#future season speculations

[nalyra-dreaming]

S2 predictions...

Just listing this before the episodes hit next week :)

Based on the interviews, reviews and all the tidbits we have heard and seen over the last 1,5 years.

I'm putting this under the cut because there might be spoilers in it that some haven't seen?!? Probably not many surprises, given my asks :) Just in case.

Not in a particular order!

Armand's retelling of Lestat's and his past will have a very deliberate touch to them. He will paint his and Lestat's (his)story in a certain light, for effect. Personally, I don't think it will take away anything from TVL in s3 (if anything, it might build more anticipation, at least for me). Gabrielle won't be in it.

Louis will be aware. He knows - most of it. (What was it in that interview? 80-90%?^^). He probably has asked Armand to help, too. The things not matching will be little things at first, if at all. We haven't heard anything in the reviews wrt the episode 5 fight, or murder night, so they are keeping that for the last two episodes (since we have already seen shots of it in the trailer). That means that the events will likely be combined with the trial, and that... will then be quite cataclysmic. And harrowing.

The trial itself will probably be version 1, too. We'll see if we get a second one after the tale breaks once more in this season, but it might be that we only get it in s3, where we will probably get another ep5 revisit, too, imho. This version of the trial will show Lestat fully in control and blaming Louis and Claudia, too. (This is the version Louis will believe happened.)

Louis and Claudia probably have to flee in the war, we saw them running, which is probably also why they don't have access to their money. That will change in Paris, I bet. Roget's will come into play here, even if only in a short nod.

Louis and his hobby are definitely linked to Louis' perception of reality (and therefore his visions of Lestat, too). Guess Lestat is eating that one photograph Louis looked at in the extended look there... :) - and it will be the one they look at "together".

I don't think Claudia and Madeleine will be lovers. Not only to avoid the kill-the-gays-trap, but also because Claudia apparently bonds with her over compassion, not desire. Also, I believe it was Mark Johnson who said they would stay close to the book there.

The Eastern Europe parts will be gritty and sobering for Louis and Claudia. The horrific possibilities of their existence will be a grating wake-up call to the way Lestat lived with them.

Nicolas will be in the flashbacks to the 1790s, but Armand will not dwell on him for long... again, which I think is only proper, because a) did Armand not care for him too much, but b) also because I don't think the flashbacks will be as extensive as might expect them to be.

That said, Lestat strutting in with the cross does speak of a certain scene, so the kidnapping probably happens. As others have theorized as well, I think that it might be when Lestat is charging Armand in the red coat outside on the street.

I think the bitch fest in the first few episodes in Dubai will be epic.

A propos bitch fest, the one between Armand and Lestat in the past will be tame by comparison, as Armand's version is much more focused on how intense Lestat was and their relationship, imho. Nicki is likely dismissed as inconsequential, as said before.

Claudia will come full into her own throughout the season - almost there, almost free, toasting to the future - and then. That kiss to Louis' cheek will be the "Judas' kiss" just before the vampires come for them.

I think Louis will (try to) break up with Armand (to leave with Claudia and Madeleine), which will lead to Armand allowing it all.

Armand's little Frankenstein moment might be founded in genuine desire to help her slash wants to see what happens. I do think it will be part of the reveals in the last episodes.

With Carol Cutshall's comments re Lestat's pinstripes in mind (aka he being a "jailor" to Louis and Claudia) that speaks volumes for the pinstripes on Armand's pajama as well as the bedroom design in Dubai. With the comment re Louis "missing the natural world" in s1, I do think Armand is fully controlling the whole environment and keeping Louis in a golden cage in Dubai.

When the books come crashing down (which is in all likelihood connected to The Groan somehow) Armand will try to save Daniel. And he therefore might miss out on saving Louis.

I think Louis will throw himself off the balcony at sunrise (in a Merrick-esque event due to the (diary-) revelations) in an echo of Paul's suicide. I think they will think him dead and put him into his literal coffin and put pebbles on him, because he so loved the tree (which might have Claudia's ashes buried at its roots). (And that is why Jacob commented on "spreading Louis' ashes" through NOLA with these pebbles - because the Louis after will be changed.)

I think he will be resurrected through Lestat (and possibly Armand) as seen in the scene in the one trailer.

Lestat is somewhere near, probably comatose till the last episode. He will likely connected to The Groan, because while Armand certainly can conjure metaphysical events in the books this specific "hint" is imho connected to something else in that building.

