#the only thing is whether i'm willing to actually commit to the bit

[fractoluminescence]

Ok, but what if I suddenly decided that my OC would gradually grow bigger/taller from the moment she became a Soul Reaper, and continue to do so indefinitely? What would my readers do then??

[venussaidso]

Mercury Dominant Themes — 𝐍𝐚𝐤𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐚 𝐎𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 (part 1) 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟏

It seems to be a theme in Revati where all the wealth that has been accumulated from the Uttara Bhadrapada stage is easily accessed, but the native must be deemed worthy or in alignment with this sacred wealth, and very often they are (but they have to prove it, usually). Profound, universal secrets are quietly recovered in Revati where elevating/ascension is easily achieved (whether through wealth status, spirituality, surpassing mental limitations etc.).

The 12H activates so perfectly in Revati by draining everything away to remind us of those secrets so that we 'wake up' again.

I'm going to use monetary wealth and inheritance for my observation, not spiritual, so bare with me.

Revati reminds us of the duality of privilege and hardship, which is either emphasized in this nakshatra or tends to be taken for granted (how such 12H harsh lessons will come in).

We can see how Revati is the 'nepo baby' nakshatra, but there's more to it if we extend this theme a bit more.

Revati being extremely wealthy while also being a nakshatra about humanity & community further validates it being a universal sign (Pisces).

We can look at the story; The Prince & the Pauper written by Mark Twain who is Revati Moon.

The story is about two boys, the prince and the pauper, who switch places and briefly experience each other's lives. The prince experiences the struggle of a commoner's life, and the pauper gets a taste of the responsibilities of the royal life. This makes them have a deeper understanding and even empathy for each other and others alike. Revati emphasizes the shared humanity of all of us, and that's why this nakshatra tends to use their wealth to give back to communities; going into foreign lands to help others that cannot be helped. This proves them being worthy of their wealth, which is now something that can be maintained and even elevated.

Gaining inheritance but only through challenging conditions is something that I associate with Revati. This falls into them proving themselves worthy of the given wealth or learning to put their ego down to be properly nourished.

The film The Bachelor (1999) is about a man, who is fearful of commitment, is made aware that the only way to inherit his grandfather's wealth is by finding himself a bride. The guy is literally commitment-phobic, but he must change his ways. He is played by a Revati Moon.

It's very interesting that films regarding family monetary/asset inheritance have (Mercurial) nakshatras which trine Revati. For example, the film The Descendants (2011) has a plot where the main character is considering on selling a pristine piece of land that has been passed down throughout generations in his family. The director of this film is a Jyestha Moon.

Or the film Inheritance (2020) stars an Ashlesha Moon who plays a character whose father dies, unfairly leaving her with a small inheritance of $1m compared to her brother - played by a possible Ashlesha Moon - who received $20m.

Unfortunately, she also inherits a lifetime of deception and deadly truths that her father left her to deal with. So, we can see how this trope looks on the flipped side where inheritance can be a curse. Mercury nakshatras are the last to deal with the (family) baggage that tend to be passed on from their family, and they're usually the ones to put an end to curses or cycles. Mercury nakshatras, in the general, are the last stage where all matters from the Jupiter/Saturn nakshatras are dealt with & released. In the film, the deceased father is interestingly played by a Vishakha Sun, Purva Bhadrapada Moon.

Actually, circling back to the film The Bachelor (1999), the deceased grandfather who's willing to pass his wealth to his Revati Moon grandson is actually played by a Pushya Moon, Punarvasu Ascendant. I find that Saturn nakshatras can make things challenging for Mercurial nakshatras, not wanting to let them off too easy. Giving them challenging conditions regarding inheritance. Sometimes, Jupiter/Saturn nakshatras can play a role in which they take advantage of vulnerable, Mercury nakshatra natives.

This is seen in the film Rain Man, which was literally directed by Revati Sun AND Jyestha Moon, Barry Levinson.

The film is about two brothers who reunite after the death of their father. The greedy, selfish brother played by a Pushya/or Punarvasu Moon who realizes that his father left his entire estate to his autistic savant brother who is played by an Ashlesha Sun. The Pushya/or Punarvasu Moon brother kidnaps the Ashlesha in hopes to get him to share his inheritance with him.

Now, very interesting how Mercury nakshatras can be born into wealth but it can all be drained away from recklessness, arrogance, or for a lesson for the natives. Going bankrupt, being dethroned etc. can be Revati/12H themes that make us go boundless, by taking everything away which we held onto most of our lives. It makes sense why the 12H is said to be co-ruled by Ketu. Nakshatras trining Revati can also have these themes extended to them.

The film 'Material Girls' is about two heiresses to a multi-million-dollar company who approach life very recklessly and arrogantly. One day a scandal they get involved in causes the downfall of their family reputation and they shift into a life of being penniless and homeless.

The film stars Jyestha Moon, Hilary Duff, and her sister, Haylie Duff, who has her Mars&Venus in Revati. And the movie is literally directed by Revati Moon, Martha Coolidge.

Another movie to mention is the very first Thor (2011) movie, in which the main character - an arrogant, reckless royal prince - is stripped of his powers and banished from his home. He lands on Earth, powerless and ordinary, where he learns humility and what it truly means to be a hero before reclaiming his status. The main character is played by Ashlesha Sun Chris Hemsworth, and the movie is directed by Jyestha Sun Kenneth Branagh. LMAOOO I MISTAKENLY WROTE JYESTHA MOON IN THE PIC

Now, onto Disney Princesses.

What do these three movies have in common? There's a commonality in their respective storylines. Rapunzel, Princess Aurora, and Princess Anastasia all have a period in the plots where they are not aware of their royal lineage or rightful place on the throne. It becomes a central narrative to move the stories towards these characters finally remembering who they are. 12H themes are at work again here, as 12H will strip you of your identity and create even more confusion of the Self. The 12H is also about remembering who you are again, being reminded of where you belong. These characters are so incredibly Piscean/12th house in nature that of course they can only be voiced by Revati natives!

Tangled (2010) — Mandy Moore voicing Rapunzel

Sleeping Beauty (1959) — Mary Costa as Aurora

Anastasia (1997) — Meg Ryan as Anastasia

Live-action version of Princess Aurora has been played by Elle Fanning; very fittingly lmao.

There's a Barbie Rapunzel movie and Rapunzel was interestingly voiced by a dominant Revati stellium.

And Rapunzel in the Shrek version was voiced by someone with two Ashlesha placements (I know, not the best example but having two repeated nakshatras make them dominant imo).

As I've mentioned, nakshatras that have the same nakshatra lord can share the same themes because they trine as a result, so they're closely connected. But Revati is the face of this post, just btw.

From what I gathered, Revati teaches humility, empathy and compassion. Revati is a nakshatra that sees humanity in all, and this trope is well embodied in the Prince and the Pauper story. Revati teaches us how class and wealth creates illusions of separation, and so the 12H takes that thing you believe 'separates' you from others so that you are reminded of the truth. Reminded, is the key word, because the truth has already been realized Uttarabhadrapada, where self-liberation and abundance is achieved. In Revati, you forget the truth that freed you in Uttarabhadrapada. So, Ketu will remind you (Pisces/12H co-ruled by Ketu) and it will hurt (the process of remembering hurts, but the aftermath is so freeing). But things can go the Disney Princess way, where you have to find your way back to yourSELF. This is how we see Revati natives losing themselves, especially in love, just to forget to remember (which is the whole point of life/humanity... EXACTLY WHY REVATI IS A UNIVERSAL NAKSHATRA).

[wolfsong-the-bloody-beast]

I'm kind of obsessed with Blackwall's idealized ideas about the Wardens. He was once picked up by a Warden and lulled by the promise of atoning for his crimes and turning his life around, only for that opportunity to slip away when the Warden not only saved him, but sacrificed his own life to do it. This whole experience makes our Blackwall become a Warden in heart, if not in blood, but with his own ideas of what a Grey Warden should be - noble, brave, inspiring, heroic, self-sacrificial. Everything he now wants to embody. He knows well that he's not there, but he wants nothing more than to start from scratch and be that.

In his beliefs, he reminds me a bit of Wynne in Origins who tells the Warden at some point that the Grey Wardens are supposed to be more than killing machines and weapons against the blight.

“There’s more to being a Grey Warden than killing darkspawn and saving the world from the Blight. Ultimately, being a Grey Warden is about serving others, about serving all people, whether elves or dwarves or men. As a Grey Warden, you are a guardian of men. And you guard them because their continued existence is more important than you are.”

However, we know that's not exactly how it works. That's what they want the Wardens to be. The light against darkness. The shield against monsters.

Although it's not entirely wrong, either, I suppose, all things considered. The more darkspawn they obliterate and push back, the more people are protected from them. Of course, sacrificing their lives to fight literal monsters, which means those same monsters don't eat everybody's kids, ultimately is heroic, and it's something that must have been born out of the need to protect the world and its inhabitants (from the Blight). But to have idealized opinions of the Wardens to this degree, you have to ignore all the other shady stuff and the mentality we, as players, also know the Wardens for. The fact that the Wardens are primarily weapons to slay darkspawn, prevent and end Blights, by any means necessary. The last part is important. After all, they are the Grey Wardens, not the White Wardens. They recruit from all walks of life and are famous for taking in criminals. Not to redeem themselves and get a second chance at life, but because they usually have nowhere to go and nothing left to lose. It's not a coincidence that each of the Origins gets chosen by Duncan, not only because he sees them as capable, but also because they are in a situation they can't escape from. Either they join the Wardens, or they're done for.

We know the Wardens from a few games now, but does the public in the setting even know? Does the average person have any idea how far the Wardens are willing to go? Besides grand stories of slaying monsters in the dark and preventing the end of the world? Probably not. The order is very secretive. And it explains a lot. The Wardens end up sounding almost romantic, when being a Warden is anything but. Is it ignorance talking out of these characters? Perhaps.

It once again shows us this aspect of Dragon Age where you can't take everything a character says as a fact, because the setting is full of people who have no idea what they're talking about, but who are absolutely convinced that they do.

And yet, I can't help but also like Wynne's and Blackwall's romantic ideas about what the Wardens are or should be, almost knights in shining armour and all that. They're fairy tales, but they're beautiful fairy tales. And I can't fault the characters for wanting to believe it or even live it. Especially in case of Blackwall, who sees it as a way to make up for the crimes he committed, somewhat. In the end, this might actually be a bigger draw to join the Wardens than, "Got nowhere to go? Come suffer horribly and probably die gruesomely with us!" It all sounds great on paper, though. I can't fault Davrin for trying to find purpose in life by becoming a monster hunter, either.

And maybe a little bit of idealism doesn't hurt. Not only it's good motivation, but in the end, doing things by "any means necessary" doesn't always pay off, either. It led the Wardens into all kinds of trouble, like getting tricked into employing dangerous forms of blood magic and demon summoning, basically into doing their enemy's work for them. In their determination to win at any cost, they helped trigger a cataclysmic event. Maybe having some principles isn't so bad after all.

In the end, I can appreciate that we get to see the clash of the old and new blood in Veilguard, where there's hope for the order to transform into an organization that's less secretive, less exclusive, and hopefully less prone to letting corruption spread through its ranks and make other devastating mistakes. Duncan once said that letting people join the Wardens isn't an "act of charity", and I like how Evka and Antoine go, "Yeah, you know what? Fuck that." And that likely inspires more loyalty. I imagine Blackwall would like that.

[angofwords]

hello. Don't know if this feels weird..

Based on the post you reblogged about villains, would you expand on Dino Golzine from banana fish? Where does all the actions of his come from?

Hello! Thanks for such a great question!!

