i'm really curious about what marcille's mother's deal is. seems like she's not too big on the rest of elven society. here's what we know about her so far:
mage at a human royal court (adventurer's bible)
courtship with marcille's father donato lasted 17 years (adventurer's bible)
specialty is roast pork, which was also donato's favorite (chapter 81)
had a cheerful personality up until the point donato got too sick to eat his favorite food. her extreme emotional reaction to this left a lasting impression on marcille (chapter 81)
remarried to a gnome and moved away from the city at some point after donato died (adventurer's bible)
several portraits of her appear in marcille's nightmare (chapter 42); this is the second time we see marcille dream of her (chapter 3)
preferred non-elven food and didn't introduce marcille to any traditional elven dishes (chapter 74)
from the canaries' reactions in chapter 74, it appears elven society looks down on elves who go to live among and work for short-lived races. they seemed especially put off that she would have a mixed-blood child. when they're talking about the lyrikmumare to get marcille to trip up, marcille envisions her mother saying that the food "here" (i.e., the northern continent) tastes so much better. so the picture we're getting here is of an elf who has removed herself from elven culture, but the question is, did she do it willingly or was she forced to?
keeping her other actions in mind, i'm leaning more towards the former. the most intriguing thing for me is that she eventually married a gnome, despite elves and gnomes having infamously waged war against each other over differences in the practice of magic and presently tending to discriminate against the other on sight. (one thing's for sure — marcille's mother is winning the idgaf war!)
marcille never talks about her gnome stepfather though, and it's unclear what she thinks of her mother's remarriage. the timing of the remarriage is also a mystery. donato married marcille's mother when he was 32 (after having courted her for 17 years) and died at 82, meaning they were married for 50 years. marcille is also currently 50 years old, but we know she wasn't born immediately after the marriage: in chapter 81, donato's doppelganger says marcille was born when he'd started "getting on in years." based on marcille's memories of him and the established fact that the average tall-man lifespan is 60 years, i'd hazard that he was in his 50s then. this gives him 30 years or less with marcille — definitely less than 35, which we know is the age at which she left for the magic academy.
we don't know if marcille's mother remarries before or after marcille leaves (if before, than that's definitely a shockingly short time), but it's interesting that she chose to marry someone from a long-lived race this time. maybe this is her way of ensuring she spares herself another heartbreak? or maybe she *is* still heartbroken and is trying to cover it up.
but. i can't help but kind of agree with chilchuck in chapter 81, that marcille's parents are not blameless for marcille becoming the dungeon lord. since it's apparently well-documented, they surely must have known — as well-educated people — that mixed-blood children face not just discrimination but also mental anguish that comes with their unstable aging (not to mention the sterility). so the way they raised marcille feels frankly irresponsible 😭
anyway. i'd love to get spin-off content where post-adventure marcille and her mother meet again. i feel like there's a lot of unresolved issues there (that can of course be hashed out over a good meal).
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no of fence to jon snow fans who for some reason care about his exact age, but these discussions just annoy me no end. not only bc there's no way any weirwood flashbacks bran has to rhaegar/lyanna will come with time/datestamps, but also bc there's always comments like this:
SEVERAL turns of the moon (ie, months)?! have these people never seen a human baby before or just have no concept of their ages? even if we take into account travel time from the toj to wf, meaning jon was not a newborn too fresh out the oven when catelyn and robb arrived, there's still a difference between a newborn and a 3mo and an even bigger difference between those infants and an older baby 5-7mo. there's very good reasons these lines were cut. whatever birthdates can be worked out internally for jon and robb from when they're first mentioned as 15 and 16 don't matter in the end, bc grrm doesn't care about a consistent timeline and the actual text of catelyn's pov and ned's convo with robert about cheating on her should outweigh any guesstimates about jon's official nameday wrt robb's. catelyn may not have cared for jon, but she would sure as hell have noticed his nameday if it came before robb's and made him ned's firstborn. if jon's birthday canonically came before robb's then either ned's cover story would not involve adultery (not impossible for him to sire a bastard before his wedding), or he'd just give jon a new nameday along with his new name to fit the adultery lie. it makes no sense for him to lie about one and not the other, undermining the big lie with a little public clue of his story not adding up. whatever else she was as a stepmother, cat wasn't stupid and a bastard who was actually the eldest son being raised alongside her trueborn heir could be an even bigger insult than whether he was born of adultery or not.
