#(i also just realised i didn't actually use the quote

[ennn]

Lilia and Agatha: The Comfort of Fate and Death

I've been pondering Lilia's arc in Episode 7 and what it might say about Agatha's arc and the show's exploration of fate, choices, and death, because they all seem intertwined.

Let's take a walk through my thinky thoughts, shall we?

Fate and Agency

Lilia hid from her power because all she saw was death, and she couldn't stop or change it. She had been chased away for trying to warn others of disaster. And because MCU witches can apparently live a damn long time, all this death and loss and sense of helplessness crippled her.

So she forgot herself, forgot her power. And just like Agatha, Lilia also gave up on having a coven because it didn't work out the first time.

But despite everything, Lilia did still try to make a difference in helping Billy using the sigil. She saw the boy needing help and decided to try.

And she realises she did make a difference. He's standing with her now. Despite running away from it for years, her power enabled her to do something that mattered.

And when confronted with a vision of her own death, Lilia decides not to leave the road but to go to her coven who need her. She embraces her fate (her death) and saves her coven.

It's interesting because it feels like Lilia's destiny coming true but it also feels like Lilia is making her decisions and driving her story. Because we're with Lilia as she goes through this journey.

But is it all ultimately a matter of fate? Can fate be changed or are these points fixed regardless of what we do? Because divination means they can be perceived in advance? I don't think the show will give us any definite answers. And maybe there aren't any.

Maybe it doesn't matter if it's fated or not, but what we decide to do with the information and power that we're given in a moment. I like to go back to that quote from the Angel TV series, because it sums it up so nicely:

If nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do.

The fate and commonality of Death

It is what we all have in common.

Lilia's story also makes an important point about death: Yes, death can be frightening, and lead to pain and grief and sorrow, but it's part of being alive, part of the common human experience.

Death can tear a person apart but it can also bring people together, if you let it. It can be a comfort.

And every living thing's fate will be death, one way or another. We don’t need divination powers to know what awaits us at the end. But what will you do, knowing this fate? Not just for you but for the ones you love?

This issue is further compounded for these witches, who seem capable of living for centuries or longer. They can experience the pain of deaths across many human lifetimes and they also deal with death more often as a persecuted or misunderstood community.

Lilia tries to escape the pain of death by isolating herself from other witches and hiding away as a hermit. She doesn’t want to see, to keep futilely trying, so she runs from her power.

Agatha, on the other hand, is a creature of ego and hubris. She believes that rules can bend to her power. She refuses death, refutes it. To Agatha, death is a challenge, and perhaps the ultimate mystery – and she’s big ol' nerd who loves a mystery – so she's fascinated by it.

Complicating things is how Agatha ends up falling for Death and vice versa. And in so doing, she gets emboldened about bending the rules. She's not above manipulating Death to keep herself just a bit more safe.

But the end result for Agatha is still isolation, like Lilia, because Agatha removes herself from that common experience.

There's no one to grieve with her, to comfort her, when Nicky dies. Especially if Agatha's first instinct is to hate and blame Rio for not bending the rules for Nicky (especially if Rio did bend them a little for her).

It's actually a similar message to the Death tarot card: Change will happen. Resisting the change, not letting go, will only make the transition more painful.

Agatha clings to control but there's only so much one can control, and it's ultimately harming her. Lilia struggles with this before she is reminded that her role is only to see.

To see and ask her question to the cards, and in so doing remember herself. What she's missing, what she actually wanted to find walking the Road.

For Agatha, I think she has to come to terms with fate being bigger than her, and with having less control than she wants, than is healthy. And in so doing, open herself to a coven she deeply wants.

[birbleafs]

Most people tend to point out how badass Alhaitham is here (true). But what I like and appreciate a lot about this scene is how it also shows that Alhaitham cares enough for the general public's safety (including the Ayn Al-Ahmar members he'd agreed to fight with just moments before) that he rushed in to disable Mizri's corrupted Akasha terminal to stop his rampage. Alhaitham didn't actually need to do so either (he's not the Matra; public security isn't part of his job as the Scribe) since Mizri was attacking his own members. But Alhaitham still crossed that distance just to protect the other members of the faction once he'd realised what was happening, and he didn't even draw his swords out against Mizri. **Edit: I would like to also point out how there's a note of concern and urgency in Alhaitham's voice that you can hear clearly both in the JP dub here and in the original CN voice. It can be argued, of course, that he only did this knowing that Mizri had the Divine Knowledge Capsule and because he'd wanted to steal it. Still, Alhaitham could've kept his distance as Mizri continued lashing out at his men, and during the chaos and confusion, he could've easily filched the Capsule too before letting the Matra deal with the group's in-fighting while he slipped away with it. But he chose to jump right into the fray instead and risk injury to himself by going against a berserk Mizri.... though, I suppose Alhaitham had probably already decided that risk is extremely low and reasons that "I'm a very good fighter and I've a Vision, so I was never in any actual danger" or something along those lines. Because he's just annoying like that lmfao. This also makes that one iconic, quotable quote of his "I'm merely a feeble scholar" all the more hilarious.... What a lying liar LOL...

Still, I'm willing to accept his (modest lol) rationale, that in terms of sheer brute strength and perhaps without any help from his Vision, Alhaitham isn't as physically strong as the most jacked Eremites—he did preface the above line with "Compared to the mercenaries...", after all lol. He's simply a very efficient fighter who excels at using speed and agility to his advantage.

[gam3-b01]

winter

pairing(s): jeon wonwoo x reader

genre(s): angst

wc: ~1.3k

warnings: suggestive content (hankypanky related activities), just sad hours in general, minors dni just to be safe

(a/n: my first post on this blog, this was one of my earliest drafts and i needed to get it out of my system ahahsjdnd. the way some people might know who i am because i used the term hanky panky is concerning but also hilarious, if you see this i love you bro sorry for angst hours i stayed up too late to make sane decisions sorry i had to. song inspo for this fic is winter by two feet)

It's not a thing, right? This hasn't happened before.

But the familiarity with which you look up at him from under the covers slaps Wonwoo in the face before he has the time to process the content haziness clouding your eyes. His tense frame relaxes involuntarily, and he slips in beside you but not before checking your bare skin for any bruises he might have accidently left after almost soldering you to the mattress barely ten minutes ago. As he slips an arm around your middle and you tell him without any kindness whatsoever that his hands are way too cold for you (and that he should probably get checked for anaemia because, and he quotes, "even hell freezing over generates more fucking warmth than you do"), he realises he has to stop lying to himself and acknowledge the fact that realistically, this has actually definitely happened before.

This exact night, every single frame of it, happened last year. And the year before that. And the year before that one? No, the both of you were still together back then. Probably. What year was three years ago? Time was always a muddy, comically abstract concept when it came to each other for the both of you.

Maybe it would be easier for him to count the years winter to winter. Because when Wonwoo visits his hometown at the beginning of every December, a series of events occur. He sets his bags down at his place and spends the first week in radio silence recuperating with his family, ignoring the 20 odd messages he gets from Mingyu about his dog and updates (read: gossip) from their shared workplace. The next week usually is spent catching up with old friends mostly out of obligation, and the third week is occupied by Christmas. The fourth-ish week is when all of his friends asking about you begins to get to his head. By around the 28th of December, he's sick of lying awake in his childhood bed, staring at the ceiling as he tries to forget things that should never have happened in the first place. Eventually he sits up, runs a hand through his hair, puts on his glasses, and spritzes on something that you liked to call "sandalwood crack" before shrugging on his jacket and heading out.

Where to though? He pretends to think for a while before giving up. And when he steps into the bar after paying for his cab, he is never, ever surprised or secretly relieved when he spots you sitting in the stool furthest away from the air conditioning. You look wasted, but the soda cans strewn about you indicate otherwise. You've stopped drinking after the breakup. You're doing well with sobriety. He opens with that like the asshole he is, and you have the decency to cuss at him like a sailor and pass him a stool as you say something vaguely self-depreciating as a joke about the near-alcoholism you contracted back then. He opts for silence. And you ask him to take it easy despite him having opened the fire. Ever tolerant. Like the gentle undercurrents of a river (not like you didn't have a temper on you, you just tended to be nice when you saw him after long periods of time. Was it because you missed him? The mere thought had him shrivelling up a little inside). Wasn't he supposed to be the water sign between you both? He remembers the natal chart phase you had when you were nineteen, which reminds him you were his best friend of nine years before the both of you stopped talking. He expertly shoves that piece of information away before it tries to hurt him one more time.

(...What kind of best friend asks, no, begs him to leave and never contact them again? Maybe the kind whose best friend actually proceeded to do exactly that without ever putting up a fight? Fuck.)

Things somehow, without fail, end up leading you both to the nearest motel when one of you ends up saying something incredibly reckless and all the other person can do is gape hopelessly, words murdered in cold blood right when they were about to be bailed out from their throat. The rest of a night is a senseless, irresponsible blur, and then?

The rough part begins.

One of you is going to leave in the next thirty minutes if Wonwoo's doing his gut arithmetic right. He wished he sucked at math sometimes, he really did.

However, he blinks a bit. Something feels off, something feels different. You're not leaving (is it his turn this time..?). Instead, you're turning around, eyes vulnerable and still blown a little wide as you touch his hair with a flavour of fondness he could not imitate even if he tried his damndest to.

He freezes for only a second before his lips seek yours out of habit. He truly loathes the way he groans at how much it affects him, but what else is he supposed to do when he knows you're trying to hold back that little sound you make when you get desperate for him? He's almost willing to let you take the lead because he feels like his system is going into overdrive, willing to let you finally ruin whatever's left of him, but sanity prevails by a hanging thread as he takes back control from you with a firm hand on your jaw. His grip is gentle unlike earlier, and despite knowing you like it when he's mean to you, his eyes shine with something completely different when he breaks the kiss for a moment to take in everything he can about you right now and burn this anomaly into his memory.

(Because what else will he be ever be able to think of on every single cold, miserable night for many years to come after that look you gave him before he kissed you? That look that made it look like you still loved him, why did you have to do that?)

You're staring at him like you've been burned, and he's trying his absolute best not to flinch away when he sees raw, unabashed hurt begin to filter through your soft irises.

"Don't look at me like that." You start.

"Like what?"

"Like you-", you gulp nervously, eyes quickly losing the content sheen radiating off of you earlier.

"-like you actually want me or something."

Externally, the tenderness in his eyes is instantly replaced by whatever the fuck he usually looks like, but internally, he's trying his best not to scream. Your words are unfair, cruel even. How can the one person who knows him like the back of their hand not grasp the one fundamental truth that makes up his very core?

The alarm system inside his head built just for you tells him you feel sick, just like he does. He knows you've gleaned that much as well, and makes no effort to stop you as you slip out of the bed with the sheets hugging your chest in one fluid motion.

"I feel so sick, Wonwoo."

"I know."

Your heart is as tangled up as his is, and no matter how many times the both of you manage to land into each other's arms, neither of you seem to be capable of unravelling the other without tearing everything apart.

He watches you collect yourself before turning to him, face stone cold, with eyes that now look foreign to him as you deliver the parthian shot.

"I think that I should go."

[missingpolinseason]

Despite the claims that there's no deleted Polin scenes in season 3, What a Barb! Podcast just found some more scenes that didn't make the final cut.

The first one I want to talk about is Colin's dream. Aparently, in the original script, Dream!Colin wants to continue 'the lessons' and says he "still has so much to teach her", to wich Dream!Pen replys "teach me". The insert ends with Colin saying: "Don't worry, it's only us. It was always us". Now, how on earth did they though that it was okay to delete a scene in wich Colin admits to himself it was always them?

That scene being deleted makes me wonder how was the original Willow Tree scene - as that scene is about ending the lessons, and we know it was a reshot because of the wig. Was it a scene to mirror the dream sequence? Because the dream reveals he wanted to continue their lessons and "teach" and "experience so many things with her" but he "gives up" because he thinks she doesn't want it. Like, it would make so much sense with his insecurity to destroy the friendiship. Omg. Not to mention it embodies one of my favorite things about the book wich is Colin being in love with Pen even before realising it.

