#i guess??? since i talked about the theory being disproved

[rustedleopard]

By the way, since the whole "Kieran was being controlled by 'Dokutaro' and that's how he was able to revive the Loyal Three" theory is dead in the water, yet people are still wondering how he managed to do that, it's because he had Ogerpon's mask with him when he punched the grave. Ogerpon's mask has Tera Crystals embedded in it. Earlier on at the Crystal Pool, it was established that the Tera Crystals in the water have the ability to bring back the dead.

He probably just accidentally brought them back to life when he made contact with the grave while holding the Tera Crystals/the lingering spirits of the Loyal Three were able to latch onto some of the energy of the Tera Crystals and revived themselves when he punched it

[koivoid]

Koivoid's Chapter 2 Murder Theory: AM vs PM

After episode 12 I have come up with an insane theory on how the murder happened. It's... really unlikely, but I wanted to share it here anyways on the rare chance that it's right. However, please note that this isn't a guess as to who the culprit is, more of an analysis on how the murder was carried out and how all the evidence fits into the case.

drdt spoilers of course!

I believe that @1moreff-creator’s (hope you don't mind the tag!) pulley theory was the murder method. Please give their post a read, they explained it way better than I ever could. Anyways, this post hinges on the fact that Arei's neck was broken using a pulley formed by the ropes, the carousel, and the ceiling beam.

In the newest episode, Teruko concludes that the murder must have been done in the morning because the body was still swinging. However, if the pulley was used, the culprit could have easily killed Arei at another time, then activated the mechanism to make it seem like she was killed in the morning! Since the fact that Arei’s body was swinging is the only piece of evidence that Arei was killed in the morning, this means that Arei could have been killed at 7:30 AM OR 7:30 PM. 

“Wait, but didn’t the cast spend half the episode talking about how Arei could have only been killed in the morning?” That is true! But they have never considered the method of murder once in the entire trial! The pulley theory could easily disprove the literal only piece of evidence that the murder happened in the morning, which is that Arei's body was still swinging! Either way, her body would be cold, because as J states, the culprit could have poured water on her to cool her off, and the fans would quickly dry her off. So her body being cold cannot be a piece of evidence to prove that she could have only been killed in the morning.

Personally, I think the culprit killed Arei at nighttime, and tried to make it seem as if the murder happened in the morning to disguise her time of death.

But then what about the fish water? Didn’t the culprit take the water from the relaxation room to make it seem like the murder took place in the night when it really was in the morning? Well, there’s actually another possibility as to why they chose to use that water. If you look at the map, the relaxation room is the only room with water on the second floor.

The culprit probably didn’t want to risk getting caught using the sinks on the first floor, because that’s where most of the other students are staying. Therefore, the culprit used the water from the relaxation room to avoid leaving the second floor, where they could get caught.

But wait! Wasn’t David in the relaxation room at 7:30 PM? He would have seen the culprit then!

About that… David never actually confirms the fact that he met with Arei at 7:30. Ace is the one to say that he heard David and Arei talking at 7:30. In fact, David outright says this:

And since David clearly isn’t the murderer, Ace could be lying about the time of their meeting! So it’s entirely possible that Arei could have died at 7:30 PM, because that’s not actually when she met with David.

With that aside, let’s return to the actual murder method. In FF’s theory, Arei’s body was weighed down by the water jugs filled with the fish water, and the motion of her neck being snapped also caused the water jugs to break at the handles, spilling the water and the fish all over the floor. If this is true, then the murder could only have occurred at nighttime. If Arei really died in the morning, then the water jugs would have been broken when she got her neck snapped, which would remove the only source of water for the culprit. J claims that if Arei really died in the morning, the culprit would have used the water to cool down her body. However, if the water jugs broke and the water spilled, then the culprit could not have done that. Because the relaxation room opens at 8 AM, and they would not be able to retrieve any more water. They couldn't have cooled down the body before her neck was snapped, because, well, she wasn't dead then, and her body would probably warm up before she was killed. Then, Arei’s body would still be warm. But if she died at night, there would be no need to douse her body in water, and the jugs could be used in the contraption. 

What if the jugs weren’t used in the contraption? See, that’s the confusing part, because otherwise why would the jugs be broken at the handles? To douse the body in water, they could have simply opened the cap on top. So that’s why I’m inclined to believe that the jugs were used in the contraption.

Wait. If the pulley used to break Arei’s neck was only activated in the morning, then how did she die at night?

And here I steal (/j) another popular theory: Arei was waterboarded to death. 

At night, the culprit could have gone to the relaxation room to get more water, so water isn’t an issue. Or maybe the jugs in the trash were originally filled with regular water, so the culprit had to use the fish water for the contraption after using the original water to drown Arei. A cloth could easily be obtained from the dress-up room. Additionally, this could explain why Arei’s hands are tied; if she was being waterboarded, obviously she would be struggling and trying to fight for her life. Finally, Arturo probably couldn’t diagnose that she was drowned, as it has been proven many times that he does not specialize in analyzing dead bodies. (Also… does drowning leave any physical evidence? I didn’t get many helpful results when I searched it up…)

So here’s my proposed timeline so far:

Arei meets David in the relaxation room before 7:30 PM. They argue, and Arei runs out of the room in anger. David chases after her and leaves the relaxation room.

At 7:30 PM, Arei returns to the second floor, going to the playground thinking Eden needs her help.

The culprit ambushes her, somehow tapes her hands together, and waterboards her to death.

After Arei dies, they head back to the relaxation room to refill the jugs of water. In the process, some fish enter the jugs as well.

The culprit sets up the pulley, taping up the carousel. They throw the ball of clothes over the ceiling beam, hitting a light in the process. (Massively oversimplified, go read FF’s post linked in the beginning lol)

They leave the pulley, along with Arei’s corpse, in the playground for tomorrow.

They rip up the fake note and put parts of it in the trash can, purposefully leaving out the part after “7:30”. The other scraps are disposed of elsewhere, possibly even dissolved in the relaxation room’s pond.

The next day, the culprit wakes up early, around 7:30 AM, and heads to the playground.

They tie the rope around Arei’s neck with the jugs of water, and use the pulley to break her neck. The jugs of water break and spill the water over the ground.

The culprit takes Arei’s body and hangs it on the swingset, then take down the ropes on the pulley, hiding them under the carousel. They also hide the ball of clothes in the changing room.

At 8:00, they finish cleaning up the crime scene, and head to the movie screening room as per MonoTV’s demand.

I’ll admit, it does have some plot holes. But Chapter 1’s murder did as well, so it’s not too big of a deal.

(Update: a last minute thought: I just realized that the culprit could have broken Arei’s neck at night, and simply hung her body up in the morning. Oh well, my point about her being killed at night still stands)

Well, now that we understand how Arei was killed, let’s get into the why. Why did the culprit choose to go through the extra step of breaking Arei’s neck in the morning?

I think this was to disguise the time of her death. The culprit was trying to frame Eden, as evidenced by the note to Arei. But Eden had an alibi in the nighttime. But if the culprit made it seem like Arei was killed in the morning, then she wouldn’t have an alibi, and could then be easily accused. Not just Eden, actually, the culprit could easily frame anyone in the morning who didn’t have an alibi, because they would most likely be asleep. At nighttime, however, the students were all hanging out with each other, making it much more likely that they would have an alibi. 

Oh, and one more thing: since we haven’t had a scrum debate yet, the AM vs PM argument could be the scrum debate topic. There isn’t much else the class could be split on, at least not yet. (hopeful)

In that case, the night alibis are still pretty valid, as well as the morning alibis. This is a bit of a stretch, but...

The people with night alibis are Arturo, J, Charles, Whit, Hu, Eden, Veronika, and Teruko.

The people with morning alibis are David, J, Veronika, Hu, and Nico.

That leaves Rose, Ace, and Levi without an alibi at both times.

Think of this as you will. ;)

But that’s just my own thoughts. In the end, this theory seems pretty far-fetched, and heavily relies on lots of small details that could easily be waved off in the grand scheme of things. We’ll probably find out whether or not my theory is correct this Friday (or maybe next Friday). Guess I’ll see you then!

[merlatealeaf72]

Hello, here is another FNAF The Musical theory.

I've always been confused whether the animatronics in this series are possessed, and if so by who. There's five missing kids, but at least 3 times more animatronics that are all sentient. Things just weren't really adding up for me. So watch me suffer as I attempt to theorise about who each animatronic is possessed by.

Trash and The Gang work timeline wise to be possessed by the missing children. In Monster in your Head and most of Ground Zero, they aren't sentient. But at the end of Ground Zero, Pan Stan kills Mike. I think that this was the first child Phone Guy killed possessing Pan Stan. Between Ground Zero and Web of Lies, he kills the rest of the children who possess the rest of Trash and the Gang. They then start working with Glitchtrap to get revenge on Phone Guy/ all humans. However, the children couldn't really be stuffed into a bunch of Trash like they could in an animatronic suit.

Puppet seems really likely to be possessed by Michael (go watch the Lexusinsannus video). I'm going to discuss who I think Baby is possessed by in a separate theory, so she's covered.

I think that BB may just be an AI or something. He does mainly communicate to Elizabeth through her computer, and Nate can access him through his laptop.

The rest of the animatronics are where the problems lie. First of all, why on earth are they only active at night? They say they power down at 6am, but isn't that when they need to be active. Also, at least for Freddy and friends, they don't power down like Baby does, they just go to sleep. And wait, they don't power down during the day, since Mike salvaged Chica and Springtrap during the day and they're active. THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!!

Anyway, we know that the animatronics are sentient from at least as early as Ground Zero. They are active while Mike is assessing them. My view on the timeline is that Phone Guy killed one kid, then Mike died, then Phone Guy killed the other kid in 1987 and the rest in 1988. But all of the animatronics were active before then. There's also too many of them to be possessed by the missing kids (there's 8 animatronics (Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy, Springtrap, Orville, Percy(?), The Beard) to 5 (known) missing kids). And they're not just like this, since when Nate said “You talk?” Freddy responds “Am I not supposed to?”.

