#But I don’t actually like Rampage that much so their whole thing is kinda pointless to me

[mainenorth]

what in the sam hill is beast wars s3. what the shit is happening

[hasspartacusdoneanythingwrong]

The Century War of Wyverns, Part 2: Chase the French Soldier

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Kat: Our first encounters in a strange new land! It... doesn't go well tbh, but I'm sure the next one will!

Cris: Turns out Spartacus doesn't understand "the back of your blade" very well.

Jeanne: {CWs for violence against humans, death, first-person panic attack}

------

God dammit, how the hell can that mountain of muscle move so fast? We barely got a word in edgewise and he’s already left us in the dust! If we don’t get there in time those soldiers are gonna be a big red smear on the ground. One more hill, and… he’s just… standing there, having a conversation with them? He gestured towards the one in the gaudiest uniform before walking over.

Spartacus: Placet expectare.

Spartacus: Ah master, there you are! I have glorious news! These soldiers are themselves fighting against the oppression of a false king! Of course, a true king is also oppressive in its own way, but still! Their leader even speaks latin! Roughly.

French General: C'est ton géant ?

Kat: <Ooh, ooh! I got this! Time for all that duolingo to do its thing!>

April (Kat): Bonjour, garcon!

I internally rolled my eyes as the soldier blanched.

Cris: <Kat. Garcon means boy. Let’s try something else.>

April (Cris): (Hey, Mash, do you know French? Mine’s a little rusty.)

Mash: (Sorry master, I barely know enough to say hello.)

April (Jeanne): (Well, English is a common lingua franca, might as well try that, right?)

Cris: <Good idea!>

Mash: Wait, that’s-

April (Cris): Sorry about that, tried to be polite, don’t actually know that much French. The big guy’s with us, and we were hoping you… could… Ah, fuck.

The soldiers had already surrounded us. Cries of “L’Anglais!” erupted around us as they pointed their spears in our direction.

Mash: The French are at war with England in this time period!

April (Cris): I gathered, yeah.

Spartacus: So now they seek to oppress us as well?

Mash: What are your orders, master?

April (Cris): Take them down but try not to kill the idiots. Uh… hit them with the back of your blade, or something.

Mash lifted her shield up quizzically.

Mash: And what part of this, exactly, is the blade?

April (Cris): Dammit, just try not to kill them!

Even holding back, it was clear the soldiers were no match for Mash Kyrielight. She ran circles around them, their every attack parried as their weapons shattered against their shield. Even three on one, the soldiers didn’t stand a chance. Meanwhile, Spartacus ha- oh God.

I faltered, stumbled off the road and retched. If Mash had a spotless technique, Spartacus’ was nothing but spots. He simply walked from soldier to soldier and shattered their bodies with his fists. He hadn’t even bothered to draw his sword. The few soldiers Mash pacified were bruised, but relatively unharmed. The ones unlucky enough to face Spartacus weren’t going to get back up.

The forest span <Jeanne?> around me. I know someone was calling our name, but I couldn't <Jeanne!> hear anything beyond the blood rushing to my head. My chest hurt, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't- <JEANNE!>

A sharp sting as my hand slapped my cheek. Cris stopped me from spiraling again. I took a moment to breathe properly.

April (Jeanne): Okay… Okay, I’m good. I think.

I slowly stood up and made it back to the others. The surviving French soldiers had already made their escape. Mash’s spirit origin was shaking. I put my hand on her shoulder as I got closer.

April (Jeanne): Mash, are you alright?

Mash: I should be asking you that, Master. I’m… I can’t believe it, but I’m still not used to this.

April (Jeanne): It’s only been a day or two Mash, you don’t have to force yourself to be okay with this.

Mash: A day? Oh, right.

Spartacus: Mmh. It might be better for you two if you don’t become comfortable in these sorts of things. The two of you are unoppressed by the experience of warfare. Hold that close to you.

Mash: Right. Thank you, Spartacus. So, what’s our next move?

April (Cris): Right, I hate to do this, but… we need to follow the soldiers that ran off.

Spartacus: Ahah, we must finish the fight then?

April (Cris): NO! Nonono. I mean, they’re going to run to the nearest place with people. They’re our only lead right now. Did you see which way they went, Spartacus?

Spartacus: Of course! Follow me!

----

On our way, we got in contact with Dr. Roman again. Turns out our plugsuit comes equipped with a translator- would have come in handy earlier, but fuck it, at least we won’t have to fight literally everyone we come across.

The sky was turning red when we finally saw the smoke clouds over the horizon. We rushed over a hill and finally got a look at the fort. It was in bad shape. Walls crumbled in, with smoke and fire billowing out from several windows. Dark shapes moved through the smoke, obscured in a haze.

Another wall fell over as we descen-

Kat: <Hey, look! Isn’t that one of the soldiers?>

Sure enough, one of the survivors of Spartacus’ rampage was kneeling at the top of the hill.

April (Cris): Hey! Hey you! Don’t fucking run, I’m talking to you!

The soldier had started, but before he made it to his feet we were already surrounding him. He was speaking too fast to translate at first, so I just pressed on.

April (Cris): Look, I get it if you don’t believe us, but we’re not gonna kill you.

April (Jeanne): We have traveled a long way because we heard something very, very bad was happening here. Please, can you tell us what is going on?

French Soldier: Oh, and what are the English going to do about it?! Insult her and run away?

Cris: <Apparently we can do a lot fucking more than your soldiers can.>

April (Jeanne): We have fought worse. Now, who is this “her”?

French Soldier: You’ve fought worse than Jeanne d’Arc? Hah! Unlikely!

Mash: Jeanne d’Arc? She should be dead by this point!

French Soldier: That is the worst part, she is! She was dead for three days, when the Saint of Orleans appeared out of nowhere and started razing all of France to the ground. She’s been tearing around with an Army of monsters for days now! Even King Charles couldn’t stand up to her!

April (Jeanne): Thank you. We will figure out a way to stop this, I promise.

By the time we got closer to the ruined fort, whatever had caused so much damage had long since disappeared. However, I could still make out faint traces of enchantment on some of the bodies scattered around the field.

April (Jeanne): Roman, I'm noticing something off about this corpse. What do you make of it?

Mash: Senpai, we really should get out of the open while there’s still daylight.

April (Jeanne): Give Roman a second, Mash. I'm sure there's something off about it.

Roman: Huh. Good catch, April. This body had been treated for necromancy. Large-scale necromancy is certainly rare, but it’s still possible with or without a holy grail. Either way, it’s good to have an idea of what we’re up against.

We entered the keep. Walking around was a nightmare, it was as if every square inch of space was taken up by the injured. Their groans echoed through the fort. Suddenly, I felt something on the edge of my scanning area. It was faint, but unmistakable. A spirit origin.

April (Jeanne): Mash, do you feel that?

Mash: Barely. There must be a servant outside the castle.

April (Jeanne): No, about thirty feet in that direction. Does anyone catch your eye?

Mash: There’s no one there who could be a servant, Master.

Cris: <This is pointless, let me look.>

Kat: <No way! You got to yell at the guy, lemme look, lemme look!>

Yay, I won! I turned where Jeanne was pointing. The whole place was just beat up soldiers & less beat up soldiers taking care of them. Oh, there’s one! A little girl is going around comforting people as they fall asleep!

April (Kat): What about that little girl? The one dressed in all white? Can she be a servant?

Roman: That’s not likely. Servants are invariably summoned at the “peak” of their myth. It’s possible for child prodigies to be summoned young, but the vast majority will either be young adults when they are most powerful, or at old age when they are most skilled. You guys should get some rest while you can. I’ve detected a leyline a day’s travel from here, you should set out in the morning.

We found a spot near a wall and curled up to sleep. I don’t remember much of my dreams, but when I woke up it was still dark. That girl was still tiptoeing around the soldiers, and every now and then I caught her singing, at barely above a whisper.

That was weird enough, but then something amazing happened! The soldier she was standing next to, his wounds suddenly shrank, until it was like he never got hurt at all! He shifted in his sleep, and she moved on to the next one.

April (Kat): (I knew it!)

I pulled myself out of our pile as slow as possible, and inched closer to her.

April (Kat): Excuse me?

Little Girl: Hello miss. (Please keep your voice down, people are sleeping!)

April (Kat): (Oh, sorry! This might sound weird, but… are you a servant?)

Little Girl: (I am a faithful servant of God, yes. Is something wrong?)

April (Kat): (That’s not exactly what I meant. I mean are you human?)

A strange look crossed the girls face.

Little Girl: (I was. Let’s talk outside.)

She led me by the hand out of the castle. She had such a strong grip, it was kinda awkward! Once we were a bit away, she turned to face me. Suddenly, a spear covered in flags appeared out of nowhere and landed in her hands!

