#but also… the book of life has to have a role in S3.

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

I’m still thinking about the Book of Life because it’s such an obvious Chekhov’s gun. I don’t recall it ever being mentioned in S1, but in S2 it is highlighted twice as a very real, serious threat, and then it’s never brought up again. It can’t just hang indefinitely in the air like that, so I expect it will be used at some point in S3.

But in a way, this threat is kind of hollow when used towards Crowley, because Heaven can’t erase him from history, and they know they can’t. The Fall of Man is such a crucial point in the Great/Ineffable Plan that I doubt they would be willing to mess with that, as much as they hate him. He’s the literal Serpent of Eden! How can the Plan proceed if there’s no one to tempt Eve? The existence of The Serpent is such a core part of the Fall of Man (both in the GO universe and in biblical lore in general) that I think it would be simply too big a risk to take.

From our point of view, Aziraphale is also crucial for the history of humanity until this point. It’s not explicitly stated, but think about it for a moment: would Adam and Eve have survived, had Aziraphale not given them his sword? There’s beasts out there, and it’s cold, and she’s expecting already. We literally see Adam fight a lion with the sword mere moments after being exiled from Eden; I don’t think their odds would have been all that good without it. It’s at least likely that Humanity has managed to survive the Fall and thrive because of Aziraphale’s actions.

Here’s the thing, though: we know this, but Heaven doesn’t, because Aziraphale has been lying to them (and to God!!!) about this ever since the Beginning. What has he done of worth in the eyes of Heaven? Sure, he was guarding the Eastern Gate, he’s been on Earth thwarting demons and all that jazz, but as far as they know, he’s never had a pivotal role in the Plan (except for. You know. Stopping Armageddon. But they didn’t want him to have that role, and they still resent him for it). There’s no reason for them to hesitate, should they be threatened by his existence, because to them he’s not necessary to carry out the will of God (as opposed to Crowley).

So yeah. I think the Book of Life will make another appearance in S3. And, if it does, I think Aziraphale is the most likely candidate as its victim.

[tangledbea]

Let's compare the S3 opening to the finale closing, shall we?

They're nearly identical with a few very notable differences:

The journal is closed. Her tale is told, this story is done. (It also closes while we watch, driving the point home.)

Her crown is now missing from the pillow*. This is to show how she's now comfortable wearing it all the time, indicating that she's stepped fully into her ruling role in society.

There is more paint spilled on the outside of the tankard that holds her brushes. This is, of course, because she's told a lot more story by the end of the season than the beginning. There's significantly less paint on it in the S1 opening. (And I'm positive the tankard is from the Snuggly Duckling.)

The view is finally pulled back and lit well enough to see what the thing on the far left is: an open birdcage. Rapunzel is finally truly free in the realest sense. She's chosen the life she leads now. None of this is being forced on her before she's ready for it. Interestingly, the birdcage is there in the S1 opening, too, but not only is the shot tighter so most of it is cut off, it's also draped in shadow, making it very unclear what the object is.

But there are some very notable differences between the S1 and S3 opening shots, as well:

The candles in the S1 opening are lit and much higher than the ones in the S3 opening. These are intended to be the same candles, but burned down by S3. This also shows that she's doing her journal entries at the close of the day. But the lighting in the S3 opening implies either dawn or sunset (likely the latter). It's warmer and brighter, more full of possibility and feels less like she's hiding it from the world.

Her paint palette is on the desk instead of her adventure bag which is full of more paint brushes and also coins. She did all of her painting at home, and didn't really have anywhere else to go during S1. She was still doing things the way she'd always been used to doing them.

The wall behind the desk is mostly unpainted in S1 and completely painted in S3. By the end of the series, she'd once again made a home for herself, surrounded by her own art and the stories she had to tell. Similarly, the desk is far less marked up by art supplies in S1 than it is in S3 (just like the brush-holding tankard).

The books are leaning differently, because she took them with her during S2. You can see them in the S2 opening shot on her bed in the caravan.

The little pot in the upper right of the desk has clean, unused paint brushes in it. But in S3, it's full of flowers, instead, because those brushes are all now in use, and stashed in her adventure bag.

There are multiple writing quills on the desk in S1 and none in S3. I feel like this is significant of her always being out and about now. Also, she feel less like she has to "put things in ink," and can instead do her free-flowing lifestyle the way she sees fit.

*Yes, I know that in a previous post I said it was the pillow the wedding rings were carried on, but both of these things can be true at the same time.

[bogunicorn]

I think it says a lot about the shitty way queer people are treated that my reaction to the extremely obvious Cressida/Eloise chemistry this season is paranoia and suspicion rather than just seeing something with my eyes and trusting that that is, in fact, what I am seeing.

Cressida is obviously being set up to marry Debling to avoid being forced into a marriage set by her father, and characters won't stop reminding the audience that Debling is going to immediately disappear for years after the season and leave his wife to run his estate and live whatever life she wants while he's away. Violet has consciously given up trying to encourage Eloise to find a husband, and instead their conversations are about how Eloise needs a friend other than Cressida. They use the same language that the hetero couples use (Cressida calling Eloise not wanting her friendship earlier as "rejecting my suit," Eloise calling on Cressida the way a male suitor would, seeking each other out anytime they're at a shared function), and Cressida's father warning her to stay away from Eloise is straight out of the coming-of-age queer romances I read as a teenager. It's shot like a romance. If they went full Tipping the Velvet in ep 5, I wouldn't be at all surprised. The showrunner is also a gay man whom I would hope isn't stupid enough to be writing them like this "by accident."

It's also really clear this season that the writers have been listening to the show's reception and answering critiques in-universe. It can be a little obvious, but I don't think any of it is mockery or pandering. Violet is genuinely more helpful instead of pushing her kids into situations, Danbury and Charlotte talked about how the "season diamond" thing is Whistledown's terminology rather than the actual title of the role, Kanthony gets ep 1 spotlight and an actual explanation for why they're not around unlike Daphne and Simon, Eloise has been allowed to grow instead of being pigeonholed as the humorless obnoxious SJW. It would make sense to me that they would have also paid attention to the conversation about Benedict possibly being bisexual and realized that viewers would be accepting of and even enjoy Eloise being bisexual in the main text.

I'm getting into pure speculation here, but I also don't think thos production team expects to get the full 8 seasons. Netflix just doesn't produce dramas that go that long. My speculation is that they more or less have the greenlight for season 4 and MAYBE season 5. 4 is obviously going to be Benedict and Sophie, and my suspicion is that they have 5 earmarked for Francesca, since IIRC in her book she's a widow and s3 has her meeting her husband. They've done basically nothing with Sir Phillip and seemed to have put a bow on Marina's storyline in a way that I think would make it jarring to have them circle back to her and be like "she's dead now and this nothingburger husband is going to hook up with Eloise." They had chances, limited as they were, to have Philip make a memorable impression or have some foreshadowing between him and Eloise for the future and didn't even bother with lip service. I don't think THEY think they'll even get to Eloise's season.

Again, that's entirely speculation based on my gut feeling. But my point is that the show has put itself into a position where I think only the most diehard book fans would complain if Eloise's big love interest is a woman, and the show obviously gave up on catering to book accuracy ages ago.

[atopvisenyashill]

What are your thoughts on GRRM’s new notablog post on HOTD S2?

omg i'm sorry so i did not get notified that i had a few new asks, i didn't even see this until i logged in on desktop. tumblr eat shit smh.

ANYWAYS.

I actually agree with Xiran Jay Zhao, here, where they said this was a warning shot. It feels like a warning shot. Like a "hey I'm being nitpicky and pedantic now but if you think I won't go scroched earth you got another thing coming." I've seen so much "this is unprofessional" "this is annoying" "why is he complaining" and I think it is not only mind boggling to side with a corporation and the idiots running these shows (and we know I mostly like Condal and Hess, but come on Condal was the mastermind of Sansa Bolton why are we defending him right now!!), I think everyone is blowing his comments wildly out of proportion. He didn't take a dig at anyone but the writer's room and more specifically Ryan Condal, who he has had a working relationship with for well over a decade. He didn't shittalk any casting, he didn't shittalk any specific writers or directors except one of the main showrunners, he compliments the special effects, he has consistently had (and imo is careful) nothing but praise for the actors, even minor roles like Blood & Cheese. This was an incredibly milqtoast "please remember that every change has huge affects on the narrative later" critique and the people handwringing over his behavior are absolute losers, I'm sorry.

And beyond the fact that he didn't make any huge digs, I think this conversation also wildly ignores the way authors have no control over their own characters once they sign the rights over. They can be completely bamboozled by changes and they have no recourse to go "what the hell are you doing." And yet, signing your book's rights away (even if the production sits in developmental hell for decades) is usually what nets these author's the most money - GRRM surely makes a shitton off his books, but most authors get paid absolutely nothing even when they're wildly popular because of how book deals work now. Take, again, Xiran for example - Iron Widow was a huge runaway hit, a good and fresh take on this new boom of culturally based sff. And yet Xiran has talked about how they immediately set to work writing a middle grade novel because they desperately needed the money because they got paid 16k over two years for their runaway hit that made their publishers significantly more than 16k. I think George is not only mad for authors with less control than he has but also, obviously, for himself - I've said time and again, but I do think Dark Daenerys is where we are headed, and the fact that they completely botched showing it has got to smart. And if the ending for Dany is anything other than Jon killing her, that has got to smart too. So he watched these people fuck up his original series and push him completely out of that writer's room as they made more and more changes, and now he's watching s2 of HOTD and seeing some changes and getting some real bad vibes. It's not doomerism to think s3 is going to go massively off the rails when we have seasons 6-8 of the main show to show us just how off the rails it can go!

