#And I don't think it has a location canonically either

[thatonecrookedsmile]

I made these sketches the week SOTM launched, and I didn't think about posting them at the time. I recently looked at them again and thought "hmm, why not". In my own way, I decided to add a *little* color to make it a little more nice,and I edited the image *just* a little,and boom, here it is. My Riley Wells design. There's not much to say about the process of creating her design. I only used the portrait you find in the game as a reference, and I made a design of her at the time she joined JDS and then Gent. There's not much to say,really.

These were sketches made after I made an initial sketch of her to put the idea of her design on paper, and were made to help solidify and test out her design better. I haven't drawn her since.

So, yeah. They aren't much, and I don't have much to say about them. But I wanted to eventually show my design that I made of her. Plus, those sketches turned out quite nice,so there's that.

Other than a small idea that I don't know when I'll do, I don't have anything in mind that could result in drawing Riley again in the future. But hey, in case one day I end up wanting to draw her again, at least I have a design prepared for the occasion.

As a bonus, here is the first sketch I made of her. No editing or colors.

[svtskneecaps]

so what i'm putting together from osmosis and the wonderful livebloggers and the incredible arkanis english updates account is something like this

Prefeito Jota: Hello, I'd like to hire you to investigate what happened in my city/island(?)!

Bagi, who was previously "invited" to a mysterious island/city by its elected official, subsequently trapped on the mysterious island/city, investigated the deep mysterious history of the island/city, came to no conclusions, found her brother after years of searching, was separated once again from her brother, gained and lost an adopted daughter (possibly to being kidnapped by the island government, which was evil), gained and lost a demon fiancée (possibly to being dragged back to hell, so there's no way to find her), gained and lost a close demon friend to dubious circumstance (did he die for his children? is he with skeppy in the gas station?), and has had an unknown amount of time to process and/or suppress all of this: Sure! :D

[gffa]

One thing that caught my attention while watching The Phantom Menace in the theater, a movie I didn't expect to find anything new with after how many times I've seen it and analyzed it, was that Sidious mentions multiple times that he has to change his plans to fit the new circumstances. It got me to thinking about how Palpatine gets credit for his carefully crafted plans, but often times not for how flexible he is in changing them on the fly, especially in time travel fics where someone destroys one of his plans and that's the end of it. Which, I'm not advocating against, I love a good Take That Wrinkled Walnut The Fuck Down However You Gotta Do It fic and I don't want them to change! But in canon Palpatine makes note of things he's not expecting, like:

When Valorum sends the Jedi as ambassadors, it's not part of Sidious' plan: DAULTAY DOFINE: This scheme of yours has failed, Lord Sidious. The blockade is finished. We dare not go against the Jedi. DARTH SIDIOUS: Viceroy, I don't want this stunted slime in my sight again! This turn of events is unfortunate. We must accelerate our plans. Begin landing your troops. NUTE GUNRAY: My lord, is that… legal? DARTH SIDIOUS: I will make it legal. NUTE GUNRAY: And the Jedi? DARTH SIDIOUS: The Chancellor should never have brought them into this. Kill them immediately!

On the Trade Federation ship, after Queen Amidala has disappeared from Naboo, Palpatine originally planned that she would be forced to sign the treaty, and then brings in Maul to deal with this. DARTH SIDIOUS: And Queen Amidala, has she signed the treaty? NUTE GUNRAY: She has disappeared, My Lord. One Naboo cruiser got pat the blockade. DARTH SIDIOUS: I want that treaty signed. NUTE GUNRAY: My Lord, it's impossible to locate the ship. It's out of our range. DARTH SIDIOUS: Not for a Sith. This is my apprentice. Darth Maul. He will find your lost ship.

On Naboo, after Padme allies with the Gungans: NUTE GUNRAY: We've sent out patrols. We've already located their starship in the swamp....It won't be long, My Lord. DARTH SIDIOUS: This is an unexpected move for her. It's too aggressive. Lord Maul, be mindful. MAUL: Yes, my Master. DARTH SIDIOUS: Be patient... Let them make the first move.

Palpatine's plans aren't static, they adapt and change with the events that happen, just as the other characters react to new information and head in new directions for it, so too does Palpatine and I think it's interesting to note that part of what makes him such a good villain is that he has an outline for what he wants to do, he sets up the dominoes of what he needs, but even when they don't fall precisely into place, he generally gets what he wants. He originally intended that Padme would sign the treaty, the Jedi wouldn't be involved, and that would lead to a vote of No Confidence to oust Valorum, using the sympathy for Naboo as a way to boost himself into the position. But he didn't really need her to sign it and still managed to use the sympathy for Naboo to get elected, it ultimately didn't matter what happened to the planet, so long as it was in danger while he needed it to be, he could use it either way. Nor, honestly, do I think he ever planned for Anakin Skywalker's existence, he had no idea they would find such a boy on Tatooine or how useful he was going to be, that was another way he changed his plans once the opportunity arose. Or a lot of his plots in TCW--he has Cad Bane steal the list of Force-sensitive children and kidnap them, bringing them to Mustafar for some sort of program to use them probably not too unlike how he uses the Inquisitors later. That plan is foiled by the Jedi, the babies are returned to their families, and Sidious' plans fall through, but that doesn't really change the outcome. tl:dr: I don't think Palpatine gets enough credit as a villain whose plans shift and change along with the new events that happen, just as much as the heroes' plans shift and change when new things happen. Yeah, he's a great villain because he creates an impossible trap for people, but also because the thing about him is that he's incredibly charming and charismatic and he knows an opportunity when he sees one, that any one given plan might fall through, but it's not necessary to his overall plot.

[violetrainbow412-blog]

Touching [K. B.]

Kaz Brekker x fem!reader

word count: 4k

summary: you and Kaz share physical contact for the first time

warnings: established relationship, trauma, PTSD, spoilers for S&B season 2, here Kaz has no romantic feelings for Inej, and I don't even know where the hell this is located in canon (just imagine that the problem at the end of the series never happened) oh and Imogen's name appears in books according to google

taglist: @rustyyyyspoonz @be-lla-vie @milkshake0 @ladespedidas

Kaz Brekker could swear that he would faint at any moment as he climbed the stairs to his room, the cane in his left hand being the only impediment for this to happen. That day he had to leave the Slat to attend to some business that was complicated by the march and resulted in a physical altercation. Fortunately he hadn't been hurt, but he couldn't say the same for the other men.

Before opening the door, he let out a tired sigh and closed his eyes for a moment, mentally reviewing the pending documents that he would surely have to review the next day, but when he entered the room, his entire train of thoughts was overwhelmed by a presence in the place.

It was you, who was sitting in his desk chair with a book in your hands, from which you looked up when you heard that he had entered. You were already wearing a faded nightgown to sleep in and your features showed tiredness, but also calm.

"Hi," you said straightening up. Kaz felt your mere presence light up the entire room and his shoulders relaxed as you spoke.

"Hello" he replied with a hint of a smile. Without saying anything he went ahead until he reached the bed and you followed him with your eyes, turning in the chair to face him.

“Is it okay if I stay here? I'm sorry I didn't ask you before”

"It’s okay" he replied quietly.

It had been a couple of months since you and Kaz had decided… how shall I put it? Try to have a relationship. You had always been firm in the idea of conquering Kaz Brekker, even with his bad reputation and his difficult nature, since you joined the crows, a few years ago. He never understood why you did it, even feeling suffocated by your attentions, but over time (and after a lot of effort) he began to feel affection for you and eventually he came as close as he could feel to love. He began to care for you, to enjoy your company, and to feel nervous whenever he looked at you, which Nina helped him interpret as a crush.

You trusted that, despite his short temper, Kaz had a good heart and he had shown that more than once. You had never received mistreatment from him (beyond his typical responses towards others), he defended all the members of your group tooth and nail and he was firm in his ideals. Yes, of course he was a criminal, a gambler, and sometimes a murderer, but you knew that he was neither the only nor the worst in The Barrel. Besides, his motives were valid… most of the time.

So it was that a few months ago, during a drunken night, you two confessed your feelings. You were too cheerful to think about what you were saying and it was inevitable that the words slipped out of your mouth like water from a river. Kaz wasn't drunk enough to stop understanding what you were saying and you have a vague recollection that he just put you to sleep and didn't say anything. But hours later, when Jesper had personally taken it upon himself to push the black-haired man to his drinking limits, he burst into your room and only told you that he liked you too. Of course, in the morning the hangover was accompanied by guilt and when you sought him out to apologize, you were surprised that he hadn't felt offended and hadn't taken back his words either. You concluded that maybe the alcohol had given both of you the courage you needed and that was okay.

For a few days the matter remained like this, but then Kaz made an appointment with you in his office and steeling himself with courage, he told you about his interest in having something with you, but warning you that, considering all his characteristics, he was possibly not the best option and what should you look for someone better if you wanted it that way. But you wanted to try things and even more so if he had been the one who proposed it.

You were patient the whole time and gave Kaz the space he needed. Sometimes you just spent time in his office, in silence, and watching him work was satisfying enough. Little by little he allowed you to enter more spaces of his daily life and although you had kept the relationship private, suspicions arose one morning when you left his room and Nina, probably the gossipiest of your friends, saw you.

A couple of times you had held his hand over his gloves and once you had kissed his cheek, only because he was too asleep to notice. It was slow progress, but you could live with it.

Now you were trying to sleep together. You'd obviously replaced Kaz’s thin mattress with a larger one and figured out a way to make it work; between him and you, you placed a line of pillows so that you avoided physical contact. Simple but effective.

"How was it?"

“It could have been better”

"You should rest" you suggested, analyzing how bad he had been after the fight that he surely had. There were no visible bumps or scratches, thankfully.

"Yeah, I will" he replied very vaguely. You saw him look up a little at you and you wondered what he was looking for "What were you reading?"

“Huh, a book that Jesper won in a bet. It is the story of a warrior princess who has to defend her kingdom”

"Sounds nice" he exclaimed. There was the beginning of a smile gracing his face and you didn't think he was aware of it, but he'd been doing it for the past couple of weeks every time you talked to him about something. Every time you spoke, simply.

"It is," you said happily. Kaz had already made a mental note about your fascination with literature, and at the next heist he planned to keep a couple of books for you, if the opportunity arose.

