#the dialogue when you get temporal.........................

[pac1fythehunger]

they told me the game has an old man in armor,,

[ratasum]

Let's Talk About Thaumanova!

This is undoubtedly going to get long, as I want to dig into a few things, including the potential name of the city that was destroyed in the meltdown, how much was/is known about the reactor, and theories/wild mass guessing. So it goes under a cut.

So for reference if you somehow don't know, most people know Thaumanova as one of two things:

A named area within Metrica Province where the Fire Elemental world boss spawns. There's a great deal of magical temporal displacement that takes place in this location, and NPCs can be found that refer to the disaster.

The fractal that encompasses the timeframe roughly one year before the beginning of the Personal Story that shows the events of the reactor meltdown that destroyed the city far above it.

According to in game dialogue from a researcher you can talk to at the entrance to the named area, the location was formerly an asuran city. Research the Inquest was conducting far below the city caused a chain reaction/meltdown that caused the reactor to go critical and level the area, leaving the city a ruin.

The implication provided here is that the location we're in is a city high above where the Thaumanova Reactor actually was located, where the Inquest was doing its research with Scarlet. He provides no details of what transpired here, nor does he name the reactor or the city itself.

It's implied that basically an entire city was wiped off the map, but NOT that the city itself was Inquest. The city was a simple asuran city cube, and the Inquest research was apparently secret... until the year before the PS.

On the other hand, nearby, you can visit a camp with survivors. It can be hard to get the applicable dialogue here, as there is a repeating event chain where Inquest from the Inner Complex will attempt to or have succeeded in kidnapping survivors from the city/reactor meltdown.

Gliga is a peacemaker you can speak with at the encampment.

She has some interesting dialogue regarding the reactor that contradicts (somewhat) what the researcher above spoke in regards to.

Gliga seems to indicate some knowledge of the reactor, but while she mentions the reactor itself, no name for the city itself is given. I have theories on this! But we'll come back to that in a moment.

Next up is Refugee Ejint. He was in the city when the reactor melted down and destroyed it. He's one of the lucky survivors, and gives us some clues on what happened to people in the city who weren't lucky enough to make it out.

Yikes!

This does go along with the thought, however, that a number of people did die- probably a significant number. If they didn't die, they were transmuted into Something Else. I'd also like to theorize that being displaced from reality or tossed into the mists is also a possibility, considering you can see animals being popped in and out of existence in the reactor (and in Brisban and the Iron Marches!).

There aren't any other refugees or survivors we can speak to here, but this is a good start. (Note: if you try to speak to other refugees, they'll cough, start crying, moan, or mutter things like "oh no no no.")

I won't get into the reactor itself too much, as it doesn't give us much more detail into the city itself, and we mostly know what transpired there.

(It is interesting to note that Dessa clearly knew two researchers, but didn't quite recognize them, stating they changed... but Dessa's fractal echo appears to be from about 20 years prior, so my general theory for that is one: her friends aged 20 years, and two: they're Inquest where they may not have been before. She also has dialogue from LWS1's initial drop that mentions knowing about the Thaumanova lab itself! Which is interesting! But we don't really get anymore detail on that.)

That being said... on to the Brisban Wildlands!

The reactor's explosion had far reaching effects, and the nearest location we can see that is in the Brisban Wildlands. The most notable of which is the Toxal Bog. Here, you can see the remnants of a ton of magical residue, and creatures that pop in and out of existence. My guess is the reactor's meltdown affected this area significantly.

Also in Brisban is the Thaumacore Inquiry Center POI and hero point. It appears the core of the reactor was eventually removed by the Inquest, though there's no indication as to when. It's possible this may also be what affected the Toxal Bog, but there's no way to know for certain.

I sometimes wonder if the orb you see at the end of the Thaumanova fractal isn't the power source seen here, but that's neither here nor there.

The final spot (that I'm immediately aware of) on our Thaumanova Tour is the Iron Marches! This is an interesting one, since we learn that the reactor's explosion didn't just affect the city and the immediate area... it also affected the location the crystals used in the Inquest facility were mined in: the Chaos Crystal Cavern Jumping Puzzle.

And the effects of the chaos rifts are varied indeed.

So with all this information in hand, what can we conclude?

It's time for theories!

In general, we know painfully little. We know there was a reactor called the Thaumanova Reactor, and there was (at one time) a city above it. We know there was a loss of life, be it from people dying, being transfigured, or a variety of other things that may have affected them (displaced, yeeted out of existence, etc).

We also know that the reactor meltdown happened in a lab deep below the city, not in the city itself.

My general theory is that the reactor was in the city, or at least underneath it, and WAS a known item. I do think the Thaumanova Reactor was what powered the city cube that was there at one time. I don't think, however, that they shared a name. Large asuran settlements have very standard naming principles, as seen with the known examples below:

Quora Sum

Rata Pten

Rata Novus

Rata Arcanum

Rata Sum

Rata Primus

I do think it may have been something like Rata Thauma or Rata Nova (though Rata Nova is a stretch... it's very close to Rata Novus, which may a) have the implication of bad luck and b) call to mind Zinn, who was pretty unpopular, to say the least).

My guess in this regard, since no one was aware the lab was under the city, was that the laboratory didn't even have a name, or at the very least if it was named for the reactor, it was sold to the people in the city as not actually being down below so as to allay any fears the citizenry may have about having a giant Inquest laboratory right under their feet.

(I am aware that Dessa mentions the Thauma lab, and that she was aware it was "a nasty place to work," but it's the only line that exists and iirc it was ONLY in the og LWS1 drop, so it's equally possible she didn't know exactly what it was or what research was taking place there. I could be wrong, though, and if anyone has screens of that dialogue, please feel free to add them on! That said, we do know from the researcher the lab was not known about prior to the reactor meltdown. That fact is, at least, solid.)

So what happened to the city cube?

My personal theory is that the city cube is the Uncategorized Fractal. Having Dessa's former partner (supposedly) there doesn't disprove this, either: we know Dessa in the fractal echo is from roughly 20 years prior. Her being so hesitant about the empty city doesn't necessarily mean that she was aware of the reactor meltdown. If sh e and her partner had a falling out, or if she's seen this loop enough to know what's at the end...

It could elicit the same response. And we know things can be ripped OUT of the mists, so why not placed into the mists as well? The Raving Asura's dialogue also pairs neatly with some ambient dialogue from a survivor in the Survivors Encampment.

(My Gyazo busted and I didn't catch the dialogue in a screenshot, but you can read it here at this link... it's the first piece under At the Survivor Encampment, and there's other interesting dialogue below!)

