#Other notes:

[inspector-montoya-fox]

i was thinking in the shower about how things would have turned out had Bentley managed to break into the Cooper Vault without needing to recruit anyone. for starters, there wouldn't be a Sly 3 lol... i mean Sly and Bentley would definitely have gone after Murray so An Opera of Fear and Rumble Down Under would have happened i guess but for the sake of the post let's say they wouldn't have asked the Guru to join the gang. so no Netherlands and no China meaning no Penelope and no Panda King, and by extent no Dimitri because of no deal in Netherlands.

removing Sly 3's secondary characters kinda puts things into perspective in terms of character development. in Sly 1 we collected Thievius Racconus pages as we got closer to the truth and Sly learned new tricks and honed his skills in preparation for his encounter with Clockwerk. Sly 2 was just a traumatic trainwreck altogether like SP really put the gang through the wringer idk how they survived.

in Sly 3 this development is brought about through the secondary characters and their relationships with the protagonists. Penelope drives a wedge between Sly and Bentley forcing the latter to muster up the courage and step outside of Sly's shadow for a minute; Panda King's return demands Sly to mature and let go of the past; Dimitri tests the gang's patience; both Penelope and Panda King contribute to the Murray van storyline which kinda exhibited that yea! in the long run, Murray might be the dummy of the group as Dr Michael chastises at the end but he is definitely the heart of the gang.

but if all this never happened then how would Honour Among Thieves play out? funny thing is, even if they recruited the extended gang, shit hit the fan almost immediately upon arrival so i'm assuming the same would apply if the original trio had tried to pull it off on their own? no? as a sidenote: i'm also thinking that Sly 2 is the only game in the series that kinda had like the aspect of urgency if you think about it. someone stole the Clockwerk parts and they were going to rebuild him so tick tock bitch. Sly 1 and 3 however don't really have that sense of time pressure. the Fiendish Five were sitting on their asses for literally a decade before Sly popped up for the pages and don't even get me started on the possibility of Dr Michael managing to crack the Cooper Vault open like what a loser lmao. with this in mind, Bentley would have the time to develop his tech in order to do the tasks that the extended gang members would have done. i mean if he managed to build a time machine surely he could make his tech waterproof ?

so the entire heist goes according to plan with the possibility of them tripping that stupid alarm still at play. i never intended to do a full play by play "what if...?" of Honour Among Thieves but suffice to say Carmelita would 100% show up to save the day even with the change of context. i think the most important change would be that Bentley's run-in with Dr Michael would go down very differently. i don't think he'd defend Sly; i actually think Dr Michael would get to him even without Penelope's introduction because she only brought out feelings that were brewing deep in Bentley's subconscious (especially after the end of Sly 2, becoming disabled for a cause that was never his and that dedication arguably never being reciprocated). he might not have shown it in the moment but i think that conversation would significantly shape Bentley's character and if Sly got out of the episode unscathed, the gang would probably split. leaving the Guru behind would also give Murray the motive to go his own way.

it's clear that Sly 3's secondary characters helped the gang get over some unspoken issues they had between them, even if they got resolved behind each other's backs (because Bentley only vents to Penelope about his feelings and doesn't go straight to Sly, who, in turn, doesn't even know there's an issue to begin with). personally, and i feel kinda stupid for suggesting something so simplistic in relation to how this game would be better like 7-8 years after being on this godforsaken website and analysing it to the point where it feels like the bible, i feel like one more episode would help really flesh out the problems the gang had. we never get direct acknowledgment or accountability from Sly and it feels like he's too focused on entering the Vault to care about Bentley's feelings, or anyone else's for that matter (there's like 7 anon asks gathering dust in my inbox about why i have anti-Sly sentiment and that number better not go up). all it takes is a 'you know what guys? you should enter the vault with me after literally sticking by me since childhood and risking your lives fighting my own battles' and they shoot up the van like it's a guest on Wendy.

Sly 2's ending proved that the protagonists aren't Riverdale characters who just go through weekly life-threatening events without any guilt, trauma and anxiety; and then in Sly 3 we get high-stake situations akin to the ClockLa saga, like the Dragon snatching Penelope, but because it's crammed between episodes instead of games, the characters come out of it seemingly unfazed. the complete lack of recognition for all of this makes it seem like Sly is an awful leader for the gang. like i think Penelope would genuinely snap when she got taken hostage by LeFwee after the dragon thing.

i think the internal politics of the gang could have been explored way better but i understand that juggling that and the introduction of one new character per episode would be impossible. i'd love to see Bentley confronting Sly, Murray realising that he's getting more support about what matters to him (the van, the Guru's wellbeing) from the literal strangers they've recruited than his best friends, Sly realising that his lack of involvement in the gang's friendship is what turned Dr Michael against ConnEr. maybe Honour Among Thieves could have been a two-parter honestly. maybe the Dimitri Dr Michael piranha hybrid bossfight should have never made the cut.