BUT, the unknowability of jon's true birthday is not the only reason this annoys me, it's bc this is all based on the assumption that jon must be older since rhaegar/lyanna ran off together before ned married cat, as if both boys must have been conceived asap as robb canonically was when his parents consummated their marriage. and that's not how human reproduction works! even if you don't understand how fast babies grow in the first year, you should know that people who get pregnant do so through ovulation cycles and a lucky sperm finding an egg and all that, not just immediately getting knocked up as soon as one has p-in-v sex for the first time. not unless you only know mean girls sex ed where if you have sex you will get pregnant and die. (even tho lyanna did die, there's plenty of canon examples where pregnancy did not lead straight to death. also examples of people who did not get pregnant right away and even some who are/were sexually active and childless without always having moon tea on hand.) we can't know how long lyanna was having sex before that sperm+egg match happened or even how long she was with rhaegar before losing her technical virginity. if they were married, doesn't it make sense to think they didn't consummate their relationship until the wedding night either? that's the only leverage there is to ensure a status as wife rather than just mistress.
and while i just said grrm doesn't care about exact timelines and a lot is still foggy surrounding the rebellion and esp rhaegar, there is one timemarker wrt robert's rebellion he voluntarily threw in, time and time again: that stannis was besieged at storm's end for almost a whole year. that siege, which mind you, did not match the duration of the entire war. it only started after robert won his battles at gulltown and summerhall, returned to storm's end, and then went out and lost the battle of ashford, leaving his homeland open to the reachermen. the same siege which only ended when ned made a detour there after the sack of king's landing, before going to the toj. even if lyanna may not have given birth that exact day ned found her, she could only be waiting in that bloody bed for weeks at the most, not months. so if rhaegar knocked her up the very same night he carried her off and jon was still a newborn when ned found her after the siege of storm's end had ended, wouldn't that mean lyanna was pregnant for well over a year? that's not how human pregnancy works either! so, maybe that's proof that jon and robb, whichever order they were actually born in, were actually very close in age as babies, much closer than if they were both conceived asap.
and really, jon's actual birthdate does not matter imho, when he was raised not just as the bastard to robb's trueborn heir, but with robb also known by catelyn and the world as ned's firstborn (which he was, in any case, as jon was ned's nephew by birth). what difference could a birthdate before robb's make (even were there some means of discovery) after ned, cat, and robb are all dead? if one is looking only at his birth parents then he's only a firstborn child on lyanna's side, but definitely a second son on rhaegar's side. maybe he was always meant to be a second son with a not much older half-brother! even if the aegon fka young griff is not in fact rhaegar's son, he'll still be known as aegon vi targaryen, meaning jon will never be known as any father's elder son. if i may reference mean girls again, it's not going to happen.
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There was another space last night. Only found out about it this morning and apparently they mentioned a dog animatronic named Ringo. Could you do a recap on it?
OK twitter space recap again. Just for clarity, a lot of these answers are effectively verbatim, but have been chopped down for clarity and to remove some less relevant information.
-Someone asks what the hardest part of making an episode is and Martin goes 'Fucking, coming up with what's gonna happen in it.' And talks about how like, if TWF4 took three years to make, half the time was just preproduction and him figuring out what the hell was going to happen. He talks about how TWF4 was originally going to be a return to form for the series, and then one day he woke up and thought about it and was like "this is fucking shit." and that's when he decided to make it more cinematic.