I've actually been intending to write an essay about Dino Golzine for YEARS, so thank you for giving me the excuse to get to it. <3

Because you referenced the post about villains, I figure I'll take each of that OP's observations point by point and apply my thoughts about Dino. Bear with me, because this might be long. Also, it should be emphasized that I DON'T, IN ANY WAY, SUPPORT DINO. This essay might sound sympathetic in places, but it is not. I'm just trying to look at things from his point of view.

"They Should Believe They're the Hero of Their Own Story"

Dino Golzine may not believe he's a hero in a traditional way--he knows he's committing crimes, but I don't think he necessarily thinks that he's wrong. What do I mean? Think about any real-life mob boss. They're the head of a business organization. A family business, at that. He doesn't have family in the traditional sense, but he's got everyone calling him "Papa," so I'm sure he imagines that his staff are some kind of found family where he's the patriarch. It's a warm feeling, knowing that people look up to you, that they rely on you for their livelihoods.

Sure, his business is on the wrong side of the law, but that's just semantics--what are laws but rules set in place by other men? If Golzine's work is an asset to the community--he provides people with things they want (drugs and sex) and undoubtedly funds plenty of political campaigns and public works--then surely something as petty as law shouldn't matter. Sure, his sex business is a bit niche, but there's clearly demand, right? He's making cash hand-over-fist, so he's filling what would otherwise be a void in the market. If he didn't sell cocaine and boys, someone else surely would, so it's not like these boys would have a better life if he obeyed the law.

Hero or not is debatable, but the fact is, Dino is successful. He's strong. He's respected. These are the only heroic qualities that interest him.

"Give Them a Personal Code of Ethics (Even if Twisted)"

Yeah, Dino's code is absolutely twisted, but you can see that he has one. First of all, it's clear that he values decorum. He doesn't like it when Ash is dirty or rowdy or uses bad language. He doesn't like it when things happen that make him look bad (like when the head of the Corsican group decides to replace him because Ash has made a fool out of him). These aren't quite ethics, but they are a standard of conduct. Golzine has a reputation to uphold, after all.

Until he gets angry, Dino tends to be respectful with his peers (the senators, Foxx, Blanca) and even those he thinks are a bit beneath him (Dr Mannerheim). You might ask about the boys at Club Cod, about Ash himself. How is that ethical? Frankly, I'm not sure he considers those boys as human beings. It's like what Ash said, he treated him like a doll, that it never occurred to him that he had feelings.

I think that changes over time, in regards to Ash. Once Ash is his assassin, he develops some level of respect for him--at least enough to see him as a human being. Dino's respect for strength and skill is obvious. I suspect it was Ash's determination not to break at Club Cod (as well as his beautiful face) that inspired Golzine to pull him out, to keep him as his own. And even when Ash became willful and unmanageable, Golzine never killed him (though he threatened a lot), instead giving him an expensive education.

He doesn't let Ash get dosed with banana fish in the mental health facility. He also doesn't let Foxx kill him. We can argue motivation for those actions, but it seems his sense of ethics are a bit warped around Ash. Whether he's protecting him or he wants to destroy Ash himself (I honestly think it's the former), there seems to be line there that he won't let anyone cross.

Also, he fulfills his obligations to Yut Lung. They made a deal and Golzine stands by his end of it, killing his brothers for him. As a businessman, Golzine can honor a contract.

So, while this isn't quite an ethical compass, it's that same kind of structure. Golzine rewards the traits he values, and he probably really thought he was elevating Ash into someone respectable.

"Their Motivation Should be Relatable (Even if Their Actions Aren't)"

Okay, so here's where Dino fails for me. I simply can't relate to the smooth running of a criminal empire, and I doubt most of the readers can, either. I guess it's understandable that he'd want to develop banana fish for the pure profit of it. Still, his motivation being almost 100% financial is a bit gross.

However, if you bear in mind that this manga was written in the 1980s, when "Greed is Good" was a literal bumper sticker slogan, that might be enough to fulfil this particular rule. The '80s were a very different time, ideologically. Being a cutthroat businessman wasn't really considered a character flaw yet.

Also, as far as motivations go, it's understandable that he'd want Ash to take over for him, as he has no heir (and I suspect he'd be grossed out trying to get one the traditional way) and the whole point of this sort of organization is to keep it in the family. I honestly believe that, if he put all the "good" he did for Ash (luxuries, food, nice clothes, a well-rounded education, "rescuing" him from Club Cod) on one end of a scale and the bad stuff (rapey things, mostly, because I'm sure he felt that making Ash into a killer was a good thing) on the other side, Dino probably thought that Ash should've been grateful. I know, it's horribly disgusting, but seriously, that's the only read I can get on him.

"Make Them Competent (Nothing's Scarier Than a Villain Who Actually Wins)"

I don't think this one takes much thought. Dino is scary as fuck. In the beginning of the series, Ash is cocky around him. He's rude and disrespectful and it's beautiful. But I think that's all for show, like the way a teenager might push his dad, but that doesn't mean he really thinks he could take him. Golzine scares the shit out of Ash. All those years, and Ash never left New York? He could get on a bus and make a new life in Chicago or California, but he doesn't. I assume this is because he knows how Golzine would react. He doesn't spend the whole series trying to break free from a guy like this if it wasn't hard as hell to actually do it.

Golzine orchestrates so much truly heinous shit, like the whole situation surrounding Shorter's death. He's quick to punish Ash for rebelling, like when he lets him think he's going to let Mannerheim dose him with banana fish, and when Ash consistently gets the better of him, he uses his resources to hire someone who really can punish him (Blanca and then Foxx). He's relentless, and that's terrifying.

"Don't Forget Their Human Side--What Do They Love? What Are They Afraid Of?"

Dino doesn't seem to be afraid of much, but he's afraid of failure. When Corsica tried to have him replaced, he floundered for a minute. He rallied, of course, and got his position back (partly by murdering the guy who was sent in to replace him), but it was touch-and-go for a minute there. His impotent rage was rather humanizing.

What does he love? I'm going to start with the less-controversial things--he loves order, and luxury. He loves power. He has cats--not an easy pet for people who need obedience, so I assume he has a soft spot for them, too. He loves to hob-nob with powerful men.

Now, for the more controversial. I honestly think he loves Ash. Not in any way that is normal or healthy or even recognizable to most people, but I do think it's love, in the only way Dino knows how to love. He treasures Ash as something he's created, something he owns. It's narcissistic and gross, but I think that Ash is the only person on earth that Golzine wants near him. He reiterates over and over that he owns Ash, even goes as far as saying he'll make a "good wife" out of him. Dino wants Ash in his life forever. Ash is literally his favorite thing.

Before I get attacked for this--OBVIOUSLY Ash deserves more than that. It's insulting and disgusting and horrible to think that any person should be forced to live the way Ash has lived with Golzine, especially under the guise of "love." But Ash is the only humanizing influence on Dino, even if all we see is negative emotions. Ash is able to push Dino's buttons, making him alternately blind with rage and furious with envy. But imagine how soft he might get if Ash tried, even for a second, to be nice to him. I think Ash could have Golzine eating out of his hand, if he wanted. (But obviously, Ash is far too traumatized and terrified of this man to even see this as an option, which is ultimately better for Ash, because such a path would undoubtably corrupt him).

Dino Golzine works because he's larger than life. Not only does he wield an enormous amount of power, he has power over Ash. Ash is a god in this manga--he's the prettiest, smartest, most talented, most capable boy who ever lived--and yet, Dino Golzine has made him desperate enough that he's willing to climb on top of a badly-veering truck for a chance to finally kill him. That's a terrible plan and he knows it, but at that moment, it's all he has, so he goes for it. Dino is a classic, well-constructed villain who gets the work done basically every time he's on the page.

Think about why the fandom hates Foxx--he's an evil caricature and he adds no depth at all to the story. Compare that to Dino Golzine--we hate him because he feels real.

[updatebug]

I am watching Crown of Candy first time (just finished the Sugar Plum Fairy fight) and I wish I did, but I really just don't vibe with Saccharina.

Like, no shade AT ALL to Emily, I think she is a masterful creation, but I just cannot get on board with her.

Iike, they are all coming from a place of trauma and emotion. Amathar and Ruby have lost their daughter/sister, been betrayed by a close family friend, been exiled from their kingdom - one has had his past mistakes come back on him in the most brutal way, the other had her entire worldview shattered. Saccharina has abandonment issues, children trauma, a history of abuse, and I don't think growing up with horrible nuns and then a band of marauders gave her the bestest of social skills. That's all fair, and I can see whether this is leading them to clash, Saccharina wants the family she always dreamed about and she wants in now, Amathar and Ruby and not in a position to be as emotionally available as she wants - yes at times they are being actively rude, but even when they aren't Saccharina seems to take the fact that they are treating her like a comrade rather than a beloved family member of a personal slight. And on Amathar and Ruby's side, this woman is a stranger to them, of course they aren't going to have the immediate relationship that she wants but that doesn't give them the right to take their grief out on her.

But for me the difference is that narratively, Amathar and Ruby are constantly being called out on the fact that they are letting their grief cloud their reaction to Saccharina. Theo does it, Caramelinda does it (from a politics POV), we get all of the marauder OC's reacting when A and R are rude, but noone ever calls Saccharina out for the ways that she's being rude, or the way that she is refusing to meet R and A where they are at.

Like, after the Sugar Plum Fairy, when Saccharina said that thing about how...'Oh I could have dealt with her but I chose to do something with you' to Ruby, and then got offended when Ruby wasn't immediately grateful. But, like, that's a rude thing to say. Saying 'I could have done the impressive thing you did and the only reason you got to do it is because I threw you a bone' is a rude thing to say. And I get where it is coming from in Saccharina - it's the same thing she did when they first met and she threw that feast. She thinks if she is useful to them, they will love her how she wants. and that it tragic - but no one ever challenges Saccharina on it and says, hey I get where you were coming from, bad execution though. Instead her marauders just act like the others have committed some heinous crime against Saccharina by not immediately fawning over her for saying that.

Even when Ruby does give Saccharina the olive branch and tries to explain her side, Saccharina doesn't really empathise - she brings it back to her own trauma, and how much she wanted a sister. Again, she isn't willing to meet Ruby where she's at. She doesn't really seem to want to build a relationship, she wants that relationship now, on her terms. (Again trauma, but still) but that's just not possible. I sympathise with her completely, but she is a stranger to them, an adult stranger. Who they met under the worst conditions, they're not going to have that immediate relationship that she wants.

I really wanted to like Saccharina and there are moments when I do. But I think if Saccharina was also being called out (And hey, I'm not finished she might be) on the moments where she's maybe being a bit of a dick, where she's disrespecting Amatar and Ruby's emotions (even if she's doing it with a smile, and with over-eagerness and accidental insults) or on the moments when she takes them treating her as a comrade rather than a confident as a slight (obviously not counting any of the times when they are actually being rude to her) I think I would be more settled with the character.

[lotusloong]

Black myth wukong Nezha general HC please thank you for taking time to write this 🙏 ❤️

Okay so I'm not gonna lie, I've never actually written for Nezha, so I was unsure how to go about these. It's especially tough because Black Myth does have Nezha pop up but only very briefly, so there isn't a whole lot to go off of on what he's like.

So I ended up writing, deleting what I wrote and writing again, then deleting again, until I got this! I hope it's what you were looking for! (Briefly featuring wingman Wukong because their friendship is very important to me - says the Wukong simp, who knew)

So, you're courting the Third Lotus Prince. The Crown Prince, Nezha. Needless to say this comes with quite a bit of pressure for you. 