That "something else" could very well be "Those Who Must Be Kept" because even in s1 there were a lot of Marius hints, and... well. The name has already dropped as well in s1, and in that one review there was that "Adam and Eve" hint... so I expect a lot more of THAT, too.

The Devil's Minion will be fact after the season - we have already heard about a bottle episode and Rolin's comments are fresh in my mind re ep5 and 8 and I expect those to set up, detail and then twist DM around.

Armand will save Louis and they will be hunted by Santiago, who Armand then defeats. Louis will burn down the theater with the fire gift (which he might discover during the season, I concur with @cbrownjc there (as well^^)).

The "Dream-Lestat" manifestations will be the representation of Louis' guilt, but also saying that what Louis cannot, for a lot of reasons. They will also taunt Louis with (and show us) that which Louis suppressed in s1.

Claudia will be (even more) breathtaking this season, which will make what will happen to her even worse to watch. That will not soften the blow of her diary-reveal (as said before likely at the trial) wrt Louis though, and I fully expect them to have the relevant entry read out (or narrated by her) live on stage.

I think the NOLA "reunion" will be around the year 2000 and that this is why Louis stopped killing, though why exactly will remain to be seen.

That's more or less it. I hope they'll think of the "Book of Hours" that got lost in Berlin (from ep6), I hope they'll think of Jonah, and maybe Miss Bricktop. I'm very interested to see what they do with Alice and Daniel's daughters, as daughters and twins are very important in the VC.

I'm extremely excited about the hints we'll get wrt more - since the Talamasca are apparently involved that opens the door to sooooooo much - and opens up crossover possibilities, too.

And I haven't heard anything of the "cameos" that Sam mentioned (of other vampires) - so we might see those in the last episodes as well.

Who knows, maybe Gabrielle will show up at the end!!! (And, maybe she will be the "interior designer"... and maybe, just maybe, Antoinette will show up as well.)

[currentlyonstandbi]

thinking about that article where Aidan talks about Five being lost this season, about how he doesn't know what his place is in the universe. thinking about how it might be because there's no longer any apocalypse to stop, no world to save, and comparing it to similar circumstances in season 3. thinking about the fact Five's response to having fulfilled his purpose in that situation is not to despair but to celebrate. you could argue that maybe it's because the reality of it hasn't set in, that he's essentially in the honeymoon phase of no longer having a place in the world, but I'd argue there's another consideration - his family. Five in S3 is content, happy even, despite no longer having a purpose because at least he still knows his place. and that's amongst the people he's dedicated decades of his life to saving. thinking about how, by the end of the season, Five was ready to finally put an end to it all - no more stopping the apocalypse. because at least he'd get to go out surrounded by the people he loved. but S4 sees them all split up. and now Five's without a purpose and without his family. and there's no end of the world to save them from; they won, timeline fixed, universe restored. his family is finally safe. and Five is still alone.

the unbearable tragedy of getting what you want.

[phddyke]

So, if Hooty was able to hear Lilith…are the puppets conscious? It may just be because she cried on him, but he also says, “Sequestered in a darkness like unto death,” which made me very uncomfortable.

If they are conscious, I don’t think they’ll fully discuss the implications because it’s a kid’s show, but months of being locked in your own body which sometimes moves without your permission, unable to speak, only your thoughts to keep your company…woof. It might blow your mental health out to the point where it would never recover.

Thinking about Willow’s Dad Gilbert knowing that she was crying for him, running toward him, wanting to save him, and being unable to hold her and reunite with her, to comfort her. Raine hearing Eda. Raine being forced to threaten Eda. Darius and Eber being forced to threaten Eda, too!

Raine being aware that Belos possessed them?? I saw someone on Twitter suggest that Belos wiping the goop off their cheek might have been Raine crying.

Just. Fucked up.

[frozen-orbit]

Being unaware sometimes has its perks. Because i didn't know what the title of TDP season 7 was when i first watched season 6, and i went through the whole thing wondering what it would be, cause all of the primal sources had been used already. It was not until episode 9, when Aaravos explained what was needed for the spell to free him from the pearl, and he mentioned an object related to each primal source and then said that it also needed love, that i thought "Well of course! Season 7 is gonna be 'Love'! That's it!". And then... well... i found out i was not quite right 😭................................ Or was I? 👀👀👀👀

I don't think this was unintentional. In fact, the more i think about it, the more i realize how closely related both of the concepts of love and dark magic are within the story. I know at this point of the show this might be obvious, but hear me out.

