#the seven season 2

[math-rocks-and-lizard-bats]

The New Pictures on the dropout store are SO CUTE we got our precursor yesterday but OMIGOD

[dasketcherz]

ONE OF THE DIRECTORS OF TTS SHIPPING JAYVIK?? YKNOW, THE SOULMATE LAB PARTNERS FROM ARCANE???

oh sir Tom Caulfield.... you would've loved varigo...

and that makes me wanna scream AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA /VPOS

[teamnotsoepic]

im in page 8131 do they have a baby

og on twit yall

[wafflebox-o7]

Stayed Gone… but it’s Lucifer & Satan 🍎🐉

[geekgirles]

WE HAVE ALL THE SINS!

THIS IS NOT A DRILL

I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL

[the-moons-ace-card]

THERE IS SO MUCH TO UNPACK IN THIS EPISODE

BLITZØ NEARLY DYING

IMP FOUND FAMILY

LOONA CALLING BLITZØ DAD

BLITZØ BEING MORE EMOTIONALLY OPEN

SATAN LEVIATHAN AND BELPHAGOR

OZ AND BEE GANGING UP ON MAMMON

FIZZ BEGGING OZ TO DO SOMETHING

STOLAS BEING STOLAS

VASSAGO BEING EVERYTHING I HOPED FOR

VIA CRYING TO STELLA

STELLA ACTING LIKE SHE GAF

STRIKER BEING STRIKER

ANDREALPHUS BEING ELSA

STOLAS LOOKING BEAUTIFUL

STOLITZ DUET

STOLAS BEING READY TO DIE FOR BLITZØ

STOLITZ LIVING TOGETHER

STOLITZ CHEEK KISS

I’ve never been more stressed watching an episode of Helluva Boss, but my god, this episode was PEAK

[sapphicyanli]

might be a corn plate tweet kind of post but during the last round of the mingle game which is where the group only consist of two people, everyone else was running without holding hands except players 222 and 333 that is a canon couple (or exes so far i guess) in the show, and the other pairing that are holding hands are players 120 and 246. could this be a hint that hyunju (120) and gyeong sok (246) could be an endgame in season 3?? bcs i certainly hope so

also the meaning of the color room that they were in is....well, quite fitting for their current relationship dynamic to say the least i'd say

[aydracz]

Their precious and peaceful existence in the South Downs

They deserve an eternity of nights like these.

Painted with watercolour, acrylic and gouache.

[raayllum]

Anyway I did my 2nd watch of the season after sleeping / with the end in mind and it totally worked for me, especially with the understanding that there is 30% of the story left (and thereby Callum and Rayla's arcs aren't Over and room for more growth/plot had to be left open) and watching with the ending in mind.

I'm not upset that this is where Arc 2 ends, in some ways because it's sort of like season 2 of Avatar where Zuko doesn't join the Gaang in their 2nd arc (book two) because from a character basis he really wasn't Ready to do that / they had more story to tell, so I don't think with what they're doing it would've made sense to rush it in TDP. Nor do I think any of the previous set up for other outcomes (i.e. possession fight, salvation, etc) were wasted. Merely that TDP likes to do layer upon layer, and also have foreshadowing come back once (so you think you're safe) and then twice. I also don't think that Arc 2 resolved all the threads (i.e. Rayllum and greater good conflict / Aaravos & Callum) and ended them, and instead nudged them forwards in interesting ways for continued future exploration. I'll probably write more about the specifics later if this post doesn't get unwieldy or condensed with them for now.

In the meantime, these were things that I found really clicked for me on my 2nd watch through for S7 and with Arc 2 in general:

1) Arc 2's overarching focus on the Archdragons / the finale resolution with it.

We had a focus every season on at least one of the archdragons, with Zubeia (S4-S7), Luna Tenebris mentions (S4-S6), Rex Igenous (S4), Domina Profundis (S5), Sol Regem (S5-S6), and Avizandum mentions (S4-S5).

With that in mind, while I'm sure Aaravos' intentions was for no one to know of his plans ahead of time (7x01)... his actions also led to Callum and co. making connections to all the other Archdragons that they could pull on to bring everyone back to Lux Aurea, and Aaravos could destroy them (with no real consequence to himself, as his spirit was now free and his body could reform), taking a massive swing at the Cosmic Council's grand order that'd been enforced by the archdragons. He said the elves and dragons would fall hard... and now the dragons have, with the Cosmic Council being next (and thinking that the real focus on the Cosmic Council would be predominantly in arc 3 was, I believe, the general fandom consensus anyway).

AARAVOS: Now this is familiar, isn't it? Hasn't this all happened before? Arrogant fools. Again and again you make the same mistakes. (7x09)

Suitably, though, the Archdragons sacrifice themselves to protect all of Xadia, making amends for past / previous actions in their own way (narratively). They upheld the Cosmic Order, and then chose to break it.

