#alright I've publicly placed my bets

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

It’s Week 3 and I promised I’d commit to my theory for Season of the Seraph’s story arc if hubris didn’t come knocking for me before then, so time to put my money where my digital mouth is. I’ve seen folks talking about the first part of this theory, but not the second, so here goes: 1) Clovis will try to make himself the new Warmind and 2) in the process breach the Ascendant Realm and open the way for Xivu Arath.

Clovis, by the way, gave away the game like two minutes in because he can’t keep his dang mouth shut. Clovis couldn’t resist a good smug gloat. He gave it all away when Ana said god, fine, hop on this disk and we’ll go. He said, “Once I am in control, all will be as it should be. The Warmind will rise again.” 

As it should be? That line stopped me cold. Clovis hated that Rasputin was in charge. He couldn’t believe he, the genius Clovis Bray the first, was expected to take orders from a jumped-up calculator he used to own. A restored Rasputin is not “as it should be” in Clovis-land. What is “as it should be?” It’s Clovis, so that’s easy: the way things should be is with him in charge. He doesn’t say, “Rasputin will rise again.” He says, “The Warmind will rise again.” Clovis is going to get all the subminds together except put himself at the center instead of the Rasputin core Ana has, and try to make himself the new Warmind. All of which would just be fun to watch as we wait for Red to break him, but: there’s Xivu Arath to deal with. 

We’re all worried about Xivu getting into the warsats. I don’t think she wants them at all. In the Judgement of Kelgorath lore she doesn’t order Kelgorath to go get her some warsats. She says: possess the Warmind. Xivu Arath has plenty of weapons already. What she needs, as Mara points out, is a way in. Mara comments in the encounter dialogue that moving an army through the ascendant realm is very hard. But Xivu did it over Torobatl. How? Sav showed her the way: she did it by getting someone on the other side to build her a gate.

I was surprised in Season of the Hunt by the extent of control Xivu displayed. I thought her unlikely to go for subversive powers like Oryx’s Taking or Sav’s manipulation. But she’s a lot smarter than I gave her credit for. Her Wrathborn contagion is effective, coercive, and quick-spreading. It makes sense metaphorically: violence is a kind of disease, an insidious way of thinking that spreads and snares people till they see everything as a conflict to be settled by force. Xivu invaded the Cabal by infecting Caiatl’s co-ruler Umun’arath, general of the Cabal legions. Driven further and further into obsession with the conflict Xivu Arath makes herself synonymous with, Umun’arath invoked her in the rituals of warfare - the same ones Eris and Eido were discussing - opening the way for Xivu’s armies to pour into the skies over Torobatl. 

For Xivu to repeat that trick in our solar system, she needs another Umun’arath. But Umun’arath was a singularly convenient target: the military chief of the war machine of a huge conquering interstellar empire, or in other words, someone you might call...war-minded. When scouting our solar system Xivu probably heard the name “Warmind” and thought hell yeah, that’s my ticket in. Except it’s not, because Rasputin’s a) not coherent right now and b) not fundamentally the personality she needs. That’s what we’re already exploring this season: at his core Rasputin was never a martial system. He was a pretentious art nerd who got drafted. They made him a Warmind. Xivu Arath needs someone coterminous with war for its own sake, with conflict as the apex of existence, with the supreme violence she represents. And ironically it turns out the Warmind Rasputin is not sufficiently war-minded. 

But Clovis is.

Clovis Bray already sees life as endless contest and conflict via his pseudo-evolutionary legacy bullshit. He’s Xivu’s dream target. When you first see her forces attacking him Clovis is like “they want my precious braaaaaain!” and Osiris goes, “no, they want him. Brought to submit.” That’s exactly what Clovis wants of Rasputin (and to a lesser extent Ana and Elsie): brought to submit. He’s neck deep in Darkness on his own, no convincing needed. And he’s a coward. If Clovis hasn’t cut a deal yet with either Xivu or the Witness to ensure “humanity’s” (his) survival in exchange for his allegiance, he will as soon as he has the reins. After all, let it not be said that he left humanity to fend for itself, right?

So that’s her plan: Xivu Arath attacks the warsat infrastructure to force us to go to Clovis and give him access to Red’s enclave. She waits while we do all the hard work of laying out the subminds to conjure back Rasputin. Clovis inevitably betrays us to slot himself in instead and take control, rousing Rasputin’s entire apparatus of violence to impose his own command on the solar system, helped along by the Wrathborn contagion already brewing in his subconscious. In doing so he invokes such immense rites of war that he opens the way for Xivu to step through. It’s Torobatl all over again...except I don’t think trying to “become the Warmind” is going to work out the way Clovis thinks. 