Obviously Your Mileage May Vary, but it's REALLY fu n to speculate and think about this place. It's a great place to look to for information if you want a LOT of trauma for your asura's backstory, be it by being a survivor, losing family while they were away, being an Inquest researcher who escaped, or maybe even by being distorted by the shifts in reality when the reactor melted down.

I jokingly say the Thaumanova city cube is my Roman Empire, and genuinely, I talk about it because people who aren't playing asura may not even realize it was there.

But I hope this provides some neat information on a little known/talked about piece of asura lore!

[scribz-ag24]

your grovyle and dusknoir pieces matter so much to me because you capture the very essence of how much the green gecko bastard and his 7.11ft tall ass ghost-guy-that-was-sent-to-kill-him-but-whoops-something-happened matter to each other and just how they change the other while still being all awkward at certain times because they are in a situation that involves feelings in which they are both not used to (grovyles emotional tendencies where he pushed down things and thoughts that would otherwise doom the mission he was on and dusknoir just being completely foreign to them because he strives from a world where kindness and love is seen as a vulnerability so he just strayed far from things that will inevitably stab him in the back) and how they try to navigate it while having to bear the annoyances of the other but still viewing them in high regard nonetheless. i dont go here too much but i figured i may as well say it because i think you're cool and because you draw those two annoying little studs so well. have a good day scribz

Waaaa thank you!! I appreciate you stop by here to be so lovely! This made my entire week 🥹🥹 I always love to see you when you tag, youre so thorough in everh post you reblog, it's a delight to see ^^

They are sooo important to each other, I don't think we appreciate enough how pivotal they are to each other's development, especially grovyle to dusknoir's. Still cant believe the ghost's parting word and thought was a a most thankful message to his old enemy, thanking him for giving his life meaning, for helping him not regret having truly *lived*, not just survived. I wish Dusknoir got some more dialogue after coming back to life, but those being his last words, in addition to him constantly referencing grovyle's speech, just goes to show how far he's internalized grovyle's words.

And the way Grovyle genuinely sees and reaches towards Dusknoir's inner goodness, *while* he's actively being betrayed, is beyond words. Grovyle loves his friends deeply and by this point he's clearly gone far enough to consider Dusknoir close to that status. Maybe Dusknoir protecting him from a blow hit too close to home and changed the dynamic in his eyes from "temporal ally" to just "ally". It can't be a coincidence that Grovyle opens up and explains his motives and ideas after Dusknoir takes the attack for him.

You just can't get one without the other in my mind, it's how they contrast and mirror each other, it's how the game switches the tables and flips their alignment so seamlessly. The thief-captor dynamic turning on its head once you see their true colors. How dusknoir appears more mature and put together thanks to his charm and social skills, only for him to end up learning and looking up to Grovyle, whose more developed life philosophy and selfless objective end up convincing Dusknoie to fight for something beyond himself.

Special Episode 5 is one of rhe best pmd chapters/story out there, and it's the most basic premise of Grovyle and Dusknoir working together. The writers developed them so well in conjuction that they can't be separated in my head.

But even then their contrasting personalities makes them so fun to put them into situations, despite the ares wjere they might overlap. they're both great but they belong together. And celebi just adds even more flavour to the mix by adding someone so radically different from them in her view and approach to things (seeing as shes one of the onlu characters explicitly in love, maybe even in priorities outside world-ending cataclysms xD). Future trio in post-canon is simply too rich, even the crumbs from PSMD links them together and that's enough for me.

(And also just in general the vibes are so good, we make fun of dusknoie for the "looking nervous having your back exposed to me" but grovyle's "you cling to me beyond expectation" and "i surrender, do with me as you will". BESIDES ALREADY THINKING ABOUR DUSKNOIR WAY MOEE THAN ANYONE ELSE.

he goes up to partner during the sunrise and goes "thinking about dusknoir?" whilw it turns out partner is thinking of how much they love the beach and their friend 😭😭 and then grovyle says in his letter "hey watch out for dusknoir bc he WILL BE BACK I KNOW HIM" and hero and partner jusr go "oh yeah that guy. remember that guy??" like THEY DONT REMEMBER WHO TRIED TO KILL THEM A DAY AGO?? 😭😭 why they dgaf lmao)

So yeah. I care about them a normal amount xD.

[dextraicarus1994]

When you think you've seen it all, it turns out there's more than meets the eye.

This will show spoilers from Captain Laserhawk manga Crushing Love and also it will brings some Splinter Cell lore, so watch out if you don't want to get spoiled.

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This little discovery had showed me a different take of the Captain Laserhawk lore and probably will be answering some questions (or create more *I am creating more questions than ever and the anxiety to know*).

It looks like Anna Grimsdöttir got a role in Dolph past

For some that are not familiar who Anna Grimsdöttir is, she was an ally of Sam Fisher during The Splinter Cell games and books, she was the Communications Lead later Chief Technical Analyst for Third Echelon and then became Technical Operation Officer during her Fourth Echelon era. She provided Sam with technical support during his field work also adressing any high - technology issues and a skilled hacker.

In this panels we see how Dolph tells his story with Alex (Grim was the only lady who could Boss Alex and he would not complaint, that means the situation was bigger than anything) and suddenly Marcus is surprised by seeing Ana and mentions that she was part of the war (I assumed he was mentioning about the Wastelands War), who provided Intelligence and saved Sam and Marcus many times and after they Lost, she went missing, not knowing about her whereabouts...

Now with this little revelation, It looks like there more than meets the eye, I can't tell everything yet because It looks like I need to read the rest of the manga, but how the things are going, there will be many revelations that could unite the missing links of the series' lore and this could be a twist to some questions that are unaswered.

Remember the last episode where a Rayman was send a message about going to see Bullfrog? Some assume many characters that would had sent that messege, but now with seeing this revelation about Grim, I can believe she could have been the one who send it. It looks like Anna was willing to stop Eden, too and the reason why she and Alex were working together, also there is something curious about a dialogue of Alex telling Grim if Dolph is not able to do his part he could talk to the Arms Dealer Andy (some that are not familiar with the Splinter Cell lore would past it unnoticed, but if I am correct, or I am assuming many things, Alex would had been referring to Andriy Kobin, an arms dealer who was enemy of Sam Fisher during Splinter Cell Conviction, then a temporal ally in Splinter Cell Blacklist).

