#So yeah idk when we will do the more updated version but probably way later but hopefully this makes sense

[gracebethartacc]

Does the transformation to a star also hurt Magnifico? Cause in the song he’s laughing but I don’t think a skeleton disintegrating would be very pleasant

Oh yeah for sure but he’s very much riding that “gettting loads of magic all at once” high, BUT hence why the burn line at the end becomes a yell like it hurts as well he’s just too focused on the magic part and being evil to really register it

[eatingfireflies]

2.2 is coming and if I don't write this now, how can I get jossed later?

This is the moment when I started to wonder if their 2.0 conversation was a role play.

Like, we know this issue is a sore point for Ratio. The fact that this guy he called a loud peacock in 2.0 made a joke about his failure to get into the Genius Society and all he said was 'I was being sarcastic'?? Babe, is something wrong? You barely touched your sharp and witty comeback.

(Btw I checked both Cn and Jp, he says 'It was just a joke.')

And I don't want to bring up the voice acting because the way voices sound is subjective and what I hear might not be what you hear, but the Double Indemnity scenes with Ratio are probably the most relaxed we ever see Aventurine ever. (I'm talking about the Cn version, but I played in Jp audio and I could hear it there too.) He's playful and his voice is higher pitched, so different from what we've seen of him so far.

It sounds like Ratio and Aventurine have known each other longer than they want us to believe in their 2.0 convo.

I mean, the implication here is Ratio did some research on Aventurine's background recently and that's how he found out about Aventurine's past. So we make the assumption that they haven't been working together for long.

Look, they even did a Penacony remix of their Final Victor conversation

But honestly, you'd think Ratio would have figured out if he trusted Aventurine or not at this point, considering he came back for more after Final Victor (lmao??)

Also, we know Aventurine had been planning for Penacony since his call to Topaz, where he asked for her help. It's hard to believe that he went through all the trouble of asking two different Stonehearts to lend him their cornerstones and then went to Penacony and the Dreamscape with Ratio, whom he barely knows. That's too much gambling, Aventurine!

We know the Family won't let anyone from the IPC to enter the Dreamscape and Aventurine only gets a pass because of the Watchmaker's invite

But Himeko is wrong here: Aventurine didn't go inside the Dreamscape alone and he does have someone backing him up. It just happened that almost no one else saw Ratio in Penacony and the one scene where we did see him talking to Aventurine was 2.0, where he got angry and left Aventurine babbling to himself.

But now that we're here, what did Ratio do in Penacony aside from bicker and betray?

His initial job is to gather intel, afaik. Aventurine tells him to go look into things in 2.0 before he left. And he does give Aventurine updates in 2.1 (Aventurine finds out about Firefly from Ratio) so good for you, professor!

Ratio is Aventurine's connection to his colleagues outside. Once Aventurine's plans enter the Dead phase, Ratio is the only one left to tell Topaz and Jade if the plan had been a success or not. (Aventurine also makes a joke about the Genius from the Council of the Mundanites offering to be his undertaker. In the Jp version, he says 'So the Genius from the Council of the Mundanites wants to claim my corpse? What an honour.' So there's also that... Uh. Idk how dead dead Aventurine really is, but at least we know someone's looking after his body while he's gone lmao??)

But also he's Aventurine's bait to Sunday, the (fake) weak link in Aventurine's plans that Sunday thought he could exploit.

And the 3rd one is a bit complicated, because it is a gamble. Remember Aventurine's E1? Prisoner's Dilemma? Yeah, it's kinda like that. I talked about it before, but let's copy paste it here for easier reading (and because this post totally needs to be a wall of text)

Let's zoom out a bit again and remember that Aventurine was sent to Penacony because Diamond thinks this whole affair could still have a peaceful resolution. Meaning: Aventurine is the kind option. The IPC could have sent Opal instead, but it sounds like that means there would be a body count.

And I think that's why Ratio is here and why he agreed to cooperate. Because if Aventurine's plan works out, only Aventurine's life will ever be in real danger. (And we know from Ratio's note that he also took steps to increase the chances of Aventurine coming back.)

Ratio being there is important to the plan because

Him being from the Intelligentsia Guild removes some of the heat from the Family. If Ratio is coming in as a plus one, the IPC (in this case, I'm assuming it's Aventurine because he's the guy in charge of the operation) chose the best person for the job. It makes the Family happier knowing there are not two IPC envoys walking around the Dreamscape and Aventurine has a buddy who can move around more freely than another IPC employee could

But because Ratio is an outsider, he's also the weak link in Aventurine's plans. Another IPC employee will probably not betray Aventurine, but the Guild has no particular horse in this race. We were also led to believe from their 2.0 conversation that Ratio doesn't like Aventurine very much. This is what I meant when I said Ratio is a bait: Aventurine was pretty much dangling him in front of Sunday, making Sunday think he could use Ratio to ruin Aventurine's plans. The important thing of course is the trust the two of them have for each other (yay, Prisoner's Dilemma). Ratio could ruin Aventurine's plan if he wants to (very bad for all involved because I'm guessing Opal is the next step) and Aventurine could fail (not as bad for everyone involved after 2.1 because the IPC has already won regardless. There's still a Phase 2 in Aventurine's plan and Ratio seems to want him back after that, so I guess he'd consider it a failure if Aventurine doesn't return?), but trusting each other means they win.

Tl;dr Ratio's presence in Penacony is a bit of a gamble on Aventurine's part but it worked well for him so far. Ratio is here to make sure everyone stays alive. (And maybe the Phase Flame? I honestly don't know if the Annihilation Gang will ever come back again, but for now I'm going with the obvious and assuming Ratio is here because he thinks Aventurine's plan will work and work with the least amount of pain for everyone.)

Thank you for getting this far. Why do we think they deserve Oscars?

Aside from the movie references (we'll get to that), we have 3 different instances where Aventurine mentions acting / the 'script'.

The most direct is the conversation with future!Aventurine in the garden maze: future!Aventurine praises Ratio's acting while Aventurine says 'Or he might not be acting at all' (the inability of these two to admit they are friends, but more importantly they don't think the other person thinks highly of them, is2g).

The next one is hidden in the mission description

And the other one got lost in translation. This was translated to 'You catch on quickly' in En. In Jp he says something like 'You have a good sense for drama, professor' (Sorry Idk what this is in the og Cn)

Finally, Double Indemnity. I haven't seen the movie, but it seems to be about an insurance salesman who gets seduced by a hot wife femme fatale into helping her get rid of her husband so she could claim his insurance. Double Indemnity refers to this clause where the insurance gets doubled if the person suddenly dies of an accident.

I've thought about this so hard, let me tell you. What could this possibly have to do with Aventurine and the mission? (For example, 'Hot wife Sunday seduces Ratio the insurance salesman into helping him get rid of Aventurine' etc.) And I honestly still don't know but one detail does help my theory so I'm pulling it out:

The relationship between the insurance salesman and the hot wife femme fatale was known only to the two of them. To the insurance claims adjuster, who was investigating the case and trying to prove the husband's death wasn't an accident, those two are unrelated people who might have seen each other once or twice. The claims adjuster suspected the wife, but had no idea of the insurance salesman's involvement. The truth is, they actually knew each other a full year before the plan was set in motion. Hey, doesn't it actually fit nicely now?

(Spellbound otoh, I still don't know. I have a Sunday and Gallagher reading of it, but Hvy keeps telling me no and making it gay instead so Idk.)

[insertdisc5]

Hi!! I wanted to ask, in celebration of Deltarune CH. 2, do you have any updated thoughts and head canons about the game?? Like, y'know, similar to a previous ask about Kris in your Deltarune tag? Thanks!

thoughts on kris part 2 i guess???? (part 1 from ch1 here lol)

spoilers for deltarune like woah. this wont be kris focused just random thoughts on everything. thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk

not that many thoughts for this chapter tbh! EDIT LOL: this was a lie i have a lot of thoughts

-just in general i feel like the player isn't the only one controlling kris... like yes the player forced kris to do what happened in the snowgrave route but AT THE SAME TIME idk it feels like there's someone else too. just because of the terrifying voice i suppose. and also the jerky movement kris does every time they get their soul out? unless there's another reason for it... maybe getting your soul out means you walk weird lol

-BUT ALSO i feel like kris is 100% in control when they create fountains. idk it just makes sense kris would create them. to create another world, a better world, A WORLD WHERE THEIR BROTHER IS HERE PERHAPS? i do wonder why they get their soul out then though. i'm all for it sweetie! do whatever! i support you!

-(i am and will be playing deltarune with only kris' best interests in mind. i will not hurt anyone unless kris wants me to. dont worry my little meow meow im on your side! talk to me! no? okay ill stay under the sink its fine)

-speaking of asriel. SUMMER VACATION COLLEGE WHEN? SUMMER VACATION COLLEGE WHEN? SUMMER (starts crying) V-VACATION COLLEGE WHEN

-kris misses their brother so much it's so sad. if you make kris steal 5$ from asriel they take it "reluctantly"? talking to asriel online so often even alphys knows?? the google search?? GOING INTO ASRIEL'S GOOGLE SEARCH ROOM WITH THEIR EYES CLOSED BECAUSE THEY'RE CONVINCED THEY ALREADY KNOW WHATS IN THERE? THAT ONE IS LESS OF A MISSING THING BUT IM LIKE OH MY GOD

-the city walk with susie at the end makes it clear to me that kris really values susie's friendship... kris even sits with her if you spend long enough near the lake like aaaaah ;_;

-and even in snowgrave you spend your last acts with the final boss calling for your friends like YES there's a way bigger creepy aspect to this (kris as more of a Leader who Commands and commands their subjects to come) but still :'0 (and then noelle answers oh my god noelle im so sorry for the trauma)

-berdly. listen. listen. listen. liste

-berdly sucks but [berdly hurts his arm in the battle against queen if you don't save him because he doesnt want to hurt you] [berdly realizing smg's wrong in snowgrave and immediately taking steps to save noelle] berdly is my little crumb nugget. i will protect him.

-noelle. noelle. girlboss!

-like ooooh listen. hearing about the genocide path for undertale. made me go "that is SO COOL. i HAVE to experience it myself this is great. hehehe killing time" and like no regrets. i was fully enjoying the experience knowing i was an awful person. SNOWGRAVE THOUGH. i will never try this myself its too fucked up. casually grooming your childhood friend to murder people <3 and also acting like a weird stalker towards her <3 stockholm syndrome speedrun i will get all the info i can about this but i will never do this myself

-people remarking the kris/player>noelle relationship is similar to the relationship between player>chara in genocide path is like yes. chefs kiss. don't worry we just are making you stronger and everything will be fine "you made me kill my friend? and for what?" this is fine sweetie don't worry about it!!!!!!

-like the amount of details added to snowgrave, like if you equip noelle's watch she notices later? and her battle animations change as time goes on, she gets an ice shield and stops sighing in relief after battle? oh my god? oh my god.

-(berdly is not awake.) JUST KILL ME RIGHT HERE I HAVEN'T STOPPED THINKING ABOUT BERDLY NOT BEING AWAKE!!!!!

-also why didnt he turn into dust. so many possible reasons. is magic a thing in the normal world and perhaps no magic means no dust (theres graves). maybe he isnt dead. maybe hes braindead. maybe he'll come back. either way that boy is now in the closet big enough to put someone in

-also dess' name probably being december AND THATS WHY NOELLE LOST THE SPELLING BEE?!?!??! FUCK ME UP!!!!! JUST FUCK ME UP!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!!

-also so many good pixel art this chapter. too many? i didnt need pixel art of cardboard noelle falling on the statue. like thank you but please. please it hurts my game artist brain.

-the expressions in this chapter were also top notch. all the unsettling noelle expressions like (i fall over face first)

-i threw away the ball of junk (which i already tried in ch1) and this time the game was like "ARE YOU SURE BC THIS IS A BAD IDEA" and kris felt bitter :'( (it deletes all your items in the dark world)

-i uh fucked up and skipped the susie+noelle scene bc listen last time ralsei mentionned seeing what susie is doing we missed some PRIMO LORE. turns out it just makes you skip the scene and you dont get anything new. welp

-speaking of ralsei well you know. he exists. but im stuck on him going "i just wonder what being ralsei-like even is...?" ralsei my dude there's so much i could say about this. do you feel like you can't be ralsei-like because you feel like you have to be asriel-like

-but also that makes no sense bc susie hasnt even mentioned ralsei looks like asriel. and i cant imagine asriel being so meek. so WHAT GIVES

-ralsei as kris’ “i wish i was a monster just like my bro and family and i’d look like asriel but with red horns [THE HALLOWEEN COSTUME] and my name would be something cool like ralsei instead of a boring human name like kris and im sweet and cute because thats how i act with asriel because ASRIEL MADE ME” theory because that would be cute.

-ASRIEL GOING TO THE CHURCH TO CONFESS HIS "SINS" WHEN "SINS" AREN'T A THING IN THE ANGEL BELIEF LIKE I KNOW THIS INTERACTION WAS TREATED AS A JOKE BUT WHAT THE FUCK ASRIEL?

-kris definitely has a connection with the big red door in the city, judging by what the kids say they probably went there... i feel like this place's dark world will be the Final Dungeon you KNOW some shit happened there. also the sounds you hear when you go there is the phone dark world call's sound slowed down? AND AFTER SNOWGRAVE APPARENTLY YOU CANT HEAR IT ANYMORE? HUWAH?

-speaking of songs the songs were all so good, My Castle Town rules, the berdly snowgrave music is stuck in my head, flashback is uwah wuahah, Until Next Time is so good, AND ALSO A FRIEND NOTICED THE DARK WORLD CITY THEME IS JUST tHE SONG 74 (MOST NOTICEABLE WITH THE SNOWGRAVE VERSION)?????? WHAT DOES IT MEAN????? it might be just "hey its just reuse" BUT MR FOX YOU KNOW WE'RE GONNA READ INTO THIS IS NOELLE THE ONE SINGING IDK BRO!!!!!!!!!!

-asgore dreemurr fired from the force what happun!!!!! game theory is that asgore is related to dess' death/disappearance but eh who knows

-you start the chapter at lvl2 and get to lvl3 after the final boss, a friend mentioned this is probably because we destroyed a world and im :0

-to go back to kris it's still so interesting to figure out who they are based on how they act/people mention them. like kris shaking the ferris wheel car? yeah makes sense i can imagine a pranking kid do this. kris' dance? yeah thats a little silly but i can buy it. doing cool anime poses? well i dunno this doesnt line up PERFECTLY but sure. BUT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN SNOWGRAVE... especially >proceed like that is such a weird thing that i can't imagine them doing, but i can't completely see the "player" doing either (compare with going to sans -which kris doesnt know- and going "SANS!" because of course the player would know sans), like THATS one of the reasons i feel like there's someone else in there. the weird robotic merciless actions. if im going super meta it feels like there'd be someone else like writing the choices into existence for us to pick you know? gaster probably? god i need to read more gaster theories i completely sidestepped the gaster shit bc i wasnt interested. anyway just spitballing

-(looks at big shot guy) please dont make him the next tumblr guy i beg you

-obligatory "queen was great" mention if only because this part made me laugh a little bit too hard

that was a lot. thank you for letting me talk

[ohbluesky]

Le Rivage des Survivants / The Wicked String Spoilers

hi yes so I’ve got this thing

SO here’s some spoilers from it for ppl who are too excited to wait until December and for ppl who are not excited and don’t wanna buy that book but still want to know the content without having to sell your soul to the Devil fghvgh

I’m not gonna post the entire text but I’ll try to translate some stuff that I think are interesting ? Also I’ve reblogged a post with a few translations and summaries of the first 2 chapters and I’m going to continue where I left off on this post so make sure to read that reblog first!

I might reblog this post with updates since I won’t do this in one go so make sure to check the notes

Anyway Spoilers under the cut 👇

Part One: Seventy Three Years Later

First thing to note is that The Wicked String is confirmed as the title in english, I wasn’t sure considering it’s. hum. yeah

The story seems to switch between 3 POVs in the same order for now which is Alexandra first, then Minho 2.0 and Isaac. So after Isaac and his friends discover the boat we switch back to Alexandra and. I mean it’s very confusing. It seems that there’s a society which is centered around a religion/fanaticism about the Maze, and like, there are very pious people who roam the Maze ?? Like a pilgrimage ? It sounds like they live around the Maze itself and the Glade is being mentionned a few times as some kind of sacred place that only Alexandra, Mikhail and third person can enter (note that she actually enters said place to find Mikhail who fled there after brutally murdering some ppl and she can enter via a technology that recognizes fingerprints dfghvhvh idk it feels funny considering the whole setting feels super mystical) (also this is all so WIERD because I haven’t read The Death Cure in a while but I’m almost sure that the mazes where destroyed along with the Wicked compound ????? or did i hallucinate that)

Minho 2.0 is.. very intriguing ? There isn’t mush infos about him besides the fact that he basically got ripped from his identity and he spends his life protecting the “most important human society left” and he’s not really allowed anything like having human contact and thoughts on his own etc. I kinda want to see him interact with Isaac that would interesting. Clashing personalities. (also his chapters are actually written quite Differently from Isaac and even Alexandra, which is probably why he intrigues me so much, he seems to be better written than the others and to be more in tune with the OG trilogy, but that’s just my opinion)

We switch back to Isaac and learn a few things: 

- the boat is called “Taille-Labyrinthe” (I think it’s taille as in ‘cutting through’ like ‘Cutting Through Maze’ or something. Because otherwise it would be taille as in ‘Size’ so ‘Maze-Sized’ which.... Why Not but I’d wait for the english version to get a proper translation)(also the boat is BIG like Cargo Big) 

- the boat’s name is reminiscent of Thomas apparently:

That word had a very strong meaning on the island. It refered to its most famous inhabitant, Thomas, who died more than twenty years ago. We told all kind of stories about him and the Maze from which he escaped with his friends. The Gladers. WICKED. Ava Paige. The Flare. There were so many stories that it was impossible that they were all true. However, even after a few decades, there was stil one thing that never changed in the way that these stories were told. Thomas was always described as the Maze Runner.

- it means that Thomas was a little over 70 AT MOST when he died. He most likely died younger :’( bruh

- I also think Isaac isn’t Thomas’ descendant considering how he’s talking about him ? And I’m almost sure he’s Sonya’s descendant though, so hopefully no Thomas/Sonya happening DFGVBHJHJKNK (yep sorry. i was actually worried about that so. im relieved ok)

- I love that their first thought about who it might be on the boat was “Oh a bunch of pilgrims who think of Thomas as a God and came to have a religious experience” that’s me actually Mood (on a serious note, it’s interesting to note that they’re somehow aware of the religious power the Gladers hold, even outside of the island ?(considering they don’t seem to be aware of the societies in the outside world, unless i’m mistaken) I mean they DO seem to see the Gladers as somewhat legendary, but not like. on a religious level, which is wierd to me)(anyway)

- The woman on the boat is a black woman who came on a mission to find Newt’s and Sonya’s descendants because after Wicked’s downfall they somehow managed to save some data and they had some very spectacular genes ??? That are indispensable for the cure (THROWING A THEORY HERE BUT I FEEL LIKE... THIS BLACK WOMAN IS KEISHA’S DAUGHTER ??? but it’s not said how old she is so fghbhjbhj) The woman told them that she had to drug and kill off the other passengers of the boat because they wanted to give up their mission and she refused. (She said that it was proof how important that mission was but hhhmmm Please)

Back to Alxandra and yeah, from my understanding they just kinda live in a highly religious city set around the Maze/Wicked compound and Alexandra is going through the ruins deeper until she reaches the Glade and finds Mikhail praying in front of the box. He tells her that He is coming back and that while they promised to not open the box and retreive its content until they’re ready they have to do it like. Now. Also Alexandra is part of a triumvirate that governs everyone else alongside Mikhail and Nicholas, who seems to be above them in hierarchy. They’re called the Head of God.

