#i have a theory that she's been dead since episode 4

[kushanna]

who even gives a fuck about preserving the cat box in the real world. ange knows the truth now (??) and is supposedly willing to move forward, so it shouldn't affect her. eva is dead and so it doesn't affect her either. was that battler living as hachijo tohya? i don't give a fuck if it affects him

[ennn]

Guys, Agatha and Rio fighting because of Billy is OKAY

Because it’s not really about Billy. It’s about them. Billy’s just the immediate problem, the catalyst for a fight that’s been brewing since the first episode.

Now I know there’s been more focus on Billy lately, the same way Wandavision at times focused on Monica and her hero origin story – but Billy's story is here because of what it tells us about Agatha – who's projecting hard on the boy (see my other meta post on their relationship).

And this development isn't a twist. The situation between two has always been tense (in ways good and bad). And it looks like these two messy bitches are basically making their relationship problems everyone’s problem.

Let’s look at what the text’s been telling us, shall we?

GIF credit to michaun

There’s animosity between Agatha and Rio that’s unresolved

As sexy their fight in episode one was (and boy was it), there’s certainly anger and resentment between the two, or at least the easily combustible grounds for it. Now we have an idea of why Agatha is mad at Rio (Nicky) although we're less clear about what Agatha did to piss Rio off: was it just Agatha running away or was it something specific she did?

Regardless I don't think Rio is kidding when making threats of bodily harm.

GIF credit: sersi

And neither does Agatha. But she knows all too well how quickly Rio caves to her pouty flirting (and let’s be honest Rio knows too), and basically manages to get a reprieve from her exe’s retribution in episode 1.

GIF credit: marril96

The agreement: They’ll continue fighting it out once Agatha gets her powers back.

We know this is a serious threat on the backburner because you can hear Agatha muttering about how "she's unstoppable" at the start of episode 2 while planning to flee.

More obviously, Agatha touches on it again in episode 4, asking for Rio to hold off on her violence until she finishes the Road, and they can hang out like old times: “Maybe the Road is like Switzerland…”

GIF credit daisjohnson

I absolutely get how it can be confusing because these two clearly still care for each other and are still attracted to each other, with lots of yearning looks across episode 4 and 5. As Schaeffer puts it, the muscle memory of that love is still there, feelings are still there. They were in love and there is still love between them.

But they never worked through what tore them apart in the first place.

And you can see this when Rio gently and firmly reminds Agatha that Billy isn't her son – that Nicky is really gone, and Rio still did the thing that Agatha hates her for.

Agatha closes herself off and runs, and Rio feels her scar tear open again.

Notably, Rio isn't sorry for doing her job. Her heartfelt confession – possibly the most emotionally vulnerable she can be – isn't an apology. She didn't want to hurt Agatha, but she couldn't do what Agatha wanted either. There's a disconnect there.

Chaotic vs Lawful: Billy is basically the new Nicky

Now we know Nicky was the reason they first separated. And it’s still a theory but I think there's a good chance of Rio wanting Billy dead because he probably should be. Billy Maximoff, born from The Hex, "broke the rules" to survive and some piece of Billy Kaplan still lives on despite a fatal car crash.

And that's partly why Agatha is hardcore-projecting on Billy, Agatha "I did not break the rules, they simply bent to my power" Harkness has always been a rule-breaker. That's what started her path to become the infamous witch-killer.

Not to mention Agatha is a shameless survivor. She'll certainly cheat or take shortcuts if she can get away with it. See episode 3:

GIF credit: daisjohnsons

Rio, by contrast, follows certain rules – which Agatha taunts her for — "You can't kill me, it's not allowed" – and she has a job she has to do, even if she doesn't want to. There’s a clash here of value systems as well.

To be fair, at this point Rio's motivations aren't entirely clear. It's possible Rio just wants more dead witches, or she gets impatient and angry and decides to go at that emotional vulnerability as a way of hurting her (“You’re vulnerable.” “Only physically.”)

Either way, Rio taking away a boy that Agatha now considers hers (even if only with a massive amount of projecting) after Agatha’s freshly reliving and processing the absolute devastation of Nicky's death. That is sure to bring things to an open conflict.

And these two (in their own way) are so dramatic.

Change and Growth

There are other factors as well, in terms of Agatha’s character arc and journey, which I’ve talked about in my other meta post on these two being star-crossed lovers.

It's a tragic, complicated story with these two. It’s about them, it’s about more than them.

[genericpuff]

I've been seeing you say/speculate Rachel Smythe has been cut loose from webtoon, could you elaborate what you mean by that?

It's only a tinfoil hat theory that people should take with MOUNTAINS of salt (seriously, I'm more likely to believe that Rachel really is just done with LO), but there's a general suspicion that LO wasn't meant to end here and that Webtoons decided to cut the cord. I've made a post about it before but some new stuff has surfaced since then.

1.) The announcement the series was ending was made quietly at NYCC and not shared to either Webtoons' socials or Rachel's socials.

The only way fans initially knew about the series ending was through a screencap from the Discord where someone else who had been attending NYCC passed on the info from a Q&A that LO would be entering its final arc.

For a good while the only other way to know the series was ending was through the Discord, a Cosmopolitan article, and my own post.

Though it sounds odd for a series to get cancelled halfway through its third season, it's not uncommon for Webtoons to suddenly axe series while they're on their midseason hiatuses, it's happened before. So there's a general suspicion that Rachel may have found out during NYCC that LO would only be given one more arc.

2.) The actual finale announcement was made in a text post on Instagram that suddenly announced it would be ending on May 11th, despite the fact that there was still lots to wrap up in the story.

What this implies is that Rachel was given one more arc, with no concrete end date... until Webtoons told her to wrap it up in a limited number of episodes, hence why despite us knowing it was in its final arc, the end date still felt too soon. This is also supported by the fact that her initial announcement was vaguely "early/mid 2024" - she couldn't give a more accurate end date because she didn't plan for the actual ending.

3.) Things that Rachel has said implies that she was either hoping for the final arc to go on longer, or that she didn't think LO was going to be ending now.

(that "nothing is set in stone" quote further supports the theory that she may have been hoping to get renewed in spite of the lukewarm ending announcement - that the only reason the announcement was so quiet was because WT hadn't fully committed to it yet and wanted to see how the series would do upon its return; now that they see it falling behind to other series, it might mean WT became more sure in their decision to cut it and gave her an actual deadline to wrap it up by.)

4.) Webtoons has stopped promoting Lore Olympus despite it ending.

Any promotional spots that it has gotten have been stuffed into the dead zone of the banner reels (seriously, anything past the 3rd spot is practically useless because it takes actual committed scrolling to get there vs. the first 1-3 banner spots which can be seen as soon as you open the app/site) and the banner art itself does not in any way advertise the series being in its final arc. These banners also only seem to be appearing for a day at most, compared to the days upwards of weeks they used to get.

Webtoons also hasn't been doing any sort of promoting on their socials for it. Considering The Mafia Nanny has been consistently beating out LO in the top rankings for weeks now, and that LO's rating and view count is still dropping, it appears that Webtoons has finally given up on shoving it down people's throats and put their focus elsewhere.

Again, this is all tinfoil hat speculation, so take it with massive doses of salt. Considering this is Webtoons, I wouldn't be surprised if they finally decided to put LO out of its misery, but this is also Rachel and I wouldn't blame her in the slightest if she finally wanted to be done with it after the past two years of people clowning on it. And I say that knowing I, myself, am a clown LOL

Either way, I feel like either outcome is plausible in its own ways, but whatever is the true reason, it doesn't change the fact that LO is ending and has 3 episodes left to wrap itself up. And whatever comes after will likely involve the launch of Inklore which was estimated for the spring.

[accirax]

Danganronpa: Despair Time Chapter 2 Episode 16 Dissection

Wow. Just wow. What a way to end off the chapter. (/pos)

I wasn't expecting to have a whole lot to theorize about with this one (especially given its relatively shorter length), but buckle in, because I'm sure I'm going to have a lot to say about the way that the end of this brilliant chapter played out...

Enough to call this a Part 1 again, much like I did last time. That means I have a rate of way over one image per minute...

SPOILERS for Danganronpa: Despair Time through the end of Chapter 2. (wild) Also spoilers for SDR2 through the beginning of Chapter 4.

When I was first watching the episode, I definitely had the thought, "I wonder if MonoTV is just saying this for the sake of engagement with the theoretical audience, because it seems like MonoTV should already know what the answer is due to its role and what the students just said." Based on what happens later in the episode, that was probably about correct? I dunno, there's a lot to unpack with MonoTV here.

Who Voted Teruko?

(For all two people who would understand the reference, please read that header in the tone of "who voted Sifu?" from Survivor 45. Or, really, I should probably say one person, because it's probably just Venus :P)

So, it's happened once again. While the clear majority of the votes are on the correct blackened, Ace, we have a single straggler who decided to vote for Teruko instead. But, who is this mystery person? Let's talk possibilities.

First, however, I think we should take a look at last Trial's voting results.

What I find strange is that the order of the students, even those who weren't voted for, changed. My guess was that students who receive votes are put at the front, students who are dead are put at the end, and the middle seems to be alphabetized by last name order?

Chiem - Cuevas - Fontana - Giles - Grebenshchikova - Hakobyan - Jing - Lacroix - Markey - Nageishi - Rosales - Tobisa - Young

Interestingly, if true, this means that J was being categorized as "J Rosales" even when she was still going by "J Moreno" in Chapter 1. Fascinating.

Anyways, the Chapter 2 board has shuffled things around. Obviously Min and Arei have been moved down since they died, and Ace was moved to the top because he now has votes. However, the end of the lineup also changed, for some reason.

Chiem - Cuevas - Fontana - Giles - Grebenshchikova - Hakobyan - Jing - Lacroix - Young - Tobisa - Rosales

What does this mean? Honestly, I have no clue. None of the students stayed in the same positions relative to each other (as in, Whit is no longer after Eden, Eden is no longer after J, etc), so I don't think it can be used to particularly suspect any of them? If anything, I think Eden would look the least suspicious, because at least she stayed in the middle while J and Whit swapped who was at the beginning or the end.

It's possible this was just an editing mistake, but I figured I'd point it out in case it helps anyone with their theories. (Clearly, it's just evidence that Whit is one step closer to becoming a Cuevas--)

Back to the original point, who was the one Teruko vote? In Chapter 1, I think it's pretty widely agreed upon that Min voted for Teruko. However, Teruko got two votes in Chapter 1, so the possibility remains that it could be the same person who's voted for Teruko twice now. I've gone on the record to say that I thought Arei was the one to provide Teruko her second vote in Chapter 1, but thankfully numberoneanika helped me to see how there could have been other options.

