#But its still a fun theory to expand and think about

[idkanameatall]

Hhhhhhh brainrot hitting so hard. I low-key wanna revive all my Taz grad wipes again from the dead

[crisiscutie]

C.C's Rebirth Check/Wishlist for Sephiroth

Given that Sephiroth's increased screen time has been confirmed for Rebirth, I'm hoping for answers/exploration on the listed subjects below: However, it would be unrealistic to expect that the majority or even half of the items on this list will be addressed. There's also Ever Crisis and 7R3, so there may be opportunities for further exploration.

Sephiroth's mindset changing from thinking himself as a Cetra to the inheritor of JENOVA's will: This is something that could be easily expanded on in Rebirth. Perhaps some cut scenes showing Sephiroth in the Lifestream with JENOVA. It'd be interesting to witness him absorb the planet's memories and watch his madness intensify. This exploration could also be a legit way to woobify Sephiroth without trivializing or undermining the gravity of his horrific actions, since it's something that we already know about, just that there is more explanation on it this time.

2. JENOVA's origins and sapience: Just what exactly is it? Can it still think with Sephiroth in control? Is it an Omega Weapon from a different planet or simply another parasitic virus within its own species? Please, I just want to know what the hell is it exactly. Also, how was it exactly defeated?

3. Confirmation that Sephiroth is in control of JENOVA at the start of FF7: It's been confirmed by AC, the FF7 Ultimania, and the writers themselves several times. Not sure why there's still debates about it in today's time. So maybe this game will be the final nail in the coffin for this debate.

4. Expansion/confirmation if JENOVA was controlling and/or influencing Sephiroth during the Nibelheim Incident: This is a legit debate. My opinion is that it was influencing Sephiroth, judging by the reactions he had the closer he got to its body, both in CC and also possibly at a time in FS. But I do think Sephiroth was acting of his own volition when he committed the horrific crimes at Nibelheim. Even if JENOVA was controlling him, he showed no remorse or acknowledgement of his atrocities once he had full control of it and even committed/planned to do more atrocities.

5. How Sephiroth plans on beating fate with his knowledge of the future? I'm certain that the game will partly address this. But I wonder why he doesn't just kill Aerith and Tifa, break Cloud, and beeline the Black Materia. My theory is that Sephiroth is in a similar predicament to Aerith, where he is limited in what he can do because of the Whispers. He must wait for the right moments to manipulate events to his liking. So he understands he needs to play the waiting game. Why not have some fun with Cloud in the meantime?

6. Sephiroth's Parentage: Does he know Hojo is his father? A certain scene from CC calls to mind. But I think even if he doesn't know, he must have had some inkling or recognized him as the closest person to a father figure in his life. It's also interesting to note that he consistently focuses on a mother figure throughout his entire life, without ever mentioning a "father". I theorized why here.

As for Lucrecia, does he know about her too? We know Sephiroth absorbed the memories of the planet during his four-year Lifestream dive with JENOVA. Will those memories include any hint of his true parentage?

7. Just how much does Sephiroth really know? Yes, he possesses future knowledge, but where does that knowledge begin and end? At one point, he's going to have to start improvising somewhere down the line. I don't expect this to be answered in Rebirth. 7R Sephiroth is trolling us almost as much as he is trolling Cloud. Man is self-aware.

8. The fates of his squad members: Matt, Glenn and Lucia. And here I thought First Soldier would update because of Rebirth, but they seem to holding back on it for now. I wonder if this is because Rebirth would spoil their fates?

9. More characterization of Sephy: We need to see that cold, professional SOLDIER mask cracking more. And it looks like this will be delivered. Such a puppy 😍

10. This is for Rebirth in general: Please don't end on a fucking cliffhanger... It'd just make the nonstop theorizing from the fanbase for the next four years even more painful to endure. I also hate cliffhangers in general.

Again, I'm not even expecting half of these to be answered, especially the point about JENOVA's origins since that'd probably be saved for the 3rd 7R game. The questions about his knowledge of his parentage probably won't be answered either. But I'm hoping for a few at least. Once I have more info on the game, I'll swing back to this list and mentally check off what's confirmed or at least mentioned/addressed.

[ludinusdaleth]

monk cleric barbarian for the meme :3

monk: what is your favorite canon relationship  - loveletters. fcg & frida are two of my favorite characters, i adore robots discovering how much they can love, i adore their puppy-love sheer joy in the face of a second calamity, when the first wiped their people off the map. i remember the way fcg lied and said avandra saw them together forever, and await the grief of frida when they learn what happened to fcg, and what they will do, alone as an aeormaton again, in the face of another aeorian war.

i have a soft spot for shadowgast, and it once meant a lot to me, something i deeply related to as a burgeoning gay boy. i still think on it fondly even if it's been a bit broken by my experience in its fandom.

cleric: what is your favorite battle - the cathedral and the malleus key far and away are my favorites. the cathedral is an ICONIC massive scale fight for yashas freedom and stopping tharizdun with the iconic church glass shattering, yasha almost killing beau and finally getting free, ending in yasha killing her abuser in the best hdywtdt of the entire 1500+ hour show. the malleus key is also a juggernaut in scale, and masterclass in a hopeless fight as ludinus's 1000 year plan comes to the fore in terrifying clarity and you can only watch in fear as he (honestly rightfully given his power level) treats everyone, even keyleth, as hardly a fly to swat. his turning literal time and mad laughter of relief at the end of it haunt my brain every second.

barbarian: who is your favorite villain - look at my url and guess

no but seriously. ever since c2 i knew lud would be The Problem. to see my theories proven right and yet realizing hes more compelling than i imagined, more than a lawful evil politician but a brutal mutated cannibal traumatized beyond belief by the calamity who toes this desperate-evil line over whether he can be fixed or not, as he manipulates those who think that undoubtedly. thats what it's about baby!!!!!! i also really, really love avantika, i find halas fun-evil. lucien is extremely compelling (ft. the somnovem), and i have a feeling if zathuda is expanded on i will end up very interested in him too.

thanks!

[marvelousmagicalaura]

Thoughts on The Bands of Mourning

Everything about this book is a bundle of pure fun. It’s just like an Indiana Jones adventure!

The breakout character this time is definitely Steris. I was shocked to find out a character could develop so much in such a small amount of pages. But, Sanderson did it with Steris. And to me, she’s insanely relatable. I was literally saying aloud “SHE’S JUST LIKE ME FR 😭” So much I could gush about her omg.

Wax x Steris is better than Vin x Elend. There, I said it. I also started to become a fan of Wax’s character arc - his arc of finding his true position in the world. Wax’s arc feels more subtle than the Era 1 characters and his personality is definitely more rigid than them, but I think I can appreciate it.