Minho 2.0 is huh. very much struggling with his identity (or lack thereof) he’s basically anxious about the fact that he’s chosen himself a name and kinda feel like bonding with other people (which is something that is completely forbidden in his society and could be punished by death). He’s not able to sleep so he takes a walk to get some fresh air until he hears someone screaming. He stumbles in all the pipes/corridors of the fortress and sees a kid getting hit to death by an old man. He saves the kid and asks for his name, Kit. Kit asks for his name back and it sends him spiraling fghjbghj Minho 2.0 flees and leaves Kit there.

After saving the woman from the water Isaac and his friends went back to their village, four days passed and the council of the island finally decided what to do with her. As they decided to announce it pubicly, and Isaac settles on a seat with his friends, Sadina reveals to him that she is, in fact, Sonya’s grand daughter (!!!!!!)(so either Isaac is Sadina’s secret brother or cousin or he’s actually a nobody which. Is Fine With Me actually)

Also here’s an excerpt about Newt and Sonya because why not

Isaac thought about the stranger abord the boat. A rescue party came from the village not long after she told them the reason she came here (to find two old Gladers’ descendants, Newt’s and Sonya’s.) Isaac was surprised that she described them as brother and sister - he’d never read that from the tales of these two people. But the woman seemed very sure of herself. The Medjacks took her to the infirmary and he never saw her again. These two names were taking over his thoughts ever since.

Newt. Sonya.

We learned about Newt’s story at primary school. His journal was a compulsory reading for all children able to read. He was almost a mythical character, and if he had descendants, that would be news for everyone on the island. Sonya was less mysterious but almost as legendary. She was among the survivors who first arrived on the island along with Thomas and the others seventy three years ago. She died a few years ago leaving a few children and grand children behind.

 Anyway after Sadina drops the news Mrs Cowan (who is Sadina’s mother) announces that she can’t just lie to the entire island and she doesn’t think that going to the outside world is a priority and storms off. Sadina follows her (so Isaac and his friends also follow) until they come to a stop on a private part of the beach. Mrs Cowan tells them that it was a trick, and with the help of the mysterious woman (Kletter) with whom she talked to during the 4 days she was there and whom she now trusted, she drogued everyone in the island to make them sleep (the drug Kletter used to kill her shipmates ?? hello ????), and make them believe that Mrs Cowan, Sadina and a few others were taken hostage by Kletter (so they can go back to the island without anyone turning against them)(they come back to the village and see that indeed, literally everyone is asleep)

They all go aboard Kletter’s boat (so to sum up there’s Sadina, Trish, Isaac, Miyoko, Dominic, (Isaac’s friends) Carson, Lacey and another kid from the opposite side of the Island, Mrs Cowan, two other people from the council and a couple other I think AND!!! Granpa Frypan who joins them last minute yepyep)

That’s it for the first part of the book ✌ there are four parts as a whole fghvbhj

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: January 28th, 2021 (Part 1)

And we’re back with many more ask answers! Thank you for waiting.

Is lizzie/the main character tripping over a rock a random event in barbecue? or does it require certain choices? i picked the same choices in multiple different playthroughs but ended up with three different outcomes (1. nothing happens 2. liz trips 3. i trip)

Yep! It’s completely random. Just a little moment of life you don’t have control over, haha.

wait just double checking you stated that derek would be another romantic interest you can pursue in step 4 right??? im just asking cuz hes my fav character 

oh wait and btw i was the one that asked the question about derek being in the step 4 just now, and will you have to pay extra for like a dlc or something bc i play the free version rn and i just wanted to check!! 

Yeah, you will eventually be able to romance him, but unfortunately it is a paid DLC. Cove is the only love interest who’s entirely free-to-play. You can  follow our social media for when we giveaways for a chance to win a key for it, though.

i know that y’all said the step 3 dlc and step 4 will be released early 2021, is there any update to that? for example, a rough amount of days/weeks until release? no pressure at all, i’m super excited!! <3 

The Step 3 DLC will be about in maybe two-two and half months or so. Step 4, we’re not entirely sure. Maybe a few months after the Step 3. We don’t want to give set dates until we’re really close to the release since otherwise we wouldn’t be able to 100% guarantee them.

First off love the game. Second I'm a little confused on how the nsfw dlc is gonna work. Because based on some stuff you've said it sounds like a patreon only thing and others make me think it could be an itch/steam thing after the fact? Would you mind clarifying for me 😅. Also if it's a patreon only thing do you need to become one before it's released? 

It’s not going to be on Steam/Itch. The actual game of Our Life is safe for teens with no adult content. Any 18+ stuff we’re releasing is separate bonus content. Right now the only for sure plan is having it available through Patreon. If there’s another hosting site that’s not Steam or Itch that’d be easier for people than Patreon we might consider uploading it there too, but nothing else is set.

If you want the bonus Moment you’d have to join once it’s already out or sometime after the release. Joining now would get you our current rewards, but wouldn’t get you future content that’s coming later.

this is probably an awkward question and i apologize, feel free not to answer, but i just wanted to address the elephant in the room....will step 4 acknowledge covid/2020 world events?? i kind of hope not bc i'd like to just exist in a fictional version of the world where things are happy in this quaint seaside town and the world isn't falling apart, but i'd understand if there are some references to it. just thought i'd ask so i can Prepare if that makes sense

Step 4 isn’t going to include Covid or even reference it. When we set Step 4 in that year we definitely didn’t know there’d be a global pandemic during it. It’s too late to move the timeframe earlier or later, but we’re not going to make Step 4 stressful for anyone because the real world became so much more stressful. The universe of Our Life will just be an even more idealized place than it was before.

hiiiii! i'm really sorry if this is a bother. i was just curious if cove has a canon setting for each step, like is it canon that he stays candid the whole game and is super sporty for instance and the rest are variations? thank you for your time!

None of those settings are canon. They’re all equally valid.

I love the game and Cove so much that I ended up spending most of the holidays playing it. Definitely worth it! Idk if you're taking suggestions/criticisms, but I chose the peach skin tone and seeing it written as "my peach skin" in the game broke immersion for me because I kept thinking it was referring to the fruit instead of my skin color. I think that skin color is most commonly referred to as "fair" but "peachy" or "rosy" would work too if you're looking for a different word 

Thank you for sharing your experience. We’ll change it to “peachy” in the next update!

So I accidentally overwrote a save file with a different one, is there any way I can recover that save? 

Sadly, there isn’t. Not unless you had a backup of the actual save file files in a separate location you can get. I’m really sorry. You can try using the skip feature to quickly speed through the game and get back to where you were though.

Do you try to maintain the color scheme for the clothing throughout the years in Our Life? 

Yes, though in hindsight not as much as I wished I did, haha. It could’ve been a little more cohesive. It was a bit too broad in my opinion.

I noticed that Cliff mentions he wasn’t much older than Cove before finding out he was going to be a father when he finds MC in bed with Cove during Part 3 so doesn’t that Cliff and Kyra were teenage/young parents? 

Yeah, Cliff was nineteen and Kyra was eighteen when Cove was born. They were just a couple of kids.

Does Cove have a favourite holiday? 

It changes depending on the year. Around Step 1 he’s not a huge fan of a lot of holidays because he’s not together with his whole family for them. But once he’s older and Kyra comes around more, he starts appreciating major family holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas more than other holidays because he knows how it feels not to have that. Though summer vacation is of course his most favorite all the time, if that counts as a “holiday”.

I tried to join your patreon but I can’t seem to? The website keeps saying something went wrong and to try again. 

I’m sorry you’re having trouble! I think contacting Patreon support would probably be the best option if the joining process itself is having issues.

How much is it to become a part of your Patreon? I don’t have a lot of money currently but would love to help you out more than just buying the games and dlcs. 

Aw, I appreciate you wanting to support but the Patreon is really optional. You don’t need to push yourself to join if you don’t have extra funds for it. To still answer the question, the tiers are $1, $5, $10, $15, and $20 in USD. Each come with different perks.

I had this idea for a future daughter for the MC and Cove being named "Poppy", after the flowers on their hill~

That’s a really sweet idea! I’m sure Cove would be a fan.

So if you don't mind me asking, how do you get Cove to propose to you in Step 4 and not the other way around? 

I’m afraid that’d be too big of a spoiler to give away before the epilogue’s release, at least in terms of specifics. Generally you’ll just have to be patient and try not to propose first, haha.

will we get to move in with cove in step 4 😮?? or is that a secret 

You can be living together with Cove in Step 4! Though you wouldn’t get to see the place itself. That’s up to your imagination.

Is it bad that I'm completely in love with Cove's dad... What I gotta pay to romance Cliff 😭 (I don't mean as Jamie because that would be wack) 

That’ll cost one million 20 twenty dollar bills, haha. I’m really glad you like him, though sadly we aren’t able to make a separate game where you can romance Cliff. I wish we had enough time to make tons of new scenes/extra stories in the Our Life world, but it just takes too long. Maybe people will make fanworks about it.

—–

We released a new FAQ! It answers common questions and we’ll keep adding more to it. Please check there before sending an ask. FAQ   Also, if you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog  

[kuiinncedes]

just the keys to paradise

jatp au - prologue - part 1/15? - 1834 words

relationships: blaine & sam & tina & artie

okkkk we're doing it 🤪 idk how regularly i will update this (omg ongoing fic??? who is she) but i do have like technically a ~few~ chapters i guess done,,, and i am working on the next so . we're gonna try this lol

anyway if it wasn't clear this is an au based on the most amazing tv show ever with only 9 episodes pls watch or rewatch it on netflix the emmy-award winning julie and the phantoms !!! 🤪

that being said if you haven't watched it what are you doing jk i think you can still read this and hopefully it makes sense 😂 feel free to ask me if there's anything that doesn't make sense lol :)

also fyi in case it influences your decision to read: this will be more focused on platonic relationships for a while but will almost certainly have main endgames klaine, quinntina, and samcedes 😋

prologue title and lyrics in this part from "now or never" from the jatp soundtrack

plot and some dialogue from julie and the phantoms so like credit to all those creators and writers 🤪

warnings for this part: car accident, major character deaths (both of these are not actually in writing/"on screen" just implied at the end (especially within the context of this being a jatp au) and nothing really described -- if you want/need more details feel free to ask me)

read on ao3 or under the cut :D

--

1995

“Dudes, we fucking killed that !” Sam cheers when the smoke has cleared, going around and giving each of them something that could be called a high-five, just not to their hands. Tina laughs and cheers too as Sam excitedly taps her feet after she gets out from behind her kit, still elevated on the drum stage. Some of the workers applaud them from the audience space.

“Too bad we wasted that on the soundcheck,” Artie jokes, putting his guitar down and grabbing his water bottle. “That was the tightest we’ve ever played, yo!”

Tina grins and hops down from the drum platform. Sam slings an arm around her shoulders and she grabs his wrist. They’re both sweaty and too warm but she doesn’t mind having Sam’s heat pressed against her right side.

God, she thinks… that really was something else, even though it was just the soundcheck. She looks around at her bandmates’ faces -- shiny with sweat, red with exhilaration and exertion, bright with elation, eyes wide with excitement and --

Wow. They’re playing the Orpheum.

Blaine pats Artie on the back, jostling him enough to spill the water he’s trying to drink down the front of his shirt, but Artie just laughs -- he’s soaked with sweat anyway. They have spare clothes backstage just for this reason.

“Just wait until tonight, guys, when this place is packed with record execs,” Blaine says, looking out wonderingly into the empty (for now) audience. His grin widens almost imperceptibly, which is impressive considering how huge it already is.

“We’re gonna be legends!” the other three of them chorus, before Blaine can, and they laugh when he turns to them, affronted. “That’s my line!”

“It’s what you get for saying it ten times a day for the last month!” Tina teases. Blaine pushes her shoulder playfully, putting his hand within reach for Sam to grab. It’s a strange position considering Sam’s arm is still around Tina’s shoulders, but Tina adds her hand to their hold as Sam beckons Artie over from his side of the stage, barking out his name with joking anger.

Artie puts his water down and walks over to complete the group, placing his hand on top of Tina’s. “Tina, you were smokin’,” he says.

She rolls her eyes a little and grins back. “Pretty sure you’re just talking about the pyro. You guys were the ones on fire,” she says, pointing her drumsticks around at them.

“T, can you just own your awesomeness for once?” Blaine exclaims.

“Queen T!” Sam calls, pulling her closer into his side. She stumbles into him, laughing as the guys all start cheering it after Sam.

“Okay, okay! Thanks, guys, I got it!” she squeals, trying to get them to quiet down although -- they are in the Orpheum, where they’re playing later, it’s not like they have to be quiet -- while Sam leans his weight on her, causing them to stagger into the drum riser. Tina catches herself on it and Sam finally detaches from her and they’re still being loud and raucous and probably somewhat annoying to the staff, but she’s just laughing too hard to care.

“We’ve got an hour ‘til the show; I say we go celebrate before we become legends!” Blaine proclaims, jumping off the stage. The other three follow.

Tina starts, “Celebrate our last night of being -- ”

“Losers?” Artie interjects.

They’ve caught the attention of one of the Orpheum workers -- a woman with brown hair who’s wiping down the tables, smiling at them as Tina catches her eye. “There’s some nice restaurants around here,” she says with a wink. “You guys really killed it, by the way. But it seems like you know that.”

Blaine laughs, a little sheepishly. “Thanks. Uh, I’m Blaine,” he says. “This is -- ”

“Sam, hi!”

“Tina, how’s it going -- ”

“Artie, hey.”

Tina raises her eyebrows and stifles a laugh at Artie as he leans his sweaty arms onto the table that the woman just cleaned.

“We’re Sunset Curve!” Blaine says to complete their introduction.

“Tell your friends!” Sam calls, raising his voice and drawing the other workers’ attention to them. Tina elbows him lightly in the side.

“Nice to meet you,” the stranger says. “I’m Elle. So… what were you guys thinking for this -- what was it -- ‘celebration of your last night as losers’?”

“Well, we really can’t afford any nice places -- ” Sam starts.

“Oh, you know what? We should just go to Tip Top!” Blaine says, clapping his hands together. The others are quick to agree -- it’s the small, cheap diner where they spent the evening after their first “real” gig, and they’ve spent countless hours there since, annoying the staff and depleting their supply of plastic silverware. The employees there have learned to let them take what they legally can (and sometimes what they couldn’t), and the band is friendly with most of them. They haven’t been there in too long, having been working hard to get the Orpheum gig, and then writing and rehearsing like crazy once they got it.

Elle smiles as they excitedly and loudly recount stories of Tip Top to each other -- sentimental memories and the ridiculousness they got up to -- talking over each other and having multiple conversations at once.

“I guess you don’t need my recommendations?” she says lightly.

“Oh! Yeah, sorry, we’re good, thanks so much for offering,” Blaine answers, polite as ever.

“Have fun! Looking forward to seeing you guys perform again tonight.”

“Thank you!” the four of them exclaim as they make their way back to the exit. Tina yanks on the back of Artie’s shirt as he lingers at the table, a dumb look on his face that tells her he’s trying to flirt, or at least, his version of it.

“Tina!” Artie yelps and she laughs at the annoyed look on his face.

“You are not exempt from this last night of loser-dom celebration. You’re telling me you’d rather flirt with a girl than this?”

“Yes,” Artie grumbles. There’s no heat behind it, and Tina playfully pushes him sideways.

“Plus, we need you to drive.”

“You can drive!”

“Technically we all can drive!” Tina laughs at Artie’s horrified expression, probably at the prospect -- and memory -- of the one time Blaine drove them to a gig. “Just not your car!” she calls, jogging to catch up with Blaine and Sam, Artie running after her. “Your car is the fucking worst.”

“Don’t talk about her like that!”

“Blaine and Sam agree!”

That gets their attention and the two guys turn, Blaine asking, “What are we agreeing with?”

“I agree with Tina,” Sam says immediately. Tina nods gratefully at him.

“You don’t even know what we’re talking about!” Artie complains.

They’re at his beat-up car now and they pile in, Tina in the passenger seat laughing as Sam all but tackles Blaine into the backseat when he starts for the driver’s side, jostling her and Artie in the front. They continue shuffling around while Artie attempts to start the car, to many concerning -- but normal for his car -- noises.

“This thing is gonna go down and take us with it, Artie,” Tina mumbles teasingly, absentmindedly twirling a drumstick in her right hand. (She realizes too late that she probably should’ve left them at the Orpheum, but it’s not a big deal -- they’re not her favorite pair which are safe in their studio and she has extras backstage in case something happens to this pair while they’re out.)

The car finally starts with a rumble and Artie lets out a cheer. “We’re fine, T. Let’s go, y’all!”

“Floor it, Artie!” Sam calls from the back. The car accelerates comically slowly even as Artie presumably “floors it,” but they’re going somewhere.

After a few minutes, Tina finds herself unconsciously humming her solo in the bridge of “Now or Never,” only noticing when Sam interjects suddenly with his “Tomorrow!” leaning between the front seats and slightly startling her. She laughs and continues with the words, “‘Cause we got all we need today! ”

“Today!” Artie echoes, miming his guitar playing with one hand on the steering wheel.

“Living on a feeling that’s been running through our veins!” Blaine sings loudly, joining Sam in crowding into the front of the car.

“We’re the revolution that’s been singing in the rain!” It’s Sam’s line, but they all belt it at the top of their lungs together.

“That’s my line!” Sam exclaims at the same time that Blaine cheers, “My favorite line!” Tina continues to clap the beat for the next part of the song, Artie hitting the steering wheel in rhythm with her. Her face hurts from smiling.

“Artie, dude, where’d you go?” Blaine asks suddenly. Tina looks around at their slowly darkening surroundings that are completely unfamiliar. Slight panic rises in her stomach but she swallows it down; she’s with her boys, they’re safe, just a little lost.

Sam bursts out in uproarious laughter as Artie complains, “You guys distracted me!”

“Told you I should’ve driven!” Blaine says. He leans forward again and Sam follows. Tina stays quiet, pressing herself against the door a little to make room; her boys aren’t that much better but she’s always been completely hopeless with navigation and directions.

“You would’ve gotten even more distracted from singing and veered us right into a fucking building,” Artie grumbles, but he obeys as Blaine directs him to turn left and chooses to ignore his comment.

“Safe driving, am I right, dudes?” Sam cackles as he returns to the backseat, and Tina can’t help but laugh with him. “We’re gonna miss our gig, that’s how we’ll be legends!”

“‘Sunset Curve Skips Orpheum Showcase For No Reason’?” Tina suggests, turning around in her seat to face Sam.

He points at her. “Exactly. Or, 'Sunset Curve Skips Orpheum Showcase Because They Don't Know How To Drive.' The end of a promising career,” he jokes somberly. “No one would ever book them again.”

They fall silent and only the mutters of Blaine and Artie fill the car, along with the loud engine.

“Still haven’t figured it out yet?” Sam groans loudly, laying on his back across the backseats as Blaine is leaning awkwardly out of his seat to help Artie navigate.

“Not like you’re helping!” Artie says.

“That’s the street!” Blaine exclaims, pointing ahead. “The next intersection.”

“Give it up for Mr. Blaine Anderson, everyone,” Artie drawls, speeding up the car a little bit. “Perhaps not able to drive, but navigator extraordinaire.”

“You chose the wrong career path, dude,” Sam says, propping himself up on one elbow to clap Blaine’s shoulder. “Like, songwriting?”

Blaine looks down at him, raising an eyebrow. “Songwriting?” He gestures for Sam to continue.

