#conspiracies and theories about what would happen in a season

[mullettaegi]

looking at vld content screenshots and reading someone talk about the "new s5 trailer that just dropped",,,,, and just feeling so weary like ive fought all my battles vld why am i back here again

[mcybree]

now im nosy, what do you mean by alien clone replacement????

DONT even worry about . dont even worry. dont even

[lewierre]

i guarantee you most offline tifosi just want ferrari to win they don’t care who’s driving it

[berlinbabylon]

i’m two thirds through s4 (finished ep 8 tonight, didn’t have time to watch when it was airing live) and... it’s kinda not very good :( there are some things that i love (abraham and his whole storyline, litten who i already loved in s3, some scenes here and there) but overall i’m not feeling it. i have a lot more thoughts but i’m just wondering what the consensus in the fandom is?

[sparrowlucero]

ik you were joking but I would be genuinely interested to hear about the flux cowriting credits strife if you feel like going into detail on it

So I have a big conspiracy theory about season 13 of Doctor Who ("Flux"), namely that there's a lost episode was scripted and even possibly filmed in near entirety, but ended up being cut and cannibalized in post production due to behind the scenes issues, and the fandom has yet to pick up on it.

For anyone who doesn't watch the show: Flux is a miniseries of Doctor Who; a full season was not commissioned because it was produced during Covid. The most important stuff about it for the purposes of this post are:

It's 6 episodes long (¹). The episodes are all directly continuous and could not be shuffled around. (I should clarify here that, no, the showrunner can't simply choose on a whim to make 10 episodes, or only make 4; they had to stick to 6, as that was the amount they were picked up and scheduled for)

The showrunner, Chris Chibnall , wrote every episode apart from episode 4 (Village of the Angels) which he has a co-writing credit on.

(More subjectively but perhaps relevant) The season is largely considered to be kind of a structural mess and (less subjectively) there appears to some abnormal and consistent production issues (²)

So the first thing I need to evidence here is that Chris Chibnall, aforementioned showrunner and writer of the entire season, was late. Like, really late.

Word of mouth gossip had been circulating for a while that there was some sort of on-set problem involving filming having to be paused because he was still finishing scripts: (³)

This would later be confirmed at a Gallifrey One panel (⁴) with Matt Strevens, the executive producer, who suggests that filming stopped to allow Chris Chibnall to finish scripts; he further implies that large swathes of episode 5/Block 2 weren't written until Episode 4/Block 1 (in which Kevin McNally debuts) was filming:

So with that context, let's talk about that Episode 4, "Village of the Angels", the only episode not attributed solely to Chris Chibnall. Co written by Maxine Alderton.

The filming pics reveal an interesting bit of trivia for Village: namely, the clapperboards show that the story was actually filmed as episode 5, not 4:

As the above tweet suggests, this doesn't make much sense. The miniseries is, again, a single continuous plot. It's not like they flipped Village and the current episode 5, Survivors of the Flux; the latter explicitly takes place chronologically after it. And yet, Village having been intended as the penultimate episode 5 is further evidenced by the original trailer for it, in which a character states that the story takes place on the 28th of November. This line is dubbed over in the final episode and subsequent trailers to instead say the 21st:

Why is this line important enough to dub? Because that's meant to line up with the air date of the episode. Episode 4 aired on the 21st and 5 on the 28th. But something happened in post production, and now it's episode 4 on the 21st instead (⁵):

So if none of these episodes were moved around but it does seem like Village was meant to be episode 5, where and what is the original episode 4?

I have a theory.

Flux has a recurring subplot involving two side characters, a married couple (Bel and Vinder) who have been separated by the titular disaster and are traveling the universe to reunite with each other. This story is told through segments sprinkled throughout the episodes. These have a different writing style (including a diary-esque narration only present in these scenes) and an internally consistent visual style that looks somewhat different to the other parts of the season.

Village of the Angels, for instance, is a moody, dark episode set in a village in the 1960s:

However, Bel and Vinder's segments in the episode have a somewhat different look:

On top of this, they never intersect with the episode's A plot (literally or in any clear thematic way), and the majority of these segments piece together into one single scene that seems to have been cut up.

So, what I think is that the bel and vinder scenes across the middle of the season were originally a single full story, an episode 4 that took a breather from the main plot and characters to follow the lives of these two side characters; the differing visual and writing style is due to it originally having been filmed separately and with a somewhat different artistic intent. I believe Chris Chibnall's cowriting credit on Angels exists because these specific scenes are from a script he wrote, but that otherwise the Angel script can be credited solely to Maxine Alderton by normal cowriting standards.

"But wait," you might say, "I thought there were already 6 episodes that are all plot relevant? If no episodes existing right now can be cut, how could this 7th episode exist?"

Remember this tidbit:

The adventures in question comprise a large amount of the next episode (Episode 5: Survivors of the Flux), nearly 20 minutes of a 50ish minute runtime (and frankly, much of the rest of the episode is somewhat fluffy build up that feels like it's taking advantage of an extended runtime). A version without this added plot would, in my opinion, only warrant one final episode rather than two.

I think the showrunner, still scrambling to finish scripts as the episodes were being filmed, and making a snap decision to include a new major subplot (⁶), wrote a finale script so long and with so many plot threads that the only way to keep all this material of was to split it into two episodes, 5 and 6. And because they only could only make 6, he had to get rid of one of the previous 5 episodes - the already scripted and filmed ones - to make room for this new episode 5. A tough order when it's a plot-heavy miniseries... if not for episode 4 being a standalone divergence from the main plot about the lives of two side characters, one that could, in theory, be cut up and dispersed throughout the season without continuity issues for the main story.

(Some notes and clarifications under the cut)

(1) some sources initially reported the episode count as 8; this wasn't inaccurate - the 2022 new years/easter special were part of the episode order. Flux itself was always meant to be 6 episodes long. (2) A few of the production issues include: - episodes filming without a second draft:

- the fx team that had been on the show since 2005 abruptly leaving midseason (because they "didn't feel like part of the team anymore") and returning as soon as the creative team changed, including the head of the studio implying they weren't properly credited (mild vfx body horror warning in link):

- people working on additional projects such as books not receiving clear information on the characters they were assigned to write:

- and likely a director who was put on hold due to a script being rewritten:

Among other things I can't directly cite at the moment, including vfx artists having to do whole episodes solo in crunch time and writers not being told their work was massively overhauled until it aired due to major changes being extremely late in production.

While I don't wish to pontificate too much here and many of these things are pretty normal by themselves, I do think it could paint a picture of a production where an episode well into filming may genuinely be cut on a whim and without consideration for the crew, artists, etc. working on the show. (3) This reddit post comes from a leaker who was known to be consistently accurate. (4) Gallifrey One does not allow filming of panels. I know Kevin's livetweets of panels to be accurate. (5) It's very, very unlikely the entire season was moved back a week, as the premier is a Halloween special that was certainly always intended to air on Oct. 31st. (6) I don't wish to insinuate Chris Chibnall is, throughout his career, an inherently poor showrunner, but I do think that maybe his jump from police procedural - a genre that doesn't involve quite as much concept art, vfx work, marketing, convention panels, set building, episodic storytelling, and keeping in touch with expanded universe producers - to flagship science fiction adventure show may have contributed to some of these issues, especially when he was already in the mindset that things could be changed on a whim (perhaps not such a major issue when it's broadchurch and no new sets need be built)

(source) Basically I don't really think this is "the showrunner's fault" or anything; more that a perfect storm of a showrunner who was habitually late on scripts, used to writing lowkey cop dramas, covid, an entirely serialized season, etc. may have led to these issues

[plantwriting]

Time for more dumbass posts. Jrwi pcs as content creators (all moved out of their natural habitat except for the suckening and prime defenders for the sake of making any sense) ((i havent listened to total monster kill or wonderlust yet so they will not be included unfortunately))

Riptide

Chip is just a modern day pirate. Channel full of “slime tutorials” and “totally not [insert movie here]” i mean come on of course

Jay makes videos where she just. Builds shit. Tinkering with her inventions and such. Good times :)

Now Gill is a bit of a harder one. I feel like he’d start out making like religious content because thats what he was raised on but then slowly itd just start changing as he discovers himself and such. Alternatively. Swords. Just swords.

Goobleck: ACTUAL slime videos. Of course.