Now, Aaravos will be returning to a world where there are no archdragons, and the only thing that can destroy his mortal form again would be the Nova Blade or some dark magic spell to take his spirit (but more on that later).

This also caps off S7 being about the destruction caused by one Archdragon (Sol Regem) and then the salvation through sacrifice from the other four as the finale. It comes full circle, but without repeating the cycle.

It also seems like the Nova Blade hasn't actually ever been used, as Aaravos states in 7x07:

She could have used the blade to destroy me, but chose instead to help imprison me. To spare me.

Or if it has, it still has a massive consequence that Zubeia is familiar with (the wielderdies if it's used to kill someone?), given that she is worried when Zym (and Ez wielding the sword) appears, intending to use it:

I'll also talk a bit more about why I think Aaravos designed 7x09 to be a win-win scenario for him no matter what when I get to Callum's section, but in the meantime...

2) Rayla's arc

Listen, y'all know I wanted Rayla to save Callum, like a lot, and thought there was a good chance she would if he was possessed again. However, neither of those things happened (also circumstances were crazy) and it was built up throughout the seasons, as well as in S7:

RAYLA: We can't save everyone, Soren. There's too much at stake. (4x05) RAYLA: But I can't help you yet... because right now, the world needs me. Callum and Ezran need me. There's a great evil returning to Xadia and we have to stop it, at any cost. (5x01) RAYLA: It hurts me to know they're trapped like this. It's agonizing. But our mission comes first. The world is in danger, and you can trust me to stay focused. (5x04) RAYLA: No, Callum. I want to help my parents, but I won't let it bias me. (6x01)

The season 7 setup is most prominently seen in S7 during Rayla's trial, in which she emphasizes that the assassins' deaths were not in vain due to the subsequent impact on the world as a whole, and in how their assassin pledges were upheld in their own way:

Life is precious. life is valuable. We take it, but we do not take it lightly. All of your lives were taken. But your sacrifices, they weren't for nothing. Callisto, you pledged your breath for freedom and we freed ourselves from an awful, pointless war. Andromeda, you pledged your eyes for truth. And we found the truth, a truth that changed the world. Skor, you pledged your strength for honour, and now humans and elves have finally begun to treat each other with honour again. And... Ram. You pledged your blood for justice. But what is justice? The king died that night. A life for a life. Is that justice? How much suffering is enough to paid for the mistakes we've made? I don't have the answers. But I'll carry you with me, all of you, forever.

So it made sense for her assassin oath to come back in some manner ("My heart for Xadia"). She had to honour her team's sacrifices by being willing to make her own (killing Callum and herself by symbolic extension), partially because her and Callum's "ride or die" dynamic had become a "ride and die" dynamic": this was his plan and his choice, and the alternative was to let him succumb to a fate worse than death AND to let Aaravos destroy the world through his hands.

And I get why this feels kind of backwards, because on the one hand, it seems like Rayla made a lot of progress, even questioning the validity of her own suffering for mistakes she / choices others have made, which is Huge!

And yet she's willing to suffer, and sacrifice Callum. The paying the price motif is even brought back in Aaravos' dialogue with the archdragons ("And what will your sacrifices buy?"). So what gives?

Well, I think in a lot of ways Arc 2 was Rayla learning to accept and ask for help (S5-S6), that she wasn't alone (S4, S7), and working to come back every time she leaves (S4) but... still being prepared to leave:

and still with sharing or acknowledging her own burdens not being her instinct.

There's a reason we all went "Rayla refusing to sacrifice Callum would be Character Development" after all. I also think it's quasi-similar to Rayla leaving after S3. She had a lot of opportunities to learn that she didn't have to do everything alone in arc 1, but those lessons didn't stick; in a similar fashion, Rayla had opportunities throughout arc 2 to learn that she doesn't always have to sacrifice something, but with Callum being increasingly sacrificial... Those lessons were there, but didn't stick. The other side of her sacrifice arc is not resolved.

With that in mind, I wanna talk about our favourite dorky mage, and then maybe arc 3.

3) Aaravos' Grand Plan & Callum's Corruption

This is a little hard to parse out just because we don't know what Aaravos' next step / goal was in bringing about Eternal Night (presumably to get the attention of the Cosmic Council, but who knows). That said, a few things I'm chewing on:

Aaravos, as previously discussed, found the most effective way to rid the world of (presumably) every Archdragon other than Zym

Aaravos, for whatever reason, wanted Ezran to have the Nova Blade, which Aanya even sets up for us in 7x09

Aaravos knew all along that Callum would turn to dark magic to take him down.