Little Girl: As you have guessed, I am indeed a Servant, Lancer class. My true name is Jeanne d’Arc.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Maya?? Maya!!

also Athenas lmao

finally i am free to work on this

boy i sure hope we don’t get more info soon *squints at Amara’s character trailer just around the corner*

tl;dr: athenas. wow. uhhh temple areas with the weird vault-shaped statue things might be a teleportation hub or something like a Stargate cuz, uh… they’re probably not Vaults. i mean. given what we know maybe they are Vaults but not like vaults with important stuff inside, just teleportation vaults. you know what im trying to say? i mean it’s not like the eridians had any spaceships we’ve seen. but they had to get around somehow. 

also it’s possible the big temple area we see is on Athenas, is in that giant fucking pyramid in the background that i completely and totally did not notice for the longest time. 

i also discuss Maya and her thoughtlock skill (if she gets her powers taken away from her) and if she’s gonna die or not. because she’s got the Cloud Kill legendary (’oh noo she ded’), an apprentice (let’s be real, the cliches aren’t looking great), and she seems to working beside rampagers in that giant temple area (also another reason i think it’s on athenas) and tbh i didn’t see her tattoos in either of those shots (but that could be cuz she’s so smoll). so that’s cool. 

oh also the order of the impending storm was probably pretty respectable back in the day, since they can track sirens (maya’s assassin in son of crawmerax), and maybe that’s how maya figured out ava was gonna be a siren even tho she hasn’t manifested her powers yet. and Maya’s probably unearthing all this buried Siren/Vault knowledge and bringing the Academic District back into power while also protecting the Order from Maliwan. who’s still v sus.

wow we have a lot to go over

so to start, im taking a wild guess and saying the temple is on Athenas. why? because we really haven’t gotten a lot of looks at either of those areas too much (compared to promethea and eden-6) and the architecture lines up to me. 

also i, an idiot, was all like ‘mannnn Athenas is super mountainy, that’s wild. love it’ and neglected to realize there’s literally a giant fucking pyramid in the background of a lot of shots

on the right

behind the tower

to the right of ava

on the left

so i feel really dumb right now for not noticing this sooner and writing it off as a mountain. It's literally the fuckin Vault symbol like. ~triangles~. i played skyrim i should know what mountains look like when they’re not 1 polygon

either way, if that’s not at least part of the temple, it’s definitely important. somehow.

but let’s talk about the temple. the parts we know.

let’s try to look out the windows of this wild place

see cause this looks like inside a mountain

so my first instinct was eden-6 because we see a volcano on there

i mean im under the assumption this is eden-6???

bc all the plants match up

… maybe there’s more than one temple?

oh god i don’t wanna separate these by temple that’s going to be IMPOSSIBLE

but yeah i guess it’s possible there’s one on Eden-6 and one on Athenas… dear god…

but yeah my first instinct for that was ‘inside a volcano’

possible mountain on the left there

very rocky all around. im assuming this is underground or smth?

it feels like we’re underground

so maybe it’s a thing where it just keeps going further down. iunno.

it’s hard to place exactly where this is going to be because of the whole ‘underground’ thing

the part that’s throwing me off the most is this

because this looks like Pandora bc of Elpis and the rocks

and it looks like we’re walking outside a temple with the same friggen tiles on the floor, which means it is possible that this is The Temple, but you think we’d know about a giant-ass temple just on pandora. especially with the big dig site

but then we see a super similar dig site (supposedly on promethea). so what the HELL

im almost inclined to believe this is some sort of Eridian teleportation system. i know, i know, we have Sanctuary-III so it’s pointless. but… will we always have Sanc-III throughout the story? yada yada orange/gray -> blue/yellow/red markings. you get the dealio by now.

to

when taken by the cult or smth.

idk it’s possible we won’t have sanc-III for the entire game (just like normal sanctuary in bl2, in that we’ll get it back eventually (or ill kill someone for taking my room decorations)) and then we’ll have to use this wicked eridian tech to move between planets with these gateways. sort of like a stargate…

this thing is a stargate. I’ll call back to this in a hot second.

what kinda shit am i tripping on? i don’t really know. but given how it seems like these temples could be on ANY of the planets we see, im trying to figure out wtf the connection could be.

and give me this: we have never actually seen an eridian spacecraft, but we know they’ve traveled across the galaxy, putting vaults on different places. how in the fuck could they have done that if, you know, they didn’t have spaceships to travel through… space? 

well we know they have the power of teleportation down pat. i mean down so hard they were able to create a ‘teleportation gland’ that allowed a giant vault monster to teleport at will. (now im wondering if lilith has one… hm.) 

this blue thing (which… is the same color as siren stuff. okay. im sorry. i won’t get off topic this time. but it’s stewing in my gray matter)

and given that we know all the (okay, we only know for certain some) vaults open up into this other dimension (space place), would it be so hard to believe that they’re created links between planets using this dimension? i just… something isn’t right here and this seems like the most logical solution. 

take a look at Eleseer. look at all those holograms of labeled planets. of galaxies and stars in the distance. it’s possible eleseer is like the Hub for this teleportation system (explaining why it’s always open) and explaining why it’s got all those weird planet holograms sitting around. could also explain why Moon = Key.

These aren’t Vaults, they wouldn’t show up on the Vault Map- explaining why we never saw this one on Pandora- these are like… gateways or something, iunno. name pending until sept. 13th i guess.

so why tf am i going off about this on a post about maya and athenas?

because i think athenas has a gateway in it too

yeah you should recognize that thing in the background!

that’s this place!!! from the behind closed doors demo!!

and it still

doesn’t look like a vault to me

it’s intact (also it looks like stairs…). all the Vaults we’ve seen are 100% not intact. they’re all chunky and in pieces (we’re gonna ignore eleseer and uhhhh all that business right now, but even thinking about how the sentinel tried to emulate a vault by spawning it in chunks and THEN assembling it)

chunky

im just saying there has to be a reason these vault-like shapes are intact. they’re either just statues/monuments or they have a purpose.

so why tf am i convinced they have a purpose?

bc we’ve seen one light up

taken straight from the void itself (seriously it’s like a gradient back there. which is weird.)

so there’s gotta be a reason it does this right? and if it’s not a Vault, because it’s on Pandora and the Crimson Raiders would have seen it on the Vault Map, then what the fuck is it?

welllllllll i just don’t know. but my best guess right now is some sort of teleportation system to travel between planets. if there are ‘temples’ on every planet then it would make sense that there is some way for eridians to travel btwn them. 

personally i think there’s one on eden-6 (maybe in that volcano area??) and one on Athenas (cause we really haven’t seen a lot of athenas yet and… i dunno i just have a feeling). and there’s apparently one on Pandora (given we see it with elpis in the background) and possibly one on Promethea. i don’t know what that instagram video was trying to imply. i don’t wanna think too hard about it right now my brain hurts enough already as it is.

but uhhh i was gonna talk more about athenas than this

i promise this is gonna lead into maya

the academic district, with a Vault symbol on the door, to boot.

so this place is really interesting to me for a lot of reasons.

1. that vault symbol on the door

2. they’re flying flags with the vault symbol on it

3. giant pyramid in the back

it’s staggeringly huge

4. they have siren tattoos on the building in the back there. specifically, amara’s tattoos

yeah. maybe this is Partali? a smaller area on Athenas, like Meridian is a city on Promethea, and this is Amara’s way of tagging her presence/an area under her protection as the Tiger

more shots of Athenas from the amd horizons e3 stream

it’s a very pretty planet

so if anything, this is the place we’re going to go to learn about Sirens.

and i don’t know how much the Order of the Impending Storm actually KNOWS about Sirens, because all we know about them from maya’s backstory is that they were assholes and using maya to keep the people scared and giving them money

also that they knew how to track sirens

that’s probably important…

“Maya, you’ll like this next dude. He’s a Siren tracker named Mordo Sophis, Father of Brother Stephen Sophis, that dude you ganked back on Athenas. And boy, oh boy, is he just itching for vengeance.”

who isn’t, mr. mordo, sir? get in line

anyway apparently the Order knows how to track Sirens. Which could explain how Maya has a Siren apprentice when Ava uhhh apparently hasn’t manifested her powers (or tattoos) yet. might also explain how they got their hands on Maya when she was a baby. cuz yeah… i got the feeling they stole her and killed her parents… just a feeling.

y’know if tannis didn’t kill that siren tracker dude maybe she could’ve learned something from him first. that could’ve been interesting.

anyway, idk. maybe at one point the Order was respectable and, like, didn’t force people into giving them money by using sirens as a scare tactic. 

it looks like they have/had an academic district (which im sure maya is helping cultivate) focused on Sirens/Vaults.

and there’s a lot of importance on books this game

seriously

apparently

there’s

a

lot.

but let’s get back to this in a minute, because i do wanna talk about the name of the Order.

it’s full name is the Order of the Impending Storm.

I know while writing bl2 they probably didn’t know that they were gonna be building towards a war in tps, but it’s still interesting that they decided to bring them back into play now. because they 100% could have just left them as a background monastery that Maya came from and have maya refuse to return/start her own organization. but they made her specifically return there.

so does their name have significance now? i’d be willing to bet a yes. I mean, war is coming. Impending Storm sounds like it’d be a pretty fitting name for an organization that knew this. Especially because according to Maya’s cosplay guide, they worshipped her like a God (seriously lol are all Sirens worshipped as minor deities? most people know Sirens are Sirens right? like just people with magic powers..? hmmm)

And if Maya returned to learn more about Sirens, then isn’t it implied that the Order did, in fact, know more about Sirens than Maya did? hell, maybe even Tannis…

especially if the temple or eridian ruins are nearby. Say… In this giant pyramid…

so this doesn’t fit in with the aesthetic of Athenas at all. it’s almost like those are caution colors on the bottom strip there. warning you to not go inside. i don’t know if this was built by the eridians or by whoever is on Athenas to keep whatever’s inside… inside (cough Rampagers cough)

either way that pyramid is FUCKING HUGE

seriously, just compared to the academic district, it’s insanely big (that is the BASE in the background)

also guess who just realized this would be a hilarious joke by gearbox

to have pyramids built by ancient aliens. oh, you.

also, side note, there’s a crew challenge for moxxi in the academic district

i just have no idea how we’re getting up there…

oh but the Order. yeah i get the feeling they know A LOT about Sirens/Eridians. maybe even what’s about to go down. but maybe a majority of that was lost in the archives when some corrupts assholes came into power. and now Maya returned and is slowly but surely unarchiving everything we need to know about Sirens.

perhapith this book has some Siren-y knowledge within it? from someone who went into the temple on Athenas and… never came back out.

and I would bet Maya is waging war against Maliwan at the same time as she’s uncovering all this buried info (protecting the Order) because Maliwan is trying to get this info as well. 

