#a lot more 'hey wouldn't this be interesting' in a speculative way

[marquisguyun]

Happy Fall from your Fall in Langya partner! It is a new year for the event, a new year in fandom. Do you have any headcanons for the next lifes of the characters? (If not, any that you are thinking of now? Do you think Lin Shu can fulfill his promise and be ordinary people with his loved ones?)

Oh hello! What a great question!

Hmm I'm not sure if I have any specific headcanons for their next lives! I think part of that is that I haven't gotten around to watching NIF2 yet, and while I am very happy to ignore later canon if I decide I don't like it, I do like to keep an open mind about it to start with. So I would want to know what happened to all of the characters that we have that information for (altho of course some like Mei Changsu are dead by the end of NIF.)

I do have a vague "I hope they'll be happy" type wish for them, after everything...

(And then of course all of this is separate from what I may or may not be interested in reading if someone wrote a fanfic about their next lives or something, because 1. I'm willing to explore different headcanons and stories even if I wouldn't say that they're *my* headcanon per se and 2. mostly reincarnation stories post-canon interest me where either the characters remember their previous lives or there's a lot of dramatic irony for the reader, neither of which necessarily involve uncomplicated happiness for the characters.)

Also now that I'm thinking about it, my headcanons for next lives would also depend on how far into the future we're talking about with these lives + what characters I may be shipping... Like I thought Lin Shu/Mu Nihuang was great while watching the show, and I am still fond of that ship, but when I dived into the fandom I also got converted to shipping Jingsu (wasn't hard to convert me tbh) and just like,, Logistically if we're talking about Lin Shu and Xiao Jingyan as friends/cousins vs all that and lovers my headcanons/hopes for their future lives would be different, especially in modern day with the cousin thing. Are any of these characters likely to have the exact same relationships in a new life as in an old one? No, of course not, but I have thought about that since I've occasionally read modern AU fics that kept relationships intact to various degrees

I think I kinda got off of the question but hopefully some of that made sense 😂

Happy Fall!

[rune-rambles-art]

Okay I have to yell about Koleda Belobog Zenless Zone Zero because I feel like I love her in a very specific way that I haven’t seen a lot of people talk about. More under the cut because I have,,, so many thoughts.

Koleda is such a good portrayal of someone who struggles with their perception as an adult. A pretty easy conclusion to make with the first thing she usually says on the character select screen being “Hey, don’t look down on me!”, but it definitely goes a lot deeper the more you spend time with her. Specifically, she seems to struggle in her perception of herself as someone much more mature than her younger peers, but still not on the same level as the adults in similar positions of power as her. I kinda. Hate zenless for not explicitly stating how old she is, but given she rose to her position at Belobog “when she came of age” (which honestly, I still can’t give a concrete answer to what hoyo means by this? Some searches I found claimed the working age to be 16 in China, I’ve seen others online claim 18 but that’s not reliable. Hoyo I'm begging you put official ages on your characters it's a cool and based practice), she waited for a significant amount of time before taking up her role as president. She is an adult from what the game implies, and a core part of her character is fighting against the constant infantilization she faces due to how she looks.

Let’s start with her love of desserts (and a honestly this is the reason I started writing this). It’s her most highlighted character trait (it is also the first known attribute in her trust rank profile when you unlock her), and most of her trust events on 6th street revolves around them. Initially, she hesitates in proclaiming her love for them, likely to avoid being perceived as childish.

Her rank 4 trust special event is, admittedly, my favorite, but it’s one of the best breakdowns of this.

In order to maintain her image as a mature adult, she uses her position as company president to get around having to request a special dessert drink by name (in her defense, "Sweet Girl Fluffy Marshmallow Lambkin Milk" is an insane mouthful of a product name). At the end of the event she admits that saying its name “wasn’t as bad as she thought”, but her initial kneejerk reaction was a complete rejection of even entertaining the idea of doing something that could put the image she worked so hard to create and maintain at risk. Despite this, she still refuses desserts that aren't tooth-rottingly sweet, even if they are seen as the more mature or "refined" option. It's only around people that she really trusts does she allow this part of herself to be known, because she knows they wouldn't misconstrue this behavior as childish.

I also think her perception on the differences between kids and adults is interesting ("thank you agent story quest" we all say in unison). She doesn't ever feel like she fits in with other kids, probably due to all the responsibility she had to take on as the eventual heir to her father's company. But she also holds a vocal distain for many of her adult peers. Her declaration of "When I was younger, I thought the whole world was rotten, trying to make people just as rotten when they grow up." is a reflection of how she struggled to find her place in the world as she was forced to suddenly transition into adulthood, while still trying to understand the actions of the adults around her.

Her relationship with her father becoming strained contributed significantly to her world outlook as well, and may have caused such a specific distinction of what she deems "the world of adults". I don't want to dive too specifically into that because spoilers and the game is only a few weeks old so. Pin that for another time maybe? It definitely matters in the sense that the loss of her father is the catalyst for the loss of her childhood, but a lot of the specifics in how that affected her are speculative (and I don't wanna get too headcanon-y in this particular post) and she explicitly chooses not to discuss it too in-depth with the proxy (which, girl. Valid). But she's slowly learning to cope with that loss, at least it seems that way by the end of chapter 3. Honestly I could probably find more to add about the agent story in particular, but I would have to replay it to get a better idea.

To me, Koleda Belobog is very solid representation for women who had to grow up too fast, struggle with the perception of being seen as an adult, and hold guilt about indulging in acts that can be perceived as childish by their peers because they never fully got the chance to just be a kid. It truly did resonate with me, and it feels like such a specific "if you know, you know" kind of experience that I don't feel is talked about as much in media, especially with people who identify as female during their youth.

Also, also! I hope they dive in a bit more on how she got/has so much hollow corruption at a young age. Because they imply that she is so short as a result of this hollow corruption. Like that's so damn interesting conceptually and I know they delved on it more in Rina's agent story but. It was more of a mental affliction than a physical one.

Anyway I've been working on this for like 2 days now but that's all I have in terms of like. A canon-compliant character analysis.

TLDR; Koleda is such a perfect example of "God forbid short women exist" and I love her for that. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[r0semultiverse]

Was Celia drunk as fuck or is this something supernatural?? 👀

Who the fuck is Jack?? 👀

Alice is such a delight, I love her!

Oof so one or both of them have trauma involving grandparents then.

I love Samama & Alice so much. 💜 They have a great dynamic!

Oh shit, right, Gwen is probably still getting over Mr. Bonzo too. 👀

"I just… I dunno. When I left the coffee shop, it felt like someone was following me."

Please don't take away Alice, she's one of my faves! I hope this post doesn't age poorly. Watch me have to quote this post very soon.

OH NO, is it that [ERROR] following her??? 😰

"Don’t joke about that, mate. I was dreaming about it all day." Okay, yeah, that's a creature.

Sam & Alice are both about to run into a creature... 👀

"Classifying unspeakable horrors all night for no discernible reason?" @/entities-of-posts & @/which-entity-this-post-serves is that you? :]

Hmm, now why is this episode called "marked?" I assumed Mr. Bonzo was gonna find his mark, but maybe Alice is marked by an entity/creature that was locked in the Magnus Institute?

"giving up the ghost" okay so someone saw an apparition? Honestly not sure what entity this episode is about so far.

It's giving The Corruption ✨🧟‍♀️⚰️ (maybe The Buried)

"It’s just that one of the graves had a body in that was too well-preserved for the age it should have been." 👀👀👀

This thing is about to jump out of the grave & run off, isn't it? 🏃‍♂️

"The back was completely covered in this complicated tattoo of a ship sailing across an open sea towards an open horizon." Peter Lukas?!?!?

Oh 100% The Buried, without a shadow of a doubt.

Lots of tattoo & carvings in walls imagery in this sequel prequel sidequel, isn't there? 👀

Hey wait, that's Ink5oul from episode 2, isn't it? 👀 Ink5oul definitely feels like a conduit or vessel for The Flesh or some other kind of entity.

Okay, there's something weird going on with this place, the salt water & waves near this cemetery are kind of seemingly enticing them to come drown in it's waters. In the very least it's messing with these guys' mental states! Pretty freakkyyyy! 👀🌊

Also the repeated emphasis on dreams is interesting this episode, wonder if that'll play a part in something later on. 👀👀

"If it’s any consolation, he’s with the sea now. The deep will care for his bones." I literally called it!!

I think Gordon Alan Johnson also wants to be with David. 👀🌊🌊

I think Gordon Alan Johnson also wants to be with David. 👀🌊🌊

I don't know, Gordie, I think you did it! Unless Ink5oul is collecting tattoos like an alternate universe version of the Leitner books. Wait yeah, what if the tattoos are like conduits for the entities of this world or even the original one? 🖌

Another way to look at this is asking... Is The Deep a new entity/fear or is it a servant of a fear like The Vast? I stg there was a colossal water monster at some point in The Magnus Archives!

Okay so yeah, there's already a precedent for this. Also feels like The Lonely, The Buried, The Corruption, The Vast, & maybe even The Flesh are all involved in this one though I don't know if Flesh (Ink5oul) is working with or against the other fears at this time.

Gwen, you can tell your coworkers what's wrong, oh my fucking god. Please. Celia, you have me so invested in whatever is going on with you.

Weird unexplained noise at 17:44 too as Celia enters the office. Wonder what that's all about, maybe it'll come up later on.

"He is one of our Externals." Okay; so, there's more of them & they have their own secret hitman title too!

Mr. Bonzo when he was on TV

"And they usually like it." I bet fear creatures do like it when you scream. That makes a lot of sense actually.

Also what's that weird "boowomp" noise as they're talking or is it just the OST? 👀

Is Gwen going to be turned into something not quite human at some point? Just throwing darts at a board with that speculation, but wouldn't that be wild?

Okay; so, these little digitized noises are absolutely important!

I wonder how many times & when people have lied so far throughout this season. 👁️👁️

[adobe-outdesign]

geodude line review pls plus the alolan forms

Geodude is a rock with a face and arms. Which is great if you like rocks with faces and arms. It's not my favorite rock creature (I'm more of a Roggenrola person myself), but it is simple and straightforward, and the concept of a boulder creature that rolls around to move is pretty fun. Not much to talk about visually, other than it being a very low-contrast design. Also, I like the segmented mouth.

Graveler always seemed like just a better Geodude to me. It's the same premise—monotone boulder creature that rolls around with a face and arms—but they do an interesting thing by making the face smaller, adding a ridged, craggy area above said face, and giving it not one, but two sets of extra limbs. It adds a lot of interest and fleshes out the premise while not really changing anything too drastically. Surely the next evolution will be even better, right?