I originally thought that maybe they were brought to life by the love from the children, but there's several things that disprove this. First, it's stated several times that kids find the animatronics “too scary”.

Secondly, Mark brings up that the animatronics are “children that were stuffed into animal suits”. Being stuffed into an animatronic suit is a decently common threat in this series: Phone Guy says it to Alexandra, Mark fears the animatronics will do it to him, and strangest of all, Springtrap tries to stuff Foxy into a Freddy Fazbear suit. I thought that this might just be something Mark thinks, but the animatronics kinda confirm this. Bonnie says that “blood and mucus” is their “natural scent” and while Nate is on the phone to Purple Guy, Chica says “the souls of the undead children keep talking to you”. While the second case could just be poking fun at FNAF as a whole, the first one is harder to write off. Nate also refers to them as “haunted animatronics”.

I guess my only real conclusion from all this is that these animatronics must also be possessed by dead kids. I can't really find anything else that proves otherwise. I don't think they're possessed by the missing kids though, that just doesn't make sense to me timeline wise. So Phone Guy probably killed a bunch of kids before Ground Zero, or maybe it was even William Afton.

I guess the TLDR of this theory is that Trash and the Gang are possessed by the missing kids, the Puppet is very likely possessed by Mike, Baby will be discussed another time, BB is just a robot/AI and the other animatronics are possessed by another group of dead kids.

(Also please let me know if I missed anything. I haven't really been keeping up with the codes in the RE insta/community tab posts, so it's very likely that I could be missing something important.)

[catboy-artist]

New Friday page! And you know what time it is! We’re two for two on the bingo card, with Dainix’s flare up being confirmed to be caused by anxiety. Poor guy doesn’t like water… (I considered checking off “the ocean is scary” but eh. It hasn’t done anything scary… yet)

(I also changed the free space deco bc it was bugging me lol)

Reactions and speculation under the cut, like always!

Okay but those first two panels… Erin is angery lol (edit: on a closer look, it actually looks more like he realizes he fucked up. Still gonna need an apology from him before it counts though)

I was right about Kendal having interesting insight. It looks like Dainix’s thalassophobia really is bad enough to make his powers activate… poor guy is so scared of hurting everyone. His guilt is physically palpable off the page, and the sad puppy eyes… aaaaa

I guess this also disproves the theory that the volcano is making his powers worse somehow. I suppose in hindsight, this makes more sense, and thus Occam’s Razor is at play here -it really is just his powers activating through anxiety, as we know they do. I guess I didn’t think of that because I didn’t realize his thalassophobia was that bad.

Alinua realizing that he’s having a bad time because of her own trauma and walking him through breathing… oof ouch owie

On the bright side, the ponytail is still intact, which means things aren’t out of control yet, and Alinua may actually be able to solve this problem (at least for now).

All joking aside, I wonder if this is the part where Dainix talks about his phobia, or whatever trauma is attached to it. It is kind of weird to see him visibly anxious like this when I’m used to him being the emotional support.

Unrelated speculation a bit further ahead. I didn’t check off “the ocean is scary” because it hasn’t actually done anything scary besides trigger Dainix’s anxiety. But I do have a feeling that something scary will happen with it later that would justify poor guy ending up underwater somehow. A sea monster? I’m kind of anticipating a big fuck you sea serpent, or alternatively, maybe they’ll meet a deep sea horror if/when they finally end up undersea.

Or maybe those mermaids are the scary thing, since we still don’t know if they’re benevolent or hostile. Not gonna lie, even though it probably won’t happen because Alinua is helping Dainix calm down, it WOULD be kind of funny if the mermaids became an issue literally next page and thus got me closer to bingo. Maybe the page after is close enough… Falst is conveniently off by himself at the back of the ship, and thus in a position to notice if any unwelcome guests are following the boat. The sun is heavily obscured by the clouds, and thus there’s no sunlight to deter the mermaids from surfacing. I’m not really sure HOW the mermaids could be an issue though, as the boat is moving too quickly for them to keep up and siren type mermaids aren’t a thing as far as we’re aware. With what we know about mermaids, it still makes more sense for them to be benevolent chekov’s saviors, but it’s still not completely ruled out.

Anyway, back to the present, the next page is probably gonna be painful… looking forward to Monday.

[cephalofrog]

finished reading monstrous regiment

they weren't kidding that book can queer rep

spoilers below cut ofc

I kinda already knew about like... a queer relationship + trans character existing in the book but it still kinda caught me off guard - like I guess I shouldn't assume stuff to be generic from terry pratchett but I didn't know anything about jackrum aside from him being trans going in and it caught me off guard just how damn GOOD a character he is.

I'll admit I wasn't even certain that he was the trans character for a lot of the narrative, like I thought I maybe misremembered the posts or something cause surely the fat, extremely skilled, morally grey man with a lot of PTSD but who clearly cares deep down isn't actually gonna turn out to be a trans man right cause no one would write a trans character THAT interesting and good in 2003 and god dammit I underestimated terry pratchett so much. I am a fool.

the fact that he's like. no I don't want to reunite with my kid + grandchildren cause I can't stand the thought of just being their old granny cause he can't imagine a life for himself where he can exist as a man outside of needing to do so to survive then to have polly suggest it, giving him a new idea, letting him let go of not only the dangerous life of existing in the army but also giving him permission to himself to exist as someone's grandfather?? as a man, not because he has to, but because he wants to??????

god that final conversation between polly and jackrum is fucking perfect. I'll admit I need to consume more media centering trans narratives cause I don't really have a comparison point but it feels like the first piece of media I've ever consumed that honestly reflects how I feel about being trans. you don't need permission or a logical reason to exist a certain way - you're allowed to exist in a certain way just because you want to exist that way.

it's super impressive how deconstructive the book is - like it makes me wonder whether terry pratchett learned about queer theory prior to writing the book or whether he just developed the way that the book talks about gender of his own accord cause the entire damn plot hinges on the fact that gender is socially constructed and fully based upon perception. people see the characters as men, they treat them as men, and so they are men. the entire concept of men and women having some impossible-to-overcome differences is questioned, stereotypes are introduced and then used to disprove themselves.

I think the only thing that the book kinda dropped the ball on was maladicta's character - she gets a lot of focus and is super cool and likeable in the first half but I feel like she gets left behind a bit after running out of coffee, and I do wish there had been a more interesting conclusion to her being the last of the regiment to be confirmed as female (since we all kinda knew it was coming but for some reason it takes a long time to get around to it with no real reason since everyone knows everyone else is a girl at that point).

I'm glad polly and maladicta end up leaving on the boat together though. (they kiss after the book ends, terry pratchett appeared in my dream last night and confirmed it as canon)

[paradoxcase]

John 8:1

THE TOWER HA

Definitely sounds like Alecto, who is not a human, being unused to a human body. But it says "In the dream..." at the beginning of this, which makes it sound like the narrator here normally doesn't have this weird relationship with sleep, which points back to this maybe being Harrow dreaming of being Alecto. But if she is Alecto in the context of the dream, why did John call her "Harrow" earlier? Maybe it's a similar thing to how the pre-Resurrection names of the Lyctors are expunged, and John is actually saying those names, and calling Harrow "Alecto", but because it's a dream, Harrow hears Alecto's name as her own, based on knowing that it's the name of the person she is in the dream?

This is funny to me, because Flat Earthers aren't actually nice people. Like, there are reasons people believe in that conspiracy theory despite literal millennia of evidence disproving it, and they are not benign ones. They're not like the UFO guys. I also feel like a Flat Earther promoting John would actually make people less likely to believe he was the real deal

There actually is a telescope called LUCIFER (or at least, it used to be called that, they seem to have changed then name, lmao), which I didn't know about, but what's wild is that I absolutely should have known about it, since it was being built near where I grew up while I was going to high school there. But that was 20 years ago, and there are much higher profile telescopes to talk about, so why this one?

So John is somehow more powerful than regular necromancers at this stage, but also not as powerful as Lyctor Harrow. Is he just like regular-Lyctor-powerful here?

I don't have any idea what this means, re: Jesus. Is she saying that it was the miracles and bread and fishes and healing people and so forth that caused the Romans to crucify Jesus, and not his role as a charismatic ringleader for a bunch of unhappy colonized people that did that, or am I wrong here?

Oh, Alfred being a hedge fund manager is hilarious, actually

Oh, so this is the cow thing I've seen everyone talk about

I was hoping I could get some estimate on how long this wall would have had to be in existence for it to wind up on Google Earth, but apparently Google's official position on how frequently they update their maps is "it is a mystery"

So I guess that this is a dream that John is having, too, and the post-apocalyptic environment is here because this is also John remembering the part of the story where it was just him and Alecto, and everyone else was dead, and they are having a shared dream? This is the most dream bubble thing that doesn't actually have the word "dream bubble" in it. But I don't think I can say anything, because my current creative writing project also has vaguely Homestuck-inspired shared dreams in it

[skoolnites]

𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙪𝙚: Live Laugh Ethos

previous chapter | Masterlist | next chapter

-> 𝙒𝘾: 1k

->𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮: turns out making sure your thesis is ethical is actually pretty difficult

->𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨: Swearing and talking about food

->𝙉𝙤𝙩𝙚: i think its been a year since i've published a piece of fanfiction so thats cool i guess. Go easy on me please! (there are probably grammatical errors as it's been a long day) Also every thing that is italicized and pink means that it is part of Y/ns final paper

 “It is basic human nature to want to find love. Psychologists throughout the centuries have studied this fact. Maslow even tells us that it is part of our basic needs. If we are so dependent on love then why is it so damn difficult to find that someone. While Plato’s original theory on the so-called soulmate myth has been disproved time and time again it’s in our nature to want our ‘perfect’ match, but what if you could make someone your perfect match. I believe that with our knowledge of how attraction works it is possible to use these ideas to your own benefit. For my experiment I will be testing 1 (one) of these theories of attraction on Subject A every three days for 60 (sixty) days. I will keep track of my findings through notes I take as well as a collection of text messages and other forms of media from consenting parties.”