Then we have the second scene, wich is actually a line cut out of their first kiss. In this version, Colin claims that (the kiss) would ruin her, but she says she's 'already ruined'. And as much as I have no complain about their first kiss - it is my absolute favorite scene -, in this moment Penelope thinks she has nothing else to loose. That she will never married and will spend all her life trapped in her mother's house. That's wath brings her to ask for the only thing she ever wanted: a kiss from Colin. She's a romantic after all. But Colin doesn't see her as a 'ruinned woman' and he doesn't want to cross the line even though no one would known.

In fact, in the book, her kiss request is kind off prompted by Colin saying that "Suppose I told everyone that I have seduced you. You would be ruined forever. It wouldn't matter that we had never even kiss. That, my dear Penelope, is the power of the word". And that quote/line of thinking matches so well the persona who sees Whistledown as an enemy that the show build for Colin...

Last, but not least, a scene in episode 7. The night before their marriage. A prostitute aproches Colin but he declines her services. This not only shows the truth that he'd never cheat on Pen but also that he knows they will be well and leave happily ever after.

They chosen to cute this scenes. Rumour is they chosen to pick a version of the modiste scene in wich Colin sends Pen home alone in the middle of the night when there's alleged a version of this scene when he goes home with her - not to mention the scene of them in bed talking about Colin's write. How many more Polin scenes we may have lost?

UPDATE || it came to my attention that the way I wrote this post may have been confusing so let me clarify: there were 4 alleged deleted scenes known and mentioned in the petition (2 being a "short-cut" of scenes we've seen, and 1 a different version of the modiste scene). The news found in the scripts are a deleted scene; a huge part of Colin's dream and a line in their first kiss. What I want you to take from this post is that there were changes and cuts. They deleted moments that would have been important and sugnificant to Polin's story. And keep in mind that is only the cuts we got to know.

*The deleted scenes/scripts were courtesy of the Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library (accordinding to What a Barb! posdcast).

** First scene is loosely quoted as I saw the information in portuguese and translated back to english.

*** The original screenshots of the scenes + insta posts belong to the What a Barb! podcast Creators. I included the images along with the source.

[lovelygirlwithablog]

"I'll be here. Always."

pairing: Harvey Specter x f!lawyer!reader

description: You struggle with the pressure of a high-stakes lawsuit. When you break down late one night, Harvey finds you and offers you the suport you never knew you needed. Reassured, you regain your strength to face the challenges ahead.

warnings: fluff, love confessions, mutual pining, use of Y/N, age gap and Harvey (yes, he's a warning)

word count: 1708

A/N: this is my first fic! hope you'll like it and I accept any constructive criticism 🫶🏻 i also take requests, so feel free to ask me! i'm down to almost everything :)

────────────────────────

You were staring at the wall in front of you, sitting on your expensive sofa in your office at Pearson Hardman.

Everything was great, right?

Except it wasn't.

You were stuck on a case, and you didn't accept anyone's help. It was your victory if you win, or your shame if you lose.

Your first major assignment is to represent HarperTech, an innovative startup that developed a groundbreaking algorithm to predict consumer trends. However, just as HarperTech prepares to launch, tech giant Dynasoft sues them, claiming HarperTech stole their proprietary code.

Dynasoft, a powerful corporation with a history of suing competitors, alleges that HarperTech's founder, a former employee of theirs, stole their code.

You were excited to make your mark with such a high-profile case, but as soon as the documents start piling up, you realised you're in over your head. You need to navigate complex tech jargon, a formidable opponent, and the high expectations of the firm - all while you sense Harvey Specter watching from all the sidelines, assessing your every move.

Dynasoft is not just any client; it's a Goliath in the tech world, with resources and a team of high-powered attorneys. You know that Harvey was the firm's go-to litigator for cases like this, but you're determined to handle it yourself and prove your value.

Suddenly, a knock pulls you out of your trance.

"Come in." you speak softly, looking at the door.

Harvey leans against the doorframe, watching you struggle for a moment before saying, "Careful, Y/N. If you stare at those files any harder, you might actually scare Dynasoft into settling."

Harvey was good at reading people. Maybe too good, because he knew every little thing about yourself that you don't even notice.

You look up, surprised. "And if you had any real advice, I'm sure you'd be the first to keep it to yourself."

Harvey raises an eyebrow, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. "Oh, I have advice. But then you wouldn't have the pleasure of figuring out you need me." He pauses, holding your gaze with a slight grin. "So... ready to admit it yet?"

You roll your eyes, but you can't hide a small smile.

You lean back in the sofa, crossing your arms, refusing to give him the satisfaction. "Admit what? That I can handle this without you?"

Harvey chuckles, strolling closer and casually picking up a random file from your desk, flipping through it like he's just browsing. "Sure, you can 'handle' it," he says, using air quotes, "but the question is—can you win it?"

You pause, and he notices the sudden silence.

"I'm... not sure." you sigh.

The HarperTech case has pushed you to your limit. You've poured everything into it, but the constant pressure and the weight of possible failure have finally taken a toll.

You look up, trying to mask the emotion in your eyes, but Harvey catches the telltale signs. Harvey doesn't say anything, just crosses the room and stands beside you, his expression softening as he sees his colleague—and friend—on the edge.

Without hesitation, Harvey reaches out, pulling you into a steady, reassuring embrace.

At first, you stiffen, but then you let go, allowing yourself to sink into the warmth and support. The weight you've been carrying finally breaks, and your shoulders start to shake as you fights back tears.

Harvey gently runs a hand over your back, holding you tighter, grounding him in a moment of pure, quiet comfort. As you let the tears come, Harvey leans down and presses a soft kiss to your forehead, whispering.

"You're not alone in this. I'm here. You don't have to carry it all yourself."

You nod, your voice barely a whisper. "I just—I can't mess this up, Harvey. Not this time."

Harvey pulls back slightly, keeping his hands on your shoulders, looking directly in your eyes. "You're not going to. You're stronger than you think. And I trust you." He brushes a tear off your cheek, a rare vulnerability in his expression. "And when you feel like you can't, I'll be here. Always."

You take a deep breath, grounding yourself in Harvey's words, and finally manage a small, grateful smile.

"I think you've stained my suit with your running mascara." Harvey speaks, looking down at his blazer.

"Get out of my office." you laugh.

After a moment of silence, Harvey steps back slightly, still holding your shoulders. He looks at you with a mixture of warmth and playful arrogance.

"You know what? This isn’t a night for drowning in paperwork. Let’s hit that new Italian place downtown. I can’t let you suffer alone. Bring your papers too." Harvey speaks.

You raise an eyebrow. "Dinner? With you? Are you sure you want to share a table with the girl who's still learning the ropes?"

"Oh, please. Sharing a table with me is the best decision you’ll make all week. I promise I won’t judge you too harshly if you order spaghetti." he grins.

You laugh, shaking your head. "I might just take that as a challenge. You do know I have taste, right?"

"Sure, but let’s be honest—your taste is probably in line with whatever you discuss with Rachel. Tonight, you’ll get the real deal."

As much as you don't want to admit it, he was right.

You roll your eyes, but there’s a playful sparkle in your eyes. "Alright, let’s do it. Just don’t expect me to hold back on the critiques when you order the wrong dish."

You pack your things and leave the building, going there with Harvey's car.

As he drives through the city, the soft glow of streetlights flickers across the dashboard.

"You know, you really held your own in there today. I’m impressed." Harvey speaks.

You turn to him, a smile forming on your lips. "Thanks, but I couldn’t have done it without your support."

Harvey smirks, but there’s a warmth in his gaze. "That’s the thing, Y/N. You’re more capable than you give yourself credit for. Sometimes, you just need a little push.”

As he reaches a stoplight, Harvey leans in slightly, his voice lowering just enough to create a sense of intimacy. "And I’m always going to be here to give you that push."

You nod, looking forward.

When you arrive at the restaurant, your mouth almost drops.

"Harvey, this... this is a beautiful place." you smile. It reminded you of your early memories from Italy, when you were just a child.

"I know." he smiles, looking at an empty table. "Let's go." he signals you to come with him.

As you settle down, you reach into your bag for your papers. Before you could even find them, Harvey puts his hand on top of yours.

"You think I brought us here to work?" Harvey raises an eyebrow.

"But- at the office-" you start.

"What I said at the office remains at the office." his voice is steady, yet calm.

"Mr. Specter..." you smile. "Is this a date?" you tease him.

He clears his throat.

"Take it as you want." he tries to hide his smile, looking down at the menu.

As you finish your pasta, you cross your legs and look at Harvey.

God, the soft lit room highlights his masculine features, making him even more beautiful.

"I really needed this tonight. It’s nice to just… be here." you speak softly.

Harvey nods, a soft smile forming. “I know."

Harvey leans forward slightly, his tone turning more serious. “I’ve always believed that life’s too short to get lost in the grind. We need to make room for the things and people that matter.”

You nod.

The moment hangs in the air, filled with unspoken connection. Harvey’s gaze softens as he holds your eye, the weight of his words settling between the both of you.

You blush slightly, looking down for a moment before meeting Harvey’s gaze again. "You make things interesting."

"Good. Because I plan to stick around for a while. Just think of me as your personal cheerleader—minus the pom-poms, of course." Harvey speaks.

You both laugh, the lightheartedness returning, but the warmth of your earlier exchange lingers, deepening your bond.

Harvey pays and you both leave.

As you exit the restaurant, you're greeted by a sudden downpour. Rain pours down in sheets, the sound of water hitting the pavement creating a soothing rhythm. You glance up, surprised.

"Oh, no... I didn't bring an umbrella." you face palm yourself.

Harvey chuckles, taking off his blazer and draping it over both of your heads as a makeshift shield. "Who needs an umbrella when you have me?"

You laugh. "You're going to get soaked!"

"As long as you’re under here with me, I don’t mind. Besides, I like a little adventure." he winks.

You and Harvey start walking, the rain soaking through your clothes, but you don’t care. The atmosphere is electric.

"You know, this is definitely not how I pictured our dinner ending." you pout.

"Yeah? What were you expecting? A boring dinner and a handshake goodbye?"

You speak. "Maybe just a nice chat. But this is much better."

Harvey glances at you, the playful banter shifting to something more serious. "You really mean that?"

"Absolutely." you smile.

You reach a quieter part of the street, the rain still falling heavily around you. Harvey stops and turns to face you, his scent filling your senses

Before you can respond, Harvey gently cups your face in his hands, his thumb brushing against your cheek. The rain continues to pour down, but neither of you cares.

Harvey takes a step closer, the air thick with tension. "Can I kiss you?"

You nod, breathless, your heart pounding. "Yes. Please."

Harvey leans in, your lips meeting softly at first, then deepening as the kiss becomes more passionate. The rain cascades around you, soaking you both, but all you feel is warmth. It’s as if the world has disappeared, leaving only the two of you in that moment.

When you finally pull back, you both are breathless, smiles lighting up your faces.

You chuckle, still feeling the warmth of the kiss. "I think I could get used to this kind of adventure."

"Good, because I’m not letting you go. Not now." and he kisses you again.

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

staged but i've never watched it and i'm drunk

hello mascot good omens mascot here okay so THE STAGED LIVESTREAAM IS ON SATURDAY BTW. That is a thing that is happening. So. You know. If you're above 18 because @thescholarlystrumpet (and I ig) are responaible adults come and like. Join us. Watch me react to staged and probably die. i'Ll probably share details when I'm not drunk and when it's not nearing midnight.

But until then I'm drinking battery acid (this red wine cost like the equivalent of 2.5 USD) and I am here to summarise staged.