Obviously, Arei wasn't the one to vote for Teruko this time. So, with that in mind, here are my best theories:

Ace

Pros: Doesn't want to die, and therefore might not want to vote for himself. Probably the most obvious option.

Cons: At the end of 2-15, Ace was, all things considered, pretty accepting of his upcoming death. He said that the only reason he was fighting back was to stall for time, but that he knew that there was no way he'd get out of the Trial alive. Voting for Teruko doesn't help him delay the inevitable at all. If he were trying to cast a vote in the vain hope that it would save him from death, I would have expected it to go to Eden. Also, I doubt that Ace would have been the extra vote for Teruko in Chapter 1, to the extent that's important.

David

Pros: Dislikes Teruko and wants to cause chaos. It's also possible he could have cast the extra vote on Teruko in Chapter 1, if he had already made up his mind about wanting to take the killing game off the rails.

Cons: Honestly, I don't know if there are any direct cons to it being David who cast the vote. He might have been able to get more emotional damage for his buck if he'd voted for Eden or something? I don't know.

Teruko

Pros: Believes herself to be at least partially at fault for the deaths of her fellow classmates and doesn't like it. Therefore, if she can't bring herself to have another hand in their deaths by casting a vote on them, she could vote for herself (believing she can't die) instead. This is also an option that could easily be repeated across all Trials, if important.

Cons: If Teruko wants to proceed with not helping all of her other classmates die, it's in her best interest to vote correctly, instead of swaying the votes to an incorrect answer and having everyone but Ace die.

The Mastermind???

Pros: While it's not a guarantee, the mastermind likely has a grudge against Teruko (assuming the mastermind is not Teruko herself), due to the "kill Teruko Tawaki" missive/note. Therefore, they could be voting for her due to their grudge. From a narrative sense, this would also "ensure" that this phenomenon can happen at every Class Trial, if that's what DRDTdev wants.

Cons: Although I just laid out their motive, this would be an incredibly petty thing for the mastermind to do and could potentially give the innocent students needless additional information about their identity.

Conclusion? I think it's most likely to be David. After my blunder last time, though, I'm definitely willing to hear out other options if people have candidates to propose!

Also, it's nice that they updated David's portrait to include his new Look. I imagine some art intern scurrying around behind the scenes trying to find a good screenshot of David to use on the board in the last hour of the Trial.

Yo, wait, is that an anti-MM-coded line for Whit? Because the mastermind would obviously expect there to be more than one Trial? Can we get some more of these??? (/j)

Also kinda anti-Whit-knowingly-being-in-a-time-loop lines, for anyone who's been considering that theory. Unless he's just really deep undercover, to the level where he's interjecting lines that go against the theory to a group of people who have yet to suspect him for it at all.

LET'S GO NICO PARALLELS!!!!!!

Hu: How could you say it's just misfortune? Arei wasn't killed because of an accident. Bad luck or not, Ace had made up his mind to go through with this murder! So we can't possibly blame ourselves for failing to prevent something like that.

🔥🔥🔥THE BLAMING YOURSELF SISTERS🔥🔥🔥

Well, more or less. Teruko is fully blaming herself under the name of "misfortune"-- that much was made clear by the end of the episode, if nothing else. But Hu is coping by continuing to blame Ace convincing herself that there's nothing she could have done, and therefore isn't actually to blame. It doesn't matter how reliable she was-- because she was reliable, she promises-- because Ace was going to kill anyways. Basically, it doesn't matter how much of an immovable object she was because Ace was such an unstoppable force. Ignore the fact that the whole debate is about which of those would win.

Hu's stance is fascinating, though, because it means that she's somewhat buying in to the idea of fate. Arei was fated to die, Ace was fated to kill, no skin off your back. Given that MonoTV itself represents fate, it seems clear that one of the main messages of this story will be fate doesn't exist/is what you make it, which means that, to some degree, all of the characters will have to be representatives of or affected by that, with believing in the concept of immutable fate being represented as the villain. (I'm sure I'll talk about this more next time I talk about mastermind candidates.)

Therefore, Hu cashing in on the fate idea could be good or bad for her. It might be important that we establish that she does believe in fate, much like Teruko does, because she'll need to face it and denounce it on her way to survivor-hood. Or, this could be a subtle indicator that Hu will always lean on fate to protect her own sense of self, a red flag for her being a killer or possibly even a mastermind in the future.

Hu is clearly being set up to be a major player in Chapter 3, though, which is great for me, because that's exactly what I wanted! Let's get you some real daily life screentime, girl :)

Absolutely raw line here.

Eden: I... I can't forgive him. He killed Arei, after all. She was innocent, and he killed her for unfair reasons. But... those unfair reasons were unfair to him as well. Veronika: [...] When we first met Ace a week ago, he was the same person, certainly, but he was also different. He was happier, and he trusted people more. And he wasn't a murderer back then. Still, between then and now, he changed. He had to. Like adding stones to a pane of glass, one after another, until eventually, the glass cracks. The only thing anyone can do in this killing game is to shatter.

And another raw line from Veronika at the end of her section. I can't wait to see both of those lines used as captions for people's fanart.

Still though, on top of being true (and highlighting how Ace did actually change for the worse), this also feels like a reminder to us that the characters are changing over the course of the killing game. Therefore, a character who said one thing in Chapter 1 might not feel the same way once they hit Chapter 3 and beyond. Being in the killing game takes a toll on everyone, and the self-discovery it inspires can lead people to do things that they never would have done before. Case in point, Levi sacrificing himself for Teruko later in this episode.

SO true Veronika. Casual reminder to you all that this is literally only overall Day 8 of the killing game. Xander was alive less than one week ago for these people.

If I had a nickel for every time that Ace was compared to glass in Danganronpa: Despair Time Chapter 2 Episode 16, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

(Also, the clock-themed music is back. I wonder what it's supposed to represent...? *adds it to my already way too long list of theories to write now that the Chapter has ended*)

Genuinely WHAT was acevi cooking this episode. (/pos) I had never been super into the ship before because of how seemingly incompatible they were after the first trial, but seeing how much they clearly care about each other (or at least how much Ace cares about Levi) I'm kind of compelled to now. This truly was the toxic yaoi Trial ever.

Hey, FF called it in the "Blackened's Blaze of Glory" idea! Also, WOAH WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!

Let's go, Ace animation! It's nice to see that he was able to participate in one before he died. And wow, did he participate indeed!

It's kind of crazy how breakable MonoTV is due to its screen face. Like, you can't just do that to a Monokuma; his head is likely too hefty. But, even though MonoTV is breakable, it doesn't mean anything in the end. False hope at its finest.

This is the face of someone going, "wait, was it really that easy?"

HOLY SHIT

Out of all the lines and events of this episode, it's quite possibly this line that has made me go the most insane. Just goes to show that I am way too invested in the lore of this series. (/j)

So, this is a direct confirmation that XF-Ture Tech was involved in the creation of MonoTV, and therefore, quite possibly the implementation of the killing game as well. That's huge. I mean, not too unexpected given how important it clearly was to Xander, Min, and even altDRDT, but I wasn't expecting to get confirmation here and now of all places.

Given this, I would not be at all surprised if the altDRDT character known as XF is the one who created MonoTV. Like, she might be the Ultimate Roboticist or Ultimate Software Developer or something. It also means that the mastermind very likely has some sort of positive association with XF Tech, so sus on Min (sponsored by XF), Rose (has connections to one of the Spurlings), and possibly J (family runs in wealthy circles). Of course, if XF Tech is directly partnered with HPA in some way, it could also be someone who's particularly associated with the school-- although, that would most likely be Min again.

There's also the question, "why did MonoTV have a different personality than the default driver," which is related to the question, "what was the default driver created for?" My immediate thought was that XF Tech might just have robot assistants that generally help them, and that was the default personality that was assigned from MonoTV. However, XF (or whoever else) found that boring for the sake of entertainment, and decided to jazz MonoTV up, possibly to make it more like Monokuma.

Then again, it's been highlighted again and again that MonoTV is really incompetent. Surely, that's not something that someone who wanted the killing game to succeed would want to program into their host. It could have been an accidental side effect, but if MonoTV really was made by the Ultimate Roboticist, would that person really make mistakes? Is it possible that MonoTV's personality could have been made that way to subtly sabotage the killing game?

(I understand I'm furthering logic off of a string of assumptions-- not trying to lay down the law here, just running you through my initial thought process upon considering this evidence.)

Given that MonoTV told us in Chapter 2 Episode 3 that it has a lot of limits and there's a lot it still doesn't know about the killing game, I don't think that this is a situation in which MonoTV's AI expanded so much over time that it developed a new personality. Especially because that means that all that development would have needed to happen before the killing game began, off screen. That's why I think that MonoTV's alternate personality needs to have a human explanation, which I believe might be tied to XF.

I don't have any "answers" to this question because I don't think we're meant to have any at this point, but I also can't make any particularly compelling guesses about it without reviewing a lot of the evidence we already have. (*adds another theory to my mental theory list*) I am thinking about this though. I'm thinking about it a lot...

MonoTV: Full restart scheduled in one hour.

Also, I take this to mean that MonoTV will likely be back to its usual personality come Chapter 3. It might have a slightly different design to take into account the broken screen, but I think the personality will remain the same.

(If MonoTV's body does get fixed, would that mean that there are multiple copies of MonoTV out there, or that someone fixed MonoTV within that tight time window???)

MonoTV is in your walls.

Also, here's a list of all the students who are shown reacting in a confused/scared manner after MonoTV begins to restart: Eden, Rose, Ace, Nico. Doesn't mean that they can't be the mastermind all of a sudden, but it is probably evidence to the contrary. After all, the mastermind would likely be the one most aware that this could happen. And, if you only build in four slots of people reacting in disbelief (such that there are plenty of people who could slip under the radar), it might make more sense to give those lines to people who are actually genuinely shocked, much like the audience.

Also also, I think that the text on MonoTV's screen reads, "Falling back to default driver. Restart in an hour." AKA, not much lore to be taken from there, other than that it's once again called the "default."

It's MonoTV Time Again

More absolutely essential information when it comes to cracking what exactly MonoTV is. This is a killing game that is, first and foremost, designed to kill everyone, not going for anything like "redemption" or "revealing the truth."

It's also fascinating that it says "every participant." Not even "every participant except one"; the killing game wants to kill everybody. What does that tell us?

This killing game is likely NOT an attempt to imitate Junko. In that case, they would be prepared for the possibility of multiple survivors.

