#three hopes liveblog

[loverboybrightsideghost]

malevolent liveblog time. i hope oscar becomes arthur’s hot priest boyfriend 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[sparring-spirals]

oh. so. this dream and this vision and this exchange after and everything that has been building to here.

All that rage, all that desperation, Imogen's knowledge that Liliana's judgement is flawed and searching for any reason to understand, searching for a way to bring her out of it. Bring her back.

"Show me" and she does and.

Its- beautiful, its wonderful. Its the unmaking of the world and of history and it feels- so good. For a moment Imogen feels something she hasn't for YEARS. A life and a possibility and a future full of peace she hasnt had for ages, hasnt even bothered hoping for. For a moment, Imogen sees it, but more importantly- she feels it- the freedom, the peace, the dream. Stronger than any vision. She sees it. She feels it.

And she wakes up, and she- unknowingly, perfectly, mirrors her own mothers words, looks around, asks- did you see it? Did you all see that? (I wish you all could see what I could see-)

They didn't- of course they didn't. They saw Liliana, too far gone, spouting nonsense, they saw her reach out, they saw the refusal to listen to reason. They did not see the vision. (They couldn't have. Even if they'd seen it- would they have understood? How could they? No beautiful vision would have captured the thing that left the awe in Imogen's lungs- the peace. The freedom. The finality of, finally, finally, being free of this gift that has only been a curse.)

They didn't see the vision. They saw their friend, tapped on the forehead after hopeless pleas. They've been seeing their friend make further and further excuses for someone they know is a danger, someone siding with people they are working so hard against. That has hurt them. They've seen the way she can't quite denounce Liliana. They've hedged around it: If she's not on our side, will you be okay- You know if she's not on our side, we'll have to-

They've been watching. They're seeing plenty. They did not see the vision. They couldn't have.

They saw a fruitless conversation. They saw their friend rebuffed by someone she loves. They saw her wake up with a strange kind of light in her eyes and- say.

What if its not so bad? (The world ending. Half of the world being eaten. Innocent lives lost. Our loved ones cut down for a fever dream and delusions of power and grandeur. Us, cut down, for some stupid plot for a moon and petty revenge against the gods and a desire to end the world.) They've been watching her, make halfhearted arguments, sidle away. Make increasingly desperate excuses. Ask: What if.

(Its so easy to ask, what if. Its so dangerous. Sometimes the if is used to hide away lives and lives of collateral, of blood red loss. Sometimes the if has already been answered and paid for, and the act of asking is its own form of violence, all over again.)

"Well Imogen, I wish my family didn't have to die for her brighter tomorrow."

And the way Imogen collapses, a little- presses her face into her hands and crumples under the weight of the reminder, like voices piling in after weeks of being in blissful quiet in a forest. Like reality breaking in after a beautiful dream. "You're right. I'm sorry. You're right."

"I swear, I wanna see this through, I do."

"She just presented this vision of- it didn't seem so bad."

And the Bells try to help, to be kind. They say: We understand why this must be hard for you. She's someone you love, its hard to deal with them thinking a different way. What did you see?

They are trying so hard, to reason through it, to balance their own hurt with kindness and sound arguments to lead her back. They want so badly, to lead her back. Have her back.

The problem however, is not the soundness of the argument, is not the reason or the logic- but the overwhelming allure of that sensation- of that promise- of the hope- of the ideal. Of a mirage that already drew Liliana in. That is pulling Imogen's gaze, despite. Despite, despite, despite.

Hope is such a tricky thing to kill.

[bardic-irritation]

shellshocked from MAG 111, coping with the knowledge that there are probably dozens of fix it fics waiting for me when I finish this show. will anyone i get invested in survive? remains to be seen. more at 8.

[peachdoxie]

Finished Day Three. Onto the Interludes and then Day Four!