You wanted to continue talking to him, but the truth was that you were only waiting for him to arrive to sleep and you were sure that, although he wouldn’t admit it, Kaz needed rest as much as you did. That's why you got up from the chair and before he said anything else you sat on the bed, next to him.

"I'm tired" you murmured, making a tiny pout and watching him with tender eyes. He was very handsome, you thought of that whenever you saw him.

"Lie back, while I organize some things"

"Come on, Kaz" you complained, b because you knew these activities could last hours and he deprived himself of sleep to finish them "Tomorrow you can do it, sleep with me" you insisted, stretching out your hand until you reached his. He was wearing the gloves and your fingers slipped under his, only taking the tips around your hand.

Both of your gazes landed there, you wondering what it would feel like to hold Kaz’s hand without the leather in between and him admiring the difference in size between your hands and his. You had them damaged around the nails and the skin marked with a few moles, but for him they were perfect. When you started to move your thumb from side to side he looked up, noticing that his eyelids were already weighing you down, and he sighed. For some time now he hasn't been able to say no to anything you ask of him, much less when you look so delicate and hold his hand.

"Okay, go to sleep then"

You suppressed a smile, without much success, and watched him remove several layers of clothing to only be left with his shirt and pants. You had never seen him naked, and you doubted very much that you would soon, but you liked the lightness that appeared in him when he was left with few clothes. As if by taking them off he was also abandoning all the problems that he accumulated during the day.

You carefully slid to your side of the bed, against the wall, and made sure the pillow divider was in place. He kept you company moments after turning off the lamp.

"Good night," you said kindly. Whenever you stayed there you wanted to tell him that you loved him before going to bed, but the intention never materialized. The first few times Kaz was very tense and hardly slept, although by this point he had gotten used to it and he was handling it well; even he would say that he rested more knowing that you kept him company.

"Sweet dreams," he said, with a gentle tone that took you by surprise. You were internally grateful that the room was dark or he would have seen your flushed face.

It didn't take long for you to give up, but Kaz, no matter how hard he tried, couldn't fall asleep. Although having you by his side had relaxed him a lot, for a couple of days there was a matter interrupting his thoughts and it was related to the dreams that had come to replace his habitual nightmares.

In all of them you were the protagonist and he... touched you. In every possible way and every sense of the word, as if it were something natural that didn’t take any effort. At first he was terrified of how real the dreams felt, almost swearing that the night before he had passionately kissed you only to realize that you were still on the other side of that fence of pillows you had placed for his comfort. Kaz had wanted to ignore all of this, but each time these thoughts became more frequent and stronger: What would it feel like to hug you? And accommodate your hair? Would he be able to caress you as he knew you wanted and deserved?

The black-haired man could be evil at times and he seemed unaffected by anything, but the insecurities and fears inside him were bigger than anyone could imagine. Even the day you confessed to him that you liked him, he feared that you were lying or that it was just drunken incoherence.

So now that a few months had passed he felt he had to offer you at least some physical contact or else you'd end up getting bored of him like Imogen once had. But that was another story.

Kaz was startled when he heard you complain and looked silently in your direction, but it turned out that you weren't awake, you had only changed position. From that angle he could see the whole silhouette of your body and part of your face, even more peaceful when you were asleep, everything so beautiful that he wondered how you could be real and especially because you were sharing a room with a person like him. 

His hands didn't have gloves on and even though they had been at his sides the whole time, he felt the urge to move them away. He wondered what it would feel like to touch your skin or if he would actually be able to do it without panicking and as the desire was greater than the fear, without giving it much thought he reached out his arm towards you, preparing to touch your bare forearm. He breathed once, then twice, and finally, he did.

He had to remind himself that your skin wasn’t that of some wet corpse and for this he concentrated on how it really felt; it was warm and soft. His hand trembled on your body and he feared to wake you, but even with this he didn't move away. He didn't know how long it was before he was able to breathe normally, but once he did he waved his hand a couple of times and if you had been awake you would have been amazed at the gentleness with which he did it.

Kaz pulled away a few seconds later, seized with the sudden strange feeling that he couldn't leave him so easily, and with an angry huff he jumped up to wash his hands. He wanted to change and improve for you, but it was complicated and it frustrated him.

Either way, he was thankful that you hadn't seen his experiment and concluded that it was better, so he could move at his own pace. When he lay down again he kept looking at you, taking the opportunity to reflect on the matter, until his body couldn't take it anymore and the unconsciousness of the dream ended up consuming him completely.

And of course, he dreamed of you again.

The days passed as normal and life at The Barrel continued as usual. The crow club was in full swing after the renovations Kaz had done, almost a year ago now, and there was more work than ever. Jesper and Wylan always went everywhere together and the girls at The Menagerie were great with attention, but it still seemed like it was never enough. Nina and Matthias weren't very active members and Inej's visits weren't as frequent now that she led a life at sea. You were in charge of supervising several of the things, on behalf of your boyfriend, and sometimes you also served drinks. The club had gone from being the favorite place for seedy drunkards to a refined place where more and more people came to gamble and have fun. Of course more visits meant more money and you knew that made the owner happy, but it also loaded him with work.

"Knock, knock," you said happily, as you peeked out of his office door, tray in hand. Kaz raised his head from the papers with the accounts he was reviewing and met you "I brought you dinner"

"Dinner?"

“Yes, it is one of the three meals of the day. It's important and you always forget about it" you explained, placing a plate in front of him that contained some cookies, and bread and leaving a cup of coffee without sugar next to it "I didn't know what you might be craving, so I brought something light"

“Thank you,” he said as he watched you drop into an adjoining chair, your own mug of hot chocolate in hand.

"How is everything going?"

"Okay, I'm still missing a couple of things"

"Do you want me to go?"

"No" he replied. How could you think of that? Of course he wanted you there.

During these weeks you had noticed Kaz a little strange, as if he was suddenly more condescending or permissive with you, but you enjoyed these changes. You couldn't know it, but he had been running little experiments like the one he did when you were sleeping. When you were interrupting the path he needed to travel, he would move you to the side at the waist, when you sat next to each other at crow meetings, he would link his knee to yours, and you caught him picking some rubbish out of your hair more than once. So you, too, had begun looking for more intimate ways to engage with him, like taking him out to dinner after a tiring day, curious as to how far he would let you go.

You made small talk about trivial matters and took the opportunity to make sure he consumed some of what you brought him, which he did with pleasure.

When you finished Kaz went back to his work and you decided that it was better to occupy yourself with something else, preferably quietly so as not to interrupt him. Your visits to his study were almost always like this, so you already had some things for your entertainment in a drawer. You pulled out a puzzle that you and Inej used to put together all the time and spread it out on the floor, sitting in a lotus position in front of it, willing to be at it for a while.

But on that particular day he couldn't focus on anything but you. Out of the corner of his eye, he would catch a glimpse of your attentive frown and your hands tapping the floor impatiently for not finding the right pieces, finding both quite adorable.

All day he had been seriously thinking about making a risky move and now that the opportunity presented itself he felt more nervous than he had imagined, so he kept silent for a long time where you didn't even notice the crisis internal he was having.

"Kiss me"

The words were spoken so quietly and hastily that you feared you had hallucinated them and your neck might have snapped from the quickness with which you looked up at him.

"Did you say something?"

"Kiss me" he repeated, loud and clear so that this time there would be no doubt of what he was saying. You felt that your heart was going to jump out of your chest due to the astonishment that such a sudden request produced in you. Kaz was asking you for a kiss? Impossible.

You were stunned for a few seconds, looking directly into those sky-colored eyes that were waiting for an answer. What kind of kiss was he asking you? It was like a kiss on his cheek or… on his lips perhaps? Why was he asking you that in the first place? And why had he thrown it at you just like that?

"If you don't want to, that's fine," he added, with a disappointed tone, and you jumped to your feet as soon as you heard that.

"No, no. I was just... surprised, that's all" you explained, completely nervous, because you didn't want him to regret it.

You walked up to face him and the height difference forced Kaz to look down at you with doe eyes you never imagined he could have and didn't even know he was aware of. He felt slightly intimidated, more by the situation itself than by you, and one of his hands went directly to hold the wood of the chair to try to calm down.

You took a deep breath and looked closely at the black-haired man's face, thinking about which part of his face would be more suitable for kissing; the skin on his cheeks? His forehead? Or go once and for all for those thin pink lips?

When you crouched down he held his breath and you saw him tense when you got closer to his face, but you still continued because you knew he would mark the limit, if there was one. You closed your eyes and finally closed the distance, pressing your lips against his for just a second. Your stomach turned and when you straightened up your cheeks were flushed crimson, but it worried you that Kaz hadn't flinched. You would even say that he seemed to be angry.

"Give me a proper kiss"

You felt your legs shake and you thought you were going to faint right there after hearing him. He wasn't even asking, he was demanding it. Kaz was practically yelling at you that he was going to settle for the simple lip brush you just gave him, he wanted more.

You were a mess at the thought of him wanting to take such a big step, but you tried your best to hold it back and nodded softly at him. A proper kiss would require more than just you standing in front of him, so you sat on Kaz’s lap, who nearly squealed in surprise.

"If you want to stop, just say so" you warned him. But you had already gone too far, he didn't want to stop and of course you didn't either.

Your feet dangled over the side of the chair and you made yourself more comfortable resting your hands on his clothed shoulders, hoping that with that separation of cloth Kaz would feel less uncomfortable, until your face was right in front of his.

There was so much fear in his eyes that you wanted to walk away, but you knew that with that you would spoil all the effort he was making and you feared that he would be offended to the point of not wanting to kiss you anymore.

You would be lying when you said that you didn’t want it, that you didn’t long for to finally be able to know what his kisses would taste like and thus be able to alleviate the knot in your stomach that you had since that party night when you confessed your love, so without more or less you leaned a little and then you kissed him.

At first it was a mere assumption, but when you felt how tense he was you knew that he had never kissed anyone in his life. You could feel his panic through the trembling sighs that escaped him, but you didn't give up for a second from your task.

"Relax your lips" you said, separating yourself enough centimeters to be able to articulate the words "And the shoulders too" you continued, stroking that section with both hands to help it a little "Just focus on how it feels"

Your whispers sounded like spells to him as if they were instructions to follow to achieve the happiness he so wanted and didn't know how to obtain.

