#She's speculating again

[freelanceexorcist]

FFVIIR Musings and the Multiroth of Madness

There are so many theories going around about FFVIIR and Sephiroth that its hard to keep up with them all. Some are great theories, some strain plausibility a bit but are still pretty good, while others are straight up ridink to the hinkulous. Others, good or bad, were Jossed. I’ll try to list as many as I can and, of course, give my opinion. The rest of this is under a cut because it’s very spoilery and very, very, very, very LOOOONNNNNGGG. And pedantic. And probably boring to anyone but me.

I’m going to assume anyone reading this knows about Japanese first-person pronoun usage, but if you don’t, check out this link (warning: TV Tropes), specifically the Ore and Watashi sections.

When His Voice is Like Ice but He Seems Sorta Nice,  That’s an Ore…

There are at least two versions of Sephiroth running around the Remake-verse.

This is established fact, because the devs said as much in the Remake Ultimania (full disclosure: I know very, very little to no Japanese and have been relying on the largesse of those who do and are providing accurate, good faith translations). In fact, there are four: one who is an illusion (hallucination?) on Cloud’s part. The second is him (or Jenova taking on his appearance) hijacking a black cloaked man to use as a meat suit. The third is a flashback of the Nibelheim incident. The fourth is Ore Sephiroth, who is identified as ??? in the book. The last one stands apart from the rest not just because of the pronoun, but because he is the only version that anyone other than Cloud can also see and he is described as a version that has never been seen in the Compilation before. At this time it is not clear if just one person (or alien eldritch abomination) is responsible for the other three.

Ore Sephiroth is the Crisis Core version, who never had a psychotic episode and therefore sidestepped the Nibelheim incident.

This is a good one, in fact it’s one of my favorites because I love me some CC Sephiroth. Alas, it was Jossed by the Rebirth trailer. He uses Ore when he says “you know I killed Tifa,” which shows that Ore is guilty of the events in Nibelheim and knows it or is at least accepting responsibility for it.

There’s also the problem that crops up if Ore Sephiroth is from the same timeline that Remake takes place in, because that causes a whopper of a temporal paradox. If Sephiroth doesn’t lose his mind and burn down Nibelheim, the characters would not have the experiences that shaped them into the people they are when the story begins or go on to form relationships with each other. But they are these people anyway, with the same experiences and issues that resulted from the Nibelheim incident and its aftermath, hence the paradox.

Ore Sephiroth is from a time post-Advent Children.

This was a good one at first but upon further inspection it doesn’t really hold up, at least for me. Since Remake is referencing portions of the Compilation, we need to take Case of the Lifestream: Black into account. In this story, following his defeat in the original game, Sephiroth released all of his memories to the Lifestream. He had to send the remnants out to scan peoples’ memories just to get an idea of what he looked like, let alone what his motivations ever were. He was essentially a blank canvas with only his rage, despair and white-hot hatred of Cloud forming his core and keeping him anchored to reality.

About those memories. Trauma and grief can really mess with the memory to various degrees. Grief can cause memory loss, and the intensity of the grief can determine how long that lasts, so there would be things some people just don’t remember. The trauma could cause existing memories to be blown out of proportion and exaggerated. Fears can become bigger, too. Sephiroth was the source of this trauma and grief, so it also follows that he went from “big, scary guy who wants to reboot the world and doesn’t think humans should get to live rent-free in the new digs” to “terrifying boogeyman who wants to wipe the planet of every living thing on it.” It’s possibly why he went from being a perfectly good-looking man in the rest of the Compilation to a ghostly pale, unnatural wraith in AC (but still hot. Who said that?!). Throw in Jenova’s species’ MO of eating a planet bare and using the barren husk to move on to do the same to the next one, and you’ve got his AC motivation.

It doesn’t even seem like it’s really Sephiroth anymore in AC so much as a rage-fueled golem made of Jenova cells, spite and the traumatized memories of a bunch of unreliable narrators. This doesn’t seem at all like Ore Sephiroth (although it is admittedly too early to know much about that).