So... Here it is this little discovery and man, there is a lot to be reveal and to see this, brings me a Big joy to know that more Splinter Cell characters are around the Captain Laserhawk serie, meaning that that maybe Sam will have a bigger part in Dolph's role in Season 2 (I really hope so). 🥺🥺🥺💚🖤💚🖤💚🖤💚🖤

Oh!!! Almost forgot, Anna design in the manga looks like the design from Blacklist more than anything.😁😁😁😁💞💞💞💞💞💞

[themcomicsofficial]

Welcome Home next Theory Idea

So now we know about the next update of Welcome Home from Clown Illustration's update on twitter.

So here are my thoughts on what will happen:

The main page starts out fresh and new this time it has Spring features like flowers, a bright beautiful, clear blue sky and of course--Wally!!

As the user scrolls down we see the cast--but wait, WHERE'S EDDIE?? (The neighbors are wearing spring attire with a banner that says "Welcome!" however Eddie Dear is no where to be found)

The Neighborhood page:

The user goes the neighborhood page as usual...

However, when the user clicks on Eddie Dear they get a proclaimer that will say; "Due to technical difficulties, the audio recording of Eddie Dear has been temporality compromised. We will fix it up soon."

When the user clicks on the dialogue of Eddie. It shows warbles and--quite disturbing sounds with groaning and moaning--then record scratch!

The Merchandise page:

Since Julie Joyful is centered around this. The WHRP have recovered a story called "Sing-A-Long, Spring-A-Along!" Where it centers around Julie trying to make the flowers bloom from her singing. As we reach--I dunno the 15:50-16:05, Frank asks where's Eddie--Then it warbles with disturbing noises and a woman screaming in the end.

However, the story cuts back to the story with Julie all happy that her singing made the flowers bloom! And they live happily ever after!

As we scroll in the Merchandise page more

The WHRP say they have recovered a Julie Joyful stuffed animal commercial audio where it "protects you from the dark" and "make you see her in "eyes"...

Away from Prying Eyes:

W once again talks to us about how Welcome Home is still difficult to find, the Question Answer sent him complaints on how every each search result makes no sense. W talks about the toy phone again but this time...he presses the pink button...(Julie Joyful) as he tells us that JULIE can hear him as well...Telling him why isn't W playing with her as he recalls of seeing her in a flower field and a woman with a blood stained hammer attacked him in a dream.

Footage:

Unlike with the Commercials from "Homecoming", W tells us he found the illustrated, storybook segments in a supposed episode of Welcome Home.

It's a continuation of the story with Julie Joyful taking care of the flowers, Sally Starlet tells her about Eddie Dear's sudden disappearance...Then we get the climax...Julie says "Who's Eddie?" Sally looks her dumbfounded and yells at her on how come she doesn't remember Eddie at all. Julie believes that Sally is playing a game, Sally begins to panic to have a anxiety attack on what's going here in the neighborhood loudly, asking what's going here...Then the screen goes black with Sally in the dark with Julie looking down...

Sally: J-Julie?

Sally sees her holding a bloody hammer with blood covered on hands...

Julie Joyful: You should've played with me...

A beating is heard offscreen where blood is splashed on the walls...

The camera goes down we see a pink flower as it opens an eye...

W says in the final description that he couldn't recall on what he heard...All he can hear was the illustrated story segments and that's it but the one thing he can recall that merchandise of Sally Starlet was fatality damaged...

So this means Sally is gone as well...

Man, I had a lot of fun writing this!

Lemme know what you think!

Welcome Home is owned by Clown Illustrations

[babyrdie]

This 2016 fic. What fic was it?

I don't know if it's still on the site because I usually don't log in and this fic is restricted, but it was Good Soul or something like that, I think!

But if your interest in the fic was the idea of reading a fic with a Patroclus that sounds like my Patroclus, I'll warn you that it's more in terms of vibes. The plot and elements of the fic certainly don't sound like my style! It's a really fun fic, but it doesn't have any commitment to things like mythical accuracy or even temporal accuracy (by that I'm not talking about unknown historical details, I'm talking about obvius things). But it's pretty obvious, at least to me, that it was intentional. Like, I got the impression that it was a creative choice, especially a humorous one. Plus, it's a fanfic and I think it's kind of strange to expect the same things from fanfics that you would expect from products (i.e. paid, professional things. Things like books, series, movies) when it's fan-to-fan sharing in the most unpretentious/fun way possible. I don't say this to diminish fanfics (I was a ficwriter myself for almost 10 years! I wrote more than 200 fics lol), I just think they're really different things with different proposals. But as I know this isn't a lot of people's cup of tea even in fics, I'm already saying it.

But yeah, when I think about it I think my Patroclus is influenced by the Patroclus in this fic. He has a certain impatience and pettiness that matches my Patroclus. The Achilles in the fic, however, doesn't resemble my Achilles. Therefore, the Patrochilles dynamic in the fic itself is different from my dynamic. As for the secondary characters, most of them are OCs. I usually don't like OCs in fics very much, but in case that's the case for you, I'll just say that I found the OCs in this fic really cool! You actually care about them instead of feeling like they're getting in the way. The Thetis in this fic is very… expressive. She's a humorous character, from what I remember. Maybe her vibe will surprise you lol I still can't get over a line of dialogue where Achilles is going on and on about a certain event in the fic and starts commenting on how he has good senses and says that Thetis told him it's because they're part dolphin. Like, dude??? That's gold! Overall, the fic has the characters at certain moments overreacting for humorous reasons, so if that fits your mood it might be worth checking out.

BUT WARNING: the ending… is kind of open. Like, it's closed for this part of the fic, but it feels like it's the end of book 1 and there should be a second book of a duology. Except the fic has no continuation!