For the Celestials, status and image are very important. The Jade Emperor doesn't throw parties every other week to have fun. It's a way for gods to flex their status and gossip about each other while in the same room. 

Every little thing you do will be hyper analyzed, whether you want it or not. 

Luckily for you, Nezha kinda doesn't give a shit about that crap. 

Oh he'll certainly put on a show to keep the peace, pretend that the idle gossip and prattling is important to him, but in all honesty he doesn't care. If he was given the option between attending another stuffy party or spending the night flying through the stars with you in his arms, you'd already be flying through the cloud layer before the question is done being spoken. 

If anyone at these events dares to shame you while he’s in earshot? Oh, they are on a one way trip to the mortal realm, falling at super sonic speed from the force of his punch. No one talks about you like that infront of him.

Now, he's grown and changed a lot when compared to his child self, and while he does a better job at keeping up with his responsibilities, there is still an element of rebelliousness inside him. He will drag you along with him to sneak outside of the Celestial Realm, to visit the mortal world below and have some fun. 

Speaking of his child self, one thing he hasn't quite outgrown is his temper. Yeah…you have to have quite a bit of patience when in a relationship with Mr. Rip-out-your-son’s-spine-for-pissing-me-off Nezha. 

Not that he would actually use that immense strength to hurt you, never you. He would rather cut off his own hands than lay them on you with the intent to hurt and break. 

But there are times where you disagree about things, as all relationships go, and his temper will make itself known. He will raise his voice, he’ll stomp away while you're in the middle of talking to him, he'll scowl and insist that he's right. 

Now this can be incredibly frustrating at times, but just remember - his anger comes from a place of caring. He's passionate and very self-confident. He's used to being in charge of difficult situations and having to make the decision no one else is willing to commit to. It's hard for him to get out of this mentality when you first start your relationship. 

Just…give him some time, and try to talk to him about proper ways to handle your disagreements. If he needs some space to cool off, he should say so! You’ll be able to pause the conversation and take a few minutes to unwind. Teaching him how to identify the reasons he’s upset and then verbally putting them into words will be a big milestone in your relationship. It makes your bond stranger than ever, and disagreements are resolved faster and faster as he practices more.

Now something else to know when courting a heavenly prince? You get showered in gifts. At first their very generic ones, beautiful gowns and outfits made of the finest materials, jewelry of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Makeups and perfumes and flowers, everything. A lot of it is stuff you don’t even use. 

But, as you grow closer and he learns more about - as well as gets more comfortable with being in a relationship and what to expect from each other - the gifts get more and more personal. Things that are actually helpful to you, and that you appreciate because it’s proof that Nezha actually listens to you. That’s when you know for certain he’s the god you want to marry.

When your courtship is considered finished, Nezha panics.

Not because he’s upset, mind you. But because now he doesn’t know what to expect from your relationship. 

Your courtship led to a type of status quo, as it were. You give each other gifts, you ate together, you spent your free time talking and flying and laughing together. He gets it into his head that marriage means something more, when he’s…not exactly wrong but not exactly right, either.

Enter, Sun Wukong, reborn - Monkey King, Great Sage, and Nezha’s personal coach on life advice (probably not the best idea but…Wukong’s ideas always seem to make sense when the monkey explains them).

When the Sage had been killed so many years ago, Nezha felt his absence like a missing limb. He understood that Erlang had a plan, he knew Wukong had a plan, but…after 500 years without his rebellious friend, Nezha missed him more than he let on.

There would be nights when he was with you that Nezha would hold you close and reminisce about the past, and how he hoped to see his friend again, how he wanted you to meet him someday. You would cup his cheeks with your hands and kiss his forehead, saying how you couldn't wait.

Now, Wukong had been reborn, and whenever Nezha felt stressed about things he couldn’t share with you (usually because they were about you and he didn’t want to put his foot in his mouth) he could turn back to his old friend.

“Marriage is just…What’s gonna change, huh!? Do I have to be more…I don’t know, stern? Do I need to start taking on even more duties of the Heavens? Fuck-do I need to learn how to be a dad-!?”

“Whoa, slow down Nezha. Who said anything had to change in the first place?” “What do you mean?” “Well…It’s your relationship. Just do what you both feel comfortable doing.”

Well when he puts it like that it sounds so simple.

Sometimes Nezha forgets that Celestials like to overcomplicate things, and the longer he lives among them, the more he starts to think like them.

He files away that thought about parenthood deep into his subconscious to look at another day. A day that is far, far, far away.

He won’t admit it to anyone but you, but he’s…a little terrified of the idea of being a father. His own biological father and him had such a rocky relationship and it really hasn’t gotten better over the centuries.

Sometimes he worries he’s turning into the same man…

When he does finally admit these fears to you…honestly there isn’t much you can say to help. These are fears deeply rooted into him since childhood, saying he “could never be like that” won’t actually make him believe it. 

The best thing you can do in that situation? Hold him close to you and kiss the crown of his head. Whisper into his soft hair how you’ll stand by him, and love him, no matter what your future brings. Tell him that if he can’t trust himself to be a better man, you’ll do it for him until he believes it.

One day, he’ll get there.

[mewvore]

as someone who worked as a stripper for several years, showing your body is not a one way ticket to financial security. there were many nights where i worked for 8 hours and ended up owing the club money, due to how things like set rent work. and many more where i made $60-80 for a full night’s work. not that you can’t have great nights some times, or make half your rent in a hour, but many people who work in sex related industries are doing so freelance, and may never know if their next month is going to be able to support them through the year or if they’re getting their power shut off. you can be trapped in a cycle of saving what you can for months, only to have it evaporated by an unexpected expense during a bad month.

yeah absolutely, its... well its work. I don't mean to sorta condense it down to that but of all people I'm WELL aware that sex work is a working class activity.

for anyone a bit lost on the convo thread at the moment, I made a post about how I'd personally never get rich because it requires a persistent gambling mentality, and someone mentioned sex work (or adjacent types of showing off ones body publicly) as one thats probably less of a gamble for wealth. and this anon here is explaining that its very much just a normal job you probably shouldn't bet everything on it for making you rich/very few people are rich solely from sex work

to circle back to what I meant overall, when you grow up in poverty a lot of things have to be calculated based on risk and loss, as opposed to risk and reward. that mentality is very hard to shake the longer you stay poor. when you've eaten syrup sandwiches and worn your siblings clothes for 10 years, even very little things can make you completely satisfied and less willing to risk that little bit of satisfaction because you know what its like to have literally nothing. so I personally can't see myself doing the kinds of risky behavior with the little bit I have that a lot of wealthy people do to gain and maintain their riches, whether its making shady deals, playing stocks, trying to fool people, committing felonies like wire fraud, or even just like actual straight up gambling.

also theres a survivorship bias? like yeah there seems to be a million celebrities and or influencers doing all the above betting, but even in their seemingly endless masses they're like 1/100000, you rarely hear of the gamblers who lost

[breezypunk]

I've completely had a change of heart about songbird. When I first played Phantom Liberty when it released, I didn't really like her that much, I didn't have a chance to understand that her and V really were in the same boat. In all actuality, in Vaughn's eyes at least at first, he's only really thinking of himself, because he wants to be cured and doesn't want to die, and at the point of Phantom Liberty in my headcanon, him and Goro are already in a committed relationship, and he has more reasons to live now. He's more willing to do whatever it takes to survive, so him thinking songbird lied about so much, he's more willing to betray her and take Reed's side.

NOW that I'm playing through it again and am really listening to Songbird and her story, oh man.. I feel such fucking empathy for her. She's withering away to the Black Wall, her mind and memories are fading away, she is losing herself. So Is V.. why wouldn't they be more understanding and want to take her side, and in Vaughn's case while he respects Reed, he needs someone who gets him, who understands him, whose in the same boat as him. Song is willing to do whatever it takes to survive, and so is V. So my headcanon's changed a bit, cos if V was in Song's shoes, he would do the exact same thing, that's why I feel they are so compatible as partner's. (whether it be friendship or more, and in Vaughn's case it's a close friendship). I've gotten way more emotional this run than I ever did.

Betraying her to take Reed's side was difficult (and I only did it cos I wanted to do a Cerberus run, most regretfully lmfao), I won't do it again. She's stolen my heart officially. All I wanna do it protect her. Her and V are literally one and the same. Vaughn will do whatever it takes to survive, but have her by his side.

[butterflydm]

looking towards s3

I'm going to be doing a bit of wild speculation for s3, here, after going through the various book narratives and moments to check off what the show has already covered (including some speculation about certain plotlines having been subbed in for other ones) and so what's likely next for them in s3. Contains book spoilers through Knife of Dreams and casting and location spoilers for s3.

(for a more thorough "what's already been done", @sixth-light has one here: what's in and what's out: characters; worldbuilding)

The Eye of the World:

I think we can probably all agree that the one big thing from EotW that hasn't been covered yet is the introduction of the Caemlyn-related characters, other than Elayne -- namely Elaida, Gawyn, Galad, and likely Morgase. We know that this will happen in s3, at least to a certain extent.

They came in clutch at the last minute with giving us Elayne taking care of her 'bird with a broken wing' aka her meet-cute with Rand.

The Great Hunt:

Pretty much everything narratively important about TGH was covered this season. Some of it was remixed (Rand's 'Fal Dara' encounter with Siuan and the Aes Sedai happening in 2x7 in Cairhien instead of at the start of the arc) but pretty much everything important has been done.

And Siuan being much harsher with Rand in the show than in the books makes it understandable why Rand is not willing to trust Aes Sedai (with a handful of exceptions). imo the change in Siuan's plotline was done for three reasons: a. to set-up Rand's increasing wariness around the White Tower and Aes Sedai; b. to have a narrative reason why none of our main characters are going back to the White Tower next season; c. to set up a character arc for Siuan in s3+. Obviously, time will tell on whether or not I'm right, but those were the reasons that came to mind immediately after 2x7 and I still think they're likely reasons.

re: 'flicker-flicker' - the most important thing coming out of flicker-flicker is that Mat is determined never to 'betray' Rand, like it's implied that he did in some of the flicker worlds, and Mat has absolutely made that emotional commitment due to the events of this season.

The only important minor character from bk2 specifically that we don't get introduced to is Egeanin, I think, and again, that's a case of "if we have her, we want to introduce her when she's more narratively relevant", which would be either s3 or s4 in this case, for Nynaeve and Elayne's storyline. We also still have Egwene's introduction to Gawyn being held in reserve for when he enters the story.

The Dragon Reborn:

Elements pulled from TDR into s2:

Perrin (and thus viewers) getting introduced to Aiel culture (though through Aviendha rather than Gaul, combining two separate elements of bk3 into one introduction).

Mat being trapped in the White Tower and then released back out into the world.

Our introduction to Moiraine's spy network.

I think that Elyas being more human-apathetic plus Ishamael telling Perrin that "the more wolf you are, the more you're mine" may have subbed in for Noam and his loss of connection to humanity, driving Perrin to be wary of the wolf-connection.

Moiraine threatening Lan with a forced bond-change because she's trying to push him away.

Rand being hounded in his dreams and being lured to a site of prophecy by one of the Forsaken in an attempt to rescue Egwene.

Rand's moment of killing people and them kneeling to him (in the books, he actually sets them up to kneel; I liked the show's approach much better)

We also witnessed Mat having an actual reason for his Old Tongue memories and his fighting prowess and the show also may tie his luck into him blowing the Horn, given that he said his battle-cry, so I feel like the "archetype" he has in the Heroes is the Gambler (which I think the 'finn call him?). I really loved that all of Mat's random stuff has kinda been consolidated (and the Horn scene might be my favorite scene of the whole series thus far).