Also, considering AC Sephiroth Flanderized himself into being the personification of “fuck this guy in particular” when it comes to Cloud, it doesn’t fit that Ore Sephiroth is so goshdarn NICE to him.  

Ore Sephiroth is the memories OG Sephiroth released to the Lifestream after his defeat given flesh.

I really like this one that I’ve seen here and there. It makes sense, too, when you take Case of the Lifestream: Black into account. Jenova is corrosive to the Lifestream, as we see with Geostigma. Angeal, Zack and Lucrecia can’t really cease to exist as individuals or even plain old die because the Lifestream would poison itself by letting them in. It makes sense that Sephiroth’s spirit energy would be kept intact and tucked away somewhere safe like an encapsulated tumor that can’t grow any bigger. In this case, the Lifestream found a use for him or he just straight up escaped.

Ore Sephiroth is a separate person but just as evil as Watashi Sephiroth.

But why though? What would be the point of having two identical characters both pursuing the same goal? “Like the original game, but BIGGER?” So they would cancel each other out? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just ditch Ore and keep Watashi if that were the case? Having Ore and Watashi as murder twinsies would result in Ore Sephiroth not serving any real function in the story, which is pretty sloppy writing. This seems like a bit of a stretch on the part of people who simply will not accept a version of Sephiroth that isn’t the mustache-twirlingly evil classic villain.

It doesn’t matter what pronoun he uses, because he used Ore after losing his shpadoinkles in the library and Watashi before luring the party into the singularity.

This seems like another stretch for the same reason. It does matter.

Yes, Sephiroth used Ore even after emerging from the library and putting Nibelheim to the torch. But the creators didn’t say that’s when he stopped using it, they said he switched when he met Jenova. This meeting took place after the village burned. Yeah, that seems like a distinction without a difference, but during this meeting, he was completely broken mentally and his physical proximity to her was the closest it had ever been. He was still himself to a degree before that, but what if his shattered psyche combined with the proximity really let her dig in? In the reactor the first time, he still had it together enough to shake himself out of it when he started glitching.

Also, there are signs that it’s not Sephiroth controlling the Whispers, but vice versa, at least to enough of a degree that they can keep him from really rearranging events in ways they can’t correct. He doesn’t start using Ore until the Edge of Creation, when the Whispers were completely eradicated (at least so far). This really great analysis explains this far better and more thoroughly than I could, so give it a look.

Watashi Sephiroth is the real deal and Ore Sephiroth is actually Jenova manipulating Cloud

I hope this isn’t the case, but man it’s plausible. In The Kids Are Alright, it’s noted that Jenova not only had the ability to mimic people the Cetra knew, she also would get into their heads, making them think that their fellow Cetra were plotting against them, effectively making them turn on each other and doing her job for her. What if Ore Sephiroth is actually Jenova trying to drive a wedge between Cloud and the rest of the party and getting him to turn on them by presenting herself as a version of Sephiroth that Cloud used to know and who died?

This one kind of breaks down upon further inspection too, though. If this is Jenova, she’s choosing a pretty cumbersome way of executing this strategy. Wouldn’t she be better served to impersonate someone Cloud already trusted and cared for, like Tifa (dun dun DUNNNNN – see below), or Zack or his mother? Why go through all the work of impersonating someone Cloud hates and then trying to get him to bury the hatchet and trust her that way? Not only would that be doing the fans of CC-era Sephiroth pretty damn dirty by making us get our hopes up only to get clowned, but it would also be unnecessarily complicated writing.  

Ore Sephiroth is from a different timeline.

Honestly, this is the one that is most likely, IMO. We know that alternate timelines are in play. We also know that Ore Sephiroth had at least some degree of autonomy if he was being controlled by the Whispers, or the final boss battle wouldn’t have happened because it didn’t happen that way in the OG.