Prime defenders + Ashe

Dakota used to make like parkour videos but after he got his powers hed just start just livestreaming fights with villains and stuff. Just like the le frog type ones though not like the actually serious bad fights (hed still film them and like compile them into edits of his coolest moments or something lol)

Vyncent… video games. That man is an mcyt. Bro was on the prime version of the dsmp

Will used to have a pretty popular buzzfeed unsolved type thing going on but then he died and completely disappeared from the internet for like several years. Season three he just shows back up like “hey whats up guys so a lot has happened. Anyways im going to he switching the style of content to literally just talking to ghosts and spirits and shit!” Hed also have a tumblr

Ashe has a popular tumblr. Hes like one of those people whose posts always end up on those funny tumblr posts compilations

Apotheosis

Thanatos has a tiktok where he just shit talks organized religion. He probably has like a degree on religious studies that he got before leaving his family so bro knows what he’s talking about

Peter has an instagram where he just posts pictures of cool rocks and another instagram just for lizard. He has maybe three followers max but he doesn’t mind

Rumi has just like a music youtube channel. However. They also have about a dozen other channels under different names with different content for all of their different masks! They don’t show their face on any of the channels so they can’t be recognized as the same person

Bitb

Kian. Is a vtuber. I feel this in my heart Kian is a vtuber and he very intentionally keeps his online persona and like irl things separate and nobody knows about both. His vtuber model is just Kian’s canon design (alternatively he could just. Be an onlyfans influencer. You know what maybe he’s both)

Rolan just posts bugs. He has like all the social medias and on all of them he just posts cool bugs that he finds. He has no clue what the bugs actually are and he usually doesn’t even caption his posts but he has like at least a million followers combining all of his different platforms

Rand posts conspiracy theories. His videos are the ones you randomly find yourself on when you wake up at like three am after leaving the autoplay on and falling asleep with youtube open

The suck

Emizel makes minecraft lets plays. But specifically like ones that are horrible quality and clearly made by someone who has no idea how to actually make youtube videos. He has at least five “HEROBRINE IN MY MINECRAFT WORLD REAL NOT CLICKBAIT” and they’re all from last month

I feel like Shilo would excel as a beauty youtuber. Hes just doing makeup tutorials and telling story times

Arthur refuses to go on social media he does not know what a “tick-tock” is and he does not want to know

[charlie-lec-stories]

McLaren Detectives Department // CL16 & MV1

Pairing: Charles Leclerc / Original Female Character / Max Verstappen

Summary: One day Max is totally furious with Y/N and Charles' relationship and the next he's completely fine with it, Lando is not buying it.

Warnings: Suggestive talk, Lando and Oscar rambling on conspiracy theories, Oscar being the annoying little brother, Lando being unable to mind his own business.

Author’s Note: This one is quite funny, I hope you guys like it as much as I do. Rate: +16

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Lando Norris was a simple man, he grew up with the commodities and luxuries of an upper class boy and had never in his life took a bus, but you could take away all of his privilege and he could manage to survive. He could adapt, change his ways, work his way back to the top of the chain again, whatever it took. As long as he could interact with other people on a daily basis he didn't care what happened in his life, because he was fueled by one thing and one thing only: Gossip. Nothing in this life moved Lando more than gossip, he was a sucker for it and when he was paired with Oscar Piastri in McLaren, he found someone as unable to mind his own business as himself. They could spend hours just gossiping, about their friends, other drivers, celebrities, their families, whoever lived on Earth, they always had something to chat about. And their favourite part was drama. They loved it when some scandalous situation reached their ears and they'd spend the rest of the week talking about it and trying to keep up with the updates. The rest of the people who worked with them knew they were like that and more than once they would fake drama just to watch them ramble to each other about it for days. Their capability to gossip was the main entertainment of the garage.

Of course, when Y/N, Max Verstappen's best friend, and Charles Leclerc, Max's rival, started dating, it was the biggest drama the paddock had seen in years. Max and Charles going at each other's throats every weekend was like "Keeping up with the Kardashians" for Lando and Oscar. They would try to use any chance they got to listen to the arguments and comebacks the Ferrari and Red Bull drivers would throw at the other. Lando was close with Max, while Oscar was close with Charles and Y/N, which also meant that they would usually get more information from them, making their gossip sessions even more interesting. Lando loved to hear Max complain over and over again about Charles, telling him how much of a prick the monegasque was and constantly wondering what Y/N ever saw in him. Oscar and Y/N loved ice-cream, and they would go out for it pretty often, there, she sometimes talked about how worried she was about Max and Charles fighting all the time and Oscar did what he could to help her out. On the other hand, when Oscar and Charles went to play pool on Mondays, the Australian gladly listened to his friend complain about Max and his possessiveness over his girlfriend, getting a little possessive himself. All of this made Lando and Oscar fans number one of the Max-Y/N-Charles drama developing in the paddock.

The whole season, they watched the progress of motorsports' favourite couple. From Charles flirting with Y/N at the Mercedes garage, to the last race where Y/N hugged and comforted a defeated Charles who had just lost the championship. The McLaren boys witnessed the couple's hard launch on Instagram during summer break, with a scandalous picture of them kissing on Charles' yacht, Y/N sitting on his lap and Charles shamelessly grabbing at her ass. They had a feast with the fans' reaction to the picture and they had even more fun watching Max's live, while the three of them were together grabbing a beer. The dutchman's ears going red and his eyes hyper-focused on the screen of his phone, so angry that Lando was sure some smoke could go out of his head. They also had the pleasure to watch Max call Charles "stupid" on open TV, with millions watching, followed by the FIA's response to that and Max's public, and notoriously forced, apology. They were both aware that Y/N and Charles' relationship was the thing that Max despised the most on this world. He could spend weeks rambling about why the two should break up and how terrible of a combination they were.

It was suspicious, to say the least, when the first race of the next season, Max entered the paddock along with the couple, chatting amicably and even laughing a bit. Lando and Oscar stared at the sight of the three drivers skeptically, how come they were all friends now? What crucial episode of the telenovela did they miss? Something was off. They watched as Y/N and Charles walked holding hands towards the Mercedes garage, Max chatting excitedly with his best friend not even caring about her relationship anymore. At the entrance of the german team, Charles kissed his girlfriend goodbye and Max gave her a friendly peck on the cheek, then the girl went into the garage and the two guys walked to their own garages, talking lively just the two of them all the way. The whole day, the tree of them crossed paths and exchanged some words with big grins and happy auras, all of the previous tension completely dissipated.

"I don't get it, mate. They hated each other three months ago!". Lando said to Oscar while they were chatting in Oscar's driver's room. "I just can't get it".

"Maybe they talked?". Oscar suggested.

"Nah". Lando dismissed his idea with a flip of his hand. Oscar threw a little papaya ball at him, Lando caught it and threw it back. "I met with Max plenty of times during the off season, he would had told me".

"True". The other agreed and passed the ball again. "I also met with Y/N and Charles, went to their house for dinner a lot at the beginning of the year. They would've said something".

"Maybe it's a PR thing". Lando wondered as he played with the ball before passing it back. "Like, maybe they were scolded so bad for their behavior that now they have to act like they like each other to clean up their public images".

"That actually makes sense, I mean, Max did call Charles stupid on TV". Oscar chuckled and threw the ball back at Lando. "Amazing, mate. Sometimes, you do speak some sense".

"You're so funny". Lando threw the ball harder at Oscar, hitting him on the chest as a response to the other's teasing. Oscar let a huff out at the impact and then laughed a bit, satisfied with the annoyed reaction he got from Lando.

With the resolve to find out what made the other three change their act so drastically, Lando and Oscar started trying to gather some information. They spoke with other drivers, people from Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull, friends they all had in common, even Charles' brothers and Y/N mentor, Lewis Hamilton. Little by little, they both discovered that no one knew anything about Charles and Max putting their differences aside and were as shocked as them to see them hanging out in the paddock. Lewis asked Y/N about it and she told him that nothing happened and that everything was like always, which was obviously a lie, but he didn't want to pressure her on the matter. Lando and Oscar spent four race weekends melting their brains trying to work out what happened. Lando had enough. Everything was the same? He wasn't buying that. He walked to Max and asked directly. The dutchman was as direct with his answer: "I still want to jump his throat. I'm just being civil about it".

"Is that what he said?". Oscar asked and Lando just nodded his head while he bit his apple.

"He said that and then walked away. He didn't even give me time to ask more". Oscar played with the papaya ball, that seemed to be his new favourite toy.

"That's weird".

"I agree, if there's something Max isn't, is civil". Lando added with his mouth full. They were frustrated, they had even more questions than before.

Over time, Lando kept trying to extract more information from Max, but all he got were answers like "I have a lot of self control, that's all", "Just trying hard to do the right thing", "I'm trying to make him trust me a little more", "Just want to be close to Y/N again", and things like that. But there was a conversation that put Oscar and Lando on edge. They were discussing the Qualifying session, one where Max got pole and was closely followed by Y/N, Lando on third place. Y/N was explaining that she didn't like the circuit, she felt like every lap she was learning new information and she just could never feel like she was familiar with it. That led to talking about perceptions and how other things like lights and unnecessary noises could divert your attention from what's right in front of you. "Sometimes you need someone to remove everything you don't need so you can finally see clearly". Max said and he placed his hand on her hip, squeezing it lightly. Lando noticed the motion instantly. Max's eyes went from Y/N to behind her and the brit followed his gaze, landing on Charles, who was talking with George Russell and Alex Albon. The comment, the possessive squeeze, the way he so intensely looked at Y/N and then Charles, Lando felt a chill down his spine. Not a good one.

"You're crazy, mate. You finally lost it". Oscar said as he shook his head, shutting down the possibility right there and then.

"Think about it!". Lando paced back and forth on the little room, running his fingers through his hair. "He wants to get close to her again? Someone has to remove the things she doesn't need so she can see clearly? He believes that he's doing good at self control?". Oscar replayed the phrases inside his head. They did look suspicious.

"He still wants to jump Charles' throat...". Lando stopped on his tracks at Oscar's addition.

"We need to do something". There was this weight on their shoulders now that they finally understood Max's intentions. "Max is a great lad, we can't let him turn into a...". Lando struggled with the word, so he whispered it. "A killer".