Rand being recognized as the Car'a'carn by Aiel searchers.

Elements that were not used but will happen next season: Perrin meeting Faile. I also think it's likely that Perrin will start going into TAR next season (which could give us either Birgitte or Uno | Gaidal Cain in a re-occurring role). Elayne and Nynaeve becoming Black Ajah Hunters (I'm unsure if Egwene will or if she's going to go straight to her bk 4 plotline; I suspect that she's going with Rand), which is also their bk4 plot. I do think we'll get both Perrin (via Hopper) and Egwene (via the Wise Ones) learning TAR.

Things I'm not sure we'll get:

I'm doubtful that we'll get Egwene & Elayne's Accepted tests at all:

Egwene may come across as an even better patsy/figurehead to Salidar if she's a novice

2x7 really makes me feel doubtful that The Dragon Reborn's friends will be able to waltz into Tar Valon and then waltz back out again (unless they are returning specifically to spy out the mood in TV re: the Dragon and Moiraine?)

Egwene choosing over and over to abandon Rand in the Tests feels like it would directly contradict her character arc in s2, where her motivation for working so hard in the Tower was to give herself the strength to protect the ones she loves.

@sixth-light suggested the idea that Egwene might get her "what is to come" vision in Rhuidean and I like that idea a lot -- if she goes with Aviendha to the silver rings and catches glimpses of her potential futures!

I feel like Aludra might not get introduced until very soon before we need to take the Stone of Tear (or potentially not until after Ebou Dar, when she's needed to create the dragons).

I also suspect that we'll skip Thom's storyline from this book just like we skipped his storyline from bk2 and go straight into his post-Tear bk4 storyline, since Rand is going to be doing Aiel politics and not Westlands politics next season. So my current suspicion is that Thom is going to be part of Elayne & Nynaeve's storyline (and then once Elayne and Nynaeve come back into Rand's storyline, that could be when Thom helps Rand).

This is also the book when balefire first appears (Rand uses it on Darkhounds; Nynaeve uses it for the first (and only?) time; and Moiraine uses it twice). Not sure when the show will introduce it, because I feel like it's going to be The One Way to actually kill Forsaken, so it may be held back closer to when one of them dies. I suspect we'll see Lanfear get doorway'd in s3, but I don't think any of the Forsaken will get killed off until s4 (Rahvin, if he exists) at the earliest. If Rand kills Rahvin with balefire in s4, that gives the rest of the Forsaken a reason to back off and keep their distance (especially if Moridin shows up in s5 to take the reins back over on prioritizing corrupting Rand over killing him).

What might happen in s3 but might be reserved for s4: the convergence on Tear and the various roads people take there. I feel like Tear is likely to come after the Waste and maybe even after Cairhien (Tear may be where Sammael is instead of Illian, but then Rand fails to kill him there and he flees to Illian?).

Also, as I keep noting in my reread posts (which is where I'm getting this info from) Mat is much less anti-Rand than fandom agreement had led me to believe/remember was happening in the books at this time. He dislikes The Dragon Reborn (TM) but his thoughts about Rand as a person tend to be more regretful or frustrated than fearful. So the show is doing fine there, since they've dealt with the The Dragon Reborn (TM) issue by having the whole "who is the Dragon plotline?" in s1.

The Fires of Heaven-A Crown of Swords:

I think we already covered "oh no someone else may get Lan's bond" and he'll go directly from Moiraine to Nynaeve, because Alanna has a more important forced bond to take (probably in s4). I am wondering if we'll see Nynaeve bonding Lan much earlier than in canon, maybe even at the end of s3 if Moiraine goes through the doorway and Nynaeve ends up in the same city as Rand & co.

Crossroads of Twilight-Knife of Dreams:

Guess who just got murdered! So... no Renna and no Seta. And maybe no more Suroth. The show has been ruthless with the Seanchan (not a complaint). The show is also leaning much more heavily on the friendship of the Two Rivers Five (plus now Elayne), so Mat doing any of the bullshit that he does in CoT & KoD feels less likely because this Mat doesn't have the excuse of dagger-sickness to forget what happened to Egwene in Falme. After the show made such a (beautiful! spectacular!) show of Mat being a good person at heart, even being a Hero of the Horn, which he wasn't in the books... yeah, they are not doing the book version of Mat & Tuon (thank fucking goodness). They may do a version of Mat & Tuon, but I think it will be very different from the books, if it happens.

One of the new interesting changes that the show appears to have done (from what Egwene said in 2x8) is make sul'dam extremely weak channelers instead of being learners. I think this has some fascinating implications re: Tuon because it means that a collar would 100% work on her. In the books, the sul'dam get tested along with all the other women to see if they are damane and if any of them have sparked, they end up caught.

It's only over long years of use that they develop their 'affinity' with their damane and this is when the collar would work on them. So, per book canon, it's entirely possible that putting a collar on Tuon during any of the books would fail to do anything, because she's still quite young and also is not 'complete' as often as many other sul'dam because of her high status. But in show canon? That collar will work 100%, because they use the Searchers to find marath'damane instead of testing every woman in the Empire every year (until they turn 25, I think it was). If the show is working backwards to decide on these changes, then it's entirely possible that this change in the way finding marath'damane is done was 100% specifically for Tuon's potential storyline down the road.

Also, I love that it means that Tuon is a weak-ass channeler, because that was always my head-canon for her anyway.

The Shadow Rising:

Elements already pulled from TSR+ into s2: Rand knows that Selene is Lanfear and Lanfear is offering to protect him from the other Forsaken and wants to work with him. And Rand also knows that "the Dark One" is actually Ishamael and the rest of the Forsaken are now out in the world. We've also learned about ji'e'toh already. TSR is also when Moghedien was introduced.

What likely won't happen in s3: I think Tear itself will be held back until after the arc in the Waste. They've already done some of the related character-work from the start of bk4 in s2 already, with Lanfear and Rand, and most of the other stuff (the 'finn doorway) could be moved to Falme if need be. Or, since we have the all characters going east, maybe it'll be in Caemlyn when the characters split up to their various plotlines (which would give us Elaida's Foretelling for Rand and Egwene meeting Gawyn) and then they wouldn't have needed to have Falme as a location shoot for s3 at all.

I do suspect that the Rand & Elayne relationship is being pushed to a later season and we'll likely get the beginnings of Rand & Aviendha instead (which makes me suspect that Elayne's storylines would get adjusted in a later season to actually give her time with Rand).

What likely WILL happen in s3: the Tower coup and Elaida taking over as Amyrlin; Rand & co going to the Waste and Rand becoming Car'a'carn while Mat gets his medallion and Egwene gets Wise One training; Elayne and Nynaeve (and Thom?) going Black Ajah hunting (or specifically after Liandrin?). Potentially we will see Rand and Aviendha catch feelings for each other as Rand and Egwene fall apart (and Lanfear stalks Rand from the sidelines, since she's not supposed to be interacting with him). And Perrin defending the Two Rivers, of course.

I don't think that we'll get Tuon this early, though we may get the prophecy (and the dread from the audience that Mat is destined to marry one of these horrible slaver people, because the Court of the Nine Moons has already been mentioned).

In addition to being a big book for Rand & Lanfear developments, TSR is wonderful for Rand & Mat as well. There are so many amazing moments for them in this book. If the show hits even a handful of these beats, s3 will be great for the Cauthor side of fandom. Especially with how Josha and Dónal are playing Rand & Mat as very handsy friends who are comfortable with physical touch.

So, what are some potential ways they could go with s3?

(I promise that any and all speculation with be at least 85% inaccurate and may be as much as 100%; does contain some casting and location spoilers for what we know about s3 so far)

Starting place in 3x1:

Option One: Falme subbed for Tear

We do Tear-stuff in Falme (doorway; maybe bubbles of evil) and then the characters split up for separate journeys.

Pros: making the most out of our current location! the characters are already there!

Cons: Have to pay a location fee for an additional season when they could instead use a s3 location.

Option Two: Caemlyn subbed for Tear

We know that Caemlyn is going to be in s3 and they might want to get the most out of their new location.

Pros: Might get Elaida's Foretelling of Rand. Egwene meets Gawyn without needing to go to the White Tower. Mat could do his 1v2 quarterstaff battle against Elayne's brothers. Means that everyone has already traveled significantly to the east during the break between seasons but they're all still together as a group, meaning we won't need as big a timeskip after this. And Elaida's Foretelling could even be the trigger for Rand & co needing to flee the city.

Cons: can't think of any but I'm sure they exist; this genuinely seems like such a good option to me that I am 100% marking it down to potentially write as a fic, if I ever get the time (I continue to collect plot bunnies at an alarming rate in this fandom!)

Option Three: Hurrying through BK3's ending (aka Tear is Tear)

This seems more expensive than it's worth, but maybe they got more money for s3!

Pros: bk3 Tear will be done, I guess?

Cons: expensive set piece and location that is then promptly abandoned so that everyone can go somewhere else

So, we've done our set-up episode and now we've moving on to: everyone goes somewhere else!

Where do they go?

Stop, Wait... Option Four: There Isn't A Set-Up Episode

This is the option for not having any set-up at all and just jumping into everyone's individual journeys.

Pros: Faster to get into the main story

Cons: No bonding time for the group as a whole; fewer character interactions; would probably make me sad

Well, we've either done our set-up or we haven't, so where is everyone going?

Perrin -> The Two Rivers

I mean, we all know it. Perrin is kinda the reason that I think we won't start with everyone already at their destinations, because I don't think Perrin's storyline in the Two Rivers is meaty enough to be stretched out over eight entire episodes.

Wondergirls -> ???

A White Tower stop-over seems fairly unlikely to me after 2x7, though there's a chance. I think it's more likely that we'll get them splitting up to go into their bk4 plotlines.

(If the Wondergirls do go to the White Tower, what is Rand doing during this time? How does Egwene reunite with Rand for her bk4 plotline?)

Verin burned her bridges with Siuan & Leane, potentially (she COULD probably talk herself out of being viewed as Black Ajah... maybe... but it's hard to see how she could talk herself out of being viewed as breaking Tower law) which implies to me that SHE isn't going to return to the Tower, and she is the one who introduces Dreaming to Egwene in the books. Which makes me lean towards the idea of Doing Tear (and the White Tower plots) in Caemlyn.

They could take some of the characters back to Tar Valon in s3 but... but that bridge between Moiraine and Siuan is so scorched right now that it's difficult to see Siuan being willing to let any of them leave the White Tower if they go there again.

Mat -> Rhuidean

Mat didn't touch the dagger, so he has no need to go back to the White Tower literally ever, especially since one of his Hero friends put the Horn away into an interdimensional pocket for later.

Rafe has implied that we will see Mat's quarterstaff battle at some point (unless he just meant that we would see Mat wielding a quarterstaff against two opponents at once, which definitely happened in 2x8), which leads me further to think about s3 starting in Caemlyn, because after that, Gawyn and Galad go off into separate plotlines.

If we assume that Caemlyn takes the place of both Tear and the White Tower for book 3 & early book 4 events, then everyone would go to their book 4 plotlines from here -- Perrin would go west to the Two Rivers; Rand & co would go to the Waste; Elayne & Nynaeve would go to do some Liandrin-hunting. We would only need five main locations for the season, at least two of which are pre-existing -- Caemlyn, the Two Rivers, Tar Valon, the Aiel Waste/Rhuidean, and whichever city Elayne & Nynaeve go to in order to hunt Liandrin (and if it's Cairhien, then they already have the location/set).

Events that I'm Pretty Sure we'll get in s3:

Rhuidean. Rand's walk through Aiel history and Mat's encounter with the foxes. Rand saving Mat's life. <3

Asmodean becomes Rand's teacher.

