#well it would be devastating

[youchangedmedestiel]

What if Charlie talked about Cas with Dean after she met him in episode 10x18 "Book of the Damned".

What if after eating their dinner she grabbed him and told him she noticed a thing going on between them.

What if Dean denied it first (because it's Dean) but then admitted what he felt for Cas (because it's Charlie).

What if Charlie encouraged him to talk to Cas.

What if Dean said he was scared to lose him, either because Cas wouldn't feel the same way or because Dean thinks he loses everybody he cares about (maybe both).

What if she sort of convinced him to do something about it anyway.

What if her death just proved him right, that indeed he loses everyone he cares about, so he never said anything.

What if then?

[toastywindow]

THIS SCENE IS TOO MUCH FOR ME ISTG

[beatcroc]

pest control TWO!!!!! heres the first one

adn heres the obligatory bonus bc i can't help myself :')

[thejasontoddarchives]

Brothers in Blood will trick you into thinking it’s just a silly crack scenario brought to life and Jason just concocted this plan for shits and giggles. Then you get a single page like this:

Nightwing (1996-) #121

that reveals he wanted/desperately needed shreds of acceptance even if it was coated in layers of resentment irritation and doubt after going through this:

Batman (1940-) #650

And it had to be from someone who isn’t Bruce

[tariah23]

:/

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

SO. TO KICK OFF THE WEEK OF SPECULATION BEFORE THE UPDATE DROPS.

last night i had a bit of a Revelation. literally. i borderline woke up in a cold sweat with this realization. the way i lunged for my laptop to scream at friends... ough. lets get into it

so. i do believe I've made a couple of theory posts about Barnaby not being quite as receptive to his and Wally's "forced" best friendship as Wally - since the show wrote them to be friends instead of it happening naturally. i thought it might be a point of tension for Barn. i thought a lot.

YES SO I'M TOSSING (almost) ALL OF THAT OUT THE WINDOW!

the bios state Barnaby as Wally's best friend multiple times over. it had to be regularly reinforced. their colors were chosen to mark them as friends.

but Barnaby - presumably - can't see the bios, he wouldn't know the scripts. the friendship would be natural from his perspective. how would he know otherwise? even if the relationship started out synthetic, i don't doubt that it became genuine. in the context of their world and perceptions, realistically speaking Barnaby probably wouldn't sense anything wrong.

the reminders to be best friends weren't for Barnaby.

they were for Wally.

i'm starting to suspect that Wally is Barnaby's best friend, but Barnaby isn't Wally's. i think that Wally's "best friend" is Home - or at least Wally has a closer connection to them / Home is more important to Wally than anyone else is.

i remember reading this livestream trivia (from theneighborhoodwatch's doc, if you haven't their resources yet what are you even doing?):

and i assumed it was for Barnaby's side of the relationship. but it's not, is it? it's Wally's? and it makes too much fucking Sense! it fits! i can see it perfectly! i can feel things slotting together in my mind due to this shift in perspective, and i'm scared

Barnaby probably thinks the relationship is natural, just like how he thinks he's a real person in a real world. Wally probably knows that the relationship is a role, just like how he knows he's a puppet in a false reality.

that leaves me wondering how much of it is genuine on Wally's side. i don't doubt that they really are friends, but how deep does that connection go? in the interview, Wally sounded excited/proud about having a best friend, but how much came from a place of feeling, and how much came from a place of Fulfilling The Role? how much of it is performative? how much of it is a mask?

i've been seeing everything differently. Barnaby poses for Wally the most because he has good balance and is good at staying still, not because of favoritism or because he's Wally's best friend. in the 14 (15 including the hidden halloween) audios, Barnaby consistently seeks out Wally and checks in on him. Wally seems more casual about their relationship than Barnaby is.

i'm worried that Wally values Home & You/Us over Barnaby. that Barnaby is second or third place in Wally's heart. that Wally means more to Barnaby than he means to Wally. after all, only one of them needed their relationship to be reinforced on a seemingly regular basis.

i'm confident that Wally cares about / loves Barnaby, but the question is how much? to what extent?

[aragornsrockcollection]

How Glorfindel living under Elrond in Imladris is often presented: “I, Glorfindel, am sworn in service to Turgon, and therefore will swear fealty to you, Elrond, his great-grandson and heir on these shores, for that is reasonable and normal.

