different post-revolution and still being an unjust capitalist hellscape” could be a reason why Peeta re-opens a bakery because that’s actually never the types of fics where I see the bakery headcanon. Fics where Peeta opens a bakery are usually trying to make the exact opposite point. Like. Things are getting better, now he can open a bakery! Look at how much better the world is now, plus he’s got a bakery! Peeta is healing, that’s why he can open a bakery now! And I am so, so sorry to inform everyone who’s never had the grave misfortune of owning a family business, but there is truly nothing further from the truth lmao. Like just putting aside the immense amount of emotional baggage that Peeta has about his family, running a small business is an insane amount of work in any context and being a baker especially is physically grueling and involves early hours (and long hours) that aren’t really the best fit with the multiple ways that Peeta is disabled now. (I could go into this more because I have a lot of thoughts. But I will spare you.). I also think it’s seen throughout the books that Peeta is someone who needs time to pursue creative outlets to process his feelings and someone who values leisure and values quality time with his loved ones. And having grown up in his family’s bakery, I think he’d understand the reality that running a bakery wouldn’t leave much space of those pursuits and wouldn’t leave much space for him to have the things that keep him healthy and stable. I think he’d know that the way he is now— after two Games and the war and unspeakable torture at the hands of a dictator—isn’t compatible with the lifestyle necessary for running a commercial bakery.

And tbh with that in mind, I don’t think he’d push himself to re-open a business (one that would be a constant reminder of his dead family and his complicated relationships with them that got no closure) that would require him to sacrifice his physical and emotional well-being. Like I think he might look into the possibility, I think he might even start trying to open a bakery out of a sense of obligation/duty, maybe harboring some idea that this is who he was supposed to be, who he would've been without the Games, or that it’s this last piece of his family that can live on, or that it’s this last connection to his family so he can’t let it die too. But ultimately, I think any attempt to open a bakery wouldn’t get very far. Maybe he'd start wading into the logistical nightmare that is small business ownership and realize it's not for him (because it's probably also true that as much as him and his brothers were involved in the business, there's almost certainly parts they weren't involved with and didn't see, i.e., filing taxes). Or maybe looking into opening a bakery— how triggering it is, the stress of it— causes a downward spiral. Maybe he hates how much he's worrying everyone by unraveling. Maybe having a breakdown from the stress of just trying to open a bakery makes him realize, yeah, maybe in another life he would have ran his family’s bakery but the way he is now just doesn’t work with running a bakery, not without great sacrifices he's not willing to make. I just can’t see a bakery coming to fruition.

I know a lot of fics include Peeta deciding to reopen a bakery as a big step in his healing or include him rebuilding a bakery as part of his healing process but honestly, I think the opposite would be more true: I think Peeta either trying/failing to open a bakery or ultimately deciding not to open a bakery would be hugely healing for him. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way he is now as a person, his new limitations but also his strengths. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way his life his now and accepting that he likes his life the way it is, that he’s satisfied with his life without needing to own a bakery. I think it would be an important part of him coming to terms with the loss of his family. I think he knows he can never have things back as they were and I don’t think he would try to recreate them, especially because his family’s legacy isn’t a business. I think he’s emotionally intelligent enough and self reflective enough to realize that what mattered to him about the bakery— taking care of others by feeding them, being integrated into his community and being actively involved in it, brightening people’s days with delightful things whether that’s beautiful cakes or hearty food or delicious treats— and the things he learned from his family through the bakery, are things that he can carry on in other meaningful ways.

(Do you regret sending this ask yet, anon? Because if not, you will soon. I’m not done yet. There’s more.)

I wasn’t really sure where to put this next part in what is rapidly becoming an essay because it sort of combines the points about like “what do we imagine a post-mockingjay society to look like” with the practical difficulties of starting this bakery but here’s another thing: do people really think that the Mellarks owned the land the bakery was on?? Like, sure, the merchants are the petit bourgeois of Twelve but I still don’t imagine they really own anything. In a society where houses are assigned to people upon marriage, where property ownership and capital are so closely interconnected with citizenship (as shown by the Plinths who, by having immense capital, are able to leave their District and become citizens of the Capitol) do people really think the Mellarks would be allowed to own the land their bakery is on?? I always imagined it sort of like a tenant farming situation: the Capitol gives them the raw materials for the bakery and in return the bakery give them some absurdly high portion of their profits, or the Capitol sells them a year’s supply of raw materials at a premium on credit and at the end of the year the Mellarks have to use the money they made with those materials to pay it back, except it’s never enough to turn a profit so they always have to buy next year’s materials on credit and the cycle continues.

