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I love that Rhys and Fiona's outfits have similar vibes during the "present" time in tales from the borderlands.

I think there was a cut idea where they would have been working together to explain the similar outfits (I can't remember where I heard that so don't quote me on it), but since that didn't happen I prefer to think that it was Rhys subconsciously matching with Fiona because she was still on his mind after they got separated.

We see part of Fiona's outfit on a mannequin in the caravan during episode 1 and Rhys has the ability to scan it, so he definitely saw it.

And I like to think that even though he couldn't remember where he saw it the design stuck in his mind when he was getting his new outfit, something he couldn't quite remember but that felt comfortingly familiar and when he saw his own outfit on him, it just felt right for some reason.

And then he saw Fiona in her new outfit and had a moment of "oh fuck, that's where I got it from"

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So, we all know that in Tales From the Borderlands Rhys gets one chance to choose between Fiona and Jack right?

Well I personally think there's actually three instances where it's a choice between specifically Jack and Fiona. Hear me out.

The first one, in the Atlas facility under Old Haven, is obvious because the prompt that comes up is literally "Trust Jack" or "Trust Fiona". It's a direct choice between the two where both have a plan and Rhys needs to pick one of them. Jack also gets angry with Rhys if he chooses Fiona over him, criticising his choice to trust Fiona's improvising.

The second is a little more vague, but I think it's the choice to tell Fiona and Sasha about Jack or to listen to Jack and keep it a secret. Now the reason why I think this is specifically a choice between Fiona and Jack is because if you choose to tell the sisters about Jack then Fiona is the one who will talk about him with Rhys, making fun of him for how he died, or other vague bits of sarcastic commentary. She's also the one that Jack will talk about either knowing or not knowing about him during the rule Hyperion or reject Hyperion scene.

And speaking of that scene, I believe that's the third trust Jack or trust Fiona scene.

Fiona is the one Jack threatens to get to Rhys in the reject Hyperion route, where he talks about how he's going to make Rhys strangle her, either because she knows he's in Rhys's head, or he takes delight in the idea of her having no idea why Rhys has turned on her if she doesn't know he's there.

She's also the one Jack talks about if you choose to rule Hyperion, either talking about how glad he is she knows because now he can see the look on her face when she realises Rhys chose Hyperion, or laughing about how surprised she's going to be when she sees the two of them.

She's the one involved with the Gortys project like Rhys is, she's the first person Rhys can choose to directly disobey Jack in favour of. Rule Hyperion or Reject Hyperion is about whether or not Rhys has learnt enough to realise he can't trust Jack, and that trust first came into question when the initial choice between Jack and Fiona happened.

Regardless of who you choose in the Atlas facility scene it was a moment where Rhys had at least a thought of ignoring Jack's influence. And if you choose to reject Hyperion here it's a direct consequence of Rhys starting to not just trust Jack without question.

Jack might tell her that he doesn't care enough about her to kill her, but that's not entirely true. He was never going to let any of them leave alive if he could help it, but especially not her. She's the one Rhys could trust over him, she's the one that can directly remind him of his failure by calling out how he died, and she's the one other person directly connected to Gortys making her someone other than Jack that Rhys can relate to. The thought that his influence over someone who had admired him could be called into question would bug Jack to hell and back, because he is used to being practically worshipped by his employees.

Fiona wasn't special to him, she wasn't someone important to him (beyond being connected to Gortys), and she wasn't the focus of his plans, but she WAS the competition. It became personal the second Rhys even considered trusting her over him.

Also she defaced his memorial which has gotta sting. Good for her.

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Borderlands really has a common theme of dad's doing something insanely stupid that they believe is for the benefit of their children, only for it to really screw up their kids lives.

Sure it doesn't have it in EVERY game but it's common enough for it to be a pattern.

You got the obvious one of Jack imprisoning Angel because she can't control her powers, with him believing it's the right thing to do while it very obviously isn't (especially once he started y'know using her as a battery), leading to her betraying him and sacrificing herself to help stop him.