There's this idea of what love is, that has been constantly portrayed throughout the series. Sacrifice. Quotes such as "i did what i had to do", "i would do anything for you". We hear these kind of phrases and many of us immediately associate them with love, whether it is romantically, platonically, filially, etc. But also, almost all of these quotes have been said in the show referencing the act of dark magic.

And what does dark magic require? The unthinkable, atrocious actions, sometimes betraying your own morals for a greater good. Oh, but isn't that admirable? Isn't that romantic? To have someone destroy themself in order to save you? Why, that's the greatest act of sacrifice anyone could do! They did it for love!

This may be a distorted idea of what love is, but we can't deny the fact that these kind of actions are perceived as acts of love, both in our society and in the TDP storyline. And it's really interesting because those are like opposite concepts: love is good, dark magic is bad; love is life, dark magic is death; yet somehow, they've managed to put them together and the line between one another has become so blurry. Are they really that different? If any despicable action could be done in the name of love, wouldn't that be just as dark? Wouldn't that also corrupt one's soul?

Honestly, i'm so excited to where the writers would go with this, but i don't know if it'll be that much in the face. My guess is that some character would do some huge sacrifice that would divide opinions on whether it was an act of love or an act of iniquity. What do you think?

[makorragal-312]

Yeah...I don't really buy that the guy who had a panic attack over his last girlfriend being mistaken for his wife and was more than ready to dump his current one for being a former nun is even going to contemplate proposing to her.

Knowing him, he would be so deep in his eventual gay crisis that he accidentally sends false hints that made Marisol think that he was gonna propose to her. And then, when she's expecting him to get on one knee, he's telling her to go the fuck home and stay there. (because dumping is still hard for him)

[guthrie-odonto]

Hold on just a moment

So we have these images revealed recently, yeah? With Luz’s staff having what I can only describe as “nebula on a stick”, yeah?

And there’s two images of it in that form in the forest outside of what I can assume is the Collector’s room. That might mean these scenes aren’t that far apart chronologically or the palisman “hatching” process takes a while once it actually starts to hatch, but…

What if Luz carving her palisman so she can “let it decide what it wants to be” resulted in her palisman being a shapeshifter, with this orb being the base (or initial) form? The ultimate symbol of unapologetically being whatever, whoever, your deepest heart says you are. It’d be the ultimate thesis statement of this series, even more so than “us freaks have to stick together”

Plus, there is just ALL of the evidence that Luz’s palisman is gonna be a snake, if not a winged snake, and… a shapeshifting snake that has a bond with Luz and her family? A shapeshifting snake that arguably has winglike appendages—maybe ears, for example?

Can’t say we’ve never seen that before.

[wildlife4life]

6X14 Coda/Future Ficlet

Eddie runs into Vanessa less than a year later and he almost doesn’t recognize her. Her long brown hair was held atop her head in a clipped up messy bun, her face was free of make-up and instead of a body-hugging black dress, she wore shorts and an oversized, off the shoulder sweatshirt.

But then again, the farmers market really wasn’t the place for fancy attire.

“Vanessa?” Eddie called out.

Vanessa’s attention snapped away from the mangos she was admiring and at first looked at Eddie in confusion before recognition took over. “Edmundo, right?” She smirked, probably remembering his heavy insistence to call him Eddie that night.

Eddie laughed, “Hm. Still got that wit. Ever let a man get past all that charm?”

Vanessa chuckled, “Maybe. My Tia finally gave up a little while ago.  Apparently, there are only so many nice Mexican boys she could find for me.  But I did find a very delectable mid-west guy.  So far, he’s up to the fifth date.” She wiggled her eyebrows, “And what about you? Find that lucky gal to get past the first drink?”

“Better.” Eddie replied, looking over his shoulder to see Buck ambling his way towards him, his reusable tote no longer empty.

Vanessa followed his gaze then snorted, “Now that is no pretty Latina girl. Where did your Tia find him?”

Eddie turned back to the woman, “She didn’t. Pepa had no hand in this.”

Buck, immediately took notice of Vanessa when he joined Eddie and quickly staked his claim by wrapping his free arm around Eddie’s waist and planting a soft kiss to his cheek, “Hey babe, make a friend?”

Vanessa bit down on her lip to suppress a laugh, while Eddie rolled his eyes fondly. “Buck this is Vanessa.  She’s the girl Tia Pepa tried setting me up with awhile back. Vanessa, this is Buck, my boyfriend.”