We (understandably) get a really skewed view of the merchant class through Katniss’s perspective so I can see why people come to the conclusion that his family owned the property and, as the last surviving member, he would’ve inherited it. I’ve seen the inheritance thing in fics a lot or a hand wavey “well Twelve was decimated to no one owns anything anymore so it can be his” or even like an almost sort of reparations type situation where he’s entitled to the land as a surviving refugee of Twelve. But I don’t know. I guess I don’t think it fits with everything else we know about Panem that the Mellarks would’ve owned that land and I think the question of whether the government would’ve let him take ownership of the land post-revolution brings up a lot of issues about the structure of society post-Mockingjay that I find more interesting to explore in other ways, especially when, from an emotional perspective, 1) I find the idea of Peeta not opening a bakery more compelling and 2) I don’t think it really fits his character arc by the end of Mockingjay to reopen a bakery, as I went on about at length above lol.

On the flip side: literally who cares!! Do whatever you want!! Headcanon whatever you want!! I get why people go for the bakery!! It’s fun, it’s wholesome, it’s a built in bakery AU that isn’t even an AU. It doesn’t matter if it’s practical or realistic!! It doesn’t need to be practical or realistic!! It’s fanfic of a dystopian YA series!! My unfortunate affliction is that I grew up in a family that owned a restaurant and that I have multiple degrees in the social sciences so I can’t see the bakery without being like “What about the overheard? What about the start up costs? Who’s spending long nights balancing the books? Is Peeta covering shifts when an employee calls in sick? Is Peeta the sole person working there until the bakery is open long enough (often a year or more) to start turning a profit? How does that sleep schedule work with his nightmares? How does that work with Katniss’s nightmares? What happens when he has an episode and suddenly needs to take the day off before he has any employees? Does the bakery just remain closed for the day? Can the profit margins withstand regular unexpected closures? Can the supplies withstand regular unexpected closures?” And if the answer is “Elliott none of those things matter he’s not doing the bakery because he needs the money but because he wants to”, then my question is why does he want to? Does he not get the same sort of satisfaction out of feeding his loved ones? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would rather give away baked goods than sell them?? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would prefer to make cakes for people’s special occasions upon and then when they insist on paying him for it, he only lets them “pay for the ingredients” which actually cost significantly more than he says they did??

So yeah my point is that it’s a matter of personal taste! It doesn’t fit the way I see the series but that doesn’t mean it’s like wrong, I’m not an authority on Peeta lmao.

It’s also a matter of personal taste in the sense that I find the themes that most resonate with me at the end of Mockingjay (and the end of Peeta’s arc specifically) more interesting to explore in other ways. Grief, living with loss, relearning yourself, finding hope, figuring out your place in a dramatically different world when you don’t even know who you are anymore, healing, building a new life after such complete and total destruction of your old life— those are all things I find compelling about the end of Mockingjay but for me the bakery isn’t the most compelling way to explore them.

Not to say I find the concept of the bakery totally uninteresting. I have this fic about Johanna that I’ll probably never finish where the point sort of is that, yeah, her life really isn’t all that much better after the war. It’s been years at this point and she’s still miserable and she doesn’t know how to be a person but by the end she’s trying to figure it out. And towards the end, Peeta tells her that he’s spent years sort of passively, half-heartedly trying to figure out how to inherit the land his family’s bakery was on, only to find out it was never theirs in the first place. They’d been renting it the whole time and he’d never even known as a kid. So he sort of passively, half-heartedly went on another wild goose chase to find the owner and now, finally, after years of writing to various government agencies and being sent in circles and things being barely functional, he’s managed to track down the owner. Now it’s owned by the daughter of the man who owned it when he was a kid because the original owner (who was likely up to some sketchy war crime shit) died during the war and she inherited it (the irony…). He got in contact with her and asked how much it would take for her to sell it and she told him she’s not interested in selling but in light of the situation, in light of the fact that he’d have to build a new building in order to operate a bakery, that she’d cut him a deal— she’d only require 50% of the bakery’s profits as rent instead of the 80% his family used to pay. And of course Johanna is outraged, that’s not right, the owner shouldn’t be allowed to do that, they should do something about it, they should fight back. And Peeta is like. Not interested. He was actually sort of relieved that opening wasn’t very feasible. Getting the answer was a lightbulb moment where he saw that over the years of trying to look into this, he’s built a life that he likes— one where he’s stable, where his loved ones are stable, where he’s cared for and can care for others— and he doesn’t really want to change it drastically by opening a bakery anyway. He just needed an answer, one way or another, before he could get some closure and move on. (And the point of the conversation is Johanna is having her own lightbulb moment that it’s okay to move on, it’s okay to change, it’s not a betrayal of the people and things she’s lost but that’s not my point here!!).