It's about David Tennant and Michael Sheen, who, until barely a month ago, I had no idea existed (we don't talk about Michael sneakily being in Twilight and Passengers I'm actually pretending the Twilight thing didn't happen pklease respect my denial)

It started over Zoom and it's about them rehearsing a play during COVID but like it's scripted so it's a show about rehearsing a play and it stars the actors as themselves very meta very fourth wall

David has hair extensions and Michael does not

David keeps switching locations because he has to quote Michael "twenty children" and they're everywhere. Because of this hellsite that's obsessed with David to an unhealthy level I know that this is not true, he has five children and I can probably give you details and how is this my life

Michael stays in the kitcehn and some watchers think this is a poetic choice it's not David just has to shift because humans are everywhere in his house

Georgia who is David's wife and Anna who is Michael's wife which I also know because of this hellsite both also star in it

They're all neighbours now by the way which this really creepy hellsite was DETERMINED that I know about okay thank you tumblr I'm uh that's knowledge for sure I'm sure they're having fun

Judi Dench is involved and I'm not sure who she is but she's a Dame and she's a very good actress and she's kinda intimoidating and also for some weird reason I associate her with that Cats nightmare fuel even though I didn't watch it but yeah she probably had nothing to do with it

There are three seasons and FOR SOME REAOSN EVERYONE IS CRYING AT THE END. WHY ARE YOU ALL ALWAYS CRYING WHY HAVE YOU DRAGGED ME INTO THE CRYING TOO I'M STILL CRYING OVER GOOD OMENS WHAT IS THIS NOW.

it's uh it's a comedy but I've realised now that in Britain comedy = will make you sob harder than a tragedy but will be more subtle and sneaky about it

god this wine tastes like shit i really need to make money so i can afford better alcohol. any suggestions, maggots? wait this is a summary not a life update

uhhhh the silhouette of one of david's kids appears in one of the episodes

that's all i've got i'm sorry time to go make more bad decisions I love you all byebyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee stay rotten

[fortuna-et-cataclysmos]

S5 finale: wrapping up the "running out of time" theme

So I have been mentioning frequently that there is a theme of "running out of time" in season 5, but I wasn't able to make out the meaning of it, until now.

We can say that there are three situations where the theme explicitely manifests:

Gabriel: After receiving a cataclysm wound in Destruction, we often hear Gabriel repeat that he is running out of time. The entire Intuition episode is based on that premise.

Ladynoir: This is the most obvious manifestation of this theme. In Jubilation, Ladybug and Chat Noir live a dream just to be constantly reminded that their perfect life together will end when they wake up to reality. I call it Ladynoir, but actually it is Maribug's love and romantic relationship with Chat in general.

Adrinette: This is the most subtle one, but it is there. Notice how Marinette needs to ease into a relationship with Adrien, and Adrien is doing his best to cut her slack, so much so that he says in Derision, and I quote: "We've got time." Soon after, Adrien is sent to London.

If you think I have forgotten other strings of running out of time, feel free to let me know!

Now let's look at these three strings individually:

Gabriel running out of time

This one is the simplest one as it starts very early on in the season, with the episode Destruction where he gets the cataclym wound, and ends in Recreation with his "sacrifice." Also worthy noting the names of the episodes. What starts as Gabriel running out of time in Destruction is concluded in Recreation with him making his wish, accomplishing his wish, and dying. We can consider this thread concluded.

2. Ladynoir running out of time

Of course, the first episode that comes to mind is Jubilation. In Jubilation we (and the blorbos) learn that they actually desire to be together, romantically. And indeed they get to live a perfect little life in their dream, ignoring the increasingly bigger alarm clocks that are trying to wake them up. Except that at the end Ladybug realises that they must wake up (duty calls!), and she abandons Chat Noir in the dream universe, broken.

From here on, nearly every episode is a warning for Marinette against being romantically together with Chat Noir:

Determination: Marinette accepts that she has feelings for Chat Noir, her reaction to that is crying

Passion: Ladybug's crush on Chat Noir leads to her being distracted and making many critical mistakes in their fight

Reunion: is a cautionary tale about Ladybug and Cat Miraculous holders falling in love

Illusion: (I haven't watched this in a while but I think nothing relevant happens here)

Elation: Marinette is nearly akumatised because of her love to and rejection by Chat Noir

The overarching message from Jubilation to Elation is that: if Maribug ends up with Chat Noir, it'll be a disaster.

So Marinette decides to close up her heart to anyone, and after a brief depression, Adrien finally convinces her to be with him and they become an official couple. From this point onwards, the key ship becomes Adrinette.

Does that mean that Ladynoir has run out of time? Not necessarily. They just decided to love each other in a different way. I should remind here that even though we tend to polarise the sides of the square as fandom, the creators have repeatedly told that the love square is one, there is one love.

The Ladynoir relationship has a direct connection to the Adrinette dynamics because after all, they're the same two people.

3. Adrinette running out of time

Now that Adrinette is finally together, they should have all the time in the world, right? Right? It's what Adrien says, after all.

But I couldn't shake this sense of urgency throughout this season. Every time they said that they had time, it made me feel like they actually don't and they don't know it. And it was exactly what they wanted to make us feel: with Adrien's move to London, it turns out they didn't have time. Worse is that, Adrien actually knew that he'd need to move to London but he couldn't tell it to Marinette, he kept it a secret all the way till he was shipped off to London.

And there is a parallel between Jubilation and Revolution here: in both episodes, their dream is shattered, they share one last dramatic kiss, and they are torn apart from one and other (@asukiess had a big brain time and pointed this out back when Revolution aired).

But now, in Recreation, Gabriel is gone. Everything is fixed? Everyone will be happy, right?

Well... No.

As I pointed out in a previous post, the world that Gabriel creates is a bit too bright, too perfect. The show is notorious for associating the sun with fake happiness at this point, while the "real" moments are rainy and/or dark. And let's see the colour palette in the end:

Another detail that makes me put on my tinfoil hat:

They're not very visible on the static image, but there are white butterflies flying over the flower arch. Those could be symbolising the end, as a reference to how Ladybug releases the purified akuma at the end of each episode. But it might also have a second meaning, a reference to how this world was in fact created upon the ideals of Gabriel.

And that can't be good for anyone. I explain more the consequences and aftermath of this episode in the post I mention above, but basically this world is Gabriel's ideal, and it is far from being a good place for neither Marinette, nor Adrien.

One main reason why: Gabriel has left Marinette with the truth about the Monarch, and she agreed to keep it a secret from Adrien. But we know that it will eventually come out. Either she tells it to Chat Noir, or maybe Lila plots something, but it won't remain a secret forever. And when it does... it will have tremendous impact on not only Adrinette, but also Ladynoir.

This world is a fantasy world where Marinette and Adrien have ended up together, just like in: Chat Blanc, Ephemeral, Oblivio, Jubilation. And at one point the alarm clock will ring, the hammer will drop, and both Ladynoir and Adrinette will run out of time. Except that this time, we may not be able to revert back to the status quo.

Gabriel has left them with a tickling time bomb.

[thefirstknife]

The Thread Unfurls Against the Clocks: Saint-14 and how we saved him

Hello. It's time. I already did one summary of how we saved Saint, but I want to go even more in-depth because I later realised that so much of this is unavailable and also happened so long ago that most people don't even know where to look for it and what to look for. I also want to address all the adjacent lore like the stuff about the Sundial and also how it all relates to the current plot.

Finally, I want this to serve as an explanation that there's something very weird going on and that the Saint we have is the real Saint. I've seen people already super resigned after this week's story, simply accepting that there was a reveal that he is truly the "wrong" Saint. I want to analyse all we have on Saint in-depth and focus on how we saved him to show the level of detail involved because I think it's important to understand things in the episode.

Obviously, really compelling lore changes can happen and work out, but in this case I'm just not feeling it, for various reasons. We'll see, but I still think this is worth putting together and that we have plenty of indications that we saved him "correctly" so to speak.

Saint is a unanimously beloved character and one that is so closely linked to our player character as well. The setup for his return was established so long ago and was kept consistent the entire time. I feel like the stuff in Echoes is almost like a culmination of it all, as well as a reminder about what we've done. We'll suffer for a bit for sure but there is no doubt in my mind that Saint will come from this safe and healed. No matter what ends up being revealed, I believe he will be fine.

Contents! Long post under. Spoilers for Echoes Act 2, mostly just in the Echoes section.

Intro

Curse of Osiris quest

Season of Dawn

What's up with the Sundial?

Echoes

Intro

I'm not sure how familiar people are with the full scope of Saint-14, but he's been a character since the beginning. We didn't know much about him at all; the first mention was in vanilla D1 in this grimoire about the Darkness, listing what various characters think about it. Saint's thoughts:

Saint-14's Position argues that the Darkness was an invading armada, an alien force of incredible - but tangible - power. Some adherents believe that this armada sprang from species rejected or discarded by the Traveler for their sins.

All things considered, he wasn't that far off! Really cool detail, but this lore was referenced in TFS, in the lore book Chirality, and especially Saint's bit:

* Saint-14's Position is the most eminently practical of the bunch, no matter how the man himself protests that such an obvious facet of the truth doesn't require a formal philosophical stance to be named for him.

There's 10 years separating these lore pieces! But they're still being referenced because there are some incredible nerds writing this.

This doesn't tell us much about Saint, besides that he's thinking in very practical terms. He views the Darkness as something that can be fought back. Note that at the start we don't know anything else about him, not even if he's a Guardian. In House of Wolves, we get this lore where the author (the Speaker) is going off about Osiris. We get a little piece about Saint; Saint-14 suggested that Osiris should become Vanguard Commander and also vouched for Osiris. This was the first piece of info that these two are familiar with each other. How far we've come since!

After that, we get his helmet as an exotic in The Taken King (though it has no lore other than the flavour text) and a little bit of insight into him with the first proper lore tab that actually features him as a character. It shows his iconic headbutt and ends with him deciding to follow Osiris to Mercury. A few little details are mentioned in flavour text on the following items, mostly quotes about or from Saint: 1, 2, 3, 4. Number 3 is interesting:

"Stand with your back to the Wall, and not even the Darkness itself will move you." —Saint-14

Remember that!

There's a few more in Rise of Iron, again, just flavour text. He's really funny here, and being his usual heroic self here. That's it for his stuff in D1. Saint-14 was some sort of historic figure, he was a Titan, he fought in historic battles, he fought against the Eliksni and he had some sort of connection with the Speaker and Osiris. He was a practical man, a warrior and a protector.

He wasn't really a full character or anything and only had a few quotes and one lore tab where he actually does something. But the stage was set! He was clearly a character they wanted to explore and they did, in Curse of Osiris.

Curse of Osiris quest

Curse of Osiris returned his helmet as an exotic item and immediately gave us hints about the expansion of Saint-14's character and where they're leading him. The lore tab on the exotic is a conversation between Cayde-6 and Lord Shaxx where Cayde-6 insists that Saint is not dead, while Shaxx is just kind of resigned to it. Cayde also notes that Saint was a "weirdo:"

C6: No one ever put down a Kell faster than he could. But man, he was a real weirdo. SX: Eccentricity was his strength. C6: Talking about the Speaker like you're related to him is eccentric. Claiming he's seen the future, that he fought Six Fronts fueled on the idea that some Guardian savior is coming? That's insane.

Wait a minute. Saint-14 claimed he's seen the future and that he believed in "some Guardian savior"? What's that about? Wink wink. Nudge nudge. To make things even more obvious, the remaining conversation is... about the Young Wolf:

SX: Belief is a hell of a thing. C6: Sure, yeah. One Guardian's going to fix everything. Kick Crota off the Moon. Make it look like us Vanguard know our head from our hindquarters. Hey, where are you going? SX: One of the new recruits from Old Russia I've had my eye on—entering the Crucible for the first time. C6: Hey, maybe they're the one. We'll call 'em Crota's End.

Maybe Cayde should've started making prophecies too! But yeah. This was the first proper hint about what they cooked up for Saint's story. Saint has apparently seen the future and believed in a "Guardian savior" and he fought for the City fuelled by this belief. Very interesting! To make things weirder, there's Saint-14's Gray Pigeon which also features some strange lore at the end where Saint addresses an unknown person:

To my inspiration. Your final gift to me I now send back to you. It will be good to see you again.

This was wild to read at the time because it clearly references something that we don't know about, but that's incredibly important to Saint. The theory was that he might be talking to us, the Young Wolf, but how?

That's where the quest comes in. Curse famously didn't have a lot of content, but it did have the post-campaign quest with Lost Prophecies. They were a set of quests where we essentially had to collect items to transform "prophecy tablets" into weapons in the Infinite Forge which was a sort of interactable area in the Lighthouse on Mercury:

There were a total of 11 of these, with the final one being to acquire the Perfect Paradox. Each weapon came with a prophecy in the flavour text and a lore tab. The final one however, Perfect Paradox, triggered a whole separate quest in two parts. In part one, we discover an old Vanguard comm signal coming from the Forest which we follow and analyse to discover that the signal is from Saint-14.