Allik was hilarious. Wayne x MeLaan was pretty wholesome and fun. Marasi is always great ❤️

The highlight of this book’s plot was definitely the Southern Scadrians and their Metallic Arts technology. A complaint I’ve had about the Mistborn Saga is that its world and history either feels too small or too shallow, even though there are reasons. This book definitely didn’t eliminate it, but it did mitigate it. The Southern Scadrians’ mask culture sounds intriguing, AND THEIR TECH!!! I’m so excited to find out more about them.

Another highlight of the plot, even though it came during the Sanderlanche, was the conversation between Wax and Harmony. This helped me realize that Sazed is still Sazed, but a Sazed that realizes the complexities of being God. Apart from the issues behind the Shard of Harmony mentioned in book 5, it seems like he’s trying to be different from Preservation. Even with Sanderson’s hazy writing of Era 1’s themes, I felt Preservation was indirectly portrayed as a coddling force. Much like the Lord Ruler, it could be a force who wants to protect, keep things stable, and keep the status quo even at the cost of change and lives.

Granted it’s fuzzy because of The Plan, so I could be reaching lol. Anyway, those attributes clearly aren’t Harmony or Sazed. Harmony is representative of a perfect balance with Ruin’s attributes, and Sazed wants to change Elendel and drive innovation. I love that Sanderson made this clear. I also love the mention of Harmony’s futuresight and his insight into Wax’s mind. It shows he really thought about all future possibilities before deciding Wax needed to go through pain for Paalm and the world’s sake.

And I’m pretty confident Harmony placed Wax’s group in place to stop the Set from getting the ettmetal bomb and Bands. His lines about Trust remind me of what Preservation did throughout his several thousand year long plan, but moderated/expanded with the Shard Ruin’s attributes and Sazed’s outlook.

Harmony’s speech about choices made me cry 😭

I’m shook by the Sovereign twist lmao. Kelsier is the Sovereign?! What the hell is going on?!

I have several theories but I’m sure some will be answered in Secret History and Lost Metal.

[phemiec]

While I understand your point about ai art, what are your thoughts on tricking people with it, either by making artists unwitting input for the ais (As is the case with dA, pixiv, and many other sites), or by giving paying users (Either patreon, comission, etc) ai outputs without their knowledge (As is the case with Shexyo, an many others)?

I think it's equivalent to copying someone else art style, or in the more egregious instances, just plain art theft for the first example, which is rude and bad but like, has always been a problem in the online art world, and even before. Forgery and art theft is, has been, and will probably always be a thing, AI or not.

For the second example.....maybe this is a spicy take but if you pay someone to provide you with an image, and they give you that image, and you're satisfied with that image, I'm not that fussed about it. I think people should disclose if they used ai to make their art, but the same way I think people should say if they've used photoshop to paint something instead of oil paint. Like if you take a picture of a car and then claim it's a 3D model, that's fuckin wierd and untrue, you still technically made art but it's just dishonest and strange and you're claiming to have a whole skilset you dont have which obviously people are gonna have issues with that.

But like, that guy who won a digital art contest using a an image he compiled from AI, it think thats fun, that made people mad, it made people talk, it challenged them to consider and expand their definitions and that's art in itself. I don't think thats "less art" than someone who painted something by hand, it's a different thing, and theres nothing to stop the person who actually learns art theory and spends 10000 hours doing figure studies from also using AI in their art, but the difference is they will also then have a leg up in knowing how to edit and improve and expand upon AI content, that's how we push our art forward. We need to support open source versions of this technology so its not locked behind paywalls, and then like.....its ours. It makes art, it is art, it's for artists. use it, expand on it, work with it, get wierd with it. I want to see what artists make when we take AI as a challenge to grow and not a threat.

[srarizard]

Back on my Rayman bullshit.

I literally have nowhere to talk about Rayman but the Tumblr tag seems to be popping so here goes. I am probably the only person on planet Earth who cannot stop thinking about Reflux. I will always be critical of Rayman 3 for its very surface level characters and unfunny "humor", but it still has a lot of environmental storytelling if you look for it. For example, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Knaaren are bipedal toads.

Artistic liberties were taken, of course, but it's almost a perfect match. It also explains the dot on his forehead, as most toads have warts all over. The warts only become more prominent during the final boss battle, too.

Not to mention, the tunnel system they live in is directly outside of a ravine full of poisoned water. This implies that there might have been a time when they were semi-aquatic. They also have flat teeth, with no canines. I like to think it's because they are herbivores forced to feast on whatever they can find, because they have no plants within miles to feed on. It would explain why they prefer the brain, as it's squishy and easy to chew, as well as the zombie eggs that are the only notable, reliable food source seen in the desert.

Now, what about the way that they evolved? Most of this is speculation, but I can at least tie it together. Knaaren are invincible canonically. Reflux contradicts this in two ways; he has defeated other Knaaren to claim the title of champion, and he dies at the end of Rayman 3. It can only be concluded that he isn't a "normal" Knaaren, and the best way to explain this is to acknowledge the fact that the champion receives the power of the Leptys. Not only is Reflux the only Knaaren to use magic, his boss battle is, quite frankly, insane. I just replayed it yesterday, and it came extremely close. It's possible he used his power to exhaust the other Knaaren to the point where they can no longer fight in order to claim the title of champion using those powers.

In theory, it can also be said that the power of the Leptys creates a weakness. God powers must take a lot of energy to channel no matter what sort of creature you are. So, in theory, Reflux was burning the candle at both ends, pridefully striking down challengers and assuming that he would never be defeated with how much power he has come to earn. He becomes a monster in his thirst for revenge at the end of the game, which ultimately kills him. What this implies about the Leptys is vague, but it certainly has something to do with the deity.

Now, this is my favorite part. Reflux is actually the only character Rayman has ever done wrong. I'd say he's the only one Rayman ever killed, but uh, depends on your view of canon, so I'll be focusing on what is undeniable. Rayman blasts into the desert without warning, and granted it's to save his friend, but he ruins Reflux's life in doing so. He had no choice but to become the champion and shame his opponent. Reflux made his entire identity on being champion, and eagerly accepts when André promises the ability to claim revenge. Rayman was just supposed to be a fun exercise for him, and now Reflux finds himself outcast due to an outsider who doesn't even want to be champion. It's the fault of his pride, but it is still a way that Rayman has made someone's life worse.