But anyway. That’s obviously not about running the bakery— it’s about the choice to not run one.

Anyway!! Anyway… are you satisfied anon? Is this what you wanted?

Lastly, here is my most important qualm with the bakery headcanon: must Peeta be gainfully employed? Is it not enough for him to be Katniss’s boytoy? Can’t he just paint and garden and bake and hang out with his girlfriend all day? Is that really too much to ask?

[sapphia]

i hope the life series continues for a long time. the fact that inter-series relationships are really starting to affect the gameplay in a meaningful way, that people are starting to get reputations. martyn is king backstabber cleo says even before he kills scott and impulse in the final in the ultimate betrayal. scott and skizz and cleo and plenty more have never betrayed people, or don't seem keen to betray especially close allies, and especially in recent series. grian and scar and jimmy are all people of wavering loyalties. whatever it is that bdubz and etho have that everyone is just so aware of and is 100% just incorporated into all roleplay now it seems. that joel and pearl are insane but are also insanely loyal to their close allies. scott's conflicting reputation as the most lethal and skilled player but who is also just very nice and trusting. just... whatever it is that scar has. not to mention the wide the variety of relationships that previous pairs and allies have that now makes things so interesting and complex. the inter-relationships between teams was so good in limited life, especially when, like in this series, those teams can be so loyal to each other but have conflicting loyalties outside of themselves.

i don't think this history is something you can get away from in player's minds as we get further into the series and i hope we get to see it play out even more

[moongothic]

My only opinion on OPLA is that if they ever get to Impel Down they should get a trans man to play Boy Mode Ivankov and a trans woman to play Girl Mode Ivankov send tweet

[deafeninggardenerpanda]

Do you have any GSA ships? And are any of them canon in your headcannons

*evil laughing* gsa rarepair shipping more like my own handcrafted pandoras box. thank you anon for giving me an excuse to be insane on main 😍😍😍 i have so many thoughts on these stupid orbs

[humming-fly]

using the battle orbs as a shameless excuse to sketch over stock photos of bird and bat wings cause it’s fun 

this actually started out with me wanting to figure out what meta knight’s wingspan was in forgotten land since we actually get nice 3d refs of him gliding around (since his neutral sprites in all the other games drastically shrink his wings presumably for hitbox/visibility reasons)

anyways after taking some screenshots seems like at most his wings are just under 4x his body length, which is actually a lot bigger than i would’ve guessed. Pretty sure i still oversized them in the sketches though lol 

[tomwambsgans]

greg & his value being a pathological observer/having information

the interesting thing to me is, as far as i can tell greg doesn't set out to actually create a chain of events and least of all to fuck people over. the exceptions are in s4 where he's learned the real value in what he has, but before then i think greg was in fact often blinded to the notion that anything even will happen other than to himself. he just sets out to exchange "juicy info" for whatever another person will give him. (or to explicitly shut his mouth and not give a particular person information, aka blackmail. tom gives him an office without hesitation, logan tells him to give him a price, and shiv mistakenly offers nothing but a punishment and thus loses. anyway,) furthermore half the time that greg delivers information that even gets him the thing he wants, that info could've easily been gotten from another source anyway. he's never the only one to know. shiv was also aware of the press conference, and the cruises scandal leaked utterly independently of the papers (which proved to not even hold anything substantial anyway), and we know tons of other people knew that matsson was interviewing other ceos bc kendall calls around to confirm. it's really kinda pure luck that greg just happens to be the first one to alert interested parties.

[cereal-oak]

Is "Meta" Meta Knight's actual name or just like his pseudonym? Like- Would some of yall think his real name could be something totally out of place like "Alexander the 2nd" as an example?