[leohtttbriar]

i think the biggest mistake an audience can make (i.e. me) with a time-paradox story is to try to make sense of it. like there's the surface-level logic here that sisko can be a "chosen one" of sorts because, well, he always was. if you can look down on the fourth dimension of time and see it all laid out in the same way we can look down a two-dimensional square, then everything always is and verb-tenses mean nothing and the layout of What Is is. but that's just so so abstract. (!)

what ends up being implied by the idea of extra-dimensional beings like the prophets is determinism. which doesn't. like. make sense. not from our perspective at least. the universe is just too much for us to be able to see a character like sisko able to interpret the space between what the prophets say and what he should then decide. the prophet above is saying "you need to rest now" and the prophets said that sisko has a path he is "meant" to walk--so was he always going to decide to both marry kasidy and "learn" among the prophets in the wormhole? if his decision-making has no power, why would the prophets tell him what to do to begin with? he says he's already done all the things he is going to do, sort of, so what is his relationship with spacetime? how can someone exist in between non-linear beings and linear time? what makes sisko special--is it his decision-making or his determined life?

i get the feeling this ending for the character was supposed to provoke these sorts of questions but i can't get past how it makes very little sense to me. which i guess is my own reaction to time-paradox stories: arrival and interstellar and even the "children of time" episode of ds9, none successfully convince me of the know-ability of time. even kasidy asking in the prophet vision "is anyone here?" makes my brain hurt, because, like, yeah is anyone there? where do these creatures exist? where and when and how? and in what ways can they contribute to the fabric of a mutable and constantly morphing or expanding and evolving universe?

obviously, it's not like a few sci-fi writers are going to do what only theoretical physicists can only imagine, but something about the tone of this episode, the design and the dialogue, suggests something answer-able. "meant to" and "alone" and "rest" and "ben? is that you?" are temporal and, in the logic of this story, are determined? there are ways to suggest more ambiguity, to lean into the logic of paradoxes--using color and music to imply that nothing here is figured out, that sisko is just a man invited into a perspective that we haven't yet been able to understand. a star trek-y "how mysterious, how weird" sort of answer that emphasizes that tying-up loose ends isn't the best narrative resolution sometimes.

this conclusion for sisko is a bit ambiguous but also not. and i sort of wish kasidy had gone with him. what does pregnancy look like where everything already was and is and yet to come? what is a romance undefined by the progressive beats of relationships and intimacy? what would their relationship say about the ongoing-ness of love?

[sequence-trotter]

after really not liking it after the initial switch i've come to enjoy argenti's new english VA performance more. where the last VA sounded extremely sincere and slightly ethereal, i interpret the new english argenti as a guy who is still kind of like that but is also consciously performing Being A Knight as a cover for a real intense faith bordering on fervor that he hides because he knows people find it difficult. there's the slightest ragged edge to some of his lines, a bit of throatiness that hints at some darkness under there. his take of the "for idrila" full ult line takes it from a whispered devotion to an almost pained invocation. a little less "i offer this victory up in the name of beauty" and the slightest hint more of "i shed this blood in the name of god."

and i think that's actually kind of nice, because it speaks to an aspect of argenti's characterization that's present in his character stories and dialogue but which i think gets often overlooked in favor of "argenti is your biggest bro" and "argenti is a beautiful perfect bishonen knight" and "argenti is a walking comedy bit about extolling the beauty of random objects" (all of which i think are fun interpretations!). the thing is that the knights of beauty live completely insane dark fantasy protagonist existences where they are constantly dying in the pursuit of beauty because they can only almost see idrila when bleeding out and near death, and they must resist temptation in a spiritual trial every time they do lest they become nascent malformed emanator/aeon monsters. spoilers through hsr 2.3 follow.

argenti's level 60 and 80 character stories lay it out: being a knight of beauty means constantly facing violent battle to protect and pursue beauty while also resisting the whispering of demons (literal or not? less clear) offering you temporal pleasures and power and remembering your own potential for evil, because if you succumb, you will become a full-on nightmare bloodborne monster.

when he pulls you aside to pitch his "i'll stay behind and almost die to the giant sting while you guys get out of here" plan, argenti is pretty clear: this is extremely non-metaphorical. for the knights of beauty, seeking Beauty means constantly getting yourself nearly killed while protecting beautiful things, which will enable you to come ever nearer to glimpsing idrila. constantly almost dying to get closer to THEM is his vow as a knight.

(hey also "journey of argenti" is such a pointed phrasing. what's that about. if nothing else it's another thing suggestive of performance, in that he slips into talking about himself like a character)

in fact, when he returns in 2.3, argenti brings this up again, and even references the friend from his character stories who turned into a monster. in doing so, he suggests that this "omen of evil" monstrous form is something akin to sunday's form in his boss fight...which is interesting, considering Sunday's boss form is him first taking on the powers of an Emanator (Harmony's Emanators possess people, Harbinger "assuming direct control"-style, and his first form is sunday subverting and reshaping THEIR emanator Dominicus, the Harmonious Choir, to suit Order's ends and remake the world), then becoming a being that it's implied could have become an Aeon ("Embryo of Philosophy").

(also, that last bit. sorry about your dead friend/lover, argenti. damn. also, not only does this suggest the depths of his grief, it also suggests his endless quest is indeed difficult to bear, despite his outward projection of stoic endurance)

what we've gotten is both very straightforward and tantalizingly scant in terms of detail and process. one plausible if very literal read: assuming argenti's experience is typical, the knights of beauty come extremely metaphysically close to Beauty by dying repeatedly, but if they fall to the desire for power and pleasure while doing so, they become a terrible monstrous thing a lot like what sunday was, which could h ave been a newly-forming aeon and was definitely at least an emanator-type thing. so the knights of beauty either become sort of nascent aeons/emanators of Beauty in themselves or (my read) sort of malformed pathstriders of things which are almost but not quite Beauty, in much the same way that Sunday's desire was not actually for Order and turned him into an embryonic Something of Philosophy. But, y'know, that's probably not nearly as powerful and dangerous a transformation if you aren't backed by a Stellaron and a hive mind/psycho-spiritual network formed from 107,336 individual lives which are threatening to push you over into actual Aeonhood.

what's interesting about this to me is that the general omission of this information from anywhere except argenti's character story and dialogue suggests to me that it's not common knowledge in universe. it doesn't show up in the in-game databank, the xianzhou alliance's primer on aeons, or pom-pom's out of game lore drop.

himeko, generally a pretty knowledgeable character who gets treated by the express as an authoritative source of knowledge, doesn't mention it at all in her summary of them.

in fact, one neat aspect of the trailblazer's relationship with argenti is that as far as we know he has confided this whole "dying to get closer to idrila" deal to the trailblazer and only to the trailblazer, not any of the other members of the express or e.g. velite or boothill.

i like to think it's because, as he says, he sees the trailblazer as already traveling the path of beauty. and like we're...not NOT fighting giant monsters and almost dying in the pursuit of something, y'know? if we fell unconscious after a fight and almost glimpsed Beauty that'd be totally unsurprising to me. Harmony gave us the look just for wearing a cool hat!

that technically makes this a little piece of cool Aeon lore that the Trailblazer has been made privy to in-universe which most other characters wouldn't know! Unclear if they would even recognize that, though. Of course, I suppose in some ways Simulated/Divergent Universe mean knowing things we shouldn't about Aeons is a big part of the Trailblazer's deal (even if they'll never let us mention it in-story).