AARAVOS: Very soon, your brother will embrace dark magic to save those he loves. EZRAN: I suppose you've seen that written in the stars? AARAVOS: I have seen it written in his eyes. (7x07)

Furthermore, he wanted to have Callum be corrupted again, gave him the apple in 7x01 as the first attempt. The apple corruption was lampshaded with "Is there anything I can do to help?" + identity/name motif. Aaravos was actively goading him into dark magic in 7x09, even when he knew there was an assassin ready to kill Callum (Runaan), and smiling even when Callum began the spell (once Rayla had stepped in).

As of S7, Callum has been called (and not disputed being at least partially) a dark mage, used Viren's staff and now has it in his possession (and we still don't know why it was never supposed to be used again), and has a white streak. The willingness to go that far "has always been a part of" him and is now permanently reflected in his character design.

Secondly, we know that Aaravos' game with his pawns is not over, due to the secrets of the cube being ongoing (but confirmation in 7x09 that it indeed points towards Elarion) and due to framing with Claudia.

While I did consider that maybe Callum's pawn intro imagery had come back around in the conversation in 7x06 featuring the cube so heavily (!!) and then Callum choosing to do dark magic to stop Aaravos and save everyone as his destiny ("The one I write myself")... He's still corrupted, Aaravos is still going to come back in 7 years with Callum as a vessel, and the Key to the Book (metaphorically to literally the Book of Destiny) is still unresolved.

TLDR; think about how much it'd Hurt in a Good Way for Callum and Rayla to both know she would've sacrificed him for the greater good (fulfilling her end of foreshadowing from 6x03) only to be smacked in the face that Callum refuses to sacrifice her in Arc 3 with the other side of his ("if you ever have to choose between me and the greater good...").

The fact that the Cube canonically points towards Elarion, which feature stories about "a fair exchange of beloved for beloved" after a season in which Aaravos mandates "Your beloved is an assassin who cannot kill" is just the cherry on top. It also means that both Callum and Rayla have accordingly hit the 50-75% wavelength of their arc(s), with us now having a definitive basis for her being willing to that sets up more clearly her being not willing to in the future, the circumstances we'd need for a possession fight re-established, and the cube beat still on the table because the cube itself is still waiting to be plot relevant.

Rayla always follows Callum's lead ("Say the word and I'll go back into that tower with you") and reflects him ("Who told you that?" "You did") and the lessons he teaches her about love. He'll pave the way, and she'll follow, and then their arcs will come to a close.

We just had to get here first.

Conclusion??

Anyway I hope you enjoyed, I want to do a bigger Arc 3 predictions post (the ruby project, Evrkynd, Claudia, Harrow, etc.) sometime soon, but I hope in the meantime this brought some potentially needed assurance, excitement, or another perspective to consider.

[pairingbrainrot]

[beetlewine-art]

Sometimes i forget that HB and HH share the same universe... can you imagine how the Hazbin hotels season 1 finale looked like from the perspective of the characters of Helluva Boss? Are you really telling me that while those funky little red demons were dealing with their drama and angst there was a damn battle between Heaven and Hell? AND NONE OF THE OTHER SEVEN DEADLY SINS SHOWED UP TO FIGHT? Like, okay i get why they didn't, but seen Ozzie and Bee kill some angels could have been really cool.

(half of me in tempted to believe that The Sins have never seen Lucifer, their sweet dork of a boss, get angry or lose his cool and watching him beat up Adam terrified them. But the other half of me also believes that he has beaten the shit out of Mammon at least once, while Satan and Ozzie cheered for him).

I NEED to see Blitzo's reacion to all this mess, i bet it was hilarious.

[dasketcherz]

i think you also described Timebomb there, too

(varigo x Timebomb???)

honestly varigo shares a lot of things with both timebomb and jayvik-

[librathefangirl]

HE DID IT! HE DID THE THING!!

LANCE CALLED MELI UNCLE IN THE DUB

I'M SO HAPPY AKBFSDHXFKDBAGLBLFABK 😭😭🥺🥺💜💜

[dumpster-fire-sapphic-failgirl]

“Vi didn’t get a win in all of Season 2. She lost every fight!”

Vi isn’t made to win fights. Vi blocks with her face. She wins because she takes the hit so other people don’t have to and she gets up again and again and again

Vi saved Cait at the memorial. No, she didn’t land the showy blow with Jayce’s hammer, but Cait would still be dead if she wasn’t there, bare knuckle boxing a shimmer goon

Vi technically beat Jinx in their showdown. But Vi *won* by protecting her sister and the undercity kid

She came out on top in most of the montage brawls. But it wasn’t a win, bc it wasn’t *for* anything. And it didn’t hurt enough until she started blocking with her face again

She was winning the slap fight with Jinx until she sucker punched a child for biting her so that was really a draw at best

She won the fight with War/Vander. She saved Isha’s life with that punch. She went ten rounds with a genetically modified nigh immortal killing machine. She stopped in an act of faith for Jinx. And got her sister and father back. That’s a win.