[gabrielsantar]

did dan abnett's editor just drop off less than 100 pages into the alpha legion book or what, why did the quality drop off so suddenly literally as soon as john grammaticus was introduced - or is that just what the inside of grammaticus's head is like

[electricbluebutterflies]

Not about to do anything impulsive (and really CAN'T do anything at the moment because school starts in three weeks / this will all go much better if I at least know whose assistant I am this year if not necessarily the schedule thataway and that's not happening until a week before if I'm lucky), but... probably need to think about job-hunting again.

Like, I like the merch-store job, it's a very chill place, but the fact that yesterday I got to explain a problem to (off-site) maintenance that has been a problem for two months and apparently just got documented this week... not a good sign...

[st4rry-fruitz]

no replaying multiple eggs deaths is FOUL behavior That is so sick 😭😭 trying to guilt trip the islanders into caring about these discount eggs so they wont face the same fate(s)...... illness i tell u....

[dragonfang-photography]

All set for the Seven Mountains hike tomorrow.

[master-missysversion]

Ooh timelord telepathy

[iturbide]

I think of this banner, the most interesting to me is Byleth there - like hello?? That sure isn't the typical Fallen Hero, she looks very much the same and Not fallen and with the ominous purple aura. Is it just because she's merged a little too much with Sothis?

Then again, I haven't played or even looked at Three Hopes all that much so LMAO

OH YEAH ABSOLUTELY THE BYLETH UNIT WAS AN ABSOLUTE SHOCK FOR AN OPENER

With the understanding that I haven't played Three Hopes yet, it's my understanding that there's a point in each of the three routes where, depending on how you play it, you can recruit Jeralt and Byleth to Shez' side; this will eventually lead to Arval going Evil Mode just before the final chapter and needing to be defeated. Now, logically, if Byleth and Jeralt's recruitment depends on how you play, that means you can miss that opportunity, too...

...and that's where this Fallen Byleth comes in. It seems like if you don't fulfill the optional objectives that would lead to Jeralt's recruitment, you end up having to kill him -- and that breaks Byleth completely, to the point that they allow Sothis to possess them. So this Byleth isn't really Byleth: it's Sothis using Byleth as a vessel, rather like what Rhea wanted all along.

[pochapal-pokespe]

the battle stage was the only facility i ever managed to reach the brain for when i first played platinum as a kid (i powered through with a togetic but argenta had a dunsparce with ancientpower and you can guess how that fell out lmao)

[sparring-spirals]

I am.... still busy, right this minute, but I apologize in advance for when I start liveblogging tonight, 2 hours into the ep, brain cells fully fried and also still missing two and a half episodes of context. I'm not sorry enough to NOT do it, but just so we're setting the bar on coherency and context for tonights posts. And so I force myself to stop working by a certain time. Maybe. 👀

[leafatlaw]

Bacon Kab conversation yesterday and Jaron Kab conversation today is very interesting, to learn about their mentalities vs Kabs as a new player,,,,

[daisyachain]

The beef boys do represent a character type that I like: people uninclined towards abstract thinking or philosophizing who are forced through circumstances to do it. Gable would have been perfectly content to storm their whole existence, but was plucked out of that life and placed in judgment so that they had to watch the lives of people every day for centuries and snuff them out or cause them pain. Wendell wouldn’t have had any reason to come up with words for his complicated feelings about his desire for adventure and violence as well as human connection if he didn’t have the big dead meat hand representing his violence permanently attached and feeling numb all the time.

Nodoze is more of an edge case. He already did his great work of Think when he left whatever it was he was doing to join Orimar’s crew, and he was content to follow whatever orders. So he has been capable of Ideas off-screen. Nevertheless, he’s an NPC content to do whatever he’s ordered until Gable’s chickens come home to roost, at which point, in order just to fantasize properly about his desires, he has to a) come up with a judgment on the defining cosmic sin of the world, b) decipher whatever the hell mixed messages Gable is sending, c) contemplate what it means to be both divine and mortal.