“Alright class,” Professor Yamasaki announced clapping her hands together, “For your final you will be creating a thesis then constructing and conducting an experiment on whatever module you get assigned,” She explained picking up a black cloth bag, “In this bag I have papers numbered nine through eighty which corresponds to one of the modules we studied throughout this year. When I get to your seat please pick out a slip and tell me your number,” 

Y/n started jittering in anticipation as Professor Yamasaki was calling out topics that were no longer up for grabs. As each number was being called out, Y/n had her fingers crossed hoping to get lucky. Her head perked up as Module twenty four was called out. Mildly upset she wouldn’t get to run an experiment on dreams. Then 26 (classical conditioning) was gone, 56 was gone so no study on neo-freudians, when 21 was given to Osamu Miya Y/n was a little butt hurt because pain was always a fun topic. Before she could realize it, Professor Yamasaki was in front of her desk. Y/n sucked in a breath and reached her hand into the bag. She could feel all the slips of paper, each folded in half. When Y/n finally pulled her hand out she found a yellowish slip of paper. Unfolding it quickly Y/n was overjoyed to see the number 79 on the paper.

Attraction.

The cold metal bleachers of the university volleyball gym was the last place y/n wanted to be as she was antsy to get started on her project. Y/n’s mind was going a mile a minute at all of the possibilities for her experiment, she could pick a random person to befriend or…

“Did you see that!” Shoyo Hinata yelled as he had just slammed down an amazing spike, although the spiker was not who Y/n’s attention was towards.

“What can I say, I’m good at what I do,” Atsumu Miya shrugged.

“Me next! Me next!” Kotaro Bokuto shouts

“Will you guys quiet down,” Kei Tsukishima groans from a corner where he stretches out his arms

“Buzzkill,” Tetsuro Kuroo laughs while throwing another ball to Atsumu

In the corner Rintaro Suna could be found hiding his chuckles

“Alright boys go get water while Yachi and I pick up the volleyballs,” Their team captain Shugo Meian shouts.

Attraction.

The place where Y/n spends most of her life, the volleyball gym. Any of these boys would be perfect subjects for her study, she was well acquainted with all of them, nothing would seem suspicious if she hung out with them more, and she had access to friends to get extra information. The next issue at hand was a cognitive bias, who to pick and would her own heart interfere. Y/n knew she would have to pull one at random, reaching into her pocket and taking her cellphone.

“Hey Siri, pick a number one through thirty?”  Y/n asked the device

“It’s thirteen,” Just like that fate was decided, Atsumu Miya would be Subject A, perfect for 

Attraction. 

The word of the hour, attraction. Where Y/n had found great intrigue with the topic she fell into an iffy spot with ethics. Hypothetically she could use these tactics and studies to get Atsumu to fall in love with someone, of course she would have to deal with consent while keeping him unaware. There was also the issue of who would he fall in love with, she would be the easiest choice but would her own heart be an interference. 

“The ethics of this experiment becomes a bit difficult because how could you possibly manipulate someone’s heart ethically but if you look at the ethical guidelines my experiment fits perfectly. Beneficence and Nonmaleficence, Love is not a bad thing and my subject would not be hurt by experiencing feelings for someone because it could be equally reciprocated. Of course love is a long lasting product of this experiment but it is not a negative one. Fidelity and Responsibility, is ingrained in the classes curriculum and while conducting many experiments throughout my studies I have been held to these ethical guidelines. Integrity, I will be using a bit of deception under the front that I am tutoring someone. I have received Subject A’s verbal and written consent that our sessions will be recorded as well as consent to the fact that I will be using some psychological tricks during our sessions. Justice, subject A was a random choice from a random number generator meaning I have no biases towards the subject. Subject A has access to health services and I will ask them throughout multiple sessions if they would like for me to stop my psychological research. Finally Respect for Rights and Dignity, In order to respect Subject A’s privacy they shall only be referred to as Subject A and no physical descriptions will be provided in my research. Nothing not related to my hypothesis will be disclosed in my paper including but not limited to age, gender, psychical traits, personal details that might be disclosed and other details that might give away who Subject A is.

tags: @milkteeboba

[discotreque]

Red Yarn & Thumbtacks Into Darkness

We all know I can’t predict plot points to save my life, and my track record w/r/t this season of Picard is quite bad so far… but neither can I stop myself from formulating wild theories about where this whole hot mess is going. And maybe it’s just the meandering narrative, but the show keeps getting opportunities to disprove these, and it just hasn’t, which means now I have to inflict them on y’all so my head doesn’t explode. Buckle up!

Theory #1: Remmick’s Revenge

(Speaking of exploding heads…)

The thing in Picard 1.0’s brain that isn’t Irumodic Syndrome after all? The thing that’s also in his DNA, and has therefore has been passed on to Jack? The thing that isn’t part of Picard 2.0’s positronic body? The thing that seems to be beckoning Jack, with creepy red organic imagery, to join/connect with some kind of hive mind?

It’s one of the parasites from “Conspiracy” in TNG S1. It got into Picard during that episode, but after the other parasites were exposed and killed, it went dormant and waited for a better opportunity to strike, rewriting his DNA to make sure he’d be an ideal host when the time came.

But that time never came, and the DNA modifications and/or the presence of the parasite slowly damaged Picard’s brain (in a way similar to Irumodic Syndrome, I guess), which eventually killed his original body. And when Section 31 retrieved that body to take to Daystrom Station, the parasite was still inside: maybe dead too, maybe still dormant, but nothing that a nice fresh sample of modified, ideal-host DNA from Jack couldn’t fix.

Whoever’s giving Vadic her orders when she talks to the hand isn’t (just) trying to reignite the Dominion War—they’re trying to resurrect the parasite conspiracy.

Theory #2: Lateral Advancement

I loved that Lower Decks S3 presented not being in Starfleet as an equally valid and (at least potentially) equally rewarding path for Mariner. Obviously she chose Starfleet, but they made the alternative appealing enough that the obvious choice still had some weight to it. And every week I’m getting more and more sure that PIC S3 is mounting a similar challenge to the idea that every Starfleet officer, if they survive long enough, will—and wants to—become captain of their own ship.

Because listen, I love Shaw as much as the next damaged bitch who confuses “asshole” for “charm,” but babygirl does not seem like he’s thriving in the big chair. The only times we ever see him remotely comfortable—and neither lashing out nor squirming with the effort not to—is when he’s forced back into his old grease-monkey role.

If Captain Shaw survives the season—and at this point, it feels like he probably will—I think (and also hope) that he’s going to transfer out of Command entirely and become the first four-pip Chief Engineer since Scotty in the TOS movies. He and everyone around him would be so much happier.

Theory #3: Feint Praise

They had to know this season would be released weekly while they were writing it—like the seven preceding seasons of live-action New Trek were—so the fact that it’s obviously been written and edited for a binge-watch can only be deliberate sadism. Those fuckers.

However. Earlier this season, when I first watched 3.03, I thought it sucked pretty bad as a standalone episode: weird pacing, incomplete arcs, multiple anti-climactic lacks of payoff, etc. Then I rewatched it back-to-back with Episode 3.04 a week later, and realized 3.03 is actually a pretty decent first half of a two-part episode, and the absolutely outstanding second half corrected or cancelled out nearly every complaint I’d had anyway.

Well, here we are again, and I have a lot of complaints about 3.07. The pacing is weird, the character arcs feel incomplete at best, the amount of setup vs. payoff is way out of whack, and it seems to break some pretty fundamental rules of modern cinematic storytelling for no better reason than to suddenly start rushing this slow-ass plot along.

And all of those complaints are well within the ability of next week’s episode to retroactively address, if it’s indeed the second half to this week’s first. And especially so soon after my last volte-face, I’m more than comfortable giving them an extra week to dig themselves out of this one—they might actually pull it off.

[moviesessionwithmyhubby]

Logical Capricorn and Emotional Pisces

#notamovieexplanation Men are mostly logical, but women are primarily emotional, my husband once said to me. I didn't trust him at first. I thought, "Anyone can be both logical and emotional." It depends on each individual. But with time, I've started to change my viewpoint.

Whenever me and my husband engage in an intense dialogue or deliberate on a challenging topic, it usually ends up with an upset feeling. Sometimes, my husband becomes offended, not due to a misalignment of our thoughts, but rather because he cannot understand the reason behind my raised emotional state, my tendency to view the matter as a problem or issue, and the way I performed myself in an approach that caused him to perceive his thoughts as inappropriate. Because for him, it is merely a discussion, a dialogue regarding a topic where he is open to diverse perspectives, rather than to define who’s right and who’s wrong.

My husband is a logical Capricorn According to his line of reasoning, we are now discussing the topic together. The conversation needs to circle back to this topic. We may argue, we can each present our own position, and we can get to the conclusion of this talk with no consensus on anything, but we shouldn't bring any feelings into this argument. Why, for example, do you inject emotions into such a dry political debate? It is completely without value. I am an emotional Pisces But I find that I can't help but feel emotional when there is a strong debate or discussion about a difficult topic. Our chat first begins in a pretty regular way with us debating the issue or exchanging perspectives. But as the discussion continues and the gap between our points of view widens, I find myself wondering, "Why can't he understand my point of view?" I become a bit frustrated as I attempt to defend my viewpoint and persuade him of it, or better yet, convince him to agree with it. And by being determined, heated, or attempting to convince him that my viewpoint is correct, I somehow manage to convince him that his notion is flawed and that his way of thinking about it is inappropriate, despite the fact that I don't intend to. After some of our conversations, I realize that I am unable to entirely separate it, unlike him. My husband can separate things well. For example, when my husband and I are simply discussing a subject, it's absolutely acceptable if we come to different conclusions, no harsh feeling by pointing finger to each other to prove they’re wrong. But it's not simply a conversation without any feeling for me, I tend to defense myself and my idea, even though I don’t need to do it. As a result, we both get unhappy when I bring up emotions in the conversation, because it becomes harsh feelings. I ended up hurting him when I gave him the impression that I was going after him to disprove his theory. Logical Capricorn and Emotional Pisces. This is us.