[consultingjedi]

the sleep no more excerpt dropped, and i… have a lot of thoughts. too many thoughts. nearly two thousand words of thoughts under the cut (though half of those are quotes).

!!! huge spoilers for all of the october daye series !!!

(some details referenced from the wiki. thank you wiki contributors, you're amazing.)

> The two Moving Days, when the least among us—those ranked even lower than changelings like myself—are free to pack up their lives and move along to their next home.

whee, starting off immediately fucked up. the moving day description is very "the exception that proves the rule" – apparently fae can only leave at this time.

also, no doubt that changelings' lots are even worse now than they were before.

> Oberon himself has granted his blessing

has he? has he, titania? is he even around, by choice or otherwise?

> the levels of hospitality required by Oberon’s decree and not a crumb or comment more

color me unsurprised that amandine holds to the mere letter of the law and no more.

> I felt shamefully as if I held some actual station in our house.

toby fought so hard for recognition. this is a triple punch of her no longer having that recognition, still wanting that, not feeling that she deserves it.

> one of the children glanced back over her shoulder with glossy eyes and a quivering lip, making me wonder whether they had first sought sanctuary in my uncle’s halls. Fools.

well, sylvester (or some… facsimile of him) is probably around and acting terribly. rest in (hopefully temporary) peace, sylvester's character development. i wonder how much of this is luna, though.

> The bread was rich with herbs he had grown himself, and I sometimes suspected he enchanted it in some small way, to give petitioners luck on the journey yet ahead of them.

simon <3 also the back door = simon's space, front door = amandine's space is… interesting.

> removed changeling children from the household they were born to serve was not a violation of the rules, but it was unseemly at the very least, and unwise by any measure.

i will yell about this more later but. sounds bad!

> the comforting scent of smoke and roses.

on the one hand: comfort in august (and maybe simon's) magic scents! on the other hand. roses, mm, mixed connotations those have had.

> The word was devoid of context in my mind, and I opened my eyes, blinking into the dimness. What was a lawn?

and here we have the first (maybe only) evidence of leak through from the… non-titania world, whatever that may be. at the very least toby knows some things she shouldn't.

> thank Oberon and his beautiful bride

bride? singular? titania what are you doing…

> There is no shame in standing by the rules of your house.

honestly this feels like the most out of character thing for toby yet. toby, breaker of rules and shirker of authority, expressing obedience? oof.

> My blood and magic clearly felt the same, for they had never been inclined to illusions, however hard I struggled to master and call them forth. Nothing in me wished to lie.

this is… a lot. does toby know she's dochas sidhe, not daoine? if she does, does she know what that means for her in terms of magical strengths and abilities?? and "nothing in me wished to lie" – hahahah, except for the huge lie of her entire fake life that titania has forced upon her.

> The kitchen is and has always been Father’s domain. [...] I have always felt most comfortable in the kitchen and the kitchen garden.

simon and toby <3 <3 <3

> I am better left behind the scenes, protected and anonymous. Father sees that need in me, and has always done his best to nurture it.

whiplash! ouch, terribly, no good, very bad. i wonder how much of this on simon's part is an attempt to protect toby-the-changeling from the awfulness of titania's faerie, and how much of it is the changelings-as-servants mindset from that very same… (there is some interesting similarity here of toby not really enjoying the limelight/public speaking/etc, but she's no shrinking violet by any means.)

> A direct descendant of Melia, then, most likely, only two generations removed from Maeve’s dishonor.

i have many questions. is this a reference to a specific act on maeve's part or something else? a real action twisted into something else by titania or something made up entirely?

> The children of the Firstborn are meant to know better, to be better as an example for all of Faerie.

here, i wonder how much of this is amandine versus how much of it is titania.

> neither of which I was authorized to give

the difference between toby in her own home providing shelter to so many, and here in amandine's tower not having any autonomy… ow.

> It would have pained me to lie to them. I would have done it anyway, of course. I knew my duty almost as well as I knew my place.

no comment. just… fucked up.

> We dwell here, between demesnes, because [amandine] has no desire to guide or guard a holding, only to live in peace with her family and be left alone.

well, that doesn't seem like it's changed. though obviously amandine's idea of peace doesn't usually jive well with anyone else's happiness.

> Mother had taught me they were the best Maeve could do in imitating her better sister, and should be pitied but never trusted.

ah, the usual Yikes(™).