Anyways, wrapping back around to the original point, I think this angle makes the new va's performance work for me. new Argenti sounds a little like a guy doing a Knight Voice because he kind of is. who he really is, the person he has shown only to the Trailblazer so far, is a man whose devout and unflinching pursuit of Beauty is inextricably tied to terrible violence and death, both his own and that of others. The Knights of Beauty are heroes, and he'll play the role in public and for others, but underneath that is something much darker, wearier, and more zealous than outward appearances suggest.

[elvenmother]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @ghostofaboy

1 - How many works do you have on AO3? 21 total

2 - What’s your total AO3 word count? 102,006… not too bad

3 - What fandoms do you write for? I've written for a few over the years but more recently has been The Mandalorian, Kingsman, The Mentalist and We Can Be Heroes

4 - Top five fics by kudos Gonna miss off my actual number one cos it's an original fic

De Tempore - The Mandalorian Context and Perspective - We Can Be Heroes (Marcus Moreno/F!Reader) Shattered - Kingsmen (Jack Daniels/F!Reader) The Art of Crossed Wires - The Mentalist (Marcus Pike/F!Reader) Fascination - The Mandalorian

5 - Do you respond to comments? Yes, I love getting comments and always try to thank people for them.

6 - What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Shattered. Hands down the angstiest thing I've every written.

7 - What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Both Context and Perspective and The Art of Crossed Wires have happy endings. I'm a sucker for fluffy happiness.

8 - Do you get hate on fics? Thankfully no, that's not something I've ever had to deal with.

9 - Do you write smut? Only a couple of times but it's something I hope to get better at.

10 - Craziest crossover? I've not really written any crossovers. I guess Shattered, because I had Marcus Pike joining Statesmen.

11 - Have you ever had a fic stolen? No, thank goodness.

12 - Have you ever had a fic translated? No and I'd love it.

13 Have you ever co-written a fic before? No but it's something I'd love to do.

14 - All time favorite ship? I love Dinncobb, hands down my fave.

15 - What’s a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I've got tons of wips that will never get finished, but most of them are original stuff rather than fics.

16 - What are your writing strengths? I think dialogue as well as internal dialogue.

17 - What are your writing weaknesses? Action. Keeping track of everything in an action scene can be tough.

18 - Thoughts on dialogue in another language? I've never done it as my Spanish isn't good enough and I'd hate to insult native speakers. But when it's done well I think it can really enhance a fic.

19 - First fandom you wrote in? The very first fandom I wrote for was Re-Animator. A god awful self insert when I was about 14.

20 - Favorite fic you’ve written? Context and Perspective. I loved picking the world apart and getting under the hood of what would make the Heroics tick. It's by far the longest thing I've ever written too.

no pressure tags: @just-here-for-the-moment, @novemberrain-writes, @wyn-n-tonic, @defira85, @ltleflrt

[thevikingwoman]

Author Interview

tagged by @galadrieljones thank you!

1. how many works do you have on AO3?

57

2. what's your total AO3 word count?

197,188

3. what fandoms do you write for?

Dragon Age, Uprooted (Naomi Novik), Wayfarer IF, Final Fantasy XIV.

only the latter two in the past year.

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

Temporal Arrangements (Dragon Age Inquistion, Solavellan, E) Time Travel canon-divergent AU

Home (Uprooted - Naomi Novik, Sarkan/Agnieszka, T) Canon coda

Ar Lath Ma (Dragon Age: Inquisition, Solavellan, T)  Post canon fix it fix

Pies (Uprooted - Naomi Novik, Sarkan/Agnieszka, M ) post happily ever after domestic fluff

Temerity (Dragon Age: Inquisition, Solavellan, E) post canon enemies/not really enemies bdsm smut

5. do you respond to comments?

I try to respond to all of them! I love getting comments and when I comment I love getting replies on comments myself.

I may forget though, and I'm sorry! I love comments

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

God Slayer (Solavellan, T) I really like this one.

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most of my fics have happy endings, though I really like them with a tinge of uncertainty or bittersweetness.

the most straight up happily ever after is probably Hay, (Solavellan, E) which is just a very self-indulgent little happy fic.

8. do you get hate on fics?

I don't think I ever had?

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

I do write smut! I love writing smut, it's such a good challenge and it makes me happy. I love characterization through smut - and it's such an interesting way to do characterization. That said, sometimes I'm just thirsty and I want to see two characters smash. I'm not pretentious about it. I'm here to have fun and I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to read or write porn.

I write all sort of smut? I do love playing with power dynamics in sex scenes.

10. do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you've written?

The closest I've written is Comfort, a Solavellan vampire fic, which uses some BtVS lore? It's not crazy tho!

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of either. I think I'd be a little apprehensive.

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

nope. I'm not sure how i'd do that? writing feels like a solitary thing, even when asking for feedback and input.

The closest is a shared timeline/ideas where my OC interact with another person's OC and both of us wrote in the same continuity.

14. what's your all-time favourite ship?

hmmm. Once I've not written for and probably never will, Spike/Buffy.

if it's writing for, I'd say it's still Solavellan.

15. what's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I think if I want to finish it, I will? I have some old WIPs, but the reason I'm not finishing them is lack of want? Do or do not kinda thing I think.

16. what are your writing strengths?

I've told I've had good pacing. I think I write pretty good smut.

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions? I tend to not want want to describe things. I'm also not great at moving characters through space - he went to the door, he looked out etc? I tend to slip into passive voice when writing characters moving around unless it's combat action or sex.

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

nope.

"Hello," he said in Spanish

is perfectly valid.

A few short words like endearments - where the speaker would use a specific term in a different language than what's spoke is fine. Items that are specific and not translatable and would typically be borrowed words in a different language are fine too (kimono. computer. kayak)

19. first fandom you wrote for?

Dragon Age

20. favourite fic you've written?

This is SO hard. I was just looking at some old fics I really really love?

but I think right now, I'll pick my newest fic, Passing Through (wol/Tansui, E) because I love it very much and I had so much fun with it.

tagging @myreia @roguelioness @coldshrugs @allaganexarch @bearlytolerant @buttsonthebeach @scionshtola @galadae @wickedwitchofthewilds @redinkofshame @ellstersmash and @kittlesandbugs and anyone else who wants to! tag me!