Clovis still doesn’t understand what Rasputin is, and he still doesn’t understand - as he doesn’t understand with any of his kids - that Rasputin is no longer as Clovis designed him to be. Even Ana hasn’t fully gotten there yet. Both Brays are still thinking of Red as a sort of jigsaw puzzle to be pieced back together. But assembling himself was the first thing Rasputin ever did. Ana still hasn’t cracked the real reason “plug engram into Exo, receive Warmind” isn’t working: because Rasputin is a distributed intelligence. He lives in connections, literally and metaphorically - between warsats, between worlds, with Ana, with humanity. He’s a creature fundamentally built on network and communication. Rasputin is already still out there. He’s in that engram, but he’s everywhere else, too. He’s still in the warsats. He’s talking to us through the Sleeper nodes. He’s going to fight Clovis for control of that Exo Frame; that’s why the frame has red eye-lights in all the season art even though Clovis uses blue ones. 

And in the larger paracausal sense our entire solar system still bears the marks of the Warmind’s influence. He’s synonymous with the Golden Age. The same way Oryx conjured back Savathun and Xivu Arath by recreating the shapes they made, Rasputin will be conjured back by the shape he traced out in a huge web of connections and actions and effects on others that Clovis, an isolated point, fundamentally doesn’t understand. So Clovis is going to pull his little coup, possibly smashing that engram along the way, and he’s going to think it’s working, too - right before Rasputin cracks him open like an egg, because the Warmind never left. I think this season ends with us fighting Clovis in full Wrathborn mode while Xivu Arath’s armies stand ready just on the other side in the Ascendant Realm, hammering to get in, and Rasputin will deliver the final blow from inside - or maybe not, since killing Umun’arath completed the ritual last time, maybe we just wedge Clovis into his own Pillory engram - stopping Xivu from getting her beachhead and leaving her angry but stranded in the Ascendant Realm. 

Hopefully. Either way I can’t wait to see what happens.

[unclassedguy]

Jjk 261 leaks ahead:

Alright I was going to post about this in the morning but I got distracted and needed time to process everything anyways.

I don't usually share my thoughts on the new chapters publicly but I will make an exception now 😔.

Yap incoming

ok, so there were a lot of theories floating around before 261 about if we would actually be getting a gojo comeback or not. Honestly, some people pointed out why gojo reviving might not be the best decision for the story, but I was placing bets on it anyways because I too was pretty bummed by his end and also because my naive self chose to believe it was the most likely choice for gege to make.

However I did try to keep my hopes reasonable, choosing to belive that it could just be a hallucination.

Truthfully, I didn't think it would be Kenjaku. I'd seen the theory that it could be them but I honestly doubted gege would do that. Yet in the depths of my copium filled soul I had always been holding onto the hope that kenjaku would somehow return to the story. When I tell you my secret little stash of cope was as potent as some gojo fans im telling the truth 😭.

I honestly hoped maybe it would be kenjaku, just maybe. This morning I sought out the leaks and you know what I saw? This:

I was DYING. For a second I thought gege had really done, I was in disbelief, I was in shock, I briefly wondered if this was a joke.

AND THEN I WAS SO HAPPY. I was like: Yes! Answers! Yuji-kenjaku interactions! An unexpected twist in the fight! Forget the logistics of how kenjaku ended up in Gojo's body, I was going to trust gege's cooking and enjoy the chapter before taking a step back and critiquing anything.

And then I read that it wasn't kenjaku. It was Yuta using kenjaku's ct.

I didn't want to belive it could be Yuta. Of all the outcome I thought it CANNOT be Yuta. Not possibly. BUT IT WAS. IT WAS YUTA.

I have felt emotional when consuming media before, and sometimes underwhelmed or critical when something didn't rub me the right way, but I'd never understood people who act so utterly devastated by an author's decisions.

I UNDERSTAND NOW.

I've been mourning all day man 😭. My gojo cope, my kenjaku cope, all of it down the drain just like that AND ALL AT ONCE. I genuinely am not sure what about this chapter gas prompted such emotion in me. Am I lobotomized after all? I choose to belive its the sheer shock of this chapters events.

Tbh, I read the rest of the chapter in a bit of a daze and I'd have to go back and look over it again to share any actual thoughts or analysis, but I will says some other things stood out at me about it.

first of all, I don't hate Yuta. He's not my favorite character but I don't hate him and I wish the best to you yuta fans, however yall are feeling. his line about how the others are so worried about becoming monsters, unknowing that they've forced that role onto gojo all this time hit pretty hard for me. And now Yuta is taking on the same role since gojo's gone. He's strong and is not just taking Gojo's body but in a way taking on his position as the 'monster' of the jujutsu world, even if only for the dubious amount of time he had left.