So anyways, that part of my rant over (and please believe me when I say I checked myself here because I could rant for hours about how it's genuinely so upsetting to see people call him unprofessional over this when not only did he write the fucking series, but he's lived in this series for three decades!!!!! this is his whole life, this is his legacy, of course he's feeling some type of way about how it's handled jesus christ on a cracker, there's people who have said worse about their mediocre nyt pushed bestsellers getting adapted badly!), when it comes to the actual meat of his post....I'm sorry idk how anyone is annoyed by this post because it was hilarious to me. He spent a whole blog post whinging about how Dead Baby #4 and Kingsguard Man #12 are gonna get cut out of the show. I think he framed it in that goofy way on purpose to hide how annoyed he is but you can see where the real annoyance lies - the changes to Helaena, losing one of his grisly death scenes, and being willfully mislead about potential changes to the plot. I think a lot of people missed those points but EYE am not a goofy ass like those people and I can guarantee you that Condal and HBO got the point too.

Of course, I do think he is also irked about Maelor and Ser Rickard's scenes being cut out. He wrote a long ass, highly meticulous, near unadaptable work, and I think when he handed the IP over he assumed he was giving it to people who would rise to the challenge and only make cuts when absolutely necessary. And that just clearly hasn't happened. Incredibly important characters get cut, main characters get their plots wildly changed for no reason, and people get personality transplants on a near constant basis for no other reason than D&D and Condal thought it would look cooler. I think if there was more dedication to keeping him in the loop and keeping true to the story, he wouldn't have bitched so much. But Hess is on record saying she doesn't feel loyal to the story and at a certain point, you reach your breaking point there and I think he has finally reached his. AND GOOD FOR HIM. LET THAT OLD MAN GO APESHIT THEY'VE COMPLETLEY FUCKED HIS WORLD UP!!!

[cbrownjc]

Hey :) just saw your post with your speculation about how much Eric/Daniel will be in S3. And while this isn't a definitive answer or anything, Rolin did address the question of whether or not Daniel would still play a part in the story post-s2 in this interview for the A.V. Club: https://www.avclub.com/rolin-jones-interview-with-the-vampire-season-2-finale-1851566667

I kinda feel like this means we'll see him more than just in a couple of scenes here and there, even in S3 (though he didn't specifically say "in season 3". But I feel like "still" implies this?)

Only it's difficult to judge because any present-day storyline they do with him is a big question mark since they seem to have departed from books (where he only gets turned shortly before the concert and does not part from Armand). What Armand is up to in the present-day is also a question mark imo. At least until the story converges at the concert.

I mean, I'll be real I'm also just trying to convince myself he'll be in it more because I'll miss him otherwise 🥲

Hi!

So, first I want to say that I think the two major pieces of casting that still need to be done are obviously Gabrielle and Marius. And I've long speculated that Marius is already playing a huge part in Daniel's story because I really do believe that Marius was the one to erase Daniel's memories of his past relationship with Armand.

Yes, Marius plays an important role in Lestat's life, but he plays an even bigger one in Armand and Daniel's as well, especially going by the books. In the books, Daniel lived with Marius for almost 30 years -- first healing from his mental issues, and then as companions -- before getting back together with Armand during the Prince Lestat era. All that, plus given what Rolin Jones already said about Raglan James, I don't think Justin Kirk is secretly playing Marius. So Marius still needs to be cast, and I very much expect him to be deeply involved in Armand and Daniel's storyline, going forward.

I just don't see that happening much in Season 3, however.

Because Season 3 is Lestat's story and focus, primarily. Just like Season 1 and Season 2 were mainly focused on Louis.

There is really only one episode in those two seasons where you can say Daniel was focused on -- outside of just interviewing Louis -- and that was episode 2x05. And even then, Louis factored heavily in that episode as well.

Armand and Marius play major roles in Lestat's story. Daniel doesn't. So if Daniel has any type of major storyline in Season 3, it will have to be with those two characters, IMO; as well as the Talamasca, since they were the ones to publish Daniel's book in the first place, and Rolin already said they and Raglan James will play an even bigger role in the show than they did in the books.

But without an episode count yet, I just can't see it being a huge focus. Mostly because characters like Marius still need to be fully set up and established. Also, I already think Armand is being set up to be a false Big Bad in Season 3 (since he's pretty much a villain in The Vampire Lestat), so I think whatever of Armand's POV that we get in Season 3, in the present day, will be very limited too, IMO, if we get it like we did in episode 2x03.

And yet, IMO, the only way we are looking at getting another episode like 2x05 in Season 3 is if it's told from Armand's POV. Because, again, Armand actually ties into Lestat's story, both in the past and in the present. And I think for sure that whatever Armand is up to in the present will have something to do with Daniel, as well as whatever else might be going on in the setup for Akasha rising.

Heck, if my theory is right that Marius was the one to wipe Daniel's memories of his and Armand's past relationship, Armand and Marius might have a present-day scene together, likely discussing Daniel (along with what Lestat is doing).

And yes, while Eric might still be in the top five for the call sheet going forward, that really doesn't say much IMO without knowing the Season 3 episode count. I mean, I'm sure Sam Reid was top 5 on the call sheet in Season 2, but if you look at his screen time in Episodes 2x01 and 2x02, it really wasn't much. And we didn't see him at all in episode 2x05, only heard his voice. And he didn't appear in episode 2x06 until the end.

I thought they found a way to work Lestat into the story of Season 2 very well, expanding on things from the book. But he still wasn't in the first few episodes very much.

And Daniel is even more different because he's not mentioned or referenced in The Vampire Lestat book at all.

So wrt Daniel in the present day, I'm tempering my expectations. Because yes, whatever is going on with Eric's Daniel in the present day is completely off-book. But, with every other facet of the story, the show has very much been on-book, in a rather strict way. Lestat's story is the main story of The Vampire Lestat and therefore will be for Season 3 IMO. And I think, whatever happens with Daniel in the present day is going to have to tie into that story. And that can't really happen via Daniel directly.

Louis' story is already being set up to tie into Lestat's present-day storyline directly, with his challenging all the vampires in the world to come for him if they dare. One of the reasons Lestat even became a rock star in the first place was to try and protect Louis by drawing attention to himself in an even bigger way than Louis' memoir drew attention to Louis.

But there are only two ways I see Daniel's story drawing directly to Lestat, and those are not in a way that directly has to do with Daniel. Because Lestat doesn't even know Daniel, has never met him before or interacted with him. (No I don't think they changed that from the book.)

So it's only through Armand, possibly Marius, and the Talamasca that Daniel ties into the larger story of what's going to be going on with Lestat in the present day. (Maybe a bit of Louis too, but the vampires we heard talking at the end didn't seem to be threatening Daniel, only Louis. Curious.) And, again, without an episode count yet, I just don't know how much time that focus can really get, especially when you have to set up Marius as a character; as well as probably having to set up the Talamasca even more as well; as well as maybe not revealing too soon what Armand is up to in the present day to keep his motives as mystery and have non-book readers wondering if Armand is the Big Bad villain they think he is or not.

And having to do all of this, plus laying preparation for adapting Queen of the Damned next. The book where Daniel actually does get a lot of focus.

And this also lines up with what Assad let slip about Season 4 being when we would see Armand's backstory. (Which is when QotD would start being adapted if TVL isn't split into 2 seasons like IWTV was).

And Rolin Jones flat out said people need to stop jumping ahead because Devil's Minion was "3 books ahead" of where they were now in adapting (which at the time was the 2nd half of the IWTV book), and to "slow down" about it.

So for now, I'm going to listen to RJ and just "slow down" about this.

So, in doing so, while I think we'll see Daniel in the present day in Season 3, I still don't think we'll see him much. And I think when we do, one of the episodes we'll get will probably be a stand-alone episode in the vein of episode 2x05 that focuses on what happened in the past. (Which I think will be an episode that focuses on why Daniel once woke up in a parking lot in Milwaukee not knowing how he got there). And I think for sure he'll be in the Season 3 finale. But other than that? 🤷🏾‍♀️ Again, I'm slowing down and tempering my expectations. Especially if we only get another 7-8 episode count again.

Because right now, for Season 3, Lestat's story is the main focus. Not Daniel, not Armand, and not Devil's Minion. And Daniel's character can only tie into Lestat's story via other people, which is rather limiting but can't be helped.

[thoughtfulchaos773]

The Bear S3- A conversation with the viewer. Part 1

I'm not saying I loved it or hated it, but this season read as a conversation between viewer and story. Let's talk about it.

The cannon best meal

@currymanganese called the situation involving the best meal Sydney has ever had. There were a lot of moments in the show that came true and it's funny this is the first episode- ending with this moment- reminding us how connected Syd and Carmy are.