The mastermind, assuming they're amidst the cast, is willing to die for the bit. Every participant includes themselves.

XF-Ture Tech also default wants everyone to die. This likely means that they were willing to sacrifice Min for whatever this plan was. Sorry, Min :(

Now, it is definitely possible that any of these ideas are an overstatement. Killing all of the students is stated to be MonoTV's purpose, NOT the purpose of the killing game as a whole. Therefore, it could be that MonoTV is programmed to want all of the students to die, to minimize the chance that it would develop any feelings of sympathy and start to work against the killing game. Meanwhile, the mastermind is expecting there to be one or more survivors, potentially including themselves.

However, that is just a minor potential discrepancy, and I find it likely that DRDTdev intended this scene to comment more on the rationale of the killing game as a whole. In which case, this is a fascinating look into the mastermind and XF Tech's rationale.

He cares about Charles so much :,) <3

I know some people have been using this as reason to suspect him ("why would he be more focused on Charles not getting traumatized than telling Teruko, who he theoretically also cares about, to run"), but personally, I didn't read it that way at all. (I say as, like, the #1 Whit Isn't Evil defender lmao)

First of all, from a pacing perspective, I think it was nice to have a quick break from people just telling Teruko to run. We have Eden saying that, followed by Charles saying that, so having the third instance be something a little different helped break up the repeat information, in my opinion. J tells Teruko to run immediately afterwards anyway, so you still get the same effect of everyone warning Teruko as the clock ticks down.

Secondly (and more importantly), I think that this could easily be an indication of Whit seeing Charles as sort of an extension of his mom. Not in the sense that he sees Charles as family, but that Whit had one person who he really, really cared about, and he couldn't stop them from dying or being hurt. Even though Whit does generally care about the others, after Xander and Min died, he realized that he wouldn't be able to save everyone. And, he wasn't even particularly interested in trying in the first place-- after all, he said that solving the fights between others wasn't his business, so it's not like he's trying to be everyone's savior.

If Teruko is already dead, then that's how it's going to be; there's nothing he can do about it. But he can try to protect the person he cares about most in this killing game from suffering, because he refuses to have that person exit his life again. The fact that Whit is prioritizing Charles' safety over anything else in this moment will only make it all the sadder when Whit fails to prevent Charles from dying in Chapter 3, and make the impact of his returning loneliness all the more catastrophic.

Obviously, that's just my theory and not a fact, but I do think that it's one reasonable way to explain why Whit said that here without having to cast him in any sort of suspicion. It's a possibility.

Yet another instantly iconic line. I'm so happy that DRDTdev is doubling down with this being the reality of Teruko's talent, because pushing the abilities of someone who's talented with luck is so fun!

Although, not gonna lie, in this moment, I was actually flabbergasted and frantically running through options of who I thought the replacement protagonist might be. Like, Eden? Charles?? When people said they thought David might become the protagonist, THEY DIDN'T MEAN FOR CHAPTER 3!!!

Also, absolutely diabolical to hide Teruko's execution in plain sight as the thumbnail, under the guise that this was meant to represent Ace's death. Gosh.

But it was actually Levi who got shot, which is fascinating! I also thought they might kill him here as sort of a pre-emptive double kill (as in, "keep on pace with the typical number of fangan survivors while not actually having to explain why a double kill occurred"), but from the way the rest of the episode plays out, I think it's pretty clear that he'll live through this experience.

He'll almost certainly have some sort of design update, though, which I'm excited to see. Let's hope he doesn't suddenly turn into a robot, a la Nekomaru. (I imagine this scene may have originally been inspired by creating an alternate take on Nekomaru taking a bullet for Akane.)

As for why Levi did this for Teruko, Venus explained to me what I now believe is probably the most likely reason: he's repaying a perceived "debt" he owed to Teruko after she saved him from being executed back in the Prologue. (Other people may have reached this conclusion as well, but I heard it from Venus first)

Teruko already saved his life once before, so now, he believes he owes it to her to save hers. Obviously, Teruko seemed pretty confident about surviving the execution, but he may have still thought that causing her to suffer a coma or the loss of a limb was big enough of a threat that she shouldn't have to suffer through it.

That sort of idea would also tie into what I originally thought might have been some of his reasoning: that he doesn't think very highly of his own life, and was willing to sacrifice it for someone who he considered "good"/more important than him. It would also allow him to die as a hero saving someone's life, rather than a heartless monster who ended lives. Not saying that this is a healthy rationale, but, well, the guy just threw himself in the line of fire for someone who said they'd be fine. Also, it's DRDT. Nobody here has a healthy rationale.

Btw, this ⬇

Levi: I don't understand. I can't understand you, no matter how hard I try.

Is the last thing that Levi was ever able to say to Ace (as well as Levi's last line of the Chapter). Have fun with that, acevi nation.

My heart broke in half when I saw Rose react in this way. Hang in there, queen...

MonoTV: Don't worry. I shut off the gun as soon as I detected that Levi was in the way. His injuries are not fatal.

Also, MonoTV's default programming still includes it saying things like "don't worry"? Fascinating.

Motherfucker Not Another Clearly Important Info Jumpscare-- (/j)

So, uh. Whit got a new sprite in Chapter 2 Part 2 other than his trying not to laugh one. Yaaaaaaay... (dissolves into tears)

Points of interest about the sprite itself: obviously, this is the closest thing that we've gotten to a scary/breakdown sprite for Whit thus far.

If you look at his eyes, you'll see that they've gone gray/black as opposed to his usual blue, and his heart-shaped pupils and arrow-circle design have gone completely missing. This makes him I believe the third character whose eyes turn gray when they're experiencing negative emotions thus far, after Xander and David. Another knight at the table of Sir Light Pollution! Although, notably, Xander and David's eyes always had some gray in them, while Whit's, prior to now, were 100% blue.

Whit is also holding one hand behind his back, which could be concealing something? I saw a comic (which I thought was drawn by gooseagain8, but I checked their account and I couldn't find it--) where he was holding a remote to keep the Trial doors shut behind his back, and now I can't think of anything else, haha. However, I also don't know where Whit would have gotten that remote from, so it's probably not that specifically.

I don't think I even have to explain why people would use this to think that Whit is the mastermind. It's pretty obvious. However, I do think that this probably diminishes the odds of Whit being your standard "revealed in Chapter 6" mastermind, because it's so obvious. Fangan authors, naturally, can do whatever the hell they want, but it seems unfitting for DRDTdev's behavior so far to give such a massive hint for something that's so far down the road. I say this because, with the mysteries of Mai, and XF Tech, and who says the quotes at the beginning of the Chapters, and LGI, DRDTdev seems to have a track record of enjoying a long-running mystery, and making complex, layered puzzles that the most insane of fans can go back and forth on for hours.

If this was meant to be a hint that Whit will be revealed as the mastermind in Chapter 6, I'd think we'd get, like, a sprite with Whit's hand behind his back but without the scary expression, or he'd say something more subtle like "don't you just love it when you can't get the door open?"

Instead, we get this incredibly in-your-face, obviously suspicious sprite, that even someone who had never seen an episode of DRDT before in their life could easily point out to suspect that Whit is evil. So then, why else could it be included?

One option is that it is meant to foreshadow that Whit will take on a more villainous role, but in the shorter term. He could be revealed as a mastermind or traitor in Chapter 3. My problem with this sprite as evidence of Whit as a late-game mastermind is that this is a really big hint. Generally, with a reveal like that, you'd probably want to build up to the reveal with bigger and bigger hints. For instance, you could say that DRDTdev started off with the small hint that Whit knows a lot about what people think, then move up to the medium hint that he and MonoTV have similar styles of humor and meta jokes, then move to the bigger hint that Whit suddenly knows a ton about how hanging works, for some reason. This piece of evidence is such a big hint that Whit is the mastermind (under the assumption that it is that) that I don't really know where you'd go from here without just saying that Whit is the mastermind. We've eliminated the possibility that the hints could grow any bigger, cutting the trail off early. Therefore, at the moment, I think this only (narratively) works if this is the last hint we get that Whit is the mastermind, which would mean that Whit would have to be outed soon.

Alternatively, I definitely think it's possible that DRDTdev is setting up Whit as an intentional red herring, a bait with which to divert the audience's attention away from whoever the real mastermind is. It could just be a fun game for the fandom, or actually come into play in the main plot in the future, if someone accuses him of being the mastermind on these charges. That's sorta the assumption I'd been operating off of before witnessing this scene. However, if that's the case, then DRDTdev shouldn't just have Whit do all of these things without creating an in-universe explanation for why he did them. Whit would have to have a completely innocent reason for striking this pose at this point, which... oh boy.

Not gonna lie, it's been difficult for me to come up with a non-sus explanation for this sprite that doesn't make it sound like I'm 100% coping, but I'll try my best. Anybody got some more of those spare anti-MM-coded Whit lines I asked for earlier?

Given the presentation of DRDT, when we see this sprite of Whit, we don't know what he's looking at. It's easy to jump to the assumption that he's looking at the students who are trying to open the door, but it's also possible that he's just looking at the door itself. Like, he's also just expressing his anger at the door for not opening.

If that's the case, it would probably be for the same rationale that I used to justify his line protecting Charles earlier. He doesn't want Charles to suffer, which means that he wants Charles out of this room now. The hand behind the back, then, is a tad confusing, but there are a few explanations I can think of.

The first is that this sprite was created with further uses in mind down the road. For instance, if Whit later hides a gun behind his back (don't ask how or why he would non-suspiciously have a gun), then this sprite may have been prepared to handle that circumstance so that it doesn't have to be redrawn later. Of course, to this point, DRDTdev hasn't held back with creating unique sprites for unique situations-- check out how many sprites Teruko and Ace have for likely just this episode. So, it's probably more likely that, if Whit does need to hide something behind his back later, it would have been drawn then.

The second is that just the hand is a red herring. The facial expression is real (being mad at the door), but DRDTdev made him hide his hand behind his back so that people would think he was concealing something. Overall, I think that's an acceptable level of red-herring-ness. You aren't faking something as big as the facial expression itself, but you still throw in a little false lead to throw the audience off of the scent. However, in an ideal world, there would still have to be an in-universe explanation for why he did it. Unless he just chose this moment to scratch his lower back, I don't know what that would be.

That's all I have for now, but I don't necessarily think that this sprite means that Whit has to be evil in some capacity. However, it's done the best job so far of making me think that he is, so I'll keep my mind open to that in the future.

This is such an excellent end to Ace's character. Like, I was already nodding my head along with all of the people who expressed why Ace's death here was narratively satisfying, but having him finally accept death in order to save Levi's life is a beautiful cherry on top.