Seriously, anyone else notice Maliwan is SPREADING?? They’re not just on Promethea. they’re on Eden-6. They’re on Athenas. They’re even fuckin on Pandora in some trailers (although I would not trust any trailer with roses at this point. something’s really fucky. I will make a seperate post about that i think, once we get Amara’s and Fl4k’s trailers). I’m really suspicious that Maliwan has either joined the cult, or they’re going to become the main villains. which, y’know, given corporations are the big bad in borderlands always… that seems about right.

I wouldn’t even be surprised if Maya/the Order knows something about the Children of the Vault. Given that one pic of her holding a book with the CoV symbol on it.

that she seems to be passing on to Ava

I dunno. I don’t think Children of the Vault is a name that the cultists/Calypsos just HAPPENED to come up with. And I still don’t think that the broadcast easter egg is from the Calypsos. it doesn’t make sense. I know I went over this in-depth in the Promethea post but god damn it im going to do it again because i feel so strongly about this.

i feel like the cult stumbled upon this name and decided to adopt it as their own. or tried revive an old cult with the same name. and if they didn’t, why in the hell does the message say ‘Do Not Open the Vaults’? How do the twins know about Tannis by name?

i mean, okay, granted we don’t know exactly how she fixed the Vault Map and it could be that the twins know how she did it. Because I still haven’t been able to place that one shot of them walking outside the Recruitment Center 

this one

and we know tannis fixes (??) the Vault Map in the recruitment center, so, maybe they saw it happen or there’s some sort of record in the vault map? that shows her fixing it and when they get to Promethea they send out that message?

i meannn she seems pretty surprised it’s functioning, herself.

so maybe they come while/after tannis fixes the key/map to get it back and Lilith like alright everyone let’s book it to Ellie’s garage with the Map. she’ll help us get to Sanc-III.

and in that they see that she’s able to fix it (possibly with weird Siren/Destroyer/Slag/pickurpoison powers) and that’s how they know Tannis is not what she seems.

and maybe the twins just don’t want their cultists opening the vaults because they want to be the ones to open it.

Sure

BUT that’s boring sauce to theorize about because it’s all just there. I’m still partial to the idea that Children of the Vault is actually referring to Sirens tho. It would explain why Maya has a book with the symbol for the CoV on it and is offering it to Ava. Because why would Ava need a book about the Calypsos? who would WRITE a book about the Calypsos?? and make it look THAT old? like… c’mon.

At the very least, it’s an old name for a cult that got revived by the Calypso twins.

At the most, it’s the name for Sirens.

Or it’s the symbol for the Order of the Impending Storm, back when they were respectable. tho you think we’d see maya wearing the symbol somewhere in bl2, so maybe not. unless she took it off her clothes because they had her try to kill unarmed civilians.

I mean, why is the cult’s symbol the Vault symbol upside down, anyway? We know that the symbol for the Vaults in Eridian is the upside-down V in a circle, because Tannis tells us so in bl1. So why would a cult of people who believe the Vaults to be their birthright go around slapping what is essentially the opposite symbol everywhere?

i personally wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the symbol for Siren or something, given how closely intertwined they both seem to be to that alternate dimension.

regardless. let’s keep going

so let’s talk about Maya’s fate in BL3. Is she gonna die? is she not gonna die? i dunno. let’s discuss.

i personally would not be surprised if she does, but i’d be a little disappointed regardless. if any Siren is gonna die… Lilith is going to finish her character arc this game. not that I want her to die, but still. I get that they gotta keep the Siren cycle going.

sooo one big point in the ‘maya dies’ category:

“Oh noo she ded” i mean. that’s just mean, gearbox. 

of course we don’t know if that’s talking specifically about Maya, could be talking about Tyreen, or a miniboss, or something. but i do think it’s interesting that it’s on maya’s legendary. plus uhhh given we had a death out of Roland in BL2, and in TPS 2 of those VHs died as well, I think it’s a given at least one BL2 VH isn’t gonna live to see the end of 3. as much as that actually physically pains me to type. 

And… to tip the scales further to Maya, Zer0 has crew challenges, which probably means they won’t be biting the dust anytime soon, unless you wanna completely ruin doing all the crew challenges by beating the game before doing the assassination quests. which doesn’t seem like something they’re keen on doing, if Roland giving out side quests had anything to say about it. Of course there’s always the argument that someone will take over Zer0′s crew challenges if they die, but… who would? Rhys? maybe. i get the feeling he might be too busy with Atlas though. Lorelei..? … i don’t know her well enough to make a statement on that.

taken from K6′s awesome legendary loot vid

Back to the legendary. we know it’s hers based off the name ‘Cloud Kill’, which is one of her best skills (after the buff lol). It’s a corrosive only Maliwan smg (as far as i can tell. it doesn’t look like there’s the option to swap elements. so it’s cool to know uniques might throw out their manufacturer’s alternate firing modes). i’m gonna take a guess and say it mimics cloud kill by spawning a cloud on top of enemies that are shot with it. that could clean out an entire room in seconds, especially on Amara with Phasegrasp.

anyway i got more

so Ava is Maya’s apprentice, hmmmm?

well i dunno about you guys but whenever a character gets an apprentice/kid/whatever, it’s not good news for the character. and given that borderlands definitely doesn’t need children to keep the premise fresh, I’m a bit worried for Maya.

Ava must be important to the main story, or they could’ve taken her out or put Gaige in. The devs themselves said they only wanted to bring in characters that they knew had significant importance to the plot and so that characters wouldn’t feel shoehorned in.

so there’s a few ways things can go down with Ava, using apprentice stereotypes:

1) She takes over after Maya dies/has her powers stolen/is brainwashed and helps us bring Maya back by proving herself using the stuff she learned from Maya (or, the stuff she taught herself that Maya said wasn’t important)

1b) she inherits Maya’s powers and Maya trains her in the way of Phaselock

possibly maya handing over her class mod or smth

2) she’s evil and the cult is using her to get info and secretly hates maya or whatever

Given Ava is like… 12… I wanna believe she’s not evil. of course we don’t actually know if she’s 12 cause apparently the Siren lore got messed up knowing Angel had her powers manifest at 5. but that’s not canon until mentioned in-game, so fuck it: let’s believe Ava is 12 and not evil and is just Maya’s kickass Siren apprentice.

The apprentice Maya was able to find because the Order knew how to track Sirens/determine if someone is going to exhibit Siren powers.

yes, let’s go with that.

So… what’s gonna happen to Maya, then?

I personally believe she’s going to have her powers stolen and used against her. One major part of her powers is that she’s able to ‘Thoughtlock’, which basically brainwashes an enemy to fight for her.

That sounds like it would be insanely powerful in the hands of the Calypso twins, especially since Maya has gotten more powerful since bl2, and tbh I can’t see them wanting to pass it up. Of course it could also be story-breaking, but let’s say they can only have one person ever Thoughtlock-ed at a time and suddenly it’s a lot less troublesome.

so this scene makes me do a big thonk

(also, another reason im thinking this temple area is on Athenas is bc Maya’s there! plus there are triangles everywhere. Triangles… pyramids… iunno. just spitballing)

also idk if this is just cause she’s super teeny-tiny buuuut

im worried i can’t see maya’s tattoos

she’s also entirely focused on the player instead of… oh, idk, the giant rampager right next to her

and idk it looks almost like she’s holding a gun and aiming it at us?

which hey, i wouldn’t jump to conclusions right away because she does have a skill that allows her to heal allies by shooting them

but also… if she doesn’t have her siren powers, then that’d just be like… regular shooting, wouldn’t it? and if she DOES have her Siren powers, why in the hell is she not using them on the giant monster right next to her???

we see her again in the background of this shot

again… tattoos not 100% clear.

she also seems to be taking radiation damage from the rampager! which is good. but also she doesn’t seem to care that much about it.

we can also see her gun here

sorry it was kinda being obscured by the youtube progress bar

but uhhh it’s not looking good.

boy i really hope Maya doesn’t die

we also know it was hinted that Krieg might be making a return! from his voice actor’s twitter:

tho, he also soon made a tweet after that was all like “this doesn’t confirm nor deny that krieg is returning” which, yeah i get that.

either way, if Krieg is coming back, it’d be interesting to see what goes down with him, especially if Maya dies. or even if Maya’s ‘just’ in trouble, I could see him going absolutely apeshit.

maybe krieg will sacrifice himself to save maya, somehow. maybe he’s have a moment of pure lucidity and save her. maybe she’ll die and he’ll lose his mind and become a boss battle. maybe she’ll save him and they’ll live happily ever after ;w; who knows~

maybe ava will have heard about Krieg through Maya and will go to get him to try and help save her. that’d be really interesting to see- krieg smashing through a wall with Ava riding on his shoulder lol

anyway, holy shit im exhausted. i gotta wrap this up because it’s like 1am and i’ve been working on this post for like… 3 days straight now. ech.

if maya does die, it would be interesting to see is Ava inherits her powers after we kill the Calypsos. like, would the powers try to go back to their original host? would they see she’s dead and just find another Siren to give the powers to? i wonder if maya dying/being about to die would be enough of a traumatic experience for ava to unlock her siren powers.

ohh it’d be cool if Ava unlocked her siren powers and used them to save Maya from the cult/brainwashing/whatves

alright. im tired lmao

good night.

[atopearth]

OZMAFIA!! Part 5 - Caesar Route

Nice beginning already! Fuka is actually interested in knowing more about herself and her lost memories! She’s totally neglected it in the other routes so maybe she’ll find out something in Caesar’s route? Kinda crazy for her to keep going to the Wolf Gang hideout to visit Caesar when he’s already stated that she’s his prey and wants to kill her loll, and yet she comes back every week aiyaa. Cute thing is that Caesar is actually using the ointment she gave him to take care of his wounds. He might be a tsundere hahaha.