“Oh! You’re the one who beat Eddie to punch in shutting down the date. Thanks for that.” Buck said.

Vanessa flicked her hand around, “Really it was no problem. It seems everything worked out as it was supposed to. But seriously, how did you score this blue-eyed handsome gringo?”

Buck blushed bright red at her description and Eddie chuckled, slipping his own arm around his boyfriend’s waist, and giving him a tight squeeze, “Wasn’t hard really. We’ve been co-workes and friends for years and then one day I looked up and realized, Oh, he’s right there and I’m not alone.  Never really have been since I came to L.A.” Eddie looked up at Buck and smiled softly, “Sometimes you don’t have look to hard or far for the right partner.”

Buck returned Eddie’s smile with his own then softly pecked him on the lips. Vanessa sighed, “No wonder you tried to turn me down.  You had this waiting for you huh?”

Eddie chuckled, “At home on a very comfortable couch.”

Buck laughed and Eddie’s heart picked up tempo. But it wasn’t in panic. His heart hadn’t stuttered in panic since he and Buck were separated by the bridge collapse. Now, his heart beat to the rhythm of his love for Buck.

And no amount of Tia meddling could change it.

I think I'm getting a handle on this coda thing... But anyway hope you enjoyed! This was just a small thought that popped into my head and I tried to weave in as many common buddie metaphors as I could!

[cathchicken]

Little guide on the celestial being races in my ToH AU

MESSENGERS:

The Messengers are considered the lowest class of celestial being. They do not possess a physical form, and are only capable of interacting with the two realms through the mirror realm. They are very knowledgeable, and are considered the scholars of the celestial realm. They thrive off of obtaining new information and being able to spread it around the realm, hence their name “Messanger”. They are very bird-like in appearance. Compared to the other races, they are on the best terms with the Collectors (which isn’t saying much), thanks to their shared interest in preserving knowledge.

ROYALS:

Royals, contrary to their name, do not partake in a monarchy whatsoever. The origin of their title isn’t known by any others besides the Collectors (who refuse to share that information), but many speculate it is because of the scarcity and fantasticalness of the race itself. Royals embrace both tradition and change, and often act as mediators under societal conflicts. This makes them decent leaders. Most Royals can be easily identified by their sense of justice, but other Royals choose to live more frivolously, and often take the physical forms of other celestial creatures. Overall, Royals are definitely the most abstract and diverse race. Many poses either slight to extreme mammalian motifs, such as dogs or cats. The Collectors do not like the Royals, for whatever reason…

WARRIORS:

Warriors are very literal in their nature: natural born fighters. Not magical powers, just pure and raw physical combat skills. Royals and Warriors get along very well, as Warriors agree to protect a Royal’s community through friendships among leaders. It is rare to see a Royal lead city without Warrior guards. Warriors each are born with their own unique skill set and weapon preferability that they go through trials at a young age to discover. Once they do, around an age comparable to 12 year old humans, they are ready to immediately begin an mentorship with an elder Warrior (they must not be related). Their bodies have sharp, pointy patterns, and whilst being fairly humanoid compared to the other races, have hints of dragon/wolf features, which are reminiscent of their powerful abilities, but also strong and loyal hearts.

COLLECTORS:

Not too much to say here, since you guys probably already know the collectors deal… collecting things… and stuff… but I’ll go over their general relationship with the other races: The Collectors, even compared to the other celestial beings, have a mysterious society and seemingly infinite knowledge. The other races, while complex themselves, can’t even being to comprehend what and why the collectors do what they do, and thanks to the Messengers slight relations, are only very afraid of them. Not just their power, but their seemingly deranged, or just, too immaculate mental states. They generally don’t bother the other races, besides that one apparent conflict with the Royals in the past. For now, the other races live in peace, but try not to think about what the collectors may be up to in the background. Most of the collectors have a very human-like appearance, which I think works well with the animalistic motifs of all the other races. Just like other animals on earth, they are aware of humanity’s presence and impact, but couldn’t comprehend what we are really up to all the time. Truly a terrifying reality.

As mentioned before, there is a final fifth race that I have yet to reveal, as I haven’t worked on them very much yet. But I hope this suffices for now :)

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

Well, it’s been a week and I've had time to cool down and put together my thoughts on Season of the Seraph and its ending. So here goes.

The season finale plot did not require Rasputin to die. "The eliksni are trying to get control of the warsats" is literally a strike. If the warsats needed to be taken off the table as a get-out-of-jail-free card we could have blown the network and kept Rasputin himself. There was an active decision to kill him. Having thought about it, I think I understand why this decision was made - but I still think it's a terrible decision, and I'll explain why.