Then you got the Calypso twins being kept on an isolated planet by Typhon DeLeon, because he believed it was the only way to keep them safe despite them feeling like they were being imprisoned, leading them to go full cult leader and go try to take what they believed was "rightfully theirs", which ultimately lead to their deaths.

And then you have Felix betraying Fiona and Sasha, stealing the ten million dollars from them, believing that it would get Hyperion and Vallory to lose interest in the girls and go after him instead, which ultimately lead to them being chased across Pandora by bounty hunters and putting them in life threatening danger.

Also all three of them die (Felix's death being dependent on the players choice), with their deaths at the very least being indirectly caused by their daughter, as an act of revenge for their mistreatment. Angel helping the Crimson Raiders leading to Jack's death, Tyreen killing Typhon with her powers, and Fiona being able to shoot Felix and let him explode along with the money.

...So what I'm saying is maybe it's time for some of the fathers in borderlands to get some mandatory parenting classes.

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I wish Sasha had gotten better treatment from Debt or Alive. I spoke a bit about it in a previous post but she is just not developed at all and I have a LOT of problems with how the book portrays her. Which is a shame because I really loved her in Tales, she was a really great character. There ARE positives to her in the book but this is purely me talking about what I don't like about how she's portrayed here, so while there are good points I won't be speaking about them here.

(if you liked this book that's completely valid! These are just my personal opinions on somethings I didn't like in the book)

Spoiler warning for Debt or Alive obviously.

To put it into perspective, Sasha in Tales was someone out of her element like the rest of the group, she wasn't great with tech (although not completely clueless), she loved guns, she wanted to get off of Pandora, she cared about Fiona's safety, and she canonically liked Rhys. She had moments where she was pessimistic and occasionally didn't acknowledge Fiona's feelings (about the situation with Felix) but overall she was VERY close with Fiona and cared about her, wanting them both to be safe and okay. She was great and I love her.

Now... In Debt or Alive unfortunately that is not the case. That's not to say that she doesn't care at all about Fiona or Rhys, but the way the book portrays her is very strange. It tends to either give her very negative traits without ever acknowledging them as bad, or it treats her as a plot device that magically provides the way for the story to progress, either just handing her wins without earning them or giving her abilities that she shouldn't have, often at the expense of minimising what makes other characters special.

To be more specific let me start with the ability to hack that the book gives her. Now in Tales she showed no knowledge of it, quite the opposite actually, and the book randomly says that Rhys has taught her a "ton of stuff" about hacking, although when this happened it's not quite clear considering the book makes it clear that they leave Pandora fairly quickly after getting out of the vault... So I guess she just got the skill in a few weeks???

The first thing she hacks, which is also the first mention of her having any ability to hack ever, is the debt cuffs. The cuffs that billionaires have funded being made, the cuffs that they would have poured so much money into to make sure that no one ever got away without paying their debts. She just hacks into it and dismantles it. It's not a perfect job because the cuff does explode afterwards but she is able to remove it in time, You'd think if it was that easy you'd have a legion of people doing back-alley deals to remove them and the majority of the planet wouldn't be wearing them. So clearly this is something difficult to do, especially with the amount of money the billionaires of Eden 5 would have poured into it.

The other thing she hacks is a sec-bot. One of Countless Holloway's robotic security guards. In the middle of combat Sasha just leaps onto its back and just hacks into it, changing its allegiances almost instantly and rewiring it to be on their side now.

Now bear in mind we have seen robots change allegiance before in tales from the borderlands when Rhys takes control of the drones.

But in that case not only had Rhys been a programmer for YEARS, he still had to have help from Jack's AI to take control of them. So if Rhys with years of experience needs help to take control of robots, then in no way should Sasha be able to randomly take control of them from what could only be at MOST a few weeks of practice.

Now not quite hacking but along the lines of machinery the other thing Sasha does is repair Deathtrap. There is no explanation given as to how she does this. Deathtrap is barely functional at the time and has absolutely no vision, no ocular beam, no hover function, barely functioning audio sensors, and no digistruct claws. That's the list of damages explicitly given in the book.