Nope, never mind.

I mean, I don't hate Golem—the reptilian features are interesting and provide a unique twist on the basic rock monster model, and hey, it's at least unique. But it does undeniably come out of the left field, sporting a higher-contrast body, a separate head and limbs, and reducing the number of said limbs down to four.

I've heard a lot of speculation as to why, but most of it is just that, baseless speculation. The most likely reason is that it's a Blastoise situation, wherein two separate rock creatures got merged early in development to avoid repetition. Regardless, that doesn't make it work any better with the rest of the line.

Also, as a design itself, I can't help but not like it as much as Graveler anyway. The head makes it impossible to roll despite the 'dex claiming otherwise, and the overall design is just less coherent. Like I said, the reptilian parts are interesting, but that's about all it has going for it.

Alolan Geodude is actually pretty solid. It drops the rock/ground typing (which I always found confusing anyway; what about the original justified it being ground?) in favor of rock/electric, represented by adding some magnetic shavings to the body.

These shavings really help the design, mostly because they greatly increase the contrast and help break things up without over-complicating anything. Those big 'ol black eyebrows just feel right, and the addition of "hair" is fun.

In addition, this design also makes the body more of a gray color (once again, fits with the dropped ground typing) and reduces the hands down to two mitten-like structures, which does feel good given the shape of the body. Overall, a solid improvement across the board.

Unfortunately, things go downhill a bit when we get to A. Graveler. The eyebrows still look great, and I like the little shavings that accent the head ridge as well. It still retains the similar mitten-like hands, the shape of which now really compliment said head ridge.

However, it randomly adds these yellowish-orange crystals all over its body, which I just do not get. They compete too much with the shavings, and they feel like an afterthought. I guess the idea was to add more color to the design? But they already fixed the low-contrast issue with the shavings. Maybe they wanted yellow to hint at the electric-typing more? Who knows. Either way, the design would look much better without them.

Also, for some reason it goes back to a brownish color instead of retaining the cooler gray of A. Geodude. Why? The gray not only looked better, but further helped with the contrast, and dropping it just reduces the line's coherency.

And A. Golem... yeah no, never mind.

The shavings have progressed from body hair to a straight-up beard, which is fine, I guess, though something about the body hair kind of worked; maybe it's just because it added to the "strength" idea with Graveler's bare arms, whereas the beard just feels random.

However, the beard wouldn't be too bad in and of itself... except they also added a giant rail gun to its back. It's just like, what? Why?? Where did that come from? I know that it's electric-type, but there was no thematic build-up to this (unless you count the inside yellow crystals from Graveler). It competes way too much with the beard, and makes the overall concept harder to disconcern.

Also, even putting that aside, the colors are really muddied here (still retaining the brownish color while using three different shades of gray/brown, none of which are high enough contrast), and it has these really weird baby arms. The simplified toes look good at least, and I do like the extra definition added to the face with the eyebrow ridges, but this really does not work as a whole. Which is a shame, because A. Geodude was a fantastic start.

As a whole, the original line is simple but effective, bogged down only by the sharp turn into Golem. The Alolan line starts off strong and tries to improve the design a bit, but unfortunately gets bogged down with too many details as it goes on.

[merbear25]

number 10 for the follower event with crocodile - san x m!reader? i love your work 🥹🥹

Hey, hey! Thank you for sending in this request and the kind words! I really hope you like what I've written. 💜💜

An offer you couldn't refuse

CW: SFW, m!reader, working for Crocodile

Having to cut his underlings could get rather messy. None of them were able to maintain their duties, which lead to them being led to the chopping block. Such incompetence weighed on him, drilling the pounding of frustration into his core. Wanting to start anew, he could only trust himself and Mr. 1 to find those suitable to help rebuild a name for himself.

Word got around of a rookie with a bounty on a steep incline. Rumors of emerging potential would be kept as such until he had a chance to observe you, witnessing your gossiped skills for himself.

After so many were failing to meet his standards, watching you reignited that flame within him: lethal intentions masked by a sense of poise and professionalism. You were a young man, yet carried yourself with confidence many wouldn't gain until much later in life―one who seemed to be the perfect one to break this dry spell.

Approaching you carefully at the local tavern, he dropped subtle hints that he was looking for some spots to fill. You recognized him immediately. How could anyone not realize they were talking to Crocodile? Despite the thrill of a man with such a dastardly reputation engaging in conversation with a rookie like you, your nerves were kept under wraps.

Upon first meeting you, his hunches on your abilities were proven to be accurate; the self-confidence you held was far from a ploy to get people talking. You, by all accounts, appeared more than capable of aiding him in his duties. After all, such talent shouldn't go to waste.

When he offered you the opportunity to work under him, you took him up on it without a second thought. You weren't necessarily interested in the power that'd come with working under him; he offered chances that you wouldn't have access to otherwise, ways of working your way up to a better life.

Considering what made you want to jump at his offer, it dawned on you that he was a man who you speculated to have had a rough upbringing. He was someone you aspired to be like, someone who not only had the power to do as he pleased but also held the wisdom to wield it properly.

Thinking the best way to have you become accustomed to his methods was to spend more one on one time together, you two discovered that you held a lot of the same views on the world. Despite that nagging voice in his ear trying to convince him that you were not a person he could trust, the foundations of your relationship were set in motion.

Even if you were a tad star struck, you still managed to keep a level head. Your perception tuned into how your soon to be boss was harboring some trust issues―issues you'd have to fight against in a seemingly endless uphill battle.

Having taken the time to gain better insight into the mechanics of his mind, you were tactful on how you'd earn his grace. Instead of pushing him to accept you, you continued showing him you were worthy to stand by his side.

As time passed and your support withstood the countless tests, your unwavering devotion spoke volumes. One day after returning from a mission, he confronted you asking with a smirk, "Are you sure about this?" His suspicions of you had long since been laid to rest, now with only faint undertones of the excitement to come.

When you responded with whole-hearted dedication, he gave you a satisfied smile. Nodding in approval at your willingness to follow him into the danger you'd surely find yourselves in, he saw you as someone full of potential, someone he could help flourish into something spectacular.

Placing a firm hand on your shoulder, he told you, "There is much more waiting for us."

[batsplat]

Wait what's this about Casey, Marc and getting kicked out of honda

ah just a fun bit of old gossip. to clarify in case the phrasing in this post was confusing, we're talking about casey's role as a test rider with honda after his retirement, so 2013-15 (not casey's initial retirement from his honda ride, which was ofc entirely his own choice)

so! first of all! from the moment casey retired, everybody was going 'when will casey be back'. this wasn't based on anything casey was actually saying - it's just how people are about retirement announcements ig, the disbelief at how early casey retired, wanting to see him race again, refusing to believe he might actually properly be done. when the riders were asked about it in pressers, they usually gave very neutral 'sure that would be nice' responses. when casey was asked about it, he was generally pretty firm in going 'I'm not interested' and also 'stop asking'. but in 2015, dani made the decision to pause his season to get an operation for his recurring severe arm pump issues. he ended up missing three races, and inevitably people went, 'hey you know who would be fun to have back for a few races, you know who also happens to be familiar with the honda bike'

and this time casey WOULD have been up for it. except, according to him, SOMEONE didn't want him to race:

now fwiw, we have zero proof that this 'someone' was marc, although ofc that was something people speculated about at the time - the idea being that marc wouldn't have wanted to be undermined by casey outperforming him, especially in the context of a tricky start to the 2015 season. (funnily enough, the phrasing does echo the "somebody inside Yamaha didn't want me there" thing; a topic for another post but I'm pretty unconvinced valentino was involved in blocking casey's yamaha deal.) and... given this is the same interview where casey talks about his belief that marc forced him out of honda (which we'll get to)... I mean, he must have at least known it's a conclusion people would draw

marc was asked in pressers about casey racing as dani's replacement, and he basically stuck to 'it's not up to me'. some more casey quotes:

I like to think 'I would've won that' was one of casey's main takeaways from sepang 2015

anyway at the end of 2015, casey left honda to join ducati as a test rider. here is an excerpt from a piece about it at the time, saying marc had complained about casey's performance level as a test rider:

you'll note the HRC sources disagree with casey on how good casey's pace was; unfortunately we'll never really know either way. (in any case it's not particularly great form for sources to 'let slip' that your test rider's pace is poor, even if it was true, but there we are.) and ofc there's the assertion that marc felt 'threatened' by casey and/or didn't think casey's feedback was valuable. here's a screenshot of the piece from speedweek being referenced:

again, a lot of this is obviously hearsay. we don't really know how hard marc pushed to get rid of casey (if at all), and certainly not for what reasons - whether it was casey being too slow or the quality of his feedback or marc's ego or whatever else. we do know casey thinks marc wanted him out because marc felt threatened by him, as he's very helpfully said as much:

casey does make it clear he doesn't have any proof that marc (and his entourage) felt threatened by him, but, well. either way he did believe it. this story dropped in january 2016 btw, so at a time where press coverage of marc was not exactly at its friendliest anyway. marc hasn't really ever responded to these assertions afaik - but when casey ended up leaving ducati again at the end of 2018, he was pretty lukewarm about the idea of casey returning to honda:

here too there's nothing from marc's side to suggest any real antipathy, but of course we also don't know whether he's being honest about his reasons for preferring the distinctly unthreatening bradl. and finally, casey has more recently (aka start of this year, 2024) said that he left honda because they only listened to marc:

which is also obviously relevant now in the context of honda's long-term decline and marc's decision to leave (criticised in some quarters by those who feel marc is at least partly to blame for said decline)

anyway ofc this is all very he said she said, so who knows what really happened - but the fun bit is that nobody can quite agree! all a bit messy isn't it. it's very low stakes beef, kinda nice... but it does also fit in with casey's whole outlook towards the sport, where he often feels like he's being unfairly treated. and (this cannot be stressed enough) a lot of the time he was right, he was being unfairly treated, so it's absolutely possible some underhanded stuff was going on here too. believe what you will! who knows!

[shoechoe]

Hey, this may seem like a random ask, but what do you think of the fan theory of Diavolo being possessed by a demon instead of having actual DID. In a world where vampires exist, zombies exist, the Pillar Men exist and aliens are implied to exist, having demons exist makes perfect sense to me.