That raises some questions, too. When was this timeline created? Does Remake take place in a timeline that is separate from the original game’s prime one? If so, do the Whispers exist only in Remake’s timeline to keep things from getting even more out of hand by different choices spawning new timelines? And does Aerith’s declaration of “everything about you is WRONG” mean that this version of Sephiroth isn’t supposed to exist here as long as the Whispers are around to keep things contained, meaning that his presence signifies that the Whispers dropped the timey wimey ball BIG TIME?

I guess we’ll find out in future installments, but one thing I want to say is that for as much as I would like it to be so, I don’t think Ore Sephiroth is one of the heroes here even if he does end up serving as a protagonist. I don’t think he’s an antagonist or villain either, but after all the shit he has done and has been done to him, he’s been through too much to come out the other end of it the same person he was in Crisis Core.

He may sincerely want to do the right thing this time around, but he’ll be morally grey, doing the right thing for probably selfish reasons and won’t care much about the personal moral code of anyone he has to align himself with to make it happen. Any altruism or defense of others would be because it gets him one step closer to his goal – true freedom. Boundless, terrifying freedom from Hojo, Shinra, Jenova, the Whispers or anyone else who would ever try to use him as a tool for their own purposes.

He might be truly selfless at some point, but probably not before a whole lot of convincing and not before he decides the risks to his own hide are worth it. There’s a reason I like to compare this vision of him to Negan from The Walking Dead, Joseph Lawrence from The Handmaid’s Tale and the man himself as he was characterized in Dissidia.   

Anyway. Moving on.

You Done Messed Up, A-A-Ron! Or Did You?

This will be a short section (“Oh, thank GOD!!” – everybody) because it’s just a bit from the Rebirth trailer and some other parts as well. I should stress it’s probably good practice to not come to any solid conclusions based on a few lines of out-of-context dialogue in what may or may not be a classic trailer misdirection. That last bit might be more likely than we think, since Purple Maybe Jenova Maybe Sephiroth Maybe Both appears to be speaking while the words are being said and how many people can really read lips, let alone read the lips of someone speaking Japanese? Speculate away, though! I sure plan to.

This is about the snippet of dialogue laid over Purple Jenovaroth being all menacing. Ore Sephiroth talks about how Jenova is said to be a monster who can imitate those her targets hate, fear or love. Then he insinuates that because he killed Tifa all those years ago, the current version must be some kind of Jenova-fueled imposter.

Many people quickly concluded that Sephiroth is just messing with Cloud’s head, but I don’t feel like that’s the case. I think it’s very possible that he simply doesn’t know she survived. After he slashed her, he walked away and never saw her again. A short time later, he was dead. What if Ore Sephiroth isn’t being calculating? What if he’s fallen for Jenova’s trick described above and is genuinely paranoid over the idea that she’s imitating people who Cloud trusts and who can influence him?

Sephiroth is powerful, but he’s not omniscient, nor was he in the original game either. So he may be thinking “yeah, no one escapes death at the end of my blade,” because Tifa is one of only a few who have, but she managed to beat the odds and survive. If he’s from a different timeline where he did succeed in killing her he would be correct in his assumption, but it’s not the case in this timeline.

Time will tell, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this doesn’t grow into a big plot point so much as serve to show the audience that, like Cloud, Ore Sephiroth is fallible. Like Cloud, he has gaps in his own memory and is just as much of an unreliable narrator. Like Cloud, he’s mentally unstable, making him susceptible to gaslighting that leads to paranoia. Like Cloud, he has lost people close to him who maybe can appear to him courtesy of Jenovillusions.

Odds and Ends

Sephiroth is just lying about all the things!

Funny thing is, Sephiroth only lied once in the Compilation when he impersonated Tifa in order to trick Barret into giving up the Black Materia, unless I’m forgetting something. He’s actually rather transparent and tells what he thinks is the truth.