I recall that we once got into a little bit of a fight about something (I'm not sure what it was since we're Dory). But I can still recall the major trigger for that argument—my husband's question, "Did I say anything wrong?” He asked me in the middle of the debate, "What's your problem?"

You know how I interpreted that phrase at the time: "Did I say anything wrong? What's your problem?" I interpreted that to mean something along the lines of,  "I didn't say anything wrong. Why are you crying? What's your problem?". As you could guess, I became furious. After that, I felt as if I had nothing else to say since the discourse had come to an end. Since I had to admit it rationally, he said nothing wrong. But emotionally for me, he also didn't speak correctly either. I felt at that point in our conversation that he was unable to understand me or what I was trying to say, because he felt I was always becoming intense or inventing something. And even though he was attempting to soothe me, I refused to listen to anything he had to say because of that.

But later, when we had finally calmed down. We discussed what happened between us throughout our conversation. I later discovered that when my husband asked me if he said anything inappropriate or what the issue was, he was only trying to make sure that he hadn't offended me in any way. But he didn't anticipate that I would interpret it in a different way. This is when I realized that our mindsets or our hardcores are different. Logical Capricorn and Emotional Pisces. Then what do we do about this difference? We first acknowledged our differences. Second, we are attempting to find a middle ground by: + attempting to keep the conversation on-topic rather than attempting to decide who has the right or incorrect opinion (fun fact: normally I realized my husband is right but I don’t want to admit it lol) + attempting to keep our voices down and avoid interfering with one another while they are expressing their ideas + allowing one another room to calm down (This was my husband's suggestion. Me, I typically want to discuss the issue)

And ultimately telling kind words with one another. Because what matters after all is our love toward each other, not any hard subject or who’s right and who’s wrong. Love is simple. You don't need a logical mind to understand it, you don't need an emotional feeling to feel it either.

[random-remzy]

Does anyone else sometimes feel like you don't really have a "say" when it comes to fandom discourse?

I'm not talking about being shy about your headcanons. I mean, as in. Do you feel like your opinions don't really matter. Because you havent been in the fandom long enough?

Like, you see people, interacting, and you can immidietley tell that they've been here for at least a couple years, or since the beginning of the fandom/media release. And you've just joined like, in the past month or so. And so you're watching people make really old refrences with each other and the creators. And have really crazy theories and epic headcnons.

And your just sat in the middle, not really knowing where to go or who to talk to. Cause no one's talking to you, and you don't want to say your theories or headcanon, cause like. What is it's been disproved in canon? or the creator denied it? or people just generally disagree with it.

I mean, they're the ones who've been here longer than me. I just joined. So really, it's probably better if i just play along-

I think it's because they've been here longer than me, I feel like they're more entitled to an opinion than I am. Like, if I say I dislike something in the new release. People will come at me and tell me that I'm wrong and wouldn't know everything because i've just joined. But if someone who's been here for a long time dislikes something, everyone will agree and say it was better in the good old days.

I didn't see the good old days. But i do know that I love this piece of media with all my being. But if keeping silent about my opinions betters my chances at being able to keep some interactions, then I guess i won't tell you about why i disliked that one thing in the well-loved media, and why i adore that thing in the flamed one.

[marsmarvel02]

"What Manny Can't Fix" Review: Chapter 14

Welcome back and welcome again to my review of "What Manny Can't Fix", a Handy Manny fanfic that -do I even need to say it?- is not very good.

Last chapter disproved my theory about Manny's effect on chapter length by being surprisingly short. This chapter... is the opposite. Seriously, doing this one was exhausting.

(And as always, if you'd like to start this review series from the beginning, Chapter 1 is here.)

Chapter 14

“Turner!” Manny said when the screwdriver arrived. “Guess what!?”

“What?” Turner asked.

“Abuelito gave me some money so I can go to the bakery!” Manny said, excitedly. “Do you wanna come with!?”

Turner paused. The bakery!? This is perfect! If I bring something back from there, Swift won’t have any reason to be suspicious of me!

Yes she will, since it’ll be fresh and obviously not from the dumpster.

“Sure kid, I’d love to!” Turner said, sounding a bit more eager than he meant to.

Manny didn’t seem to notice, he just smiled, picked up Turner and headed out of the backyard onto the sidewalk.

“You’ll love the bakery, Turner!” Manny said. “Mrs Portillo makes the best cookies in Sheetrock Hills!”

Mrs Portillo? That must be that woman I kept seeing.

Eh. Just another human who’s missing a period after their honorific.

“And the best cakes, and pastries and...and everything!” Manny said.

Turner just smiled and nodded. “I believe you kid.”

After a few minutes they were in the commercial district. They passed by the abandoned green building Turner had seen the first time he was there.

It hadn’t changed much since he last saw it. He wasn’t even sure if it was even for sale, or if it was just going to stay abandoned forever. 

The commercial district was already pretty empty, most of the shop spaces were abandoned just like the green one. 

It’s almost like a ghost town.

And yet, somehow, it’s also part of San Diego. 

They stopped in front of one of the few businesses on the street: The Bakery.

Manny opened the door and a small bell chimed, catching Mrs Portillo’s attention.

When she saw who it was, her eyes lit up. “Oh, hola Manuel! Cómo estás?” [“Oh hi, Manny! How are you?”]

“Soy bueno.” Manny said. [“I’m good”]

Mrs Portillo saw Turner and paused. “¿Quién es usted?” [“And who are you?”]

Turner may not have been fluent in Spanish, but he knew enough to know she was asking who he was. It took him a second before he replied, “Me llamo Turner.” [“My name is Turner.”]

“¡Encantado de conocerte!” [“Nice to meet you!”] She said. “Nunca antes había conocido a un destornillador parlante.” [“I’ve never met a talking screwdriver before.”]

Turner tried to figure out what she had said. Destornillador is screwdriver, right?..Right! Antes is before…..What was Nunca again? Ugh!

Mrs Portillo noticed his confusion and asked, “¿Hablas español?” [“Do you speak Spanish?”]

“Solo un poco…” [“Only a bit…”] Turner replied, slightly embarrassed. 

“¿Habla usted Inglés?” [“You speak English?”] She asked.

“Yes.” Turner said. 

“Well it’s nice to meet you!” She said. “I’m Mrs Portillo. Welcome to my bakery!”

Fun fact: “Portillo” can mean a bunch of things in Spanish, all of them revolving around the idea of a door, hole, or opening, but Google Translate seems to think that it means “wicket”.

Which gives me the mental image of an Ewok baker.

Turner looked around. Unlike the other buildings on the block, this was actually a really nice place. It was clean and colorful, Mrs Portillo obviously put a lot of effort into keeping her bakery so beautiful.

Manny grabbed the money from his pocket. “I’d like to buy some ombligos, please.”

“Oh of course!” Mrs Portillo said. She went over to a plate of cookies with a dot of jelly in the center and placed them in a bag. When she was done she handed the bag over to Manny and looked at Turner. “And what about you?”

“Oh uh...I don’t uh...have any money…” Turner said awkwardly.

Mrs Portillo let out a small laugh, it sounded warm and grandmotherly.  “Oh don’t worry about that. I���ll give you a free sample.”

“Really? Why?”

“Manuel’s one of my favorite customers. Any friend of his is a friend of mine.”

Friend

The word still made Turner uneasy.

Is he my friend? Turner looked at Manny carefully. I mean...I do visit him once a week...to take his food….but we did build that block tower together…..Then I freaked out when he said he wanted a screwdriver like me……

“Why don’t you look around and pick something out?” Mrs Portillo asked, making Turner snap back to reality. 

Turner looked around and his eyes landed on some lemon cake. “How about some of that?”

Mrs Portillo smiled. “Lemon bread? Oh of course!”

Something something there’s an Amalgamate named Lemon Bread something something. 

She cut a huge piece of it for Turner.

“Thank you.” Turner said.

Manny was about to pay for the cookies when Mrs Portillo shook her head. “I want you to have them.”

“But Mrs Portillo-”

“No, no, I insist.” She said, smiling the same warm smile as before.

Ah yes. Manny is The Hero Who Always Gets Free Handouts.

“Gracias Mrs Portillo!” Manny said, heading towards the door. Manny looked at Turner as he headed back to the house. “Isn’t Mrs Portillo, great!?”

Isn’t this abuse of punctuation, quite bad? Or is it, quite hilarious?

“Yeah, she’s pretty nice.” Turner said. “But uh, I have to go kid.”

Here we have an easy-to-see example of the Law Of Conservation Of Commas: For every sentence with a comma inserted where one has no business being, there is an equal and opposite sentence which is lacking a comma that sorely ought to be there.

“Do you want me to take you home?” Manny asked.

“No!” Turner said quickly, startling Manny.

He frowned. “Turner, what’s wrong?”

“Oh uh...s...sorry about that kid…” Turner rushed his words out as he leapt out of Manny’s hand. “I just meant, I’m not too far from...home...I can walk there...I’ll see you next week, okay?”

Manny seemed a bit unsure but forced a small smile. “Oh okay….See you Turner.

He waved slowly as he watched Turner head down the sidewalk.

Turner put the lemon cake right in front of Swift, smirking slightly. “Yes. I did get this from the bakery.”

Swift looked at the lemon cake. 

There’s no way she can be suspicious of me now!

Yeah, right.

“This looks fresh…” She said.

Darn it! I didn’t think about that…..

Gee, it’s not like I did, way back at the beginning of the chapter! 

“I uh….got it right after it was thrown out I guess.” Turner thought of quickly.

She still looked unsure, but decided to let it slide.

“It looks amazing!” Twist said.

“What, did you have lemon cake at the bike shop too?” Turner teased.

“Actually yeah. My old owner loved to cook.” She explained, before taking a smell of the lemon cake. “It smells great too.”