I do think we'll likely get Couladin proclaiming himself as the Car'a'carn and the chaos of Alcair Dal, because Mat killing Couladin is really what creates the BotRH and cements him as the leader.

The White Tower coup.

Nynaeve faces off against Moghedien... or maybe this season she will still be focused on Liandrin?

The Battle of the Two Rivers.

I think we will start to get Rand & Aviendha in this season, but slow-burn. But if they plan to do the Moiraine & Lanfear show-off at the end of the season, then you'd want the Rand & Aviendha relationship to begin to flower. And then Lanfear is out of the picture (as far as Rand knows), which would let him worry less about her killing any woman that he's attracted to.

Things that we Might Get in s3 (depending on pacing):

We might get either Cairhien or Tear at the end of the season. That really depends on pacing and I don't know how fast they plan to move through the arc in the Waste. There are really only two big Events in the Waste in bk4 -- Rhuidean and Alcair Dal; though there's also visiting Cold Rocks Hold and the attack there.

Moiraine and Lanfear's encounter with the doorway. The reason that I'm thinking this might happen in s3 is because someone (was it Rafe?) teased about a "big cast change" at then end of s3 that book readers would be familiar with. Losing Moiraine right as he gets a Forsaken as a teacher would be very intriguing.

If we are going to do the polycule (*crosses fingers hard*), then there needs to be a decent stretch of time where Elayne is actually allowed by the plot to spend time with Rand. We got our meet-cute and it was beautiful, so I have high hopes. There is also a new tor.com interview where Rafe says that Elayne and Rand have a 'huge arc' together.

For now, I think the time period after her book 4 plotline and before she gets involved in Ebou Dar seems like the best time (as opposed to just wandering the countryside for weeks because Nynaeve can't remember the word 'Salidar'). So after Rand has returned to the wetlands. I am going to speculate that s3 ends with the Battle of Cairhien while, at the same time, Elayne and Nynaeve go to Cairhien for their own story reasons. Because they've already done their book 4 plotline, and maybe part of their book 5 plotline, there's no need for them to hurry off right away. And Elayne spends most of s4 with Rand (and Aviendha) (and Mat). Elayne can help Rand navigate politics in Cairhien, and they can fall in love while being big ol' workaholics. We also could have Dumai's Wells happen here so that Rand can get rescued not only by Perrin but also by Mat, Egwene, Elayne, Nynaeve, & Aviendha. Which would just be nice.

I do think, based on the Power of Friendship vibe that we had in the s2 finale, that the show is going to be bringing our characters back together a lot more often than the books did (and I'm happy about that).

So, based on that idea... a tentative outline for s3 (I am not expecting this to end up being at all accurate, lol, just feeling some things out about a potential way things could go based on what we've see so far in terms of how quickly the plot moves and how the show seems like it's more willing to reunite all the characters, so I am going to try to get everyone to Cairhien by ep8 so that they can reunite again; we also might be doing Tear instead at the end of the season):

ep1: The opening of the season is supposed to start with a 'bang'. Would they do the Tower coup this early in the season? Siuan ended s2 in a terrible political position, having the Dragon in her possession and then losing him. And if anyone finds out that she was conspiring with Moiraine for twenty years... otoh, would they want to show us Elaida in Caemlyn first, before taking her to the Tower for that plotline?

I'm not sure how much of a time-jump we'll get, though probably a bit of one, but I'm hoping we'll get to see all the characters together in the same location, as happened in Tear in the books. This may take place either in Falme or in Caemlyn, but our characters will have a chance to regroup and mingle. We may get some of our action from the start of book 4 here -- the bubble of evil, getting rumors of trouble in the Two Rivers. If the opening episode is in Caemlyn and not Falme, it may also feature: Mat vs Gawyn & Galad; Egwene and Rand (at least) meeting Gawyn and Galad. Rand meeting Elaida and getting a version of the Foretelling. This might also have our characters meeting up with Verin and Alanna in Caemlyn, and we may get our Verin & Egwene scenes and a certain gift of a twisted stone ring.

perhaps spurred by Elaida's Foretelling, our group scatters to their future destinations. Since they are much closer to the Two Rivers than they were in the books at this time, it might be that Loial leads Rand's group through the Ways to Rhuidean, rather than leading Perrin to the Two Rivers. Egwene meets the Wise Ones in TAR and decides she also needs to go to Rhuidean with Rand.

ep2: Perrin arrives in the Two Rivers and we get a look into that situation; Elayne and Nynaeve get interrogated by a woman who is definitely not secretly Moghedien. Rand and Mat ask permission to go to Rhuidean. In order to make it so that all the characters are heading in to the same place, maybe Elayne and Nynaeve went to Cairhien to investigate Liandrin's disappearance? Since all the 'known' Seanchan were killed off in the Battle of Falme, the show may have the Seanchan take s3 (and s4?) off as they regroup before their next offensive.

ep3: They've put a pretty heavy-hitter in as ep3 in s2 and it seems likely they would try to do the same in s3 because of the way that Prime drops shows, so let's call ep3 the Rhuidean episode, where we learn about the Aiel's past and Mat finds a doorway. Moiraine goes through the silver rings, learning about what will happen to her in the future, and writes some letters (alt: Moiraine goes through the doorway in Rhuidean as well and learns it there?).

ep4: Rand & co travel towards Alcair Dal (skipping Cold Rocks Hold); If the White Tower Schism didn't happen in ep1, maybe it happens here. I'm going to tentatively put the Coup here. Rahvin arrives in Caemlyn, if he exists?

ep5: Alcair Dal & Rand trapping Asmodean as a teacher (with Lanfear's help). Couladin announces that he's the Car'a'carn and decides to march on Cairhien, and Rand already feels guilty about getting Lanfear to help him escape in 2x7 and her torching the city, so he's extra motivated to stop him.

ep6: Battle of the Two Rivers, so that Perrin will be able to start his cross-country road trip to meet back up with everyone else by the end of the season? Maybe including the 'trap' for Faile that happened in TDR and it makes Perrin realize that he has feelings for her, which he feels guilty about. Asmodean begins teaching Rand.

ep7: Nynaeve and Moghedien have a confrontation in Cairhien and Nynaeve manages to defeat Moghedien, causing her to flee (or maybe this is Nynaeve defeating Liandrin? We might want to keep Moggy scary for the moment). At the end of the episode, the Shaido Aiel have arrived to lay siege to the city.

ep8: Battle of Cairhien - Mat kills Couladin and forms the Band of the Red Hand; Lanfear finds out that Rand and Aviendha have... slept together? kissed? have feelings for each other? And Moiraine and Lanfear have their appointment at the docks when Lanfear loses it as she realizes that after all her work, Lews Therin/Rand is never going to love her the way that she wants him to.

Then, in the name of 'letting the characters spend more time together', Rand's friends maybe actually get to hang out with him in s4 before people split up again, giving us a situation where the whole group gets to reassemble to save Rand at Dumai's Wells? Hard to guess without knowing how much will get covered in s3. They've done a great job pulling in plot lines from various books so far.

s2 did an amazing job of having a handful of themes that they explored through multiple characters and storylines, so I expect that s3 will also have some themes that they will be using. Not sure what it might be yet though once we get our s3 trailer (in, like, a year or a year and a half, lol) we'll probably have a better idea, because Halsey's "Control" being used for the s2 trailer was INCREDIBLY accurate for some of s2's themes -- "who is in control?" and the idea of fear and control and trying to own someone's power were very much at play in s2.

So what character arcs might we see in s3?

I think we're going to see Moiraine & Lan firmly established as mentors to Rand throughout the season, doing their best to prepare him for the future. And then Rand is potentially going to lose both of them at the end of the season (since I think that the show might bring all the characters together at the end of the season again, we might even see Nynaeve "bonding Lan to save his life" at the end of s3).

In general, there's just... honestly gonna be so much Rand stuff that I will be absolutely overwhelmed (in a good way). TDR-TSR-TFoH are my favorite run of the books and there are just so parts of TSR that are SO good (and a lot of them are Rand).

Theory for Mat's arc in s3: I wonder if we're going to start with him choosing to take a bodyguard-type role for Rand (because of his guilt over the stabbening) and transition to taking a general/captain-role at the end of the season (which would involve more independence in the future when he needs to leave Rand's plotline) as the Maidens take over as Rand's bodyguards. TSR is such a good book for both Rand and Mat in general, so I'm really looking forward to what the show does because the show has invested so much in their relationship already.

I am so so curious about what dynamic will be established for Rand & Asmodean and how many of the other characters might know the truth about him. In the books, Moiraine reveals in her letter to Rand that she knew who he really was but agreed with Rand that perhaps there was no choice but to work with him, because she agrees that Rand needs the training.

I do think we'll see some vibes between Rand and Elayne in the first episode, but that they won't act on them. But Rand was clearly struck by Elayne tenderly healing him with the sunlight in her hair and I do think we'll get some follow-up on that moment in ep1.

We'll also be getting Rand and Egwene pulling away from each other as romance partners (but perhaps settling into being trusted friends?). And I agree with @markantonys that it makes the most sense to have Rand & Aviendha as Rand's first established romance post-Egwene, because of the way the plotlines are set-up (Aviendha is actually going to be around Rand all season) and because she comes from a culture that leaves space for adding additional partners, so you don't need to use the misunderstanding loophole for Elayne and then Min to be added to the relationship in the future.

Perrin is going to come face-to-face with his guilt and grief over his wife's death when he goes back to the Two Rivers. Especially when he begins to catch feelings for Faile. We'll also see him training in TAR with Hopper. We'll see the continuation of his struggle with Dain. I do wonder if Dain might die at the end of s3, for similar reasons to why Renna, Seta, & Suroth died at the end of s2, leaving room for Galad to become the main Young Whitecloak figure in the future. Because the Whitecloaks spend several books not really being relevant in the middle part of the series.

Given how Nynaeve struggled with her block this season and it's been a real obstacle for her, one that she can't handwave away by doing the Bruce Banner "I'm always angry" thing like she kinda does in the books, I think that her main struggle this upcoming season is going to be trying to break her block and that they might even have her succeed at the end of the season against Moghedien -- much like s2 featured Egwene, Mat, & Moiraine coming into their powers (or back into their powers for Moiraine), s3 may see Nynaeve, Rand, & Perrin doing that.

The fact that Siuan disagreed so strongly with Moiraine in 2x7 makes me feel that it's more likely that she will survive the coup, because now she has tons of space for a character growth arc once she's struggling with actually dealing with her own stubborn Two Rivers person in the form of Egwene.

This will be Elayne's first season as an established member of the group -- one of the reasons that I think we'll get a set-up episode at the start of the season is that it makes sense to establish what her place is within the group. And then if Thom is in her storyline, we'll be able to explore a lot of her feelings about being the Daughter-Heir and her relationship with her mother, even if Morgase isn't shown on-screen.

Given that we killed off* all the 'known' Seanchan, I wonder if that means that we'll be taking a break from them in seasons 3&4, and then have them return at the end of s5(?), after Mat, Nynaeve, Elayne, and Lan have all gone to Ebou Dar (maybe Egeanin's plotline is shifted to Ebou Dar and we see that being explored at the start of s5 before the bulk of the Seanchan attack at the end?).

(* well, Suroth might not be dead, since we didn't actually see her die and she might have gotten rescued from the water, so she might be existing in a quantum state -- dead if they can't get the actress back later on but alive if they can)

We had a LOT of plotlines in s2 -- five major plotlines (Rand, Mat, and Perrin each got their own, while Egwene & Nynaeve and Moiraine & Lan did some sharing) plus we had the villain plotlines.