They both agreed on that, they couldn't let Max go on with his plan of eliminating Charles. They liked them both, they weren't losing their friends just because they couldn't see eye to eye about their relationship with Y/N. They took turns to follow Max around, the only free time being when they had to focus on their jobs. They knew that Max wasn't killing Charles in the paddock, with so many possible witnesses. Every night, they both followed Max to his room and stayed there, hiding in a corner of the hotel hallway for an hour, making sure he wasn't coming out. Oscar even went to the extent of suggesting Charles getting bodyguards, when the other asked why, Oscar just ran away, leaving Charles extremely confused. Every chance they got, they did what they could to keep Max away from Charles, which was kind of hard since the dutchman was constantly following the couple around and trying to chat with them. Lando ended up running out of excuses to pull Max away and they understood that they had to do something about the situation.

One particular night, they followed Max to his room as always, but after 45 minutes, they saw him go out again. He wasn't wearing his usual Red Bull attire, instead, he wore black clothes, sunglasses and a cap, the hood of the hoodie covering his head. If they didn't know better, they would have never guessed it was Max. He went straight to the stairs and they followed him quietly, already suspecting where he was going. Oscar stopped to grab two brooms from a service room and Lando frowned at him. "We may need weapons", was what the Aussie said and Lando took one while scoffing. They hid at the stairs, watching Max stop on front of Charles' room. For insurance matters, Y/N stayed at another hotel, with the Mercedes crew, so Charles was most surely alone in the room, it was the perfect opportunity to kill him. First time in the season Red Bull and Ferrari stayed at the same hotel. Max looked around and opened the door as quietly as possible, walking in and shutting the door behind him.

"We need to go in, now!". Oscar said and tried to run off to the door, Lando grabbed him and pulled him back behind him.

"We need a plan. Let me think". Was he actually ready to stop his friend from killing another of his friends? He had never physically fought anyone, could he really stop a murder?

"Fuck a plan, we have to save Charles!". Oscar ran again and this time Lando followed him. They stopped at the door. There was music playing inside and they could faintly hear Charles' voice.

"No, Max, wait. Wait!". That was it, they were barging in.

"No, Max! DON'T DO IT, DON'T KILL HIM". Oscar screamed as they ran into the room with their brooms up, ready to attack. What they didn't expect was finding Max on his knees, in front of Charles, trying to undo the button of his jeans. "Oh... OOOH!".

"Putain de merde!". (Holy shit!). Charles cursed as he pushed Max's hands away from his body and backed away. Max fell backwards. Lando covered Oscar's eyes, they dropped the brooms. For a second, the room fell silent.

"Kill him?". Max asked, confused.

"I think we misread the situation...". Lando added, then, he thought about Y/N. "I can't believe you could do something like this to Y/N". He sneered.

"Are they decent?". Oscar asked, his eyes still covered. Lando removed his hand.

"It's not what you think-". Max started, but Lando cut him off.

"Oh, sure, you were just checking if the zipper of his jeans worked fine, weren't ya?". Oscar shook his head slowly, backing Lando up on his disappointment.

"Don't give me that look, you two barged in with brooms asking me not to kill Charles". Max said. "Sucking him off is way better than killing him". Lando saw Oscar make a face, like he was actually considering Max's point, he elbowed the younger driver and made him go back to his disappointed posture.

"We promise, it's not what you think". As Charles was saying that, the bathroom door opened, Y/N walking out with a blue and red lingerie set. She opened her eyes wide when she spotted to kids that weren't supposed to be there. Lando covered Oscar's eyes, again.

"Okay, I'll give it to you. It definitely wasn't what we thought". Y/N was still there, shocked. "Please, get dressed, there's a baby in the room".

"It's me, I'm the baby". Oscar added, his hands coming up over Lando's to make sure he didn't see anything. Charles ran to Y/N and covered her with his Ferrari hoodie that was close to the bathroom. Lando lowered his hand and Oscar opened on of his eyes to peek if it was safe, he then opened the other one.

"We fixed our problem". Max explained.

"We can see that". The brit stressed.

"We're uhm... all together?". Lando and Oscar looked at Charles when he added his comment. "We've been... you know".

"Fucking?".

"Among other things". Y/N corrected Lando. The two McLaren boys just nodded, synchronized. "We're happy like this, all together. We'd appreciate it a lot if you could keep the secret for us". Lando and Oscar smiled and nodded again.

"Of course, we will". They grabbed their brooms and got ready to leave. "We'll leave you to it".

"Thanks". Max said, the two were going out when he called them again. "And guys...". They turned around to look at him. "Don't play detective again. Do us a favor and buy yourselves a board game".

"Copy that". Oscar gave them a military salute and Lando just smiled. Outside, they both ran back down the stairs as fast as they could, giggling like teenagers. On the street, they kept laughing uncontrollably, walking back the three blocks to their own hotel.

"Mate, we're not gossiping anymore". Lando said, knowing pretty well that they will keep doing it.

"Deal". The rest of the way they just kept laughing and then, at the hotel, they went to their respective rooms, calling it a night. While lying in bed, Lando just couldn't sleep, repeating the night in his mind and giggling, there were a lot of sexual jokes and remarks he needed to let out. He went to grab his phone to text Oscar, ready to gossip again, when it vibrated on his hand. Lando laughed out laud at the message:

Oscar: "Can you top when there are two other people?".

Lando: "Dunno mate, but's gonna be a hell of a challenge to guess the bottom".

Oscar: "Challenge accepted".

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Well this one is a lot of fun! I thought Lando and Oscar were perfect for this one. Thank you for reading!

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

The thing that really annoys me about the conspiracy theories going around (especially the Izzy-centric ones and especially That One Meta, iykyk) is the complete and utter lack not only of genre awareness but any realistic understanding of how OFMD operates.

If you actually watch the show, you should understand two things.

This is a rom-com. The central romance between Ed and Stede and comedy are therefore the two most core parts of the show, with Ed and Stede's romance taking priority over everything else. That's not to say OFMD doesn't have dark themes, it absolutely does; it's to say that comedy is always important to how the show is written, acted, and filmed. If the most obvious explanation for "what is this line/scenario trying to tell us?" is "it's funny," then that's clearly why the scenario is in the show.

This is not a subtle show. That's not to say it's a simple one; one thing I love about OFMD is all the background details and gags you only pick up on a rewatch. It's amazingly layered and emotional responses by characters are often extremely complex. However, when the show is trying to tell you something, it's not subtle and it never tries to hide it. The closest it ever gets is Ed in the gravy basket, and even then it's written so we find out the instant Ed does and we've already had clues to suspect something from how the mutineers are acting. If you're watching OFMD and thinking "hmm I wonder what they're trying to tell me here," you're probably doing something wrong.

That's why I'm so completely baffled by conspiracies such as

"How much was Ed hallucinating/dreaming??" After he gets out of the gravy basket, none of it. Very obviously none of it. Why would you assume they had time to waste this season on trying to confuse us about what's actually happening?

"What if Ed actually killed Buttons?" Okay, putting aside that just not happening on screen and therefore the most reasonable assumption being that he didn't, what would that actually do for the story? Buttons turning into a seagull underscored season themes of change. Ed killing him would be confusing, weird, and extremely out of character.

"What if Ed was the one who killed Felix the cabin boy?" This one absolutely baffles me. That story is transparently there to show us what Hornigold was like as a captain and illustrate why Ed hates him. Ed doing that instead of Hornigold would be wildly out of character and inconsistent with everything Ed does.

And my favorite, the one that made the author of That One Meta instantly lose all credibility for me when I skimmed and saw it:

"What if Ed and Stede's new shack is stinky because they actually have Izzy's body in there and Ed's in denial of his death, etc. etc."

Well. Given my awareness of the show I'm watching. I feel pretty safe in saying that it's stinky in there because, and I can't stress this enough, this is a comedy and sometimes it is funny for things to be stinky.

[90shaladriel]

In Defense of Sauron was Genuine Theories

I have been meaning to write something about this ever since Season 1 of Rings of Power. I never did and here we are about to get the premieres of Season 2 which will likely blow many theories and interpretations out of the water as they give more backstory for the characters.

In some Tolkien and RoP fandom circles, the notion that Sauron was genuine in his attraction, desire, feelings towards Galadriel as "Halbrand" is controversial. There's also many fan theories putting together Sauron's grand conspiracy to orchestrate all of the events we saw in Season 1. Those theories may indeed be correct depending on what Season 2 and the future of ROP show us. I would argue that they would be doing this through retconning rather than what they actually depicted onscreen in Season 1 being evidence for this master plan.

Disclaimers:

In cannon, Sauron is Very Bad™

In ROP S1 Ep 8, he at least appears to be cruel to Galadriel and possibly tried to drown her* This would definitely be toxic behavior IRL

Season 2 might still vindicate the Sauron was evil all along interpretation.

If you want to write fanfic or create art where sauron is truly bad and evil that is wonderful!

Sauron interacted with the Elves and Poisoned the Tree of Lindon

I think this was a popular idea because it explained Mithril / Elves fading subplot in a way that makes more canon-sense to book readers than how it appeared in the show. If Sauron was a saboteur who came to Lindon, caused the tree to die and threaten the Elves to fade, therefore causing Gil-galad and Celebrimbor to seek solutions. This leads pretty nicely to Sauron's ultimate plan if it were to forge the rings. Circumstantially there was an offscreen "meeting of the Elf-lords" that neither Elrond, Galadriel or the viewers were shown prior to Gil-galad revealing the crisis to Elrond. Some speculated that "Annatar" was one of those Elf lords. It also explains some unusual behavior by Celebrimbor who acted conspiratorial and manipulated Elrond.