It's also interesting to think of them as cultural opposites. Rayman comes from a lovely dream world, and Reflux comes from a hellish nightmare that he had to claw his way to the top. Rayman was born a hero, and Reflux had to earn it. Ubisoft really shot themselves in the foot by not expanding on that, I think. They could have really made something out of the contrast of dreams and nightmares.

Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED talk. If you read this far, please stan Reflux.

[supportivecircle]

Sonic Wisps Warlock Patron Homebrew Part 1: Level Features

I recently posted about the Sonic-themed DnD Campaign I ran over the past year (and some few months in 2020 before a year break). If you’re in the center of that venn diagram of “Sonic the Hedgehog” and “Dungeons and Dragons”, know that you are not alone and I am here for you my sweet angel chao (tiny celestial, lawful good). Good ol’ Circle Dad has some content to quench the thirst of content for us weirdos. In the post I showed a snippet of the Warlock Patron subclass for the wisp alien creatures of Sonic, directly inspired by Whisper the Wolf, and to be used by one of my players who was drawn to the  warlock class. I can’t confidently say how balanced it turned out. Outside of any major stuff that was already adjusted in the document as we played, I don’t think it was too crazy, but the player was not a veteran DnD player who could probably find stuff to break here. I’ll post the individual pages and give some blurbs about how they shaped up in practice.

So starting off, the expanded spell list. The player immediately took to the flavor of Chaos Bolt, but if I recall I don’t believe they took any others from the list outside of Haste, and we had gotten up to player level 9, so they had the whole list to pick from. Spiritual Weapon I wasn’t sure of, and never got to effectively test outside of Whisper herself using it early on at a lower level, it wasn’t too crazy cause its damage scales every 2nd level and Warlocks only get 2 slots per short rest so they’d be dedicating their resource to a longer damage over time spell compared to a full on Lightning Bolt. The flavor is perfect though for people who like to get creative with integrating wisps into the weapon appearance. Creativity was the main goal with this subclass because I knew the player would want options without being overtly super powered. The Variable Wispon feature gives them a similar function to the Order of Scribes Wizard in allowing for damage swapping of spells. In theory, this allows for lots of fun flavoring of spells to match the different wisps energies. In practice, it was good, but my player also made it a goal to never repeat a wisp between short rests and to cycle through them cause they loved their wisps equally. Some wisps will probably be more appealing in general to players who are looking to capitalize on gameplay vs character flavor and RP. It could be adjusted to have a limit per day of how many element swaps you can do if its a problem. Easy fall back is always Prof+CHA per Long Rest if it’s a problem for whatever reason. Maybe keep it free to use on EB so the player can always have that feel of their subclass playing a role. A personal note for knock-on effects of this ability is that the player felt a bit of freedom in picking spells because it was no longer having to so much look at damage types, but rather what the spell straight up did. Fireball vs. Lightning Bolt has the element taken out of the equation and for the player it became about damage, AoE, durations, and extra effects. Certain spells became more appealing because they wouldn’t be locked behind an unwanted damage type. The flavor we used was the same as how Whisper’s weapon functioned of the wisp flying into the gun, and turning the handle knobs to get different effects n stuff. Mechanically, a Warlock can still cast spells without their focus, so if a player is found without their focus in combat it can be flavored as the Wisps just unleashing direct hell on enemies compared to focusing through the gun. If your player ends up upgrading their focus or being given a new experimental version, it will make sense thematically that raw Wisp spells are weaker because their focus will have a +1/+2/+3 and be built to enhance them. Food for thought.

So the rest of the subclass features. Level 6 is where the Wisp Patron is meant to pop off and change gameplay style substantially. Unfortunately, this is rather late if you are starting at Level 1, and until this moment, most of the subclass’ feature is the element swapping. For someone like me, I’m straight pogging. I have an Order of Scribes Wizard already penned up entirely for the next campaign I’m playing in and I’m all about modifying spell descriptions. For others, it could be underwhelming. There is a “solution” later in the document in the form of an invocation that gives 2 free uses per long rest. I put “solution” in quotes because in all the games I’ve played in with my friend groups, warlocks get the Agonizing Blast invocation as a core-kit feature because of how integral it has become in the modern Warlock equation. So logically, having AB frees up an Invocation slot for something like this to let the player have more fun with bonus actions/wisp stuff outside of reflavoring spells. There’s a lot going on with the wisps in this, I wanted the Color Powers to be fun but not amazingly strong, they are meant to be half-spells as you’ll see in the following pages. We didn’t get to Level 10 but it’s a damage resistance it’s nothing insane. There’s flexibility in it cause it’s the name of the game for this subclass. I followed the general pattern of Warlocks having a defensive feature at 10, and some flavorful cool stuff at 14, which in this case is mostly aping off the big damage of stuff like Fiend but with a Blind feature as opposed to “disappear for a turn as you hurtle through Pinhead’s summer home”. Blind can be rough against some enemies, but this late in the game, a lot of tougher enemies might also just have Blindsight. Like I said I can’t say how balanced a lot of this is in the average game. 

I’m not going to go into all the Wisp Powers in this post, but I wanted to post a little teaser of one of the pages, cause I really like how it turned out visually. There’s four pages of these to look forward to, along with the accompanying blurbs. I’ll post that part tomorrow. I’ve got a lot to say about how some of them turned out in practice, and almost nothing to say about some others that didn’t get used cause it wasn’t in that player’s playstyle. When the whole thing has been uploaded across three posts (Level Features, Color Powers, Invocations+Familiar), I’ll post the whole PDF in its entirety, or just a link to a copy of the Google Docs file so people can copy it and edit it in browser as needed on their own. I don’t know jack about using the images from the comic, but I ain’t making any cash off this and it was just meant to be a little homemade subclass with spruced up visuals. Hope that’s all good. Please don’t come at me SEGA I’m just a little circle guy im jus a small widdle circle noooo im just a little birthday boyyyyyy nooooo.

[alltimefail-sims]

LORE TIDBIT TIME WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Did you know Vlad was apart of the settler colony who mysterious disappeared? This is obviously a nod to the Roanoke colony which I think is sooo cool. What do you think happened to Vlad's colony? I like to think Vlad was turned or became a vampire and whipped them out.

HELL YEAH LORE TIDBIT ABOUT VLADDY DADDY!!! 😏

I'm going to treat this as a "deep dive" into Vlad and Forgotten Hollow, so I'll be adding it to my Deep Dive Series tag. Unsurprising to literally everyone, but this is gonna be a long one.

So… let’s get into it! ↓

Going into this I will admit that I actually did know this about Vlad!! I've been wanting to talk about it for forever but have never gotten around to it haha. 🤭 I'm a bit of a history nerd and I love a good spooky story/conspiracy, so naturally the Roanoke Colony was one of my obsessions when I was around 11 or 12 years old.