It seems that I’ve been misunderstanding Soh this whole time! I thought he looked frail but was actually a really strong guy since they described him as Caesar’s right hand man, but really he just takes care of Caesar’s health, does all the chores and earns money for their living expenses lol. He’s still important considering how much Caesar trusts him, he’s just important for a different reason than I thought hahaha… I’m sorry for thinking you were violent, Soh…

I’m actually finding Fuka and Caesar’s interactions really cute. He always tells her to leave but always responds to any of her questions seriously and takes his time talking with her even though he keeps saying he’ll kill her hahaha. It was so hilarious when he allowed her to stay for lunch because he wanted to give all the vegetables to her so he doesn’t need to eat any😂😂 how adorable of him. I can’t believe Fuka is calling Caesar simple hahahaha, considering she’s so naive and simple too. But I guess he was when it came to him thinking that Caramia would tremble in fear at his declaration of war or whatever hahaha.

I agree that Caesar is a really nice person. I don’t know why he wants to kill the heroine but it’s really kind and fair of him to not take advantage of his superiority in the coin toss game to beat her and capture her that way as the winner’s privilege. How Caesar-like to have created the Wolf Gang accidentally. He just came to this town and was told that he must choose a mafia famiglie but he doesn’t like to follow people, so he left and chose to live in the forest. After people in the slums heard about that, they started following him and he became their leader naturally haha. Regardless though, if he really sucked at being a leader, people wouldn’t follow him, so I’m sure he has lots of merits.

So cute how he agreed to go to the Meteor Shower Gathering with Fuka even though he found it pointless. He teases her for being friendless but he cares😊 I was so touched by Fuka when she used her body to block the others from hurting Caesar when they realised he was at the festival and they thought he was plotting something. It was obvious that she’d eventually be told to stop seeing Caesar but it’s kinda saddening that she won’t be able to annoy him anymore. It’s wonderful that she’s understanding of the fact that she’s a freeloader and shouldn’t be selfish about wanting to see him, but still saddening. Omggg hearing from Soh that Caesar paced around last Sunday because Fuka didn’t show up is soooo adorable!!! It’s so cute how he’s not used to her not being there on Sundays that he even slept early because he tired himself from waiting for her all day. Omggg, I love Caesar.

HAHAHA, what’s even more hilarious is Caesar working as a waiter at Soh’s stall the next Sunday just so he can see and talk to Fuka!! Imagine the ferocious, “evil” leader of the Wolf Gang being a waiter and he’s even wearing a cute apron hahahhaa!!😂😂 When Soh tells Caesar to speak more formally and politely to customers like Caramia and them and he just changes his wording to say get lost in a nicer way😂😂 Whaaaat, Caesar makes accessories and Soh sells them? He really can do a lot of things huh! Reminds me of how proud and cool he felt when he showed Fuka how to make a fire without matches hahaha. It’s so sweet of him to make Fuka a necklace though~~ awww he worked as a waiter taking all that humiliation from the others just to buy the materials to make this necklace for Fuka! Why’s he so cute forrrr?!

When he kissed her though, I legit squealed in happiness hahahha. WHY SO ADORABLE FOR?! I CAN’T TAKE THE CUTENESS. NO ONE WARNED ME ABOUT HOW CUTE CAESAR IS!!! Lmao, did he come to town on Sunday just to kiss her out of the blue and then go home?! Hahaha!! Lmao that they got Fuka to be a maid for a day (she wants to earn some money) and she called Caramia and them master, so cute how flustered Axel was😂 I usually hateeee it when guys say, “what are you doing to my woman”, but hearing Caesar say it just makes me go “yeah Hamelin! Get your hands off her!"😂 I’m way too attached to Caesar for my own good lmao.

I didn’t realise Caesar was actually a wolf and could get controlled by Hamelin’s pipe just like Caramia (since he’s a lion). I don’t want Caesar to be hurt! He hasn’t gone on rampages for a while, he’s been so good!! :( I’m so glad he came to his senses when his blade touched her skin, he really nearly killed her! It was so heartwrenching when he apologised for nearly killing her… There’s so much progress in their relationship that I can’t take how nice everything is. LMAO when Kyrie dissed him for having no job or home and he says he’s still better than Fuka since she doesn’t have a job either hahahah. It’s nice that Caesar subdued Hamelin, but it’s so cute how everyone in Oz is having a party for him in celebration of this lolol. I see, the slums are now officially his area! Hopefully he’ll be able to bring down the crime rate! Caesar as a policeman is so funny but fitting somehow hahaha. Don’t like his hat but I like their relationship so that’s good enough😂

The second ending was nice too. Was worried for Caesar but I did find that him stabbing himself to get out of Hamelin’s control was more him, Caramia coming out of nowhere adding to his wounds and making him go into a coma for a bit wasn’t nice. But the CG after he wakes up is so nice so I forgive him lmao. It’s so funny how Kyrie thinks of Fuka as their daughter and refuses to hand her over to Caesar so he just keeps trying different tactics to get into Oz territory to grab Fuka and elope with her I guess haha. He hasn’t been successful yet but I’m sure he will be eventually.

Overall, I really enjoyed Caesar’s route, much sweeter than I thought it would be and so cuteeee! I love it the most right now hahaha. The only problem I have would be the lack of explanations on stuff like why he wants to kill her, why doesn’t she get her memories back etc. Otherwise, it’s probably the most cute and romantic route. It’s like a happy fluffy route! Kinda hard to believe since he’s the one always trying to kill her but yahhh it really is a happy slice of life route hahaha. Didn’t expect to enjoy it so much but I did, Caesar best boy for sure <3

[frasier-crane-style]

Altered Carbon 1x04

-One of the problems with just giving Kovacs a black partner because that’s just what you do in TV shows, is that the narrative really isn’t designed for it, so you get Kovacs having this ‘partner’ who doesn’t do anything in this episode but show up after Kovacs has already rescued himself. Feels a bit pointless; a movie-shaped movie thing.

-It’s especially weird because later in the story, Kovacs does assemble himself a bit of a posse, so you’d think they could just do that a bit earlier instead of inventing all these newish characters to come in right at the jump.

-Also, did we really need this whole ‘Dia de los Muertos’ subplot when, by skimming over Kovacs’ torture, they kinda decrease the effectiveness of it? In the book, there’s a lot more to Kovacs’ escape than just bluffing and then shooting everybody, the bad guys actually try to verify he is who he claims to be and that gives Kovacs the opportunity to break free and go on a roaring rampage of revenge. By ‘streamlining’ that (and adding in endless amounts of Quell), the villains are less intimidating and so it’s not as impressive when he beats them. Call it ‘The Last Jedi Syndrome.’

-I wouldn’t mind the Dia de los Muertos subplot so much, because I know they want to add nuance and shading to Takeshi Kovacs’ world... it’s just a lot of this new material seems to remove nuance by coming down against sleeving, showing how awful the Meths are, talking about how bad being resleeved is, etc. You could probably say the same about the books and its anti-religion stance, but I don’t think swinging to the opposite extreme is much better. It’s never “I was paralyzed from the waist down, but then I got a new body that could walk!”, it’s always “look, a husband and wife who murder each other because they can get new bodies! Isn’t that F R E A K Y ?”

-Part of it is that I don’t really buy this big controversy with the Catholics (or Neo-Catholics, because it’s the future) and stacking. Like, theologically, how can something done to a person externally condemn them to Hell? If Bill B. Catholic dies and doesn’t want to be resleeved, but someone else comes along and resleeves him anyway, how can that be a sin on his part? Even if it is a sin, can’t he go to confession and be forgiven for it? “Yup, I was murdered, it was Joe, now ten Hail Marys and I’m going back in the ground!” Doesn’t that seem a bit more reasonable? I think the book was a little less extreme about this, where the Catholic position was just that someone who was resleeved was not the original person, but a soulless copy or something like that. They were still against resleeving, but they weren’t all fire and brimstone about it (that’s more of a Protestant thing, right?). 

-How much can one roll their eyes at a scene where a Strong Female Character beats up a suspect because he says something misogynistic and it’s meant to be taken as some fist-pumping moment? Police brutality: it’s okay so long as they’re politically incorrect. I mean, fuck, do you think black victims of police brutality have never said shitty things? Obviously, as peace officers, we expect police to put up with that and execute their duties professionally, not to just start kicking because they were disrespected. And it’s especially weird because, with Ryker, the show is presumably going to tackle police brutality and corruption, so it really needs to have a baseline there. If it wants to show Ortega beating up suspects and play that as a shitty antihero thing, fine, the book Ortega wasn’t such a straight shooter either. But like I said, the Noble Minority/Evil Whites thing doesn’t fit well over a noir story.

-It’s also odd that we’re basically going into this subplot with Cadman/Miller having admitted that he set Ryker up. You’d think in a ten hour show, we’d have room for a little ambiguity. 

-With Takeshi’s father being white (unless that’s meant to be a stepfather), I guess they’re going with Takeshi Kovacs being mixed-race, and I still think it’s weird that you can have a mixed-race character like Kovacs being played by an entirely Korean actor, but if you have a mixed-race white/Hispanic character like Bane played by an entirely white actor, then it’s bad. Surely, if we can make believe that Will Yun Lee is half-white, we can also make believe that Tom Hardy is half-Hispanic?