> “Golden Shore,” said Maia. “We have heard that such as we can be welcome there.” [...] it was the best any changeling born without a promised place could hope for.

interestingly, golden shore seems to be approximately equivalent to earlier canon. maybe worse in reputation, but they did take in changelings and supply food. 

> As [amandine] also refused to allow any member of her family to shop in mortal lands, we had to purchase our eggs from Golden Shore

first, wow amandine you controlling asshole. second, i bet this extends not just to shopping but to leaving the summerlands entirely. makes me wonder if titania is primarily exerting control over the summerlands and/or the kingdom of the mists, but not the rest of faerie? even for one of the Three, this must be quite an exertion of power (though it likely depends on the physicality + how many people are caught up in it, of course).

> had not Maeve so cruelly cut us off from the deeper lands of Faerie.

ahaha but oberon did that, not maeve. perhaps this is the 'dishonor' referred to earlier.

> the [changeling] children they claim rarely last a handful of seasons. They break.

fuuuuuucked up. 

> “Your kindness is noted, and will be remembered,”

toby's still toby, even after it all 😭

> The lives of changelings were short and brutal, better than humans only because they could see the glories of Faerie, worth less than both humans and fae in every other possible way.

did i say fucked up? well. fucked up. and the degree to which toby has internalized this is extra fucked up.

> Who was I, orchestrated, wanted, and beloved, to pretend at understanding what they suffered? [...] If Mother tired of me and cast me out before August was ready to establish a household of her own, I had little doubt that I wouldn’t survive the year. [...] Mother has made sure I knew that well and truly.

toby, the fact that you have a legitimate concern about this directly contradicts what you just said. subconsciously she knows that amandine doesn't love her. (also, the later offer from the hamadryad for toby to leave with them is just. even strangers can see there's a fucked up dynamic here.)

> I had never lived a day outside this tower, and Oberon willing, I never would.

hahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahaha (sarcastic). again, though, really reinforcing (via steel chair to the face) how much this is not our toby.

> My mother, Amandine, is daughter to Oberon himself, and my father, Count Torquill, keeps no noble Court because he is sworn alchemist to the Rose of Winter

first, interesting that amandine is being open about her firstborn status now. second, simon no :((((((((. third, oh fuck me sideways evening may be awake. (though, interestingly, if this is a dream world, she may still be more 'real' than other folks if she's asleep but sharing the dream-reality.) (also, 'rose of winter' – evening may also be open about her firstborn status? presumably because titania is around to favor her daughter.)

> I was simply a girl who knew her place, who was content where she was, who understood her limitations.

[screams]

> More tired than I should have been after such a brief encounter

i wonder how much of this is emotional, versus how much might be toby being tired from pregnancy?

> My name, as I have now stated twice, is October. That is all.

[SCREAMS LOUDER] did i say steel chair? sorry, i meant a wrecking ball. toby is always, always, always introduced as october daye, the knight of lost words. often with additional titles. she is never just october.

> My mother’s trick is in changing the balance of someone’s blood.

so toby knows what her mother can do, but does she know what she herself is capable of? i bet not, if amandine is trying to keep her contained.

> they rendered our social customs unstable and unsustainable, for any changeling child could get their hands upon one such and remake themselves in Titania’s image without intervention or consent.

in titania's image, hmm? also interesting, this is just like the early rhetoric around hope chests as being items of legend, unavailable to modern fae.

> Her services are but one of the many reasons changelings are better off within the Court system rather than hiding in hovels with parents who should have known better than to bear them without.

so much internalized hatred for changelings! also, amandine openly using her power in addition to being known as firstborn – doubly wild.

> I will never marry, never have a household or children of my own.

haha. hahahahahhaha. but. also. toby, i weep. she's going to be so fucking confused.

> Each noble house and each among the Firstborn is asked to do their duty, to provide a pair of hands to press into the service of greater Faerie.

this is both uhhh kind of gross and so extremely titania-esque. this hatred of changelings as lesser and yet also 'ready made servants.' forcing everyone to have kids. yikes.

> whose daughter, January, still dwelt in her father’s halls in Briarholme.

interesting, given we know jan's dad is dead and has been for almost a century. perhaps this means that january inherited the place, or that in this version of faerie her dad is… someone else?

> A pureblood could no more offer insult to a changeling than a cat could look at a king

as pointed out by many on the discord server… a cat can look at a king. but, apparently, not in titania's faerie.

