#ha there is some potential foreshadowing

[animegoil-vnc]

[ f i c ] But I know You

Before episode 8 airs and it all gets invalidated, I wanted to post this ode to everything we know about Lu Guang, from Cheng Xiaoshi's perspective. Because while we don't know facts... we actually do know a lot about who Lu Guang *is*. About 80% of this is pulled from S1 and the shorts, the rest is embellishment and conjecture :)

Read on ao3

---

“Doesn’t it ever bother you,” Xu Shanshan says with pursed lips, “that we don’t know anything about Lu Guang?” 

Cheng Xiaoshi’s head swings towards her so fast he pulls a muscle in his neck almost drops his quail eggs. “Just because he won’t tell you his zodiac sign doesn’t give you an excuse to talk behind his back,” Cheng Xiaoshi snaps. There’s a touch of acid in his voice that has her leaning back and putting up her hands defensively.

“Geez, sorry, I’m not trying to badmouth him, but you can’t tell me it’s not a little odd?” 

“Hey, now.” Qiao Ling says in warning and waves the strainer spoon in the air between them. She scoops some of the now-cooked meat from the hot pot onto their plates and adds calmly, “You know Lu Guang is a private person, there’s nothing wrong with that.” 

Xu Shanshan makes a face and opens her mouth, but Dong Yi puts a hand on her arm and Qiao Ling takes the meat from her plate and shoves it in her mouth. “Shush, my dearest Shanshan, he’s coming back.”

Cheng Xiaoshi looks up to see Lu Guang on the other side of the restaurant, making his way back from the restroom. He sinks down into his seat and mumbles, “I don’t need to know his birthday to know he’s my best friend.”

Xu Shanshan rolls her eyes but luckily stays silent, and that’s that. 

---

It’s not the first time Cheng Xiaoshi has been asked about Lu Guang. In high school, it was easy to shrug it off - he’d just met the guy, why would he know anything about his family or background? They didn’t really talk about those things. 

In college it became much harder. Oh, you met when he transferred? Where was he transferring from? It was harder to say that they didn’t talk about those things. They were rooming together, after all. How was it possible that nothing about his childhood had ever come up? How could he not even know his age? And once people realized that it wasn’t Cheng Xiaoshi just being scatterbrained or pretending he didn’t know, it turned into isn’t it a little suspicious that he won’t talk about his past? The 'even with you' was implied.

Rumors spread. Some of them were funny. Others not so much. Throughout it all, Cheng Xiaoshi doubled down on his stance that he didn’t need to know anything about Lu Guang in order to know what kind of person he was.  

Even now, Cheng Xiaoshi doesn’t actually know much about Lu Guang’s life, despite being friends with him since they were sixteen. And that may not be accurate - it’s true that Lu Guang has never actually told them their age. They've only assumed he's six months younger than Cheng Xiaoshi, given they were in the same grade and Lu Guang’s birthday is six months after Cheng Xiaoshi's. That fact, gathered after monumental effort pestering between him and Qiao Ling, is already rare. 

Lu Guang has never talked about his parents or family beyond a vague shrug and an offhand comment about having a boring, normal, maybe rather serious upbringing. Cheng Xiaoshi gets the feeling he didn’t have a particularly loving family, and he knows that Lu Guang’s decision to forgo any other career prospects and join Cheng Xiaoshi in his business venture put an end to the already-strained relationship he had with his parents. They hadn’t even come to graduation, and Cheng Xiaoshi had fretted about that for weeks after, feeling oddly guilty for driving a wedge between someone who had parents, even if the relationship had been crumbling piece by piece since long before they’d even met.

Lu Guang’s life before transferring schools and meeting Cheng Xiaoshi on that basketball course is a black hole, like a book whose foreword has been stained black by a careless spill of ink. Sometimes it doesn’t feel that careless though: there's a cloud of mystery swirling about him, this sense that there's so much Lu Guang is holding back. But Cheng Xiaoshi tries not to take it personally. Lu Guang has stuck by his side and supported him in countless ways throughout the years - Cheng Xiaoshi can return the favor by not prying into what is clearly a life Lu Guang has no desire to share or even remember. 

He doesn’t need it anyway. Cheng Xiaoshi may not know much about Lu Guang’s life, but he knows who Lu Guang is. He knows Lu Guang loves cats, his favorite book is Pride and Prejudice, which is where he got their temporary cat’s name from. His music taste alternates between boring classical music as one would expect and, surprisingly, hip hop. Cheng Xiaoshi had wondered about the hip hop for a while until he realized that Lu Guang was using the steady beat and rhythmic lyrics as static noise to help him drown out his brain when it insisted on overthinking. His favorite tea is green Oolong brewed for exactly two and half minutes but he prefers coffee in the afternoon, medium roast with one single sugar cube. He has nearly non-existent spice tolerance, but somehow can handle squeezing inordinate amounts of wasabi into his soy sauce. He sleeps in loose shorts and a t-shirt in summer and sweats and an old cardigan during winter but he can’t actually fall asleep if his feet are cold so he prefers showering at night to make sure he’s warm before he goes to bed. He loves sleep but can’t seem to get enough of it and wears computer glasses because his eyesight gets strained easily after staring at a screen for too long.  

Cheng Xiaoshi knows what Lu Guang’s face looks like under the afternoon sunlight when he’s fallen asleep reading on the couch during the weekends. He knows what Lu Guang’s face looks like during the morning shift after a sleepless night, the way his eyes squint slightly as if still gritty and the way his face turns even stonier when he tries to resist the pull of exhaustion. He doesn’t get to see it often, but he’s caught a soft smile thrown his way here and there when Lu Guang isn’t expecting him to look. When caught, there’s a good chance he’ll end up blushing – for someone so calm and in control, he’s surprisingly awkward and shy when made the center of attention, even worse in front of a camera. If Cheng Xiaoshi doesn’t rile him up by making dumb jokes or poking fun at him, he’ll stand there squirming uncomfortably the entire time.

He has a good sense of who Lu Guang is in terms of morals too. He’s not always comfortable with them, because Lu Guang is pragmatic to a fault and has no qualms about lying. Sometimes it has been for Cheng Xiaoshi’s benefit, like when he lied to Qiao Ling about it being him that broke her special cups instead of Cheng Xiaoshi. But other times it hasn’t. Cheng Xiaoshi isn’t sure he’ll ever fully get over Lu Guang making him believe there was hope that he might save Chen Xiao’s mom. Sometimes Cheng Xiaoshi feels like he cares more about the mission and letting the past be than about the people they’re supposed to be helping. 