And he didn’t mind rape Cloud with lies. Cloud was already good and mind raped by everything he’d gone through up until then. Sephiroth ripped the scales from Cloud’s eyes and told him a truth that he wasn’t ready to face yet, and that’s what pushed him over the edge but eventually led to him becoming stronger then ever before. Mind you, Sephiroth didn’t do any of this to be altruistic and was probably trying to soften Cloud up enough to make him easier to commandeer, but he did still tell him the truth. It was just the truth as he understood it.

See, he was in Potemkin Nibelheim at the same time as the party and was encountered in the basement library. He would have had plenty of time to read the notes on the Sephiroth Clone project and based his thinking on that. Because reading Hojo’s boogered-up notes and coming to his own conclusion worked out so well for him the last time he did it. /s

Sephiroth wanted the Whispers gone so he could change his own fate and win!

How boring, if true. That would just be a retread of the plot of the original game but with a twist everyone guessed a mile out, and if that’s all some people want, they’re free to play that and save their money.

At this point, we don’t really know what anyone’s motives really are. We know that Ore Sephiroth wants to save the planet and defy destiny, but that’s about it. We know that Watashi Sephiroth wants to troll the shit out of Cloud and turn into gigantic 80s metal band mascots to fight the party, but that’s about it for him as well. The Kalm flashback may clarify a few things, but it may also muddy the waters even more in order to spring a big twist on us later.

Sephiroth was controlling the Whispers!

What would he gain from that? The Whispers are there to make sure events chug along just as they did in the original game and presumably the Compilation. We know he’s a bit of a glutton for punishment, but why would he want a fate where he is defeated and killed over and over again? If anything, they were controlling him, at least to a degree, and what they were controlling is a version of him we’ve never seen before.

The eradication of the Whispers seems to have set Ore Sephiroth free. He talks of destiny, but in the Edge of Creation scene he wants to defy it and needs Cloud’s help to do so. His personality in this scene is subtly different, because he’s nicer. He merely disarms Cloud to end their duel when if this is the same Sephiroth from the original game, that would have been the perfect opportunity to take him out.

So yeah, that implies that Ore Sephiroth was being twisted into his OG/Compilation self in Remake’s timeline. So…what if Ore Sephiroth is from a different timeline and somehow made his way to Remake’s, prompting the planet to create the Whispers to contain him (and anyone else whose choices could potentially be effected by his anomalous presence)?

But the creators said there wouldn’t be any major changes!

Obviously the team changed their minds, because there have been some whoppers so far. They also said there would no new characters, but we’ve got loads of them in sizeable roles, unless they were referring to playable characters. It’s their sandbox, and if they decide that This Thing works better than That Other Thing, then it’s This Thing that will make it into the finished work, even if they stated in some pre-production interview that they were pretty married to That Other Thing at the time.

And the thing about remakes is that they are never exactly the same as the original or previous adaptations and the only things that remain intact-at least in a well-made remake-are the major plot points that move the story along from start to finish.

The movie A Star is Born is a good example of this. There are four versions of it than have been released, and they’re all different to varying degrees except for the major beats: he’s always a famous star when the story starts. He’s always an addict. She’s always a small-time performer at first and he’s plowed when they meet. He always takes her under his wing. They always fall in love. Her career always goes through the roof while his fizzles out. He always gets clean for a while but falls off the wagon. He always dies in the end. She always picks up the pieces and moves on. The same basic story is still told, but the space between point A and point B is a little different each time. What doesn’t change is anything that would significantly alter the basic plot. And these changes were pretty well received, considering all four movies got plenty of attention from the Academy.

So far, hardly any of the major beats of the story have changed yet. The only major difference is Sephiroth showing up for the final boss battle WAY too early, which gives us our first hint that the Whispers are losing control of fate. Now that they’re gone, there’s going to be a whooooole lot more that’s different, because getting rid of them enabled the creation of alternate timelines. About the only thing that is guaranteed is fans who will complain bitterly about the changes and flounce dramatically out of the fandom only to come right back a week later to complain some more. I know this because it happens in every fandom. Yes, all of them.