“Taking a smell of”. Now there’s a phrase I have never heard before.

“Turner, you’re always bringing back the best food.” Teeth said. “So I have a special job for you.”

“A special job? What is it?” Turner asked, feeling slightly excited.

“I want you to be our full time food finder!” Teeth said.

Oh joy. The author got tired of Turner and Manny’s Friendship Meter only advancing once a week, so they decided to speed things up.

Too bad they couldn’t have gotten tired of Plunker and Tapper…

“Full time food finder?”

Teeth nodded. “Every day you go out and look for food and bring it back. Got it?”

Every day!? Turner panicked slightly. “Uh thanks for the offer but I….I don’t think I want to do th…”

“It wasn’t a request.” Teeth snapped coldly.. “It was a command.”

Turner seems a little taken aback. “Oh...right...I’m sorry…” He muttered under his breath.

Teeth gave him a slight glare before heading back over to Swift.

Twist noticed Turner was a bit shaken up and went over to him. “¿Estás bien?” [“Are you okay?”]

“Huh? Oh I’m fine.” Turner said. “I guess I was just...surprised.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Twist said. “Teeth has kind of an attitude problem.” She rolled her eyes slightly. “You’ll get used to it.” 

If you can call being a rejected character from Stephen Kozeniewski’s submission to “Bludgeon Tools: A Splatterpunk Anthology” an “attitude problem”.

“Right….” Turner looked away slightly. “I just don’t get why he thought he had to yell at me.” Turner said, now sounding annoyed.

“He takes his job as leader pretty seriously... too seriously if you ask me.” Twist said. “He doesn’t like his leadership challenged.”

“I wasn’t challenging his leadership.” Turner pointed out.

“It probably didn’t seem like that to you, but disobeying an order from him….well...he doesn’t like that.”

“Well someone needs to get off his high horse…” Turner grumbled under his breath, looking at the saw from the corner of his eye.

Twist frowned a bit. “Hey, why don’t we go for a walk?”

Turner sighed. “Okay…”

“Vamos!” [“Los geht’s!”. Erm, I mean, “Let’s go!”] Twist said, leading him down the sidewalk. 

Turner looked back at Teeth before following Twist.

They stayed silent at first, with Twist  looking at the leaves on the tree, changing color. “Autumn's coming.” She said.

 “Winter is coming…”

“Huh?” Turner looked at the leaves too. “Oh yeah, I guess it is.”

“That means winter’s close.” She groaned. “Winter sucks out here.”

You’re in freaking San Diego. That’s not possible.

It’s the first of March right now as I’m writing this, and I just looked up the temperature in San Diego and it’s 64 degrees Fahrenheit. Wow, what a sucky winter!

“Oh I guess I didn’t really think about how winter would be.” Turner said, sounding slightly nervous now.

“If it gets too cold we’ll probably have to find a building to sneak into.” Twist sighed. “Teeth won’t like that though.”

“Why not?”

“If you couldn’t tell, he’s not too fond of humans.” She said sarcastically. “So he doesn’t like being in places where we could run into them. Last winter we almost froze.”-

I’d say “you’re freaking tools, how the heck can you freeze?!” but given that they need to eat and can apparently do some… other stuff that you’d think would be organics-only, why not?

-”We had to sleep in one of the trash cans, covered in newspapers.”

Turner frowned, thinking about the winters in Mr Grover’s workshop.

Oh joy, just what I wanted: A long flashback and a Plunker sequence, all in one!

Mr Grover lit a fire in the fireplace and sat down with his newspaper and a blanket draped over his lap.

Claspy, Bolt, and Plunker were watching the snow from the window.-

What snow? You live in San Diego, you don’t get snow!

-Turner was on one of the counters, cleaning up spare screws, and putting them into the correct jar, not seeming interested in what the others were doing.

He tried to slide a nut into one of the glass jars, but hit it a bit too hard, just hitting the side and causing a loud clank. 

Turner groaned and went over to try again.

Plunker heard him and looked over. “Turner? Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Turner groaned. “I’m just trying to be productive around here...unlike some other tools.”

Oooh, burn!

Clapsy and Bolt quickly turned to face him.

“Is there something you wanted to say to us, hot shot?” Claspy asked, narrowing her eyes slightly.

“No, no.” Turner said. “You just have fun, staring at the snow.”

This reminds me of winters in elementary school, and how the second a snowflake was spotted the whole class instantly stopped being productive and started staring out the window.

“What’s your problem!?” Claspy snapped.

“Nothing.” Turner said, going back over to the nut and flinging it into the jar. “I’m just saying there’s stuff to do around here….”

“Hey!” Bolt yelled. He hopped off the window sill and glared at Turner. “Why don’t ya shut up?”

“Why don’t you shut up?” Turner asked back.

“Please,stop fighting.” Plunker sighed, slightly. 

“Not until this stupid head learns some manners!” Bolt said.

“Oh that’s rich. I’m the one who needs to learn some manners?” Turner protested. “Not the wrench that just told me to shut up and called me a stupid head?” 

“Well you deserved it!” Bolt said. “You stupid he-...meanie!”

Geez, Bolt used to be actually funny and now he’s slinging around insults that have about the same offensive weight as “big stupid doodoo head!” How the mighty have fallen.

“Hey, stop fighting…” Mr Grover said, half heartedly, not even looking up from his newspaper.

Wow, such verisimilitude! That’s the approach to conflict resolution my old Wood Shop teacher used!

Turner rolled his eyes. “Yeah,sure, whatever you say.”  He groaned and hopped off the counter, heading towards the back door of the workshop.

“Good riddance…” Turner heard Bolt say, before heading back to the window with the others.

Turner just sighed as he pushed the door open. When he got outside he was met by a rush of cold air to his face. He shivered slightly, but hopped outside anyway.

It’s better than being in there with them….

That’s interesting. Apparently, thoughts in flashback sequences just aren’t formatted. 

Turner stood on the back porch and watched as a flurry of snowflakes fluttered through the sky.

What’s wrong with them? I was just saying they could be more helpful around here….and they just snapped at me!

“Turner?”

He nearly jumped when he heard a voice behind him. Plunker was there, dragging a small blanket with her. 

“Oh hey Plunker.”

You know that something is bad when the acting is wooden and it’s only text. 

She went over and put the blanket over the both of them. They both sat there in silence for a moment, watching the snow.

“It’s really pretty isn’t it?” Plunker asked, breaking the silence.

Turner looked at her. Some of the snowflakes had landed on her, and were sparkling under the porch light. “I guess so.”

Another gust of wind blew by and Turner shivered. Plunker put the whole blanket on him. “Here.”

“Thanks…” Turner mumbled. 

“Of course.” She smiled. She sat beside him and kept watching the sky. “....I just wish you, Claspy, and Bolt would stop fighting.”

Turner groaned. “I just can’t stand them!”

Plunker frowned. “Why not?”

“They’re just so annoying!” Turner said. “And they’re always ganging up on me!”

Plunker stayed silent for a moment.  “You….You don’t think I’m annoying, do you?”

“What?” Turner asked, slightly surprised. “Of course not, you’re the only one here that’s not annoying!”

“Thanks….” She said, softly. More wind blew by, and both her and Turner shivered. “Maybe we said head back inside.”

“Yeah.” Turner shivered.

When the tools went back inside, Mr Grover was still working on his crossword. Turner was relieved to see Bolt and Claspy were asleep, not wanting to deal with them again tonight.

He shivered more, still chilled from being outside.

“Why don’t we warm up by the fire?” She asked.

Turner nodded, shivering. “Good idea…”

They went over and Turner laid down. Plunker gently placed the blanket over Turner and he snuggled into it. 

Plunker hummed a soft lullaby to him as he drifted off to sleep.

I can’t wait until the Plunker’s lullaby is “dramatically revealed”, and it turns out to just be another incongruous pop-culture reference.

The memory wouldn’t leave Turner’s head the rest of the day. That night when he snuggled into his piece of fabric, it came back to him.

He could hear Plunker’s lullaby so clearly, as if she was still there with him. He snuggled deeper into the fabric and was about to fall asleep.

I wonder if any of them miss me….

And finally, this chapter is over. Phew, I think I need a break.

(Here's the next chapter.)

[bloodgulchblog]

I have to finish it I have to finish it I have to finish it.

If you'd like to see Keyes' speech, I posted it over here to save myself a lot of effort.

To be clear about something: I don't have anything against Keyes' actor. I don't know much about the guy, but he does a good job when they actually give him good lines, but especially now that they've put him in the Admiral Exposition Zone he doesn't seem to be getting a lot to leverage unfortunately.

I'll even say that I think he's managing to sell Keyes having a connection with Jimmy Rings in the scene after the speech, the show has actually done the work for long enough to establish that they know and respect each other.

Keyes is going to make some kind of insane last stand, Jimmy is like "if you die then the leadership we'll have left is the people like Ackerson" so Keyes agrees to get the civilians out of there while the Spartans go to, presumably, die in the fighting.

Also, Kai's not here. I'm pretty sure Ackerson has her but I don't remember/care enough about details from last episode to confirm whether that was text or me guessing based on where I think they're going with her.

(Basically, I think they're planning on having Kai fill Kurt's boots.)

But before they do that, I mentioned civilians, right?

I hate to say it but I am enjoying Soren being a petty bitch. They have him "...and Donkey!" his way into this one and it worked for me.

Halo show is so tonally weird. Like, fuck Soren because we've seen him being totally cool with whatever the fuck the indentured servant refugee auction shit is, but if he didn't suck so bad...

Keyes and Halsey (never married but very divorced) and Soren the ex-Spartan who doesn't respect either of them: please keep giving me comedy so I can survive more of this.

ANYWAY, MIRANDA MENTION

Halsey asks where Miranda is and Keyes says she's not on Reach but he can't tell her.

(I've been quietly calling it that she's in charge of the Spartan-IIIs since last episode and this doesn't disprove my theory, but we shall see.)