> strong against iron, which would be the preferred means of disciplining an unruly commoner who somehow offended a noble.

… if i recall correctly, iron exposure is considered torture normally? and now it's used as common discipline? fucked up!

> If August left without me, my death would be the likely outcome.

hmm. yikes! i would like to think that simon and august would not let that happen, but between titania and amandine… to reiterate: yikes.

> I slumped into one of the uncomfortable couches Mother insisted were appropriate for the sitting room

it amuses me that amandine has shit taste in interior decorating.

> Something was terribly wrong, if Faerie’s children were so afraid of their own homes, their own places. I frowned to myself, a private expression. Such thoughts were unbefitting. 

more cracks in the wall! toby cares, and toby knows this is fucked up, even if both her conditioning and her conscious mind are trying to tell her otherwise.

> Nothing was wrong. Nothing could be wrong, not in Titania’s Faerie. [...] To fail her was to fail Faerie.

[screams EXTREMELY loudly] this is going to go so well (dripping sarcasm).

closing thoughts: toby is in quite a bad place, but she's still herself underneath it all, and there are already some cracks showing. amandine's situation may be different but her attitude towards toby and the rest of her family clearly hasn't changed from treating them as playthings that she owns. titania seems to be... as fucked up as expected.

honestly i can't wait for this book i am so excited to see how this all catches on fire.

[greasydumbfuck]

not frank but i drew colorpicking refs for the other sonas. one day theyll get an actual nice page with songs assigned and stuff

[wolfwrathinshleepsclothing]

7 Days Of MetaJecra

Day 3: Fantasy

(I said I'd be making this it's own thing by day 3)

[robbiethompsonlongcon]

so does anybody else see carlos a bit as like deans... ideal self? or self insert? lil bit like deans mary sue (honorific)? like how dean would like to be, or how he wants to perceive himself? or at least the version of dean we perceive together as a fandom's ideal self? not literally, i don't think dean is creating the characters or making the story up diagetically as the New Chuck or anything, but in that way the OG show sometimes does metatextual parallels between two characters who otherwise have no control over the narrative.

carlos is.. beloved by all. disaster bisexual. gender!! so much gender!! genderweird, genderfastandloose, genderplayful. unbound by gender roles entirely. a wonderful tapestry of masculine, feminine, both and neither. truly knows who he is, and is comfortable with that identity. celebratory of it, even! hes got it, hes gonna flaunt it. tastefully slutty. constant quips. sassy as fuck. so charismatic it hurts. talented performer. incredible hunter. frequently pokes at his beloved, sibling-type lorenerd hunting partner about her books. selfless and loving as thee central personality trait, buried under a layer of protective bravado. but also very aware he is very pretty and very talented. competent!!! but knows his strengths, and plays to them. nurturing. free and wild and a little reckless, a little superficial but never in truly harmful ways. if carlos goes or stays, it's because he wants to, he decided for himself, not because anyone told him to. willing to express boundaries. getting therapy. not afraid of feelings. do no harm take no shit. and just. so, so, SO very cool. in every way. even the "nerdy" things about him are cool. he's flawed, imperfect, but that's kinda what makes him ideal. he's just so.. real.

plus, john actively loves him, and loves him for who he is. john leans on him for support, sometimes even takes his advice. and he never tells carlos who to be or how to act. john and carlos are friends, they're FAMILY. john never tries to make carlos more like himself, at least he hasn't so far. carlos can be as silly, as emotional, as nonconforming, as distractable as he wants and john, at worst, breezes past it. lets him be himself. oftentimes john just supports him. john RESPECTS him. sees him as a worthwhile and complete individual, a valuable member of the team. they're like brothers. and why wouldn't dean want to be like brothers with his dad? it's not weird for him, he's already something of a dad to his brother. the boundaries between brothers and fathers and sons are already blurred for dean, and have been since he was four years old. and his relationship with bobby is more fluid than fatherfigure and son, too. bobby is father figure, uncle, coworker, mentor/teacher, childhood friend, war buddy and co-conspirator. in fact, none of deans relationship roles are so clear cut. and for all his complicated feelings about john, and all his traumas.. at his core he really does want johns respect and affection. marys, too, to be fair. carlos has both.