[portraitoftheoddity]

I'm the Wanda anon :) I'm finding I agree with a lot of what you said, like ppl not allowing her chances like they do other characters, and the dehumanisation I suppose too, though I don't get heavily involved in fandom discourse so I haven't seen much of it. That said, she changes sides during the movie yes but only bc she and her brother were going to die not bc of others' deaths. When she caused the Hulk's rampage, she didn't care then. She changes after the battle, I wish they’d shown it1/2

2/2 I guess that’s what ff is for. In addition as far as Tony goes, though I think he’s irrelevant here, you could argue he makes Ultron as a result of what Wanda does to him. Is Bruce responsible for the deaths of those ppl? If not, Tony can’t be held any more responsible. They both react to what Wanda does, and she played on their worst fears. I think we forgive the others more bc they start as heroes, you know? We don’t know their crimes in detail, I’m talking movieverse here btw, not comics.

Yeah, I’m sorry anon, I still think you’re reaching. She changes sides when she realizes Ultron is going to wipe out humanity, yes, but it’s incredibly cynical to think the only thing she cares about is “oh, I’ll die too” considering we see her and Pietro both going out of their way a lot to rescue civilians, such as in the whole train sequence – which is not necessary just to stop Ultron. If all either of the twins cared about was stopping him to save their own skins, they wouldn’t have actively risked their lives and been willing to die (Pietro sacrificing his life to save Clint and a child, and Wanda very nearly dying too.) To treat them as callous monsters requires ignoring the bulk of their actual characterization. 

Wanda gives Bruce a vision that prompts him to hulk out, yes. It sucks, yes, and it was a bad thing. I wholeheartedly agree. (And frankly think the whole Hulkbuster sequence is dumb and pointless and slows the plot and shouldn’t have been in the movie, but that’s a separate rant focused more on technical flaws of the film.) But a LOT of people have pushed Bruce to hulk out over the years, so if your argument here is that Wanda should be tried for enacting Ultron’s plan to cause Hulk’s rampage, so should everyone else who has ever prompted him to Hulk out. This is one of her bigger mistakes, agreed, and she isn’t there to witness the aftermath – or I think she would have changed sides sooner, because we see how Wanda reacts to seeing suffering up close and personal. 

Also, we see perfectly well how crappy both Tony and Thor are before their redemption arcs, so your argument there is kinda moot. We see Tony brag about the Jericho missiles, and Thor go on a gleeful killing spree, destroying even more of Utgard than Hulk does of the city in AOU. Yet you forgive them both, easily. 

Finally, I don’t know if you’re trolling here, but why is Wanda responsible for Tony’s choices?

Tony is a grown, adult man, with free will. Wanda gave him a vision of a possibility of things going bad. Tony, and Tony alone, made decisions based on that vision. If Tony had been to a fortune teller, seen an apocalypse movie, or had a particularly bad dream, he might have gotten a similar “what if” scenario – and had just as much free will when it came to his subsequent actions. Wanda did not control his will after the fact, did not influence his choices. Tony decided that the response to a scary, manufactured vision based on his fears and not an actual look into the future was to be reckless with his tech for the sake of ‘protection.’ Tony built Ultron. Tony played god. Tony made his choices, and Wanda did not make them for him. And if you will recall, Bruce was opposed to using the scepter to make Ultron and Tony didn’t listen. The choice to be reckless was Tony’s.

(Shit, if you wanna play the secondhand blame game, why not say Tony is responsible back at the start since his bomb was what killed Wanda’s family, driving her to Strucker, who gave her the powers she then used to put the vision in Tony’s head that lead him to make Ultron? We can go back and forth with ‘who influenced who’ all day.)

To blame Wanda for Tony’s choices and hold her to a greater level of responsibility for Tony’s actions than Tony is held reeks of misogyny. Not to mention how people zero in on Wanda alone and never blame Pietro, despite the two of them acting in tandem. And to anyone who feels the need to scapegoat Wanda and then make myriad excuses that don’t hold water for why the rules apply to her and not to anyone else; I invite you to sit down and have a long, introspective look at your own biases, especially when it comes to the standards you hold women to over men, both in fiction and in reality. There’s a lot of misogyny in our societies that we carry over into our interactions in fandom, and we owe it to ourselves and to everyone else to take that long, hard, uncomfortable look at ourselves and our reasons for being shit to certain characters, and consider if we’re being the kind of person the heroic characters we love would be able to be proud of. 

[blackbatpurplecat]

My Thoughts on “Batman and Harley Quinn”

Alright, the latest DC animated movie dropped a few days ago and I finally had the chance to watch it.

I had high hopes for this one. It looked very pretty; seeing the Batman: The Animated Series style make a glorious return immediately made me go SOLD! And while I’m aware that this movie only exists because Harley is extremely popular at the moment (and considering the characters’ screen times, the movie should be called ‘Harley Quinn and Batman’), it was a refreshing change to see her original design again! FINALLY the character that was named after a harlequin actually LOOKS like a harlequin again, not a slutty Hot Topic victim. I’ve missed red/black Harley so much, I can’t even tell you.

So is it any good???

Ehm... kinda.

Well. 

It’s okay.

So what’s the story?

Poison Ivy and Jason Woodrue a.k.a. Floronic Man, kind of an evil Swamp Thing dude, plan to turn everything and everyone on earth into plant-like creatures. They need a scientist’s formula for that so they go on a rampage to hunt him down. Batman and Nightwing recruit Harley Quinn to help them track down Ivy in turn.

Harley, who’s working in a superheroine themed Hooters, has apparently gone straight and refuses to get mixed up in another costumes&tights drama. However, she’s thirsty for Dick - literally - so after almost raping Nightwing (he’s into it so they... dodged a bullet there?), she agrees to stop Ivy.

After several scenes of inconsequential padding because the movie wasn’t long enough I guess, they find Ivy and Woodrue at the scientist’s house. The man, under Ivy’s control, had already given the greenies his formula and told them they’d need water from the swamp Swamp Thing was created in to complete the process. So they head off to Louisiana after leaving Batsy, Nightwing, Harley, and the scientist to die in the burning lab. Of course, only Professor Red Shirt bites it but is able to tell the heroes where to go before he is gone.

Harley insists on going with the capes because she doesn’t want to become a plant and is convinced that she’ll make Ivy change her mind. So both parties eventually meet and fight in the swamp.

Ivy has a change of heart thanks to the Power of Love© but Woodrue knocks them all out. What follows is a pointless cameo by Swamp Thing who basically goes “bla bla bla, Mr. Freeman”, and to stop Woodrue from destroying the planet, Harley suggests setting him on fire. Batsy and Nightwing are cool with that because fire surely won’t kill a guy made out of leaves, right? And in a post-credits scene we see that Harley is now the host of a Takeshi’s Castle-like TV show... all of the sudden... 

The end.

I’m still confused over who the target audience for this movie is. Is it adults because of the sexualized female characters and unfunny sex jokes (plus a weird gay joke and some almost-foul language) or toddlers who still laugh at farts and pointless song numbers? The movie’s constant shifts in tone threw me off a bit. I mean you see a guy being torn to shreds and blood splattering everywhere and later you get a scene of Harley farting in the Batmobile and Batman saying “smells like discipline.” WHAT THE FUCK?!

As mentioned above, yes, Bruce Timm makes it very clear that he REALLY wants to fuck Harley Quinn. Upskirt shots, Harley in underwear, Harley’s detailed ass when she bends over, Harley with spread legs humping the air in front of an audience. Classy. Have you ever wanted to see Harley and Nightwing have sex? No? Too bad, it’s what you’re getting. Thanks, Timm. There aren’t many female characters in this movie (2 have lines and the rest are just boobs on legs) and the only one that’s always being treated with respect is Ivy.

People who say ‘why don’t you call the Justice League for help’ will be treated to a dialogue between Batsy and intercome Booster Gold in which Booster says most of the League are busy. And the ones that are available are too annoying in Nightwing’s opinion. Yes, the entire world is in mortal danger but don’t you call JL members to save it because they talk too much... Man, what gReAt team members the Bats and Birds are.

And again, what’s with all the padding?! As if the sometimes too slow pacing wasn’t enough, was ‘we need to stretch the runtime to 75 min’ really the reason for that pointless chase scene that ended in nothing or those TWO songs that needed to be sung? Hell, the Harley eats Dick scene could have been cut as well since it served no purpose! Same goes for giant Swamp Thing. NO PURPOSE! The movie even acknowledges that his appearance was a whole bucket of nothing - SO WHY WAS IT IN THERE?!

How about you write enough STORY into the film to fill 75 minutes, how about that?! Good dialogues, character development, characters bonding, take your pick!

Thankfully, there were some nice moments too. The opening credits were adorable. The purple Catwoman costume at the beginning was lovely! 1966 Catwoman henchman dancing the Batusi and getting a fist in the face was funny. Harley’s tears being Ivy’s weakness was corny but also cute. Batman holding his finger up to silence Harley made me giggle as well as him tapping his hand to the music and stopping when Dick notices it.

I’ve already said the animation is gorgeous! Apart from Nightwing’s creepy white pupils, the movie looks awesome and had some smooth animation. It takes you right back to those glorious BTAS days.

When it comes to the voice-acting however... they apparently gave their entire budget to get Kevin Conroy. While Ivy did a great job, Nightwing sounded slightly bored, and that Harley Quinn didn’t convince me. She put way too much effort into the accent and... I don’t know, she didn’t sound like fun to me. It’s hard to describe. You felt that it was a part the actress was playing, it didn’t sound natural enough. At least to me.

All in all, I gotta say I had expected MUCH more from this. It had moments here and there but also bullshit that made me cringe. I’m still waiting for the DC animated movie that will pull the animated universe out of its current low. It’s been years since the last good animated film and that’s a shame since DC had been such a pro at those in the past. Today, their live-action movies, their animated movies, AND TV shows suck. No saving grace for DC anymore.

I can’t say that I wouldn’t recommend Batman and Harley Quinn but I also won’t tell you that you should really watch it. You can give it a try, at least for the good ol’ animation’s sake.

And one last note: Animators, Harley is wearing a mask! That black is NOT makeup! Do your research!