Keyes and Perez are loading civilians onto the last shuttle out when Soren and Halsey spot some Jackals rushing the launch site, and Silver Team are on their way back to provide cover.

And there's a problem with the shuttle.

The fuel line is still connected. Keyes takes off to disconnect it. As he goes, the Jackals have made it here.

Keyes tells Perez to go, she says she won't without him. He insists and opens the gas line. Halsey yells while Soren pulls her away.

I WAS JUST FUCKING TALKING ABOUT HOW THEY GOT US TO LIKE THIS CHARACTER DESPITE HOW WEAK THIS SHOW GENERALLY IS???

Anyway yeah, Keyes blows himself up.

I think I'm out of images but we're almost done...

Okay. Alright. Here we fucking go again.

S2E4.

I already have one spoiler I'm completely unsurprised by, let's make it more.

I survive the LAST TIME ON HALO and my increasing desire to not be doing this right now, and am rewarded with one of this show's only endearing qualities: Vannak's ongoing animal guy personality trait. He gets to feed the pigeons for 2 seconds before the explosions start.

Cut to Perez and Jimmy Rings running through the streets while Perez yells about having to get back to her family and Jimmy yells about how they're gone, Perez! (Also sorry I'm going back to calling him Jimmy Rings because I hate having to distinguish him from actual Chief and might as well do it in the most ridiculous way possible.)

Then we immediately jump to Soren and Halsey in the funbox.

Did you know that one of my least favorite things TV shows do is cliffhanger on a situation that could've been interesting, then ~subvert your expectations~ by making it completely uninteresting and resolving nothing?

Yeah.

Gold star, no notes.

Then the power goes out.

Soren just kinda leaves because the security system's off. Bye!!!

Meanwhile again, Perez is very upset for obvious reasons and has a disagreement with Jimmy about what they should be doing. Jimmy wants to go back to FLEETCOM, while Perez wants to start warning everyone to evacuate RIGHT NOW.

Perez this isn't gonna work I'm sorry.

Anyway.

Suddenly Stealth Elite.

Sorry it's so hard to get caps of these guys, I think the sfx people don't want you to look at 'em too close.

On the bright side, Halsey leaving with Soren shows they do have a chance of unlocking the comedy duo power I believed in.

Back again.

They're really trying to speedrun some shit here.

Like, this is so close to being in character (even though it isn't quite) but the problem is that they want to have this character say so much shit when the guy they have been trying so badly to emulate doesn't open up and it feels unearned/not worked up to. The problem with trying to crack open a character like the actual Master Chief is that it requires a ton of space and focus on doing that, and this project is so full of subplots and has scrapped so much of its own first season that it has even LESS time to develop enough rapport for me to not feel like I'm being hit over the head. Like I get it, I write insane shit with Chief trying to figure out how to communicate with people after he's decided he might be okay with it, but this just doesn't work for me.

This could work, but it kinda came in from the factory pre-bungled.

Anyway.

Jimmy Rings walking around this random building they're escaping through while holding a fucking axe he found is so funny to me.

Speaking of the axe, it's apparently an antique!!! And this random building is a shop belonging to a British lady and, suddenly, we are going full WWII stiff-upper-lip blitz speech.

Fuck, hold on, I need another post for full effect-

[misochip]

.

[dreamsy990]

kris is NOT the knight

saw a post earlier about how kris might be the knight and. yeah i guess i wanted to comment on it. so heres all my comments w the whole idea complied into one post for simplicity (with a few very minor edits)

enjoy:

---

The theory that Kris is the knight can’t be true. or at least, not without a lot of stretches. the main point most people make about this is the fact that kris physically couldn’t have made the cyber world. it had to be made sometime between when berdly and noelle arrive at the library and when kris and susie come, likely while they were in the closet. 

this is because noelle and berdly were already sitting down with their books out when the fountain was created. if the dark world had already been there, they wouldn’t have been able to sit down and start studying. It must have been created while they were already there, likely by someone hiding in the closet, as implied with the text ‘a large person could fit inside’ when looking at it. 

the only other theory that might make this idea reasonable is that there are multiple knights. i highly doubt that idea, but there’s technically no strong evidence of that beyond the fact that the knight is only ever referred to as one person, so i suppose it could be true. 

I think the only dark worlds kris has created (as of now, based on what we currently know) are the one at the end of chapter 2, and the one at the very start of chapter 1, that being the closet. We know that kris has already been there before because of their previous save file, and hesitance to enter it at all.

when i say the closet dark world, i mean ONLY the closet dark world. Not the extra classroom. That, i believe, was made by someone else afterwards. King’s dialogue implies that kris is NOT the knight he met, and that he’s fighting them on behalf of the knight. While this might be him fighting you, the player, on behalf of the knight, kris, that doesn’t seem to be the case. You could get that idea from the line “By the Knight's will, I shall shatter your heart to pieces!”, but it probably couldn’t have been Kris. 

They weren’t possessed until the start of chapter 1, and by then, the dark world already existed. They couldn’t have made it after the start of chapter one but before our entry, so they wouldn’t have been able to warn king at their very first arrival. The same argument also disproves them being able to go talk to king if the dark world already existed. They wouldn’t have had a chance to go and warn king about the player and that he should fight them. And why would they want him to hurt ralsei or susie?

Also, many of the knights actions seem pretty out of character for kris. While we don’t have exactly obvious evidence of who they are, we can make assumptions based on what other characters say and dialogue options that they aren’t the kind of person who’d put a tyrant like king in power or try to bring about the roaring. 

We know from a lot of kris and noelle’s interactions that they dont mean any harm. They pull harmless pranks, but nothing that would really hurt noelle. They’re also disapproving of how the player tries to ‘prank’ noelle by jumping off a switch at one point, since it could have seriously hurt her. You can see that response from how kris reacts to noelle doing it to them afterwards, and how they seem genuinely upset.

Also in snowgrave, kris actively doesn’t want you to continue the route, shown from the dialouge options that will cancel it out having exclamation points. Like they’re trying to convince you to stop before you hurt anyone else, especially their friend. That doesn’t exactly sound like the behavior of someone who would put tyrants into power and try to end the world. We know ending the world IS the knights goal from their name quite literally being the ROARING knight, which they introduced themself to Queen as. It’s weird that someone would be taking actions that would lead to the end of the world, and be named after that world ending event, and for it to be a coincidence. And even if they didn’t know that and kris was somehow the knight, that doesn’t change the fact that at the end of chapter 2 kris opens a fountain despite ralsei’s warning. Its not like them to WANT the end of the world. 

So yeah, theres my kris isnt the knight argument!!! ok bye now 

[fleshing-out-fodlan]

This brings up some interesting points but before I respond to them I do want to give some I guess disclaimers?? Just to make sure we're on the same page. So first off, when talking about a culture you do have to generalize so there will definitely be people who are exceptions to what I say. Furthermore, saying a noble is taking their duties seriously does not necessarily indicate that what they're doing is morally good (I have a specific example I'm thinking of right now that we'll see later) and the opposite is also true (for example, Bernadetta and also Lysithea as you pointed out don't care for their noble duties but I wouldn't say they're morally bad people for that). Also, I'm specifically talking about pre war culture (from what I see everything you said does apply to that just thought I'd still say that now to prevent future misunderstandings). And also I'm more or less ignoring hopes so don't worry, I won't comment on anybody's Golden Wildfire characterization. Anyways, now that I got the unnecessarily long spiel out of the way, I'll start actually talking about the game.

So yeah, I focused mostly on the noble youth in my analysis. Mainly because the student characters are the ones I care most about so when I look into things for the game I tend to find those the most interesting to read about. I know that makes my analysis weaker overall but I was just writing that for fun so I didn't really feel like looking into other things. But since you've pointed it out, I thought it actually might be interesting to look at all (or at least all that I remember) of the non student character nobles and see how I view their actions and if I think it fits into my theory.

Since you started with Faerghus, I will too (disclaimer: I've only played Azure Moon once and am getting all my information on this from research I did so I could very easily miss something):

Rowe: I agree with you here, Rowe is depicted as a noble who cares primarily for his own well being and is willing to ignore morals for his own gain.

Cornelia: I'm pretty sure, before the events of the story, the real Cornelia is replaced with one of the slitherers similarly to Arundel. Just like I don't think it would be fair to use slitherer Arundel's actions to prove the empire's cultures I also don't think it's fair to use slitherer Cornelia's for the kingdom. From what I gathered, all we know about pre-slitherer Cornelia is that she was an extremely talented mage and helped cure a plague in the kingdom and improved Fhirdiad's infrastructure, both of which involve her helping the people. Also is Cornelia even a noble? All I see is that she was a holy woman before working for the Baliddyd family but idk.

Kleiman: So obviously this man is an awful person but I don't think that disproves my point. My argument is that Faerghan nobles take their duties seriously and not necessarily that they're good people (which maybe that misunderstanding is on me for only using examples of people doing good things but I do believe you can feel a strong sense of duty and that that can motivate you to do terrible things). As far as I'm aware, we don't learn about his motivation for this in houses so I don't really think this proves or disproves my theory.

Lambert: Idk what it is about the three lords and their families that make me not want to talk about them in analyses but regardless I'll try to do it anyways. So the subjugation of Sreng? That was bad, he should not have done that. But again, this doesn't mean that he took his duties lightly. According to the wiki, Lambert was disliked for pushing for 'radical' reforms and travelling to Duscur to try and improve their relations. All this to me indicates that he took his duties pretty seriously. Honestly, I thought there would be more information about him so idk if I'm missing stuff but this was all I could find (besides his whole love story but I didn't feel like it was relevant to this discussion)

Rodrigue: Regardless of how you feel about the man, he definitely takes his duties seriously. He said once to Dimitri "Wherever you lead, we will follow." That's not a mindset that I support and actually find to be very unhealthy, but in his mind his duty is to the king and this would be him following through on his duty (I was going to say this later but I guess I should say it now so I don't seem like a hypocrite, I concede to your point about Hubert, his duty is to Edelgard similarly to how Rodrigue's duty is at least partially to the king so yeah, Hubert does take his duties seriously). Rodrigue also spends a significant amount of time helping to raise the future king after Lambert dies and when Cornelia exiles Dimitri Rodrigue stands by him, standing up to her instead of giving in like Count Rowe did. And later on, he even gives his life to protect Dimitri.