Detecting traces of familiar Light up here. Wait… Saint-14? He's been missing for decades. Saint was one of the greatest Titans who ever lived. Hero of Six Fronts. All that power and he just… vanished. The City's still looking for him.

This quest also features this conversation from Osiris and Sagira:

Osiris: If Saint-14 is lost in the Infinite Forest, it's because he came here to find us. Sagira: You can't blame yourself for every missing Guardian, Osiris. Osiris: For him I can.

If you're lucky (or unlucky, depending on how many emotions this gives you), you can hear this line from Sagira in Presage. This is where it comes from!

The quest is kinda set up in a way to make you think we'll actually be saving Saint here. We finally found his comm signal and it's leading us into the Forest. He's clearly affected the Vex and the Forest with his Light and he's fighting back. Osiris gets involved and urges us to find him. The whole thing feels like we're doing what we usually do; find a problem and fix it.

Part two of the quest continues in a similar vein. The quest is called "Not even the Darkness," btw. Remember that quote from Saint from The Taken King? Yeah. Anyway, we go back to following the trace leading us to Saint, into the Infinite Forest, this time into a simulated future. There, the Vex get alerted and summon a big Minotaur; Hagios, Reverent Mind (whose name means "sacred" in Greek, so essentially... Saint). We kill the Minotaur and then the area behind it opens; it appears to have been guarding it.

When it opens, we're treated to a bittersweet sight:

The area is beautiful, but it's a tomb. Saint-14's body is laid out like this in a pillar of light, surrounded by piles and piles of dead Vex. The Vex fought him for an unknown amount of time and they ended up respecting him; enough to create a tomb and seal his body and set a whole Vex mind to guard it, and apparently, revere it. Despite how hopeful we've been about saving him, he is dead.

As we approach his body, we take the remains of his personal weapon. Back at the Lighthouse, we use these remains and the prophecy to craft the weapon as it was; Perfect Paradox shotgun. The prophecy attached to it:

A tale that's different from the rest: the thread unfurls against the clocks. The one the Speaker loved the best must have a perfect paradox.

The prophecy is from Osiris, of course, which means that at some point when he was making them, he already knew about the strange fate of Saint-14. Not that he is dead; Osiris hoped to find him in the Forest. But his prophecy talks about time travel and a paradox. In the lore tab itself, Saint attached a letter to the gun in which he once again addresses a mysterious person. This person is now definitively identified as us:

All I have left is this weapon. The Cryptarchs say you crafted it yourself, built it out of scraps and Light and sheer will, inside the Infinite Forge. I'll make sure it finds its way back to you.

Well that's correct. We crafted the weapon in the Infinite Forge. But we only did so after recovering its remains from Saint's body, so how could he have had the gun in the first place? Almost like... there's some sort of a time travel paradox involved. This was naturally bizarre at the time; we had nothing else on Saint or any of this during this quest, just these vague baffling hints that there's more to the story. Especially since it involves our character; Saint repeatedly talks as if he had already met us. He says so in the letter as well:

I mourn that I will never reach the heights you have. To me, you represent everything a Guardian can become. Yours is a thriving City. So different from mine. My whole fourteenth life I fought to make my City yours. I never finished.

He knows that our City is thriving and that we are "everything a Guardian can become." But we've never seen him before. This was really confusing and there was also not even a promise that it would be resolved. But it felt like something that they cared about deeply.

It would take 3 years until we got the resolution.

Season of Dawn

This is a big one in general because they really wanted to be as attentive to all details as possible. Even before the season started, they released several weblore pieces to remind us of Saint and bring up some important information.

The first one was The Accolade, about Saint's past and heroic deeds revolving around saving people. The weblore focuses on explaining what his "accolades" are; aka his purple ribbons on his armour and ship. They're gifts from people he saved; tokens of appreciation that turned into a type of a ritual with Saint. If you're saved by Saint, you have to give him something purple and he will wear it with him and remember your name. It ends with Osiris shortly after we found Saint's grave. Osiris went to see it for himself, to check, to make sure. He also laments that he never asked about the ribbons.

The next one is a glimpse into the past, a conversation between Osiris and Saint as Saint hands him the Vanguard Commander title. It's a good look into how that all happened, as well as the differences in approach and beliefs between Osiris and Saint.

And then they released The Sundial weblore (TW for suicide if you're reading the full weblore. One of his Echoes does not have a good time). Osiris is found on Mercury with a machine he built, putting finishing touches on it. It's called the Sundial. Osiris built it in response to Saint being dead, the implication very much being that he intends to use some form of time travel or some other time shenanigans to change the outcome and save him. Osiris never recovered from learning that he's dead and from seeing his dead body in the tomb. The design is Sagira's, and he's also helped by Drifter, who shows up to check the math. I'll go more into the Sundial later.

Osiris wraps up his work on it and turns it on. He splits into his Echoes and enters the machine to start searching through Saint's timeline on Mercury with the intent to find the right moment with the right Saint to save him; he is specifically looking for the moment when they drain his Light.

Osiris’s Echoes scour Saint-14’s timeline on Mercury. But the corridors of time refuse to give way to the moment they need: Saint and the Martyr Mind in the depths of the Infinite Forest. The Echoes work tirelessly for weeks, then months in the space between moments. In desperation, he splits the dozen copies into many thousands more as the work continues fruitlessly.

Osiris experiences what the kids these days call "epic fail."

None of the Echoes ever approaches a Saint. They never find the right one.

Despite all the work put into this machine and all of his knowledge and skill, Osiris doesn't manage to use the Sundial successfully. He never finds the right moment and he never saves him. It's worth noting that when Osiris used thousands of his Echoes, he experienced the time and life of every single one. But for Osiris outside the Sundial, it's only been a few moments. In those few moments, he essentially lived thousands of lifetimes. And died thousands of times. I need people to understand the amount of effort he put into this and what kind of an emotional toll it had.

Completely defeated, he gives up and hides the Sundial. He moves on with his life, doing what he always does, until stuff suddenly changes, which is explored in the next weblore: Actions of Mutual Friends. Us killing the Undying Mind in the season before Dawn changed everything, for the Vex and everyone else. We essentially created a point of divergence. The Vex suddenly had to change their projections of the future; Osiris noticed this and got very concerned.

While he wasn't looking, his Sundial was found, by Psion sisters. They figure out the potential of the Sundial and work to reactivate it, which they succeed in. The Red Legion descends on Mercury, looking to use the Sundial to essentially rewrite the course of the Red War and win.

Osiris finds out and goes to Ikora, to the City, to ask for help. This is the topic of the next weblore: Desperate Times. Osiris defends his choice to make the Sundial to save Saint, despite everybody else basically trying to explain to him that the universe might implode because of it.

This is a lot of setup, but it's necessary. It all leads into what happens in the season and what the season revolves around; saving Saint. It wasn't even a secret, as they very clearly showed it right away in the trailer (best trailer they've ever done). The seasonal gameplay revolved around us using the Sundial to defeat the Red Legion and stop them from trying to figure out how to essentially change the course of history. We had to fight three different Psion bosses, one of each of the sisters, until the end, when the three of them joined together into a single Psion entity for us to defeat.

As we were using the Sundial for this, Osiris also told us about what he made it for originally. He explains a little bit about it and about his failure to succeed, then warns us against using it for ourselves, but doesn't stop us.

I told you before - I tried to save Saint-14. I bent the rules of time using a prototype of the Sundial. It allowed me to walk the corridors of time here on Mercury. But I failed. I never found Saint's final moment against the Vex. I encountered younger versions from his first mission to Mercury, among others. But none were the right Saint. The prototype Sundial still exists, accessible off the main deck. And it can still travel through Saint's personal timeline on this planet. But venture there at your own peril. He cannot be saved. I have walked every permutation of those corridors with a hundred thousand of my Echoes and found nothing. Saint-14 is lost.

Despite this, we make the attempt and then the first part of the quest starts. When we use it, the Sundial reacts. It reacts specifically to the Perfect Paradox:

The Shotgun you crafted in the Infinite Forge is reacting to the Sundial! An onboard transponder is broadcasting coordinates: a path through the Sundial, crossing two time periods. The prophecy blueprint you used to create the Perfect Paradox must have included this broadcast. If you can open up the initial chamber, I can align us to the first time period the broadcast is referencing.

The two time periods are two points in time where it's relevant that we meed with Saint. The first one is in the Dark Age, when he came to Mercury with civilians in an attempt to reclaim the planet and help the struggling population of Earth with resources and possibly old Golden Age technologies. We connect to Saint via comms. He is devastated and demoralised. He failed to protect his people and he's also under siege by the Eliksni and is more or less resigned to dying. Lucky for him, we get there in time to help him out of this situation.

After the battle, we talk to him. Our Ghost hesitates a little but then decides to do it anyway; he shows Saint the projection of the Last City from the future, to prove to him that the everything will be fine if he continues to fight and stays hopeful. We also give him the Perfect Paradox, to help him fight. The loop is set! This gun was crafted in the future and was brought to the past. In time, Saint will die with it and we will pick up its remains from his body, allowing us to craft it in the first place.

Saint-14: What is this? Ghost: The Perfect Paradox. Built by my Guardian out of spare parts and Light and sheer will to aid you.

More importantly, this is the moment that Saint spoke of to other people that made him seem crazy. As we've seen in lore from years before, Saint kept saying that he saw a thriving City and that there's some sort of Guardian savior coming and that he's seen this future. He also wrote in that letter how we gave him the shotgun and how we saved him. This part of the quest is constructed around this lore. This moment is what Saint remembered and talked about. We saved him and invigorated his will to keep going. This is why he is the way he is.

We part ways and leave the Sundial. Ghost immediately goes to check if we messed anything up and to let us know that there's one more point in time to go to:

Okay, let's check the Tower databases to make sure we didn't just wreck the entire timeline. Queuing "Saint-14"… Records state he was a former Commander of the Tower. He vanished on a final mission to Mercury in search of the exiled Warlock Osiris. Well, those are the big beats. Timeline intact. Good job, Saint. But our trip's not over. That broadcast I picked off the Perfect Paradox marked one more set of coordinates within the Sundial.

The second part of the quest started a bit later, but it doesn't waste any time once it does. We're immediately linked up to the other point in time that Perfect Paradox reacted to and we're back in simulated future, in the same area where back in Curse we fought Hagios who guarded the entry to Saint's tomb. Except now, we find Saint who has just had his Light drained from him by another Vex mind; Agioktis, Martyr Mind (note that the name is more or less in the same vein as "hagios," aka "sacred," dedicated to Saint). This is the moment Osiris was looking for, but couldn't find it, because he didn't have the Perfect Paradox.

This is the Vex mind they built to destroy Saint and we find him as his Light has already been taken. But Saint is still eager to fight and greets us happily. Unfortunately Saint is then restrained, the Vex doing everything in their power to kill him. However, this time he's not alone. We're there and we fight in his stead. We manage to piss off the Martyr Mind enough for it to now move to restrain us, which frees Saint, returning his Light to him as well. Saint then delivers the final blow to the Martyr Mind which frees us!

Saint-14: It's been a long time, my friends. I've chased your memory for centuries. You should go now. Those who could kill me are dead. You've made sure of that. Ghost: And what if the Vex take your Light again? Saint-14: Impossible. It cost them everything to build the Martyr Mind. When you crushed it, they were doomed. Ghost: You want us to leave you? You'll be stuck here for years. Saint-14: You've both done plenty. Just open the Infinite Forest gate for me. I'll meet you the long way around, at the entrance. Saint-14: What's a few more years of fighting Vex?

Saint decides to stay in the Forest and wait until we open it from the outside for him, in the future. This is how he leaves in the right time, instead of too early for his timeline, so nothing else is really affected. He waits it out and then exits the Forest at the time of Season of Dawn. This gives us one of the shortest but also the best cutscenes ever. As a note, in the cutscene, when Saint leaves, the Forest gate looks new, like from Mercury's past. This is because of the Sundial's effects on the surface of Mercury at the time, splitting the surface through time, so the Forest gate looked like it's from the past, but it's not. It's present day Mercury.

When we report this to Osiris, to say that he's amazed would be an understatement. I often quoted this from him, especially when people were being weird about Osiris and claiming he doesn't like us or whatever:

In his youth, he talked often about the Guardian who inspired him. I should have guessed it would be you.