Bearing in mind that this is a robot built by a literal genius, one who was essentially a technological prodigy, a robot so impressive that the Holloway estate ripped off the plans for it to built a robot army to keep the entire planet of Eden 5 in check. And Sasha just fixes it, the only time before this that Sasha had shown ANY kind of mechanical skills was when she was fixing the caravan during the intro song to Episode 3 of tales from the borderlands and even then she was being walked through the repairs by Scooter.

Sasha should not be just given abilities that are randomly as good, if not better than other characters whose whole thing was being REALLY good at that in particular. Gaige was a mechanical genius that's how she built Deathtrap after years of learning. Rhys was a good programmer who still needed help to perform complicated hacks. It doesn't make sense for someone with basically no experience to suddenly be even half as good as them at it. It also diminishes Sasha as a character because they don't give her something SHE IS uniquely good at. It essentially turns her into a ripoff version of those two ability wise, and she deserves far better than that.

Now then, personality wise... I wish I didn't have negative things to say here, really I do. This isn't to say that EVERY interaction or scene with her is bad, but the ones that are just really stand out.

To start with, Sasha gets mad at Fiona trying to restrict what she does which is completely reasonable for Sasha to be mad about, BUT then in response to being mad at Fiona she goes and does something insanely stupid. Something that doesn't just endanger her but also risks Fiona's life and it's not even done for good reason.

She frees Gaige.

Gaige who had EVERY reason to hold a grudge against her and Fiona and to go hunt them down and murder them, who also reiterated her hatred for Sasha and Fiona. Oh and she shows her the shard that can bring people back from the dead. So not only does she free someone who has every reason to go murder her and her sister, but she also just dangles the cure to death in front of a vault hunter who could just kill her and take it.

She also frees her knowing that she murdered Countess Holloway's daughter. Now we as the audience know that that was an accident, we know that Gaige didn't mean to and that Marcie had been awful to her for years, but Sasha does not. She saw the video of Marcie being killed and all she knows is that Deathtrap killed Marcie, and yet she still frees her. Because she's bored and mad at Fiona.

They could've had her find out the real circumstances behind Marcie's death and then impulsively go free Gaige, but no, she is just bored and angry at Fiona so she goes and frees Gaige so that she can go vault hunting with her.

This being insanely stupid is never addressed. Nor is the idiocy of Sasha literally KILLING HERSELF to prove that the crystal works to Gaige. Just a note, this is also all done after Gaige reiterates her hatred for Sasha and Fiona, and Sasha never tries to get Gaige to agree to y'know not hunt her sister down.

Couple of quick problems here as well regarding Sasha's personality in the book.

-When Fiona starts to free people from the debt cuffs she literally just stands there in bewilderment and says "what are you doing???" And only after Fiona starts freeing more does she join in

- throughout the book Sasha refuses to commit to Rhys, refusing to make the relationship serious, and doesn't say anything more than "I need more time" despite noting how upset it's making Rhys. It takes Fiona calling her out (which also mentions that she has a habit of just ghosting her boyfriends???), for her to actually make a decision. And even then SHE doesn't tell Rhys that she's decided to move the relationship forward and it's Fiona who has to tell him.

-Sasha also says nothing when Fiona is literally compared to Handsome Jack. Like she's literally standing next to them, replies to something Fiona says but she says NOTHING when Fiona is compared to Jack. Doesn't even reassure her that it's not true. (Tales Sasha would've thrown hands with the guy who said that, there is NO way she would let that slide).

Now for my final point, because god knows I've been yapping for a while, Sasha is just HANDED accomplishments and the most glaring example of this is when she goes vault hunting with Gaige, which is literally a weekend trip.

First Gaige just knows where a vault is, then, after she goes there with Gaige, there are NO guardians defending the vault because they were all somehow killed by a few bandits.

When they get through the bandits they get to the entry to the vault. Now what do you need to open a vault??? If you said a vault key then... INCORRECT! It turns out that they just don't even need one because the name of the monster IS the key... Somehow. But regardless they open the vault.

And how do they kill this vault monster you ask? How does Sasha finally, in her own words, be even and equal with Fiona? Well they shove a grenade in the monster's eye and it dies. Then they just go home.