Watashi Sephiroth will not kill Aerith!

That big boom you just heard was the heads of every OG purist reading this exploding at once but hear me out.

I didn’t say she wasn’t going to die, I said it wouldn’t be him that kills her, and I base this on the assumption that he and Aerith are aware of previous iterations of the cycle and know what will happen next. If that is the case, he would know how badly he played himself by allowing her to enter the Lifestream where she becomes a Force ghost, completes Holy, thwarts his plan and goes on to eradicate Jenova entirely a few years later. He’d know that it was in his best interests to keep her out of the Lifestream and find another way to stop her from using the White Materia. He could even try to persuade her to join him since knowing how powerful she was is why he killed her the first time around.

That’s about all I’ve got for now (“We reiterate: oh, thank GOD!” – everybody). If you’ve managed to read this whole thing, you have the patience of saints. If you disagree with me, that’s fine, just don’t be a dick about it.

Thank you.

[knockknockitsnickels]

I think this is one of my favorite lines from the Wraith route because of (imo) how much the meaning changes depending on if you got there via Spectre or Nightmare. For Spectre, it honestly strikes me as a genuine question. Why are you doing this to her? If you're on the Spectre route, you presumably already know the Narrator can't really be trusted, since you had to reject his reward to get here. What are you hoping to gain from continuing to hurt her? For Nightmare, it honestly just makes me sad. As the Shifting Mound describes her, "She desires only companionship, but the only thing she knows is how to hurt." This line feels like a plea from someone who genuinely doesn't understand why you keep rejecting her. She wants to be with you, but she just can't understand how to do that in a way which doesn't hurt you.

[blood-starved-beast]

So I've been thinking.

Icarus and Arachne clearly have some situationships going on (Arachne's is triggered when Mel gives her ambrosia and it looks to be mutual unless something else changes). They are both shades LIs (2)

Eris and Nemesis both clearly also have situationships with Melinoe. They are both female god LIs and daughters of Nyx (2).

Moros is highly implied (like the foreshadowing is very thick) to be a potential LI for Melinoe. He is a male god and son of Nyx (1). If we look at the pattern going on so far, we're missing one male god love interest. Who could that be?

Now, it's entirely possible that it's a god not yet included in Early Access and has to be patched in with development. But also. Melinoe has had a parasocial relationship with Hypnos going on since forever. She gives him great reverence/interest with him. She clearly is into babygirl" men. It would be wild, and I say wild, if the final male LI established is Hypnos. Once you wake him that is.

[gwandas]

Alright, time to elaborate on that other post. Elain by far has had the most free will, the most agency out of the three sisters. Elain stans love to say Nesta coddles her when the reality is Nesta consistently relents to what Elain chooses for herself.

In ACOMAF, Nesta doesn't agree at first to Feyre's request to use their house because she doesn't want to compromise Elain's engagement. Elain is the one to push back, and Nesta relents immediately. What Nesta thinks is best doesn't take precedence over Elain's wants.

We know that Nesta doesn't approve of Greyson. She agrees with Cassian that Elain deserves better, but what Nesta thinks is best doesn't take precedence over Elain's wants.

In ACOWAR, Elain is catatonic. If anything, she should be coddled here. Her and Elain were stuck with these strangers for months. Strangers who were also the people who got them into that mess in the first place. Finally, Feyre shows up to help Nesta figure out how to help their sister. Madja is brought in, who recommends Lucien try to figure it out since they're mates. Nesta pushes back in what might arguably be coddling to keep Lucien from Elain. Feyre tells her to shut the fuck up and let Lucien try. And what do you know? She relents again -- What Nesta thinks is best is ignored because Nesta doesn't have any power in this situation.