Vi lost when she tried to bare knuckle box against spears. Pro tip: The greatest boxer in the world will lose against a company of spear fighters. If you’ve just got your hands, you will not win against spears. Accept the L. Survival becomes the W. Bonus, she did protect Jinx from the blast.

And then everyone lost in the final battle. Vi held her own in the first half by surviving. Her and piano man were the only ones not dead by the time the Undercity Armada and Magic Mel showed up. And then everyone lost to the perfection bots except Ekko. and Ekko did arguably cheat a little.

Anyway, had enough of the libel about my angry oil slick and her over designed bitch mittens. Vi won. So many times. When she saved someone she cared about. When she got back up after getting knocked down. Shielding the people she loved.

[camarilla-arts]

Give me side characters to obsess over and THEN give them a season to themselves and then I die.

[hazbinshusk]

I need more information on the overlords of hell, if only because I have this whole thing in my head about how they each stand in for the seven deadly sins, and I don't have one for sloth and I need it so my brain will brrr.

I know it's probably not a new idea, but here's my reasoning:

wrath - camilla carmine. she's a weapons dealer, powerful and running things (much in the same way that satan is running things - at least while lucifer is mia). she and satan also both have this whole restrained anger thing about them which I think is a great parallel (although she's got more control than he does).

lust - obviously valentino and his porn empire. now, he's a darker side of the idea of lust than our good boy ozzie. he leans more into the concept that lust without consent is greed (which ties into one of my other overlords later, you'll see), but his power absolutely lies in controlling what's 'sexy' - like how angel's work seems to be dependent more on val's kinks than what's popular with the pride ring.

envy - hear me out, but it's vox. he's constantly amassing this empire, this power, which, yeah, could be read as greed, but he's doing it because he wants what others have. he wants to be a one of the big dicks of hell, to beat camilla and zestial and especially alastor. vox creating the vees is a way to push himself above the others because he wants them to want what he has. his shows, his apps, his beef with alastor in stayed gone, everything is designed to make people like him more than the other overlords, especially alastor. hence the big smiles and posturing for audiences - he doesn't need to do that for power - he already has that. he does that because he wants to be respected/liked more than the others are. and alastor has that with the other overlords - zestial and rosie like him, camilla respects him (at least enough to speak to him like an equal). vox is looked down upon by the other overlords, and he envies that power alastor has.

pride - I feel like it's obvious it's alastor. he's so self-assured to the point that he's dismissive of everyone around him, especially those who could be seen as a threat. he goes up against adam, the most powerful of the exterminators, seemingly without any concern that he might not be strong enough to stop him (to the point where alastor isn't even armed with any angelic steel.He has some in the shield, but not even his little summoned creatures carry angelic weapons against adam). and to that point, pride is alastor's downfall there - if he'd been better prepared, he could have taken adam out. but he refused to use weapons provided by another overlord. he's threatened by lucifer (the actual sin of pride) because he can provide charlie with things alastor can't, and alastor being charlie's go-to for advice and protection and her hotel's needs are what gives him power in their relationship. it's what he needs for his ulterior motives to succeed. also, pride going head to head with pride is the most on point thing possible for the seven deadly sins.

gluttony - this feels a little lazy honestly, but rosie. but she's a cannibal, and what is cannibalism if not people throwing away all their reasoning for the joy of the feast?

greed - velvette. she's got a whole material wealth thing about her. fashion/social media overlord, the latter of which is always tied to overconsumption (hello, watch any of those grwm tiktoks where they have like, outfits for their stanley cups and twenty-three step hand care regimes where most of it is completely unnecessary). she and val are the only ones of the overlords we see consistently changing their outfits, and as I mentioned above, I see val tied into this sin, too. not just because of the outfits, but because of the love potions. ozzie calls them artificial bullshit, and we see ads in Hazbin that show that val and vel make and sell them. I also think husk would have been the overlord 'of greed' back before he lost his soul to alastor, which also fits into my headcanon that with velvette being the youngest of the overlords and having died around the 2000s/2010s (I think?), husk probably lost power before she acheived overlord status with the vees, maybe even before she died, seeing as the other residents of the hotel don't seem to know who he was in his past, so maybe it's been a while since he fell off the map.

sloth - ??? we don't really have one for sloth? I don't think the gambling overlord would have fit here, so I don't think it was husk. and we don't know enough about zestial or the others for them to fit but it doesn't feel like zestial's vibe? like, the closest we have is him not wanting to fight the angels, but that was for lack of information, rather than laziness.

so please, season two, solidify this idea for me because I love the symmetry of it and it's killing me that sloth is unfulfilled.