Sam shrugs, sitting up finally. “Just, you know, songwriting, bro…" His gaze suddenly shifts and fixes at a point beyond Tina. "What th-- that car Artie!”

Tina snaps her gaze away from Sam just in time to see him yank Blaine down into his seat and the set of blinding headlights through the car windows in her periphery.

---

as a final note, i'm not sure if it can be seen this way but i'm not trying to erase artie's disability or anything and i believe i'm not doing that; as you might be able to guess, the car accident at the end of this is what paralyzes him, like in glee canon but just several years later (in his life not in actual time). please let me know if any aspect of this is disrespectful or anything <3

[syubub]

Yoongi birthday reading/energy check!!

It's sweet sweet tangerine bois birthday!!

I wanted to do a cute little energy check up to see what's up and ask some fun little questions!!

I'm excited so let's just do this shit!!

Disclaimer: this is for entertainment purposes and not to be taken as fact!!

---

I want to apologize for the absolute shit pictures but what's new lol

So, let's start with the platform. First thing I noticed was the blue was brighter but the platform was darker? It was like someone cranked up the contrast to 100. Ngl it looked pretty cool. Yoongis platform doesn't typically have a barrier like some of the others do so I just kinda walked in and did the whole, "happy birthday, I have questions" His energy seemed a lot more... vibrant? And playful I guess? It was really nice. Now. The actual connection was intresting because the cord was blue again and like, real thick. (I don't think my perceived thickness of the cord has and real correlation with how strong the connection is. It was just thicc) this time though, the cord was connected at the chest instead of the third eye. So i was like, ??? But my guide didn't give my any sort of helpful input (my guide likes to watch me suffer in my confusion. I'm sure of it)

Anyway, cord like that and then yoobi gave me a headbutt to connect at the third eye. Idk why he gotta be like that :( istg next time he's gonna flick my forehead or something.

I was like "cool cool cool. I want to do the reading now pls" and idk how to explain the energy other than sassy. You know? Blah blah blah I'm thinking, "I don't remember him being so cheeky but maybe I've been gone long enough for him to level up into his final sass monster form"

Anywho, this was intresting because after the little strings were connected and stuff, we plopped down on the floor. And it was like everything I was doing irl was being mimicked infront of yoons energy? So we were sitting facing eachother and I was putting the cards down between us?? Usually that doesn't happen but it was kinda fun!!

Moving right along. I first asked if there was anything he wanted to say or needed to get across and it was 11. Now, 11 has come up before and I'm still not to sure what it's in reference to? My best guess is possibly he's been seeing 11:11 or that it's 2? Idk let me know if you have any clues lol. Other stuff was just kinda banter and stuff.

So so so.

The reading. First thing I asked was how he was doing. And I shuffled his preticular way (when I ask a question I always ask for the energy to tell me how much to shuffle or when to stop. For yoongi it's always 2-2-2. So 2 bridge shuffles, 2 hand shuffles and then split the pile in 2. That's why I think 11 might be 2 to him?)

The cards we got are ace of swords rev, justice,the heirophant rev, the empress.

So based off this I was like okay. I want to pull clarity cards for the two rev cards to get a better picture so I pulled the emperor rev for ace or swords rev and strength rev and wheel of fortune rev for the heirophant rev.

Starting with the ace of swords rev, and the emperor reverse. It seems like yoongi has been re thinking his relationship to control in his life. That's he's possibly noticing any unhealthy needs to control his life and the situation around him. It could also refer to his judgment being clouded by a rigid approach.

With the justice card it makes me think that he's possibly considering a big choice in his life or that he's really doing some deconstructing of his own views. This second idea fits in well with him getting clarity on some possibly unhealthy control issues in his life.

Now. The heirophant rev, strength rev and wheel of fortune reverse. This was intresting to me bc they are all major arcana. The heirophant rev can really talk about no longer needing outside approval and making your own way in your own time bc you are your own teacher. Strength in rev I kinda read as self doubt and feeling down in this case. Like a lack of confidence in himself and his abilities. And the wheel of fortune in reverse I took to mean as his breaking cycles. All together these cards kinda paint a picture about wanting and trying to break a cycle of self doubt and self limiting beliefs and learning more about himself and why he think what he does about himself and searching through everything for truth. It's really good!! In short he's doing some nice soul searching and trusting himself to guide his own way through this self discovery!

The empress! This card seems to pop up for yoobi a lot and I think it really speaks to the abundance that surrounds him! Not just money but the abundance of creativity, love, friends ect.

Now now now. I asked him if there was anything that he wanted to tell us about himself or bts or what's happening in the near future. For that I got 2 of cups, king of wands and 3 of coins.

So the 2 of cups is partnership. Usually romantic. Could be pertaining to the may 13th thing that is ever present lol but I'll get to that later. With the 3 of coins talking about teamwork, this could definitely hint at collaborations coming up!! That's the vibe I get. No one crush my dreams. And for the king of wands it could be talking about taking the reigns on a new project and starting to get it done. Like a new opportunity. This could be a new bts project like starting a new campaign or new venture or maybe personal like the a mixtape or doing more songs for other groups ect.

I had to ask him how he was feeling about the grammys. I had to. Had to. The cards were ace of wands, 2 of wands and death reverse. When these came flying out I could help but smile. Yoongis energy was almost giddy too!

Witht he ace of wands

It's that spark of creativity and inspiration. It's that feeling when you get super excited over some new thing. I think this is the perfect example for feeling reinvigorated. The 2 of wands takes that spark from the ace and tries to funnel that excitement and newness into something directional. Using that burst of creativity to start planning for future progress!! Its so nice to see that! If they don't win (IF) you bet we're gonna get some bangers about a corrupt system. If (WHEN) they do win we'll get bangers about how thankful they are to have gotten where they are in spite of a corrupt system. I just want to hear an uncensored version of yoongi being like, "HOLY FUCKING SHIT, WE DID IT BITCHES. FUCK ALL YOU BASTARDS THAT SAID WE COULDN'T."

I can dream....

What a nice dream.

Now I asked if there was anything yoobi wanted to say to us as in advice or comfort or anything like that and I got, Clearing negativity, make time for self care, when I'm tuned into the energy of abundance I become abundant. when I'm in a state of appreciation im in vibrational alignment with my true love nature. The world rev, 2 of swords rev and that project, that person, that idea is waiting.

Awe. Take care of yourselves!! Make sure to take time to enjoy what you like and try not to let any negativity get in the way of you enjoying your days. The world rev to me seems to be talking about seeking closure on the things in your life that have been impacting you. Tie up those loose ends so you can move foward without triping over yourself and 2 of swords rev I think talks about information overload and being kinda indecisive bc of that. Take a sep back to evaluate the situation at hand because sometimes it's so close you can't see what you're looking for. Those of you who are studying and getting frustrated because you just can't seem to get it, try taking a step back and doing something to take care of yourself and come back to it so you can approach with a clearer mind. Try not to get stuck or paralyzed by choice but if you do get stuck, take some time to detach yourself from the situation and come back later!

A fair few people wanted an update on yoobis soulmate as well. If you need a refresher here's the run down. Yoongis soulmate is impossible for me to read, yoongi is a smug ass and I'm nosy and probably a little dumb.

Now that that's cleared up

I asked, "am I missing something?" (As to why I can't connect and why yoongi won't give me answers.)

I got queen of cups, magician and the high priestess. I read this as him being like, "yeah dude, you aren't woke enough"

YOONGI just give me answers pls. The high priestess is intuition and sacred knowledge, the magician is manifestation and the queen of cups is also intuition.

At this point I was like, okay you little shit, can you at least tell me how your soulmate is doing? Can you do that for me?

2 of cups, 2 of pentacles, 9 of wands and knight of wands. 2 of cups is partnership usually romantic, 2 of pentacles is priorities and managing them, 9 of wands persistence, knight of wands motivation for a new thing. His soulmate last time was in the process of going through some shit and figuring it out and it seems like now they've got a better clue of how to move foward and are currently heading towards good things/ important things in their life (possibly like working towards dream career or had an idea for a business the want to start or field they want to go in.)

I was thinking about the next question when this popped into my head, "if you know about your akashic book, do you know about your soulmates? Have you read it?" I used my pendulum. No movement at all. What so ever. "Are you listening to me?" Yes. "So answer my question please" No. "Do you like to watch me suffer?" Maybe. "Do you know the answer to the question" yes.

YOONGI WHY

This cheeky son of a bitch.

Now I was like, fuck it. Imma ask him the big boi question.

"Is your soulmate present when I do these readings?" Yes.

WHY THE FUCK CAN I NIT PICK UP ON IT???

I had to take a deep breath dude. Yoobi is testing my nerves.

"Are they hiding their energy?" No.

I was actually gonna combust. This makes no sense.

I asked yoongi if he would tell me what I'm not getting. Silence. So i ask my guide.

"lol ur dumb"

Watch me Google "how to fire your spirit guide"

Istg this feels like some dumb prank. Maybe I'm just genuinely oblivious to his soulmates energy or maybe I'm just doing something.

What do you want to bet that his soulmate is just hiding under the platform and I'm too stupid to notice or some dumb thing like that.

yoobi, sir, why must you do this?

I decided to continue.

"What message or thing have you learned from your soulmate recently that could be valuable to us?" I got healthy communication in relationships and deep replenishment.

Good to know you can have a nice communicative relationship with your soulmate bc I CAN'T.

I'm petty about it, sue me.

The message does stand though. Good communication and taking proper rest to replenish yourself.

Now I had to ask yoongi directly what he thought of may 13th.

I got the lovers, 7 of swords, the magician and judgement. The seven of swords was intresting and it makes me think there's some extra stuff at play here too. 7 of swords is about getting away with something and deceit. The clarifier was the magician.... this could mean a lot honestly. It could be that maybe yoongi will have his relationship exposed or possibly that maybe him and his soulmate meet but yoongi is disguised? Idk how that would work at all but I'm stumped. There's a lot of variations that this could be. The magician is about manifesting and having everything you need to create what you want. This could possibly mean that maybe he gets a sudden idea that's like, "oh I have to go here right now. Its super important" eventhough he has practice scheduled. So that would let down his team but he would be following his path and it might lead to him meeting his soulmate? Maybe vice versa? Idk let me know what you think??

With the judgement its about inner calling and kinda like the peak. Like shit has been leading up to this moment. With the lovers too it does seem like a union?

I asked him, "but like what's gonna happen on the 13th thought and I got the 10 of cups. Divine love, bliss, alignment, happy mushy gushy shit. This is why I'm so inclined to think that they'll meet on the 13th or things will get serious or their paths finally cross. The cards seem to heavily suggest that.

My dude. Yoongi is really sappy, pass it on.

For the last question I asked yoomgi if there was messages/ advice he had given to his soulmate that we might benefit from.

First step, open your third eye, open your heart, sign from heaven, open your arms to receiving.

A lot of opening lol.

It's good advice though learning to be open and receptive and taking that first step in tackling life or any situation.

Oki. Now for the disconnecting. It was not nearly as strange as it has been in the past. I was just like thanks dude. Again, happy birthday blah blah and I got up to leave. I noticed it looked like we were in sitting in one of those old plastic hoola hoops? Like the pink and yellow ones lol. As I was looking at and and like??? Off to the side the numbers 13, 28, 54. Obvi 54 isn't a date and then I the last yoongi check up there was book pages and I feel like 54 and 28 were the pages?? I'm not actually sure as I'm writing this so I'm gonna check.

Yep I checked. They are the page #s.

So that's intresting.

Other than that though I just kinda left and he was like, "bye" and that's all.

Not as cool as other yoongi adventures but equally as frustrating.

TLDR

Yoongis doing pretty okay and he's a cheeky little shit. My guide like to watch me suffer and yoobi is mushy gushy squishy.

Happy day of birth Syub!!

[thewebcomicsreview]

Homestuck 2 has updated! Christmas is ruined!

Previously, on Homestuck 2: Literally nothing happened, and a non-trivial portion of the patreon supporters gave up and quit. Can this update pull a Christmas miracle and right the sinking ship of Homestuck 2? Probably not, but let’s find out! 

We’re back in Candyland, having completely skipped over Karkat and John talking about Dave’s apparent death, because this comic is only interested in long conversations when they’re boring and not about anything at all. That’s alright, I got the gist of it.

When Karkat is finally gone, John still doesn’t move. It isn’t as though he has nowhere else to go, since there are quite a few places he might attempt to make himself useful, for better or for worse.

So, it appears to be morning now, meaning that John’s son has been missing in a war zone for almost 24 hours and I guess John literally forgot Harry existed?

Prediction: This conversation is going to end in some variant of “Where is our son?” “Oh shit!”

ROXY: hey john can u do me a quick solid

ROXY: actly idk how quick itll be but its definitely solid

ROXY: harry anderson says i just missed u being here but could u skip back on over?

What.

So, I went back and checked, and apparently nowhere is it explicitly said that Harry Anderson was also looking for the Vriskas, so I guess he....stayed home? Which makes sense, I suppose, but maybe a “Stay here I’ll go look for them” would’ve helped. I wasn’t the only one who thought Harry was out looking for Vriska too. 

ROXY: sup

ROXY: follow me

ROXY: well were just going to my room so i guess technically u know the way

JOHN: haha ok.

John follows, trying to shake the ominous feeling he got from what she’d just said. He’d been in and out of this house a lot in the past few days. Why should this be any different?

Is Roxy....horny? Is the solid she’s looking for John’s dick? I mean, that’d make her saying Harry wasn’t available kind of weird, but I think this framing is a fake-out.

...

What the fuck is that lamp, Jesus Christ it’s awful. Just a cat’s asshole, facing the door.

ROXY: r u kiddin me rn egbert

JOHN: i’m not? unless you were, in which case yeah lets say i was also kidding.

JOHN: oh my god, i’m sorry, i don’t know why this making me freak out.

ROXY: i remember our past boot knockin with fondness but that is a situation im not interested in revisiting

Oh hey, it was a fakeout. Good job, Homestuck 2. You successfully implied something just through the art. Art which, by the way, looks a lot better than the last chapter. There are backgrounds and everything. I wonder if Chapter 15 was rushed out due to Hiveswap and that’s why it was so weak?

He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced?

I’m not the biggest fan of the way the narration is going JOHN IS AFRAID OF SEX WITH ROXY LIKE HE’S A TEENAGE VIRGIN AGAIN (LIKE IN HS1!) AND IT DOESN’T REALLY MAKE SENSE PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IT’LL BE IMPORTANT LATER, but okay, noted.

ROXY: u said ur house is gone??

JOHN: yep.

JOHN: completely.

ROXY: jeez

Heh. I like Roxy, still. 

JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison.

If this comic actually uses the phrase “home” and “stuck” in the same sentence I’m turning this blog around and we’ll go right back to Winnipeg.

ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push

ROXY: we both got sick muscles

ROXY: no other adjectives necessary

I feel unqualified to talk about how hard Roxy is pushing the June Egbert thing.

....Is that the fucking portal from Hiveswap under a tarp? Also hi Candy Callie, appearing in HS2 for the first time. One of the Calliope’s is nonbinary, I think, but I honestly can’t remember and I think it’s Meat Calliope? 

JOHN: do i get to know what that big thing under the sheet is?

ROXY: hmmmmmm no

JOHN: oh ok.

JOHN: are you sure? i mean, it seems like a pretty prominent feature of the room.

JOHN: space.

JOHN: wherever we are.

ROXY: and a totally mysterious n COMPLETELY inconspicuous feature it will have to remain for now

ROXY: we r kinda in a hurry here fyi

ROXY: and by that i mean

ROXY: we are in precisely the amount of hurry that means im excused from having to a that specific q rn

JOHN: right, sorry.

JOHN: i will pay no attention to the object behind the curtain.

ROXY: u catch on fast egbert

Oh thing HS2 has not been great at is that it has a lot of plot mysteries that are supposed to keep us enticed but they don’t really get implanted into the audience’s head (Remember Vrissy mysteriously collapsing that one time? Probably not, she did it off screen and the boys kind of laughed it off). This one’s hard to miss.

JOHN: so... this is all downstairs?

JOHN: it seems like you had a lot of work done.

ROXY: well no not x actly

ROXY: were in the old meteor

It’s kind of weird how this meteor keeps popping up like this. 

CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr.

This is an unexpected but not unwelcome direction for Callie to have gone.

CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are.

CALLIOPE: how much do yoU know aboUt black holes?

Oh, wow, we’re going right there, then. This does seem like a bit of a reaction to complaints HS2 wasn’t shmoovin’ enough, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

CALLIOPE: no, i mean, what if oUr whole WORLD was inside a black hole.

JOHN: ok.

A’ight, that got a laugh out of me

JOHN: ugh, i fucking KNEW it!

JOHN: i'm so sorry.

JOHN: i'm so sorry that i put the earth inside a black hole everyone. ):

I like this conversation a lot. 

ROXY: iirc at least part of y u got so weepy was the fact that u couldnt believe a version of earth existed where ppl got 2 watch more mcconaughey films than you

JOHN: listen.

JOHN: i simply don't think you all appreciated the gift you were given.

Quite a bit, in fact.

ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love

JOHN: aw.

Roxy and John have a good dynamic. 

CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

JOHN: ...right.

John’s phone has very good coverage, since he was able to talk to Terezi in the epilogues, as we’re being subtly reminded of here with that ... before the “right”. I wonder if it still works after alt-Calliope left.

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval.

CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality.

CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u

Okay, so we are now being explicitly told that living in the black hole is fucking with the characters and is part of the reason they make such baffling decisions, like Rose not telling Kanaya about Yiffy, or naming her daughter “Yiffy” in the first place.

CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity.

ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point

CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more.

CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it.

CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself?

So, the plan is literally for Vriska to be such a Huge 8itch that the black hole itself gets sick of her and yeets Earth C out of its own event horizon to freedom.

This is actually a great plan. 

And that’s Hamsteak. This definitely feels like a bit of a reaction to complaints about HS2, but hey, I dig it, I guess? Definite improvement over the last chapter.