In ACOFAS, Nesta has pushed Elain away at this point. She tells her “You have your life, I have mine." That's more or less Nesta saying do whatever tf you want Elain it's not my business. Not coddling!

In ACOSF, ohhh the infamous scene when Elain finally develops a personality starts coming out of her shell. Please try to remember at this point, Nesta has been locked in a house and barely sees Elain. The IC doesn't give a fuck about what Nesta wants for this whole book—Why would they choose now to listen to her? Literally everyone except Azriel agrees that Elain should be able to scry if she wants to. It would literally be easier for the IC to let Elain do it over waiting for Nesta who didn't want to do it.

"Shall I tend to my little garden forever?” When Nesta flinched, Elain said, “You can't have it both ways. You cannot resent my decision to lead a small, quiet life while also refusing to let me do anything greater."

Elain says all this and then... goes back to "tend to her little garden." It's a toothless moment. Elain stans would rather blame Nesta for coddling her than consider that maybe Elain just didn't try very hard to take on some responsibility for her sister who was supposed to be in "rehab." It sounds fucking stupid in the context that Elain hasn't seen Nesta at all between ACOFAS and ACOSF -- Nesta physically isn't around to coddle her. Elain doesn't contribute because she chooses not to or because the IC simply doesn't ask her to. We don't have any context for what she's been up to aside from some vague comments about lying about gardening or whatever Cassian said.

Amren admits that they're using Elain to manipulate Nesta. There was zero practical reason for them to do this other than because they care more about Elain's safety than Nesta's safety. The IC are the ones who have the power to "hold Elain back," not her sister who is locked in a house and never sees her—The IC could easily say fuck you to Nesta and have Elain do it. They didn't even need to bring Nesta into this conversation!! They could've gone to Elain first!!

Some Elain stans want so badly for Nesta to be the thing holding Elain back and it's very transparent to me. I have seen people go so far as to blame Nesta for Elain's uselessness in the cabin and that Nesta abused her too—sorry, what? I mean nice try, but Elain already admitted to being just as neglectful, and not even because she was genuinely remoseful towards Feyre—She said that shit to defend Nesta from Cassian.

I'm not even saying Elain isn't coddled but Nesta sure as fuck isn't the one doing it. Nesta doesn't even have her own free will how the fuck is she supposed to take away someone else's? Nesta choosing to do things so Elain doesn't have to isn't coddling. It's well established that if Nesta couldn't successfully scry, they would've gone to Elain, which means Nesta never had the power to stop Elain from scrying. Nesta has never tried to take away Elain's free will and even if she wanted to, she has no power to do that.

[chappellrroan]

people who still hate Joe Alwyn need to get a life asap

[skeletal-butterflyy]

Mike loves taking care of people. He loved taking of el in season one, and he loved taking care of will in season two, he loves feeling needed. He desperately wants to be the knight(paladin) that will sees him as. Mike and el love each other but not the way that mike and will do. Mike was only able to say he loves el because will told him that “el” would always need him no matter what:

Mike even says that he knows el doesn’t need him and that’s why they’re having problems. It isn’t mikes monologue that gets her out of Vecna’s vines, it’s max. We even see it in the last scene of s4 where el is separated from the rest of the group. She’s become independent, doesn’t need just mike, as a romantic interest, she’s not a damsel in distress. What she does need is the support of her friends and family.

You know who does need mike though? Will! He makes it clear through the painting and his monologue in the van scene, and we see how happy this makes mike, to know he really is needed. That’s why byler works.

[smalltownrobin]

Thinking about how Robin looks so clearly like she's dressing as if she knows she's going to see Vickie and that's so cute but then we're not seeing Robin on set with Vickie we're seeing her with other characters and that's not such a cute thought

[iwanthermidnightz]

thank you for saying this yet again taylor!