To be honest with you, anon, I don't like that theory. I think it flattens a lot of Diavolo's intrigue as well as the depth between him and Doppio. I think the fact that it's a fairly popular fan theory only speaks to the unfortunately ableist and demonizing way their DID was written and handled in canon.

Personally, I don't believe it's an intentional implication- not in the manga, at least. It's definitely suggested something supernatural is going on with their mysterious birth circumstances, but I don't believe that's supposed to mean that Diavolo and Doppio are actually something completely different from a person with DID. Polnareff's description of how DID works in Jojo (one soul splits and develops into two souls due to childhood trauma) matches Diavolo and Doppio's situation seemingly perfectly; they are pretty consistently shown as one human soul that was split into two due to childhood trauma.

Sans the weird birth, Diavolo doesn't show any traits of a definitively non-human soul (unlike Jojo's vampires, zombies, and implied aliens), and in fact, he's often referred to as the "true form" and the body's "true nature"; if he were a demon possessing Doppio, how would he be the body's "true nature"? I also feel like it's suggested that Diavolo not only was always there, but holds childhood trauma with the way he was raised by a priest who named him "Devil" and Doppio seemingly lacking most of his past memories. It doesn't match up with the "Diavolo is actually an evil demon hijacking some guy's body" concept to me.

I do not like it when people frame Diavolo as a "born evil" character. I think it's much more interesting to consider him as "evil as hell and hard to pick out his intentionally-obscured feelings, but feelings are there". I much prefer thinking about Diavolo and Doppio through the lens of severe festering trauma combined with the goal of cutting out your humanity for power and empire. I think Diavolo is far more interesting as a human corrupted by greed, hurting himself in the process, than a demon doing evil for demon reasons.

With that being said, I wouldn't be surprised if the anime adaptation was trying to suggest Diavolo was something inhuman. They change the baby's eyes to Doppio's and have them flash red for no explainable reason, and their backstory is altered to be far more Doppio-centric, including deleting the mention of their legal name actually being "Diavolo". I suspect that the anime was a big boost to the demon possession fan theory (and I've expressed before that I dislike many of the anime changes).

Diavolo as a character is definitely left very open for speculation, but those are my general thoughts on that idea in particular.

[virgobingo]

hey! love all your jjk metas :)

just wanted to throw thoughts at you if you are interested!

so the very sparse info Gege provides for Gojo and Geto has, imo, some fridge horror to it. They must remain head-canon but I'm curious if you think my thoughts are a stretch or not.

child abuse cw

I wondered if Suguru snapping after finding Nanako and Mimiko was meant as a subtle hint at Geto, a child from a non-sorceror family, having childhood abuse background. His rampage at the village seems cohesive character-wise, but I always thought killing his parents felt a bit jarring and OOC at that point in his "insanity spiral." The first crime comes from outrage & hatred, while the latter is over the top cold logic- his explanation "it would be hypocritical to spare them" seems underwhelming to me.

2. Gojo having a bounty on his head throughout his whole childhood. He might have infinity but on a practical level, loved ones are vulnerable to blackmail or hostage situations. Logically they are a weakness and the more you have, the weaker you are.

I think Gojo has so many things going on that contribute to his isolation and inability to connect- (obnoxious personality, immense power, trauma from Toji attack) that this crazy aspect of his life is brushed off. I feel like in any other character, the bounty would be seen as a major contributor to their psychology.

We see throughout the story that anytime Gojo loves or shows humanity towards another (Amanai, Suguru, Megumi (even Yuuji)) he is narratively punished for it.

Cheers!!

hello!

thank you for sharing your thoughts! i'll try my best to explain my own. my thoughts on gojo are especially jumbled since he's such a complicated character.

(1) gege has shown himself to be the type to of artist to ground his fiction in reality. i think the narrative overwhelmingly points to jujutsu sorcerers generally being perceived as "freaks" by non-sorcerers. miminana are extreme examples of this, whereas the old man geto beat up in the hidden inventory arc is a milder one.

"how would parents react if their child told them they could see/hear things they couldn't?" -> that's the question i imagine gege asked himself when he wrote this detail into jjk.

i think geto's abilities were a cause of concern for his parents, with the potential for it to have actually translated into fear. he does seem to have a special place in his heart for chosen families. i think that suggests a difficult home life. we can only speculate how bad it was though. enough for him to go through with him killing his parents nonchalantly, as far as we know. abuse wouldn't be a wildly off-base assumption.

(2) i think gojo's character is definitely marked by his station in society. the good and the bad that come with it. people really don't tend to talk about the bounty on his head, bc it's such an "oh, by the way" fact that gege fits into the story. gege probably mulled over it though (he's a serious overthinker). so i don't think it's something ppl should dismiss when thinking about gojo's psychology. some of his self-imposed isolation can be traced back to instances like it.

as an older kid and a tween, especially. i would guess gojo was probably asking himself stuff like who can he trust in this world? who can he open up to? when the world is out to kill him. the bounty on his head also probably accustomed him to solve problems with power/violence.

i think this mindset was disrupted by geto in high school, though. gojo grows to be quite generous with his trust after him. he has a lot of faith in others as an adult. so i think geto, on top of everything, inadvertently helped gojo heal and process some of his pain from childhood.

i say this bc the disconnect gojo seems to refer to in ch 236, seems different. more a result of the higher state of mind he acquires. he basically tells geto in the afterlife that it isn't rooted in loneliness, after all. which i also take to mean, not necessarily in childhood trauma by that point. but a sense that no one can possibly understand what it means to be strong— and still be powerless.

that's why i believe gojo wasn't being punished for his humanity so much as being taught a lesson on how power can only take him so far— time and time again.

this whole lesson sets up the world to be able to move on without him. life doesn't ultimately hinge on one person and i think gojo knows this to be true, which is why he's always so.. relaxed when he's taken out of the equation. while everyone else scrambles to put him back in. (funnily enough, even fans do this). 

ppl look at him and think he's above them. when inevitably, he'll die, just as all beings do. which i think is what the following sequence was about, too. and what gojo mostly meant when he said "he alone is the honored one [to come to knows this]"(in contrast to when gege used it for sukuna(x) who goes on to distinguish himself from gojo in the way he only pleases/satisfies himself). the saying has several connotations (x).

hope that makes sense!

[zenkindoflove]

thoughts on Elain having earth powers similar to a green seer (like bran green seer or something to that effect)? a lot of people speculate that Elain has some earth-like magic.

Hey anon, I see you are trying to goad me into talking about ASOIAF parallels again. And for that I say, THANK YOU!

I REALLY REALLY HOPE that SJM has plans to really go nuts with Elain's seer powers. And I think there are a lot of clues that she is going to link some of Elain's magical abilities to manipulating the natural world. It isn't just that she "loves to garden". I think it's really interesting that two sisters went into the Cauldron, one came out with the powers of Death and the other.... well, wouldn't it be fitting if she came out with the powers of Life?

So, I have been exploring this quite a bit in some of my fanfics - mainly Summer Heat which will be expanded upon in much greater detail in the sequel Golden Visions which I plan to start working on in June. I've also explored it a bit with @crazy-ache in our fic Dear Lucien, Dear Elain. But essentially what I sort of head canon is that Elain is able to sense the natural world and possibly heal it (maybe leading to her healing Spring?). In ACOWAR, when everyone thinks that Elain is crazy, she has some interesting lines about hearing the worms wiggle in the earth that stood out to me. It could be that they're related to her visions, but it has made me wonder in what ways Elain's senses are more in tuned with plants and animals around them. After reading HOFAS, I became more convinced that SJM might have intentions to explore some earth powers with Elain - since we find out that Tristan and Sathia Flynn have earth powers, and they are descended from the same High Fae from Prythian. It made me wonder if it was a type of magic that existed in ACOTAR world long before but has been lost and the Mother has given it back to Elain.

Onto greenseers... I'm glad you mentioned that parallel because my brain is ASOIAF rotted so I bring a lot back to that series. But when I envision Elain's seer powers, I don't only see her "seeing the future". With Bran, having the sight and being a greenseer, he was able to see not only the future but also the past and the present (the present mostly warging into animals). The weirwoods gave him access to bend time and see what has and hasn't happened yet. I play around a lot in my fanfics how Elain has different "kinds" of visions, depending on where she is in time. We know from legends that the greenseers of the Children of the Forest wielded powerful magic, manipulating not only the natural world (plants and animals) but having the sight as well. I think it would be really awesome if in her own unique way, SJM blends potential earth powers Elain might have with her sight. I have some plans of how I think it could work that I will explore in fanfic. So I'm excited to see what SJM does with it!

Thank you for the ask!

[teeth-cable]

On a subject that I think people have brought up but I wanted to go more in depth.

Hellborn being homophobic makes no sense. Like sinners it does but not for the native species.

Homophobia originates from the a mistranslated bible verse that in its original form condemned pedophilia so like wouldn't the Hellborns know that?

If we are going with the homophobia from the bible so of course Hellborns would be homophobic (even though that makes no sense)... Don't the Hellborns worship Satan? Wouldn't their holybook be different?

Also Succubi exist so that adds a layer of confusion.

We also have a shark demon dressed as a catholic priest... Like if you edited the outfit to look unholy kinda like some of the Murdoc Niccols art in the recent Gorillaz arc then its not a total worldbuilding issue.... But dude is straight up a catholic priest and we know the shark demons are hellborn due to concept art showing hybrids so we cant say its a holdover from life.

Also the typical western wedding we see stems from Queen Victoria and again these are Hellborns they don't know who the fuck she is. It would make more sense to borrow from more ancient wedding traditions.

Also I understand why they made Crim biphobic because it is a real thing that people do experience from parents and Vivziepop is bisexual herself so I understand it being important to the crew but, again it makes no sense unless Crim is a sinner or...

Crim wants biological grandchildren. I mean you have to genderswap Chaz and maybe Millie but then again Millie can stay the same and just have Crim mention how Moxxie used to chase after guys and doesn't like Millie because she's a country bumpkin.

Like the only way I can see homophobia being a thing in Hell if its because people there value blood more than anything. This would actually I think fit well with the Stolitz plot that they are going with. Stolas and Stella were married off to produce a child and we know that you don't have to be blood related to Stolas to use the grimoire as seen with Loona. Rather there was no point in birthing Octavia if the power isn't genetic so the system itself is intentionally flawed. Maybe like you aren't shamed if you have a same sex lover in general if you have a kid already but if you dont then you get shunned. Some people might judge Stolas for sleeping with an imp due to the status alone. If it was a male noble it would be less scandalous. But imagine like the fact Stolas chose an imp over Stella actually makes their entire family look bad.