But that’s not fair, because he’s seen how much Lu Guang cares. Once, in college, they’d found a bird with an injured wing outside of their dorm. The dorm mother had scolded them for trying to feed it and told them it was best to leave wildlife alone. Lu Guang had nodded obediently, but Cheng Xiaoshi caught him the next morning trying to feed it before everyone else woke up. He’s the kind of person who pretends to be respectful and obedient but hasn’t listened to authority a single day in his life. And that’s the thing, it’s so easy to mistake Lu Guang’s sullen tone and deadpan face as indifference, but Cheng Xiaoshi is lucky enough to be one of the things Lu Guang has chosen to care about, and it sometimes overwhelms him the lengths that Lu Guang will go to for him. Cheng Xiaoshi will never take for granted the many nights Lu Guang has patiently sat by his side in bed, holding Cheng Xiaoshi after yet another nightmare despite the impact to his already fragmented sleep. Lu Guang never asks for thanks, never brings it up in daylight at all, in fact, but those quiet moments when the only solid thing Cheng Xiaoshi can cling to is Lu Guang speak volumes. Cheng Xiaoshi will spend the rest of his life trying to return that feeling of safety and belonging that Lu Guang makes him feel. 

Overall, Lu Guang is an understated person: he claims he has no skills, but he’s one of the smartest people Cheng Xiaoshi has ever met and his photographic memory made him one of the top-ranked students in college. He’s finicky and fastidious, but he can’t remember to water the plants for the life of him, and he doesn’t seem to know how to dress himself so Cheng Xiaoshi has been picking his clothes for years and making sure he doesn’t go out in the summer with a hoodie still on or in the winter without a proper scarf, gloves, and hat. He lets Cheng Xiaoshi drag him to get boba when he’d rather read a book, and agrees to learn a silly dance for fun despite the fact that he’s not coordinated at all outside of playing basketball. 

It’s nice that Cheng Xiaoshi can nitpick something at least, given how Lu Guang spends most of his time lecturing Cheng Xiaoshi. And even that, as opposed to being born out of arrogance or frustration, is actually the way that Lu Guang shows affection, even if he’ll never admit it. Being vulnerable isn’t in his wheelhouse, but Cheng Xiaoshi has learned how to pick up on the signs of Lu Guang being worried about him or, in a twisted way, trying to fill in the gaps that Cheng Xiaoshi’s lack of parents left. Enjoying being scolded by your best friend may seem like an odd relationship from an outside perspective, but it works and he wouldn’t trade a second of it.

All in all, he doesn't need a birthplace, or the name of his parents or his elementary school, or even his year of birth, in order to know Lu Guang. Nothing new he could learn about Lu Guang could change the way Cheng Xiaoshi knows who he is inside, and that's all that matters.

[monakisu]

more shido's cognitive goro being a creepy horror monster please!!! i wish there'd been more build-up to his presence in the ship, like the occasional pair of red pinprick pupils watching from the shadows, some disjointed footsteps in an otherwise empty room, the player noting a foreboding feeling of being watched, movement disappearing around a corner the second you step foot into a new room, etc etc etc...

he's just suchhh a weird creature. a doppelgänger with twisted ideals and thoughts deeply different from the original’s. who knows what the hell he’ll do? he’s unpredictable!! and a cutie pie :]

[moongothic]

I see some people often wonder out loud if Luffy might get a weapon or something to wield eventually, for no other reason than Roger and Shanks (and even Kaidou) also use(d) weapons, and it'd give Luffy some "extra strenght" in combat so he wouldn't have to rely on his Devil Fruit so much (and the Awakening especially, since it drains him so badly)

And the thing is, as most would probably agree, most weapons and blades especially just would not fit into Luffy's combat style. He, much like his grandpappy, fights with his fists, so it's hard to imagine him using any kind of weapons to fight

But that just made me wonder... Like...

Okay so people have been speculating for ages that Luffy might die at the end of the story or something, right. I do not buy that for a second, but it is true that Luffy is willing to throw himself into a lot of danger and has sacrificed literal years off his lifespan to protect those around him. And that has been escalating. It'd be natural for Luffy's self-endangerment to escalate to a point where there'd be actual, severe and tangible concequences for it. Aside from death.

And you know.

There's been some allusions to Luffy losing his hands, right

And you might wonder

How would Luffy losing a hand translate to him gaining a weapon

Well

You know

And the funny thing is

Luffy might not be one to use a HOOK, per se

But we have seen him wield a giant ball of gold to smash Enel's face in. So a metal mace/morning star/etc could actually work

(Also since his Awakening can mess with the fabric of reality itself, even if one of Luffy's fists was replaced with a solid ORB of metal, he could probably/totally reshape it during combat to fit his needs, into an axe or a morning star or knife etc)

Also.

There would be something poetic about Luffy sacrificing a hand to protect someone dear to him, much like how Shanks sacrificed his entire arm to protect Luffy in Chapter 1.

Like you'd get the pay-off/concequences to the escalation of Luffy's constant self-sacrificing, but nobody dies. Luffy gets a weapon to add to his arsenal, but it fits into his pre-existing fighting style and character. And we could get that poetic full-circle.

That all said, if Luffy did somehow lose a hand.

I'm sure Franky would HAPPILY give Luffy a prosthetic hand with a ✨BEAM✨ Can not imagine Luffy turning such an offer down lmao

[skyborneveggie]

I saw Raúl Esparza in Galileo the musical today with my very own eyes!!!!! He & the cast were so amazing!

[quaranmine]

(Spoilers for the Fourth "Letters from the Outlook") Wait, so if Grian's hands are damaged, then does that mean he cannot go back to his drafting job anymore? What does he do instead when he does eventually regain some movement and dexterity to his hands?

I basically answered this in the chapter notes, which is just that I did not intend for him to have long-term damage that permanently affected his function in a massive way. That's why he has physical therapy and a compression garmet and in the scene he says his doctor is fairly confident it won't be forever. Yes, it will probably affect how fast he can go back to the job (but also his mental health is going to affect that too) and perhaps he'll have to rest his hands more often. But basically it wasn't my intention to keep him from being able to hold a pencil forever, so I don't see why he can't go back to drafting in a while. He just couldn't hold it during that still-fairly-early scene because he hadn't regained a lot of grip strength.