This book does not let Sasha earn anything, which is a shame because her character in Tales was great and had a LOT of potential. But here she doesn't grow as a person, and for some reason has developed some really bad traits after Tales with no explanation, and doesn't bother to give her her own thing that made her unique, instead settling on just giving her other peoples. She would essentially be at the exact same point in her character, if not better, if this book just didn't exist at all, because it just loops back around to her and Fiona broke and vault hunting again.

Sasha deserved SO much better.

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The concept art shown was cool, still trying to figure out if the symbols on the buildings in this picture mean anything

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Okay so at the pax west showcase they said they're focusing mainly on new characters in the series for borderlands 4.

If it's supposed to be the war the Watcher mentioned, wasn't the warning that we would literally need "all the vault hunters we could get"???

So either this is yet another game not about the war OR the Watchers warning meant absolutely nothing and most of the current vault hunters aren't needed and it'll just be the new ones with only a few returning characters.

(focusing on new characters is not a bad thing at all it's just confusing given the Watchers warning, I'm still hoping for good things regardless especially since they said they were listening to feedback)

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A lot of what the Tales crew do is wonderfully unhinged but I think my absolute favourite example of it has to go to when Fiona confronts Vallory in episode 5.

To put it into perspective there is a rampaging vault monster in the middle of a dust storm. Helios had just fallen and Fiona had to crash down to Pandora in an escape pod and is now completely alone with no backup, fully believing Sasha to be dead. Vallory has a rocket launcher and is firing repeatedly at Gortys in an attempt to destroy her to get rid of the Traveller before it kills everyone.

And what does Fiona do? Fiona who bear in mind was shot through the hand while up on Helios, Fiona who is armed with one tiny sleeve pistol while Vallory has a literal rocket launcher, Fiona who is quite literally having the worst day of her life.

Well she kicks Vallory in the head and holds her at gunpoint of course!

Completely ignores the giant alien monster, she just takes a running start and launches herself off of Vallory's own rocket launcher and kicks her in the head, pulls out her tiny little derringer and points it at the woman who is wielding literal explosives, and just doesn't even care about the fact she's right next to a raging vault monster.

Unhinged and iconic behaviour.

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The things I would give for Gearbox to work with Telltale again.

They could take ALL the money I have, every goddamn penny, just for another Telltale written game about borderlands (preferably starring Rhys and Fiona). Telltale could write pure gold again for the borderlands franchise if gearbox would just LET THEM.

The storylines, the character development, the vibes, the music, they'd all be perfect.

Invite them back to the writing room Gearbox you COWARDS

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Something I noticed that I REALLY don't like is just how much current borderlands seems to be trying to diminish Rhys and Fiona's personalities and achievements.

It started out with Rhys in Borderlands 3, where Vaughn implied he was fake and that they haven't spoken in years for some reason??? Then it happened again in New Tales, where Rhys was written as incompetent, and an awful boss that fires his employees for having ONE bad idea.

It also essentially calls him a warmonger that's focused entirely on profits, and has no moral compass beyond "the almighty dollar". Going as far as to explicitly state that that is literally Atlas's motto.

Aside from all that it also says that Atlas is essentially failing and that Rhys has absolutely no idea what he's doing, which is especially weird considering how in Borderlands 3 it's stated that Promethea is finally starting to do well for itself again, and through Echo logs you hear that even Marcus is impressed with how well Rhys is doing.

So for Rhys we have him losing connection with his best friend and being called an idiot, fake, being mischaracterised as a terrible person that apparently learnt nothing and has regressed as a person to a borderline unrecognisable state.

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And now we get to Fiona. Since borderlands 3 treats the female protagonist of Tales as if she just doesn't exist, Fiona's story continues in Debt or Alive so...

SPOILER WARNING FOR DEBT OR ALIVE.

Not only is Fiona characterised VERY strangely in the book but they also just give Sasha credit for some of what Fiona does, and Fiona alone tends to be the target of blame in the book. Oh and she gets compared to Handsome Jack for good measure.

To start off with, Fiona doesn't even get her wish from the Vault of the Traveller. She gives it to Sasha, and Sasha wishes for a rare Vaultlander figurine of Typhon DeLeon which is destroyed a couple of chapters later. So not only does Fiona not even get to use her wish but the product of the wish gets destroyed anyway so it's entirely pointless.