We've done the impossible. Literally. The quest is called "Impossible Task." Osiris did everything and he couldn't do it and he lost hope that it would be done. But we did it, because we created the time loop; a connection with Saint that allowed us to use the Sundial in a way Osiris could not.

Saint has been saved! After this, he settled in the Tower. He had a series of minor quests and errands, the best one being the quest for the Devil's Ruin exotic which featured a really long and funny conversation between Saint and Shaxx. Another one is obviously the Corridors of Time quest which is genuinely cannot be compared to anything else as it was a community puzzle of epic proportions. An article that showcases just a little bit of how bonkers it was.

The important part of it is that the culmination of the quest featured us finding our own grave and Saint narrating a eulogy for us. This is important to us now for two reasons: 1) on our grave was a sword, a sword we received as an actual item in TFS, directly from the Traveler to fight the Witness 2) it's possibly a different timeline. The second one is unclear because we simply can't know when we die, but the eulogy specifies that the sword was shattered in the final confrontation where we died. Our current sword is chipped, and it wasn't when we originally got it in the campaign. So either this is a different timeline where it didn't shatter or this isn't that confrontation when we die and it will shatter at some other point in the future.

In this post I also noted how the music that plays in our grave scene and the music that played in TFS when we get the sword is the same. A very clear and deliberate choice. This is a very cool link to Season of Dawn that they brought back over 4 years later.

With the Corridors of Time puzzle ending and the Corridors closing, that concluded the Saint stuff. He was finally saved and he could rest in the Tower! And we know everything that has happened since.

Okay. So...

What's up with the Sundial?

We don't know! But I want to get into it because it's one of those things that they made sure to hint about, without fully explaining it so obviously every weird nerd online (me) wants to figure it out.

Back in The Sundial weblore, there are some peculiar and never explained details about the Sundial that have been kinda concerning and just intriguing to think about. There are a few lines essentially saying that whatever is at its core, it's not good. First is Sagira's:

“That work was theoretical! If the Vanguard find out what you did to build it—“

What did he do to build it? No clue. The infamous core is described only as:

He turned to look at the fluctuating glow of the exposed chronometric core.

When the Drifter shows up, he immediately reacts to this, fairly negatively which makes things more ominous since Drifter tangles with a lot of weird and bad stuff himself. So if he's disturbed about this...:

Drifter walked to the central spire and put his ear up against it. “This core…” he said, leaning close. His eyes darted back to Osiris. “It’s whispering.” Osiris’s expression didn’t change; his arms didn’t uncross. “We’ll seal the core away. I understand the ramifications.” “Good luck keeping that contained. Not something I would bargain with, hotshot.”

The core "whispers." Osiris understands the ramifications. They're both so frustratingly vague so the only thing we're left with is this ominous vibe of something bad being at the center of the Sundial.

This whispering, alongside a few other concerning descriptions and implications of the Sundial is mentioned in yet another weblore that I only briefly mentioned earlier because it wasn't relevant to Saint stuff; Sisters. It's about the Psions finding the machine.

The Psions could somehow feel the Sundial. Or perhaps just the effects it had on time on Mercury, even while it was powered down and hidden.

“Small disturbances,” said oldest Ozletc, the wisest. “Little currents in this timeline. Can you see them, sister?” “I can taste them,” said second-born Tazaroc, the hungriest of her sisters. “I can feel the edges.” Third-born Niruul, the quietest among them, reached her hand out to test the air. “As can I,” said she. “And something else. The source is disguised. The technology is Human, but refined. Surprisingly so.”

They also note the whispering, as well as its potential:

A strange device shimmered into existence around them. They looked up the length of an enormous, golden spire. “It whispers,” said Tazaroc. “Then block your ears,” said Ozletc. “Do you see the potential in this?” “Chaos,” said Niruul. “No,” said Ozletc. “Opportunity. See how it tugs at the fabric of our time? Can you see the seams?”

They also make the strange comparison to the OXA:

“It is so clear,” said Niruul, reverent. “An unobstructed glimpse into what was and what will be.” “Not the troubled ramblings of a mad thing, like the OXA,” said Tazaroc.

The Sundial offered something more and better than the OXA ever could, implying, perhaps, that these machines have something in common; possibly something beyond simply Vex technology. My insanity about this has been going on for a long time and also helped with the TFS CE lore. A bit of a tangent, but also possibly related, depending on what the core is.

Furthermore, Osiris refused to tell Saint about details of the Sundial, including remaining vague about its core in this weblore:

[u.2:13] One is a manifestation of Light. The other… reserved for Taken Kings. Better suited for traversing the Sundial because of what lies at its core. [u.1:14] One day you’ll have to tell me exactly what you and the Guardian did to bring me back. [u.2:14] We did what we had to. Trust me.

So what is it? Well, we know:

It whispers (very obvious and easily detected, both by Drifter and the Psions)

It's something bad (Drifter's reaction to it is uncharacteristic for a man who tangles with the Taken for a living and deals with strange dangerous artifacts all the time)

Osiris' Echoes are better suited for the Sundial because of its core, and Echoes are something "reserved for Taken Kings." Bizarre way of saying it to avoid explaining it

Similar to the OXA, and possibly any other time/prediction machines based on Vex tech (because the OXA itself is confirmed to be more or less the same as the FWC Device, for example)

To recharge it, we needed to feed it Light. This is particularly concerning with what Osiris says about it: "The Sundial is my greatest creation and my greatest regret. What I had to do to forge it I can never take back. As a result, it has components that consume Light. And if you're serious about operating it again, you'll need to feed it. Nothing is free. Ever."

What this points to, to me at least, is Darkness. The core is a Darkness artifact of some sort, merged with Vex tech. This only gained more proof to me with all the new lore about the Darkness and how it governs the mind and memory, especially when the Vex are involved. To the Vex, the future is memory. Merging Darkness artifacts with the Vex might be able to create dangerous time travel machines or machines that displace consciousness through time and timelines, like the OXA and the Device, allowing the user to "predict."

To make things even more convoluted (and me more insane), there's an almost perfect explanation for what this artifact might be. So perfect that I feel like it's too good to be true, tbh. It's a Nezarec relic. I will now list everything that connects this:

It would explain the Darkness artifact. Nezarec's relics were full of Darkness and were being used by utilising that Darkness

Drifter's involvement and experience with it. Hell, the Drifter may have even provided this relic to Osiris, since he had one and did not particularly enjoy having it, which was detailed in Lightfall when they showed us how he got it. Plunder was also rich on this, showing us that the Drifter immediately recognised the relics and understood what they were.

Whispering. Darkness in general has a whispering thing; the Veiled statues, the Witness, the old stories about Dredgen Yor, there's a lot of whispering going on here. But it's really super connected to Nezarec. His relics were whispering to us in the H.E.L.M.. The glaive? Nezarec's Whisper. Another disciple also called him a "whispering Nightmare." All of Root of Nightmares armour lore has it as well, with Nezarec tormenting his victims with whispers; for example here, and here, and maybe even here. I could go on. He's the whisper guy. Literally, Nimbus called him Mr. Whispers.

Psions. The Psion sisters found and reactivated the Sundial... Somehow. They especially were able to almost instinctively locate it despite Osiris hiding it well enough. The Psions also needed quite a lot of time to activate it again and admired the complexity of the encryption, despite it being human, so we can't really say that they found it easily because Osiris' did a poor job of hiding it. Were they drawn to it? Were they drawn to it because of its core? Psions are inherently linked to Nezarec. It's been confirmed back in Lightfall, but also curiously mentioned again in TFS with the Lost Ghosts quest (timestamped here). I'm definitely hoping for some Psion content in the future but this is fairly interesting in this context. Season of Dawn was really the only proper Psion-focused storyline.

Osiris' coma. His coma appears to have been somehow paracausal. At least strange! The scans were showing that he has "no residual activity" in his brain, despite us having lore from his POV showing us that he had a very vivid and visceral activity. He was able to feel some external stimuli, but was mostly drifting through strange visions, seemingly hopping between his... Reflections. Or possibly Echoes. His final thoughts here are also of the Sundial; as if his mind was somehow stuck in there, or lost, trying to find his way out of it. This could just be a consequence of his memories constructing something for him to experience so obviously it's just cycling through what he knows, but...

Waking Osiris up from his coma happens with the use of Nezarec's relics. An important point to note here is that this wasn't so much about it being Nezarec's relics; it had more to do with the inherent Darkness they consist of and Darkness can help the mind and consciousness move or awaken. However, given all of this and given his POV from the coma and the possibility that his mind might have been stuck somewhere with his Echoes in the Sundial, if the Sundial's core is a Nezarec relic, then a Nezarec relic had more chance to bring him back. It's such a perfect connection that I feel insane thinking about it and it feels like I'm constructing a fanfic, but also. I think it's worth considering. Cutscene of him waking up + article from Bungie that details on the whole idea of waking him up with Darkness and why that's important for understanding Darkness.

I have to mention the other theory, especially in comparison with all the above to try and illustrate why it never made sense to me and that is the popular theory that the core of the Sundial is an Ahamkara bone and that the Sundial worked on wish magic.

I'm not quite sure why this was even a theory to be honest. Even back in the day of Dawn, this never really resonated with me because it seems that the only reason this was a theory was Drifter saying "not something I would bargain with" and... Possibly whispers? Obviously a lot of things can whisper, and Ahamkara have been also mentioned doing so, but I don't find this significant to Ahamkara enough for identification just through that. I also don't think that one mention of the word "bargain" is enough either. Many have bargained with Darkness too. There's simply an overlap between Darkness and Ahamkara here, but there are also other pieces that are more closely linked to Darkness like eating Light. We could go even further, if we're considering Ahamkara; we could also consider Worm Gods, for example. The point is that several things can fit here, but I feel like there's overall more things pointing at Darkness.

What gets me the most is that they alluded to this in Season of the Wish, in what seems fairly obvious as disproving this theory to me. Riven and Osiris talk:

Riven: Isn’t it unfortunate your City hunted down all of my kind, Osiris? You might have wished for Saint-14’s return from the Forest. Osiris: And have him trade the Vex’s torment for yours? Riven: Perhaps you simply didn’t want him back badly enough to pay the price. Osiris: Save the bait for someone naïve enough to take it.

I talked about this earlier, but there's several layers of why the moment I heard this, it sounded like it's here to disprove Osiris using an Ahamkara. First, Ahamkara wish magic would be felt by Riven. If Osiris put an Ahamkara into the Sundial, then he did use wish magic and she would know about it. In that case she would not have said this; perhaps she would've teased him about using her powers to save Saint, but that would be a completely different sentence.

Second, Osiris is well aware and wary of wish magic. He knows that had he done so, he would've probably put some form of torment (wish magic backfire) on Saint. This, to me, indicates that not only did he not do this, he didn't even consider it as an option.

Third, if Osiris had an Ahamkara bone and was considering to use it, he could've just done so without building the Sundial. Why bother with the machine if you can just instantly make a wish and the wish doing exactly as you want? Obviously with a caveat, but still. It would've worked right away. Perhaps the Sundial was an attempt to contain the backfire, mixing wish magic with Vex tech to try and prevent the whole thing from going backwards, but even then; Osiris knew there are possible consquences.

And fourth, even if he did all that, it just didn't work, which would be quite uncharacteristic for wish magic. It's paracausal; it should override any Vex tech in the Sundial. If he made a wish, he should ask for a refund! The Sundial worked only because of the paracausal loop we created with the Perfect Paradox and it had nothing to do with anyone's wishes; definitely not ours.

One interesting thing for this theory is the way they said how similar wishing and simulations are. It happened in Wish and now again in Echoes. Here's a freebie for the Ahamkara theory enthusiasts.

Personally though, I simply feel like there's much more connecting and sensible explanation with it being a Darkness relic, rather than Ahamkara.

HOWEVER. The truth is that we simply don't know. I am personally more into it being Darkness (and Nezzy specifically), but I could be wrong and the Ahamkara theory could be proven correct somehow. Hell, it could be something completely different. It could also be nothing; as in, we will never know because they won't tell us because it doesn't matter.

And technically, it doesn't! Nothing really changes if this doesn't get answered. I want that to be clear. This isn't some sort of lore breaking detail. But you know. The nerds would love to know. I really wanted to get into this now that we've had a resurgence in interest about Saint and how we saved him.