I like it because it doesn't make Ace's death as overall depressing as everyone thought it would be. Ace was about to die believing that he was a piece of shit who never changed, even when everyone else wanted him to and was able to themselves. But, even if he might not have realized it, accelerating his own death for Levi's sake means that he did change. He was finally able to conquer his fears by looking them straight in the face. And, if the theories are correct that Ace had a hand in Taylor's death...

Ace: Because... because Levi is gonna fucking die, and I'm going to have a third goddamn death on my hands!

(Here's iistardust-and-sprinklesii's post, which first brought the idea that "third death" might mean that Ace was adding Levi on to his kill count of Arei and Taylor to my attention, at least.)

...it means that he also got to save a friend this time instead of killing him.

Obviously Ace's death is still a tragedy-- every death in the killing game is-- but just like Arei, he was still able to improve himself from who he was before he died. It's a really poetic ending that really hammers in the point that everyone has the capacity to be a good person, even in their last moments.

Really really really loved Logan's performance as Arturo here. This is the most... I don't know, human? Arturo has ever sounded. He sounds really young and afraid, which is totally befitting of the scene. It's not like I now believe that Arturo is a great guy and shoo-in survivor or anything, but it endeared me a lot to his character.

Also "I have no experience with saving lives" Felicity OOF.

This CG goes so fucking hard. First of all, I love the way that DRDTdev drew the hair and the fabric folds. They're always great, but I think that the extra sharpness and blockiness going on here serves the pointedness yet bluntness of Ace's words. Second of all, THE COLORS. Not only has everything become more red to highlight the fire and passion behind Ace's words, but it's also ACE'S COLOR. Ace is literally dyeing Arturo with his final message before he dies. I don't think we've really seen Arturo and Ace interact before (other than implied horror trio, I guess), so this was a fascinating move to make with regards to Arturo's character moving forward.

This is another way that Ace's character ends satisfyingly. Kind of funny that he's parroting this message when he just internalized it from Teruko, like, 15 minutes ago, but I understand why it resonated with him. And, like Levi, why he might have overstated this lesson so that he could go out as (even more of) a hero.

Execution Rambling Time!

This execution had a lot going on, so I expect to have a lot to say about it. We'll start here, with the name: Thanatophobia. For anyone who wasn't aware, it means, "fear of death." Totally makes sense, especially given Ace's eventual cause of death. I guess MonoTV/the mastermind/XF Tech(??? INSANE) knew enough about Ace to know that he was going to die of fright at the end? Eh, that's how most executions work, so I don't think it gives us too much to work with.

However, this is a confirmation that executions in DRDT are more based on what will cause students despair than directly what their talent is. It was kind of hard to tell with Min, given that her talent (Ultimate Student) and her fear of failing and being wrong kind of went hand in hand. However, horses were not the focus of this execution; Ace's personality was. Cool to keep in mind for future executions.

Drdtblingsceo (and perhaps others, but they were the first person I saw) was able to make out that not only does the grave on the left say "Taylor Riley," but the two other graves also say "Felicity Giles" and "Elliot Cuevas." (You can't really make it out in my screenshots, but you can see it better in the linked post. Sorry, I have a fairly old computer :( ) Terrible news for Mr. Riley, but great news for us when it comes to speculating about Ace's past. I wonder what caused Ace's secret to be about his eating disorder, rather than his dead friend that he seemingly blames himself for?

I was very closely inspecting this frame to see if it would contain any easter eggs about what happened in Xander's past. As far as I can tell, the article titles read, from right to left:

Unexplained Illness Kills Thousands

More People Are Dying of Cancer Than Ever Before

Flu Season Claims Thousands of Lives

Chronic Kidney Disease Mortality Death Toll Continues to Climb

??????? (I don't think this one actually has any text)

Falling Rates of Survival for Hospitalized Patients

Antibiotic-Resistant Infections a Growing Threat in Hospitals

Article #1 is the article that's zoomed in on for dramatic effect. As far as I can see, none of the actual paragraphs of any of the articles are legible.

We can fully rule out #2, #3, and #4 as being related to Xander-- those are all real-world diseases that don't really match up with the sickness Xander described. #5 is also out, because, even if it was meant to relate to Xander, it has no content, and therefore, nothing to analyze. I don't know why it's there, but it gives nothing.

#1, #6, and #7 all have the possibility of being related to Xander-- most likely #1, given that it was the one that was zoomed in on-- but that's only because they're vague. Therefore, we can't really learn anything more about the North C and Chariton incident from them. Still a good idea to check them, in my opinion, but they don't seem to bear any fruit.

Goddammit, do I really have to run out of images *now*? Like, in the middle of the execution? Fine, I'll be back to finish what I've started in a bit. Thank you for reading this far, and look out for the reblog hopefully later today!

[farenmaddox]

SPN wild theory time

I will just go ahead and start with my thesis statement: I don't think that Jack killed Mary.

With that out of the way, let's get into my warnings for this post: 1. There will be spoilers for Seasons 11-15 of Supernatural 2. I wasn't in this fandom 5-6 years ago when these episodes were coming out; maybe you guys already talked this all out and your entire response is going to be "we already went through this, dude." 3. This post is actually like 3-4 posts in a trenchcoat. I may have gone slightly overboard.

All that said, buckle up, here we go.

Chuck's "omniscience" is questionable. He has been surprised by Dean's decision-making and been upset about it, and has admitted that Castiel is someone whose actions often contradict Chuck's narrative. So, by his own admission, he doesn't/can't know everything.

However, he always thinks ahead and always has multiple ideas on how to solve a situation, and he always has a contingency plan.

First, let's look at how he handled the Amara situation. I would characterize Chuck's behavior in Season 11 as writing a self-insert fic. Chuck is a writer, after all. He knew that Dean taking the Mark of Cain would either lead to Dean's destruction or to Amara being released, so he would have been ready for Amara to appear well before she actually did. But it's only in episode 11x20 that he chooses to do anything about it, ostensibly because Metatron talks him into it. We already see signs that he's kind of "done" with the prime world and the Winchesters here, but then Metratron convinces him to give it another go, and that's when it becomes self-insert fic.

He displays the ability to absorb Amara into himself in episode 15x17, so I think this was always the contingency plan if all else failed. But he wanted to be in the story. He wanted to be on the team and be a hero, so he joins up to do the big assault on Amara plan that is carried out in 11x22. I truly do not think he foresaw that Amara would win that fight. And with how badly wounded he is, the contingency plan is no longer viable. So he has to go with the Dean-as-a-bomb plan. He was already thinking about letting it all go to shit, so this is fine. But then Dean wants to save the day with his faith in familial love, which Chuck definitely didn't see coming. I think Chuck lets it happen despite the fact that he doesn't actually give two shits about Amara just because Dean is his favorite and has managed to surprise him so maybe the world should go on a little longer.

All of this is just establishing a baseline of Chuck-ness. Now we're going to talk about Jack.

See, I don't think Chuck ever planned on Jack actually being carried to term and surviving. The wild card, as always, is Cas. Who, when he had a chance to kill a nephilim (a thing he has done before! a thing he has assisted in doing in the past! it's a sure bet for Chuck!)...doesn't do that. But that's okay (Chuck thinks)! The Winchesters will probably kill the kid! And if they don't, and Lucifer wins, then Chuck can swoop in and be like "my beautiful son and my beautiful grandson, oh my me, this is delightful, we should be a family" and then kill them both.

Dean hating Jack was absolutely Chuck's first choice of potential plots for how to take care of the Jack problem when it turns out that there is going to be a Jack. He likes that story. It surely fills him with glee that Sam doesn't hate Jack and Dean does. But then... fuck, it's Castiel, again! Chuck had no involvement in Cas being resurrected, for once. No way to predict that one. And Cas being back means that Dean doesn't hate Jack and isn't going to kill him, especially since Jack helps them get Mary back, which sucks for Chuck, who is now very committed to this storyline of Dean killing Jack. Don't forget, Chuck can kill Jack whenever he wants. But he wants Dean to do it. He's bored and done with Dean and is ready for Dean to be dead.

So, how do we get Dean to kill Jack? Well, obviously Cas's death doesn't goad him to do it because the fucker just can't stay dead, so it has to be Sam or Mary. And it can't be Sam, because Sam has to watch Dean kill Jack and himself. That's the story. So it has to be Mary, right?

Chuck just has to wait for the right moment.

Jack has a strong sense of fear about hurting people by the time of Mary's death. 13x06 and 14x16 are some critical episodes where we see how he feels and reacts to hurting innocent people. And he seems to have pretty good control over his powers as well. He had just recently had a conversation with Donatello (in 14x15) about how easy it is to continue doing the right thing without a soul. His decision to kill Felix the snake was very much on purpose and very controlled, and honestly can everyone shut up about the snake. Jack fucking loved that snake. It was sick and nobody else knew how to help Felix either. He euthanized a sick pet.

So it is hard to believe that Jack just randomly lost control of his powers and killed someone whom he had no reason to kill. That's not really consistent with Jack's behavior. Even when he's in a complete rage in 14x20 after what Sam and Dean did to him, he doesn't kill them. At his most angry and while experiencing a huge surge in power, he somehow doesn't kill Sam and Dean. But we're expected to believe that in 14x17, he just "accidentally" flies off the handle and kills Mary.

The thing that is genuinely so crucial is that we do not see Mary's death in 14x17. It does not happen on screen. Deaths in this show always happen on screen, and it's not on screen. All we see is her face near Jack's, and the next episode all we see is the blast site. I think that the reason we don't get to see it is because it didn't actually happen the way we're told it did.

The fact that Mary can't be resurrected? That's weird, and new. That literally never happens. Everyone can be resurrected. People who were turned into paste by archangels can be resurrected. People who have been cremated can be resurrected. But Mary can't be? That's got Chuck's smell all over it.

Jack thinks he killed Mary, but he fucking didn't. Chuck did it. Chuck smote the shit out of that woman and Jack doesn't have any other explanation for what happened. I don't even think he is actually hallucinating Lucifer. Soulless guy who "doesn't feel guilt" and doesn't want Lucifer in his subconscious but somehow can't get rid of him? It's Chuck. It's Chuck dressed up as Lucifer to keep Jack on the edge and convince him it was his fault so he can lead everybody to the grand finale.

And then stupid Dean ruins the story and doesn't kill Jack. Which Chuck should have seen coming, because this is what happened with Amara! But he didn't, because sometimes Chuck actually doesn't know things! It's okay though (Chuck thinks), because Chuck always has a contingency plan. He has always been able to kill Jack whenever he wanted, and if Dean's not going to do it, Chuck might as well. So he does.