[serenagaywaterford]

1) Feel free to keep rambling! Not only I love talking with level-headed fandom people, but our opinions seem to converge (even if my wording comes off as weird/wrong because of Tumblr's word limit). Anyway. I had many issues with S2, besides Serena's arc I mean (I'll get back to her). Blessed be the goddamned plotholes! Fred becomes a cockroach that just won't die (Red Center), because he's essential to the plot. Same goes for Aunt Lydia. (Although I'm kinda glad that she's alive, because

2) I LOVE Dowd’s acting and I’m excited about her background story.) Emily comes back from the Colonies and is smfh 100% healthy. Moreover, Gilead has been surprisingly lenient with Fred and Serena’s constant fuckups in S2 (mutilated fingers aside). June won’t leave with Emily, bc MOTHERHOOD (more like there’s a s3 on the horizon and drama is needed). And don’t get me started on that slow pace. The beginning and the finale were explosive of course,but some mid-season episodes?

3) They were dragging on and on. Examples? 2x11, where only 2 things happen: a) June gives birth to Nicole, b) Fred and Serena make it clear that they want to tear each other apart (duh). The only redeeming qualities of that episode was the wolf symbolism and the excellent cinematography. I get it, the series is successful and has more seasons ahead. But if only they had squeezed some episodes, it would have been so much better.

—-

OMG YAY!!! I’m gonna answer these in pieces since I’ll prolly flood a giant essay otherwise. Cos, lbr, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear I had multiple personalities and was secretly sending these to myself from a fugue state, that’s how much we agree! Cos I’ve just read through all your messages and sat here going “YES! YES!” lol. I think you, me, maybe 5 other people on tumblr, and 1 TV reviewer are of the same mindset and it’s such a relief to find others who are reasonable and critical about the show/Serena.

Yes, Fred not dying was just so fucking stupid I couldn’t deal. Like, it’s not even like, “Well, he didn’t die which is crazy but he’s horribly injured and disfigured cos I dunno, he was like 15 feet FROM A MASSIVE BOMB EXPLODING.” But noooo. Instead we get Fred in hospital with a scratchy throat for like a few weeks, and when he comes back he’s got a little bit of a limp. No burns, nothing. And, to top it off, he’s got all the strength and balance of a perfectly healthy man to whip the shit out of his wife. I get they needed to get him out of the way and out of service so Serena and June could have all sorts of treasonous hi-jinks together but surely… they could have considered having Fred not 15 feet from the bomb. It killed handmaids that were way farther away than that. Just a thought. Deffo an eye-roll moment.

Aunt Lydia I’m less irritated about simply cos, like you, I love Ann Dowd and think she’s done a fab job. And we honestly haven’t got enough of her backstory and I wanna know that too. I think this show can only really captivate if it tells ALL the women’s stories, not just the victims. Like how does a woman become an Aunt? How do they justify that? Or is it simply a type of socio-religio-politcal brainwashing, akin to a lot of Nazi Party supporters? Is she a True Believer? Like, honestly, wtf is up with her? Like, cos so many of us can empathise with the Handmaids and we understand how that came about–but it takes more sides to tell a full story. So, Aunt Lydia being back… I’m not too fussed about. I really do consider Emily so damaged that I would never trust her with a baby–but that’s me. She’s been so broken, so traumatized, and like I don’t blame her at all ofc, but she needs softness and patience and no stress ever again. Like, she is not well emotionally by any stretch.

Which leads into the Colonies bullshit. That was just really bad writing. She, Janine, etc, were there for MONTHS. Like, June ran away and was gone for 92 days (Thanks for that count, Serena!). And then add on whatever time passed between her being returned to the Waterfords house and when Lilly set off the bomb. That is a long ass time to be splashing about in radioactive waste. Emily’s teeth were falling out, right? Like, how she went from literally dying of radiation poisoning to “Totally healthy enough to pop out some totally healthy babies!” I’ll never understand. The loss of the Handmaids in the bombing isn’t a good enough reasoning. A dictatorship like Gilead could easily have just conscripted a bunch of Econowives with the sweep of a pen. That is how these militant theocracies work. They’re already half-indoctrinated anyway. It was dumb to put Emily and Janine there in the first place if you knew they had to come back, as they are main cast members.

I always thought Fred and Serena were getting away with too much but I wrote it off as Fred (and Serena lbr) being a HUGE part of bringing about Gilead in the first place so they get some leeway. But then, you see Warren and Cushing being dealt with fairly severely for basically hearsay. (Okay, Warren’s I get cos you had outcry from Janine in a massively public display and backup from Naomi.) I guess because Fred/Serena’s fuckups were a little more ~private, they could excuse/lie about them/cover them up them easier? Cushing was dealt with way to easily. Like… no. “Fred” signs some paper and suddenly Cushing is being disappeared immediately. I suppose Fred took over Pryce’s place in the hierarchy? Who knows. And from what I understand, nobody in SOJ knew about June’s escape to the big country house. But c’mon, one Handmaid kills herself, the new one another starting shit every where she goes with other Handmaids and is pals with two of the most notorious other Handmaids (Emily and Janine), then is “kidnapped”, is partners with the bomber, then runs away again, then again… Sigh.

June not leaving… I just… it was so obvious that she wouldn’t cos otherwise there is no show. But why bother with all that drama then. Like, what if Emily hadn’t been there??? June had no way of knowing she’d be meeting up with Emily. She would have just dumped Nicole in some van and run back? Ugh.

And the pace was bad. ITA. There are whole episodes I don’t even bother with on rewatches. I thought the season premiere was great, then it fell of a cliff and lost my interest until about the 5th episode? Then it got going nicely (altho 2x07 wasn’t great either), then took another nosedive in 2x10 and sort of coasted almost aimlessly until the finale. I don’t like to hate on June but honestly the really 100% June-centric episodes bore the shit out of me. 2x02/03 and 2x11 being the biggest culprits. I’m just tired of the excessive use of flashbacks that all basically say the same thing now. And Moss is a great actress but there’s such thing as too much of a good thing. Not to mention, Nick and June bore me to tears as well (SACRILEGE! Send the indignant rabid fangirls on a rampage into my inbox!) so when there’s a lot of focus on that clusterfuck of inanity, I tune out. I can’t help it. I find them so annoying lol. (Which is were I usually lose common ground with basically everyone in this fandom cos everyone loves Nick for some reason I just cannot understand. If you like him, I apologise! I just can’t. I liked him more at the beginning but as it’s gone on the less I give even the slightest shit about him.)

Also, like I found 2x02 and 2x03 to just be… a waste of time? Like, okay, we got to see the Econopeople and how they live or whatever but to me, there was zero point to the whole thing because we all know June isn’t going to get away with it. So, why waste 2 whole episodes building to something everyone knows ain’t happening just for the sake of some worldbuilding that I’m guessing could have been done some other more cogent way? 2x04 was basically just to show more breaking June down in various ways. Then 2x05 was just to show the Colonies and had a lot of filler in it about that. I still don’t understand the point of the “wedding” bits. It wasn’t uplifting or hopeful at all. It was still really dark, like killing the Wife. I only really liked watching Serena go apeshit because her babyslave isn’t making proper gossipy conversation. It’s just an interesting angle cos finally Serena gets what she asks for with a super obedient Offred, and low and behold, it actually sucks and she wants June back. Story of Serena’s life and she never fucking learns lol. And Aunt Lydia flexing on Serena was hilarious. I just enjoy watching them go head to head. Not to mention the grotesque child brides thing. Gross. Super gross. Like, a bunch of stuff happened but I’m not convinced it needed to be dragged out over 4 episodes like that. Not to mention it was all really depressing. I remember watching and going, “JESUS, this show is fucking depressing. Why am I torturing myself?”

But yeah, 2x11 was super slow and all the important things that happened (that you listed) could have taken 10 minutes. Like I get too that she had to see Hannah in order to… make her decision in the finale make sense??? Was that the reason? I still don’t know. All of this could have been dealt with way more quickly and with just as much emotional gravity had it been done well.

I really like Moira but she’s been given shit all to do. I liked how we got a little insight into her and Odette. A LITTLE. But a huge weakness is that the Toronto peeps are so divorced from the drama that it often seems, not pointless, but something like it. It definitely slows the pace down to a crawl. That’s why I thought 2x09 worked well because it married both worlds. (I will never understand why 1x07 exists the way it does. What a stupid episode. I do not care about Luke’s journey, tbh. I’m here for the women–good, evil, or inbetween; not an entire episode devoted to him–especially not when we could have had Moira’s instead. I accept that his is intertwined with June’s attempted escape but… meh. It’s just like I will never care about Nice Guy TM Nick’s backstory or character. I don’t care about Fred’s childhood, or Warren’s marriage, or Luke’s manbabying, or Nick’s manpain. Eek.)

I dunno. Personally I think it could have been tightened up a bit better. But again, what do I know? I’m just a viewer. I’m sure other viewers have completely the opposite opinion.

[unclewoodstock]

The Suplex Study: Week Of 24/4/17

This week in the world of WWE, new jackets, dumpsters, belt theft, and a WWE Studios film worth watching

Raw

If you wanna start off the show on a high, Chris Jericho is the man to do it. Jericho attempted to host his show, the Highlight Reel, until The Miz came out to interrupt. As Miz attempted to hijack the segment and transform it into Miz TV, Dean Ambrose appeared. He instead brought in his set, as Miz TV then became the Ambrose Asylum (no Mitch tho, sad). To replace the one he destroyed months ago. Ambrose would gift Jericho a new light up jacket, a regular jacket with fairy lights stuck to it. Miz protested about his segment being taken over, getting hit with the Dirty Deeds for his trouble. So the main event was set, Ambrose & Jericho vs The Miz and a partner of his choosing. I love both Jericho and Ambrose so this opener was gold for me. But this pairing would have another hilarious moment later. Matt Hardy vs Sheamus Last week, we had Jeff Hardy vs Cesaro, so no we have the other tag team partners duel it out. Both men had a solid match, not as good as last week’s one but good in it’s own right. The interesting moments came with the closing of the match. Matt was outside of the ring as he brother came to check on him. Sheamus proceeded to throw Jeff out of the way as he got Matt back into the ring. This led to Jeff and Cesaro bumping heads, as the distraction allowed Matt to hit the Twist Of Fate for the win. Afterwards, both teams argue before cooler heads prevail, and they shake hands. With the tag titles being defended at Payback, lets hope that is the time we finally see the Broken gimmick.