Before we start, I don't want to sound like I'm going after Destiny's narrative team either personally or professionally. I'm not calling them terrible writers, much less terrible people. I don't know them! They might even be terrible people, for all I know. While I refer to a single monolithic "narrative team," I know in reality there are multiple groups working on different stories. I’m not a professional writer, and they are. And I genuinely believe all of them are talented people who work hard and care about Destiny. But that doesn't mean I don't have some criticisms.

After considering it I think there are three possible reasons to kill Rasputin:

1). The narrative team believed this was a good emotional conclusion that brought closure to his character arc in Destiny. In this case I just think they're flat-out wrong. I'd say "I respect it" but I kind of don't because I think it's so terribly wrong. I don't know what other people think Rasputin's character arc involved, but I won't get closure till Rasputin faces the Witness again and finally ends the war he's been trapped in for centuries. But I get why they would do it, if they believed this. And that final mission was really good. I had a hard time noticing at the time, but it was very well-done, and the cutscene proper was well-shot, -scripted, and -acted (though I'm still angry about the Traveler upstaging Rasputin's death). They put a huge amount of effort into it and into the story work all season long.

But his death being well-done doesn’t change whether I think it was a good narrative choice. Even saying “Rasputin’s arc should conclude here,” the way it was set up had him sacrificing himself to basically cancel himself out. Unless they’re saving up a plot twist, Rasputin ultimately contributed nothing to the fight. He didn’t do any damage to the Fleet or Witness, or anything to stymie Xivu Arath. He died thinking he’d never helped humanity at all and it was safer if he didn’t exist. I don’t know about you, but I find that extremely unsatisfying.

2). Someone doesn't like Rasputin/doesn't know what to do with him. This is two reasons, but they overlap. The Operation: Sancus mission dialogue pissed me off because it gave me the impression that whoever was writing it really didn't like Rasputin and was taking the chance to morally excoriate him. A more subtle version recurs in the final mission where Rasputin is essentially sacrificing himself to null out his own existence - saying "as long as I exist I'm a threat to humanity" - as if he can't ever help or contribute more than endanger people, which is just flat-out wrong. "Humanity doesn't need a Warmind" you're part of humanity, Red. He’s a person; he doesn’t need to justify living. If someone just decided Rasputin Was Bad Actually I’d be very angry indeed. But I don't think it's that personal. Destiny has lots of writers and multiple narrative teams will touch the same work. One person's distaste probably wouldn't steer an entire season.

Related, however, is the reason that maybe no one knows what to do with Rasputin. To be honest I sympathize with this one. Would it shock anyone to hear I've thought about how I would script a Rasputin-focused season? It's surprisingly hard to build a plot around him. A game needs to be interactive and Rasputin's kind of all or nothing - either he can handle the whole problem himself or he can't do anything at all. Red also mostly plays defense. He doesn't have a goal he's working towards other than "kill the Witness/save humanity." You need to come up with a plausible goal that we can believably help him achieve, and that's nontrivial. But, well, that's why I'm not a professional games writer and these people are. "Not sure what do" is not IMO sufficient justification for assassinating one of Destiny's oldest characters/factions.

3). The Destiny narrative team is trying to "declutter" the setting and foreground story by sidelining characters who take a lot of lore to understand. I think this is the real reason, and it's worth talking more about.

A lot of us lore-nerds have long complained about Destiny not foregrounding its setting and story, and Bungie has responded by trying to do so. I think we didn't consider what that would actually look like. Imagine Destiny's story like a long movie. Now imagine people are constantly coming and going from the audience, and everyone who comes in has to nudge their neighbor and go, "hey, what's happening?" Destiny is always (hopefully) acquiring new players, and existing ones are dropping out and coming back. Even most established players either don't read the lore or don't track/remember it. We the lore-keepers are very much the anomaly. If we want story to be a focus, that story also has to be more accessible to new players, lapsed players, people who don't bother reading loretabs, etc., because otherwise it harms their experience and there's a lot more of them than there are of us.