I'm telling you. Chuck killed Mary. Jack didn't do it.

[kerubimcrepin]

LIVEBLOG: Wakfu Season 4, Episode 4 [PART 2]

I wonder how long he's been standing there. Did he come an hour early? 20 minutes early? Just standing there, doing nothing...

Dios mio... la creatura!

Something very weird happened with the Eni queen/leader. In s2, her cape and hands were like this because she was sitting, in this season — it's just part of her design. Did nobody check this stuff? Am I going insane thinking this is an error? Did she look bad when her cape was down? What the fuck is happening?

Once again, something very silly is happening with Sufokia, if they have an empress and a king. My headcanon to fix it is "the king is a consort-king" or something.

(*sobs in Ankama, or, really, 89% of all media, not understanding that whoever marries the ruler of the nation is a [insert title]-consort, and does not have as much political power or the right of succession* *Hysterically convulses in "99% of all Queens were Queen-consorts, and the title itself, by default, usually means a consort. For this reason, female rulers (rare non-consort Queens who came to throne due to lack of male princes) typically named their husbands "Princes" and not "Kings", because the title king always implies a higher degree of power than a queen; therefore, it might be reasonable to assume, that in this fantasy setting, a Ruling Empress's husband might be called a king for this reason* *Foams at mouth because Ankama just forgot they mentioed Sufokia having a king and I'm trying to cope. badly*)

Also since I'm on this tangent already, YES, this means that Sadida rules of throne succession are:

1. extremely easy for outsiders to abuse (say what you will, but "the spouse inherits the throne" is a BADDD rule to combat conquest by foreign nations, there's a reason it was children or blood-relatives of the ruler, besides patriarchy/divine right of kings/whatever — the spouse is an outsider. All it takes is a princess, who is Wonderful at poisoning, being married off to a foreign nation and whoopsie-daisy, their country is now Her country, and therefore her Family's country),

2. it's unrealistic,

3. probably just bad writing for the sake of drama.

If you're curious why I know all this shit.......... I have a blorbo in a different fandom, and his entire thing is that he was married into a royal family and then tortured by his queen wife in a sort of gender-bent Henry VIII arrangement (except he was kept alive against his will and there was no divorce or church splits). God bless that blorbo for making me learn.

These Huppermages were repurposed from the movie concept art, btw.

I find it quite interesting, that Joris has the authority to be present here...

My personal theory/headcanon is that he is their mediator, and they just call him to their meetings so that, instead of yelling at each other and declaring wars, they can talk to him (and therefore, yell only at him and declare no wars).

Ugh, once again, I am not entirely fond of the English subs. First the translation error about the brotherhood of forgotten/tofu, and now they are making Joris say this spring chicken thing...

It doesn't fit his character and reads weird. Just leave it as "I'm not that young", like in the original. It's more fitting for Joris to speak in negative sentences ("I am not young") than in affirmative ones ("I am old") because he is not fond of stating direct facts about himself and his life... besides the fact that he's standing in front of multiple world leaders.

[kicks my legs cutely thinking about the fact that Joris, older than every king and queen in this place, and fully convinced of his excellence and wisdom and heroism, has been forced to bow down to them for his entire life despite hating at 90% of them for their political decision] I love his commitment to being the protagonist of an 18th century Russian novel about being doomed by the narrative.

Also, kinda wild. You'd think that during Ogrest's chaos they'd— actually I think everyone was too dead to hold meetings during that, nvm.

I wonder what they would do, if the maker of the eyes wouldn't reply. Just stand there? Or is this speech more of a formality — something he always says, in the lead-up to the meeting?

(I am once again reminding you, this blog is LITERALLY about overthinking crepinjurgen lore! Ankama gave no shit while writing this. I'm just doing this for fun.)

He's so unimpressed. Probably still trying to gauge what the fuck is going on.

THE LITTLE SMILE— he's trying to suppress it so hard in the first screenshot here. He's probably glad that Yugo seems to be in good spirits about what's happening, even if he himself is still quite worried.

His expression here is a beautiful mix of "PLEASE DON'T FUCK THIS UP" and "it is a canon event, I cannot intervene"

Literally, Joris's expressions at this moment should be analyzed frame by frame. You can feel the desperation. He now understands that there is a high possibility they are fucked. Because his bestie (who is always right) is an impulsive 20-something year old boy who knows nothing about politics or what people can do, and his mom is a god, and the leaders of the world aren't going to like whatever the fuck is going on, and he KNOWS what they might do, and what might happen, and oh god oh fuck oh god oh fuck—

"Yugo :) perhaps you shuoild :) um. :) ease them into it. :).... :("

He's trying to keep smiling, so hard. It's crazy.

Joris has lived through the huppermage genocide. He knows people don't need that much of a reason to begin killing. He understands precisely just how fragile the position that Yugo and his people are in. He understands his own place in the pecking order, too — he isn't going to act like Yugo's friend if these people are watching.

And neither Yugo, not any other Eliatrope is able to understand this. There are cruelties in this world that they are fundamentally unable to grasp without having truly been seeped in it before.

Like, what is he even to do here, to make Yugo understand how bad the situation is. All he can do is stand there looking haunted, while receiving unprecedented amounts of psychic damage.

If I was Joris at this point, I would simply pull out a flask of whiskey and a cigarette. The political situation has now gone completely unfixable. There is no going back, now that she has said these two lines.

Someone native to the World of Twelve and old enough to understand politics would know how bad this sounds. But to her, these are good things. Of course they are, since she knows what is good and what isn't, and everyone in her world has always accepted those things as good.

Basically: the conflict between WoT and Eliatropes is that a nation of people from a world of teletubbies-level conflict, — with no bigotry or nations or poverty or hunger or theft or inequality, or ulterior motives, — has been added to a "game of thrones" type society with no explanation. And now they are all forced to try and understand one another.

If I was Joris at this moment, I would simply shoot myself in the temple with a gun. If things were bad before, they are horrible now. She is talking to world leaders as her children. It might have been alright even with Eliatropes, but these people aren't Eliatropes.

DO I EVEN NEED TO COMMENT ON HOW BAD THIS IS? IN A WORLD WHERE COLONIALISM, RACISM, SUBJUGATION, AND SLAVERY ARE REAL? IS SHE ON CRACK?

I would give anythign to see Joris's expressions as she's saying these things. I think he should be trembling. Staring vacantly into space.

To someone from a world of violence, a world with "no violence" seems like a world where violence is hidden, and enacted to stop them from voicing their disagreement with the status quo.

Tot has described this as a sort of conflict between the modern world approaches to society — and named China and America as examples of what he was inspired by, while writing Eliatrope.

I will not get into detail on my feelings on it (China is often extremely criticized in the west for things every country in the world does due to racism)

But this might point us towards the fact that the world of Eliatropes wasn't as free of conflict as the show portrays it to be, and it was, in fact, Just A Society, with all that entails. In which case, things get morally morally gray... might explain why, in the earlier drafts of the season, she was meant to be the main antagonist — and why it was decided against.

(Is that maybe why Qilby is so embittered — his experiences were silenced, and he was made to suck it up, only confiding in Shinonome? She does constantly shut up Yugo and Qilby, not letting them speak up about their grudges against each other to keep the peace— [I am quickly silenced by tangent police])

[fruityhahn]

more teen theories!!

okay yall, i've got a new teen theory. there will be spoilers for episode 4 so please watch that first (even though they're minor spoilers)

also this theory includes info about wiccan from the comics (specifically young avengers: the children’s crusade) but don’t worry if you haven’t read it! i will be providing photos of the relevant text bubbles.

in episode 4 rio tells agatha “that boy isn’t yours”. and i do know about the funko spoilers but… what if rio isn’t lying and teen is both wiccan AND nicholas.

let me explain.

so wiccan (aka billy) is the child of wanda but even the scarlet witch can’t create a soul. she used the mind stone in her to create the hex version of vision but nothing is said in wandavision about the twins. but we do know that the souls of the boys will eventually be wiccan and speed (sooner rather than later if spoilers and rumours are to be believed).

here’s two text bubbles from the comics describing this:

basically, these quotes imply that wanda’s twins were souls that existed and then found themselves in new bodies later, so wiccan isn’t the biological son of wanda but he still is because of his soul’s past.

this is further demonstrated by a later scene in the comics where wanda herself confirms she didn’t create the twins, instead they were “lost souls” that she made and eventually set free:

now, lets talk about nicholas. we really don’t know much about him except most witches think agatha traded him for the darkhold but we know from episode 4 that it was probably rio who took him. jen says in episode 3 that no one knows that happened to him but he might be dead, a demon, or an agent of mephisto. he also seems to have disappeared young given his room in episode 1.

let’s start with the mephisto thing. here’s a description from the comics stating that mephisto is the one who had the twins souls captured:

kind of interesting that mephisto was mentioned in that specific scene in agatha all along when this is what the comics say about wiccan’s soul.

basically what i’m saying is that since no one knows what happened to nicholas it’s possible he could’ve been a “lost soul” and even one of the ones that became wanda’s twins. in this way, teen could potentially be both nicholas and billy but he isn’t either of them completely, he just shares his soul with them.

so while teen isn’t agatha’s nicholas (as rio states) he still could be nicholas and also be wiccan.

i hope that made sense even though it’s a bit confusing or that you at least enjoyed reading this okay bye

[myezblog]

Ep 4

Pretty solid episode... most of the theories have been validated.

What we got right -

All experiences that Great is having of saving people and essentially everything , it is all in his head... nothing happening for real

4 minutes because heart stopping and brain stopping - dead to really really dead is 4 minutes (we are 11.02 right now.. Great is alive until 11:04)

After death experience - were right about beliefs... wherein one patient saw angels performing on her.. whereas the 4 min. thing is more about regrets and what ifs... ( interestingly, we did not hear Lukwa tell us which part of her life she revisited during her 4 min. journey)

Thing is linked to saving Tyme... This is Great grappling desparately and with all the what ifs to save Tyme... his most important moment, person, life phase...

Tonkla's motive and brother, Tonkla using Win

Timelines -

Scene before intro is the real normal actual timeline (i had this theory since ep 2 and there is another person who had the same theory...don't recall user id) ... So, in the present, ep 1 - Great is in the hospital and Tyme is dying ; ep 2 - Tonkla did murder and take revenge ; ep 3 and 4 - Police is investigating the murders

All of great's experiences - whichever scene he is in is playing in his mind... timeflow is not normal pace

Don't think there are more timelines. Even Korn-Win-Tonkla thing that we are being shown is in the past/ actual past (we can see this because Great is living the past... so he has the full picture at this time)

Where the timeline falters-

3. So, lady was also in her arrest while/when Great went into arrest- ep 1... SO, when she came to visit Dan with her 4 min. experience, she had come out of her cardiac arrest moment and interacted with Dan quite a few times by then...