[icharchivist]

hello icha!! i finally got around to finishing the stranger haha,, by which i mean i just watched it today. was veryyyy excited for it as i really like the poster design for this one. anyways. this event starting w/ the sort of portrait format or whatever / that narration is like. god. threw me right back to autumn troupe. I kind of love that the storytelling format itself is so distinct for autumn! the moment I realized it was omi I started getting teary… like oh man oh man… omi…. And the connection with him taking photos! ahh!! now that I think about it… omi kind of seems a bit like early version tsumugi, huh? also I keep forgetting this man is a college student lol. suspension of disbelief I suppose. onto the play i think like. mankai should invest in a fainting courch for tsuzuru. i also went to watch the play and 1) im betting yuki had a hell of a time costume design wise like the vines on the body? such fun costuming wise and 2) the ethical implications of whatever this play has,,, fun fun. tsuzuru was clearly having some kind of thoughts. i love zeros design and am always up for a3 characters crossdressing bc 1) i think its fun and 2) the costume design. i also dearly wish this whole thing was animated bc I feel like it’d be o fun to see taichi act as zero. or at least I hope this event gets full voiced one day... moving on to the scene where omi adds soy sauce to the paella I know it’s just like haha homare funny so lets five him a lil bit but like everyone in autumn troupe making their comments on the paella and like homare just jumping in. homare autumn troupe besties. just thinking. also the way they just r like. no no no omi it’s fine if u made a mistake!! it’s ok! we like it (you) anyways <3 it’s got it’s own special taste. something something omi’s perfectly pleasant as he is now but even if he weren’t on his a-game and was dealing with all of the biker gang stuff they would love him just as hard. another thing that got me was omi telling banri that he’ll give him something sweet so juza will stop grinding his teeth in his sleep… guys… guys you’ll give him cavities…. mb omi is a college student after all lol.

anyways when i saw the actual costumes. appreciative of them, i like the lil circuit-esque detailing on banri’s outfit, and that sakyo and taichi (nine and zero) both share that like collar detail? its very symbolic and probably also literal but its a nice way to sort of signify their relation to each other visually! also sakyo just looks nice. seeing him without glasses is so great. whoever thought up the like two mole detail for him was doing gods work.

something that confused me was ryo mistaking juza for nachi for a split second? like. does juza… look similar to nachi? or was it just that ryo only heard juzas voice and made that mistake. if it’s appearance wise too. kumon nachi confirmed. I’m joking lol bc I feel like I would’ve heard at least something abt it in one of the like small conversation comments, plus that doesnt seem like itd fit summer troupes style and kumon is for sure the wrong age… but still.

i really like how for this event, the roles for taichi and omi were kinda reversed. and taichis just so like. idk. smiley. rly lifts ur spirits. its kind of nice how this event contrasts to that cg where taichi is crying on omi. I also think like. idk. considering the story of the stranger. wolf gives zero a sense of purpose and life and I think that zero helps wolf lose his apathy. it’s about “the stranger” and the ending makes him like… not a stranger, right? because he’s got a companion. in the same way, taichi brings omi out of his emotional isolation. the picture taking! also the stickers coming back… thats such a good setup! the found family of it all!!

when he was trying to work out zeros character as soon as taichi mentioned a sharp speaking style I KNEW it was Yuki… yuki would never be as honest as zero is though lol… to me i imagine she’s got a sort of juza internal monologue feel? anyways. the taichi yuki dynamic intrigues me. havent yet decided how I feel abt it but when I do… yes. sorry that I make literally no sense. I think it’s very obvious that yuki is my fav chara kind of? I’m just. hmmm it makes me think! I’ve been monologuing to myself abt the yuki and juza dynamic lately which, to my a3 knowledge so far, doesn’t exist, but its ok bc I’ll make it exist! uhhh anyways this event was very good i liked the pacing. i think it didnt drag too hard and it really properly honed in on just omi and taichi, which was quite nice. they really did a lot for just an event!

time to listen to the event song,,, ok so. ah. i rly enjoyed just for myself it was very much to my taste so. out of curiousity i was like ok lemme look up the composer / producer AND IT WAS YUYOYUPPE....... that guy is like!!!! one of my FAV producers ever!!!!!! i know him from like. his vocaloid days and god leia is still one of my fav songs to this day...! this knowledge gives me so much joy omg!!! like wow!! wowwww!!! like i knew yuyoyuppe was out there doing other stuff (i know he worked on a lot of babymetal music which is cool) but like idk. to suddenly encounter it like this. heheh.... its so nice! made me soooo happy. going to relisten to leia now haha

WAIT ONE MORE THING. i was like "haha let me look at other songs i remember liking a lot" which. for me was rakuen oasis and don't cry. anyways. rakuen oasis is ALSO by yuyoyuppe???? oh my god!!! oh my god... sigh. feel like im in heaven.

OH HI FRIEND!! so good to see you with an a3 update!! :D

godd yeah The Stranger started so strongly and the idea to still incorporate portraits in his story was really something to make us cry!

And linking Omi and Tsumugi like this is pretty interesting :O <hat is your reasoning exactly? :O

For the fainting couch for Tsuzuru LMAO and i'm letting you know there's a webcomics that addresses it in Act 2 (hough there's no spoilers aside from the fact Chikage is here)

Im glad you liked the costume and the play!!! yeah i love the designs and it is always a blast to see them this into it, and yeaaah Tsuzuru has thoughts huh. It'll get voiced sooner than later hopefully and there we'll see more in details :3c but also that's what made the seiyuu live so fun bc they perform the songs in play cosplay and replay a bit of the play everytime and it's *chief kiss*

HOMARE AUTUMN TROUPE SOLIDARITY YES. LOVING IT.

And yeah the scene itself was so cute TwT they all want to reassure Omi and be there for him it's so sweet :( but yeah i love how you say it all, Omiimi TwT

and dLKFJDFLKJFDFD Giving Juza cavities is the price to pay for sleep i guess??

yeah agreed on the costume they all look so cool! and nice catch on how those three seem linked like that with their costumes, Yuki (and the designers) does such a good job! and god yeah for Sakyo.. yeah. He has sucha good design dLKJFDF

aND DLKFJD yeah no Juza is supposed to look like Nachi physically, but mostly his face? like i think Nachi was had green hair? we see a sprite of him in a future story, and yeah, everything is in the eyebrows. so Kumon should be safe? Omi mentions he sees a lot of Nachi in Juza, and while it is mostly due to their passions i think, the fact they're also rough looking guy with a heart of gold must play a part as well. but yeah, he does look like Nachi a bit.

and i love your deeper analysis of the event yeah!!

I feel like Taichi is really an emotional core of the troupe in the sense that is, he tends to catch on what others are feelings easily. And he uses it in the early chapters to ease off the tensions and stuff, but he was being held back by knowing he was deceiving them. So now that he's more free, he can be more of himself. but yeah i also love the contrast with how Omi was the one to help Taichi through his breakdown and guilt, and now it's the other way around, it's Taichi helping him through it. and the parallelism between the play and their dynamic is spot on imo! well said!!

and god yeah the sticker things made me cry sO HARD, and the pictures! and everything!! sobs it's such a sweet found family i'm going to cry :(

And! i love what you say about Yuki, Taichi and Juza on this one. I love that Taichi keeps bringing it back to "that childhood friend" and it's always like. so obvious who it is for us rip. But it can make you wonder if Yuki was more honest as a kiddo when Taichi knew him, though now he's clearly not. I love the mention of how Zero is more like Juza's internal speech (which, if anything is another argument about why you should let Juza wear a dress, cOWARD)

but also your mention of the Yuki and Juza thing, while i can't think of them having a dynamic per se yet, but i actually wrote a post during my reread about how i was baffled at the fact they treated Muku the same way?? like both of them tried to push Muku away because they were scared of how people would react if they say pure, sweet Muku was associated to them. And i find it fascinating because i guess those two are pretty aware of how the world see them, and it used to stop them from fully allowing them to be themselves.

I also find it relevant with the fact Yuki says in his personal song that while all of this way people judge him weight on him, he rather be himself, and "I want to love myself". Meanwhile we have Juza who's also aware of the way people judge him and it weight on him, and he wants to change himself from this person he hates, this self loathing - and in a way, he can grow in a way to be "someone" he may not hate, even on stage. I feel like those two have quite a bit in common in this way of being rejected by their peers in some sort of way.

I really want them to share some stuff at some point because there's really a groundwork on it all :(

But i'm really glad you liked that event!! agreed on the pacing and i do love what it brings to the characters! it really fleshes them out and have them move forward a little and it's pretty sweet.

AND OMG THAT'S SO COOL FOR THE SONG!! i'm so glad you liked it, but that's incredible it turned out to be from one of your fav producer!!! ahah sometimes life is like that where you end up finding the stuff you loved back into new stuff! and the fact Rakuen Oasis was from him as well... that's so cool!!! just, so so cool!

im pretty sure he has more songs going forward so i hope you'll enjoy the ride even more!!

thank you once again for sharing your thoughts about a3 :3c it always makes me so happy to see them!!!

Thank youu <3 have a good day :3c

[artificiary-fr]

ok so arti’s unnecessary opinion time

Just wanna give a disclaimer that these are just my sort of thoughts in general, and are in no way an attempt to demean, attack, or cause drama about any artist or staff member, or community member. Just kind of what I’ve observed and come to the questions/conclusions of. I got a little opinionated at the end but I tried not to single anyone out save for I think, one unnamed example? 

I’ll put everything under the cut here, because I know I have a tendency to get wordy (and spoiler: It did. This is a super long post, I’m sorry). So, here we go...

TL;DR: I like the gene, I’ll wait for the revamp before giving a concrete opinion, there were definitely some issues, I appreciate that staff took note/action, more communication like this or the dev streams is good (though communication between staff/community is a Thing unto itself of which I probably have a Disliked Take on and that was the really long part that isn’t necessary to read)

Okay before anything: the familiars. They’re super pretty! I like the recolors, and now I’m gonna have to grind the Kelp Beds for those boss fams. Dang. I love the kitty golem recolor.

With that out of the way, here we are - the subject of today’s discussions... Glowtail.

So, my first opinion: It’s not a bad gene! I can see some curious use for it, certainly. But there are some problems with it (and yes; I am aware staff has addressed this and pulled it to fix those problems! That’ll be more relevant later on here c: )

Note One: I think I do understand why it is a gem gene. Yes, design/thematically it does appear to fit the bill of a Baldwin Gene more. But I’d like to posit it’s the completion of a gem-gene set - Wasp/Bee/Glowtail. So in that regard, it makes sense!

Note Two: My personal opinion with the gene is that I like it, but it feels... hm. Plain isn’t correct. Like it’s missing something, I guess? I wish the segmenting was a little more prominent, and that the glow or gradient had a little more glitz/glamor, maybe some glitteries around the hips, to really sell it as a gem gene. I do like the glow we have on the other bits of dragon like light reflection, though, because it adds a little bit of dimension! All in all however even so, I do like it, and I won’t cement my opinion until we see what their updated version looks like in the future.

Note Three (The Problems): The art errors. What... what happened here?

As we’ve noticed, male snappers and male tundras are the two big offenders, with large chunks of color erroneously sitting outside the lineart quite noticeably. There is also part of the ‘glow’ (the aforementioned light reflection) that doesn’t make sense - being on parts of the dragon where it shouldn’t be, like on the front of wings where the tail is not in front of said limb, but behind.

But like... how did this not get caught before it got posted? Was it a time crunch, or it just... didn’t get quality checked before this happened? It’s really unfortunate. :c

Something I do with my art - and this is just my own process/thoughts - is when I’ve put down the base color, before I do any shading/highlights/big details, I pop a layer underneath the entire drawing and fill it with a high contrast color to the palette. That way any bits where I missed coloring in - or didn’t clean up outside the lines - becomes super noticeable, and I can fix it then instead of being a problem later. Maybe doing something like this before throwing the gene through the color automation process would’ve helped?

Last Note:

I feel like part of why these errors went unnoticed is because of how often, and sometimes how rushed, some of these updates have been - and this has been more noticeable in this year than otherwise. Is it because of community dissent with wanting more updates creating more crunch? Due to low-attention reticence creating a need for pushing more ad revenue / more “come to the site there’s new”?

I’m unsure, but it’s unfortunate nonetheless. I think staff, and FR as a whole, would benefit from like... hm. How to word this...

Maybe taking more time on updates / a more extended schedule so things aren’t as crunch (of course this being said, I don’t know what the workload is like so I can’t even say if crunch is applicable), and more open communication? Like how the dev streams were going - that was pretty well liked and everyone I know got pretty excited to see em and how the art was doing. It also opened up the avenue for more open communication / more nuanced opinions or thoughts.

---

But herein lies the huge issue, I think, with communication. This is the part where I’d like to reiterate, this is just my observations, and is not intended as an attack, a vaguepost, or deliberate callout at anybody. There’s no malicious intent here. This bit could also be construed as drama I suppose, and I apologize for that because again - not the intent. Just my take.

I’ve noticed posts going ‘no drama please’ or being tired when new updates come out of like, ‘oh boy here comes the negativity’ so I don’t think it’s just me who’s seen it, but have you guys noticed when anything new comes out, there’s an immediate rush of extreme salt and negativity?

And I don’t mean posts where its like “it’s not for me” or “I don’t like it but here’s [detailed/explained reason why]” - those are the nuanced opinions I mean. Those are fine. I mean the ones where people in forums, or on the more prolific drama blogs, are just.... mean/empty? Like “FUCK staff I hate how lazy they are with this it’s shitty looking” - that really vocal generally super salty in general minority of the community. Just hate without explanation, or just kind of aimless generalized attack/complaint.

I think that’s where communication with Staff fell off the bandwagon. The really loud, really vocal minority of folks who throw super salt or yell “This Sucks You Suck” completely overshadow the people who are well intentioned with sharing their opinions or problems/criticisms. The toxic bits and really vitriolic words are what gets seen and noticed. I think this is the majority of what gets heard, which is why communication got so closed off / shut down unless positive, in recent times. Do I agree with that? No, I don’t either - but I’m just looking at this from the outside. Idk how staff feels or thinks.

And this goes for both people who don’t like the content, and people that do.

Remember that the Keel thread got locked because someone who was white-knighting started getting real nasty with people in the thread, and going to extremes insulting artists who did mock-ups to help visualize their thoughts/opinions and was just being a real douche?

What I really wish was that we could have more open communication. Some of the things I really liked to see were like: Dev Streams, Community Updates/Q&A, Opinion Polls, That Update Progress on Breed/Gene Progress from a while back. All of that was excellent. And I like to see the community responding in well thought out ways! I like to see staff more hands on too! We’re only human and love this site and our dragons and want to see it at it’s best - but they’re also only human, and make mistakes, and we don’t know what’s goin on in there, just out here.

Trello is a really good way to kind of show that communication, and is transparent, but isn’t free-to-use for businesses, so... of course I also don’t know how Stormlight Workshop runs their business/hours so I’m just blowing hot smoke. But anyway, I think everyone would benefit from slowing down and opening up. If things are going slow, that’s okay - if Staff opens up to the community and says “This is taking longer than expected, but here’s upcoming releases / current in-progresses” I think we’d be like oh okay things are happening and it’ll be nice! As compared to everyone gets super antsy, nothing’s happening, no-one is talking... and then we get hit with a bunch of updates, some of which, like today’s, have... issues.

Of course then I worry that with more open talking or “we’re experiencing delays” the more vitriolic will get even angrier/saltier which doesn’t... help... but I mean... yeah. 

ANYWAY so I’ve written a full dissertation essay here without really intending to (see? I warned y’all! I ramble/don’t shut up ahahaha) so I’m gonna just stop myself here before I start going in circles. This last chunk I don’t really know what the meat of what I was trying to say was, now, I think. Sorry about that. It was just “here’s my stream of consciousness” apparently ^^;;;;

Have a good evening y’all! Thanks for listenin’ to my (rant?) if y’all made it this far. You’re appreciated and thank you for letting me bend your ears! Stay safe in this crazy world, hang in there, and have a good one!

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Love for a Princess; Tom Holland x reader

*Author’s note*

Okay now for the real reason for all these updates, here is a request that came from an anon who wanted a Tom Holland fic. Thankfully I have written for Tom Holland before (hopefully soon I can transfer what I got on wattpad onto here cause let’s face it I love the boy and idk why I haven’t posted anything beyond the one fic I’ve got of his version of Peter when I know I’ve got like 4 other stories on my wattpad, I am sorry everyone)

So to the anon who requested the fic I hope you find it and I made some slight changes, NOT big but just very small changes but I still hope I did you proud on what you wanted and I also apologize for having you wait so long. Hope you and everyone else who sees this enjoys this loveable fic :)

Taglist:

@psychosupernatural

@plethora-of-things

@ixchel-9275

@platawnic

@waddles03

__________________________________________________________

I was up in my suite watching Spiderman Homecoming for what was probably the millionth time.  I can easily quote it word for word but the main reason why I’ve watched it so many times is because of the newest face taking the mantle of Spiderman, actor Tom Holland.

Sure while I did grow up watching the Toby Maguire version and enjoyed what he brought, and watch the Andrew Garfield saga however his story got a little too dark and I hate to say it boring for me, a bit boring to me.  So when they announced that for the MCU they had brought in this upcoming young actor named Tom Holland, one look at him and it was like I was actually looking at the real life Peter Parker.

What he did for Civil War, he had me at ‘Hey I’m—I’m—I’m Peter.’ Plus you’d have to be blind to say that he’s not cute.  God I just wish that one day I could get the chance to actually meet him, however there’s one slight problem.

“My lady, your mother has rescheduled your badminton practice to 11 o’clock instead of noon, shall I help prepare you?”

“No thank you Niles, I can do it myself. Thanks for the update.”

“Of course your majesty.” That’s why.  See I’m not like other girls, hell I’m not like other people. I’m a princess. No really I mean I’m an actual princess, the Princess of England to be precise. My name is (Y/n) Diana Elizabeth Charlotte (l/n), daughter of Prince Brian and Princess Anita.  I am their eldest child so that would make me next in line for the throne should anything happen to my mother.

I sadly had to stop the movie because it was now half an hour till 11 so I had to get ready.  My maids twin sisters Brigitte and Brigitta came in and they helped gather up my bat-mitting outfit, shoes and hat.

“Here we are Princess, your badminton outfit.” Said the blonde Brigitte.

“Shall we help you change your majesty?” asked the brunette Brigitta.

“No thanks girls I can help myself, you girls take the rest of the afternoon off for lunch.” They curtsied to me but I told them, “Ah-ah what did we talk about?”

“No more curtseys.” Brigitte whispered to her twin.

“Very well (y/n). Just call us if you need anything else” Brigitta answered and the two of them smiled and winked at me and I thanked them before dismissing them. I went into my grand closet and stripped out of my normal clothes and into my badminton outfit.  Once I got on the shoes, placed my hat on and quickly raced down towards the badminton court.  

As I ran through the palace, I was dodged servants and butlers but nearly may or may not have caused some of them to drop some stuff like plates, or accidentally bumped into pillars holding priceless vahzes to which of course were caught by the servants and I apologized profusely before taking ff running again.

“Here I am right on time as promised and I—” I suddenly tripped over my feet and I saw dozens of people coming towards me but I said as I stood up, “I’m good. I’m all good it’s all good.”

“I swear (y/n) you are probably the clumsiest girl I’ve ever seen. Even as a child you were.” I heard my mum tease.

“Mum please!” I whined out.

“Alright my Princess, let’s see what I’ve told you to practice.” My instructor Javier said.

“Bring it on Javey.” I challenged.  He served first and I quickly went after it.

Practice went on for the next hour and a half and by then I was beat and winded.

“Not bad your highness, although your stance is still a little off balance on some of your swings, you’ve got to make sure to pivot your dominant foot before striking the birdie.”

“Yes Javier.” I said as I took a sip of water.

“But other than that well done, your strike is excellent and you’ve got good distance on you. Keep that up and you could go pro if you want to.”

“Thank you again Javier, same time next week?” my mum said and he nodded before taking his leave.  “Oh hey (y/n) guess what?”

“What is it mum?” I asked her.

“Well I’ve heard some news that for the next Marvel movie, they will be filming it here in London.”

“Really? Which movie is it?”

“The next Spiderman movie.” It was then I spat out my water.

“The…the new Spiderman movie…shut…up!”

“I do not lie love.”

“So that means….”

“Yep the entire cast will be filming some scenes here in London.” I then offered a crazy idea, I mean really crazy and I didn’t know if she would allow it but I just had to try.

“Can we invite them over for tea and brunch when they come?”

“Well…..”

“Please mum, please! I’d never wanted anything more than this, you know that!” She looked at me and she said.

“When your father gets done with his meeting I’ll talk to him about it. If he’s in, I’m in.” I squealed and hugged her thanking her repeatedly.

Later that day as I was doing some homework, (mostly political stuff because hell even royalty needs to go to school) when I heard a knock at my door.

“Come in.” It was then both my parents came in.  My dad had his usual stoic face while my mum looked like she just wanted to burst out a secret.

“Your mother tells me you wish to invite some of the cast of the new Spiderman movie over for tea and brunch.” His tone was low and authorative, and I knew whenever he spoke like that, there was no chance of horsing around.