How I imagine it: “Hi, I’m Glorfindel, I’m your bodyguard. I know you didn’t order a bodyguard. You could send me away, but before you do, I need you to understand: Your grandmother Idril came to see me before I set sail for Middle Earth. And. Um. Let’s just say if anything happens to you before she gets to meet you? She will hunt me to the ends of of Arda. Nowhere would be safe, do you understand? I’m pretty sure they let Tuor stay in Valinor as collateral against Idril wrecking the Valar for sending her son into battle against a giant dragon. If I return to Valinor without you my life is forfeit. Please let me stay. I am in danger.

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Chapter 110 is 13 pages long welcome to hell!!! so in a lot of ways this is just more fuel for a theory that I've had for a few weeks now, that's only gotten stronger with each recent season 5 episode, which is that the last episode of the season is gonna end on 110, and that Asagiri/Harukawa and Bones have been collaborating to make this happen, specifically because it's a major turning point that would be the only good place to end the season on.

When we started getting especially long chapters again (like from 25-35ish pages, with the exception of 107.5, the last two being some of the longest we've ever had), at first I just assumed that Asagiri/Harukawa got freed up from some other obligations they'd been having to cause the extremely short/half chapters, like promotional stuff for the anime/Beast movie, or working on light novels. But then 109 happened, with the "supposed" death of Dazai, and heavy emphasis at the end on how literally everyone is at their lowest point right now, and I got to thinking. 11 episodes is a strangely specific number for an anime season -- why not 12, or 13, or even 10, like you'd usually see? Why have we gotten suddenly gotten two 35 page chapters out of nowhere, that's almost unheard of at this point? They're both beautiful chapters, don't get me wrong (as always), and maybe A/H simply just didn't want to cut them in halves because they felt like the full emotional impact wouldn't hit/that there were no good cutoff points in them, but you can't deny that it's surprising, after all the shorter chapters we've been getting. Why has the anime been going at such insanely breakneck pacing for the most part ever since around the Sunday Tragedy chapters, even more so than it has in the past? So much so that it feels dangerously close to overtaking the manga?

Well, maybe, just maybe, it's because..... Asagiri decided a long time ago that whatever happens in 110 is the only point that feels "season finale"-worthy enough, in an arc that still isn't anywhere close to being completely wrapped up, and so both the manga and the anime have been specifically coordinated to reach that part within 2 and a half weeks of each other?

I've seen a lot of people now think season 5 will end with 109, and as much as my sadistic side would find that hilarious, I honestly don't think they'd do that and realistically don't want it to happen; it'd be so cruel to cliffhanger the anime for years like that, and just doesn't feel like a season cliffhanger BSD would do, a series that is ultimately hopeful and uplifting. Seasons 2 and 3 had a positive, conclusive ending; the only reasons seasons 1 and 4 didn't was because they're technically not really full seasons of their own, and are more like the first cour of another "season" that also came out that same year (seasons 1 and 2 both aired in 2016, so they're more like one big season, and seasons 4 and 5 have both aired this year, so they're also more like one big season, again taking into account how episodes 12 and 50 are not satisfying finales like episodes 24, 37, and hypothetically, 61, are). I really can't see season 5 ending with Dazai and Fukuzawa's supposed deaths, Sigma being unconscious and maybe close to death, Atsushi being vulnerable and limbless again, everyone we love still vampires, and the entire world being basically doomed; that's just too depressing and not like BSD at all. However, having said that, if it doesn't end there, there really isn't any good place to end the season before that, either, that feels in any way satisfying or like a finale at all. And so, to me, that only leaves after 109: chapter 110.

I think things are really gonna turn around next chapter. Like I said, everyone is at their lowest point right now, it cannot possibly get any worse, the framing of Dazai, Fukuzawa, and sskk at the end of 109 is telling us that; this is the time for the heroes to finally start winning again, with Aya being so close to pulling out the sword, and for all the thematic reasons other people have talked about to death that I don't need to go into here again. This upcoming chapter being so short again makes a part of me wary of 110 being "the one", so to speak, I won't lie, but at the same time, it's very possible that it needs to be that short because that's all the final episode of the season will be able to reasonably fit in, since it's already gonna be VERY close if they do make it all the way to 109. And at the end of the day, I don't doubt at all that Asagiri and Harukawa can make these the most monumental and game-changing mere 13 pages ever if they wanted to; a chapter does not at all need to be extremely long in order to be an important and impactful one, even if short ones we've gotten in the past haven't felt the most important.