I’m guessing that we’ll only have three main plotlines in s3, which will give them all a bit more breathing room — we’ll have Rand & co in the Waste; Perrin & co in the Two Rivers; and Nynaeve & co doing a version of Tanchico. I think that the White Tower coup is likely to be a plotline for one-three episodes rather than something that spans the entire season.

And now, just for fun, a WoT s2 speculation scorecard! How well did I do?

I'll go backwards in time, so starting with my most recent speculation (that I did based on the 2x8 trailer that aired post 2x7).

That shot of Rand asking "who are you?" would be to that lovely shot of Elayne with sunlight in her hair: Correct!

Lanfear and Ishamael will fall apart while the Two Rivers kids stick together: Correct!

Elayne and Nynaeve will have to separate due to only have one sul'dam outfit: Wrong!

Hopper is going to die; Perrin will kill Daddy Bornhald in retaliation: Correct!

I had, like, three different guesses for the Horn situation so I'm not giving myself any credit there, lol

Turok will die by channeling, not by sword: Correct!

Moiraine and Lan will free damane as their plotline for this episode: Wrong!

Speculation for 2x7 made after trailer that came out after 2x6:

I do a lot of vague spec, the first firm thing I say without as much waffling is that Rand will be put under 'house arrest' by Siuan: Correct!

Mat saw Rand get taken by Lan & co: Wrong!

Lanfear and/or Ishamael arranges the fire in Foregate to free Rand from his 'house arrest' by the Aes Sedai: Correct!

Egwene gets to socialize with other damane: Wrong!

Speculation for 2x6-2x8 based on imdb listings for the last three episodes:

again, I do a lot of waffling and 'maybe this, maybe that', my first solid spec is that Liandrin's son would die in 2x6: Correct!

I did think we would get the royal wedding, so I will mark that: Wrong!

Natti Cauthon would appear as part of Ishy messing with Mat: Correct!

I thought the White Tower would be a location in these last three episodes: Wrong!

Yacissa will get killed by the Black Ajah: Wrong! (very happy to be wrong; I LOVE her)

Lanfear will help Rand out as his presence creates a wedge between Lanfear and Ishmael: ...kinda? I mean, she was Team Rand the second she learned Rand existed, lol.

Rand will leave Cairhien via Waygate: Correct!

Maigan will be Pura: Wrong! (no one is Pura, at least not now, and Maigan is very dead)

Loial will get to visit Egwene in the 'kennels': Wrong!

Egwene won't be freed until 2x8: Correct!

The 2x8 cold open will focus on LTT & Ishamael: Correct!

Ishamael will experience a painful reversal of expectations in 2x8 as his plans fall to pieces: Correct!

I also speculated here that Perrin would kill Bornhald in this version but I already counted that one above.

Uno will reappear as one of the Heroes of the Horn: Correct!

Speculation for 2x4 based on the first three episodes:

Moiraine doesn't already know Rand is in Cairhien: Wrong!

Lan will show the Lanfear poem to Alanna & co: Wrong!

Liandrin will tell Nynaeve that Perrin & co were captured by the Seanchan: Correct!

Logain was deliberately placed in Cairhien to lure Rand there: Correct!

Before we got the episode titles but after the trailer came out:

Siuan's trip to Cairhien occurs in episode 6: Correct!

Rand will still be wandering around the countryside when he meets Selene: Wrong!

Moiraine and Lan will be researching at Verin's in 2x1: Correct!

Rand and Selene's main episode will be ep2: Wrong!

The shot of Lan on Mandarb in the woods will be in Nynaeve's Accepted Test: Correct!

Nynaeve's Accepted Test will happen in ep3: Correct!

Moiraine and Rand reunite in ep4: Correct! (wrong about how/why though)

Perrin meets the Seanchan in ep5: Wrong!

Perrin meets Aviendha in ep5: Correct!

Rand meets Logain in ep6: Wrong!

"We get the New Spring flashback scene, see Moiraine & Siuan happy and young, then hear Gitara's Foretelling": Close! (I guessed it for ep6)

Verin will be in Perrin's plotline: Wrong!

Liandrin will be confirmed as a darkfriend in ep6: Close! (it was ep5)

Egwene, Nynaeve, & Elayne will spend the first 5 episodes in the White Tower and the last 3 in Falme: Close! (it's more 4 in WT; 1 traveling; 3 Falme)

I did a huge post of How Does Mat Get To Falme, which ended up being hilariously incorrect as "Lanfear has him bonked over the head and then Travels him there" was not on my radar, lol. But my favored method included him reuniting with Rand in Cairhien, so I'm glad that part still happened.

Anyway, I didn't do so awful in my predictions, I think.

(In terms of 'accidental predictions', I did write a fic involving Rand being tied to a bed in Cairhien by his lover literally months before we had any clue it would be happening in the show, - and while I'm talking about randomly accidentally being a Prophet in my fics: in Voice, I had Lanfear (who we had not yet met in the show) giving solid relationship advice - "That's fear talking, not fact" & I had this line for Mat: "Maybe Mat was destined to be a failure and a disappointment, like his father. But he wouldn't just lie down and let it happen." which is essentially what it feels like we just got from him in 2x8.)

[erin-unknown]

I think I missed the part of Veilguard where Solas was completely absolved of all responsibility for the things he's done.

And yet I keep seeing this sentiment. If you choose to talk him down at the end, I think it was actually pretty reasonable for Mythal to acknowledge that she's asked him to do some fucked up things—and that she hurt him (someone she loved, who also loved and trusted her) in doing so. But that wasn't her fully accepting the responsibility for the fucked up stuff they did together? Mythal was accepting her share of the blame.

She says this pretty explicitly, too. And I think it makes sense that he would need to hear that from her to more easily bear the weight of his own responsibility in all of the atrocities they and the rest of the ancient elven warlords committed. I mean, wouldn't you? There aren't many people left to bear that responsibility and someone has to. At least let the person who hurt you grant you some closure and lighten that load.

It's also worth pointing out that the game acknowledges several times that the memories you collect are unreliable and say more about how Solas feels about what happened than they say about what actually happened (the subject of all these memories is really Mythal, but I think it's a pretty big leap if you take this as Solas or the writers definitively shunting off all blame onto her—if fans are doing this, they are also wrong). But then the person who most explicitly tells you that these memories are unreliable (with total derision lol) is the shred of Mythal he's essentially held in isolation for ages. She does not like him very much. So I don't think she's reliable either. It's messy, is my point. Grains of salt required, all around. I'm sure someone smarter has a more complete analysis.

For that matter, I also think the idea that he's redeemed without having actually done anything is a bit off as well?

He hasn't really done much beyond not tearing down the Veil, true, but I also don't think we're being asked to accept that he's 100% fully redeemed at the end... instead I think we're meant to see that he's started on the path to redemption. Like, the man ties his life to the Veil and willingly dives into a blighted nightmare for what will probably be the next few millennia to help sooth the Blight. He's getting to work, not fucking off on a long vacation lmao.

Tldr: his "redemption" ending is pretty clearly only the beginning of his redemption, imo.

I'm not arguing whether or not he deserves to be redeemed because that's a personal choice. Rook doesn't know what will happen in that final confrontation, not when the people who love him are just asking you to hope that he can be swayed and, like, I get how that won't be enough for all of us. Y'all are totally valid if you'd rather deck the egg than try to talk him down.

These are just some of my thoughts based on several months of fandom conversations that have floated in and out of my space so ymmv. I just think some of these interpretations of the game's text are weirdly all or nothing, so this is me gently disagreeing.

I'm always willing to consider new info and different perspectives—I am not all-knowing! There's almost certainly stuff I've forgotten or missed.

[yoonargi]

Do you think Frecklewish deserved the dark forest? Also opinions on Ravenwing?

Thank you for this ask anon. Good question; my opinions on frecklewish are always shifting. I often argue with myself if she actually deserved to go to hell for one little outburst, but at the same time, what she did to the children was absolutely inexcusable no matter if it was caused by grief. This might be a shocker, but yes, I do believe she deserved the dark forest, but at the same time, not really? Honestly, I don't know why. I guess because her grief honestly affects my opinions on her, I tend to have a bit more sympathy for characters with strong emotional outbursts of grief who did bad things.

However, I believe she deserved her spot in the dark forest because her choices also played a part in the children's demise alongside Oakstar. From the start of the book, Oakstar and Frecklewish are both shown to be (understandably) vindictive; however, they let this grief condone them to the point they are willing to exploit the innocence and lives of children in order to brand and mend them into perfect weapons to avenge their "father." In short, the crime here is indoctrination and potentially murder by proxy.

No matter what strong emotions you feel, establishing that destiny onto children and treating them as less than human (or cats) is very distasteful. Wanting to raise them in order to murder someone for revenge is wrong. The scene of the exile: I totally understand her grief, and I think her outburst at Mapleshade was definitely justifiable, but I do not think it was the wisest of choices to harm someone in front of their children. Mapleshade definitely deserved some repercussions, though at the same time I don't think Mapleshade was in the wrong for lying. I'm more split on this part when it comes to the argument on whether Mapleshade deserved exile for lying or deserved any of what ThunderClan did to her.

Because I can totally see both sides of the same coin. Mapleshade lied to protect the safety and heritage of her children from a xenophobic clan agenda. And at the same time, Frecklewish was lied to for four moons straight and allowed to believe her brother fathered her niece and nephew when in reality it was by his murderer. Also to point out that Frecklewish prayed into her business and kinda pushed that perspective onto Mapleshade that Birchface was the father. I don't think Mapleshade deserved exile. Or any punishment, honestly. Sorry for the off-track rambling lol. My other reason for why I believe she deserved the dark forest is because (although this choice was clearly made out of grief) she cruelly called for the exile of three infants and demanded they be driven out while insulting them and calling them bigoted words.

It is basically the same situation with Fireheart and Bramblekit. Where she is committing crimes against children for simply being related to a cat who did a bad thing. She obviously plays no direct part in the children dying, but if I remember correctly, Oakstar hasn't even been considering exiling Mapleshade until Frecklewish demanded so. For these reasons, I believe she deserved to go to the Dark Forest. I'm not going to bring up the "Frecklewish watches the kits die" argument because I honestly think of that scene as being left up to interpretation. When Frecklewish gets confronted, she doesn't deny or confirm that she watches them drown and only says that she thought they would be safe. The wiki also confirms that her placement in the dark forest is because of the negligence she played in the kittens demise because of her actions leading to their exile. So no, I don't think she watched them drown. 

And Ravenwing? There's not much to say about him. I'm not going to say he deserves hell because I don't agree with that, but I honestly don't think he deserves StarClan either. This might be a shocker to hear, but a lot of people purposefully miss over the point how he also played a role in endangering those children's lives. Mapleshade most definitely played a part as well because she knew damn well her children were too young to leave camp, and they shouldn't have been in the river either. But we're talking about Ravenwing, so let's ignore that part. While yes, ThunderClan deserved to know the truth of Mapleshade's deception, Ravenwing had no reason to snitch on innocent children who are caught in the crossfire. He even acknowledges that Mapleshade's children will specifically suffer for the actions he's about to take.

He goes through with endangering innocent bystanders, and during the trial, he brands them as threats that cannot be trusted simply because they are the kin of the enemy. If I remember correctly, it isn't against the medicine cat's code to withhold secrets from the leader because Goosefeather does this. Many medicine cats have. What's against the code is to ignore a child in danger regardless of their colony background or heritage. Ravenwing completely discards this rule in favour of giving Mapleshade the biggest middle finger. I think he's an asshole, but I don't think he deserves to be sentenced to hell. 