Neville & TJ Perkins vs Austin Aries & Jack Gallagher

Not a bad match, but nothing special either. Neville and Aries have been doing their up most best to keep this division a float. With 205 Live having very bad viewer numbers, I hope that things get better, as their is way too much great talent to squander.

Braun Strowman vs Kalisto in a Dumpster Match Probably the biggest talking point of this week’s Raw. Last week, during Strowman’s rampage, Kalisto was beaten up and thrown into a nearby dumpster. This week, Kalisto challenges Strowman to this new match. Looking at other articles from wrestling sites, alot of people seem to HATE this match. Personally, I couldnt bring myself to despise it so much. Before and during the match, Kalisto in one fell swoop came across as the ultimate babyface. He was disrespected and therefore, wanted retribution. Now one criticism I’ve seen about Strowman is that in his matches, there are many moments he could end the match but doesn’t. This certainly was the case here as Kalisto was able to get a decent chunk of offense, nevermind even being able to win the match. It was at this point where Kalisto to me looked like he was going to be a big star, then that thought went away pretty quickly after. Enraged, Strowman pummeled Kalisto, throwing him in the dumpster. He wheeled it up to the titantron and pushed it off the stage. It makes you wonder what was even the point of having Kalisto win, by a fluke even, if the end outcome is for Strowman to get his heat back seconds later. The match itself I enjoyed, but the outcome just made the whole thing kinda pointless in the end. Alicia Fox vs Dana Brooke To give this a positive, I am happy that there is more than one women’s storyline in this show. It makes the roster alittle bit more fleshed out. That aside, I didn’t care about this match until the ending. Brooke ended the match with a very sloppy looking Michinoku Driver, I went from being uninterested to being enraged. I have no idea who thought it would be a good idea to let Brooke do that move, but I never want to see it again!

Samoa Joe, Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson vs Seth Rollins, Big Cass & Finn Balor The match was going to have Enzo Amore instead, but a sneak attack outside the ring made him unable to compete. Instead, we got Finn Balor instead. The match itself was fine, with Rollins debuting a new finishing move. Problem is it’s been kinda dull seeing Balor return when he has not been in any noteworthy matches. Hopefully things will be alot more entertaining when he is finally able to begin his feud with Bray Wyatt. As for Enzo, well maybe I’m biased but I can’t bare seeing him used a glorified jobber. He maybe still rough in the ring but he is more over then Roman Reigns will ever be. Surely he can be used better than this.

Sasha Banks vs Alexa Bliss

Before the match, we had a segment with Bliss, Bayley and Banks in the ring. Bliss called Banks apparent friendship with Bayley into question, leading to this match. Banks controlled most of the match, leading to Bliss getting herself counted out. Bayley would try to get Bliss back into the ring but would get blindsided by her instead. Bliss’ character is a welcome sight on TV, but the real feud will be Bayley vs Sasha. WWE haven’t done the best job with this, as no one is buying for a second that Banks isn’t just wanting to get the title off of Bayley.

Curt Hawkins vs Apollo Crews Nothing really to say about this, except it is nice to see Crews actually doing something. Not sure yet how I feel about an eventual Crews vs O’Neil fued, but I think Crews is too underrated to not be on TV, so I’m OK with it for now. Chris Jericho & Dean Ambrose vs The Miz & ???

Before I go into the match, I must say that the dynamic between Jericho and Ambrose made Raw enjoyable for me. The segment where Ambrose tried to get off the list was not only funny, but it had something that is often lacking in WWE, continuity. The pair brought up their history together and the feud they had, which is much better than just pretending like it never happened. This wasn’t really a match however, more of a farce. The Miz’s mystery partner didn’t come out initially when intended, so Miz had to fight in a handicap match. As he tried to leave, Ambrose caught up to him and teased putting him threw the announce table. Suddenly he was stopped by the mystery partner, Bray Wyatt. Wyatt laid out, Ambrose, Jericho and even the Miz to end the show. This made no sense on so many levels. Why would Bray team with Miz? Why wouldn’t he come out at first? Why did the match just end with no resolution? This was a big letdown, no one really looked good coming out of this, not even Wyatt. It would have been fine if it was a straight tag team match, but WWE tried to be more clever then they could pull off. As a go home show before Payback, this didn’t get me excited for it.

Smackdown

We begin with Shinsuke Nakamura coming out to the ring, with Renee Young ready to interview him. Before Nakamura was able to say a word, Dolph Ziggler comes out. Ziggler then cuts an awful promo, comparing Nakamura to Michael Jackson. The segment ends after the two come to blows and Ziggler dodging the Kinshasa before running away. I still have faith in this eventual match stealing the show come Backlash, but this build has been nibbling away at my patience. Nakamura has yet to compete yet since debuting on the main roster, it would really be good to show the audience why this man is meant to be a big deal.

AJ Styles vs Baron Corbin After last weeks countout result, Styles and Corbin went at it again in a rematch. Kevin Owens, once again was on commentary, providing some amazing soundbites. Like last week, this was a pretty good match, Corbin especially seems really comfortable keeping up the pace. Styles would get the roll up win but would be attacked by Owens and Corbin. Sami Zayn tried to make the save, hitting Corbin with the Helluva Kick, but got beat down by Owens for his troubles. My major nitpick is why hasn’t Zayn gone after Jinder Mahal, who cost him a chance at the title last week? It would have made more sense to have Zayn have a grudge match with Mahal, even if it meant jobbing out to make Mahal look strong. Instead, Zayn now has a feud with Corbin (not a bad thing) and Mahal still doesn’t seem like a threat. American Alpha vs The Colons: Beat The Clock Challenge To take on the Usos for their Tag Team Titles, we had two of these matches. While this was a decent match, it’s kind of weird that American Alpha got the win after having trouble with the Colons last week. As for them, The Colons seem to similar to the Usos in gimmick. If this division is to get back on track, alittle distinction between the two would certainly help.

Randy Orton vs Erick Rowan: No DQ match

This was a good match, tables, a kendo stick, lots of plunder to pop the crowd. The noteworthy stuff came afterwards. As Orton beat Rowan, Jinder Mahal came out and did the typical anti-American rant. Himself and the Bollywood Boys beat up Orton, and even stole away his title. In fairness, that is some pretty good heel heat. However, Mahal still doesn’t appear as a threat to Orton. They guy has lost nearly all of his matches since returning to WWE, so it’s a big stretch that title match come Backlash wont be just onesided. There is still time for Mahal to win some matches, have him look like there is a real danger that Orton could lose to him. To add to this tangent, I discovered that Mahal has a pretty large following in India. I can understand the people being happy about a prominent Indian star in the company, but I don’t get how they can be invested in his portrayal. With all the social media posts about tryouts in India and this new market they are pursuing, I feel WWE owe the people of India alittle better in terms of storytelling. The Ascension vs Breezango: Beat The Clock Challenge

To get my biased out of the way, I love Breezango. Fandango and Tyler Breeze are far too underutilized, so it’s great to see them getting a title shot. With that said, it’s still an odd choice. The match made sense, Ascension tried to win as quickly as they could with some hard hitting moves from the start, only for Breezango to steal a win out of the blue. Like with Jinder Mahal, WWE expect the viewers to buy into a jobber at being in contention for a title shot. However, with a face turn, Breezango could go on to be an over comedic team. Even if they don’t win the belts, which I doubt they will. Smackdown Women’s Title Match: Charlotte vs Naomi

Not only did we see Charlotte earn her shot at the Women’s title, but we also saw the seeds sowed for a new stable. The match itself was very good, with two great female workers in the ring. Sadly, it would end with a no contest as Natalya, Carmella and Tamina rushed the ring, beating up the combatants. There haven’t been many women’s factions in WWE so there is a possibility that this could work. One thing going against this though is the small number of women on the Smackdown roster, it would help out if there were more. But giving the women’s division the main event slot certainly helps get the team over, we can only see where WWE takes this. Smackdown was technically the better show, as they set up some new plot threads and began new feuds. However, Raw won me over thanks to the comedic banter of Ambrose and Jericho, despite some extremely bizarre booking in most of the matches. It’s hard to say which show won, but it really should be Smackdown. Raw would have won it if it wasn’t for the fact this is the go home show for Payback. The whole point is to get me excited for the PPV, and after watching Raw, I wasn’t.

Vince McMahon Movie

This week, the news broke that WWE Studios would be producing a biopic of the company’s owner, Vince McMahon. The cynical side of me wonders how detailed are they gonna make this film, or even what moments won’t be featuring. With final go ahead going to the boss, I can imagine certain plot points in McMahon’s life being glossed over. Some moments arguably viewers would be very intrigued to see. With that said, McMahon’s story is certainly a compelling one to tell. I like many self respecting wrestling fan, will make this film an essential watch.

That’s all for this week, let’s just hope the House Of Horrors match doesn’t turn out to be awful.