But great is still on the hospital bed... and yet Dan talks about Great as another patient who can see 4 min. in the future..

My guess is, Lukwa is also someone who existed in past... and great heard of her case...hence she is part of the story in his brain...

He hasn't met lukwa yet in the 4 min. room... he will... and i guess that's when timelines will start sorting themselves out..

Tonkla -

Tonkla killed his dad or was involved hence his fingerprints exist in the database. Cat was likely killed by dad. That's why Mio was so against title because title abuses girls too and is an aggressive person

Definitely using Win for the case

Did love Korn, does love Korn... but will be interesting to see how he reacts when he knows that along with Title, Great was also there when title bludgeoned his brother to death

Korn said he would tell the world that tonkla is his boyfriend...but now korn has a fiancee and uh! messed up

(lol.. at Win not wearing his pants back during the whole time korn was there)

Great -

The place they have run to... which Great has taken them to and not tyme... again reaffirms that this is not real.. all is happening in his head...

So, he is with tyme.. in a nice romantic serene place where no one can find them and which Great doesn't know himself

Ost lyrics

I could give it all to be with you even if it is merely an illusion from the heaven

Every sin and sorrow i shouldered was from my heart's command

It means i could do anything and everything if you were to leave me

I will not say it again but please keep this in mind, You can never leave me

I know fairly well that caring for a venomous snake would make my life suffer everyday

And if one day, anyone betrays me, I can assure you in one word:

Avenge, i will destroy and cleanse it all till your very last day

There will not be a single minute where your wish can be fulfilled

If you ever let go of my hand, i promise you that when we meet next time You will have to come crawling back to me

Even when i know you are venomous, i still endure it

Whatever reason it may be but i am not giving you up to anyone else

You can never leave me

I know fairly well that feeding a venomous snake would make me live in paranoia everyday

And even if you turn to bite my feeding hands and betray me, i can assure you that i will "Avenge"... destroying and cleansing it all till your very last day

I will use your tears to cleanse it all..

In summary

Tonkla and Great have to overlap somewhere with respect to Tyme for the two stories to make sense. Likely Tonkla is on revenge targetting both Title and Great (he could go after tyme given Tyme is precious to Great) Or Korn-Tyme conflict linking itself to Tonkla (aka what if Korn could freely love Tonkla and never pushed into business)

Great's arc... it is like the Godfather... Great is the nice guy, detached from all shady and business stuff... but going by OST... he has to emerge as someone who is way better than Korn at handling this business and upping against every other player

The past that we see in Great's mind is also twisted... e.g. we don't know if Tyme genuinely liked Great or was using him till the very end... but Great must have turned grey (taking over business, handling korn.. etc etc.. to protect tyme)

Going back to the statement that has been made twice now about one's beliefs and religion playing a part on the deathbed.... I THINK.. it is the sheer strong will of great to save Tyme that Tyme might be saved by the end of this ordeal.. Great may or maynot be alive

[dracox-serdriel]

OMitB Season 4 Theories

Spoilers for all episods of Only Murders in the Building Season 4 up to episode 6. (If you want to skip it, please strike the 'J' key to jump past this post.)

Sazz knew about another murder in the building (likely the "sensitive topic" she meant to discuss with Charles at the end of Season 3) and possibly also knew about the cameras hidden in Oliver's and Charle's apartments.

Obviously, someone else knew Sazz knew about the murder and that she planned to spill the beans to "the podcasters"

The spy cameras must've been placed sometime before the start of Season 4 (how else would the killer know that it was safe to enter Charles' apartment to get Sazz's body?)

My theory is that the cameras were somehow placed by Marshall Pope or someone helping him spy. (Mostly because of his stage direction -- he describes Oliver as "flitting around" -- not something that would be obvious actions given the OmitB trio are podcasters who rely way too much on hidden cameras -- so more sound than video.)

When did Dudenoff die?

In theory, he could've died before Tim Kono.

The Brother/Sisters said that Dudenoff cut off all contact with them three years ago. (To the best of my knowledge, they are the only ones who gave a firm time about when they last spoke to Dudenoff.)

The "old incinerator" is banned because it causees a very noticable power surger in the entire building whenever it's used. Andn, according to Oliver & Charles, that kind of power surge hasn't happened in a while (since the old incinerator was banned).

It's possible Dudenoff died three years ago. His body could've been stored in any number of secret corners of the Arconia - though my guess is that he was hidden in the bricked up walls that cut the West Tower off from the rest of the Arconia.

Dudenoff's death predating Tim Kono's has a number of thematic components/call backs:

In episode 1x01, Charles' opening monologue: "Here's a thing I don't get. People who worry about living in a big city because of all the crime. As any true crime aficionado will tell you, it's the boondocks you need to worry about. I mean, let's face it. Nobody ever discovered 19 bodies buried in the backyard of a 14-story apartment building."

In episode 2x03, Oliver says: "Bunny and I, we're lifers. She's probably gonna be buried in the Arconia. And on hot days, the whole building will be able to smell you."

It makes sense that the killer would want to burn the body after someone cotton onto Dudenoff being dead.

My theory right now is that Dudenoff wasn't murdered. The illegal sublets are all under his name; his death would nix the rent control entirely - so all of the Westies with illegal sublets have cause to cover up his death. So his death could've been accidental or natural, and plenty of people still had tons of reason to cover it up. Not to mention there's someone is cashing Dudenoff's checks on 125th street - that could be part of the cover up or it's just another reason to keep his death a secret.

It would be easy for Sazz or literally any outsider to see evidence of the coverup (and maybe even the body itself) and conclude - well of course this was a murder! Especially if they didn't know about the illegal sublet thing going on.

Missing Pieces

The student film, "The Desecration of Alice", almost certainly had another actor from Dudenoff's classes -- a woman, the person who played Alice. I'm guessing that this is Rudy's ex-girlfriend, Helga -- the one who abandoned Hammy Faye Baker (the pig) in the Dudenoff's studio apartment.

What's with the Ham Radios? Seems like a way someone keeps in contact while staying off the grid.

Who is cashing Dudenoff's social security checks? I have zero reason behind it, but I truly think it's Lester the Doorman. He's been doing it as a favor, cashing the checks, then dropping the cash off to someone, per Dudenoff's request. Again, zero reason for me to suspect this. Just thinking.

Or... is Dedenoff actually dead?

Dudenoff has allowed people to illegally sublet from him for decades. Would it be so wild for him to have allowed someone he cared about to use his health insurance coverage to replace a shoulder? That could easily explain how the serial number traced back to him -- without him actually being dead.

This would also explain the Ham Radios.

Who is the killer?

Not enough information about who is the killer/shooter of Sazz, but people I'm keeping an eye on:

Bev Melon - the producer

Marshal Pope - the writer

Helga

Ana - Inez and Alfonso's daughter

Rudy aka Christmas-all-the-time-guy - easily the most atheltic of the Westies, could almost certainly handle the ubertight window of he shooter + the cleaner

Scott Bakula - ok, not really, but why not? Super sus how he turned up in 4x01 and was like, "Ho-hum, TOTALLY not like Sazz, right?!"

Sazz's Agent - unnamed character, see next section

Why Sazz?

Sazz has a ton of connections - she's the reason Charles had friends when he worked on Brazzos. Most people at the stunt bar seemed to know her fairly well. She is clearly far more competent at keeping interpersonal connections (especially those critical for her job) than most of the other characters in OMit-B.

The relationship Sazz was keen on quitting (she gave more than she got) -- I know Charles thinks it was himself -- but I don't think so. I think the person Sazz was keen on quitting was actually her agent. This is a character we've only heard about in passing, with Sazz talking to them on the phone -- but it makes a lot more sense than it being Charles.

The Theory of Season 4

While there's no real limits to the question "Who has access to Charles and Oliver's apartments?" Because of all the secret passage ways and stuff... but my theory is that Sazz's agent is in complete cahoots with Bev Melon (the producer) and leverage Sazz to plan cameras in Oliver's and Charles' apartments, among other things, to help Marshal (the film writer) and Bev get a full jump on the OMit-B.

Oliver is 100% right to be surprised at how far along the project is when they go out ot California in 4x01. That didn't happen by accident. This production had a crapton of inside sources to draw from to get it to where it is.

If Sazz's agent used blackmail or even just basic power pressure to get Sazz to participate in this kind of spycraft, then I could easily see how Sazz would want to get out from under that thumb.

At least, that would explain why Sazz is suddenly pushing to retire, even though there was a recent reboot of Brazzos giving her plenty of work (even if the show is on hiatus ATM).

[angelshizuka]

Sinsmas is tomorrow any last minute theories?

Maybe not as much theories as it is wishful thinking, lol.

A part of me hopes the episode starts the morning after, because I NEED to see that, but unless there's a timeskip to Sinsmas in the episode itself (since based on the timeline Mastermind probably took place early to mid-December), the other part of me isn't really expecting it... But at least we always have fanart for that.

We only really have 4 shorts scenes to go off right now (the 3 from the trailer + the gif that dorpped earlier).

Considering Loona seems to be joining them on whatever they're gonna do on earth (presumably a mission), it does add fuel to the "Stolas becomes their secretary" theory, since him taking over that job would likely mean Loona becomes more active on the field. I assume this gif scene is from early in the episode, before shit hits the fan.

We know from the trailer that Stolas and Blitz (and maybe the rest of I.M.P, I at least hope so) go back to Stolas' palace, but get stopped by Andrealphus. Who has, in the short time Stolas has been gone, already completely frozen it over, seeminly killing his plants. My guess is still on Stolas going there for Octavia, she's the only loss that truly devestated him to his core (as in the only loss he's incapable of learning to live without), there's no way he's not gonna attempt getting back to her.

It looks like Octavia's getting a song, and if it isn't a reprise on You Will Be Okay I'm suing! I mean, the visuals we saw in the trailer definitely give me the same vibe and it would make sense for the song to at least adress the things Stolas sang to her back then.

And I really, REALLY hope Stolas and Blitz finally get to talk. They don't have to work out all of the shit in one conversation, I get stuff like this takes time, but I want there to at least be a start. I'd be so happy if it includes Stolas confessing to the domestic abuse he's suffered and how Stella wanted him dead and that's why he's so scared of Octavia being all alone with her (and Andrealphus).

I NEED protecitve Blitz like I need air!