[queenerdloser]

i sent off my docs (sop, writing samples, etc) to my other potential letters of rec profs yesterday night so now i keep jumping every time my phone buzzes. it won't be the end of the world if they say no (i mostly just needed one (1) person to say yes and i've got a confirmed yes so we're set) but it will make me cringe if they say no after looking over my stuff lol. not a good sign.

[thewertsearch]

Anonymous asked: just read through your entire liveblog and wow. what a place to catch up. do you have any predictions about what the postscratch versions of the guardians will be? what about the guardian versions of the kids?

So.

Mom Lalonde, Grandpa Harley, Nanna Egbert, and Bro Strider, reborn as the story's protagonists, and thrust into a Playerdom I never expected them to bear. The consequences of this reveal are likely to kick in on the very next page - and since that's a page I'm clicking on tonight, this is my last chance for some blind speculation.

There are an absolute mountain of angles I could potentially cover here, and it's impossible to address all the implications of this twist, so I'm just going to touch on a few key questions that Act 6 will need to answer sooner rather than later.

Without further ado, let's dive into our first question.

Who, exactly, is raising these kids?

The simplest solution, of course, would be a one-to-one exchange between each Player and their Guardian. That certainly seems to be the case for Jade and Grandpa, who have been directly swapped. This would imply that Rose raised Mom, Dave raised Bro, and John might have raised Nanna. (More on that later.)

Still, that's not the only possibility. There's no reason why Dave couldn't raise the adolescent Mom instead, for example, with Rose adopting the younger Bro in his stead. That particular configuration has a lot of character potential, actually, because Bro Lalonde would undoubtedly be an unholy terror, and Mom Strider might just be one of the coolest characters I've ever conceived of.

This aesthetic, with those shades? Come on.

...all that said, though, I'm fairly sure we are just getting a one-to-one swap. That's how it appears to have worked for the trolls, and the one post-Scratch Player with a confirmed Guardian already matches this pattern.

Plus, swapping the kids with their own parents is just so interesting, on a character level, as it'd add a whole new dimension of analysis to the fucked-up relationships between Bro & Dave, Mom & Rose, and Grandpa & Jade.

Seeing how they all treat each other, now that the roles have been reversed, would be incredibly illuminating, and might shed some light on the thought processes of the pre-Scratched Guardians, as they were raising their own respective charges.

Anyway - now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about each individual family.

The Egberts

Astute readers will notice that I only mentioned the Guardian-Player parallels for three of our Players above - and that's because when it comes to the fourth, there's a slight complication.

Namely, Dad Egbert no longer exists.

This means that Nanna's home life can't parallel John's, because the man who raised John was never even born. It's possible, then, that John will simply raise Nanna himself, as her grandfather.

Honestly, that's the scenario I'm hoping for, here. Out of our four original Players, I think that John would be the best parent by far - he's sweet, resilient, and has a natural talent for nurturing the positive qualities of the people he loves. If a baby lands in his backyard, he's going to rise to the challenge, octogenarianism be damned.

...now, here's where I'd speculate a little about Nanna's personality, but she's the one post-Scratch Player I can't really get a bead on. We only ever interacted with her Spritesona, whose personality was obviously corrupted by the presence of the jester doll.

As a result, I don't really have a clue what Nanna will be like. The only thing I'm sure about, if John's the one raising her, is that she'll be loved.

The Striders

First of all, I have faith in Dave.

I think he's more or less guaranteed to be a better Guardian than his brother ever was. Granted, I don't think Dave would be particularly paternal, but I also think he'll be able to refrain from beating Bro's ass with a puppet, which is progress.

I think Dave would be a laissez-faire type of guardian, who allows the younger Bro a lot more agency and autonomy than other kids his age, but also struggles to be the adult in the room when his kid needs guidance. He's not going to be as traumatized as his younger self, but I bet it's still borderline impossible to have a serious conversation with him. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Kid Bro turned out to be the more mature of the pair.