Like people are gonna speculate on how badly Stella screwed up if her husband chose a peasant over her and that might lead to people wondering why Octavia doesn't have siblings. Depending if Hell is misogynistic or not Stella might be portrayed as at fault for this. Hey at least she has a layer of complexity now instead of being a bimbo.

Succubi and Incubi might be the only exceptions because like their existence is founded on sex.

This all would mean being ace in hell would be interesting to explore.

Now returning to theology

What are Hellborns core tenets?

What the hell happens to Hellborns when they die? Like I think we need this answered soon rather than later because we know sinners get erased by holy weapons but nothing about Hellborns who could die like a normal person. Like they don't have souls... Do they just get erased from existence too? Like everyone has been super confused about this since episode 2 for crying out loud and we have not even a fraction of a hint.

Why did they add the Great Old Ones. Like I know Viv said she was pulling from multiple mythologies... I assume that she meant she would pull from Underworld myths across the world to help out a unique spin on hell because that's a logical assumption and interesting ideas. After all the Hellenism Underworld has a lot of interesting stuff and Tartarus is pretty similiar to the Christian Hell.

But she grabs the great old ones? Look they aren't even a mythology and a lot of stuff H.P. Lovecraft wrote about them usually meant if they were around they were gonna either put the universe into an era of chaos or everyone dies. Like the only Great Old One that could fit in Helluva is Dagon because dude was an actual worshipped god and was mentioned in the bible where his worshippers were demonized.

But like going back to how using the Great Old Ones in Hellaverse is a shitty choice. Like how are you going to fit anyone besides Dagon in a show based off primarily Abrahamic beliefs.

Like there's already a christian apocalypse and The Great Old Ones seem more akin to aliens instead of them probably being demons in Hellaverse. But then you also have to consider the fact the Old Ones power is literally incomprehensible.

Like why does God on the show allow them to stick around when in Judaism He nerfed Levithan because He accidentally made it too powerful.

Like you would have to nerf them significantly which actually takes away from them.

But oh wait Vivziepop added Azathoth the one Great Old One that is so difficult to nerf because it's literally a blackhole/primordial chaos. The only reason it's not destroying stuff is because it's asleep. Like using that one either means your story is probably going to deal with end game shit or set dressing to explain the origin of the others.

Like if Azzy is there does that mean god came from it or did He create it?

Also the Great Old Ones represent concepts of madness and terror yet none of those themes are present in Helluva. Like maybe it could've worked if as they get more clients the imps get exposed to a lot of fucked shit that starts draining them idek.

Like if Vivziepop really really really wanted to pull from another mythos not linked to Abrahamic religion, roman mythology! Like literally Roman Beliefs and Abrahamic Religions have a deeply tied history so it makes since especially since Emperor Constantine made christianity legal which began the erasure of pagan religions and the roman gods even cameod in The Divine Comedy.

Im so confused about the writing decisions

The reason why the worldbuilding makes no sense and we never learn about the imp's culture is because the writers only wanted to make a show about relationship drama. Which is fine if it took place on regular Earth but no, Viv decided she wanted to make a show that takes place in Hell because Hazbin is popular but didn't want to put the effort into writing the worldbuilding so as a cheap cop out they wrote Hell like Earth but now that's biting them in the ass because fans are starting to noticed the human elements like homophobia, jail, rehab, and the mafia makes no sense in Hell.

Imps being homophobic never made sense. Beside the mistranslation of the Bible, Hell is supposed to be the opposite of Heaven. So if Heaven in Viv's version is homophobic then Hell would be the very opposite. Most likely homophobic imps would be outcasted because of their views. Also in Viv's hell being an imp is worse than being gay. The writers are just giving homophobic imps the same writing treatment as the human disguises, they're only an inconvenience or needed for the plot when the writers wants them to be. Crim was already an asshole without being biphobic, he's a misogynist who abused and killed his wife and most likely abused Moxxie when he was young. Those traits are already enough to make him dislikable.

When Viv says she's going to pull from multiple mythologies, what she actually mean is she's not going to do any research, only steal the most interesting parts out of their context, and steal ideas from other writers even if they have no relation to Hell. It's very obvious none of the HB writers did actual research just by how the show characters and Hellborn species barely resemble their demonology counterparts.

One thing to remember about Helluva Boss is this show is not professional despite what the writers and fandom wants you to believe, it is not. Both seasons were unplanned, the writers hate listening to feedback, the show reconned almost everything in Season 2, the writing is inconsistent, and the worldbuilding is just lazy.

Not much else to say about the worldbuilding TBH. Yea it's pretty terrible but from the start the show never plan or will explain more about Hell. It's just best to view this show as someone's poorly written shipping fanfic.

[givehimthemedicine]

Big Analysis Part 2

Powers and Blood

[ Part 1 ]

I have a theory to tell you about Henry that's going to make a LOT of other things click. this post is less neatly segmented by topic and more of a swift erratic drop into insanity so buckle up. Long asf but I promise at least the first/main part is worth it.

warning: very high chance this post contains actual spoilers for major reveals in Stranger Things 5. I'll be tagging subsequent discussion of my main theory here with #st spoilers just in case.

after I establish that, I'll speculate about a variety of subtopics including:

Max waking up

[redacted] has powers

Why Henry wanted El to join him

How Will did the lights

What Will's spidey sense is

Henry's original interest in Will

What I think happened that night in 1959

Let's start with this 4x8 Brenner line: "when One kills, he doesn't simply kill. He consumes. He takes everything from his victims. Everything they are and everything they ever will be. Their memories, their abilities."

Brenner literally just saw crime scene photos of Henry's victims like the rest of us. where is he getting that intel? why would he know that?

"are you forgetting that Brenner saw surveillance of Henry killing all the kids so he knows how his killings worked?"

well sure, Brenner had plenty of footage of it, but what visible indication is there about Henry's murder method that he's "taking abilities" from anyone, unless maybe you could see somehow on the tapes that each murder got easier? his nose didn't even appear to bleed a little bit until the very end.

at the time of the massacre, Henry's only two victims that Brenner would already have the full explanation about were Virginia and Alice, because Brenner spent a while with Henry in the lab and probably forced him to tell all about it. So, taking their memories, alright sure, but what do you mean ABILITIES? did Henry suddenly like, get really good at knitting the moment he killed his mom?

Virginia definitely had powers.

the only way Brenner could be so sure Henry gained all the dead numbers' powers was if he already knew that Henry gained powers from Virginia and Alice in the first place.

Virginia having powers is how she "somehow knew" it was Henry giving them visions. she's where Henry inherited his abilities from in the first place.

just like El got hers from her mom. the powers really are maternally inherited.

MKUltra didn't give Terry Ives powers, it just activated the potential she already had. you can have latent powers and not even know.

anyway, Victor Creel must not have known about his wife's powers any more than he knew about Henry's, which is why he stayed blaming demons.

so Henry kills Virginia, and as he wipes his nose, his narration literally says that he grew more powerful. Henry killed Virginia not only to evade her plans to institutionalize him, but he absorbed her powers.

then Alice. little Alice is too young to have many atrocities under her belt - her only crime is being Virginia Creel's child. I don't know if Henry has much personal resentment toward her, but either way, she inherited those powers just the same as him, and he killed her for them.

It's why he "grows stronger and more powerful" with each kill - it's not just that the mere act of killing any old victim makes his powers stronger - it's that his whole thing is absorbing people. when he kills people who have powers, he adds their powers to his.

eventually Henry does the lab massacre, killing all the guards and orderlies and kids. his backstory would so strongly seem to lead him to be sympathetic to the lab kids, to kill their captors and free them - but to Henry they were just sixteen little power vessels.

moving right along: remember how we all went "oHH" when we found out baby El learned how to do the neck-snap and throwing-guards-into-walls moves from Henry? yeah, that certainly was how he killed those guys!

hey, wouldn't it be fun if we think about how exactly he killed everybody we've seen him kill?

Henry's Murder List

if we try on this idea about Virginia and Alice... would you say it helps a little bit of a pattern emerge?

everyone Henry kills Like That has powers.

everyone.

All of the cursed four have powers. Max has powers.

It's what he means when he calls Max weak in the same breath as calling her brave. he's talking about her powers.

and apparently Billy had powers as well. not through Susan but his own mother, coincidentally. "all the rest of them" we assumed meant Chrissy Fred and Patrick but actually means ALL the rest. all the kids, Virginia, Alice.

oh, is old givehimthemedicine just a reaching delusional Max fan who wants her to have powers? he's just talking about emotional weakness? because she's depressed and Henry "feeds on the weak"?

look in what context the words weakness and strength keep getting used in the lab. it's not emotional or physical. it's about powers.

hmm ok so you're able to write off the lights going blinky because that's a common occurrence for you? at the place where you and your mother live?

I know another kid who used to have electrical problems at his house. it'd be funny if you and he had any other paralle-

MAX MAYFIELD I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE :) :) :)

I don't think we know anything about Patrick or Fred's mothers, but here's a hint about the Cunningham family. Chrissy's mom also feels Henry but attributes it to a demon, like Victor Creel.

gates do indeed open by Henry making a "powerful psychic connection" but Dustin doesn't realize how accurate his wording is - the victims have powers too. Chrissy's major visions both feature her mother screaming at her to "open the door."

doors are what Henry calls gates. he's connecting his powers with Chrissy's to open a gate.

all this time I took this line to mean that El has the specific skill of opening gates, like how Kali has her own unique skill. actually it probably just means Henry wanted El's strength. like, her amount of power.

which brings me to El.

why Henry's favoritism towards Eleven when she was the weakest kid at the lab? was it just because she was the most empathetic of the kids, and he knew she'd offer to help remove the soteria if he was nice to her?

Henry wanted El at full strength because he had plans for her powers. and if any of those other lab kids were weak he would've coached them too, fattening them up for the kill (Hopper/demogorgon/last supper parallel).

so if Henry went to the trouble of coaching El to bring out her strength instead of just killing her when she was weak, that establishes that he gains more strength from killing actively, strongly powered people, and probably only very little from killing latent or weak people like Alice, Chrissy, etc. maybe barely even enough to be worth the hassle of killing them.

right?

no, see. that's why he Vecnas them.