An additional thought I've had, though this is much more crack territory than all this already is, is that since we know from Anime Expo that a Stormbringer movie at some point is highly likely (judging from Asagiri's reaction when someone brought it up), it's possible that chapter 110 and thus the final episode will involve the long-anticipated return of Verlaine and/or Adam, or at least some other major reference to Stormbringer, that would naturally and smoothly lead into a Stormbringer movie to explain things to people who haven't read the novel. It would make a lot of sense, especially since the s4 OP has the Old World sign behind Chuuya, which might be a hint that this has been in the works ever since seasons 4/5 were first in planning with Asagiri. We also know that Dazai and Chuuya's voice actors apparently struggled to record their lines together this season, which probably relates to 101 and possibly 109, but it could be 110 too.... I could be very wrong, as I'm no expert on this kind of thing, but I kinda doubt they would bring Chuuya's actor in for just the vampire growls, and Asagiri placing heavy emphasis on Chuuya's importance this season in that one interview gives me the impression that he's talking about much more than just 101/109. But that's the least solid evidence I have, that's just mostly based on vibes I get.

So basically, I think a lot of factors -- the unusual episode count, how close the anime is to catching up to the manga with three whole episodes left, the seemingly arbitrary recent chapter lengths, and the climactic events of 109 -- can tell us that 110 might be a very, VERY big deal. Again, there's of course no way this arc is anywhere near close to being finished, with so much left to address and resolve, but since it is currently incomplete in the manga, unlike the previously adapted arcs, if the anime was going to adapt it at all, they'd have to find a place that feels satisfying enough to end this season, knowing there won't be more anime for a long time after this, and so I think they specifically planned for that, from both Bones' and A/H's sides. 10 episodes might not have been enough to reach that point, but 12 or 13 might have been too many it wouldn't have been if Bones actually decided to slow down and let the story breathe the way it needs to, but this post isn't meant to criticize the anime, so maybe 11 was just right. And maybe Asagiri and Harukawa specifically pushed to make recent chapters longer than usual, in order to make sure that the manga reached the story content in 110 the monthly release right before season 5 was to end.

Is this just copium? Absolutely. Am I going to look like an absolute clown in two days when this post ages like milk? Probably. But the evidence is There, so let me just enjoy my delusions until Sunday, okay 🥂🫡

[lyxthen]

Shichishito | The Seven-Branched Sword

It is said that this sacred sword represents life itself. Though the branches may appear to be infinite, the choices limitless...

...Like our destinies, the sword comes to but one end. One merciless point. And when the silver cord, the fragile thread that binds us to this world, is severed...

...The illusion is revealed and the implacability of fate is finally laid bare.

[samuelroukin]

I'm so pissed off about what happened tbh. This death was entirely unnecessary. His speech to Ed was beautiful but he could've said it while saying goodbye and taking control of The Revenge. He would be captain or first mate to Zheng (whom he would get along with fantastically btw). His arc this season would've made him great at leading the crew. He didn't need to die for Ed to let go of Blackbeard. He was already over that. He could even sustain an injury from the fight that'd make Ed realize how much he cared about him, they could've had a heart-to-heart with them *both* apologizing and letting each other go, and it would've worked perfectly.

I fully agree with the people saying the writers treated him like a cheap plot device. He deserved an apology from Ed, and yet he died *comforting Ed* and absolving him of his sins. The lighthearted funeral and everyone being pretty much like "oh well". Ed, as a main character, gets to move on and be happy without really making amends with people he hurt; meanwhile Izzy, largely a victim of his abuse, has to die while basically taking full responsibilty for the abuse on his deathbed. So that Ed can feel sad for a minute, then feel better and have character development.

I've been feeling very positive about season 2, even though it had some flaws, but this just turned me off entirely. This was so unnecessary and just bad writing in my opinion. (Doesn't help that I've basically been processing all my trauma through Izzy this season and related to him so hard it hurt, and seeing him treated like this by the narrative and other characters just feels... distasteful).