Also his days of drafting are numbered anyway—by the 90s, architects started to use AutoCAD for their work instead of manual drafting :)

[daisyachain]

Male authors cannot and will never stop writing the character archetype of The Attractive Charismatic Politically Radical Man is in Love With Me [cough] I Mean My Protagonist But I [cough] I Mean He Doesn’t Like Him Back Because He’s Not Gay. Why Would He Be Gay. Does He Look Gay. Does This Seem Gay to You.

[beatcroc]

Oh yeah I watched the digital circus thing. It was alright

[shidoukanae]

*rereads Paris and Helene's second meeting for the nth time*

me every goddamn time: THEY HAVE SO MUCH CHEMISTRY HOW THE FUCK DO THEY HAVE THIS MUCH CHEMISTRY

It's so so so SO fun watching this entire meeting and how they both seem to constantly be in a little dance of sorts wherein Paris openly declares his interest in her and Helene keeps shutting him down ("You should come to Kylon. We won't overwork you the way your family does" -> "I don't have time to indulge in a life with people who don't think" -> "well that's good because i think about you so much i can't sleep"-> "and? get to the point already". like jfc he's not fucking vague about this At All).

But the best part is, for offstandish and disinterested as Helene is towards Paris (with her words cold and blunt towards him), it's really hard to deny that there isn't some interest on her part without there really being interest on her part (which is. confusing i know but. in context. oh. my god. she's a queerplatonic icon around Paris and i adore her for it)

My favorite thing to see in this scene is the way Paris reaches for Helene's face, casually brushing the back of his fingers against her cheek and through her hair (while commenting on how being this close to her makes his instincts spike with unease), and the moment Helene downs him she does the same exact gesture to him, lifting up his chin and brushing the back of her fingers against his face similarly. Which. Wow. I need more female antagonists to do this shit it is literally so cool to see.

Also the way Helene and Paris constantly are gauging each other is so neat. The way Helene tells Paris to "not long for what he can't have" (i.e. herself) is so neat. The way Paris is clear about his interest in Helene and she in turn matches that interest by toying with him in a way she's done with no one else in the cast is just. there is sooooo much there between them and i greatly enjoy whatever the fuck kind of chemistry it is they share because it is literally the epitome of what i crave in ships

[windcarvedlyre]

Ty for the tag! And yeah :)

He comes across to me as parental but trying as hard as he can not to be a helicopter parent. Like Mondstadt is his child that's already grown up in his eyes, so he doesn't control them or solve everything for them but he's there if they truly need him.

To be fair wrt the fandom's perception of his alcoholism, it goes beyond Paimon; there's Zhongli and Ei's voicelines, the glider lore about spilling wine on Zhongli's head, some events' content, Jean's SQ's ending, him reaching for alcohol to cope in his own SQ ending, the gag comic where he begs Diluc for freebies + Diluc calls him a freeloader... but people are still misinterpreting him if they think he's drinking tens of glasses of wine every day and has an exponentially growing tab imo. Diluc's lines in Jean's SQ imply he hasn't seen Venti do that before. His behaviour in the Kaeya hangout (still probably unhealthy but not getting wasted + paying for his own drinks) is prooobably his normal behaviour; maybe he only goes ham on special occasions and when something really gets to him.

So I get why non-lore-invested fans see him the way they do, but he's so much more nuanced on a closer look.

His interactions with Diona during the alchemy event were really nice too; he approached her gently and with respect, tried to understand where she was coming from and helped her with her goals + tried to help her narrow in on what she actually hated instead of alcohol itself. There's a big contrast between his behaviour and that of Draff, someone whose alcohol abuse genuinely gets in the way of caring for his daughter.

Hey, don’t you think it’s a coincidence that this year’s Father’s Day is in correlation with Venti’s birthday? Look.

Let me rant.

The fact that it’s also Venti’s birthday is no coincidence to me, because Venti is technically a “father” in a sense.

I would like to add more photos where Venti was actively playing his role as an archon but the sources are a little difficult to find again because they’re mostly statements and quotes from the game.

Although not a “father” in a literal sense, we can safely say that he is a dedicated god to Mondstadt, and looks after them in a way a father would. He dotes on them regularly, as seen many times in various events and quests such as with the case of Klee or Sister Grace in Kaeya’s hangout event. He thinks of Mondstadt as his children and actively does what he can to help from the sidelines, and bring about little changes of hope.

He also values his children’s wishes and never tries to dilute or shame them for it, regardless of how “childish” it might look as seen in Klee’s case, showing that he viewed them as growing individuals, not people deserving to be punished. Speaking of such things, Venti was also betrayed several times by his children like the Lawrence clan straying from their oath to freedom and rise to tyranny, and from Signora despising him and outright disrespecting him while stealing his Gnosis. Yet, he had so much graciousness to still consider them children of Mondstadt, and that takes a lot of strength than people might think. His love is unconditional and flows in everything he does for his people.

There were so many times when Venti had treated Mondstadt and the Traveler with nothing but kindness, but gets repayed and portrayed by the fandom as nothing more than a lazy drunkard or a “useless” archon. Venti is such an underrated character but gets awfully mischaracterized by the fandom and his character is understood as nothing outside of his alcoholism.

People can come at me for this but I partially blame Paimon for misleading people with the drunken bard jokes, and for the rest of the fandom for having NO media literacy to even scour for the actual lore of his character. I swear some people can be so dense-minded when it comes to characterization.

Going back to my point, I’m saying that if we just remove the close-mindedness to his character and look deep enough, we’ll see that Venti truly is a wonderfully written character on the inside and deserves much more than the treatment he’s getting.

Venti’s done so much for his people, and for that he truly deserves to be recognized as a father in this special day. I’m waiting for people to recognize this and maybe write or draw more content of him being a father figure to his children in Mondstadt.

Venti deserves the title of a father because he loves his children like one.

People I wanna tag just because: @ventisslut @carmendeiact2whenplz @windcarvedlyre @lanternlightss (feel free to share your thoughts in the tags!)

[cornfieldsrambles]

YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO INFODUMP PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT WIGGLY'S SIBLINGS???? THAT HE APPARENTLY HAS????

omg ok SO

Meet the Lords in Black. Charming, aren't they?

Yes, Wiggly does indeed have four brothers who all do different things, so I'll cover them one by one, in order of introduction (since we've already met each of them in Nightmare Time at least once). BTW Nightmare Time has a fuckton of lore in it that I won't go into here, so even though I am about to spoil significant parts of it for you, I do recommend watching it, it's really good and if there's enough interest they might make a third one!

(Also you might notice they're all in doll form in this picture. This is how we knew them up until NPMD introduced us to what I call their Tumblr sexyman forms. Which are rad as hell by the way.)