A Chris Storer conversation

This is the real-life owner of the Beef and Chris Storer worked there when he was younger. This is a look into Chris Storer always wanting to cook or direct but like Carmy, he does not have a why behind it. It's also a look into being so involved with the craft one can lose sight of life.

Our hearts breaking for Carmy's regression.

Natalie's line is a perspective as a viewer I think some part of my heart just broke. Richie is a cinephile and well-versed in books. Richie is the one who gives a quick run down and psycho-analysis on Carmy even though he gets back in the scene and shows his own flaws. But the focus was on Carmy throughout the season

The Faks- the greek chorus and vibe checkers

Faks are introduced to the audience as 'the vibe' checkers. They're the naive chorus that guides and relieves some viewers of the chaotic kitchen, but they also distract us from honest conversations. Looking at reddit, it is split between people needing that comical relief the faks provided, or were annoyed and felt the good vibes were too much and they didn't have the perfect timing for those good vibes.

Performance and Film

Actor reference- we'll also get references to filmmakers.

The Syd and Carmy dynamic

There were hopes and dreams to get back in in the kitchen for season 3 and when the audience enters we see why we love the kitchen it's the creators asking this is what you love? But Richie points out there's a lot of energy between Syd and Carmy and the audience is aware. This is what you wanted, right? Richie again is the thread between the viewer and filmmaker.

Claire and Sydney's role

What Sydney (and Claire) will not be for Carmy. I see this take as either a call back to the panic attack scene or a conversation with the viewer for later in the season (episode 9 had a lot of hidden conversations with the viewer).

This was only the second episode and there's plenty more coming. This season talks about the love of art, deceiving the audience, and what makes The Bear- the tv show and the restaurant magical.

[bitchbot3000]

Devil’s Minion: 70s vs Now, What if We Get Both?

Book & show spoilers below, reader beware! ⚠️✌️

I've been seeing a lot of posts of people making their respective cases for why they believe we're getting either 70s Devil's Minion or Modern Devil's Minion in S3, but personally, I'm not entirely convinced it's going to be one or the other. Hear me out.

While this is obviously not to be taken as canon, Jacob Anderson mentioned in an interview that he believes while living in America, Armand and Louis spend long periods of time apart. What if what we're getting is essentially the Devil's Minion chapter split across several decades, with a gap in the middle and a role reversal when things pick back up?

It feels entirely possible that, during an extended period of time spent apart, Armand would go after the fascinating boy who just came very close to blowing up his relationship without even meaning to. I don't imagine the chase would happen on the same scale as it did in the books, but him essentially stalking Daniel, demanding answers from him to all sorts of technical and philosophical questions, getting Daniel to teach him about the 'modern' era? That feels entirely plausible and like a pretty natural escalation of the encounter we already saw, with Armand demanding again and again to know what makes Daniel 'fascinating'.

Will it go as far as the Night Island and declarations of love? More doubtful, but maybe the first seeds of it? Enough for Daniel to ask to be turned, and Armand to care enough to refuse him, perhaps!

Assuming it ends when Louis returns, I think having that part of their past a shared (if unknowing, on Daniel's part) secret from Louis is also a compelling idea, and it explains a bit more of why Armand and Daniel's interactions have felt a bit loaded and at times, even indulgent, from the start. More so than I personally think what we saw in San Francisco would explain.

Moving on to the modern era, what we have now are all the trappings for things to pick back up, full-steam ahead, even messier than before. Daniel has just blown up Armand's life (a pattern that tends to dictate who Armand will gravitate toward next), very intentionally, this time, he's also the only one who sees straight through Armand's bullshit, and the only one whose mind Armand can't read. On top of that, he has a degenerative health condition and he's lived a full human life, which likely would remove some of Armand's previous reluctance to turn him. Especially when paired with the spite we're given as his reason for turning Daniel.

So, Armand turns Daniel, runs for whatever reason (panic, conflict over committed an act he was so revolted by, a search for safety, whatever conniving idea he's got coming up next, the list of potential reasons goes on), and the chase begins anew, with Daniel doing the hunting. This is where I think the bond between them would come into full bloom, and the Night Island, if it's going to be included at all, would come into play.

On top of all the reasoning above, it just seems practical! It gives Armand and Daniel, both of whom are definitely loved by the audience, their own storyline to be followed while the season is focused on Lestat, and it gives them a chance to keep utilizing Luke Brandon Field, because they kind of struck gold in finding an actor who fits SO well as Eric Bogosian's younger counterpart.

Obviously, this is all just speculation, and even within it, I've still got a lot of questions. Would Daniel remember their time together once he was turned (or perhaps even before, while he and Armand were left alone together)? Would Armand have cared enough to give young Daniel a vial of his blood to ward off other vampires (and if so, where is it now)? Will the mess Lestat is about to make be what drives them together, could it make Armand worry for Daniel, with all the older, stronger vampires converging?

Who knows? Not me! But it's fun to think about.

[markantonys]

What is your ideal Gawyn show intro?

tick tock, it's gawynposting o'clock!!! i love being enabled, thank you :')

okay, so here's what i'm thinking. 3x01 focuses on catching up with our established characters and setting up the main storylines for the season. 3x02 is time for our caemlyn crew to make their grand entrance; the episode title seems to be "a question of crimson" (though this isn't guaranteed) which would be perfect for an andor & elaida intro episode.

3x02 cold open. scene: caemlyn palace nursery 20 years ago. baby elayne (there was allegedly a baby needed on the caemlyn palace set) is snoozing in her cradle with a nurse (lini cameo!) keeping an eye on her. 10ish-year-old galad is there playing with toddler gawyn. elaida enters the room and takes gawyn over to elayne's cradle and explains to him what it means to be her first prince of the sword, then makes him swear the oath we famously hear about in the books, the oath he swore over her cradle when he was just barely tall enough to look into it, "my blood shed before hers, my life given before hers". the audience goes "wow! this is a pretty fucked up thing to do to this 2-year-old" and thus we learn something about both gawyn (was psychologically fucked up at age 2 by being taught to see himself as a tool to protect other, more important people) and elaida (cares a lot about protecting the royal house of andor and has no problem psychologically fucking up 2-year-olds to do it). and there can be other stuff in the scene to tell us a bit about galad and morgase maybe, depending on how big of a role they're going to have in s3.

this is where i would put the opening credits IF I HAD THEM. (hashtag bring back the opening credits in every episode not just the finale you cowards.) now we go to present-day caemlyn, where the fam is discussing their worries that elayne is missing. gawyn in particular is upset about it and is blaming himself (and being blamed by elaida, and maybe even morgase makes some queenly Harsh But Fair remarks), and the audience goes "yep, sure enough, that 2-year-old has grown up to have Issues." and thus, right away, we've been given a point of connection with and sympathy for gawyn as well as an important insight into why he is Like That. this toddlerhood oath-swearing scene is buried in his narration in the books and i think a lot of people miss it or miss its importance, but it is THE formative moment for his character and the key to understanding why he is Like That, and i'd die if it was portrayed directly onscreen via flashback cold open.

meanwhile, elayne, nynaeve, and mat have set off for tanchico from falme, but the rest of the gang is headed for caemlyn (either as a stop on the way to the waste, or as their intended final destination but shenanigans later force them to flee and only then do they decide to go to the waste). perrin goes out and about in the city and hears rumors of trouble in the two rivers, setting him up to branch off from the group by the end of 3x02. egwene heads to the palace, having been tasked by elayne to deliver a letter to her family assuring them she's well, and rand tags along.

but the guards won't let these two hooligans in, so instead they go around back and break in over the garden wall, falling off the wall at gawyn's feet and setting off the biggest bi crisis of his life. egwene has a whole flirty meetcute with a handsome prince while rand, with whom she officially broke up in 3x01, has to bear witness to the whole thing (and this shows the audience that egwene is also moving on, thus soothing them about rand getting new love interests this season), but gawyn is friendly to rand too and defends both of them from galad's bitch ass and all the guards galad tattles on them to.

rand and egwene are hauled off to an audience with morgase and elaida, and gawyn defends them again but obediently shuts up when morgase and elaida tell him to (showing us that he has a good heart but is easily influenced by authority figures, especially elaida - seeing that gawyn tends to obey elaida is a surprise tool to help us later). whole tense convo here where egwene and rand both get to meet their mutual future mother-in-law as well as their mutual future kidnapper, and egwene delivers the letter but then elaida has her ominous foretelling of rand, which calls his and egwene's integrity and thus the veracity of the letter into question. morgase lets them go (against elaida's advice) but doesn't trust the letter (at elaida's advice) and continues to worry for elayne's safety. so, elaida sets off for the white tower to get answers, with gawyn in tow because, as we learned at the very start of the episode, protecting elayne is quite literally his life.

there we have it! a gawyn intro that sets up a ton of important stuff for him (his oaths to elayne, the way he ties his self-worth to his ability to protect people he deems more important than him, his fucked-up mentor/mentee relationship with elaida, his crush on egwene, his friends-to-onesided-homoerotic-rivals arc with rand, his relationships with morgase and galad), gets the audience to understand and sympathize with and maybe even feel fond of him right off the bat, AND doesn't violate any of the handful of tidbits we know about s3 so far. a win-win-win!