Just venting and sharing my thoughts- hope it's ok!

yeah, i agree with basically all of this. and it's like we all know the show is about ed and stede, their story is the main thing but the writers gave that many scenes to izzy and (imo) were handholding people into caring about him the entire season (bc i guess people can't appreciate nuance or whatever the reason was.) just to kill him off "because his story is finished" ? it's just cheap

[uncanny-tranny]

Something I think ought to be more readily-available and encouraged is simply... taking parental classes. I wish it were more common for people to realize just how hard - and important - parenting is, and indeed, that we all could use help with taking care of young folk. It's really alarming that popular opinion is still that parental classes are only for the "fuck-up" parents, or the parents who utterly failed. It should be seen as a good thing to take parental classes - especially on your own volition. It should be seen as imperative for one to take them, it should be a free, accurate, and scheduled occurrence so that people of any background are able to attend.

[eosofhearts]

my poor little meow meow angor rot he has every disease

[artheresy]

The legacy of a craftsman

The amount of space that Blade and Yingxing takes up in my brain is feeling increasingly concerning. I can't stop thinking about them...

Like now that it's finally not just a leak, has anyone else read Baiheng's Travelogues about the Xianzhou Zhuming? Featuring Baby Yingxing??

Literally the second one devastates me emotionally I can't even explain it. Yingxing being so discouraged by the masters on the Zhuming who are long life species degrading him to the point he, a child, talks about how he'll probably never live to see his parents be avenged after what the Borisin did???

THAT HURTS

And God I can't even,

GOD if I could properly put into words the fact that Yingxing is a craftsman being so important to his character and identity and how Hoyoverse making a point to specify the injuries that occurred to his hands in whatever gray transition period happened between Yingxing and Blade that made him unable to craft weapons again is such a tragic visual to completely severe the two identities, that is ALL you would hear from me ever.

Because see the thing about Yingxing being a craftsman is that all stems from a goal in his past. As a child his home planet was taken over and turned into a weapons nursery, his parents were slaughtered, it became his goal as a child to create technology and weapons for the Cloud Knights to fight terrifying monsters like the Borisin. And that goal ended up defining the rest of his life, going on to become the Legendary Furnace Master on the Xianzhoh Luofu. That ended up becoming part of his legacy with the HCQ. It's clear how heavily important that part of his identity is defining not just his time in the HCQ but his time on the Zhuming, and everything that occurred to him as a child to lead him to that exact goal. His whole past.

And for Hoyoverse to specify how Blade's hands have been hurt to the point of no longer being dexterous, to the point of no longer being able to forge a weapon ever again, as those injuries cannot be healed by whatever Abundance shit he has going on since they likely happened before he became immortal(?). It just... it is devastating. It's something used as a way to severely separate the two of them so people realize they are two different identities on top of Blade already making it clear he sees Yingxing as dead. The way that they went about his hands... it's not merely that he relinquished that identity, which would be him no longer making weapons out of choice. It is that he can't connect to that identity anymore, the change he went through was far too severe. Thus he cannot make weapons anymore, he has been stripped of any ability to.

I'll make like a better post explaining this later, but I believe the use of Yingxing status as a craftsman and Blade's inability after he was revived TO craft anything is fundamentally used as a tie to the separate of identity between them and it's so well used and so tragically used.

Because again, it is not that he lost Yingxing's passion for it or decided on a different path. It is a wall that separates him from being able to do what Yingxing did in the past just as he is unable to connect to the identity his body held before death.

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

ok so the svetlana side of the fandom is very active right now and what better time to say FUCK svetlana’s ending

why does nobody talk about how freelania signed a prenup… when that man dies she and yevgeny are gonna have nothing. knowing her, i don’t doubt her ability to find a way to get that money (i mean that in a good way lol) but like… fuck. that ending sucks ass, and i see it talked about (mostly on tiktok) as if it’s some amazing thing but it really isn’t??

[yellowocaballero]

Been a fan of your fics for YEARS. I was just telling my friend how despite how much I read fics I never actually love them, with some of your fics (especially TMA) as the exception. Felt the need to reread some of them and saw you reblogged some ISAT fanart. So. Any thoughts on ISAT you'd like to share?

