#(presuming she was given one...we'll see)

[javic-piotr-thane]

Barrowman 'Verse insanity - #1 World Without End, snippet 8/?

i'll just leave this here.... for you to take the scenery in

if nothing else, couldn't the joke have been executed better, at least? "keep your pants on"? no? ugh

[deeplyshalllow]

Glinda gets what she deserves at the end of Wicked

I don’t necessarily mean this in an all negative light either, Glinda’s ending is bittersweet – sad, but hopeful. But she does not deserve an all out happy ending at the end of the musical.

I don’t know if I’m gonna be crucified for this, but here goes.

Glinda in Act 2 is a key part of a fascist regime. She doesn’t just live in it, she isn’t forced to take part in it and she’s not working as a double agent (like Fiyero). She knows what they are doing to the Animals (which includes separating infants from their mothers and putting them in cages, and making Animals so afraid they literally forget how to speak), she knows and loves people it is hurting and yet she continues to actively promote it.

(I won’t point out the connections to real world situations, but I’m sure you guys can all think of examples and think of how you feel about people who are active participants in helping such regimes.)

We see she knows all this too. We see she excuses it for her ego and the power:

Glinda: Do you think I like to hear them say those awful things about her? I hate it!

Fiyero: Then what are we doing here? Let's go, let's get out of here!

Glinda: We can't leave now, not when people are looking to us to raise their spirits.

Fiyero: You can't leave, because you can't resist this. And that is the truth.

Glinda: Maybe I can't. Is that so wrong? Who could?

Elphaba: No, of course you never! You're too busy telling everyone how wonderful everything is!

Glinda: I'm a public figure, now. People expect me to...

Elphaba: Lie?

Glinda: Be encouraging!

And if one could possibly argue (weakly) that, given she’s not actually doing any of the regime’s actual violence, just keeping people’s hopes up she’s not as bad as those who are, she gets worse:

Morrible: Well, we'll just flush her out and force her to show herself.

Wizard: But how?

Glinda: Her sister

Morrible: What? What did she say?

Glinda: Use her sister. Spread a rumour. Make her think her sister is in trouble and she will fly to her side... and you'll have her.

Even if one argues that Glinda is somehow not clever enough to realise that they’ll end up killing Nessa, she sure as hell knows it will get Elphaba captured. And there’s no way that Elphaba being captured won’t lead to the execution of her best friend. Yes, she’s heartbroken, yes, she might not have said this when emotions weren’t running high, but it doesn’t make her terrible words less deadly (and bear in mind Elphaba hadn’t even done anything to hurt Glinda! It was Fiyero who chose to go with her).

Glinda only really starts realising what she has done in March of the Witch hunters, when Nessa is dead, Fiyero is tortured and presumed dead and Elphaba has descended into madness – all because of her own action. And, kudos to her, this is when she decides to change, she immediately goes to Elphaba and tries to warn her about the Witch Hunters, apologises and ultimately Elphaba trusts her with the Grimmorie and to continue her legacy (which she immediately does by overthrowing the Wizard). She has started down the track to good but she still has a long way to go.

I am not the first, nor will I be the last to point this out but “Goodness knows the wicked’s lives are lonely, goodness knows the wicked die alone”, sung by Glinda,is clearly not about Elphaba. Elphaba was not wicked, nor did she die alone (literally Dorothy was in the room and metaphorically Glinda supported and loved her). Glinda is singing about herself, Glinda knows she has been wicked, Glinda knows that it is her own actions that have lead to the “death” of her friends.

So what Glinda is left with is a chance to do good. A chance to live up to her name and make up for what she’s done. A chance to use what she’s most talented at, making people like her, to continue the legacy of her best friend. Despite everything, Elphaba does trust her, if she didn’t she wouldn’t have left her with this responsibility.

Glinda: Fellow Ozians, friends, we have been through a frightening time. There will be other times and other things that frighten us. But if you let me, I'd like to try to help. I'd like to try to be... Glinda the Good.

This is why she is going to “try” to be Glinda the Good, because she hasn’t been good yet. She has learnt a lot of very hard lessons through the narrative, been dragged kicking and screaming out of her selfishness, ego and giving into her worst impulses and is grateful for a chance to repent. And honestly, I’m sure she will suceed.

And one last thing:

Elphaba: I only wish...

Fiyero: What?

Elphaba: Glinda could know that we're alive.

Fiyero: She can't know, not if we want to be safe. No one can ever know.

I know a lot of people take ire with this line. But Fiyero, always the best strategist of the group, is right. The last time Glinda was trusted with important information it led to a death and two more people nearly dying. She has not earned that trust yet.

But, remember, Glinda isn’t stupid, Glinda is in a position where she’s going to have to think more and more. Glinda has presumably seen her roommate get wet before, she saw Fiyero’s reaction to the rumour, no matter how much searching happens Fiyero’s body never turns up, how long is it really going to take for her to connect the dots? Sure “Glinda can never know” for sure, but she sure as hell can be comforted by the fact she’s almost certain her best friend did not melt from a bucket of water.

[air--so--sweet]

So, Aidan Gallagher was the last cast member to wrap on season 4, and he wrapped several days after everyone else which I've been presuming means we're getting some apocalypse flashbacks but I've just had another idea.

We see Lila and Five travelling to what looks like the original apocalypse, what if they see young Five in the apocalypse? I think it could be really interesting as I don't think any of the other characters fully appreciate what he went through (well, Luther appreciates what it feels like to live in total solitude). Especially when he came back looking exactly like he did when he ran away, but with an adult consciousness instead of a teenage one. It makes it very easy to forget he got stranded and had to learn how to survive in an apocalyptic wasteland as a literal child. While grieving everyone and everything he has ever known.

And I think for Lila to be the character to witness that, as someone who has quite an antagonistic, but also incredibly loving relationship with Five (I was going to say though neither would admit it, but actually I feel both of them had dropped almost all pretense of hating each other at the end of season 3. I don't know if either would verbally express love for each other but in the same way I don't know if either would verbally express love for anyone) would be incredibly affecting. Especially as, unlike his siblings, she never knew teenage Five, she has always known him as an adult who looks like a teenager. I feel like for Lila to witness firsthand the brutality Five experienced alone in the apocalypse, and to realise he was really just a child, especially now that she has a child herself...well I think it would be truly upsetting for her but also giver he a deeper understanding of Five and just how important his family is to him (and family is what Lila desires and values most in the world too).

But also, it will make her realise how similar Five's experience was to her own. Because both were caused to suffer at a young age by the Handler, Lila by having her parents murdered, Five by being left in the apocalypse for 45 years when she could have plucked him out at any point, and then exploited for her own gains with little to no care given to how it sould affect them. Five says The Handler made it so he couldn't belong anywhere, that she made him a killer; she more or less did the same thing to Lila.

Most theories I write are just 'Oh this would be cool if it happened' or 'Look at this ridiculous idea I had', but, now I've imagined it, I'll be really disappointed if we don't see Lila and Five witness younger Five in the apocalypse. Damn...

Also, while writing this it occurred to me that, if the scene where Lila is crying is in the subway, which is looks like it is, maybe she isn't crying because something happened her daughter or Diego (as most of us presumed), maybe it's related to her seeing something The Handler did in another timeline. Or maybe it's just the emotional impact of seeing The Handler in the flesh again, knowing Lila loved her and saw her as her mother, and The Handler was happy to murder Lila in cold blood when she realised she couldn't manipulate her anymore. That's bound to fuck you up. (To be be clear, because I think how I phrased this suggests we'll definitely see The Handler again, I have no idea if we will or won't but with the hopping of timelines it's a possibility.)

Or maybe Lila sees what The Handler took from her, what life would have been like if she grew up with her parents. Or again, the effect of just getting to see her parents alive and in the flesh. A train always stops in the same places, it can't just change course or route like any other vehicle. Maybe the subway allows you to move between timelines/time travel but only as an observer. You can't change or effect any events and therefore can't interact with anyone as a result. Imagine the pain of seeing your parents you thought you'd never see alive again and not bring able to interact with them in any way. Or maybe she has to witness their murder again knowing she can't do anything to stop it. It would be a really interesting parallel from their relationship in season 2 to have Five comforting Lila over the death of her parents.

[thesunshinecourts]

five curiosities for the next book, after reading the sunshine court

a non-exhaustive list, but five things i'm curious to (hopefully) find out more about in TSC2, or that i have questions about still:

what happened at the trojans' fall banquet (presumably jeremy's first year)? it's a Scandal, and jeremy cannot stand to be around bryson, and annalise has never forgiven him for sticking with exy after that, despite having attended all his games in high school. given the allusions to his stepfather, and also his step-grandfather being a congressman, i can see how jeremy's sexuality might be relevant to the situation—especially if we read into lucas' stiff apology and shame at his implication about jeremy and jean as being born from more than just common decency, but rather knowledge of this being a previous sticking point in terms of jeremy's scandals—but i also keep thinking about what cat said. jeremy has—three. two brothers, one sister. the way she says it, how it sticks out to jean as an odd switch, and the fact that we've only met two siblings – it makes me wonder what happened to the third. or if that's even the right question to ask, regarding jeremy's siblings.

elodie. i'm curious if we learn anything about what happened—by and large, i kinda hope not, if only because then jean has to too, unless it turns out stuart is lying, but that's a very different kind of fallout. (i don't actively theorise he is—at some point, these kids will run out of tolerance for ghost stories coming back to life—but i think its possibility ought to be considered, at least). i think we'll get more flashes of her from jean's thoughts, though, and i anticipate lots of heartbreak lmao

lucas. assuming stuart's contact comes through, and neil's hit goes ahead, we've got lucas in the aftermath of finding out his brother is a monster, and jean saying not to call the police, and then possibly his brother being dead. if it happens any other day—if it happens in west virginia, especially—i suspect lucas might be able to look at it like another domino in the ravens machine falling down, or even that something horrible happened to him when he returned home, but if it's still in LA, after what he did to jean, after jean said no cops-------i can see how that might twist into something more suspicious. who knows! i'm curious to see what happens there. grayson is a monster, but he is still lucas' brother. aaron and kevin still have complicated grief about tilda and riko, and they were their direct, constant abusers; cass never learned until after the fact, and lucas is in a complex space between the two parts of that spectrum. if grayson dies, i think the fallout will be unavoidable for exploration

this is a small one but man, i just want to keep seeing jean's list grow. it tears something out of me every time, and stitches me back together, and i want to go through that over and over, because i want to see a jean who not only hears that his life is his and worth living, but a jean who learns to believe it too

i'm just kinda assuming we see the foxes again, because i remember nora's character list having new details about characters who didn't show up in this one, but i'm also quietly hoping for more thea. their scene made me ache, and he'd never had good defenses against thea, and kevin knew that. jean would kill him for bringing her here made my heart do the !! double-tap. i'm extremely invested in jean, thea and kevin as a unit, and it would be so incredibly wonderful to see more

[d3f3n3str4t10n]

New Year, New Update!