[gotyouanyway]

ok this is just my meta writer-brained interpretation and idk how well it works but bear with me - and take this with a grain of salt bc it’s been a couple months since i listened to the last or the next life

but i think one way to make sense of the mechanics of the divergent universe is to understand that the universe itself functions like a story, and the arc never keeps its hands and feet inside the fourth wall.

maybe a reason why the universe loop seems to be only a few months long but contains seemingly eons of cultural development across the zones is because it IS only a few months, and those eons of development exist in a sort of compressed, inaccessible state between the tangible, traversable zones - they are the parts of a story that come before the scene you’re watching, but you will never directly experience. they’re real events, they HAVE to be real as a prerequisite to the reality you’re seeing, but they are real in a way that you can’t actually touch and that *takes up no time* in the physical narrative.

in that way the zones are like scenes in a play, which the doctor charley and c’rizz traverse and experience, but they can’t access the parts of their history that happened before they physically got there. those prior events are real and evident in the universe (to c’rizz they are lived, experienced reality!) but only the events they’re there for (and we the audience are there for) actually take up any time. the only reason i say the loop is months long and not ~10 hours of audio is because it’s not ENTIRELY meta ofc, the fourth wall is still there even if it’s kind of wonky.

but this weird story-reality is how the timelessness in the divergent universe works- the zones/time periods exist concurrently and side by side spatially like multiple sets on a stage, with all those precursor events happening in the utter non-time backstage. and maybe this helps make sense of the time-loop in a timeless universe, if we think of it as a spatial journey through the loop instead of a temporal one. they move from the tube to the desert to bortresoye and walk right back around to where the zone with the foundry touches the scherzo zone, like flipping back to the first page of the script.

(speaking of script, this meta interpretation also tracks with how the same scenes can be repeated with different characters like rassilon and the kro’ka in the scherzo tube - same dialogue, different actors)

and so the divergents, whether or not they have any understanding of this, act as the writers of the story controlling when and where and how events are staged. we never actually encounter them iirc so they seem to exist a bit outside of everything and control the narrative (until rassilon screws everything up- lmao). the last/bortresoye zone is their microcosmic play within a play like the dumb show in hamlet, summarizing the key structure of the story. caerdroia is…. well i didn’t really get that far but this post is long enough already

but again critically i think this is all done with one foot outside the fourth wall- it’s not metaphorical, the universe actually works this way in part because it is a story (in contrast to the doctor’s native universe, which is a fictional universe and not a story). if that makes any sense at all. maybe it doesn’t explain every technical detail of the universe, but the arc relies so heavily on meta understanding of itself in terms of story and medium that i think meta universe mechanics kind of fit

[corallapis]

[spoilers for the dark path]

re: koschei's standing with the time lords prior to & during the dark path: he's definitely not a renegade yet!

“Yes… That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask: they allow you to wander around like this?” “Do I detect a hint of jealousy, Doctor?” Koschei shrugged. “They’ve never said anything untoward to me.”

of course, they are secretly keeping tabs on him through ailla, but as far as he's aware, he's still in good stead with them. ailla describes him multiple times as a “scholar” and gives it as his reason for travelling — presumably this is what he's considered as back home, too.

ailla has heard koschei been called “two-faced,” and explains she's been made to spy on him bc there are worries he's unstable:

The Doctor looked surprised. “What? You mean he doesn’t know you’re one of us?” “I was instructed not to tell him. I was placed on Earth to wait for Koschei. I was to make occasional reports on Koschei’s activities. There was some doubt over his stability, but everything I’ve seen shows him to be the most level-headed man I know. Or at least, he was.” The Doctor’s face was a mask of horror. “What was I supposed to do? Tell all and get hauled up in front of a tribunal? Stay on Earth with its food riots and constant wars? It seemed sensible enough at the time.”

koschei is surprised when all this is revealed, not only over ailla's betrayal, but what this means about how the time lords view him:

“What’s happened?” Koschei repeated in a murmur, knowing the Doctor would hear him nonetheless. “My people mistrust me; [...]”

he only describes himself as a renegade (by saying “you are a renegade from our people too” to the doctor) after ailla has been exposed, things have gone off the rails, and it's clear there's no turning back if his plan succeeds. he removes a part of his tardis that allows remote control from the time lords, which clearly indicates that he wasn't on the run before this point:

Koschei then opened an inspection panel on the console, and physically tore out a chunk of crystal which had delicate circuits embedded in it. “Just so they don’t get any ideas about dragging me home.” He dropped the crystal to the floor, and smashed it with his heel. “I will go back when I’m ready, and not before.”

anyway, the lines that got me thinking about this were these, which occur after the aforementioned going off the rails:

“Koschei’s trying to incorporate the Darkheart into his TARDIS, to give him the ability to directly alter Time. We have to destroy the whole complex.” “That’s what we were se— That’s what we think we came here for in the first place.” The Doctor clasped his hands and looked rather smug. “I rather thought so…”

i took that “we were se—” as sent, as in the time lords have sent them to destroy the darkheart. it's possible that koschei was a cia agent (though if that were the case, why the subterfuge with ailla, why the description as a scholar?) or otherwise working for the time lords, but there isn't much to indicate this in the rest of the book. from everything else, it seems that koschei and ailla encounter a temporal distortion and their tardis is drawn off-course, and so they investigate, just like the doctor & co. koschei and ailla certainly don't know what the darkheart is until they start snooping. there is the possibility that the time lords have sent them to deal with this temporal distortion without informing them, by overriding koschei's tardis, as happens to the doctor in colony in space. perhaps koschei suspects this and had had a conversation about it with ailla, who secretly knows that's indeed true (hence the dialogue above)? that's the most sensible conclusion i've come to, though i'm still a bit baffled, as if that's the case it's blink-and-you-miss-it in the text. if anyone has any other theories, i'd be glad to hear them.

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

I know you said you weren't watching Loki Season 2 (and trust me, you're better off not doing it), but I DID watch it, and I need to get my thoughts straight and describe how it ended, and I can think of no better way than by telling you.

So... how to put this down concisely in a way that won't make me look insane?

OK, I think I got it.

Loki has somehow gained the ability to transfer his consciousness to any point in his time-stream. What happens to the past version of him when he takes control? Don't know. But ignore that, the story purpose of this is so he can Doctor Strange himself and continually repeat the process of trying to modify the TVA's Temporal Loom before it overloads and destroys all of reality. [In case you don't know, the Temporal Loom apparently "takes raw time and weaves it into the Sacred Timeline", but now that the multiverse is free it can't account for so many new branches, so they want to expand it's output.]