I think it's an interesting tie in from the sims team, I'd even say it's a bit meta because I feel like the game normally sticks to making references toward itself and its own canon characters/events while generally staying away from anything that would be too direct of a reference to "our world." Personally though I wish they broke the fourth wall more! I like easter eggs or hidden details that make it easier to imagine the characters existing not in their isolated, imaginary worlds, but in ours instead.

It's interesting to think about why the sims team might have made this connection - was it just a cheeky, unserious little wink to a well-known unsolved mystery, or was it done for the purposes of creating implications and expanded lore regarding Vlad and Forgotten Hollow (a case of them showing us instead of telling us). There are so many theories archaeologists and historians alike have had about the lost colony of Roanoke over the years: some believe the Roanoke colonists could have all died by disease or famine, some believe they could have been victims of a deadly storm, some believe they were attacked by neighboring tribes or by Spanish soldiers. Nowadays there are scholars who will argue that no tragedy befell the settlers at all and that they simply relocated (that would be why they left "Croatoan" behind - there was a nearby location referred to as Croatoan Island, now modern-day Hatters Island).

With that in mind, along with Vlad's own refusal to recall the details of this event, it's safe to assume that the sims team isn't referring to the happier Roanoke theories...the 25 colonists of Forgotten Hollow likely faced an unfortunate end.

Your theory of Vlad being turned and thus wiping out the colony (I'm guessing due to new-turn bloodlust) is sooooo compelling, the implications of that scenario are delicious and I personally never thought of it from that angle! My theory is only a little different: I agree that Vlad was turned on the day that the colonists "disappeared" (whatever that implies), but I have always played Vlad's story not as if he was turned and then killed everyone after, but rather that the thing that turned him successfully killed the other colonists but accidentally turned Vlad. It's a really long story that I play around with for fun in my brain but the short-ish version is: Vlad awoke outside - cold, alert, sweaty, dirty and covered in his own blood - but somehow alive, which he was thankful for. His new immortal condition is still unbeknownst to him at this point, but he felt an ache like never before, so deep in his bones it was excruciatingly painful, but his senses were heightened tenfold. He didn't remember much, just that the colony had been under attack the night before. His relief to be alive rapidly melted into abject horror as he found everyone else (friends, neighbors, family, children) dead. He realized soon enough what had happened to him and stayed in Forgotten Hollow where he would be memorialized as its "founder." He spent his days hellbent on retaliation and retribution, but was also steadfast in continuing the work that was began there before the attack. Eventually he does get to face off with the vampire who attacked him and his people, killing it and rising to power in the vampire world. He keeps the events close to his chest because they were traumatizing and cause him sadness, and he's worked diligently to remove himself from his humanity/human memories and from emotions in general (thus how he has become the person we see today). I always thought if he killed the colonists himself the other vampires in his circle - at least his closest confidantes - would know (as he's got quite the massive ego), but they don't seem to have knowledge of this event and they never mention it. I've thought that it could be possible that sharing the memories of this event would make Vlad feel weak, and he's not one to boast in his weakness. He'd much rather rewrite history in a way that is beneficial to his image; dragging up emotions about dead people would not bring them back to life, and by burying this history of a massacre in Forgotten Hollow he is also creating some mystery around himself and making it easier to play the role of a great-great-great-great grandson (or whatever he's pretending to be, relationship-wise) to the original founder.

But that's just how I play with Vlad! 🤷 I could be way off-base lmao!

Regardless of what happened, we know Vlad is the sole survivor of this event and he is scarred by it, impacted so deeply that he only ever vaguely alludes to it with no clear explanation. Whether he killed the colonists himself or just witnessed their death, the sims team will probably never give us concrete answers (and frankly, that's probably for the best considering their track record). But the clever connection of the LOST colony and FORGOTTEN Hollow are clear as day and I just think that is freaking cool! The occult lore in TS4, especially regarding Vlad and Forgotten Hollow, make interesting framework for storytellers and lore-lovers alike! Vlad is one of those characters who has sooooo many interpretations, and I eat up each and every one!

Okay, I think that's all I've got for now! Sorry about my word vomit! Somewhat related: here's an article I recently read on Roanoke that talks about the archaeological finds which have changed some of the discussions surrounding whether the colonists survived or not! I found it pretty interesting and you might as well!

[fabdante]

*happy stimming about all the DMC talk* Many thoughts, head full, thank you so much! 💜

-Not sure how plausible this would be in canon, but I love the idea of reboot Dante being able to read, speak, and understand different languages innately because of his angel heritage. Slowly, at first, and he probably needs to hear a language spoken a lot before it "clicks" for him, but he gets there. It gets easier the more into his angel powers he delves/uses. I headcanon the first time he spoke in a language he didn't previously know, the only reason he noticed the difference is because Kat asked him when he learned to speak that language afterwards. It just sounded/felt like English to him. Not sure how this magical translation would effect slang, since even in its native language, that varies so much, but its still fun to think about.

-Dante unlocking healing abilities (from either side, tbh, since we've seen demons heal people in the preboot continuity, and angels being able to heal people just seems like a given) in order to help heal Kat. Also love the idea of him sprouting wings/angel feathers (like Vash from Trigun) as a way to shield Kat or someone else from harm. And maybe learning how to do that shield thing the Witches do, that'd be cool. Just! Let him be protective! Let him have powers that focus more on building and maintaining connections rather than just destruction. I love that trope!

-Idk if you've read Brandon Sanderson's "The Stormlight Archives" series, but I keep chewing over the idea of angelic and demonic energy being less like opposites and more like Stormlight and Voidlight from Sanderson's series. If you haven't read the series and have no idea wtf I'm talking about, just skip this, sorry.

-Something I noticed when playing the reboot after playing all of the original DMC games:

The demons in Limbo City all look... less organic, I guess? Than the demons do in the original DMC timeline. Like, OG DMC demons all look like things that coupd exist in nature, if a bit twisted into something more dangerous, like goats or monkeys or lizards. Even the bigger demons, like Berial or Echidna or Bael and Dagon all look more organic/natural than the demons in the reboot.

This isn't a complaint, btw, I really do like this detail! Because the only demons that I think can really compare to how mechanical/constructed the reboot demons look are the Angelos- i.e. something Mundus literally made. And Mundus has made other, more "natural" looking demons, too, like the Blades and Frosts and such- but the designs of the demons in the reboot make me think that THIS is what the demons that Mundus "designs" (shapes to his purposes) look like after 2,000 years of having the Human Realm as a testing ground for his minions and no Sparda to stop him.