this is my ideal version. but there's a couple other possibilities, such as a) we meet gawyn in caemlyn, but rand & co don't go there, so gawyn does not meet egwene until a future season, or b) elaida and morgase have a one-on-one convo in caemlyn (both actresses were leaked to have been on that set, but no word on if the brothers were there) and gawyn isn't introduced until a later scene arriving at the white tower with elaida (and so doesn't meet egwene until a future season).

i'm leaving galad out of the white tower trip for now because i remember musing a while back how it could actually be more effective if it's an elaida-gawyn duo and galad stays home with morgase. both women are important to both brothers' stories, but elaida is more important to gawyn and morgase is more important to galad. gawyn can be alone with elaida doing all the coup stuff, and galad can be with morgase watching her start behaving strangely, not understanding why, and starting to turn to the whitecloaks (because he blames the aes sedai for elayne's disappearance, because he's afraid morgase is losing her grip and starting to do andor harm, and maybe because morgase was compelled to treat him cruelly and kick him out a la bryne* in the books and he feels he has nowhere else to turn to). gawyn/elaida/tower + galad/morgase/whitecloaks feels like two logical groupings, and in that regard keeping galad in caemlyn could allow for more efficient storytelling than sending him to tar valon. and the galad/morgase/whitecloaks storyline could be held until s4, leaving galad and morgase as just 1ish-episode characters in s3, or it could be another s3 subplot if they want to speed things along. there's also a chance galad could already be a whitecloak and is in the two rivers storyline with dain, but i would prefer that not be the case because my opinion is it's important to his character for us to see him start normal and then get radicalized into the whitecloaks. plus, galad has SO little content in the books that the show is absolutely fine to stretch his stuff out a bit, they don't need to rush to have him already be a whitecloak at the start of s3.

*i've also made these theories with bryne being cut, since i have elaida take his place in gawyn's oath-swearing and galad take his place as the big bridge burned by compelled!morgase. i have no idea whether he actually WILL be cut or not (though i'm 99% confident his romance with siuan is off the table even if he's in), but he feels like a character where it's easy to divvy their stuff up among other more important characters. mat and bashere have us covered for Great Generals, thom has us covered as morgase's ex with whom things ended badly, and egwene could get soldiers from another source (or could even have her army simply be aes sedai and warders).

[tea-earl-grey]

For the character ask game: What about Tuvok and Michael Burnham?

from this ask game

Tuvok:

how i feel about this character.

i love Tuvok so dearly. i think he's the strongest Vulcan character of the whole franchise and Tim Russ does such a masterful job portraying him. i really can't think of a single scene where i don't enjoy Tuvok's presence in some way.

all the people i romantically ship with this character.

just his wife t'pel. i can't think of any other tuvok ships i've seen that i hate but there aren't any that really interest me either.

my non-romantic otp for this character.

Tuvok & Janeway without a doubt. they make such a good best friend pairing. all of their scenes alone together make my heart melt a little with how much they care for each other

unpopular opinion on this character.

hm... the only thing i can think of that might be controversial is the fact that Tuvok and his morality is flawed. i think so often he (and other Vulcan characters) are seen in the fandom as the paragon of reason and sense and i think that flattens characters somewhat and also doesn't reflect what we see in canon. there are episodes like Meld where Tuvok advocates for the death penalty or Learning Curve where he's shown to hold his crew, especially his Maquis crew, to unrealistic standards or Resolutions where the crew has to basically mutiny before Tuvok considers going back for Janeway and Chakotay. yes Tuvok does have a strong sense of justice and yes he almost always follows logic but he's also very much a utilitarian and sometimes his morality is at odds with the audience and the rest of the crew which i like and i think should be considered more often.

one thing i wish would happen/had happened in canon.

that he got more stories... i mean it's not a secret that we only really get three-ish stories stories in the last four seasons that truly focus on Tuvok as a character and not just on him as a supporting character for others. i think he gets some strong supporting roles as a mentor and friend but i wish we got more stories actually centered on him.

Michael:

how i feel about this character.

MICHAELLLLL! Michael has by far one of the strongest arcs and characters in all of Trek. while early disco is a bit hit or miss for me, Michael is such a strong & compelling character that it makes up more it.

all the people i romantically ship with this character.

i love Michael/Book and am very happy with how they ended up in s5. i also do like Michael/Laira too because even just a few scenes i think their chemistry really jumped off the page.

my non-romantic otp for this character.

i do really love Michael & Saru. the few times they hug in s4 and s5 really took me out and i love the mutual respect & trust they've managed to cultivate despite their rough beginning in s1.

unpopular opinion on this character.

i mean i think it was a common (non tumblr) fandom opinion that Michael cries or emotes too much and that's obviously just some racist and misogynistic bullshit. Michael's whole journey is about throwing off the repression she was forced into as a child by growing up on Vulcan and live her life on her own terms and part of that is embracing her emotions. like probably one of the best scenes in the whole show is the sheer joy after she makes the time jump to the future at the beginning of s3.

one thing i wish would happen/had happened in canon.

i would have really liked Michael to have explored her relationship with Vulcan culture/society more, especially in s3 and beyond. like she obviously had a difficult time growing up but Vulcan culture is still her culture and i would have loved to see her more with post-Burn Vulcans and Romulans. even just her and T'Rina bonding over a Vulcan holiday or something would have been so good.

thanks for the ask!!! <3

[nalyra-dreaming]

Hello there. I hope you are having a great day! I wanted to ask how big of a part do you anticipate Nicki having in season 3? Do you think he will be a character that has comparable screen time to Daniel or more along the lines of Madeleine? I saw on Twitter that some fans hoped TVL would be adapted for two seasons and expressed hope that Nicki would be a lead because Louis and Armand had the same treatment. I'm not sure I agree with that because I think of them as major characters where Nicki was a supporting character. Unpopular opinion and I hope I don't offend anyone, but he drove me crazy in the books. I like his character because Lestat is my favorite and Nicki plays such a massive role in Lestat's character arc, however, I'm always astonished at how fondly people view Nicki. He came off very unappreciative and unsupportive to Lestat in the end and I always thought it was unjustified. He doesn't have the level of trauma any of the other characters had in their human life but is so extreme in his resentment for Lestat. I am excited for him to be portrayed because Joseph seems like a sweetie and a wonderful actor, but I hoped Nicki's story wouldn't be the main focal point of season 3. I always hoped to see Gabrielle and Marius get the adaptation they deserved. I'm also looking forward to seeing Armand and Lestat have their bitch off. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. I love your blog!

Glad you like!!!

I think… we‘ll keep the main four (Lestat, Armand, Louis, Daniel) and Nicki and Gabrielle (and Marius) will be almost-main, just below that, if that makes sense.

Nicolas (and his death) shape the narrative and as such he is important.

And they will honor that impotance - for Gabrielle and Marius as well. ;)

Joseph will be able to pull off the gravitas no matter the magnitude, but I do think Nicki will be a major part in s3 (and s4, likely).

[transmutationisms]

logan engineering tom as ceo from beyond the grave so that his real grandkid stays in succession....god there's so much to think about here in terms of the family structure (thinking about logan reading iverson the storybook in s3, about logan drinking fertility smoothies....the show called succession was about succession all along!!) I'm so curious for your thoughts!!!!!!

it does work for logan's interests in a certain way, yeah! at the end of the day, i don't think logan ever would have been capable of actually naming a successor, because even though he tried to use his kids as proxies for himself, no one was ever going to be able to measure up. like, what he really wanted was his own immortality; his kids were always going to flop in his eyes, simply by virtue of not being his own literal body. but at the same time, one of the things he specifically punished kendall for was not producing what he considered to be a legitimate heir—a judgment that arose from a combination of logan's misogyny, racism, ableism, and obsession with consanguinity. so it put the board in a position where kendall was not an obvious choice, and matsson perceived tom as a useful puppet.

for logan's posthumous interests, this is a win in the sense that his biological grandkid will now have skin in the game. it's also a loss in the sense that matsson is most likely going to dismantle a lot of the company for scrap. so, the biological legacy survives in some sense; the financial one is pretty much dead. the company has also been represented by, and representative of, logan's physical body: from the beginning of the show, both appeared as these aging relics from a bygone era, controlling the political/corporate arena as well as the roy family; both were ailing, etc. this is also partly why the siblings were ultimately so determined to keep the company, especially roman, who saw matsson's takeover effort as his essentially desecrating logan's body/legacy.

anyway, to return to fertility and offspring, yeah this was always the mechanism by which logan tried to ensure his own survival past his impending death. he wanted a successor who was his biological offspring, who could produce offspring of their own and consolidate an empire around a bloodline. in this way he perceived that he would still be living on through the others (hence also his possessiveness over his children, including their sexual behaviours). but he never accepted iverson and sophie as filling this role for the aforementioned reasons, and even in the one scene where we see him really trying to be grandfatherly with iverson, he disdains him for reading a book he perceives as juvenile, asking kerry for something "with some action" (suggesting logan sees iverson's implied autism as a defect of his masculinity as well).

ultimately the empire logan wanted to create attains a very hollow victory, though of course the individual players are all still wealthy and materially cosseted. kendall's infertility is not the cause for logan's persistent disdain of him, but it sort of symbolises and sums up the way in which kendall could never live up to his father's standards for a male heir, no matter how much he shaped his life and sense of self around logan's demands. connor and roman will presumably never have kids, and shiv's kid won't have much of an empire left to inherit, plus logan would have strenuously preferred the line of succession going through one of his sons. his kids have always been trapped in the family (except connor, who was locked out of it), yet they've still ultimately failed to consolidate the sort of blood-bound empire logan always wanted.