Also the way sukuna just, punches yuji aside 😭. Nahh. The disrespect. He rlly just sees yuta in gojo's body and tosses yuji away. Rlly hope my boy beats him up next chapter and it doesn't become a yuta-one-man-show.

Overall I'm dying, I'm crying, I'm gritting my teeth, I miss kenjaku, I miss gojo, rip yuta 😭

(Please gege give me my wife back. Even just a kenjaku flashback is enough. Gege pls.)

[ropebunnykant]

hello hello. first of all how are you my love. secondly i've come here since it's always better to consult the experts of the matter. do we have any temporal infos about sand's bday im going insane i need to know this boy full chart

hiiiii i’m alright, still reeling from the ep today but skdkskd how are you? also love being considered an expert 🫡

and i’m so glad you asked bc i’ve been thinking about this right. so like every episode seems to take place over the course of a couple days but the space between episodes varies it seems? like we know ep1 is in august (which is interesting bc this is for their senior year project but the thai school year actually starts in may? tho maybe university is different idk) when in august? who knows, but we’ll say it’s mid-august since that’s when it aired

so we know episode one takes course over 1-2 weeks between the project assignment and then top being introduced and him courting mew which ends with him asking mew out publicly at the bar - this brings us to the end of august

ep2 picks up right where we left off and appears to follow the next weekish or at least couple of days since i assume the waterskiing thing they did happened a couple days after just based on the fact that it happens after sandray’s first hang and and their second one is the night of the waterskiing thing, and sand’s reaction to ray and the way he phrases their last interaction implies it wasn’t like a one day time skip if that makes sense, so my guess is it’s at least a couple days between - which could bring us to the beginning of september

ep3 picks up again kind of where we left off with sandray (though the bostonick montage implies a time skip but i’m assuming it’s just a montage of their last hookup until that day and nick says it’s been an everyday thing so that feels a safe bet sjdkekd) and ep3 again seems to have like a weekish for the timeline with all of them planning for the party and the sandray hookup having obviously been fairly recent and yada yada and it ends with the party, which brings us to early/mid september

ep4 once again starts where we left off (after the flashback) with ray taking mew home and AGAIN we can assume this is happening over the course of a week or so bc we get multiple different days with bigger events happening and it ends with ray in the bath deciding to move onto sand - bringing us to mid/late september

AND THIS IS WHERE IT GETS TRICKY! bc ep5 doesn’t follow the same pattern! it doesn’t pick up where we left off and it instead implies a time skip with sand helping ray at the beginning + then sand saying that ray’s tagging along AGAIN… which implies this has been happening for a couple days at least. SO. based on the montage at the beginning of the ep imma guess about a week has past since the end of ep4 and since the episode opens the day before sand’s birthday, that makes sand’s birthday end of september/beginning of october. also this episode is the only one that takes place over just one day after the initial montage! very interesting stuff especially since that ending kicks off the big drama we’ve been waiting for

anyways in conclusion: he’s a libra, thank you for coming to my tedtalk

[freedomfireflies]

Hey. So I don't really have someone to tell or discuss this to but I'm tired of keeping it to myself and I just wanna get it out, you know. Alright. I'm in love with my best friend but she's straight... I have no idea what to do. I nean I've tried everything! I've tried to ignore my feelings but that doesn't work. I've tried to see other people but that also doesn't work!! And at last I've even tried to distance myself from her in hopes that maybe if I don't see or speak to her for some time the feelings will go away. They didn't. And after 3 weeks of not talking, when I saw her yesterday my feeling came rushing back!! I have no idea what to do! I don't want to lose her...

(Hi my love!! I'm gonna answer this publicly but if you're not comfortable with that, let me know and I'll take it down ASAP!!)

First of all, I'm so sorry you're having to go through this! One of the most heart-wrenching moments in life is to love somebody and feel so deeply.

Unrequited love will forever remain one of life's most unpleasant experiences. There's no avoiding it, no fixing it, no cheating your way out of it.

And unfortunately, one of the only solutions for crushes...is telling them. I KNOW, I KNOW! It's terrifying, and nerve-wracking, and all you can do is imagine the worst.

But...keeping this to yourself and trying to trick yourself out of it will only hurt you. And you don't deserve to be hurt because you opened up your heart! You deserve to love whoever you want to love, out loud and proud!