“Yes father.” I spoke softly as I gave my full attention to him.

“Your mother and I talked about it, and she suggests that it would be a good idea for you to hang around people your own age so we’ll send out an invitation for the entire young cast members of the film.” I think at that moment my heart just stopped.

“Are—are you serious?” I as bewildered.  He nodded and that’s when I squealed in pure joy as I hugged him and thanked him repeatedly.  He hugged me back and stroked down my hair and I felt him place a kiss at the top of my head.

“But there are conditions.”

“I better sit down for this.” I sighed as I went back over to my bed.

“First, I will be there with you to meet them.” I nodded and he said, “Second, if I see that you and Tom aren’t with the rest of the group and see the door less than 3 inches open, then they are all out. And number……”

“And number three your father promises not to be an overbearing daddy bear.” Said my mum as she wrapped her arms around his waist leaning against his shoulder.

“We’ll send out the invitation once the cast arrives here for their London location shooting.” With that my parents left my room and once they left I squealed and jumped backwards into my bed literally fangirling out at the fact that I was going to meet Tom Holland.

*Tom’s POV*

Once we had gotten done with the Atlanta shoots, we flew out to my hometown of London. After a day of filming here in London it was then I was told by my manager that I personally had been given a special letter.  Thinking it was from either a loving fan or even my nana (since she still sends in letters, not really tech-savvy) but it wasn’t until I had seen the Royal cross and the special wax-sealing that I began to panic.

“Oh shit, Harry come look at this!” Harry came running into the room and he said.

“Wha What is it?” I then showed him the letter which bared the Royal cross and he said.

“Wow is—is that……”

“Yeah.” I answered breathlessly.

“Well what the hell are you waiting for open it!” I broke the seal and it almost felt like I was waiting my letter to Hogwarts and I unfolded the letter inside and it read.

To Mr. Tom Holland,

My daughter Princess (Y/n) Diana Elizabeth Charlotte (l/n) has expressed pure interest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, specifically the Spiderman movies.  Having been told that the cast would be here, you all are cordially invited to Buckingham Palace to spend one full day with the Princess herself.

You are allowed to bring as many of your younger cast members along to join her for tea and brunch.  Please RSVP us back immediately once you have come to a decision.

Thank you and have a good day and filming process.

Sincerely,

King Brian Harold Harrison Adams (L/n).

Holy shit. The Princess of London is a fan of the Marvel movies.  I thought politicians and rulers couldn’t focus on anything but politics but now knowing that the Princess herself is a fan, it was—mind boggling!

“Well what’s it say?”

“We’ve been invited to Buckingham Palace for tea and brunch with the Princess.”

“Wait, you mean Princess (y/n)? The Princess (y/n)?!”

“Yeah. And she’s even wanting to invite the rest of the cast to come along.”

“Whose invited us to where?” Peeking in was Zendaya and Jacob.

“Guys, we’ve been invited to be amongst London’s royalty.” Answered Harry.

“No freakin way are you serious!?” exclaimed Jacob as he raced over and took the letter from Harry’s hand.

“I shit you not guys.” Said Harry.

“Okay wow this is…..are we supposed to wear anything fancy to the palace? I mean I only had to do a meeting royalty for the Greatest Showman but this—this is the real deal now.”

“It’ll be okay Zendaya, it doesn’t say anything about a dress code so I guess just casual will do, but if you want I guess we could do semi-casual.” I said as I placed my hand on her shoulder trying to calm her down.

“When are we supposed to go?” asked Jacob.

“It say this Thursday.” I answered.

“That’s two days from now.” Harry stated.

“So are we gonna go?” asked Jacob.

“I’ll talk with Jon when we get ready on set and we’ll see what he says.” Man I still can’t believe it, the Princess (y/n) is a fan of the Marvel movies and she’d like to hang out with us.  Somebody pinch me because I must be dreaming.

After talking with Jon about this visitation, he allowed us to have a late afternoon/evening shoot once we got done with our meeting with the royal family.

Finally the day had arrived.

Instead of getting one of our cars ready, a car sent by Queen Anita herself to pick up me and my friends.  As we drove down towards Buckingham Palace, I said to them.

“Okay guys remember we’re gonna be before royalty. So that means no funny business, no insulting or offending stances, and try not to embarrass yourselves.”

“Uhh Tom, I think you should look in the mirror and say that.” Zendaya teased.  I glared at her and soon we felt the car stop. We all looked out and even though I’ve driven past it most of my life, here I was standing right before the actual gates of Buckingham Palace.

“Spiderman Far from home party?” one of the security guards came up to us.  We nodded and he said, “We’ve been expecting you, right this way.” We were escorted throughout the large corridors, all the while I heard Jacob say.

“Wow. Never did I think I would get the chance to walk through an actual castle.”

“I mean I had to but that was just a set. No this is the real deal.” Said Zendaya. We walked for what felt like eternity until finally we reached the grand throne room.

There sitting on the throne were King Brian and Queen Anita.  Our escort then stood before them and said.

“I present to you, King Brian and his fair Queen Anita.”

“Your majesties.” I said as I bowed along with all my friends.

“Oh please rise Tom, you and your friends are no strangers to us. Richard, go fetch our daughter.” Said Queen Anita.

“Yes my Queen.” He bowed and went off to go get the Princess.

“Your palace is amazing your majesties…..uhh your highnesses….I mean….” Jacob started stammering before Zendaya kicked him in the shin making him cry out.

“Thank you Jacob.” Said King Brian gratefully.

“Presenting, her royal highness, Princess (y/n) Diana Elizabeth Charlotte (l/n).” Richard’s voice soon proclaimed.  It was then coming out from the side door was the most gorgeous girl I had ever seen.

She was in a beautiful lavender A-line wickstead dress.  Her hair was done in gentle waves and she wore one of those large sunhats of the same color.  It kinda reminded me of one of those old school movies from like the 30’s or 40’s when the actress would walk in wearing those big hats before revealing the beautiful face underneath.  She walked up towards us and smiled widely.

*My POV*

God I can’t believe they’re really here! Zendaya, Jacob, Harry (Tom’s assistant) and of course the leading man himself, Tom Holland.  They were all dressed up in semi-formal outfits.

“Hi. I’m so glad you all accepted the invitation. I’m a huge fan of the MCU but if I had to pick, then Homecoming if defiantly my #1”

“Wow that’s awesome!” said Jacob.

“Thanks Princess.” Said Zendaya.

“Oh please no formalities I hate that. Call me (y/n). And by the way Zendaya, amazing job in the Greatest showman, I literally can’t stop watching that film.”

“Thanks, you know I did all my own stunts in that right?”

“Shut up!” she exclaimed.

“For real I did, as did Zac.”

“Okay that’s it, you’re officially the coolest person ever!” She grinned and the two of us shook hands with each other.  Guess I already found my best friend of the cast.  I then turned to Tom and said to him. “You’ve been a bit quiet Tom, is everything alright?” He stammered but managed to say.

“Y-yeah. Yeah everything’s…..everything’s fine.” His voice even did that cute little boyish crack.  I smiled and said.

“I hope you weren’t expecting anything grand or different.”

“No!” he suddenly blurted out which echoed throughout the throne room.  He cleared his throat embarrassed and said, “I mean no, not at all. I mean I wasn’t expecting much I mean—” I giggled softly. Oh go he was cuter in person.

“Well, since you all are already dressed, I’ll escort you to the garden where Martin will serve us our tea and brunch. If you all will please follow me.” I then escorted them out of the throne room and out to the garden.

*Tom’s POV*

As we were walking I couldn’t help but think how much of an idiot she must think I am.

“Mate what’s going on with you?” whispered Harry.  I shrugged and that’s when I felt my phone vibrate.  I opened it up to see that Zendaya had texted me saying.

Smooth lover boy

I glared at her and she just grinned smugly at me.

*My POV*

We soon arrived at the garden where Martin and Chessie were serving us brunch and tea. The garden was decored with the finest silk streamers and the tea set we were using today was imported to us from Japan. The finest Japanese tea set we’ve ever had the privilege of owning.

“I hope all of this isn’t too much for all of you. I don’t wish to overwhelm you all.” I said.

“No, no this is great. Never did I think we’d get to go into a real royal palace.” Jacob said.

“And these teacups are so beautifully decorated.” Said Zendaya as she admired her teacup.

“Yeah. It was hand painted by one of the best Japanese painters and sculptures.”

“Wait so this was also sculpted too?” I nodded.  It was then Chessie came in and said.

“So what shall it be today your majesty.”

“Ohh Chessie you know the rules, guest always go first.”

“Right, right forgive me Princess.” Zendaya went and ordered some blueberry French toast, Jacob got the order of deviled eggs, Harry ordered some Egg and cheese hash brown waffles, and surprising Tom asked for my favorite brunch meal the Vanilla crumpets with cinnamon cream.

“So you like vanilla crumpets too?” I asked.

“Yeah uhh….my mum always made them for brunch when I was a kid and I just can’t stop eating them.”

“Yeah, my mum got me into these when we went on a business trip to Madrid. Ever since then I had it immediately put on the brunch menu.” Soon enough the food arrived and I asked, “So how long are you all here shooting in London for?”

“Three months?” questioned Zendaya.

“Yeah about three months. Just to get some of the vacation shots before we have to go back to Atlanta.” Answered Harry.

“So Jacob, Zendaya have you two seen more of the city yet?”

“Not yet, film schedules keep us on our toes that we rarely have any time to go see the sights. And this is my first time visiting London.” Answered Jacob.

“Well if you’re willing as well as with the permission of your director. I’d be more than willing to give you all a royal escort throughout the town. I can even show you my favorite sights.”

“Really you’d do that? Oh thank you your majesty. Uhh I mean (y/n), sorry.”

“It’s okay Jacob.”

“So (y/n), if you had to pick your favorite marvel superhero who would it be?” asked Zendaya.  I blushed and quickly looked to Tom and said.

“Well I mean…..not to be biased since the actor playing my favorite character is here but Spiderman was my first superhero movie I ever saw. Saw it during Toby Maguire’s movies, then I watched the Andrew Garfield ones, wasn’t as into them as Toby but…..when Civil War came out I—guess I found my new favorite Spiderman.”

“Re—really?” Tom asked. I bashfully nodded and I said.

“Yeah, ever since then I’ve been diving into the Spiderman rabbit hole. Reading everything I could. I even have some of the original comic books up in my room.”

“You’re serious? The Original copies!? Like first print editions?” exclaimed Harry.

“Mm-hmm. Got the as birthday presents. Didn’t ask for them but dad has always spoiled me like that. I—only just wish I could’ve met the creator of my favorite franchise. I’m so sorry to hear about him.”

“We never even saw it coming. I mean yeah he was old but every time we saw him he was—just so full of love and life. And now he’s gone.” Tom said solemnly.  I then reached out for his hand, hoping that I wasn’t crossing anything but I said to him.

“Yeah, and I have no doubt in my mind he finally got to see the Spiderman he imagined through you Tom. And—at least he’s now reunited with his wife. It couldn’t have been easy living without her with as long as they’ve been together.” He looked at me and softly smiled before gently squeezing my hand back.  God his hands were so warm.

“He even kept a picture of her in his pocket and he’d look at it every time he was on set with us after she died. He really did love her.” Zendaya said.

“I’d probably do the same.”

“He was a great man, and he’ll be forever missed. To Stan “the Man” Lee.” Harry said as he raised his teacup.

“To Stan “the Man” Lee.” We all joined in the cheers.

After we all had brunch I showed the guys more of the palace grounds.  From the garden, to the meeting rooms, the training facility (cause hey even a royal Princess needs to know how to defend herself) and the shooting range.

“Oh hey guys I haven’t shown you the best part, c’mon follow me!” we all raced along the corridors till we reached my dance room.  In here I’ve got practically every dance game known to mankind from the old school Dance, Dance revolutions, to the current Just Dance. The Michael Jackson experience, Black-eyed Peas experience, and everything else in-between. You name it, I’ve got it.

“Whoa!” the all choired out in awe.

“Welcome to my personal ballroom.”

“(Y/n) this is—this is dope. This is…..you’ve got practically very dance game that’s ever been released. Even the old machine ones that you jump up and down on to match the arrows with.” Said Zendaya.  I entered into the changing room to put on some more casual clothes that are appropriate for dancing and said.

“Yep. So you guys think you can take on the champ?” I bragged.

“Please Princess, I’ve got the high score on Just Dance 3 by beating these three losers.” Zendaya bragged as she tossed her hair aside.

“Well then, care to see who the champion of champion really is?”

“Oh girl you are on.” We slapped hands with each other and I got the game set up. I told the guys where to find some clothes in case they didn’t want to ruin their formal attire and let it get all sweaty. Zendaya came out wearing a black tank top with a pink heart on it as well as yoga pants.  Jacob wore a plain white t-shirt and khaki colored pants, Harry kept his jeans but changed into a grey short sleeved shirt and Tom was wearing a black basket-ball like t-shirt as well as pants.  I adverted my eyes so that I wouldn’t be caught staring at those toned arms of his.

I turned on the X-box 360 and went through the process of getting through the menu and both Zendaya and I signed in as a duel battle.

“Alright you pick the song Z-Daya.”

“Gladly your majesty. And don’t worry I’ll make sure to make it an easy song.” At that point the guys exclaimed as she had burned me.

“Ohh that’s how it is huh?”

“That’s exactly how it is Princess.” She teased.  She scrolled through the menu until she reached ‘Pump it’ by the Black-eyed Peas. “You ready?”

“Are you?” I mocked as I stretched out my arms and gave my legs a good shake off. Zendaya jumped up and down shaking out her nerves and I slide the screen to play.

I’ll admit, Zendaya definitely kept me up on my toes.  It was literally a back and forth of us either nailing the move or one of us missing a step or two.  Our scores were practically neck and neck but in the end she did end up beating me by 100. The boys were all cheering and Zendaya and I clasped hands with each other and hugged it out.

“You weren’t kidding, you truly are the master.”

“Yeah but gotta admit, you’ve worked me harder than those three chuckleheads over there combined.”

“Okay so whose next?” For the next couple hours it was nothing but dance battles. Tom vs. Harry, Harry vs. Jacob, Jacob vs. Tom, Tom vs. Zendaya, and every other combination you can think of. That was until it came to Tom vs. me. I was scrolling through the playlist until Rihanna’s Umbrella came on and at that point everyone but Tom exclaimed.

“DO THAT! THAT’S THE ONE! DO THAT!”

“Ohh god guys no!” Tom groaned.

“Ohh c’mon Tommy honey that’s your song!” Jacob exclaimed.

“Are you guys talking about the time you two were on Lip Sync Battle?” I asked.

“Oh my god you—you saw that?” squeaked Tom.

“Yeah, I didn’t see it live but a friend of mine showed me the Youtube link and I was….amazed. You’re a pretty good dancer Tom, and you definitely pulled off the Rihanna look quite well.” He blushed and cleared his throat and said.

“Okay we’ll—we’ll do it. If you’re game for it.”

“Ohh I’m game. But in the light of us doing this song, if we’re gonna do it….” I quickly raced over to my prop box and pulled out two umbrellas. “We’ll do it right!” I tossed him one of the umbrellas and everyone cheered.  I went back to the controls and scrolled through the list explaining to them, “Let me just find the one with the alternate duel battle of this song. That doesn’t have the umbrella in it.” After about 7 songs, I found it.  “You ready?”

“Let’s do it.” He said.  I pressed the start key and I got into position one.

I gotta say even with a whole different choreography than he learned the first time, Tom still knows how to work an umbrella and how to sensualize himself when the dance called for it.  I was just thankful this wasn’t a Lip sync battle cause otherwise I would’ve definitely lost.

*Tom’s POV*

Wow she was good.  She was…..she knew exactly how to keep in time with each dance move and it….wow she was sensational.  I swore I almost got distracted and almost stopped dancing because I just couldn’t take my eyes off of her.  If I didn’t know any better I’d say that like me she had dancing experiences when she was a child.

By the end of it all she ended up winning but I wasn’t a sore loser about it, I congratulated her on the win.

“Not bad, you still got it.” She said.

“Thanks, hey did uhh—did you ever take dance lessons before?”

“A little bit, mostly ballet but I hated it so I quit within a year. No most of my dancing comes from playing these games.”

“Well you danced like a pro.” I said.

“Care to go for another round?”

“Uhh hate to break it up guys but that was Jake. Says Jon wants us back on set within an hour.” Harry said as he held up his phone.

“Aww man but I was about to break my high score on Crazy little thing called love. And I was gonna have (y/n) be my leading lady!” Zendaya whined out.

“Sorry guys but we gotta go.”

“No problem, go ahead and change and I’ll have a car for you guys outside to escort you back to the set.” She explained but I could sense the sadness in her tone. Call it my own ‘spider sense’ but I could tell she was a bit disappointed in the visit being cut so short. And believe me she wasn’t the only one.

After getting changed back into the clothes we came in with and walking through the hallways to the same path we came in on, Harry pulled me aside and said.

“Alright when you gonna tell her?”

“Tell who what?”

“Don’t play games her Thomas, all day you’ve been making goo-goo eyes at the Princess. When you gonna tell her you love her?” Zendaya pressured.

“Whoa what? Love!? Who—who said anything about love? I mean yeah she’s cute but I—she….” Of course all three of them weren’t buying this and I sighed heavily and said, “So what if I did? Huh? She a Princess. I’m just an actor. I’d never fit in with her class.”

“Bullshit, don’t you know she’s been making the same lovey-dovey look to you. She does love you. And not just because you’re Spiderman dude, you’re a total catch. Now let her reel you in!” Zen lectured me.

Soon we reached the main entrance and walked out of the palace and there standing by the same driver that brought us here was (y/n).  We all walked towards her and she said.

“Thank you all again for accepting my invitation this…was the most fun I’ve had in years.”

“Thank you (y/n) for inviting us. I really hope we can hang out again sometime.” Jacob said as they shook hands with each other and he got into the car first.  Zen walked up to her and said.

“See yah later Princess.”

“See you Zendaya, and I promise next time we meet on the dance battlefield, I will show you why I am the champion.”

“I’ll be counting on that.” They clasped hands with each other before hugging each other and she went into the car.  Harry walked up to her and bowed his head.

“Thank you your royal highness for this lovely day.” He spoke with such a posh tone it was laughable, and (y/n) seemed to agree with it.

“You are most welcome kind Harrison.” He took her hand and kissed the back of it just to irk me before getting into the car.  Finally it was my turn.  The two of us stood face to face with each other and we both spoke up at the same time.

“I just wanted—” we both laughed nervously and I told her to go first.

“I….especially want to thank you for coming. I—didn’t think you’d come personally.”

“I maybe an actor but I’m not like all those spoiled kid actors that throw tantrums if they don’t get their way.” She smiled and continued,

“Still it—made me happy that you all accepted the invitation.”

“Thank you for inviting us. And hey if—if you have time to come by the set, I’ll personally see to it that you are given all access to everything. Just as long as you don’t spoil it.”

“Don’t worry I won’t. I’m not like you when it comes to spoilers.” I gawked at her which made her laugh some more but I didn’t retaliate cause it was true. “Well, goodbye Tom.” She held her hand out to me and I took it and we shook on it.

“Goodbye, (y/n).” she smiled before finally letting go of my hand and she started heading back up the stairs towards the palace.  Graaahhh! You bloody idiot go after her! This could be the last time you see her! Go. After. Her. C’mon Spiderman! “(Y/n) wait!” I raced up towards her and I quickly said as I gripped her shoulders, “I pray I don’t get shot for this.” Then I went for it.

I kissed her, right on the lips.

I felt her tense up but she didn’t push me away.  I felt her wrap her arms around me as the kiss deepened a bit before we finally separated.  The two of us softly panting and I said.