This could also just be what the demons under Mundus look like after they've had 2,000 years to adapt/evolve in or to the Human Realm, since according to the OG DMC canon, demons change based on what they want or a driving desire, like moving really fast or having extra mouths to make it easier to cast spells. But also I kinda like the theory that the demons we see in the reboot are like this because this is the way Mundus made them to be. It vibes well with Mundus' boss form being a big construct of asphalt and fire and darkness, and that weird darkness that the collaborators bleed from their eyes after Lilith/the demons brainwash them.

of course!! i am always very happy to talk about dmc 💖

I have a huge soft spot for bilingual characters so I think this is a very fun concept! I personally headcanon reboot Vergil as fluent in Italian (further elaboration is his adopted family is Italian American with close roots to Italy and family still there and he has to talk to his Nonna somehow). And I've always liked the idea of Dante kind of picking up something in osmosis. He's a clever boy I would love for him to speak more languages and this is a fun idea!

Expanding upon the healing abilities is very fun to, I think. It would be very cool to for him to adopt a sort of power focused on defense particularly since in the reboot he kind of explicitly picks up a protector role and everything, it'd be cool to see!

(Also I have not read the thing you mentioned but I do like connecting the angels and demons in the reboot more then just having them be sort of opposites)

However I think the idea that a lot of the enemies we see in game are created by Mundus (or someone in general) is really interesting and makes a lot of sense with their doll like motifs. The bulk of the demons in game that we fight feel very...controlled. I've mentioned before on other posts but I've always kind of thought of Limbo as a body and the things in it acting like an immune system so the idea of the demons being a fabrication of Limbo to protect itself like antibodies is something I find interesting. But given the preboot and the Angelos it makes a lot of sense that Mundus could have made them also. Something I like a lot about the reboot to is how there's such a contrast between the more sentient demons (the Hunter, the Succubus, Mundus, Phineas, Lilith, those guys) and the bulk of the ones we fight in game and it just makes me really curious about what the demon world is like in the reboot (very fun to fill in with headcanons and fanon!)

[thewertsearch]

Ask Compilation 02/10

Yup! I just checked, and no new comics seem to have been unlocked since I first checked it out, so it seems like they all dropped at once. 

@scouttf2isnamedafterjerma​ submitted: this is canon this really happened

LOVE when she said this, in the comic,

Sburb Glitch FAQ? Color me fucking intrigued. 

Thanks! It’s going to be a long time till I can read any of these, of course, but I’m filing them away for later.

Imagine meeting an alien for the first time, and not only are they shockingly humanoid, they also have your hairstyle. And your glasses. And - essentially - your name. What could be up with that? 

Refer to the chart, Terezi!

Although with your intuition, you probably know the answer to that question better than I do. 

Oh yeah! That’s some fun foreshadowing. 

I initially took that as a sign that the 8-ball was answering Jade’s question from an ‘out-of-universe’ perspective, but now that we have an in-universe explanation for its answer, I no longer think that’s the case. 

I totally get why she’s the troll now. Hoping to see many more Vriska Incidents in the future!

She did say she was into apocalypses, and this one is even dice-themed. I wonder if this is merch from Troll Problem Sleuth?

Oh, god damn it. 

Are the forums really completely kaput? It’s absolutely bizarre to me that no large-scale backup or archive was made, in the decade(?) the website existed. 

I guess we’ll always have the Wayback Machine, but its coverage tends to be patchy for more obscure websites.

(For context: I got a question from @krixwell​ about the blog’s spoiler policy a week or so before the pause, voicing some worries about potential spoilers in asks. The tl;dr is that I’m alright with some minor spoilers - for example, asks about what my Homestuck Title would be, or jokes about the weird structure that the comic seems to take(?) later on)

We’ll see! I really enjoy the discussions brought up by asks, and I’ve had a lot of fun with Titles that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I’ve been fine so far, but I agree that if I do get burned, I’ll reconsider. 

I did dodge a bullet here, admittedly! Mind you, I think if I’d noticed this before the Vriska reveal, I’d probably just have been smug about puzzling it out beforehand. 

Vriska decides to beat the Noble Circle at their own game, and becomes Vah’ru-Ee’skaie, eldritch horror of the 8th Dimension. 

Gotta give the Homestuck Forums props for picking these troll names - there’s so much going on with each of them. 

She is constantly Spaced out. Mind you, half of all Sburb Players have their heads in the clouds!

This relates to my theory that Vriska can only make people do things they already wanted, on some level, to do. 

Hence, Karkat must have wanted to keep talking to her. Honestly, the idea that he still wanted to insult her is a pretty safe bet, and I think that’d definitely be enough for Vriska to work with, if this is indeed how her power operates.

Oh, that is a challenge and a half. The trolls all look really cool, with appearances that reflect their personalities really well.

However, this is an undertaking I’d rather take with all twelve troll designs at once. Come back to me when we have all twelve sprites!

Even if the the ‘games for girls’ thing was expanded on later, it’d be hard to prove it wasn’t a Hussie retcon. I love Karkat, but he’s a shitty teen, and it wouldn’t even be the worst thing he said today. 

Vrish-ka just feels right to me. Damn it, I can’t believe that’s how my Britishness comes out. This is almost as bad as ‘sweeties’. 

I love how this, coupled with the previous ask, accidentally implies that Sollux is British. Now that’s a headcanon I can get behind. 

He’s picked the wrong gimmick, then - he’s meant to be ‘never wrong’, but I’ve seen some wrong-ass spoilers!

Yup, I’ve arbitrarily decided this is my OTP - especially given that Lord English has become a more prominent character recently. This is the arc this comic needs!

Forgot about that. Perhaps your lusus’ diet depends on its subspecies, and Vriska - in a matter that she’d consider fitting - rolled the lusus with the worst diet of all. 

If we can pick our Aspect-themed powers, can I call dibs on ‘always has energy?’ 

True. Homestuck - the comic itself - has just one writer, though, so we shouldn’t be dealing with any Expanded Universe shenanigans. 

I guess Hussie could answer differently every time you ask a given question, or write multiple conflicting backstories for a character, but that would make the comic sort of hard to engage with or enjoy.  

I wouldn’t say it’s completely cut-and-dry that canon Midnight Crew implies canon Problem Sleuth. For one thing, the Midnight Crew isn’t even canon to Problem Sleuth! 

I never considered that Godhead Pickle Inspector could actually be an imaginary entity, only ‘omnipotent’ in one sphere of reality. That would make sense, given his origins. It would be fun if he was the source of the dream magic which allows Jade to grow extra arms, since that’s pretty close to how Imaginationland works.