[myxhul]

One thing that bugs me every time i rewatch tlok is that one scene in book 3 where tenzin tells korra about the time when she was little, explaining how the red lotus tried to kidnap her. So, he, korra's father, sokka, and zuko went to rescue her and stopped the attack, locking the red lotus in their respective prisons.

Although my little zukka brain thrives with the fact that zuko is supposedly just there, chilling in the south pole post-retirement or whatever, i really think it would have been much better if insted of him, it was katara the one fighting alogside the others. It would have made so much more sence because one- she is one of the most powerful waterbenders on earth therefore totally has the power and skills to stand againts the red lotus, and two- yes, you can argue that she might still be greeving over her husband's passing but i think if sokka, zuko and tenzin were able to be there and help in the battle it wouldn't be much of problem for katara to be with them too. Aang is best friend and a family to both sokka and zuko and tenzin's literal father. If they were ready and willing to fight, so could she.

And isn't trying to protect korra also trying to protect her family in some sort of way? Katara was clearly very enthusiastic about teaching korra waterbending as a child, why won't she stand up against the red lotus for her, too?

It's disheartening to see how both the comics and tlok seem to sideline katara's character as if her contributions were not significant. Like she just isn't that important in the first place. It’s just awfully depressing tbh.

[metanarrates]

its interesting to me that the common sentiment appears to be that han sooyoung intended for jang hayoung to be trans. I think there's room for multiple interpretations, but I view being trans in orv as being inherently tied to the themes of self-actualization, as well as the idea that a narrative is unable to be fully defined by either author or reader. put more simply, jang hayoung is trans regardless of either kim dokja OR han sooyoung's intentions in creating her, or in how they each interpreted her. maybe the version of her in the novel was meant to be something else, but in the reality of this world, she is a trans girl. han sooyoung's intentions kind of don't matter there because the text has moved beyond its author

[petrovna-zamo]

Katya will be featured in the documentary series Raw & Real: The Truth Be Told

[alohaasaloevera]

Oh boy do I love it when I see two characters with vastly different personalities and wow their backstory and motivations and developments are in some proximity tied to each other? Wow how I do love that! What’s that? They have a rival-esque dynamic? Which stems from one characters insecurities? How interesting! I can’t wait to see how the pair’s relationship progresses throughout the span of the entire show! Hopefully they will be granted with a blossoming relationship from rivals to friends to an unbreakable bond that not even the insurmountable obstacle that is time and distance can wither! Hopefully the show displays poignant moments between the two that can act as lessons the audience can learn from such as battling your insecurities and being able to rely and trust people etc.!!!!

I do love both of these characters dearly. 😈 HAHAHAHAHA SHIPPING TIME!!!

Ok, let me just binge the whole thing—

[uzukibeans]

at first glance i thought the fixation on till’s neck was a sly joke about a/b/o, a genre heavily based in bl works, in the same cheeky way ivan’s name is a play on korean lgbt slang.

but the recurring motif of strangulation, how till's relationships (excluding his infatuation with mizi) are largely characterized with him being the object while the other is the subject; how him being on a leash, not just a collar, is quite literally one of his defining visual traits...

it reminds me of shakespeare's othello, where the titular character strangles his wife to death in a fit of jealousy over her alleged infidelity... the results of round 6 almost feel like a subversion of that play, where the leading artwork, esp the red one, seemed to suggest that ivan would strangle till in an act of possession, but it ended up as just the opposite.

but i wonder if there's more symbolism we can extrapolate if we hypothesize that some of the imagery are allegories to othello...

[blood-starved-beast]

Something I haven't thought about much since the Technical Test but occurs to me now a month later is how I initially assumed Eris was working like vigilante style with the Chronos fight. It seems strange but it was based only on the dialogue between Hecate and Nemesis where she tells Nem that if she doesn't like her job she can do whatever Eris is doing. Which makes me think.

That's such an interesting line from Hecate. Cause when we meet Eris for real in the game, she is doing everything in her power to stop Melinoe. It's the complete opposite of that erroneous impression. Unless, it's not completely wrong.