“God I—I’m sorry I-I-I-I just….it’s just that I….” she interrupted me by kissing me again before whispering.

“You have no idea how long I’ve dreamed for this to happen.”

“R-really?”

“Yeah. Sorry if that sounds creepy.”

“No! No not at all. I—it’s just when you first walked out it….it looked like I was looking at an angel, oh god that sounds so cringy doesn’t it?”

“A little. But also sweet. Most boys that I meet either just want to get to the crown or just treat me as a Princess. They don’t see me for what’s underneath, and I’m glad you got to see that.”

“Anytime. So…..are we….” I drawled out as I gestured between the two of us.  She giggled and said.

“Only if you’re okay with it.”

“I’m okay if you’re okay.”

“Okay then we’re okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Alright this is getting old.” She joked which made us both laugh.

“Can I….get your number?” She nodded and we exchanged phone numbers with each other and I sent her a test text and once she got it, she simply replied with a heart emoji.  “I’ll give you a call whenever we get done filming.”

“Sounds good, have fun filming. Spiderman.” I smiled at her and gave her one last kiss before she turned and walked back up towards the palace.

From the car I could see the guys all giving me emphasized winks and thumbs up. I rolled my eyes at them but I couldn’t help but thank those guys in the end.  If they hadn’t gotten me to admit that I had fallen in love with (y/n), I wouldn’t have gotten the guts to kiss her and show her how I felt about her.

As I got into the car, I couldn’t help but stare down at her message and so I sent her a kissy face emoji along with a little message. That typical three word phrase “I Love you” MY Princess.

[pooklet]

1, 2: lol it’s ok anon! i’m glad u found it cuz i would have been no help. my sims puke purple glitter. and ty for the well wishes! :D hope u have a great day too.

3: hmmmm it might be the photoshop version you’re using? cuz i have no idea if later versions are compatible with my actions. i’m not sure how to go about fixing this cuz im still using photoshop cs3 (don’t have the $$ for anything newer) so there’s a fair chance my actions use commands that no longer work the same/at all. there’s not much i can do about this from my end, but if you’re willing to try another program, there’s the GIMP version by @iakoasims​!

4: aww, thank you anon!! it was so sweet of you to send this and to think of us. :D :D :D im sorry this response is so profoundly late!

5: mnope! i’m sorry but i don’t know who that is and don’t have their textures! you should probably ask them about it.

6: oh shit that is TOTALLY my bag!! thank u for letting me know, anon! i will def check it out.

7: i’m sorry anon, i don’t use a lot of facial hair so i can’t be of much help :( i feel like i have seen some facial hair in unnatural colors (not necessarily mine tho idk) but i have no idea where to find it. all i learned from searching for “pookleted beards” is that google is really certain i’m actually looking for “pickled birds.”

8: it’s def not you, anon, i gotta overhaul that whole set of actions cuz my explanation was so opaque and unhelpful that i don’t even remember how to do it. just know that if you export from the brow files i made, you will have a bumpmap to play around with, so any existing tutorials on how to edit bumpmaps should hopefully be helpful for giving them a more dynamic/3d look. i’ve been planning on updating all my eyebrows anyway cuz i mostly use unnatural colors now, so hopefully when i do i can write up a better tutorial! sorry bout that.

9: @cakehatwombat we have an instagram now but it’s kind of sparse cuz of a sudden avalanche of IRL health issues that have been keeping me in bed most of the day, with azayawife too busy takin care of me to do her own doll stuff. but! i had a procedure that will hopefully help with the pain and make it easier to get up and do stuff, both dolls and sims. and omg thank you. being married to azaya is literally my favorite fucking thing in the entire world!! def the goodest, purest thing in my life.

10: oh anon, i’m so sorry to hear that. :( i hope you are doing better in the ridiculously long time i took to answer this. i’ve been sitting on your ask for ages just tryin to figure out what to say. it’s really hard for me to give generalized advice for relationships cuz like ....... this is the only one i’m in. i don’t know how others would work, just how we work. which is by being best friends and having been that for years before we got together. we both wanted to find The One and marry the crap out of them and be attached at the hip all the way to the grave. and it’s cuz we both wanted that from day one that i think it has worked out so well.

like, it’s one thing to change and grow together, something you should definitely do, but it’s another to give your heart to someone who has to change before they’re worthy of it, you know?? if you don’t want the same things going into the relationship, you won’t have a strong enough foundation to build on. it also helped a lot that my psychologist was one of our staunchest supporters, even when very close members of our family were uh .............. less than pleased about us getting queer married. and thought they were doing the right thing by telling us we shouldn’t be together or pointing out perceived flaws that were just rooted in their own homophobic fears. having someone in our corner, someone objective who knew how to spot an unhealthy relationship versus a healthy one and assured us that ours was the latter, made it possible to tune out those family members, tell them that we loved them but that they needed to work out their shit on their own time, and get back to us when they could be a positive, supportive influence in our lives. obvs this is not relevant if u have a family that supports u and yr identity 100% already, but for us it was so crucial.

 so ... yeah. i’m sorry if this was not helpful! i really don’t know how else to answer other than that u should a) be with someone who wants the same kind of relationship that you do, b) have folks outside the relationship that you trust to give you objective feedback, and c) never settle for anything less than someone that you would trust with all the weird shit in your browser history.

[greyias]

This is not fair of me to ask, I'm sure you have plenty to do, but there is this post on reddit titled, "Is there an enjoyable way to read about SWTOR plot? I have fallen ill right after playing Umbara and I would very much like to know why certain someone did what he did, but I am unable to play and wookiepedia is quite a dry read. " He explains he has seizures from playing video games. I was wondering if you had something written that would help him out, or maybe you could write something?

Oh no, that poor guy! That really sucks to be invested in a story and then not be able to see how it turns out!  I’m going to guess videos/playback of them have a similar issue  🙁 

I totally will agree with him that Wookieepedia is definitely dry, but I’m going to boldly put this statement out here: it’s also incorrect.

At least the articles on Fractured Alliances were (and a few other TOR era articles I came across), to the point where I actually got really angry reading them because the assumptions were just so... blatantly wrong. And not well sourced. (This is a strange hill for me choose to die on, but I will go defend it nonetheless.) Granted I haven’t looked at them in several months, so it’s possible they’ve been updated since then? 🤷‍♀️

I haven’t written a full write-up on what happened in Fractured Alliances, but honestly I’ve been meaning to? Because the Wookiepedia articles irked me that much, I feel like someone needs to rant at length and correct them. I’ve just, erm, got a bit lazy and distracted and haven’t done so. Mostly because there’s actually a lot to cover, and a lot of misconceptions to correct, and sourcing is hard yo.

BUT! I can do a cliff’s notes version really quick to get him some answers. Although if it’s possible... maybe just link him this post in private if possible? Mostly because there’s some pretty big edgelords over on Reddit, and they make me tired (which is why I stopped even going over there to look at things).

Also I still haven’t quite lived down Gravedrog yet. I still can’t believe that blew up to the degree it did.

BUT! I can talk about Theron Shan, and his motivations all the live long day. Probably too long if we’re being honest. And I’ve definitely invested far more thought and energy into understanding what happened in this storyline (and why everyone did what they did) than is probably rational. But hey, we all have to have a hobby? And apparently mine is dissecting rushed/truncated video game storylines and their implications on characterization.

The TL;DR: Theron does what he does in Fractured Alliances to protect both the Outlander and the Alliance. And eventually by extension of the plot, everyone in the galaxy

(Whether or not a player or Outlander agrees with his methods for going about it is another debate entirely, but Theron definitely had his reasons, which were noble in intent, as all roads to hell are said to be paved with)

(Sorta) Cliff’s Notes Version of Fractured Alliances:

(okay this isn’t that short, but I promise it’s a lot shorter than it could be)

Once upon a time, we find a junky old spaceship in the swamp. We ignore it whispering creepily to us and a bunch of warning signs and decide to adopt it anyway

Sometime later, the entire cast of KOTET takes a reluctant field trip (see: KIDNAPPING) to Iokath. 

While there, some stupid droid turns to Vaylin and says “Hey, you want to erase all of these Gemini droids free will?”

Because the entire expansion of KOTET got cut down by literally half, a lot of characterization shortcuts are taken and Vaylin’s like “HELL YEH”

All of the Gemini units are mindwiped save for one, a creepy little scarfed explorer who was off exploring Hoth or something. We get one e-mail from Hylo about this droid at the end of KotFE Chapter 16. 

This lone Gemini unit, named Gemini 16, is traumatized by this and she’s like “Fuck having sisters! I want to be an only child!” and decides she wants to murder her entire droid family. Apparently it’s the only way to be sure this never happens again???

We defeat Vaylin, Valkorion, and take ownership of a shiny new fleet! Neat! Also, we install the Fleet’s control console with a known security flaw that we ourselves tried to exploit in KotFE (see: The Gemini Frequency) into the heart of our operations on Odessen. I’m sure no traumatized, misanthropic lone Gemini droids or crazy Zakuulans will use this to their advantage.

Oh wait.

Some guy we never met hates us because two kids were arguing over a piece of bread in the street. 

This genius is named Vinn Atrius. He’s our villain.

He says “THANKS OUTLANDER-BAMA” and “We always had plenty of bread before YOU showed up!” and “Zakuul can’t just conquer and force everyone to bend to our will anymore :( :( :( :(” and “Won’t someone think of the children????” and decides he’s going to murderize him an Outlander. And the Alliance. 

He decides to become a terrorist and frame us for his terrorist acts. 

When he’s not starting whisper campaigns about how the Outlander is this horrible tyrant that must be stopped

Theron gets wind of Vinn’s plans, and decides to pretend he wants to be a cultist too! -- Vinn wisely slams the door in his face. This is the only wise thing Vinn ever does.

Vinn’s not a very good mastermind, so scary droid lady (GEMINI 16) says “Here honey, let me help you find a giant apocalypse machine”, although she doesn’t say honey because she hates everyone who’s not her

I actually skipped Iokath but I swear to god that’s an entire post unto itself, but someone tries to murderize the Outlander. Theron’s strangely calm about this. We’re supposed to think that’s because the TR8R WAS HIM ALL ALONG

This is stupid and goes against every characterization of Theron Shan up to this point in canon. I literally need an entire post to go into this, and am trying to keep things short.

TL;DR: This lady tried to murder the Outlander because ?????

I’m pretty sure the person behind the mask is the Scion, Oramis, and this part of the story/explanation got cut when they condensed everything.

Oramis and the Scions are also another post/explanation entirely

Gemini 16 lured everyone to Iokath

the full explanation is a post unto itself

but it’s the only thing that makes sense (with her motivation, Vinn’s motivation, their entire dialogue on their first meeting -- again, I’m trying to keep this “short”)

Sixteen literally has recordings of Team Outlander talking about who could have lured everyone there -- implying she was in the Iokath mainframe the entire time they were there on Iokath Fieldtrip #2

also, Vinn Atrius is as dumb as toast

🍞

Theron is actually pretty pissed about someone trying to murder his boss/best friend/girlfriend/boyfriend. And he’s pretty sure he knows who it is. So he goes into ultra THERON LOGIC mode -- which is to say, he becomes an overly paranoid loner -- and decides to infiltrate a death cult.  (again). As you do.

Because via intelligence reports that are for some stupid reason hidden behind group content, he already knows that some conspiracy against the Alliance is afoot. And that they’re being watched. Apparently Lana forgot to read all of her Intelligence dossiers???? 

Since he knows we’re being watched, but can’t figure out how, logically the only thing to do is without any backup whatsoever, try and infiltrate the Death Cult that slammed the door in his face once already. 

Luckily for Theron, Vinn Atrius is a dumbass and says “IDK... you’re pretty close to the Commander”

Theron says “Would a face like this lie to you?” while making this face in the cutscene: 😡  

Vinn’s like “When you’re right, you’re right! Blow up a train for me?” 

Theron: AHAHAHA SURE. I LOVE BLOWING UP TRAINS

Theron, Mentally: ...well, crap. I guess I could tell the Commander about this. BUT THE WALLS HAVE EARS--WAIT I HAVE A BRILLIANT PLAN

Theron proceeds to concoct the most elaborate stage play known to man, which includes:

Leading everyone to the front of the train

Where he can lure both the Outlander and Lana into the front compartment

And shoots Lana with a stun blast, something he has never done before to someone he’s trying to supposedly kill

Then he shoots at the Commander--but not really, because he was shooting out the window on the front of the train

Then he shoots again at the Commander--but not really, because he was shooting at the controls to bring up a shield that prevents the Outlander from following him

And oh no! Now there’s a shield between them, what a tragedy, I guess he can’t pretend to shoot at the Commander and miss for a third time. Guess it’s time to monologue like a Bond villain. What can ya do? It’s not like he has cybernetic implants that help him be an expert marksman. God, that’d be embarrassing.

Since he knows that he’s being recorded by some unseen person, he really hams it up for the camera. He makes this face again, because he’s decided it’s part of his tr8rsona: 😡

The Outlander can react in a variety of ways, but if one of those ways is “UM WTF???? WHY DIDN’T YOU TALK TO ME???” he suddenly breaks tr8r character and goes “I thought about it... but then you might have talked me out of it--AND WE CAN’T HAVE THAT!” 

if you romanced him and say you still love him he makes this face: 😭

And then literally tells the Outlander how to escape from the train before like going “I’m really gonna blow up this train -- in thirty seconds -- gosh it would be a shame if you were still on this train in thirty seconds. When it blows up. When I pull the trigger. That I’m about to do.”

The Outlander leaps off the train, out of the convenient exit point Theron made, with Lana. They’re respectively like “?????” and “🤬🤬🤬🤬”

Vinn thinks this all very convincing. Sixteen is facepalming in the background. Vinn doesn’t listen to her. We don’t see any of this, but it’s kind of implied in future dialogue.

If you’re dating Theron and didn’t try to Force choke him, he sends you a letter going “I STILL LOVE YOU -- CAN’T EXPLAIN WHY I DID THIS BUT ILU PLZ DON’T FORGET ILU oh yeah and the alliance sucks and stuff i guess -- ps. ♥︎♥︎♥︎”

This is apparently something a tr8r would do, because Theron is Vinn’s go-to guy now. And decides to give Theron the task of retrieving a map to this place called Nathema so they can find a giant death machine to kill the Alliance.

Oh wait. That place called Nathema. That Theron has been to before. And knows the exact coordinates too because he was the pilot that flew them there. The place that Valkorion sucked the entire life out of and made a giant wound in the Force. THAT NATHEMA.

This is the part where normal people might think “Maybe I should reconsider my plans”, but they are not Theron Shan. Who shaves his head, throws away a jacket he’s been wearing since he was like fifteen, and heads over to Chiss space, to steal/blow up a map to the Ancient Death Machine.

Actually it’s revealed/hinted at on Iokath, on Copero, and then clarified once again in Nathema Conspiracy, that this machine is literally the Apocalypse

It wipes out entire worlds’ populations in an instant

Background lore indicates that its hunger is endless and has been waiting to rise again and there’s like prophecies about this

If activated and not stopped, this machine will literally annihilate all life in the galaxy

Theron blows up some more things at a resort, runs bravely away away, and then OOPS OH SO ACCIDENTALLY broadcasts his call with the Death Cult, who say their name on camera.

Shockingly, the Alliance intercepts the accidental-on-purpose broadcast and now know the name of Theron’s new cult: The Order of Zildrog

Then like forever and a day passes in real life, but who knows how long in game time, but I guess it’s like, six months or less according to a line of dialogue -- and finally Lana and the Outlander mysteriously get coordinates to a myyyyysterious abandoned outpost. 

And by mysterious, I mean that Lana is the only one who can decode said coordinates because she and Theron came up with the encryption together on Rishi

It’s almost like he’s working from the inside or something

But if you tell Lana that she’s like “NO HE’S A TR8R GRRR THIS A TRAP”

It is not a trap

Lana and the Outlander wander around, and find a bunch of recordings someone conveniently forgot to erase detailing a bunch of infodumps that’s way too long for the Cliff’s Notes version, but boil down to showing and implying an entire novel’s worth of backstory:

Vinn’s manifesto

Theron unconvincingly pretending he really likes death cults

Vinn staring at numbers from data he got from Iokath and zomg Zildrog is reallllll -- the legends of his mighty hunger and DEATH DEALING are true! Squee! Just what he needs to get rid of that pesky Outlander!

Vinn recruiting people who really don’t like you into his death cult

Gemini telling Vinn he really sucks at this masterminding thing, but she needs someone who’s good with people so hey let’s team up!

Oh and she knows where Zildrog is

The Outlander and Lana escape before the space station blows up

Over on the Shuttle of Zildrog, Theron’s like “It’s all up to you now, Commander” and apparently Vinn hears that and is like “Hey Theron, did you remember to erase all of our super sekrit recordings and blow up the space station?"

Theron: 👌

Vinn: 👍

Sixteen: 😒

Back on Odessen Lana’s like “I KILL DA TR8R” regardless of your feelings on the matter as an Outlander. If Arcann’s still alive he’s like “Hey Commander, maybe go easy on Theron? I know the value of forgiveness. Maybe he had his reasons?”

You get corroborating information of literally everything we just learned on the Space Station OF DOOM and Lana’s still like “Nope, still gonna shank me a tr8r! No one tazes Lana Beniko and lives!”

I assume it’s a fun ride to Nathema

Okay I joke. She’s just being protective and "logical”, but honestly if you select literally every single dialogue option supporting Theron throughout this story, illogically Angry Lana can really start to grate after a while

On Nathema, we follow a myyyysterious signal -- to Theron. To the surprise of no one except Lana who’s like “JERKFACE STAY AWAY FROM THE COMMANDER”

Theron proceeds to tell an extremely abbreviated, and slightly more straightforward version of everything above. 

If you’ve romanced him, he reminds you that he promised to do anything to protect you. 

This includes shaving his head, updating his wardrobe, blowing up a train, and putting up with Vinn Atrius’s shit for months on end

The things he does for love

Lana still doesn’t believe him. At this point if you want to, you can be like “Lana plz” and she’s like “OKAY FINE--BUT I’M WATCHING YOU TR8R”

Gemini 16 was watching the entire exchange. Looks like SOMEONE’S cover is blown. Oh well, Theron was done with it anyway.

Vinn is SHOCKED. SHOCKED I TELL YOU.

HOW DARE

THERON????

HOW COULD YOU?????

YOU FRIENDED ME ON SPACEBOOK

WAS IT ALL A LIE

I KEEL HIM

Sixteen is just like “whatever let’s go activate Zildrog”

Vinn: Is this why he kept insulting our Lord and Savior Valkorion?????

Team Outlander fights their way to the site of the Ancient Apocalypse Machine. They meet Shroedinger’s Cultist along the way via holo. 

He/she/they says “hi/plz die”.

There’s sixteen candidates for this spot (two for each class) -- but all sixteen are not death cultists at the same time

This is another thing that requires an entire post to delve into, so another time on that

Team Outlander arrives at the site where Zildrog was installed on Nathema -- coincidentally right at the same spot Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion initiated his first death ritual to grant him semi-immortality. Fancy that.

Vinn has convinced everyone he’s recruited into his death cult to climb into these really dangerous looking pods; not surprising but they’re all basically dead -- because Zildrog required a human sacrifice to be reactivated

A human sacrifice???

In my ancient death machine?

It’s more likely than you think!

Theron shoots Vinn because he’s tired of his shit

Gemini 16 reveals that the Zildrog machine is one half of a larger death device built on Iokath. Where’s the other half?