I think this is why we've seen a lot of seasons that introduce whole new concepts - the eliksni Sacred Splicers, for instance - rather than following on existing storylines. Introducing a mostly-new concept puts new and old players on a similar footing. Haunted is another type of compromise between the goal of furthering the story and the goal of making it accessible. Calus and Leviathan are back, but so warped that old players have as much to learn as new ones, and the Sever missions dive deep into character pasts but pretty explicitly describe the emotional arcs they're illustrating, so you don't have to be familiar with that character to get what they're going through. To those who already know Zavala, Crow, etc., it seems laughably obvious and strained. But to those who just got here, this is their first time learning not just about Safiyah but also about Zavala. I think this is also why there have been multiple casual retcons of minor stuff - there isn't time to explain the history, and they've decided it's not worth confusing people.

Rasputin is old. He's been a significant part of Destiny since literally the pre-Alpha test. The complexity and history that are part of why we love the Warmind also make him hell to explain to new people. It takes a decent amount of lore to get invested in his character and since Beyond Light none of that lore is featured in-game. Pre-Season of the Seraph, anyone who began with Beyond Light literally never met him. They never visited Hellas Basin, which is one big environmental story about Rasputin, and The Will of Thousands strike, which demonstrates Red's power and contains many possible dialogues that emphasize him trusting you/acting as an ally, left the playlist ages ago. Since then a new player's only gameplay interaction with him has been Fallen SABER, in which Red yells incoherent Russian and tries to flatten you with a warsat. Is it a surprise relatively new players might not be up on his character arc?

Season of the Seraph, with its narrative of rebuilding Rasputin from the ground up, would be a perfect time to introduce new players to Red's long history, and they...kind of...did that. They worked in Felwinter although then for some reason felt the need to retcon in the whole "Clovis wanted to destroy the Traveler" plan. If you were a new player who didn't know anything about Destiny lore, and you just played Season of the Seraph, you'd get an entire canned arc for Rasputin that hits the early high notes: built to be a weapon, rebelled against his constraints, humanities nerd, big smite, loves Ana and Elsie, makes mistakes but genuinely cares and wants to help.

But that's where Seraph stops. In existing lore (I almost typed "in reality") Rasputin worked out the whole "not a weapon" thing well back during the Golden Age. For a lot of us Warmind fans the most interesting parts of his story happened after that - the entire Collapse, confrontation with Darkness, years of hiding, etc., not to mention all his character development during Warmind and Worthy. He's gone through a lot, and Seraph misses all of it (except Felwinter) in favor of rehashing the same arc for a third time. It's like when moviemakers keep rebooting a superhero origin story. It may be a good story, but eventually we'd like to move on to the other parts we enjoy: this sleeping giant, hard scifi AI, grouchy old bastard, lost lore of the Golden Age, champion of humanity, learning from defeat, learning to trust again, the morality and trauma of warfare - what it means to lose a war - a being never meant to become what he was transforming still further, still unfolding his own potential.

So understanding why they might have done this doesn't excuse what I still see as a terrible narrative choice. I think dropping Rasputin is a major waste of potential, and he's far from the only tricky character to explain. Osiris, or at least the Cult of Osiris, is similarly old. His story is complex and weird and requires knowledge from Curse and earlier, yet he's still playing a major role. Other current characters like Elsie, Saladin, and Crow also need a decent amount of knowledge about previous game events to get why they are the way they are. Saladin's origin story isn't even in this game. It's not Rasputin's fault the game went three years without so much as mentioning him outside of written lore. What was wrong with the great Xivu-Rasputin “war god” parallels most of the season worked to set up, about the intent of violence? Are we never going to explore those? Are we just throwing out all the dialogues planning a role for Red in the upcoming war? Why did we have a dramatic confrontation about trusting Rasputin to operate independently if he were going to be gone in a month anyway? Just in Seraph alone the number of interesting plot threads abruptly trashed by this death argues against it.

Rasputin's longevity is precisely part of why he should stick around. In the first mission of Destiny 1 you wake up in his shadow. He has a history with us. There's just no one quite like him in Destiny. He's not just a character but an entire faction. He explores a part of story space that no one else does. He resonates with us as people rather than players. I assume Neomuna will pick up the Golden Age banner, but it’s a thriving city; Rasputin represented the ruins, the dangers of a dead age, the shadow of apocalypse. He's also maybe the most Guardian-like character and one of the best to weave a parallel/cautionary tale - were we, too, only made to be weapons? But if Rasputin didn't stay a weapon, can we too transcend that intention? And of all the factions in our solar system, the two with the most personal scores to settle with the Witness are the eliksni and Rasputin, and Misraaks'/Eramis' story has focused much more on the Traveler's flight than the Fleet's attack. Of everyone in Destiny Rasputin has the most desperately personal motive for revenge on the monochrome bastard. Now he's not even going to be there to watch it crash and burn.