You tried again and since he followed your advice the contact was more fluid. Suddenly all negative feelings were replaced by the pleasure of savoring your lips, still with the flavor of the impregnated chocolate, and of feeling your warm body so close to his. There were no traumatic memories because he had never kissed anyone before Jordie’s death, nor since. It was something new, different, and it was also unique because it was you who was there.

He began to pay more attention to details and enjoyed the way your lips caught one of his, so subtly that he could barely identify it, or how your hands had already gone up to his neck to hold it. Kaz’s gloved hands moved almost by themselves to your waist and it was your turn to hold your breath, probably under the impression that he had done something like that.

You cut off the kiss, but then another followed, and when that one ended another came. Suddenly everyone was down to you and Kaz having a little make-out session in his office, a moment he never wanted to end. Maybe it was the sensation of trying something forbidden, but you felt that the man's kisses had the most intoxicating flavor on the entire planet, as if everything you had ever enjoyed was nothing compared to that. And he couldn't do anything more than practically melt under your caresses and let you do whatever you wanted with him.

For some reason Kaz was finally overwhelmed by the contact, but instead of throwing you out of there he pulled you away with his grip on your waist, calm and gentle.

"It’s enough" he whispered. It wasn't because he wasn't enjoying it, but because he knew better than anyone that you couldn't give yourself completely to life’s pleasures or they would end up consuming you from the roots.

He didn't want to open his eyes for fear that it was all another one of those dreams and also to somehow extend the sensation as much as possible, but you didn't want to do anything but look at him. He was breathing heavily and the usual paleness of his skin had been replaced by a vermilion hue and to your surprise his hands hadn't left the position they were in, which you took as a sign that he still wanted you sitting on his legs.

“Are… are you okay?” you asked cautiously, knowing that closed eyes and heavy breathing were also symptoms of a panic attack that you definitely didn't want to happen.

"No” you barely had time to worry and think about what you could do before you heard a soft laugh. Kaz Brekker was laughing “Oh my gosh of course I'm not okay. You're driving me completely crazy” he responded and managed to make the phrase sound like a claim and a compliment at the same time.

"Was it that bad?"

"It was perfect. You are” he confessed and you exhaled a nervous laugh, feeling as foolish as a girl in love. Both of your hands were planted on his chest, so you started to play with a button on his shirt to try to calm your emotions.

“I'm glad you… huh, that we could share this. I really wanted to kiss you” you dared to tell him.

Although he was apparently calm, the truth was that he was having a hard time not separating from you, but the only reason he hadn't was because of the loving and happy expression that was on your face, which probably, to a lesser extent, he also had.

"Me too" he assured you, with that little smile you had already begun to love.

And that kiss represented the beginning of a path that Kaz was willing to walk, as difficult as it was, only for the promise that at the end of the day it would all be worth it if you were the one waiting for him. 

[sadbenedict]

common questions about Au

received a lot of questions from @chokehoe /thank you very much :D/ to make it more interesting, I've made it into a topic, and I've made some sketches! hope you enjoy!

So for your au where gojo locks geto in his basement, dose geto hate gojo now? Like I can imagine and understand why because he locked him away in basement, but I need to know.

This is a question I've answered before /You can search the hashtag, I could write more about it there/

He takes offence to it, of course, I don't think anyone would like someone locking you up. He still has love, Satoru is not a stranger to him after all, but there will be resentment. I think by the time Yuji shows up, their relationship will be very strained

Also does suguru use Yuji to get himself out? I feel bad for Yuji if so because then he’s gonna be stuck in the middle of that whole fiasco

I think he might take advantage of Yuji's kindness /oh yeah, manipulative Geto/ I think he'll want to get Yuji to take something from Satoru's room / and Yuji will have doubts about Gojo's mental stability/ If Satoru spots him, it's gonna be really creepy….

Was gojo just going to keep suguru locked in his basement forever, or did he have some other plan like suguru becoming a teacher?

I don't think he has any plan since he did it all on emotion. And I don't think Satoru will let him go anywhere now. Maybe he'll try to re-educate him /or maybe he's just calming himself down with these thoughts of re-educating/

Dose suguru have a plan for what he’s going to do if he does get out. Are nanako and mimiko ok in this one?

I think Suguru is just thinking about escaping right now. But even if he does, Satoru can easily find him by scent, will he have enough time to go somewhere before Satoru realises he's escaped? And if he is caught, will Satoru become even more insane? Suguru could also end his life if he realises that he has no other choice /I don't miss that thought/.

Nanako and Mimiko gone and are doing the same things they do in canon

Does anyone else know he’s down there, either by gojo telling them or by finding out by accident?

So far, only Shoko and Yuji know. I'll mention that the action takes place after the alley when Satoru "ki-lled" Suguru. Shoko knows because she healed Suguru /yeah, glued his arm on, that's just how I want it to be/. I think Shoko accepted since Satoru probably scared her, and she doesn't want to lose Suguru. But she probably wasn't surprised by Satoru's decision. To put it shortly

Maybe Megumi and Nobara will start to suspect something if Yuji !accidentally! says something XD like

Yuji: ...haha, yeah, like that strange guy in sensei's basement. Meg/Nob: what

Yuji: what

Also, I can’t stop imagining if the basement was the laundry and gojo & suguru are having some deep conversation and all you hear is the washing machine going in the background.

omg it's interesting! I pictured this place as where Gojo dragged Yuji to. Because, in theory, it could have held Suguru. But maybe then he moved it to another location, as you suggested, or converted this basement into a more habitable space. That's how I imagine this

/the room is quite small, I drew it like this for easy reference/

Has megumi or tsumuki walked into the basement because they needed something and just found suguru there and just didn’t know what to do so they just walked out, or do they not know? I feel like it would be funny but also creepy if they found suguru there because like the laundry used to be down there or something

Oh, this is gonna be really creepy XD I actually like this idea!

I think they'll get very scared and Megumi will probably encourage Nobaru not to ask Gojo since he heard from him about his ex-friend /understood from Gojo's description/ Since it's very strange and creepy, so better not to trigger Satoru

Why was gojos first thought to lock suguru in a basement in the first place?

I think he just realised that Suguru wouldn't be around him normally. And yeah, and he was determined to kill him.

Again, he did everything on emotion and from a selfish point of view. Also, I think he was just tired and just wanted to be around him all the time

@tug-tries-to-draw @morgraythedark @ediblespider @dreamhusbando @myssteriouss-wanderrerr you had similar questions, so I hope you find the answers here! If there are any more, I'll be happy to answer them! ⸜(*ˊᗜˋ*)⸝

[llilyrose]

llilyrose spends her time analyzing aroace stuff. yay.

isat spoilers afoot

what i especially like about the way adrienne wrote mira's orientation is the lack of room for interpretation. yes they snuck aroace talk into fantasy france, but just stop and think for a minute. what would happen if mira just said "i'm aroace" or "i don't feel love the same way" instead of all the nuance we got to her character in the friend quest convo?

we know she's sex repulsed, we know she's romance repulsed. we know she loves fiction that has those things in it, loves interpreting fictional characters that way, but can't bare to see herself in that situation. it makes a lot of sense with regards to her location (vaugarde, a very sex-positive and romance-adamant country) and also with regards to herself (the way she feels about her environment). Of course she wouldn't blame other folk around her for engaging with their religion the "correct" way, of course she'd internalize all her feelings of being outcast and turn it back on herself.

The fandom respects this! Nobody ships her romantically, or sexually, because we know she's not into that. We know she would never and i know a bunch of people who would punch you for even thinking it!

Now what if Adrienne hadn't put this in the game? What if they had just said on their tumblr one day, "mira's aroace," or something. where would we be now? aspec shipping discourse would definitely take the reins. we'd have people shipping her in all kinds of different ways, bending the aroace character to the best of their ability because they could still be into sex, or romance, or whatever. this is TRUE, it's POSSIBLE, but there's no nuance. We wouldn't know the way Mira really feels about these things unless Adrienne told us, so a lot of people would either ignore/"work around" her identity or just wouldn't even know about it to begin with!

Introducing mira's orientation in the way adrienne did leaves no room for discourse. we know if she's sex-positive, sex-negative, how she reacted to finding out she was, etc. It provides so much more representation than a simple "I'm aroace" ever could. It's such a wide label, so finally having CONCRETE information about a canonical aroace's experiences with their orientation is so, so freeing and honestly quite refreshing. and it's worked into the story seamlessly!!!

She's not an emotionless carcass with no capacity for love, she's not outwardly detesting sex or romance at every possible moment, she's simply a well-rounded character who happens to be aroace. You have time to warm up to her before ever even finding out about her orientation! Or having any clue at all (barring maybe the suspicious sketches)!!!!! Aroace people are real!!! We're so real!!!!

Speaking of the suspicious sketches! We know siffrin's alloace (from, like, one line of dialogue), but we don't know if he's sex-repulsed. Adrienne's gone on record to say "aces can still have sex" in reference to siffrin, so I'm inclined to believe he has at least some sort of libido.

When looking at the sketches, both him and mira have a repulsed reaction. I think there are three possible reasons for Siffrin here!

Siffrin is sex-repulsed and has a visceral reaction to them because he thinks it's gross.

Siffrin has no libido because the stress overrides everything in his system. That combined with his ace identity would probably lead to a distaste for the papers.

Some people would NOT GET THE MEMO from the act 3 friendquest. Sometimes when you're writing you have to account for the gamers being really really dense. Some people didn't even understand the Isa friendquest was him coming out as trans basically. Since Ace characters are hard to "prove" unless they explicitly state they dislike sex, this line of dialogue might've just been there to drill it in that Siffrin is ace because the only other place we see that implication is one line in the friendquest. It could even have no tie to his relationship with sex, who knows?

one of these options is not like the others! /silly

I couldn't tell you which one of those it is, but i think at least one of them had to have hit the mark. It's a lot harder to decode siffrin's sexuality when we only get like 5 lines of dialogue total that vaguely even reference it

With this we come back to the issue from earlier: He could be demi, he could be ace, he could be sex-repulsed, he could not! Most people write them sex-repulsed and I'm personally on that bandwagon, but interpreting them a different way isn't any less correct unless you completely ignore the fact they're ace in the first place.