Till next time

Nay

[murasaki-murasame]

I’ve been trying to spend the last couple of days wrapping my head around how :re s2 could possibly come close to adapting the amount of content it sounds like it’ll be covering, if the key visual is any indication. I’m assuming, at least based on the leaks, that s2 will just be 12 episodes, and that we probably won’t get a third season [and I mean, if s2 on it’s own gets THAT far into the story, they wouldn’t have another 12 episodes of content left to begin with].

So basically I’ve been trying to work out in my head how they could possibly cover the entire last two thirds of :re into twelve more episodes, in any sort of a coherent fashion. And I think I’ve come up with the most optimistic option I think exists, and it’s something that I think could actually be really good, if it’s what they’re planning for, and could genuinely fix a lot of my issues with the manga.

I should probably wait until s1 has ended before making a post like this, but oh well.

This got really long, so I’m putting it under a readmore

As said, I’m going about this whole theory with the assumption that :re s2 might be attempting to adapt the ENTIRE rest of the manga in twelve episodes. Or, more specifically, that it’s going to try and reach the end of the manga in twelve episodes. So I’m running with that assumption, and ignoring the possibility of a third season, a movie finale, an OVA, or whatever.

The gist of my idea is that they could go a long way to condense the material if they basically entirely cut out the Goat arc, and tweak the story so that the Black Reaper arc segues almost immediately into the Dragon arc. Which I think would actually work really well, if done right. I always felt that there story was almost putting itself on hold during that entire arc, and that the majority of it could be cut.

Specifically, I think they can probably adapt the Black Reaper arc into about seven episodes [give or take], while also transplanting a lot of plot points and reveals from later in the manga into it, such as the reveals and climaxes with characters like Hide and Kanou. It’d be super easy to actually show that Hide’s alive during that whole arc, what with stuff like the whole scene with Marude assassinating Yoshitoki based on Hide’s intel, or the flashback of him rescuing Amon from Rushima. And at least going with my pet theory that Hide had been in cahoots with Eto for a fair while, it’d be easy enough to explain all of that pretty quickly during that arc while they’re both still around and kicking.

Given that the Rushima arc already set up the concept of zombies with Okahira, and set up Kurona’s grudge against Kanou, it seems very easy to me for them to bring up the concept of zombie quinques during it, so we can get some Qs vs zombie Shirazu and Ui vs zombie Hairu fight scenes to give them some closure nice and easily, and on top of that, it’d be easy enough to change it so that Kanou’s lab and his research gets destroyed enough that he just gives up and shoots himself like he did in the manga, so that can serve as the end of the whole subplot with Kurona’s grudge, instead of that whole plot point awkwardly getting put on hold until it randomly comes up again like 50 chapters later and immediately gets resolved. And if this all happens, it’d make it easy to have Kimi immediately leave his group and start working with Kaneki and co, to make it even more natural to segue into the Dragon arc.

Similarly to the sort of redemption that Mutsuki recently got in the manga, I think that it’d be easy to have the Qs confront him shortly after he kills Torso, and have a whole scene of them accepting and comforting him, which would feel way more natural at that stage in the story, and could preemptively cut off the entire subplot of Mutsuki unnecessarily becoming an antagonist.

They could also easily have it be that Amon gets rescued from Rushima and taken back to :re with Akira, instead of the lab raid needing to happen so he can get rescued a second time.

After the whole part with Kaneki accepting the mantle of the OEK, I think they could change things up so that Furuta decides to use Rize as the formation of Dragon instead of Kaneki. The whole Oggai plot can probably be cut out, or at least heavily glazed over and just used to explain how he was able to make Dragon in the first place. Similarly, they could also cut out the whole subplot of the underground king, since that’s been sorta pointless beyond showing that there’s technically been historical precedence for Dragon being a thing.

You could have some variation of the 24th Ward Raid arc happen pretty immediately into the Dragon arc, if Kaneki and co have to take shelter there if :re gets destroyed during Dragon’s rampage, and Furuta takes charge of the CCG, but that can all kinda be glazed over if the writers want. I could take or leave it.

I guess they could keep the Touken content if they want, but given that they made a whole insert song about her getting over her feelings for him and moving on with her life, and given that they cut out the part where she says that :re is a place for Kaneki to belong to, and so on, I’d be fine with them just being consistent with that and having them not actually get together in the anime timeline. And tbh, if it goes this way, with Dragon happening immediately after the Black Reaper arc, I don’t think they’d really have time to have the two of them have sex and get married without it feeling even more like they should be focusing on more important things.

At least if they outright show Hide doing stuff during the Black Reaper arc instead of being coy about him, he can probably reunite with Kaneki pretty immediately after the arc, which might also mean they might be able to devote a bit more time and emotional weight to it. [And even if I could deal with it either way, if they at least don’t go down the Touken route in the anime, they could easily go down the Hidekane route in this sort of plot set-up, especially if they include Hide’s whole ‘because I love him’ line]. 

And on the note of their reunion, at least if the anime actually explains his entire deal, and his hypothetical connection to Eto, they could probably reuse that one scene we know about from the original Root A draft, where Hide apologizes for betraying Kaneki, and references the play they did when they were kids.

After that, you could also basically cut out the Clown Siege, since it’s also super unimportant, and just jump straight to the more climactic scenes involving the clowns. I guess you could keep the Roma fight scene, though, especially since that really helped develop Urie as a character too.

Then things can just end with a fight between Kaneki and Furuta, and then a bookend-y conversation between Kaneki and Rize. You could probably at least take elements from their meeting during v15 and merge it into whatever meeting they’ll have at the end of the manga, to save on time.

So if they effectively jump straight into the Dragon arc after the Black Reaper arc, maybe with some elements of the 24th Ward Raid, I think they could easily cover that in just the final four or so episodes.

Oh, and on more miscellaneous notes, they can probably just cut Koma and Irimi out entirely because they’re basically pointless and, as said, the zombie quinques could be brought up without them being around. They could also probably keep the whole concept of Squad 0 working with Kaneki and co after the Black Reaper arc just fine.

It might be kinda difficult to do much with the whole sense of betrayal that the Qs have toward Kaneki for abandoning them, but not much really comes from that in the manga anyway. I actually quite like the idea of them including a way less obnoxiously violent and antagonistic version of the scene where Mutsuki visits :re. I can imagine them including the overall idea of him asking Kaneki if the Qs meant anything to him, without it being a big evil villainous thing that leads to a huge fight scene. 

Would this be an entirely perfect way to handle it? Probably not. There’s a lot of small details that might not work well. But this is the closest I can get to figuring out a way for them to adapt the entire rest of the story into just twelve episodes without it getting the point of them basically adapting one volume per episode by the end of it.

At the very least, handling it this way would probably fix a lot of my issues with the manga. Mainly being that the entire Goat arc was largely unnecessary, and actively terrible most of the time, with stuff like Mutsuki’s entire character arc being almost comically transphobic in increasingly bizarre ways. There’s so much they could just completely cut from that. You could easily go right from the Black Reaper arc to the Dragon arc with no real loss to the narrative.

The biggest issue would be explaining how Dragon comes about without all the set-up for it, but it could totally work if it’s just Rize who becomes Dragon instead of Kaneki, so we don’t NEED all that plot set-up to explain how he winds up in that situation. And given how even in the manga, Rize is already a major part of Dragon and basically the final boss, it wouldn’t even change anything of the climax. Kaneki being part of Dragon is honestly sort of unnecessary, and if anything detracts from the story by setting up this whole plot point of him being responsible for the destruction of Tokyo, which Ishida’s basically just tried to sweep under the rug.

[And it’d actually go a long way toward explaining why Kaneki in the s2 key visual doesn’t look anything like he did after being taken out of Dragon, if he’s not involved in it in the anime. And it also might explain why the anime’s glossing over the detail of Kaneki’s rapid aging, since that gets cured in the manga by him becoming Dragon, so they might just be preparing to gloss over that plot point entirely since he doesn’t become Dragon, which I’d be cool with]

You could even probably still do stuff with the idea of Furuta becoming the head of the CCG, even if he might not do anything with the Oggai. And if that goes in that sorta way, it’d make enough sense for Hide to basically take it over after he’s gone.

So I really do think it’d be surprisingly easy to condense the entire last two thirds of :re into twelve episodes. It’d go a long way toward DRASTICALLY fixing the pacing issues of the series, and focusing just on the good stuff. The Dragon arc isn’t even that long, since it’s basically gonna end up being just three volumes, and a lot of the general points of it can either be shifted to the Black Reaper arc [ie: the aforementioned plot points with Hide and Kanou and so on], or cut entirely, if Kaneki isn’t involved in Dragon’s formation. So yeah it could totally work as like four episodes max.

To put it into perspective, if they want to adapt the entire rest of the manga into s2 without cutting out any entire arcs in the second half, their options are:

1: Literally just skip over the entire Black Reaper arc and just devote s2 to being the Goat and Dragon arcs, which would obviously be a nightmare, or

2: Covering the Black Reaper arc in just six episodes, and then, uh, trying to adapt the remaining seven volumes across the last six episodes. You can all do the math on that one and guess why it wouldn’t be a great outcome.

Even if we accept that a third season might be possible, it gets into what I said at the start about how if s2 alone is going to get into the Dragon arc, how could they devote an entire twelve episodes just to the Dragon arc? It’s only three volumes long, and it includes a LOT of chapters that are either almost purely atmospheric, or focus on a single fight scene.

The only other option I could see working is if s2 covers the Black Reaper arc and the Goat arc, and then we get a finale movie covering the Dragon arc, but I think that’d be really awkward in it’s own way, and I don’t want to assume that we’re going to get anything after :re s2. The manga’s already gonna be long over by the time s2 ends, so it seems pretty unlikely they’d bother making any more of it.

So yeah, that’s all I can really think of to even come close to guessing how they could more or less cover up to the end of the manga in just twelve episodes. I think it could actually be really good, but it could go wrong in a million different ways.