and then there's the story line in 1x08. carlos was given a Mark that forces him to kill, took the Mark in order to stop a dangerous and malicious entity from wanton murder before knowing the full terms and ramifications. the whole team researched the Mark and tried to find ways to get rid of the curse. but when push came to shove, they failed. the entity behind the curse was a lot more powerful than they thought. so carlos's options were either: to do what the Mark and the entity wanted and choose a victim's life to take, satisfying the conditions of the Mark and hope the entity didnt move the goalposts. or to say, nah. the life i choose to take is my own. and for once, that was the right answer!! carlos saved the day and defeated the enemy not by fighting, not by the deaths loved ones or innocents, not by cutting losses or solving for x, but by refusing to play, by sacrificing himself. and just being willing to was enough, he didn't have to actually die. carlos won. by giving up. nobody died because of carlos' decision to take on the burden from jericho, nor his decision to turn it inward. when carlos called the shots, everybody lived.

every time dean tries that, it backfires spectacularly, and usually winds up getting just as many people hurt or killed as the callous and selfish option would have. dean wants to be good and selfless so badly that he often rushes straight to self sacrifice. hes like plan a) ask nicely whoops i forgot to be nice. well that failed OK PLAN B) martyrdom. it's like, every time dean is faced with the trolley problem, his first answer is to throw himself in front of the trolley. as though he thinks the trolley is going to be satisfied and just disappear. or at least this way he won't have to see what happens next.

in carlos' situation, that was the LAST resort, not one of the first. they really were in a kill-or-be-killed, 11th hour hailmary situation. they tried everything else. the trolley was upon them. and carlos chose to die, not out of a wanton desire to prove his worth/worthlessness or martyr himself, but because they DID try every other thing they could first. it was a last resort! carlos DID NOT WANT to die, he wanted to save everybody, including himself! he had thoroughly considered the possibility that he would have to die, but he put that on the furthest backburner. he didn't want to die, but when it came down to it, he said, i won't be manipulated and i wont play god. back me into a corner, twist my arm, i won't do it. fuck you, i won't be your plaything. deans whole thing is that he doesn't wanna be anybodys plaything! not chuck's, not azazel's, not even john's. and he always is. and giving up never works for him. he never gets to choose. hes trapped in the game against his will. he doesn't even want to win the game, he just wants to quit playing. but the rules are that if he doesn't play, that's still playing, and he loses. if he does play, he loses. its rigged. there's no winning and no forfeit for dean. but for carlos, there was both this time. quitting was winning. everybody lives. the ideal outcome, if your name is dean winchester.

carlos is everything dean wishes he could be, or wishes he could believe he was. brave, strong, confident, smart, funny, drop dead gorgeous, selfless, complicated, sensitive, intuitive, comfortable, endearing. and he wins the way dean always wished he could.

[lmanburg]

WHY THE DREAM SMP STORY-LINE FELL OFF 100% TRUE FACTS

okaayyy so because it's FINALLY over and its been like nearly two years since significant plot things happened I'd like to talk about the Dream SMP story and my personal theory as to why its narratives and storytelling got progressively worse and/or lost harmony

I think it's because there were two distinctly different styles of "plot" being used at the same time. Or in other words, not everyone was on the same page about the focus of the plot and how the narrative moves.

I think some players were writing with a "character" plot in mind, while others were writing for an "event" plot.

Okay so to understand what I'm saying first we have to identify what the fuck a "character" plot and an "event" plot means.

A "character" plot, in the way I'm using it, means a plot that progresses because of a character's decisions, emotions, and personal growth. The plot moves because of how the character moves, and events occur around the character and the consequences of their actions. An "event" plot can be considered the opposite. The plot progresses as events progress, and the characters react to those events.

I'll try my best to give examples for these but y'know writing is subjective and all that. You can think of a character plot like a character study, like that one Classic Novel "Catcher in the Rye". The "events" of the story are dependent on the main character and his personality. Holden goes through the narrative, commenting on the world around him, moving through the setting, and we see how he slowly comes to terms with growing up and all that. There isn't much conflict, and certainly no conflict that he doesn't initiate himself. Boom. Character Plot.

Versus an Event Plot would be like the Iliad, mythology, or action movies. In mythology there is some character development, but mostly the story follows events that are removed from the agency of the characters. Heracles gets cursed with madness by Hera and kills his family, Theseus is sent by a king as a tribute to the monster, hell even Oedipus was fated to do ...all of that. His whole plot line was about how trying to escape the events laid out for him only fulfilled the events either way. Characters and their actions are defined purely by the events around them.