Eris's whole deal, as is in the mythology, is that she wants to keep conflict ongoing as much as possible. She thrives on strife, and never picks a side but instead baits all involved to fan the flames. She's on everyone's side and at the same time, no one's. That likely carries over to Hades 2.

So what was Eris doing when she was gone from the Crossroads? It's entirely possible she was fighting Chronos forces, if only to cause more strife and prevent him from re-establishing his Golden Age. Cause then the Strife would actually end and a new order is established (which she hates). She only stops cause Melinoe becomes a larger threat to that Strife and decides that she needs to tip the scales in the opposite direction.

Alternatively, she was baiting whatever was attacking Olympus. There's a convo where she mentions that things were finally getting interesting, after all. Which coincides with Melinoe going to the surface to stop the attack there. Granted, this doesn't necessarily negate the earlier theory. The attack could've easily happened as Eris was "helping" the Unseen with Chronos's forces.

Either way, if Eris was "helping" the Unseen at that moment, it sort of makes sense why she's regarded the way she is in the Crossroads. Treated as an annoyance despite actively preventing Melinoe from achieving her goal. Cause much like her keepsake, Eris is a "tool" that can be beneficial with a high risk. If the conflict is tipped against you to the point that your opponent might win, Eris would likely aid you. But if the reverse is true, then she'd be againist. Very risky, not an ally in the true sense, but can be useful in certain circumstances, which a tactician such as Odysseus might consider.

[mamayura]

Massive fear: Between the new trailer implying that Marinette is gonna spy on Adrien while he's jogging with a new character and season 5 having brought up Marinette invading people's privacy again by going through Socqueline's Alliance ring, I'm begging this show to not make Marinette an over controlling girlfriend for some stupid Cerise reasons

Like, Cerise for example helping the friendship between Adrien and jogger girl (since Marinette is jealous, jogger person is most likely a girl) doesn't at all justify Marinette spying on them. All it does is repeating the Kagami thing where any girl that isn't Marinette's friend first and isn't "approved" is being treated like a threat or downright a bad person Adrien needs to be "protected" from because he's too "naive" to make his own friends.

It's the exact same thing that's being hinted at here. Please don't do that, oh my gosh, we went over this.

Or in the same manner, Cerise in any identity whatsoever befriending Adrien and texting with him doesn't justify Marinette going through his phone whatsoever. I hate that this is still a very plausible thing to expect now because Marinette's own character flaws hardly were taken care of in season 4 and 5. Just endlessly postponed.

And I hate it the most that I can't find any reason to believe this won't happen because it's now Cerise's JOB as the new 'worse' villain to do things like this. To wanting to ruin Marinette's life.

Why wouldn't she befriend Adrien in her new identity (or identities) when it would perfectly serve her intentions of hurting Marinette by having her act like an irrational and over controlling girlfriend who sure won't ever tolerate any of the same energy being shown back to her?

By all accounts, Cerise doesn't even need to do something bad, she just needs to exist in the most inconvenient way and it would be in character for Marinette to be a bad girlfriend about it. It's especially likely because it would very well continue the Lila and Kagami plot from season 5. Kagami having fallen for Lila's manipulation didn't came out of nowhere, it was rooted in how badly Marinette treated Kagami in the beginning which Kagami forgave but not forgot.

So if Marinette goes into bad and controlling girlfriend mode in season 6 and treats the 'new girl/s' just as badly as she treated Kagami because they committed the crime of being near Adrien without Adrien and the girl always prioritizing that Marinette is comfortable with everything happening first

Then, bro, im gonna side with Kagami and Adrien when Cerise continues the season 5 manipulation! I hate that I can't find a genuine reason to convince myself that this is unrealistic and bad faith. It's perfectly in line with what we've seen so far and I'm annoyed at that :/

[raayllum]

i'm scared fam