Even sex-positive aces have complicated relationships with sex. Some do it for the gratification, some simply have higher libido and can't think of a different way to get it out, and others only do it to please their partner.

I think writing an ace character as sex-positive should be seen as a character study instead of an excuse to ship two characters together. Is this character the type to even enjoy it in the first place? How often? How do they interact with it? Etc. Which I think is what Adrienne was talking about when she said "aces can still have sex." We don't know about siffrin's identity, we don't have a grasp on the nuance, but we do know he's ace and that he experiences love differently from the way mirabelle does, and the way isabeau does, and the way odile does, and what have you.

I love love love the representation we get in isat. An aroace, an alloace, and someone that a lot of fans headcanon as aroallo though it's unconfirmed. Even if Odile's not aro, we still get that line of dialogue about not finding romance suitable for her at the moment, which speaks true to a different experience altogether. No two characters experience love, experience life the same in isat. That's why i get to make a tumblr text post that's a bit too long exploring the different avenues adrienne took when writing the characters lol :')

[brucewaynehater101]

DC has an in universe version of Dungeons and Dragons, theirs is Wizards and Warriors, the name is less cool due to lack of dragons but a pass is given because alliteration

Tim canonically plays and has used it to get his civilians friends to help him brainstorm plans without letting them in on secret identity stuff

Tim (not canonically but wouldn't be surprised) plays it with Young Justice, he is generally the DM but sometimes Greta takes over or on rare occasions Red Tornado is available for a one shot campaign, Tim keeps track of everyone's schedules and hosts the sessions at the most convenient location for all of them depending on multiple factors

Bart makes minis for all of them and usually has to borrow dice from Cassie

Cassie has so many sets of dice, Tim funds her addiction to pretty dice because she always gets him a set that she thinks he'll like when she looks for new dice for herself

Kon creates the most detailed backgrounds and is generally the one to bring snacks to the sessions, he has tried cheating rolls with TTK once but he was caught and suffered from disadvantage on all rolls for the rest of the session

Cissie doesn't have the time to play very often but sometimes she'll drop by and be a drop in character that in game has been cursed to be forever lost and wandering so if her character isn't there, it's because they managed to get separated from the group to use the bathroom or something and ended up on the opposite side of the country and it takes them a bit to find the group again

Anita doesn't have time to play very often either and sometimes she has to bring her little parents who Tim lets roll the dice for monsters in the game, Anita's character is charged with tracking Cissie's so anytime Anita's character isn't there it's because they're on the trail of Cissie's character

They have a character ready for Slobo just in case

Greta always plays bard and in almost every campaign her bard has inspired people to revolution and general chaotic behavior, the others almost wish that she'd do the typical seductive bard thing after the third time that she managed to convince a group of goblins to unionize which caused them to somehow be better at their job which was in direct opposition to the party but respect that Greta isn't comfortable with that, she does manage to work in a rick roll to nearly every campaign at least once

The Slobo one almost made me cry, ngl

I don't know much about DND, but I loved this so much.

YJ missions are already so chaotic. I'm curious what their sessions are like. I also would see them putting some of their missions in their campaigns just to make fun of how ridiculous or whack they were

[thewertsearch]

Oh, please tell me we're getting a SBaHJ-styled recap.

Uh... no. That's not a question I'd thought to ask.

Based on what Karkat said about the Fourth Wall, I've been assuming that the Hussie character was going to stay non-canonical - and for good reason, too.

The author interludes only work because they're clearly not part of the story. If Hussie turns into a real character, then the nonsense above will bleed into the comic, and we'll just be watching Looney Tunes. Now, I like Looney Tunes, but Looney Tunes couldn't pull off a Descend or a Make Her Pay. It doesn't have the right tone.

In short: a Homestuck where Hussie starts interfering with canonical events is a Homestuck without dramatic stakes. How can it have stakes when the author's in the room, reminding us that this is all fake, actually?

The fact that this is being brought up at all is making me a little worried...

When the time comes, I will interact directly with the events of this narrative. But this moment will be responsibly confined to a passive intervention. [...] My window of influence, end to end, will be exactly ONE YARD.

...and hearing the explicit statement 'I will interact directly with the events of this narrative' is doing nothing to reassure me.

Maybe I'm not giving Hussie enough credit. He is the one who wrote Karkat's Fourth Wall misgivings, so he's clearly aware of the thin ice he's standing on here. So far, Homestuck's meta shenanigans haven't interfered with the plot, and I'm just going to hope that this state of affairs continues.

I don't know what's up with this 'yard', either - but since it's coming directly from Hussie, I'd be a fool to take it too seriously. Hopefully, it's just some extended joke, and doesn't actually represent Hussie jumping into the story.

Please.

So that’s the Tumor. It certainly appears organic, and the tendrils extending from its edges make it look like it's slowly spreading throughout Skaia. Maybe it just keeps growing forever, until it collapses into a star-destroying black hole.

There's also a clear yin-yang theming, which could represent multiple dichotomies - but since we're on the Battlefield, I think it's symbolic of the struggle between Prospit and Derse. This struggle has been 'corrupted' by Jack's interference, and can no longer conclude the way it's supposed to.

The walls also bear the sigils of the Players, which makes me wonder what this chamber was originally for. It's located at the exact center of the session, which seems like it'd be important.

I doubt it's solely intended to house the Tumor. Rose isn't sure whether theirs is unique, but both of her hypotheses imply that it wouldn't exist in a non-doomed session.

Ten hours, eh? That’s significantly more time than I was expecting, especially since the Veil’s timeline is down to less than three.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

A theory i have is that the reason Malleus isn't able to find the group sometimes when they go to a different dream, is because his dream self doesn't EXIST in the said dream. Don't you find it weird, the whole time MC, Grim and Dia-boys where in Lilia dream, no Malleus appeared BUT when dream baby Malleus is born then POOF here he is ? Take the pomefiore dream for example, no dream Malleus so no IRL Malleus. His dream selves are probably like gps or something to naviguate in Dreams -sarah

That’s… not a theory though 😅 The game essentially confirms that the Malleus is likely not capable of manifesting in a dream unless the circumstances of the dream are something he is reasonably familiar with. This is because magic in Twisted Wonderland is reliant on the limits of one’s imagination.

Because Lilia’s dream largely takes place in a period of time Malleus himself is not informed about, Malleus is not able to imagine it, and thus cannot appear yntil his own egg hatches. With that birth, Malleus now has a presence (ie “an understanding”) that allows him to enter the dream. It should also be noted that Malleus was keeping a close eye on Lilia’s dream in particular, since that’s someone he is close with—so naturally, when Lilia begins to “wake”, Malleus barges in using his new opening (his freshly hatched self) to fix things.

How Malleus’s UM works exactly is really dubious, so we can only guess the details. However, Idia tells us that while the “real” Malleus may be the boss that oversees everything, there also are many dream versions of Malleus that manage each individual dreamer.

Doesn’t that imply that there has to be a Malleus for every dream (and if not all of them, then surely most of them)? We probably just don’t see them in all instances because he isn’t a relevant character for the happiness of most of the NRC students (or, in the case of Vil, Kalim, and Jamil), they’re not at NRC in their dream worlds. There must still be Malleuses lurking around making sure the dreams are okay, and perhaps to serve as a point of entry for the “real” one. (… Still, it’s sort of funny yet sad to think about how many NRC students’ perfectly happy ideal worlds do not involve Malleus in any way, shape, or form.)

There’s a bunch of hoops the wake up squad has to jump through to not alert Malleus of their dream hopping. Ortho has to project holograms of the dreamers to trick the Malleuses overseeing their dreams into believing everything is going smoothly. They have to limit how many students can dream hop at once, because too many bodies could also tip Malleus off. Etc, etc, etc—it’s a lot of contrivances and rules. It’s like tying to tiptoe through a field you know is rigged with tons of booby traps.

I think their strategy seems to be working…? Cuz none of the Malleuses seem to have noticed to the degree where they would alert the real one to come in and stomp out the pests. So to me, Malleus not showing up doesn’t feel like the result of there being no Malleuses in those dream worlds to connect through. It’s more like he never got told in the first place that there’s an issue to be resolved.

Arguably, it should be a easier for Malleus to pull up to these dreams since they mostly take place in the present, a time period he can more easily imagine than 500 years in the past (Lilia’s dream). Some of the dreams (Idia’s, Rook’s, Epel’s, Sebek’s) take place AT Night Raven College too, a location Malleus is very familiar with as a third year student. If you want to count events (even though technically they are not canon to the main story), Malleus has also already visited the Scalding Sands in A Firelit Sky. Thus, he shouldn’t have trouble visiting Jamil’s dream either. Malleus isn’t chasing them because the game reasons that Idia’s “let’s keep Malleus distracted/keep him from noticing us!” plan is working.

bfkwvwiwkw I hope that made sense! Talking about Malleus’s dubiously defined dream magic always makes me get confused since it’s juggling a lot of details 💦

[yanderes-galore]

may i request a yandere concept for leon kennedy but in dbd?

Honestly he probably isn't much different but sure!

Yandere! DBD! Leon Kennedy Concept

Pairing: Romantic/Platonic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Overprotective behavior, Dubious companionship, Paranoia, Manipulation, Implied stalking, Guilt tripping, Jealousy, Possessive behavior, Brief violence mention.

The canon Leon that's sent to the Entity's Realm in DBD is RE2! Leon.

Which means the Leon darling will encounter in their trials would be the much more naive rookie cop Leon.

Think about it, the poor man's all confused.

First he was running from the undead and Mr. X, now he's in a world of fog and darkness with all sorts of threats.

He's nearly defenseless, too.

For the most part Leon is his typical RE2 yandere behavior.

He's an overprotective, clingy, puppy-like yandere towards his darling.

Despite being stripped of his defenses he still feels like he has a duty to defend those he cares about.

Leon could've been dragged into the realm with a darling he already knew or meet his darling later on in the realm.

Either way he never leaves them out of his sight for long.

The moment Leon connects with you as a teammate over that campfire, you probably aren't getting rid of him.

Which starts as a good thing.

Having an ally in this realm is a good thing to have, it creates a certain synergy during trials that makes your fears quiet down.

Leon is a pleasant guy to be around.