Fiona also just decides to not be a vault hunter. That conversation she can have with Rhys SECONDS before this happens, about how it suits her, about how she's sad the adventure is over? It's just ignored. She immediately gives it up because she doesn't want Sasha vault hunting and getting put in danger again. Sure she still likes vault hunting but it is immediately given up. (I could write a whole other post about why this bugs me and I probably will).

Fiona has flaws that are addressed in the books, as they should be, all characters have to have flaws, but she is the only one out of the sisters to have flaws addressed. Sasha's are treated as if they don't exist, even when they're very apparent. Fiona learns to not be overprotective, and that she can't stop Sasha from doing things she wants to BUT Sasha doesn't learn anything. She does impulsive things that endanger both her and Fiona, and her risking their safety for fun or on a whim is just never mentioned. (Again something else I'll definitely talk about in another post).

Fiona is also consistently the one who comes up with the plans in the book, while Sasha is either not doing anything or suggesting they take the easy way out. Fiona is the one to start removing the debt cuffs from people while Sasha stands there bewildered, asking what she's doing. Fiona is the one to come up with the plan to scam the billionaires so that they can use the money to free everyone from debt while Sasha suggests just funding Gaige's revenge scheme (and assumedly just abandoning the people in debt??). And Fiona is the one to figure out how to get into Holloway's panic room and save everyone.

Fiona having her moments to shine would be great if they consistently didn't end with her being called an idiot, getting badly hurt, failing, or at one point being compared to Handsome Jack of all people. (Additional point: Sasha doesn't even defend her when she's compared to Jack, which is weird and very out of character.)

This might be petty but the book also gives credit to Sasha for Fiona surviving Bossanova's murder rally in Tales. Which is really weird considering Sasha and Fiona were separated during the entirety of that event. So instead of mentioning a time where Sasha actually helped save Fiona, like in the bio-dome when she was caught by Finch and Kroger, I guess they're actively retconning an event to give Sasha the credit. For some reason.

Fiona also has to confront Sasha about how she's treating Rhys, but then like a chapter later she literally apologises for all that, despite having every right to call Sasha out for that. So again Sasha's flaws are not being recognised as actual flaws and instead it's Fiona who's somehow in the wrong and Sasha learns nothing. Sure by the end of the book she considers Rhys her boyfriend but she is never the one to tell him. Fiona is, because Sasha just doesn't bother to, because it never treats her as someone who has to grow as a person. Sasha is usually either just used as a plot device to progress things or just doing almost nothing while being given credit, instead of being developed like a proper character. I'd call her a shell of what Tales Sasha was but even that feels too generous.

I used to really want to see the Tales characters in other borderlands media, but at this point I just dread it. Because why would I want to see my favourite characters being wildly mischaracterised and mistreated by the franchise?

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No matter what side you're on in the debate of wanting dead characters to return or not, you have to admit it's a VERY real possibility. And quite frankly it would be more surprising if it didn't happen at this point.

- We have the Anahatium Shard that can just straight up revive the dead that is basically confirmed to be a returning factor in the series since both Rhys and Fiona are looking for it.

- We got confirmation that ghosts exist in the guns, love, and tentacles DLC, and there's a gun merged with Eridian technology that can let you see them.

- And finally in Nyriad's messages she mentions a vault called the vault of the Timekeeper. Given the name I think it's safe to assume that it, or its treasure, has the ability to mess with time itself.

So, regardless of what character it is, whether it's just one or two, or all of them coming back, it's pretty likely that we're going to be seeing some people returning at some point, probably in Borderlands 4.

At this point, Chekov's gun is off the wall, fully loaded, and pointed directly at the series. It's just a matter of time until it fires.

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COMMA-TOSE!!!! MAKE MORE EDITS..... AND MY LIFE... IS YOURS!!!!

Oh I will be doing, believe me! I have SO many ideas for edits

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Posts that give me ✨️RHYIONA vibes✨️

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It's a CRIME that we never got to see Athena and Janey's wedding.