I hope y'all had a good New Year's feast. Ashley certainly has! We'll be eating too, it seems, thanks to this new update!

Firstly, the least exciting thing to someone that's already bought the game: Due to steam pricing jank, they're extending and increasing the discounts for now up until the game's price increases with the release of Episode 3A. Cool!

Next are some words typed straight from Nemlei's hands themselves, describing how working on the game has been like for the past year, and another content comparison between episodes. It's really weird to see it laid out in plain numbers like this, but it does a good job showing the scale of 3a! And they're not even done yet! It's good to hear that the team has gotten into the groove of things, now that all the development issues we saw lined out during the devlogs have been taken care of. Hopefully we won't have to wait too much longer! Now onto the REAL good stuff...

First, we see a pretty familiar corridor. The same one what Andrew confronted Ashley in, during the dream sequence that leads to Episode 3A's beginning. Fortunately however, at least according to Ashley, everything seems to be resolved. I'm honestly a little surprised that they'd share something so... blatant, like this, but maybe that's the trick. We only have Ashley's very untrustworthy words to go off of here, of course.

Next, we see a short reunion. One of Andrew's friends is back! It's unclear whether this is during the present day, or sometime before quarantine, however. Given Andrew's insistence that they drop all contact with anyone they knew during Chapter 1, I'd imagine that if this IS in the present day, Andrew isn't too happy about it. Probably NOT why he's throwing up, though. Either way, he still considers him a friend, so that's nice to see!

And lastly... a video!! Hell yeah! This one shows us the full context for a previous screenshot we saw in one of the devlogs. The video begins with a CG of a VHS rewinding. Whether or not it's meant to be something dietetic or not, it makes it clear that this is meant to be a flashback. We see Friend B and Andrew chatting in their highschool class after the bell has rung. Friend B offers to go to some non-descript event with Andrew, but he can't, because he has work. During this conversation, Ashley barges in, furious that some clique of girls is preventing her from getting a drink.

We then see the CG from the devlog, as well as Andrew's reaction. He tells her to just go with Julia, to then Ashley says they aren't talking at the moment. Something that I don't doubt happened quite a lot, in their "friendship."

On their way to the vending machine so Andrew can sort out the situation... somehow, Andrew realizes he left his notebook back in the classroom and goes back to get it. On his way, he overhears an interesting conversation...

Some guy, presumably an acquaintance or classmate of Friend B, starts talking with them. He calls Andrew a "fucking sissy", and mistakes Ashley as his girlfriend. Again, probably happens a lot. Friend B sticks up for Andrew throughout the conversation, calling out how rude the Douchebag is being to Andrew and how creepy his not-so-subtle suggestions to get with Ashley are. Friend B claims Ashley has "A few screws loose" which may be why he thinks she's so clingy, and why Andrew goes along with it. Because, why would he go along with it, if there wasn't some reason, right? Siblings aren't just LIKE that. The further the Douchebag seems to push it, the more Friend B tells him to knock it off.

Andrew is, at first, confused by the situation, not really understanding what the big deal is. Of course they're close, they're siblings. He has to look out for her, with all the bullies in this school, apparently.

His confusion quickly turns to anger, and he starts to work up the motivation to tell the douchebag off... but he doesn't. The narration then lets us in on another side of Andrew's thought process.

This is the start of Andrew's Denial. This is most likely before the "rumors" Julia brings up begin, perhaps they were even started by this Douchebag. Andrew is finally starting to realize how odd his and Ashley's relationship is. When they were kids, it could be excused and defended by adults as just, them being kids... but they're in High school now. That excuse isn't going to cut it anymore. Andrew though, still doesn't see anything wrong with it. They've been this way forever, and they're fine with it, so why does anyone else care? What's so weird about it? A very well written scene, if you ask me.

Oh, Also there's a Q&A! Check out the steam post to participate! My question was about what Nemlei thinks Andrew and Ashley sound like. Not very creative but eh. Happy New Year, everyone!

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

in an interview a while back, vivzie compared stella to beatrice horseman from bojack horseman. if you haven't seen it, beatrice's childhood AND adult life were awful but at the exact same time it's also very clear that nothing about it justified how she treated her son bojack - much like how bojack's own abusive childhood didn't justify the way he treated people. it just explained it.

we'll have to wait and see if viv can actually pull this off (signs point to 'no' atm tbh) but stella being written with this particular comparison explicitly in mind is giving me a little hope she'll at least try.

Hey, Anon! Thanks for the ask!

I’m really glad you brought this up because I had actually been planning a post comparing Beatrice and Stella because I find it kind of fascinating that the writers say Stella is similar to Beatrice Horseman. Because so far they’re really, really, really not.

In fact, the way Stella and Beatrice are introduced and developed as characters are inverses of each other. (Explanation below)

Beatrice is introduced to us as being unambiguously the one in the wrong—she’s so ridiculously abusive towards Bojack, her own son, that it sometime crosses over into pure black comedy. Bojack is clearly the wronged party here, as he was a literal child. He depended on Beatrice for everything and was met with abuse.

Even when Beatrice’s abuse becomes so over-the-top that it’s almost comedic, the audience still understands she’s in the wrong. We understand even though it’s played for black comedy, Bojack was clearly very negatively affected by the abuse, and that her treatment of him was horrific.

During the flashbacks to Bojack’s childhood in earlier episodes, the audience has no further details or information as to why Beatrice would act this way, (not that there’s any excuse regardless) so it seems like there’s not a lot of depth to Beatrice because of this. Season 1 Beatrice Horseman is a very flat character.

But after season 1, the writers of Bojack Horseman continue to develop Beatrice. In the beginning of season 2, we learn that Beatrice is aware of her abuse and how it affected Bojack and, in her own messed up way, tries to apologize to him. She acknowledges that she is a deeply flawed person, and acknowledges her own part in Bojack’s terrible upbringing.

We learn that she regrets the way she acted, that she thinks of herself as being broken, and she sadly admits that Bojack inherited this broken-ness from her.

NONE of this makes the abuse okay for course, but we’re given more insight into her as a person. As Bojack Horseman progresses, the audience is continually given more and more information about Beatrice that explains her in depth. We learn why she acted the way she did, how she coped (and failed to cope) with the intense trauma from her childhood, and how everything that happened to her affected her behavior and outlook on life, and how that in-turn affected Bojack.

The writers develop her from being a flat character to one with depth, one that feels like a real person.

In contrast, the VERY first thing we learn about Stella, before we know anything about her personality, or how she usually talks, or what her relationships are like, is that Stolas cheated on her. She is literally introduced to us as someone who has just been wronged, and presumably, hurt by her husband’s cheating on her.

I don’t think it’s unfair to assume that audiences immediately understand why Stella acts the way she does around Stolas in season 1. Being cheated on sucks. It’s a breech of trust, and extremely hurtful.

Unlike Beatrice, Stella is introduced to us as the wronged party.

Again, that doesn’t mean her actions are warranted or should be excused, but it’s very easy to understand why she is acting the way she is.

Due to this, while Stella still starts as a relatively flat character to b/c we don’t know much about her (other than how she acts directly after being cheated on) she has a lot of potential. The writers could have gone in lots of different directions in her character development.

So naturally, in the first episode of season 2 of Helluva Boss, we learn that Stella strangled puppies as a young child, was always mean to Stolas all the time even before he cheated on her, loves “tormenting” Stolas, and is physically abusive. We learn that since she was a young child she’s always been terrible and evil.

Any potential for some further depth to be added to Stella at the beginning of season 2 is fucking steamrolled by this writing decision.

Since S2E1, The Circus, Stella has been written consistently as being mean, rude, vindictive, and stupid. The audience has been given no further information on her, other than that she has brother who is smarter and than her, and that we should hate her for standing in the way of Stolas and Blitzø’s relationship.

Due to all of this, I have absolutely no idea how HB’s writers could possibly develop Stella to be even 1/8th as nuanced or “real” as Beatrice.

At this point, I think it’s too little too late for Stella’s backstory. Why would I care about her upbringing now? What important bit of information could the writers possibly give us about her past that would make her behavior understandable, or develop her character further??

I’m not saying it’s IMPOSSIBLE. But I can’t think of anything they could do to build upon Stella’s character after they already cemented her so firmly as a one-dimensional villain.

So. To summarize (TLDR)

Beatrice Horseman started out flat, and was developed over time until she felt like a fully realized person.

Stella started out flat, but with the potential to be developed into a more nuanced character.

Instead of being developed more gradually, like Beatrice, starting in season 2, Stella was written to be as evil as possible in all her appearances.

Due to this, the writers have made it incredibly difficult to go back and give Stella a backstory that will matter or explain her behavior in any meaningful way.

[rallamajoop]

More random details from the depths of RE8

With the excuse of trying some shiny new mods, I've been replaying RE8 lately for the umpteenth time. Given the number of hours I've already poured into this game, you'd really think there'd be nothing left to find by this stage ‒ yet here I am, finding still more details I'd somehow missed the first half-dozen times through.

For one, there's the fact you can actually find Eva's grave in the graveyard outside the church. As the only photo we ever see of her shows her as a baby, I'd assumed she was still a baby when she died, but turns out, she was ten years old.

"Eva, June 1909 ‒ August 1919

May you slumber for only a short while"

As expected, her death of the Spanish flu took place in 1919. There's some semi-legible text on the stone, but it doesn't match the caption ‒ it's just the same generic filler text you'll find on half the gravestone assets in this game.

For another, there's Rose's baby monitor. I'd noticed Ethan turning the thing on when he puts her to bed, and even found the assets for its screen ‒ but since I'd never found the monitor itself, I assumed they must be unused.

