Round 7 (and beyond)
I never intended on releasing a prediction post bc Team Vivinos is capable of excellent plot twists and there wasn't enough to go on imo to really have any solid guesses. But the recently released teaser gave me enough confidence in my current theories to put this out there. (Apologies if it's incoherent bc I'm basically just reposting a discord spiel I gave to an unfortunate friend a while ago lol.)
In sum:
Luka will be the winner of season 50 but Till won't die.
Bonus half-crack prediction:
Luka will win against Till, but Till won't die and Hyuna crashes the party to win season 50.
I can't recall the source but I believe Team Vivinos has mentioned that we're entering the main plot/part 2 of the story. Everything in this post is formulated based on this premise.
The artbook synopsis also seems to back up the claim that a bigger plot is coming.
Luka wins
Fairly sure Luka will win because that's his role. He is the epitome of this system. He is the symbol of Alien Stage. He cannot fall this easily.
Him maintaining his position at the top means he and the segyein enter part 2 with a strong presence.
Alien Stage may be fractured — 2 current participants have escaped to the rebels alive — but the system is still standing. It's scandalous, sure, but they have a winner and they will eventually go on to have Season 51.
Till survives
Till won't die because that's just weak sauce writing, plot, and character and we know Team Vivinos isn't capable of weak sauce writing, plot, and character.
Fact of the matter is, if Till dies in the next round he and his personal story will forever be overshadowed by Ivan's.
The climax of Round 6, Ivan's narrative and ending, it was executed so goddamn well. It was compelling. It was incredible. We are still not over it. And so—
There is nothing Till can do in the space of one episode ending in his death that can overpower Ivan's momentum from the previous episode. (Ofc everything in this series was somehow packed into 4 minute spurts that leave us emotionally wrecked so I am fully prepared to eat my words)
If Till dies here, regardless of what he does on stage before it happens, Till will be reduced to "the character who dies of guilt and regret after being the subject of someone else's obsessive love and sacrifice." He'll end up a passive player in his own story.
But if Till survives:
Till from here on out
Imo it would be FAR more interesting to see where his feelings and relationship with Mizi develops and shifts from here because Ivan has effectively tainted his idea of love.
Why do I say this?
Well Till's love for Mizi is... very innocent, very pure, very "first love"y. It's all things naive and fantastical and shoujo manga heart-shaped bubbles.
Meanwhile Ivan's love for Till is dark and gritty. It's obsessive. It's all things murky and ugly (I mean it in the best of ways don't come at me with your pitchforks) — the complete opposite of Till's impression of love.
Which makes it all the more impactful when Ivan forces Till to come face to face (literally) with that deep, obssessive love in Round 6 with his last moments.
After this incredibly traumatic eye-opener — an intimate, violent look into a different kind of love — I don't think Till can look at Mizi the same way again. (No not because he does or should be obligated to return Ivan's feelings, and that's a hill I'll die on regardless of pitchforks. If Till develops feelings for Ivan it should be on his own terms. If Till falls out of love with Mizi that should also be on his own terms.)
Hyuna wins Season 50 (jk)
Look it'll be funny.
Luka facing off against Till and then Hyuna crash the party, stomps him (vocally), effectively wins Season 50, and then yeets with Till and Mizi — one over each shoulder, hauled like sandbags.
(In all seriousness tho, not a very high chance of happening. They clearly have a lot of issues to sort out that'll prob happen later in part 2.)
"Never come back again"
The whole reason why this post is up. The caption for the new promo art gives me more confidence in the theory that everyone leaves except Luka.
'Never come back again.' I feel like there's a good chance this is Luka saying or thinking this to Hyuna (and co). If indeed it is, there's a lot to unpack there.
Tl;dr
Hyuna and Mizi busts Till outta there, Luka is left utterly alone seated on the throne again, Sua and Ivan eventually come back wrong to wreck emotional havoc as zombie androids
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Ive seenyou mention wuxia a few times now and i wonder what that is. Would you mind explaining it to me?
not the most qualified person to explain this as i'm not, in fact, from china; but i've read a couple of wuxia so here goes:
wuxia is a genre of fiction from china specifically, about martial artists in ancient china. i don't think a specific time period is like required? obviously some dynasties are more popular but idk how it goes in that front. it just has to be Not Today and probably Too Long Ago. like pre industral revolution i think. again idk if that's a requirement, but most i've seen are from around the same relative murky pre-electricity era.
xianxia is a subgenre of wuxia that's specifically more fantasy-like, and it's not just martial arts, but also spiritual powers and cultivation (which i have no fucking clue how to explain without two hours and three tangents other than chinese magic system. if you've ever heard of chi/qi as an energy, it appears there). so like- genshin is by all accounts a xianxia, it just doesn't use the more common specific xianxia terms like cultivation. some of those are very weird to translate and probably not common for the average non-wuxia reader, so it makes sense why they're going for alternatives.