So you already know Wiggly. That little green fucker, Wiggog Y'Wrath, the Capitalist Cthulu who does uwu-speak and starts a cult by invading people's minds. This will become a bit of a reoccurring theme with these guys. He's also the only one to successfully start an apocalypse, and the only one to have attempted to birth himself into our reality. (Or is he? We'll get to that...) He does seem to have some kind of dominion over the other LiB, as whenever all five of them show up there's always emphasis placed on him, like in NPMD where he does most of the talking while his siblings occasionally butt in.

Now for Bliklotep. Blinky seems to have slightly lower-scale ambitions than Wiggly, but don't let that fool you. Eyeball Boi is still incredibly dangerous. He runs an amusement park, WatcherWorld, deep within the Hatchetfield Witchwood. But it's not for the amusement of the patrons. Oh no. It's for Blinky's own amusement. Once you step inside, every insecurity, every shred of potential conflict will be ripped to the forefront, turning people against each other to the point of trying to kill each other until he's fully infected their minds. It's implied that, if not all, but a significant chunk of the workers at WatcherWorld were once patrons before having their minds taken over by Blinky. He's also implied to be the thing in Trail To Oregon that Jack Bauer sees during his venom-induced hallucination, as Blinky is referred to as "The Watcher With 1,000 Eyes", which is exactly what JB says he sees? Making Blinky the only LiB to induce a Starkid crossover. My headcanon is that the Dikrats founded Hatchetfield. But regardless.

Next up on the roster is Tinky. T'noy Karaxis, the Time Bastard. You may be wondering about that one line in NPMD where he recognised Pete as a Spankoffski, and said he "could have the whole set in his toybox". Has Tinky gone after Pete's relatives?

Well. Um. You know Ted, right? Yeah, his name is Spankoffski. He's Pete's big brother. We actually got the surname reveal before the brother reveal, lol. And that's not the only reveal we got about Ted. Our boy Teddy Bear has this whole entire tragic backstory and it turns out he gets fucked over in literally every timeline! Isn't that fun?

So, to summarise an entire episode: Tinky makes travel fuckery happen, Ted wants to go back in time to fix his life, accidentally goes back to before the time machine was created and gets stuck in the past, literally. Tinky is watching and laughing at the whole thing, then shows up to blow Ted's brain to smithereens with his weird little magic box, the Bastard's Box, where he stores all the people he toys with. Anyway Ted eventually catches up with the present by aging, except now no one knows who he is, he's... actually I won't spoil that. But once he dies he ends up eternally trapped and tortured in the Bastard's Box. Yaaay.

Fast forward to Nightmare Time 2 and we get introduced to Nibbly, in possibly the most unexpected way imaginable. He's revealed to have been behind a whole episode literally right at the end of said episode, and even though it was kind of foreshadowed, it hits you like a freight train in the best way. Remember when I said Wiggly was the only one who tried to birth himself into reality? That was kind of a lie. Nibblenephim can sort of do that anyway. Every year, he can possess a bunch of carcasses and create a living form to walk the earth for one night. He also has a cult of followers who provide him with the carcasses, as well as a sacrifice to feed on. There's a little more to it, specifically with how the sacrifice is chosen, but again, I'm trying to spoil as little as possible. Go watch Nightmare Time. Nibbly also seems to have a "pig" motif, and his theme song, The Nibbly Ditty, is a banger, easily my favourite of the three LiB theme songs we've heard so far.

And finally, we are introduced to Pokotho, in the very last episode of NMT2.

Except no. We were formally introduced to Pokey there, yes, but we've seen his apocalypse already. Long before NPMD, before Nightmare Time, even before Black Friday.

Yeah, remember me saying that Wiggly was the only one to successfully start an apocalypse? That was also a lie! Pokey already did that, and he did it without ever showing his masked face. Remember The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals? The blue spores that came down in a meteor and turned everyone into singing zombies? That was Pokey's doing! That's his blue spores! That's his apocalypse!

This also provides an explanation for why blowing up the meteor didn't work. Emma and Hidgens were right about the hivemind thing, but wrong about the location of the central brain. It wasn't the meteor - the meteor was just the vessel which carried the spores to Earth. The central brain was sitting safely up in the Black and White, laughing as Paul blew himself to smithereens. The central brain was Pokey, the Singular Voice, the most uncompromising of his brothers. The one who hates every voice that is not his own, hence the hivemind and making all of his zombies speak in HIS voice.

Anyway in NMT2 he's happily collecting musical zombies by taking on a human form and infiltrating a fighting ring of superpowered children until he has enough to kickstart another apocalypse. (Don't question it, we're almost done). He also calls himself Otho, not Pokey, making him the only LiB to have two different abbreviations of his name. Hannah is also there (remember her? Lex's little sister?) and she is like incredibly important to this whole thing, she has a super powerful mind, but that's a whole other thing.

But I did mention Hannah for a reason. Because you said "Wiggly's SIBLINGS". And while the Lords in Black are always referred to as brothers, they do have one more sibling. A sister. A Queen in White. And her name is Webby.

Yep, Hannah's imaginary friend isn't imaginary, who could have guessed? She's benevolent, always trying her best to combat her brothers' antics, but given that there's one of her and five of them, this is a bit of an uphill battle. Webby doesn't have a full name that we know of, nor does she have a doll. We don't know much about her. And she may not be all-powerful - but then again, neither are her brothers.

Infodump concluded. Hope this helps, it was very fun to write.

[cyranonic]

I feel like one of the exchanges in S2 that fucks me up the most is this one between Louis and Madeleine that is so pivotal and yet happens basically in the background. It just says so much about who Louis is at this point in his life and why his relationship with Armand is so essentially tragic for them both.

For Armand, the ship has already sailed on betraying Louis and Claudia. He is seconds away from letting the coven ritually murder them and so NATURALLY that is the moment when Madeleine finally confirms the thing that he could never be certain of, the love that he wanted and yet could not quite trust was real. We see that in his face; the misery of that realization.

For Louis, it just devastates me to think about how much of his life has been about hiding his true self, afraid to reveal his softer feelings. In the first episode of the show, he tells Daniel that before Lestat he had never allowed himself to emotionally connect to another man. A big part of this is probably the homophobia of the time period when he was raised. Lestat seems to recognize this when he turns Louis, offering him the chance to be true to himself.