Until this playthrough, when suddenly I'm just like, oh, there it is, sitting right on the table. You can even interact with it!

How did I miss this so many times? It is pretty easy to overlook, given you'll trigger the cutscene with Mia if you go much closer to the kitchen, but I'm still surprised I never spotted it before. (And you do have to wonder if there was ever any plan for it to show a glimpse of something more sinister than just a still-image of Rose sleeping.)

In other minor details, there's the bit where Ethan arrives on the outskirts of the village at 8AM. You can hear a clock striking 8 times as you get your first view of area.

Granted, this is not going to excite anyone who hasn't spent as long as I have putting together an hour-by-hour timeline of everything that happens in this game, but I still do love that they give you enough detail that that's even possible ‒ and this new timestamp fits right into that timeline. (And why yes I have just gone back and updated that post, what do you take me for?)

Speaking of assets I thought were unused, you know that hidden room under the castle you can't get into until later, where you have to solve a puzzle that involves setting a moroaica on fire? Have you ever looked closely at the tapestries decorating this place? Because I found them in the game files ages ago, and have been trying to figure out if they're actually in the game ever since.

Because seriously, look at these things!

Yes, that is a indeed a man with a sword and spear, wearing a hoplite helmet and sandals and nothing else. And the women seeing him from the front seem to be having a whole range of reactions to all that, er, weaponry being brandished their way. Isn't fine art wonderful?

Another asset I'd innocently assumed was unused is this wonderful bit of bullshit which was labeled simply 'antibow'. It wasn't until I took a long look at it that I realised what they meant was more like 'anti-B.O.W.', as in Bio-Organic-Weapon.

Yes, that is indeed a knife taped to some kind of grenade. Sure is one high-tech outfit we're working with here!

Only now do I spot that this is actually the bomb Chris chucks at the Megamycete in the cavern. It doesn't even come with the knife already attached, he just kind of sticks the knife onto the bomb and presumably straps some tape around them while the camera cuts away.

I still have so much more to share from my ongoing free-camera adventures, but I think we'll leave this one there for today.

[raayllum]

I always thought that it was interesting that the kids relinquished and then reclaimed their Gifts of Sacrifice / worthy Gifts to Rex Igneous in 4x08 for a few reasons. The fact that Ez and Rayla were both sacrificing something linked to their fathers, whereas Callum was sacrificing something linked to magic (he doesn't even refer to Ibis at all) made sense given the context, as well as Rayla being the one to step forward first to sacrifice.

I figured it would be set up at least in terms of relationships / character arc but now I'm wondering if the foreshadowing is going to be more than that.

Rayla sacrificing herself first in S7 in some manner would track, even if she's no longer sacrificing her family the way she did before (4x09, 5x01, 5x04, 6x01, 6x05). Callum sacrificing himself after she does, particularly if it's for her in some manner, would also track; his primal staff represents forgiveness and opportunity for magic "in spite of everything wrong humans have done with it". Presumably, he's going to sacrifice primal magic for himself in exchange for doing dark magic again. And Ezran, whose crown is made of his father's sword but reminds him that "strength isn't always about war and fighting" gives up his crown / that symbol and that lesson.

Rayla will have to give up being an assassin (her swords); Callum will have to relinquish primal magic, at least temporarily; Ezran will have to give up his anger over his father.

But then they all reclaim it, right? Rayla gets her swords and the fathers they represent back, and she'll use her swords to be a protector rather than an assassin. Callum gets his staff back and will usher in a new age of magic for humankind. Ezran takes his crown and his lesson back, the same way he'll get his love for Harrow and his family back in a way that lets him break the cycle.

Maybe it won't be in the direct order of 4x08 ("gifts of sacrifice... we offered gifts that meant a lot to us") in how/when they sacrifice things in S7, for ex I could see Ezran actually going first depending on how stuff with Runaan is paced, but I think we'll see something remiscient anyway.

[gotranting]

The push - Remus Lupin x female reader

I want to keep my stories on one blog. This is the same story as from my main tumblr, in case you come across it again.

The idea is...imagine Remus witnessing that your patronus has changed its form.

I'm missing older Remus stories, and I need to scroll way down to find them. Tumblr refreshes every so often and brings me to the first post. So I had enough and wrote a few things. Once again, maybe someone will like it...enjoy if you do <3. I plan on making a part two (one day...), and we'll see how that goes.

There are no warnings, except a larger age gap.

Imagine Remus seeing that your patronus has changed its shape. You were surprised as well. Whatever has been going on between you two was never given a name other than friendship. A denial of feelings is what I would call it.

For Remus it was also a feeling of not being enough for you. Of being too old for you. What could he possibly give you, he thought. Living from one paycheck to another? Never knowing where you will live next month? Having to suffer all sorts of slurs and insults once people found out he was the creature you chose as your partner? You had a life in front of you. He would not let you waste it.

And yourself? Apparently you were both presuming how the other would react without even asking for the other's opinion. There was a different pattern of thought in your mind, Of course you would not allow him to settle for you. Remus could do better than that. What could you possibly offer him? See, you believed that all your conversations were on surface level (they were not). You thought that once he would try to get to know you on a deeper level...he would find nothing there (Sirius teased him over how enamoured he looked every time you spoke). You did not see much worth in yourself at all. Oh, yes you hid that well. But, if you saw no worth in yourself, how could you possibly believe anyone else would find any. Remus would have spent hours proving you wrong if he knew. Just as you would spend hours proving him wrong.

There was another problem. To be with him would require of you to open up. And that thought alone frightened you. Yes, you two might have spent hours talking about everything. Or nothing sometimes. So, it is strange that it suddenly became something to fear. But perhaps for many it is not strange at all. Anyhow. If you suffered with such thoughts, why would you put Remus through all of that as well? He deserved someone better for himself.

Strange how similar you both were in that regard.

Well, apparently denial of feelings is how it would be between the two. Without a push, nothing would happen except longing gazes, and too long embraces when one came back safe from a mission. Or throwing oneself in front of the other to defend them against a dozen of dementors. It was the strongest patronus you ever casted. A bear that tore down every dementor which tried to get to Remus. Some got to you. Not many. But at least, Remus was safe.

As for that push - Well it just so happened, there was no need for long waiting. It's strange how fate works yes? I wish Umbridge had nothing to do to contribute to this, but sadly she did in a way. After coming to Hogwarts, she did a marvelous job at teaching the students absolutely nothing. With Voldemort returning, the students were vulnerable if there was no one to teach them how to properly defend themselves. Harry, Ron and Hermione had a brilliant idea. Dumbledore's army. Not everyone believed the Ministry's lies. Soon there was quite a few students joining the initiative.

All in all they planned it quite well. But it was always good to get a second opinion. So, when Harry came to the Grimmauld place, it only felt right to ask the three residents of the house for assistance. Sirius was there constantly. He didn't need any convincing. Spending time with Harry, breaking some school rules, aiding in fighting Voldemort...and getting to call Umbridge a cunt as much as he liked. ...He would have done so regardless. But still.

Remus was there at the insistence of Sirius. The last few months have been difficult after his previous colleagues found out what he was. He defended himself when a hex came his way before he left that shop. See, even with witnessing that, he still thought of himself as a monster. After Sirius found out, he would have it no other way than Remus staying with him. And if the previous coworker somehow got too ill from eating one of Fred and George's experiments well...the twins left their things around constantly. It was an honest accident.

The girl? Well, she had a home of her own. Small place. Hidden. Cozy and simple. Sirius insisted here as well. She didn't know why exactly. And she couldn't be at Grimmauld all the time. But she did stop by as often as she could. After finding out about the hexing, it was more than other members of the Order. Good thing that Sirius handled it (it was an accident I swear), or she would have used something far more darker.

With Harry's arrival it was the four of them in the house. Planning which spells would be the most useful ones to teach. Considering they had cleaned the attic, it was as good a place as any to let Harry practice those spells with their supervision. That way he could get a better feeling on what should he pay attention to.

Spell by spell. Expelliarmus. Reducto. Stupefy. Expecto patronum. The push.

„I think that is a break for me. Anyone wants some tea?“ Sirius asked after an hour of dueling. James would be so proud of Harry. Remus was leaning back on one of the tables observing it all. Your dog was begging for food so you kept to the sidelines as well.

„I'm going back in three days. There is no time for breaks. I cannot let them down.“ Harry on the other hand was not backing down. He would not let anyone be unprepared. He would not let anyone lose a friend in front of their eyes. He needed to practice more.

„Harry, you will not be able to teach them anything if you fall unconscious from exhaustion.“

„Then I need to practice more, to endure as much as I can. The death eaters won't stop because I am tired. Voldemort will kill someone else while I am catching my breath!“

The others could only look at each other. One way or another, he would continue. With or without them. So it was decided, that while Sirius went to get tea, they'd practice something other than dueling. It was your time to step to the centre of the room. You agreed that you would cast the patronus. You would make random mistakes, which Harry would have to notice and correct properly. Remus would give him advice in case he missed something.

Considering she did well when casting a full bodied patronus, she didn't think there would be anything unexpected. First try, she moved her hand in a slightly different direction, which Harry noticed quickly. Second time, she didn't cast a powerful enough memory. Harry gave her some ideas. He would do well, they knew it. Third time, she decided to allow for some wisps to flow from the wand. Still not strong enough. Even here, Harry would give words of encouragement. She thought she saw Remus softly smiling in the corner of her eyes. She thought of that. The last time she saw him like that. It was after the Full Moon. Despite Wolfsbane, she found him pale in bed, wrapped up in blankets. With tea on his bedside table, she put a vinyl on. He mentioned he was fond of Cohen. He was a favourite of his mum's. A muggle store had that vinyl. She didn't have to think twice.

He mentioned that vinyl around six months ago.

If he had more strength in him, he'd get up and carry her with him to his bed in that moment. Nothing sexual. Just to hug her closer. To kiss her on the forehead. To nudge his nose to hers, until she gazed at him with that look. A look which left him thinking that it did not matter at all to her that he was a werewolf. Or 17 years older than her. Poor. Broken. At that moment he would know there was more to him. He'd nudge her nose once again until she blushed. Then he would press his lips to hers. And she would brush the hair away from his forehead. No, they would not let each other go. If only he had more strength. And courage.