VECNA-ING ISN'T JUST KILLING, IT'S ACTIVATING THEIR POWERS AND THEN MAKING THEM USE THEM REALLY REALLY REALLY HARD. SO HARD THEY DIE. SO HE CAN TAKE THEM.

he's giving the '86 victims traumatic visions and nightmares about the things that he knows causes them the most pain - to make them experience extreme negative emotion, to activate their powers. just like he did by coaching Eleven to harness sad/angry memories. they get nosebleeds, the classic power-use symptom, because of their powers being stirred.

and when he kills them, he's literally power-surging them. think of the way El bleeds worse and feels more drained the harder she uses her powers - except he doesn't stop when they pass out. he forces all the power he can possibly get out of them, past their breaking point, until their bodies literally shatter. this creates a gate, and he also absorbs their maximum powers when they die. maybe like all the powers they would ever have been able to generate, total ("everything they are and everything they ever will be"), all at once.

THAT'S WHAT THE GLOWING LIGHT BULBS THING IS, BOTH SYMBOLICALLY AND LITERALLY. A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF ENERGY BEING CREATED.

that's why the flashlight-shattering surge when Henry kills Patrick. Henry isn't just "making a powerful psychic connection" with random teens - so what? what would that do? - he's making a connection and forcing them to generate extreme levels of power.

that's what causes the huge electricity surge when El closes the gate - she's using her rage montage to generate huge amounts of power, the most we've ever seen her do - AND USING HER POWERS REALLY REALLY HARD MADE HER NOT JUST BLEED WORSE THAN USUAL BUT LEVITATE.

what if Henry didn't levitate Max Chrissy Fred or Patrick. what if their own powers did that?

so Henry probably got even more power out of each '86 victim than El demonstrated when closing the mothergate (because El didn't die).

now realize: Max got power-surged... but Henry got interrupted before he could complete the ritual. she died, yeah, but of a heart attack from the trauma, not as part of the ritual itself.

I don't think Henry had actually taken Max's powers yet.

which means....

I SEE A PATH CLEAR TO MAX HAVING ACTIVE POWERS IN SEASON 5.

and if Max wakes up with amnesia and her powers lost, which is entirely likely given the pattern - don't worry about it. Max has her own NINA: all those letters she wrote. if needbe, El now knows exactly how to train Max back into power, except this time by harnessing love instead of darkness.

now, back to the light bulb thing - when else do we see it?

in the shed when Will gets taken.

Will has powers too. but you knew that :)

Will's made the light bulb in the shed glow with intense emotion too - fear. the bulb didn't burst because he didn't die.

and if the powers are maternally inherited, Joyce has them too. and Jonathan.

this could be Joyce lightbulbing, but I don't think she's experiencing a psychic connection with Henry at this moment, so it might actually be Will again, afraid for Joyce.

while we're on the subject:

Who led Holly and Joyce to Will's room with the lights?

in both the Joyce and Holly scenes, the lights blink their way calmly down the hallway. the way they behave just feels like a gentle, friendly presence - just like they do as a result of Hopper and Joyce walking down the hallway in the UD. it feels human.

but I'm not so sure it's Will. even if we say he was just walking to his room the first time and accidentally led Joyce to danger, he probably would be careful not to do exactly the same thing to Holly.

maybe the calm-blinking is not a result of a friendly or human entity, but of a human with powers.

maybe that was Henry walking down the hallway. Henry blinking the lights, Henry playing the stereo.

Joyce goes back into the house after running away, because that song is a personal thing for Will. but that kind of stereo is battery operated and can't play unless the play button is pressed, which requires the presser to either have telekinesis or physically step in for a sec through a portal. if Will could come through a portal the show would be over, and I don't think his powers are strong enough to push a button telekinetically yet even if he wanted to. but most importantly, he wouldn't want to. the demogorgon was definitely right there, and I refuse to believe Will would lure Joyce back into the same dangerous situation she had just fled. being that Henry can read memories, he would be perfectly aware of the personal significance of Should I Stay Or Should I Go and wouldn't hesitate to use it to deceive Joyce. so why didn't she get got when she went back in there? idk, maybe Will created a diversion or something.

I'm also sure it was Henry mesmerizing Holly with that circle of lights, extremely similar to the light-circle game at the Lab he probably got really good at before Brenner put in the soteria. Will can't do this:

regardless, Holly was lured in there specifically, and the demogorgon almost yoinked her.

so Joyce and Holly were both targeted in season 1, and both when they were alone.

Will was alone, Barb was alone, there were apparently no witnesses to the other four yoinkings, so they were alone. the demogorgon doesn't usually like to appear in front of anybody except those it intends to take.

and can I remind you that every time the demogorgon came into the house to attack Jonathan, it didn't injure him at all. it just knocked him down and drooled on him a bit. it wasn't trying to kill. and can I remind you that Nancy was also there.

the Byers and Wheeler families both have powers.

dream or telepathy...

cruel coincidence or ESP....

if both Byers and Wheelers have powers, why wouldn't the demogorgon burst in while the casserole is cooking and yoink Joyce, Karen, and Holly all together? because then the show leaves us the deniability of "oh well it was after Joyce; Karen and Holly just happened to be there". same as "oh well it was after Jonathan, Nancy just happened to be there". showing us an isolated attempt on Holly makes it clear that Wheeler blood is a target.

Henry keeps targeting entire families except for the fathers.

because he's killing everyone with powers, and he knows the powers are maternally inherited.

Virginia and Alice but not Victor.

all the numbers and not Papa (he's not their father literally but he doesn't have powers and it works as a parallel).

Will, Joyce and Jonathan but not Lonnie. that's why Lonnie coming back was even a plot point - to show him being available for a demogorgon attack yet being the only Byers never to have an encounter with it, and not even believe in it.

Nancy's vision of something terrible happening to Karen, Holly, and Mike, but no mention of Ted.

How did Will do the lights?

Will didn't glow the shed bulb or his bedroom bulb on purpose.

his first intentional show of powers (that we saw):

the imagery of Will's flicker is exactly the same of baby El using her weak powers to flicker a single bulb in the light circle:

"but wait, why are you calling the lightbulb flicker evidence of Will having powers? we see non-powered people affecting light bulbs by touching them in the Upside Down, like the chandelier scene in 4x7."

correct, but. look at the Nancy Steve Robin Eddie contacting the kids through the chandelier lights scene. it glows in the RU when they all touch it, right? so they ALL have powers too? no.

any lights glow when any regular people touch them in the UD. touch them.

but only people with powers can make lights glow without actually touching them. Will can't be touching that light bulb in his bedroom for Joyce because it isn't even there in the UD. he can only be touching the empty glowy space where it is, like Nancy touching the lite brite.

btw notice how all four teens touch that chandelier but NOBODY EXCEPT NANCY ever touches the unplugged lite brite? sus. assuming the other three don't have powers, I suspect it might not have worked for them.

Hopper and Joyce walking down the hall - they didn't touch those Christmas lights. those weren't even there yet in the UD. that's not just human proximity turning them on - that's Joyce specifically.

Will could only have done most of the lights stuff by having powers. some of those Christmas lights blinked too quickly for him to have touched each bulb physically, besides the fact that he was a little guy, not tall enough to reach them. he didn't have to actually touch them, and again he couldn't have anyway because they weren't there yet on Nov 6. he's not strong, but he's activated enough to use his powers consciously now that he's been lightbulb-glowingly scared at least a couple times.

but that's only half the Will-lights question. that still doesn't tell us how he knew they were there in the first place.

Will in the UD has to be seeing glowy areas where the lights are, like how the teens saw the lights when they aimed flashlights at them.

failing Will having a flashlight with him the whole time (boring! spin again), I have three ideas:

theory one: Will's "true sight" enables him to see glimpses of the RU from the UD as well as vice versa and he did in fact see the alphabet without the aid of a light source.

theory two: Joyce has candles lit in the first blinky Christmas lights scene, and again near the alphabet. I wonder if firelight could somehow transcend dimensions.

theory three, which I like best: is it possible that the lights thing works both ways - that Joyce's presence in the RU made the Christmas light spots glow enough in the UD that Will noticed them?

the lite brite scene, as I understand it, doesn't conflict with this idea. it didn't glow in the UD because Dustin, Lucas and Erica were on the other end of it, and I have no specific suspicions that any of them have powers. if any one of them had powers, the lite brite might have glowed in the UD even without the flashlight beam. and then only Nancy touched it in the UD and made it glow in the RU. if I'm right about who has powers and who doesn't, that checks out.

what about the 1x8 scene where Joyce and Jonathan sense each other in the house? if this theory is correct, Jonathan (if not also Nancy) should be causing glowy spots along the ceiling in the UD. but the UD shots are all framed low, maybe intentionally avoiding giving us a good look toward the ceiling, and we would need a good look because these glowy spots would probably be quite subtle. so while this scene does nothing to confirm, I don't think it denies either.

Will would not have seen the alphabet painted on the wall, but if he noticed 26 glowing spots while hearing his mom say things like "talk to me!" he could maybe figure out what was going on, and maybe filled in his own alphabet.

the only hiccup is these two light bulbs I circled. because these would put 28 glowing spots on the wall and how would Will know that Joyce started with "I" on the next line instead of the top right bulb, and then the rest of the alphabet would be thrown off, doubly so at "Q". although if Will is able to make individual bulbs glow selectively just by his intent, maybe Joyce is too, and only the alphabet ones are glowing in the UD.

not perfect, but that's my best try for now, because it would also explain the bedroom light bulb.

What about the rest of the yoinked and flayed?

In season 1, a total of six people got yoinked to the UD by the demogorgon. Will, Barb, and four other randos. did they all have powers too?

well, Barb's nose was bleeding:

(Mrs. Holland I'm onto you too)

and if 2/6 had powers then there's certainly a case for the rest, but that's not a hill I care to die on. like, the elevator guy could've been a convenience yoink, just because he was right there where the demogorgon entered the lab. we know even less about the other victims. I could go either way about it.

as for the flayed, the only family relationship we know about is the Holloways, and since the dad was flayed too that doesn't perfectly follow the not-the-dad pattern (although flayings =/= Vecna'ings and I guess there's no rule preventing Tom Holloway from having his own powers from his own mother).

I'm definitely thinking Billy had powers based on that one Henry line to Max, but I don't think I have an objection to the idea of most of the flayed just being meat. although the flaying process (the tentacle in the mouth) could definitely be a means of both uploading possession and downloading powers. if that's the case, like 1/3 of Hawkins has powers I guess.

so was Nancy's theory about blood attracting the demogorgon right?