[locationvoid]

AziraCrow

Demon Aziraphale -> Demon name: Zira

Angel Crowley -> Angel name: Raphael

~°~°~~°~°~°~°~°~~°~°~°~°~°~~°~°~°~°~°

You don't have to read this part but this is my take on demon Aziraphale and Angel Crowley

So we don't have a whole lot of context on Crowley's past as an angel but we know he helped create the nebulas, helped out the start of the universe in place, and even participated in the Battle on the Plains of Heaven. We also know angels can have their memories wiped and tampered with and Crowley has stated how he doesn't remember everything about being an angel but he remembers he was high ranking since he had access to Gabriel's files and he remembers making the nebula cluster. He even remembers starting up the universe since he has the same crank tool he used to get everything started for the big bang.

I'm into the shared idea that Aziraphale, upon turning into a demon, will have gone blind for at least the first few weeks of becoming an angel. There's a theory that Crowley HAD to fall to be able to become the snake of Eden, which makes sense but still very f***ed up. But I believe Aziraphale would Still be a snake for there to be a snake of Eden. Snakes are seen as untrustworthy, sneaky, fast, tempting, and deceitful which would go well with my idea that after the first day Aziraphale and Crowley met each other, Aziraphale goes back to his own duties and can't help but think about what Crowley said, about how the angels who are also contributing to working on the Great Plan should be able to have a say in things as well. Conflicted, I can see him going around to other angels, innocently asking them what they think of the idea. Soon enough, instead of Satan and the guys finding angel Crowley, they overhear Aziraphale asking questions and invite him to hang out, so he does, not wanting to be rude but so genuinely curious to hear what Satan has to say. Then I can see Aziraphale slowly forming his own thoughts, wanting to show the other angels and God that they can all work together as equals and all get the credit they deserve.

This is where the war would come in. Originally, Aziraphale became guardian of the East Gate of Eden so I think it's safe to say he had a somewhat important role during the war. And Crowley was said to have ridden Furfur's back during the war which may seem like he did absolutely nothing but mess around during the war but the actual terms used for Crowley's role can honestly be referred to in a way where Crowley also played an important role on the opposing side. But I can say for sure until S3.

The idea for demon Aziraphale is that word would get around about Aziraphale asking questions and hanging out with Satan and he would be "tried" for his treason. But he knew there wouldn't be one and that he would be cast out so he joins the war on the opposing side, knowing how corrupt Heaven truly is. His last ditch effort to stop God's abuse of power and hopefully get someone new in charge but it's no use. I imagine the "war" is more like a civil war instead of a full on world war. And after, all the angels involved were cast out of Heaven, Aziraphale included. One of her strongest, most loyal soldiers betrayed her so when he falls, he's forced into his new life blind and afraid. Aziraphale's hands are now adorned with sharp claws and the whites of his eyes have darkened and his iris has turned to snake-like slits. He's forced to be a snake, not because it means he won't see the stars again but to remind him that he refused to trust Her and the Plan.

I can see Aziraphale still wanting to be an angel but not with Her in power so he accepts his fall to an extent.

Demon Aziraphale would still like his Tartan clothes, just in darker form, with the addition of dark blues. He would still like reading books but would be more open to other hobbies as well.

I can also see him hesitant to fully change his name so he may go by Zira as his demon name or he may use a demon name while in Hell and/or talking to Satan or the other demons but use the name Zira when talking to Crowley.

/////////////////////////////////////////

Angel Crowley will have thought about what Angel Aziraphale said to him, about how he shouldn't be asking so many questions because he wouldn't want to see Crowley (Raphael) fall. He would finish his duties of starting the universe and report back to God. He would try to put it out of his mind and continue on his duties like normal and, with Satan and the guys being occupied with Aziraphale, Crowley wouldn't have the chance to hang out with them.

I believe Aziraphale and Crowley (in the original story) still talked to each other at least every now and again when they were both still angels. This would be the same in this timeline but with some differences.

Every now and again the two would see each other and chat, carelessly, not wanting to talk work with each other, Aziraphale too scared of losing Crowley's friendship to bring up the fact that he's hanging out with Satan.

Then the rumors would start. Crowley will have heard about Aziraphale talking to Satan, other angels would see it as treason but Crowley would be genuinely intrigued with Aziraphale's new life. He would want to ask him questions, try to, but Aziraphale would refuse to answer, not wanting Crowley to get in trouble.

The war would happen and Crowley would be out in an important position (just like Aziraphale had been) and Aziraphale would fight on the opposing side.

Afterwards, upon Aziraphale's fall, Crowley is placed as guard of the Eastern Gate of Eden and given a flaming sword.

I believe the story would play out similarly as it did in the show except Angel Crowley would be a bit more confident than angel Aziraphale and wouldn't second guess giving his sword away. This lack of hesitation would intrigue Zira and it would be the start of a long friendship.

Angel Crowley would also be confident in his clothing style as well, switching up clothes each day/week to satisfy his need for change. Instead of a bookshop there would be a greenhouse attached to an apartment where people can buy plants ranging from decorative flowers and ferns to spices to fruits to vegetables and so on. He would also be a big fan of space and would have many space-themed pictures and objects around the place. Aziraphale would have a library space in his own apartment and a place for his music. He and Crowley both enjoy classical but I can see them both enjoying other genres as well that you wouldn't think angel Aziraphale or even angel Crowley would even like.

//////////////////////////////////

When it comes to the two of them together, I can see them being clingy, like in the books. Angel Crowley wouldn't be as hesitant to touch Aziraphale and wouldn't be as embarrassed to be nice to demon Zira since Crowley's angel side would be more confident in that sense. I can even see demon Zira being quite the passive aggressive demon while Crowley would be a very blunt angel, at least especially after the Garden of Eden when God has fully calmed down from the giving-his-sword-away thing. He will be more confident in his Earth work and thus a bit more blunt regarding what he wants. They would eat together, Crowley happily being introduced to human food by Zira, they would drink together, and they would sit close to each other. They would often show little signs of affection through touches and I could even see Crowley hugging Zira out of excitement sometimes.

I can see, even though angel Crowley is more confident, there are situations where he gets overwhelmed or outnumbered or just stuck and Zira is happily coming to his aid to help in any way he can. Not caring what the mission is, he just wants to be able to be by angel Crowley's side and help him, no matter how dangerous. He does like detective books.

But confessions of love would still be something that would happen later since, well, they're ineffable idiot lovers, they take their time.

(If you're wondering what the tattoo is on Aziraphale's face in the drawing, The Bowl of Hygieia, is one of the symbols of pharmacology, and along with the Rod of Asclepius, it is one of the most ancient and important symbols related to medicine in western countries. Hygieia was the Greek goddess of health, hygiene, cleanliness, and sanitation, and the daughter of Asclepius, who she is often closely associated with e.g. in prayers and hymns. Asclepius' symbol is his rod, with a snake twined around it; correspondingly, Hygieia's symbol is a cup or chalice with a snake twined around its stem. Hygieia was also invoked, along with her father Asclepius, and Panacea in the original Hippocratic Oath.)

[duck-takes]

For all the problems that Life and Crimes of Scrooge McDuck has, I think that it would have been improved only a bit if it had HUEY defending Scrooge instead of Louie. To me it makes more sense for Huey, the type of nerd character that wants to do things “by the books”, to fill a role as the lawyer in this scenario. And also considering how s3 was all over the place, I think that a small change like that would have been a good opportunity to develop Huey even if it was just a minimum lol.

also the fact this was supposed to be hue's focus season.

side note but : the louie pet subplot to teach him responsibility is a 'poorly concieved plotline' as they say in quack pack. so why did they make that smth scrooge did to teach louie responsibility?? ur telling me scrooge BOUGHT something for a plan he knows will fail? ok sure sure. it's not smth that should irk me this much, it's really not that deep but like, it annoys me sm

[raayllum]

So we are sure as anything that is going to be Callum that releases Aaravos at the end of the day (being terrified of being possessed again? Now the gang literally HAVE THE PRISON? Yeah he’s gonna be possessed and forced to open it for SURE! Poor boy what will that do to him..?)

But one thing that hasn’t happened yet is Rayla losing Callum. Callum has lost Rayla once and nearly lost her twice now, but we are yet to see Rayla do something to get Callum back (maybe we can include the ship scene but I don’t feel like it’s quite to the same extent that Callum has nearly lost her, if you get what I mean)… how do you think this is going to happen?! If at all? I LOVED season 5 and can’t wait for what happens next!!

I forget if I thought Callum would free Aaravos post-S3 or S2 (maybe, ever since the Key was introduced)? But definitely post TTM I thought he'd have a role to play there. I've always leaned towards it either 1) not being under possession, but coercion, or 2) if it is under possession, it's because Callum took a risk (and knew what he was risking being possessed by doing it). The writers always like force characters into being aware of the choices they're making / retaining agency even in the terrible choices they're making (i.e. Harrow being aware of and agreeing to Viren's plan to kill Zym in 3x06's flashbacks, rather than being ignorant and therefore blameless in it, which they easily could've done). I don't think Callum can just have a "whoopsie daisie I'm suddenly possessed again through no reaffirmed fault of my own decision making" since that kinda feels like it's letting him off the hook too much for whatever he does, but if they just want to go full throttle on the "no agency" angle, that would be a valid route of its own kind of horrific (even if it may not be the one from a theorizing standpoint I currently prefer but hey, canon could change my mind).