I know in my heart that Fiona was the maid of honour after everything that happened and was completely dedicated to making sure nothing went wrong. That there were two seats left in honour of Athena's sister and Scooter, and that Gortys took the role of the flower girl and was SO excited about it.

Janey would've designed the car they drove off in, and the cake toppers would've been little Bunkers & Badasses figurines, custom made of the brides, because Athena got a little more into the game than she'd like to admit and ended up playing it with Janey.

Rhys would've remembered Athena talking about the Atlas coffee machine and fixed up the one from the bio-dome as a wedding present so she can have her latte's again (also as a "please don't kill me for restarting Atlas" bribe).

Gortys would've handmade presents for both of them, and Loaderbot would've found the most practical wedding gift he could.

Vaughn would've had the Children of Helios helping set up the venue and patrolling the area to scare off unwanted people.

Sasha would've been taking pictures of the wedding and putting them all into a scrapbook to give them after their honeymoon (I don't know why but Sasha just gives me the vibes of someone who could make really nice thoughtful scrapbooks)

I want a DLC about this. I don't care if the time has passed and they should be married by now I want to see it. Return the moon lesbians to us. Let Athena be Athena Springs.

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Posting this here because why not (also because I posted it on TikTok a bit ago and wanted to post it here), getting the clips took WAY too long but I'm actually fairly happy with how it turned out

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I wish that Rhys and Fiona had actually been teleported somewhere else for another adventure after Tales. I don't like that the treasure of the vault was a wish that ultimately meant nothing anyway.

Rhys had already been starting to build up Atlas so why did he suddenly need more paperwork, Fiona just gave her wish away to Sasha who wished for a vaultlander that ends up getting destroyed not long after. Why would they even have to vanish for a few minutes to get a wish?

AU where Rhys and Fiona both actually get sent somewhere unknown when they open the treasure chest, and find something strange on the other side and they only discover it's purpose as the story progresses. Or where they gain something like an ability based on the kind of person they are.

AU where we actually get to see more of how they've developed, see them meet new characters as they try to figure out a way to get back home and understand why they were sent to this new place. Where they use the skills they learnt before and advance them as they travel.

AU where Gearbox actually progresses stories instead of ignoring the existence of plot points for years, butchering characters personalities, and actually shows characters grow and develop in a way that feels natural.

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Now Gearbox sweetie, listen to me.

We do NOT have to kill off a past vault hunter in this borderlands 4... Especially from Pre-Sequel or Tales, leave my babies alone.

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So does anyone else think something bad might've happened to Sasha? Like she's dead or horribly injured or something by the time borderlands 3/New Tales happens, and Rhys and Fiona are trying to find the Anahadium Shard to being her back?

Stick with me on this for a minute.

While Sasha and Fiona aren't actually in borderlands 3, there is an Echo log from Rhys where he talks to Zer0 about a woman he's looking for. The log mentions that this woman is missing and even Zer0 can't find her. Rhys is upset and says that if it wasn't for the war with Maliwan maybe he "could've done something to help".

Now a lot of people assumed this was Rhys talking about Sasha but I disagree, I think it was talking about Fiona and I think she ran off looking for the Shard to bring Sasha back. The reason I think it's about Rhys looking for Fiona is for two reasons, the first being that the echo log is called "Friends in Invisible Places" and since he's canonically in a relationship with Sasha it wouldn't make sense to call her a friend. And the second reason is because in New Tales when he's upset about Sasha's picture getting teleported away he says he might be able to get a new picture of her from Fiona if he can find her.

But why do I think Sasha is dead or hurt beyond normal healing? Well aside from the voice line from Rhys in bl3 talking about his love life where he says that he's sad now without elaborating, both Rhys and Fiona are confirmed to be actively looking for the shard.

Rhys not only knows what the shard is called, so he's clearly done research into it, but he also says at the ending of New Tales that he had a LOT of personal investment in that shard. And Fiona appears at the ending as well without Sasha, where she talks to Markus and after figuring out where the shard is going she takes off after it.

The ONLY reason I could see those events all happening is if they needed the shard to save Sasha, because I can't see any other circumstance where they would both be looking for a crystal that could bring someone back to life.