We talked about it! Just in an ask, rather than the main liveblog. Quite a lot of chatter goes on on those asks, so check ‘em out!

[sir-kuroo]

SINCE ITS TETSUREIII SZN!!!! I AM HEREEE WITHHHH TEH A LITTOL Q/A EHEHEH

WHERE DID ALL THIS BEGINNN FROMMM !!! TEH FRIST PAGE OF TETSUREIII STORYYY <33

TELLL MEEEEEEEE EVERYTHINGGG!!!!!!!!

For how it all began:

It was love at first sight for the both of us. Like you see a person and you just fit like missing puzzle pieces. We talked like it wasn't our first time seeing each other. The crowd just faded and it seemed like it's just the two of us. We knew we would never forget that moment but we have to part ways. Days or months passed maybe even a year and it became just a distant memory. Maybe something I drew an inspiration from for my story, until we met again at a different circumstance. This time it's no longer a one time thing and he won't allow it to be a one-time thing either. We just picked up where we left off and we both knew that this was it. It might be an ordinary story for some but it was serendipitous for us, knowing that all the heartaches, loneliness and solitude we endured are what led us to each other. Finally, we're at the right place and right time with the right person.

We're friends first, because I came off a little detached he knew it would take time but he was patient. Started with sending funny memes and reels until he gauged what I liked. Scheduled phone calls bc I dont do well in chats until it became a habit for us to call each other at that specific time and day. We talked about anything that we could expand, our theories, our day, rant abt officemates. He debated with me for fun throwing what ifs scenarios. Then he began being more physically present. Going to my office to pick me up. Taking me out on a friendly date. He wasn't flirty at first until he smoothly transitioned being INTJ x ENTP friendship to lovers bc the chemistry and the hidden tension can't be denied anyway. He made me feel secured to be with him. Like I'm free. Free to fall, to love and to be myself.

below the cut is how I ended up simping for him teheee

I was really into Oikawa. He's my first love which I learned to get over just now bc I miss Kuroo in a way I don't miss Oikawa. (Why does this sound so real?) Ngl, it's Kuroo I found to be most attractive but he seemed so unattainable for me that I did a pass. At first, I just love writing for him because a mutual loves him very much and my readers always fangirl for him in my fics and all the requests I'm getting are for Kuroo Kuroo Kuroo even if I even voluntarily write for Oikawa. Lol. I was like okaaay. Until I asked for match ups and ask games and I ended up getting him over and over again too. Tell me about it. Haha. Then I posted some selfship stuff abt Oikawa and I got nothing. I posted that I got Kuroo for an ask game and everyone just idk interacted and I was like uhmm what? Even my moots from other fandom are into the tetsurei agenda. What are these people seeing that I'm not seeing? Like yeah he's handsome and he wears suit and tie which I love but...anyway lol just lol hahaha. (Gosh, I sounded so in denial on this) It's funny that we even work in the same field. A follower even pointed it out. Tbh I still can't understand where they are coming from. As time passed by, I enjoyed our ship more than anything else. He's all I can think to write about. TBH IDK! Hahaha! This made me reread all my kuroo fics and wondered howww? I reread the oldest one back in Dec 2020. It didn't do things for me then but it gave me the feels now. I even forgot what it was but the way I wrote for him never changed. I realized that in all the Y/Ns I wrote for all the characters, I've been writing myself whenever it's with Kuroo. I just realized it now. Maybe that's why it's easier for ppl to associate him with me too bc it shows. I still dk! But whatever I love him. I'd love to have a Kuroo just for me.

I think I'm oblivious like real life oblivious. Oh well. (Good luck to all the intj simps out there: I'm talkin for Rin, Tsukki, Akaashi, Geto, Niko) We're dense af and in denial. Good luck.

[lyxthen]

Extremely mildly niche academic-ish rambling ahead. Might wanna skip this one. It is long and boring

One thing that does make me happy is the Latinoamerican Literary Boom was so big it actually went on to be translated in other languages. There are still authors that I feel need to have their works translated (mostly women, I wonder why) but many of the video essayist I watch keep mentioning Borges in their videos, and truly I can't blame them because his work is rad. I don't know about him as a person but he lives 30 layers of post ironic meta fantasy or some shit like that. Cortazar is really cool also. In terms of living authors I really like Juan Villoro, his writing style is very fun. The Wild Book is a children's book about literary theory, like, Theory of Reception, Death of the Author, stuff like that. It was a really fun read as a child but the themes are interesting as well.

I feel like, I don't know, it's so hard to find Latin American fantasy books these days, or at least they are not as available. The YA genre is dominated by books originally writen in English or on books written in Spain (think Laura Gallego, which I just found out has a Netflix series made out of her most famous series of novels, but I am derailing) with the exception of Benito Taibo, who is Mexican, and has one (1) high fantasy trilogy that is kinda mid. The ideas were great, but they could've been expanded, you know? Camino a Sognum had so much potential, and you can *see* that it was inspired by classic epic fantasy like Earthsea, but it needed some more *spark* to actually work. I have not read Normal Person, but I plan to. Maybe it is better made?

And it's funny, because a book like Mexican Gothic, that was written in English, is so darn good! But only if you read it *in English* because the Spanish translation did this thing where they try to "neutralize" the accent and manerismd of the characters to make it appeal to the wider Spanish-speaking world and it doesn't sound or feel Mexican at all.

I am not sure where I am going with this. I have been discovering the local literary scene lately (and I mean *local*, like city-wide local) and it is mostly so boring because no one is writing fantasy! No magic realism! It's all kind of depressing dwellings on how we are being gentrified and indigenous people keep being oppressed by the mestizo majority and corporations and the goverment keep stealing the land to make Coca Cola and we are dying of diabetes and we don't got water and Capitalism sucks. LIKE I AGREE BUT CAN YOU PUT FAIRIES IN THERE OR SOMETHING. And I guess that's why I've never wanted to read Cómo Agua para Chocolate, because it is just *too real*, cuz it's a story I know by memory and I don't wanna live it all over again verbatim. Probably a great book, but I just cannot.

I don't know man idk idk.

The funniest think about this is that my favorite book ever (like actually, for real) is a children's book, written from the perspective of the imaginary friend of a child, and it is so gracefully narrated, and the characters so well constructed, and it touches real problems like Teen Pregnancy and Childhood Depression and Anxiety while also managing to be funny and whimsical? The very premise of the book (memories of an almost true friend, it's called) is already so creative and the execution is masterful. BUT I AM THE ONLY GUY ON PLANET EARTH THAT SEEMS TO KNOW ABOUT ITS EXISTENCE ITS DRIVING ME INSANE.