For Rayla and Callum, I think their arcs (intersecting and circling each other as always) are going to be opened and book ended, most likely, by Massive acts of love for each other for arc 2 (up till S6, most likely). Currently for both of them, they've done their initial, unhealthy "going to dark places is an act of love" for one another:

1) Rayla leaving during the timeskip / through the moon

and Callum doing dark magic about a season later to save her life

The fact the choice is something they both cover up and know the other person wouldn't like, the shouldering it alone, the "I have to. I love you too much not to," etc. I don't think it's a coincidence that a few episodes after Rayla reflects on what inspired her to leave — "I left without him because I couldn't bear to put him in danger. I knew I had to be strong alone" — and trying to be what she didn't want to be (a lone assassin) that we see Callum making a similar decision after he was forced back into a path he also didn't want to take (a dark mage), that Finnegrin got his head enough to warp him: "All that talk about how love makes you stronger" and Rayla making him 'weaker.' And, like Rayla, he keeps a secret to try and shoulder it alone, at least at first.

Which is in line of how he and Rayla were already starting to switch in S4, with Rayla acting more like him upon her return and Callum acting more like her because of her absence, and nicely leads up to them both reaffirming that they are each's strength and each other's weakness, eventually. (Good and bad, light and dark, pain and love. Two cakes!)

I always figured Callum would do something ultimately self destructive in order to save her, just because they tend to be very reciprocal (and he tends to hit her plot beats a season after she does, anyway) so it seems, due to the symbolism and framing and patterns, that Callum doing dark magic for her is his Narrative counterbalance for her leaving him in Through the Moon. (This is very in line with their S2 and S3 patterns as well, where Rayla saves him and Ez in a way from Soren and Claudia in S2, and then Callum saves her from Soren and Claudia over the dragon fiasco; as well as in S3, with Rayla risking her life to keep Sol Regem away from him, and then Callum jumping off the Pinnacle to save her, etc).

So what, you ask, is Rayla's big gesture moment - and what could Callum's reciprocal moment be? Well...

2) Rayla breaks Callum free of the brainwashing + identity reconciliation arc

This has been foreshadowed and set up for a variety of reasons — Rayla showing up in a halo of light and always reaffirming Callum's agency in S4; Callum asking her to be the one to kill him in 4x07, and this according quote exchange from the Book One Novelization ('"Wow. So they look identical, but they might kill you or they might save you,” Callum said. "Exactly," Rayla smiled. "Just like me"); Rayla's role being highlighted in the actual possession scene in 4x04 and Aaravos mocking her for being unable to kill; Rayla's epiphany in S5 about being "stronger together" at all. If you want more details on all of this I would heartily recommend this meta I wrote regarding Rayla's duality as Callum's salvation and destruction, written pre-s4, and then updated post-S5. Now moving on...

Book 6 is gonna be stars, and stars are associated with Destiny. So is dark magic with control. Thus, Callum confronting the destiny Aaravos has given him (and being possessed again by proxy) seems the most likely for this season. We also know we're going to learn about Rayla and Stella's history eventually (and given that Stella means star, and is connected to the Star primal) and it would make sense to get that backstory in S6 as well. We know we're learning more about the Key of Aaravos (rune cube) and most likely Leola (and her last wish) next season as well. Last but not least, S5 reveals that Rayla's parents can presumably be saved by using star magic / quasar diamonds, and that Callum is even more dedicated to freeing them to some degree than Rayla is, at least in terms of Prioritizing it.

Okay, but what does this all have to do with anything? Well...

It seems pretty certain that Rayla's Big Moment, as you've indicated, has to happen, and will be her refusing to kill Callum and instead breaking him free of the brainwashing. The strongest evidence is actually things I haven't touched on yet, which is that this dilemma and plot beat would resolve both of their character arcs that S4 set heavily into motion.

For Rayla, she's been struggling for seasons feeling like a failed assassin / that she can't kill someone, and that this is a weakness. The fact that it's Callum's life on the line vs the world ("my heart for Xadia") is just the icing on the cake and is a trolley problem she's faced before ("You let him live, but you killed us all!" / "No, you have two choices: you all die, or just the wretched, evil human dies"). So her not killing Callum, and instead saving him, would resolve her arc in a variety of ways:

Prove that her good soft heart is a strength and not a weakness

Reaffirm her love, devotion, commitment to Callum and promising to Not leave again

Prove to her that she can save people (4x05's "we can't save everyone") and that she won't always inevitably mess things up

Rayla refusing to sacrifice something, for once, for the good of the world

Her path in this is so straightforward there is little doubt in my mind, like, come on. It's not subtle and I love it

This isn't even touching on Rayla's parallels / thematic opposition to the other person vying for control over Callum, Aaravos, which if you're interested in you can read more about here. <3

Alternatively, Callum's side of things is far more complicated / less clear. This is for a few reasons:

There will be a choice, presumably, that leads to him getting brainwashed. The most obvious of these is him doing (dark? Star?) magic to free the Moon fam and Kpp'Ar from the coins, but it could be something else. Being willing to take a chosen risk opens up the door for him to feel responsible if/when he plays his role in Aaravos' plans (bc he presumably Has to, since S6 can't end well under any circumstances).

If he is randomly brainwashed, he will have to make a conscious choice to play into Aaravos' hands after breaking free from the brainwashing. This will probably be under coercion or due to a loved one (either Ezran or Rayla) being in danger or threatened. I've always leaned towards Rayla because they've had primary conflict for longer and her weird associations with the cube and its foreshadowing, and for a few other reasons I'll discuss here briefly below.

What's not in doubt, to me, is Callum - willingly or unwillingly - continuing on his dark path within Aaravos' clutches. Whether this would include breaking him free under coercion (but not brainwashing) is debatable, but we'll see when we get there I suppose (if we get there). What does need to be answered, here, is what Callum's Reciprocal Act of Love would be. It seems that he'll have to save Rayla back in turn from something, after all.

Likewise, there's a few options in no particular order:

He saves Rayla from having to make a terrible choice regarding her parents, either to have a life without them or for her to do dark magic to free them by taking that on himself.

A lot of Callum's identity changes have been because of her absence and subsequent shut down. Rayla reaffirming her identity by saving him is also the process by which Callum reaffirms his own identity by choosing her / being able to be saved. A mutual identity reconciliation happening simultaneously, if you will. And throwing off Aaravos' control certainly would be an act of love!

He frees Aaravos to save her life after she breaks him free of the brainwashing, since choosing Rayla and defying Aaravos could be choices that cannot be reconciled.

I lean towards something beyond the mutual Identity Reconciliation because I think 1) Callum being able to express his feelings for her is also very important to his growth for this arc and they've teased him saying "I love you" again quite a bit thus far and 2) I think Rayla, as a character and her core of sacrifice (what does it matter to her, after all, if she gets majorly injured saving Callum) would really benefit from being literally, reciprocally saved, but these are the various avenues I think are the most likely. But I do think their S6 (or whenever the possession plot line is resolved, maybe it is only in S7, who knows) arc is resolved, it'll be with a Big Act of Love from Callum as well, with Rayla's being saving him from said brainwashing.

Anyway, I hope this answered your question and that said answer wasn't too long! Thanks for asking & for reading <3

[1shirt2shirtredshirtdeadshirt]

Star Trek Generations

+ IDW's Spock: Reflections

+ Picard Season 3

+ Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

+ OTOY + The Gene Roddenberry Archive's "765874 - Regeneration"

+ William Shatner's "The Return"

+ Star Trek TOS: The Cage

We are talking PIC S3 Spoilers, William Shatner's The Return Spoilers, Star Trek Generations Spoilers, IDW's Spock Reflections Spoilers, I mean you name it there are a lot of intercollected lore threads to tease apart here.

So we have a YouTube clip, a comic series, Picard 3 Easter Eggs, a novel, and a movie from 29 years ago. Are they planning something for the 30th anniversary of Generations? Maybe, maybe not.

But all of these little interconnected storylines are very interesting to say the least. I'm not sure what to make of it all honestly, or what's going on. But here's what we know so far.

Don't read on if you don't want spoilers for the above entertainment BC this story thread weaves into a lot of different Star Trek media, both canon and noncanon.

This video sums it up nicely and connects all the dots I've also been wending on since that clip (OTOY + The Gene Roddenberry Project) dropped:

Was chatting with some fans about this recently and you know, maybe it's delulu, but all we really have at this juncture are fan theories to fill in the gaps as they've just given us a few little breadcrumbs.

Spock visiting Viridian III, the parallels to William Shatner's The Return, Spock: Reflections:

My full series of Spock: Reflections segments tying into this clip can be found here.

And the Easter Egg from Picard Season 3 tying this into The Return and Jim's body being recovered. We see in The Return and PICS3 Kirk's remains are collected for "Project Phoenix".