Hope you have a wonderful day!! So happy I found your fics again!!

I avoided answering this for a while because I was trying to think of a way to cohesively and coherently vocalize my thoughts on In Stars and Time. I have given up because I don't want to hold everybody here all day and I have accepted that my thoughts are just pterodactyl screeching.

I love it so much. I have so much to say on it. It drove me bonkers for like a week straight. I have AUs. It's absolute Megbait. They're just a little Snufkin and they're having the worst experience of anybody's life. Ludonarratives my fucking beloved.

I am going to talk about the prologue.

The prologue is such a fascinating experience. You crack open the game and immediately begin checking off all of the little genre boxes: mage, warrior, researcher, you're the rogue...some little kid who's there for some reason...alright, you know the score. You're in yet another indie Earthbound RPG, these are your generic characters, let's get the ball rolling.

Except then you realize that these characters are people. You feel instantly how you've entered the game at its last dungeon, at the end of the adventure. They have their own in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They get along well and they're obviously close, but not in a twee or unrealistic way. They have so much chemistry and spirit and life. I fell in love with them so quickly.

But Sif doesn't. Sif kind of hates them, because they will not stop saying the same damn thing. They walk the same paths, do the same things, make the same jokes, expect Sif to say the same lines. They keep referencing a Sif we do not see, with jokes we never see him make and heroic personality he never shows - they reference a Sif who is dead - and Sif can't handle that, so he kills them too.

They become only an exercise in tedious frustration. Sif button mashes through their dialogue, Sif mindlessly clicks the same dialogue options, Sif skips through the tutorial, Sif blows through the puzzles. Sif turns their world into a video game. Sif is playing a generic RPG. Sif forgets their names. They are no longer people with in-jokes, histories, backgrounds, adventures. They're the mage, the warrior, the researcher, and...some random kid.

I did not understand the Kid's presence at first. I had no idea what they contributed to the game. They didn't do anything. As a party member in a video game, they're a bit useless. Why is the Kid there?

Because Sif's life isn't a video game. Because the kid isn't 'the kid'. They're Bonnie. Bonnie, who the party loves. Why is Bonnie there? Because they love them. There is no room for Bonnie in the boring RPG that Sif is playing. And then you realize that Sif is wrong, and that they've lost something extremely important, and that they'll never escape without it.

Watching the prologue before watching ISAT gave ISAT the most unique air of dread and horror, because you crack open ISAT and you see the person Sif used to be. You realize that Sif used to be a person. Sif used to be the person who made jokes, who gave real smiles, who interacted with the world as if they are a part of it. And you know you are sitting down to watch Sif lose everything that made them a person, to lose everything that made them a member of this world, and turn them into a character in a video game who doesn't understand the point of Bonnie at all.

At the climax of the game, when the others realize that something is deeply wrong and that Sif physically cannot tell them, they realize that there is nothing they can do. So Bonnie declares snacktime. And for the first time they have snacktime.

What is snacktime? Classic JRPGs don't have snacktime. There's literally no point to a snacktime - not in a video game, and not in Sif's terrible life. It's not fixing this, because nothing can fix this. But Bonnie gives Sif a cookie and Sif eats it.

It's meaningless. It's a cutscene. It didn't save Sif and it didn't change a thing. It will make no difference in the end.

But it did make the difference. It made all of the difference in the world. Bonnie is a character who you really don't understand the point of before you realize that Bonnie was the entire point.

ISAT is about comfort media. Why do we play the same video games over and over again? Why do we avoid watching the finale of our favorite shows? What is truly comforting: a story with no conflict, or a story where you always know what is about to happen? Do you want to live in a scary, uncontrollable world, or do you want to play Stardew Valley? Do you want a person or a character?

When I beat Earthbound for the first time (and if you don't know, the prologue/ISAT battle system is just Mother) and watched the ending cutscene where the characters part ways and say goodbye...I felt a little bit sad. I wanted them to be together forever. But that's something only characters could ever be.

[drinkingdeadpeopletea]

and shout-out to weepe's guards! competent enough to move quicker than kozma's people, strong enough to overpower them despite being outnumbered, and seemingly didn't even blink at not just killing other people but at doing it with horrific weaponized tearror-blood. weepe found these guys in the fucking TRUST?