It appears that this wasn't the case from the backstory we were shown in S2. While there was a slight time skip from when Sauron becomes Halbrand in the North to meeting the human refugees fleeing the Orcs presumably in the South. Also Annatar was only revealed to Celebrimbor in S2, so he couldn’t have been in Lindon as either Halbrand or Annarar forms.

I think this is still open depending on how much you dislike the Elves fading when the tree dies plot.

The other thing that still work against this is that if this were Sauron's original plan then there would be no reason to detour to Numenor. Nor would there be a specific reason he needed to corrupt Galadriel to gain access to the Elven kingdoms, he already had it!

Plausibility: 1/5 👁️ Eyes of Sauron

Sauron orchestrated the meeting with Galadriel at Sea

A big part of this line of thinking is that it seems so improbable that Sauron and Galadriel would happen to meet in the middle of the sea. Or how could Sauron, one of the Ainur _let_ himself be shipwrecked. There has also been some analysis of Galadriel's odd behavior before entering Valinor when she jumped overboard, could she have been called or drawn by him?

I think the meeting was one of the more interesting choices for a Tolkien adaptation, so I'm very biased here.

We see no mechanism on screen that would imply Sauron had this direct control over Galadriel's actions. If he had been able to do that, he surely would have been able to orchestrate other meetings with Elves to get more direct access to Celebrimbor and Eregion?

In S2 we are shown that he was apparently seeking Numenor when the sea wyrm attacked. I'm still not sure, but it looks like maybe Sauron was able to control the creature with magic or something similar. Or maybe it didn't attack because he stayed still. Perhaps he did cause the wyrm to attack the raft once she was aboard? Maybe!

Did Sauron even have a specific reason to meet Galadriel? There is the connection to her brother and the dagger. I was disappointed they didn't revisit that at all so far in S2 E1. Did he know she was the one hunting him? Did he know her from Valinor as some have speculated he was one of the boys in S1 E1 prologue? Did he know enough about the Elves to know her personality and specific character flaws he thought made her vulnerable to his deception? I don't think we see enough evidence for this to be very plausible but maybe not totally ruled out. His reaction to her on the raft when they did meet was cautious, he did not try to befriend her immediately, nor seek to corrupt her on the spot.

Plausibility 2/5 👁️👁️ Eyes of Sauron

Sauron played 4d chess to get Galadriel to make him King of the Southlands

Sauron eventually makes it back to Middle Earth, almost kills his enemy Adar thanks to Galadriel's help giving him an army, and then results in him winding up with a golden ticket to Eregion and Celebrimbor's workshop.

I think this is mainly people trying to fit the data points of Sauron's actions to the theorized curve of Sauron being evil and wanting to forge the rings to take over the world from before the events of Season 1 occurred.

So far, Season 2 has certainly indicated that Sauron had some kind of plan that he was enacting with the rings and using Celebrimbor in some way. His Halbrand form, which introduced by Galadriel, was instrumental in getting close to Celebrimbor in Season 2 and revealing himself as 'Annatar'.

But do we know he had this plan all along? From the opening episode of S2 we know that Sauron was apparently wandering towards the Southlands and the Orcs before coming across some random human refugees. He chose to go with them, sailing west across the sea away from the Southlands, Eregions or any of the Elven realms, so was he really setting up a long con all along? To me it seems like he may have planned to set up in Numenor, whether to use/corrupt them or to genuinely repent and live out a quiet life in retirement or at least until events in Middle Earth gave him some new opportunities.

Then we have the actual S1 events. He met Galadriel on a raft in the middle of the ocean, it seems like this was by chance. At every point when she offered him the opportunity to return to Middle Earth he declined. His actions in Numenor could hardly be a meticulous strategy to return to Middle Earth, trying to get hired in a forge, trying to get Galadriel to chill out and stay there, getting thrown in prison. Constantly telling Galadriel he would *not* help her.

He only eventually agreed to go with a combination of good fortune (the omen of the white petals) and Galadriel's persistence that he was a King of the Southlands. Maybe Sauron caused the tree to lose it's petals through his corrupting magic remotely? Maybe he was hunting for the crest of the Southlands king offscreen in S2 and deliberately followed that refugee that had it, waiting for an opportunity to steal it? ehhhhh I'm going to say not very plausible

Plausibility 2/5 👁️👁️ Eyes of Sauron

Sauron and Adar were working together (Sauron was a mole)

This was also an interesting theory, that the supposed rivalry between Halbrand and Adar was just for show to help convince Galadriel to trust Halbrand even more. That Sauron knew Adar was planning the eruption all along and that the sword artifact was being taken the the dam mechanism when he chased Adar with Galadriel in the woods. He also stops Galadriel from killing Adar in her interrogation. Adar saying he killed Sauron was just a straight up lie (hence him smirking in that scene). Which means everything Sauron/Halbrand said was pretty much a lie from the beginning as well. Although what the actual objective would be for Sauron is not totally clear to me. Maybe the Elven/Numenor forces would have behaved differently had Sauron not been meddling with both via Galadriel? Maybe they wanted to convince the Elves to create the Rings of Power.

I am pretty sure this now ruled out by Season 2 so far. Adar is shown onscreen actually killing Sauron. Sauron seems pretty ticked off about Adar and the Orcs when he returns as prisoner to Mordor. Adar and Sauron give no indication they are working together though having screentime together again.

Plausibility 0/5 () Eyes of Sauron

Sauron self-injured to go to Eregion

We aren't shown how Halbrand got wounded, he was found already wounded and it's not shown how. He clearly takes advantage of this dire situation to be taken to Eregion by Galadriel. A pretty cut and dry situation where Sauron had both motive and opportunity to achieve his ends.

This assumes that Sauron at this point had the plan to go to Eregion. And that would tie in well with the original Sauron interacted with the Elves prior to S1 theory.

This theory holds up pretty well. I think even if you take the Sauron was genuinely repentant belief, you have to admit by S1 E8 he was working on his own schemes that were not entirely "good". So it's fairly believable even if he was genuine until the battle in the Southlands and deciding to try to be the King of the Southlands, that he quickly changed plans post-eruption as the ultimate opportunist.

I think Season 2 hasn't changed this interpretation at all. He is shown to be clearly invested in Eregion and Celebrimbor again. When "Halbrand" turns himself in to Adar and the Orcs no one says anything about stabbing him or his injuries. Maybe he was stabbed by some random Orc after the eruption but killed that Orc immediately?

Plausibility 4/5 👁️👁️👁️👁️ Eyes of Sauron

Sauron had an ‘I Am Good’ Phase

This could be it's own post. But there is a case I could make that Sauron genuinely had an "I am Good" phase of his own at least through S1 E6 (Eruption of Mt. Doom). I think the best case would be that Sauron was probably morally ambiguous, or maybe at least morally neutral as opposed to scheming evil mastermind.

He saved Galadriel at sea, he didn't have to, or at least it only makes sense for the Evil Sauron in the 4d chess sense. (did he summon the lightning bolt that knocked her in the water?) He appears to have mostly told her the truth when he did talk to her. He could have straight up lied. He initially pushed back on Galadriel's intentions to crown him a king and give him an army, when it would have been so easy to just go along with her. One interpretation is that he only agreed to go was because he wanted to help her or just sheer infatuation with her made him decide to follow her.

Circumstantial evidence: He smiles at the children in Numenor. He stares at the pouch when no one is looking. Before getting into the tavern brawl he pleads with them to not do this. He fights and kills Orcs, he listens to Galadriel when she tells him not to kill Adar. He pulls Galadriel back when she is about to kill him as well. The raft scene in the mind palace seems to be a romantic overture to Galadriel and could be interpreted as a genuine expression of vulnerability (before he screams at her, makes her cry and tries to drown her I guess)

The counter argument is Season 2 it shows him being a rotten pile of goop, taking the lives of others to form the Halbrand body. He clearly let the guy die in the ship and stole his pouch. It's unclear how much he might have used Galadriel or entered her mind. He is a compulsive liar in the Annatar form and extremely manipulative as Halbrand to Celebrimbor.

Before Season 2 I would say this a 4 on the Plausibility scale, I think we have to drop a point at least now.

Plausibility 3/5 👁️👁️👁️ Eyes of Sauron

[charon-cries]

we're lucky Lestat de Lioncourt doesn't have tumblr, the drama he'd get into on here would be wild

#is this anything #he'd probably get cancelled instantly #also side note for future reference #i'm making this post before season 3 #so if anything in this is incompatible with amc canon #that's because i'm working off of seasons 1 + 2 and the books #okay ty have a nice day

32 notes

🎧 audiofilled Follow

ANOTHER of my mutuals went missing after buying a backstage pass to a vampire lestat concert. she didn't post pictures, nothing, and she's been radio silent since her last post (which was about how she was about to go backstage...) and i really think we should be taking this more seriously. so.

reasons why i think "lestat de lioncourt" may be running a cult or something:

Keep reading

🐺 the-vampire-lestat

Absolutely ridiculous. I am very open about what I am, you do not need to resort to senseless conspiracy theories to figure out where your little friend went.

🎧 audiofilled Follow

are you incapable of dropping the vampire bit for ONE moment? people are going MISSING and you're still doing your corny roleplay bit?