More info taken from the screens in PIC S3:

A number of times within and outside recent canon, Jim's death has been referred to as alleged, or that he was critically injured/wounded.

As seen above on the screen shown next to Kirk's body in PIC S3, he is referred to as "critically injured".

If you listen during this scene, there is also a classic TOS throwback sound effect of a pulse -- a heartbeat life sign being measured (3:57):

Before you see Kirk's body you also see there is a "Genesis II" Project; Genesis I was used to revive Spock from the dead in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. (Around 3:42)

Just a lot of plates spinning, wheels turning, dots connecting.

It's interesting that there are so many threads linking here, woven from Star Trek books to canon shows to YouTube clips to Star Trek comic books . . .

Plus this Shatner interview released by OTOY, which made it very clear that he had always intended to keep playing Kirk. Apparently Rick Berman had totally shut him down when he proposed ideas for bringing back the character.

Also that he would wholly be open to returning to the role depending on in what capacity:

Furthermore, a ton of the clips and tester shots that OTOY has filmed with The Roddenberry Archive have the number "765874" in the title, which is the badge number of Yeoman J.M. Colt.

I talked about her in another post -- she only appeared in The Cage pilot/The Menagerie.

She was also only one of four crewmembers serving about Pike's Enterprise who interacted with the Talosians, had gone to their planet, or who could even talk about them.

It's forbidden from anyone in Starfleet to read about that mission report without permission, and visiting their planet was one of the very rare instances where visiting would have serious penalties, including a death sentence (similar to how the Genesis planet was forbidden in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock).

Anyway, how does she tie into this? Why is her serial badge number the title to so many of the clips, including the Veridian III clip?

Curious developments.

So anyway, now that I feel like this;

What are they up to?

This is wild.

[findmeinthefallair]

A Look at Hunter’s Complex PTSD (Part 2)

I forgot to add in the first post last weekend that I am taking excerpts from Parts 2, 4 and 5 of the book ("What My Bones Know" by Stephanie Foo), in case anyone plans to get a copy of it.

I didn’t use anything from Parts 1 and 3, since 1 involves the author recounting her own childhood trauma while 3 is about the cultural and historical events that are tied to the generational trauma in her family and community, which she researched to find answers.

Also..with two of the Owl House specials remaining, which would definitely give us more major Hunter moments…any additions from those two episodes that relate to the book excerpts will be added as new posts, e.g. if any scenes from For The Future are relevant to this Part 2 post, I will be making a post titled A Look at Hunter’s Complex PTSD (Part 2B).

Anyhow if all this sounds confusing now, there will ultimately be one grand masterpost listing every single part. As usual, take care with the warnings of mentions of abuse and trauma ahead. Here goes, for Part 2:

Hunter’s history differs only slightly from the above. He also played a caretaker role to Belos during the latter’s rage episodes:

which shows the failure on Belos’s part, especially since he’s in the guardian/caretaker role, to own, regulate or seek his own help for his difficult emotions, but it imbued Hunter with that sense of feeling “special”. The Golden Guard role was his, and his alone. Belos could then reinforce the whole “wild magic is bad” narrative, exploit how Hunter loved to feel special and wanted, and continue abusing the boy.

But as Hunter tried harder and harder to get Belos to love him the way he wanted, he too experienced a growing vigilance and desperation that was destroying him more and more, as he was worn down further over time.

I’d say it was like this for Hunter too. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t please Belos enough. It wasn't fixing things and it felt as if he was a ship slowly sinking. As his desperation grew, you could say he ventured out further beyond established boundaries, and Hollow Mind was the culmination of the courage and support he spent the previous episodes building up.

He, just like how it’s stated in the book page above, ended up woven more into the world, sewn emotionally and professionally into a network of lives. He made trusted friends and healthier company at last. Ultimately, all those actions he took nudged him along the path meant for him, and it even ended up with him being brave enough to say this in Hollow Mind:

To ask the ultimate question, "What did you do to the other guards?". The question that got Belos to decide “Okay, time to off this Grimwalker and then make another”.

Following that heart-stopping moment, Luz saving his life, both of them escaping, and then the panic attack scene that we all remember, Hunter’s story isn’t over yet. 

With where he is now, in the middle of S3, he might be mentally and emotionally operating in a way that I can deconstruct while we wait for the next episode.

I am inclined to agree with these.

It’s just…so likely for Hunter. It was the case for me, since the first 5 years out of my 7 years of seeing therapists (2014-2020) were either just talk therapy or with ineffective therapists that I didn't trust enough. It felt more like just maintaining healthy enough functioning in my daily life, rather than having what felt like proper breakthroughs.

What Hunter needs first and foremost is to just continue experiencing the precious trust and presence of the good people he has formed good relationships with. Everyone is now in survival mode and would need the same manner of support.

Frankly, almost everyone in the show needs that too. The Isles will be going through some form of collective grief, if not already.

Processing all that has happened to him, in his young mind, will be hell of a lot of work. He can’t nicely fit all of that horror into a framework of cold logic, and I doubt the mess can be solved just by “talking things out”. After all, he has Complex PTSD: and being entangled in damaged formative relationships (Belos and the Emperor's Coven, basically) - not necessarily involving just people, or his relationship with himself, but also himself with the world - is the centerpiece of Complex PTSD.

Cold logic can't exactly help you make sense of why you lacked warmth in your formative relationships (the more technical term is "primary relationships" where your primary caregiver(s), a parent/guardian, is supposed to supply you with security and warmth in their relationship(s) with you).

The clearest analogy I can think of for how he’d need some time before talk therapy could ever benefit him, is when a computer does that thing where it shuts down outside of your control, in order to prevent further damage. When you switch it back on by pressing the power button, it usually acts as if nothing happened before that. This numbing and calmness has been essential in the short-term for Hunter to function, one example being from Hollow Mind:

because his emotions being almost completely shut down here were crucial for survival: for his legs to carry him, with Luz’s help, to escape Belos’s mind. If he didn’t have such a shutdown, he may have frozen in place due to being too overwhelmed, making it harder for Luz to shake him into being lucid to follow her, and Belos would’ve been able to apprehend and capture him all over again in the mindscape.

Survive first, fear later.

There is the possibility that with Flapjack’s death in particular, he might swing towards more dissociation than ever before. The reason why dissociation happens in the first place is because the brain, like the computer, would be overwhelmed if it stayed online any further. It’s a protective built-in mechanism to numb intense psychological pain. That computer can still work overall for some time, but boy oh boy..it would need some repair shop work at some point to even perform basic functions.

If his best friend’s death, by his hands, shocked us in the audience as much as it did, it goes without saying: he himself is carrying a massive amount of shock. The thing is..for the time being his attention is diverted to fighting back and going after Belos, making sure everyone else is safe. But we shall see how his mental state will be after the fighting is over.

This pattern of shutting down/short-circuiting and then coming back online without proper deep healing, would be detrimental long-term if it keeps happening and if it continues past the point where things start to be truly safe for him. It can sadly go on for years if e.g. a child is trapped until they move out as an adult, which would mean the road to healing is having to thaw out of several years’ worth of survival mode and hypervigilance.

To remain isolated would be the biggest obstacle in any stage of his recovery. Thankfully he is now the furthest thing from isolated, where the story left off. Check out how different the screenshots are below omg…the effects of Belos isolating him versus where he is now:

A consistent theme has been an ongoing tension between his fears and what he chooses to do anyway. It ain't just great storytelling, it also feels damn real because I'm willing to bet many of us experience the same tension in our day-to-day living.

E.g. in Labyrinth Runners, the panic attack he had:

is what made the later moment so much more powerful, when he decides to run towards fear to help Gus:

Over time, he has repeatedly made decisions where he prioritizes care for others, the desire for connection and wanting to do what is truly right, over the fear of being hurt and rejected. My personal fave example of how he worries for others’ safety is this seemingly smaller moment, but it’s honestly heartbreaking and reveals hell of a lot about who he is:

He is so terrified that Belos is back, quivering and exasperated, yet he doesn’t want Luz to call anyone else to help them: and in no way does he do this to show off or anything, he wants to protect his loved ones. But this tenacity that exists alongside his gentle spirit is what got him to rebel more and more throughout Season 2, leading him into greater danger and well..unfortunately all of that plot was also building up to what Belos did to him in Thanks to Them.

…yeah. Talk therapy is not what I think this kid needs right now, not till there is restored peace all around him. Because talk therapy requires quite a bit of usage of the brain’s prefrontal cortex - the part responsible for reasoning and logic - and it is activated when we are in conscious control of our thinking. And facts such as “My ‘uncle’ chose to lie to me my whole life” can’t be understood and analyzed in the same way as a math problem can be deciphered :’) How does one make sense of something like that?

Poor Hunter can only accept the reality that Belos chose to do all that, and a key part of this acceptance is to affirm his own strengths and believe he can accept such hard truths. To achieve such acceptance, treating his condition would most likely require subconscious work that is experiential in nature (involving deeper parts of the mind than just the prefrontal cortex) as opposed to just analyzing and taking things apart. Because I don't think simply talking about this:

on top of a childhood of being manipulated, will get this poor kid to where he'd like to be.