Echoes

Okay, so why this monster of an essay? Well, because Echoes revolves around Saint and the Conductor trying to convince him that he's the wrong Saint. That Osiris acted out of grief and pulled a random Saint from the timelines, that he's simply satisfied with what he got because he couldn't get his original Saint because that Saint died.

Saint is convinced in this; that he's some sort of an aberration in the timeline, a simulation or a copy or just the wrong Saint from the wrong timeline. Even an error that must be corrected.

And I simply think that people are too quick to jump to the conclusion that this is the story being told, especially because of the radio message this week where we're shown that Saint and Osiris suddenly have different memories. But I feel like people have already forgotten the other radio message, from week 1. You know, the one where Saint and Osiris talk about their memories and the memories match perfectly:

Saint-14: Osiris. Do you remember when we knew? Osiris: Knew what? Saint-14: That we were meant to be together. There was one moment... though, it took us time to get to it. Oh, but our Hunter Vanguard, so smart, Tallulah... she knew before we did. All our little squabbles and bickering. She saw it first. Osiris: it, uh — ah, well, I was — obtuse. Stubborn. I couldn't recognize my own emotions. Then, Tallulah told me to.. "Be serious". Saint-14: Haha! I remember. So yes, she told me later. Was good laugh. Osiris: Well, I'm glad you found it so amusing. Saint-14: Who could not look back and smile? And I remember your smile, then. So knowing, and so full of our future together. Osiris: What brought these memories on? Saint-14: Hmm. I think about others who will have those same moments now that they know they will a future free from the Black Fleet. Now they have a chance to find love and be happy, like us. We can look behind, but also forward. We cannot see what is coming, but we know it is good. Osiris: You're certain? Saint-14: About us? Yes. Since the beginning. Now, and always.

We have this memory as a lore tab as well. I think this was given to us deliberately, to show us that Saint and Osiris have identical memories and that Saint's memories were never in question and that their history is perfectly aligned... Until he got yoked. Something changed when he got yoked, not when he was saved. This is a new development, which tells me that the Conductor did something to him, rather than Osiris saving the wrong Saint. Because until now, this was never a problem. Saint never had discrepancies in his memories before, with anyone he ever interacted with.

If we take a look at the whole story of how he was returned, it's beyond clear that Osiris was very fixated on saving his Saint, not a random one, and that we went to great lengths to do just that. We only ever interacted with one Saint, the same one, and we linked each other with the Perfect Paradox. It cannot be any other Saint, even with the existence of other timelines. This Saint and this Perfect Paradox are ours, from our timeline, the originals.

However, other timelines do exist. And some entities can access them. The Vex are obviously first on the list. Characters like Elsie and Osiris have also seen them. And clearly, the Conductor should be capable of this as well. It's beyond clear now that the Conductor is Maya Sundaresh. Maya, who was simulated 227 times by the Vex and had those 227 copies of her wandering the Vex network and different timelines.

If the Conductor knows where to look and how, she could see these timelines, including these other Saints, and she could've fed Saint false information while he was yoked. Implanting memories of other Saints perhaps, or something similar.

I know a lot of people weren't there for Dawn, let alone Curse. There's a lot of information about Saint here and a lot of really interesting clues from the past about what's happening now. It's also really interesting how many little details have been transferred through the story over time, showing that this is a plotline they care about very much and want to make sure doesn't get messed up.

There's probably a lot more stuff we could get into for speculation and explanations because there's still more stuff that plays a role in this. The Infinite Forest is a big one, and I suspect the Perfect Paradox is as well, as we're likely to get it next week or the week after as part of the story. Because it should be relevant to the story! It's an inherent part of Saint's story and why he's with us now in the first place.

So what's really going on? We're not entirely sure yet, but assuming that the Conductor is correct and that her messing with Saint is revealing something about Saint's legitimacy is I believe wrong. I think she's using him as an experiment and that she's messing with him, and by extension, with us as well. There's no way that we've had a "wrong" Saint this whole time and that nobody ever had any issues with him. That nobody had any discrepancies between memories with him. Not Osiris, not Ikora, not Shaxx, not Saladin, not Zavala or anyone else Saint interacted with since he's been back. As I mentioned, literally the first radio message shows us Saint and Osiris with matching memories.

It only started after he was yoked. Which means that the yoke and the Conductor did something to him, possibly shown him some other timelines or fed him false information.

Can't wait to see where this is going. I'm not sure how much this Act will cover and if we'll get a resolution to this right now or if it will stretch to Act 3, though if it doesn't get stretched, then I wonder what will the draw of Act 3 even be. Possibly just dealing with the Conductor? I'm very excited. This episode being so focused on Saint and Osiris and the whole throwbacks to Dawn and other past content has been really good. I'm enjoying it very much, this is my entire jam. I had high hopes for Echoes and so far it's been going great.

I'm super excited to see how they solve this and what comes of it and how much of this information will be relevant. And of course, if it will end up being correct! Because as much as I have my theories and as much as I'm convinced that there's something off here and that our Saint cannot be the wrong Saint, I could still be wrong. Looking forward to finding out!

[djtommotomlinson]

last november i was in china when my little brother called me and told me to come home. over summer my nan, my mums mum, had passed away before i had managed to get back to see her and my mum, my best friend in the world, had a heart attack soon after. i was with her then. we went to the funeral. she got better. we saw robbie williams live. we went out drinking and to the beach and watched coyote ugly and la la land together, our fave movies.

when my brother called me to tell me mum had cancer i knew it was bad. i lost my best friend to cancer when we were just 16 years old. thats never a good word. but its my mum. and to quote her days after her own mums death 'i always knew one day my mum would die but i never knew she would, like, actually die'.

i knew in the back of my head why i was going home but i didnt believe it. i watched spiderverse for like the third time on the plane. i went to grab my suitcase and laughed when i realised i was at the wrong shanghai - gatwick conveyor belt. who knew there were two at almost the same time.

then my brother, my baby brother, who is 30 next year but was 28 and always our baby brother, called me and my life is never ever going to be the same. i knew the moment he called. and i sat on the floor at gatwick airport shaking and people kept coming over to ask if i was okay and finally my sister and my aunties, my mums sisters, arrived and they were let into the baggage area when they explained and picked me off the floor.

i dont think this is a grief that has settled yet. i was meant to see louis that night. i havent listened to a song by him since despite his music getting me through some of my hardest times. my denial, she'll walk through the door and say this was all a joke, phase went on for months after we planned and executed a funeral and wake on the beach in malta. i made a great playlist, i wrote a great eulogy. i did that but it didnt properly sink in why.

i still, almost a full year on, wake up and think about messaging her to tell her how im feeling and check in on her.

my mum used to send me one direction news she found on facebook every day. harrys got a new album emmy did you know? and i was like no mum wow thank you (of course i already knew). she loved niall and we were going to see him live together. she wasnt a big fan of louis' music but ached for what he'd been through. i woke up the day after hearing about liam expecting a text from her checking in because she got me 1d tickets in 2014 for my 23rd birthday and she brought me merch and the dvd of the movie -

my mum who hated the beatles because they were too mainstream but loved what i loved because i loved it and was passionate about it. god she would have been crushed for me today. she would have been heart broken.

and i think this has hit me like a train not only because everyone who knows me knows how much i loved liam as if he was my own friend, but also because this past year has been so full of grief i dont always know how to get out of bed. my dads mum passed a few months ago. my family are wrecked with it. this past year has been a nightmare we can't get out of.

i always related to liam as someone who was bullied at school and as someone who suffers from mental illness and has suffered from alcoholism, thankfully, for me, something ive managed to come back from and im sober and i always hoped for that for him. its such a hard fucking mountain to climb and i didn't have to deal with the fame side of it and this whole other thing he had to carry. i always wanted him to get better but in the back of my head i had this feeling, i had this fear that i would one day log into tumblr and see the worst.

i still cant, and im sure for a long time won't, believe this real. thats one of my boys. we were very much meant to get old together. i wanted to see him get better. i cant begin to comprehend the fact he wont have that chance. this still doesnt feel real to me man. thats my boy.

just a few days ago I was in a convenience store and they were playing heart meets break and i was jamming and excited to hear my boy in a store. i keep remembering its happened, and i look at the photo on my bedside of me and my mum at the robbie williams concert and i could really do with her right now. a link to a facebook article and her over use of emojis - a shocked and crying face and a broken heart. because what else can express this?

i know i didnt know him but i always had the comfort of knowing of him, of listening to his music and watching his videos and feeling less alone in a cruel and lonely world.

its okay to be a fucking mess, if you can take time out please do. i wish this world allowed more of that. after my mum everyone had to go back to jobs and life and it still blows my mind that i was walking down the street then and today and everything was the same. the world should pause but it doesn't.

at the end of all of this, one day this might settle and make sense but right now it doesnt at all and thats how these things work. i love you all, this is not something i thought we would have to face until we had all grown old and spent all of our money on reunion tickets and seen our boys grow old and live their lives.

give people you love a hug, tell people you love that you care about them, work out problems and differences if you can and make the most of it. you never know how much time you have.

[nishloves]

seventeen on your periods <3

a/n: these scenarios might or might not be inspired from my irl experiences lmfao, hope you like it as much as i liked writing it &lt;3

svt x f!reader // headcanons // fluff // m.list words: 1.3k warnings: slight cursing

choi seungcheol

did someone say that his baby was hurting???? fully prepared with blankets, hot packs and soup to help your cramps; talked you out from your unhealthy cravings (coffee and dairy presumably worsen your cramps); used to be a bit clueless in the starting but did his research so that he could help you out <3 tries to spend his days with you and regularly texts you to see if you need anything. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR UTERUS IS COMING OFF?" calls 911.

yoon jeonghan

can see him teasing you for your foul mood and asking, are you on your period? on the days when you're just plainly... angry. he's eerily correct though (you usually get your periods in around 2-3 days after he quotes that hateful sentence), but is a sweet pie when you actually get them; he would take care of you, indulge in your cravings and cuddle you when you watch a series whether it be gore or the most slow burn shit you have ever seen <33

hong jisoo

he's so patient oh my god, the best one to have around to help your mood swings! he would patiently listen to your rant about how you tore the wrapper in a different way than you wanted to and then he would cheer you up??? like, oh god, marry me. he won't be clueless. at all. you're surprised that he knows so much about periods. "what do you mean coffee worsens cramps???" "yes baby, now put it down alright? I got dark chocolate for you." "you're the best<3"

wen junhui

boy makes you laugh so hard that you actually forget that you're on a period for a while lol. would cook and clean for you and gently kiss your forehead when you thank him for cooking so delicious meals; I can clearly see him calling you during shoots to ask if you need anything or if you're doing alright if he can't stay beside you (considering he travels a lot btw korea and china), would calm down your anger issues and it would almost seem like you both switched personalities. won't joke around too much because he doesn't wanna accidentally upset you, but he always and I mean always, does something so stupid that you end up cackling afterall.

kwon soonyoung

was clueless during the start despite having a sister; worked his way through research and observing you. you won't let him cook for you lmao, if you don't wanna cook you're ordering take out, but he's not cooking until he literally begs you to. but would gladly help you with other works, bringing groceries? buying sanitary pads and painkillers? stroke and play with your hair while you both cuddle together? all done. he doesn't do much but his presence calms you down, a lot. like really a lot. just him being near you is ibuprofen enough. "you sure you don't want me to do anything else?" "no... can you just hold me please?" "i will hold you for eternity <3"

jeon wonwoo

definitely tracks your periods, let's all your pre menstrual tantrums slide, will make you tea to calm down and educate you about periods, "apparently an average female spends nearly 10 years on her periods." feeds you food which helps relieve your period cramps. does every household chores if you're unable to do so, kisses your forehead amidst his work <3 oh also, would introduce you to cod/pubg where you can let go of your pent up anger (: "I WILL KILL YOU!" "you're doing great sweetheart."