She thought of him at that moment. At how she still managed to make him laugh to tears, even after that Full Moon. At how they both hummed to the songs. At what could be. The wisps got stronger this time. She saw the outlines of paws, only they were smaller this time. Strange. The whole bear seemed to be a bit smaller than it usually was. Remus's smile faltered, as he noticed what creature was forming in the room. The realisation was slowly dawning on her as well. It was not the bear she has come to expect, it was a wolf. She could lie to herself only so many times, but here was the proof. Right in front of him. A wolf making a circle around Harry. Coming to greet her dog. Harry was busy looking at the beautiful creature to notice two figures standing frozen in the room.

And sure, he hoped that it was him this wolf represented. She would not stop lying to herself, but she still hoped he understood now. What did each of them see though? He saw her carefree look fading. He saw her standing rigid in the centre. Was she ashamed? Angry? What if the wolf was not connected to him at all? He didn't want to meddle in her love life. If only to hide the jealousy of which he had no right to feel. What if there was someone with whom she felt as comfortable as she had with him the night that vinyl played. He had no right to wish it was him alone who would get to see her like that.

She saw him straightening up. She saw his smile fade. The clenched jaw. He was angry. A girl, barely out of Hogwarts fell in love with him. Just what he needed.

Sirius came up with tea. She was quick to apologize, saying all the practice made her a bit dizzy. Remus still stood next to the table. After a moment he excused himself as well. One could sense something went wrong.

„I suppose no one is in the mood for tea anymore. What happened here?“

„I'm not sure. The patronus appeared and right after they both left.“

A push needed to happen. However, that push can move events in any direction. Sirius had no idea what had transpired in that room. But he would do his best to find out.

[waywardmillennial]

SPOILERS FOR PH 7x04

there will be MAJOR spoilers under the cut -- so DO NOT click through if you don't want to see Lore spoilers for the Watcher TV episode from Jan 31, 2025!

okay, if you're buckled up then let's crack in!

After several episodes where the Professor and Ryan have been taking Phorgedytol regularly (given to them by Elmer Walter Williams) Ryan convinces the Professor to skip their dose at the end of 7x04 and they start to remember what happened at the end of season six

and that's when we learn the sad news that Estranged Producer Shane Madej (EPSM) died during the season six wrap party

beautiful memorial video here from @trashworldblog - RIP to a real one

now in the trailer and previous episodes we see EPSM walking down this alleyway but here we also see that he stops and turns to face his unknown assailant - so he knows who did this! (I think this will be important - more on this in a minute)

we see Ryan and the Professor both stunned at what they remember

then we pan over to the memorial for Shane and there are lots of easter eggs that I wanted to point out

first, lmao at Shane's lanky body needing a second urn - and also Boo Buddy!

in the next shot, there's a note from someone (Shawn?) that says "I don't really know what you did at Watcher anyway but we'll miss you. PS [your mom] follows me on IG"

and Lizzie's pink note that reads "To my fellow long white Midwestern Producer. I will never phorget u. ♡ Lizzie" and she spelled forget with the "ph"

OMG! "PH" masks the true name of Phorgedytol (instead of Forget-it-all) but also PH is Puppet History!

(ahem, sorry for that random train of thought interruption - where were we?)

also scattered in the notes are at least two references to Shane owing people money with, "Shane I can't believe that you never paid me back for that In-N-Out WTF Sam" (not 100% on the name) and another that says "This man still owes me $20… with condolences"

and a note with a drawing of the Spirit Box from Ghost Files that reads "You can still star in Ghost Files if you want (but as a ghost)"

(I definitely feel like the Spirit Box will make an appearance again soon)

and I really wanted to point out the note that's presumably from Ryan that says "Haunt me bitch" signed with a heart (!) and the note in front of the newspaper article that reads "Do Not Haunt Ryan"

another note that could also be from Ryan reads "No for real please haunt me. I -"

(and I'm probably glad the end of this note is cut-off or I'd launch myself out a window -- if Ryan was this sad about EPSM and he made himself forget it -- I am crying in the club T_T)

finally we get a look at this newspaper article dated Saturday, August 12, 2023, one day after the PH season six finale, which aired on August 11, 2023

I've transcribed the article below as best I could:

Estranged Puppet History Producer Murdered in the Street Like Dog Los Angeles, CA - In a shocking and tragic turn of events, Shane Madej, the estranged producer of the popular web series Puppet History, was found dead in an alleyway late Saturday night following the show's sixth season wrap party. The discovery has sent shockwaves through Hollywood, with fans and industry insiders reeling from the sudden and mysterious loss of the lanky ghost hunter. A Night of Celebration Turns to Tragedy The evening started out in high spirits as cast, crews, and friends of Puppet History gathered to celebrate the completion of another successful season --2nd column-- remain murky, and the Los Angeles Police Department has yet to release any official statements regarding potential suspects or motives. The investigation is ongoing, and the case has quickly become one of Hollywood's most talked-about unsolved mysteries. Madej's death has rattled the entertainment industry, where he was known not only for his work on Puppet History but also for his contributions to other popular culture at large, such as [hidden] BuzzFeed video "Dogs Watch Television for the First Time.

(it's so funny the article refers to him as a lanky ghost hunter and how this is the most unsolved mystery and that meme dog photo that looks like him hahahaha)

the episode ends with Ryan calling Dorothy Ruth to discover she married Elmer and the Professor wishing they could talk to EPSM, but he's dead, and Ryan says "hypothetically, what if we could"

[ROLL CREDITS]

theory: I think the Spirit Box is going to make an appearance (even better if they used Boo Buddy after all Shane has bullied him imo) to try to contact EPSM, and they'll find out he's in Purgatory with all the puppets that have been sent there and they'll finally be able to rescue them!

I do feel like Elmer has to be behind Shane's murder, even if he's not the one who pulled the trigger, but I don't quite know his motive? we've only been shown he wants to marry Dorothy Ruth but how does that involve EPSM?

and Elmer was really only dosing the Professor and Ryan with Phorgedytol, and maybe some of the other Watcher staff? but Shane's murder was in the news and being investigated by the police?? unless Elmer was really trying to cover it up by pushing the pills on all of Los Angeles and that's why they have the billboards all over town ...

fyi, there was a new billboard spotted in the PH s7 poster that Watcher put on IG yesterday that reads "Phorgedytol - Make Brain go 'MMMMBZZT!'"

maybe the PH buzzer sound?

that's all I have for now! thanks for reading and drop your thoughts and comments in the notes below!

[1moremilgram-enjoyer]

is everyone in milgram just dead

Okay I'm making this post because while I'm not sure how much I believe this, it's a possibility that's been eating at my head for a while, so I gotta share it somewhere even if it's not the most solid theory in the world.

So anyways, hello members of the jury! Today I want to discuss the weirdly recurring theme of the prisoners in Milgram possibly being dead, and Milgram being some sort of afterlife thing. Given the fact it clearly has some supernatural elements, it certainly isn't impossible. So let's get into it!

CW Death, murder and suicide, abortion, child abuse, drowning, cults and indoctrination, waterboarding, gang violence

Yuno and the Allegations

The biggest hint that at least some of the prisoners might be dead is the in Yuno's second VD, Absolute Zero.

Yuno: Oh! Also, that reminds me, there was one thing I'm curious about. Es: What? Go ahead and say it. Y: Am I…really alive? E: That's…what do you…. Y: Hm…if you don't know, then it's fine. E: Yuno…. Y: Hey, it's time, right? E: Y-yes. Prisoner number 2, Yuno. Sing your sins.

Weird thing to say, really. So, presumably, she has some reason to believe she might be dead. Which is especially worrying because Yuno is one of the most intelligent and perceptive prisoners in Milgram, and might even have higher awareness of some of the more supernatural/meta elements of the series, as seen by images from both her cover songs appearing in Umbilical and Tear Drop.

All this is to say, if Yuno has reason to believe she might be dead, we have reason to believe so as well.

There are two points of Yuno's story were I feel she could have died. One is during her abortion, given a question from Trial 2.

(T2) Q20: Did you hate the person you killed?

Y: It was too much of a pain to for me to think about anything.

So her abortion was painful, which likely means it wasn't done in a hospital, as professional abortions typically don't cause too much pain in the moment (source), even if they can cause cramping or discomfort in the recovery period. If it wasn't done professionally, and it hurt a lot, it's very possible she may have died while performing it.

However, because of a few things we'll talk about later, I'm not sure this is very likely. The answer I find more likely is that, unfortunately, she may have committed suicide by jumping off the staircase we see her standing on in her Undercover silhouette shot.

For one, because what the hell would this shot even be otherwise. I've seen people suggest infanticide as opposed to abortion, but that wouldn’t cause physical pain (you could argue that answer is about emotional pain, but I'm not sure how much that works), it doesn't match her kill-shot in Undercover, and she herself has claimed her "muder" was abortion (and I don't see reason for her to lie about that). It also doesn't seem likely she would get pregnant more than once, seeing this question:

(T2) Q10: If you could turn back time, would you commit the same murder once again?

Y: I'd make sure that I won't have to commit it. That's it.

So, then, what the hell is up with that Undercover shot? Usually they say something important about the prisoner or their crime, but it really doesn't seem to have anything to do with anything.

This is where I bring up that Yuno falls off a staircase at the end of Umbilical.

Like, obviously this is more meant to be metaphorical, as in Yuno "slipped up" and now has to avoid falling by grabbing the balloon, which ends up destroying the staircase which had previously been related to the mixing of DNA (long story). But... she still is falling from a staircase. That is what is happening in the video. This is a silly argument, but it does exist.

Now, there's a few other things which could imply this, but that will have to wait for a moment. So while there is very little evidence for now, I'd say this is the most likely reason for why Yuno believes she may be dead. Especially given she might have depression (check out this cool post by weather-cluddy), her comitting suicide is sort of the best guess we can make I feel.

Nevertheless, no matter the reason why, Yuno believes she may be dead, which opens the door to other characters, if not all of them, to be dead as well. Let's take a look at the other prisoner most likely to actually be dead in my opinion, and see if we can establish a pattern.