[asterinthesiren]

THEORIES and THOUGHTS: BILLY

With 4-ish days left for the next episode, finally, here is my long-overdue post about my insights about Episode 6! Also this is going to be a three parter, because as I'm writing this I realize that it is too much for a single post to consolidate all of my theories LMAO

Of course special mention to @justmonty because without her none of these theories would have been cooked at all

Part 1 Billy | Part 2 Agatha | Part 3 Trial and Next Ep

Alright HERE WE GO!

Ok, so first off, our gen-z son of a bitch himself, Billy. His reveal was so iconic but it confused the hell out of me because if HE IS Billy Maximoff, is he the reincarnated version or did Billy survive the hex and got adopted somewhere else?

Both is possible because in MoM, Wanda couldn't find him... which makes sense since Agatha said that a sigil put on someone hides that person from the sigil caster (if the sigil caster fits the requirements of the sigil), so the sigil would hide him from Wanda too. So this is what I think:

Wanda might have put a sigil on Billy, even BEFORE everything happened: as soon as she started suspecting that another witch was in the hex (which could be when she started suspecting Monica or as soon as Pietro didn't make sense). HOWEVER, it could also be when Billy and Tommy were tucked into bed that last time when Wanda was shrinking the hex down, when she already confirmed that Agatha existed (and other witches by proxy).

SO IT WOULD MAKE SENSE THAT SHE WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO FIND THEM IN THIS UNIVERSE NOW BC SHES CONVINCED THAT THEYRE GONE IN THIS UNIVERSE.

so it's either: billy's soul, that still has the sigil, reincarnated into a new body OR billy survives for some reason and lives a new life; i mean even the fact that he was just living in Eastview (which he mentioned before his voice was muted), so incredibly near the hex is very telling of his origins from the get-go, and adds both more clues and more mystery to how he came to be.

which leads me to how Agatha figured out that Billy was Wanda's kid, rather than hers (of course the prerequisite here is that Rio tells her this). There are two prevailing theories, both of which are possible (and may coincide):

When Billy says Nicholas Scratch's name, the sigil doesn't work--which is the biggest dead giveaway that he wasn't Nicky. Because yes, Billy asked about what really happened to Agatha's son, but that doesn't really say anything because we don't know how much the sigil is censoring. If he was Nicholas Scratch, would the sigil block out his memories of Agatha too? So when the sigil lets him say Nicky's name, Agatha confirms that it's not him. By virtue of elimination, the only other young witch that could have been powerful enough or reckless enough to do anything like what Teen's been doing is Billy, and Agatha concludes this because Billy Maximoff would have an agenda. But that raises a question: if Billy wanted to take revenge on Agatha, why free her from the distorted spell in the first place? He could have just messed with her in the spell rather than freeing her.

When Agatha absorbs Alice's powers, her affinity for sensing spells and magic comes back. She said in Wandavision that she went into the hex because she felt the afterglow of so many spells being casted all at once, so it's possible that after absorbing Alice's powers, she sensed the power hidden in Teen and found it incredibly similar to Wanda's. From there, it doesn't take much to put two and two together.

With that in mind, after Agatha goads him into revealing his true power (more on that later), it's finally revealed that he has more or less the same magic that Wanda has, or at least an affinity for the same reality-bending, mind-control power that she had. NOW I POSIT YOU THIS:

(thank you to @justmonty for sending me this!)

Billy was always the catalyst of every trial so far. And let me remind you what he said when he first went into the road:

"It looks just like I pictured it."

SO, DOES THAT MEAN that he has a hand in what the road looks like? If he has the same or similar powers to Wanda, could he have made the road or manipulated it? What's the extent of his control here? Is it possible that he created a hex-like spell similar to Wanda's in the Witches' Road? I mean, he's so knowledgeable about the Road that there is a big chance that he can manipulate the things in it.

However, I come back to my earlier point: I genuinely don't think he's entirely in the know, because if his main motive is to fuck with Agatha, then why free her from the spell in the first place? What is he playing at? If he is the one controlling the trials, what does he have to gain from it? How much does he know?

I am very excited about the next episode, because as things stand now, it looks like the next episode will be from his perspective--or at least the story will follow him more than they will the others.

Those are my thoughts on Billy, Agatha and next episode coming next!

EDIT: This post speculating that Billy killed Sharon also 1) makes so much sense with the theory that he's somehow controlling the Road 2) fits in the evidence that he does have an agenda against Agatha because of Wanda. I mean, Sharon's entire trauma was about Wanda, so what if Billy killed her because of his fucked up belief that Wanda is perfect and sinless? MUCH TO THINK ABOUT

[tremordusk]

Episode 5 Theory: Agatha's Trial is not what it seems (Part 2)

Agatha’s trial was actually Lilia’s vision

The beginning of episode 5 starts with the Salem Seven crawling out of the ground with the next shot being Lilia waking up— but did she actually wake up? 

Maybe she didn’t truly wake up from her vision and right from the beginning it has been a vision. So far Jen’s element was water, Alice was fire, so maybe Agatha’s element could be air because of the mind. You could include riding a broom as part of the element of the air motif as well. 

However the Blood Moon bit throws off the rest of this theory. Lilia claims that the blood moon represents “When the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest. “ to which Rio claims who better to contact the dead than the one who’s sent many to their graves referring to Agatha. Also, Lilia dispels the idea that she herself can NOT commune with the dead. Moreover, based on Lilia’s claim this means Agatha’s trial is related to the dead (which we did see ghosts) but makes it stranger that ghosts did show up (visions aren’t always clear!). Despite that it could just be a ploy to throw us off from the details of the trial. 

Lilia has one prediction claiming “I hated this the first time!” It’s a very quick instance and very easy to miss, especially since previous times for her predictions have had longer pauses on screen from “I love you guys” to “Alice, Alice don’t.” Whereas this one felt quickly thrown in along with the rest of the chaos. Potential reasons for that line could be it’s a time loop (watching the vision over and over again) or could be in relation to her backstory. 

There was potential foreshadowing in episode 4 with Lilia staring at the stained glass windows of witches being tortured and burned. 

Lilia is shown to be deeply affected by this and is also the one who continues to combat the negative stereotypes about witches. Her hallucination in episode 3 of her freaking out and crying about how everyone was dead could also play into the third trial where everyone turned on Agatha rather quickly and was ready to punish her (similarly to how Lilia’s other fellow witches suffered over the centuries as suggested by the stained glass and her previous experiences). Lilia and Agatha before episode 5 had an understanding and some empathy towards each other for being some of the longest living witches and having dealt with persecution. So possibly Lilia’s vision was directly in relation to Agatha’s trial or potentially foreshadowing through Agatha’s trial of what is to come and her own involvement. 

A theory crafted by another @shutupineedtothink (link here) mentions that the trials could potentially be going in the order of the ballad lyrics “Maiden, Mother, Crone” and representing the cycles a woman goes through in her life. 

Those lyrics are mentioned again during the third trial as well by Agatha. If we follow the theory: (here's the link to it):

https://www.tumblr.com/shutupineedtothink/763640238116683776/trial-order-and-why-lilia-not-agatha-is-last

Jen representing the beginning of life

Alice is the Maiden

Agatha is the Mother 

Lilia is the Crone 

Rio is death

Then yes, this is Agatha’s trial this could prove that Lilia is connected to the trial based on that Mother and Crone are stages of the cycle and the trials. Agatha’s trial did focus around herself but in the end nothing was resolved but everyone was (key word) affected. 

I would also like to point out that of the cards Lilia has mentioned throughout the series she has called out; Three of pentacles, Three of swords, and Knight of Wands in episodes 2, 4, and 5 respectively. In tarot Knight of Wands is a call to action card but its reverse meaning warns to be cautious. Wands in a tarot reading  (based on my experience with using tarot)  if you have many wands in a reading it’s usually hinting that the conflict is in the mind and is not external yet. 

So to conclude this section -> this trial is Agatha’s and it’s unofficial, the beginning of Lilia’s (potentially) vision but it could also be another’s as well.

Following the order “Maiden, Mother, Crone.” Supposedly Agatha’s trial wouldn’t be complete without a younger soul or child because the stage “Mother” is associated with when a woman is raising her children and Crone could be watching your child from afar and still present. 

Enter next part of this theory:

Previous :

[onlymurdersintheafterparty]

Updated OMITB S4 Killer Theory

After watching this week's episode I have a new theory for who killed Sazz. There are some plot holes proving otherwise but for now this is what is sticking with me the most. I think it also ties some of these storylines together. I'm putting this all under a spoiler tag just in case since it hasn't been a full day yet.

I think Bev is actually Dudenoff. From what we know so far, Dudenoff is rarely ever home and is currently in Portugal. Bev living and working in Los Angeles means that she could go back and forth collecting rent, hire someone to do so, or just have it deposited directly. Maybe she inherited one of the apartments, saw an opportunity for the others and took it. Plus it's a nice side hustle that can help to fund her film projects.

The mysterious person in the group with their face scratched out could very well be Helga. Vince said that Helga was the wrong type of weirdo and Rudy, Inez, and Ana were all trying to paint her as mentally ill and paranoid. I think we can assume she's not dead since we heard her on the radio, but she is clearly in hiding meaning she didn't leave the West Tower on her own accord. I think she uncovered a secret about Dudenoff or whatever other crime these Westies are into and was going to tell Charles so he could expose it on the podcast.

Sazz was digging around searching for clues before she was killed, even going so far as to discover that someone was watching Charles and gaining access to the code for the Dudenoff apartment. This season has been playing around a lot with the concept of stunt doubles, twins, and actors portraying actors. What if Sazz bore a strong resemblance to Helga and was successfully able to pass as her which is how she got entry to the Dudenoff apartment? If the theory that Helga was going to snitch is correct, maybe during the night of the party one of the Westies looked out the window, saw Sazz in Charles' apartment and thought she was Helga and killed her to keep her from telling?

If Bev is Dudenoff there is a possibility that she was in attendance at the party at the end of season 3 and was also in town to collect the rent owed by the Westies. Maybe at the party she saw Sazz and because of the Sazz/Helga lookalike theory thought Helga was in disguise to get close to Charles. Having her side hustle exposed would lose her money and with how she hounded the trio to sign over their movie rights she sounds like she's struggling financially. In episode 4, the actors are referred to as faces because there's a dynamic where stunt people don't get recognition for their work and aren't recognized outside of the work that they do. At the party when they discuss the wine Charles has upstairs, Bev could have overheard that Sazz was going up to get it and saw that as her chance to strike. As Dudenoff it would be easy to run over to the apartment she owns and gain access to get the job done. Plus we now know she knows how to handle a gun after she is seen holding the trio at gunpoint at the end of the episode.