[eek-a-tron]

bold the trope you prefer:

slow burn or love at first sight • fake dating or secret dating • enemies to lovers or best friends to lovers • there was only one bed or long distance correspondence • hurt/comfort or amnesia • mutual pining or domestic bliss • canon-compliant or fix-it • smut or fluff • angst or crack • redemption or dark fic • reincarnation or character death • one-shot or multi-chapter • arranged marriage or accidental marriage • college romance or middle age romance • time travel or isolated together • neighbors or roommates • oh no they’re hot or monster s.o. • fantasy au or sci-fi au • apocalyptic au or modern au • historical au or isekai fic

no-pressure tagging: @lokiinmediasideblog, @linearao3, @supervillainarchaeologist, @theladyvalkyrieskyeart, @lavacastle, & anyone who wants to ponder too deeply about tropes

[lagtrain]

:3

[sleepygaymerdisease]

[girldraki]

this is insane

[rivetgoth]

It's honestly crazy that discussion around testosterone HRT skews so much towards the beginning stages of it (to the point that you have dozens of guys thinking their transition is "failed" if they don't pass by like a year in lol) and what the initial changes of the first couple of months to years look like, like the classic laundry list of those early basic changes like bottom growth, voice drop, etc, when IMO literally none of that compares remotely to the depth and intensity of the long term total masculinization you start to experience like 3-5+ years in.

[becquerel]

i really like ryoko kui's dedication to making this elf chick smoke weed in every modern clothing art she appears in

I KNOW SHE DOES SHROOMS IN THE MAIN COMIC I JUST THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY SINCE ITS NEVER DISCUSSED 😭 PLEASE MY NOTES ARE JUST PEOPLE TELLING ME THIS NOW

[trainwreckgenerator]

a face you'd find on the side of a milk carton

[mythtakens]

“these characters should be mentally healthy before they get together 😌” ummm no I actually think we should smash their mental illnesses together like clumps of play-doh and see what colors it makes

[nbmudkip]

“how could you have forgotten that” i forget Everything. unless i remember

[celeste-tyrrell]

is it really true that the average person's pain level is a 0?

[astronomical-bagel]

[rainboas]

my upstairs neighbor is so loud and annoying and all he does is yell and play video games but right now he's explaining the civil war and like the entire history of slavery and the prison industrial complex to some guy in overwatch voice chat so

[christadeguchi]

(✿◕‿◕) die (ꈍ ꒳ ꈍ✿)

[fordp1nes]

favorite stan twins characterization is that they're both equally insane. stanley just gets more air time to show it off. loosely inspired by a post i read earlier but here's some absolutely insane things both of them have done

stanley:

drugged a person and turned them into an exhibit in the mystery shack

had a vegas wedding to a prospector-themed novelty dispenser

gave mabel a grappling hook

failed to steal an animatronic badger

chewed his way out of the trunk of a car

punched at least three bald eagles

is multiply divorced, possibly even with the novelty dispenser

committed premeditated murder on a llama

faked a heart attack to get on Wheel of Fortune

took his clothes off in front of a live studio audience on Wheel of Fortune

has a rivalry with a fifth grader, a grandmother, and a man who exclusively dresses like a corn cob

stanford:

pulled a gun on a bus driver when he wouldn't let a pig on board

directly assisted in mind-controlling ronald reagan during his election in 1980

gave mabel a crossbow

got bitten by a vampire bat and subsequently began sampling human blood

owns contraband outlawed in 9000 dimensions; keeps it in an extremely flimsy plastic case

"accidentally" set a hawk on fire

has exes ranging from as normal as his old college buddy to as weird as a triangle and an alien with 7 eyes who put a metal plate in his head

wears turtlenecks because he's hiding multiple tattoos he regrets, including one themed around "all star" by smash mouth

is an Extremely wanted criminal across hundreds of dimensions; was completely kicked out of one for card counting

is, bizarrely, super into the band Eurythmics

can see shrimp colors