But even after Lestat, we see that Louis still struggles with this. He can allow himself to feel connected to Claudia because she is his child and then his sister. In his mortal life, Louis took on the role of provider for his family, allowing himself to show affection to his mother and sister through his role as a caretaker. Even with Paul, he is both brother and father, caring for him due to his mental illness. Becoming a vampire separated him from familial love, leading him to beg Lestat to turn Claudia so that he can yet again have that love that he connects to being a caretaker.

With Armand, Louis expresses sexual interest, but never emotional closeness. Their dynamic falls into the pattern of dominant and submissive, but without the openly expressed care and security needed to make that relationship work. Just as with Lestat, Louis has a pattern of withholding affection as a form of self-protection. He doesn't want to be vulnerable. He can laugh and joke about the sexual appeal of his partner, but is immediately uncomfortable when Madeleine brings up his deeper feelings.

I think a part of this is derived not just from Louis' queerness and his response to a homophobic society, but also his blackness. In New Orleans, he is constantly emasculated and infantilized by white men. Being called "boy" or being praised for "doing a good job" is a tactic that white supremacists use to remind Louis that he is vulnerable. And after that, combined with the trauma he experienced during his relationship with Lestat, Louis is sick of being vulnerable. So even when he is falling in love, even when his partner is a POC, Louis can't share those feelings. Louis' final words, "he knows," indicate that his withholding isn't malicious or manipulative. It's a hopeful rather than true statement. Louis wants Armand to know, but he shies away from actually having the conversation.

Anyways it's such a gut-punch moment to me that foreshadows how Louis and Armand's relationship had some potential for genuine love within it, but it was also pretty doomed from the start.

[cheemscakecat]

Fun/Interesting details in Expiration Date

Heavy knows that Pauling is calling them, and lets Scout be the one to answer. Also, road safety because he’s not distracted driving.

Medic is so hyped about tumor bread.

Hoovy smelling the sandwich and deciding it’s safe to eat [or that it doesn’t matter at this point].

Pyro standing like that. He don’t know what’s going on, but he’ll still be polite. Also, Sniper just chillin in the back with a poker face the whole time.

Medic smiles at Soldier as they walk past. Engineer’s got that Conhager death-cheating focus at the moment.

Spy’s eyes widen angrily when he realizes it’s Scout at the door and then he smirks like; “Oh hi! Twelve hours was enough time for you to get bored of my absence, then?”, not expecting a sincere apology [maybe one orchestrated by the other teammates, but not Scout].

There was some vitriol behind that “***”, look at his nose. He does not want Scout to gloat, try to prank him again, or give a fake apology. And that’s valid, since the team dying is something Scout should have taken seriously, and the last wishes handled with respect. He crossed a line that Spy doesn’t take lightly.

Dad, I threwed up. But in all seriousness, that’s the “My family is dysfunctional, and I don’t know how to be emotionally honest with people” posture.

See my bucket scene analysis for more on these two.

He didn’t say “You’re terrible with girls” in a snide or smug tone, he said it with like actual parental concern. “Scout, no you have three days! Do you want to die rejected or die before you can enjoy being together? No. Don’t do this to yourself.”

Look at that cup, he did not need a refill. This fake smirk and disinterest is Spy’s way of checking how serious Scout is about this last wish and taking his advice. And when he goes “This never leaves this room” Spy perks up.

Medic was taking a sample of bread tumor puss [or injecting it with something].

They have a whole entire wrestling ring, how did I never notice that?

This is one of those multiple choice questions where you can choose more than one answer and have it be right. But the chicken in combination with the other options looses you points, and just taking the chicken is like the token wrong answer.

Spy sighs when he realizes Scout chose just the chicken. Like chile, I gave you multiple options and you still went with your go-to that doesn’t work!

This room has a gym floor, which implies Spy took a bunch of fancy stuff from one of his rooms just for this date training. Also shoutout to the other teammates for helping with this.

Okay, so most of these decorations came from Pyro, who Scout is terrified of. Archimedes came from Medic, who Scout also doesn’t want to make angry, and the grass cutouts are potentially part of the base camouflage. But that disco ball? That belongs to Scout, he just doesn't want anyone to know he’s real into that. [The team would not judge, but his brothers would, so.]

Man when he gets his heart broken, I hope he finds the right girl for him. He deserves better than Pauling always making excuses to turn him down instead of telling him like it is.

Foreshadowing Solly being romantical towards Zhanna. Look at this content man.

Spy holding his knife like this. There’s no reason for it to be a threat, so he’s just genuinely in the habit of doing this while listening. Or while nervous, which also makes sense.

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

What did Sauron meant by “Not All of It” in 2x08?

Did Sauron deceive Galadriel all along, when he was pretending to be “just Halbrand”? Was he even pretending, to begin with? Did he seduced her on purpose and to manipulate her? Which part was true? And what was the deception?

To find the answer, we need to look at the visual clues, more specifically the color code of Sauron in “Rings of Power”:

Red

Red is a color that, in “Rings of Power”, has appeared in association with Sauron’s deceptions and treachery, over and over again.

On the negative side, the color red is, symbolically associated with danger, aggression, dominance, power and betrayal. In some cultures, red is associated with evil and death.

2x01: Sauron demands the Orcs’ allegiance (and he’s accused of straight-out lying, in this scene).

1x05: Galadriel’s vision on Palantír has a red stripe to foreshadow the “fall of Númenor” plot (triggered by Sauron).

1x05 and 1x06: Bits of red on Halbrand’s Númenórean armor = King of the Southlands’ deception.

1x07: Halbrand injury on the blast of Mount Doom, and creation of Mordor.

2x01: Adar and his tale of Sauron giving him red wine on *that* peak.

2x02: Celebrimbor falling prey to Sauron’s deception (he’s wearing red + red wine).

2x02: The background of Galadriel’s vision about Celebrimbor.

2x03: Ar-Pharazôn wears red to Míriel’s coronation to foreshadow the “fall of Númenor” plot (triggered by Sauron).

2x07: The missing ruby on Fëanor’s hammer (Sauron’s illusion on Celebrimbor).

2x07: Sauron displays the red blood on his wound (to instigate the guards to confine Celebrimbor in the forge tower for him to finish the Nine).

2x08: The arrows that Sauron shots at Celebrimbor (the ultimate betrayal).

Green

Then we have green, the complementary color to red (meaning they are in opposite sides of the color wheel). In Design, there is an unspoken rule that “red and green should not be seen together”. Hence its safe to admit that green, in Sauron’s color code in “Rings of Power”, also serves the opposite purpose of red.

Green is the color of health (healing), and is symbolically associated with hope, growth, rebirth, balance, fertility and prosperity.