Where was I going with this. Ah yes. Youtubers talking about Borges. Well. Um. I. I think imma translate some of my own texts to English and put them on Wattpad or something. They are not the kind of thing Wattpad people are into but I gotta archive them somewhere and doing it on AO3 feels wrong since they aren't fan works. And on that note, I also wanna write more fan works.

Ugh I could be writing an essay but you got me writing a Tumblr post. What is wrong with me. I'm too bad at word weaving.

Aaaa (??????

Thoughts?

Help

I did take my meds today BTW. I don't know what is happening to me I just wanna WRITE ok I LOVE WRITING BUT WHY MUST I DO TUMBLR INSTEAD OF MY PASSIONS?

Oi I'll end it there

[transmutationisms]

caden!! saw you mentioned both jane bennett and derrida in a recent post — have you read sharon krause’s political respect for nature? it’s kind of a counter to bennett’s vibrant matter, at least in my mind, and it invokes the classic derrida cat anecdote as part of the framing which i find really interesting. personally i think i find her eco arg more convincing than bennett’s new materialist one because i like how krause acknowledges how irrelevant the human value system is outside of humanity (how, like, we can’t possibly judge nature thru human values; it has values of its own we can’t possibly hope to understand) and uses that to argue for policy initiatives that similarly ensure nature’s autonomy whereas bennett’s arg of expanding the human value system to include nature within it (because of the internet ‘vibrance’ and aliveness in everything both humans and nature) is beautiful but imo kind of stops short of respecting matter on its own terms rather than bc of its connection to humanity. rambling but if you’ve read bennett’s vibrant matter and like derrida i def think krause’s political respect for nature is a worthwhile read!!! not like a Solution or perfect or anything but i really like thinking ab the human relationship w nature through the post-levinasian lens she dives into (the imperative that we stop viewing human understanding as a necessary prerequisite for respect being a big part of it). also just curious in general what ur thoughts are on bennett and/or new materialists more broadly? def don’t have to actually give a whole ass response or anything but i saw that post of urs and my ears perked up like a dog’s lmao. some like pavlovian response to political/phil theory sightings in the wild (read: my dash)

hiiiiiii casey! first off, i haven't read any krause—but thank you for the rec, she sounds interesting & i'll try to check her out :-)

re: the new materialists generally: ok, i have a lot of thoughts about them. first of all i am #1 kant hater because i don't go in for idealism OR dualism. so the underlying goal of the new materialists / speculative realists is highly appealing to me. however, (& i think this is sympatico with yr read of krause) i think their projects have a tendency to simultaneously project human values & ethics onto the natural world, & to flatten what i think actually IS an important distinction between human and non-human. i see this in barad, in bennett, in brassier, quite strongly in harman's object-oriented ontology. it's like, (& i'm paraphrasing projit mukharji) we still haven't gotten the hang of granting personhood to all actual humans, and already people are trying to break down the category...?

my fav of the bunch by far is meillassoux (altered my brain chemistry forever when i was 21). i would enthusiastically recommend him to literally anyone, even his weirder stuff (spectral dilemma and such). he's great to think with and i think he does the best job of any of this crowd at articulating the problem with kant and his transcendentalist 'copernican revolution.' however, i also see most clearly in meillassoux the root of the problem with the proffered new materialist solutions, which is that he takes the antinomy between perceived & real (ie, inside & outside) to be a transhistorical, universal condition of sensory experience, rather than a historically specific consequence of, eg, divided / estranged labour. so his solution relies on mathematisation à la badiou, which meillassoux also sees as an ahistorical and apolitical project, and although in 'after finitude' he makes a cursory attempt to link a critique of metaphysics with a critique of political authority, he's unable to develop this any further or with socio-historical specificity.

tl;dr new materialists fun sexy also fundamentally unable to engage with politics or history in a manner i find fruitful or liberatory. again though, really excellent to think with. love to rotate them.

[caffeine-cookie]

A shorter more stupider ramble about a little concept I want after I watched Day 3 of the odyssey story

Rest under cut

When I tell you I was literally screaming and crying so much in real life when this part of Day 3 dropped is an understatement.

Like okay man just go ahead and create a whole new fucking soul jam that resonated with YOUR SOUL like that no biggie mhm mhm. We’ll see you become an ancient soon yeah yeah just everyday things

I’m not really about theories so I’m just gonna like.. say shit and hope it makes sense. Like I always do except now I know that I have a lot to say at all times about him!!

The thing I’m most scared about is the fact that he’s gonna lose it a bit with the amount of power a soul jam contains. The way I imagined the entire process of converting the soul jam energy was that,, the energy that a soul jam has is sealed and kept stable inside of a receptacle, aka like the gems itself. But Espresso and the other researchers were extracting some of the energy inside of the soul jam, which left it alone in it’s purest form which is why all the receptacles they used before kept breaking. It’s too strong by itself, and needs something sturdy to keep it at bay AS WELL as something apart of somebodies soul. Hence why its like, called a soul jam.

Espresso and everyone else had mentioned so many times how powerful a soul jam really is, which is why I’m like. A bit scared for him. I never saw him as a type to chase for power, chase for an upper hand amongst other people. But with all the energy inside his soul jam, it could be enough that it could somewhat corrupt him.. like mentally?? The power could also be way too much to a point he could possibly injure himself while trying to use it.

But that is like LOWKEY KINDA WHAT I WANT BECAUSE ITD BE SOOOOO FUN TO SEE HIM SLOWLY LOSE IT AND GET CONSUMED IN ALL THE POWER. This is probably the highest point his job has ever gone up to. Again, bouncing back to an earlier post, I REALLY think the Council doesn’t take Espresso as seriously. Classism is obviously like an actual thing in the Republic, and it’s already been made known that Espresso spent the majority of his childhood in the lower city of the Republic. He probably worked his ass off to get to where he is now, but even then the Council just won’t realise the amount of potential Espresso has if they’d just give him a chance.

Sure, he’s been probably been proven to be an extremely successful scientist and researcher for the Republic. But even then his past just continues to play into how others view him, like how having been in the lower city just makes you less eligible than anybody else.

So back to the main point, I want him to get consumed in the power of the soul jam. He’s so sick and tired of nobody respecting him like everyone else. He’s seen as less than his colleagues, he’s heard others say he’s just a street rat that got lucky because he just so happened to have the brains when he was born in that dump. All of his colleagues never took him seriously, the COUNCIL didn’t take him seriously. He works his ass off day and night, trying to prove that he can be MORE than just ‘some researcher’. But the Council just takes that effort and still proceeds to severely underpay him.