Haruka's Worrying Situation

I believe, even if no one else is dead, it is highly likely Haruka attempted suicide. I am not going to go too in-depth in here, because moibakadesu already made a really good post about it, which is where I got the theory from in the first place. In fact, the idea Haruka may have at least attempted suicide has existed ever since Trial 1, check out this cool post by Venus from thinkin-bout-milgram. Here's a summary of what the main points of the theory are:

-The repeated motif of water and drowning could indicate the way Haruka killed himself, especially since he lived in Naogaka, Niigata, known as the "city of water."

-Haruka repeatedly attacks and even strangles a younger version of himself in Weakness, in one occasion alongside the lyric "I've become a victim, I've become a victim."

-The young girl in Weakness might actually be a representation of the "ideal Haruka", as he's stated his mother wanted a daughter instead of a son (I don't actually agree with this part, I do think the girl is a literal girl Haruka killed, due to several lines from his VDs, such as him saying Amane "brings back bad memories." However, it's still a possibility)

-The nonchalance with which Haruka speaks of comitting suicide in his second MV, Metamorphosis of the Weak, could imply he's already done it once.

-The line "if with one click, and I can reset everything" in AKAA can be more directly translated to "if with the push of one button I could be reborn", which paired with butterflies being symbols of death and rebirth and being connected to Haruka because of the name of his second VD, could imply Haruka died and was reborn.

-Haruka standing on a chair in AKAA as his shadow lines up with the shadow of the bars in the window to create the ilusion he has a noose around his neck.

-At the end of AKAA, Haruka is surrounded in what looks to be formaldehyde, which is used to preserve the corpses of dead animals, while the aforementioned "I could be reborn" lyric plays.

As you can see, there's a lot here, which is why I think it is highly likely Haruka comitted suicide.

There is an issue with bringing this theory in, which is that part of the theory is that Haruka's silhouette in the Undercover shot doesn't have white noise, which separates him from the others and could imply he's a victim like Hinako and Mahiru's boyfriend, who similarly have no white noise. The problem for our purposes is that this theory assumes a lot of the other prisoners, such as Yuno, may have committed suicide as well, creating an inconsistency with this point. I don't have a good answer for this, beyond a really odd, Hamlet-esque "Haruka is a victim of his own madness" kind of thing which doesn't work very well, so unless any of you have another explanation, it's best for this theory to just sorta ignore the white noise thing.

So, now we have two prisoners who very likely died before Milgram. This vaguely establishes a possible pattern: what if all the prisoners were taken right as they died?

Muu’s Mysterious Memory Mishaps

Es: You said you wanted to go back home, right? And, "suppose" we did let you… Even if you were to leave this place, you'll then have a brush with the police, won't you? Muu: *Surprised* E: I mean, you've killed someone anyway, so are the police not making a move in regards to that? M: Well, I don't know. As of now, I don't have a clear memory of what happened after I did it. And then before I knew it, I was here. E: Is… that so? M: You guys should've known that, being the ones who brought me here after all.

This line from Muu’s first VD has always intrigued me. Muu doesn’t have a very good reason to be lying here when seen in full context, so she’s likely telling the truth. But, why? Why doesn’t Muu remember anything clearly after her crime, and why was she taken so quickly after committing it?

First idea is that perhaps all the prisoners are simply taken right after the murder they’re in Milgram for; even in the case of multiple murders, you can say Milgram just decided to take them for the last one exclusively.

However, Shidou serves as a counter example, because of the ending of Throw Down.

It’s a pretty simple logical progression. Shidou has no reason to kill after the flower person dies, so their death is after his last murder most likely, and yet he does remember it happening. Thus, Shidou has a memory of something which happened an undetermined amount of time after his final murder.

That means the "fuzzy memories" thing isn't universal. This can also be vaguely inferred by the attitudes certain prisoners have regarding their "murder(s)", like Kazui for example.

Now, you could argue Muu simply doesn't remember well because of the Trauma, and she just happened to get taken shortly after her murder. However, there is a chance now that there is a reason she was taken shortly after her murder.

You know what this post is about. You know what I'm about to imply. So I'll make the observation now:

In It's Not my Fault, one of Muu's shoes is off after she kills Rei. And we have seen this imagery of "one shoe off" to represent suicide before.

It's common in Japan to take both shoes off before comitting suicide, but if you want to read into only one of the shoes being off, you could argue it represents they're "half-suicides", as Milgram also considers them murders. In that sense, you (or Muu) could argue were Muu to commit suicide after killing Rei, then she would also become "Rei's victim", the same way Hinako and Mahiru's boyfriend are Kazui and Mahiru's victims.

This idea that Muu might still be a victim in the situation could also be implied by the lyrics here:

[It's Not my Fault] It’s not my fault after all, after all. Everyone wants me to be innocent. What a relief. Can’t be helped. I’m always meant to be pitied!

(Btw I'm using the fan translation in the wiki because the English subs in that video are... odd)

Yes that sentiment is repeated a lot during the song, but Muu does shout "I'm always meant to be pitied" ("I'm always the drama queen") at the top of her lungs here.

Now, the shoe thing isn't quite like that in After Pain, but we never actually see Muu's shoes in the real world, only in the blank inner world with the broken hourglass, and there are other inconsistencies with reality there, namely Rei's body's position.

You can see her right shoe is on there, but again, this scene isn't real.

The concerning thing is that apart from that, After Pain does not help Muu beat the suicide allegations.

In particular, look at the scene of the photo I put there. You can see there's a bunch of people judging Muu for her murder, as it's usually not considered a socially acceptable thing to do. But, hold on, didn't Muu say she didn't remember anything after her murder? Correct! That means she doesn't remember this "judgement" happening, but she imagined it would. Perhaps that's what the one line means:

[After Pain] Counterattack being a suicide note

Counterattacking Rei, killing her, is social suicide. For obvious reasons.

...

But it's still called a suicide note, which is not a good look. And yes, I do think the Japanese lyric explicitly references death, though take that with a lot of salt since that's just Google Translate and DeepL talking.

In fact, that entire set of lyrics is pretty odd.

[After Pain] Let’s meet up inside the pain, a place just for me Postmortem makeup to hide my heart, how to solve it is a secret The stabbing of the little devil’s voice, counterattack being a suicide note “I love YOU”

"Meeting up inside the pain" probably refers to hurting Rei, so now they're hurting together. The "stabbing of a little devil's voice" is probably referring to dangerous impulses, so murderous thoughts. "Counterattack being a suicide note", already explained. "I love YOU", because Muu is a girlkisser.

But the "postmortem makeup" is odd. You could argue the "death" which happened before the "makeup" was applied was the "death" of Muu's reputation, her old persona. Rei "killed" "that Muu", and now Muu is hiding her real feelings with "postmortem makeup."

But then, why would the method to solve it be a secret? Who is she keeping it secret from? Rei, and all of Muu's old 'friends', all know what lies beyond that makeup, they all saw what Muu was like before Rei stepped in.

That means there's another interpretation. If her real feelings are a secret, there's only one person they would be a secret from. Es (and us by extension). In a way, After Pain is hiding part of her heart, the less sympathetic parts shown in full in It's Not My Fault. Muu being a bully was already implied in After Pain, mind you, but it was still relatively "hidden", at least compared to It's Not my Fault.

And if that is the way we're meant to read that line, we run into the allegations again. If the makeup is for Milgram, and it's "postmortem" makeup, then Muu is already dead.

And that's without mentioning how much After Pain seems to imply suicidal tendencies in general.

[After Pain] If I was gone, If I had just disappeared I overheard, I found out How much I’m not needed There’s no special meaning, I got the short end of the stick I overheard, I found out How much I’m not needed

I don’t want tomorrow to come, I want to forget yesterday I was miserable, someone please help me

Maybe I’m done Just one more time before saying goodbye I’m just kidding, please forget I said that

The only lyric that doesn't seem to imply it is:

I want to feel “alive”, is it ok if I breathe?

But feeling alive and being alive isn't quite the same, right? You can be alive without feeling alive, and if someone doesn't feel alive, it's possible they're not a very good state of mind.

So, what could this all imply? If we're going with the idea of murder-suicide, it's possible Muu was very worried about how people would hate her after the murder, as implied by After Pain, decided she didn't want to deal with that, and unfortunately made the decision to kill herself.

One small thing which could serve as a counterpoint is her Trial 1 Voice Reveal distorted line.

Fufufu... It's your fault... for doing horrible things to me.

She seems pretty sure of herself here, and it's very likely this is after her murder. But it's perfectly possible she said this initially, then thought about the social consequences, and that's when she started to feel bad. It's also worth noting the only time in It's Not my Fault where Muu seems to hesitate is right after her murder.

[It's Not my Fault] Wait, wait, just as a hypothetical. What should I do if I’m actually a bad girl? Don’t ever hate me, and don’t look for what lies “after and from” the pain.

This is immediately after the murder, when she comes out of a caccoon, presumably her arriving at Milgram. So, she was initally confident, that's when she says "I’m always meant to be pitied!" in It's Not my Fault and presumably her Voice Reveal line, then hesitated and started to feel awful as we see in After Pain.

... Well, there's also the way more uncharitable reading where Muu killed herself so people also pitied her instead of just hating her for killing Rei, but that's a bit too dark and in bad faith for my tastes. It is there, though.

So, yeah, Muu may be dead too. And she brings with her an interesting implication; the prisoners may not have clear memories of the events leading up to their death. So, even if some of them committed suicide, it's possible they simply don't remember ever taking the decision to do so, explaining their behavior in the prison.

And it also could explain away... one apparent contradiction. One which exists outside of this theory, but that this theory could explain.

Amane and the Voice Reveal Trailers

As most of you know, the Voice Reveal trailers for all these characters contain certain distorted phrases which in general seem closely linked to their murder. And as pointed out by blueepink07 in this post, it seems the First Trial Voice Reveals are things the prisoners said after their murder, while the Second Trial ones are showing a point before their murder. Check out Kazui's, for example.

(T1) "I'm so dumb... Why did I have to dream?"

(T2) "Hinako, I love you more than anything."

There's also Muu's, since I've already brought it up before.

(T1) "Fufufu... It's your fault... for doing horrible things to me."

(T2) "Hey..why don't you listen to me...? I'm telling you... Hey...HEY, I'M TALKING TO YOU"

The second being right before she killed Rei.