1x02: Sauron first meets Galadriel (a new beginning, full of hope and potential).

1x02: The stone on Halbrand’s pouch (King of the Southlands heraldry) is green (the “new life” and “some place better” that Diarmid promises him in 2x01);

1x04: Halbrand garments on Númenor.

2x01: When Sauron “rebirths” as Halbrand form.

2x06: Celebrimbor starts to wear green once he begins to suspect Annatar’s intentions (the deception begins to crack).

In Season 2, this color becomes highly associated with Galadriel herself, as we see her wearing green dresses. This color is also used by Mirdania, at Eregion, a character that reminds Sauron of Galadriel (and he says so, himself), and the possibility of redemption he was denied.

To further solidify the idea of the colors green/red having opposite purposes/meaning in Sauron’s color code in “Rings of Power”; in 2x02, we see Celebrimbor wearing red, at Eregion; and Galadriel wearing green, in Lindon. This is meant to show to the audience that these two characters have different places in Sauron’s character arc.

It’s also worth mentioning that, in Season 2, both Mirdania and Celebrimbor were wearing green when Sauron killed them, symbolically marking the end of his redemption arc.

Blue

Halbrand/Sauron wears blue in 1x08, the episode where Halbrand is revealed to be Sauron. Blue is considered the ultimate “color of truth” and intuition.

Blue is symbolically associated with wisdom, imagination, loyalty, order and creation. In some cultures, blue is also associated with freedom, inspiration, sincerity and faith.

In 1x07, Halbrand/Sauron wears a blue cloak when he travels to Eregion with Galadriel, to be healed by the Elves. Throughout History, blue has been associated with royalty, yes, but this is a odd color for Sauron to wear, nonetheless.

In 1x08, while at Eregion, Halbrand/Sauron is also wearing blue, after his healing and while working at the forge (and “nerding out��� with Celebrimbor).

Based on Tolkien lore, I would say that blue, in “Rings of Power”, is associated with Mairon (not Sauron), since it symbolizes the qualities he was designed to embody by Eru himself, before Morgoth’s corruption: goodness, trustworthy, creation, and order.

This could provide an explanation as to why Sauron didn’t “soiled” the Three Elven rings of power with evil, when he spent so much time at Eregion with Celebrimbor in 1x08, handling the mithril and testing different alloys, and the “eye of Sauron” even appears as the metals combine to make the Three.

What we, the audience, saw in 1x08 was a glimpse of the original Mairon (blue), after his healing process (redemption) was triggered by Galadriel’s light (green). At the beginning, Mairon was one of the most powerful Maiar, and the purest one, too. And these were the qualities that transferred onto the Three, in contrast with the cruelty, malice and deception of the Seven and Nine. More; this can also explain the healing properties of the Three (because Mairon, himself, was healing).

When Mairon is tortured by Waldreg and the Orcs, at Adar’s orders, in 2x01, he’s also wearing blue. This is a callback to the unspeakable tortures he endured under Morgoth, to bind him to darkness, and to power. Hence, the repentant Mairon begins to disappear, making way to Sauron.

What all of this means?

Red (the color associated with Sauron’s deception) only appeared on Halbrand/Sauron and Galadriel interactions, back on Season 1, on two occasions:

When he accepts to be “King of the Southlands”;

His injury due to eruption of Mount Doom (to bring him into Elven territory).

The use of the colors green and blue on Sauron’s arc in Season 1, can confirm that Sauron was, indeed, on his “repentant era”.

“Halbrand” was the original Mairon, and we see a lot of his primordial personality traits (before Morgoth’s corruption) on Halbrand’s character: good, loyal, generous, creative and highly intelligent. Charismatic but a bit withdrawn (he only opens up with Galadriel). Not outright antisocial but usually on the background, a follower and not a leader (the Maia in service of a Vala). And of course, his love and talent for smithing and craftsmanship (Maia of Aulë).

The “Halbrand” that Galadriel fell in love with, was, in fact, “Mairon the Admirable” seeking redemption.

Halbrand/Mairon wears green because he’s seeking redemption and a new beginning (rebirth);

Galadriel starts to be visually associated with this color because she’s the embodiment of the redemption Marion seeks;

Halbrand wears blue in 1x07 and 1x08 because “redeemed Mairon” is starting to come through.

Why was Halbrand/Mairon shamelessly flirting with Galadriel, then?

Because repentant Mairon was attracted to her, on a physical and spiritual level (they are both immortal spirits).

I’ll quote myself, here:

Mairon was created by Eru as a Maia of Aulë, the Vala (God) of smithing and handiwork, yes. He was among the most powerful Maiar. Eru created him to be good and trustworthy, but also to love several things: crafting, creation, beauty, order and perfection, and to dislike wastefulness.

And who better embodies the qualities of “beauty” and “perfection” than Galadriel herself? Her beauty is the stuff of legends, and everyone is at awe when they first meet her. Her very gold/silver hair inspired the most legendary jewels in existence: the Silmarils. The light of the Two Trees of Valinor shine on her hair and eyes. How could Sauron/Mairon not love her? That’s the question. She’s the materialization, the physical form, of everything he was designed to love.

The color code on Sauron’s arc in “Rings of Power” tells us, the audience, that the mutual attraction and connection Halbrand/Mairon and Galadriel shared was real. It wasn’t a deception on his part, nor did it had any hidden motive.

Mairon flirted with Galadriel because, like they say, he really wanted to “tap that”, “shake the sheets (or the forge table)”, “Netflix and chill” all night long, whatever you prefer. And she wanted the same, as confirmed by Charlotte Brändström.

In both 1x05 and 1x06, when Halbrand/Mairon shares intimate moments with Galadriel, the bits of red (deception) of his armor are hidden, either by a cloak, or by camera work (focus on his face). This artistic choice means there was no deception there. It was real.

And both Sauron’s deceptions with Galadriel, back in Season 1, had the purpose of keeping her close to him:

Accepting the “King of the Southland” role: Galadriel was leaving for Middle-earth, leaving him behind in Númenor;

Bringing him into Elven territory: Mairon didn’t know Galadriel would take him to Eregion to meet Celebrimbor (in show canon, she lives in Lindon, not Eregion).

Why? Because Mairon craved her light, and, like it has been established by the color code, Galadriel embodies the redemption he desperately seeks. Hence, he wants to be around her, and keeping her close. Galadriel represents his chance of redeeming himself after everything he has done under Morgoth.

And, in 1x08, when Galadriel denies his offer, it symbolizes the denial of his redemption:

Galadriel: You are a friend of Morgoth’s.