#discourse #TVL disappearances #callout

362 notes

📚 daniel-molloy

It's day number seventy-three of surviving this God forsaken website solely to keep tabs on Lestat's social media presence, and I'm still trying to decipher the lingo you people use here. What the Hell does, "I'm bald," even mean?

#the vampire lestat

137 notes

🪽 arun-rising

Did anyone else notice Lestat only posts during the night, in whichever timezone he's in while on tour? True commitment to the bit. Or the bite, I suppose.

🩸 carmillized

weren't you posting about how much you despise his music just yesterday???

🪽 arun-rising

I don't know what you're talking about. I never did that.

🩸 carmillized

You are correct. I believe you without question. I do not even know why I said that in the first place. I do not recall you posting about Lestat de Lioncourt before this.

#sorry OP i was out of line #now that i'm thinking about it though #this post is making me wonder if lestat could be a real vampire #i hadn't seriously considered it until this very moment #something came over me... #wonder why

40 notes

🐺 the-vampire-lestat

New song.

Listen, if you dare.

📷 disintegrated-wonder

Lestat, I thought we were over this...?

#louis talks

893 notes

🧷 baby-jenks

Wouldn't it be wild if we all just spontaneously combusted? Haha. Glad that will never happen

#fang gang #vampblr #random thought #it's unlikely

4 notes

👴🏻 marius-official Follow

How does this website work...?

🦇 fang-fan

delete your blog

#rank vibes on this man

1,425 notes

🐾 interview-wolf-the-werewolf Follow

Sponsored with Blaze 🔥

Check out my new book. It's a biography, about me, written by an award-winning journalist, chronicling my life as a werewolf. It's 100% factual and real, a real breath of fresh air in a world filled with fiction attempting to pass itself off as reality.

#iwtw #my posts #my book #me #werewolf #wolf #awoo #please i need to feed my litter of twelve #this book is all i have

5,762 notes

🩸 carmillized

hey all! i know that my mutual, audiofilled, is a little bit divisive in the music fandom rn, but i'm getting a little worried. i haven't heard from him since he made that post speculating about where TVL fans have been disappearing to. please send me an ask or a dm if you've heard from him!

#talk tag #getting a little worried #he's probably okay though

47 notes

🐺 the-vampire-lestat

Just had a lovely dinner. It's nice when your food is in tune with you, yes? Makes the blood sit well in the veins.

🦇 fang-fan

ur so funny

#edit: sorry for posting while audiofilled is missing #i didn't hear about it until just now

1,409 notes

🩸 carmillized

okay i just can't get over how he talks about himself. i don't know if it's just him being "in character" or if this is just how the guy acts irl, but he's so self-aggrandizing that i've been questioning it

no nuance/bald/other, you have to decide on the spot right now what you believe

📚 daniel-molloy

He's lying.

👩‍💻 talamascized-witch

I don't believe him for a second.

#archive #poll #lestat de lioncourt

[awsydawnarts]

So, obviously, Brooklynn’s “death” was DEVASTATING for the others, and while they’re all going to be thrilled that she’s alive, I think it’s safe to say that there will be some conflicted feelings about it. So, who is going to be the person who immediately shrugs, says “makes sense”, and moves on, and who’s going to stew on it for an entire season? Well, here’s what I think, in ascending order of rage:

1: Ben. Ben is immediately going to shrug, say “makes sense”, and move on. Not only would he be a bit of a hypocrite if not, but the Dark Jurassic conspiracy theory stuff will make him very receptive to the idea of someone faking their death. The man has been eating out of a boot.

2. Yaz. I think Yaz’s pragmatism will make it so that she is able to see why Brooklynn did it (depending on why she did it I guess) faster than the others. It’s not that she doesn’t care about Brooklynn and wasn’t upset when she died, but I think Brooklynn’s death hasn’t changed her life or her approach towards life in the same way that it has for the other three.

3. Kenji. 3 and 4 are interchangeable I guess, but I kind of want Sammy as second to last. I think Kenji will take a bit longer, but he’ll come around eventually. I do feel like everything that has happened has really shattered his trust in Brooklynn, so getting that back will be harder than forgiveness. Ultimately though, I think Kenji’s relief that she’s still alive and he hasn’t lost another person will overtake everything else.

4. Sammy. I really want Sammy to take a while, although it would probably in the show be more focused on Kenji and Darius. Sammy is someone who cares so, so deeply about her friends. The idea that someone who she loves so much would willingly hurt her as much as Brooklynn has done??? Inexcusable. Sammy is going to be PISSED, because the campers are FAMILY and you don’t DO that to FAMILY. The only person whose worldview and entire existence was affected more than Sammy was…

5. Darius. Of course. Idk, if Darius isn’t pissed at Brooklynn I’M going to be pissed. Darius fell to PIECES after Brooklynn died. This man was calling his dead friend’s phone to tell her about the DINOSAUR HUNT he was embarking on after QUITTING HIS JOB to GET REVENGE on a DINOSAUR. Darius stopped talking to his family, had a huge falling out with Kenji, and isolated himself from everyone in his life except for the ghost of Brooklynn in an attempt to alleviate the guilt and somehow fix her death and she was ALIVE THE WHOLE TIME??? I want Darius to be SO angry. I want it to go on for much, much longer than everyone else in the group. I want to have everyone trying to convince him to go easy on her and he can’t. He won’t. I want ALL the drama. I want Darius and Brooklynn to be FURIOUS with each other and then kiss about it

[good-chimes]

In honor of Life series four, Life Series Bake Off AU

NEW SERIES LAUNCHES:

Nation charmed by fresh crop of 12 amateur bakers including intensely competitive student GRIAN, ambitious cake artists BDUBS and SCAR, scientific bread experts TANGO and IMPULSE, and ETHO who has no discernible social media presence and, rumor has it, doesn’t officially exist. Married couple JOEL and LIZZIE raise eyebrows—will they be able to compete against each other?—but this is settled when Lizzie immediately announces she would murder Joel in real life to win and has bought the kitchen knife set for it, and Joel lovingly declares he keeps an axe under his pillow in case this happens.

The judges as usual are renowned cake chef PEARL, bread expert MUMBO, and our two inimitable presenters: BIGB, beloved by the nation for his gentle reassurances of weeping contestants, and MARTYN whose main contribution is his trademark eyebrow waggles as we find out from the judges who’s in trouble this week.

TART WEEK (1)

Tart week gets off to a strong start, with contestant REN charming both the judges and Martyn with his exquisite tarte au citron and his total inability to let a double-entendre go to waste (‘I’m just a tart triumph all over’ he proclaims, to Martyn’s immediate delighted riposte ‘Mm, but what do you do on the weekends?’). Law student JIMMY is not so lucky when a misreading of the recipe leads to ten times the correct amount of butter and a catastrophic oven meltdown. Star baker goes to early favorite BDUBS for an exquisite three-tier tart showstopper.

Week one elimination is, of course, the hapless Jimmy, and the recaps are united on two fronts: it's always nice to see someone on the show who reminds you of your own midnight experiments, but holy shit Jimmy, did it not give you a clue when the melted butter started pouring out of the oven like you’d stabbed the spirit of margarine to death in there. Jimmy's butter meltdown becomes a meme and he sells T-shirts; Joel immediately posts a picture wearing one.

CAKE WEEK (2)

Week two brings cake week and an impressive performance from SCAR, who embarks on a showstopper Baked Alaska in the shape of a snow-covered mountain. Tranquil in the face of GRIAN’S constant disparaging comments about his whisking technique and browned meringue, Scar perseveres and is crowned star baker for the week, while Twitter immediately declares Grian the villain of the season. A contingent of viewers theorising ‘could this be flirting’ are swiftly shouted down on social media and retreat to a dedicated subthread on a cookery forum.

Last week’s star baker BDUBS seems distracted by his new-found friendships with the quiet ETHO, who spends hours on the surprisingly unambitious Victoria Sponge. A conspiracy theory emerges that Etho invented the Victoria Sponge, refuted by weak counterarguments like “cannot possibly be true” and “he would have to be several hundred years old.” Meanwhile the nation is won over by JOEL and LIZZIE’S chemistry as they trade quips and spatulas, unfortunately Joel is eliminated after a jam mishap, at which he declares “at least I went out after Jimmy.”

TEA-TIME WEEK (3)

Tea-time week brings florentines and shortbread, but it’s a sad week for love as REN is out after his overambitious scones fail to impress. “I’m heartbroken,” Martyn announces, and cannot be consoled even by Scott’s superb showstopper petite-fours. Ren was a good sport to the end, everyone agrees. Ren spotted at a Covent Garden coffee shop with Martyn three weeks later.

HALLOWEEN WEEK (4)

The mood is jovial for Halloween week, with judge MUMBO in fake vampire fangs while ETHO bakes cookies in the form of anatomically correct skulls. LIZZIE starts off with adorable witch-hat cupcakes in little witch hats, then spends the rest of the episode precisely and effortlessly crafting a blood red mirror glazed sachertorte which the presenters refuse to look at because it “makes them uncomfortable”, and is subsequently awarded star baker for the most genuine aura of threat ever achieved by a cake.