That works well enough for all the prisoners... except Amane.

(T1) "Ahh! I'm so sorry...! I'm sorry...! I'm sorry for breaking the rules!"

(T2) "Father is a very praiseworthy person. Once [my/his] virtue increases, he'll come back home, right? It's a little lonely, but I'm fine!"

In theory, Amane would have been punished before her murder, as we see happen after she heals the cat in the taser scene. Meanwhile, if she's lonely without her father, it could perhaps be because her mother is dead after Things Happened (yes I'm going with Mother!Victim theory on this one).

But that's not the case. Following the pattern, the line about her father coming home at some point is before her murder, and apparently, she was punished for breaking some kind of rule after her murder. The implication here, horrid as it is, could be that her father returned home after she killed her mother and punished her for doing so.

Thankfully, this is impossible. After all:

(T1) Q18: Do you regret your "murder"?

A: No. It was a natural obligation.

(T2) Q3: State the name of your victim.

A: There is no victim. Only the punished.

(Taking some liberties on the translation of Trial 2 since the questions are still coming out as I write this)

So Amane genuinely believes she was following her cult's principles to a T when she killed her mom. As much as that likely isn't the case (long story), if she had gotten punished for killing her mom, then she wouldn't think like this. If she had been punished for it, she wouldn't think her murder was a "natural obligation", but rather a mistake on her part.

What this implies is that Amane doesn't remember being punished by her father.

...

Amane... doesn't remember...

Fuck.

Yeah, remember when I said it was possible the prisoners don't have clear memories of the events leading up to their death? Going by the "T1 after - T2 before" logic the Voice Reveals seem to follow, we can infer Amane was likely punished for killing her mother, but we also know she can't remember it happening, otherwise she would regret it. And based on what we learnt from Muu, we do have a way to explain how that could happen. If Amane died while receiving the punishment the T1 Voice Reveal alludes to, she wouldn't have a clear memory of it.

And the thing is, it does seem likely Amane received this punishment. Think about it. Interrogation questions are one thing, since the creators don't fully control them, but why mention her father would possibly return home in the Voice Reveal trailer? Unless he did. Hell, you could argue we might know the exact moment he returned. Amane does look at the entrance of her apartment at the end of Purge March, though that could simply be for dramatic effect rather than being a literal thing which happened.

But there's more. Because if her father returned home, we might actually have an answer for another one of the mysteries surrounding Amane's situation. The Undercover prisoner card.

The image on her card seems to show a bathroom. It is widely assumed the images on these cards are the location the murders happened in, but to my knowledge, this isn't 100% confirmed. However, this creates a small issue with Amane. Just looking at the murder shot in Purge March is enough to confirm that.

I made a more detailed theory on her murder on this post, diagrams included (scroll to the bottom if you're only interested on the murder), but for now, there are two things to note here. One, there's a trail of water which seems to come out of the door with the light on, as the puddles are bigger the closer they get to it, implying that room is the bathroom. And two, the room the murder actually happened in seems to have a window/door behind a curtain, which isn't what Amane's bathroom looks like.

Adittionally, there isn't any blood outside of the murder room, implying the victim's body wasn't dragged there.

All this seems to imply Amane's victim didn't die in the bathroom, which is sorta a problem considering the previously mentioned commonly accepted theory. But this idea that Amane may have died while being punished, perhaps while being drowned as we know that's one of the accepted methods of punishment in her cult, brings up a different possibility.

What if the images in the prisoner cards aren't showing murder location? What if they show the last place the prisoner was seen in, the place they died?

Kotoko, Mikoto, and the Prisoner Cards

So, first, is there any indication either of these might be dead? For Mikoto, not really. Sure, there's the whole Death card at the end of MeMe thing, but that doesn't have to be taken so literally.

Kotoko has a very little potential hint in the fact she's shown alongside a wolf at the start of HARROW, but by the end the wolf is by itself. If the wolf represents a potential partner (long story), then maybe Kotoko died?

Though you can easily argue the wolf is slightly different and thus is meant to just represent Kotoko.

However, the reason I'm bringing them into this is because their prisoner cards are completely nonsensical under "murder location" theory for the images shown. Let's start with Kotoko.

It shows an alleyway, which at first seems like it makes sense. We do see her attacking a man in an alleyway. However, after that happens, one of the pieces of background text says this:

◆ A wanted thief was assaulted by an unknown assailant Early yesterday morning, a nearby shop employee reported hearing screaming and seeing a man lying on the ground. According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, the man had lost consciousness after being beaten on his face, stomach, and other areas, and was taken to the hospital. The police are currently trying to identify the suspect. [...] According to previous investigations, the male victim was wanted throughout Tokyo for theft and assault charges and was identified as the suspect, Mikio Oshii.

(Translation by Maristelina)

Mikio Oshii is the name of the man Kotoko assaulted in the alleyway. It seems odd to me that we would learn he was taken to the hospital if he later died in it somehow, especially because Kotoko didn't want to kill him. We can clearly see this because of a crucial difference between her attack on him and her attack on the serial killer who likely is her victim.

She covers her face while attacking Oshii, because she doesn't want to be recognized. She is committing assault, after all. However, that only matters if she's planning to keep him alive. Conversely, she doesn't cover her face while attacking the serial killer, because she knows he won't be a witness. She went into that warehouse planning to kill.

Of course, she could have accidentally done too much damage, but the issue there is that she would probably express some remorse in that case. She doesn't, and the fact she only ever talks about one victim-

[TASK (T1 VD)] I did kill someone. [...] I don't have a single regret.

-it really seems like Oshii was able to survive her attack.

That creates an issue with her prisoner card. It shows an alleyway, but her only victim died in a warehouse. As confusing as that sequence is, he did die in the warehouse.

You know when we do see an alleyway again, though?

But she's not wearing her face covering. And if this was the alley with the one sign about a car accident that shows up over and over in HARROW, I'd imagine we'd see the sign, even if it was obscured in some way. So once again, a silhouette shot which seems to have nothing to do with her murder or her general situation.

So, is it possible she died in this alleyway? That's the only other reason I can imagine why it'd show up in her prisoner card, so. As for what exactly happened, I imagine she may have been murdered at the whim of her victim's father?

Shocking revelation: The heinous criminal behind the crime is the privileged son of a high-ranking official!

(Article referring to Kotoko's victim)

So, she got found out and immediately assassinated? It's a bit out there, but it would explain both her prisoner card and her attitude in the prison.

And then there's Mikoto.

As you can see, his card shows a street. The issue with Mikoto is one of format. The cards only ever show one location, but we know Mikoto has at least two victims.

[Text: To the right, the Subway Murder, which clearly has a ceiling. The murderer has blood on his right cheek, his left cheek is hidden. There's also the bathhtub scene, where the right cheek is hidden, but the left cheek has blood already trailing off, which doesn't quite fit what we see in the other murder if you think about the bath chronologically.

To the left, a murder out in the street, with an open sky. The murderer has blood on their left cheek, but not on their right. This is seen in both the crime and the shower scene]

So yeah, at least two. You could argue the bathtub murder is actually a third one, which... huh. Two things that absolutely exist and a Secret Third Thing, the existance of which is disputed? Trikoto vibes.

Point is, Mikoto has two different murder locations at least. The street, yes, but also the subway. This creates a problem with the "images in the prisoner cards are murder locations" idea, because it only shows one. You could try to gymnastics your way out of this by saying maybe Hostkoto committed the street murder while Orekoto killed the other victim(s), and because only Hostkoto is considered a prisoner by Milgram, only his murder is shown? But I feel that raises more questions than it answers.

Instead, if we assume the images to be death locations, the ambiguity disappears, because Mikoto as a system can only have one death location. The issue is you have to explain how Mikoto died in the middle of the street, which is a bit difficult.

The best guess I can give is related to the subway victim. It's been pointed out before that guy looks a lot like a stereotypical Japanese delinquent, which could imply he was part of a gang. If that's the case, it's possible the killer angered the wrong people by killing him, similar to Kotoko, and thus was later murdered himself. We know that street isn't very safe, on account of one of the alters getting away with murder there. It's a pretty large stretch, and has like zero evidence, but it's physically possible at least.

Let's take a quick look at the other prisoners and see if their images can also be explained by the "death image" theory.

We know Muu would share a death location with her victim if she really committed suicide as the theory states, so nothing weird there. Haruka's a bit more awkward, because it shows the forest he very likely killed the girl in, but I'm not entirely sure if the forests near Nagaoka has bodies of water deep enough to drown oneself. There is the Shinano river, which has... trees, around it.

This was taken from Google Street View in Nagaoka. Again, not sure how deep it is, but assuming it's deep enough to drown, it could work if you ignore the trees don't look too much like the ones irl. Maybe Haruka threw himself off the bridge?

Alternatively, Nagaoka borders the sea, and it seems like there's forest almost all the way up to it. So maybe that could work? Unsure.

Worst comes to worst, we can maybe change it to saying Haruka didn't drown himself, but killed himself in some other way in the forest. Point is, I think Haruka's isn't too big of an issue.

Fuuta, Mahiru and Kazui don't have a lot of evidence towards what the hell would have happened, but the best assumption I can make is they all committed suicide because of guilt. Fuuta in his room, Mahiru in the suicide forest (likely also where her boyfriend committed suicide), and Kazui by jumping off a building like Hinako. As for their evidence...

>Fuuta burns at the end of Backdraft, which is the same thing that happens to Killcheroy, so you could argue that's meant to show he's dying. It's not great, it absolutely is just meant to be metaphorical most likely, but it is there.

Additionally, he's also an outlier for the "muder location image" theory, since what one would consider his "murder location" is very ambiguous. Is it his room, where he sent online hate from? Is it Killcheroy's room, where she assumedly died? Wouldn't it be the front of Killcheroy's house, where Fuuta took the picture to dox her? Again, death location is less ambiguous.

Fuuta's attitude during Trial 1 could be seen as a bit weird if he was suicidal, but I'm not sure we can comfortably say that with the limited information we have.

>Mahiru in I Love You goes to sleep after seeing her boyfriend dead, which could be read as her committing suicide. You know, if you're insane like me.

Especially given this question from Trial 1:

(T1) Q20: What do you think about smoking?

M: I've never smoked before, but I might copy him if who I love smokes.