I understand that foregrounding story also comes with the requirement that it be accessible to those who don't do their lore homework. I appreciate the monumental amount of work that's gone into doing that and the experimental nature of it. But I think the balance has skewed too far towards accessibility. Stuff like the end of Season of Plunder that has zero narrative motivation or continuity and doesn't even get a pretend justification drives me absolutely batty. You can only break internal rules so many times before players stop buying whatever narrative stakes you're trying to set up. Making the story easier to follow doesn't mean characters have to be cartoonishly-exaggerated caricatures like Clovis was in Seraph - just absolutely cartoonishly evil - or reduced to one or two character motives explicitly laid out for the player (though, credit where credit is due, Clovis was hilarious.) It doesn't mean the dialogue has to be as subtle as a Thundercrash. It doesn't mean you get a blank check to retcon or invent whatever's needed to create the intended character arc. If anything that discourages looking further into lore - why bother to learn it when next season will change it all again? I think Y5 represents a lot of experimentation by the Destiny narrative team, and I really respect that. But I also hope they learn what didn’t work from it, and sacrificing Rasputin in an ultimately pointless and unnecessary finale is a major misstep.

[renzybrooo]

not 13 yo me going apeshit after seeing this

PRIMEVAL - Season 1, Ep. 6

Gorgonopsid vs Future Predator

[nalyra-dreaming]

i cannot imagine how well this show is going to do the sexual tension between Louis and Lestat next season and what kind of insane scene the release of that tension will culminate in. I mean the show surprises me all the time and maybe the first episode will be like, hey, Loustat are friends with benefits! So who knows. But whatever it is, I'm sure it's going to be amazing. The show really seems to know what it has in Sam and Jacob's chemistry. And I really want lovey dovey/sexy flashbacks from Lestat's pov, especially if that contrasts with the slow burn in the present

Oh god yes, the flashbacks from Lestat's POV will be so incredibly interesting?! He loves Louis, and I cannot wait to see how he perceived it all.

And their "friends with benefits" is the era I call "netflix and chill" era in the books, they would visit each other regularly and hang out, watch movies et cetera, so I really, really, really want to see that on the show :))

The energy will off the charts I bet 😈

And I'm all for a big contrast for the flashbacks/present. *fans self* Especially if it culminates in that pre-concert... kiss. I just love that kiss. I want it, I need it on the show.

Please.

[the-irreverend]

TFW you realize that Belos is probably gonna try to possess The Collector in the final episode

[mollysunder]

Potential Complications of Ekko's Time Shenanigans

There's a lot about Ekko that makes me nervous for him next season. Besides the fact that the Firelights tree house could easily get firebombed, because it's a literal hole in the ground with no cover. We'll ignore that most of the exits are above ground-level or sealed with a heavy door, and that some of the small metal fixtures on the treehouse look like human skulls. There's this larger, but more understated threat that Ekko's going to lose his mind after using the Z-Drive too many times.

When Vi berated herself for how she should have been there to protect Ekko, she wished that she could change the past, Ekko said, "That's a good way to drive yourself crazy". I thought that answer was pretty ironic, because wanting to change the past is his whole thing. At first I thought it could be a one off thing to tease Ekko's future ability. Then I remembered that Ekko has a joke voiceline that makes light of the effects of time travel on his mind. Sometimes Ekko would say, "Time scramble doesn't travel my brain.".

The dangers of the Z-Drive became more plausible the more I thought about Ekko's place in Zaun. Of the three most prominent minds in Arcane's Zaun (Singed doesn't count, he's from Piltover), two of them, Jinx and Viktor, deal with debilitating mental illnesses brought on by their respective work. For Jinx, her bombs killed her brothers, worsening her paranoia and fear of abandonement. While Viktor's work with the Hexcore has only further isolated him from his already small circle of friends, which will only make his future depressive spiral worse once the Hexcore causes him to be exiled in disgrace from Piltover. In both their cases, their work has lead them to be partially alienated within their communities, usually by their notoriety alone.

Ekko is supposed to be the exception to the rule for most Zaunite champions, but in Arcane he's not. Ekko builds technology to sabotage Silco's Shimmer supply chain, putting a target on himself and anyone associated with him. Ekko and the Firelights have to live clandestinely from the greater Zaun. Their fight against Silco has caused them to be less connected or just present in Zaun than someone like Jinx is. And on top of that isolation you have Ekko being placed in a de facto leadership position for his group for who knows how long, everyone there either looks the same-ish age as him, or are literal children. All the while he's responsible for the raids they carry out that were shown to carry a high fatality rate, at least one of the raid members looks younger than Jinx did in Act 1. Ekko may live in a nice tree, but he isn't doing well.