chongyun and xingqiu and xianyun are very much straight out of a xianxia. xianyun's entire story quest was the closest genshin has gotten to a straight xianxia plot so far. i highly reccomend ashikai's video on unnecessary visions if you want more info on why genshin is a xianxia hahah
cyanide narwhal has some talk of some stuff from xianxia, but that's mostly because well- fucking liyue, that's how it works there. the whole light energy striking down someone who's getting powerful and giving them godhood if they survive the strike is, while not exactly like that, something that happens in some xianxia as well.
like the way adepti work in general is just very xianxia. ashikai does a much better job explaining it than i do tbh but yeah
TL;DR: wuxia is chinese martial arts fiction in ancient china, and xianxia is a wuxia subgenre with more magic elements. also genshin is a xianxia
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it is beyond frustrating to see the loz series so dedicated to going in such a new & innovative direction in regards to gameplay, yet still so stagnant in regards to the story. like, sorry to be that person but the fact that it's 2023 & you STILL can't play as zelda in any of the main games is mind-boggling to me. even in totk, a major part of the story still revolves around rescuing- sorry, finding her. she has such a deep meaningful story (which is a step in the right direction, for sure!), but the player can only experience it secondhand as link. she is allowed to be a companion character, but only for the first 5 minutes of the 100+ hours you can spend in the game, as a little teaser for the OTHER companions you get much later (who pretty much all suck except tulin & sort of yunobo, but that's another post). we see her sacrifice, but we only get small snippets of the experiences that led up to that sacrifice. she is put through so much trauma & has to make this impossible choice, & we don't even get to grieve her properly or tell anyone what became of her. & by the end of the game, it doesn't matter because she's back to her regular old self, same as she was before she swallowed the stone, with no lasting physical or mental effects whatsoever, because why should her sacrifice actually have any meaning outside of how it served link? & before anyone argues with me for saying that, yes obviously it did have meaning outside of how it served link. but the way she is restored in the most ridiculous deus ex machina i've ever seen in a zelda game cheapens it severely. everything magically gets fixed by rauru & sonia, & just like link's arm, zelda is left no worse for wear, because of course we can't possibly have our main characters permanently changed by any of these horrific events they've lived through, oh no nothing like that.
link saves the day & gets rewarded with the beautiful princess.
this IS the basic story of almost every single zelda game & you can split hairs all you want, but it's the same with totk as well & i'm just so beyond sick of it. i think zelda (the character AND the series as a whole) deserves so much better than that.
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I said I have 4 storylines of Good Omens fanfiction (including the Crossover with Legion). Had I said that today, I would've lied. There's five.
["Diary entry" under the cut, so there's no litany on an unwilling scroller's feed]
NOTE: I haven't seen S2 of GO, not do I intendt to, so beware of canon divergence
Well... The 5th one is less a coherent storyline, more a concept. I was playing Gardenscapes, and suddenly thought "What if F!Crowley were my Antichrist's mother?"
You know, maybe Crowley owed Satan a new Antichrist, or something. I guess, she'd have screwed up this one, too... Well, she'll gladly take over the world, she just won't destroy it.
The conversation (between myself and myself) went about like this:
Me: ...
Also me: what if?..
Me: for fuck's sake, not again
Also me: Lady Crowley...
Me: please stop
Also me: Was Maxine's mother?
Me: whyever would she be her mother?
Also me: because she owed Satan for the ruined Apocalypse, and had to carry the next Antichrist
Me: Maxine doesn't want the Apocalypse, she's a sane politician
Also me: works for Crowley
Me: she also has black hair and blue eyes
Also me: Satan has black hair and blue eyes, Benedict's not his faceclaim, anyway
Me: fine, why would her last name be Frost?
Also me: Satan goes by Lucian Frost on Earth
Me: why would he ever go by the surname Frost?
Also me: a not to Dante's Inferno
Me: I hate you
Also me: 🤪
Me: you're killing me
Also me: with pleasure 😊
[End dialogue.]
Now, like I always do with any new idea, I of course collapsed down into the daydreaming pit, which often turns fanfiction, and original stories alike, into Tolkien-level complex universes you'd need a lifetime to fully explore.
I thought, it could be funny. When Max meets Anathema and Newt's daughter Agnes in Oxford, they can bond over their unhinged families.
"You'll probably think my parents are weird as fuck, they have a pet raccoon they dye black, and pretend is a cat."
"Honey, no, I get you. My mother mentally abuses her house plants, and wears sunglasses at midnight."
Rich people things, I guess. I mean, they're both nepo babies, who would ask questions about why their families are weird. Who would ask questions about why a rising star politician's mother mentally abuses her house plants.