Nancy and Jonathan attracted the demogorgon by cutting their hands. Barb bled in the pool. Will wasn't bleeding, but he didn't need to be because I think Henry already knew about him some other way.

that deer was bleeding, Nancy said it had been hit by a car. was that to throw us off, to make us think the demogorgon is just attracted to blood in general? although who's to say it isn't. but it was eating the deer. it didn't yoink Will or Barb (who I think both had powers) to eat.

maybe the demogorgon could smell blood like other predators, but it could also tell regular blood from powers blood, and Henry didn't allow it to eat anyone with powers because he had more important uses for them.

so then if it's literally sniffing out who has powers as it goes along, how did it know about the Wheelers? it tries to yoink Holly episodes before Nancy cuts her hand. I would love to offer you a different explanation than that Karen was there too, and... I can think of a reason an adult woman could be bleeding. do I like it, no, is it possible, I guess.

so what is Henry's original interest in Will?

what if I'm not totally off base about rainbowshipgate? what if the lab, as of 1979, is already watching Will. as a member of staff, Henry could have access to their intel on potential new kids. that way at the time El banishes him to the UD, he already knows about Will. so when he finally gets back into the RU, he makes a beeline for Will.

is it possible that, when he first goes after Will, all Henry wants with Will is his powers like all the rest?

if so, why doesn't he just Vecna him? there has to be a reason he didn't want him dead quite yet. maybe these days Henry is working in partnership with the hive, and while Henry's goal was to harvest Will's powers, the hive also had the goal of spawning some new demogorgons, which requires live host bodies. the yoinked were all handled in ways that served both of those goals.

was Will even meant to survive?

This is gross but, let's talk about that vine in Will's mouth

I FINALLY just got the purpose of this weird ass shot of the alive/dead raccoon in the tunnels. I have never understood what this was supposed to be. It must be dead - it's partly skeletonized - and yet it looks like it's breathing. I never even saw this until I brightened it and slowed it down just now, but: when Hopper nudges it with his foot, vines burst out of the carcass, and the breathing stops.

I'm frankly still not even sure wtf I'm seeing here but it made me realize that the vine in Will's mouth is not just to deposit the slug, but to give him oxygen.

everyone else probably got this years ago but for the benefit of anyone else as slow as me, Hopper's Sara flashback is not merely a visual association, but a very literal one. although the slugging is ultimately a fatal process, Will is intubated and the vine is keeping him alive for the duration.

this is why the language around Will's slug is always "coughing up" and not vomiting. the vine and slug were never in his digestive tract, they were down his trachea. the vine has to be both an ovipositor and a breathing tube. I hate this subject. it seals off the airway, preventing the host from inhaling the UD's toxic spores, because if the host dies too soon it won't be any good for incubating the slug.

when the slug is ready, the vine must retract (so the slug can get out) and without supplemental oxygen, the host (if not already dead like the raccoon) immediately finishes dying of exposure. this must be what happened to Barb and the others. then the slug grows up and in a few days starts eating the host's body, which is why that other dead guy near Barb is a skeleton already.

I've been going crazy trying to figure out why, if Henry has some grand plans for Will right from the beginning, he would use him as a common demogorgon incubator, with no provision appearing to be made for his survival. (I guess Henry could've restarted his heart like El did Max afterwards, but eh). I haven't thought of an answer yet besides: maybe, at this point in time, he didn't?

maybe his original intent was to activate Will, take his powers, repurpose him for incubation, and leave him to die? and then after Will surprises him by making it back to the RU with semi-awakened abilities, Henry realizes he's become a unique asset? (this is a whole other avenue of thought I need to work out more)

so anyway, how could Henry have harvested Will's powers without killing him yet?

there's only one, one-off way we've ever seen Henry steal someone else's powers nonfatally, without Vecna'ing them, and that's El.

when the meat flayer bites El, a chunk of it burrows into her leg and absorbs a little of her blood. if the powers are genetic, they're in the blood, literally. El uses her powers for the last time to tear it out of her leg, and later, when the whole meat flayer arrives at the mall, it stops and bends down to that little chunk and absorbs it. in doing so, it absorbed her powers.

Henry getting her powers, sure fine, but where I'm still unclear is why this is a zero-sum thing and El lost her powers, because it's not like she lost all of her blood. (also does this mean that in the ST universe if you get a blood transfusion you might end up with superpowers?) there's something I'm still missing here, especially with that shot of the blood puddle sizzling on the floor of the grocery store.

anyway, we know Will used his powers in the UD in order to do the lights. and what happens when you use your powers? your nose bleeds. this is one way Henry could get a little of Will's blood without leaving a mark on him so the audience won't guess.

Will must also get amnesia from "dying", thus losing his active powers like baby El. or else it'd be hilarious if he's had powers and known all the answers all this time and hasn't mentioned it.

What is Will's spidey sense?

if Henry doesn't count on Will surviving his slugging, I don't see any motive for him putting soteria or equivalent into his neck before leaving him in the library.

as much as I like the soteria idea, I'm honestly not sure the simplest explanation doesn't cover it - that Will's spidey sense is just fear.

when Will's neck tingled when he was possessed, it was because the Mind Flayer (Henry) was afraid. they told us that very plainly with Mr. Clarke's dialogue.

when normal Will's neck tingles, it's because Will is triggered and rightfully terrified some UD shit is happening again. he describes it to others as feeling frozen with fear, cold, like dropping on a roller coaster. he also mentions feeling like he "can't breathe or talk or do anything" - sounds rather like symptoms of having a vine down your trachea, even if you don't know that's why.

but how does he know to be afraid?

I'm thinking that once Henry makes a connection with you, there's always a scar of that connection there, like how gates leave scars - the connection is basically opening a gate between minds. (remember Henry got Max and El from Max's mind into his by literally hurling/carrying them through that stained glass doorway. Victor breaks down that same door and stumbles into the war vision. doors being gates.)

provided there's a UD/RU gate open, Will can sense when Henry is near as a result of that residual connection, but intense fear may be enough to explain the actual reaction on his neck imo. he may not remember exactly what happened to him in the UD but frankly it'd be super weird if he didn't have colossal anxiety at the slightest hint it could be happening again.

Max is the only other person who's had Henry make a connection with her and lived, so if I'm on the right track, she should also wake up with a spidey sense.

Why Henry originally wanted El to join him

maybe opening gates is a 2 player game no matter how strong you are. if Henry killed every other powers person in the world, he wouldn't be able to open gates because he'd have no one to connect with. he had just coached El into becoming the most powerful kid in the lab, and that combined with their "alliance" put her in an ideal position to be his partner in crime.

maybe the thing about her being "superior" and shaping the world with him was just a lie to gain her cooperation? maybe, but the fact that he brought it up again in 4x9, years later and with nothing to gain, makes me feel like he kinda meant it.

this does very little to reassure me that Henry won't turn out to be El's biological father. he would've been 23-24 at the time Terry was involved with MKUltra, and having both parents involved with lab experimentation would align flawlessly with El's very Firestarter-esque origin story. if Brenner didn't actually orchestrate it, I certainly can't see him frowning on it either if he knew, as I'm sure he would be thrilled at the chance to study a double-powered kid (assuming he didn't already know it was only a maternal thing back then). although I suppose Henry and Terry could also have had a thing without Brenner knowing. I will be thrilled to be proven wrong about this entire paragraph.

Henry's "join me" to Fred and Max was more figurative I guess, in the sense that they'd be joining him in his mind once he absorbed them. I was gonna say maybe he figures one of these depressed bastards hates the world enough to be his player 2, but he didn't really give them a sales pitch or opportunity to agree/disagree before killing them. I do find it interesting he never said "join me" to Chrissy, and we don't know if he said anything to Patrick.

What happened that night in 1959.

the night Henry kills Virginia, the radio turns on to Dream A Little Dream Of Me, which is like Victor's Running Up That Hill, and serves to free him from his vision.

my question is: if Henry wanted to torment Victor, why would he turn on a song that would help him?

he didn't.

Virginia turned on the radio.

oh yeah, forgot to mention! Virginia's powers were active. not all of the weird stuff going on in the Creel House is Henry. in fact it's probably not Henry who started it. the lights flickering while Henry draws with crayons - pretty sure that's Virginia pulling a stunt somewhere in the house.

here are both POVs of the murder for you to refer to.

the radio turns on directly onto DALDOM (hm I don't love that acronym).

Virginia and Victor look at each other in a way that's easy to interpret as two people weirded out about the radio turning on by itself. but Virginia has a weird, almost pleading look. I believe she's just acting confused when she's really the one doing this.

Victor has no idea she has powers. he figures this is demon hijinks and that his wife is just as baffled about it as he is, and she's letting him think so.

just before Victor touches the radio, it starts tuning through different channels. and then the lights go crazy.

the knob starting to channel surf - I think that's Henry changing the channel away from DALDOM. how does Henry know about the RUTH effect? maybe Virginia knows - either from her own experience or Brenner told her - and Henry read her mind. anyway, Henry doesn't want that song playing.

but with the radio trick, Virginia tips her hand. if Henry wasn't already sure she had powers, he is now. (Henry's reaction to the radio is a major difference between the POVs - look at his for this part) he looks at the radio. he looks to his mother. and that is the moment he says that Virginia "left him no choice but to act."

what about this moment during a calm family dinner would necessitate Henry immediately killing his mother?

why would Virginia turn on the radio in front of Henry, knowingly blowing her secret?

it makes me feel like, within a few more seconds, it wouldn't matter to Virginia what Henry knew. it makes me think of the story Henry feeds baby El about how she needs to escape today because they're going to kill her. ingredients of that lie come from his own past.

what if Virginia planned to "kill him" that night - that is, fake his death so she could hand him over to Brenner in exchange for compensation (like she definitely killed that great uncle for his money I'm telling you). all she would have to do is incapacitate Henry and then call in Dr. Brenner under the guise of helping him, and Brenner takes care of the rest. He'd put on his usual fake death routine, perhaps even providing a fake body, same as with Will. (and ultimately this IS what happened because Henry pushed too hard - Victor is satisfied that Henry died)

all Virginia has to do is act scared, and blame for Henry's bizarre "death" would fall in easily with the claims of demonic activity that Victor has already so well established around town (the demon actually being Virginia, who's been doing spooky shit in front of Victor to make him think the house is haunted, establishing the cover well in advance of Henry's planned "death").

but Virginia doesn't know the extent of Henry's abilities. she knows he's been messing with their heads, but maybe she doesn't know about the telekinesis and electricity stuff - which is why she looks genuinely confused when the lights go blinky, because she knows she's not doing that. and then she turns back around with a brief look of oh shit before she zooms up to the ceiling.

congratulations Virginia, you played yourself.

but again, why did she turn on DALDOM? if the plan was for Virginia to do something to Henry, what did Victor need protection for? or was that her special song, too? Their Song <3?