Sometimes plots can be a combination of two, but you wont have these two opposites at the same time. In Percy Jackson, the titular character goes through character development, but at the end of the day most of the plot happens around and to him, not the other way around. Versus in The Great Gatsby, events play a key role in how the story progresses, but all of the events are effects of character choices and development. You can't have both the events rule the characters and the characters rule the events. At best you can find a happy medium.

OKAY I hope that made sense. Now to apply all that nerd shit to the DreamSMP.

I think the reason the DSMP fell off is because major players, like Wilbur and Tommy, thought of the Plot as a "character plot", and nearly everyone else thought they were in an "event plot".

Characters like cWilbur and cTommy were certainly beholden to events out of their control, but most of their personal story followed their inner worlds, how they reacted to the world around them, and how they changed. Wilbur is a pretty obvious representation of a character story, as most of his plot-line centers around his ambition, paranoia, and mental health. Pogtopia is a good example of this but so is "the Wilbur Van" story-line. Sure, capital e Events happen in "the Wilbur Van", but most of them are a result of Wilbur's decisions, and they follow his development as a character.

cTommy also functions as a "Character" plot and let me argue why. Sure, exile "happens" to cTommy, but the horrors of exile are really how Tommy changes as a person because of it. He reflects on his relationship with others and himself during exile,and concludes that he really is alone, really is worthless. That's the plot of exile. Not just "Tommy is stuck away from New L'manburg", but "Tommy is changing for the worse in exile". And after the exile, a lot of events are a result of his decisions! His decision to hide with Technoblade, his decision to choose Tubbo, you get the point. The story-line around Tommy is very dependent on his growth as a character and how he reacts to the world around him.

Now. This was all well and good while ccWilbur and ccTommy were the ones (sort of) guiding the story progress. However, once the Tommy vs Dream conflict was resolved, and cTommy took a step back to let other characters lead, its pretty clear to see how the narrative became disjointed. Because while Wilbur and Tommy operated with their characters in mind, other players operated with the Events of the Server in mind.

I think the easiest example and the one with the most actual fucking plot would be cTechnoblade. Techno as a character reacts to events that happen to him, and the story focus isn't on how Technoblade's character will change, its on how the character will face the New Event that's happening. The butcher army happens to Techno, and he reacts. Tommy's betrayal happens to Techno, and he reacts. And sure he created the syndicate, but really they were waiting for something to happen to the syndicate so they could react. Technoblade's function isn't to progress the story, rather to react to the story, to survive through it. And to clarify, while this style of storytelling may not be for me, it's not inherently bad. However, I think it becomes detrimental when characters with this function overlap with characters who are meant to be introspective. Because the story of cTechnoblade is not effected by his inner world as a character, the inner worlds of other characters won't effect him either. Thats why cTommy & cTubbo's trauma, and cNiki & cRanboo's relationship with dream get trivialized and undermined, because those plot-lines literally cannot inform Techno's plot-line, it's not how he functions as a character.

And that makes me sound like I'm blaming cTechno, and by extension ccTechnoblade, for the servers problems, but I'm really not. I think every other player on that server fell for the same trap of assuming the Dream SMP was an events server.

At the risk of coming off as a massive bitch, I think post Disc Finale there was a glaring amount of "characters waiting around for things to happen". With the egg plot-line, everyone established that "yeah I know what the egg is and I either hate it/love it/don't care", but after that initial encounter, most characters were waiting for it to do something.

And if you're just waiting around for the world to do something, that's fucking boring. I think maybe the only content creator who realized this was Quackity, because after the disc finale cQuackity was one of the first characters to Start Doing Shit. And coincidentally, cQuackity's narrative is one of the final interesting stories from the DSMP, and it's very character driven.

And when you consider that so many people were treating the DSMP as "events happen and I react", then the communication issues make a lot more sense. Players couldn't just make their own story-line, because that's not how they thought the story worked.

And like, I can't exactly blame everyone for thinking like that, since ccWilbur was the one who wrote the script for Manburg and lead the plot. But still, how do you expect to tell an interesting story if all you're doing is reacting to someone else's??

Anyways. I don't know how to end this because like I could analyze the downfall of Every Single Character through this lens, even cTommy, but that'd be way too long and also nobody wants to read that. Have a good day and I wish you well on your DSMP recovery journey. Adiós!