He's nervous but he makes an effort to be light-hearted around you while also taking in what's going on.

He quickly adapts to fixing generators in different locations, often helping you out with them too.

He expertly utilizes his flashbang perk to save his teammates and is overall a good teammate to have.

Even more so, Leon is a good friend.

His presence is good to be around and he quickly takes a liking to you when you meet.

Leon is a survivor who can quickly adapt despite how nervous and naive he acts at first.

He's Protective, Manipulative, Clingy, Obsessive, and is still kinda Flirty like his RE4 version but he is more Shy as his RE2 version.

Survivors are limited on how they can defend themselves in the Entity's Realm but Leon would still manage to be protective.

Leon would follow his darling around in trials.

Usually it's good to stay separate in the start to get more generators down, but Leon prefers to follow you like a partner.

Even if you gave Leon an order he prefers to stick around and slowly follow you.

As I said before, Leon is very puppy-like with his obsession in RE2.

He's never far from you and us protective of you like some sort of guard dog.

Killers can barely get their claws on you without Leon chasing after them to divert their attention.

If you ever tried to scold Leon on his behavior, then he guilt trips you.

RE2 is more likely to guilt trip you than his other counterparts, especially in this situation.

If you don't want him helping you... then what if you get hurt?

He'd be devastated if you failed a trial because of him.

Why don't you want him around?

Do you not like him?

Are you no longer close?

Leon just manages to make you regret turning him down which makes it hard for you to say no.

Leon just seems to know how to make you listen to him by pulling at your emotions.

He gets smug about it in private.

Leon is less confident about flirting if he does it to you in the realm, but he tries.

Leon just wants to keep your spirit up and make you happy despite being trapped in the realm.

He always looks out for you even if you hate it.

The issue is Leon doesn't give you a chance to be alone or even allows you to have other company.

You could try to tell him another survivor will look after you in a trial or you're fine alone... but Leon doesn't like that.

If it isn't him looking after you he just loses it.

I don't think RE2 Leon is that violent but he would get into arguments with other survivors.

It's hard to say if Leon is scared of being left alone or is scared of you being alone.

He isn't very clear with that as he acts so upset either way.

Other survivors wonder what's gotten into Leon when he suddenly snaps and yells at them if they are near you or mention you.

Leon is a very obsessive and clingy yandere even in the realm of the Entity.

Although, if we go with the theory that the Entity could influence yandere behavior then he may just be worse.

Maybe if his obsession continues... he will use violence.

Survivors can't truly stay dead in this realm, but Leon's new violent tendencies caused by the Entity would isolate both you and him.

Which may be what Leon wants in the end.

No one wants to be subjected to his bloody violence, be it simply a fist fight or something worse.

As a result... survivors don't help you when Leon gets too clingy.

Leon's your problem when he gets violent due to the realm...

You're stuck with him forever as the Entity sits back and watches your suffering.

[justcallmecj]

Pact Mark Location Headcanon: Asmodeus

Should I label this post as suggestive? Maybe? It's Asmo so I can't help but think his mark would be in some more lewd/suggestive places, y'know? Regardless, we'll see what I write out at the end of this. I guess this is a minor suggestive warning for anyone who may need it. Nothing explicit tho. Just now realizing Asmo has the most spots on my list...

Again, under the pretext that you are together, either all the brothers or just you two, you pick!

Asmodeus

Tramp stamp:

Again, Asmo's mark can have some more lewd locations

And there is something oddly fitting in my head about his mark basically being a tramp stamp.

I don't have much for this one other than a scene I can't get out of my head.

You in his room, or him in yours, chilling and getting ready for bed or having a spa day.

Your resting on your stomach for whatever reason and Asmo is just laying next to you, rubbing his hand against the pact mark and enjoying the feeling he gets from the fact it's sensitive to touch.

And it's not a lewd or sexual act, it's sweet and sensual, a quite moment of cute intimacy in the safety of a bedroom, away from the rest of the world.

On the other end of the spectrum imagine this when things get spicy!

Pelvic Bone:

And here is where the suggestive part comes in.

Asmodeus is the Avatar of Lust, so the mark of Lust is easy to imagine in a more intimate spot like right above the pelvis in the spot between your sex and belly button.

And in my head it kinda looks like a womb tattoo which works with Asmodues's connection to incubi and succubi

Now, I said this post wouldn't get explicit (bc I don't have hte energy for that currently) but just...imagine the possibilities.

I also really see Asmo as a touchy feely person, which he is even in canon, so I see Asmo being a person who just loves to have his hands on someone, especially if they hold his pact mark.

So he loves to be next to you and simply touch the mark, whether things are sexual or not he just loves the touch.

(He does this with Solomon too and you can't tell me otherwise)

Heel:

Alright this one is iffy but it's a cool idea so I thought I'd go through with it.

Humans are often weak to lust and desire. Sure, maybe not so much as they are to greed, pride and wrath, but still weak.

So much so they do stupid things due to it that oddly enough doesn't have as many consequences as the other sins simply because it is typically viewed as a base instinct in humans. A natural weakness.

And what is a common phrase among humans for people who have a weak spot?

An Achilles heel.

The thought of Asmo's Lust mark being on you "Achilles heel" tickles a corner of my brain.

Also Asmo loves to give your anklets as a way of decorate the mark.

Inside of wrist:

This just stems from the image of Asmo kissing the inside of your wrist, whether sexual or not doesn't matter, it's just an intimate place to kiss and he loves to see your reaction from it.

I have very little reason for this one other than this.

Maybe it's also right over a pulse point and he can feel your heart rate pick up when he gets flirty or things get spicy.

I will say it again, feel free to comment some of your own location headcanons! If you want, I can write some scenarios of either your hc or these ones.

[yourhighness6]

Quite honestly I have to say that I actually really like Aang. Him being a happy-go-lucky, sweet kid is extremely important to the story, as bringing back a sense of fun to the people who have been experiencing war for so long is basically his narrative purpose. There's a purpose behind his personality, just as there should be in any narrative. However, I think anyone who engages critically with media has to aknowledge that he makes some bad decisions, especially when it comes to his treatment of Katara at the end of season three. Although I would personally argue that this is sexist writing and not congruent with the Aang we have seen for the entirety of the show leading up to DoBS (although people are also right when they point out the amount of emotional labor his position as the grand hero of the story and as a rather immature kiddo put on Katara), these are still mistakes that the character canonically makes. His treatment of Katara in previous seasons is still toxic behavior that I would argue is actually congruent with his character. The mistakes he makes throughout the series in other areas, such as hiding their father's location from Sokka and Katara, are canon decisions the character makes that are also definitely congruent with his character. But for whatever reason, a lot of the fandom refuses to recognize this. Most Aang/ Kat@ang stans put Aang on a pedestal and argue that nothing he's done throughout the series is exactly wrong. Nothing was wrong in his treatment of Katara, and if it is, he's naturally extremely sorry about it and should be forgiven despite the fact that we see no expression of guilt or remorse from him for, what I believe is the most glaring example, the EIP noncon kiss. So again, to restate, I don't hate Aang. I've never hated Aang. I like Aang. But unfortunately, because of the fandom representation of him, I have no interest in engaging in fan content about him. I have no interest in talking about the good things he does or the great decisions he makes outside of his decision not to kill Ozai, which, although greatly contested in the fandom, I completely agree with because of the narrative significance of Aang choosing to stick to his beliefs and the overarching theme of mercy, which we also see built up in many previous episodes such as TSR. Aang is the character that I would argue has been corrupted the most by the fandom. He's either viciously hated or hoisted into a position of perfection and frankly, I can deal with neither. Aang is a good character, but we should be able to have conversations critical of his actions. Aang is an extremely flawed and relatively underdeveloped character, but he is by no means evil incarnate, and I just wish that more people could recognize that both of those statements should and do coexist.

[lets-try-some-writing]

okay but what about robots in disguise?? its not a favorite of mine but it’s still pretty good. russel and his dad are decent lol

Frag that show.

It disrespected TFP on every level and for that it has my eternal hatred and contempt. The humans were annoying, and I HATED how many interesting plot threads there were that were either done poorly or with so little tact that the writing team should have just scrapped it. The designs are tolerable, but I hate how canon TFP characters lost so much of their individuality in their designs (coughtheopticscough). Smokescreen is fricking GONE, which bothers me more than I care to admit. We see the rest of the team enough to be reasonable, but they all appear in ways that don't really make me happy.

Ratchet was done well enough in my opinion. I like his RID design. It suites him. Optimus's design can go die in a hole, they brutalized that mech. Same with Jazz. Frag those stupid shoulder pads.

Grimlock is fun, I appreciate Sideswipe, although his helm hair thingies I think need a redesign to make sense in relation to his alt mode. Strongarm was HORRIBLY underutilized and I hardly saw any character growth in her. Drift and his crew were interesting, but similarly not given much room to grow. I really liked Windblade for the most part, especially the episode where she tries to baby Optimus and comes out having relearned that Op is still a PRIME with MILLIONS OF YEARS OF WAR EXPERIENCE.

The Primes who've done nothing but sit on their rears had NO RIGHT to belittle Optimus at every turn. Nor did the show have the right to make him an idiot for the sake of making Bee look smarter. As @nova--spark has pointed out, the personality Bee got in the show matches Smokescreen better. Bumblebee wouldn't have SUCKED so much at the whole leadership shtick. What happened to all that skill shown in the movie huh? HUH WRITING TEAM????!??!?!

While I am on this train. OPTIMUS DIED SO GOSH DARN LEAVE HIM ALONE!!! He should have stayed deceased, or if they REALLY needed him back, he should have either returned as an Civi or came back with actual issues. Like dang hear me out mate.

Optimus is forcefully returned to life, beats the Fallen with his borrowed power, but then has to actually deal with the consequences of essentially being a walking bomb for a while. Make him start losing plating, make his frame HURT, make him slim down again into the TFP base design. Just, give him a reason to have to sit back and RECOVER. Not this whole half hearted limping around garbage. To add to that, don't baby the mech. Let him stay at base and fulfill the role Ratchet did in TFP. Let him use his knowledge to teach and offer wisdom, plan battles and locate enemies. For Primus's sake he could have gone undercover on Cybertron or something if they really needed him to go be useless elsewhere.