My former supervisor calls experiential subconscious work “heart work”, not “head work”...i.e. experiencing one’s feelings and relationships in a safe space. All of Hunter’s military training and duties are most definitely “head work”, all about strategy and withholding trust, which means “heart work” - building trust and finding authenticity in his relationships - has been a new journey for him. His network of relationships and perceptions need a major, positive reframing. And there are so many emotional wounds, oh Titan, so many from Belos.

Hunter is likely to benefit from experiential subconscious work such as the increasingly popular Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) modality for therapy, because EMDR can be an effective treatment if a client experiences discomfort in the form of physical bodily sensations whenever their trauma is triggered, though it is not necessarily for everyone who suffers from trauma. A Boiling Isles version of EMDR might involve Illusion magic...if a therapist from that Coven can draw out mental images of clients to project into the therapy room, that would be a cool simulation and cool parallel of how therapy works in our world.

EMDR was the biggest, most revelatory thing for me in my own recovery but a coursemate of mine found it to be too much and too direct: instead, she benefited from the Emotion Freedom Technique (EFT) approach which was more physical in nature and relied on tapping acupressure points on the body. Idk, maybe I matched better with EMDR because I have an innate curiosity about things, even if it has gotten me in trouble many times in life (this sounds like Hunter as well) :S Whereas EFT was the better fit for my coursemate because she wanted a sense of attachment and connection with herself via the specific sense of touch.

Disclaimer: I am not yet certified in EMDR, god it will be years before I can afford the training fees but I have been on the receiving end of it as a client in many sessions. So I am no trained expert in it at all.

We see Hunter experiencing physical distress related to his trauma, which is why the EMDR technique, that aims to reduce trauma-related distress experienced in the physical body, could be the right match for him. Since he loves the Ruler’s Reach and Cosmic Frontier, he might like how EMDR is like letting your subconscious re-tell your story as a heroic triumphant story, and the treatment feels like rewriting your painful memories while still acknowledging how they actually happened. Because the treatment helped me learn that it is possible to hold both of those in your mind.

To sum up EMDR the best I can, the client replays their difficult memories in their subconscious imagination. It relies on a phenomenon called bilateral stimulation (BLS) which is related to how making left-and-right motions (e.g. going for walks, or swimming) while holding upsetting thoughts in our heads, helps to reduce the intensity of such thoughts.

The general process involves:

Helping the client prepare an imagined safe place to go to (Hunter might choose his fave location from Cosmic Frontier, since clients can choose fictional places if they like) and if needed, a safe person (he might choose Camila) to come rescue them in their mind, in case revisiting the bad memories becomes too distressing. The therapist gets the client to experience the safe place and person, then describe to the therapist what they see, hear, touch etc with as much detail as possible. There will be several practice rounds in those safe spaces, before the client is supposed to do the same imagination thing with their scary traumatic memories in later sessions: once they are experienced with visiting their safe places.

Desensitizing the pain and distress of traumatic memories, working through only one memory at a time, where the therapist gets the client to hold the painful memory in mind while also performing left-and-right physical movements e.g. client moves their eyes left and right, following the therapist's hand motions. The therapist regularly checks in with how the client feels and also measures 1. the intensity of the client’s distress (using the Subjective Units of Disturbance or SUD scale, on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest distress level imaginable to the client) and 2. The strength of the client’s positive belief about themselves (using the VOC or Validity of Cognition scale, on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being complete trust in the positive belief). The aim is to reduce the SUD score to 0 or 1, and increase the VoC score to 7, per memory that the client decides to process with the therapist. This would definitely take at least 3 sessions per memory, based on my experience.

The desensitizing step takes multiple sessions (estimated to be 8-12 sessions for simpler traumas, and many more sessions for complex traumas) helps to make room for new positive beliefs about oneself e.g. “I am worthy of love” to take up more space in the client’s mind, while the emotional space taken up by negative beliefs like “I am unlovable” gets smaller and smaller.

In my experience as an EMDR client, you are just supposed to let your subconscious flow and alter each memory during the desensitizing, because it isn’t about how realistic the memory was, it’s about what meanings you’d like to put into the storyline of the memory e.g. going from “I deserved that abuse” to “You know what, I’m gonna try protect myself”. This means Hunter could incorporate his fave fictional scenes and elements into his own story. I found that my brain went from accurately replaying my traumatic memories, to adding in new things or replacing original parts of each memory. And best of all, I wasn’t actively choosing all these changes - I just let my subconscious run on its own, since it is outside my conscious control anyway. E.g. in a memory where my own abusive mother was yelling at me during a car ride, I saw a tall red tree (red is my fave colour and I feel strength whenever I see it) rapidly growing out of the road directly in front of us. It could cause my mother to lose control of the steering and brake hard, and I could quickly unlock the front passenger door to exit the car and run to my own safety. The most real thing about this was that I now got a taste of how it would feel to use strong boundaries with my mother in real life, and the coolest thing was seeing how my own brain went off on its own to write an encouraging story, which is what mattered and allowed my positive beliefs about myself to start taking root. It all started in my imagination, guided by the therapist.

The best way of putting it is..I realized that when the original traumatic events happened in my life, the bad events happened which then installed negative beliefs about myself (and the world) into my brain's programming, breaking my trust in almost everything except my escape spaces like gaming and art. With EMDR, after feeling the safety of trusting my therapist and my safe place, I had to let my brain create the positive version of the above: letting improved versions of those traumatic events be written by my subconscious: which helped to usher in the positive opposites of those negative beliefs.

It would be too lengthy to go into more detail here about how EMDR could help our boi, so I will instead cover that in my future case formulation post that is separate from this series. But EMDR is not the only way to reach a point of having positive beliefs about oneself. Some people may be able to reach that stage without therapy, using resources like a strong support network and doing meaningful work and activities, which is completely valid and fine as well.

EMDR was the tool that helped the book author reach her first ever breakthrough in her mental health journey. It helped her realize that stuff from so long ago, which she thought she had gotten over, needed to be revisited in order for her to start feeling love for her inner child and younger self. Feeling love for yourself and understanding self-love is very hard work, and it’s not the same as shrugging “Yeah, I guess it’s good to love yourself” and knowing it in theory as an observer.

That section of the book is sort of like how Hunter becomes more and more able to draw strength and other positive qualities e.g. courage, trust, etc, from himself, on his own. The rest of the Hexsquad and Camila came in to help and save Hunter first, which gently reinforced a healthy narrative over time that he is in fact deserving of love, getting him to believe along the lines of “You know what, I don’t want to try being useful to Belos anymore, because what he did to me and what he does as the Emperor is wrong”. This understand was further reinforced when he was the one to extend help to Gus towards the end of Labyrinth Runners.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this post is how Hunter’s friends helped to positively reshape the way he saw himself, when they modeled how healthy relationships should be for him. Many posts have already made in the fandom about how this was the case in every episode that Hunter was featured in (from Hunting Palismen onwards), so I’ll only show the recent examples from Thanks to Them below:

I like how during all of his screentime, it wasn’t obvious to us whether he had good beliefs about himself, right up until we see him at his happiest, in his cosplay outfit and secondly when he expresses his desires out loud to Belos while being possessed.

Learning healthy behaviours from positive influences outside of himself (sometimes, in therapy speak we call this “introducing a foreign element” outside of the client’s own familiar world, to introduce real change), because he had no reference points to draw upon from his own knowledge, is what got him to begin understanding and believing he deserves better. Such recovery work can’t happen within a vacuum, since no man is an island. Some form of connection is needed as a catalyst.

And ajhdhkjkljdfd I am so so proud of him that he could already practice these modeled behaviours himself at least a couple of times, supported by Flapjack's love, after being equipped with the love he needed:

Now, without Flapjack, I am on the edge of my seat wondering how he sees himself, and while he will never be the same again..I wonder how he will find his way back to liking who he is. I hope to see a more in-depth, layered and raw version of these where he has to face himself...and Flapjack is not going to be there this time..:

Especially since his “I like who I am right now” has been so greatly challenged by Flapjack dying by his own hands.

The author's breakthrough after meeting her younger self in her imagination, during her own EMDR sessions, was that she now understood in her heart, not just knowing in her rational head, that her parents did not provide her with healthy love. With that, it became clear what it was that she needed.

This is crazy important. Gradually, Hunter made his way from merely knowing (suspecting that the 'love' provided for him by Belos was not right) to fully understanding (feeling what love is supposed to be, through his friends and Camila). This concept references what I said very early on in this post about “heart work” vs “head work”. Head knowledge is the knowing part that looks for facts and can be reached quickly, but heart knowledge - trusting, believing, seeing the meaningful significance of something - can be tough to find without the aid of a support network, therapists and any form of meaningful inspiration.

The following life-changing truths that the author found in the challenging parts of her EMDR therapy sessions, are truths that were also revealed to Hunter in his character arc through difficult experiences:

I'm sure there will be amazing upcoming dialogue where his support network and found family help to further reaffirm the positive beliefs that he has began to trust about himself.

And that’s that for Part 2!

I wonder if any of the above was helpful, and feel free to comment and discuss in the notes.

Importantly, to put up a word of caution here: please do not try any EMDR on yourself under any circumstances, of course xD

Which stuff did you guys find the most interesting from this part? If anything above is pretty complex for you, feel free to DM me or comment to ask further questions~~

Part 3 will be posted next weekend.