Virginia probably figured that the second Henry realized something was going on, he would put everybody in a trance to stop them. maybe she figured if the protective song was already playing, whatever Henry tried wouldn't work. but she didn't know Henry could change the channel. whoops!

Dream A Little Dream Of Me

here's the part I've been over and over and can't figure out a good explanation for. Henry changes the channel on the radio to stop DALDOM. so then how does hearing that song playing save Victor from his war vision a minute later?

after Henry changes the channel, even while the dial is still moving around, the song persists quietly in the background throughout Virginia's death and Victor's attempts to break down the door. it stops when he enters his war vision, but a minute into that, he takes notice of it again, which is what pulls him back. yet as soon as he comes out of his vision, back into reality where the song SHOULD still be audible if it was really playing, the house is silent.

there is definitely some kind of third party bullshit going on here but I'm stumped.

I don't think I can blame Alice. her powers weren't active - she had to be given nightmares to stir them, same as the cursed four, and I don't even think a little kid is probably in on a family murder plot to begin with. and like, I kinda doubt she Vecna'd herself.

is Virginia not really dead? she looked pretty dead, unless that whole evening was one huge trance Virginia gave the entire family. but Henry's narration so clearly says he intended to kill Virginia and Alice and frame his father, and that he gained powers from killing his mother specifically, so I really kinda don't think it's that. even if Virginia could give him a vision of himself killing her and Alice, I don't think she has the power to also make him believe he planned all that and was pleased with the results. otherwise his recounting should have been more like "I don't know what came over me, but I killed my family and when I realized what I had done I passed out from shock!"

assuming there isn't an extra player lurking around the scene who we don't know about, I'm going to take one stab at it that's absolutely loony.

Victor has to be hearing that song from somewhere other than the radio. and we're hearing it all dreamy and quiet, not like it sounded when it was really on the radio. what if this is perception or time travel shenanigans? what if, somehow, our gang is on the scene - in Victor's mind, or in the Upside Down or some such unseen way - and THEY are playing DALDOM for him, to make sure the timeline unfolds right. because I'm pretty sure I do not hear DALDOM in Henry's version of the scene any time after he changes the channel. that's only something that's going on in Victor's perception.

idk. that's pretty wack and I hope we aren't going full time travel, but I got nothin else right now.

I am suspicious of that scene of Henry turning back the clock though, because we really never saw what results that yielded, if it was supposed to be anything but symbolic. but again Henry has no reason to want to play DALDOM via some time alteration shenanigans when he's the one who didn't want it playing in the first place. maybe if El/Max/Will/Mike/Nancy messes with that particular clock it could affect the timeline..?? I have no idea.

Why aren't all the victims' jaws broken?

@bugsbenefit here comes the part for you

I've seen a couple people question why Alice Creel is the only victim whose jaw isn't broken. she isn't, not when you consider the full list of victims. the majority of the dead lab kids are positioned in such a way that we don't see their faces, but the few whose faces we do see, their mouths are closed like Alice.

jaw breaking is pretty rare: only Virginia, Chrissy, Patrick and Fred.

Virginia is obviously an adult. Chrissy, Patrick and Fred could be 18. Two was the only lab kid who was likely 18 (if he was lab-born immediately after the program started in 1959, he could be up to 19) but the shot of his death is blocked so that his head falls out of view. (if you go frame by frame you can see that his jaw isn't broken, although the shot in question is of a stunt double, so I don't think we're supposed to take real notice).

Max is only 15 and her jaw is spared. it's an age thing.

but this may be less "Henry has a rule about not breaking kids' jaws" and more "the network has a rule about how gruesome you can get with minor actors" although I mean, is the jaw thing really worse than the eyeball thing, idk.

Tristan Spohn (Two), Grace Van Dien (Chrissy) and Logan Riley Bruner (Fred) were 18+ during filming. Myles Truitt (Patrick) is only a couple months older than Sadie Sink and it's possible that he was just barely 18 while filming his scenes while Sadie was still 17 during hers. I think that's probably the more likely explanation tbh.

if anyone can think of an in-universe reason for this, please jump in!

Some misc final thoughts

now it makes sense why Henry makes killing El's friends a distinct step from killing everyone. he means her friends who have powers. he wants to harvest their powers, but El is too strong a protection over them, and he can't get at them until she's out of the way.

--

still totally possible it's just artistic license, but every instance I can think of of lights selectively working in the Upside Down could be explained by the proximity of one of the people I think has powers. then again, the range really seems to vary, and I can't think of any UD scenes we've ever seen where nobody with powers was present.

--

there's sooo much imagery of power-people and opening doors (gates). this isn't even all of them, I just got tired of screenshotting.

--

could Steve have powers too?

he gets an "open the door" of his very own, and the demogorgon appearing in front of him says maybe so. I could go either way on the Russian elevator scene in which they're all talking about opening the elevator door, and both Steve and Dustin press the DOOR OPEN button and nothing happens. I'm not sure about Steve but I am squinting at him suspiciously.

--

jancy, byler, and elmax nations, congrats on shipping literal power couples. technically milkvans too but 🦴

--

I am curious why Mike has never really been singled out for monster attack like his sisters have.

Mike-gets-Vecna'd truthers... if the gang can break his trance at the right moment, that would be a very efficient way to activate not just Mike himself, but Will too, because he already has a residual psychic connection open and the sight of Mike getting Vecna'd would surely trigger such strong terror in him.

me @ mike: honey you got a big storm comin.

this concludes part 2 and now I'm off to let my mind reel with the everybody-has-powers fic possibilities

[thousand-winters]

Darius for the ask thing.

Hey there!!! 💖

How I feel about this character

I LOVE HIM SO DAMN MUCH. HE'S THE LOVE OF MY LIFE AND THE LIGHT OF MY DAYS. HE SINGLE HANDEDLY HEALED MY DEPRESSION AND-

Okay, that's not it but I truly get such fuzzy feelings whenever I see art of him, I adore him.

He's SUCH a good character with SO much potential and I think it's a huge shame that most of that was left implied and couldn't be explored in the show itself. On the other hand, the fact they actually implied it and we're left with a lot of implications about who he is and his past makes him particularly interesting and fun to delve into because while part of it has to be speculation, there IS basis for it! Which is my favorite way to speculate, when I have basis for it, and as such, Darius is a gold mine.

His design is 10/10, he was catching eyes as soon as he appeared and I love that for him. His voice? Excellent, I love how he's lowkey bitchy half the time, he's everything in this world. And gods, he truly is such a "wants to pretend he doesn't give a damn but unfortunately for him, he gives so many damns" kind of character, they made him in a lab for people with good taste to obsess over /lh

I feel like I could talk hours about him.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

I don't really ship him with anybody, honestly. I tend to find some posts with him and Alador sort of funny but I think the situation there with their strained and broken friendship is far more complicated than people give it credit for, plus a lot of people just treat Darius in that ship as the arm candy Alador gains by realizing his mistakes which is... oof.

I don't actively ship it but I think Dariraine and Dariraeda is quite sweet. I find too that people who ship those tend to care more about Darius as a character and not as just a trophy so I like those far more. Darimila is similarly cute, though since that one is a lot of the time motivated by the idea of making Luz and Hunter siblings, I'm more meh about it.

One thing about me is I'm not immune to cute fanart but I don't necessarily ship the stuff in question akshfjkdsg

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Oh, this one is hard because I like his dynamic with SO many characters. The familiar relationship with Hunter is great and at this point it's probably too obvious what my stance is on that. Now... HE'S SO FUN WITH RAINE. And there's SO much in his dynamic with Eberwolf as well.

But then we can start tapping into other potential dynamics and... Eda? They're both cut from the same cloth, they're so interesting together. Lilith! Now that one is more complicated since they evidently weren't close at all through all of those coven years but I like to think about them. Favorite bias.

I think to give a non too vague answer, I would go with the Rebel Trio because they're so good. Post HM fics were peak with the three of them + Hunter, SO much fun.

My unpopular opinion about this character

Technically not unpopular around the circles that actually care about him as a character instead of talking shit about him because it's easy, but since the hate for him hasn't stopped even now...

I think one of his main character traits is that he's caring. You can see how driven by emotions he is; I'll never tire of pointing out how he loses it when he thinks Eberwolf and Hunter are in danger, and those are two separate scenes despite how little screentime he gets. He cares SO much and it can momentarily put his logic out of commission. He's not cold or abusive or mean for no reason. He picks up Luz nonchalantly and makes a little snippy comment but he doesn't throw her around or anything, he sets her down gently. He rescues the Emerald Entrails when he doesn't even know them and could perfectly turn a blind eye to that. He's a rebel, for gods' sake. He wouldn't be if he didn't care about others, and it's not only his loved ones.

This is a terribly kind man. That he's not super open and claiming out loud how much he cares doesn't mean he isn't, it just means people have failed at media literacy.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Oh, my gods. So. Much.

I wish he had more screentime, for one. I wish we'd had his relationship with Hunter develop onscreen rather than through little hints, because while that work, so many people like to pretend that didn't happen. I WISH we'd had more Rebel Trio screentime because that would have been so fun. I wish we had seen more about his grief about his mentor, because Any Sport in a Storm alone shows you just how much he hasn't gotten over that and it's been more than 10 years since his death??? My man is Not Looking at his grief. He's not acknowledging it. Darius, please...

In general, more screentime would have been so good for people to stop misunderstanding him so badly, or at the very least it would make easier to say to prove them wrong without them being "well, the characters didn't look at the screen and spelled it out for me, so it didn't happen 🙄"

From this ask game

[utilitycaster]

as someone who gave up on c3 I stayed in the fandom mostly for lvom and now waiting for animated nein. I remember you having a lot of doubts about c3. did they get resolved? or did you find other things to appreciate? I would be interested to see your perspective since I tended to agree with a lot of your opinions when I was more active on tumblr.

Hi anon!

Good question. I feel the best answer is that some things have gotten much better, and some things have not been resolved but I am somewhat resigned. I'm putting the rest of my response below a cut because it may get long (might not! I don't plan out responses like this usually) and because some of this gets fairly speculative.

Let's start with the unresolved:

While I'm hopeful that the visit to Whitestone quenched the need for extensive Vox Machina appearances, I still maintain this campaign would have been stronger had the connections been more distant. I actually like Orym as a character, but I think the Keyleth connection does neither him nor Keyleth any favors (not because Matt's depiction is bad, simply because Orym feels overshadowed to me and because it means the party can always consider asking a L20 Druid to help them, even if the end result is a no). I also still don't like how few characters are of Marquet or have significant reason to be there, even as I enjoy the characters.