THEY COULD HAVE EVEN HAD AN ARC WITH HIM GIVING THE TEAM A WAKEUP CALL!!! SIdeswipe has no respect for the mission, Grimlock is a fool, Strongarm is too snarky, and Bee in this seems to have largely forgotten about the seriousness except for during key moments. They could have made Optimus a minor antagonist, forcing the team to follow wartime standards since they laid down this plot thread regarding issues between leadership styles and Optimus trying to take control of the operation more than once.

I would have paid money to see Optimus's wartime mentality show itself in the best and worst ways through how he worked with this group of non war vets on a Decepticon capture mission. Maybe even have him use lethal force once or twice, or at least hint at it so that people can be reminded that he is a mech who went to war, killed countless bots, and both drove their people to and saved their people from extinction.

Bee could have had to teach Optimus to calm down. He could have helped eased his leader out of his wartime mindset. Or following that whole council running Cybertron route, Optimus could have had his moment of being very much right when he points out WHY he fought at all and gestures towards the new council. There was SO MUCH potential in this show, so many good threads and interesting Decepticon character that could have given so much depth to the war and the aligned continuity as a whole, but they were almost ALL ignored.

*deep breath*

Alright, sorry about that. I have big feelings in regards to how dirty Optimus was done. Moving on, the Predacons were killed off supposedly and that pisses me off ESPECIALLY because it was done in a fricking offscreen setting. What the hell happened to Predaking??? WHERE DID HE GO????

Starscream's design was rad though, not going to lie.

Where is Shockwave? No seriously where is that fragger? After several years of the map he MUST have an army growing in a tank somewhere.

Soundwave. Why. ARe. YOU. HERE??!?!?!? I love you man but dang you are so out of place. He made sense in the context of trying to get to Megatron, but idk he felt like he deserved better. He should have been the big brain behind the Cons on Earth if you asked me. It would have made everything far more intense, especially if the Cons dont follow Decepticon creed as seen by Soundwave.

The humans were annoying. Sorry they just were.

Fixit is Primus's gift to RID and he's one of the few individuals who makes it less annoying. Idk, I just like him in reasonable doses.

WHERE ARE THE TFP KIDS?! WHY HAS BEE NOT CALLED THEM?? GOOD HEAVENS THERE IS A WHOLE SUBPLOT RIGHT THERE!!!

*yet another deep breath*

Apologies.

To put things simply, I would rather a group of fanfic writers put RID together than whoever the writing team was. They could have made a coherent story with deep characters that actually address the ramifications of millions of years of war and lingering functionalist mindsets. They would have done the lore and the world justice even if there were no main characters popping up.

I think RID has so much potential, but that almost all of it went right down the toilet due to either the higher ups sticking their noses where they don't belong or because the writing team couldn't go two minutes without retconning or otherwise destroying established everything.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[clotpolesonly]

Declan's hair in tvTRC; a dissection

ok i'm sure you guys have been waiting with bated breath for me to weigh in on this particular subject (lol) but i needed a hot minute to collect my thoughts on the matter. turns out i've got quite a few, go figure.

first things first: i am contractually obligated to say it's a goddamn travesty of a departure from canon to make Declan fucking BLOND and why the FUCK did they do that??? i was screaming in dms the second he showed up on screen, my sister can attest to how far i threw my phone across the couch in my outrage. i mean, honestly who suggested that?? turn on ur location i just wanna talk

-deep breath-

okay got that out of my system

so we all knew immediately that it was stupid as shit and entirely unnecessary...............but i've got a confession to make

i don't hate it

at least, not anymore. i'm actually kinda fascinated by what they've done here and what it adds to Declan's character/what it says about him psychologically. especially because he doesn't stay blond -- his hair is only like that for a little under half of the first season, though it's unclear how long he's had it like that before (tv)canon starts.

what the show has done here is given Declan a relationship with his hair that's not entirely dissimilar to the one that Ronan has. it's never said explicitly i don't think, in either the books or the show, that Ronan shaved his hair off because 1) he looks too much like his dad with it long and 2) it's something that he can control, but it very much comes through anyway, and the same applies to Declan here.

both boys -- all three boys, actually, but Ronan and Declan especially, more than Matthew -- are made in Niall's image. they resemble him very strongly. they look in the mirror and, for better or for worse, they see their father, and that's something that becomes really fucked up and complicated when your father is murdered, and when you hate him, and when you're afraid of becoming him, and when you miss him.

Ronan dealt with it one way (shaving it all off, making himself unique) and Declan here dealt with it another way (distancing himself from his father, yes, but also doing it in a way that made him more similar to Matthew). (and to his mother, which is a point i'll come back to later; you know the scene i'm talking about.)

Declan is a control freak of epic proportions, we all know this, and seeing it manifest in changes to his hair is not remarkable i don't think, esp in conjunction with how meticulously he manages his wardrobe. everything in his life feels outside of his control, so he grasps at what he can to feel secure. that's textbook.

then he fights with Ronan. most of the scene plays out more or less as it does in the book, but i want to draw your attention this bit of dialogue --

Gansey: "Why are you even here?" Declan: "I don't need to explain myself to you, I can go wherever I like. Free country and all." Ronan: "Then you're free to go somewhere else." Gansey: "Ronan... Declan, just go." Declan: "He's failing almost all his classes. What, Ronan, did you think I didn't know? Your teachers call me every time you skip class, dumbass, you keep going like this and you're going to -- " [Ronan tries to punch him again, Gansey intervenes] Gansey: "That's enough, both of you! Look, Declan, I'm not saying you're wrong, but you are not Niall Lynch, and you never will be." Ronan: [scoffs] "Not looking like that. You and your bimbo girlfriend get a 2-for-1 special at the salon?" Gansey: "Ronan, knock it off." Declan: "Believe it or not, I'm trying to help you." Ronan: "Well, I don't. And I'll never forgive you."

the salon comment is a petty side swipe that made me snortlaugh ngl, but it's also a direct acknowledgement from Ronan that what Declan is doing with his hair is Declan, in his own way, trying to distance himself from Niall while simultaneously trying (and failing) to fill his shoes. he's shining a spotlight on Declan's biggest source of internal conflict in a way that's both casually cruel (Ronan's specialty tbh) and humiliatingly dismissive. what an effective jab at someone like Declan who is, underneath his deliberately unremarkable exterior, every bit as proud as Ronan is. he's trying to be Niall and he's failing so badly even Gansey's begging him to stop, and he's trying to be Not Niall and he's so obvious about it as to be pathetic and laughable.

it's notable that the blond doesn't stay much longer. we only see it once more -- delivering his ultimatum to Ronan through Adam as he gatekeeps Declan at monmouth, a confrontation i must note is between a natural blond (Adam) and a fake one (Declan), and no words are exchanged about it but we do get a rather pointed look at the hair from Adam right before he delivers his line about fighting and it being "Ronan's thing" that makes Declan back off -- before we get to the biggest departure from Declan's canon arc and what i really want to talk about:

✨ the dorm room dye job ✨

this is, honestly, my favorite non-book-canon scene in this adaptation so far. that probably does not surprise anyone, because i am me, but hear me out!!!

let's run through what we actually get in this scene:

- Matthew asking Declan what he, Matthew, is doing in the morning, and Declan rattling off Matthew's entire schedule for the week, all while nagging him through his bedtime routine - Declan texting Ronan repeatedly and getting left on read - Declan trying and failing to sleep (intercut with Ronan and Gansey sharing insomnia time), growing more restless and texting Ronan some more until Ronan blocks his number and the texts stop being delivered - Declan going to their suite's bathroom to dig out a cheap dusty box of hair dye from the back of the cabinet and rushing through the process of mixing and applying it while Matthew sleeps - Declan staring at himself in the mirror and then smearing dye across his reflection

obviously, exactly none of this is book canon, and i don't not understand why some fans are crying foul on screentime they consider "wasted". should priority have been given to book canon elements and scenes? yeah, probably, and there are things that didn't make it into the show that i would've been glad to sacrifice this scene for, HOWEVER i want to talk about why this scene, as presented, within this slightly alternate show canon, is worth its screen time imo.

the show is really making an effort toward expanding the characters and relationships outside the insular gangsey -- the fox way ladies and the Gansey family have both gotten subplots, and much more attention is being paid to the Lynch bros than we got canonically this early in TRC.

without being inside the POVs of Ronan's friends like we are in the books, it makes sense that we get to see Declan more objectively for the overburdened teenager that he is. we get to actually SEE him being relied upon to manage and parent Matthew, day and night, no breaks. sharing even a bedroom with him, there is no reprieve and no retreat from that responsibility.

and we see him trying to manage Ronan too, which is overbearing and aggressive, yes, but we also see his preoccupation and his mounting anxiety. the little tics like him tapping his thumb against his thigh and the breathing technique he employees (the same one that Ronan uses in ep 2). unlike when they were brawling in the parking lot, Declan defends Ronan to Matthew ("he probably just lost his phone again" despite all of his messages being read). (this is a characterization tidbit described in Greywaren actually, in case any viewers haven't read TD3, that Declan was always far more understanding of Ronan and his behavior to Matthew than he was in confrontations with Ronan himself).

i digress, anyway, Declan tries repeatedly to get through to Ronan until the messages stop being delivered and Declan (correctly) assumes that Ronan has blocked his number (again).

all that nervous energy boils over and Declan beelines for the bathroom. he obviously knows that the box of dye is in there, he goes right for it. it's ambiguous how long it's been there -- either it was there before they moved into this room, in which case it may have been what inspired Declan to bleach his hair in the first place, or he may have bought it himself months ago and decided not to use it (probably because it's cheap and he usually has higher standards than that lol, he'd rather get it done professionally).

but this is not a moment for standards. this is an impulse. it's rushed and clumsy and jittery. he tears the box getting it open. he fumbles the little conditioner thing. he tosses the instructions aside with barely a glance. his phone is right there on the kitchen counter, always in the frame but face down, conspicuous in just how much Ronan is not texting him back.

this is, as mentioned up top, a bid for control. Ronan is uncontrollable, a variable he cannot account for and a loved one he cannot protect, and so Declan does what a lot of teenagers in fucked up circumstances do -- fucks with his hair before he can think better of it.

the only thing that slows him down is dropping the bottle, which almost wakes Matthew up. Matthew, right over Declan's shoulder in the mirror. Matthew, always in the frame just like the silent phone, always on Declan's mind, never allowed to more than an arm's length away.