-Someone asks if TWF4 will have Spanish subtitles, and Martin says no, because writing the English ones was a pain and he doesn't want to go through that again.
-Somebody asks who Martin would cast for Brian if The Walten Files was a live action series, and Kyle extends the question to 'Who would you cast for Everyone?'. They spend the next while just spitballing answers, which I've condensed here:
Kyle thinks it'd be fun to cast Jack as "Weird" Al Yankovic, and Martin thinks that's funny. He doesn't know who he would cast for Jack.
Martin says Brian would be "The guy from Whiplash", who is Miles Teller.
Martin says Derek Collins would be Michael Mckean, but Kyle picks Clancy Brown.
Kyle says Charles should be Adam Driver.
Martin says Felix would be Michael Douglas as he is in Falling Down, and says that he's always thinking of him whenever he goes to draw Felix.
Martin says Sophie would be Ally Sheedy as she is in The Breakfast Club, and how Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy's character in The Breakfast Club) was in part inspiration for Sophie's character. Secondary pick Martin gives is Mia Goth, but says they aren't the same in the face or the mannerisms, just that Mia Goth would make a good portrayal of the character because she's such a good actress.
Martin picks Shelley Duvall for Rosemary, saying again that they don't really look alike, but that she'd do a great job portraying the character. Kyle says a young Jane Kaczmarek would make a good Rosemary, too, and Martin mentions that he could also see a very young Carol Burnett, "...because she has a very smile-shaped smile."
Martin says that they aren't at all the same physically, but that Tina Parker would make a great Susan. Inspired heavily by her role in Better Call Saul.
-Martin hems and haws for a bit about who a good Jenny would be, saying that it's difficult, because she has such a particular face. On the topic, Kyle brings up how fans so often portray Jenny as "chubby", and how that's really impacted how he thinks of Jenny as a character, where he imagines the fanon version of her before even the canon one.
Martin agrees like, "This kinda influenced the way I draw her. I've been drawing concept art for Jenny recently and I noticed I've started drawing her a little chubbier. Not to the extent of the fanon, but the way I look at the character has changed a lot because of the way the fandom draws her... But I could definitely see Jenny as a chubby character, she just has that vibe." (<-Mostly paraphrased)
-Martin and Kyle say they both keep running into a funny problem where they google Charles using his full name, and wonder why all of the results just call him 'Charles Walten Files', forgetting that his full name is not public information yet.
-Martin says that if there was anything he would change about The Walten Files, he'd make Bon less adjacent to Bonnie from Five Nights at Freddy's. He says he wishes he'd made Bon a dog named Ringo, and that the name "Ringo" has a specific lore reason behind it (Unrelated to. The Beatles.)
-Martin talks about how when he first named Bon's Burgers, he thought he was being really clever, because in French "Bon" means "Good", so it was like calling it "Good Burgers".
-Someone asks what Martin would rename Bon's Burgers to if Bon's name had been different, and he says he'd call it "Wonderland".
-Martin gives a story about him actually seriously injuring himself opening a can of Palmitos, slicing his palm open and needing to get stitches, but how the main thing he was worried about was it keeping him from releasing TWF4 on time, and how he was really scared of the fan reaction of like, 'he always fucking does this, he always delays the episode', before he talked to some friends and calmed down about it. This all happened like less than a week ago. He tells everyone not to worry to much about it, that he's still in some pain, but he's fine.
-Someone asks about the "Bontest", the contest where people could submit their original characters to appear briefly in TWF4, and Martin says that he plans to work on it last, as a reward for himself.
-Someone asks if a Welcome to Bon's Burgers remake could ever happen, Martin answers: "No. I would have wanted to, but I'm really trying to stay, like, legally distinct from Five Nights at Freddys. So no more Welcome to Bon's Burgers, ever."