The question remains whether Sazz was the intended victim or Charles and I'm still going to go with Sazz for now. I know there's the whole "Everybody hates Charles" agenda but he's basically a homebody so I doubt there would be enough interactions over time for someone to actually hate him. The only other reason is that a family member of one of the victims in the podcast or the killers is mad at him for profiting off of their death like what the bartender said at Concussions.

So this is where I'm at right now theory wise. There is still plenty of time to change that because we have 6 episodes left. I know there's so much more to be discovered so I can't wait to see what direction the show will take over the next few episodes.

[youledmehere]

Exactly we saw everything about the CRM through our protagonists' experiences!! The CRM is present in everything we see in these 6 episodes, even in episode 4 the conflict is partially about them. Media literacy is truly dead

some ppl in twd fandom have a serious problem where they theorize something to death and end up getting mad when their own personal* theories don’t pan out and that was a big thing with their perceptions of the CRM. it wasn’t exactly what they wanted it to be so they wrote it off as being bad. i saw a lot of comments about it not being as “fleshed out” which doesn’t really make sense either since we spent the majority of ep1 through rick seeing what this new community is like and him starting as a cosignee and what that entails. we see him join the military and through that we learn more about how okafor wanted to change the CRM from the inside because the way they were operating would not be sustainable overall. we see through michonne the brutality of what their forces are capable of when she and her friends are attacked on the road. over the course of the episodes we learn what their ultimate goals are and why they did what they did. it was all in the name of keeping their city protected and hidden but eventually (as stories often unravel) we learn the CRM just cares about having the most power, ensuring their own survival at any cost while betraying their allies, and obtaining resources through horrible actions. at this point idk what else needs to be learned since most questions have been answered.

+ those same people who complain the most, deluded themselves into thinking towl was setting up some kind of next chapter (when nothing pointed to that and it was marketed as being six episodes long) where they wanted michonne to die so rick could have some man pain, go “savage” mode and team up with daryl and negan lmao?? instead. like sorry that daryl is on some european tour doing his own thing whilst negan is fast forwarded in his spin-off gallivanting around NYC? but it was never going to be some michael bay inspired production of exploding helicopters and men standing around together shooting at things while having bromantic moments so they just nitpick and whine

[gavillain]

Agatha All Along episode 4 discusion and theories!

Episode 4 spoilers ahoy! Also, I'm going to discuss the FunkoPop leaked spoilers as well, so if you want to remain in the dark, turn back now!

This was SUCH a good episode! I really had fun with it, and we learned a LOT and had a lot of development this go-round.

So they summon Rio Verde to fill Sharon's place as the resident Green Witch in this episode, and already I am LOVING what she adds to the group. The way she's just so casually bloodthirsty and dangerous is genuinely really fun, and I really like how this episode confirms that she and Agatha were lovers in the past and still seem to have feelings for each other. I am mad that the FunkoPop leak spoiled that Rio is Death because this episode did some GREAT foreshadowing regarding that revelation that I'm sure would have thrown us all for a loop if we didn't already know her identity. But her being "in the neighborhood" after Sharon dies, her wanting "more bodies" during her talk with Agatha, Agatha saying "don't" directly at her when Teen was dying, and her hurting Agatha fulfilling her duty. That last one makes me think that she was responsible for taking Nicholas Scratch's life, and that's why she and Agatha had their falling out. I'm thinking maybe Agatha did something to obtain the Darkhold that inadvertently traded Nicholas's life, and maybe she thought whatever she did WOULDN'T kill him because she and Death were lovers (but of course was mistaken). I'm very excited to learn more about Death and Agatha's history.

Although, I am curious about two things with regards to Rio being Death: 1. She's a Green Witch and in fact says she is THE Green Witch. Why is Death of all beings considered a Green Witch? What's the lore there? 2. Were all the signs indicating that she might be Blackheart intentionally misdirections, or is there something else going on here that pertains to Blackheart? Keeping these questions in mind going forward, and I want to marinate on them.

Alice, her mother, and her family's curse was at the forefront of this episode, and I really enjoyed having some additional development for Alice. She was by far the most "normal" of the main cast, so it was nice that we got answers about her first so that she didn't fade into the background. Last episode, I deduced that Alice was cursed by some malevolent entity that plagues her family bloodline and would be after her now that the mother is dead, and on that I was correct. I thought the entity would be Dark Tonji from the comics, but the curse demon was given no name. I'm just gonna call it Dark Tonji since it never got another name XD I loved the reveal that Alice's mother's cover of The Ballade is a protection spell that has been keeping Alice safe for years because of how prolific it is played. I thought that was a really fun touch, and I LOVED the performance of the cover. It was very emotionally powerful watchiing the demon be destroyed by it. I am curious if we'll learn more about where the Dark Tonji curse came from and what that entity was. I'm inclined to say probably not since this episode tied a neat bow on top of everything, but we very well might! I'd love to know more if they have more story to tell.

I also liked the reveal that Alice's mother died "on the road" but not the Witches' Road, she died "on the road" because she was on tour. I like the wordplay there, and I thought it made for a nice subversion to expectations.

We got more of Agatha having a genuine affection for "Teen" in this episode, and seeing how much she cared when Teen got hurt and was close to dying in contrast to how she basically used Sharon as a meat shield to die for her and then never bothered to learn her name speaks VOLUMES regarding how much Agatha cares about Teen. This episode basically spells out that Agatha thought Teen WAS Nicholas Scratch, but Rio confirms at the end that he is not. It also seems to suggest that Teen doesn't even know who put the sigil on him at all. I'm still very much of the opinion that it's Wanda's magic, and that he's Billy Kaplan (the latter seemingly confirmed by FunkoPop spoilers - thanks a lot guys). But I'm interested in if Agatha might suspect that about him, and I wanna see how their relationship changes now that Rio has confirmed that he's not Nicholas.

Jen talks about a man without magic binding her, and I'm fairly certain the man she talks about is the same one she saw in her hallucination. She states specifically that he did NOT have magic though he did bait her into trap. I'm calling it right now that he DIDN'T bind her, she bound HERSELF unknowingly as a trauma response to his attack. I'm pretty sure about that one.

We see more of Lilia having visions and then saying things without remembering that she says them. I almost wonder if the mysterious dead woman she saw in her hallucination last episode is somehow literally inside of her. Two souls trapped in one. I also just want to note that I enjoy the consistency in her characterization as being the one who takes the most umbrage with witch stereotypes like she did in the previous episodes. It's a small thing, but I like characterization bits like that that help set her aside from the others.

Aaaaaaaand now I really don't want to wait until next week for the new episode. These continue to be SO good, and I NEED more.

[genericpuff]

What the actual fuck are they thinking-

Okay, the caption might seem overblown but... this is not good.

The main LO subreddit has been closed for weeks now. It closed due to the API protests but considering the options in the community poll were to either "stay open indefinitely" or "stay closed until the decision is reversed", there's a tinfoil hat theory going around that the single mod that overlooks that place saw the API protests as an "easy way out", especially considering how hands-off those mods are. By the time the main sub decided to take part in the protests (after the height of the protests were over) it had already been stated by u/spez that they were not going to reverse the decision. Essentially, the LO subreddit is done.

Do you know what's been happening since it closed? Activity in ULO has been skyrocketing, but we've also been seeing a lot more discourse from people who have been forced to stomach the ULO content after having their main community shuttered.

Listen, I've got a lot of issues with the main sub and the things they've done over the past year. There are definitely some really shitty folks in there who have ruined things for those who are just casual readers by just being way too protective of this comic. But that doesn't mean the main sub shouldn't exist. The main sub, as dead as it was by the time it closed, was still an option for people who didn't want blind praise or relentless criticism/shitposting. Though there were people who tried to gatekeep the shit out of the main sub (attempting to make it a "positive vibes only" space) the main sub was never explicitly designed for only praise, and by the time it closed, it was seeing a lot more balance between praise and criticism (to no one's surprise, because criticism has become a lot more mainstream in the LO fandom, simply due to the comic's undeniably tanking). All that said, it made for a nice middle ground. Even I enjoyed going in there and reading people's takes on new episodes every week, whether or not I agreed with them. ULO was not designed to be the only route for discussion concerning LO, it's very specifically run for one specific purpose and that purpose will not line up with those who are now without a space.

Without the main sub, there are people with nowhere to go. Some people casually grin and bear it through ULO, others have gone to /r/LowSodiumLoreOlympus, but considering how dead that sub is also, it's clear the popular opinion is swaying more towards criticism. I can't imagine what it's like to be a community refugee right now.

So what does that leave for those who don't want to use ULO? The Facebook groups, and the Discord. The Facebook groups are probably the most accessible communities - not everyone uses reddit, not everyone knows how to use Discord, but everyone uses Facebook.

So the fact that the Facebook groups aren't going on a small break, but are going on their own 4 month hiatus?

Not only does this further reduce the options for fandom interaction, but this is terrible for the comic. Hiatuses like this can kill long-term retention, and fandom communities are often the best way to keep that retention on some form of life support.

Think of it this way - if I didn't have the ULO community, I probably would have dropped off LO ages ago, cut my losses, moved on. But it's the fact that I have a community to keep in touch with and have fun with that keeps me on this series. This goes the other way as well, into the casual and praise communities - while I'm sure many will still eagerly return in October, for those who are more casual readers, Lore Olympus will essentially be out of sight, out of mind. And that is NOT something you want to happen to a comic that is already losing traction.

I genuinely do not know what Rachel is thinking closing these groups. And yes, I am pointing to Rachel on this decision because she literally runs the official LO Facebook groups. LO going on a mid-season hiatus over the summer when HALF OF HER DEMOGRAPHIC IS HOME FROM SCHOOL is already such a huge risk that will likely kill her numbers; but to go and cut off her official groups from being able to stay connected and talking about the comic during the hiatus, on a platform OCCUPIED BY THE OTHER HALF OF HER DEMOGRAPHIC, LITERALLY ADULT WOMEN ?? What is that supposed to achieve? If she wants to give her mods a break, sure, okay, do that for a few weeks, but four months? Is she so allergic to fans being able to theorize or "figure her out" (because god knows Rachel doesn't like being predictable) or, god forbid, is she worried about giving them too much "freedom" to reflect and discuss the comic during this time without the weekly dopamine distraction hits that they actually stop and realize how shitty the comic is right now?

All I can say is, as much as we're theorizing that LO is going to be getting a 4th season, I really do hope this midseason hiatus is its last. Whatever life this comic has left is being choked out by Rachel and Webtoons' own hands.

And when it does go out, it better go out with a bang. That's the least it can do for itself and its community at this point.