#honestly I'm always in fluffy Solomon land

[misc-obeyme]

lesson 40 had me all over the place when it came out😭 I got the first snippet on my lunch break, was practically vibrating the last two hours of my shift because i wanted to get home and PLAY

And I was keeping up on twitter from following someone who posts snippets of the lesson and I saw the hard mode part, and I was like "ohmygod is MC dreaming? Did the spell not work? Was our magic not enough?" (because i was slightly disappointed lol)

BECAUSE THAT WAS MY FIRST IDEA BEFORE LESSON 40 RELEASED, summoning the white dragon was meant to be practice, but I was afraid it'd drain all our power and we'd end up stuck in the past (and maybe have to make pacts with more demons?)

but then I was thinking during work "oh god what if the spell failed and MC passed out and that's why everyone is so calm, it's a dream" because I didn't have the full context. But MC definitely left the past as far as we can tell (to where? Who knows)

I'm stuck on that idea that hard mode might be a dream. Maybe the spell drained MC and Solomon, BECAUSE WHERE IS HE, HE TRAVELED BACK WITH MC SO THEY SHOULD'VE BEEN TOGETHER?? MAYBE?? Maybe they both returned to the present and are unconscious in the entrance of the HoL. I'm anxious and excited for season three

- ✨

Okay. Okay okay okay. I've been thinking a lot about all of this, too, and I have to say I think all of us are freaking out but it might not be what it seems.

Because this game is notorious for being stupidly vague and at this point, anything could happen.

At the very end, before they do the cast credits, we simply say something like "I'll be back!" before disappearing into the sky. And actually all that really happens is a couple of the bros nod and smile at us before the screen goes white. What does that mean? Did we disappear? Did we make it through the gate? Did Solomon come back with us? None of this is clear from that brief moment.

The hard lesson, then, is confirming that we made it back to somewhere. It doesn't actually say we made it back to the past or even back to the correct timeline. We just show up in the HoL, by ourselves because I don't think Solomon is with us, and the bros are all like oh hey there you are.

BUT. In true weirdo timeline fashion, they have a feeling that they haven't seen us in a while. And Solomon had said previously that the past and the future sort of impact each other.

Time is a soup. Or mud. I think they're trying to tell us that the timelines have been merged all along. Each instance of the boys that we encounter have echoes of the boys we've met before. They get feelings about things related to us, such as the guest room.

Could we have drained all our magic summoning the dragon? Quite possibly! And maybe we did get through the portal, but due to the lack of magic power we only made it partway and ended up in a totally different timeline.

Maybe we did successfully get through the portal as we needed to, but because time is soupy, we ended up in an altered version of the time we left.

I went back and re-read what Solomon told us when we first got to Cocytus Hall. He says

We all kind of assumed that the brothers also experienced our disappearance. Certainly it probably took Solomon some time to analyze the traces of magic left behind, as he stated. But the only being aside from Solomon himself that we can say for certain was aware that something was happening is Barbatos. Solomon never says that he told the brothers or that the brothers were involved at all.

That being said, it seems unlikely to me that the bros and everybody else wouldn't have noticed if MC just up and disappeared.

I think there are a handful of possibilities at this point.

We've been transported to a time just before we disappeared or shortly after, so the brothers are unaware that anything even happened.

We've been transported to a completely different timeline.

Solomon and Barbatos are somehow in cahoots with Nightbringer and none of this actually means anything.

Due to the soup like quality of time, we are in fact back where we left, but the brothers' understanding of our absence was somehow altered, even if they are still aware that something is off.

Something else entirely different and out of left field because this game is whack and comes up with nonsense all the time.

The details of these scenarios are completely up in the air. Lacking magic, magic gone wrong, Solomon not coming with us for some reason, Nightbringer finally getting involved again, maybe even Michael since we all thought something interesting was gonna go down with him... I mean, the possibilities are endless.

But as of right now, we really don't have a lot of information about where MC has ended up. And while this game has been consistent only in letting me down or making me freak the fuck out, I'm still interested to see where they go next. I'm giving them a chance to bring us a beginning to season three that doesn't leave me going ???? and instead gives me some !!!! Maybe that's a silly thing to do, but I am generally a perpetual optimist out of spite.

And you know, if I really hate it all, I can just go back to writing OC content in an OG timeline where I know what's happening. :)

OOF sorry to rant on your ask, ✨ anon! But honestly, I think any of your ideas could be right. It could be that MC used up all their magic, it could be that the hard mode is a dream, it could be that we lost Solomon along the way somewhere, all kinds of things are possible!

If we're unconscious, though, we better wake up in our tree filled guest room. Solomon can be there, too, I wouldn't mind that at all. Cuties waking up together in MC's bed like ?? what happened?? Oh hey, but you're here with me, so it must be okay. Oops getting into fluffy Solomon nonsense again...