Now you might be thinking "well, the multiverse is infinite, so how can anything quantify it?" And you'd be right, because when Loki finally manages to expand the loom, it still overloads because there is just too many branches. Why did it take him thousands of years to realize it was fruitless? Because this show's Loki is a fucking idiot.

Anyway, at first Loki thinks the solution is to stop Sylvie from killing He Who Remains so the timelines aren't freed (I think the writers forgot that the timelines started branching before HWR died), so by going back along his time-stream he is able to talk with HWR, who tells him... get this... that the Temporal Loom has a fail-safe where if it overloads, it blows up to destroy everything except for the Sacred Timeline, and then it's rebuilt. So that puts Loki back to where he was at the end of Season 1 both narratively and literally; either protect one timeline and only one timeline by wiping out quintillions of lives, or let everything burn completely.

Right now you're probably thinking "killing quintillions of people to save a few trillion doesn't feel like a good tradeoff" and you'd be right. Loki thinks so too, because he tells Sylvie that he doesn't think it's worth keeping one timeline alive at the cost of all the others. So what does he do?

... to be honest, I don't fully grasp it, so stay with me here.

He does back to the moment before the Temporal Loom was destroyed, and somehow uses his powers to rip it apart himself and contain the explosion so it doesn't incinerate anything.... I think, because after that there are millions of little strands that I guess are supposed to represent timelines. And then.... I still can't believe what I saw... Loki reaches out and starts grabbing as many strands/timelines as he can, and weaves them into what I think is supposed to be the Tree of Yggdrasil, and at the end of the sequence he sits down on a throne at the center of the "tree".

How does any of this work physically? How can Loki do any of this? Fuck you, that's how!

What does any of it mean? I haven't the faintest clue. The best I can figure, the Tree of Yggdrasil is quite literally a physical representation of the multiverse and Loki is holding it together by sheer force of will, so he did in fact get out of HWR's puzzle box.

The cynic in me initially thought the opposite was true, and the tree represented just the Sacred Timeline, so we were back to square one and free will doesn't exist. And in my defense, there isn't any dialogue denying that. In the final scene we're back at the TVA, which seems to just be looking out for Kang variants now (Mobius briefly mentions the term "616", implying they are cataloguing timelines now I guess), but... as we've talked about many times, trying to turn a Nazi organization into something better, with ALL of the same people (minus Renslayer) to boot, will inevitably crash and burn. AND ALSO, the Tree is still a finite thing, so how is it accounting for literal infinite timelines? I dunno, it just is.

Written out I'm realizing how wildly incoherent this seems, but I swear I'm being as concise as I can. This show is just a nonsensical disaster.

Okay, that was the wildest ride I've been in a while. I don't know how to thank you because I genuinely loved that 👌

So... Loki can grab timelines now? ��😂 See, this is what I meant with my review of The Marvels, the powers range in these new phases is all over the place. We have so many characters who are widely OP for no freaking reason, it is not explained, they just have that ability out of nowhere and the writers don't care about what that might mean in upcoming movies and series. Just like Wanda in MoM: if you give her such overarching powers, when we see her throwing a punch here and there it seems comical. Ridiculous, even.

Anyway, if I understand correctly then the timelines are still controlled, just by Loki this time instead of HWR? And the TVA still exists? So how is that a good thing? God, what happened to Marvel that they went from "Hydra, Shield, it all goes" to "Let's keep the TVA alive, they can do some good". Did they show the agents actually learning that all the shit the TVA taught them was wrong? Otherwise they will cause the same problems all over again. The problem wasn't HWR, the problem was that those agents believed in what they were doing. If they don't have a change of heart, they will repeat it all over again.

And character-wise, did Loki learn anything about himself? Or was it all talk about timelines and him taking over? Ugh, I'm so glad I didn't watch it...

[daggerfool]

Who do you give the Numidium to and how do you feel about the Dragon break?

I usually give the totem to Mannimarco because gameplay wise his reward is the best. Like yes, I want to be famous and have every noble in the Iliac Bay as my bestie. They are like walking trust funds.

When I role-play I give it back to Gothryd just because my character is chaotic and unpredictable. It’s like stealing candy from a toddler, then being paid for giving it back. I have a few thoughts on the dragon break and I have an own interpretation of it as most of us do. I mean, it’s Elder Scrolls and the canon is that nothing’s canon. I will specifically talk about the dragon break in Daggerfall, my opinions don’t really extend to the dragon breaks in general (why are they a thing anyway).

All of this confusing stuff under the cut.

The definition of dragon break is that it’s a temporal phenomenon that involves a splitting of the natural timeline which results in branching parallel realities where the same events occur differently or not at all.

The thing about parallel realities is that there is no worth in wondering about them. Like in Morrowind, where once you kill a main quest related npc you get the message which contains the words ’live in the doomed world you created’. For you, it’s only a doomed world because the message imply the existence of a better path, otherwise it’s reality, and you have nothing to compare it to but what ifs in your head.

Not the case in Daggerfall though. The reality of one is antithetical of other’s, yet they still exist at the same time and space. No matter what side the Agent picks, every other path will be part of the real world, making all of them meaningful in some way. It raises two questions for me.

1. Does it mean the Agent’s choice is actually meaningless? 2. Does it really matter what the Agent chooses in this case?

In my opinion, the answer is yes to both questions. The effect of the dragon break only really matters to those who can comprehend it. For the folk of the Iliac Bay the results only seem like an effect of a war: changed borders, swifts in power between kingdoms. Supernatural phenomenons like dragon breaks are too confusing for a basic farmer, they have no meaning to a swordsman.

I believe the Agent was one of the few who really knew what happened and the moment they touched the Mantella they have seen a glimpse of every choice they have taken in parallel realities. I think the Agent stops being a person that moment. They are like patchwork, a being made from every skill they gained, every knowledge they got. They effectively stop being themselves and yet become more of themselves they have previously been. All the experiences they have had thus far, all the answers they have found, are engraved in them. For the Agent it does matter who they give the totem to. They will remember their feelings and opinions that lead them to that moment, nothing is going to take that away from them (except if they die when the realities merge, but that raises another question I am not prepared mentally to think through). 

Anyway, if Daggerfall has been a modern game, the Agent would have become something god-like, something beyond mortal in the end.

Funny enough I think Nulfaga also understood the dragon break or at least I came to this conclusion based on her dialogues. Homegirl just didn’t give no shits about a world that doesn’t have her son in it. Btw imagine being Nulfaga and having Lysandus as a son and when he reproduces, his kid is a lame ass emo boy.

In conclusion, the Agent basically played all the routes of a dating simulator separately then ended up having a harem. Once again, my theory that every TES game is an otome game is proven and dragon breaks are just the secret poly route.