He’s exhausted of this kind of treatment. He knows he can be better than everyone else, actually, he IS better than everyone else, no? Maybe for once, maybe for once in his fucking life everyone will realise he is worth more than they think he is.

Hope this makes sense and I’m not losing you guys

I’m gonna expand more on this later, this is SO fun to me and I have so much more shit to say.

[vincent-cyborg]

Ok so about my Dinoverse AU

I call it an AU cuz it has my OCs in it,in order to avoid issues with people thinking I claim the Dino's games as my own, therefore it's fanon by calling it an AU,in order to separate my work from Dino's games

Now back to my main point: My Dinoverse AU has my OC/Muse as the main character cuz since it's just fanwork, I will try my best not to involve too much of Dino's games for reasons, mostly so ppl won't say I'm trying to change the Dinoverse games to my liking despite not being the Creator

The Muse I mentioned,her name is MC,it doesn't stand for "Main Character",but for "Marinetta Carolina",her actual first name and middle name,last name is Carolois, I call her MC for short,but you can say it's a fun play on the word Main Character

I had a theory about Vanora that I mentioned which I put in this AU of mine:

Vanora is a corporate product of Myers Corporation,we don't know what her past was like so I'm just really speculating with this -> When Vanora was created,Monsieur M wanted her to be more human-like. So he enrolled her into a high school (I mean she was probably a cyborg,not a baby) where MC was studying hence it was how they became best friends. I'm not sure if Vanora has her name at birth,since it implied she came up with that name in the flashback with Claude and the murder case of Emanon, still this is unsure to me

I'm still naming her Vanora in her highschool years when she was friends with MC,in order to avoid confusion

Plus I also think that since with the memory core and the various clones we've seen,as shown in Phantom of the G4, it's highly likely that Vanora "died" many times before,she switched bodies,she had modifications on her own body

In a Discord group I used to be active in,someone once mentioned about the Vanora in VTSOM and POTG4 are possibly different,that we might be looking at her clone/new body instead of the same Vanora from the game prior to VTSOM

I know that Phantom of the G4 is un-canon already but I still think it's important to note

I think that with each body change or resurrection,Vanora's memories are in tatter,hence how she's ridden with amnesia when VTSOM first started,well she was probably in a new body so it took time before all the memories came back. Her name,Vanora was probably her original one but she also forgot about it

It's also rather fucked up how in my AU,the Vanora MC befriended in highschool was possibly the first Vanora,the prototype,the original one

There was a 10 years gap before MC and Vanora met again in the G4 Investigation Bureau,they parted ways after graduating highschool,MC with her personal life/reasons that she must leave Vanora's side and Vanora probably had to go back to Myers for her "upgrades" if you know what I mean

Yeah Dinoverse actually got me into the fucked up SciFi world. I can tell you more but this is the least I can tell you for now

(( OOC: oh wow! this is alot of content, pretty good stuff right here I think its pretty cool and I hope your expanding on this or something idk but it sounds amazing Great work :)!!

[random-french-girl]

oh gosh is this MORE the wilds season 2 thoughts? yep!

I finished my rewatch, so here are some slightly less unbaked thoughts:

- First of all: I did watch the boys scenes fully this time, and I will say: the boys island timeline is much more enjoyable on a second watch. Part of it is just me being less frustrated by s2′s lack of cohesiveness (i’ve made my peace with it) and thus able to watch the boys scenes without trying to figure out what the show is trying to do in relation to the girls (there is often no parallel or commentary made, so it’s better to enjoy them separately honestly). Part of it is also that on a second watch, already knowing what happens with Seth, it was both more interesting to see his manipulation from the get go, and also less stressful? to watch the aftermath of his sexual assault? I think the problem with giving the boys such a despicable, horrible act of violence to contend with (while the girls did not have to deal with anything like that) is that it made my first watch... kinda stressful? I just remember being so tense after that happened, but not in a good way, if that makes sense, not in a “oh this is good drama”. Not sure why, but knowing how it gets resolved, with its ups and downs, made the storyline easier to digest for me. Also: the frisbee scene was actually really fucking delightful, and my favorite boys group scene for sure.

- However: I still think the boys backstory scenes were a mistake. I get it: that was their formula for s1, and it worked so well for the girls! But they KNEW they were going to have much less time, not only because they still have to give the girls screentime, but also because they only had eight episodes this season! EIGHT! They should have done either very brief snippets, of leave the flashbacks to season 3, I don’t know but they needed to change the structure. It was very messy, and constantly felt like we were wasting time that could have been better used otherwise AND at the risk of repeating myself: there was no thread, to any of the boys backstories. The girls were about teenage girlhood in a sexist society. The boys were about... random individuals. It simply did not work.

- I really wish we’d gotten a girls bunker timeline, apart from the very first episode and the last episode. We got a LEAH bunker storyline - and it was amazing, a highlight of the season for me ; pairing leah with raf and having her interact with faber and young and finally gretchen made for stellar scenes - but a) i really wanted to get some insight in how the other girls are dealing with the bunker, their isolation, the aftermath of the island, and b) I also really wanted a story where all the girls plot their escape together, not just Leah. It would have been so fun.

- Thinking about each of the girls’ arcs this season... It’s interesting, because if you think of them as a GROUP, as “the unsinkable eight”, a collective entity, their development is really well done, and everyone got at least some space to shine within the group dynamics. (Well, apart from the Nora of it all. But her absence did have WEIGHT, which I enjoyed). But as individual characters... I don’t know. I was never afraid for Leah, because she is the protagonist, she’s literally the only girl driving the plot until Fatin and Shelby join her in conspiracy theory land, so the show was always going to give Leah some juicy material. Fatin and Shelby are fan favorites, so they also get a lot of story - especially since Fatin’s arc is so linked to Leah, therefore to the bigger plot. Rachel got some very good scenes, they finally expanded her interactions to almost all the other girls which was fantastic, and I get why s2 focused on the loss of Nora rather than the loss of her hand, given that in s3 presumably she’ll learn that Nora isn’t dead. But I really hope they explore her, you know, AMPUTATION in s3, and what it means to her, for her sense of self. But Martha, Toni and Dot... not too sure what to think of them just yet. There’s some interesting stuff for each of them, certainly, but... I don’t know.

- Last but not least: they really have to start figuring out what they’re doing with Gretchen and the experiment plot, and the show’s overall take on gender and sexism, because I was fine “suspension-of-disbelief-ing” my way through s1, but now the utter lack of clarity has gotten actually frustrating. Not that I’m expecting anything radical from an amazon prime show, but it’d be nice for things to, you know, at least superficially make sense.