Meanwhile GRIAN and SCAR continue to genially snipe at each other throughout. TANGO asks BDUBS to turn his oven off at a crucial moment; unfortunately Bdubs forgets and then blames Tango for relying on him, leading to the charred mess of Tango’s showstopper and a social media uproar dubbed “OvenGate”. Bdubs alternately sorrowful and dramatically dismissive. This cruel betrayal knocks Tango out of the tent; a public petition is started for his reinstatement.

WEDDING WEEK (5)

Puppet theater designer CLEO has her star turn in wedding week with ranks of beautiful marzipan figurines on all her bakes. An intense rivalry develops between her and wedding-enthusiast BDUBS, who declares his magnificent fondant confection a dry run for his impending marriage to ETHO, a stranger he met ten days ago. When asked by presenters how much of this is a joke, Etho laughs and says “I guess?”, which leaves the nation none the wiser. Unfortunately IMPULSE’S canapes are considered uninspired and he is uninvited from both the wedding reception and the series.

BREAD WEEK (6)

The feared bread week comes around and all the artistic cake-makers wobble badly. SCAR and GRIAN just scrape through, but CLEO’S triumph last week turns to tragedy despite the trouble she has gone to to model a realistic centaur out of sourdough. Bdubs makes an impromptu speech to camera about how she was robbed but he intends to triumph in her honor.

MEDIEVAL WEEK (7)

The experimental medieval week takes the bakers on an outdoor camping trip where they will attempt to build their own stoves and use them to replicate historical bread techniques. BDUBS’S enthusiasm for this and his drive to impress ETHO turn out to be his downfall as, distracted, he builds a stove that bleeds heat and fails to brown his bread. Etho meanwhile excels at both the survival and breadmaking aspects, leading to a divide on Twitter on whether this level of competence is hot or just very concerning, potentially the cake equivalent of a serial killer. The Victoria Sponge theory is raised again. Etho alleviates some concerns by getting lost three times in an open field over the course of the episode, which loses him enough baking time that dark horse SCOTT pips him to the post of star baker.

WINTER WARMTH WEEK (8)

Week eight arrives and five bakers remain: LIZZIE and SCOTT are known to be good all-rounders, ETHO is the reigning technical expert, SCAR remains the favorite on the cakes side, and GRIAN is mainly known for his habit of constantly sneaking spoonfuls of Scar’s cake mix so he can mock the taste. Social media opinion is divided into “Grian is a good baker actually”, “Grian is only still in because of executive meddling”, and the small but determined contingent of “no guys we really think they’re flirting??” who have emerged from their cookery subthread unbowed and with compilations of video evidence.

The set gets cozy with winter warmth week. Brandy-based showstoppers are the order of the day, and LIZZIE wins the episode by crafting a biscuit unicorn with a mane you can set on fire. ETHO invents an intricate brandy plumbing system to shoot flaming alcohol above his plum pudding—this attempt is in fact a good deal too successful and instead sets MARTYN’S hair on fire. GRIAN comes to his aid but ends up adding more brandy. Judge PEARL extinguishes the flames with a bowl of cinnamon milk. The judges are clearly not feeling merciful when it comes to the scores and Etho’s run comes to a premature end.

DOUBLES WEEK (9)

Some old favorites return for doubles week, where each of the remaining four bakers is helped out by an eliminated contestant on the other end of the phone. GRIAN for once assesses the limits of his own talents and asks to pair up with ETHO, a plan that immediately pays off when the contestants are challenged with a tricky technical that sees them baking the perfect pumpernickel bread. SCAR, having asked to pair up with BDUBS, is quickly underwater as neither of them understand yeast.

Scar’s floundering proves too much for Grian, who belligerently passes along his pumpernickel tips from Etho, saving Scar’s technical enough for him to scrape through. When challenged by Martyn, Grian grudgingly admits, “I just want Scar to stay in, okay?” Some recaps clear him of his villain status; others are still convinced it’s a fluke.

Meanwhile SCOTT turns in an efficient technical with help from CLEO and also JIMMY, who is apparently sitting in Cleo’s living room just to heckle Scott. LIZZIE calls on husband JOEL, but a combination of overconfidence and flirting distracts them both, leading to a burnt crust and Lizzie’s elimination from the final four.

MERINGUE WEEK (Final Episode)

In the finale, SCOTT, SCAR, and GRIAN face off over a series of escalating meringue-based challenges. Whatever alliance sprung up between Grian and Scar in the last episode is clearly water under the bridge as the two of them obsessively steal each other’s ingredients and annoy each other into trivial mistakes. This escalates into a noisy quarrel over the main challenge of the week: an edible diorama of a cactus ring. Scar’s attempts to ‘aesthetically correct’ Grian’s mountain diorama leads to Grian melting his sugar-spun cacti with a crème brulée torch.

The two are no longer speaking by the showstopper, where Grian embarks on a desperate attempt to make up points with an ambitious trifle in a castle-shaped wall of macarons while Scar builds his own grand macaron diorama. The clock ticks down. Scott is creating an impeccable strawberry pavlova. The trifle is going badly. Grian is covered in sugar and regret. BigB pats him reassuringly on the shoulder.

At the last moment, Scar sacrifices half his perfect macarons to donate to Grian’s diorama. Grian, for once lost for words, grabs his apron and kisses him right in front of Martyn’s swiftly-derailed countdown. “Grian had a beautiful artistic vision,” Scar says sentimentally afterwards. “You have to respect the craft!” They snog behind the tasting table. Mumbo gamely attempts to award points. Pearl in a laughing fit behind the cameras. Martyn and BigB solemnly wrap up the shot with Martyn’s best cake-based innuendoes. Grian and Scar do not notice.

Scott wins the series. He got so many more points on the cactus ring technical.

[myrquez]

rosquez reconciliation is just not going to happen like never in their life ever (except, maybe, in just one case. maybe)

and i’m almost sure of that bc. listen. i have so many thoughts and it’s early in the morning and it’s gonna be so messy and i don’t even know if someone has already said this but.

what i’m really convinced of is, valentino didn’t believe marc sabotaged him. i think the whole sabotage story is bullshit. like, it IS really bullshit even for them. it’s as believable as that polleria osvaldo prank.

ofc uccio didn’t check any telemetry shit. ofc valentino didn’t really think marc was sabotaging him in phillip island. marc had a rough start of the season that year, made many mistakes, but at some point he eventually started to get his shit back together and even tho he wasn’t a contender for the title anymore he could’ve been very much of an obstacle put in the middle of the road of his climb to the 10th. that sabotage conspiracy theory really was nothing but a means to “scare off” little marc, to try to make him take a few steps back and get him off the hook or whatever. he NEEDED marc out of the games bc that was his last chance to get his 10th and he truly wanted it at ALL costs. plus, he really loved his silly little mind games. he pulled that shit with gibernau, biaggi, casey AND jorge himself. but it BIBLICALLY backfired bc marc has always been one tough mf and of course he served vale a little taste of his own medicine (showing him what it would have been like to have him as an actual sabotaging agent on track) and OF COURSE he had to show that he wasn’t scared or anything. OF COURSE he had to show that he would’ve never bent down for anybody. should he have behaved differently? probably. but he literally was 22. and it’s not to babey him or anything, it’s how it is. 22 years of age and FIRE in his veins, headstrong, impulsive, and all of that. of course it didn’t end well, that was the only possible outcome, no variations. vale ended up losing his 10th and marc.. well we know what he had to go through

but that’s it. vale’s own ambition outweighed his talent (for mindgames) (quote) and he lost the championship the exact moment he went and poked the wrong bear. vale never felt betrayed, he STILL does not feel betrayed or anything. it’s not about genuine delusions or hurt feelings, it’s about ego, truly. vale doesn’t need and doesn’t want any apology. vale just doesn’t want anyone to reach HIS greatness. HIS status as a god. which is why he ended up being friendly with all of his past enemies on track, they’re out of the games now, of course! they couldn’t (and won’t now) reach his status as a god not even if they wanted to. except for the one that is still riding despite everything he went through

this is why, or at least i think it is, they will never really fully reconcile, IF not, maybe, in just one case: marc retires before he has reached (or surpassed) vale’s number of championships.

even in that case, i wouldn’t be really sure it could eventually happen. but it’s really the only scenario that seems probable to me.

[poughkeepsies]

Buddie Secret Relationship Conspiracy Manifesto

Hello. Welcome to possibly the most delusional buddie theory yet. This is a collaboration with @swiftiebuckleys, and as such I would like to cite our sources accordingly: dude, trust us.

Okay so I know a lot of people have talked about the theory of buddie possibly being in a secret relationship that is even a secret from the audience during season 6. For me, this started during 6A. It started because I was thinking about how 601 started with such a poignant and domestic Buckley-Diaz family scene that, as a part of a premier that was meant to establish where the characters are after four months of hiatus, told us Buck, Eddie and Christopher are living in each other's pockets as their own little family at the start of the season (I even wrote about this in this meta I posted while 6a was airing lmao).

But then for the rest of 6A there really wasn't any significant on-screen buddie or Buckley-Diaz moments, even though there was plenty that was implied at, including: Buck and Eddie planning to go to Marisol's house to help with repairs without the rest of the firefam, Buck and Chris hanging out so Chris potentially telling Buck the secret about skipping school even though he didn't tell Eddie, Buck and Eddie sitting in the back of the waiting room together separate from the rest of the firefam while they waited for news about Karen, and Eddie giving Hoover to Buck and convincing him to keep him even though his building doesn't allow dogs. What do all but one of these moments have in common? They're moments where Buck and Eddie were either alone or away from anyone who would know them from the rest of the gang and wouldn't feel the need to hide their relationship. When at work, Buck and Eddie had a reasonably normal amount of on-screen interactions, but it was only their moments happening outside of work that was pushed to the off-screen. (Bonus: one on-screen 6A moment that lives in my head rent-free and screams of secret relationship is that shot of them stepping into frame together and holding eye contact while the song lyrics in the bg go "I want your sex and your affection when I'm holding you close" in 609.)