OH BACK ON ODESSEN. Because it’s the Gravestone. Yes, I know everyone forgot about it at this point, which is kind of easy since we haven’t seen it since KOTET.

The Gravestone blows up the Eternal Fleet. Like, all of it. At once. Also the control console for the Fleet blows up too. This kind of detonates several things on base.

For some reason edgelords on Reddit think this is all Theron’s fault

As if the writers were really going to let us keep that Deus Ex Machina that would literally prevent them from going back to these same whiner’s precious Pub vs Imp conflict

And ignoring the fact that this would have been the end result even if Theron hadn’t gone undercover

I digress

Team Outlander fights Sixteen and defeats her. 

Theron goes to try and finish shutting Zildrog down and Vinn Atrius is like

And stabs Theron in the back with a lightsaber pike

The Outlander can be like 

“FUCK YOU ASSHOLE THAT’S MY BEST FRIEND/BOYFRIEND”

 or “OH NOES” 

or “ASSMUNCH I WAS GONNA DO THAT”

Vinn’s like “DRAGGONNNNNNNNN” as if he was recreating a scene from Dragonball Z, and the holo-Zildrog is like “Here, let me make you go Super Saiyan!” -- and gives Vinn a boss buff

Outlander and Lana fight Vinn and kick his ass. Then kick Zildrog’s ass. Yes, Zildrog is literally just a computer console in the center of the room, and if the Outlander more or less pulls a Kylo Ren on it

The Gravestone blows up -- everyone on Odessen is really confused

Lana tells the Outlander that “WAIT! Theron’s still alive!” -- she’s backed off her murderous rampage at this point and says we have to bring him back to Odessen to save his life

The Outlander can act like any sane person to their boyfriend/best friend/person-who-risked-their-entire-life/reputation-to-save-us/etc and go “Let’s take him home and save his life”

Or can be a dick and literally make Theron live out his worst fear of being abandoned by the people he cares about -- because despite the mountain of evidence that illustrates he literally did all of this to save your life, you can just walk away going “tr8rs never prosper”

This option shows what looks like him dying offscreen

I’m pretty sure he actually survives

Satele sends you a nastygram if you do this, where she directly contradicts a previous letter she sent (to Theron) if you tried to kill her in KotFE Chapter 12

Lana also is not happy with you if you do this, but not like, enough to actually leave or anything

Back on Odessen it’s revealed half of the members of the Alliance are fair weather friends and have abandoned you since you don’t own any super cool space ships anymore

If you brought Theron back with you, he limps up while you and Lana are shooting the breeze and asks if he can stay

You can say yes or no

If you’re romancing Lana you can propose to her around this point

If you’ve romanced Theron (and didn’t tell him to hit the road), you take an ill-advised walk as he’s still limping like crazy, where he reveals that he’s been having nightmares ever since Umbara about you walking away from him and he can never catch up

GEE WHAT DOES THAT SOUND LIKE

He says he knows he doesn’t deserve your trust or forgiveness, but still asks if you can give “your idiot spy boyfriend” a second chance 

You can say no, of course, but if you say yes, there’s a dialogue path that leads to an adorably awkward proposal

And he promises that he and Lana will stay by your side no matter what

THE END

(of that story arc)

Sorry, I know that’s rather disjointed and rushed (despite being as long as it was)! But for such a rushed ending/conclusion, there’s actually a lot of moving parts to the storyline as whole. 

At some point in the future I’ll try to actually expand upon some of those tangent points of “I need more time to explain this properly” -- because there’s a lot of them, and a lot to them. Also cross-referencing the pieces of canon takes time -- but I promise there’s actual canonical evidence and logic trains that make sense for all of that.

[ship-obsessions]

The 100 Season 6 Speculations

Okay, so first of all I want to say I’m loving season 6 so far. Give me all of the delinquent interactions. I’m also obsessed with the Bellarke crumbs they are ALREADY GIVING US and how their repressed feelings for each other were shown (although not directly) in 6x02. A while ago I saw on Twitter that a reviewer compared The 100′s 6x02 episode to Motel California in Teen Wolf and now I totally see it. The way the plant toxin affects the delinquents parallels the werewolves being affected by the wolf’s bane... and the focus on the main group of delinquents (specifically Clarke, Bellamy, and Murphy) parallels the focus on the original core 4 in TW (Scott, Stiles, Allison, Lydia). I absolutely LOVED the core 4 dynamic in TW and I’m already loving this trio dynamic between Clarke, Bellamy, and Murphy. Give me more episodes like this! (and maybe add Raven after her and Clarke make up).

That said, I watched the first two episodes when they were leaked, so I’ve been DYING for the next episode 6x03. (Note: I’ve also been streaming them again since they’ve officially aired, so I’ve watched each one like 4 times). Since new content is finally coming next week, I wanted to get out some of my random speculations for what’s coming up later this season even though we literally know so little about this new planet, these new people, the creepy children, etc.. Of course, being curious (like a psychopath), I went through all of the season 6 episodes on IMDb to see what (if anything) it could tell me. I’m sure someone else has probably already done this, but I found some interesting things I needed to put out there...

6x03 

We already have a name “The Children of Gabriel” as well as a description (Clarke tries to win over the leaders of Sanctum in order to let her people stay. Meanwhile, Bellamy, Octavia, and Echo discover a new threat while on a mission to retrieve the transport ship.), so we have somewhat of a gist of what is coming next week. I don’t think they will fully go into the backstory of these “children of Gabriel” but we obviously know the geneticist from the flashback was named Gabriel and the actor, Ian Pala, is only listed for 2 episodes on his personal page and one of those is Sanctum (uncredited). So I’d assume this means we won’t get another flashback of him specifically or the origins of his “children”. But I do think when Clarke meets Russell and the other people somehow this backstory/history (at least a shortened version) will be explained. We know that the episode titles are all explicitly mentioned or referred to in the episodes themselves somewhere, so that’s my reasoning there.

However, I noticed one other small thing in the cast list that stuck out as strange/interesting. Sarah-Jane Redmond’s character (aka the Sanctum hostage that tried to hijack the mothership) is named Taylee in 6x02 but Tilly in 6x03. At first I thought it could have been some kind of error (idk) but it’s listed the same way on her personal IMDb actor page. Is she playing twins?? Is there validity to this clone theory I saw floating around and read about in the Hypable review?? Either way, I’m definitely interested in whatever that’s about. 

Also, I’m excited to meet JR Bourne’s character this episode! We obviously know he is Russell Lightbourne but after all my research (lol I’m taking this WAY more serious than I ever took school), I’m wondering if he’s not just a descendant of the Lightbourne’s but is actually a clone or somehow has the same consciousness from Mr. Lightbourne (Josephine’s dad) in 6x02 (again saw this in the Hypable article around a similar flame storyline theory since Becca created Eligius tech as well). It’s worth noting that we don’t actually know the character’s real name and Sean Maguire is just credited as Mr. Lightbourne -- no first name. Hmmmmm

6x04

Again we have a name “The Face Behind the Glass” and a short description (Clarke embraces the traditions of Sanctum and tries to make amends for her past actions.), but not much else... (or do we??) This episode is probably where we will see Clarke dancing in the room painting and maybe even the lanterns floating in the sky (ie. Sanctum tradition?) -- I’m thinking several “happy” moments with her. I also have a theory -- going out on a limb here -- that it is where we could see the whole “flashback” scene of Clarke in Mount Weather from the trailer. It’s probably not an actual flashback but some kind of hallucination or psychosis thing again, (or maybe even a dream?) but maybe that is where the title comes from -- she’s literally looking at herself from behind the broken glass in MW’s contamination rooms. OR we’re not quite there yet and it’s referring to the stained glass-looking red window/door thing that Emori was trying to open before going crazy in 6x01. 

The kicker for me in this episode’s listing was Jordan Bolger’s credit as Shaw, who we all saw die in 6x01. In what capacity is he coming back? Maybe it’s Raven’s hallucination or even a dream? I could see them showing us her full reaction once she knows what really happened to him, but I’m not sure how or in what way he would come back at some point in the episode (I say “come back” because the actor will actually appear). It will be super interesting how the sci-fi elements work on this new planet. We’ve already seen the eclipse-induced psychosis but what other strange things will occur or happen to our characters? If they are all facing their demons (ie. Clarke with Mount Weather and Octavia with Blodreina) I wonder how those scenes will be played out.

6x05

Again Jordan Bolger is credited... is Miles Ezekiel Shaw back again??? What is going on? 

6x06 - 6x07

I didn’t really notice anything super strange in episode 6, but GUESS WHO IS CREDITED FOR EPISODE 7: none other than Chris Browning as Jake fucking Griffin. Maybe this is another flashback or memory or hallucination -- assuming by Clarke.

Note: Madi is not credited to appear in 6x06 or 6x08 so I’m thinking her “kidnapping” or whatever happens with the creepy person who is holding her captive in the woods happens in 6x07. Or maybe it’s even earlier in 6x05?

6x08

In episode 8, the cast list introduces 2 notable new characters: Josephine VII and Hope. Okay, so with Josephine VII it could be some descendant of the original Josephine Lightbourne in the 6x02 flashback, but it could ALSO be another hint at this clone and/or flame consciousness theory. But Hope... where have we heard that name before? Oh yeah, Diyoza’s unborn child. But Diyoza hasn’t even had her baby yet and in the promo trailers it looked like she was shot (and possibly killed?). Also, this actress who plays Hope is like 6 years old, not a newborn baby. It’s still weird to me though because what are the chances there is another character -- another child, no less -- with that same name Diyoza mentioned she was planning to give her baby. Just seems a little too coincidental to me.

6x09

Okay, I’m going out on a limb here, but THIS MIGHT BE THE ICONIC RAVE SCENE FROM THE TRAILER. Stay with me... I was originally thinking this would happen earlier in the series when I saw this in the trailer, probably like everyone else, but in the IMDb cast list there are 5 “dancers” credited. I mean it is more logical for a rave scene to happen early in the season (because usually all the good things or happy stuff comes in the first half of the season and NEVER this late), but what else would “dancers” be credited for??? The 100 doesn’t do dance numbers LOL. Anyway this idea has me shook because if it is this late in the season, there is a better chance that Bellamy and Echo have ended things by this point and that super short blurry speck in the bottom right corner of the rave dance scene could be Bellamy (you know what I’m talking about). Will they actually make my LIFE and have Bellamy and Clarke dancing at that rave together? Seems way too good to be true, but I had to throw the possibility out there. I mean who knows, my Bellarke-owned ass can always hope for the best. 

After the slim possibility of that amazing possibility, here’s a scary thought to consider (sounds kind of like the show itself), this is the last episode of the season that credits Lola Flanery as Madi... WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO HER. Does whatever experiment being done on her in the promo trailer kill her? Pls don’t hurt Clarke’s smol child.

6x10

So here is where I started low key freaking out because the cast list dwindles DRAMATICALLY for credits this episode. We only have Eliza as Clarke, Shannon as Jordan, and Luisa as Emori out of ALL of the main characters we know and love. Something major has to happen for everyone else to suddenly become absent from this episode. And I’m a little scared to know what that is.

6x11

Okay thank god, the main characters are all back on the credits list for this episode. ALSO there is a new actor credited as young Echo. OMG an Echo flashback?! Will we finally understand who she was and why she is the way she is? Will I even care to get invested in her this late in the game?

Also, IMDb lists that this is the episode Bob Morley directs!

6x12 - 6x13

Our other mains are gone AGAIN from the cast list. It’s back to only listing Clarke and Jordan among the characters we already know. WTF is going on. I need answers NOW. To reiterate, I’m saying that IMDb doesn’t list Abby, Bellamy, Octavia, Raven, Murphy, Echo, Kane, Madi, Miller, or Jackson in episode 10, 12, or 13 (+ Emori in 12 or 13).

I’m honest to god just hoping that IMDb isn’t fully updated with the entire cast list in these last episodes yet -- is that a thing? pls tell me it is -- because if we don’t have a finale that includes Murphy, Raven, or most of all, BELLAMY... I swear to God I will riot. Of course, I’m hoping no one dies (obvi), but now that we know there is a season 7, could J Roth be trying to kill us with some dramatic cliffhanger where Clarke and Jordan are separated from the rest of the group? (PSA: STOP SEPARATING CLARKE FROM EVERYONE). But if so, why would this absence of all of those other characters be TWO WHOLE EPISODES? And during the two part finale of all things. UGHHH my mind is spiraling, someone pls calm me down.

On the plus side, 6x12 lists Antonio Negret as the director for the episode and we all know he brought us the brilliant (yet angsty AF) episode 5x08 last season where Bellamy poisoned Octavia to save Clarke. But if Bellamy isn’t even in this episode WHY SHOULD I EVEN BOTHER CARING.

What’s left that I missed? Probably a lot LOL. I tried going back to watch what I might have missed from the extended trailer but I couldn’t find the video ANYWHERE. It’s like disappeared from YouTube (says it is “unavailable”). What is that about?

Anyways, the scene with everyone together in the house (standing at the bar, shot looking at us) has to be in one of the episodes where all main cast members are credited -- I don’t think it will be the next one so maybe 6x04 or 6x05? Same thought for the Madi/Clarke reunion, I feel like that is in the same episode. I also have no idea when in the season Bellamy is going to strangle Russell with Clarke and Murphy in the room (again my favorite new trio!). And that being said I’m confused on JR Bourne because he was all hyped up as a new character this season but he’s only credited in the next episode 6x03. Does the strangling take place next week? It can’t right? Because Bellamy is off with Echo and Octavia on the other mission and Clarke is the only one in the castle. Also if 6x04 is Clarke trying to embrace the traditions of Sanctum and make amends, there is no way she could do that the episode after Russell (the leader of Sanctum) is killed. 

Sorry for the crazy rambling and this long AF post, but I have so much on my mind after this speculation deep dive. I need to just go to bed.

[lost-incident-kid]

Happy Birthday Miyu Sugisaki (for tommorow) might do some art for her idk

———

Edit: ah heck! Ive had this queued for months, but i forgot to actually do the art haha, i’ll get something done overnight so it might be rushed and look like trash, it might look reasonably ok. Who knows at this point. I dont trust the sleepy version of myself to create anything good but hey, theyv created some stuff that wasn’t horrifying before :/

Ok, starting here i legit just start live-blogging myself staying up alnight drawing. Ignore me. I didnt know where else to say it. I’ll delete it later.

Edit 2: this isnt gonna be done. Like frick, i just spent 6 hours on miyu’s fricking hairstyle, thats all done and even shaded and looking fabulous but ive only got a rough lineart for litterally everything else. This might not be done, but if it is then her hair is gonna be a fuckign masterpiece (i hope). Im writing this edit at 1:42am, and im gonna go to bed somewhere between 4 and 5, lets go! Hell yeah! I might do this! Perhaps! Im gonna try! 3-4 sprint time! Yeah!

Edit 3: frick, im failing to do this, miserably. Its 3:03am and i got distracted playing mobile games and didn’t get anything done. My existence is futile, existentially im a waste and I should not exist. The atoms within me deserve to be part of something better. Sorry. I’m a f*ck up and unless I get my sh*t together in the next like 5 mins (unlikely) then this aint gonna be finished.

Edit 4: ok, meltdown like 20% over. Its 3:52am, I think the issue then was the face. Faces r hard bruh, they suck do draw. They a festive lil ho ho ho. I was drawing everything too high up on the face cuz my dumb *ss forgot to draw the line thingys on the face or even look at a reference image for proportions. Ive done it now amd life is now a bit more on track. Might get this done if I continue work in the morning.

Edit 4.5: nothin much (hence the .5), its 4:14am, just downed 4 cups o tea for caffeine and sugar (all the coffee we got is decaf lol). I’m gonna get this sh*t done! Ive litterally only coloured down to the face, neck and the hair but still.... I’m gonna get it done anyway! I dont care about going to bed between 4-5 anymore! I’m getting this done!

Edit 5: its less than ten mins later (4:22am) and im taking a quick 20m break to watch youtube while I wait for the caffeine to kick in because im too braindead to continue right now. Like what art style am i even trying? Idk... its really fricking complex tho. Lowkey pretty tho, like if i finish this im gonna be so proud of it like it looks great. But its taking forever and im need break.

Edit 6: ok we back. Its 4:41am, caffeine has not really kicked in but i cant permit myself any more time anyway. Back to drawning.

Edit 7: holy frick, new episode of the vrains dub came out. Man... im leaving vrains fanart to watch the vrains dub. Am I obsessed? Is this hyperfixation? Probably? Either way, its 4:50am and im going to go watch the new episode. I’ll come back to this when im done.

Edit 8: HOLY FRICK GUYS! THE DRAWING APP IM USING KEEPS CRASHING AND SAYS ITS STILL THERE BUT WONT LET ME CONTINUE AND KICKING ME OFF THE APP?!?! ITS 5:06AM AND THE PANIC ATTAC IS BACC! The new episode of the dub isnt completely out yet, im watching that version on yt where its just smol clips of it. Not all the clips r up yet. I was just going on it while waiting for the next clips to go up and thats when the app did the thing and life got 280% sucky-er.

Edit: 8.5 wahoot it stopped kicking me off the app and it let me continue. Its 5:12am and we are FINALLY continuing.

Edit 9: its 5:36 Im tired sleep time I’ll finis thos in the morning goodbye yall have a greatt day

Edit 10: ok, so im a failure. We live in the timeline that god abandoned. I cannot sleep. I shall get more cups of tea, watch yt until the caffeine actually kicks in, and then continue. Its 6:03 right now, I shall be back. Perhaps half an hour?

Edit 10.5: its 6:11am. Not much has happened, just a slight change of plans. Ik its irrelevant but im liveblogging so i gotta say, my eye hurts so im gonna stop looking at screens. Perhaps gonna try to sleep again, if not then i’ll put read a book, redo my makeup (it smudgey) or straight up just listen to music and stare into the void. Litterally anything other than look at my laptop/phone. Peace out homies, i’ll be back at some point before 7 probably (unless i do go to sleep).

Edit 11: Its 6:41am, my eye hurts. Ive been staring into the darkness and listening to various fallout boy songs. Now i feel edgy. Its been half an hour, so im gonna continue drawing. Caffeine and sugar has worn off again so im tired and unmotivated but yno what, it is what it is. Aint life nifty, i gotta get this done.