That, alongside a lot of the bg text from TIHTBILWY, implies Mahiru likes the idea of copying her lover. Not the greatest quality to have when your lover commits suicide.

>Kazui has this:

Where the smoke of his cigarette turns into a noose. Of course, that's meant to represent self-destruction in general, but it could also be taken more literally. He... doesn't have much else.

Thus, everyone else vaguely fits the idea of "death image"... except him.

Our favorite headache inducing doctor strikes again! His card shows a hospital room, which is a very strange death location, but perfectly fits his murders. You could argue he runs into the same issue as Mikoto, but it's actually possible Shidou just killed all his victims in the same room, so.

Yeah, Shidou's probably the biggest counterargument for this theory. Because while it's possible he died in a hospital, there is zero evidence for it, beyond the image itself. Hell, neither Throw Down or Triage ever seems to imply he died in the first place, which is an issue. This theory's already heavily dependant on the extremely flawed "you can't disprove it" argument, but at least most of the other ones have some kind of logical progression which gets you to how they died.

So, to complete the theory, we have to make the pretty big jump that Shidou died inside a hospital room, without knowing how that happened.

... Wait, inside the room?

Wait wait wait, show me Fuuta's and Amane's again.

Hmmm... 0308... hmmmm... 0308... I totally didn't just do this to put the two together... hm...

Yeah, same thing. They both show the inside of a room. Which, along with Shidou's, shows that these images can show the inside of buildings, right?

But, then... why is Yuno's outside?

That very clearly isn't the inside of a building. But this generates a problem for the "murder location image" theory, because Yuno's "murder" was abortion. Even if it wasn't done professionally, she would have still done it inside, presumably. This creates an inconsistency with Fuuta, Amane and Shidou. If their murder locations are shown from inside, why is Yuno different?

However, this inconsistency disappears if we assume the images to be death locations. I previously established if Yuno died, she likely committed suicide by jumping off a staircase, which does vaguely fit this image. It's similar to Kazui's in that way.

Now, I don't want to get too ahead of myself here. Murder location is still absolutely the more straightforward answer, but it does come with its issues. As stated, Fuuta's image would face some ambiguity, Mikoto's would face extreme ambiguity, Amane's seems to contradict the evidence we're shown in Purge March, Yuno's is wildly inconsistent with the other images, and Kotoko's is straight up nonsensical.

Meanwhile, death locations physically work with all the cases, even if Shidou's case is extremely weird, but it requires huge assumptions and stretches. It relies heavily on how impossible it is to disprove, which is not a good sign. Russell's Teapot, and all that.

Summary of the Theory

>Everyone in Milgram is dead, and their prisoner cards in Undercover show the place where they died.

>Prisoner's memories of the events leading up to their deaths are extremely fuzzy, explaining why only Yuno seems to even suspect it.

+Haruka: Committed suicide by drowning himself, possibly in the Shinano river or the sea. [Most likely to be dead]

+Yuno: Committed suicide by jumping off the staircase we see her standing in on her Undercover silhouette shot. [Most likely to be dead]

+Fuuta: Committed suicide in his room out of guilt. [Very little evidence]

+Muu: Murder-suicide, she committed suicide after killing Rei. [A bit more evidence than others]

+Shidou: Died in a hospital room [???]

+Mahiru: "Copied" her boyfriend by killing herself in the suicide forest. [Very little evidence]

+Kazui: Jumped off a building, like Hinako. [Very little evidence]

+Amane: Drowned by her father as "punishment" for her murder. [Unfortunately, sorta likely]

+Mikoto: Murdered by one of the members of Subway Victim's gang. [Sort of filling in the blanks here]

+Kotoko: Murdered at the order of her victim's father. [Very little evidence]

Conclusion

Do I believe this theory? Honestly, I don't know. It makes a few too many assumptions for me to fully believe it, but I do think it's a decent possibility, so I wanted to share it with you all. In any case, that's all I have to say for now. If you have any thoughts about any of this, feel free to share! Also I didn't even touch on Es but you can try to fit them in somehow if you feel like it.

Anyways, if you made it this far, you deserve a hug, this post was depressing. Take care!

[paradoxcase]

The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Chapter 3

I don't think this is how disease immunity works. Also, logically, if the people in the Masquerade were all actually immune to this plague, they wouldn't have brought it in the first place. I guess this plague must be similar to the flu, since it seems to be a virus that they have a vaccine for, that still regularly reoccurs in spite of that

I think "federati" is meant to invoke "foederati":

(Although the Masquerade's interest in Taranoke doesn't seem to be particularly military.)

So, their strategy for eugenics seems to be to just... not permit people to get married until they've been approved in some way? That's not remotely going to stop people from having children. Like, the actual IRL eugenics movement understood this and was non-consensually sterilizing people. I don't think the Masquerade just pretends that extra-marital sex doesn't happen, because if they did they probably would also just be pretending that gay sex doesn't happen

That is kind of a weird contradiction in the Masquerade's ethos - on the one hand, everyone is supposedly equal and can achieve any position through merit, but on the other hand, everyone is also doomed to be a good, useful person or not based on their genetics. It seems like they would have some sort of aphorism ready to resolve these two ideas since they both seem to be very central to their national identity, and you don't have to be smart to see that they're in direct contradiction, but for some reason Cairdine Farrier doesn't have anything to say to this

So I guess, from the rest of the chapter, that the "wolves" are the Stakhieczi and he is anticipating some war with them (and with someone else). Also interesting that he is now calling it "the Masquerade" when I think one of the first things he ever said to Baru was that calling it that was rude

So I guess we are meant to understand that "Treatymont" is an Aphalone name given by the Masquerade, and probably that also means that the other English placenames on the map, "Wintercrest" and "Oathsfire" are also meant to be translated Aphalone names

"Jurispotence" is a fun word, faux Latin modeled after "jurisprudence" but instead of meaning "knowledge of the law" transparently means "power of the law"

I like how effectively this communicates that they use family-name-first in Aurdwynn - it actually is kind of hard to clue people in when your fantasy country does names in a way that isn't a personal name followed by a family name because people will just assume that that's how it is by default. I think the only other book I've seen do this was K. J. Parker's Scavenger trilogy, but the way he introduced it there was so awkward. You kind of have to have people who are family in order to communicate this clearly, and those books just didn't really have a lot of characters that were related that way, I think actually none that were part of the relevant culture

Baru definitely said back in Chapter 2 that she had learned what the punishments for this were in the school, so I'm a little confused, here

Actually, these punishments are a little strange in general. They consider gayness to be a genetic affliction, but usually if you are considered to have bad genes it seems like the "punishment" for that is that you're not allowed to get married or presumably have children. Like, later on Cairdine Farrier talks about people who are "inferior" by virtue of being more susceptible to melanoma is just like "well, we'll just have to only breed them to each other". Like, the Masquerade seems real fond of violating people's bodily autonomy, but it doesn't seem like they're actually out there committing mass genocide to remove people with inferior genes. And even if they were, these punishments don't actually seem to be death sentences, they're punitive violence. If they believe that gayness is hardcoded in your genetics, why do they think that punitive violence will stop you from being gay? It's not clear how these punishments are actually meant to further their eugenics goals. It can't be that they think this is the only or best way to sterilize you, because there some real obvious ways to very effectively sterilize men that don't involve hot irons. At this point, this kind of seems like just a gratuitous punishment to show how evil the Masquerade is

Anyway, I guess if Salm does come back at some point, he will probably have suffered this

So I guess we will not be getting a reprieve from the violent homophobia?

I really really really much prefer the Locked Tomb approach to gay fantasy by saying "Diversity win! The Evil Empire is super gay!" to this approach of "The Evil Empire is super homophobic and hates my gay protagonist." I know you probably get drawn and quartered on tumblr if you say "I wish the protagonist of this book were not gay" but in this case I actually do almost wish she was not gay and we got to hear about whatever the author wants to say about homophobia from a non-POV character. I guess it's similar to how I don't like to read about aro or ace viewpoint characters having bad experiences as a result of their being aro or ace, and actually wasn't able to continue reading Loveless because of this, it's too close to home. I don't know, how do you guys feel about this?

Also, if any of you guys who has read this already can provide like, advance content warnings of any chapters were Baru maybe gets stabbed the crotch, that would be appreciated. Like, I'm still absolutely going to read it, it doesn't sound there will be any discussion of asexuality or aromanticism anywhere in this book, I'd just like to know beforehand

There's also, I think, kind of a disconnect between the Masquerade's homophobia and the use of the words "sodomite" and "tribidist", I think. The original connotation of these words isn't about who you are attracted to, it's about what you do - historically, Christians didn't care much about who you were attracted to, they just cared about whether or not you had gay sex. And even in the modern day, you will find plenty of conservative Christians who say things like "love the sinner, hate the sin" which basically translates to "we don't hate people who attracted to the same gender, we just hate people who have sex with people of the same gender" which is like, same difference for most people, but if they actually do really believe that, that does mean that the set of people they want to persecute is actually slightly different than the set of people we'd consider queer. That's the context for the word "sodomite", where it just refers to the action, and "tribidist" seems pretty analogous. But the Masquerade doesn't seem to actually see it that way. Lao was suspected of being a tribidist despite the fact that I don't get the impression at all that she was suspected of having had sex with anyone, and here is Baru worrying about being found out about who she's attracted to when she hasn't had sex yet, either. Earlier, Diline had said that whatever he was planning to do would "fix" Lao "before it enters the hereditary cells" - is "entering the hereditary cells" something that is supposed to happen after you have sex? Or is it just something that is supposed to happen when you get older? If it's just the latter, it's not clear why the book is using these particular words, unless it's just to invoke particularly old-school homophobia

Well, if this is going to get all intriguey and fantasy of manners now it might make up for whatever crotch-stabbing is probably occurring in the future

I won't say it's too early to be coming up with conspiracy theories because the last time I said that, my conspiracy theory that Corona was not actually a necromancer turned out to be true, so

I think it would be pretty fun if Cairdine Farrier turned out to be the Faceless Emperor

And really, who else would he turn out to be? He's obviously not who he claims to be, and we don't know anyone else from Falcrest, or the name of any other high-ranking title there. If it turns out he's secretly the Imperial Officer of Foreign Affairs or something, the reveal isn't impactful, because we've never heard of that guy and have no idea who he is or what his powers are. It doesn't really make sense for him to turn out to be anyone else, does it?