Matthew is in the background of this entire scene. every shot of Declan's breakdown, Matthew is there, if indistinctly.

and there's something else about the cinematography that really elevates this scene, and that's the fact that, once Declan enters the bathroom, the entire thing is shot through the mirror. we don't get another shot of Declan straight on to the camera in this episode, we only see his face in reflection. we are seeing Declan seeing himself, which is perhaps the truest way to view him, especially in this moment.

remember that this was catalyzed primarily by Ronan's judgment (and Adam's, and Gansey's). Ronan ridiculed Declan for his hair a few episodes ago, not just for its own sake because it looks ridiculous but specifically in conjunction with talk of their father and Declan's inability to fill his shoes. Ronan essentially called Declan a failure and a phony, and the hair now symbolizes both.

Declan is so so conscious of how he is perceived, constantly thinking of himself within the context of how others think of him rather than engaging in actual self-knowledge. he is his own panopticon and this scene showcases that EXCELLENTLY.

which makes this messy breakdown so interesting, because it is unobserved by anyone but himself and, in the end, he obscures even that. he blacks his hair with bare hands (buddy, that's gonna stain so noticeably afkdjh) and then stands there, staring into the mirror at his own reflection -- at his own failure to perform the identity he's chosen for himself -- until he can't bear to see it anymore, and then he smears the dye along the mirror to block it all out. all that messiness, that vulnerability, hidden even from his own eyes.

and of course i need to touch on the identity of it all. of course i do!! because hair color means something in the Lynch family!! the resemblance the older boys have for Niall is so integral to the family dynamic and how they all relate to and interact with each other. the boys have daddy issues out the wazoo, and you would too if you were Made In Your Father's Image.

for Ronan, looking like dad was a source of pride for a long time, and is now a source of pain. but for Declan, looking like dad is equal parts pain and shame. everything Declan is, so much of his facade, was deliberately constructed to be different from his father -- Niall was reckless, so Declan is careful. Niall was loud, so Declan is staid. Niall was volatile, so Declan is predictable. Niall was eye-catching, so Declan is invisible.

and now, Niall was a brunet, so Declan is blond. it's another step along the road of rebellion against the legacy he inherited. Niall claims god broke the mold, but Declan knows just how similar they are, both physically and in their natural inclinations (though we haven't gotten into the latter much yet in the show). his father is not a man he respected and he is deeply afraid of being too much like him.

Declan bleaching his hair was a reaction to that, and it was a reasonable one, but it was also fundamentally, in both Declan's eyes and Ronan's, a disavowal of his connection to and place in the family. in rejecting his resemblance to dad (and therefore Ronan), Declan functionally declared himself Not A Lynch.

which makes this, dying his hair dark again, a bit of a reclamation? in a way? or, no. that would feel triumphant, and this scene has the definite air of tragedy.

maybe i should say it's a concession instead. the waving of a white flag. it's an admission that trying to disavow his family is a losing game. he cannot cover up what he is. no amount of bleach can wash away his father's blood in his veins. he will never be Niall Lynch, but he will always be Niall Lynch's son, for better or for worse, and there's no point in trying to pretend otherwise.

this scene is Declan giving up on his last desperate bid for an identity separate from the legacy he inherited. there's irony there, and honestly i find it very in keeping with what we get from him in some of the flashback details in TD3. i wrote a meta a while ago about the moth's wooden box and the alexandria townhouse both as symbols of Declan's complicity in his own oppression as a child -- ie, cages that Declan chose to step into of his own volition, because feeling powerless is worse than feeling trapped.

in this context, dying his hair dark again feels very similar. he's feeling powerless and so he makes the choice to figuratively reclaim his position in the family, even if that position is and has always been awful and traumatizing and something he's spent his entire life trying to break free from, because the alternative is to acknowledge that there is nothing that he can do to free himself. he would rather be complicit than helpless.

there may or may not be something to unpack with Declan choosing blond, especially that shade rather than something that would've been more aesthetically fitting for him like a cooler platinum shade. namely that, in distancing himself from his resemblance to Niall, he actually strengthened his resemblance to Matthew and also to Aurora. he could've dyed his hair some middling shade of brown and honestly it would've been far more in line with his desire to be bland and pedestrian, but he chose a hair color that aligned with the other half of his family (the dreamt half of his family).

was it some subconscious desire to replace their mother for Matthew's sake? Matthew was Aurora's favorite, he was the closest to her and undoubtedly the one who took her loss the hardest in the immediate aftermath, and we know that Declan took up the kinds of duties that used to be Aurora's like cooking Matthew good meals and being his emotional support (as best he could).

the fact of Declan taking on Aurora's most defining feature in the aftermath of her falling asleep (to him, functionally, her death) and his staunch refusal recognize her humanity (such as it is) or to engage with her memory is really haunting, imo. honestly, Aurora and his relationship with her is such an underrated factor in Declan's psychology, she had such an enormous impact on him that's rarely discussed in the detail it deserves. here it's like his feelings about her are leaking out of him subconsciously even as he's trying his damnedest to repress them.

or, hell, idk, that might be reading too much into it. it may just have been that blond was as far from his natural color as he could get.

but honestly it doesn't feel coincidental. nothing in this arc does, which surprised the hell out of me as i was watching. "Declan is blond now actually" is the kind of cracky nonsense that should've had me flipping tables, but it turns out, when it's a concept that's actually executed with thought and attention to detail and a real understanding of the character, blond!Declan is something that can actually be so personal.

so

thank you for coming on this journey with me. if you read this far, your brainrot is probably nearly as strong as mine is for writing it. i might write another one later digging into some more of the details from the back half of season 1, but for now, i need to go outside and touch some grass or something. stay tuned i guess. <3

[hollowed-theory-hall]

The Horcrux connection is double-edged

Alternate title: the fanfic trope of Voldemort seeing into Harry's mind the way Harry sees into his is canon

Alternate alternate title: more notes from my Deathly Hallows reread

So I reached my favorite scene in the books when it comes to analyzing Voldemort and his personality — the moment in Godric's Hollow that Harry sees the night his parents died from Voldy's eyes. But, here I specifically wanna mention this part from immediately after Harry sees his parents murder:

“No,” he moaned. The snake rustled on the filthy, cluttered floor, and he had killed the boy, and yet he was the boy. . . “No. . . ”

(DH, 345)

The part I highlighted shows Harry seeing into Voldemort’s mind in the same time Voldemort is seeing into his like some crazy loop until (probably) Voldemort breaks it.

This is a moment is essentially Harry seeing Voldemort's memory of his own death, while Voldemort is witnessing his own memory and also his memory through Harry and also the actual room they are in, seen from both of them, at the same time, in Voldemort's mind that Harry is seeing into. This feedback loop could probably get crazy if Voldy let it.

So, Voldemort can canonically see into Harry's thoughts on occasion, at least when he isn't blocking it. Now I have to wonder what sort of things did he see? How didn't he know where Harry was throughout book 7? We know Harry wasn't using Occlumency...

(Maybe he chose not to go into Harry's mind, maybe, he was there, saw that Harry was camping in the woods, starving and being so boring that he didn't bother checking up on him because he had better things to do...)

But seriously, I think Voldemort could know where Harry was if he really wanted to track him down. Sure, they warded their encampment, but, I don't believe for a second Voldemort couldn't break through their wards if he really wanted to (well, maybe not Harry's, but, that's a maybe). So, I think Voldemort wasn't really putting all his effort into locating Harry before he had the Elder Wand so he could kill him like he wanted to. Sure, if Harry appeared where he posted Nagini to wait for him, yeah, he'd go to kill him, but he won't pursue actively before he knows for sure he could deal the killing blow and amend his one failure, the one moment he became nothing, in his own words:

And then he broke; He was nothing, nothing but pain and terror, and he must hide himself, not here in the rubble of the ruined house, where the child was trapped and screaming, but far away. . . far away. . .

(DH, 345)

Another quite from this section I'd like to dwell on that has nothing to do with the above is this one:

She had no wand either. . . . How stupid they were, and how trusting, thinking that their safety lay in friends, that weapons could be discarded even for moments. . . .

(DH, 344)

I think Voldy here is telling us exactly what he thinks about friendship. Yes, he calls his followers "friends," but friends to him are something very different than they are to most people. They are not to be trusted, not to be counted upon. They are meant for company and obedience to him. Damn. Tom really needs to learn the power of friendship.

[lookingforhappy]

The Birth Locations/Suitcase Reveal Sucks

before you read please don't take this too seriously, I don't have a problem with people who enjoy this reveal I just wish more people would consider/analyse this as I feel like it's very half-assed and not at all well thought out

I know I've written something like this before and i'm sorry to write this again, but I think my arguments have developed and I want to explain better why I hate this decision.

I am referring to this set of posters for season 3

as the stickers on the suitcases were revealed to be their birth locations by Jeff King (executive producer and director) on instagram

the actual answer to his question is "lila's sticker" but semantics/specifics who cares (me)

why I distrust the theory/trivia as a whole

something I think should be considered here is that this is the only confirmation of this piece of trivia.

another example of TUA trivia that has been confirmed by the creators is the statement by Blackman (god ik just ignore that part for now, that isnt the point of the post & he's still a/the creator) on a reddit AMA that Grace helped the siblings choose their names based on their birth countries

however, these are both poorly researched/prepared pieces of trivia because they blatantly contradict each other

Luther's birthplace is Sweden, but Luther isn't a Swedish name, nor was is popular in either 1989 when he was born or 2002 when he was first seen using his name.

Diego is always a fairly popular name in Spanish speaking countries like Mexico but it's hardly high on the list (only statistic I can find is ranked at 31.)

Allison is neither a South African name nor is it listed as it's top names.

Klaus is Germanic (kinda fits the theme) but as far as I can see Klaus is not a biblical name which is much more typical of the Amish. Klaus is also not listed amongst the top Amish names that I've seen.

Five obviously is an outlier here.

Ben is clearly not Korean, and while I have had fun discussing the roots of his name with others (Jae-min becoming Benjamin, and Bin becoming Ben) I don't think that there's any way that the creators will acknowledge this. Ben has origins in Hebrew and is not at all popular in Korea.