Sauron: When Morgoth was defeated, it was as if a great, clenched fist had released its grasp from my neck. And in the stillness of that first sunrise, at last, I felt the light of The One again. And I knew if ever I was to be forgiven… That I had to heal everything that I had helped ruin.

Galadriel: No penance could ever erase the evil you have done.

Mairon, then realizes, there will be no redemption for him. Redemption and Galadriel’s light have been denied to him. And, so, he falls back into his old ways under Morgoth, back into evil.

They say that Morgoth found the Silmarils so beautiful that after he’d stolen them, for weeks he could do nothing but stare into their depths. It was only after one of his tears fell upon the jewels and he was faced with the evil of his own reflection that the reverie was finally broken. From that moment, he looked upon their light no more. Fëanor's work nearly turned the heart of the Great Foe himself…”

Celebrimbor to Elrond, 1x01

It's not strength that overcomes darkness but light. For in its presence, all darkness must flee.

Celebrimbor to Galadriel, 2x07

In the vision Mairon shows Galadriel in 1x08, there is no red (deception), only blue and light. The spikes of his crown are, also, fading away, meant to symbolize his redemption, with Galadriel at his side. A lot of fans assume this is a vision of Dark!Galadriel, but they are wrong.

This means that Galadriel, indeed, could have helped Mairon achieve the redemption he was seeking.

We foresaw that if Galadriel’s search should have continued, she might have inadvertently kept alive the very evil she sought to defeat. For the same wind that seeks to blow out a fire may also cause its spread.

Gil-galad to Elrond, 1x01

The true meaning of this quote is: Galadriel didn’t f*cked up because she found Halbrand/Sauron and brought him back to Middle-earth. She screwed up because she denied Mairon his chance at redemption: not only by rejecting him, but, mostly, because she exposed him at Eregion and cause him to flee.

It was Galadriel’s pride that caused her to confront and expose Halbrand as Sauron. The pride that every single character has been warning her about, and the reason why she’s banished from Valinor, in the first place. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to tell Celebrimbor and Elrond about Halbrand’s true identity because, yes, of her wounded pride. And she allows the Three rings of power to be made.

In “Rings of Power”, it was Galadriel’s pride that condemned Middle-earth to Sauron’s tyranny, and I hope the show explores this further.

In Season 2, Sauron still believes that he, truly, wants to heal Middle-earth. But this isn’t the case anymore, because his redemption was cut short. This is confirmed by Celebrimbor in 2x07, when he says to Sauron/Annatar: “you truly are the Great Deceiver. You can even deceive yourself.”

But that boat has sailed. There is no more redemption’s arc for Mairon. That was Season 1. In Season 2, he’s now embracing his arc as “shadow of Morgoth”. And so, green and blue won’t be present on his color code anymore, as red takes the spotlight, alongside black to embody his role as the new Dark Lord.

What now?

Sauron and Galadriel are now bound together, since he forced their bloods to unite using Morgoth’s crown, in 2x08. They now have a open line to each other’s soul, mind and everything else. And this will come into play in Season 3.

One of Galadriel’s inner conflicts in Season 2 was the idea that “Halbrand” was nothing more than one of Sauron’s illusions and that he deceived her, all along. In Season 3 and through being bound together with Sauron, she’ll probably realize this isn’t the case, and that Halbrand was very much real, and, in fact, Mairon in seek of redemption. How will this play out, I have no idea. But there’s a lot of potential here.

And in Season 2 we were told that Elven memories don’t dim. Meaning; the memory of Halbrand/Mairon and their love for each other and “what could have been”, will haunt Galadriel forever (yes, even after Celeborn returns).

[beannoss]

So I've been thinking about them:

Specifically I was wondering what the moment was (if there even was a specific moment) that cinched it for Twilight developing feelings for Yor.

[Spoiler warning: this post references manga chapters not yet animated]

I think for Yor it's pretty quick. Like, this moment here:

Not that Yor fell in love with Twilight then (ymmv) or that she's fully aware of her feelings, but it's explicit that she felt connected to him here and attached in meaningful ways.

But for Twilight, it wasn't so clear. For a while I'd kind of decided that it just came over him slowly (and I think there is something to that) and that there wasn't any singular moment which stood out. But that didn't feel quite right. The more I thought about it, the more I thought there were two stand-out moments, only one of which Twilight actually (semi-)clocks.

The first, which I think passes him by entirely, is this:

In my view, this laugh is an entirely authentic response. I think he is, despite himself, delighted by this woman who 1. just unexpectedly saved him from being stabbed, and 2. did it by sending the guy flying across an entire alleyway.

This is accentuated in the anime, I think, by the jaunty, puckish music that makes up the first part of their marriage theme song. I am dying for the reappearance of this music in some fashion, btw, it's so fun and cheeky and I'm hoping foreshadows their vibe after various revelations and particularly when they start working together as Agent Twilight and Thorn Princess:

The second moment for Twilight, I think, is more subtle for all it's more impactful. Or at least, the degree of its importance passed me by on initial read/watch, and I think it's deliberately downplayed by Twilight himself. Because he does actually clock it but if he looks more closely at it, well... then he might have to do something about it. And maybe that something won't comport with what the mission needs, and then what?

It happens when Twilight first bugs Yor, and then poses with Franky as SSS agents to test whether she knows Yuri is with the SSS.

It's clear in the lead up that Twilight recognises he has some feelings about/for Yor, and he doesn't want to spy on her; he doesn't want to mistrust her at all. He has to convince himself to take seriously that she may be a potential threat.

And even then, the convincing only sort of mostly works, because he hesitates again:

Which is, by the way, bananas. At this point, they've been a fake family for maybe a handful of weeks? Twilight is an experienced, accomplished spy with a finely honed and necessary sense of paranoia. Of course he should be suspicious. Her brother is an SSS agent! Canonically, the SSS are both Twilight- and SSS self-described as Twilight's greatest existential threat. It shouldn't be a question whether or not to verify Yor's knowledge here. And yet.

We all know how the rest plays out. He decides that listening in isn't enough, he needs to confront her insofar as he's able. I wrote previously about Twilight's relationship with Anya and the pivotal moment for him in how his view of his relationship with Anya changes based on Anya's (and Endo's) choices. I think a similar thing happens in this scene with Yor.

See, it would have been enough for Yor to continue to deny, continue to not call on Yuri's help, to prove she didn't know, and to put Twilight's mind at ease.

Endo takes it further.