I don't know all of the details but I'm guessing she's your best friend for a reason. And I like to think that if you do tell her, "Hey, so...here's the situation," she will be more than understanding.

She might not be able to reciprocate those feelings, but it absolutely should not effect your friendship. Perhaps it'll lead to a conversation on how you can maintain your relationship without anybody getting hurt, but it shouldn't change how much you care about each other!

I know how easy it is to convince yourself that just "falling out of like" with someone is the best solution.

But...it never works. As it seems you've learned 😭 The best thing you can do is allow yourself to feel how you want to feel, give yourself grace and understanding for being human, and let the crush do its thing! Honestly, I bet she'd be flattered!

If you don't feel super comfortable telling her yet, that's okay! But you don't have to punish yourself or keep your distance. As long as you're being respectful of both her and you...there's no reason why you can't continue to keep up the friendship!

I know none of this can magically erase how you feel or make it better, but I hope you know that you're not alone.

In time, another crush will come along, and hopefully those pieces fall perfectly into place!

I hope this could be somewhat comforting and help you realize that no matter what you decide, a true friend will understand and stick by you!

And of course, we have the best advice from the king himself:

I'm sending you so much love, please don't hesitate to reach out again, even if you just want to tell me my advice sucked HAHAHA 💞

[hoe-doroki]

Hey, if you're leaving a comment on a fic you love, do you think it's ok to also tell the author if they missed a word or misspelled something? At what point should you just say, "I'd beta this for you?"

Oof, Nonnie, you probably came to the wrong place 😂 Not because I'm not happy to answer--I totally am--but because I tend to be the lone person who feels differently on this than my friends, so I'll try to answer more from their point of view than mine.

Basically: if it's me, go for it, say something. If it's someone else--probably skip it.

The bottom line is that a small handful of typos isn't usually enough to stop a reader from enjoying a fic. As you said, you're hypothetically talking about a fic that you love. And so, if you say something, you're risking making someone upset over not a large potential gain for you or for them. So def err on the side of not saying anything.

You probably shouldn't offer to beta a story out of the blue either. It can come across as saying "you did a lot wrong, and you don't know anything about me, but I think I can do better than you." Even if you try hard for it not to sound like that.

It's not your job as a reader to 'fix' a fic. So if that's the angle you're trying to come from, it's not the best way to engage with an author.

I'll answer with more nuance below the cut, but that's the gist and probably what you should take away. Unless you know them: don't. But if you wanna chat more with me about this, because it's tricky, my dms are open.

Okay, let's start with who. Some authors put in the notes on ao3 that they're accepting concrit. Then it's probably fine. But also beware that a lot of people around here seem to think that what they're saying is concrit because they think it's helpful, but just telling someone that you think they're wrong about something is not usually helpful. So make sure to put a lot of thought into your phrasing, and give the author the benefit of the doubt if it's something more than a simple spelling error.

If they're a friend, it's probably fine to reach out personally. If it's an author you didn't know but are having a back and forth with, it might be fair to bring up if it sounds like they're looking for feedback (I've done this before, but you def have to be careful!). If it's someone you've never interacted with, again, probably don't.

Now where. If it's on ao3, it can be tricky since you can't message unless you leave a link to another account. I'll admit, the thing that makes me different from my friends is that I'm a fan of leaving and receiving reviews that have things I like and things I question. Admittedly, I don't know if all of these reviews have been well received--I'd actually bet that they haven't. But, imo, I'd always rather receive an engaged review that's not 100% positive on a story than one that just says "omg, I liked this so much 😍". Writers so rarely get truly engaged reviews, so that's why I leave them. But, nonnie, without knowing what kinds of reviews you leave and what you think is appropriate, I can't recommend you do this. I'm not even sure it's right that I do it. Some people are grateful, most don't say anything, so idk what the odds of a positive reception is. So, if you're questioning if your review will be well received or not, take out the part you're questioning. Better safe than sorry.

If it's on tumblr, don't leave it in a reblog, even in the tags. Maybe dm the person, if you're kind about it. Or you can leave an ask, but I definitely recommend not leaving an ask on anon. If you're willing to put your name behind what you say, then that should tell your gut that you don't think what you're saying is alright. If you feel the need to hide, that feeling is coming because you think that you're wrong, so just don't. An author will be more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt if you put your name behind it too, or they can follow up with dms or answer privately instead of publicly.

That's my gist. Like I said, I don't really have the answers here, because it's personal. If you're really wondering, and if it's someone on tumblr, you can try asking them. But a lot of authors around here are pretty sensitive about stuff like this, so be prepared to get a negative response and apologize, just in case.

The best you can do most of the time is just let it go <3