Gilbert: Honestly, I think Gilbert's strong sense of duty is one of his major flaws. He feels like a failure for being unable to protect his king and ends up abandoning his family because of that. And in fact, we see his duty being his priority again when he battles Annette in Crimson Flower. By this point, he is fighting with the Knights of Seiros, meaning his duty is to the church not necessarily the kingdom at this moment. When confronted by Annette, he states that he will kill her, his own daughter, if she stays with the empire, showing him putting his responsibilities as a knight over his responsibilities as a father. In Azure Moon, he stands by Dimitri despite him obviously not being in a good mental state to handle this situation because, similarly to Rodrigue, he feels like his duty is to the king and he must therefore stand by him even when the more moral thing to do would be, in my opinion, to find somebody else to lead while Dimitri is in that mental state.

Count Galatea: Honestly, this is the person I was thinking of when I gave the disclaimer about how a noble taking their duties seriously does not necessarily translate to them behaving morally. The thing Count Galatea is most well known for is pushing Ingrid to marry for money. Now, I would say pushing your daughter to marry for money is not a great thing to do, and reading the post you linked about Ingrid's endings makes it seem like it wasn't smart to do either. But here's the thing, you don't have to be a good leader to take your responsibilities seriously. In Count Galatea's eyes, the best way to secure a good future for his territory is by marrying Ingrid off so he works hard to accomplish this goal for his people. Was that actually the smartest thing to do? I don't think so, but he was still doing it for the sake of trying to help his people.

Margrave Gautier: I feel like there isn't that much information about Margrave Gautier from houses. We know he disinherited Miklan for not having a crest. Now, we know all three countries place a big emphasis on crests. I haven't looked too deeply into this but based on what I've seen when I played, I think Faerghus places the biggest emphasis on crests. So, form the Margrave's perspective, having a crest would make a person better fit for this position than if somebody lacked a crest. Regardless of if this is true, this is how he feels. So, if he wants to take care of his territory and if he has that perspective, obviously he would give the position to his son with a crest. Furthermore, when the lance of ruin is stolen, he turns to the Church of Seiros for help. Honestly, this could be for a few reasons, I don't think it's ever confirmed why in the game. Maybe he was just being selfish and knew the weapon was powerful and wanted it for himself, or maybe he was aware of the threat this weapon posed when in the wrong hands and decided to admit his mistake to outsiders at the risk of harming his reputation to try and make up for him failing to protect the weapon earlier.

Rufus: I think Rufus is an example of a Faerghan noble who does not take his duties seriously. He still has territory to rule over despite not being king, a responsible noble would prioritize helping their own territory thrive. But he doesn't do this, instead he helps to assassinate his own brother to try and gain power. Furthermore, once he became regent the condition of the kingdom declined, so he didn't even take his duties seriously once he got the position he wanted.

Baron Dominic: In Azure Moon, when Annette goes to get Crusher from Dominic territory, Baron Dominic initially refuses to hand over the weapon and attacks them. However, it's later revealed that he was planning to hand over the weapon all along and just pretended to be against it so Cornelia couldn't get mad and punish his people. Here, Baron Dominic is taking his responsibilities to his people extremely seriously. He supports Dimitri's army and wants to help them, but also knows what he would be risking by doing so. The fact that he went out of his way to devise a plan to do what he thinks will be best for the kingdom in the long term but also mitigate the short term damage done I think shows that he is actually a good leader.

Lonato: I think Lonato's a bit of a gray case here and it can go either way honestly. Because the thing is, he did risk his citizens lives to fight against the church in a rebellion that obviously had no chance of succeeding. Nobles have a responsibility to protect the people in their lands and in this instance I think he failed. That being said, his people obviously care deeply for him. If he was just another corrupt noble, I don't think his people would've felt such a strong loyalty towards him. Furthermore, he adopted Ashe and his siblings, three kids in his territory who were forced to live on the street. If I remember correctly, the only other noble to adopt anyone was Count Rowe (adopting Yuri) and that was for much less respectable reasons. Lonato easily could've punished Ashe for breaking into his house and stealing from him, he had the power too and I'm sure other nobles would have done that. So those last two points make him seem like he cares about his people. Honestly, I think Lonato's case is very complicated and I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it so I'm not going to come to a conclusion on him.

Now onto Leicester:

Oswald von Riegan: There really isn't much about this guy but what we do know is that, for a while, it appeared as if he had no heir which caused political tension in Leicester. The wiki says he tracked down Claude's mom and had Claude brought back to Leicester, in all honesty I thought Claude decided on his own to come and was just kind of like "surprise I'm your heir." But assuming what the wiki says is true, I actually think what he did was kind of corrupt. He felt like his family was going to lose power so he went out of his way to track down an heir who no one had ever even heard of and decided "yep, this'll be the next leader of the alliance regardless of how people feel about his capabilities." Although I guess you could argue that's no more corrupt than other nobles just making their children inherit their positions because they also don't take anyone else's feelings into account. Regardless, he supposedly did this to relieve political tension which I would say he does have a responsibility to do, I just don't know if this was the way to do it.

Tiana von Riegan: She just vanished without even telling anyone where she was going. She definitely did not care about her noble duties.

Count Gloucester: I would consider him to be a selfish noble and one who doesn't care much for his duties. I think he wants Lorenz to be the next leader of the alliance not because he necessarily believes Lorenz would lead the alliance to the brightest future but moreso because he wants that clout. Furthermore, I don't think it's ever technically confirmed but it is heavily implied that Gloucester was responsible for the death of Raphael's parents and Godfrey von Riegan (aka the next heir). Killing the heir to the most powerful house in the country could definitely have extreme consequences in destabilizing the country which he does not seem to care about. The one good thing I can find that he did was hiring Jeralt's mercenaries to help Leonie's village because poachers were hunting there. But that one good thing doesn't undo all his corrupt actions he did in a selfish attempt to gain more power.

Count Ordelia: I don't really have much to say about him. From what I see he provided aid to House Hrym when they wanted to defect from the Empire to the Alliance. We don't really know why he did it though, although we do know Hrym citizens were fleeing into Ordelia terrtiroy to escape the cruel leadership of Duke Aegir, so I don't think there's enough in cannon to decide what category he fits into.

Margrave Edmund: Genuine question, where is Edmund portrayed as a dangerous schemer? I'm not too familiar with his character so I'm probably just missing something but from what I see he enacted trade policies that improved Edmund territory and, in some of Marianne's endings, tutored her to be a worthy successor. I do agree that he's selfish based on what Marianne says in CF about him wanting her to join the empire to get their name out there and also not caring about what side wins. Because I'm not sure what your dangerous schemer comment is referring too I'm going to hold off on judgement right now.

Judith: I think Judith is very dedicated to her duties. In CF she risks her life defending the Great Bridge of Myrddin. Claude told her to flee if she's in trouble but she states that she "could never do that" and calls in reinforcements instead. This shows how she values the well being of the alliance to the point where she is willing to risk her life. In SS Judith brings reinforcements to Aillel to help the church, again putting her life in danger to fight for what she believes to be right.

Acheron: This is a noble who doesn't feel a strong sense of duty and only cares to look out for himself. He literally says "if you can't beat them, join them" so I don't think I need to spend much time proving this point.

Finally Adrestian nobles:

Bergliez: I'm starting with him because I think we agree so I don't feel a need to talk about it too much. He risks his life for his soldiers, obviously he cares about his responsibilities as the Minister of Military Affairs.

Ionius: Not excited to talk about him because from what I've seen on here he's apparently a somewhat controversial character which surprised me considering I literally never think of him. I know he was accused of trying to consolidate power for himself but I've seen some arguments about whether or not that's true or if it was an excuse for the insurrection. If it was true it would show he's corrupt and that he cares more about being powerful than fulfilling his responsibilities. But again, idk whether or not it's true so I feel like I can't really judge. Then, after the insurrection, he becomes relatively powerless, so it's hard to say what he would've done if he had the power. I also remember reading something about him wanting to abolish the consort system I think but I'm having trouble finding where that was. One good thing I will say is that, when Edelgard comes to inherit the throne, he willing gives it up instead of clinging to power despite not being in a position to be a good ruler. Overall though, there's a lot about Ionius I'm not sure of so again I don't really have a concrete conclusion.

Duke Aegir: Here's another one that's pretty cut and dry corrupt. He was the mastermind behind the insurrection and is obviously out to get more power for himself. His motivation behind this has nothing to do with helping the people or Adrestia, but rather with his selfish desire with power. In Ferdinand and Lysithea's paralogue it's said he instated heavy taxes in Hrym territory and forced the citizens to perform hard labor. And, from what we know of his character, he likely didn't even put the extra money to good use (not that that would make what he did even remotely okay, just using this to further emphasize his selfishness) and instead kept it for himself.

Marquis Vestra: As you said earlier, the duty of house Vestra is to serve the Hresvelg family. Marquis Vestra was involved in the insurrection of the seven and, according to Hubert "spat on a legacy of loyalty and devotion." That being said, I don't think staging an insurrection is an inherently bad thing to do if the leadership is corrupt, but as we know this insurrection led to the torturing and subsequent death of Edelgard and her siblings. So in this case, not only did Marquis Vestra ignore his duties, he also didn't do the morally correct thing imo. In all honesty, I'm not exactly sure why he did this though, and this post is turning out to be a lot longer than I expected so I am admittedly getting lazy with research so maybe I'm missing stuff but I'm going to come to a conclusion and say he doesn't particularly care about his duties.