Y'all: THIS IS ABSOLUTELY WILD. It borders on levels of impulsive foolhardiness that Twilight should actually take as a negative for the person playing his wife for Operation Strix. Yor even alludes later to the problems this could cause!

The SSS are indiscriminate; if Yor was facing down actual SSS agents, first assaulting and then threatening them would 100000% land her in custody. Were it not for Yuri, it may even get her disappeared, based on how casually and frequently Yuri references having people executed. It would absolutely put the Forgers at risk, in general and in the implicitly sexist Ostanian society, because if Mrs Forger behaves this way, how does Mr Forger behave? And why can't he control his wife? The Secret Police are not known for their leniency, their modesty, their discerning, their temperateness, their mercy. They are known for the exact opposite of those things. And due to being a spy, Twilight probably knows they're actually much worse than even their public reputation.

And here's Yor saying: you can question me but if you threaten my brother or my husband, I will fucking end you. Bodily.

Of course, it's entirely in keeping with her character, and it's an entirely revealing moment of who she is. And I think this is the moment for Twilight. He's already been trusting her bit by bit, as he says above, intuitively. I'd suggest that maybe even more than that though, Yor taps into something Twilight deeply wants: backup. Someone and somewhere safe. Maybe we could describe a person fulfilling that role in an adult relationship as a partner...?

It's because he doubts his intuition (his wants, his feelings, things he shouldn't be countenancing) that we get to this point where he (overzealously) tests her.

She blows his test right out of the water.

The SSS are basically the group he fears most; this is reiterated throughout the story. He doesn't trust them specifically because of who he is and also just generally. He doesn't trust their judgment. He doesn't share their values or their priorities. He doesn't like them around. He doesn't like them looking. He doesn't like being anywhere near them. (Also, he's right.)

And here's Yor. Not only standing up to them on his behalf but actually going on active defence on his behalf.

(I pause here to note 'on his behalf' is a bit, mm, tricky, since it's actually technically on Loid's behalf and I have Thoughts and Feelings about Twilight & Identity. But for the sake of the impact of this moment on Twilight, we'll take it as writ that in this moment there's no appreciable difference between Twilight and Loid.)

I think from here on out, it's incredibly difficult for Twilight to ever doubt or distrust Yor. He perceives her as firmly in his corner, that if the chips are down — if his worst enemy and his worst fear come knocking — she'll be on his team, unflinchingly. He may not think there will be much she can do (heh.) or much she can offer given the power of the SSS and her civilian status (I reiterate: heh.), but it matters that he believes that she'll be by his side.

And you know what? He's right. She will be.

That isn't something he's had since he was a little boy. Even WISE doesn't seem to offer that to its agents, given Nightfall's thought here:

Twilight's had to rely on himself for decades and now here's this astonishing woman who will threaten the Secret Police for his sake. Of course he trusts Yor. Of course this moment widens the cracks in his barriers. And further: of course those cracks start to reach into those walls deep, deep inside that protect his heart. This is all before getting to other moments, like when he reflects on how Yor is creating a better world in ways he (thinks he) can never aspire to do himself. That she loves Anya openly, freely, with such dedication, to the point of sacrificing her own needs. That she just never gives up, she persists and persists and persists, always doing her best. That she reminds him it's okay to accept peace and to rest. That she wants and tries to take care of him... On and on and on.

Of course we get to this point:

I'm particularly taken with his body language a little later in the scene. He manages to get himself to sitting but he's still sprawled, open, even as he can't wrap his mind around what exactly is happening or why, and he's feeling vulnerable for all that. But at the same time, this is Yor. And she's safe.

In my view, if the Mole Arc hadn't happened immediately between this moment and the earlier where Yor declares herself unhappy, it would have been clearer how much stress he felt specifically due to Yor's apparent sudden unhappiness with their arrangement. The stress got subsumed (conveniently, ahem, Endo) into the stress and violence of the Mole Arc, but I think it rattled him pretty profoundly. It's also additionally why her warm greeting hit him as hard as it did: relief across multiple lines, such that he had to remind himself not to relax, despite Yor's apparent return to normal.

And there may be added layers to Twilight's reactions to Yor's bad moods due to his familial history, as pointed out by @unhappy-sometimes in this post; the inverse, of course, is that Yor's general good-naturedness would add layers to Twilight's sense of security with her. And the apparent loss of that, all the more devastating.

Rounding out the original moment though, I think this in many ways demonstrates the point:

Twilight throws away the bug. That is also wild. It isn't like that bug could only be used on Yor; it wasn't somehow modified to only respond to her person. It was a device that could be used and reused on different targets, on people who actually are worthy of being bugged, etc. But instead of pocketing it for later use, Twilight throws it away.

Actually: he not only throws it away, he crushes it first. Perhaps because he couldn't stand to have that particular device around, the device he used when he doubted Yor?

Seems kind of irrational, Twilight.

Seems kind of telling.

I mentioned my last Twilight meta about his relationship with Anya: in that, I suggest Twilight recognised entering into a compact with Anya, which subtly modifies, for him, the motivations around Strix. I think something like that happens here, too. If Yor is willing to go to such apparent extremes to protect him, he'll do his utmost to protect her.

I've had this meta in my drafts for a while, but I'm chuffed by this panel from the most recent chapter, as it kind of underscores all this by Yor's positioning of herself:

(Of course the point is there isn't a dichotomy: they'll protect each other, as indicated by Yor's if I had to choose: she won't have to choose.)

Back to Twilight, at this point, he can still justify all this as being within mission parameters. Of course he should protect Yor: she is an innocent civilian and if anything happens to her it would threaten Strix. But if/when this line is tested, if/when there comes a point where protecting Yor is actually the option that may put Strix at risk or put him somehow in opposition to WISE, then we'll see.

And more importantly, Twilight will see, too.

[warblogs17282]

I understand that this has been done to death already, but I want to quickly revisit it now that ghostfuckers has been out for a bit.

"I'm gonna run my own circus!", we can check that one as being fulfilled, since Blitz has been in the assassination game with the crew for quite a bit now, so while the circus part didn't happen, the general message of running a business did end up happening.

"Yeah! A BIG office!" we can mark this one as being fulfilled as well, because based on everyone's reaction to Blitz revealing the I.M.P headquarters to them, I think we can safely assume that it's definitely a big office.

So, what is the last thing that hasn't been fulfilled yet? It's Blitz hiring Stolas, because tbh, I still believe that this scene is foreshadowing, and there's also been a clue or two throughout the show that could potentially point to Stolas joining I.M.P at some point if you've been paying attention.