There's a lot of potential for comedy. Crowley's issues with her sister-in-law, for example. Satan and Michael... They have a strange dynamic. The last time they spoke to each other is mentioned in the Book of Jude. But, they both have the familia ante omnia, blood is everything mentality. They support each other's political aim. They would kill for each other. And, Michael feels very protective (possessive, even) over her niece (the family mediator, why do you think she's a perfect diplomat). It would annoy the Hell (Heaven?) out of Crowley. Still, in the end, she and Michael would probably kill for each other, also.
I'd imagine Satan forbidding any contact with his disowned son... I don't know. In my fanfictions (where he is a thing), Maxine and Adam usually do have eventual contact, and consider themselves siblings (do keep in mind, though, Max would always choose her father over her brother). Satan doesn't mind her not wanting the Apocalypse, as long as she's loyal to him. He sees good points in her arguments against. He never really cared for it, anyway, it was mostly the armies.
Also... Maxine rides horses, ever since she was a child. Crowley doesn't get along with animals, everyone knows that. But. She's the nightmare equestrian mom (think soccer mom, only worse - much worse). How does she get along with Max's animals?.. Well, Titan (the hellhound) actually likes her. Ulysses (the horse) tolerates her. Horus (the falcon - yes, Max's so posh she's in the falconry hobby)... I have no idea. He'd probably sit on her shoulder, sometimes. But, Crowley's anxious around him, since snakes aren't usually friends with raptors.
At first, I thought about conflict between Crowley and Maxine. For example, her refusing to ride in the Bentley, because she (every author must place pieces of them in their characters) despises Queen. But... I don't like writing that. I like writing loving, healthy relationships between mothers and daughters. So, it's more "What do you mean you're bad at being a demon? You caused the Fall of Humankind. None of them can compare to you", and"You'll be the perfect Secretary-General of the United Nations, honey". We love mothers and daughters supporting each other here. ❤
I even thought of cute scenarios, like Crowley coiling in Max's crib, because she's anxious, and wants to protect her baby.
Max is fiercely protective of Crowley. That's why she'd be in conflict with Beelzebub - funny enough, for a similar season to the other stories (Beelzebub causes the death of her adoptive mother, after she realizes she's raising the Antichrist). Beelzebub hates Crowley, and the Beast of Rev. will show her very sharp teeth, should someone threaten her mom. Satan's on his family's side, don't worry.
Actually... You know why this story is cool? Horrific things happen to Crowley in my other fics. Not this one. Actually, she's doing great. She's the Queen of Hell. Damn... She'd outrank Beelzebub. She could terrorize... Her? Like I said, I haven't seen S2, Ι don't know the pronouns, and I don't care, you can get them right if it matters to you (I just know in S2 an actress from Bridgerton played her (?)).
As for Satan/Crowley... As long at Crowley's female, I don't mind it. I like it. Good for you, you little serpent tempter. Because, you know I always romanticise the Devil.
Have I any ideas for smut? You bet I do. I even have crack ideas... You know that picture of a female wolf protecting a male wolf's throat? Think that, but Crowley's coiled around Satan in her snake form, and snaps at anyone who wanders close.
So, I let this out into the web. Now I'll have to actually do it. Wish me luck. 😑
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BOOM. FANFICTION
We have a dead OC haunting the narrative, we have absolutely soul crushing whump, we have hurt/comfort and a little sprinkle of hurt again at the end! What's not to love!
HELL YEAH! Another entry to the 7-rats-in-a-trenchcoat holy war cinematic universe!!!! Today is a gooood day
when I saw the mail icon I was like I HAVE BEEN CONTACTED YEAAAAAAA
today... is an even better day because we got more Saorise... I'm gonna cry.
You know, I didn't recognize that the "dead oc" was her until I saw her actual name, because in my mind she's still alive and running around as a vital part of the ten commandments. I haven't done anything but gently put her in the background of the daydreams with a cookie of her choice yet, because knowing she was Zeldris's only friend on top of being her own lovable self and now learning that she was a like sister to them both- my HEART 😭
i cannot touch that yet. it is holy. but one day, if I have your approval, I swear I'll make her a happy ending. bc that's what I've been doing since I was little for tragic narratives (Cough, cough, Darkstalker Legends, if you know you know) and now's as good a time as any to step up my game. just the prospect gives my heart the zoomies
me when a writer I love makes an oc and gives them the good angst: 👀 is mine to love? to cherish? to make fictional happy endings for? fictional happy endings that don't exist for the characters that don't exist, that are wonderful and die a horrible undeserved death that fits the themes and story so well my heart is screaming?
oh... so THIS is where that sketch is from...
can you tell I can't write tragedies but enjoy the themes and execution of them so much that I religiously read and corrupt them anyway? yeah 😍
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