lee jihoon

he's clueless, even more than hoshi. but he's smart so he caught up with it quite earlier than hoshi and you just didn't realise that he had zero and i mean ZERO idea about periods. like yeah he read about it in 8th grade but that's it, but would definitely be very attentive towards you and would spoil you with affection if that's what you desire. you just need to tell him what to do and he will do whatever you want. secretly buys your favorite food because your reactions are ten times more dramatic than normal and loves seeing you giggling because he did something nice. would get sad when you're not feeling your best though; can i do something to help uplift her mood? :(((

xu minghao

makes you green tea and asks you to meditate to calm your mood swings lmao. can see him trying his best to soothe you down by rubbing your back and playing with your hairs, gentle kisses on your cheeks as he urges you get up and take a hot shower and not act lazy. he's so prepared its almost scary than endearing. would also call you like three to five times while he's away... he would still not hesitate to calm down your delusions and force you back into reality from your sappy imagination. "i miss you :(" "i'm laying down right next to you." "i meant it figuratively!" "i miss my smart y/n too" "hey!!!!"

kim mingyu

be honest, you thought he was clueless right? he's not. not at all. he gets you hot towels to lightly soak your belly, gives you belly rubs, makes you soup, plays with your hair and massage your lower back to help your pain. you thought he was sweet? he's sweeter now! bam, you can't be mad at him anymore ahahahahaha. holds you close to him and runs his hand on your body; "I feel like shit gyu" "you're a pretty cute shit then"

lee seokmin

poor baby is clueless lmfao, you have to help him navigate through even basic stuff, definitely called you to ask your coochie's size because pads were available in different sizes. cooks you very delicious meals and fulfills all your cravings. your bad mood is not so bad anymore because he gave you his most radiant smile. his presence can heal you easily. "thought you felt sick?" "not now when you're here <3"

boo seungkwan

was sassing you out and then you started crying and then you revealed that you were on your periods and it all clicked. doesn't sass you, gossips! and gossips so much that you don't care about your cramps anymore! would sass other people to make you happy. takes care of you and regularly get you head pads for your aches, foot massages to make you happy <33 would definitely get sad when he sees you in pain tho :((

chwe hansol

man's chill as f and doesn't treat you any differently, while other members do tend to get a little cautious (more when you're bawling your eyes out after seeing a cat video), he won't treat you any different. he just kind of... adapts? you feel like shit? he does subtle things to make you feel good. you're emotional? hes there to be emotional WITH you. you want him to take care of you? no problem. he's there. always.

lee chan

please you can't not tell me that he was absolutely fucking clueless at first, was honestly scared when you lashed out on him for not picking up after himself and thought that you are always equally angry during your periods (who isn't lmao) he soon realised that you just have needs during that time and hormonal fluctuations just make you a little scary. would follow you like a puppy tho :( and carry out every single task obediently; would definitely wish to take away your pain. hes so sweet omg (would also ask your coochie's size)

[upslapmeal]

Notes from the Taskmaster 16x10 recording

The last two episode recordings I went to, I meant to make comprehensive notes when I got home afterwards that I would be able to look back at and post when the episode aired. I did not, in fact, end up doing that. So this time I was determined to have lots of notes, and made them on the go in the breaks in recording. However. They were made in a rush and I never went back through them to pad them out (you'd really think I would have learned by now). So instead of just having to rely on my memory, I ended up with an almost coded list of words and phrases that it's taken me pretty much 2 weeks to sit down and decipher lol. So with that said:

the pre-episode Greg-Alex entertainment was Greg getting Alex to sing a song about a recent news story to the tune of a song suggested by the audience - in this case it was Trump's lawsuit (the one in May 2023 since there are...a few) to the tune of Wuthering Heights

Alex really went for the whole live thing, and was constantly referring to it throughout the episode

when the contestants came onstage, I obviously first saw Sam in his bright colours and blond hair

we were right on the back balcony and my first impression from that distance was that he kinda looked like Jamie Laing lol

Greg made a passing comment about how he's been dressing in grey but I was completely taken by surprise when the vt rolled and he looked completely different!

I had assumed he'd actually buzzed his hair and didn't realise it was a wig until the ep aired

Sue made comments throughout the episode about how Sam looked like Dahmer

Lucy's prize task story, unsurprisingly, went on for ages and included a whole story about the holiday they went on that I tragically cannot remember

I was so glad they didn't cut 'untaffled' because I looked through my notes before again before watching the episode and couldn't for the life of me remember what she'd said

Greg's said that his immediate response to naked Alex in the prize task was that he was 'smooth like an eel'

After Julian's prize task there was a discussion about how people wanted to be buried, and at one point (I wish I could remember the conversation leading up to this) either Greg or Alex said they would be buried 'together forever in the Victoria monument'

There was a whole long debate about whether Sam intended to use nature as part of his doughnut task, and whether the bird toppling Ms Doughnut to her death should be counted

Greg told Sam to 'convince me to give you 3 points'

Sam went on talking about how amazing nature is and how we're all connected and at one point said 'consider the statistics.....3000' (I'm 99% sure this is what he said and I didn't just forget the rest of the quote)

Julian's exercise name was absolutely not a one-off, to the point they started running a 'cunt count' for the episode

Sue talked about how she had recently had an ADHD diagnosis, and that she kept viewing tasks holistically rather than paying attention to the details. This was specifically in relation to the exercise where she just did the same thing 4 times

I'm not sure if we saw the full extended version of Hotel Taskmaster, but we definitely saw a cut that included more than the aired version (though tbh I think they do that for most tasks and I just noticed this one bc we got the extended version)

We got an 'I put it to you' from Greg that Alex-as-Qrs looked genuinely cool

Lucy described Alex as having 'tight metallic buns' which Greg later referred to as his 'robot arse'

I cannot stress how much of a breakdown Susan had in the studio about the forks and marbles - you get a glimpse in the episode but that was nothing!

Susan also took AGES to do her throw in the live task - she kept on being about to throw before being interrupted, or saying her arms were too short, or that she needed a wee, or having a fit of giggles, and the longer it went the worse it got lol

Greg and Alex also had a go at it, and Sue wanted another go without the pressure. Greg and Sue got the ball in but Alex didn't

Don't ask me to remember the context, but at one point during the record, Greg told a story about someone he knew (whose name he said he would tell the others backstage) who would have sex in a cow mask and would demand 'LOOK AT ME!!!'. Anyway that was referred back to a few times in the ep

When Sam was given the trophy he just stood near-motionless with it for what felt like ages before we got to the hugs and everything

And now we enter the magical world of ~what on earth was this note referring to~ where I just hope someone else who was there (@politicalprocrastinator how's your memory?) sees this and can fill me in on what I've forgotten:

At some point around the prize / first task I wrote 'correct dog guess'. Whose dog? What was being guessed? Absolutely no idea

At some point there was a joke about the 'former Prime Minister', I think the idea being that by the time the episode aired we'd inevitably have a new PM? but I honestly can't remember

Someone called someone else submissive in a way notable enough for me to have written 'submissive' as a one-word bullet point, but not notable enough for me to actually remember

And now three bullet points which I will present in their original form:

Birthday

Bum hole in back

Get in bath

[should-know-better]

I think that Silverscreen is about that horrible interview

I've looked at the lyrics to Silverscreen over and over again, and just couldn't relate to them being about Alex or Hannah. Something just didn't feel right. For a start, when the song was written, Miles and Hannah hadn't broken up - in fact, they were together for another four months - so although the song appears to be about acting, I felt it couldn't be about her.

Then, there was consideration, that it could have been about Alex and the façade of his straight behaviour but the line 'patent boots, lipstick rouge' didn't fit (interestingly years later, Alex did have some patent boots for The Car tour).

I think that this is Miles' angry song about the RB interview in Spin Magazine (I refuse to even use her name).

Two-faced Johnny, hotel lobby A two-faced person is someone who is not sincere and says complimentary things to your face, but horrible things behind your back. 'Johnny' or 'Little Johnny' is a character often used in funny jokes or anecdotes, so Miles is creating a juxtaposition here. The interview did take place in the lobby of the Bowery Hotel in New York. In many of Miles' songs, he sets the scene in the first line.

I won't go up without you This is similar to what she reported he'd said. Growing up, Miles and Alex would have seen many British tv shows which had many double entendres in them (the Carry On films, Open All Hours, Are You Being Served to name but a few), and much of this humour is seen throughout their interviews. It's of a specific time and it's difficult for some non-UK people to fully appreciate. This is why she took the quip the wrong way. When interviewers say that Miles and Alex are talking in their own language, I feel that they don't realise that they are quoting different comedy lines to each other, to make each other laugh.

Patent boots, lipstick rouge, For the first time today, I looked up online pictures of RB and discovered that she does indeed wear bright red lipstick. There's black boots, but too difficult to say if they are patent.

hang on the edge of champagne flutes She works by writing about people who are rich and successful, literally, a hanger-on to the music industry.

Misdemeanour, gossip cleaner, She's made out that he has done something wrong, and she's created gossip. 'Cleaning up' is a phrase that means making money.

overacting table reader. Ego driver, loose-lip liar A table read is a run through of the script, done by actors just speaking the lines, i.e. there's no action. Nothing happened. She's making it out to be more than it actually was, (building up her ego) by suggesting that a rock star would try to seduce her. She's a liar.

driving my head in A colloquialism - 'doing my head in' is a phrase used in the North of the UK, meaning, it's making me so angry, I can't stop thinking about it.

I can't see silverscreens, He's saying to her, it's no good acting, this is not a film

you won't leave it alone, I don't care what you mean, I don't buy your next scene She repeatedly interpreted aspects from the interview the wrong way and he can't believe what she's written about him. Also, the repeat of 'you won't leave it alone' could refer to that it was reported that she didn't accept his apology.

Surface tension, I won't mention, liar, liar, liar ha This either refers to the tension in the interview itself, or the tension that the interview has created afterwards for Miles. She lied about it and made his comments out to be more than they were.

Dirty finger, constant linger, driving my head in A dirty finger means 'fuck you' as in when you show the middle finger to someone. Miles is still angry about this interview, months later, when he's writing the song. The interview was in March, he wrote the song in September. Perhaps the repeated phrase of 'you won't leave it alone,' also is him talking to himself. He can't get over it and he thinks about it a lot.

We know that Miles says that he is truthful in his lyrics, but in the John Kennedy interview, he says: "yes, it's a real angry one, it's like, I wanna keep a bit of the mystery there..." knowing full well that bringing this up again would do him more harm than good.

As usual, these are just my thoughts and interpretations on the lyrics and I don't mean to open up a can of worms about the RB interview again. Any comments are welcome 😊

[trainsinanime]

Your favorite fanfic writer doesn't know (but would like to)

Let's talk about comments on fanfics. This is not meant as a guide or call to action, just a bit of observations. Personally, I always saw it as impolite to ask for reviews or kudos or comments or likes or reblogs or whatever. That's not a rational point of view, it just reflects how I am. And people actually telling others that they have to leave any of this feedback? I've blocked folks over that. In my mind that's not okay. I'm not announcing a change of that, this is not a policy, just some deep-seated mental issues, but I want to write down some more things that have been going through my mind, from the perspective of someone who occasionally writes fanfics. My previous suggestion in this regard was mostly to write some fanfic yourself and see what happens and what you'd like to happen, because it's genuinely fun and I think you probably have more to say than you realise.

But there's also another point here, and that is that your favourite fanfic writer has no idea that they are. If you're anything like me, then it will seem like the great writers in your fandom are obvious. Also, the last time you bought Blåhajs, it ended with you having to flee a smoke-filled subway tunnel. The great stories and great writers in your universe are facts of nature. You read a story and you think, "this is the greatest thing I've ever seen." A story rewires your brain chemistry forever. You keep coming back and reading that one fic whenever the mood hits you. It feels obvious that this story is great. How could it not be?

It feels trite to say that the author of that fic doesn't know that unless you tell them, but it's hard to really understand the feeling unless you've been there yourself. You write a story, but is it any good? Maybe you get a lot of kudos, or maybe very little, but what does either of that mean? Kudos can mean literally anything from "loved this" to "didn't close the tab in disgust". Maybe you just got unlucky. Maybe you just got lucky. What do these numbers mean? What is a good number of kudos? 1? 10? 100? 1000? Should I calculate ratios? How do I know whether people like this?

In light of this, a comment where someone just said, "I loved this", has an almost incalculable worth. A comment where someone says they read this over and over again, or quotes lines they loved, or something? You can't imagine how valuable that is. A while ago someone told me "a couple of us are talking about this on Discord, we love it and we keep repeating our favorite lines". I thanked them, but I was too polite to say, "really? What are they saying? Which are your favorite lines? How many people are there who love it? What are their names? Which lines are the favorite ones, please, tell me!". Part of me still regrets that, because I so desperately want to know! I don't think it was a public Discord and I never heard from the others on it, but just the idea that they're out there and they like my story was so powerful. (By the way, it's not on any account that's linked from here, please don't try to find that comment.)