Count Hevring: So limiting this analysis only to Houses, there's not much to go off of with this guy (Hopes gives a lot more with him but I'm ignoring Hopes for this analysis). He participated in the insurrection of the seven but again, I don't think we get his personal reasoning for doing so. And he does work with Edelgard and as we know one of her goals is fixing the corruption within the nobility. In Linhardt's and Dorothea's C support, Linhardt comments on how his father is an extremely prideful man and how his pride prevents him from making amends with Count Bergliez. This is not a great trait for a leader to have, you should be able to put your own personal feelings behind you at least when handling political issues. Despite that one flaw, I'd overall put him on the more positive side for Adrestian nobles as he is fighting a war against corrupt nobles but he definitely has to do some work on himself.

Count Varley: Another pretty cut and dry case, Count Varley is extremely corrupt. He tries to groom Bernadetta into being a 'good wife,' trying to secure marriages for her that would increase his power (such as to Ferdinand). He also has a very disfavorable view towards the commoner, forbidding Bernadetta from being friends with them. and beating the one she was friends with. I don't think I need to say much more, he's a selfish noble out to get power for himself even if it means neglecting his responsibilities.

Baron Ochs: This is a complicated case. He takes a hero's relic that he shouldn't have, but he thought it would save his daughter so it's honestly very understandable. Overall, we don't know much about what he was like as a ruler so I don't think it would be fair to make much of a judgement for him.

Okay, so this ended up being way longer than I expected so now that I've gotten through all the relevant nobles I think I'm going to just post this. I had a whole list of things I wanted to talk about and I only got through the first one and also wasn't able to respond to like the majority of your points (sorry) but I was having fun doing just this part so maybe I'll look into the rest on another date. Anyways, this was just for fun, if you don't agree with all my points that's fine and I'd be interested to hear your interpretations (especially for the nobles from the later half of my list because I got much lazier in my research there).

Before finishing this post I just wanted to respond to your last paragraph. Hopefully I made it clear in this post that I was not arguing Faerghan/Leicester nobles = good and Adrestian nobles = bad and sorry that I was unclear in the original post. It was just a random thought I had and I hadn't done too much in depth research before posting it because it wasn't originally meant to be an in depth analysis. I do still believe that, on average, Faerghan nobles are the most dedicated to their duties while Adrestian nobles are the least dedicated, but I do think it's less black and white than I originally made it appear. Furthermore, I don't think that makes Faerghan nobles better than Adrestian nobles overall, in fact I would say Faerghus culture's obsession with duty is a flaw of their culture that I think you could write a whole post of its own analyzing. So yeah, I don't think one country is better than the others and that was not the point I was trying to convey, I just think they're different. I think they each have their pros and cons and this post was originally a way for me to specifically talk about what I view as a flaw in Adrestia's culture because I do personally find Adrestia to be the most interesting of the countries to talk about. Well, if anybody actually managed to get through this whole post thanks for actually reading it!!

A big part of Adrestian culture is the way that many nobles don’t seem to take their duties particularly seriously (don’t worry, we’ll talk about Ferdinand). I’ve always imagined that, of the three countries, Adrestia is the one with the largest degree of class inequality, meaning commoners have very few opportunities to rise up. Consequently, the nobles have become complacent in their positions as, if the commoners have no opportunities, they have no way to threaten the nobles. And for this reason, many Adrestian nobles take their positions for granted and ignore their noble duties.

First, I want to look at the other countries and the duties their nobles feel, starting with Faerghus (still have no idea how to spell that so hopefully I got it right). Ingrid is planning to marry for money to help her people who are suffering from a famine, Felix has a paralogue where he goes to protect his people and says to his dad “we were protecting your subjects, not your ego,” and Sylvain has a paralogue where he goes to defend his territory from thieves. Now, lets look at Leicester nobles. Lorenz obviously takes his duties seriously and, while Hilda may not take hers seriously, we know her brother Holst is constantly putting himself on the front lines to protect his territory from the Almyrans.

Looking at the Adrestians, most of the nobles seem to just not really care about their responsibilities. Linhardt wishes to ignore his responsibilities, Caspar’s older brother who is set to inherit his father’s position is stated to be a lazy jerk, Bernadetta isn’t worried about her noble position, Hubert is only concerned with his duties to Edelgard not his country, while Petra cares about her position she is not Adrestian so it doesn’t count. (I’m not talking about any of the lords for this because I just don’t really feel like getting into it).

This leaves the one exception to the rule: Ferdinand. A good amount of his dialogue, especially early game, revolves around him talking about his “noble duties” and how he must fulfill them. So surely, this means Adrestian nobles must take their responsibilities seriously? Except, look at how he’s treated. Everybody, or at least close to everybody, in the Black Eagles house looks down on Ferdinand for his attitude. Obviously, his perspective is not perfect, but he’s the one Adrestian noble attending the academy who is actively trying to do right by his people, and he is getting berated. So obviously his behavior is not the norm. All this put together indicates that there is a culture in Adrestia where nobles only look out for themselves to a degree much more extreme than the other two countries. 

[ponds-of-ink]

Investigating Patient 46 (Part 1 - Narrowing Down the Options)

AKA Trying to “prove” the Patient 46 hill I’m willing to die on because the other options are just… wrong to me.

Keep in mind that, until we get actual proof from any future FNAF games or books (I guess?), this is also conjecture. Though this is a hill I’m willing to die on, hopefully I’ll be humble enough to accept that I’ve been wrong when the time comes.

All right, so here’s the usual suspects that I’ve seen get brought up when talking about Patient 46:

*Gregory

*The Ruin Girl/A New Character

*Vanny (as a split personality a la Jekyll and Hyde thanks to Glitchtrap)

*Elizabeth haunting Vanessa… for some reason?

Let’s debunk Greg first, since there’s more straightforward proof.

In a FNAF Reddit post, there was confirmation that 46 is a girl in both the Italian and Spanish translations thanks to which versions of certain words were used. In the comments of said post, the German and Chinese translations also called Patient 46 a girl. So this isn’t a one-off translation error.

That means Greg or any other known male character can be ruled out instantly.

This still leaves The Ruin Girl, who is a kid. How do you debunk her since she’s a child too?

Well, you can thank Therapist 1 from 46’s first tape.

“…Don’t you think the sessions are more successful when you talk to me? You know, everyone associated with this company gets performance reviews, right? When my sessions don’t get results, my reviews aren’t very good…”

Therapist 1 is a company-hired therapist straight from the get-go. Unless Fazbear Entertainment can somehow hire therapists that exclusively deal with kids (which I doubt, because I don’t think Faz Ent. files under government, school, or private practice [and yes, I checked to see where child therapists typically work]), then this debunks any living/potential robot kids being the culprit.

Side note: another therapist says she works with kids, but there’s more to that statement I think we’ve missed:

“You know, I work with people of all ages, from little kids to the very elderly and everyone reacts to tragedy differently. “

Which means she’s not a one age-range only therapist. She’s probably only talking down because she figures “this poor girl’s acting childish”.

But, going back to the main topic, what about ghost kids? How can we debunk Elizabeth somehow haunting Vanessa during this period? Or, alternatively, how can we debunk that this is about her at all?

Let’s start with the (hopefully) easier task of proving that she’s not even in the main game.

As MatPat brought up in the Blob Theory, the Blob itself is made up of wires and jumbled-up animatronics with glowing faces… Except not all of them are glowing. The Puppet and Circus Baby are noticeably lacking those red glows in their eyes. Which likely means that Charlie and Elizabeth have already been set free by this point. Must be a huge relief to those concerned about Henry not being to reunite with his daughter after FNAF 6.

Now, what about disproving that a certain topic in those tapes that could apply to Elizabeth? Well, this is more speculative and character analysis-driven, but it’s something I want to throw out there.

Why exactly, in any interpretation of William/Glitchtrap’s character (who, btw, is most likely also with Vanessa at this point regardless of Liz being there or not), would there be some form of eagerness to play along and say “yes, I was a terrible dad”? Or at least a high enough tolerance of this accusation to let Vanessa act this story out?

If he was as cruel to his kids or hyper-obsessed with the idea of family as some speculate, then wouldn’t his pride get in the way somehow? The “cruel to his kids” would most likely go ‘yeah, I made ‘em squirm but they deserved it’ while the family-obsessed one would outright jump in and go “are you crazy? I was a great father! my kids were the problem! That’s why I made a ‘better’ one!”, etc.

On the flip side, I can see why the more neglectful/trying to be decent portrayal of Afton could play along more willingly. Probably a way to show that he shares adult Michael’s habit of trying to making amends… in his own very twisted way. The only concern I have is that, outside of the original book trilogy’s timeline, there isn’t really much evidence to support Elizabeth really being harmed in any way. He tries to protect her from Circus Baby, Scrap Baby sounds very eager to please but in a more “look, Daddy, I’m like you now! >:D” kinda tone in that ending speech from FNAF 6, and the fact that she’s gone at all instead of being like “oh no my dad tricked me I gotta talk with somebody :(“ is um… Weirdly telling.

And that’s not even covering the other stuff I brought up in another post where I talked about a couple of the Fazbear Frights epilogues. I’d link that, but hmmm… Nah. I’ll send you to a post who can sum up my current train of thought a whole lot better. Besides, OP makes better points for this than I can off the top of my head.

Point is Elizabeth is neither (1) Patient 46 and (2) most likely not the one who gave the false testimony at that custody case… Unless that gets disproven later somehow in Ruin.

Which leaves us with two things: Vanny is Patient 46 and none of the crossed out patients have that custody case backstory. Yes, not even Gregory or Elizabeth, though I can see why people would think that.

So, that leaves us with a whole bunch of new questions. Whose past is 46’s? Was the custody case even real? Is Vanessa some lost Afton kid we missed somehow?

Hopefully, I’ll be able to answer those questions in a part 2.

(Oh and uh… Yeah I forgot about the completely new character option. Oops. I guess I can’t really “debunk” someone we don’t really know about yet, huh? Hmm. My only problem with this is: Why exactly introduce some other new villain when there’s Vanny and Glitchtrap already there in the shadows, waiting for their proper turn? Idk, it just feels weird from a writing standpoint atm.)