[candycurlsofmaddness]

Twenty Questions to Ask a Writer

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Currently 70. Including 3 unfinished WIPs

2. What's your total A03 word count?

128,508 according to stats

3. What fandoms do you write for?

90% Star Trek. I will occasionally write other stuff, and I had wider interests when I first started writing, but all I've been interested in writing for the past year is Star Trek.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

First: Harry Potter and the Unexpected Ability to Socialise (Hp, gen)

Second: Breaking the Temporal Prime directive. (ST:LD x ST:SNW, gen) https://archiveofourown.org/works/49712530

Third: The Weasley Twins V/S the World (HP, gen)

Fourth: Secrets that Hide in the Light. (St:SNW, F/F) https://archiveofourown.org/works/49372045

Fifth: Rescuing Una (ST:SNW, F/F)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes always. I love having conversations and I love knowing what people think. (Sometimes I take weeks and weeks to reply. I am forgetful but I usually will reply eventually.)

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Everything in my series "To Die a Million Meaningless Deaths." (ST:TNG, 5 works)

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3684103

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most my romantic fics end happily. But in terms of the happiest ending compare to the start, I'd go with "The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same" (ST:SNW, F/F) https://archiveofourown.org/works/49924192

8. Do you get hate on fics?

When I was on FFnet in the dark ages yes. On AO3, only from the Harry Potter Fandom.

9. Do you write smut?

Mostly fade to black or yearning but it's been known to happen.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Crossovers within star trek, yes.

Most other crossovers are usually just stories where I'm using the setting/themes of one world with the characters of another. So not in the actual sense.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Back in the dark ages yes. Plus I'm sure AI has scrapped all my words and more.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I'm aware of.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes many. One has been finished and published. "Understanding Lilith" (Owl house, gen) https://archiveofourown.org/works/54627781/chapters/138424342

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

All star trek charcacters; Una/La'an, Christine Chapel/T'Pring, Beverly Crusher/Jean Luc Picard, Seven/B'Elanna/Harry, B'Elanna/Harry, Jadiza/Kira.

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Harry Potter and the Unexpected Ability to Socialise.

I started writing it to get back into fanfiction, but I didn't finished it before I divorced the fandom. I can't bring myself to write in the world of such a hateful bigot.

Also I started to write in present tense for Star trek and it's pretty impossible to switch back.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Inserting random world building and keeping characterisation close to the original when writing AUs.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Discribing things, remembering to add in the background details visual people expect. (I've got aphantasia lol)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Good luck to those who try. I don't know know another language well enough to ever publish the attempt.

But somewhat related, I enjoy messing with the universal translator in my stories.

19. First fandom you wrote for

Either Harry Potter or Voyager.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

It's a tie between "Secrets that Hide in the Light" (https://archiveofourown.org/works/49372045) and "Off-putting Missions and False Alarms" (ST:SNW, gen, Una & Pelia) (https://archiveofourown.org/works/53742529)

[theuntitledblog]

Tenet (2020) - REVIEW

It's hard to know where to even begin with Tenet! I would start by saying that no other film Christopher Nolan has made has come close to being as much of a challenge for me as this . It's not like the general concept of inversion is that difficult to understand, but the way it's realized and utilized on screen just boggles the senses and I find myself unable fully process it. I saw Tenet again a couple of days ago and this was probably the first time where most of it started to slot together for me but even then the visual complexity is still hard to grasp the bigger and more ambitious the film gets. This is Christopher Nolan operating in a similar way as he did with Inception by constructing a complex film around a sci-fi concept and trusting that the audience can keep up. Tenet is a film I admired and generally liked upon release, it's a film I continue to revisit but unlike with Inception, Tenet is perhaps too challenging for some of the wrong reasons.

Despite being 2 and a half hours long, Tenet requires your full attention as well as your ability to keep up with the story as it moves constantly between so many locations, characters, ideas and even points in time. There's nothing wrong of course with trying to challenge your audience with complex ideas, but it is a problem when it requires multiple viewings to understand the basics and Tenet asks a lot of its audience. Nolan has been previously criticised regarding the quality of the sound in his movies and while I haven't generally agreed with this, here I think it's somewhat justified. On my first viewing there were lines of dialogue I couldn't pick up on which was compounded further by just how loud Ludwig Göransson's score is at times. I would point out that at no time was I unable to follow the main story or the stakes involved and if you can keep up then Tenet can be a rewarding experience. But there's no denying that Tenet is too convoluted for its own good and isn't as satisfying an experience than Inception was. But among its saving graces, the biggest for me is that I find it to be among the most intriguing films Nolan has made and my desire to fully understand it is because I admire so much of what it's attempting to be.

If you've ever wondered what a Christopher Nolan directed James Bond movie might look like, then Tenet is probably your best guess. Dealing with espionage, secret organisations, diverse and scenic locations plus heavy hitting, large scale set pieces and you'll see that the Bond vibes are there. Adding to the set up is a suave lead in John David Washington, a sinister Bond-esque villain in Kenneth Branagh and Robert Pattinson's mysterious side kick Neil who always seems to know more than he should and you have an interesting mix. The characters themselves are mostly service to the plot and aside from Elizabeth Debicki's Kat and Branagh's Sator, little is offered in terms of deeper understanding of their motives or back stories. But there's also no denying that Nolan is on fine form once again with huge, practical set pieces that look glorious on screen and can't help but keep your interest.

The inversion sequences are unlike anything I've seen and visually I find it impressive yet tough to process especially during the more complex sequences. What starts off with just bullets later progresses to cars, corridor fights, interrogation sequences and even a full scale battle. Even now I can't honestly say that I fully grasp what I'm seeing on screen nor how concepts such as Temporal Pincer movements affect the larger set pieces such as during the heist in Tallinn. Whether this is really an issue with myself or the film is definitely up for discussion but I think there's no denying that that Tenet, for me at least is difficult to fully understand. Nolan has said that you're not meant to understand everything about Tenet and while I think there's something to be said about ambiguity in films, I ultimately feel that Tenet is too complex to be as satisfying an experience as I hoped it would be ... at least not yet. Tenet is a film that is too interesting to ignore and will be a film I keep coming back to again and again.

VERDICT

Tenet represents one of the most challenging cinematic experiences I've ever had and it will likely prove too much for a lot of people. But this is a film that offers greater rewards the more you stick with it and while it isn't the best film Christopher Nolan has made, it is one of the most intriguing.

4/5