Vanya (the applicable name, as Viktor wasn't yet revealed) is a male name in Russia. it's female in other countries like Bulgaria, but not Russia. It's a nickname/evolution of the name Ivan. Vanya is also not a popular name in Russia, but Ivan does seem to be. And I seriously doubt that they're going to reveal that Viktor originally named himself Ivan while he was identifying as female and then decided to change his name anyway?

which is to say, the word of the creator cannot always be trusted/believed, because that's not necessarily what will be reflected in canon or by the other creators.

there is quite a history in fandom of creators not understanding the themes/plotholes of their own creations, so i'm a little stunned at how quickly everyone integrated this into their canon without a second thought.

i have arugments as to why these locations are bad choices for the characters, but first lets take a look at what i believe these stickers were meant to represent

Placing down a read more because this became huge.

what the other stickers reference/mean

it's no secret that i think the stickers were hints to the events (related to each character's arc) of season 3.

but before i get to that let's breakdown the rest of the stickers and their meanings:

all of the umbrella's have an umbrella sticker. Lila is the only one who doesn't (so if we're playing the "who is the odd one out" game then it still falls as Lila because she is the only one without the umbrella sticker)

Luther

Luther dies in Hotel Obsidian, and never makes it physically inside Oblivion or has any part in powering it - so his sticker has the colours/design of Obsidian.

Diego

Diego is one of/the first to discover Hotel Oblivion, so he has the Oblivion colours and logo.

Allison

Allison is involved in Reginald's plot to use Oblivion to reset thte universe, so gets Oblivion's logo instead of Obsidian.

Klaus

Klaus was the one to know and direct them to Hotel Obsidian, so he has that logo.

Five

Five's revelation that he was the Founder of the Commission, and the impact of that discovery, links him to the Commission more so than either hotel.

Viktor

viktor has the hotel Obsidian logo because he has very little impact on anything to do with Oblivion and is one of the votes that decides to remain and die in Obsidian.

Lila

Lila has the Commission because she was raised in the Commission, not the Umbrella Academy.

Lila has the Obsidian logo in opposition to Diego's Oblivion logo as she chooses the opposite of Diego (I personally believe they should have swapped these two but..)

why the birth locations are more likely/appropriate as hints for the events of season 3

Luther - Stockholm, Sweden

This is probably my strongest argument: He is made fun of for having "Stockholm Syndrome" within the show

found: Season 3, episode 3, minute 13.

Luther, obviously spends all of his character development/moments with the Sparrows and Sloane - being kidnapped by them and developing "Stockholm Syndrome" for Sloane (romantic) and for the Sparrows as a whole (platonic/idealism/escapism)

Luther's mother's newpaper cutting also mentions 911 being called, but 911 is not the emergency number of Sweden, 112 is. Argentina, Canada, Dominican Republic, Jordan, Mexico, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, the Philippines, Sint Maarten, the United States, and Uruguay use 911 but not Sweden.

If Monica wasn't in Sweden at the time of Luther's birth, then Stockholm is hardly his birth location.

throughout the seasons we get a few instances of Diego, Ben and Viktor speaking their native languages, hinting that the 7 were all taught their mother's languages (with Allison at least likely learning all 7)

But if Luther is Swedish, why didn't he or Diego know what Oga For Oga meant if that's Luther's mother's language? and why was Five the only person who seemed to understand Swedish when he's not the Swede of the family? Why did Diego not at least recognise his brother's supposed second language? Or Luther for that matter?

Luther was a part of the Academy for 23+ years, longer than anyone, yet Reginald (who expects the best of his children) didn't bother enforcing this as a part of his education? his number one had a worse education than his number 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7?

Diego - Mexico

Diego apparently doesn't even get the luxury of a city, place or region. But I can confirm that his mother's newspaper cutting states that he was born in a "small town in Northern Mexico".

However, Diego's sticker could instead be a reference to the Aztecs or Mayans - his sticker has mayan/aztec pyramids on it, I believe maybe Chichen Itza specifically?? Ancient civilisations that were very advanced for their time, and that are somewhat frequently involved in alien conspiracies.

Diego is one the one to open Oblivion when he removes the harpoon, and is the first to enter it and confront the Guardians.

Oblivion is an Ancient building/place built by an Ancient civilisation of what is assumed to be aliens, and Reginald (confirmed alien) is the one to have directed them into Oblivion at first as well.

Allison - Cape Town, South Africa

Nelson Mandela is pretty famous for his part in the anti-apartheid (segregation) movement, helping to end segregation in South Africa. He was jailed in a Cape Town prison for attempting to sabotage the pro-segregation government, and then later his office as president was located in Cape Town.

an easy connection to make with Allison's arc in season 2, and the significance of it in her arc in season 3, with her dealing with PTSD, grief over Ray, and feeling alienated by her family who didn't have the same experience as her in the 60s.

Allson's mother has nothing connecting her to South Africa outside of this, as far as I'm aware.

Klaus - Pennsylvania, USA

This one I will concede is about his birth location. But in this case, it's also heavily related to his season 3 arc, as he is the driving force of the mothers plotline and literally travels to Pennsylvania.

PA is a strong and relevant hint for his s3 arc.

Five - Dublin, Ireland

Five could be connected to Ireland in multiple ways.

(there is a link between Five and JFK, "the 1st Irish American President" but I can't see the link to s3 here so honorary mention only).

A link that I understand is a somewhat touchy topic for any Irish citizens is the stereotype of drunkeness in Ireland. While there have been studies to prove that Ireland doesn't drink more than other countries such as England, it remains a well-known stereotype and the Irish people are statistically more prone to alcohol dependency/addiction.

There is also the phrase "make it Irish" which means to put alcohol in a drink, one of the more popular drinks to do this to is coffee. Which brings us back to Five - he is known for his love of coffee and for getting spectacularly drunk.

season 3 in particular features his drinking addiction in it's full glory. it's also plot relevant as his drunkness causes the murder mystery setup of the final episodes.

(also, while it's not great to have Ireland be the hint to alcohol, it's also not great to have Five, the alcoholic of the series, be the Irish representation)

Another interpretation could be the root of the name "Dublin" meaning "black pool". It was likely derived from the River Poddle which would have been stained black with peat. This could be a hint towards Five's elusive role as the Founder, as his life so far has been stained with childhood abuse, the apocalypse and his foray as an assassin, making the reveal of the Founder a shock.

One other interpretation is the Irish vs. English. Five is perhaps the most skeptical of Reginald throughout season 3, moreso than even Luther or Diego. While England has enraged many countries, Ireland is one of the most well known for it's dislike of the English, and has a lengthy history of war and altercations with England. So Five's sticker may be a hint for his re-ignited distrust of Reginald. It also works well as a predictor for Five and Lila's (English) bathroom fight.

Five's mother's newpaper cutting has several contradictions to the Ireland, Dublin location. First and foremost being that she is cited as being from both a "small seaside community" and from "county clark".

There is no County Clark in Ireland, but there is a County Clare and a County Cork. However, County Clare is on the opposite side of Ireland to Dublin and County Cork is even farther away,

Dublin, as the Capital City, is also not a "small seaside community" by any stretch of the imagination.

And the Irish police would likely not be referred to as "provincial" but instead be called Gardaí or The Garda Síochána.

Viktor - Moscow, Russia

Moscow is seen in season 1, episode 1 very briefly as Reginald arrives to adopt Viktor. You can see both the Spasskaya Tower and St Basil's Cathedral. Viktor also speaks Russian, something that none of his siblings have demonstrated.

However, this is not actually Viktor's birthplace (if we believe that the props have canon information, as most argue that Diego is definately from Mexico due to his cutting stating his mother was in Northern Mexico, etc) as according to his book Viktor was born in "small town off the Southern coast of Russia".

Moscow is nowhere near the coast and is not exactly southern either, nor is it a small town. And while this isn't exaclty specified that the "small town" he visits is the place he was born, it wouldn't make much sense if it wasn't, as Viktor was able to track his mother down via newspaper articles about his birth.

Moscow could mean a lot of things for Viktor's arc:

it could be a reference to s1, ep1 but instead of his exact birth location, it could simply hint to his mother's country and toward Harlan's involvement in the mothers' deaths - and the long reach of his powers from America to Russia.

It could also be a hint to Viktor's significance as a much more involved and aware plot driver this season as Moscow is the politcal centre of Russia as its capital city.

It might also hint at his disconnect from his family (not being a part of the Academy and not understanding the hard decisions and necessary teamwork that come with it) causing tensions, as while Moscow is the political capital, Saint Petersburg is considered the cultural capital.

Plus Moscow's history as the capital works well as a parallel to his journey with his powers, and works as a hint to Viktor developing his powers with Harlan because Moscow also briefly lost its status as the capital to Saint Petersburg, possibly a parallel to Viktor, the most powerful of the Umbrellas, losing his powers to Reginald's drugs. Moscow was later restored as the capital, paralleling Viktor's regaining of his powers.

Lila - Berlin

Lila is nice and simple, she was considered the outlier by Jeff King anyway as her suitcase doesn't match her confirmed birth place (London), and instead is a pretty obvious hint to her time in West Berlin, Germany, with Trudy and Stan.

why i dislike the chosen locations as the birth locations

in general I think it's silly to choose almost all capital cities: Dublin, Moscow, Cape Town, Stockholm, Seoul..

I know these are populous places but there must have been some variation? (aside from Klaus, who has plot armour for this point due to his Amish origins, and Diego, who is the only non-capital city purely because he wasn't given the dignity of a named city/town/village)

it's also lazy writing (and i believe somewhat racist?) to have every sibling come from the country/continent you'd expect?

the latino is mexican

the black woman is african

the asian man is asian

the blonde haired/blue eyed man is scandinavian

even Klaus, Five and Viktor are all white men from predominantly white countries.

at least try to subvert expectations?

to an extent i understand that they were trying to incorporate the actors ethnicities with Justin having korean roots, and David being raised in mexico. But the only irish thing about Aidan is his surname, and Emmy has no known connection to South Africa. I'm also pretty sure Tom isn't swedish at all and Elliot isn't russian.

it's lazy, poorly planned and honestly highly questionable writing at best