-Martin asks Kyle, "Is Charles mean? or nice?" and Kyle says he thinks Charles has like. Fun Uncle energy. That he's the sort of person you'd maybe think was mean, but that he's ultimately pretty silly and laid-back. He calls him the type of person to doodle in the margins of his work.
-Someone asks if Boozoo is a magician or a ringmaster, and Martin says that he is both. When he's not on stage, he falls into the ringmaster persona, but when he's performing he's doing magic tricks and the like. He switches between both.
-"Boozoo has a mechanism where he can take off his hat, and there's a very tiny plush rabbit in his hat"
-"Will we ever get to know how Jenny and Sophie met and/or became a couple?" "Yes. We will see it in the series, I have the whole thing planned out. Yippie!"
-Martin talks about how when making WTBB, he went through a phase where he really hated Banny, and took her out of the game. Then he was like, fuck, I need a new girl character, and that's why he created Sha.
-"Who has been your favorite character to develop personality-wise and role-wise?" "Felix Kranken. I fucking love but I fucking hate Felix kranken... I feel like the viewer keeps indirectly giving Felix chances, like, to make things right. And you will see how he uses those chances."
-Someone asks for a Felix Fact, and Kyle jokes that he smells bad. Martin says he disagrees, and that he thinks Felix smells like car air freshener.
-Actual Felix Fact: He loves Louis Wain's paintings, and has many in his office. Martin says he really connects with the story around them, and that he also feels a deep connection to cats.
-"How many takes did the phone call in BunnyFarm take to get right? Was the wavering in Jack's voice before he got angry intentional?" "It took three takes and yeah, yes it was. I did one take that was like, screaming angry, and another one was very whispery, and then i got the version that was used." They talk for a bit and then Martin goes "I think Jack here like, works best when he's not like, exaggerated, but you can tell that he's on the verge of just-- punching you fucking skull, but he doesn't like, explode. And it's this tension of like, when will we see this character like, genuinely lose his mind, yknow?"
-Someone asks if Bon could ever learn to like or be nice to Banny, and Martin says that if the showstoppers had any kind of linear story then he would probably grow to be nicer to her eventually, but because they're in like an episodic thing where everything resets, he's just gonna hate her forever
-Linda Lore: This isn't necessarily canon, but Martin kinda imagines that she'd move out of hurricane after only a couple of weeks because it's such a ghost town, so she moves to Nashville end ends up starting a family there and having two children.
-My question! I asked Kyle and Martin what musicians/bands they listen to. Kyle lists Gorillaz, Tally Hall, and Tenacious D. Martin lists MF Doom, Tyler, the Creator, and Canserbero.
-Martin mentions an incident with Bon's Burgers where a guy showed up and stood on a table demanding to eat pizza, and stayed there for 20 hours demanding to eat pizza.
-Martin imagines a funny scenario where Charles' car breaks down on the way to work and Jack gives him a ride. Charles asks to listen to some music, and Jack starts playing "obscure 30s music", and Charles is like, "what the fuck?", while Jack is bobbing his head like he's listening to heavy metal.
-Someone asks if there's any Autistic characters in The Walten Files, and Kyle brings up his personal headcanon that both Sophie and Jenny have autism, but that Jenny has it comorbid with ADHD. Martin mentions that it's actually canon that Charles has ADHD, and how it was one of the first things he decided on for his character.
-Kyle specifically asks if there's any Walten Files characters Martin can imagine being Autistic, and Martin gives a long answer I've written out as follows:
"Okay, so, this is really complicated, but the episode 5 draft is finished, and I sent it to Eva, and- this episode has a bigger focus on Sophie, episode 5, and I think a lot of things- Eva- I talked a lot about it with Eva, and she mentioned how Sophie, was like, had many many traits that imply that she is autistic.
And, while I said yes, that the intention was to like, sorta allude to it? I would never confirm it because I wouldn't be able to represent it properly. I would never be able to fully represent it, because it's not an experience I've gone through. But there's a lot of like, unintentional double meaning with Autism, with like, what's going on in her head and how like, she behaves, in a way?