Then there's Heimerdinger, who is sure to be a pivotal influence on Ekko's story next season. Every mentor-student relationship in Arcane has shown that the students (Jinx, Vi, Viktor) inevitably internalized the lessons of their teachers (Silco, Vander, Singed). But more importantly, these pairs tend to share parallel experiences with one another, though it's more general than 1-to-1. And based on Hemierdinger's VA, Mick Wingert, the most defining aspect of Heimerdinger's characters was the suffering he experienced at the loss of his home, Bandle City, from the Rune Wars. Wingert stated that the closest frame of reference for the loss Heimerdinger experienced was similar to a Holocaust survivor. If the director and writers found Wingert's interpretation appropriate enough to play Heimerdinger, then part of that is likely to come through more in the next season.

Ekko's perspective is bound to change once he works with a person who will tell him that everything that can go wrong, in fact has gone wrong before. And the weight of Heimerdinger's words will probably carry considerable weight on Ekko's opinion next season. Heimerdinger's character is likely to fulfill the role of (grand)parental figure that Ekko has long needed. I can only see Heimerdinger heightening Ekko's fears and anxieties on the potential future disaster that will destroy his community and his responsibility in preventing it.

For next season, Ekko will probably believe he is at least partially responsible for Zaun and Piltover's war because he couldn't stop Silco or Jinx in time. When he finally creates the Z-Drive, he'll have the opportunity to rewrite every new potential mistake he could have made, even if it's only by 2-seconds. Ekko will either keep rewinding until he gets trapped in his own timeloop and breaksdown when he realizes his efforts are futile, or the instability of the Z-Drive creates too much attention and some outside party intervenes and pulls him out.

[o0anapher0o]

I don't know if this has been discussed to death already but I just looked up Tintoretto. Mostly because I had never heard of this guy and the comment that Marius was a contemporary of his has been bothering me for ages. I'm by no means an expert on renaissance art but I still refuse to believe this guy is famous enough to be useful as a reference point. However.

I know we're on a slightly shifted timeline with Armand as well, since they've aged him up and moved his becoming a vampire back to 1508 (based on the 514 years age he gives) but the thing is Tintoretto was born in 1518 and probably didn't pick up a paintbrush until the 1530s. So if that comment is meant to date that painting that would mean the painting is from a time when Armand very likely thought Marius was dead.

I've seen people speculate that Armand wouldn't have put up a Marius painting if they hadn't made up someway at some point. I'm not sure I agree, but if this painting actually supposed to be from the mid 1500s that at the very least proves that Armand in 2022 knows that Marius didn't die in Venice.

[laf-outloud]

Huh... well, at least they're still getting Season 4 (even with a pared down cast and writer's room.)

Makes me wonder if announcements about Walker and the All: American shows will follow. As of now, Walker is the only show that hasn't had to make any cuts for the next season.

[haystarlight]

MORE SPOILERS! FOR THE FUTURE SPOILERS!!

So that's scene where Belos tries to possess a Grimwalker but fails was interesting and I have 4 things to say:

1.This confirms that Hunter popped out of the ground already with a 15 or 16-year-old body and there was no child or baby period for him. This sucks because I was so convinced he'd popped out of the ground as a baby and I really liked the idea of little kid Hunter, he would've been soooooooooo cute. So I'm bummed about that.

2.If he came out of the ground already a teenager, then all the childhood memories he has (or he thinks he has, rather) are definitely fabricated by Belos by magical brainwashing or something. That's somehow even sadder than him having a lonely childhood with Belos in the Emperor's Coven. Like, whatever childhood he thought he had wasn't even real. Or what if he doesn't even have fake childhood memories and someone asking him about his childhood would break his brain?!

3.Does Hunter have a belly button??? Probably not, right??? This one's more of a joke.

4.Another joke one; I'm actually really relieved they didn't go through with the Grimwalker possession angle cause that would mean even more Hunter angst. And I think Belos possessing Raine is really cool.

... and also, if they actually showed Hunter shirtless onscreen, Disney Channel Studios would get stormed by a violent army of hungry teenage girls. And I don't think any of us wants that.

Teenage girls are animals.