Honestly, the whole issue with the novella is that a lot of these problems were avoidable. However, it's been made clear several times (if you guys read the book thoroughly and understand the pattern of events) that it's about grief and how everyone deals with it differently. I have even spoken to the specific author of this book to confirm my theory on if the book is about grief, and the author said it was correct. That is a concept a lot of the fandom seems to miss or not understand. That the book centers around one of the most complex emotions, and if otherwise none of these choices would've been made if it weren't for it. 

Also if I didn’t say it before because I barely read what I typed. I 100% think Oakstar deserves to go to hell but apparently (indirect) baby killing and mistreat of infants isn’t hell worthy.

[kittyandco-archive]

am i the only one who's literally never in my life seen someone go: "[evil character] didn't ACTUALLY(!) do the things that made them evil in the narrative (and therefore it isn't fair that everyone distrusts them)" in a non-joking way... and then chide the idea of this character improving. i'm beginning to think y'all are making things up because 1) you don't like the idea that the character can change, and you think that having the opportunity/ability to change, whether in fanon or canon, means that they're magically absolved of everything (but also let me tell you something: no one is going to want to change if no one is willing to at least understand them, if not forgive them, even if full forgiveness never comes)... in the narrative, you will see the change a character goes through in a very limited sense. there's only but so much screen time that can be dedicated to it, even if the character is from a super long series, because there are other things going on around it. there's going to be shorthand and metaphor and a few decisions they might not have made before, but that aren't fully "explained."

there's a lot of work they'll have to do after the story officially ends or before it even begins in some cases. you have to fill in the blanks with your imagination/theories/other thoughts. that's how you engage with fiction if you're at all invested. overexplaining and overcorrecting for everything that is unspoken/implied/must be inferred is how you get a very boring work.

often, what is presented in canon is ONE decision or a few MAJOR decisions that signal change. no one is expecting the other characters to be like "i automatically forgive you for every single infraction committed against us! yay!" ... personal change is a process of self-discovery and learning how to maneuver the world differently over time. learning that some of your preconceived notions might be wrong, and that there are an infinite number of ways to perceive the world overall and everything in it. and a lot of that may have been done before the character's change arc begins; and it is most definitely happening in the background.

and it would do some good if someone was willing to stick around to see the change happen and how someone who was previously thought to be the worst guy alive can actually use their abilities/personality for good (and often villains are made from loneliness; it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, isn't it?)

again, it's all about reading/watching between the lines. what brought them here? it isn't always going to be spelled out

not every villain needs to change... but the ones that do, or that have the very potential? that's important for a lot of people (like myself) to see! and if we want to fantasize about it or write about it or hope for it, why does that offend you?

or, 2) you don't like how someone else characterizes them for a ship/AU/whatever reason they might have. it's actually fine if someone want to just write about this character not being evil anymore. that's their prerogative. the only issue you'd run into there is if someone's trying to dictate that perspective as fully factual in some way (it's important to set those parameters early in the convo). personal interpretation is an individual thing. there are SO many ways to interpret a piece of fiction and it's okay if every once in a while someone's like "i like this evil character but i like writing about them being good." it doesn't take anything away from you, the way you write or perceive the character, or their canon portrayal.

this example in particular is so NOTHING compared to what i've seen about my faves. a lot of fans can be downright offensive and hateful about my personal taste in faves, toward ME, AS A REAL PERSON WHO LIKES THEM, and that's when i start having a problem. it's important that my faves be horrid and immoral for personal reasons (and for personal reasons i like writing about them having a soft spot for something, ideally me, and having the motivation to not feel so lonely/hurt/etc. anymore and thus becoming a bit of a better person), but i couldn't care less if someone wrote them in a different way that doesn't affect me at all

[alexanderwales]

Reviewing the new season of Black Mirror as I watch it.

Spoilers follow!

Common People was awful. It's about a woman who gets a brain implant that's subscription based, with an ad-supported tier, and region restrictions. Completely ham-fisted and shallow, as well as making no goddamned sense, and there's a stupid B-plot where the husband is a stream who does demeaning things for money. Felt like it couldn't sit on any one concept for long enough to explore it, or say anything about it.

Bête Noire was fine. I think going in I thought it was a Single White Female type of thing, obsessive stalker or something, just based on the first few minutes. But then fifteen minutes in, surprise! It's Mandela Effect instead, which I figured was somehow controlled by the blonde girl. There's some stuff in there about bullying, and how a person can make something reality just by repeating it, but then the whole thing goes way too big, powers that just don't really fit in with the tiny framework they've been working in, one about high school drama/trauma and workplace stuff. I did like this one, particularly that moment of people suddenly not knowing what a nut allergy was, which was a "whoa, okay, s we're dealing with something really out there" moment. Unfortunately, I didn't think the rest of the episode delivered too much, aside from the villain speech.

Hotel Reverie had someone distractedly playing Balatro, which felt weird to me, because I still somehow think of it as an niche indie game. Balatro is great though. I should go back to it. The actual episode is not about Balatro, sadly. Instead, it's about an actress who goes into a simulation of a movie, or rather, a simulation of a universe that was presented in a movie. Our protagonist, Brandy, goes in with zero prep time or understanding of the technology, and takes the place of the original actor from black-and-white times. Brandy is, it's noted, a Black woman in what's now a period piece, and she asks whether people aren't going to find that extremely weird. She's assured by Awkwafina (I am a big Awkwafina fan) that it won't matter at all, and this was when I started thinking to myself "wait, are they going to commit to that?"

The recreation of the movie quickly goes off track, both due to some fuckups by our protagonist and some technical issues. Unfortunately for Hotel Reverie, I've seen a number of "keep the narrative on track" stories before, and this one is not doing anything all that new. A character gains sentience and mixes her actor-persona with her character-persona, they fall in love for real, they up the stakes because the movie needs to complete or the real-world actor will die ... I don't know. I think I was too jaded to find it effective. There was also a bit too much technobabble, and the guy at the computer saying "romance sync is going up!" made me feel too much like the bad parts of a litRPG.

The episode also wants me to buy that this actor-character synth is a real person deserving of moral patienthood, and I just ... sort of don't. There's nothing in what's presented that makes me feel like "yes, this is an entity who I should cry over", I think they just sort of take it for granted that you'll empathize. I've seen too much AI stuff to think that though; I take it for granted that AI will be able to convincingly act human long before it has anything like moral worth. Awkwafina repeatedly assures us that this is not, in fact, a person, that it's only a convincing recreation, and you know what? I'm willing to take her word for it in this case. Also, it's sort of stupid that Clara doesn't have answers to any questions about her past, since you'd think that this is something that AI would be ready to whip up really quickly, at least if it's anything like modern systems. An AI that's not willing to immediately conjure up hallucinations? That's the real scifi here.

I do think that it'll work for some people, and wasn't bad on the face of it, just really did not do it for me.

Plaything annoyed me, I'll be upfront about that. It's about a videogames journalist in the 90s who starts playing an alpha build of Thronglets, a game about artificial lifeforms. And look, I was alive in the 90s, playing the Maxis catalog, SimAnt and The Sims and all that. So the conversations they have are just kind of stupid to me: simulation games were not new in the period that this is set.

The journalist is awkward and abused, and takes some LSD, and starts talking to the simulated beings, eventually killing his dealer who treats them like a plaything. The story is told mostly through flashback, eventually culminating in the journalist modifying the platform the program is running on and then drilling a port into his head. At the police station, he draws something the "Throng" has shown him, a radial QR code, and that allows them access to the police computers, and it's a stupid Singularity story, one that starts with a guy in his garage rather than a state-level actor.

I don't know. Seemed dumb to me. There was just a tiny bit of tension in the sense of "is this guy telling the truth or just on drugs and delusional", which gets destroyed at the end, because the superintelligent creatures do end up working. Maybe there's some tension about who they are and what they're doing, but ... meh. It's also a big ask to believe that there's an audio signal that can brick a human brain, and that big ask is placed right at the end of the episode.

Eulogy was the first one that I thought was actually good and worth watching. Tightly focused, interesting effects, reminded me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind while being less high concept about it. The "twists" were both heavily telegraphed, but I didn't mind that too much. My favorite of the bunch.

And finally, we have USS Callister: Into Infinity, which is a follow up to a season 4 episode about a bunch of simulated people who live inside an MMO. This is such a good pitch. The players just respawn if things go wrong, while the AIs don't, so they're in a high lethality situation, stealing credits to ... keep themselves online, I think? This is slightly complicated by this being a sequel episode, so you have legacy characters to worry about. They come up with a plan to create a private splinter server hosted somewhere away from the game, and sort of abandon the whole "on the run for our lives" type thing, which I thought was a shame. I guess I would have liked for the whole thing better if it were a TV series, to give the characters and situations some time to breathe, but it speeds on to other things, other concepts, and felt rushed to me, as well as being ... maybe a bit derivative of other stories? I think the episodes work better taken together, maybe, but it does feel like there's meat left on the bone. Some of that is just that it lands on certain concepts with feather-lightness before taking off again.

Overall, I think with the exception of Eulogy I wasn't a huge fan of this season, but like every season, there are ups and downs. It definitely felt like there was more budget, and ... maybe not in a good way. The writing doesn't feel substantially worse, but a lot of these episodes are also retreading old ground, and sometimes asking "is X a person?" gets really tiresome, especially in the age of the LLM, when I'm personally more inclined to say "no, that's not a person, it just acts like one unless you can prove otherwise".

[alianoralacanta]

Thanks for responding! Did you by any chance pick up the book written about Jules by his association? I recall reading somewhere that he was a bit frustrated with some of the behind the scenes stuff but as it’s in French I can’t read it. Wondering if you have any insight on that?

On a side note, I just found a few videos of him having fun & joking around showing his fun personality - compared to his usual quiet demeanour. Makes me wonder what it would’ve been like had Netflix been around during the 2013-2014 seasons - would he have remained quiet and shy or would his real personality eventually showed like Norris etc. Also wonder where he would be now if he was still around - team mates with Charles? :(

I have a copy of L'Histoire des Bianchi by Chris van der Wiele, which is the one the Bianchi Association sells. It is the nearest thing we have to an official Bianchi biography (noting that it is the biography of 1960s racing brothers Lucien and Mauro Bianchi as well as Jules' biography). Also, I know enough French that I recently translated the last 4 pages (which cover the weekend of Japan 2014 and its aftermath) for a friend. Yes, I can confirm Jules was frustrated by his situation. Specifically, he felt that he was a strong candidate for a Ferrari seat in 2015, in that he and his family considered Jules to be outperforming Kimi Raikkonen - and also be much cheaper for Ferrari to hire. He felt, and again his family agreed, that Ferrari was being over-cautious in its driver selections. However, Jules was carrying out a policy of being careful with the press to not show any of that frustration, as well as making sure Marussia (his backmarker team) was aware at every turn of how thankful he was that they'd made space for him (long story in the book summarised: Jules was turned down for a 2013 Force India race seat that he'd arguably earned and been led to believe would be his, ridiculously late in the winter (that part is *not* arguable), and only ended up on the grid that year because one of Marussia's drivers didn't pay their sponsorship fee). The result was that most of the press were complimenting him on his calm and patience, rather than hyping the possible connection.