[syndrossi]

I love how in resonant Daemon is a mix of 'Jon should inherit Runestone' and also 'Jon should never set foot in Runestone'. Why exactly was Otto happy about going to the vale? I mean obviously because it's good for something he's plotting, but what exactly IS he plotting? And about the stepstone - I can see Daemon deciding that this time he's properly garrisoning the stepstones, purely so he can make it a holding for Rhaegar.

Also, I was thinking about reverse!Au with Jeyne and Rhaella, and how Alicent would think of them - because she'd see Rhaella and be reminded of how Rhaenyra looked, and then see Jeyne and be reminded of how Rhaenyra acted, and want to 'save' them from their 'evil father' EVEN MORE. Alicent and Otto would be pushing for an Aemond/Jeyne match cause a) 'a wife and mother's loyalty is to her husband and children' bullshit and b) it means the second son gets a holding in Runestone. Viserys, who is not thinking of Aegon as a king who would be married to Helaena to emphasise how Targaryen he is, would probably consider AEGON/Jeyne for the same reason - because he would probably want to betroth Rhaella to Jace.

Daemon wants his daughter to be able to choose who they marry thank you!

Otto and Stepstones

We'll have to wait and see on the Otto front, but yes, it's a given that Otto gonna scheme, as is his way.

Otto did in fact accuse Daemon of planning to build a holding for himself in the Stepstones, presumably on Bloodstone. And, I mean, wouldn't it be cool to constantly be traveling between Runestone, Dragonstone, and Bloodstone? Talk about a theme in naming!

That said, it's not the most attractive place for a permanent fortress/keep. It's not particularly fertile, meaning it's not particularly self-sustaining, so a) you won't be able to keep very large herds of sheep/pigs to feed your dragon(s) and b) you're reliant on the nearest friendly territory for trade which happen to be Lys and Dorne, both recent enemies.

Which doesn't mean you don't do it! Daemon very much wants the Iron Throne to have a permanent military presence there so that they have a foothold for venturing into Essos if need be. But I don't know that he would want to take his kids there, even "after" the war.

Reversal AU

Oh, that's a rather clever idea of what Viserys would be inclined to go for, as far as matches. In his guilt over denying his firstborn son his birthright, I could definitely see him going "oh, well, Aegon can have the consolation prize of becoming Lord of Runestone by marrying the elder prophecy child." And since Rhaella is the second-born, she can be the prophecy child who marries Jace to become queen. All while Aemond fumes. (When Otto pitches the Dance, you can bet he'll use the girls being "stolen" by the Blacks as a motivator. Sort of a "you'll each get one, once Rhaenyra's bastards are dealt with" pitch.)

Let's not pretend Daemon doesn't have his own preferences, of course! One of his daughters absolutely should be queen-consort someday, and thus marry Jace. And none of his daughters should ever marry one of the Hightower spawn...

[cartoon-cass]

Murder drone Episode 8 predictions

Predicting what the next episode might be is nearly impossible for the series, but I’ll give it my best try.

Let’s begin at the beginning, every episode starts with a flashback or a sequence that themes relates back to the main episode. Being the last episode, hopefully for the season and not the whole series, we might get a how we got here sequence or we get the fight scene that was teased in the last episode, then flash forward, having that act like a flashback. The alternative is something completely out of left field that is impossible to guess.

The main question would be what they’re going to do next, where we left off last episode was Uzi sacrificing herself to get N off the planet. I highly doubt that we'll be spending the whole next episode solely in the space pod, copper 9 and earth are off the table, given the whole being exploded. The only other system that have been named are the Proxima system, Plat-Binary system both of which were also corrupted though it doesn’t say if there blown up to there were 2 other lines presumably leading to other systems that seemingly weren’t infected but there is no info on them.

It’s also worth mentioning that Flesha was the one to bring them up so who knows if she was being truthful. There is then the question what they’ll do there, presumably try to take down the Absolute Solver, some how.

It’s also worth mentioning that Flesha was the one to bring them up so who knows if she was being truthful. There is then the question what they’ll do there, presumably try to take down the Absolute Solver, some how.

That’s the where now for something slightly easier the who? The once we know for sure will be there will be N, J, Lizzy, Thad and Khan. The maybes are Nori, she did get yeeted in the pit, but that was pretty comical, so might just climb out of it. Uzi is presumably somewhere and she is the main character so she’ll probably come back. V is interesting many people suspect that she was Lizzie‘s secret friend, the main theory I’ve seen floating around has her be just her core, I have an other idea but I’ll leave that for the wild theory part. For J there’s also the question if she’ll join on the space pod, I can honestly see her being left behind but I kind of hope she gets to stay, I want to see more of her.

Now for the wild theory part my evidence for this is mostly vibes. My guess is that they’ll go to where “ efficient drones are cloned” , J just came from there so she might know where it is and I think V will be there too because she was cloned. At some point N will sacrifice himself so he join V and Uzi on the acrylic stands.

Also does anyone have a better quality image of this it's tiny

That’s all I got. My best guess is that this will be just season 1 and will get a second season why else call it season 1 if you’re not intending to have a second one.

[butterflydm]

cr 106 & 107

Glad I rewatched 106, because I really did miss a lot while I feeling a bit under the weather last week, so I missed most of the actual infiltration. The main thing I remembered from last week was going "wow this is really the monsterfucker campaign" after all the flirting at Nana Morri's, lol. It really does amuse me that the entire group is so into Morri and Ira while sending shade in the direction of the gods, who apparently just needed to be more capricious and weirder and less-trustworthy in order to trigger Bells Hells' monsterfucking desires. (did the ending of 107 confirm or refute this feeling? lol)

(side note: I do feel sad for Birdie and Ollie. Given Fearne's upbringing and relative isolation, I understand why she flat-out refuses to feel that Nana Morri is capable of ever doing anything wrong or bad, but man did Birdie and Ollie get screwed over by Nana Morri)

The initial battle was quite exciting but the secondary battle was even more so. I am so glad that Imogen pulled the trigger on that second fight ("I don't want Predathos to be free!") because giving the go-ahead for the Unseelie army to help Ludinus until the Sorrowlord decides it's time to betray Ludinus genuinely would be an actual betrayal of all of the people that they just spoke to in Vasselheim (including Keyleth). I think it was Marisha/Laudna who would pointed out that they would then be responsible for killing all of those people on both sides if they did something like that.

Also: Laudna has disintegrate! Wow!

Bells Hells finally got a sign from a god that was obvious enough that they noticed it, you guys! Big moment! It only took a temple being magically being rebuilt before their eyes. Also, so excited that we're getting more from the Arch Heart here. (and so so excited about our special guest, Abubakar!). They wanted to talk to a god.

Arch Heart is like, okay, no more time for being subtle. We're playing hardball. Also, they're a total prankster, which fits, given that they're the patron of all things fey.

Also Ashton getting this direct refutation of their belief that the gods would immediately smite them if they knew that the gods had found out that they knew the truth.

So two of the gods want to "let go" (leave Exandria, presumably) while the others want to stay. "Try convincing my family to leave their children." They believe that the only way they can get the others to leave is to scare the ever-loving fuck out of them.

Abubakar's Arch Heart remains very very charming. Also I do not trust them, lol. They basically want the same thing as Fearne's daddy, don't they? Just for a different reason.

Their argument is that BH should sacrifice one of their own (Imogen or Fearne) in order to scare the rest of the god family off Exandria so that they can have their family back. Or at least that's how it sounds. "Make sacrifices for the greater good" -- but what is the greater good. That's the question that Bells Hells has to answer here.

Orym being like "idk if I think you actually have that much influence over your siblings" lol.

Also, there are way too many ??? in the Arch Heart's plans for my personal taste, but we'll see what Bells Hells thinks, I guess.

Literally everyone's plan who wants to use Predathos to do anything:

Step 1: Free Predathos

Step 2: ????

Step 3: Profit!

I haven't found any of their arguments convincing, lol.

[rottingchapel]

hello! for starters, i adore your takes and your character analysis on franco barbi. i love how you go in depth with how you perceive him/your interpretations. i'm sure you've been told that many times before (+ media literacy/comprehension seems rare these days), but i just love seeing people understanding characters. secondly, would it be okay to ask for an analysis on amelia/the escapist? i'm curious what your thoughts and opinions are of her, and if you have any theories on how her story might play out. also, how do you think she would feel about the prime assets? i suspect that, given her criminal background, she would have a great distaste for coyle since he's a cop, for example. not sure how she'd feel about the other two, though. anyway sorry for the long ask 😅

I love Amelia, she's super fresh and a good change of pace. My only problem is that I want a lot more of her than we're getting!

We've gotten a lot of story about the staff of sinyala but not a lot about the reagents, which has stood out to me as sort of strange!

The reagents are going through hellish shit 24/7, and we're even told during the lupara update that they have access to combustible chemicals and there's been multiple escape attempts; if this was in real life Sinyala would probably be overrun with Amelia style wall living rat people by now.

Franco's Vault Box implies he's managed to get a hold of staff already despite most of them not having high clearance, and the pusher expops are ex-staff. Gooseberry is getting lucid enough to know she's not in "tv land". Easterman is. Well, Easterman. Sinyala is already falling apart. Amelia feels natural. Of course someone finally made it out of the trials and survived -- it's a miracle that no one else has done the same already.

The one thing that sets her escape apart (and thus more successful) is the fact she didn't even attempt to leave the actual facility. Anyone else who made it out died just outside the facility, presumably because of Murkoff catching up to them or just due to the elements: Sinyala is in the middle of the Havasupai Indian Reservation. Straight up desert, commedically isolated and inhospitable. Her anger is what makes her different from the other reagents.

Anger which undoubtedly extends to the primes. They're a part of the system of suffering inflicted on the reagents -- they actively benefit from all the pain. They revel in it. They're not victims, at least not in Sinyala. I think if Amelia had the chance to "tear it all down", it would definitely include the primes. I don't think we'll get that, though. We're only in "season two" of Trials, and the Sinyala Facility is still intact and at the least partially operational in Outlast 2, decades later. It's not looking very good for Amelia and her revenge.