In a nutshell, Dave was born to be a cool uncle, but was forced unwittingly into a parental role instead. He's doing his best.

Quite frankly, I'm very worried about Kid Bro.

If we assume that every Paradox Clone keeps the same Veil item as last time - and there's no reason why they wouldn't - then Bro will be coming down with Lil' Cal, the cursed puppet created by Gamzee's Chucklevoodoos.

I'm still convinced that long-term exposure to this abomination was the main reason Bro was so batshit insane, and while the younger Bro won't have been around it for quite as long, he'll still have thirteen years of an evil Juggalo's Rage miasma being beamed into his brain.

I think Kid Bro will be a little batshit, but not completely batshit. We'll see a child with the potential to become the deranged ventriloquist who tormented Dave, but one who can still be saved, if we can just get that hell puppet away from him.

Separated from Cal, I still think Bro will be a memelord, and I'm sure not all his interests came from the puppet. I think this guy was always destined to be a pretty bizarre dude - but with luck, this iteration of him will be a little more pleasant to be around.

The Lalondes

Rose... could go either way, honestly.

Just like Dave, I don't think she's the type who'd willingly choose to be a parent. Rose doesn't want a baby, she wants a library full of cursed tomes, a coven of witches to scheme with, and to live in an enormous gothic castle with her wife, Kanaya Maryam. Her ideal lifestyle couldn't handle a kid, and I think she's self-aware enough to know that, and adopt a hundred mutant kittens instead.

That said... if she had to raise a daughter, I think she'd try her best to do right by the girl. I think some part of her would absolutely resent the fact that she's a background character in someone else's life - especially if, like the Sufferer, she remembers being a Player - but she'd do everything she could to keep that resentment to herself.

Rose would be an alright mother. A little cold, maybe, and more than a little distant, but she'd still love her Roxy.

As for Roxy, I can only assume she's a gigantic fucking badass. Even among the Guardians, her barehanded combat feats were always astounding, and I think she and Kid Bro will be the primary combatants of their session.

I also think she'll be one of the most analytical, scientifically-minded Players we've ever seen. Her adult self was experimenting with Ectobiology even outside of Sburb, which suggests to me an intense curiosity about how all this shit works, which isn't present in most of our other heroes. Like Rose, she'll be a researcher, and maybe even a Seer - but while Rose searched for the truth via magic and mysticism, Roxy's research will be entirely scientific.

Honestly, the most exciting thing about finally meeting Roxy is the milestone it'll represent. I'll finally, finally have encountered every character I knew about prior to starting the comic.

The Harleys

Grandma Jade was still the Witch of Space, and was clearly aware of that fact.

This tells us that:

John, Rose and Dave also retained their Titles, even if they don't know it.

Grandma Jade was probably aware of Sburb and its secrets, especially if she was living near the Frog Temple.

Grandma Jade was the Witch of Space. She's gone.

...and I have a theory about what happened to her.

I think that when Grandpa was a baby, Jade travelled to Anachronism Island, just like her predecessor did - but this time around, it wasn't Bec who greeted her at the Temple.

No, I think Jade had a fatal encounter with the new First Guardian of Earth - a corrupted First Guardian, spliced with the same HONK code that created Scratch. Kid Grandpa clearly survived whatever happened next, and I think it's horribly plausible that the new First Guardian is a pseudo-Guardian to him, the same way Becquerel was to Jade.

In other words, this kid might be completely compromised, manipulated by English's servant since infancy. Let's not forget that he's the one who suggested making the bunny to Jade, which is the reason Jack was able to ascend in the first place...

...but someone suggested it to him, first.

Anyway, those are my high-level thoughts about the new timeline's key players. We'll be starting Act 6 in an hour or so, and I've got a feeling that we're about to see Nanna standing in a very familiar room.

After all, it just so happens that today...