The result of this was, right up to the Japan 2014 weekend, Ferrari was still not committing. It had started asking Jules about going to Sauber, but in a way that had at least some of the family convinced that Jules would actually get a Ferrari and only needed to show willingness to go along with the Sauber plan long enough for Ferrari to be able to convince its political elements to back Jules over Kimi. Of course, we will never know if that was Ferrari's immediate plan, or only its medium-term plan (Ferrari confirmed afterwards that after any Sauber sojourn, Ferrari was always the next step). Netflix would probably have got very little from Jules, simply because Ferrari was cautious about the press back then. In 2018, it exercised its right of veto over the first season of Drive to Survive (as did Mercedes, which is why neither Vettel nor Hamilton get screen time in Series 1). That was with a leadership who was willing to take risks in other areas of the press, such as removing a policy of minimal communication with the official press that had been in place since Matteo Mattiacci came into power at the start of 2014. I seriously doubt the Ferrari of 2014 would have allowed Netflix anywhere near its people - and Jules was considered to be very much one of its people. He was treated as the Ferrari reserve driver and that status would have been enough to stop him from being in DTS. (Charles was not the Ferrari reserve driver in 2018, nor treated as such, which allowed him to be in DTS Series 1). If, however, someone like Mattia Binotto had been in charge of Ferrari, that would have been very different. He would have said "yes" to Netflix for Jules, I'm sure, if only to test whether it was a good idea for Ferrari to get involved. While Jules was going through junior motorsport, he'd collected a group of young racing friends around him. Some met him when training at Brignoles, some at various races in France and Italy, but a small pack of them of various ages stayed for the friendship. Under those circumstances, Netflix would definitely have had a special episode about the friendship between Jules and those of his "circle" who were in and around F1. Maybe even include Jules' family, who'd played such a part in bringing all these talented friends together. Given there was no French Grand Prix around then, the logical race to have as its centrepiece would have been Monaco. You can see where this is going…

[kainagant]

do u have any thoughts about the kind of hypothetical relationships nagant could've had with other villains ( the league, shie hassaikai, mla, etc) if they had ever been explored in canon?

hey anon, thanks for the ask. the answer to your question is yes, kinda, and not yet. but by the time i am done writing out this post the answer will be yes, yes, and hell yeah.

i have definitely thought about lady nagant's interaction with the lov. mostly because (exposed) i'm a dabihawks shipper and i also subscribe to the fanon that lady nagant and hawks knew each other a little bit more than canon would imply. though i think with kaina's personality she was probably a little bit closed off, even with little keigo, but she was definitely big sister-ing, just from a comfortable emotional distance. anyway au kaina gives dabi the scariest shovel talk he'll ever receive, and all she did was point the barrel of her elbow at him and say "watch yourself".

the other league members think shes cool. mostly. i think there would be preliminary distrust due to her hero status but then they get to know her a bit and discover that she actually has good takes. i think shiggy could appreciate that shes critical of hero society without just regurgitating stain's beliefs. she has her own perspective and firsthand experience to back it up. he mentally adds her grievances to the compiled list of "reasons why the lov are committing unspeakable crimes against humanity, if anyone ever bothers to ask"

(cut for length)

i have kinda thought about kaina's interaction with the shie hassaikai, but mostly through the lens of her and chisaki. honestly the 8pods would be like. she's god. for real. or maybe she's actually the devil. chisaki already fills the god position for them and kaina clearly doesn't fear god (chisaki) so she's just a different beast entirely. basically they are all shocked by how casually and oftentimes brusquely she talks to chisaki. kaina herself is a bit weirded out by the 8pods insane worship of chiskai. "he's just a guy???? he's not even that cool cmon guys what am i missing…" chisaki grumbles "stop telling them that, it took a lot of effort to convince them im god" /j

okay jokes aside i think kaina would sympathize heavily with many of the 8pods downtrodden experiences. i mean she sympathized with chisaki, which not even the paragon of forgiveness and saving everyone (midoriya) was really willing to do. let's be real, for as much as kaina has a cold shell, she's very very gooey and warm on the inside and she sees this ragtag group of wet cats that chisaki scraped off the street, and she adopts them. with her unique brand of acting like she doesn't care when actually her heart aches whenever she thinks about what they went through.

i just want to preface this next part by saying that i'm a little bit biased against the mla. not to say that they're bad characters or that it's wrong to like or enjoy them, but from a personal standpoint i've never found them as compelling as other villains. i mean their motive is like. borrowed from another guy. and maybe if they had personal experiences with quirk discrimination, like toga or tabe, they might be more sympathetic. its not that they don't have a point, its just that its obvious that all of the members have a lot of privilege, and it makes me wonder how well they actually understand what destro wanted for society. also their motive is kinda funky because its a lot more relevant to the time literal decades ago that destro was actually living in. not saying that quirk discrimination isn't a thing in present day canon but like. we see it in the opposite direction that the mla sees it. we see people who are quirkless be treated like they're worthless. and the mla seems to want a society that only reinforces this issue, by assigning value to people based off of their quirks.

this is all to say that (i'm projecting) lady nagant would probably not like the mla that much. even putting aside whether their motives and beliefs are sympathetic or not, i think kaina would see the obvious privilege that they have, the pressed suits and influence and wealth, and be like. damn. did society really hurt you or did it actively benefit you? i also think on an individual level, members like curious and trumpet would irk her. like, btw, i love curious and i think that her being a media piranha makes her interesting, but also kaina would think she's incredibly annoying and invasive. kaina would also aliken trumpet to the hero commission, with his (what is essentially) brainwashing of his followers.

at the same time though, i think kaina has probably carried out hits on people like the mla. and although she may not agree with their ideology, she doesn't think that means they should be silenced. let the people speak, even if she thinks they're insane and wrong. because she believes that people deserve to have the whole, unfiltered truth, and then make their own judgements.

tl;dr on the mla thing. she wouldn't be besties with them, but she wouldn't necessarily hate them or anything. probably just scoff whenever they try to talk to her. like ok, re-destro, whatever you say (internally thinks he's stupid).

a more light hearted headcanon could be curious hounding kaina for the "untold story of the treacherous hero" etc etc. they develop an unfriendly rivalry in that kaina spends a lot of time trying to avoid curious and curious spends a lot of time hunting her down. maybe they have hate sex. this sounds like the plot for a crazy enemies to lovers slow burn rarepair nagacurious that i will not be writing. but yeah that could happen. maybe even throw curious character development in for flavor. i mean it starts out with curious relentlessly pursuing lady nagant, it evolves into "ok my interest in you has evolved from just pure journalism and now i'd like to kiss you and go on dates" and at some point lady nagant actually explains her tragic backstory, and the character growth moment is curious not betraying kaina's trust, and actually keeping the juicy details to herself. to reiterate delusional: i will not be writing this fic.

anyway thanks so much for the ask, anon. most of this was like. crack taken seriously and definitely in an au, but yeah. i love thinking about lady nagant, and i really enjoyed considering how she might mesh with the other villains in the series.

[tiredassmage]

I'm not sure if this would ever happen, so it's a total what-if. (Also, I would love to do some writing about Tyr and Liv, but I'm not sure what. If you want to write something with the two of them, go ahead) I'm curious if Tyr would have any sort of reaction to learning about Liv being a double agent (Cause we already know that's the Ch 3 ending we're doing for her. She despises her father, and the Empire almost equally), or the truth about Leo, cause I know he's met Leo once or twice in some of your fics.

Dakdfnsl;dfn;lsaf I meant to get to this sooner because it's one of my favorite questions, but! Anyway! This has some spoodles for the Imperial Agent storyline, naturally, so I'll put most of this answer under the cut.

So, this is fun because Tyr in his own spin as Nine is also a double agent, and there's I'd say a fair period of his life where he figured the outcome of all of... that, really, that he'd be satisfied with would've been actually being able to walk from the Empire's intelligence operations, whatever they would've looked like by that point, and finally work properly for the SIS. This is... less true later in his life [say, after the Alliance and the era of handling Zakuul has kinda put life for everyone as it was prior to all of that on a bit of a spinner], but I guess the only real important thing from that note is that Tyr ends up with... similar interests and sympathies, wink wink, etc etc.

A lot of Tyr's disillusionment in the end comes down to the Sith and their absolute power, at the end of the day. And that's not a power structure Tyr sees changing in the Empire within his lifetime. There are still decent people working within those systems - its why Tyr remains loyal to Imperial Intelligence, even when the agency is cannibalized. But Tyr ultimately... can't stay. Not with the way he tends to work - that... line between ingenuity and obedience, as Lokin calls it. There is a very, very small handful of individuals Tyr would consider to have the 'right' to ask him to stay in the Empire, if they ever learned his true feelings on the matter, and... again, with the eventual dissolution of Imperial Intelligence around Corellia and in its wake, not a lot of them are still actively serving in roles where they'd have the authority to do so, as per Imperial power structures.

The short answer to Liv and Leo in Tyr's perspective then is... that with how Tyr is, he'd probably be someone willing to help Liv actually leave, actually properly defect to the SIS. If he were in her shoes, it's... probably (and we know it is, from his own runs) what he'd choose, too. Intelligence work is the kind that'll each you alive, given a fraction of the chance to do so, especially if you try to keep your ideals on the table doing it. It's likely one of the qualities he was warned about himself - to not let his 'personal feelings' get too involved in how he works, how he resolves matters. I'm sure at least one person in his life has accused him of being a bit too idealistic for a Cipher's work, but... Tyr's of the mind that someone has to be.

Now, whether that "help" for Liv is to simply... cover for her and stay behind, or to offer to leave with her..? That probably depends on whether or not Liv would put such an offer on the table - and whether or not Tyr thought they could pull off something convincing enough that it wouldn't put the wrong kind of people on her tail. Tyr, comparatively, doesn't have as much to lose, if you will, in something like committing an act of treason against the Empire. He's got no real family to look after or protect or that might be used against him, and as much as the whole idea of the Castellans plays a not-insignificant role in souring him to Imperial service, he could... make do. Him and his tendency to put others first, frankly... He's also probably been told that'll get him into trouble some day /lh.

I think even early in Tyr's career, he was... not entirely unaware that the kind of loyalty demanded by the Empire is... steep. The kind of systems they have... have gaps to leave people behind. It's a lot of pressure - not just intelligence work, but the kind of demands the Empire tends to produce in its general working relationships, and... he's not entirely unfamiliar with familial varieties of that trouble himself (though his ran more to the side of 'good riddance' than the kind of lingering troubles Leo has to deal with).

Now, him and meeting Leo is... still a bit of an amusement to me because Tyr is... trying not to analyze him entirely as he's prone to clocking people as a Cipher, but it's... the way him and Leo met, there was... not a lot of hiding that Leo's got some... troubles, to speak loosely, lol. And I think if they got to know each other any better, it wouldn't take long for Tyr to puzzle together why he struggles the way he does with pressures and... commitments and a pretty good educated guess on just how Leo ended up in the kind of work and scenarios he tends to find himself in. Part of an agent's job is being able to figure people out, after all.

Now, if I told Leo that pretty blonde guy he let walk him home from the Nar Shadaa cantina one night was also an Imperial spy off-duty, I think he'd be so mortified he'd resemble a tomato and he'd probably be so incredibly obstinate and grumpy about trusting Tyr no matter how nice Tyr is to him in any subsequent meetings because Liv is the only spy that Leo is kind of okay about trusting and it's because she'll always be his little sister first. xD If Liv decides she's gonna be Tyr's friend, Leo is going to be giving Tyr some (attempted) very stern looks to warn that he better be damn careful about what he does with his sister. Because if Tyr gets her in trouble, Leo will do... Something!!! Okay??!!! [No, he doesn't have a plan. But he'll get creative.]

[I think Tyr could eventually get him to submit to something of a friendship and Leo would continue to be a little mortified about it. Because by the time they'd be friendly enough to pick at one another, Tyr would tease him about never trusting 'spooky spies.' He won't bring up Nar Shadaa, he's got more respect than that. But he wouldn't let Leo entirely forget about trusting big scary spies. /lh]