However, while this^ is all well and good, it's 6B that really gives the secret relationship theory its wings.

Episode 10 gave us the lightning strike with a sequence that was shot almost entirely from the perspective of Eddie. While in the initial aftermath of the strike we see the shock on Hen, Chimney, and Bobby's faces, the scene is in slow-motion and muted until Eddie realizes what's going on and we watch every minute facial expression on his face as the horror dawns and he snaps into action. Eddie's reaction is what sparks everyone else's movement and then we see him completely forgo his own injuries and his own safety to save Buck. In the secret relationship trope, the near-death experience is a lot of the time what forces the couple to blow their cover and reveal their relationship. That didn't happen here as buddie were already close enough to warrant the strength of Eddie's reaction and Buck was unresponsive and there wasn't any time to lose. HOWEVER, episode 11 and the absence of a scene with Eddie alone at Buck's bedside can be explained by the fact that he couldn't be shone there or his bedside confessions would have given them away to the audience. As it is, other than Margaret and Maddie, Buck's mother and sister, he's the only one dressed in all black, his composure crumbling and unable to make eye contact with Buck's body in the hospital bed, the perfect picture of a grieving widow.

Episode 12 has the infamous couch scene which is meant to signal to the audience that Eddie is the couch Buck has been searching for, even if Buck himself doesn't know it. However, in the context of the secret relationship theory, what if the total lack of reaction from Eddie about Buck falling asleep on his couch is because they already know this?

Episode 13 has the infamous poker scene and this is where the theory actually diverges for a lot of people. Going with the original theory that buddie have been together since before 6A, this would explain Buck's lack of reaction to Eddie telling him to get dressed up and taking him out on what is essentially a date - he wasn't surprised or suspicious because it wasn't unusual. If you go back and watch the scene, you'll notice that it opens right when Buck and Eddie are approaching the door and about to be in the presence of other firefighters, but initially they're walking away from a dark alley while fixing their clothes - why would they need to fix their clothes unless they got messed up in the first place? Why wouldn't they show us the before or after of the poker scene, why only the parts where they're in the presence of other people from the department? Plus, Eddie really was looking TOO blatantly hungry in that entire scene, and he wasn't really hiding it from Buck - maybe because he's allowed, and expected, to look. This isn't even to mention the scenes of Buck, Eddie, and Christopher being a family, but I will go back to those later.

Where this episode splits this theory is the alternate potential for them to have gotten together after the poker game (my initial post after the episode first came out.) This would have been the perfect opportunity because there's really no way that if they weren't already together, the thought that this might be a date hadn't crossed Buck's mind (and, again, Eddie really did look too fucking horny in that scene it wasn't something you could ignore.) The next outside of work scene we see the Buckley-Diaz' in is the baking scene with Buck and Christopher. Eddie's location is completely unknown - he could be on shift, he could be running errands, he could be with Pepa - but the fact that Buck and Chris are together and baking for his class and planning dinner really drives home the fact that they are a family once again. However, the easy confidence of Buck parenting Christopher and the way he glowed with happiness in that moment would make even more sense if he had had his place in the Diaz family as Eddie's partner and Christopher's other parent confirmed to him.

One way to possibly combine the two theories is if we assume that Buck and Eddie were actually fwb throughout 6A (an idea given to me by @captainragtag) but actually got together after the poker scene. ANOTHER way is if we assume they've only been fwb, even after the poker scene. Them being fwb would potentially explain some holes in the theory, moments where they should have had a bigger reaction to something or known something beforehand if they were in a relationship (kind of the sperm donor arc and Eddie's reaction, but that could also be explained by Eddie's lack of reaction being because he already knew and was just pretending to be finding out for the first time with everyone else.)

Going into episode 14, all of these theories could explain the *gestures vaguely* everything about Eddie's storyline in the episode. If they're hiding a relationship, the absence of any mentions of Buck when talking about Eddie (and Christopher) being alone would make sense, especially after how pointedly the previous episode showed that Eddie is always spending his free time with Buck, with or without Christopher. It would also explain Buck's extremely unsubtle date-ruining advice - either they're together and Buck just doesn't want Eddie to go on the date because he doesn't want to share even to keep up pretenses, or they're fwb and Buck is jealous and afraid to lose Eddie and their relationship if Eddie starts actually dating. Also, considering how many pure fanfic tropes the writers have used before, it's safe to assume they have at least a baseline knowledge of how buddie are written by fans and what's the first trope every fanfic reader in this fandom learns about? Christopher's first and foremost wingman duty is to pack his stuff and go to a sleepover so his dads can do unholy things to each other. Christopher being at a sleepover when Pepa told Eddie to come over and him insisting that he was alone at home when just last episode we saw buddie spending all their time off shift together is just a little too sus if you ask me. Another secret relationship moment in the episode is Eddie going for the wrong gear shift in his own car. He initially reached for the gear shift on the center console when that's not where it is in his truck. But do you know where the gear shift is in a jeep? I'll give you one guess. Do we know anyone who owns a jeep? I'll give you another guess. This would make total sense since we know Eddie is a passenger princess and Buck would be driving them everywhere if they were in a relationship. Even when Buck isn't the one driving, Eddie would be much more likely to borrow his car more often if they were in a relationship and basically living together.

If this all doesn't convince you, I would like to leave you with the reminder of a moment that I'm sure has haunted all of us since 614 came out:

Actors are always aware when they're on camera and even if they aren't, the dozens of production people, including the director, would be. Do with that what you will.

(If anyone has anything they'd like to add to this feel free to message me or send me an ask and I'll make edits! And, I mean, this is all just for fun not to be taken seriously, but if there is a point that you think really brings the theory down also feel free to send me an ask about that lets see if I can provide a suitable explanation.)

edit: another thing to keep in mind as pointed out by the brilliant @swiftiebuckleys is the precedent set by 606 "Tomorrow" for flashbacks showing the start of a relationship.

[backmarkerr]

please....can u speak on the conspiracy

So the conspiracy (more like a theory, really) is that Kimi was pushed out of the team starting in 2008 to make way for Fernando, who was more appealing to the big sponsor coming in. Before you click out thinking "Max, that's stupid, no team would throw a championship for a sponsor." I agree! But keep in mind that they didn't throw the championship, they fully expected to win the WDC with Felipe (and almost did) and did in fact win the WCC in 2008 with Felipe and Kimi despite everything. But there were really suspicious things going on. So with that in mind...

It's 2008. Kimi has just won Malaysia, the second race of the season. Three days after his win, there's this:

.

Ok, kinda weird, but whatever. F1 runs on rumours, right? Suggesting that Kimi might retire when he's doing so well is silly. And in the article they seem to be pretty ambivalent over whether it would be Felipe or Kimi to leave.

Fast forward to Spain two races later. Kimi scores his second win of the season and takes the championship lead. The season is shaping up pretty well for the defence of the title, you’d think this would be a good time for him, but again, the story du jour is Ferrari wanting Alonso in Kimi’s seat for 2009.

[x] I guess now we know at least Massa's seat is secure...?

If you’re like me, that sounds stupid. The reigning champion just won the last GP and his contract runs until the end of 2010, so this media narrative makes no sense. Something pretty catastrophic would have to happen for that to ever come to fruition, right?

So anyway, he gets a first row start in Monaco. Great, that's almost a surefire win/points, right? Wrong, he got a drive-through penalty due to the team not fitting the wheels to the car on time before the race start. Not a great race and he ends up outside of the points. Lewis is now ahead in the WDC by 3 points. Not really a disaster, but...

[x] what on earth...

[x] again the talk of retirement.... I mean, it's weird, right?

Zero points in Canada due to being rear-ended in the pitlane, which the team can’t control. Then he’s back to being neck to neck with his teammate and Lewis by the time the British GP is done in early July, with all three drivers on 48 points. Good news, right? Just gotta stay on track and not fuck it up somehow.

[x] sigh... (this one's a little harder to source as it was printed media, but I've seen this exact interview quoted in different pages)

So anyway, they change his front suspension for the next race in Germany. Kimi has always been very sensitive to changes in the car, so he knew something was wrong. Ferrari (via Michael, who was then head of development) say he's just not adapting well to the upgrades. Maybe, sure, but why aren't you bringing upgrades that are geared towards your world champion?

(an interesting remark from Mark Hughes here if you scroll down to the comments, which adds weight to Kimi not being listened to when it came to car development in 2008)

Bar a podium in Hungary, Kimi scores 0 points in 4 out of the next 5 races. It takes until either Monza or Singapore (hello crashgate!) for Ferrari to put his suspension back as it was.

He proceeds to get 3 podiums in the remaining 3 races but it’s not enough to catch up. By Singapore he was already 27 points behind his teammate (reminder this is the old points system) and very much expected to play the supporting role. In the penultimate race in China he very obviously gave up P2 to his teammate:

"I know what the team expects." [x] / [x]

Yet the narrative in the media and from Ferrari themselves is that his motivation is bad and he's not assertive. It was so pervasive that to this day people still parrot it and say he just didn’t care after 2007, despite Kimi always stating he was fully committed and clearly getting annoyed whenever journalists asked about his motivation even years later.