The plot is still heavily centered around Imogen's powers and her connection to Ruidus. I'll talk more about this below, but I think this could have been handled well, and I place the blame squarely on Matt here, but it's not and as a result Imogen gets little room to breathe or develop. I like her as a character, but she's perpetually overwhelmed; her best moments have been, for me, in the episodes before the main character status was more solidified, or in episodes centering other characters (some of the Bassuras episodes; Chetney's time with the Gorgynei).

Related to the above, this is a heavily railroaded campaign. That is not bad. EXU Calamity was pretty railroaded, as are many Dimension 20 shows. I think the problem is that this didn't have the needs of railroading met. The best way to think about it is that Matt is basically running a looser-than-usual but still extant custom module. There are specific beats to be hit. When you run a module, as a DM, one generally tells people you're doing it and to build characters surrounding it. I still don't feel that was done. I think that had Matt said "hey, this is going to be a Ruidus-centric, lore-heavy campaign; build characters who have reason to be interested or who'd go along" then yes, he'd have spoiled the surprise, but not by much, and I think the characters would be much more suited to the plot (higher int, more tied to institutions in Marquet, etc) and the pacing issues wouldn't exist because it feels like Matt has been trying to obscure the railroading; things have gotten much better following recent episodes because we got the full lore dump and now have an actual task. Some slightly different expectation-setting would have been transformative with not a whole lot of effort.

The good

The characters and their relationships have gotten much better. Getting rid of Delilah has resolved most of my issues with Laudna though I'm unimpressed with her build; Chetney, Ashton, and Fearne were always great; my issues with Imogen stem only from her being Designated Main Character which wasn't an issue with Laura's concept; I discussed Orym above; and FCG in particular has been totally changed. Giving FCG a deity and having them start to question their purpose following a meeting with Dancer fixed most of my issues. They are still pushy, but in a way that feels much more friendly than the initial intrusive way; Sam is finally settling into playing a cleric more capably; and I love every part of the Changebringer arc. I also am a sucker for the Chef feat. As a recent poll on this website indicated, I can put up with a meandering plot if the characters are compelling (*cough* this is why early Mighty Nein, or Vox Machina pre-Briarwoods, are still largely good) so now that the group has meshed it's much more enjoyable. It still took longer than I wish it had, I still would like further deepening of relationships, and I completely respect that people lost patience, but we got to a much better place.

The pacing isn't perfect - we're getting shunted from place to place in a way that feels like late campaign, and giving this group so much power and connections has meant we don't get to see a ton of the continent - but it's much better. The Yios casino episode was a highlight, as were Chetney's episodes, and I'm hoping the upcoming skyship episodes will have some opportunities for conversations. I am not terribly optimistic that we'll get tons of downtime before the apogee solstice, but I am hoping that the plot is this: Bells Hells and their allies thwart the plans of the solstice, everyone has to regroup, and there is time to cover characters other than Imogen in depth for a length of time before we return back. I still suspect this will be a campaign closer to VM's in length than the Nein's, but that's still like 100 episodes so I'm hoping it's like, solstice in the 50s, 30-40 episodes of other stuff, moon plot returneth.

The NPCs and worldbuilding are consistently great; I just wish we could spend more time with them. As I say above, I hope that we put the moon plot on hold after the solstice and can deal with everyone else's stuff. I in particular am fascinated by Ashton and Chetney's stuff; I also think Laudna's hiding a lot that would make her more interesting, and I would love to know the full history of FCG even if he's not terribly curious.

The speculative

I have said this is speculative a few times and I'm saying it once more. I don't know if this is true, but like. This is essentially what I would say to Matt if somehow we crossed paths and he said "hey, as a fan, I was wondering why the response to Campaign 3 seems comparably muted from your perspective."

My guess is that this is the last long-form campaign Critical Role will do. It's understandable; if this runs 100-ish episodes that puts us at the 9-10 year mark of almost-weekly episodes, not counting the covid hiatus, and that is a LOT for a busy group of people working on concurrent animated series and sustaining outside acting careers. This isn't a podcast; it's filmed on a full set and takes a lot of time. I suspect - and hope! - that there will be plenty more content, in the form of EXU seasons, one-shots, and even shorter campaigns with the main cast (a la D20). And if I'm proven wrong and a full-length Campaign 4 is announced in the future, I will be ecstatic to eat my words. I cannot stress how happy I would be if I'm wrong here. But that is my guess.

So what I think has happened is this:

Matt has lore he really wants to reveal and has been seeding through the past two campaigns

Matt does not want to tell the cast not to play a character they've been thinking of, because this is the last time they'll get to do it for 100+ episodes.

And I think those two things together explain everything we're seeing. The Ruidus plot has to happen...but he didn't tell the cast.

Anyway hope this helps! I really appreciate you saying you like what I've had to say in the past, and see you for the Nein series and any future one-shots!

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

So I’m not sure if this counts as an update or not, but a few days ago there was some minor speculation on Reddit involving Amazon. The first season is available to buy on prime, but it also says “get current episodes now and future ones when available” if you purchase a TV pass. Could this mean that Amazon might have the rights to season two soon? I had a look at some other series and I couldn’t find one that has this line about “future episodes” with a TV pass. Interestingly, the post discussing this has now been deleted on Reddit. This obviously could all be nothing, but do you think this is something to be cautiously optimistic about? Or have I just reached peak cancellation brain? (Feel free not to reply if you think this is absolutely nothing btw)

Ooooo, interesting. Hey I'm always down to speculate and clown. My clown shoes have been squeaking at me in the corner waiting for something juicy to happen.

Do we know if that particular thing that's happening is for a country other than the US? I ask because I tried heading over to prime video (logged in and logged out) and couldn't get it to give me that option. It does give me the option to subscribe to max which is available in the US but not in a lot of other countries... but I have heard several people mention that it's purchasable from amazon in order countries. Trying to remember who that is now, maybe Germany? I did try looking for the that post too and no luck, like you said it was deleted. Are you able to see the amazon thing Anon? If so would you be so kind as so send me some screen shots and what country you're in (dont need more deets than that, just wanna confirm my theory)? In regards to your question "do you think this is something to be cautiously optimistic about?" I mean, without knowing more information (and at least seeing it) I wouldn't be able to really make a sound judgement on it. Although if you've read my posts, I love being cautiously optimistic in general, so do whatever gets you through the day! Sorry that's not much help... if you have more please please send it my way (I've done quality assurance for years and I love to test things and see if I can make them break and figure out why they might happen -- it could be as simple as a glitch! who knows!).

I do feel like right now we're doing so much, and the UK launch seems to be going well-- so even if the amazon thing isn't a thing to clown about, I think cautious optimism is in the wind after today with all the events happening at once! (Wee John Monday, UK Launch, Rhys Cameos, etc)

Anyway, sorry, not much help there! But I hope you have a good one anon, and I'm sending renewal optimism and love your way! <3<3<3

[iwtvdramacd18]

Hi! Can you talk about how you approach the lesmand dynamic in your writing vs the other iwtv dynamics you’ve written? I’m so interested to hear! ✨

Hey!

So I will say the bulk of my Lesmand stuff is heavily TVL novel based in terms of context of their relationship and then some speculation on show dynamics and scattered aspects from my loosely connected fic verse which are almost certainly not going to be canon in show (for example: Armand occupying a sort of predator of predators status wrt hunting fledglings and killing and eating Marius).

To me a lot of the Lesmand dynamic is couched in fear and obsession as opposed to like, the love Lestat and Armand have for Louis. They're two incredibly powerful beings that do have a powerful draw to each other but I wouldn't call it love per se... they don't really know each other on a personal level either. Armand especially has a version of Lestat that he has built up, I think of all the vampires he probably feels the brunt of the Wolfkiller Effect after Magnus (Lestat as a being that's sort of inexplicably capable of doing the impossible), though by the time he meets Louis in Paris a lot of that has turned to anger. But there's always an obsessive bend. Lestat was a singular life-changing force in his life that had become a sort of constant of a certain type of performing "evil"... in some ways Marius-adjacent but one he originally thought he could control and posses while learn from at the same time.

And then I think Lestat has a lot less obsession but a lot more fear and resentment and straight up unease on his end. But he is also Lestat and does navigate a notable part of life through his dick. Their encounters are usually relatively brief and very violent exchanges -- I think people who hc Armand and Louis as being attracted to each other through the other's proximity to Lestat are completely out of their minds its absolutely Armand and Lestat seeking proximity to Louis and finding common ground with loving him and also fear and experience losing him that is the always underlying layer of any encounter they have post Louis. When the dust settles between them it's where both their minds drift to.

[illisidifan]

Hey I just read your explanation regarding the Baltimore bridge. You mentioned dolphins as a vital part in the (preservation of the) construction and it blew my mind because I was translating a Greek song from the fourth century BC that compared the structure of the Hellespontian pontoon bridge to dolphins. The song was (in part) about the failure of Xerxes' ship bridge. The scholars I consulted speculated that it must have referenced weaponry that was in the shape of a dolphin but that seemed odd to me. The way it was written seemed like it was a stationary object that was being struck. The song mentions a lot of construction elements that I have spent feverishly researching. Most of them to no avail.

I have a theory that some 'unexplainable' terminology would not make sense to library dwelling translators like ancient Greek scholars and myself, but it would make total sense to someone who lives near a harbor and, naturally, talks to other locals about it. Especially when the topic is vital infrastructure.

May I ask, why do you call it 'dolphins'? Is that a term that is locally used and known? Are there synonyms?

I have since finished my thesis and left the university so I am asking this purely out of intense emotional attachment to the subject.

I hope it's okay for me to ask. I am aware that my question is regarding a small detail in a recent tragedy and I fear that it may be inappropriate.

Not sure why you think it's inappropriate, it's always okay to ask questions and normal to be interested in something you've spent time studying. Dolphins are the posts in the water around the bridge supports, they function like those concrete posts you see on roads to keep cars away from sidewalks except for keeping boats away from the supports of the bridge. Of note, given how large this ship was and the momentum, hitting a few dolphins first wouldn't have slowed it down appreciably to my understanding, they are mostly helpful for boat pilots navigationnot a ship that is out of control and cannot be steered like the Dali. I wasn't familiar with the term prior to the news using it and had to look it up myself. I don't know any more than that unfortunately!