Edit 12: 6:52 everything burns im in pain my eye is on frickign fire and it looks bloodshot but now also weird azz headache that i never got one like this before so im gonna turn off all lights cuz that seems to make it marginally better am i dying probably idk either way im not gonna continue for multiple hours it is stare into the void time and stare into the void time alone ok this should be the last update

Edit 13: It is 3:16pm, didn’t continue liveblogging cuz i got one heck of a migrane. Im back and well... Happy birthday Miyu for today! I’m still gonna try to get this god forsaken art done, but holy shit what is that art style i did. Its genuinely nothing like anything ive done before, I don’t remember doing any of the colouring but apparently I did and it looks better than anything ive done before and idk if non-fricked up me can replicate it. I’m starting to wonder if i got bored and just copied it or something, like idk how i did it. Look at it

The grey is the lineart I remember doing but man tHE FRICKIGN HAIR like i couldnt have created that, could I? I can see why it was taking so long yesterday like holy shit man that stuff takes time yno

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

SO idk fellas and felladies and those of you who know better, u know i don’t do too hot unless im constantly working on something so i decided i was gonna work off the stuff from the japanese descriptions of the calypso twins about you know... the whole ‘brainwashing’ thing

which is all well and good and then i was thinking about TFTBL while i was doing it and realized mmm you knooow only 2 sets of people have ever really “gone inside” a vault, being the TPS VHs and the TFTBL VHs and we know these two games were made within super close time frames to one another. SO i have a proposition for you, post readers: im here to suggest that Eleseer IS the Vault of TPS

tl;dr: i did actually do some talking about Eleseer being the ACTUAL Vault of Elpis (not the giant eridium crystal we see inside Eleseer) and that Tycho’s ribs was actually a generator/bigass key keeping the entrance opened. because that starry-background thing was also shown in the Vault of the Traveler and it made me go OH! those are the same thing. then eleseer must be inside a vault. because that actually makes sense. also the giant eridium crystal thing was just the Eridians’ version of the Claptastic Voyage turing the VHs into code.

and then i went, well im on the subject of TPS, might as well update my “the twins are going to use the chemical filth of elpis’s Vault to turn their followers into pseudo-Sirens like the Lost Legion Eternal” theory. so i did. and it was cool. there’s some concept art of the twins statues hanging out on a DAHL pumping station. and dahl did have a presence on pandora, but they were mining iridium, which is a metal. on Elpis, they actually did have pumping stations for the methane. which would make a lot more sense

also i go over the rakk-winged dude from the mask of mayhem again, because i mean... rakk wings... angel wings... i still can’t believe nobody else is talking about that. 

oh also possibly the idea that the Commander Lilith DLC ties into the Lost Legion Eternal ties into the ‘creating Sirens’ thing that’s going around right now. As in, all 3 things would be: it’s latent in person -> some outside thing activates it -> now they have their abilities/physical change. bonus points for the Commander Lily dlc tying in this plant monster thing to Eridian ruins (the mine) and the gas to the Vault Key/Map (hector uses the key/map to mass produce the gas). and that possibly tannis wanting to create a plant monster army is just foreshadowing for her creating an artificial siren army in 3 to help us defeat the twins. because i mean... why wouldn’t she. plsdon’tlettannisbeevil

so hear me out for a second

you guys know im 100% unconvinced that eleseer is actually inside Elpis. We see that giant hole in the ground, we see those eridian ruins, we see tycho’s ribs. and that, sure that is believable to me, because Tycho’s ribs is built into the ground. we see parts where the ruins are sticking out of the cryo rocks (methane rocks? hm.)

from the giant pit in the center of tycho’s ribs

the entrance to eleseer from tycho’s ribs:

and we know that Vaults only open with a key, and that key only automatically charges once every 200 years (OR according to the Vault of the Traveler, be anchored somewhere and held open by the key) and/or the key must be charged with eridium through a Siren

and i think you might see where I’m going with this.

do you remember that easter egg? Moon = Key. yeah? yeah.

Remember, every other Vault that is opened in the series requires a Vault Key (artificial or no) to be opened, and it’s not open forever.

im going to pause here and show some pictures of Eleseer for reference. compare them to those pictures of the inside of the TFTBL Vault, if you could :)

i noclipped out of the normal area to get a full shot of the platform

suspended in this weird starry night sky

which should look familiar to you now

because this is the same kind of area the Vault of the Traveler leads to

both these games were in development around the same time and i don’t think this is coincidence in the slightest

in bl1 and bl2 we don’t enter the vaults, instead whatever is inside comes to meet us, so we don’t have a frame of reference for those two vaults.

however

these two vaults look nothing like tycho’s ribs/eleseer.

not even the outside of the Vault of the Traveler looks like Tycho’s Ribs. in fact all three of these Vaults look identical. unlike eleseer and its ‘vault’

u might be saying to urself, but cruddy there IS a vault that looks like this in eleseer.

im getting to that >0>

my theory is that the Eridian buildings/ruins on Elpis (Tycho’s ribs, that big shaft/hole) 

is actually keeping the Vault of the Sentinel open at all times

and that

well that must take a LOT of power and eridium, right?

i think that’s exactly the purpose of tycho’s ribs

now im not a physics major but i would bet this is some sort of power generator

because of these pulses

and would it be so hard to reason that the eridians decided to build it in the cryo rocks/methane reserves of elpis in order to keep it cooler?

in fact i could not shake this feeling so i looked around on the wikia for tycho’s ribs

here’s a list of the areas in tycho’s ribs

compression chamber

exhaust port

maintenance access 42 (which im certain is a HGTTG reference)

observation deck

particle collection chamber

the most important of these areas i would say is 

maintenance access 42, mostly because it’s explicitly stated to be “lined up with a number of energy generators” that then leads to the exhaust port (and from there, eleseer)

sooooo break here because im about to switch gears 180%

----------------------

guess who just realized eleseer might mean ele-seer as in [Extinction Level Event]-seer [where seer is a person who is supposed to be able, through supernatural insight, to see what the future holds]- because everything in tps is named after seeing/watching. we got the Watcher, the Sentinel, even the Vault treasure is being able to see the future. considering most things are named after mythos in borderlands, eleseer is actually not a single word in mythos and uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh “ele” and “seer” both actually mean something.

that is, Eleseer should mean something like ‘prophet of the extinction’

That’s pretty metal

also no good, i guess

am i about to rewrite my entire zarpedon and the lost legion eternal theory? oh i guess i am. wheeeeeeee

oh, and given that this was the story summary of the game before the website was updated all those weeks ago, i think we know exactly what sort of extinction was being prophesied

cool? cool

doesn’t help that tannis hints at this, too

with her ‘mass extinction’ reference in Commander Lilith

“... mass extinction. i figured we had at minimum six or seven years before something like that”

(sorry for the cruddy screenshot i took it my first time through, am not up for playing the entire dlc again for that one line right now)

okay i might pull this back later on in this post, because i think i have a good idea of where to go, but just keep this in the back of ur mind. sorry u gotta deal with my dumb ass jumping between topics so often lol

---------------------------------

anyway, tycho’s ribs being the opening to the real Vault of Elpis. Yeah. I refuse to believe there’s a giant space place in the middle of the moon just hanging out. i’ve discussed in an earlier post about whether or not it was a pocket dimension fueled by Eridium, but i mean what is a Vault but that?

i mean if they need eridium to power the opening to the vault, they’ve certainly got that covered, there’s eridium EVERYWHERE in tycho’s ribs. that plus all those (apparent) power generators... yeah i think they’re covered

also somewhat off topic but have you guys noticed in TPS how rocks surrounding cryo get white/blue lines, rocks surrounding lava get red/orange lines, and rocks surrounding eridian ruins get purple lines? 

probably from all that FUCKIN ERIDIUM

sorry i get off topic so much

anyway

i think that the entirety of Eleseer is the Vault of Elpis. That the entrance is being held open by Tycho’s ribs/Elpis through massive amounts of power/eridium

and it could be possible that using all that eridium to keep the Vault from closing is what’s causing all that ‘chemical sludge’ that mutated the Lost Legion Eternal into the pseudo-Sirens they are.

and remember that the center of eleseer is a giant eridium crystal? and apparently entering it teleports you inside and then you fight the sentinel and see the future?

i think that’s all an illusion. I wouldn’t argue that you go into the Eridium. sure. But i think that the whole thing in there is actually a program/hologram/illusion, or the eridian equivalent of it.

You remember in the claptastic DLC where the Vault Hunters are ‘turned into code’ and injected into Claptrap?

don’t you think that was like... really weird concept despite being canon? it’s possibly that was gearbox’s way (because gearbox did take over for that dlc) of introducing that idea as something that IS possible in canon, as to explain that the Vault of the Sentinel actually isn’t magic

and you might be thinking

what the fuck is cruddy on, this is super far-fetched

but it’s not!

think about it, the skybox is the EXACT SAME as Eleseer. which should already be ur first clue that something isn’t right, considering you can’t see eleseer anywhere around you. Even the map is the same. If you had a side quest open, you can see that the game still thinks you’re in the correct area. even though this area is LEAGUES bigger than the actual crystal. shit, you can even seen the enemies around you still

and what animation plays when you teleport inside the crystal? the same one as the lilith teleportation

all those circuit looking things. the same exact things that are everywhere on eridian tech, including the Vault Key from bl2

but you haven’t GONE anywhere

you’re still where you were before, the map confirms this, even the skybox confirms this and yet there’s no hint of eleseer actually around you

there’s more hang on lemme get the ~pictures~

okay you see that pink 2d fire effect on the ‘walls’?

if you actually walk up to it, you’re greeted with this grid effect locking you on the platform

and this effect on the floor

which you know, screams projection/hologram to me. i mean the fire is legitimately 2d. it’s flat.

also the Vault pieces that form the Vault of the Sentinel (ignoring that we’re already inside the Vault of the Sentinel

you know...)

they’re formed out of the floor. just materialized

which again... is really weird. and i don’t think this is a real Vault for obvious reasons (we’re already inside the Vault of the Sentinel, Eleseer is the Vault, etc etc) but also just look at the Vault in general

it looks weird

again, calling back the other Vaults we’ve seen in this series

they’re all made of stone/rock

the Vault of the Sentinel is... not? if it is, it’s shiny asf obsidian or something

either way, it’s entirely different compared to the other Vaults we’ve seen in the borderlands series, it’s entirely smooth with no markings and, while it’s broken into pieces to hold that aesthetic, it’s not cracked or anything. the broken look was likely intentional

too shiny

not a real Vault

~everything in this area is fake~

even the steps appearing as the sentinel walks down is just... not real to me

like the sentinel is the one controlling this tiny pocket dimension/hologram/program/whatever you get the idea

further proof by him summoning more structures as the fight goes on, from stuff to hop onto to avoid his attacks and barriers to hide behind

hell, he even crawls out of the ground himself at one point, as a bigger version of himself, which is probably the real version of him considering that one actually dies when we kill it, while the tiny one just keeps getting brought back to life and laughs at us

i mean cracks even appear around the floor when the big boy comes in, unlike every other thing that’s summoned from this floor cracks appear only when the Empyrean Sentinel comes in. the real sentinel

like this rock (iunno lol it’s the first screenshot i found) im saying the tiny sentinel and the vault he walks out of are both fake

the big sentinel is the real one come to kill us after getting frustrated we keep destroying his avatar

he’s feeling the gamer rage lol

and you know how when you kill a Vault Monster and the Vault closes, it drags it back inside? referencing the warrior here, because idk wtf the canonical thing is for the Destroyer given when Hyperion does

instead of being dragged into the Vault we see him walk out of, the one that’s right there in front of us, he’s dragged back into the floor

there he go

oh speaking of that Vault

yeah it’s not like any other Vault we’ve seen for another reason

check out the edges on this bad boy

it’s like a bubble in a bubble wand

good shit

meanwhile the Vault of the Sentinel is all crinkly and shit

like hmmmm i don’t THINK so

and when you actually walk into that structure? you’re just teleported to the back of the crystal you walked into

which should be another indication that maybe something isn’t right here

also the Vault Treasure, while inside that weird hologram/pocket dimension/program/seriously whatever you wanna call it, is probably an illusion, too. personally, i can see the entirely of this Vault being like a huge computer, that can compute the future of whoever touches the key and show it to them

We know Vault Monsters are tied into their Vaults, like the Traveler being able to teleport just like the Vault it came out of, the Warrior being the giant living weapon, the Sentinel is probably the guardian of the timeline or whatever. He probably has 3 faces to see the Past, Present, and Future. that’s my theory, anyway. i also noticed the one on the furthest left doesn’t have eyes, while the one furthest to the right doesn’t have a mouth.

which i thought was a cool detail to tie into that theory

anyway

i was going to regale you the tale of my lost legion eternal/Calypso twins theory

but like BETTER this time with MORE evidence

cuz i can and tbh that post is getting harder and harder to find every day

lemme just copy and paste the tl;dr for everyone who doesn’t wanna read the whole thing (i meaaan maybe do because it goes pretty in depth and im gonna summarize a lot of stuff plus im about to add more stuff here so)

“The whole Tl;Dr is that I think the events of BL3 are a chain reaction from Jack opening the Vault in TPS and that Zarpedon saw even further beyond into the future than Jack did with the 2nd Vault on Pandora. Bonus, the Lost Legion Eternal and the Vault on Elpis is the key to giving the Children of the Vault superpowers because the twins kept failing. Yes, that’s a reference to the cover art easter egg.”

So for those of you who don’t know, basically the twins claim to be giving their followers “special powers”

‘Learn special powers!’

and i’ve been thinking a lot about how they’re going to do that, exactly.

because Siren powers, well, there’s only 6 (supposedly), and you can be sure Tyreen isn’t going to give up her own. Now she could just be handing out Siren powers to high-ranking cultists after she steals them (like Liliths), but we see she (or Troy) is using Lilith’s powers on the cultists to teleport them on Promethea. so that can’t be the case.

But we do know about something that’s really, REALLY similar.

We know about the Lost Legion Eternal. and i’ve been thinking about them a lot. 

in the post I go over some ties to Sirens, notably how Magus ones can fling slag balls at you, just like Maya’s melee override capstone, how Tempests have the same elemental wings Sirens get and can sling elements, one is literally called a phasewalker, etc, etc.

but they’re not Sirens. they’re super imperfect and just weird. like the slag balls aren’t perfect orbs like maya’s is, they’re weird and wobbly. the tempests wings aren’t fully formed, they don’t even have, as far as i can tell, actual tattoos

and how did these Eternals get these weird Siren powers exactly?

it’s explained that these ‘rashes’ and shit started appearing after Zarpdeon’s dig team was exposed to the Eridian ruins, specifically some vapors in the air

[callback to the ventilation shaft in tycho’s ribs, anyone?]

during her boss fight, zarpedon even mentions that the Vault is buried underneath a ‘tangle of chemical filth’

so it’s obvious this ‘chemical filth’ is what’s mutating her team and turning them into Eternals.

but they’re not like... always using Siren powers.

they’re not always ascended

they actually have a trigger to ascend. for one, they gotta be low enough health. but two... im pretty sure they gotta have Eridium on them

a lot of the LLE models have Eridium on their belts

like so. which is fair, you know? lots of eridium on elpis apparently because of tycho’s ribs.

but then there’s this

when the eternals ascend

when they come back down, they have eridium growing out of their chests/shoulders

take this tempest for example

im also not 100% sure what their ascending animation even is? it looks almost like they're throwing eridium powder on top of themselves? or stabbing themselves with the crystals? idek

maybe they’re just saluting/grabbing at their bodies as they change

there’s gotta be something there involved with eridium cause they certainly don’t have those crystals growing out of them beforehand

i almost want to say their blood has crystallized/hardened into those crystals cause if you look at Zarpedon’s death scene, she’s bleeding neon purple

just like Guardians do

which is fun

im also curious if this, in any way, ties into the Commander Lilith DLC. Like we know the plant stuff in the mine was more than likely mutated by the eridian ruins and that they’ve already gotten into everyone on earth

and Hector is using the Vault Key/Map to synthesize the gas to ‘activate’ the particles that are already inside of everyone

which ties into the Lost Legion Eternal in that they’re also not always ‘ascended’ (mutated), but they need Eridium (Vault Key gas) to become their second state. given these are both caused by Eridian stuff, I 100% can see them being tied together in some way. probably worded a helluve a lot better than i just did, too.

OH

OHHHHH YOU KNOW I JUST HAD AN IDEA

okay maybe this ties not only into the Lost Legion Eternal, like you know what i was actually getting at, but Sirenhood as a whole. in that everyone is inherently a Siren, but only 6 are ever “active” at a time

and maybe Tannis can figure out a way to force this/induce Sirenhood in people. We know she’s the one who’s been studying both Sirens and the Vault Key (and Eridium) for the longest time. and now she has experience with this sort of deal with Hector and the gas. Maybe that’s why there’s cut content of Tannis going “oh is that why... nevermind” when talking about Angel’s powers appearing at 5 instead of birth.

s o oh man okay so the twins are going to use Elpis (moon is key) to create their army of pseudo-sirens

okay

okay oh man okay

and then tannis is going to reveal that she’s figured out a way to induce sirenhood in people like officially, none of that cheap rip-off shit and there’s gonna be an all out WAR of real Sirens vs fake Sirens

im just saying you know the game devs were all like “mmm we might introduce new skill trees instead of new VHs as dlc” and IM JUST SAYING maybe those new skill trees are already in the game and they’re gonna appear when the VHs get their own Siren powers (Amara gets an upgraded version of her own, like Lilith) and that’s why Guardian ranks are unlocked until the end of the story because then we’ll be able to buff ourselves with 

alright yeah sorry i got a little too excited there

let’s ground ourselves back in reality

we know the twins are planning to somehow give their cultists powers, and we know that the Lost Legion Eternal are basically pseudo-Sirens without the need to steal and gift anyone Siren powers (which you know we don’t even know if Tyreen or Troy CAN gift the powers they steal. I’m still holding onto the theory that Tyreen passes them to Troy with the arm shake and Troy is the output and Ty is the input, but now isn’t the time to discuss this).

it wouldn’t be viable to give all their followers Siren powers ANYWAY, unless they find a way to multiply them (possibly a part of Tyreen’s/Troy’s powers? like being the main holder, but being able to gift it to others so long as you keep yours- could explain the ‘knighting’ looking thing Troy does with a cultist)

UGH I KEEP GETTING OFF TOPIC OKAY I HAVE STUFF I WANNA SAY

THEY’RE GIVING THE CULTISTS POWERS

YES

OKAY

we know in the mask of mayhem, Siren powers are indicated by Angel Wings.

What if the fake Sirens are indicated by something that’s not Angel wings. something that’s still wings- still holding Siren powers- but maybe indicative of a corrupted angel wing

like uhhhhhhhh

rakk wings?

yeah

yeah let’s go with that

you know like how bat wings are supposed to be demon wings and bird wings are angel wings okay yeah we get the tie-in

im just saying! directly below this dude (who is the cover art psycho, just you know, putting that out there, probably some sort of tie in to the gold weapons (high standing in the cult) and the robes and stuff. you knoooow you only get powers when you’re loyal enough or whatever, you know)

we have lilith with her angel wings, indicating her Siren-ness. which i don’t think is a coincidence

i got more though, because of the museum of mayhem

we know on pandora, there are hyperion pumping stations for slag and eridium, right? so if the twins were controlling some pumping stations on pandora, it’s a given that they’d be, you know, hyperion-brand

so in this concept art we see something like a pumping station, with a waterfall of purple goop, which you know, i immediately associate with those darn eridians annnnd

this isn’t Hyperion.

this is DAHL baby

and where did dahl have such a big presence and huge pumping stations all over the surface? (with bandits already everywhere, no less?)

elpis!! 

originally dahl was there mining and pumping methane all across the planet, and, while they also had a mining presence on pandora before bl1, there weren’t any pumping stations there. they were mining for iridium (not to be confused with eridium), which really wouldn’t require pumps of any kind cause its a metal

so why is this pumping station considered holy holy holy? because it’s the source of their fake Siren powers

we even see, on the mask of mayhem, giant pumps with scaffolding and ladders all around them, they even have valves and shit

which, you know, are spewing vapor which could also tie into the gas that transformed the LLE

orrrr the purple stuff is just slag runoff from the eridium refinement process and cultists are fucking weird cause it could also just be a way for the twins to charge all the vault keys they’re collecting but damn it please let me have this lmao

i mean, why wouldn’t the twins go to elpis in search for the Vault that lets you see the future? that seems like a HUGE deal to me. especially for the two who seem to have this huge, grand plan in place. “you’re my most loyal follower vault thief, you just don’t know it yet” yeah i sure don’t let’s go to elpis and see what you guys have in store for us vault hunters!

man how fucked up would it be if us vault hunters had been brainwashed from the start to think the cult was the crimson raiders and the crimson raiders were the cult

now that’d be one hell of a twist

could explain why sanctuary-iii goes from orange/gray to blue/yellow with red graffiti on it

but uhhhhhhhh that’s a theory for another time because it is 2:07 in the am and im tired as FUCK