Montezemolo at the end of 2008 even 'joked' that "Kimi in the recent races was replaced two or three times by a friend, but next year he'll be back." Basically saying that Kimi wasn't really present, you know? An interesting thing to say when this absent driver scored 18 points in the last 3 races (three consecutive P3s), while the one who was amazing and had the team's full backing scored 20 (P7, P2, P1).

A whole 2 points' difference, maybe someone should hire that "friend"...

So why did they do this?

Well, the theory is that Santander (I promise this isn’t like the dumb Sainztander takes) wanted a Spanish-Brazilian lineup due to financial interests (Spanish bank, big market in South America with a looming IPO in Brazil), so Kimi was basically being pressured out of the team from early 2008 onwards. Like I said at the start, the team weren’t really throwing away 2008, as they expected to win the WCC with both drivers (they did) and Massa to be able to win the WDC, which would of course be beneficial for their new sponsor. And he almost did. Almost.

[x] they're not in charge of driver selection but this specific driver line-up would good for them. (this archived copy of the article is from 2010, but the text makes it clear it's from 2009)

Of course at this point we have to wonder if a team like Ferrari would bow down to a sponsor's demands. I can't tell you what the internal considerations were or how much money was on the line, but it's also not like Santander were telling them to get rid of Kimi for a bad driver, you know? Fernando is a great driver, so from Ferrari's perspective they were just trading a great driver for another great driver who also appealed to this huge sponsor, and an Alonso-Massa line-up would be solid. And with the previous talk that Ferrari and Alonso had already inked a deal in 2008... It's just difficult to believe there isn't a grain of truth here.

So the alleged initial plan of having Alonso in 2009 was foiled when Kimi activated the renewal option in his contract. It was then that he was bought out of his last year (apparently paid for by Santander).

[from the book The Unknown Kimi Raikkonen]

As we can see, by the end Kimi was also fed up with what was going on, especially people pointing the finger at him and at his motivation, and his frustration is very clear in interviews like here at 2.35 and here:

Publicly, Ferrari said they wanted someone more in line with how Michael used to be (ironic since Montezemolo allegedly didn’t like how Michael made the team his), who could communicate with the team and give better feedback (ironic when Todt, Dyer, Stella and others said Kimi was very clear and precise.) Kimi himself has always stated that he wasn’t the issue, that his motivation was never lacking and that the real reason he was pushed out was politics and money.

[x]

[x]

If it had only been the mechanical stuff, I’d be willing to chalk it up to just bad luck and incompetence. Shit happens. But with all the rumours around it even before things went bad on the track and Kimi stating that his work and performance weren't the reason he was let go it becomes impossible for me to think there wasn’t an actual push going on to replace him.

Hell, even famed Ferrari fanboy Sebastian Vettel didn't think it was realistic for Kimi to return to Ferrary in 2014 precisely because Kimi isn't one for "bullshit" and "politics". Why would he choose to say that specifically? And according to Finnish media Kimi’s 2014 Ferrari negotiations included Montezemolo personally apologising to him. Now why would he apologise if they hadn’t done something wrong?

Personally I think Kimi's "certain people did certain things" refers to this. He never trashed anyone and always said he had no ill-feelings. And I believe him. But it doesn't mean nothing happened, lest we forget how well he handled Lotus not paying him.

The thing that really bothers me is that Kimi got the reputation for having low motivation and not caring about what he was doing (I heard that take just last month from an F1 youtuber, how Fernando was hired in 2010 because Kimi had mentally checked out 🙄), when obviously someone who wasn’t motivated and didn’t care would have simply called it quits under these circumstances. Instead he got P3 in the standings in 2008 (I know he’s talented, but he must have been trying at least a little), trained hard to lose enough weight to use KERS in 2009 (why would he do that if he didn’t care) and took the team’s only win that year despite the car being shit. Interestingly, pundits acknowledged his good performance complicated things when it came to Ferrari’s rumoured hiring of Alonso. So imagine how much more complicated things would have been had Kimi done better in 2008?

Anyway, this is long, but if you want something longer then I definitely recommend this post here. You might not agree completely with the original authors (there are parts where I wish there was more info), but I think they offer a lot of good research and information regarding the overall situation back in 2008/2009, and it's a good jump-off point for your own research.

But yeah. 2008 could have been everything. Or at least better.

[cg11555]

CURRENT FHJY THEORIES

My current conspiracy board for the season

These are my plausible theories and then I'll talk about my batshit insane theories

I think that the rat grinders HAVE lost their memories regarding Lucy's death. I'm inclined to believe that Ratbitch Dogface and MAYBE Ivy remember. I'd bet that they took the honey to lie to Aguefort and the other staff about their involvement with her death.

The mind terrorism that Fig put Ruben through caused him to vomit up a 'Bloody Viscous Substance' And I will not be surprised if Fig has made Ruben remember whatever happened to Lucy

Gertie verified that the honey made from the Devil's nectar is bloody red.

She is making the honey for some local food trucks that we know Are KLKC's

Another thing we know for a fact is that the body of Lucy Frostblade showed marks from multiple assailants including magical, non- magical, and specifically a type of bludgeoning damage that carbonized her blood into red diamonds

This leads us to believe that Lucy's murderers were her own party members. In addition to this, they also found the rage crystals in the dirt and the bodies of Lucy and Yolanda Badgood.

This clearing's destroyed trees shows indications of giant involvement as well

What we currently know leads me to believe that the Rat Grinders attempted a replication of Kristen's spring break miracle

Lucy attempted to resurrect an 'Evil' sibling of her goddess, Ruvina, The unnamed god now known as Ankarna.

This mirrors the Cassandra / Galicaea relationship as well

This attempt clearly backfired in some way I'd bet either resulting in Lucy or the others becoming something similar to the Rage Mages we saw in the battle at the Synod

I think that the Rat grinders are all at various levels of involvement in the upcoming plot involving Ankarna with KLCK being the mastermind AND I KNOW that there's some bullshit going on with the rogue teacher that FOUND KLCK ( Will be unsurprised if this unknown teacher is dead)

We currently do not know how this episode's revelations regarding the name will affect these plans in the upcoming episodes. If this is playing into the preexisting plans or completely destroying them

The way Brennan talked in the most recent AP about how he thought that them finding the name was an inevitability but a scene he thought would happen in the third act of the season makes me think that this will NOT affect the Rat Grinders plans in a majorly significant way. They still have to do something ( some kind of ritual or other ) that the Bad Kids will have stop in the final eps

After learning all about the Historical side of the shifts that Ankarna's domain saw I believe that there is a lot of evidence for a conspiracy against Cassandra and Ankarna involving Sol and Galicaea. But this is still up in the air

Now for my pepe silvia conspiracies . . . Feel free to bully me in the comments for these

ONE- The Time Quangle that Arthur Aguefort dropped on us in the second episode

We know that The Seven have already experienced a large chunk of this year during the GED quest that Aguefort was present for

And lesser men will say that the TIME QUANGLE is BLeeM's way of justifying the continuity errors between these two seasons

I am not one of them

The animated opening sees the Bad Kids falling past clocks and into a diamond prison created by Aguefort which explodes into the BK's falling in a scene eerily similar to them falling into Riz's briefcase of holding. They then face villains from both of the two previous seasons ( Goldenhoard, Kalina, a Corn-cutie, Chungledown Bim, James Whitclaw ( the mindflayer that kicked Fabian's ass during spring break) , Coach Daybreak, and Penelope w/ Dayne) in the Gym they fought Kalvaxus ( VP Goldenhoard ) before we get title cards for each of the Bad Kids

I posit that we will see the Bad Kids tumble through time as a result of not only Agueforts chronomancy adventure with Ayda but also the fuckery involving the time loop at the synod. Visiting their past villains in addition to current threats

TWO- Vice Principal Jace Stardiamond

Facts we know about Aguefort's resident sorcery prof and interim VP . . . Ragh Barkrock SAW him give Adaine's mom and Kalina the Nightmare King's crown from Aguefort's office after prompocalypse, Jace Stardiamond holds a useless position at Aguefort as sorcerers do not need any teaching for an innate ability, despite his uselessness he was chosen to become the VP, he was the person Yolanda Badgood was going to approach about the sinister shit surrounding Lucy Frostblade's 'disappearance' and the paperwork for a new deity she never saw. Yolanda is now dead, even though he is VP; after the death of Interim emergency backup principal Arcturus Grix He is still VP and Student body president Mazey Phaedra is now acting principal. Making room for KLCK to become principal next year if she wins that election.

Reviewing these fact I put forth the following idea, VP Jace Stardiamond is in cahoots with KLCK AND he is the unknown rogue teacher. WHY? how would someone with no knowledge of trickery or thievery manage to take the Nighmare King's Crown from Aguefort's office? How would a man that essentially does nothing as a teacher keep job security? What if the reason that KLCK was found by the rogue teacher was because he is in on the scheme? SPIE'S TONGUE CURSE?? SOMETHING THAT TWO ROGUES IN CAHOOTS WOULD USE DON'T YOU THINK? WHY WOULD HE MAKE RIZ A MEMBER OF THE FACULTY??