But I feel like, from what Eva told me, from her experience as an Autistic person, she told me it was a really good representation, for like, the character. Even if it wasn't intentional, because she's never represented as like, mentally unstable, or not fit to, like-not competent... But you can still see some of her personal struggles in her behavior."
-They talk for a while about how Kyle likes to think that Boozoo is gay, but he's not especially a fan of the relatively popular ship between him and Bon. Martin says that a better Boozoo ship idea could maybe be Pete the Hippo, provided that the recasted his VA.
-On the same topic, Martin agrees that Boozoo and Bon would be a bad ship idea, because he doesn't like the idea of Bon being with anybody who he treats poorly, and how this is the reason why he really tries to be nice to Sha, even if he isn't especially good at it. Martin mentions that the thing that really makes Bon like Sha is that she's the one person who can really tell him off, and for a while he was a little scared of her.
-Martin talks about a funny showstoppers story he's thought of, where Banny gets a crush on a girl from school and Boozoo and Sha help her work up the courage to ask her out, but the girl is just so unapologetically mean to Banny and totally breaks her heart, and so all the showstoppers come to defend Banny, and they go and beat up this teenager on her behalf.
-Someone asks for a "Susan Fun Fact" but typos it as "Susan Gun Fact". Martin says that Susan would think that the American attitude towards guns and gun control is one of the things most wrong with the United States. Kyle says it'd be funny if she was the type to believe that, but then own a gun anyway.
-Martin says that he really loves Susan's voice, and thinks it's so perfect for her character.
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here's how it goes:
everyone spends valentine's day in DEEP denial. tubbo isn't dead, he CAN'T be. when they die they come back, that's how it is, how it's ALWAYS been. the island is hell but at least fatalities don't stick, except in specific cases and all of them in the same white shells. of course philza jokes, he's thinking about tubbo, he can't stop. he's expecting tubbo to jump out at any moment, he's expecting to go to fobo and see tubbo hidden in the basement throwing darts at a picture of fit and pac looking at each other, he's expecting to go back to the dungeon and the body is gone (he hopes). tubbo's not dead. he can't die. none of them can, just the eggs.
(it never takes this long to come back; he knows something is wrong)
here's how it goes:
tubbo tells the kids "i'm on my last life." the eggs have always had lives. i don't think some of them have ever understood that the players have infinite chances, with their insistence on protecting their caretakers from deaths like their caretakers do for them, charging back into the eye worker war, refusing to back out of a dangerous dungeon before their parents do, wanting to protect. i don't know if they understand that to the players, death is like spit in the face: unpleasant, sure, but no big deal.
tubbo tells the kids "i'm on my last life" and of course they believe him. death is their constant companion, no more than two doors down. some eggs are used to it being a breath away.
here's how it goes:
tubbo is dead. the children mourn him. the players are scared. defiant. they always are. who among them has died? dan, missing; spreen, gone; maximus... well there was no body, no announcement, surely-
(how long did it take pierre to accept it? to realize it? to take down the missing person posters? not a day. not a day.)
juanaflippa died and there was a court case to save her. bobby died and the whole server journeyed to save him. when is the last time the players have taken death lying down?
here's how it goes:
tubbo dies, and he dies unloved (fit's arm is stretched out to save him). he dies without purpose (sunny is there, she's waiting, she knows he won't move). he dies and no one cares (chayanne refuses to leave, his godfather, he failed his-)
here's how it goes:
the valentine's party is so loud but too quiet. there's a name in the air, even when no one is saying it
"wow sure is good tubbo isn't here" phil says (he's said this before, he'll say it again, but isn't it strange how many times? perhaps even he doesn't believe it. perhaps he's trying to convince himself.)
here's how it goes:
a creature with too many faces comes. it tells them the truth they won't face. tubbo is gone.
quesadilla island says, "not for long"
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