Now, I firmly believe that you, as a reader, don't have to care about any of that. I know there are people who disagree with me on this point, very strongly in fact, but I don't think it's necessarily your job to care. It's great if you do, and I think a lot of you do in fact care, that's why I'm writing this. But if you haven't thought about that or don't feel comfortable leaving comments or whatever, that's fine, that's normal, and you are in fact part of the majority. Any well-adjusted fic author has found ways to deal with this. They have learned to love writing for its own sake, or they love re-reading their own fics, or they have a couple of trusted friends who like their work, or ideally all three. Personally I was scared of Discord for the longest time, but it really helps with that. One person who you sort of know going "hey that's neat" can outweigh just about anything else. (Still, there will be days when you post something and you won't get a response and that just plain sucks, no two ways about it.)

But if you do care, if you think it's important that a fanfic writer knows what they mean to you, not because of any concern about the wider unpaid fan creator economy but just because of the way their work affected you, then this is important. Your favorite fanfic writer probably doesn't know and/or believe that they're anyone's favorite, and even if they do, a reminder or learning that someone knew found them will make them incredibly happy. And obviously, all of that applies at least just as much to all the beginners with potential that are out there. So if you're wondering whether it's worth it leaving a comment that says how much you enjoyed something: It probably is. And if you shared this with others and they loved it, or if this is your favourite fic, or if you enjoy how original it is, or how well it does your favourite tropes, or anything like that, the writer is going to be so happy to hear that.

A final aside: This obviously applies even more when it's about fandoms, pairings, subject matter and in particular ratings that are considered a bit embarrassing. Writers who write stuff that, say, happens to be E-rated for whatever reason, doesn't matter, will probably get fewer kudos and comments just because people are embarrassed to have their names show up in the Kudos and Comment sections. If that's you, just a note that it is perfectly okay to comment anonymously, or to create a second separate account for leaving kudos on, commenting on and maybe even posting the somewhat more risqué stuff. Now I'm not saying I have one of these second accounts, at least I'm not saying that in public, but it is an option worth considering.

[sarahreesbrennan]

sorry if you have already answered this, but are we getting any queer rep in Long Live Evil? 💕 i am super excited to see what you've cooked up for us either way!

I came back after I'd gone off on one, seeing the post had struck a chord and being thankful but fearful of my inbox. Let me say with delighted surprise that all the asks are very kind.

Thank you for this one, sweet anon. I am so excited and so nervous about my best beloved, Long Live Evil, and about coming back with a new book of my own after so long, when I believed for a long time it was hopeless.

I'm really grateful to find readers waiting for me. But I know readers are naturally more invested in characters they know: I extremely appreciate you taking an interest in the future.

So, short answer: YEAH you are!

Long answer: Long Live Evil wouldn't exist without its queer narratives.

C.S. Pacat and I were talking in our virtual Brookline Booksmith event recently about our favourite Disney villains. C.S. Pacat picked Maleficent, a fine choice. I picked Snow White's Evil Queen. We agreed we loved most of them.

Here's the relevant excerpt I was quoting in my last post from Carmen Maria Machado's In The Dream House, saying 'I think a lot about queer villains, the problem and pleasure and audacity of them.' Well... me too.

I think many of us have experienced feeling made wrong in some way - for not wanting what society said we should or being what we were expected to be - and that one step along that journey of discovery is going 'Okay, if it's wicked, I'll just BE wicked.' And that's part of why those characters appeal - because they seem free, and free of pain.

But modern storytelling isn't confined to coding, and audiences can now feel free to expect, not the certainty, but the possibility characters who aren't introduced as such still might actually turn out to be LGBT+. The essays I've read about Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Sherlock, Ted Lasso, Fox 9-1-1... I think the latest argued Jaime Lannister was bisexual. (Pretty persuasive.)

I remember reading the Raven Cycle going 'oh? OH.' I remember being at a writing retreat in 2013 and running through the halls screaming about Nico diAngelo. Ten years later we got a Nico diAngelo book co-written by Rick Riordan and the amazing Mark Oshiro. I watched Red, White and Royal Blue with a friend and she said 'honestly I hope the guys get together, but...' and I (having read the book) silenced myself with a herculean effort and watched her hopes come true. I didn't know about The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and almost dropped the book in a swimming pool. But I've also read and watched many things thinking, just maybe... oh, no. Still that hope existing is meaningful, the thought that if the story had gone differently, if this revelation had happened, if this realisation had happened, if, if, if...

Long Live Evil is a story about the story going differently and asking yourself questions about your own nature, and the escape to fiction of those who really need escape. The book is based on that 'if,' and the 'if' itself is joyous, and brings me back to the idea of gleefully transgressing the narrative that much villain love is based on.

It's also an ensemble story with a rogue's gallery of characters and multiple PoVs. (I was much inspired by the Six of Crows ensemble.) So it isn't about any one character's romance, and by the book's nature there exist many possibilities. A critique partner read and said 'I didn't know you were going THERE' and I responded 'Should I?'

I've never been one to confirm where stories are going, and I won't do so now. I'm not talking about any one character or telling you a direction.

I'm just saying yes to rep. It's baked in.

[youling-the-ghost]

sfth incorrect quotes pt.10 because school's kicking my ass and I need my daily dose of brainrot to survive

AJ: Go fuck yourself. Sam, smugly: Sure, but only if you watch Tom: It doesn’t have a bone. Sam: Then why is it called a boner? Luke: Look, do I consider myself attractive? Yes. But would I have sex with my clone? Also yes.

AJ: Is the plural of milf/dilf milfs/dilfs or milves/dilves? Sam: Milfs. Tom: Milf/dilf is an acronym, you can't change the spelling to milves/dilves. AJ: Wait, they're acronyms? What do they stand for??? Luke: Mom in late forties, dad in late fourties. Luke: I learned that from the movie called M.I.L.F that I saw the trailer of in theaters probably 5 to 7 years ago. Tom: Mom/dad I'd Love to Fuck. AJ: WAIT, WHAT THE FUCK— AJ: I NEVER REALIZED IT WAS ACTUALLY HORNY! Luke: Oh, is it not mom in late fouries? Sam: What? No! It isn't! Luke: THE MOVIE TRAILER LIED TO ME! Tom: Luke... Luke: THIS IS WHY I DIDN'T THINK CALLING PEOPLE MILFS WAS ALL THAT BAD BECAUSE IT STOOD FOR SOMETHING HARMLESS IT JUST HAD A SLIGHTLY SEXUAL CONNOTATION! Tom: I am entirely unsurprised that this is coming from you. Luke: AJ, DOES IT MAKE SENSE WHY I CALLED THE DIARY OF A WIMPY KID MOM A MILF NOW BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS LITERALLY JUST A DESCRIPTOR WITH FUNNY CONNOTATION! AJ: The word milf has been ruined for me. Sam: THAT'S ITS DEFINITION, IT CAN'T BE RUINED THAT'S WHAT IT MEANS! Tom: Y'all are dumbasses. Tom: I am the left brain, I am the left brain. "I work really hard until my inevitable death" brain. You've got a job to do, you better do it right and the right way is with the left brain's might. AJ: I LIKE OREOS AND PUSSY- Sam: Is letting someone win at chess sapiosexual bottoming? Tom: Can everyone in this godforsaken group please learn the skill called "Think Before You Speak"? Luke: Ya know...it might be. Sam: How do you tell someone that you wanna have sex with them in a polite way? Tom: Excuse me Mx. Would you give me the honours of indulging in sexual activities with you? Luke: What the fuck is wrong with you two? at the supermarket Sam: All right, the last item on the list is "virgin oil." Sam: Sam: Wow. Imagine being an item and still being called a virgin. Tom: Capitalisation is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse.." and "I had to help my uncle jack off a horse.." (It was then that Junyu realised...he accidentally turned on NSFW only and that's why the quotes have been so horny.) Sam: Hey! Wanna hear a joke? Tom: Sure. Sam: Your life! Tom: Actually, my life isn’t a joke, jokes have meaning. Sam: Tom, no. AJ: Can you recommend a book that'll make me cry? Tom: General Mathematics 8th Grade Edition. (in reference to that one guessing game where AJ forgot how math worked) Luke: It's locked. You got a lock pick? Tom: Yeah- Sam: *kicks down the door* Luke: They can't make me admit France exists, right? Legally, that's not allowed. Luke: Sure, if France was REAL I'd say I liked it. Luke: But who's to say. AJ: I think France isn't real. Tom: AJ, you used to live in France. AJ: And??? AJ: You gave me up, you let me down, you turned around, and deserted me. Sam: But did I make you cry? AJ: *cries on the spot* Sam: ...Shit. AJ: Why's it called an oven when you of in the cold food and you of out hot eat the food? Tom: ...What??? AJ: What’s your biggest fear? Luke: I am incredibly arachnophobic. AJ, under his breath: You don’t want spiders to get married? Tom: Luke, I think we have a problem. Luke: What, the fire? Tom: No, the- wait, what fire? Luke: Oh forget about it, this sounds more interesting. Sam: Hey Luke, can you give me the opposite of these words? Sam: Always, Coming, From, Take, Me, Down. Luke: Never, Going, To, Give, You- Luke: The fucking satisfaction. Luke: Inside you, there are two kidneys. Luke: I’m gonna steal them. Tom: So my therapist was talking to me and she said that I really just need to break down my walls and let people in. Tom: So I’ve decided to break the fourth wall. Tom: *looks at camera* Hi there. I use humor as a coping mechanism.

[tujhse-raabta]

hope you're doing well <3

saw your post abt atlantis!percy and I got excited abt it

not anon but I wanna know more abt how amphitrite interacts w/ little percy in this au

doing VERY well, wby???? and OH ILY FOR THIS OK OK OK SO

when Poseidon brings Sally and Percy to Atlantis, she is. furious. fucking furious. you DARE to cheat on me in our open relationship, where you COULD have communicated but didn't, and then 'you bring your bastard whelp and your whore to my home?' this is a quote, forgive me 😭😭

and Sally steps up. yada yada hate me if you want, I deserve it, but Percy didn't ask to be born, and if you call my child one more name I will cut off your tongue before I'm executed for my actions.

(their situation is complex. i will not have anyone bash ANY of them. yes, there's gonna be conflict. yes, it's a horrible situation with nuanced people and faults. but they're gonna work through it.)

amphitrite just sneers and walks away, though she does call off triton - who looks FURIOUS - from hurting them.

she's actually the last person to get used to percy and Sally being around from the royal family, which is VALID.

it comes to a head when there's an 'attack' and Percy MIGHT have been hurt, and there is NO ONE WHO RUNS FASTER THAN HER TO HIS ROOM. TO PROTECT THIS CHILD. FROM HER OWN CHILD. when she realises this, that she's grown fond of the kid in the threeish months (and more than fond of his mother) she consciously gives them both a chance. and then PERCY GETS A NEW MAMA!!!!!!!

yeah he calls her mama, Sally mom, Poseidon dad and triton twi. Triton is included bcs TRITON. THAT GOD IS LESS A BROTHER AND MORE ANOTHER DAD. he never stops calling him twi btw, even once the lisp goes

SORRY BACK TO TOPIC AMPHI AND PERCY

SHE'S the one who works hardest to integrate percy into the political scenario of atlantis. she's the one who plays the court, and the citizens, to come to accept percy and, gods, she makes him BELOVED. she knows how much danger her kid is in, so she ENSURES that the entirety of the sea would go to war for him.

percy never, ever thinks of her as anything less than a mother. ever. he is hers as he is Sally's, as he is Poseidon's.

she's also the rational one in his family. Poseidon, Sally, triton, they're all irrational in their care for him - understandably - that they never see him as more than a defenseless baby who needs protection. she helps percy discover who he is outside of atlantis' gates and guards, and she trusts him and his capability. she's the first to do that, and that means so much to twelve year old percy. that there's someone out there who isn't just freaking out over him (she's doing that too lmao) but TRUSTS that he has the ability to do his quest well. self esteem boost!